StlRecruiting

Websites I Write Besides This One

Curious About Missouri Politics?  I write a center of the road political blog for the state of Missouri, and have been generating decent traffic to it.  Check out www.24thState for information on MO politics.

Pregnant or know someone who is?  Franki and I write for Storkcalling, a phone birth announcement service that allows new parents to record a greeting and broadcast it to up to 50 friends and family.

Franki is working on the site redesign, and until then, I'm writing on the blog, connecting with mom blogs and talking about our decision to start a family as well.  To tell a friend or suggest a baby shower gift, go here, or if you are interested in purchasing a package, just go to the main site a Storkcalling.com

And if anyone is interested, I have BlogCaseStudies.com, and am contemplating selling it.  Make me an offer after you check the Page Rank.

And don't forget Brandstorming and LifeInAVentiCup, our Durbin Media blog and Franki's style blog.

Blogs I'd Like More People to Be Reading

This is a blatant post to help out other bloggers.  The links are to people we should all be reading, and a few more that I just want to give extra search engine juice too.

 

Blogger Threatened With Lawsuit For Exposing Headhunter

Instapundit links the story of Just Another Pretty Farce, a Tennessee Blogger whose husband went to see an "executive recruitment" firm with a drawn out sales process that required the candidate to pay the fee.

Let me stop right here.  Candidates.  Never, ever waste time with a company that requires you to pay the placement fee.  Never give money of any kind to a recruiter.  Career counselors?  Resume Writers?  Online Software from trusted Sources?  Sure.  But never, ever give money to a recruiter.

On with the story. J.L.Kirk Associates, the firm in the story, ran them through a sales process where they discuss the difficulty of finding work on our own and then schedule a "second" interview where you are required to bring your Spouse/Significant Other along for the sales pitch.  And it is a sales pitch.

Are you ready for the kicker?  The company asked for $4,420 on a credit card to "place" the candidate.

We were told that Headhunters and Employment Agencies took fees only when a job had been secured for the job seeker, and they took their fees (generally 30-40%) from the hiring firm. But that means the job seeker gets a lower starting salary because all of their good money is going to the headhunter/employment agency. Thankfully, though, JL Kirk & Associates will be able to get my husband a job making a far larger starting salary

Hogwash!  This company, J.L. Kirk & Associates, is one of those companies we are always warning you about in the recruiting blogs.  You are at your most vulnerable when you are looking for work, and you should not be forced to pay a company to recruit for you. 

Katherine agreed, and posted the story on her blog.  The company is now threatening to sue her is she doesn't take the post down.  Instapundit has the story.  Needless to say, the  blog community is up in arms.  The company is trying to strong arm a candidate who described their personal experiences, and that just doesn't fly anymore.

If you feel strongly, post away on your own sites.  Be truthful - don't say anything libelous, but give your opinion of recruiters that charge fees to candidates.

Update:  The Law Firm who sent the demand letter is King & Ballow, a Nashville law firm.  If you are concerned about being sued yourself, you shouldn't be.  We are reporting on a news story, and as long as you don't write something that defames them, you're good.  Stick to reporting what you read, and asking questions, and you'll be fine.

Example:  What was the law firm of King & Ballow thinking sending a demand letter to a blogger?  If they are reading this and would like some expert assistance, my services can be purchased for $4,420.  Bill Hobbs has more.  And Ask The Headhunter covered Bernard Haldane Associates, a company that used to charge candidates fees.  Mike Tiffany links my story and agrees - no fees for candidates. 

How To Get Comments on Blog Posts

I've got some longevity to this blogging fad, going on my sixth year now, and my comments have usually been pretty good.  I have about half as many comments as posts on this blog, but this isn't really a commenting blog, so I'm actually pleasantly surprised.

But if you're looking for advice on how to get lots of comments to your blog, I know who you should ask.

Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber must be some kind of comment king.  While the rest of us are dreaming up compex ways to write compelling content, he writes a short post, puts a couple of ducks on it, and voila!  Comment Heaven.

Jason gets 24 comments for a post that asks about Networking.  I couldn't get 24 comments if I offered 10 bucks for each of you who left a single letter (and I'm not).

How does he do it?  No surprise - he does it by giving more than he gets - networking with his community of job-seekers and readers, and creating a healthy ecosystem of people interested in working together to secure employment.

Good job, Jason. And remember - it's networking, good advice and pictures of ducks.  Not necessarily in that order.

Blogging Is A Legally Protected Activity, No Really

I just received an e-mail from Rick Bales, a law professor up in Chicago who often speaks on panels about blogging.  He just posted an entry after reading an article about how employee blogging, when done right, is probably protected under the NRLA (National Labor Relations Act).

His post on the issue is here.  The Article he is talking about is available for those with a Westlaw subscription, and it is  Marc Cote, Comment, Getting Dooced: Employee Blogs and Employer Blogging Policies Under the National Labor Relations Act, 82 Wash. L. Rev. 121 (2007). 

Rick says that employee blogging, when it discusses workplace issues like wages, hours, and conditions, is fair play, and legally protected, the same as speech about these topics.  I had heard from George Lenard one time that it is not legal to prevent employees from discussing their salaries, precisely because of NLRA, which covers all workers, not just the unions.  This doesn't cover proprietary information (and apparently, salary information is not proprietary, no matter what your HR department says), so don't go posting tech specs to the internet. 

But if you are wondering about your legal position on blogging, or better yet, if you are a company considering an employee blogging policy, definitely read the rest of Rick's posting.  For those of you who like to start controversy, keep this in mind.  Just because it isn't legal, doesn't mean that throwing this into your boss's face is a smart thing to do.  You can get fired for lots of things, and fighting a lawsuit in court won't pay your bills.

If, however, you have a wild streak in you, or perhaps if you have been dooced (fired for blogging), it's something your lawyer ought to be thinking about.  And if you're a company, let me stress this again - why haven't you talked to a a lawyer about your employee blogging policies?

Big Pimpin' Durbin Media Style

If you're reading this page for the recruiting advice, you should skip this next part, as I shamelessly pimp out blogs Franki and I are working for on DurbinMedia.  This happens occasionally, but these are mostly St Louis based business blogs we favor.

What To Say To Someone Who Doesn't Get Blogs

Dennis Smith is one of the best examples of a corporate recruiting blogger we have.  The man enjoys blogging personally (he says it's in his blood), but he also wants to use blogging to improve the recruiting function at his company.

At an ERExpo roundtable last week, he was astounded to hear a participant state they 'didn't see much value in blogs and that the one's he'd read only talked about the weather and how their day was going.'

Dennis Smith is a nice guy.  He's also much more inclined to teach than insult.  That's why he offers several reasoned, well thought-out examples of how blogging has made a difference.

Me, not so much.

Here's my suggestion of how to deal with someone who says blog are all people talking about the weather.

You: I really enjoy blogging.  They bring a real benefit to my worklife.
Clueless: Blogs?  I don't think much of them.  What good are they for?
You: Have you read any?
Clueless:  Yes I have.  The always talk about the weather or how the person is feeling that day or worse yet, how clever all of the other blogs are.  What a waste of time?
You: You know, there are a lot of blogs that talk about that stuff.  Do you read any business blogs?
Clueless:  What's a business blog?
You: Business blogs are written by experts in a field who build an audience of like-minded readers to help promote their product, brand, and or company.
Clueless:  There can't be many of those. 
You: There aren't. It's just a tiny fraction of the blogs that are out there.  In fact, I'd be willing to say that 98-99% of blogs are personal, and only 1 or 2% are business blogs.
Clueless:  See what I mean?  Blogging isn't worth all the time spent on it.
You: Are you good at math in your head?
Clueless:  I'm sorry, what?
You:  Are you good at doing math in your head.
Clueless: Umm...
You: No matter.  I have a calculator here on my T-Mobile phone.  Let's do some math.  How many blogs are there?
Clueless:  I don't know
You: Technorati says there are 54 million. Let's keep the numbers even at 50 million, shall we?  Okay - now, let's say 1% of blogs are not talking about the weather.  What's 1% of 50,000,000?
Clueless:  Uhh...
You: Did you say 500,000?  That's correct.  500,000.  Okay, 500,00 blogs that are not about the weather, but talk about business specifically.  Now, what percentage of those 500,000 blogs deal with some aspect of business that might interest you.
Clueless:  Uh...
You: let's say 5%.  That would include, Marketing, Recruiting, Branding, Public Relations, Sales, Technology of course, specific industry verticals and of course, competitors who think blogging is helping them eat your lunch, I mean, gain market share.  So, 5%of 500,000 is...
Clueless: 2500..
You: 25,000.  Hmmm, that number seems a bit high.  Let's say only 1% of the 1% of business blogs is relevant to you, and only 1% of those is written well enough (and in English) to make it worth reading.  So 1% of 1% of 1% of 50,000,000 is...well, it's 50 blogs.  so 50 blogs provide relevant, timely information that you could benefit from reading, and which, by the way, helps you filter the 900,000,000,000 web pages and growing that are currently out there.  Now, how many of these 50 blogs do you read daily? 
Clueless:  That still means there are 50,000,000 blogs that are out there that talk about the weather.
You:  There are 7-8 billion people on the planet. How many do you know personally?  How many do you need to know?  Most of those people talk about the weather, but a small number, smaller than 1% of 1% of 1%, are your family, clients, friends, and co-workers.  The problem is not that blogs don't reflect your needs - it's you've looked at a few blogs, read a few articles, and declared the whole thing worthless.   That's not a problem with blogs, it's a problem with your perception blinding you to potential.
Clueless:  So how am I supposed to find these 50 blogs?
You:  They self-organize into communities and filter information for you.  That's one of the beauties of blogging - other people finding information and filtering it to help their communities learn more.  This is why bloggers are smarter, more informed, wealthier, and better connected than non-bloggers.  In fact, they are termed "influentials," because they have a big influence on the general population.
Clueless:  I guess I have a lot to learn about blogging before I say something foolish again.
You:  We all do, clueless.  We all do.

My BlogSwap Post up at Jobster

My first BlogSwap post is up at Jason Goldberg's blog.  It's about some of the science behind social networks, and it's based on a power point presentation I used to give during sales interviews on the power of warm calls. 

Jim Stroud was my author his week - his post on eight reasons recruiters don't call you was magnificent.

If you're not following the BlogSwap, you're missing out on some quality writing.  I've been universally impressed with the effort put into guest authoring on the blogs of other writers.

Can we keep up the momentum?

Fake Blogs and Paid Shills

I'm in high dudgeon over at Brandstorming ranting about the PayperPost site.  The idea and the launch of a site that pays bloggers to post their opinions without attribution is a dangerous one.

There are many reasons Ted Murphy's idea is a bad one, but the first and foremost is that blogging is at its best when its about transparency, and just a faint echo when it's about deceptive marketing.

Paying bloggers to write posts is bad enough, but doing so without disclosing a financial relationship is lying to the public.

There are vehicles to work with blogs to market your product.  Advertisments, affiliates, focus groups and hiring in-house all work and are honest ways to pitch your product.  PayperPost.com is not.

Marianne Richmond has her own thoughts about the ethics of the situation.

RSS Feed Change: New and Improved

One of the problems with running your own company is you spend your time working  on the websites and blogs of clients instead of your own.

I was reading the Minnesota Headhunter in my feedreader and realized I still had not put feedburner on this site or Brandstorming.

It's done now - if you have already subscribed, you might need to make a change.  Sorry for the confusion.  Actually, I should have made the announcement prior to making the change.

Hey, nothing like a fresh start!

How Much Are You Worth?

It's always a pleasure to read Jim Stroud.  He has some great tools he passes along in addition to the Recruiting Life Comic Strip.

Today he pitches LeapFish, which measures the worth of your domain name.

StlRecruiting is valued about $11,000 - but I'll sell it for $10,000 if it's delivered in small, unmarked bills.   

Monster.com is less than $200,000.

StlToday is worth almost $400,000

For Monster and StlToday, there is a big red warning saying the site is worth more than they can measure, but it's nice for comparison.

Let's see Monster is worth $6 billion in market cap, so if i do my math correctly (carry the one)...the market cap for stlrecruiting.com is $150,000,000....That $10,000 offer is looking pretty good right now.  Maybe I should hold out until I actually sells ads to someone or use the site to bring in candidates or something.

Connectedness

My love of social networks seems to in line with th rest of the Blogosphere, as Bruce Hoppe is listed as one of the top 10 interesting blogs on the blogger home page, and is reaping traffic as a result.

Good for you Bruce.  Keep up the interesting work.

I'm a Happy BlogFather

There's another Third Party Recruiting Blog - it's a niche firm focused on the credit card payment business.  CSH Consulting is the company, and as it's run by two former managers of mine, I really want to see it take off and make them millions....in placements.

Here's the credit card processing blog, just named CSH Consulting Blog.

Give them some linky love if you're tracking this kind of thing.

Site Upgrade

Crazy times ahead - we're sitting here working on the template for StlRecruiting.com to add some mega upgrades.  Step one on the list is the addition of inline trackbacks, which mean that someone linking to the site with a trackback will have their post show up inside the text of the original post.

It's good for discussion enabling - and it's a feature that makes trackbacks important again (avoiding the trackback spam).

Free Advertising at RecruitingPix.com

Attn:  St Louis Staffing Companies

If you like free advertising, and want to be part of the larger recruiting community, you ought to look at Recruitingpix.com.

It's brought to you by Jason Davis of Recruiting.com, andit's an opportunity to out your website up in the national online employment community.   

This is a list of companies that have so far put their names, blogs or websites up.

Yes, this is free.  Send me a note when you're loaded up and I'll talk about your brilliance on this blog.

See Your Name Up In Lights

Jason Davis has come up with a great idea over at Recruiting.com

The Wall of Fame, over at www.recruitingpix.com, is an industry board that allows individual bloggers, companies, and vendors, as well as anyone interested in advertising to purchase pixels on the site.  The site stays up for five years, and the goal is to make it a fun, creative, and cost-effective way to advertise recruiting or staffing services.

Each pixel costs $.20, which means a box on the screen costs $20.  And your ad?  When someone runs their mouse over the screen, a url you select pops up for the person to click to.

It's been done for college kids and copycats, but this is the first time I've seen it applied to an industry.

So if you want some exposure, click to the site and buy away!  At the very least, if you like what you read here and on Recruiting.com, consider linking to http://www.recruitingpix.com, (after you've linked to stlrecruiting.com, of course).

Do I have a financial interest?  You betcha- I make a percentage of the sales made to the board - but we figure this is a good way to give out publicity and at the same time earn a little bit back from the time we spend writing for Recruiting.com.  In case you don't know, I'm the editor of This Week, Recruiting.com's weekly newsletter, in addition to being an author and a cheerleader for the site.   

Coming Soon

I'm in my final week at Kforce, and will need to retool the blog to reflect that.  StlRecruiting will remain, but it will turn into a full-time advice and connection blog - rather than pitching jobs.

I won't disappear, as my new company, the Durbin Media Group, will be focused on building, supporting and connecting online communities to corporate clients.

Exciting times ahead.  Many of you will be getting e-mails and phone calls soon.

Voting at Recruiting.com

The voting for the 2005 Recruiting.com Blog Awards should be up and running - I'm onthe panel for best overall blog, and want everyone to know that I can be bought to throw the contest one way or another.

Posts are light because I'm working on some big ones, fighting a three week cold, and oh yeah - I;'m a Honeymooner!

In all seriousness, I did shoot up to Toronto to meet the Recruiting.com bloggers last week.  Franki and I  have never been to Toronto, so we thought it might be nice to visti someplace new and meet Jason Davis, Michael Kelemen, and Anthony Meany.  Good guys all - very knowledgeable, and Toronto is a fantastic city from what I could see of it.

Although - I did show my old fogeyness, as I called security on a group of accountants who were throwing a party next door when they woke me up at 12:00.  That's right - I called hotel security on people having a party in a hotel on a Saturday.  Turnabout's fair play, I say.

Good (read as long) posts coming on the future of the internal recruiter and the third party corporate recruiter - as well as the use of blogs by job-seekers.   In the meantime, go vote!

Hiring Revolution

Hey, hey - what do you know?  Hiring Revolution changed their logo!

Look  - I was all about complaining about the picture of Che on their site, but even then, the compelling content, constant updates, and upbeat tone at their blog won me over. 

The blog has great advice, good columns, and it looks like they just had a makeover.   Looks good.
Ragan Jones column on work-life balance flows , man.  It's clear she is just talking to you - and that's the essence of a good blog post.

So mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.  You should be reading them and giving them lots of bloggy love.

Every Blog Meet-up Ever

Jim Durbin presents:

A Jim Durbin Production:

Every Blog Meet-Up Ever:  The Movie

Link Idea from the Canadian Headhunter

Jakob Nielsen on Weblogs: The Critique

Jakob Nielsen used to be a guru.  There used to be a time when having a Nielsen book on your shelf showed you had cutting-edge experience in the web design world.  Are there any designers working in the corporate world that still feel this way?

He's old hat.  He's useful to start with - but his advice just keeps getting worse and worse.  I was recently e-mailed a link to Mr. Nielsen's views on weblog design - and I wasn't impressed.  It crossed my mind that, considering my lack of design skills, that an attack on Nielsen was a bit like an ant threatening an elephant. 

That only works if Nielsen's work stand up to my critique - so I'm going to write it down - and if my critique runs true, you have to wonder what kind of guru can't write a list that even little ol' me can't take down.

The very idea that Weblog design is akin to website design is the first sign that Nielsen is working in a medium of which he knows nothing.  I may not be a designer - but I sure as heck am a blogger.

The critique is below the fold:

Jakob Nielsen on Weblogs

Got a great link from Scott at ClientJava, one of the lists from Jakob Nielsen, the former usability guru,  on how to design weblogs.

I say former, because far to many people in the User Centered Design community don't take him seriously anymore.

1) - The alertbox is poorly designed - what does that say?
2) He takes an antagonistic view of weblogs - even calls them websites - which is a bit like saying video phones shoud be held to the same standards as broadcast television.
3) He wants an author photo. {sigh}

I don't have time to go into all of these right now - but I'm going to post a lengthy critique on this before I leave for Barcelona in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, check out his link - and send me a trackback if you want to start a discussion on the good and bad portions of his list. .

 

You Don't Have To Make Money

Jason links to Marc Cenedalla of TheLadders(I can never figure out if I spell his name correctly), about businesses trying to sell features rather than business models.

By and of themselves, there is not a business, not even a Web 2.0 business, to be had in inventing cool features. Now, cool features combined together to solve a customer need, yeah, but cool features of themselves don't make for a sustainable business. Businesses are about meeting people's needs in exchange for cash from someone. Otherwise, it's a philanthropy, a university project, or a hobby. Perhaps a really well-organized or over-funded hobby, but a hobby.

I partly agree.  Anyone running a company on empty is bound to run in cash-flow problems sooner or later.

But the promise of Web 2.0, and the blogosphere in general, is the idea that building a community will give you influence and traffic.  Influence and traffic can translate into revenue for small, standalone companies who don't need to control a market.

The perfect examples of this are John Hawkins of Right Wing News full-time blogger), Bill Quick of the DailyPundit.com (selling books), and let's not forget, Andrew Sullivan and Daily Kos.  None of those bloggers have business models per se, but they do have influence that allows them to channel money, take donations, run ads, and sell books.

They are the perfect example of the long tail.  Someone like Flikr may not need revenues of $300,000,000 to make everyone there filthy rich.  If enough people use the service, the company will be able to pay the people involved real salaries, and eventually, returns on their time investment.

"Build the community first" is the rock of the new economy.  Learning what to do with your traffic is a secondary decision.

Weblogs,Inc is a great example of this - but not because it was a popular blog site (it wasn't that big).  They focused on building communities - which will deliver monetization down the road.

Large Media Companies should be paying for bloggers who can build established communities, not for the latest darling based on traffic ranks.  The question is whether AOL could have payed other bloggers a few hundred thousand dollars and achieved the same results.   

My bet is on that last one - but don't tell anyone.   

Check Recruiting.com

Don't forget I blog regularly at www.Recruiting.com 

If you're interested in getting the e-mail newsletter, This Week at Recruiting.com, sign up here.

If you want to start your own blog, go here.

And don't forget to check out the RSS feed scrolling on the right side.

Never knew I was so versatile, did you?

If Media Types are Reading this

I linked to the Corante Website and used a Trackback.  That's how you're reading me.

Here's the thing.  You don't have to quit to turn around the newspapers, but you might want to keep reading.

Take me. I've started and stopped several blogs, and I write for recruiting.com.  My expertise is simply being an active blogger.  I've built up traffic and I know the blogging community.  i've left comments and learn html and met friends online and offline and have altered my newsreading habits because of blogs.  I am your lost consumer - and you want me back.

To get me back - you have to set aside your pride. Start by sending me a note and finding out how bloggers can help you refocus on local news for no additional costs.

Find out how bloggers can drum up newspaper subscriptions for you at the same time you drive traffic to them.

Most important - you can learn how the blogosphere (not individual blogs, but the network of people who utilize blogging technology) creates active communities of influence - influence that can then be used to push people to buy more newspapers.

I miss reading the paper.  But now as much as the paper business misses my subscription.  Write me at diogenescorner@hotmail.com and I'll share the secret with you.

Court Ruling on Blog Anonymity

Now they tell me.  I used to run a pseudononymous blog - it was pretty easy to track me down from earlier blog attempts.

It's when I realized that I had something to lose professionally and personally that I killed the dating blog.  People should realize that their identity is not necessarily protected - but their legal rights to be anonymous are.

Under the standard adopted by the Supreme Court, a plaintiff must first try to notify the anonymous poster that he is the subject of subpoena or request for a court to disclose his identity, allowing the poster time to oppose the request. The plaintiff would then have to provide prima facie evidence of defamation strong enough to overcome a summary judgment motion.

"The decision of the Supreme Court helps provide protection for anonymous bloggers and anonymous speakers in general from lawsuits which have little or no merit and are filed solely to intimidate the speaker or suppress the speech," said David Finger, a Wilmington attorney representing John Doe No. 1.

Flame on, commenters!

New Kids on the Blog.

Do you ever think of creating your own recruiting blog?  How about joining a pre-formed community of bloggers? 

The reason I point it out is because two new blogs have come to my attention from the Recruiting.com personal blogs, and they both show a low of potential.

Talking Talent. Just started - talks about the difference between knowledge staffing and the spaghetti method (throw against the wall to see if it sticks)

And Recruiter Illuminati - a great post by Cyndi on courting the Millenials versus the Babyboomers.

To sign up for your own recruiting blog - go here

Employment Blogging

Front Page in Staffing Management Magazaine.

Pulled off the RSS feed for Recruiting.com for Heather Hamilton

Some companies want to get on the bus, rather than find themselves under it.

It is the fear of giving carte blanche to employees to say whatever they want, as well as the blogosphere’s reputation as the “Wild West” of the Internet, that causes some to shy away from it.

The Bloggers are Revolting

Cartoon for the New Yorker and my response.

Can Blogs Make a Difference by Complaining?

I bring it up because over at Businessweek's Blogspotting, Heather Green preaches to the choir on the right way for companys to handle negative blogger posts.

The article she points us to at PRWeek  is excellent, because it taps into the why of blogger rants.
Consumers don't like being ignored when they have a grievance.  Typical business policy is to ignore consumers until they become enough of a nuisance that the negative publicity or the strain of answering phone calls is enough to solve the problem.  It's the old tactic of ignoring customers until they go away.

If I have a problem, say, with the builder of my condo (whom we'll call Fischer and Frichtel), and decide that I have been treated unfairly and am not getting the response I deserve - I just may post pictures of my problem online and ask the public to judge their work.  I could also post pictures of dead grass and trees in  Fischer and Frichtel communities where this particular builder puts down sod and landscaping, but leaves the tenants to put in their own sprinkler systems until after they moved into the building.  Some may say that is a smart way to save money for the builders.  Others might say it's typical behavior for a builder who wants to create a sleazy reputation - as putting sprinklers in the front of a community and using your contractors to water the lawn during construction is just a way to cut corners and hide the problem while you're selling your condos.

It might be typical practice - but for a builder as concerned with its reputation as Fischer and Frichter, one might expect that sleazy business practices might come back to harm them in the future.  One might hope.

This is an online example of what already is happening in the real world.

Advice on Blogging Platforms

Everyone is doing it.  Blogging that is.  You want to start, but other than the article in Newsweek and under the covers at night reading tech magazines, you don't know much about it.

I guess it's better that you learn it from me than on the street somewhere.

Tip, tricks and hints on how to start can be found
here
here
here

Read them all.  Stop right there, and click on the links.  I don't care if you're a CEO or a 13 year old.  You have no business blogging if you're not going to stop and read.

Now that you've read the three links, you need to decide what service you want.  This is where the post title comes in.

Essbase success. Help me write this site

For those of you I know that I have offered space on this blog - something to notice. 

Todd Binenstock is an Essbase consultant.  He took the time to write information about his specialty, and I posted it on my site for the world to see.

If you go to MSN and type in the search word, "Essbase,"  his Essbase post is the seventh result.

If you are an enterprising reporter, recruiter, hiring manager, or someone looking to learn more, Todd's Hyperion experience is something you will want to tap.  You now know who he is through the search engine.

He has raised his profile and branded his name.  Who's next?

Post on Pay Rate Maturity

Be sure to check out this post on pay rate maturity over at Recruiting.com.

It's part of something I'm working on in defining the growth potential of Recruiting.com and the HR/Employment Blogosphere in general. There are some inconsistencies in the theory, but I think they have more to do with lack of graphs I posted (I'm on the Mac, and can't get good pictures in - not a Macintosh guru).

The funny thing is a power law is supposed to describe a system in flux, when in my example, the bell curve describes the system in flux (IT salaries). This science of networks goes a long way to explaining the why of how human beings interact. Or at least it makes it easy to graph. Cold comfort for someone waiting four years for a raise - but if we remove the "The corporation is evil" mentality and replace it with "The corporation is what it naturally is," we'll all be better off.

You know the really interesting about compensation and happiness? We are only happy with compensation when we have someone to compare it to. In a flat environment with little chance of promotion, the majority of employees are happy with how much they make. In an environment where pay raises and compensation vary greatly, employees are only happy when they make 20% more than their peers.

Don't let that one get out. Management may decide to pay everyone the same. Just to keep us happy.

Typepad Woes

I'm a regular loser - of typepad posts. Of course when I was on Blogger and the earlier versions of Movable Type, I had the same problem.

Yesterday my fiancee called me on the way home from the gym. I picked up the phone, trying to avoid cursing as I told her hello. I had just lost another post!

Being human, I quickly blamed typepad. It was clear their interface was the problem.

Franki quickly disabused me of that notion.

See, I suffer from a syndrome called, Alt-Left Arrow Incidental contact. It's a terrible thing, where I tend to press some kind of combination of buttons that forces my browser to go BACK, losing all of the data I just wrote.

Sigh. I actually don't think I'm pressing alt-left arrow. There is some combination that functions with the backspace button to destroy my writing. I do have to admit that is has nothing to do with Typepad, and everything to do with my browser.

It's my number one request for the future of the web. Sure would save me a lot of time to fix it.
It does have one benefit.

If there is ever a post you don't like or that seems incomplete, I have a ready made excuse.
"Yeah, my browser ate the original post, and I had to rush something out and still get to work. Sorry about that."

Corporate Blogging is a conversation.

My second post is up at Fast Company's Blogjam 2005. Reproduced here.

I'm very impressed that FastCompany is opening up its
server space to its audience in celebraton of the
blogjam 2005. It represent an openness that we don't
see much from business publications, and certainly not
from the corporate world. What I find unique about
blogjam is how FC now has evangelists who can serve as
publicists for their magazine and their blog. Are
there any of us who hasn't casually dropped the fact
that we're blogging for fastcompany at least once?

It's smart, it's fun - and it's valuable for companies
to learn that their audience has something to say.

As Brian put it earlier, < a
href="http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives/2005/08/09/dude_youre_getting_delld.html">no
company wants to get Dell'd. Dell's problem is
not something that is easily measured in terms of
sales figures for this quarter,. How many people
stopped buying Dell because of a Jeff Jarvis post?
Probably not that many. A few deals may be lost when
a purchasing agent had a bad experience at home and
refuses to buy for their corporation, but discounts
always make those problems go away. The bigger
question is how much in marketing dollars and
sweetheart deals (both personal and commercial) Dell
is shelling out to maintain its market position - and
is that money spent on marketing preventing them from
posting higher profits and reinvesting in their
customer service - perpetuating the cycle of poor
performance.

Dell and Kryptonite locks are high-profile cases, but
two others spring to mind in the blogosphere - and the
companies involved did not learn the value of
listening to their audience. Anyone here know much
about Sony Pictures or Pepsico?

This Week

The latest version of This Week at Recruiting.com is completed.
To be added to the mailing list, e-mail me at jim@recruiting.com

If you don't know what it is, look here.

Do you want a free BlogAd?

This Week is now the official weekly newsletter, round-up at www.Recruiting.com. 

I edit This Week, and will be sending it out to subscriber lists of clients, job-seekers, and anyone who is interested.  Right now, there are about 1000 people who get it - and that number is expected to grow as we add our mailing list numbers.

To the point of the post.  We're putting blogger ads on the newsletter.  We're not charging for them.  The purpose of Recruiting.com is to spread awareness of the HR/Recruiting Blogosphere, and the purpose of This Week is the same.  Considering the number of new blogs that popping up, we thought to take advantage of our space to pimp out your blog.

That's right your blog.  We're swapping ad space for permalinks to the recruiting.com website.  All you have to do is e-mail me at jim@recruiting.com, and if your site is work-safe, I'll be happy to create an ad for you that will go out on our newsletter.

It's that simple.  You link to our site, we promote your blog in the newsletter.  AND THIS IS NOT JUST RECRUITER BLOGS.  This is any blogger who wants exposure.  SImply e-mail me at jim@recruiting.com, or if you know me - call me.  Ads are weekly, just like This Week.

If you'd like to link www.recruiting.com without a blog ad, that's welcome also, as is commentary on our site.  The way we look at it - everyone is a job-seeker, so everyone can use Recruiting.com.

The Definition of Recruiting

Now this is recruiting.  It's not sending resumes, or interviewing candidates, or filling online job requisitions.  It's connecting top-flight talent with top-flight managers and getting them to work towards successful careers.

ErExhange Blog Post by MIchael Homula

Why will they leave?  Because a skilled and gifted recruiter finds them, reaches out to them, understands them, consults with them, knows what criteria they will use to make a change, maintains a relationship and then offers them an opportunity that is better the one they are in presently.  See my article The Next Great Weapon in the War for Talent for more on this. 

Boom goes the dynamite.

BlogAds

I'm part of the recruiting.com team, and we're considering BlogAds as a way to increase our traffic to job-seekers.

We have the option of buying a large ad on the high-traffic sites, or spreading the money around to many, many smaller sites. If you're interested, or if you want to just alert me to your site, please send me an e-mail describing your site, your audience and your traffic. No site is too small! Job-seekers are everywhere, and chances are your audience is curious as to the insides and outsides of the staffing world.

Here's your chance for some exposure.

Referrals

I left a good comment here on referrals. It's gold, I tell you, GOLD!

Re-Relaunch

I've switched my domain name from Discount Domain Registry to Pair.com, which should be more friendly with Typepad as the Hosting Service.  It takes five days, so next Monday should be the re-relaunch of stlrecruiting, and the resumption of regular posting.

Leading St Louis Blawgs

Dennis Kennedy is a blogging lawyer in St Louis, one of a popular group if I understand links correctly.

Matthew Homman is another. Matthew and Dennis have a very interesting idea called LexThink, where blawggers get together and brainstorm ideas for companies. There's a post up on what they did for a company called LegalMatch after Matthew was contacted to discuss a negative post.

This is the transparency we're talking about. Companies seeking to improve their product can only benefit from seeking out the conversations LegalMatch should be applauded and an enterprising journalist should be following up on the story.

Or maybe I will.

Monster Blog Searches

Search results on Monster for the word, "blog"
66 resumes with the word "blog" somewhere in the text posted in the last month on Monster nationwide.

0 resumes posted in the last month in St Louis  with the word blog.
1 in last three months, 3 in the last year.

 639 active postings in the last year nationwide with the word blog.

Jobs Posted with the Word Blog:
St Louis: 1
Nationwide: 24

Companies will blog - I know many that do - but it's not reflected in our resumes or in our job postings.

In a technology economy, one does not look for a demand to supply.

One must create it.

 

Breaking News

The fine gents over at Recruiting.com have recently invited me to start posting at their site.  I am flattered, as recruiting.com was the impetus behind me buying this domain and starting a recruiting blog in the first place.

I'm going to try to split duties, talking about recruiting, staffing, and business, over there, and utilizing this site for St Louis specifics topics, jobs, and comments.

In fact, I need an ASP UI Developer for a job in Belleville and a Technical Manager with budget experience and a knack for managing the production team for a financial company in Clayton.  Maybe I'll post the jobs.

This is exciting.  The authors there are just different enough in their tone from me that we can all bring different viewpoints and blogging styles to the group.

Our goal is world domination of the staffing world.  Now if we only got paid for it.  Also I still need a recruiter. 

So keep an eye out for me.  This site will be getting an upgrade in style and design, and my posts at Recruiting.com will hopefully be a big success.

Add us to your blogrolls.

Blogging at Work

A timely article from Tech Central Station, considering I told my boss yesterday that I was a blogger when I saw his copy of Businessweek and Blogging.

The scary part from the TCS column:

"The biggest danger, at any rate, won't come from the internal blogging. It will come from management's overreaction to internal blogging. If managers are afraid of internal bloggers, and respond either with witchhunts and efforts to shut them down, or -- perhaps worse, from a standpoint of organizational health -- try too hard to appease dissidents by trying to run their companies or organizations in ways that won't offend anyone, the damage will be far greater than the damage done by bloggers."

It's all for the greater good.  Recruiting is about personal branding, and blogs are one way to communicate to professionals that you offer more than recruiting software.  Now if I can just avoid by worst instincts in the comment section...

Supply and Demand

Nationwide:

Jobs posted on Monster with search terms "Blog or Bloggers":  16

Resumes pulled up by searching for "Blog or Blogger: 708

St. Louis:

Resumes pulled up by searching for "Blog or Blogger: 5

Jobs posted on Monster with search terms "Blog or Bloggers": 0 - as in zero.

The question:  Is it a lack of demand for bloggers, a lack of knowledge of blogging by companies, or do job-seekers not post the fact they have blogs?

Statistics will be ongoing.

Blogger Jobs: 

It's not who you know, it's what I read.

If you're reading this, there's a 70% chance you're influential. 

OKay, it doesn't mean that, but I write for influence, not mathematical accuracy.

Non-Compete

George's Employment Blawg has a legal discussion about non-competes.

Here's my take on them regarding staffing.

"---- ------- -- ------ ------- ---- -- --- -- a ------ ---- --------- ------ --- -one- - --------- ----------"

Site Design Up and Running

A big thanks to my main tech support man and the people at Typepad for getting this up an running.