You probably know of Working Mother magazine for its annual list of "100 best companies" that actively recruit and retain those multitasking wonder women known as working moms.

But the magazine for career-committed mothers, which reaches two million readers, also has an annual award to honor companies committed to diversity.

The magazine's new list honors 20 companies that require manager training on diversity issues and rate manager performance partly on diversity results, such as how many multicultural women advance.

Let's face it. A lot of companies say they have diversity programs, but not a lot can show metrics as impressive as the companies awarded on this year's 20 best companies for multicultural women. 

The magazine says these businesses recognize that it's not just about recruitment. Many use "real" inclusion programs to actively develop, retain, and promote their multicultural employees.

In fact, this year the magazine says it noticed a dramatic increase in the number of women of color who are senior managers. Also, women of color represented 13% of all new hires last year, 14% of all employees, and 7% of top 20% earners at the winning firms.

Here is a snapshot into what makes some of these super-star companies so great:

• Citi. Thanks to recruiting efforts at schools such as Howard University and partnerships with groups like the National Society of Hispanic MBAs , 28% of new hires last year were women of color, up from 25% in 2006. Even better, 16% of newly hired managers were multicultural women, up from 12%.
• MetLife. On the list for the third year in a row, one cool feature is its social Global Women's Leadership Forum that was launched in 2007. In this networking forum, MetLife's senior women officers and diversity leaders tackle diversity, inclusion, and women's advancement, and also host webinars and regional meetings.   
• Deloitte. Among leading U.S. accounting firms, it boasts the highest percentage of women partners, principals, and directors. Currently, 84 women of color hold corporate executive positions. The firm offered more than 400 networking, mentoring, and professional development events for women in 2007.
• IBM. One cool best practice is its "Basic Blue" week-long class that all new managers attend. It includes a three-hour diversity workshop addressing what is expected of managers in today's global environment. In its "Shades of Blue" class, the company teaches managers about different cultures and values.
• Pepsico. So many things to note about the beverage giant, run by Indra Nooyi, one of the most powerful women in business. In 2007, PepsiCo's revenue grew 12%, to $39.5 billion. For the past six years, PepsiCo has focuses on multicultural hiring and retention through its Women of Color Multicultural Alliance. In addition, the company's "Power Pairs" mentoring program creates relationships between employees and their managers; the turnover rate for women who participate in Power Pairs is half the rate of those who do not.

Just when it seems that recruiters are shunning the power of Web 2.0, along comes perennial hot employer Southwest Airlines.

The company is chatting with you, your neighbor, and your potential next star candidate about lots of Southwest-related things in a new blog, aptly titled "Nuts About Southwest."

On the blog, the company notes that "we want to build a personal relationship between our team and you, and we need your participation. Everyone is encouraged to join in, and you don’t need to register to read, watch, or comment. However, if you would like to share photos or videos or rate a post, among other things, you will need to complete a profile."

The JobsinPods.com team calls it "probably the best employment branding site we’ve ever seen," noting its use of a blog; photos via Flickr; YouTube-hosted videos; polls; RSS feeds; and podcasts.

So if you're contemplating a career in the airline industry, let's compare Southwest to how other airlines are communicating with an audience full of potential applicants: Delta Airlines has a few creative things but is mostly ignoring any use of interactivity anywhere on its site. The same goes for the websites for American Airlines and Continental Airlines, both drastically devoid of any human-esque interaction, though they tie for having the most boring and static career sites. Even JetBlue Airlines, considered one of the more "inspiring" airlines, has a rather flat, "log-in required" website that isn't much higher of the cool scale.  

What About Me?

Well, if you're like most other companies, you're not as cool as Southwest. (But you might not be as bad as some of Southwest's competitors though.)

ERE's recent webinar pointed out that social networking tools allows personalization and control; is fun and engaging; has global reach; and provides for in-depth customization.

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Also, a study conducted recently in the United Kingdom shows that only 10% of recruiters use social networking sites and only a small minority use blogs, videos, or other Web 2.0 technology for recruitment. The research suggests that one of the reasons why social networks have been slow to take off as a recruitment tool is because recruiters do not consider them a credible way to communicate, despite large numbers of their target labor market using them regularly.

"Recruiters may be missing a trick by not adopting Web 2.0 technology. They need to engage with job seekers to encourage them to apply for jobs. Text-heavy recruitment pages with no interactivity will not win the hearts and minds of the Web 2.0 generation," said Cranfield University research fellow Emma Parry, in the study.

What to Do

You can do it yourself, finally tapping into the power of MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., or you can pay someone for help.

SuccessFactors, for one, has a new "Web 2.0-based collaborative network," a solution that helps you learn about tagging, social networking, and other tools.

Kevin Wheeler wrote a whole column about this, said it's here to stay, and shared tips on how to gain a competitive edge.

In reality, Web 2.0 is so here to stay it's practically over. So what is your company waiting for?

Some people I talk to generate dang-good results from their employee-referral programs without shelling out much money -- some not even spending a penny.

Tom Mazzocco, for instance. He's the VP of HR for the San Diego Convention Center. The center recruits from Jobing, Craigslist, Monster, CareerBuilder, military bases, and other sources (like when it needed a Greek-speaker and just headed over to a local Greek restaurant and talked to the manager about bringing one of his employees onboard for a while). Anyhow, the convention center brings in about 40-45% of its hires via referrals, which isn't bad when you consider it pays nothing for a referral.

And then there's AmTrust Bank, one of the ERE award-winners this year. The more I look at AmTrust's three-year employee-referral increase (graphed below), the more I'm wowed. AmTrust pulled out all stops to increase referrals (something that's explored in-depth in the May Journal, by the way), including donating money to charities for employees (such as recruiters) who provided referrals but aren't eligible for money, as well as giving time off to the first team of people to reach 100% participation in the referral program. AmTrust pays up to $5,000 for the hardest-to-fill jobs.

In the end, it's not money that makes a referral program work, as Mazzocco showed. But, as AmTrust's charts below demonstrate, sometimes it can't hurt.

So many companies, so little time! I probably didn't make it to half the booths in the expo hall at the Web 2.0 Expo last week in San Francisco. But several of the companies I did get to speak with had new tools that will certainly be of interest to those of us in research, sourcing, and recruiting.

I had many opportunities to speak with start-up entrepreneurs who were attending with hopes of gaining venture capital support. This conference was a great venue for many to talk with established technologists and business owners about their ideas, and an event called Launch Pad was held. Six new companies had the opportunity pitch their business for five minutes on stage, in front of the Web 2.0 Expo audience and a panel of VC judges. The six finalists, who were chosen through submission and panel review before the conference, were Acquia, Chirp Interactive, JobScore, Oortle, TradeVibes, and Triggit. Each company received feedback on its presentation right then and there from both the VC judges and the audience, and the VCs were given the option to offer these applicants non-binding term sheets for financing.

Following Launch Pad, I was able to spend about an hour chatting one-on-one with Dan Arkind. He has a rich, hands-on recruiting background and is one of the co-founders of JobScore (profile). Those of you who attended the start-up session at ERE in San Diego will remember JobScore -- a new product targeted at in-house recruiting teams that "breaks down the walls" between different companies and empowers them to working directly with each other.

Employers use JobScore to build their own pipeline through one-click job posting, referral emails, etc. -- which is all well and good -- but what's new and different is that they can also privately share resumes amongst themselves. Dan called it "cooperative recruitment" -- basically allowing different employers to share their un-hired resumes directly with each other. For each new resume you add to the pool, you can take one out. If you don't want to share, or if you want to take out more resumes than you put in, you have to pay.

The way in which this is different from the Jigsaw model is that resumes, not just names/titles/contact info, are being shared, and candidates must grant permission in order for their resume to be shared; as well, once permission is granted, they can turn it off at any time.

I enjoyed talking with Dan, mostly because he let me talk for the first 45 minutes about stuff that I am passionate about (just kidding...kinda) I enjoyed hearing Dan's thoughts on our industry and how he believes new web 2.0 platforms will impact on the way we work. One interesting topic was that the social/interpersonal skills and relationship development ability that it takes to be successful in recruiting will never be replaced by social media, automation, or any kind of technology tool. I certainly wish Dan the best as he embarks on this endeavor, and I would encourage in-house corporate recruiting teams to check out JobScore (this tool is designed for you!!).

I had the chance to speak also with another entrepreneur named Jacob Visnick, CEO and co-founder of Zambino. The reason I connected with Jake was because I saw him in the Blogtropol.us lounge wearing a University of Florida sweatshirt, and I just HAD to run over and meet a fellow Gator (I am a U of FL alumni)!

Jake and his business partner, Adam Richman, launched Zambino as the first video advertising network geared toward connecting advertisers directly with content producers. Content producers create a profile on Zambino highlighting what brands interest them, and what type of products and services they want to promote within their videos. Advertising options range from preroll to product placement, and is up to the content producers. Advertising companies then match up their products and services to the profiles, and provide content to make it a seamless video on YouTube.

From a recruitment standpoint, companies (advertisers) can post jobs/advertising that they are looking to have done in up coming YouTube videos. This will be a great way for them to viral market their jobs via video to targeted audiences.

A very interesting sidenote: Adam Richman is a 17-year-old high school student. Yes, that's right - he can't even vote yet, and this is not his first start-up company either. Several VC's were quite interested in Jake and Adam because of this, and it looks like this is going to be a profitable endeavor for them.

While I was unable to meet everyone in the expo hall, there were a couple other interesting companies that caught my eye with products and services that will be helpful in our recruiting space:

• Yahoo! SearchMonkey: read the post I did on this last week. Once this search tool gets the kinks worked out and comes out of beta, I believe it has the possibility of being HUGE for us researchers.
This is different from flash previews that some sites, like ask.com, offer in that the ‘preview' is actually right on the results page, as opposed to popping up when moused over, and can be easily scraped.
Read TechCrunch's review of this tool: Mark Hendrickson says that "SearchMonkey should be a significant step toward the more personalized, and potentially social, search that's been anticipated by many."

• Yoono: a browser sidebar that will aggregate your social network upates and allow you to update all statuses at once. In addition, while you surf, Yoono displays a list of other web pages that are "people-rated" - others have classified them in their favorites. You can also find other users who have a particular web page in their favorites.

The recruiting element of this is more for the researchers and sourcers, in that you can look up users who have added selected websites to their favorites and communicate with them. So for example, if someone has bookmarked several popular sites in your industry, you could contact them about job opportunities you are working on in that particular industry.

• VisualCV: read the post I did last week on this company. It was recently named the multi-media standard by the AESC for their ability to offer greater depth, breadth, and substance than traditional resumes through networking capabilities, online career portfolio management, and social media components. These online blog-type resumes offer a richer glimpse into candidates' skills and of course are highly searchable.

• eXpresso: a practical application to a commonly-used business tool. For those of you who have multiple locations, you can use eXpresso to share Excel documents and allow for storing, editing, and instantly sharing without having to email bulky documents or wonder which version you're supposed to be using. This is also great for companies that don't have shared common drives and/or have many remote employees.

• Twitter: It did not have a booth, but everyone was using it throughout the conference. If you're not using Twitter currently, you may want to consider doing so. This tool is a great method for viral marketing information, including job openings or candidates seeking work. Take a look at the following video for information from the microblogging session at the conference:

If you question how Twitter can be successfully used in recruiting, just refer to Jason Whitman, Jim Stroud, or you can email me and ask how I've personally used it for sourcing and found success.

Check out the rest of the exhibitors here; there were so many I couldn't possibly get to all of them!

There's a lot of stuff available out there for us. Should you be using everything? Absolutely NOT. Think of embracing these new web 2.0 tools in terms of grocery shopping: when you hit the supermarket, you wouldn't dream of purchasing everything there! You go in, get what you need, and get out. But -- the items you didn't purchase are still going to be there, available for purchase, if and when you should ever need them. The same goes for all these technologies -- take a look at what makes sense for you and your company to embrace, and then run with it, knowing that the other tools will be available if and when you decide it's time to try them out.

It's still a bit daunting, but hopefully it's easier to download.

The recruiting-costs spreadsheet mentioned earlier "contained a flaw in the calculator related to the macros," according to MTS.

We've loaded up a new version, and buried it under those same words "Excel File" where the old version was. Hopefully it'll fix the flaw and help those people who had trouble downloading it from the get-go.

Businesses big and small convened on San Francisco last week for the Web 2.0 Expo, all with different agendas -- to launch new products, to gain VC funding, to keep an eye on the competition, and over all to celebrate this thing we call Web 2.0. I had the absolute pleasure of attending the conference due to the generosity of Dave Manaster at ERE Media (you can read the story about how it all came about here) and had opportunity after opportunity to meet some fascinating people.

During the course of the week, I met a variety of attendees, from technology directors to marketing folks, from CEOs of brand new companies to engineers from industry giants. In talking with many of these people, I found that several of them had attended the conference with the goal of finding talented people to come work with them.

So naturally, since I was attending representing a recruiting resource (and being an advocate of making strategic networking connections), I offered to help them out by bringing some of their needs to the attention of the ERE audience. You can check out some of the folks in this video I've made.

keep reading...

In lieu of doing a complete recap today, I wanted to share some great information about a brand new way Yahoo! has come up with to use its search engine, called SearchMonkey. Yahoo! had talked about this new way to show search results a couple months ago, but it was showcasing it today at the exhibition hall at the Web 2.0 Expo.

Basically, it takes Yahoo's search engine and allows you to see into the data on the results link without having to click on the link:

Yahoo has combined "a free, open platform with structured, semantic content from across the Web." SearchMonkey "gives all Web site owners an opportunity to present more useful information on the Yahoo! Search page as compared to what is presented on other search engines. Site owners will be able to provide all types of additional information about their site directly to Yahoo! Search. So instead of a simple title, abstract and URL, for the first time users will see rich results that incorporate the massive amount of data buried in websites -- ratings and reviews, images, deep links, and all kinds of other useful data -- directly on the Yahoo! Search results page."

From a recruitment standpoint, this is an incredible timesaver for clicking through our results page! I asked them to do a sample search using LinkedIn, since LinkedIn had already provided some code for this demo. I know this photo isn't the greatest quality, but this is what the results can look like. And if you know how to write code, you can actually write code tailored to what you want to see -- so for example, using a site:linkedin.com search string, you could write code that would display the industry, title, location, etc. directly on the results page for individual LinkedIn profiles.

Keep in mind this is still in beta so some of the kinks are being worked out, but can you imagine the coolness of using site: searches and getting the information you need right on the results page, as opposed to having to click through every single result? Fantastic!

... so far at least.

MTS Driver Recruiters wanted its customers to know just how much goes into hiring someone. Actually, how much work goes into not hiring someone. While corporations may think MTS is watching Oprah all day, it's actually trying to find the one to three people out of 100 applicants who will end up being hired.

At least that's what it's trying to say with this impressive Excel file. It works, though some of it is confusing and overwhelming. Again, that's all by design, as it gives MTS the chance to talk it over with prospective clients.

If you're in the transportation industry, you may find this tool useful. If you're not, you also may find it useful -- because you'll sleep easier knowing you're free from so many regulations.

The next time you're dealing with difficult talent management issues and think, "What would Peter Cappelli do?" consider heading to Harvard's latest smarty-pants co-operative.

No, not the one in Cambridge that offers way too many crimson hoodies and emblem-heavy coffee mugs.

This new co-op is of the RSS-feed variety, an attempt by Harvard Business Publishing to put its wealth of resources at the fingertips of its users to offer perspective on both new research and "classic" works to make better business decisions and drive improved performance.

Think of this "publishing center" as a one-stop talent-management content center. All the collective wisdom of authors and practitioners like Peter Cappelli, John Boudreau, Tammy Erickson, and Boris Groysberg are available through this online resource.

Harvard Business Publishing has organized articles, video clips, news feeds, seminar videos, and learning modules addressing talent management, innovation, change, and strategy to help corporations face complex business challenges.

Faculty seminar videos, for example, can put you into a virtual Harvard Business School classroom, while 24 interactive learning exercises provide practical tools and case studies. It also offers more than 40 of the best articles from Harvard Business Review and Harvard Management Update, along with the ubiquitous RSS feeds to keep managers current on the latest thinking in human capital management.

The resource also offers a "facilitation guide" to help companies pinpoint key ideas that might drive discussion and change throughout their organization. Covering the entire talent supply chain, the center covers topics from talent strategy to hiring, development, retention, and succession planning, including linking talent to business strategy, recruiting the right people, differentiating individual development, creating a retention culture, and prioritizing succession planning.

I've never quite understood the difference between fusion and fission. Be honest, neither have you.

Sitting in a high-school classroom, your mind probably wandered as your teacher lectured on the basics of a split atom.

Really, why should we have to learn about depleted uranium when those smart kids in the front row seemed so much more eager to learn?

The problem is that today, there are fewer and fewer students entering college programs for nuclear engineers. It's not as though our nation's nuclear power plants are entirely staffed with the likes of Homer Simpson. Still, finding enough quality nuclear talent could turn into a problem that could grow at the speed of light.

Just do the math: the United States has 104 operating commercial nuclear power plants but not nearly enough college students coming through the door each year.

According to Rob Dromgoole, executive search consultant for Battelle, this mathematical challenge is compounded by a two-fold recruiting challenge:

--- First, there are not too many college training programs for nuclear engineers in the United States. He and his team of recruiters reach out to nuclear engineering students at Texas A&M, MIT, UC Berkeley, Michigan, and only a handful of other schools across the country.

--- Second, once he taps into that limited talent pool of college students, he then has to trim his list of available talent once again, whittling out any non-U.S. citizens.

"We're trying find candidates who have the ability to obtain a Department of Energy Security Clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship. This clearance is required due to the national security-related focus of our research and work. Because there have been 35 new applications to build new nuclear power plants, and there are so few schools graduating students, and our average age is about 50 ... this is a problem. How do we fill that talent gap?"

Working for Battelle, Dromgoole and his team are tasked with finding this critical talent. Battelle, which has 21,000 employees in more than 120 locations around the world, conducted approximately $4 billion in research activity last year. It serves more than 800 federal, state, and local government agencies, along with national and international corporations. At the non-profit Battelle, they work on "fundamental science," or research that otherwise might be ignored by corporate shareholders.

The company that began in the 1930s to develop materials research for the U.S. iron and steel industries now owns more than two-million square feet of laboratories in several locations. Battelle performs cutting-edge research in national security; environment, energy, and transportation; and health and life sciences.

"We're conducting critical research that might not be done at a private organization. With a national lab, we invest taxpayer dollars in research and work to commercialize the technology to give it back to the marketplace. We could turn around and provide the intellectual property we develop to a General Motors, for example, to help them develop better hybrid cars," says Dromgoole.

"Those GM shareholders might not have wanted to pay for the costly R&D otherwise," he says, adding that this is "critical work" for our nation's security and energy needs.

Some words of wisdom from Ed Davis, star VP of staffing, leading a workshop today from the ERE Expo in San Diego on competency-based interviewing:

On the 80-20 rule:

Find out what the most critical 20% of jobs in your company are. "The 20% the CEO is really concerned about, that sweet spot. You have to be great at producing top talent in that sweet spot and good at everything else."

On competencies and diversity:

So many pilots now are female, but there was the time when "people assumed you had to be in the military, you had to be a fighter pilot ..." to prepare yourself for a pilot job. But when you break down the job into core competencies, you can identify what's really needed to do the job, and those experiences and skills aren't exclusively male.

On panel interviews:

"Panels can work very well if you have the right structure. The only caution is what you don't want is 'groupthink.' Be cautious. Make sure your hiring managers aren't thinking that everyone has to agree to hire the candidate. That's the route to non-recruiting."

On managing meetings to review candidates and similar meetings:

"Smart executives let everyone else go first ... if you go first, what you're going to say colors what everyone else says."

On the relationship between HR and line managers:

"HR doesn't own talent. They own talent. We're here to help, we're here to facilitate, but at the end of the day," managers own it.

Davis is the writer of some killer articles for the print Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership (for leaders in recruiting), as well as the author of the online article about the role of the hiring manager in recruiting.

It's less than a week until the April 1 filing date for fiscal year 2009 H-1B visas. Do you know where your petitions are?

If you've been tasked with finding new foreign employees at the managerial level or with a highly specialized knowledge, you're probably keenly aware that the demand for H-1Bs is exceeding the current supply of 65,000 annually.

But are there alternatives available, and if so, how do they work?

Solutions provider Visanow says there are definitely alternatives, and one option is the L-1 visa. The Chicago-based company says this is because there is no cap on the number of L-1 visas issued per year.

The L-1 visa was designed as a temporary visa option for specialized workers employed by multinational companies. It has expanded in popularity with an average of 315,000 being issued over the past three years, the company says.

"The L-1 visa was originally designed to allow multinationals or foreign companies that are affiliated with U.S. organizations to hire managers, executives, or employees with specialized knowledge," says Visanow chief executive officer Robert Meltzer.

Watch Your Step

Companies should be warned: this increase in popularity also means that the government has started cracking down on L-1 visa applications.

"It appears that the L-1 applications are now being subjected to higher scrutiny in the application process at some of the service centers by the USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] application reviewing officers, particularly IT consulting companies and even more so, Indian IT consulting companies," says Meltzer.

"Both the L-1A and L-1B have very clear and specific requirements, so there is a lot on the table for the CIS to review to determine if the case fits," he says.

The L-1A is used for hiring managers or executive-level positions while the L-1B is for hiring foreign workers who have specialized knowledge of the company’s product and its application in international markets or have an advanced level of knowledge of processes and procedures of the company.

Meltzer says applicants need to provide as much information and documentation as possible to help the adjudicators understand the position and its requirements.

"USCIS adjudicators are not usually familiar with the nature of the specialized or advanced knowledge, so applications have to be as specific, detailed, and thorough as possible when speaking to the employee’s skills," he says.

As in any situation, some employers may be exploring and trying the L when it's not the "best" solution.

"With the limit on H-1Bs, many companies are encountering un-chartered waters in regard to hiring the skilled foreign workers they need, especially with the increased employment focus on IT and tech workers," he says.

"Depending on the individual and specific job duties, the L-1 can be a great fit. For others, it's not going to work and the USCIS will see this through the extensive requirements that must be met for an L application," says Meltzer.

Your role as a recruiter is continually evolving, says Knowledge Infusion, which is on the hunt for real-world industry trends and best practices.

Knowledge Infusion has teamed up with ERE Media for a new survey, which will study the use of existing and emerging technologies, additional responsibilities for talent management decisions, and the use of metrics to gauge success.

"Recruiting is no longer an independent function, but a critical piece of integrated talent management that must be looked at holistically," says Jason Corsello, vice president of the Knowledge Infusion Center of Excellence.

"We work with clients every day on their recruiting initiatives and have applied much of that real-world learning from our consulting engagements to this survey in order to provide relevant and meaningful insight to the HCM and recruiting community," says Corsello.

Recruiters who take the five-minute survey, The Future of Recruiting and Sourcing, will receive a complimentary copy of the full survey results. Results will be announced at the ERE 2008 Spring Expo, which kicks off in San Diego on March 31.

How do you make your employee reward program succeed? New research says it comes down to simple implementation, and nothing more.

Philadelphia-based consulting firm Hay Group, out with its annual America's Most Admired Companies list in partnership with Fortune magazine, finds that successful companies on the list haven't stumbled on a "silver bullet" for making employee reward programs work more effectively.

"They are simply able to execute more successfully on a number of basic HR best practices, and tend to have a cultural understanding and recognition of the value brought to their organizations," says Hay Group consultant Mark Royal.

Companies on these lists pay about 5% less than their peers because they are better at grooming people internally and retaining employees, according to Hay Group. It calls this a "ripple effect" across an organization.

The firm says research on these "admired" companies reveals the following:

• 79% regularly provide employees with total reward statements, versus 53% of peer group respondents.
• 82% regularly reinforce the company’s reward philosophy in communications with employees, while only 64% of peer companies do the same.
• 74% state that their employees understand and appreciate that rewards consist of both tangible and intangible components, compared with 61% of their peers.
• 41% say that line managers in their organization create a positive work climate, whereas only 21% of peer companies respond similarly.
• 28% state that line managers use financial and non-financial recognition programs, compared with 16% of peer companies.
• 41% believe that their reward program is internally fair, while only 27% of their peers believe the same.
• 48% report that their reward programs support efforts to retain their best talent, versus 28% of their peers.
• 45% say that their reward program allows them to attract the talent they need, compared with 25% of their peers.

Fortune magazine worked with Hay Group to conduct this year's survey. Apple has taken the top spot in 2008, after ranking 7th in 2007 and 11th in 2006. Berkshire Hathaway, GE, Google, Toyota, FedEx, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Goldman Sachs round out the top 10. Other companies in the top 20 include Target, Southwest Airlines, American Express, BMW, Costco Wholesale, Microsoft, UPS, Cisco, 3M, and Nordstrom. Noticeably absent in the top 20 this year: Pepsi and Wal-Mart.

The construction-focused law firm Scholefield Associates calls itself an unconventional law firm, due in part to its efforts to break free from "archaic" hiring practices.

The firm is actively seeking a sales-hungry new associate, a rainmaker with a solid sales background, something that borrows from the corporate world.

Unlike at most law firms, where a senior partner would take on the "rainmaker" role, the San Diego-based law firm wants to let its new hire run free to bring in new business, unshackled by billable hours and copious legal writing and research.

In fact, the job description notes that "Unlike a conventional associate position, your job performance will NOT be based on billable hours. You will be measured on your ability to effectively introduce our firm's services to key clients."

Lead attorney Pam Scholefield says her firm has no desire to follow "archaic unwritten rules that say a young attorney's primary role can't be a rainmaker."

She explains that the ideal job candidate would be less interested in heavy legal research and writing and more interested in establishing a rapport with potential clients.

"It also helps that they have a good golf game; just ask any successful sales professional," adds Scholefield.

Striking a Delicate Balance

Sales guru Lee Salz says this idea might work for some firms, but he worries that this method of hiring really means hiring for two separate positions.

"There is a fine line between maintaining a professional posture while at the same time being effective in bringing in new clients. It starts at the beginning. Firms should interview as they would any attorney, and then interview as a sales person," he says.

"But why would you want someone who is going to do two completely different jobs? Do they want a stellar lawyer who is so-so on the sales, or a stellar sales person who is so-so on the legal side?" asks Salz.

Instead, he says, the firm could opt to hire a polished, senior-level sales person to represent the firm.

However, Bryan Weaver, business development manager at Scholefield Associates, says it comes down to a credibility factor.

"It takes an attorney to have the total credibility factor," says Weaver. "We're hoping for someone who is great at schmoozing. We're envisioning someone like a GE sales person who goes after the business and wines-and-dines to get the business."

While there is no such position as a "sales attorney," Weaver says they're hoping to come close in their search for their newest hire.

"Their job would really not be to dress up and litigate. Their expectation is a sales guy, PR person, as well as being an attorney," says Weaver.

"Ideally, we want someone with a professional sales background who went to law school, and maybe came to the realization they're not cut out to crank out briefs. They are personable and can apply what they know," he says.

Need to fill some open positions? Try spending more time networking and less time surfing the net for candidates. Actively working contacts, including employee referrals and candidates recommended by family and friends, will maximize your time and energy and produce more new hires.

That's according to the results of a recent online workplace study, conducted by the Bernard Hodes Group. The survey solicited information from 751 employed, active, and passive job seekers asking what sources they are using or would use to look for work and how they actually found their current position.

In looking at how the respondents rated their use of sources, the Internet attracts a great deal of activity and attention from job seekers, but it's the human connection that's delivering most of the actual results.

The survey found that almost all, 94% of the respondents, would use or are using online resources to find a new position, but only 30% say they found their present job through an online source.

The results indicate that maintaining an online image through a strong branding program is vital for employers, because of the large number of candidates looking for work on the Internet, but closing the deal might be all about your company's reputation and the candidate's connection to members of your staff.

Here are the results of the survey that focus on job sources.

The second column, with 30%, 17%, and so on, refers to the percent who found jobs via that source.

The third column, with 94%, 81%, and so on, indicates the percent who currently use or would use that source.                        

*Passive and active job seekers could name more than one source

*All percentages are percentages of total mentions by survey participants

Interested in finding information on the I-9 changes you've been hearing about? Here are some links that may help.

Five things to note, from Jackson Lewis.

Updates from Littler, Sheppard Mullin, and Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.

Blogs from Paul Heller and Ashwin Sharma.

While we're at it: Five Rules for Legal Recruiting and Hiring.

In an effort to help about 400 low-income New Yorkers enter and advance in the nursing profession, the city has created a new program called the Nurse Career Ladder Program.

Through New York's Center for Economic Opportunity, the city will help fund the students' education and training over the next four years, pledging $10 million to the program.

About $3 million is designated for the program's operations, even stretching to include things such as covering students' fees for prep-course review and exam materials, through 2011.

The RN program will enroll about 240 students, while about 160 students will enroll in the LPN program. The program has plans to recruit students through the Department of Education's adult and continuing education program, city job centers, and through referrals from community based organizations.

The remaining $7 million will be allocated to the construction of a new nursing school at Kings County Hospital.

The dean of Long Island University's nursing school, Dawn Kilts, says a new nursing school will help alleviate the "severe shortage" of nurses in Brooklyn and help improve the economic future of members of the local community.

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Like a tether that binds current and past employees, The Dow Chemical Co. is hoping its soon-to-launch in-house social networking plan will build real relationships among Dow alumni, women, retirees, and current employees.

That's the concept behind the program known internally as Dow Connect, set to go live in December 2007.

As the battle for talent became more competitive, Dow says it recognized the importance of maintaining relationships with all employees, so it began reviewing different options. Specifically, the company had a strong desire to stay in contact with those who had left and try to draw them back to Dow.

The Dow Connect social networks -- think MySpace or LinkedIn layouts, modified through company-centric material -- will be tailored for all employees. Current and former employees can create a "profile" and skim through Dow-focused information to stay connected. For example, retired employees may be looking to return for short-term projects or simply reconnect with former colleagues.

The company is working with SelectMinds, which has already built corporate social networks for JP Morgan Chase, Ernst & Young, and Lockheed Martin, among other companies.

"SelectMinds looked like a perfect platform. We signed a contract at the end of June, and we will launch in the beginning of December," says Kevin Small, leader of Dow's Global Resource Management Center within Dow human resources.

Small says two teams are helping to oversee this project: Workforce Planning and Diversity/Inclusion. He says the initial intent was to augment hiring activities by using an alumni network, while the diversity group was looking at ways for employees to stay connected after a maternity leave or other leave of absence.

"One key is to be able to use the directory of participants to locate individuals in the past who are current or former employees. We're hoping our 19,000-strong U.S. arm will become a recruiting tool for us. Within the company environment, it's more controlled than a MySpace, and the topics are focused on the company," he says.

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Older workers -- many self-employed and working part time -- are not anxious to leave the labor market.

That's why think-tanks like The Urban Institute recommend that employers create similar work situations to capitalize on the increasing amount of older workers who, the Institute notes, tend to enjoy work more and worry about it less.

The AARP agrees that older workers staying in the labor force longer is good news for employers. In a new report, The Business Case for Workers Age 50+, it says older workers are more motivated to exceed expectations on the job than their younger counterparts.

And the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that workers 55+ is currently at 17%, and by 2020, will be nearly 24%. Among workers 75 or older, close to 6.5% (over 1 million) were working last year, up from 4.7% in the previous decade. Among American workers 80 or older, the rate increased to 3.4% from 2.7% the previous decade.

To help companies find these older workers, the AARP is helping to organize the "Employ the Older Workers Job Fair Series," a national effort in more than 40 cities to connect older workers and 50+-friendly employers.

The job fair series will run from August 22 to October 19. It is being held in conjunction with the Labor Department's National Employ Older Workers Week (September 23 to 29).

Mature workers have a lower rate of attrition and a strong work ethic, according to Evelyn Issa, staffing manager over National Hiring Partnerships for Home Depot.

"Many of our older workers are enjoying retirement but want a part-time job where they can interact with people and use the skills they've developed. To attract and retain them, Home Depot offers part-time, flexible schedules with health benefits and a 401(k) plan. We believe this gives us a significant competitive advantage," says Issa.

Even bookstore-giant Borders is getting in on the act, teaming up with RetirementJobs.com to present workshops to help Massachusetts residents over 50 find work.

The pilot program started earlier this month at Borders stores across Massachusetts. (Upcoming locations include the Braintree store on August 23 and the Hyannis store on August 30.)

The 90-minute, interactive sessions led by career coaching experts will cover topics such as "What Job Are You Looking For?," "What Jobs Are Available?," "Obstacles -- Can't Land a Job?," "Who's Hiring for Which Jobs?," and "Sources for Jobs and Leads."

Andrea Smith, senior manager of talent acquisition, says Borders is "an attractive option for older workers. We offer the flexibility, environment, benefits, and programs that many mature employees find appealing."

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A 21-year-old business administration major at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego is helping to organize the first-ever virtual online job fair for disabled college students who are transitioning from school to work in the state of California.

Nicholas Corso, a varsity college basketball player and the project director at disABLEDperson, Inc., says the public charity's mission is to help reduce the high unemployment rate among the disabled. However, the October 24 fair is not for the general disabled population. This job fair is for disabled college students transitioning form school to work in the state of California only.

"Their educational, racial, gender, and ethnic backgrounds are as diverse as the total student population of these schools. Their commonality is the fact that they all have a disability," says Corso, who has plans to attend graduate school next year to earn his MBA.

He says he's contacted the Disability Student Services of all the four-year colleges and universities in California. To date, he counts 44 California colleges and universities that have sent written confirmation, including most of the University of California System schools (i.e., UCLA, UC Berkeley); most of the California State University System schools (i.e., San Diego State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo); Stanford University; University of Southern California; University of San Diego; and The Claremont Colleges.

Currently, Corso does not have an exact number of students who will participate. He explains that the disability student services departments of the respective schools are going to contact all of their registered disabled students. Through emails, the disability services departments will help promote the fair, suggest participating, and detail how to participate in the virtual job fair.

Companies Heading to the Fair

ERE recently chatted with Corso to learn more details about the fair, which employers have already expressed interest, and how other companies can participate in the event.

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By all accounts, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp.'s envy-inducing careers website is what most companies wish they could replicate. A forward-thinking, innovative, and tech-savvy site, it appeals to both Gen Y and Boomers alike.

Unfortunately for AHM's recruiting and marketing teams, all that Web-savvy success doesn't mean anything when your company slashes 90% of its workers.

Once the nation's 10th-biggest home lender, last week the company announced that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was laying off the overwhelming majority of workers. From more than 7,000 employees, the company whittled its workforce down to just 750 workers after some of Wall Street's biggest creditors, including Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS, and Bear Stearns, refused to finance new mortgage loans made through the company.

This is, of course, merely the latest sign of a distressed mortgage industry, as American Home Mortgage is one of 14 different lenders to announce it is either shutting down or seeking bankruptcy protection.

The company's chief executive, Michael Strauss, said in a statement that market conditions in both the secondary mortgage market as well as the national real estate market "have deteriorated to the point that we have no realistic alternative."

Careers With No Boundaries

Despite the market volatility, and the fact that the company is obviously not hiring anyone any time soon, it is interesting to observe what they did right to attract workers on its main careers website.

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Ning and AIRS, CareerMole and Google: these are a few of Intuit's favorite things.

Intuit is the maker of Quicken and TurboTax with more than $2 billion in revenue. Traci Wicks, Intuit's candidate-generation manager, says the company has saved approximately $700,000 this year by centralizing its candidate-generation processes.

"Candidate generation" is what Intuit considers the hub of a hub-and-spoke model, with the spokes being social networking, university relations, employee referrals, quality-of-hire initiatives, and other methods of finding candidates.

Among the many tools Wicks and her team uses: Jobster; H3; LinkedIn; Facebook; TheLadders; MySpace; and Jigsaw. She loves the social-networking abilities of Ning. Another favorite: NimbleCat, and its ability to figure out, for example, the top-10 resumes Intuit receives for a job. She's excited about ADP Virtual Edge, and its ability to "give us more names and send sophisticated brand emails." AIRS SourcePoint is one of Wicks' most-used vendors.

Google Co-op is in beta, and Wicks, speaking at the Employment Management Association of Southern California, says she's liking it. "Yahoo's a really good partner of ours," she says, reporting that Yahoo has been great at finding out where product engineers spend their time because of its ability to make use of data in people's individual profiles they fill out on the Yahoo site.

Despite all the use of online tools, Wicks says the best move Intuit's sourcing team made was hiring a brand-marketing manager with no recruitment experience. In the same way that Intuit watches customers use Quicken in order to improve its products, the brand manager has been watching candidates. Intuit, which received ERE's Recruiting Excellence award in 2007 for employment branding, has been asking people who dropped out of the hiring process why they did so, and has been asking people who didn't get Intuit jobs how their experience was.

"The secret sauce of sourcing isn't these [online] tools," Wicks says. "It's understanding your audience. Find out what your audience wants. Then pick your tools, then blog, then do everything else."

Arizona State University school officials are applauding the efforts of its new recruiter, Melissa Luna. Thanks in part to Luna's efforts, the school's Del E. Webb School of Construction will see a higher enrollment of female construction students -- 14 out of 98 total -- when classes resume for the fall semester.

Luna was hired after the school received a $200,000 donation from Jeff Ehret, alumnus and president of The PENTA Building Group in Las Vegas.

Luna's new recruiting job takes her to career fairs at high schools and trade schools, in addition to time meeting with school counselors to update them on construction careers.

She tells candidates they will be more marketable "because the industry is looking for more females."

Current Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that about 9.5% of construction workers are women, compared to about 10.5% in 1997.

Previously, women accounted for less than 10% of students in the construction department, according to The Arizona Republic. This semester, the school will see that number jump to 14%, an all-time high.

In addition, 13 of the 14 are first-time college freshmen (typically, only four or five females enter the school as freshmen). Eight of these 14 students received grants specifically set aside for women.

Luna says her job is working well because it helps "to have a face that they can relate to" as she works to bridge the gender divide.

This seems to be a better method than ASU's previous strategy. An ASU school official noted that the school's previous lack of an official recruiting budget meant they "just left the door open and hoped that people would come in."

For military spouses, multi-tasking is the name of the game when the spouse is away for months on end. About 92% of military spouses are women, and with work, kids, and household responsibilities, they're far from desperate housewives.

That's why Military Spouse magazine has created a list of what it calls the nation's "Top Military Spouse-Friendly Employers."

Executive editor Babette Maxwell notes that these women are "master multi-taskers. These women are patriots who give 110% to companies that appreciate them."

The magazine looked at 2,500 companies (minimum of $1 billion annual revenue) that make significant efforts to recruit military spouses.

The companies Maxwell and her editorial team selected include: USAA, Army & Air Force Exchange Service, RE/MAX, The Home Depot, Wachovia, Computer Sciences Corporation, Sears Holdings, Kelly Services, Lockheed Martin, and Starbucks.

Rich McCormack, Military Spouse's content chief, agrees that "large corporations, which have built solid military spouse recruiting programs, will enjoy competitive advantages over their peers, given the tight labor market. The companies on our list have done just that."

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