Recruiting.com

Where the (CEO) jobs are: Silcon Valley

By Anthony J.

Silicon Valley is hopping again and the demand for leaders is off the charts according to this Red Herring article:

Opportunities are especially plentiful in wireless, vertical search, software as a service, and social networking,

However if you have been an executive in a large company you might find it a little tougher to land that position:

The right kind of experience, however, is important. Venture capitalists and board members at startups are searching for chief executives who have experience growing a business from small beginnings to an IPO or an acquisition.

As a result, executives running divisions of large companies such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, or Hewlett-Packard are not as popular as those who have run startups, experts say.

Not only is the market hot but candidates often have multiple offers and that is affecting  how companies conduct searches:

The process is also not as simple as it used to be, as candidates and recruiters spend several meetings “courting” candidates, discussing strategies to make the company grow,[...] It’s more like doing a rehearsal of your job before you get it.

In some cases, recruiters don’t hesitate to conduct psychometric tests on candidates such as IQ tests, cultural tests, leadership quality testing, and interviews with industrial psychologists, said Umesh Ramakrishnan, vice chairman at Cleveland-based executive search firm Christian & Timbers.

But those who are successful are getting big money. The flip side is that there is a heavy emphasis on performance oriented compensation.

Read the whole thing here.

Recruiting Jobs Index

I use vertical search to track over 400 companies in the semiconductor industry. what am I tracking? The jobs.  Here is a quick picture (from last night) to get the idea. (click on the image to expand)

It is interesting for me to look at this daily and compare it over time. The numbers change almost daily for the larger companies. Not so much for the smaller ones. It's good information

It would be great to have something like this for the recruiting/staffing industry. How may jobs are actually out there in the recruiting industry and where are they all.

Is there is a recruiting jobs index somewhere that tracks hundreds of recruiting companies and the jobs within those companies?

 

posted by Jason

 

SEO Blogging Tip

Here's a liittle known search engine trick to get traffic. Incorporate people, places and things that have been in the news recently. It works especially well for people in the news. One example I can refer to is my recent post When recruiters go bad.

In that post I wrote about a woman Kathryn Clark Melanson, a recruiter who was in the news for stealing some money. That post got me several visitors in the days that followed. Since people had seen her on the news and in the newspaper, they began googling her. In fact my post is now #3 on the first page of Google results for " kathryn clark melanson".

I also wrote a post on SOTHJ about the Fort McMurray, Canada job market which is booming due to oilsands production. This post alone has resulted in almost 1,000 visitors to that blog. All I did was watch a piece on 60 minutes and then blogged about it the next day. Instant traffic followed.

This was posted by Chris Russell 

The Fortune 500 Blog Search

-Jim Durbin

Shannon from Exceler8ion posts a great story on an upcoming event in recruiting blogs, (all together now in a big, booming voice) The Fortune 500 Blog Review (review, review, review). 

Business Blog Wire is testing the blogs of Fortune 500 companies for how well they use blogs for recruiting, and it would be a darn shame if we all weren't in on the ride.

Shannon's take on the experiment:

"I firmly believe that the success of a corporation is heavily determined by the quality of the people they are able to recruit and retain. I would be interested in knowing what companies are using their public blog to promote their employer brand and connect with talented job candidates."

Easton will be judging the blogs on talent, the interview, and of course, the bathing suit competition.  Get involved and get noticed. 

Human Resources Discovers Blogging

-Jim Durbin
Human Resource Executive Online has a column on the usefulness of blogging, pointing to some well-known recruiter blogs and focusing on the HR Space.

The author, Bill Kutik, is focused on big names and big companies, but seems to get that blogs at their best provide valuable information in a conversational format.  There is just one thing, though.

A typical blog includes lots of personal remarks by the writer, interesting links they've found to other related material, and -- most importantly -- published responses from readers. The best ones become public online conversations about important issues. So what you're reading now is a column, not a blog, because it's one-way. But feel free to e-mail me.

I know it's trendy to talk about blogs being conversations, and reader's comments enable a two-way dialogue, but the reality is most comments are facile and lack any real merit.  Comment sections, contrary to what we read all the time, rarely add to the discussion (they rarely did as a percentage of the posts, and only at the most erudite blogs).

Comments have a purpose, and they are welcomed because they let the author know when someone is reading - but the best conversations take place between blogs using links.  Every blogger has felt the pain of writing a brilliant piece of commentary that lies silent, while a column on socks get links, traffic, and two dozen comments.

Not that I want to be the cranky old guy - I'm glad the HR Tech conference is interested in blogs - but if you leave a comment on this post, it better be a good one (shakes fist).

Your IT department is looking.

By Anthony J.

How big is your IT department. 10 people? Well at least 6 of them are looking for a new job.

Sixty percent of IT pros are looking for new jobs, according to a new survey.

Of the 60% who want a new job, 27% are "actively" searching; 52% are "somewhat actively" looking, and 20% say they're "not very actively" hunting for new work, according to an online survey of 1,000 IT workers by the Computing Technology Industry Association, an IT industry member organization.

What is the biggest reason that people are looking?  

Most of those IT pros are looking for greener pastures—73% cited the desire for better pay as the main reason for their search.

So much for the people don't leave for money theory right?

On the bright side for any headhunters that are in the IT recruiting sector - 6 out of every 10 people you call should be interested in talking to you.

Read more here.

SimplyHired Blog

Well, I think it's great that Jeff Hunter is going to write more frequently. Everytime he wrote, it seemed that he won something. Jeff is now heavily involved with the  SimplyHired Blog that has come on line today.

SimplyHired started a blog a while ago and then they stopped. These things happen to most people who start blogs.

Obviously on some level, SimplyHired, along with a many other companies have realized that there is something to the blogging effort and maybe just maybe, a blog can help business.

So, what do they do? they go out and get Jeff to spearhead the initiative. Jeff is a smart guy and obviously, SimplyHired, was smart enough to get him to agree.

Jason Davis

How To Get A Bullshit Job

I was in a book store the other day and saw a book I had to buy. It's called 100 Bullshit Jobs....And How To Get Them. It's written by Stanley Bing.

One of the Bullshit Jobs he mentions is that of a Blogger.

From a money perspective, Stanley says that it is relatively small but prospects in the future are virtually assured.

He says that in order to be a blogger you need to be able to upload your thoughts, your insights as well as your lack of insights. You need to be able to publish things you have not heard as well as things you have heard. He also says that it helps to be funny but when that is impossible, being hateful often suffices.

Stanley says that one of the upsides of this bullshit job is that you can start immediately with no training and no prior experience.

He says a lot more about being a blogger as well.

Some of the other jobs he mentions are as follows:

Rockstar
Aquarium Cleaner For The Rich
Being Donald Trump
Certified Massage Therapist
Cheese Artisan
Escort
Funeral Director
Guru
Human Billboard
Life Coach
Patent Troll
Perfume Schpritzer
The Guy Who says Your Car Will Be Ready By Noon

Jason Davis

China's Management Problem

By Anthony J.

According to a recent white paper by Manpower Inc. China's growing economy is facing a severe problem. There are plenty of people but very few with management experience or talent.

The labor shortage in China is even more problematic than in other nations because it is most severe among managers.  Two in every five companies find it difficult to fill senior management positions.  Mid-level managers are also in short supply, particularly those who are Chinese nationals and can interact with local people.

Competition is stiff for this elite group of employees, and high turnover compounds the issue.  Management-level attrition rates in China are more than 25 percent greater than the global average, and replacing a high-performing manager can cost 300 percent to 2,000 percent of that individual's salary.

2000%!!! Can you say wage inflation? Read the entire white paper here.

Recruiting Blog Happenings

Back from Seattle. It was a good time.

One of the best things I saw on the Recruiting Blogs last week was from Jim Stroud. Thanks for taking the time to put that together. It is a great read and I would love to send it out to my newsletter. Can I do that Jim? - Thanks.

Here are some things that I found interesting.

Jeff Hunter fessed up to this. Here is Jeff's Post. If you like wrestling and HR, read it.

A conversation is taking place on Recruiting.com that I personally am interested in. It is between Dave McClure and myself. Dave is a guy who I originally met when he was working at SimplyHired.com. He advises lots of startup and currently works with Om Malik. The blog publishing possibilities seem to be moving in high gear.

I bought a new domain name. Recruitingtools.com I had been mulling it over for a few weeks. It was a 0-5k (purchase range) Harry Joiner finally convinced me that I was basically and idiot if I didn't buy it. Thanks Harry for the motivation. Sometimes that is what it takes.

The EXCELER8ion blog looks great and they have been putting out some very interesting info about the new and hopeful ways that people are looking to create new ways of connecting employers and candidates.

Dave Manaster got all of these things donated for the EREfoundation silent auction that will take place in Florida next week.

John Sumser tapping into the Blogging Community for Content.

posted by Jason Davis