Mom-Approved Client Development

Get to know these companies — they’re among the 100 best companies for working mothers. Pretty important information for survival as a recruiter when you consider that our current recession — yes, the one affecting you thanks to those pesky hiring freezes — has hit men harder than women.

In fact, men held nearly 75% of the jobs lost thus far in the U.S. recession due to affected industries such as construction and manufacturing.

So take a look at the 100 best companies selected by Working Mother magazine and aim to add several companies to your hot list of clients.

The top 10 companies cited were Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park, Illinois; Bon Secours Richmond Health System in Virginia; Deloitte LLP in New York; Discovery Communications of Silver Spring, Maryland; Ernst & Young of New York; General Mills of Minneapolis; Chicago-based Grant Thornton accounting firm; IBM Corp of Armonk, New York; The McGraw-Hill Cos publishers in New York; and PricewaterhouseCoopers auditors of New York.

The take-away message, according to the magazine’s editors, is that “how, when, and where you work” is not as important as the quality of the work produced. In fact, a full 100% offer some sort of telecommuting or flextime schedule; 98% offer job-sharing; and 94% offer compressed workweeks.

The companies — with at least 500 employees, government agencies excluded — entered applications with several hundred questions on programs and policies. This is the 24th year of this list, though its overall value has been questioned by some in the past.

But as more men are laid-off and more women become sole income-earners in their families, recruiters that help to lead candidates (and their families) to companies that actively promote family-friendly policies might lead you UP in the down economy.