Entries Tagged 'Recruiting' ↓

CollegeGrad.com just announced their ranking of top employers looking for help with entry level positions from the fresh faces leaving school this year with a college diploma in hand. The forecast is a rosy one.

“Great news for Class of 2007–entry level employers are increasing their hiring by 7.3% in 2007! The Top Entry Level Employers list represents more than 170,000 jobs for the class of 2007″

Here are some highlights from the study

• 60% are planning to hire more college grads in 2007 than in 2006
• 20% will hire the same number and 20% will be hiring fewer college grads than in 2006
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car ranked as the #1 Entry Level Employer for the fifth year in a row
• Significant growth is being projected by companies of all sizes and in all industries throughout the list.
• Among the largest companies, PNC Financial Services Group is projecting a 31% increase in entry level hiring for 2007
• CIGNA is projecting an impressive 227% growth in hiring–going from 127 entry level hires in 2006 to 415 in 2007
• The results of the CollegeGrad.com Top Entry Level Employers survey predict one of the best entry level job markets of the new millennium.

“It’s a great time to be graduating from college,” said Brian Krueger, president of CollegeGrad.com. “The skills and energy of the class of 2007 are in high demand among employers. Graduates who put in their best job search effort may find themselves generating multiple offers.”

Now if we could just get all the companies on this list to make sure their college page was as welcoming as Lockheed Martin’s…

Technorati Tags: CollegeGrad.com, College Grads, College Graduates, The Class of 2007, Job Prospects for College Students

From Thursday January 18, 2007

mtv’s online platform for targeting college job seekers continues to grow in leaps and bounds with today’s announcement that mtvU has acquired RateMyProfessors.com. RateMyProfessors.com, is an online community where 10 million college students have posted over 6.6 million ratings on 900,000 professors. Now that’s what I call transparency. According to Stephen Friedman, general manager of mtvU:

“Every time we asked our audience about tools they use online, RateMyProfessor always came up,” he said. “Now we’re talking with them about how we build on this idea–best dorms, best places to eat around campus.”

Continuing their buying spree of college focused social networking and community sites, it appears mtvU is attempting to increase their relevance to students who are increasingly watching mtv less, and interacting on the web more. Yesterday, the rumor was that mtv’s long running hit show TRL (Total Request Live) may be canceled. Holy shit Batman! This news follows recent Nielsen data showing TRL viewership down from it’s height of 600,000 viewers in 2001, to 393,000 today, a 35% drop.

Last year, mtvU acquired Y2M (Youth Media and Marketing Networks) that owns College Publisher who provides the publishing platform and ad network for some 500 college newspapers such as Duke’s The Chronicle and Notre Dame’s Observer. However, a look at some of the job sections on these college newspapers reveals a rather humble jobs selection, more likely catered to part time jobs for active students rather then the cool jobs that graduates will want to land once their diploma is in hand. In contrast to this, mtvU relies on MonsterTRAK to power their college focused job board and has a pretty strong selection of job seeker content to offer students. We’re left to ponder how long will it be before the jobs section for the college news sites part of College Publisher’s network begin to use the aggregated job board and content found on mtvU. Ideally, mtvU should offer a solution that will cater to both in-school part time jobs, internships, as well as positions for upcoming graduates. With the wealth of college internship programs and corporate sponsorships in the market it seems like additional student focused content and functionality could be added to mtvU to increase its relevance and value.

You can start to put mtvU’s strategy together when you watch their acquisitions. Not that they’re hiding it in any way.

“The move ties into mtvU’s larger strategy to connect with college students “on-air, online and on campus,” Friedman added.”

In addition, there is new speculation published by paidcontent.org, citing multiple sources, suggesting that MTV’s parent Viacom has invested in TagWorld. According to the article on Online Media Daily from MediaPost

“Friedman, whose mtvU unit would certainly be affected by the deal, said he had no knowledge of the agreement. A spokesman for MTV said the company was not commenting on the report.”

What mtv and mtvU have to tackle quickly is a real answer to communities like Facebook. If they can leverage enough of their music and reality T.V. content, along with things like the college newspaper network and other acquisitions like RateMyProfressors and TagWorld, maybe they have a shot. What are your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: mtvU, mtv, TRL, Total Request Live, RateMyProfessors, RateMyProfessors.com, College Publisher, y2m, TagWorld, Youth Media and Marketing Networks

Today, we’re happy to publish a blogswap article on EXCELER8ion and introduce our guest author, Liz Handlin, of Ultimate Resumes. Here’s a little more about Liz and her blog:

“Ultimate Resumes’ mission is to help great people find great jobs. In addition to my work at Ultimate Resumes, I am the Vice President of Marketing for Broadpeak Collaborative. Broadpeak is a professional services firm that provides financial consulting services and executive search for financial professionals. www.broadpeak.us”

This morning I saw Terri Irwin, widow of “The Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, and her daughter Bindi on TV. Seeing them and hearing them talk about Steve Irwin made me wish that all of us could live our lives as he did. I don’t mean wrestling crocodiles, although corporate America can feel like a jungle at times. What I mean is that we should all strive to do what we love and do it with passion.

I don’t know if you watch The Crocodile Hunter on Animal Planet but if you ever have a chance to check it out you should do so. Steve was a larger than life person who clearly loved what he was doing. I saw a retrospective that described how Steve started out. You could see that he had no idea back in the days when he was wrestling crocs in the Australian outback that he would become rich, famous, and reach iconic status. He just did what he loved and he did it with such passion that it was infectious. I don’t even think money was that important to him except as a means to further his goal of wildlife conservation. Who would think that anyone could make crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and spiders seem vulnerable and in need of conservation? Steve Irwin did. And he was so convincing because HE was so passionate about those animals.

If Steve had cared about the kind of career path that crocodile wrestling would take him on back when Australia Zoo was little more than a small exotic animal park he might have decided to do something else for a living. But Steve didn’t worry about that. He was passionate about animal conservation and he had a way of showing us the beauty in animals that are not cute and cuddly. He was so passionate about what he was doing that the world couldn’t help but watch. The success, the money, and the fame all came as a result of Steve Irwin following his passion.

I am not suggesting that you should quit your job and run off to do whatever it is that you are passionate about without a plan. I don’t think Steve Irwin was capricious in any way. But I would submit that if you do what you love the money will follow.

Who knew that Martha Stewart would create an empire out of “gracious living”? She has sold us household hints, cooking tips, books, and magazines and now she is worth billions. But when she started out she was just a caterer who was doing something that she loved and was good at.

What about Joel Osteen? He has grown the Lakewood Church ministry in Houston to the point that they fill the Staples Center every Sunday morning. Unbelievable. Whatever your spiritual beliefs you should check out one of his sermons on TV sometime. He is so engaging and articulate. I think its because he is full of such passion for what he does.

Jodi Smith, owner of Mannersmith is passionate about her job. She has created a successful business and has authored several books on manners. She is doing what she loves and she has become a huge success. I would never have thought that lecturing on manners could lead to such personal and professional success but it sure has for Jodi. She is doing what she loves and the money and success have followed.

So, what are you passionate about? Can you turn your passion into your career? If so, you will never work another day in your life.

Liz Handlin

http://ultimate-resumes.blogspot.com/

This CollegeRecruiter.com Blogswap article is courtesy of Recruiting.com at http://www.Recruiting.com and CollegeRecruiter.com at http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com , a leading site for college students and recent graduates who are searching for internships and entry level jobs.

Technorati Tags: Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, Liz Handlin, Passionate Careers

Will Goldberg trade people for short term profitability?

Pink slips could be in the not too distant future for half of Jobster’s 145 person workforce according to unnamed sources that have been whispering to GigaOM and John Cook, the Venture Capital beat reporter for the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Jason Goldberg, the founder and CEO of Jobster had this to say on his blog about the whole story on December 22nd.

“truth is that i promised our shareholders that we would drive this company towards profitability in 2007 and that’s a promise i intend to keep. period.”

It looks like 2007 may bring interesting times over at Jobster. With a swap in the chief bean counter position now in place, and promises of a profitable 2007 swirling around the investor boardroom, Jason Goldberg will have to test his breathy vision against the invariable loss in trust that only layoffs can create.

Here’s my problem with all this.

Layoffs shouldn’t come easy, and they’re not part of any good business plan for a start up when revenue is growing in leaps and bounds as Jobster’s are. If layoffs were to happen now, it would signal to me that Jason Goldberg, his executive team, and his investors have screwed up. If 2007 profitability were a litmus test, as Jason declared earlier this year, then perhaps the hiring freeze that Jobster instituted recently could have come a little earlier? It’s hard for me to believe that Jason’s people strategy or go to plan would include a cannon fodder scenario (a military term for people being used as an expendable commodity) but you never know. Is Jason Goldberg a better BizDev talent than manager? It’s a pretty common scenario with founders. The vision, skill, and gumption that it takes to start a company (and make no mistake Jason has plenty of this secret sauce) don’t necessarily translate to managing a company successfully. The switch in CFO could have more to do with this than you may think. A smart board will push a visionary like Jason to surround themselves with the management talent to support the long term success of the business. And a smart leader will do the same thing and Jason is known for his smarts. It could be that Jason’s investors are giving him no other choice, either by an outright edict or in a nut twisting investor pressure that only $48 million dollars in investor funding can bring about.

So we’re left with three scenarios to mull over until Jobster makes its real plans public.

1. Jobster management sucks
2. Jobster’s investors have gotten cold feet and Jobster’s management have no choice but to placate them with major cost cutting
3. These rumors are all a load of crap brought about by a disgruntled employee/s.

I’d have to favor number two, with a sprinkling of number three thrown in for good measure. What makes me worry about the rumors is the tone of Jason’s post that I linked to earlier, which struck me as condescending and defensive.

“truth is that i promised our shareholders that we would drive this company towards profitability in 2007 and that’s a promise i intend to keep. period.

you ever had to do that? it’s tough stuff. especially when you are in growth mode. but that’s what it takes to build a valuable business.

…and that’s what we’re doing over here at jobster.

what are you doing?”

Technorati Tags: Jobster, Jobster Layoffs

…It Has Always Been For the People By the People

“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed.”

The ClueTrain is where the reality of today’s blogosphere and social media revolution were first predicted back in 1999. And sure enough, even my beloved - though often slow to ‘get a clue’ - recruitment industry is feeling the reverberations of social media. I am asked almost daily for tips on how to effectively incorporate social media to ‘create’ a ‘more modern’ employer brand that ‘gets it’ and resonates with the next generation of workers.

A company’s employer brand can not be created. An Employer Brand is made up of the relationships that exists between your organization and its employees, former employees, potential employees, job candidates, and even customers. These relationships, and thus your employer brand, already exist and cannot be contrived through marketing. However, it is the open and direct communications that are the hallmark of blogs, that if applied correctly, can strengthen these relationships through a deeper understanding of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. These conversations and their effects on people are at the foundation of social media’s power - a vehicle that has the opportunity to effect lasting change on your employer brand.

When a company suddenly realizes that they are having trouble hiring in this increasingly competitive job environment, they seek out marketing professionals to come up with an ad campaign that will increase their flow of applications and hopefully hires. The result is often an ad campaign that attempts to sell candidates on imagery and messaging that are built upon ideals that the company doesn’t really live up to. You are expected to prove you mean it in today’s market by your actions and by answering the questions put to you by the marketplace. Given this reality, do you want a one dimensional print ad or job posting to represent you or an interactive forum where a dialog can take place?

In this way social media can be particularly strong as a transitional vehicle when you want to communicate that your employer brand is ‘on the move.’ You might create a more traditional aspirational marketing campaign about your company vision and work environment while simultaneously using your blog to let your job candidates know that you aren’t implying you’ve reached your desired state. By inviting your candidates behind the curtain, for a peek back stage, you give them the opportunity to see themselves in the part of making that future a reality. We appreciate it when people talk with us, and not at us, and more often than not, communicating that you’re improving your business will only give you more credibility. Credibility is the key to improving your marketing results. Just as you can smell a rat when interviewing a candidate with all the right answers, job candidates too are measuring your words for ‘company spin’ and making their own judgments and performing their own Google searches to find out what the ‘real deal’ is.

Good or bad, what social media can do is give an authentic view of your company – that can be shared and commented on at lightening speed. Social media can go a long way toward helping you begin the process of letting go of your perception that you are in control so that your people can connect and share real information. Companies that let go of their focus on controlling the message, and rather focus on nurturing the relationships that people have to their organization - will reap the benefits of their people using social media to convey your employer brand with transparency and integrity.

Technorati Tags: employer-brand employer-branding social-media web2.0 recruiting recruitment-marketing talent acquisition