ERE.net

So often pronounced dying, dead, and all but useless for job seekers and employers alike that it’s passing into legend, job boards somehow manage to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of their pyres to successfully deliver candidates and hires to employers worldwide.

For being so out of fashion, so yesterday, job boards manage to come out on top or top-adjacent on nearly every source of hire study. In a Bersin & Associates survey this fall job boards tied for first with internal transfers as the leading source of all hires. CareerXroads says job boards produced 24.9 percent of all external hires in 2010, second only to employee referrals (27.5 percent).

The latest survey comes from tech vendor Talent Technology, which reports that job boards are the leading source of candidates, according to the 1,100 North American HR professionals who participated. Job boards account for 17 percent of the candidates, followed by employee referrals, which provide 15.8 percent.

What’s remarkable about the evidence is how few accept it. Even after reporting that “job boards remain popular and are used to fill 19 percent of open positions – making job boards the No. 1 source for candidates,” Bersin titled that section of the report “Job Boards: Not Dead, but Dying.”

Even more remarkable is how little the job board industry has done to promote itself. The major boards have their own, proprietary data, guarded more carefully than the U.S. does its diplomatic messages. Second tier and certainly mom-and-pop operations have little data beyond gross traffic counts. So for all practical purposes employers do their own market surveillance.

Now, finally, seven years after it’s founding by Peter Weddle, the International Association of Employment Web Sites has bestirred itself to do some serious research about the industry. keep reading…

It’s a good thing that this year’s Super Bowl game lived up to its name because the 50+ commercials were mostly just OK.

Dogs and babies came out on top. They were the stars of four of the top five favorite ads in the USA Today Super Bowl Admeter. The M&M commercial ranked 4th.

However, it was a such a mediocre crop of ads this year that more than a few newspapers used the word “Yawn” in their headline of the coverage. The Associated Press report said: “The Super Bowl may have been a nail biter, but the ads were a snooze.”

“What’s notable about this year versus others is that advertisers played it safe. As a result, we saw fewer standouts, but we also didn’t see as many costly mistakes,” said Tim Calkins. He’s clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University who each year leads the school’s Super Bowl Advertising Review.

The panel’s top pick was the M&M ad. CareerBuilder, which ignored criticism over its use of chimpanzees, got a “B” grade from the panel. The USA Today audience ranked it in the middle of the pack. keep reading…

Dice this morning became the second job board in a week to see its stock price drop after reporting a profitable quarter and a year of growth.

Hours after the company reported it nearly doubled its fourth-quarter profit over the same quarter in 2010, meeting Wall Street’s expectations, its stock price took a 16 percent beating. In afternoon trading in New York, Dice Holdings was selling for $8.40 a share, down $1.59 on the day.

Last week Monster’s stock took a 20 percent hit after it missed analyst profit expectations and announced layoffs. The company earned 11 cents a share, rather than the 12 cents Wall Street expected. Yet, the company grew revenue for the year by about 14 percent and turned 2010′s loss into a 37 cents a share profit.

keep reading…

When Glassdoor launched its Facebook connection a few minutes ago, the company that’s the Yelp of employment jumped full-on into the scramble for dominance in the world of careers social networking.

Among the players already in the ring are BranchOut, the first to build a business networking presence on Facebook, Monster’s BeKnown, and LinkedIn, the reining leader. (Facebook had its own big news Wednesday, filing for its much anticipated IPO.)

Like BranchOut and BeKnown, Glassdoor leverages a user’s Facebook data to find connections at companies in which they have an interest. These can then help provide a direct line to the recruiter or hiring manager. It works simply by using your Facebook login.

Setting Glassdoor apart is the wealth of information it has collected about tens of thousands of companies that’s hard or even impossible to find anywhere else. From its beginning as a place where workers could review their company (or former company) with sometimes no-holds-barred bluntness, Glassdoor has broadened its scope, providing just the kind of information job seekers want: job listings, salaries, interview questions, company background, those unvarnished opinions — both pro and con — and now, who among a person’s Facebook connections has an in. keep reading…

Tech workers get an average of 23 recruiter inquiries a week — yes, a week, says a survey from TEKsystems, a global IT staffing and services firm.

That’s a remarkable number, which, even if is skewed by respondents with very in-demand skills, would still go a long way to explaining why you’re not getting calls back. In fact, the survey shows that IT professionals are picky about whose call they will return.

The best thing a recruiter can do when leaving a message or speaking with a potential candidate is to be as detailed about the job as possible. Hearing details about the specific job, the team, the nature of the work, and the company culture is the kind of information that would lead 88 percent of the survey respondents to return the call.

Less important, but still high on the list for the IT professionals surveyed, is the professionalism of the recruiter and the reputation of the company. keep reading…

Like the Giants and the Patriots, CareerBuilder and its controversial band of chimpanzees will be making a return appearance at this year’s Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

In this year’s 30-second commercial airing during the fourth quarter on Feb 5, the chimps wreak havoc with their human co-worker during a business trip, ordering 46 banana daiquiris, while brainstorming a poison ivy shampoo.

The chimps have proven to be an audience pleaser since making their debut in CareerBuilder’s first Super Bowl ad in 2005. The company’s three ads all made it into the top 10 in most of the popularity polls. The company reprised the monkey concept the following year, then tried a variety of other concepts, including viewer-conceived ads. keep reading…

A quick look at some of the goings-on in recent days from the recruiting/human resources world:

• If you’re looking for a gift for the busy New York professional who has everything, you can now get them a “PA for a day.” The new temp firm, founded by a PR/events director for a New York ad agency, offers personal assistants for a day — actually for as little as two hours, at a rate of $20 an hour. The company says that “personal assistants cannot and will not assist with any tasks that are illegal, illicit, or questionable.” In addition, “PA For A Day currently does not offer babysitting/childcare services.” We’re not sure if they’re referring to the boss’s kids, or the boss himself.
• Hey LinkedIn, better sound general quarters. You’re under attack by a Norwegian startup. JobCruiter sent out an announcement about its launch with the in-your-face headline “JobCruiter.com Challenges LinkedIn.” The site, says the announcement, has “ambitions of being the best global career network.” Now, here’s the fightin’ words: “Many see today’s career networks just as boring overviews of their contacts where nothing is ‘happening.’” keep reading…

Here are some of the events making news during the week:

Recruitment MarComm Firm Sold

NAS Recruitment Communications has been bought from Interpublic Group by a private equity firm in partnership with senior management. The new owner, Stone-Goff Partners, called the acquisition an “excellent match” with its “strategy of investing in strong niche businesses with established track records and experienced management teams.”

Key members of the management team, including CEO James Miller, will stay with NAS. In the announcement of the deal, Miller said, “Interpublic has been a great owner and partner over the last decade; however, under this new structure, NAS will be more nimble and better able to adapt to a constantly evolving set of dynamics in our space.” keep reading…

You’ll see how many people are looking for jobs; how the Swedish military is advertising; and who beat out Booz Allen in a Best-place-to-work list, all in today’s roundup.  keep reading…

With a stock price so low Monster is about to fall out of the S&P 500, there’s some very public speculation that the global employment advertising company could be bought by a private equity fund.

Rumors have periodically made the rounds of a potential or even pending sale — 20 of them since 2006, according to Bloomberg. All have proven false. But now, says the financial news service, financial analysts and some of Monster’s largest shareholders say the time and price may be right for a takeover.

“The valuation is absurdly cheap,” Eric Green, a Philadelphia-based fund manager at Penn Capital, told Bloomberg. With 3.2 million shares of Monster stock, Penn Capital is one of the company’s largest shareholders.

“The stock has been a clear disappointment,” Green is quoted as saying. He suggested a takeover price of $15 a share. That’s a 92 percent premium over Thursday’s closing price of $7.83. “I would love to see someone buy it,” he said.

Monster’s stock price has declined steadily since hitting a 10-year high of $59.28 in May, 2006. In the last 12 months, the stock has been as high as $25.90, reaching there in January, when the economy seemed ready for a hiring surge. Since August, it has been under $10 a share.

The market value of the company is now about $1 billion, $5 billion less than it was worth in 2006. Its 66 percent decline since the start of this year is the largest of any company included in the S&P 500. As a result, Monster is being moved by Standard & Poors to its MidCap 400 after the market closes today. keep reading…

After almost five months with no sign of progress, a coalition of job boards and business associations is charging that the Internet policing authority is complicit in the “consensual delay” in arbitrating a contract dispute over the so-called Dot Jobs Universe.

“As the arbitration idles in its dormant state, Employ Media and its alliance partner DirectEmployers Association have aggressively expanded the reach of non-compliant Dot Jobs Universe, which was the very basis for the issuance of the breach notice,” charges The .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition.

In the letter it sent to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — and distributed publicly — the Coalition says “ICANN’s reluctance to enforce contractual compliance is of grave concern” giving “the impression to the Internet community that ICANN is unable or unwilling to enforce its rules…” keep reading…

Monster is adding some new features to its BeKnown social network, enabling companies to post jobs and creating some 3,500 college pages.

Built on the Facebook platform, BeKnown is a jobs-oriented network that allows users to build career profiles and connections separate from those on Facebook itself. By adding jobs to corporate sites and including colleges, Monster is encouraging users to conduct their job hunting within BeKnown. keep reading…

This week brings a crop of new job sites, including an ambitious (should we say quixotic?) effort to change the very nature of third party recruiting. We also tell you about Kenexa’s latest acquisition, heralding another step into providing a full-service solution.

First up, is the story of Staffingbook and one man’s quest to alter the course of recruiting:

Steve Harari has ambitious hopes for the recruiting industry. Not content to simply help recruiters place candidates and employers find talent, Harari wants to convince recruiters to mentor their talent over the long term.

“I don’t think it’s too far-fetched that a recruiter might be mentoring a candidate,” says Harari, who has launched his culture-changing effort at Staffingbook.

Were he talking about boutique search firms working at the highest levels, it wouldn’t be far-fetched at all.  Even less-lofty placements involve some amount of coaching and mentoring to at least prepare a candidate for an interview. keep reading…

As America prepares to honor its military veterans, a new survey says  recent and soon-to-be vets are concerned about finding a job and many feel unprepared for the transition back to civilian life.

The survey was released this morning by Monster Worldwide, which, in addition to its flagship job board, also operates Military.com, the largest career and information site for veterans, transitioning military and their families. The survey introduced Monster’s new Veteran Talent Index. Separate indices score veterans’ confidence in their career opportunities, their job search activity level, and an employer measure of how they perceive the veterans they’ve hired measure up to other workers.

On the latter score, employers are much more gung-ho about hiring veterans than are the vets themselves. Almost every employer who has hired a vet (99 percent) would hire another. That’s due in large measure to their performance. Sixty nine percent of employers say the veterans they’ve hired do their job “much better” than their non-vet workers. keep reading…

For a thought experiment (and to encourage creative conversation), I recently asked a few recruiting friends, “If you were left with only one method or tool for recruiting talent, what would you use?”

I’ve listed a few responses below and included some dialogue regarding pros and cons of each. Hopefully this discussion will help recruiters and recruiting leaders focus their energies on those tools that actually bring value to their organizations. keep reading…

LinkedIn lost money, but still beat analyst estimates, blowing through the most optimistic projections by millions and ending the quarter with $139.5 million in revenue. The company also announced it would sell $100 million more of its shares to finance its aggressive expansion.

The company told investors and analysts during a conference call after the markets closed this afternoon that it would add some 500 to 600 more employees by the end of the year. CEO Jeff Weiner said the rapid expansion would give LinkedIn a jump on 2012. keep reading…

The stock markets rallied today on news of a European bailout deal, but Monster didn’t make the party.

The company’s shares got no lift from the overall market even though earnings are up, because the employment picture in the months ahead is murky. keep reading…

I recently predicted that Facebook will eventually destroy LinkedIn. Today, that prediction came closer to reality as the world’s largest social network announced a partnership with national employment services and the U.S. Department of Labor. According to Facebook’s official statement, the Social Jobs Partnership goal will be “to facilitate employment for America’s jobless through the use of social networks.”

Facebook has launched a page, facebook.com/socialjobs, which features resources and information for job seekers from the coalition’s other partners: The National Association of Colleges and Employers, the DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, along with the Labor Department. Facebook plans to create public service announcements to promote its services in the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates, which, according to CNN Money, are Michigan, Rhode Island, California, South Carolina, Oregon, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, and Florida. Included in Facebook’s list of initiatives is this intriguing item: keep reading…

LinkedIn’s Talent Connect conference wound down in Las Vegas today after a three-day run that was equal parts training, trends, product, and showbiz. It was the perfect mix for a city that thrives on spectacle.

After a Tuesday night party worthy of a last century Silicon Valley event, a bleary-eyed audience was brought to its feet by former basketball great and now-successful businessman Magic Johnson. Roaming the cavernous convention hall, he mixed photo ops with motivational lessons from his life, which took him from high school standout to Laker star and now to business success as the CEO of multi-million dollar development companies that work largely in inner city neighborhoods.

He offered up such chestnuts as  ”It’s not enough to deliver … you have to overdeliver”; “losers lose and winners win”; and others as he told his life story. It was an entertaining almost 90 minutes that went into overtime as Johnson took questions, hustling over to each person to make sure they could get a picture of themselves with the NBA legend. keep reading…

As LinkedIn’s annual user conference gets underway in Las Vegas today, it’s taking on an import that goes well beyond the quality of the agenda. This is its first conference since becoming a public company and the first since its dominance as the Internet’s leading business network was challenged — directly or otherwise — by such powerful brands as Google, Facebook, and Monster.

The sessions the company has planned for the three-day event are heavy on the training with a strong mix of sessions devoted to recruiting strategies and social media. The speaker lineup is first rate and the agenda promises enough variety and practicums that it should be easy enough to answer the boss’s “What did you learn?” questions.

On another level, though, the conference is spectacle, a physical manifestation of the reach LinkedIn has achieved into the recruiting world in just a few years. Founded as a sales and marketing leads business, LinkedIn has morphed into a jobs-focused social network. Today half its revenue — approaching $500 million — comes from recruiters.

But in just the five months since LinkedIn went in May the world has changed.

Google launched a social network, Monster launched BeKnown, a careers network, BranchOut, a startup careers network, announced a partnership with CareerBuilder, and, perhaps most significant of all, Facebook detailed sweeping changes to its 800-million-user social network that could trump the need for a separate business network altogether. keep reading…