Lawson Software Booth at HR Technologies Conference

Today was day one of the 2010 annual HR Technologies conference in Chicago. Every year it is one of the premiere human resource conferences and this year was no different.

But if one booth in the exhibit hall stood out from the rest — and one did — it was Lawson Software’s. This video shows why. No booth was larger and with the artist perched well above the exhibit floor and accompanied by John Lennon tunes, this booth was a real eye catcher.

Find more videos like this on CollegeRecruiter.com

Job Cuts Lowest in a Decade

After three consecutive months of gains, job cut announcements plunged to a ten-year low of 34,768. Not only was August the lowest job cutting month of the year, it marked the lowest job cut month since June 2000.

Source: Challenger Gray & Christmas

Worst Resume Mistakes

With 14.9 million people unemployed in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the pressure to get resumes in the “yes” pile is immense. Nearly half (48 percent) of human resource managers surveyed reported they typically review 25 applications or less for open positions. Thirty-eight percent said, on average, they spend less than a minute reviewing a resume; 18 percent spend less than 30 seconds.

One of the biggest mistakes job seekers make that can take them out of the running is a lack of customization. Seventy-nine percent of human resource managers said they pay more attention to resumes that are tailored to their open positions.

When asked for the most memorable missteps they encountered when going through resumes, human resource managers and hiring managers reported the following:

• Candidate put God down as a reference (no phone number).
• Candidate listed her hobby as alligator watching.
• Candidate claimed to be a direct descendant of the Vikings.
• Candidate’s email address had “lovesbeer” in it.
• Candidate listed “Master of Time and Universe” under his experience.
• Candidate started off the application with “Do you want a tiger?”
• Candidate specifically pointed out that he was not a gypsy.
• Candidate’s condition for accepting the position was being allowed to bring his pet monkey to the workplace.
• Candidate pointed out, “I’ll have your job in five years.”
• Candidate sent a 24-page resume for a 5-year career.
• Candidate put a picture of her cat on top of her resume.
• Candidate declared himself the LeBron James of table games.
• Candidate sent a video trying to hypnotize the HR manager into hiring him.

“While it’s important to stand out from the crowd, job seekers need to make sure their resumes catch hiring managers’ eyes for the right reasons,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “Job seekers need to communicate their relevant experience and utilize keywords from the job posting, while customizing their resume for each and every position. Focus on what you can bring to the table right from the get go.”

Haefner offers the following tips to get you started on your road to resume success:

• Quantify your experience – Have you helped increase client business, made significant sales or increased team productivity? Make every effort possible to quantify these experiences so you can show employers how you’ve positively affected bottom lines in the past – and how you can hit the ground running at their organization.
• Keep it professional – While it sometimes can be helpful to include personal achievements on your resume, leave off information that is too personal. Instead, focus on items that are business-related, such as volunteer work or membership in professional organizations. Also, make sure you leave emoticons, inappropriate e-mail addresses and cutesy fonts off your final product.
• Make it easy to read – Avoid using large blocks of text. Use bullets to break up text and make it easy for hiring managers to zero in on important points. Avoid using ornate fonts that may cause formatting issues when sharing electronically.

Offer Rate to Interns Varies Widely by Industry

When it comes to recruiting and retaining their interns, not all industries are created equally.

A good internship program is all about the three R’s: recruitment, recruitment, and recruitment. In other words, if your organization hires a student to intern and then fails to convert that student into a permanent employee upon the completion of their internship, then you should regard that internship as a failure. Some organizations would disagree and say that internships are provided to students to give them experience and some less altruistic organizations would say that internships are great sources of cheap labor. I can agree that students get — or should at least should get — great experience from their internships but organizations should not look upon interns as cheap labor. Given that they typically require far more supervision than experienced employees, the reality is that interns are rarely cheap. If the organization looks at the cost of producing the service or product rather than the hourly wage paid to individual employees, they’ll almost always agree that they don’t save money by hiring interns.

It is commonly known in the world of college recruiting that some organizations manage to retain a far higher percentage of their interns than others and that interns in some industries are far more likely to be retained than interns in other industries, but leave it to the Wall Street Journal to do the analysis that others haven’t. Yet another reason why I’m a subscriber and you should be as well.

This graph shows the huge discrepancies between industries. It is startling, actually. It clearly shows that an internship with a utility, architecture or construction firm is FAR more likely to lead to an offer of permanent employment than an internship with an insurance, media, or non-profit organization. So kudos to our friends in the utility, architecture, and construction industries. As for the insurance, media, and non-profits, well, you’ve clearly got a growth opportunity.

Encouraging Economic Signs in Retail Sector

Is the good news beginning to outweigh the bad? It was reported today that initial jobless claims unexpectedly increased by 12,000 last week to 465,000. However, the weekly claims is notoriously volatile measurement that fluctuates wildly even in the best of times.

The good news is that the four-week moving average, which is considered by most to be a more reliable indicator, fell to the lowest level since July 31. Meanwhile, the number of people who continued to receive jobless benefits fell by 48,000. In other good news, the index of leading economic indicators rose by a better-than-expected 0.3 percent in August and existing home sales increased by 7.6 percent last month. While, home sales and other economic measurements still remain severely depressed from pre-recession levels, they are heading in the right direction.

Retailers Already Announcing Mass Hiring

This morning, Macy’s Inc. announced it would hire 65,000 temporary seasonal workers, expecting sales to grow between 3 and 3.5 percent over last year. The announcement comes on the heels of a similar one from Toys R Us, which announced it will hire 10,000 seasonal workers this year. Outplace firm, Challenger Gray & Christmas, predicts hiring will increase this holiday season over last year, due to two consecutive months of sales gains in addition to a 65 percent decline in retail-sector job cut announcements since 2009.

Despite the good news, questions remain. What other businesses could see an uptick in hiring as the holidays approach? Do sales gains necessarily predict hiring? Will the workers hired for the holidays be able to retain their positions into the new year?

Source: Challenger Gray & Christmas

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Interview of Steven Rothberg: The Job Wars

Dylan Ratigan of the Dylan Ratigan Show interviews CollegeRecruiter.com founder Steven Rothberg about the worst job market in 35 years. College students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs are on the front line of the job wars. They’re facing the worst job market in 35 years. If you’re looking for work, what do you do?

Five Questions Employers Should Ask in Phone Interviews

Most employers hire candidates only after the candidate has gone through at least one and typically a series of face-to-face interviews. But before the candidate ever meets someone face-to-face, they’ll typically speak with a recruiter over the phone. And before that recruiter schedules any time sucking face-to-face interviews, they should take a few minutes to screen the candidate by asking these five questions: Why are you leaving your current position? Why do you want to work for our company? What are your career goals? How can you help us? How can we help you?

Of course, the answers that your organization wants to hear may correctly differ from the answers that another organization wants to hear, and you may even correctly want to hear different answers from different candidates depending upon the position to which they’re applying, the candidate, and other factors.

Source: Lurie Besikof Lapidus & Company, LLP

Is Going to College Worth the Cost?

Yesterday’s excellent article by the Wall Street Journal demonstrated that although college costs are far, far higher for this generation than any generation before, it is still worthwhile to attend college if for no other reason that college graduates are far less likely to be unemployed than those who did not graduate from college.

Today, the CBS Early Show broadcast a segment on whether it is worth going to college even though public colleges average about $50,000 and private colleges about $140,000 by the time you’re finished. Graduates are therefore effectively carrying two mortgages. Gen X’ers like me were effectively carrying two car payments. Baby Boomers were effectively carrying two heating bills.

Niche Job Board CollegeRecruiter.com Partners With Global Classified Ads Search Engine Trovit.com to Bring New Job Openings to Fingertips of Students and Grads

Students and Recent Graduates Get Easier Access to Fresh Job Opportunities

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain (September 20, 2010) – Leading global classified ads search engine, Trovit.com, announced today a new partnership with CollegeRecruiter.com (www.CollegeRecruiter.com), the leading job board for college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs and other career opportunities. This partnership invites job seekers to browse CollegeRecuiter’s thousands of employment offers on Trovit’s easy-to-use nationwide database of over three million listings.

“Trovit is designed to provide our users with a comprehensive one-stop glance at all active job offers on the web. By including CollegeRecruiter.com’s unique entry-level job postings and internship positions in our search engine, we can offer college students and recent graduates that browse Trovit, fresh new opportunities at their fingertips daily,” said Aisling Sanford, U.S. Market Manager for Trovit.com.

“We’re excited about adding Trovit to our network of partners,” said Steven Rothberg, President and Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com. “Trovit excels in reaching both the candidate who is more active in their job search and wants to search all of the leading job boards in one place as well as the candidate who is more passive and may be looking for a new apartment, car, or other item and realizes that they can also find a new internship or entry-level job at the same site.”

This partnership illustrates both parties’ commitment to providing today’s job seeker an easier way find the right employment opportunity.

About CollegeRecruiter.com

CollegeRecruiter.com is the leading job board for college students hunting for internships and recent graduates looking for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. CollegeRecruiter.com features hundreds of thousands of job openings and tens of thousands of pages of employment-related blogs, articles, podcasts, and videos. For more information, please visit http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com.

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, CollegeRecruiter.com was founded in 1991 by Steven Rothberg, who remains its President. To receive regular updates about new and interesting data and reports, visit the CollegeRecruiter.com Blog or follow CollegeRecruiter.com on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. For more information about partnering with CollegeRecruiter.com, email Steven@CollegeRecruiter.com.

About Trovit Jobs

Trovit (http://www.trovit.com) is an international search engine for Jobs, Property and Cars, operating in 20 countries. Trovit Jobs (http://jobs.trovit.com/) allows users to search a database of over three million job listings from nearly 600 classified websites, recruitment agencies and job boards. Within each search query, users can simplify results by filtering Company, Location, Experience, Salary and Publication date. Listings can be shared by email, Facebook, and Twitter and to stay on top of new job offers, users can create daily or weekly email alerts. Partnering with the big and small, you will find employment from every corner of the Internet on Trovit.com with just one-click.

Employers: Tell the Association for 60,000 Job Boards What You Love/Hate About Our Industry

The International Association of Employment Web Sites (IAEWS) is the trade organization for the global online employment services industry. Its members include CollegeRecruiter.com, the American Medical Association, Society for Human Resource Management, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, Jobing VetJobs, JobsinLogsitics.com and TweetMeJobs.com. Collectively, these organizations power or operate over 60,000 employment-related sites worldwide.

The IAEWS is conducting a survey to determine employer and recruiter views of job boards, career portals, social media sites and other Web-based providers of employment products and services. They’d like to have your input, as well. Please click take the survey.

It’s anonymous and takes just 10 minutes. In addition, if you request it, they’ll send you a copy of the aggregate findings of the survey when they’re published.