Recruiting Fly Blog: August 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

Yahoo working on social network for employers and college kids

TechCruch is reporting on a new social network in development by Yahoo that would match employers and college students. Read it here.

Labels: Social networking

posted by C.M Russell # 8:05 AM

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Side effects of the Monster Hack

It looks as though other job boards were affected by the recent hack of Monster.com. Just found this on Federaltimes.com. And David Manaster of ere just posted this note indicating job seeker theft is bigger than first anticipated.

Hackers have stolen the names, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of about 146,000 subscribers to USAJOBS.gov, the Office of Personnel Management said Aug. 29.

The hackers accessed the information from the resume database run by Monster.com, which provides the technology for USAJOBS.gov, OPM said. Monster Worldwide told OPM that no Social Security numbers were compromised.

OPM said that because of the breach, job seekers could find themselves targeted by so-called “phishing” e-mails, possibly disguised as Monster.com or USAJOBS.gov messages. Phishing e-mails try to trick people into revealing sensitive information such as passwords or downloading malicious software.

Monster has identified and shut down the server that was accessing and collecting the information, OPM said.

Labels: Job boards

posted by C.M Russell # 6:01 AM

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

HR Magazine Salutes Jobs in Pods

Ok, so its not a feature article but its a start. Jobs in Pods has made it to the most popular magazine for HR professionals. The September edition features JIP in the "What's New" section. Take a peek.

Labels: Jobcasting, Recruitment Advertising

posted by C.M Russell # 9:06 AM

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Press Releasing Your Jobs?

You don't see too many companies putting out press releases announcing they are hiring. Especially a mortgage company. Most of their peers are shedding jobs faster than ever. So when I came across this release on PRNewswire I took notice. Why did they feel the need to spend over $1,000 to do this? I can think of lots of other more effective recruitment methods to spend their cash.

BIRMINGHAM, Mich., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Shore Mortgage, a full
service mortgage company offering new mortgages as well as refinancing
services, has five locations throughout the Detroit metropolitan area.
Today, Shore president, Robert Rahal, announced the company is seeking to
hire 150 new employees in several capacities including underwriters,
account executives and loan officers. This will increase the organization's
total employment numbers by approximately 40%.

Counter to the industry trend toward downsizing and layoffs, Shore
Mortgage, established in 1984, shows a consistent growth pattern and is
seeking new employees including bilingual persons (Hispanic, Asian and
others) to service its past, present and future clientele. Positions are
available in Birmingham, Canton, Roseville and Taylor with training to be
completed in the Birmingham office.

Mortgage professionals with experience in closing, processing,
underwriting, servicing, post closing, accounting, secondary marketing,
quality control, information technology or customer service are encouraged
to apply for the full time positions with full benefits and competitive
compensation packages.

Established in 1984, Shore Mortgage is recognized for its home loan
market segment in southeastern Michigan. Success is attributed to a close
association with the real estate community and the creation of important
Realtor loyalty. Known as one of the prominent FHA lenders in Michigan,
Shore Mortgage's knowledgeable loan origination staff is available for
phone, in person and on- line consultation at any of the branch offices.

For additional information, please email (in word format) to
careers@shoremortgage.com or fax resume to Human Resources, at
248.433.0233.

Labels: Recruitment Advertising

posted by C.M Russell # 5:43 AM

Manpower is blawging

Mark Toth, who is Chief Legal Officer of Manpower North America is now blawging about employment law and HR. He's even got a song that he sings!

Congrats Mark, welcome to the recruiting blogosphere.

Labels: Recruiter Blogs

posted by C.M Russell # 5:38 AM

Monday, August 27, 2007

Protecting Jobseeker Privacy: how Jobtarget does it

With all the talk surrounding hackers stealing job seeker data from Monster's resume database, one company actually has a refreshing approach to keeping it safe. Jobtarget. Their resume database was built with the job seeker in mind and gives them control over who can get their contact information.

Here's how it works:

Search hundreds of thousands of candidate profiles from nearly 1,000 job sites! All profiles are anonymous. Send contact requests to your chosen candidates. If a candidate is interested in your opportunity, you can purchase access to their contact information for $30. If the candidate is not interested, we don’t release their information and you will not be charged a fee.

It's pay-per-contact. But the refreshing part is that it gives the jobseeker control over who gets to contact them. Not many job boards give this much protection. Employers who want resume access also have to be validated by the individual job boards (powered by Jobtarget) or by faxing in a request on company letterhead.

The first time I used it on my own job boards, employers balked at how hard it was to get through to a candidate. I even found it annoying because I began fielding calls complaining about it. But in a world of increasing identity theft, I've come to appreciate it much more as strong approach to protecting job seeker privacy.

It's time for all job boards to take note.

Labels: Job boards

posted by C.M Russell # 5:58 AM

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Job Domains: lease with an option to buy

Leasethis.com provides current and prospective website owners with the option to lease or rent a domain name for a flat monthly fee. Website owners can test the names for traffic without risking a large investment.

See all their jobs domains.

EmployeescreenIQ provides background checks to employers globally.

Labels: Job domains

posted by C.M Russell # 7:12 AM

Monday, August 20, 2007

Are Newspaper-Job board Partnerships Paying off?

I was asking myself this question the other day when I came across this article. The third paragraph is the most interesting one. I'll let it speak for itself.

"To sustain online revenue growth, newspaper publishers have begun striking deals with each other, as well as established online players, to share content and Web traffic. Of course, classifieds are a major focus, as newspapers try to rebuild their old profit centers online. This category proves especially well-suited to economies of scale. (Simply put, the more listings, the better).

CareerBuilder, a joint venture between Tribune, Gannett, and McClatchy, is a good example of a newspaper-dominated network; meanwhile, strategic partnerships with Yahoo's HotJobs, or Monster.com, fall into the hybrid category.

However, the basic obstacle to growth in online newspaper classifieds is how they are sold--usually as "upsells" bundled with print classified listings for an extra fee. This strategy has worked to drive strong online growth until now, with online classifieds representing as much as 70% of newspapers' total online revenues. But the system is obviously vulnerable to the accelerating decline in print classifieds. As it falls, the number of opportunities for online "upsells" decreases, too."

For the full scoop, click here.

Labels: Industry News, Job boards

posted by C.M Russell # 6:50 AM

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Philly Papers using Monster AND HotJobs

I always thought these newspaper-job board partnerships were exclusive, apparently not.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News are the latest newspapers to join the Yahoo alliance. With the addition of Philly.com, the online home to both newspapers, the partnership with the portal consists of 19 publishing companies representing close to 400 newspapers.

Indeed, the Philly papers are also aligned with Monster.com, the online recruitment board that competes with Yahoo's HotJobs and the newspaper-owned CareerBuilder.

McClatchy is also part of the Yahoo partnership though it has an ownership stake in CareerBuilder.

As part of the Yahoo alliance, the Philadelphia papers will have access to display advertising and paid search technology, the Yahoo national online ad sales force, and content distribution through the portal.

Oh, what a tangled web they weave.

Full story >>

Labels: Job boards

posted by C.M Russell # 1:38 PM

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Sex Sells on Monster

Ok, somebody tell me what a chick in a mini-skirt has to do with mortgages?

Found yesterday on Monster.com

Labels: Random thoughts

posted by C.M Russell # 6:12 AM

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Video: Art of the Job Posting

Job Postings

Labels: Job descriptions, Videos

posted by C.M Russell # 6:03 AM

Monday, August 13, 2007

SEO blogging tips from Matt Cutts (video)

Check out Matt Cutts at WordCamp where he discusses SEO tips for bloggers for about an hour.

Labels: SEO tips

posted by C.M Russell # 11:48 AM

Blogging alert: Rss feeds

If you're a blogger who's interested in optimizing your site for search engines, make sure you have enabled your full feed in your RSS settings. Turns out that Google only indexes your rss feed, not your blog, in their blog search engine. So if you only enable a portion of your feed you are missing out on potential traffic.

In blogger those settings are in the "Site Feed" section.

Labels: SEO tips

posted by C.M Russell # 6:11 AM

Friday, August 10, 2007

ERE Expo Promo Code

I'm looking forward to covering the ERE Expo in Washington D.C. in October (17-19).

They kindly sent me over an ERE promo code to save 10% off the registration cost. Here it is:

DC07RF

For the seventh year and the thirteenth time, ERE Expo will be your opportunity to stay ahead of the curve. The two-day conference and additional pre-conference workshop day is attended by hundreds of the most influential recruiting professionals in the world. Not only is the agenda the best recruiting focused lineup around, but with such a high quality of attendees, there is no better place to network than at ERE Expo.

This year’s event features a brand new lineup of speakers, including such recruiting leaders as:

• Disney’s Vice President for Talent Acquistion Anne Ceruti will share lessons the company learned as it improved its image among job candidates.
• Ken Gaffey, known for his role in rapid, high-volume hiring for the Transportation Security Administration, who will describe how your company may be losing employees who arrive at your job with high expectations you can barely live up to – expectations you've created yourself.
• Best selling author Daniel Pink, who will explain why a new type of thinking, what he calls the "symphony" aptitude, will soon be what recruiters most seek in employees.
• George Mason University head basketball coach Jim Larranaga, who was responsible for shocking the country in 2006 by leading the first small school in 27 years to the NCAA Final Four, will share eight simple steps to recruiting and retaining talented people.
• And much more. With over twenty speakers you can’t afford not to be in Washington, DC, from October 17 – 19.

This year will also feature an exciting new feature - a Meet The Candidates panel, where you will have an opportunity to hear what the goals of today's top MBA students are. Moderated by Gerry Crispin, this panel will give you a unique insight from some of the top candidates around.

To view the full agenda and speaker lineup visit http://expo.ere.net/fall07.

Equally valuable to the can’t-miss educational sessions are the world-class networking opportunities that exist at ERE Expo. Where else can you spend three days with fellow recruiting leaders from around the world to share best practices, overcome challenges, and continue to grow your professional network?

When you register online at http://expo.ere.net/fall07, make sure you use the product code DC07RF to receive a 10% discount as a RecruitingFly reader.

Labels: Events

posted by C.M Russell # 7:15 AM

Thursday, August 09, 2007

MyList, YourList and Craigslist

Its amazing how the success of Craigslist has spawned sites with copycat names. Perhaps the most famous is Angie's List which is a growing collection of homeowners' real-life experiences with local service companies. There's also Cyndi's list, The List, and now there's Your List: a new job and local classifieds site in 945 U.S. towns and cities.

There's no MyList yet but I'll bet one day there will. For a list of other sites with 'list' in their name just do a search in Google by adding an asterisk before the word like this: *list.com

Labels: Random thoughts

posted by C.M Russell # 6:40 AM

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Alumwire: Jobster killer???

Alumwire is a social networking job site for college grads and alumni. It's been under the radar for a while but they are starting to make some noise. Check out this video from CNET.

The site has a lot of features similar to Jobster. Including;

Integration with Facebook
Social Networking capabilities
Ability to upload videos (they call it video handshake)

Their 'About Us' page says this:

Alumwire, Inc. (http://www.alumwire.com) is a professional network with the mission to effectively consolidate the most important career resources for college alumni, students, and faculty, maximizing the career opportunities in the college market. Our unique content and partnerships with CareerBuilder and The Dow Jones allow us to be at the forefront of career resources. The only requirement to access Alumwire is an e-mail address with a ".edu" suffix or an invitation from an existing user. Alumwire's vision is to be the one-stop shop in career resources for the college network beginning in the United States and eventually globally.

Jobster describes themselves as:

Jobster is the career network for the digital generation. We build audiences in the careers space and provide access to those audiences. Jobster integrates social networking, job search and targeted advertising technologies to connect users with people, information, and opportunities to further their careers.

Sound similar? The only major difference I see is that Jobster has more jobs to search through. Although Alumwire appears to have integration with CareerBuilder.com listings. They're both targeting the same audience. Jobster has a big head start but look out for the newbies. Alumwire is one to watch.

Labels: Job boards, Recruitment Advertising

posted by C.M Russell # 6:28 AM

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Small Biz Hiring Advantages

I enjoyed working for small businesses. You get to wear lots of hats and you can learn more than you can at a big company. This is a good article about turning your small business environment into a competitive advantage.

To compete with larger rivals that offer higher salaries, explore offering the chance to work directly with top management from Day One, and opt-in retirement plans

I'm missing out on the top graduates in my industry because they are getting hired by my larger competitors. How can I attract better talent when I can't afford benefits such as a retirement plan?

Higher salaries and more extensive benefits are tough to beat, but small companies can compete with larger corporations on some intangibles that may be particularly attractive to younger workers.

For instance, a dynamic, growing firm is an appealing choice for graduates interested in being on the cutting edge of a particular industry. In a small firm, they'll be working directly with you and your top management team and they'll be privy to strategy, sales, new product development, and brainstorming. Most likely at a larger firm, they'll only hear about such decision-making from afar, and after the fact (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/14/06, "Small-Business Secrets to Hiring").

There is tremendous upside potential in a small firm as well, both in terms of ambitious young individuals who want to move up the ladder quickly—as opposed to crawling up laboriously over many years in a corporate setting—and in terms of sharing in the financial proceeds of later success. Although you may not be able to offer the larger salaries and more generous benefit packages of your competitors, look into profit-sharing, stock options, and performance bonuses for your employees for down the road. While you may not be able to promise such goodies immediately, you can let potential hires know that they are distinct possibilities eventually for employees who come on board now, while the company is still small.

continued on Business Week

Labels: Recruiting Methods

posted by C.M Russell # 6:14 AM

Monday, August 06, 2007

SEO help from Topix

Link building is an important part of SEO for any web site. Getting quality inbound links from related websites is important for ranking high in the search engines. There are a number of sites such as Cheezhead's wiki that you can take advantage of by entering your own information --- aka the right keywords --- that you want to rank well for.

Topix.com is one of those sites. They now offer a forum for Human Resource news that anyone can post to. It's got a google page rank of 5 so it's a quality inbound link. I use it to post my press releases and other announcements.

Labels: SEO tips

posted by C.M Russell # 6:15 AM

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

100 New Recruiting Blogs

Thanks to the RecruitingFly's trusty new intern Hannah, we've just added 100 new recruiting blogs to the site. They have been inputted into the directory and our vertical search engine.

Here's the list:

http://www.hrheroblogs.com

http://managementcraft.typepad.com/management_craft

http://www.breakoutperformance.blogspot.com

http://www.syamhrfiles.blogspot.com/

http://hr-ambience.blogspot.com

http://www.hrlawyersblog.com

http://hrcapitalist.com

http://shiftedhr.com

http://aryan-hrinterview.blogspot.com

http://hrnewbie.blogspot.com

http://www.hrpoint.org

http://hrexperts.wordpress.com