This eighth year of the ERE Recruiting Excellence Awards brought applications from big corporations, small companies, government agencies in the U.S., and consultancies in India. In some categories there were runaway winners, and in others, there were knock-down, drag-out barn-burners. As fun as it is to judge, it was taken seriously. Some applicants used every... [full article »]

That grocery store chain popping up all over Arizona, Nevada, and California has launched a new careers website with a good main-page video talking about jobs at the British-owned grocer. On the Fresh & Easy home page — the company home page, not the careers home page — the words “A Great Place to Work” (as... [full article »]

The Australian defense department has started a new campaign with a “Superman” motif to recruit reservists, the first big effort like this in seven years. Its plans includes TV ads, movie ads, billboards, newspaper and magazine advertising, and of course the career site, featuring people lifting up their shirts to show military uniforms underneath. The... [full article »]

A new site launching today is described by its CEO Suki Shah as “Job board ATS video audio social recruiting.” It’s called “Get Hired,” it’s backed by private equity investors, and it’ll be free, at least for now. The company, which has raised $1.75 million, has been building up a list of job-seekers and employers,... [full article »]

I have never met an unhappy, urologist anywhere. You may not have thought you want to be a urologist. That’s perfectly understandable. But after watching a video — one that ended with the quote above — that won a marketing award, you may change your mind. This clip called ”Why Urology?” was just honored with a platinum... [full article »]

Should we put real-employee photos on our careers site, or stock art? Swift Transportation’s new site opts for none of the above. Instead, the trucker used illustrations, something you don’t see a whole lot on career sites. Swift, a Phoenix-based company whose drivers log more than a billion miles a year, used Bayard Advertising for the... [full article »]

Rather than hunkering down in a crouch position waiting for the storm to pass, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion is going on the offense with a branding campaign to be launched March 1, touting the virtues of a challenging job at the company. “We’re charging through the time of transition,” says Kat Drum, who’s the manager, social... [full article »]

A quick update on PwC, which we mentioned last spring had revived the Disney component of its intern program. Now it’s planning a week-long “customizable personal brand experience” on its campus website, February 6-10. Students can go to the site each day and take an assessment and use other tools to get feedback on their... [full article »]

A quick update on what’s going on with “STEM” — where there is a movement in the U.S. to get 100,000 more teachers, as well as a website categorizing who’s doing what in the science-math-engineering-tech career field. A science and engineering festival will be held April 28-29, in D.C. It should be big — last year’s attracted... [full article »]

It’s not often that a hiring process is described as “exhilarating” — a mystery with no clues is how candidates are more apt to feel about most such processes — but exhilarating is how one company is describing its selection for a healthcare technology trainer. The crux of this “Big Break” as it’s called is a reality-TV-style... [full article »]

We began 2011 talking about new “matchmaker” job sites starting up. As 2011 progressed, as Jeff Dickey-Chasins said, such sites, some more art than science, “proliferated.” A year later, we’re not done yet. At least one new site is hoping to join the bunch. Called “Better Weekdays,” it is being built behind the scenes, with one major... [full article »]

Remember that mobile-marketing company Upstream that’s using games in its online recruiting? In short, that game has blown away expectations. Guy Krief, VP of innovation, said the company had been failing in its efforts to fill its job through more traditional methods. The game was, Krief said, an “act of desperation.” That act, he says, was... [full article »]

When the recruiting and marketing departments are on the same page, that’s a good thing. But what if they’re not only on the same page, but they’re the same person? Indeed: the chief brand officer at Women’s Healthcare Associates, LLC is Anita Jackson. The director of human resources is also Anita Jackson. In the video below,... [full article »]

With unemployment rates hovering in the 9% range in the U.S., there are plenty of people for most every job. Actually, scratch that. It’s not quite true for Siemens, where it’s tough to find engineers and others with the skills it needs. The German company has about 336,000 employees, 1,640 locations, and about 60,000 people, and growing,... [full article »]

With NASA about halfway through its astronaut hiring push, one that ends January 27, the space agency is right where it wants to be with 1,500 applicants vying for what will ultimately be maybe 10 slots. “We got an incredible response,” says Lynnette Madison, from NASA’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Especially, she says, because... [full article »]

Matt Jeffery said this was coming, as did Kevin Wheeler: Using games in recruiting. It has been tried by a consumer product company and an animal hospital on Facebook, among many other companies, like Siemens. Now, a company called Upstream, in the mobile marketing business, has created an online game for its marketing campaign manager positions. Candidates are led through... [full article »]

For those suffering from insomnia now around 2 a.m. Eastern, we’ve dug through a U.S. government website to find a 172-page document that may help you sleep — or, if you’re a federal contractor, could possibly keep you up at night. The draft of the proposed rules, to be printed later today (Friday the 9th),... [full article »]

John Sullivan asked: Are QR codes the next big thing in recruitment technology? For adidas, an award winner last year, they’re already a big thing. Craig Larson heads up U.S. recruiting. He started about a year ago, about the same time, he says, that adidas “identified a problem that needed a solution.” The problem begins... [full article »]

Twitter: for some, it’s a great source of news. For others, a way to broadcast jobs. For still others, a quick n’ dirty way to comment, spread links, or have the proverbial “conversation.” Jody Ordioni, who’ll be leading a session at the Expo in March, and I talk about Twitter — what we notice, what... [full article »]

We talked in September about companies supporting the U.S. effort to recruit 100,000 science, technology, engineering, and math teachers in 10 years. Neddy Perez, a diversity VP at Ingersoll Rand, let us know of another site expanding this Wednesday, November 30: STEMConnector. Officially it’s launching at 2:30 Eastern time in the afternoon November 30, but you... [full article »]