ERE.net

October pulled a trick on economists who had expected the U.S. would be treated to a slowing job loss. Instead, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said this morning that 190,000 jobs were lost during the month, helping push the unemployment to a surprising 10.2 percent.

Surveys of economists had predicted the numbers would be closer to 150,000 to 175,000 lost jobs and an unemployment rate of 9.9 percent. The spike pushed the unemployment rate to its highest point since April 1983 and the job loss was the 22nd consecutive month of declines. keep reading…

What do you get when you search your name online?

Aw, come on. Of course you’ve looked yourself up on the Internet. Almost half of all Internet users did in 2007. The latest survey puts the number at 59 percent.

And if you really, really haven’t then you may want to retake recruiting 101.

Just as companies no longer are masters of their own brand, neither are you. There are sites to rate teachers, cops, doctors, even parts of your anatomy. Then there are the pictures and comments well-meaning friends have posted about you.

Google yourself and you may find those bleery-eyed conference party photos of you rank higher than than does the whitepaper you authored. Or, you may discover you rank lower than the death notices of others with like names.

To help remedy that there’s PlaceYourName.com. It’s a personal marketing service that promises to help users “manage and control what is seen about them when their names are searched online.” keep reading…

In what is by now an open secret, Google is hiring 200 recruiters and sourcers for a one-year gig.

Details are sketchy, but Dave Mendoza did post an email about the hire to his site Six Degrees From Dave. The email is from a recruiter for Nelson Staffing and says the firm got a contract from “A Major (and pretty exciting) employer in the South Bay here in N. CA.” The email doesn’t name the employer, but it says Nelson needs to find “200 upbeat and enthusiastic recruiters and sourcers for them — by next week.” keep reading…

Two labor-related reports this week offer no evidence that the recession Wall Street believes is over really is, at least so far as workers are concerned.

The Conference Board’s monthly Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series reported that online job postings dropped by 83,000 in October. The number of newly posted jobs dropped by 24,000. keep reading…

Financially battered Workstream has changed leadership again, bringing back its co-founder and board chairman Michael Mullarkey as chief executive officer. He replaces Steve Purello, whose resignation was announced this morning. keep reading…

Aided by a $32 million income tax adjustment, Monster Worldwide reported it earned $33 million or 27 cents a share. Without the tax benefit Monster earned 1 cent a share, beating the Street’s guess the company would just break even.

Revenue, however, was $215 million, $8 million below what analysts expected. Sales in North America continued their recession-fueled decline, dropping 39 percent from the same quarter a year ago, and down from the $102 million in Q2 of this year. International sales were off 41 percent from the prior year, but off only 4.4 percent from the $89 million posted in Q2. An unfavorable exchange rate took a $7.4 million bite. keep reading…

In a joint venture with the manager of the .jobs domain, DirectEmployers has launched the first of what might become tens of thousands of new geographically and occupationally focused job boards all sharing a .jobs extension.

The new sites, identical in design and structure, made their appearance earlier this month. Among them are Atlanta.jobs, Boston.jobs, Mexico.jobs, and India.jobs.

“We just started pushing them out,” says Chad Sowash, VP of business development for DirectEmployers, a non-profit HR consortium, that has recruiting as its focus. Among its services is the Job Central job board, to which members can post jobs without additional fee.

“It’s a new playing field,” Sowash adds. “What this is going to do is allow thousands more, perhaps tens of thousands more” sites where job seekers can look for jobs. keep reading…

A new study from Watson Wyatt has pretty good news for employees who miss their old salaries and 401(k) matches, and shows that employers are just as worried about keeping people as they were before everything went all haywire on us.

Let’s start with retention. Take the percentage of surveyed employers (26%) who now say they are “significantly more concerned” about retention of key employees than they were before the economic crisis hit and the percentage (39%) who are “slightly more concerned” — add them together, and you find that almost two-thirds are more concerned about top-talent retention than before.

On to salaries, benefits, hours, layoffs, and hours. keep reading…

The British newspaper whose job board was hacked over the weekend is advising the half-million users whose information may have been accessed to buy identity insurance and notify credit reporting agencies.

An indignant Twitter post by one of those whose account with The Guardian jobs site was compromised says she received an email from the newspaper advising her of the illegal access and suggesting she subscribe to an identity protection service.

“got the guardian hack email – they suggest I buy identity fraud protection services. Hang on, who let people steal my information?” reads the tweet by Joelle Nebbe-Mornod, a technology consultant and former CTO now in the U.K.

The site itself gives no hint of the hack, until you scroll almost to the bottom of the home page where, under a heading of Workplace News, there is a short item headlined: Guardian jobs site – Security Breach. It links to a page of more detailed information. keep reading…

When Dr. John Sullivan said last week that employers have lost control of their brand, he likely wasn’t thinking of Sidewiki. Why should he? When the article was published Monday Sidewiki was not even three weeks old; Google launched it on Sept. 23rd.

But Sidewiki’s potential for deconstructing a brand is enormous. Unlike all the networking sites, Twitter posts, and job board forums where the disaffected go to vent their anger, Sidewiki makes it possible to post these comments directly to your site.

Just imagine the mischief a disgruntled job seeker or employee can wreak by posting their story directly to your site. Side by side with your video of happy employees talking about the fun and interesting work they do is a post — or multiple posts — from current and former workers denouncing your message as bogus.

If Sidewiki were to catch on and gain even a percentage of the users that Twitter has, the impact is easy enough to see.

Says Mark Hornung, senior vice president, strategy, at Bernard Hodes, “What that means for corporate employment sites is that they need to be monitored much more aggressively.” keep reading…

Here is what is going on this week in the ERE.net world:

• On Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. ET over on our sister site FordyceLetter.com, Shally Steckerl returns for part 2 of his Client Sourcing episode of Fordyce TV. In this live show, Shally will share more of the ways he gets insider details, including key names and job titles, contact details, internal promotions/moves, and other intel to better prepare himself for the cold call. If you are on the search and placement side of the business, you won’t want to miss this.
• Sign up for this week’s free webinar on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET, 2009 Corporate Staffing & Recruiting Part II led by Dan Kilgore and Jeremy Eskenazi from Riviera Associates. Join this interactive webinar which will will discuss trend update, and what it means going forward for corporate recruiting, new trends and data that has evolved recently showing that possibly the turn-around has begun, and specific steps/tactics to take to maximize results in this current climate.
• Friday is your last chance to take advantage of the $500 early bird registration discount for ERE Expo 2010 Spring taking place in San Diego from March 15-17. The agenda is coming together and the speaker list continues to grow, so make sure to check out all of the details and reserve your spot at www.ereexpo.com.
• ERE Expo will also host the sixth annual Recruiting Excellence Awards ceremony on March 15, and we are now accepting applications in nine categories. This is your chance to share how your recruiting success is helping your business — and in many cases furthering the recruiting profession.
• We just secured dates in San Diego next March for SourceCon, which will be taking place March 14-15. Stay tuned for more details about the only conference solely dedicated to the sourcing industry, but make sure to clear your calendar! Email me if you want to get more information at scott@ere.net.
• In more immediate event news, spaces are going fast for the next #socialrecruiting summit, taking place in New York City in less than a month on November 16. More than half the tickets are sold already for this follow up to the first summit which sold out back in June. Take a look at the growing attendee list and if you are already registered, make sure to make your voice heard by helping shape the unconference portion of the event here.

Have a great week, and feel free to leave any questions you have in the comments section below.

Two new tools have debuted recently. One will help with your sourcing research and the other promotes the passive candidate who may be overlooked by tech recruiters seeking fresh candidates.

Dice.com, the IT job board, introduced a new search result report that allows recruiters to toggle between the results that meet their criteria and other candidates who also match the criteria, but who haven’t been active on the site for a year.

Tom Silver, senior VP North America of parent company Dice Holdings, said the thought of offering additional results came about because more than half the searches on Dice are for candidates who have been active in the last 90 days. In their quest for fresh job seekers, recruiters were missing candidates with equally good skills.

“So,” says Silver, “We wanted to make it easier to see older candidates. We’re just trying to prompt recruiters to look at the entire database.”

keep reading…

Shares of Dice Holdings, owner of IT job board Dice.com, closed up almost 5 percent today, following news this morning that the company had a better quarter than Wall Street expected. keep reading…

RiseSmart, a self-described disruptor of the “the $3 billion-plus corporate outplacement market,” announced this morning that it got a $4.6 million infusion of venture capital.

Norwest Venture Partners, a $3 million participant in an earlier round of financing, put in $1.8 million. The balance of $2.8 million came from new investor Storm Ventures.

Originally based in Dallas and now in Silicon Valley, RiseSmart cleverly developed a technology approach to classic outplacement, focusing on providing job leads, resume editing, and networking suggestions. Its Job Search Concierge uses offshore researchers to scour online sources for job leads matching candidate interests. Instead of searching, candidates spend their time contacting companies and networking.

The Job Search Concierge is a consumer-focused service which individuals in the $100k salary category can subscribe to for $43.95 a month. The service has been likened to The Ladders, with the searching and filtering done by others rather than the job seeker. keep reading…

A new mobile sourcing application is having its coming out party tomorrow. AutoSearch Mobile for the iPhone and iPod Touch became available on the iPhone Store a month ago, but Wednesday marks its official debut at $4.99.

AutoSearch Mobile, like its full-featured — and more expensive — PC and Mac version, makes it a snap for on-the-go recruiters to search much of the public (and some of the private) web without having to know all that complicated Boolean stuff.

That sound you just heard was the collective gasp of every sourcer in the world sucking the oxygen from the atmosphere. So that we may all resume breathing, let me hasten to say every recruiter ought to know how to write a Boolean search string.

keep reading…

Laurie Ruettimann will be feeding her cats better and paying her mortgage now that she’s sold her blog, PunkRockHR, to RecruitingBlogs.

The announcement that the North Carolina recruiting blogger and widely quoted speaker sold the site popular with job seekers, as well as HR professionals, was made this morning.

The financial terms were not disclosed. Some other details, however, did leak out.  Jason Davis, CEO of RecruitingBlogs, reassured Ruettimann’s fans that she is obligated “to continue swearing. It was a major reason for all of this.”

“We’re not looking to change Punk Rock HR or move it away from what Laurie has built. It’s fantastic,” Davis said.

Ruettimann, in a video post on her site, said Davis bought the site name and its domain. She continues to post, but is also able to write for others and to continue speaking at conferences and HR events.

She told her fans that Davis, her “friend and my mentor and my adviser,” and she wrote the contract in a “really creative and clever way” to ensure that her unique point of view would continue uncompromised. Some fans expressed fear that now that it’s no longer independent, she’d be watering down her blog and her language.

As if to make the point, Ruettimann wrote about office Halloween parties advising, “I don’t care if you celebrate Halloween at work, but for the love of god, please do not ask your Human Resources team to plan the party.” keep reading…

Here is what is happening this week around the ERE.net world:

• On Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. ET over on our sister site FordyceLetter.com, join TalentDrive’s CEO Sean Bisceglia as he leads this week’s episode of Fordyce TV on the topic of effective strategies to selling to HR. If you are on the search and placement side of the business, you won’t want to miss this interactive, live streaming event.
• Sign up for this week’s free webinar on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET as J.T. O’Donnell from CAREEREALISM talks about how some companies are effectively bridging the generation gap to Gen Y.
• We are now just under a month before hundreds of us descend on New York City for the second #socialrecruiting summit and already close to half the spaces are filled. The goal of #socialrecruiting summit, the follow up to the first summit which sold out this past June, is to have an industry conversation about these tools, talk about tactics and strategies that are already in the field and working, not pie-in-the-sky ideas. Take a look at the growing attendee list and add yourself before it is too late.
• In other event news, the agenda is coming together and the speaker list is growing for ERE Expo 2010 Spring in San Diego from March 15-17. Make sure to register by Friday, October 30 so you don’t miss out on the $500 early bird discount. Once again, we will be awarding the 6th annual Recruiting Excellence Awards in San Diego, and we are now accepting applications in nine categories. Get all of the details and apply at www.ereawards.com.
• For you sourcers out there, you have probably heard the news that we have acquired SourceCon, the only conference dedicated exclusively to sourcing. We are currently working hard to secure dates for the next event, taking place in the spring, so stay tuned for more information. In the meantime, subscribe to The Source Newsletter for information about next year’s event, upcoming challenges and more great content for the sourcing community.

Have a great week, and leave any questions you have in the comments section below.

A survey released this morning says employers are fooling themselves believing workers are content simply to have a job.

According to the survey conducted by Monster and Human Capital Institute, 84 percent of employers indicated they thought their were workers content because they were working. However, only 58 percent of workers said that.

For workers, the disconnect extends to their feelings about their workload, the longer hours required of them, and their willingness to give their employer the benefit of the doubt for layoffs.

“Today’s employers feel that employees are loyal due to the economic times, but the reality is they are not,” said Katherine Jones, HCI Research Fellow. “Because of this, there is a strong likelihood that when the economy turns for the better, employers could find themselves with valued employees jumping ship. This places pressure on them to put retention measures in place now.”

Monster and HCI conducted the survey in May and June to assess the impact of the recession on workers and companies. More than 700 companies and almost 5,000 passive and active job seekers participated, responding to questions about their attitudes to work, employees, their post-recession expectations, and purchasing plans. keep reading…

How are you communicating with prospects? If you’re still using email, The Wall Street Journal says you are so last year.

The 1,800 word article begins, “Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.” It goes on to argue that alternatives like Twitter, social media, texting, and other communications forms are eating into email’s dominance.

The most telling point in the article comes from Jeff Teper, a Microsoft VP, who says that email was overused in the past. “Now, people can use the right tool for the right task,” he says.

To put it another way, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Recruiters, however, should be wary of too quickly abandoning email. No less an authority than Nielsen, the user analytics company, says social media usage appears to actually increase email usage. Hitwise, another analytics and business intelligence firm, says Twitter’s usage may have hit a wall. Though it can’t count the number of Tweets being sent, indicators such as accesses to Twitter profile pages and on-site searches suggest the site “Twitter appears to have hit a resistance point as of April 2009.”

keep reading…

Here is what is going on this week around the ERE.net world.

With the Columbus Holiday and the short week for many here in the States, there will be no webinar or Fordyce TV episode this week. However, a few things to check out:

• We just finalized the details for our 6th annual Recruiting Excellence Awards program, and we are now accepting applications. This is your chance to share how your recruiting success is helping your business — and in many cases furthering the recruiting profession. We are currently accepting applications in nine categories, and the winners will be announced at our annual gala ceremony & dinner in San Diego on March 15. Get all of the details and start your application at www.ereawards.com. Also, Todd Raphael has a copy of DaVita’s (successful!) application from last year. Shoot him an email at todd@ere.net if you want him to send it to you.
• Speaking of San Diego in March, the awards ceremony & dinner will be taking place in San Diego in conjunction with the 10th annual spring ERE Expo conference. This year’s event will feature a brand new speaker faculty, highlighted by several speakers who are making their ERE Expo speaking debut. And make sure to register by October 30, to take advantage of the $500 early bird discount.
• If you are looking for something sooner, we are just about 1/3 of the way to selling out the next #socialrecruiting summit taking place in New York City on November 16. If you are already using or considering using social media tools in your recruitment strategy, then join the conversation taking place at this one-of-a-kind recruiting industry event, the follow up to the first summit which sold out this past June. Find out all the information and reserve your spot today at http://socialrecruitingsummit.com.

Have a great week, and leave any questions you have in the comments section below.