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Are You Losing Hires Because of Fat Bias?

by
John Zappe
Jun 19, 2013, 5:14 am ET

Fat person - freedigitalIt may not be fair; it’s certainly not nice, and it could even be illegal, but for all that, chunkiness is likely costing you candidates who could be perfect for the job.

That physical attributes influence a person’s career is hardly a new revelation; studies linking weigh, especially obesity, to fewer promotions and lower pay have circulated for years. Other studies have shown that attractive women can face discrimination in hiring, especially if the hiring manager is a woman.

More recently, a study involving human resource professionals demonstrated that even this group, which you might expect would know better, is biased against chubbiness. keep reading…

Engineers Stuck on California’s Highway 101 Can Tackle a Coding Challenge Today

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 17, 2013, 12:01 am ET

designCodeEval (part of HireVue), is launching a series of challenges on the 101 Freeway this summer, a very popular Northern California commuting route for technology employees.

The first billboard launches near the San Francisco airport today, and involves a commuting-related puzzle. The billboards point you online, where you have to find the shortest distance between a set of startup companies in San Francisco.

There’s a not-so-subtle message at work here: keep reading…

If Your Unpaid Interns Are Productive and Valuable, You Could Be in Trouble

by
John Zappe
Jun 14, 2013, 1:53 pm ET

Fox searchlightUnpaid internships have been a dicey proposition for employers for almost as long as the Fair Labor Standards Act has been on the books.

For the first several decades since Congress adopted the law in 1938, the disputes were largely about employer training and apprenticeship programs and whether those trainees who weren’t paid were employees. If they were, they had to be paid and they were subject to other wage and hour rules.

These days, the issues almost all are about corporate internship programs, and whether the college students — and recent alums — have to be paid. If your company pays, even if it’s just minimum wage, you have nothing to fear from the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

For everyone else — and that’s a fairly significant one-third of all internships – this week’s decision against movie company Fox Searchlight should give you reason to evaluate the nature of your program and how it is actually being administered by supervisors.

It’s all well and good to declare in your internship materials that you provide training, hands-on experience doing real work, regular evaluations, and the like. But if the interns’ direct supervisors turn them into mere gophers, provide little or no training, and have them fill-in for regular employees who leave, you have a potential lawsuit in the works, even if the students say nothing. keep reading…

CACI Launches New Mobile Careers App

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 14, 2013, 1:30 pm ET

caciCACI, the contractor in the U.S. that won the recruiting-department-of-the-year award in 2012 and was a finalist in 2013, launched a mobile app today for job-seekers.

CACI’s vendor of choice is AllTheTopBananas, a British company that has done work for Sodexo as well as some other high-profile companies.

AllTheTopBananas will announce some other big U.S launches soon.

As for CACI, you can use the app to join the “talent community,” check out CACI on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube, and search for jobs. Once you find a job you like, you don’t apply from your cell phone; you either save the listing, email it, or share it.

You Report to No One; You Are the CEO (Duh)

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 14, 2013, 1:13 pm ET

Screen Shot 2013-06-14 at 10.05.00 AMThat not-so-subtly large graphic at right is just as large when you land on the lululemon careers site.

Yes, the company is hiring an CEO, but unlike many other job ads, this one you’ll actually remember. keep reading…

Temp Industry Creating Jobs at 5 Times National Pace

by
John Zappe
Jun 11, 2013, 4:24 pm ET

Temp Workers 2000-2013With the addition of 25,600 temp workers to the nation’s payroll in May, there are now more workers employed as temps than at any time since before the start of the 21st century.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that on a seasonally adjusted basis some 2,679,800 people were employed as temporary workers in the U.S. last month. In the last year, the temp sector has averaged 15,500 new hires a month. Since the recession ended in June 2009, the average is just over 16,000 a month.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, temp workers numbered 2,659,300 in May, not far off from the record 2,767,300 temps working in October 2006. keep reading…

A Recruiting Ad Contest … With a Catch

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 10, 2013, 6:56 pm ET

wit-header_01A new contest for the best recruitment advertising in 2013 comes with a twist: the ad being submitted has to focus on hiring women. keep reading…

Maersk’s Slick New Game Has People Searching for Oil

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 10, 2013, 10:58 am ET

QfO-logoThe shipping-oil-gas company Maersk is out with a a new game meant to drum up interest in its careers. While the U.S. Army and others — some mentioned here and here — have tried various high-tech games before, this is of one of the more complex. keep reading…

Tech-training Site Treehouse Creates Job Board

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 7, 2013, 2:22 pm ET

Screen Shot 2013-06-07 at 11.19.47 AMA website called Treehouse people use to learn app-creation, website building, and other such skills has created a job board for its coders.

According to Venture Beat, GE is among the early partners.

Treehouse has step-by-step videos on topics like designing websites. Its mission is to “bring affordable technology education to people everywhere, in order to help them achieve their dreams and change the world.”

The job board right now is charging $99. Treehouse has about 35,000 students.

Exxon Talking Up Its Recruiting, Training for Natural Gas Jobs

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 7, 2013, 2:06 pm ET

Screen Shot 2013-06-07 at 11.05.39 AMHouston + Natural Gas = Jobs

At least that’s the message that awaits you when you click on a new website from Exxon. While working on getting permits for a new facility, the company is using the site and a variety of other public relations to play up the number of jobs that it can create.

Exxon is working with community colleges to get people trained for what it says will be about 10,000 construction jobs and another 350 permanent jobs.

 

Today’s, and This Week’s, Jobs Numbers Offer Good News

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 7, 2013, 8:49 am ET

Screen Shot 2013-06-06 at 9.30.34 PMToday’s jobs report was supposed to be the “most important in years.” But if I’ve learned anything from watching and reading so many years of monthly-jobs-report commentaries, it’s not to get too worked about any one month of these things. Three-month averages, perhaps.

Nonetheless, it was good to see the economy meet and slightly exceed expectations, as this morning’s numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed an increase in 175,000 jobs. The expectation was for about 165,000-170,000. The unemployment rate was up but just slightly, to 7.6 percent. Last month’s numbers were revised downward slightly.

The upshot of all this is that the jobs news is not off-the-charts wonderful, but pretty good.

That has been the story throughout this week, if you had to look at all the data coming out and draw conclusions. The ADP report this week was a bit underwhelming. So was Gallup’s data that “fewer people worked full-time for an employer this May compared with a year ago.” But, other recent reports are mildly optimistic: keep reading…

Clear Channel Running Big Campaign About Hiring Veterans

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 6, 2013, 2:15 pm ET

Screen Shot 2013-06-06 at 11.09.33 AMThe big media company Clear Channel is running a public-service-announcement campaign related to the hiring of military veterans.

The campaign, valued at about $75 million according to Clear Channel, will run on radio, online and elsewhere (the company’s also involved in billboard ads). It’ll direct people, whether businesses or veteran job-seekers, to the Show Your Stripes website. Monster.com and Military.com (a subsidiary of Monster) are partners in that site.

Clear Channel is getting some big celebs to help record the public service announcements, including Elton John.

Asian Business Schools Looking for Students … in Los Angeles

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 5, 2013, 3:26 pm ET

asian schoolsSeveral top Asian business schools are putting on an event the Sunday after next, telling future students about careers in Asia. This would not be noteworthy, but for the location of the workshop: Los Angeles.

Yes, the June 16 event at the Athletic Club downtown will touch on career opportunities for Americans in Asia; how hot the economies are in Asian countries; and networking/relationship-building in Asia.

Putting on the event: the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Indian School of Business; and the Nanyang Business School in Singapore.

They’re also recruiting students in Vancouver to come to Asia.

NPR Cranked Out This New Career Site in About a Month

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 5, 2013, 2:35 pm ET

nprFrom the department of quick turnarounds comes NPR’s new career site, one that Lars Schmidt had wanted to redo since he arrived two and a half years ago but ultimately took just a month.

Schmidt is the senior director, talent acquisition and innovation. He has been using social media to create an employer brand that’s … well, more cutting edge than NPR’s old career site was. So, he was anxious for a new site to reflect what he felt NPR was all about. keep reading…

Background-checking Companies Taking on the Employee Side of the Process

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 4, 2013, 2:45 pm ET

eknowid logoAt least a couple of companies, neither too well known yet, have a different take on a background check: they’re having job candidates take a turn in the driver’s seat when it comes to the whole process. keep reading…

A Site for Those Who Hire Eye Candy

by
Todd Raphael
Jun 3, 2013, 1:05 pm ET

Screen Shot 2013-06-03 at 9.49.13 AMThose of you who happened to be looking for an attractive date this morning may have noticed you can now find a date and a new employee on the same site.

No, not eHarmony — that’s another story altogether. I’m talking about beautifulpeople.com, which now has a link on the upper right of its home page to “recruit beautiful employees.”

This BeautifulPeople site is not for everyone. keep reading…

Portland Wants Tech Talent, Too

by
Todd Raphael
May 29, 2013, 6:47 pm ET

Screen Shot 2013-05-29 at 3.37.41 PMAdd Portland, Oregon, to the list of cities, territories, and nations making special efforts to bring talent — particularly tech talent — to town.

For those keeping score at home, I’m talking about places like Nashville, Austin, Detroit, Yukon, and even Ireland. keep reading…

They’ll Figure You Out in 15 Questions

by
Todd Raphael
May 29, 2013, 3:14 pm ET

goodco_logo_v6Among the startups you may not yet know of: Good.co (not to be confused with The Good Jobs or Goood Jobs). Good.co, in beta, asks people 15 questions in about three minutes about their “professional personality” and connects them to jobs that fit.

Screen Shot 2013-05-29 at 11.57.21 AM

You then get a description of your “archetype” (mine’s on the left in the graphic) and can hook up with your LinkedIn profile to see jobs that might be a fit for you. On top of that, you can see how you fit into the culture of various companies.

If you want to try it, and you get a box that says “have an access code?” — try your email address with the code eregoodco.

Anyhow, among the many other new companies and developments in recent days: keep reading…

USC Lures Two Top Scientists: A Case Study in Recruitment Poaching

by
John Zappe
May 27, 2013, 6:16 am ET

USC trojansAfter years of unsuccessfully courting two of the world’s preeminent neuroscientists with offers of more money, bigger and better facilities, a larger budget, and almost anything else they wanted, the University of Southern California finally closed the deal last month when its top recruiters sold them on lifestyle.

Poaching Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson and practically the entire staff of their Laboratory of Neuro Imaging from crosstown rival University of California/Los Angeles came down to things as hard to predict as a senior school official greeting janitors and doctors alike, and as hard to control as a commute.

How USC finally lured Toga and Thompson is a case study in recruiting world-class talent, showing the importance of every part of the process; from building and maintaining a relationship, to encouraging employee networking, involving the most senior people, and creating a culture where deans know janitors as well as they know their medical school faculty. keep reading…

SuccessFactors Wading Deeper in Social-Media-Referral Genre

by
Todd Raphael
May 23, 2013, 10:20 am ET

SuccessFactors Recruiting Social ReferralsThat marriage of employee referrals with social media first mentioned on these pages three years ago and chronicled with new launches and updates many times since continues, as SuccessFactors works on a social-media/employee referral tool as part of its recruiting product.

This system suggests people who your employees might know — using their Facebook and LinkedIn contacts — who might be a fit for an open job. Employees can then send those people a note. The tool also, graphically, can show you any money an employee may have earned for a referral (e.g. $500), as well as a cumulative total.

This took about six months to make. Meanwhile, in August, SuccessFactors, an SAP company, expects to launch an improvement to the tool, where an employee can more easily distribute jobs on social networks, including Twitter, to their social media “friends” and contacts.

SuccessFactors’ social referral updates (and onboarding updates too) is just a taste of the many recent new launches and updates, such as: keep reading…