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Oops! Those numbers that comScore, the Internet traffic counter, released last week showing Yahoo’s HotJobs (profile; site) in the number two position were not quite right. The numbers have been updated and now show Monster (profile; site) in 2nd place behind CareerBuilder (profile; site).

The changes don’t affect the standing of other job boards nor the 51 percent growth in the overall jobs category, which according to comScore was still the fastest-growing content category on the Internet.

comScore didn’t explain the error, except to say in a footnote to its chart, “The December 2008 Monster.com Job Search data have been adjusted upward from 3.7 million unique visitors to 6.7 million unique visitors due to classification of additional job search-related URLs that were not originally included.”

Even with the revision in the December 2008 numbers, Monster is hearing the footsteps. Once all but written off as a player in the recruitment market, HotJobs has dramatically grown its traffic through its partnership with about half of the daily newspapers in the U.S. as well as its higher visibility on Yahoo’s homepage and its channel position.

The comScore data shows HotJobs grew its unique visitor traffic 146 percent in December 2008 over December of 2007. Monster’s traffic grew 62 percent and CareerBuilder’s increased 78 percent. The biggest gainer, however, was SimplyHired, the jobs search engine. Its unique visitor count jumped 161 percent.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that Monster’s CEO Sal Iannuzzi told an audience of Wall Street analysts Thursday that despite the global recession, “… we feel it is a time to aggressively pursue the market share rather than retreat.” Spending on marketing, among other expenses, will push the company into the red for the 1st quarter of this year.

For the first time since 2004 Monster will air a commercial during the Super Bowl, at a cost of around $3 million per 30-second spot. It will go to head to head with arch-rival CareerBuilder whose “monkey” commercial of 2005 routinely makes the list of best Super Bowl commercials. Is the high price worth it? According to the website multichannelmerchant.com, CareerBuilder experienced a 89 percent traffic spike on the Monday after the game-day ad ran in 2005. The following year, CareerBuilder’s day after traffic jumped 71 percent to 1.45 million visits.

Many employers are eager to tap the potential of social networks as sources of talent. The potential is huge, and facing difficult economic conditions, these can be a cheap source. But it’s easier said than done. Some employers have put up their own corporate pages on Facebook. But this accomplishes nothing more than to prove ignorance of online social media. What makes social media so popular is their, well, social nature. They enable people to meet social needs. This may seem as obvious as the nose on your face, but it’s amazing how many employers don’t get it.

The word “social” has many definitions, but some of the more appropriate ones are 1) pertaining to friendly companionship or relation; 2) Seeking or enjoying the companionship of others; and 3) living or disposed to live-in companionship with others rather than in isolation. The point being that people use social media as a two-way street and to get a sense of community. To belong to a community one has to have something to contribute and be accepted as a member. A community is people interacting with each other. It requires free flow of ideas and thoughts. None of that is delivered by a corporate web page, which is essentially static. People do not invite companies to be their friends. The same is true for recruiters wanting to get hires off Facebook. Creating and cultivating a network to the point where one actually has a hire can take a long time, and the ROI can be impossible or very difficult to justify. It’s not possible to say that X number of hours spent networking will result in Y number of hires and it is not a replicable model.

keep reading…

Sensing opportunity admist the shambles of the world economy, Monster’s CEO says the company will spend enough on marketing and organizational changes during the first quarter of this year that it won’t be profitable.

“We don’t want to overreact,” Sal Iannuzzi said, referring to the worldwide recession and the belt-tightening going on everywhere. While Monster intends to be frugal, he said the company will “aggressively pursue the market share.”

Doing that, and making other one-time financial expenses, will cut into the company’s 1st quarter revenues, which are expected to be off over the same quarter in 2009, by about the same 16 percent as the last quarter of 2008.

The net result, Iannuzzi said, will make Monster unprofitable for the first quarter. That will turn around in the second quarter.

Iannuzzi’s comments came during today’s quarterly call with financial analysts to discuss Monster’s 4th quarter and 2008 financial results.

During the hour-long call, Iannuzzi and other Monster executives said they were encouraged by the response to the revamped Monster site that launched January 10th. Job searches are up, feedback from users has been positive, and even the clickthrough rate for ads running on the Monster network have doubled and even tripled.

The newspaper partnership has been a positive for Monster, Iannuzzi said in response to one analyst question. “As time’s gone on, things become more profitable,” he reported.

Both Iannuzzi and CFO Tim Yates spent time explaining the company’s acquisition of ChinaHR. In October, Monster acquired the remaining 55 percent  for $174 million, a price that was negotiated down from the original purchase terms.

The job board, one of the largest in China, has suffered declines along with the hit that country’s economy has taken causing an after tax loss of $3.7 million. Now, with Monster in full control, there have been some layoffs and other cost- cutting measures are being implemented.

Monster released its financials for 2008 this afternoon and the numbers give mute testimony to the impact of the worldwide recession on the recruitment market.

For the last quarter of 2008 Monster reported revenues of $290.7 million and earnings per share of 24 cents. This is off from last year and below analysts’ expectations, falling at the lower end of Wall Street’s estimates.

The biggest hit came in the company’s North American sales which were off 22.1 percent in the 4th quarter from the same quarter in 2007. For the year, North American sales were off 9.8 percent.

The silver lining, thin as it may be, is that the company managed to eke out a 1.5 percent increase in revenue for the full year, due mostly to a 17.9 percent growth for the year in international sales. However, the recession’s global impact began to be felt in the 4th quarter. International sales were off 14.3 percent, coming in at $122.8 million, just $12.3 million less than the  $135.1  million Monster generated in North America.

However the company’s operating expenses were almost $70 million more in 2008, which made a big dent in the earnings per share for the year. More than of half that – $40 million – is attributed for legal expenses in connection with the lawsuits arising out of the stock options backdating of several years ago.

Monster reported diluted earnings of $1.03 per share in 2008 vs. $1.12 in 2007.

Last year, Monster had $347.8 million in revenue for the 4th quarter and $1.324 billion for all of 2007.

Analysts had been expecting 4th quarter revenue in the range of $279.1 to $331.4 million with the average being $311.6 million. Earnings had been expected in the range of 21 to 33 cents per share with the average being 27 cents.

Monster, like most publicly held companies, reports numbers in a variety of different ways to make it easier for analysts to make comparisons. Numbers used here are from the company’s operations statements.

Our friends at Fistful of Talent just launched the pilot of their new FOTv show this morning.

There’s a ton of noise in the recruiting blogosphere these days, and Fistful is on a very short list of the blogs that have become my daily must-reads. Like everything they do, the pilot is fun and opinionated, and the production values set the bar high for everyone else in our industry who works with video.

I spoke with FOT Editor Kris Dunn today to learn more about the thinking behind the project and what we should expect in the future, and here’s what he told me:

• Kris is a big sports fan, and the format for the show was inspired by ESPN’s PTI.
• Moving forward, the plan is to produce the show weekly, and future shows will be much shorter — closer to five minutes in length than 20.
• While the pilot was shot with Kris, Jessica Lee, and Josh Letourneau, future shows will feature a revolving cast of FOT contributors.

FOTv – Show #1 from Fistful of Talent on Vimeo.

Getting your company known to the right potential candidates is tough. This is especially the case when trying to attract the right graduating college students. Students at the big schools are flooded with information, career days, job fairs, emails, and posters. The information is often generic and broad — deliberately so and designed to attract a cross-section of students. But, at the same time it can lead to a flood of unqualified applicants and can degrade your on-campus brand and image. Most organizations focus on the bigger schools, so there is no budget or time left for smaller campuses. Students at small private schools and often even at state universities are left out of the active recruiting process for these reasons. Any tool or service that allows you to spread the word about your opportunities with better focus and wider penetration is a winner.

As I have previously written, video has become king. A recent report by Gartner predicts that 25% of all content will be delivered by audio or video by 2013. Those who want to gain mindshare and generate interest in their career opportunities or organization need to use some kind of interactive media — video, instant messaging, polls — anything that attracts and engages Gen Y. The most useful and powerful interactive tools include social networks — particularly Facebook if you are targeting college students — and even LinkedIn and Twitter — as well as video sites such as Youtube, Hulu, and AOLvideo.

Laura Short at Stout University of Wisconsin has created an interesting slideshow for college students giving them reasons to use LinkedIn and encouraging them to — because it is where you are. In this presentation she encourages students to develop a personal video and post it as a LinkedIn video. She also talks about the importance of a video presence.

As video is becoming the dominant form of communication, recruiters who stick with text-based career sites and even text-oriented social networks will find themselves in trouble if they are looking for younger candidates.

There are many services that produce videos and I have listed a cross-section of them in previous articles. But it is very hard to find any company doing something different enough that it may change the way we interact and communicate with candidates. All the social networks I am aware of are based on reading and writing. You have to create a written profile and list and bullet your experiences, education, and so forth. Recommendations are written. Resumes are written. Any interactivity is through asynchronous conversations (e.g. email), a smattering of instant messaging, and sometimes the ability to post messages, pictures, and videos and make comments.

There is, however, one company that has gotten my attention. It is U.S.-based and aimed squarely at college students.

keep reading…

The last hour and a half has been an exercise in frustration.

I spent most of it freaking out as I tried to connect to today’s webinar and listening to busy signals and dropped audio on my laptop’s speakers. The rest of the time I spent on hold waiting for technical support at GotoWebinar, the company whose technology we were hoping would power future ERE webinars.

We will not be using them again.

The virtual meeting room that we used was supposed to hold up to 1,000 people, and since we regularly get large groups of 500 or more on our calls this was important. This time, we hit 250 listeners on the call when the problems began.

GotoWebinar has no emergency line, and when I finally got through to them I was informed that they were “already investigating issues with that phone number.” When I asked to speak to a manager and said that it was urgent, I was asked for my number and told that I would get a call back. They did not ask for my name, and I am still waiting for the call.

My apologies to every person who was on the call and experienced the poor audio quality.

My apologies to those who could not even make it on to the call because they got busy signals when they dialed in.

Especially, my apologies to Jeremy and Dan who soldiered on through the webinar in spite of the technical issues — they behaved like the pros that they are and did not miss a beat.

Update: 1/29/09

Jeremy and Dan have been gracious enough to offer to repeat the webinar on Friday, February 6 at 2:00 PM EST. Register here.

Also make sure to check out the slides and a re-recording of the presentation below!

Gatekeepers are the Cerberus of the recruiting industry. Their job is to allow the properly associated souls to pass, while turning back the rest of us at the gates.

Many articles have been written about how to approach them, what to say to them, and even about forming long-term relationships with them.

While administrative assistants are usually the most difficult gatekeepers, receptionists can also be protective, asking your company and reason for calling. Even when receptionists are obliging, after speaking to them 20 or 30 times a day, they will start to recognize your voice.

Calling late to reach an after hours “auto attendant” feature that clicks over after 5:00 p.m. is used by some as an alternative. The problem with this is that the person you are trying to contact may have gone home, forcing you to leave a message.

The solution has typically been to find an extension for someone at the desired company, and then sequentially dial other extensions until you find the person or group that you are looking for. While this technique can work, it is very time-consuming and impractical in the extreme at larger companies. Also, many companies are aware of this tactic and will assign extensions in a more arbitrary manner.

Fortunately there is a way to directly contact almost anyone at any company, using little-known, but very useful features built into voicemail systems. Below is a brief summary of my findings.

keep reading…

The Monster hack, first reported late last week, is making news worldwide with news agencies in the U.K. and elsewhere reporting that 4.5 million users of the job board, including in the United Kingdom and  elsewhere had their data compromised. The company told The Times, a London newspaper, that such personal information as addresses, names, birth dates, and other ”demographic information” were stolen. Hackers also managed to get user IDs and passwords.

A Monster spokeswoman declined to comment on the number of records affected, but said it included some U.S. users. Monster’s non-career sites (such as Military.com), the European site JobPilot and sites in Asia Pacific and in Eastern Europe were not affected.

Monster has posted a warning on its homepage linking to a letter explaining the intrusion. Dated Jan. 23rd, the letter signed by Patrick Manzo, Monster’s Global Chief Privacy Officer, warns users they may be subject to “phishing” expeditions, where they receive emails from the hackers but appearing to be from Monster, directing them to download malicious software or provide additional confidential information.

A similar warning has been posted to the USAJobs site, the official job board of the U.S. federal government. The site is powered and managed by Monster; thus, the profiles and other data of its users may have been illegally accessed.

This happened after an August 2007 hack that downloaded 1.7 million user records, nearly all from the U.S. The security breach only became public after a security company posted the news to its website, forcing Monster to admit the intrusion days after it knew the breach occurred.

This time, it was Monster which disclosed the hack and provided details about the type of information that was accessed. The Monster spokeswoman said no resumes or customer transactional data were compromised. However, recruiters, like job seekers, are urged to change their password as well as keep an eye out for phony Monster emails. The posted letter contains additional guidance.

Monster received better marks this time for its reporting of the breach. NetworkWorld, a tech-focused publication for network administrators, analyzed Monster’s disclosure letter and compared it to the warning the company sent out after the 2007 hack. The publication had Roger Nebel, director of strategic security for FTI Consulting, review the Monster warning reporting that he considered it “adequate: Not bad, but could be better.”

“There are no details about how they were hacked, nor steps taken to prevent it again,” NetworkWorld quotes Nebel as saying. “While I don’t expect them to necessarily tell us gory details there should at least be some context, be it human error, a zero-day attack, vendor issue, etc.”

News of the attack has been widely published on tech sites and news sites in Europe and elsewhere, including in Turkey and India.

Any manager who takes an honest look at individual performance knows all employees are not created equally. About 20% of employees rise to the top of the heap; 20% drop to the bottom; and the rest hang around in the middle doing only enough to attract attention.

Employee-productivity differences have attracted their share of researchers. Most agree that folks in the top half of workers out-produce the bottom half by about 2:1 (i.e., it makes no difference if people are shuffling papers or making widgets). And, when managers and knowledge workers are examined separately, the productivity ratio rises to 3:1, 4:1, or higher (i.e., responsible jobs have bigger ratios).

Productivity is more than a mental exercise. It shows up as absenteeism, errors, reduced throughput, turnover, low morale, rework, an excess number of employees, and so forth. Productivity losses are also sneaky because they are not easily seen; yet, they translate into hard cash: between 20% of base annual payroll leaked for unskilled workers to 50% for skilled and managerial employees — enough to separate a successful organization from a flop.

Converting payroll leakage into gross sales can be an even bigger eye-opener. Twenty percent leakage, for an organization that pays out 1/5 of its gross sales in salaries and benefits, would require a 500% sales increase to balance the books. Want to do more scary math? Calculate the incremental sales necessary to offset a 50% leak in managers and professional salaries!

Enter Financial Chaos and Uncertainty

We are in serious financial times. Opinions vary, but experts estimate our financial stress will last throughout 2009 and perhaps into 2010. The prosperity party is over. Like the dot-com bust, the world changed virtually overnight.

We cannot do much about external economic factors except dig in and wait. But, we can do something about employee productivity, especially when it comes to intelligent downsizing.

keep reading…

In today’s tumultuous economy, companies have been forced to make some devastating workforce decisions. In an effort to prepare for the future, best-practice companies are taking a long-term strategic approach to attracting and retaining their employees. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Given the number of massive layoffs, companies are looking to restructure their organization, streamline business operations, forecast staffing needs, and above all else, reduce costs. As a result, workforce planning is no longer a fad; it is a necessity. (Bersin & Associates is conducting a survey on this topic and we would love your participation. In return, we will provide you with an executive summary of the findings.)

Companies such as T-Mobile and McKesson are stepping up to the plate by establishing a formal workforce planning process with a designated leader in order to achieve results. So, what exactly is workforce planning? How can it help organizations achieve these goals? And why should you care?

keep reading…

I believe it was Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” that gave us the ever optimistic “Always look on the bright side of life.” While times are certainly tough as we get rolling in the new year, prospects may not be as bleak as anticipated at the close of 2008. Join me, along with talent acquisition experts Jeremy Eskenazi and Dan Kilgore, for a webinar this Wednesday as we discuss what we can expect, both the good and the bad, in 2009.

As we all know, the recruiting industry is always changing and we can certainly expect more new developments in the months to come. We’ll be taking a look at trends to see what kinds of big picture changes we can expect this year, and more importantly what this means for YOU.

Jeremy and Dan will be taking questions after the presentations to address your thoughts and concerns for what awaits us in 2009. We already have over 400 people registered but still have plenty of space so make sure to sign up today!

____________________________________________________________
When: Wednesday, January 28th
2:00 – 3:00 PM EST
Register Here
_____________________________________________________________

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at brendan@ere.net.

Progress: Graphic by rustybrick on Flickr (cc)

John and I were trading emails last week, and he asked me to elaborate on one of the comments that I made. I have been thinking about it ever since.

The recruiting profession is at a unique moment in time, and it’s not just because of the economy. We are at an inflection point where the tools and tactics that the vast majority of recruiters spend their budgets on is completely different from those being discussed and debated throughout the profession.

The last time I saw this was a decade ago. Even as early experimenters began using the Internet to bring talent into their organizations, the lion’s-share of corporate recruiting budgets still went to the newspapers, and it took the better part of the last 10 years for that to change. keep reading…

In the past few weeks, you have read several articles with predictions about what to expect in the coming year. Now for your insights.

We are conducting our annual ERE Reader Survey. Take just a few minutes out of your busy schedule to help us out.

Why do we want this info?

All of the information on ERE.net is free for recruiters, and this would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. By completing the survey, you are telling our sponsors who is in the ERE audience, which helps them continue to support us.

None of the information you provide in the survey will be used in any way other than in aggregate, so your contact information and your feedback is protected.

Simply click here and take the survey. It will just take a few minutes.

I appreciate your help and look forward to sharing the results with you in a few weeks.

The recruiting function is constantly looking for ways to improve its business impact and unfortunately, just such an opportunity is about to hit them right in the face.

By now, everyone’s most likely heard of the impending Employee Freedom of Choice Act that will make unionization significantly easier.

As a recruiting professional, have you contemplated what role recruiting can play in maintaining a “union-free” environment at your organization?

Think about it! What better way to ensure that an organization will remain union-free than changing the recruiting, branding, and hiring process so that your organization is more likely to attract new hires who naturally (without any direct influence from management) wouldn’t want to join a union?

Hiring For Tendencies Is a Common Practice

It is common to design recruiting and hiring processes to select individuals with certain mindsets or behavioral tendencies.

Southwest Airlines, for example, has been written up in numerous books and articles for how they successfully attract and hire individuals who naturally behave and act in a certain way. In the case of Southwest, its hiring process targets candidates who naturally put the needs of the individual customer before their own.

Southwest is not alone. A range of organizations, from the FBI to Disney and Google, have all designed recruiting processes that identify and hire individuals prone to certain behaviors and actions. So why not adapt that recruiting concept to focus on individuals who prefer an independent work environment?

The Time to Act Is Now

Now is the opportune time to act before union-related publicity increases to the point where the spotlight is continually on any union-avoidance activities and while most recruiting functions are facing a reduced hiring load.

Rarely do recruiting leaders have as much time as they have now to strategize and to reengineer their processes.

The goal is to redesign your recruiting and hiring processes in order to improve the chances of attracting and hiring individuals who, when given a choice, have a higher probability of selecting independence over “big brother” group action (i.e., unionization).

Don’t Have A Cow

Upfront, you need to realize that it’s ok for management to resist unionization. Most firms rely primarily on the “traditional approach” which focuses heavily on anti-union propaganda campaigns among existing workers.

However, there’s no reason why that approach can’t be supplemented by an effective recruiting campaign that proactively acts “on the front end” before workers are even hired.

Now, I’m not suggesting even for a minute that you go out and purposely hire only “union hating” new employees, because that actually would be illegal.

What I am suggesting is that recruiting can make a major contribution in maintaining your workforce’s flexibility and competitiveness by revising your firm’s employment processes so that they now include elements that “naturally” attract more independent-thinking workers.

Incidentally, I started my working career as a card-carrying union member and now as a professor, am currently represented by a union, so don’t automatically assume that I don’t understand the value unions can provide.

However, I would remind you that as an HR employee, if your executives choose to go down the “maintain a non-union environment road,” it’s your responsibility to make sure that recruiting makes a substantial contribution to that effort.

Start With Market Research

After getting management’s approval for the overall concept and strategy, identify the types of personalities, demographic groups, and regional locations where you’re likely to find a large percentage of “independent thinkers.”

keep reading…

Here is a project for GrouperEye: Explain the name and develop a marketing plan for the site. What’s in it for you is $100 and a shot at an internship.

That’s the premise behind this new site with the odd name that has nothing to do with fish. In fact, confesses founder Ted Williams, “I wish I had a cool story about snorkeling and looking into a grouper’s eye when the idea went off in my head, but the name was chosen to be unique and memorable. Sure, a lot of people think it is dumb and it may make it difficult for us to market ourselves, but it fits with our strategy — create a remarkable experience.”

Simply put, GrouperEye allows companies looking for interns to offer a sort of tryout without making any commitment other than to award a $100 prize.

Cookthink is a case in point. The cooking-oriented website figured its recipe search tool was sufficiently unique that it could be licensed to others. But the small company didn’t have the resources to hire a marketing firm. So it turned to GrouperEye, offering $100, lunch with the founders, and virtual internships for a 1-3 page summary of a licensing business plan.

The deadline for submittals has not yet passed, so we can’t say how things turned out, but Cookthink co-founder Chip Brantley likes the concept. keep reading…

If you think it’s hard to convey to candidates how they might feel after a stressful day as a nurse, law enforcement officer, or air traffic controller, imagine trying to describe what it’s like to fly an F-22A Raptor or carry an M-16 rifle in the Iraqi desert. The U.S. military (whose recruiting tactics are explored in more depth in the March Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership) uses a blend of artificial intelligence and human intelligence to provide prospects with realistic combat previews, so they can make informed choices.

On the U.S. Army Web site, prospects can access podcasts, participate in discussion boards, chat online with active duty soldiers and recruiters, and watch videos which depict various Army careers and combat training. But the Army also gives candidates access to free war games, so they can virtually experience combat situations and assess their skills. The games resonate with millennial prospects, who average 17 to 24 years of age, and who are quite comfortable having a joystick in one hand and a mouse in the other.

“We use photos, tell stories, and recruits hear soldiers talk about combat in experience centers set-up all across the country,” says Lt. Col. John E. (Ed) Box, battalion commander, Chicago Recruiting Battalion, U.S. Army Recruiting Command. “In the experience centers, soldiers returning from combat relay their personal stories to recruits. We also provide virtual combat experience through the America’s Army website, which features free war game downloads for computers and the Xbox 360.”

The use of simulated training environments has grown in a number of industries for good reason; virtual training has proven to be effective and trainees are free to make mistakes, without creating dire consequences. Airline pilots have trained in-flight simulators for years and surgeons practice new medical procedures through a combination of hands-on and simulated experience. The military is highly advanced in its use of simulated training; applying the technology to the recruiting and screening process is a logical way to immerse candidates into stressful situations, so they can experience the environment and the emotions it evokes.

In the “See What It’s Like” section of the U.S. Air Force Web site, candidates can test their ability to refuel jets at 22,000 feet or fly with the Thunderbirds. The interactive tools comprise just a small portion of the tactics employed by military recruiters to achieve the increasing annual goals for new signees. Despite the obstacles of lengthy deployments and ongoing war, recruiters from the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps are achieving their annual recruiting mission by bonding with prospects, using carefully crafted messages and being brutally honest about military life.

If you don’t invest in finding tomorrow’s candidates today, you’ll become history.

This article is one component of a Web 2.0 and rich media demonstration. It consists of a variety of simple broad-reach tools including webinars, surveys, discussion walls, Twitters, and videos. The purpose of presenting the article this way is to demonstrate how an individual recruiter could expand his or her visibility using similar low-cost technology. As you read the article, click through to the links and take the action suggested. Then imagine how you could apply similar approaches to your job postings to expand both its visibility and interest.

As a example, start by texting the word “sourcing” to 96625 and take the instant survey. Then create your own survey like this and Tweet me at LouA with your quick take. Then create a similar process for hiring by asking your employees if they know a great person for a new hot job, or pinging your resume database asking prospects if they’d be interested in exploring a potential career move.

Now back to the article. It describes some of the latest Web 2.0 recruiting and sourcing tools and likely future trends.

keep reading…

On Wednesday night, ERE held its first Cincinnati Meetup. With just over 70 guests the event was a huge success, our largest Meetup to date.

I wanted to take the time to thank everyone who came. It was so nice meeting everyone and I hope that you had a great time. I know I definitely enjoyed it and loved my first time in Cincinnati (thanks to those who gave me great suggestions on places to eat!)

We would love to make these Meetups a more regular occurrence and from what I heard last night, I definitely think we will have to return to Cincinnati.

Thank you also to Taleo, for the wonderful goodies and for sponsoring the event. And a special thanks to everyone for spreading the word about our event, especially Amybeth and Jennifer.

I will be keeping everyone up-to-date on the Meetups right here on ERE, so please check back to find out when and where the next one will be.

Enjoy the photos and please leave some feedback below; I would love to hear what you thought!

Thanks again!!

P.S. We have had tons of suggestions for more cities to bring our Meetups to; all we need are some sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring an event, or just have questions in general, please email me at melissa@ere.net

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I just got off the phone with a recruiter who had been let go on Monday of this week. Like many in this situation, he wasn’t surprised, but always “kind of thought” there would be another position in another division of his company to segue to.

Not this time.

One month severance pay plus a couple of weeks unused vacation puts six weeks between him and reduced living. His wife works, and her job looks “pretty secure,” for now.

But he needs to find a job. Immediately interviewing, he’s finding that departments are looking for a new kind of recruiter — one who can do their own sourcing on the front end as well as bringing up the rear in hiring. It seems to me like a lot to ask, and maybe one of management’s forays into “let’s see all we can get” while the “gettin’” appears to be good. It smacks of greed to me but maybe I’m just sensitive on the issue, sensitized as I have been at all the recent media coverage of excess and waste among those with influence.

keep reading…