Tech Companies Going All Out to Recruit Talent

Rachael King, Bloomberg Businessweek  08/03/11

Michael De Frenza scans the crowd of 50 or so well-dressed professionals mingling near a bar at the W Hotel in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. De Frenza, a recent transplant to the Bay Area, is here looking not for a date, but for a job. Yet he’s far from desperate.

In five weeks, De Frenza, 34, has received five offers. “I’m taking my time trying to find the right fit,” he says.

I Love Rewards, which provides companies with services to motivate employees, arranges cocktail parties like this one every other week at the W Hotel to help recruit 40 people by Sept. 30 for a new West Coast sales office.

“Just in time for us arriving in San Francisco, the market has gotten extremely hot,” says CEO Razor Suleman. “San Francisco is coming back to the days when candidates have two or three job offers,” he says.

Competition for cloud computing engineers, security experts and mobile developers as well as sales professionals in the technology industry has gotten so fierce in the past six months that companies are going to greater lengths to woo prospective employees. They’re throwing lavish parties, handing out free food at conferences, doling out $50,000 signing bonuses, and offering perks such as free haircuts and medical care at the office.

Nearly full employment

The tech sector is fueling a job boom that stands in stark contrast to the malaise of the general job market. The nationwide unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the same time, the unemployment rate for tech professionals dropped to 3.3 percent, from 5.3 percent in January. “That’s pretty close to full employment,” says Alice Hill, managing director of technology career website Dice.com.

“It’s such a thin market, it feels like everybody is employed already,” says Adam Pisoni, co-founder and chief technology officer of Yammer, which sells software and services for social networking in the workplace. “Engineers have 10 recruiters calling them.”

The San Francisco company would like to hire between 50 and 100 engineers this year, Pisoni says.

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Be Aware of What comes up if you are Googled

 

 

First impressions count!
Whether it is over the phone, face to face or online, the first contact anyone has with you will affect their opinion of you – for life.

Online, the main way to initially “meet people” is via search engines. Most people nowadays will conduct a quick search on someone they are about to hire, interview or network with. With personal online visibility playing such a large role in today’s world, ensuring that you make a good first impression via the search engine result pages is essential. These listings have become known as your Google CV.

What is Your Google CV?

Online, your reputation is translated from what appears on the first three pages of the results that Google returns when your name is searched for. Very few searchers will progress beyond the first ten results of a search and it is vital that your most important information appears here. Just like a traditional CV, everyone needs to have a Google CV and it should feature the “you” that you want people to see.

Step One in the Google CV Process

The first thing to do is to make sure that you actually appear in the top listings of Google. You are unlikely to have a unique name – unless Frank Zappa is your father – so it is up to you to make sure that you are the Joe Smith who is number one. It may also be possible that other people have written some negative things about you. These should never be the first results that people find, meaning you need to add more content to push these negative mentions down the rankings and away from page one.

It is also not good enough for the first Google result to be about you purely because you were photographed at the latest club opening in your city. This will not impress most future employers or clients. The first few results on your Google CV need to portray you as how you want to be seen – a fundamental step on online self-marketing. If you are looking for a new job, your first few results need to be professional and informative or, if you are building your online blogging / website profile, a little more personal information and motivation to visit your site could be needed.

How to Build Your Google CV

This all sounds well and good, but many people are lost when it comes to making it happen. Thankfully, there are some easy things to remember when successfully building your Google CV:

• Have a website – There are few better ways to control your persona online than by having your own website / blog.
• Create good content – If you have a website or blog, make sure that it is regularly updated with quality content to help make you the leading expert in your field.
• Become involved – Having a strong online presence by participating in areas like forums and commenting on blogs will increase the amount of cross-linking that occurs around your name.
• Network socially – Having an active profile on sites like LookupPage, Facebook and LinkedIn will help you make valuable connections. These sites also rank well on Google and offer trusted links to your website.

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9 Ways To Get A Recruiter To Throw Your CV In The Trash

From HITC.com

A million websites are handing out career tips, advising the best way for jobseekers to ‘sex’ up their CVs and scrub up for interviews. Most of it, of course, is old hat.

But we thought it would be interesting to see if there were any big ‘no-nos’ when it comes to trying to impress a recruiter, so we sought the advice of international recruiting legend Ronnie the Recruiter.

Here’s Ronnie’s list:

1. Never send in a photo with your CV. Firstly, it’s naff. Secondly, no-one cares what you look like. And thirdly, if you are ugly or look like an idiot, your CV could end up in the bin.

2. Best send in a 2-page CV (three pages maximum).  Any more, and you risk turning off a recruiter, who, in the end, might not be bothered to read anything about you at all. Many recruiters only have time to quickly scan a CV for key words (and are usually looking for ‘gift wrapped’ key word combinations like ‘Goldman’ and ‘Sachs’ or ‘Morgan’ and ‘Stanley’), so keep all the superfluous stuff out – keep it simple and tight.

3. If your middle name is uncool (like Cuthbert or Joyce), don’t include it on your CV.

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Women Need to Up Their Game on LinkedIn: 5 Dos For Online Networking

From SavvySugar.com

Women seriously need to improve their online networking savvy. A survey by LinkedInfound that men are overall better at networking online than their female counterparts. The data was gauged by how many men versus women were using LinkedIn and how many connections men had compared to women on the professional networking website.

As job hunting shifts to the online space, it’s vital to know how to best position yourself online and network on the web. Not doing so will mean losing out on career opportunities, and facing a harder uphill battle when competing against male job seekers for desirable jobs.

To get started on workin’ your web contacts, read these five dos from Krista Canfield, the senior PR manager for LinkedIn

• Do add a photo to your LinkedIn profile.
• Do find mentors and build out your peer network.
• Do update your profile regularly.
• Do branch out and make new connections outside of your comfort zone.
• Do take matters into your own hands.

Business Etiquette for Responding to Mail & Email

While much is written about how to correctly word a business email or structure a professional letter, it is just as important to respond effectively to these forms of communication. Doing so can enhance your reputation, exhibit your professionalism and possibly pave the way for new contracts, orders and deals.

Read the following article to enhance your business practises on E-HOW.

5 tech tips that will help you land a job

These days, getting an edge over the competition means combining traditional techniques with tech-savvy creativity.

~ By Stacy Johnson, Money.MSM.com

With the U.S. unemployment rate at 8.8%, many people are still looking for work.

Given the crowded field of applicants, job seekers need an edge anywhere they can find it – and some are finding it through social media and other technology.

For example, one guy got a job through a $6 ad campaign. He bought sponsored search results from Google that turned up his website when the people he wanted to hire him searched their own names. Of course, that trick won’t work for everyone. But it’s just one example of using technology wisely.

To find out what other people are doing (or should be doing) our reporter Jim Robinson talked with Shari Saperstein, the director of Career Development at Nova Southeastern University. To hear what she thinks is important these days, watch the video below. Then read on for some more tech tips to help you trump the competition.

1. Research employers. Look at company websites not only for job openings but also to get a feel for the company. Try to understand what they do, and how and why they do it — employers may skip over candidates who don’t know anything about the company. What buzz words does the company use to describe itself? Parroting them at an interview couldn’t hurt. If you’re targeting a specific company, set up a Google news alert so you get emailed the latest happenings. You can also check for employee reviews at Glassdoor.com and use sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to see what other employees are saying or even ask them questions — through private messages, of course.
2. Clean up your online persona. Potential employers will be using the same methods to scope you out, so make sure your profiles are professional — or at least private. “If you have a Facebook page, it should be fully professional,” Saperstein says. “Pull off anything you wouldn’t want your mother to see and use email to go back and forth with your friends.” She also says not to have multiple profiles on a site. Employers may find them and think you’re hiding something. For more tips on scrubbing your Internet persona, check out 6 Tips for Going Underground Online.
3. Use your smartphone. Yup, there’s an app for that. Here are 10 iPhone Apps to Manage Your Job Search and 20 Best Android Apps for Your Job Search. “Companies are starting to get into posting positions through different apps,” Saperstein says – Starbucks made its first hire through an app last October.
4. Build your brand. Many people now have at least a digital version of their resume on a site like LinkedIn. Some people are starting to use Google Profiles as well, and others create their own websites with blogs and portfolios of their work. You don’t have to be a tech genius to do it, either. There are customizable publishing platforms like WordPress, which even has videos showing you step-by-step how to build your own site and offers free templates that you simply type into. Also, get involved on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but don’t just post your own stuff. Have conversations with people in the field. And do it consistently. “You can’t just create a Facebook page or Twitter and abandon it,” Saperstein says. “You need to tweet once or twice a week, minimum.”
5. Network and learn. The more time you spend on these social networks, the more you’ll notice industry discussions and training resources are everywhere. Here’s a list of weekly chats on Twitter for PR people, and the people you follow probably know about the ones relevant to your field. If there isn’t one, think about starting one. People will pay attention to you, and it’s a great networking opportunity. “Take the initiative,” Saperstein says. “It shows someone who has a lot of foresight, energy, and is really motivated and engaged.” Sites like Mashable keep an eye on the social media world, and even discuss things like, oddly enough, How Job Seekers May Use Social Media in the Future.

To read full article and watch video, go here

Why Your Negative Outlook is Killing Your Career

All of us cynical, sardonic, too-smart-for-our-own-and-everyone-else’s-good IT professionals who think we can get ahead in our careers based purely on our blazing intellects will surely question the following stat: Only 25 percent of job success stems from intelligence and technical skills, according to research conducted in the field of emotional intelligence.

“Intelligence does predict some success, but it doesn’t predict even the majority of it,” says corporate strategy consultant Shawn Achor, a former Harvard psychology professor and author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work (Crown Business 2010). “You can take individuals of equal levels of intelligence, and you find there’s dramatic variance in their success rates.”

If career success isn’t primarily a function of intelligence, then what causes it? Three factors likely to revile our sick, scornful hearts are larger indicators of success, according to Achor: optimism, social support and whether we view stress as an opportunity or threat.

I know what you’re thinking: Of course researchers in the namby-pamby field of emotional intelligence would conclude that looking on the bright side (seriously?) and friendships (gag us with a spoon!) play more important roles in our career achievements than measurable qualities like intelligence and hard skills. But, in fact, a growing body of scientific research reveals an indisputable connection between a positive mental attitude and that ever-elusive, most subjective notion we call success.

“Our brains are designed to work better when they’re in a positive state as opposed to a negative or neutral one,” says Achor, citing numerous studies on positive psychology. “We find that when people are positive, it raises their productivity rate by 31 percent compared to when they’re in a negative state of mind. Sales people sell 37 percent more than their negative counterparts. We know that doctors, when they’re positive, perform diagnoses 19 percent more accurately.”

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Managing Yourself: Stop Holding Yourself Back

by Anne Morriss, Robin J. Ely, and Frances X. Frei | HBR

From the world’s poorest communities to the corner offices of its largest corporations, ambitious employees struggle with the same basic challenge: how to gain the strength and insights not just to manage but to lead. For more than a decade, from three different perspectives, we have been investigating what gets in the way. Robin conducts research on race, gender, and leadership; Frances focuses on coaching senior executives; and Anne works on unleashing social entrepreneurs around the world.

We’ve worked with hundreds of leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, in industries spanning more than 30 fields, and in more than 50 countries at various stages of development. Amid all the diversity, one very clear pattern has emerged: Organization builders, fire starters, and movement makers are unintentionally stopping themselves from becoming exceptional leaders. As a result, companies aren’t getting the best from their people, and employees are limiting their opportunities.

Why does this happen? We’ve identified five major barriers.

Barrier 1: Overemphasizing Personal Goals

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Where Will You Be in Five Years?

Harvard Business Review | Amy Gallo

Most people have been asked that perennial, and somewhat annoying, question: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Of course it is asked most often in a job interview, but it may also come up in a conversation at a networking event or a cocktail party. Knowing and communicating your career goals is challenging for even the most ambitious and focused person. Can you really know what job you’ll be doing, or even want to be doing, in five years?

What the Experts Say
In today’s work world, careers take numerous twists and turns and the future is often murky. “Five years, in today’s environment, is very hard to predict. Most businesses don’t even know what’s going to be required in two or three years,” says Joseph Weintraub, a professor of management and organizational behavior at Babson College and co-author of the book, The Coaching Manager: Developing Top Talent in Business. While it may be difficult to give a direct and honest response to this question, Weintraub and Timothy Butler, a senior fellow and the director of Career Development Programs at Harvard Business School, agree that you need to be prepared to answer it. And you need to treat any conversation like an interview. “Every person you talk to or meet is a potential contact, now or in the future,” says Weintraub.

The first step is knowing the answer for yourself. “It’s a very profound question. At the heart of it is ‘where does meaning reside for me?’” says Butler. You have to clarify for yourself what you aspire to do with your career before you can communicate it confidently to others.

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It’s Time to Re-Energize Your Job-Search Efforts

aol.com  March 8 2011 12:15:00 PM

Strong job-growth numbers in February and a slight dip in unemployment should encourage people to restart the job search — especially in the temporary job market. The unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent, as the private sector added 222,000 jobs, according to today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Today you heard a big sigh of relief in a lot of places: on Wall Street, in the Obama administration and from people who are out of work,” said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement firm. “If you let your job search slip a little, it’s time to re-energize your efforts.”

The manufacturing and construction industries posted strong gains, a collective 66,000 new jobs. Meanwhile, government jobs droppped by 30,000 as state and local governments cut payrolls to mitigate budget woes.

Promising signs

William Rodgers III, a professor at Rutgers University and former chief economist of the Labor Department, was encouraged by the data.

“It’s a signal that the acceleration we’re seeing in other parts of the economy is starting to shift over to the job market,” he said. “We’re starting to get some momentum.”

Temporary jobs, in particular, are a good place to gain a toehold in the work force, experts said. Of the 222,000 private sector jobs added in February, 15,500 were temporary, according to Jodi Chavez, senior vice president for Accounting Principles, a division of Adecco, a human resources firm.

When the economy starts to bounce back, temporary staffing firms are among the first to hire, said Chavez. Many companies are still “a little gun-shy” to sign on full-time employees, she added.

A temporary post can be “almost like a job interview,” said Andrew Steinerman, an analyst who covers the temporary staffing industry for JPMorgan. “Once you’re on assignment, you have a chance to prove yourself for a full time job. It’s a good way to get your foot in the door.”

Temporary staffing has been increasing since the recession ended. Some observers are predicting that in the next few years temp workers will be a larger part of the labor force than ever before.

Chavez advises that those who want to try temporary staffing should find a temporary staffing firm that specializes in their field.

“If you’re an IT worker, go to an IT temporary staffing firm. If you’re in manufacturing, go to a manufacturing temporary staffing firm,” she said.

Read more…..No Longer a Stigma….