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Tag: Hiring

  • Amazon Continues Its Reign as Top MBA Grad Recruiter for Seventh Year

    Amazon Continues Its Reign as Top MBA Grad Recruiter for Seventh Year

    The latest data shows Amazon is the top recruiter of MBA grads for the seventh year in a row, beating out the rest of Big Tech and traditional industries.

    Amazon is the largest e-commerce platform in the world and the top cloud provider with its AWS division. While it’s not surprising that it attracts top talent, the company manages to do more than that, maintaining its status as THE top MBA recruiter for seven years running, according to OnlineU.

    In order to maintain its top spot, Amazon has beat out the likes of Apple, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, and other Big Tech companies. Amazon has also bested financial and consulting companies, traditionally strong contenders.

    Much of Amazon’s appetite for MBA grads can be chalked up to its rapidly growing and diverse business interests. The company dominates numerous industries, generating a need for top talent to help it continue growing, innovating, and fending off rivals.

    OnlineU makes the case that MBA grads have a world of opportunities available to them.

    Now more than ever, MBA graduates have a wide range of choices as to where they’ll end up. Industries beyond finance are opening their doors to MBA graduates in the hope their business acumen will help the company’s bottom line.

    The tech industry is no exception. Amazon in particular is clearly hungry for workers with business experience, so it’s certainly a viable option for those with a graduate degree.

  • How to Make Hire Slow Fire Fast Work for Your Organization

    How to Make Hire Slow Fire Fast Work for Your Organization

    Many companies in the U.S have experienced hiring struggles in the U.S. since the start of the COVID pandemic.  There has been a shift in the job landscape that is putting a larger focus on how companies are hiring and firing their employees.  

    Almost 75% of employers have said they hired the wrong person for a position.  Amazon fulfillment centers offer full-time employees as much as $5,000 to quit but with the caveat of those quitting not being allowed to work at Amazon again.  Better.com fired 900 employees on a Zoom call in December 2021, which was criticized and considered harsh by many on social media.  Companies like these follow an old concept in business that employers should be slow to hire but quick to fire. 

    What does hire slow, fire fast really mean? Hiring slowly means that you give yourself time to carefully consider your needs and expectations, draft a new job description based on business goals, describe the skills and attributes needed for long-term success, and consider how well candidates will complement team dynamics.  

    Firing quickly doesn’t have to happen in an extreme situation.  Sometimes you end up through the firing process if you hire the wrong person.  However, you can avoid firing often if you try to forgive mistakes, think of firing as a hiring mistake and confront it head-on, focus on the long-term benefits, and approach employees with compassion while aiding their transition.  

    However, there are a few things hire slow, fire fast does not mean. It doesn’t mean hiring the right person when you find them.  Be sure to give yourself time to consider and not just hire the person because they applied early.  It also doesn’t mean to expect the perfect hire to drop right into your lap because most employees that fit your criteria can be trained to be excellent in their role.  

    All at the Right Pace

    Hiring slowly and firing quickly does not involve firing employees on a whim.  Fast firing is not a replacement for training, coaching, or changing roles to better suit a good employee.  It doesn’t signify having overly specific expectations as well.  Selective hiring is a luxury; employers still need to create a company where people want to work.  

    Hiring and firing at the right speed is good for employees and employers.  They maintain positivity and good company culture because teams that naturally work well together could be made.  Finding a good hiring and firing speed can ensure company success as well by minimizing bureaucracy and bloat while keeping the company agile.  

    The best benefit is the better long-term success for everyone.  If an employee is a bad fit, they won’t be happy staying which will negatively affect the rest of the team.  

    In Conclusion

    November 2021 saw more than 4 million people voluntarily leaving their jobs.  With all of the changes happening in the job market at the moment, it is more important now than ever to hire slowly so employers can find people who will help the company in the long run while making employees happy at their new job.

  • Harvard Business School: ‘Current Hiring System Is Broken’

    Harvard Business School: ‘Current Hiring System Is Broken’

    Harvard Business School has released a new report highlighting just how “broken” the current hiring system is.

    Virtually everyone has had the experience of applying for a job, seemingly the perfect candidate, only to be excluded from consideration with no good explanation. According to Harvard Business School, that scenario is more reality than suspicion.

    Many companies rely on automated hiring systems to aid in the process, but those very systems are creating much of the problem.

    These systems are vital; however, they are designed to maximize the efficiency of the process. That leads them to hone in on candidates, using very specific parameters, in order to minimize the number of applicants that are actively considered. For example, most use proxies (such as a college degree or possession of precisely described skills) for attributes such as skills, work ethic, and self-efficacy. Most also use a failure to meet certain criteria (such as a gap in full-time employment) as a basis for excluding a candidate from consideration irrespective of their other qualifications.

    As a result, they exclude from consideration viable candidates whose resumes do not match the criteria but who could perform at a high level with training. A large majority (88%) of employers agree, telling us that qualified high-skills candidates are vetted out of the process because they do not match the exact criteria established by the job description. That number rose to 94% in the case of middle-skills workers.

    Harvard Business School recommends a number of changes in the hiring process, including changing evaluation filters from negative criteria to affirmative, customizing the hiring approach for hidden workers, establishing new evaluation metrics and more.

    The full report is well worth a read for anyone involved in the hiring process.

  • Outreach CEO: The Rise Of The Revenue Innovator

    Outreach CEO: The Rise Of The Revenue Innovator

    “We’re seeing the rise of what we call the “revenue innovator, says Outreach CEO Manny Medina. “The revenue innovator is a different job description that has changed since the pandemic. The new job description is the revenue innovators, the digital-first, and the digital native. Those revenue innovators are the new revenue leaders.”

    Manny Medina, CEO of Outreach, discusses the “rise of the revenue innovator” in an interview today on CNBC:

    The Rise of the Revenue Innovator

    We’re seeing the rise of what we call the “revenue innovator.” The revenue innovator is a different job description that has changed since the pandemic. It’s a data-driven digital-first predictable long-building trusting relationship kind of seller. What we are seeing is this influx and this growth in the type of seller that knows how to drive a digital conversation but is complemented with a hybrid approach of visiting your customer. It’s a very predictable, very data-driven kind of job description.

    The growth happening across our customer base is the growth of that kind of seller. This is a seller and a customer-facing rep who is going to be very data-driven and very innovator-led. If we are going to think of the Salesforce numbers that just came out these are incredible signs of growth for the cloud platform. That’s an incredible sign of growth for us as well because what we are seeing is the system of action is taking place on top of the system of record that Salesforce is providing.

    Second Wave of Digital Transformation

    All of the companies that used to be in the mainstream economy are accelerating into the second wave of digital transformation. The first wave of digital transformation is to move all of the data into the cloud and that is happening but it’s not what companies are talking about. Companies are talking about how do you make me smarter? How do you make my teams more efficient? How do you make my teams digital-first?

    How do I live and thrive in this new hybrid environment post-Covid in which the buyer is not ready to see sellers until post transaction until you are expanding not selling? All of these “before-laggers” are becoming early innovators and early adopters with new technology such as Outreach which is AI-driven and digital-first.

    The new job description is the revenue innovators, the digital-first, and the digital native. They may not have them yet but they are coming online, they are getting these jobs. Those revenue innovators are the new revenue leaders. They are also hiring people of the same ilk that are looking to drive this innovation within their companies. That’s what you are seeing in this transformation. Transformations are always people first.

    It’s this new wave of people that are coming into traditional companies that are driving this second digital transformation. They are forward thinkers and they are data-driven.

    Outreach Doubling Headcount Again

    Outreach is doubling its headcount again. We almost doubled from the beginning of the pandemic all the way to now and we expect to hit another double in terms of hiring. We expect another 600 to 700 people to come on board. Most importantly, what we are seeing is that our customers are growing as well. We sell seats ahead of sales demand and we are seeing sales seats being bought very quickly.

    We are expecting our customers to be driving double-digit growth across the board. This is a great sign for the economy.

    Outreach CEO Manny Medina: The Rise Of The Revenue Innovator
  • Snowflake CEO: Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off

    Snowflake CEO: Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off

    “Once you get to the cloud all of a sudden the lid is off,” says Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman. “People can just pursue their backlogs and whatever they can imagine. We’re now in a situation where technology is ahead of what people are capable of and imagining what they could actually do with it. That’s really a big part of what you see in Snowflake’s growth profile, a completely variable paradigm.”

    Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake, says that on-premise data centers can only accommodate a tiny fraction of what their real demand for data analytics really is:

    Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off

    The important thing to understand is that there’s a couple of long-term secular trends that are coinciding and driving the development of the market overall. One is, as everybody knows, the movement towards cloud. It’s really a modernization play. We’re moving from on-premise data centers and we’re taking workloads to the cloud because we get to take advantage of better economics and utility models. Then we no longer have to manage capacity, we pay by the drink and all that sort of thing.

    The other aspect that’s really important for our business is that we’ve had an extraordinary amount of pent up demand. The on-premise data centers could only accommodate a very tiny fraction of what their real demand for data analytics really is. Once you get to the cloud all of a sudden the lid is off. People can just pursue their backlogs and whatever they can imagine. We’re now in a situation where technology is ahead of what people are capable of and imagining what they could actually do with it. That’s really a big part of what you see in Snowflake’s growth profile, a completely variable paradigm.

    Notion Of Headquarters Is Evaporating

    We don’t have a yearning to go back to where we were. I can see why people would have that because of lockdowns and things of that sort. From a business standpoint, there’s a lot of positives to the shock to the system that we received. It’s almost like a wake-up call that is just opening our eyes to the opportunity. This whole notion that the office is your workday home we just realized that it’s nonsense. In other words, offices need to be there for specific purposes, for events, for training, for meetings specifically, but not a place to hang out nine to five. That’s definitely changing. It’s going to really reduce the real estate footprint that companies have.

    The other trend and you’ve seen it with companies leaving California, the likes of Oracle and HP and Tesla, and so on is that the whole notion of headquarters is pretty much evaporating in front of our eyes. We’re no longer operating with a physical center of the universe. We’re completely virtual. We’re connecting as needed. We’ve been operating for the better part of a whole year without a headquarters and it’s just fine. All of a sudden everybody’s staring at each other and saying like what is the headquarters anyway. You’ve seen companies like Pinterest and you’re writing up massive leeches in San Francisco and saying we’re going to be headquarter-less. It’s just a concept whose time has gone away… and that’s very profound.

    We Are Buying Talent And Technology, No M&A

    Usually, big M&A is a function of people running out of market and running out of a lot of opportunity. They’re trying to invade adjacent territories to give themselves new runway. That is obviously not the case for Snowflake. We’re in a tremendous marketplace and we are buying talent and technology. We sometimes refer to it as stem cells that we can use that we don’t have ourselves that we can build very specific technologies around that are very much built snowflake way. We can really enable our platform mission or footer. That’s really been our mode. If you looked at our history we don’t have a history of doing big acquisitions.

    Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman: Once You Get To The Cloud The Lid Is Off
  • Amazon Raises Warehouse Hires to 175,000

    Amazon Raises Warehouse Hires to 175,000

    Amazon announced it has hired the initial 100,000 warehouse workers it originally pledged, and is now hiring an additional 75,000.

    In the midst of the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu, Amazon has been a lifeline for many individuals. The e-commerce giant has been struggling, however, to keep up with demand for groceries and basic necessities, even limiting fulfillment of non-essential items. In an effort to keep up, Amazon previously announced it would hire an additional 100,000 warehouse workers, even starting them at $2 an hour more than standard pay.

    Now the company has confirmed it has hired those initial 100,000 additional workers, and is expanding its hiring to include 75,000 more.

    “Today, we are proud to announce our original 100,000 jobs pledge is filled, and those new employees are working at sites across the U.S.,” reads the company’s blog post. “We continue to see increased demand as our teams support their communities, and are going to continue to hire, creating an additional 75,000 jobs to help serve customers during this unprecedented time. Interested candidates can apply at www.amazon.com/jobsnow.”

    Amazon’s announcement is good news for everyone concerned. The additional workers will help the company keep up with demand as the crisis drags on, while the new jobs will be a lifesaver to individuals whose livelihood is being impacted.

  • Microsoft Continues Cloud Hiring, Freezes Other Areas

    Microsoft Continues Cloud Hiring, Freezes Other Areas

    As the global pandemic continues to take its toll, Microsoft is freezing hiring for many roles, but is continuing to hire for its cloud division.

    According to a report, employees told Business Insider that “Microsoft is still hiring for roles within its massive cloud computing business, and the company was holding virtual hiring events for software engineers as recently as last week. Some groups, one employee said, are ‘prioritizing consumer-facing and critical roles.’”

    The news should come as no surprise, given the impact of the pandemic. As governments have called on individuals to social distance and stay at home, and as companies have sent their workers home with orders to telecommute, the cloud computing industry has entered its heyday. From Slack to Teams, Office 365 to Google Docs, Zoom to Skype, people are relying on cloud-based software and solutions like never before.

    In view of that, it makes sense that Microsoft would continue hiring for its cloud division. It’s likely that any increase in Microsoft’s cloud personnel will be permanent and far outlast the current crisis, due to the fundamental shift in the workforce the pandemic is causing. The longer it goes on, the more likely current telecommuting trends will become the norm, resulting in a permanent demand for cloud-based solutions.

  • Facebook Plans to Hire 10,000 People This Year In Product and Engineering

    Facebook Plans to Hire 10,000 People This Year In Product and Engineering

    Facebook plans to hire some 10,000 people for its product and engineering teams this year, according to COO Sheryl Sandberg.

    In an interview with CNBC, Sandberg was asked if she would pledge not to layoff any employees, as many companies have done in the midst of the economic crisis. Sandberg took it a step further, indicating Facebook planned to keep their existing employees and hire thousands more.

    “Our hiring is keeping at a very, very aggressive clip,” said Sandberg.

    “We feel fortunate to be able to do that,” she continued. “We also have the responsibility to do that — to keep our own employees, but hopefully hire more because we need them.”

    The new hires will no doubt be an asset to the company as it struggles to keep up with demand as people use the social media platform to stay connected during lockdowns, shelter in place orders and remote work.

  • KENTECH Launches ClarityIQ, Bringing Predictive Analytics to the Hiring Process

    KENTECH Launches ClarityIQ, Bringing Predictive Analytics to the Hiring Process

    The challenge for business startups is focusing your time and money on the things that will be most impactful to your business success. Kenneth Coats, founder, and CEO of KENTECH Consulting says that “the lesson I would pass on to other entrepreneurs is to simplify.”

    CEO Kenneth Coats of KENTECH Consulting, an investigative background check technology company recently discussed on Entrepreneur his business challenges and offered advice to other small business founders:

    Simplification is Key to Going to Market Quickly

    I’m the founder and CEO of KENTECH Consulting. We help the world make clear informed decisions. We are an investigative technology firm. We help our clients navigate risks and hire superior human capital. The biggest challenge I experience in my current role as founder and CEO is having many ideas and not enough time to execute on them all.

    The challenge that it created was the ability to go to market. How we resolved it was to simplify the process which was harder than it appears on paper to cut out things we knew we couldn’t possibly do in the time we have. The lesson I would pass on to other entrepreneurs is to simplify. There are many great ideas that are constantly running around in our head. Those are great, but it’s good to just journal them and simplify and execute.

    KENTECH Launches ClarityIQ, Bringing Technology to the Hiring Process

    Security has continuously been a challenge throughout the world whether it’s people, or access or technology. What we are looking at is tackling police and law enforcement recruitment. Policing in the US is not so good. There is not a great relationship between the community and police. Part of that challenge is stemming from the hiring practices.

    We’ve been looking at how to resolve that problem by ensuring that the right people are being hired in these positions. We now have a patent pending product called ClarityIQ which is built on providing predictive analytics, a “FICO” score of sorts on the success probability of a person becoming a law enforcement officer that can orient into the community.

    Entrepreneurs Should Expect the Unexpected

    As a leader how do you prepare for the challenges that you may face? The simple answer to that is to expect the unexpected at all times. Being an entrepreneur is living inside the Matrix where two plus two does not equal four. If you understand that from the outset two plus two can equal whatever you want it to. You can always plan and 80 percent of the time things will work out, but leaving about 20 percent unforeseen and expect it is the challenge.

  • How to Find Seasonal Employees For Your Small Business When Unemployment is Low

    How to Find Seasonal Employees For Your Small Business When Unemployment is Low

    Target, Macy’s and other retailers are already gearing up for the upcoming holidays and the accompanying shopping madness. Insiders are anticipating a good season, thanks to consumer optimism and low unemployment. But can retailers find enough seasonal workers to fill their needs?

    Target is aiming to hire 120,000 seasonal employees while Macy’s plans to bring onboard 80,000. The Gap is reportedly looking for around 65,000 part-time workers. Meanwhile, delivery carriers are also looking for more workers in anticipation of the upcoming surge in online shopping. FedEx is hoping to sign up 55,000 extra hands while UPS will have room for 100,000 employees.

    Unfortunately for retailers, finding extra employees won’t be easy. The US job market is very worker-friendly at the moment, thanks to the record low unemployment rate. Job seekers now have more options and can afford to be picky about who they want to work for.

    Image result for us unemployment statistic 2018

    [Image source: TalkMarkets]

    Because of this, a lot of businesses have implemented some strategies in the hopes of seducing seasonal employees. For instance, some retailers are offering customized incentives or hiring HR contractors. Others businesses are opting to give better training to their existing workers instead of hiring additional ones.

    As a small business owner, you’ll also need seasonal employees. However, the hiring strategies used by large enterprises might not be effective for you. But that doesn’t mean they can’t compete. If your small business needs more workers for the holidays, here are a few strategies to help you fill your roster.

    How to Get Seasonal Employees Interested

    1. Tap Into Your Team’s Network

    One of the best sources of temporary employees is through your current staff members. Tap into your team’s network and ask for their help in looking for new teammates. The holiday season can be brutal and most small businesses won’t have the luxury of replacing unreliable workers at this time of year. You’ll have to hire trustworthy people and the best way of doing that is via personal referrals.

    Implement an employee referral system for your small business. This will give you a consistent pipeline of candidates while keeping current staff happy with their referral incentives. Plus, employee retention tends to be higher with referred applicants.

    2. Be Flexible With Schedules and Incentives

    Monetary incentives are often not enough to get a worker interested, especially in today’s labor market. However, customizing your job offer and the perks that come with it can get you a nibble in the job pool.

    Seasonal workers have a different motivation for taking on the job. They might need extra income for school, the position could be an internship they need, or maybe they have family commitments to meet. This also means a conventional schedule or payday might not cut if for them. Your new hires might ask to be paid daily or want the option to give you their preferred weekly schedule. Being flexible with your worker’s schedule or incentive structure will go a long way in helping you to fill your job openings in time for the holidays.

    3. Check College Campuses

    College and university campuses are a great hiring ground for seasonal workers. Many students don’t return home for the holidays and the majority look forward to earning money and getting some work experience during this time.

    Businesses are also ensured of employees that are energetic, enthusiastic and well-educated. The holiday season is also an ideal time for students to work part-time or as interns as their position comes with a definite end date. It’s a win-win situation. Boost your odds by advertising on campuses and posting on college job recruitment websites.

    4. Host a Job Fair

    A job fair is one of the most efficient ways of sourcing contract workers. However, an event like this takes time to plan and organize. But when executed properly, you can connect with numerous candidates in a short period of time.

    Join annual job fairs several months ahead of the season you want to hire for. This will give you enough time to select the best candidates and train them. Spread the word by advertising at local colleges, newspapers, and news stations. Make sure you also post your requirements on your website and through online job boards.

    5. Look at a Different Job Pool

    Don’t limit yourself to conventional job pools or postings. There are numerous organizations or programs that you can reach out to for job placements. For instance, why not get in touch with organizations that work with ex-cons or the handicap?

    A temporary HR contractor can also help fill your job openings. Recruiting is time-consuming and most many small businesses aren’t able to outsource, interview and process applicants. An HR contractor can manage your staffing requirements so you’ll have more time to focus on other critical tasks. What’s more, an HR company knows how to select the best candidates for the job. And if you’re lucky, your seasonal hire could become a permanent asset to your company.

    Businesses hire millions of seasonal employees every year. While it’s more challenging for small businesses to catch the attention of these workers, you can still do it. You’ll just have to think outside the box and come up with creative tactics. Asking for employee referrals, being flexible with incentives and tapping college students are just some ways to secure hires and be productive during the holiday season.

    [Featured image via Pexels]

  • Survey Finds 1/3 of Companies Not Satisfied with Digital Employees

    Survey Finds 1/3 of Companies Not Satisfied with Digital Employees

    Accenture has a new report out called Organizing for Digital Success, which is based on the survey of over 200 digital executives in the U.S. at companies with revenue of $1 billion to over $75 billion. These include CMO CDO, CIO, SVP, VP, and senior digital executives at companies in the consumer-packaged goods, manufacturing, retail, financial services, communications, media and technology, SaaS, healthcare, hospitality, and travel industries.

    The report found that nearly a third of companies are not satisfied with the skill sets of employees in their digital organizations.

    As a spokesperson for Accenture told us in an email, “The study found there is a significant gap in the skill sets wanted and the skill sets possessed by digital organizations, and 4 in 5 (81%) of the digital executives surveyed voicing the need for additional hiring.”

    “This data shows a clear disconnect between expectations and reality in the digital branches of many organizations,” they added.

    To give you an idea of what these companies are actually wanting their employees to achieve, here’s a look at the KPIs being measured:

    digital-kpis

    Despite a troubling amount of dissatisfaction, most respondents feel that their companies are either on par with their major competitors (42%) or that they are the sector leader (27%) in terms of digital capabilities. Only 7% think they’re trailing behind the majority of their competitors. 24% believe they’re in the middle of the pack.

    You can find the full report here.

    Images via iStock, Accenture

  • LinkedIn Names Top 25 Skills of the Year

    LinkedIn Names Top 25 Skills of the Year

    Just as it did last year, LinkedIn revealed the top 25 skills that can get you hired this year.

    “With 2015 in the rearview mirror, LinkedIn analyzed hiring and recruiting activity and uncovered the 25 hottest global skills in the past year,” a LinkedIn spokesperson tells us. “As these skills were continually sought by companies well into the final months of 2015, we expect them to continue driving demand in the early part of 2016.”

    According to the company, January is when the largest percentage of LinkedIn members are looking for a new job.

    “If your skills fit one or more of these skills categories (a grouping of related skills), there’s a chance you either started a new job or attracted the interest of recruiters last year,” says LinkedIn’s Sohan Murthy. “We noticed that companies were still recruiting and hiring for these skills well into the final months of 2015, so we expect these skills will remain in-demand in the early part of 2016. This means if you have one or more of these skills, you’re likely to continue getting interest from recruiters in the new year.”

    The biggest trends LinkedIn points to are a rapid increase in members listing cloud skills like Hadoop, HBase, and Hive, as we well as continued prevalence of data mining/analysis skills and the cooling off of game development, online marketing, SAP ERP systems, computer graphics/animation, integrated circuit design, and recruiting. The company notes that employers are still looking for all of these skills – just not quite as much as last year.

    Here’s a look at last year’s results.

    Images via Wikimedia Commons, LinkedIn

  • These Are The Top Business Skills Of The Year

    This time of year, just about every major Internet service puts out some kind of look back at 2014. The search engines reveal the top trending searches of the year. The music streaming/download services reveal the hottest tunes. The social media services reveal additional insights.

    Few of these services, however, reveal information as potentially useful as this one. LinkedIn has revealed the top skills that are actually resulting in people getting hired. LinkedIn is a unique service in this way, and gives us a glimpse of what businesses have been on the lookout for.

    What are the top skills your business is on the lookout for? Are they on the list? Let us know in the comments.

    The top skill perhaps isn’t all that surprising, but does emphasize just how important businesses consider data these days. Take a look at the top 25.

    To come up with the list, LinkedIn analyzed skills and experience data in over 330 million LinkedIn member profiles. The company says if your skills fit one of these categories, there’s a good chance you either started a new job or garnered interest from a recruiter this year.

    LinkedIn also broke some lists out country by country:

    Beyond data LinkedIn points out that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills made up the majority of the top 25 list across various countries. Mechanical, electrical, and materials engineering were also big.

    LinkedIn has actually focused a great deal on helping people find the right jobs and helping businesses find the right hires this year. Sure, this is a pretty standard part of the professional network, but the company has released a pretty significant amount of features and information related to this part of business in 2014.

    They recently made profiles more user-friendly, which should encourage members to keep them better up to date. They also made some changes to the homepage, and started offering an “add to profile” button for certifications. Another feature shows why people viewed your profile. That’s just to name a few.

    This recent LinkedIn talk looks at how to target the best candidates before your competition does.

    Earlier this year, they shared this infographic looking at what makes the “perfect” profile:

    And this one looking at the state of student recruiting:

    Are you surprised by any of the top skills on LinkedIn’s list? Please discuss.

    Image via LinkedIn

  • Watch This LinkedIn Webinar About Recruiting And Hiring Trends

    Watch This LinkedIn Webinar About Recruiting And Hiring Trends

    LinkedIn recently held a webinar discussing the “latest buzz and talent trends” related to recruiting, staffing, and hiring. The company has now put it on YouTube for all to view.

    Lou Adler, CEO of The Adler Group, who LinkedIn calls a “recruiting expert,” discusses said buzz and trends based on stats from LinkedIn’s Talent Trends 2014 survey.

    Adler “tells you what’s going on in the minds of professionals today and how you can entice them to switch jobs,” as LinkedIn puts it.

    This follows an infographic LinkedIn put out earlier this week looking at why employees are jumping ship and how much it’s costing companies.

    Image via YouTube

  • Need a Job? Head For North Dakota

    With the U.S. economy slowly recovering throughout much of the country, jobs have been a bit easier to come by during the past few years – but only a bit. Job creation throughout much of the U.S. is still stagnant, with low-skilled workers struggling to find even low-paying jobs.

    There are parts of the U.S. recovering more quickly than others. Gallup today released the results of a survey into job creation, showing that the northern states in the midwest are seeing job growth much stronger than other parts of the country. The poll’s results are based around asking workers whether their employer is hiring or firing.

    North Dakota ranks highest on Gallup’s job creation index rankings – a position the state has held now for five consecutive years. In fact, North Dakota’s job creation index of 40 is far higher than any other state on the list. The average national index for the U.S. was 20 during 2013.

    North Dakota is followed by Washington D.C. (30), South Dakota (30), Delaware (29), Nebraska (29), Minnesota (28), Texas (27), Michigan (25), Iowa (25), Arizona (23), Wisconsin (23), and Hawaii (23).

    On the other end of the survey, Rhode Island is the state ranked lowest for job growth with a Gallup job creation index of only 12. Rhode Island is followed by New Mexico (13), Vermont (13), West Virginia (14), New York (15), and Connecticut (15).

    Why exactly employers in the midwest are hiring more isn’t entirely clear. Gallup did find that the reported standard of living in states was strongly correlated to higher reported hiring. The firm also found a slight correlation between hiring and higher confidence in the U.S. economy as a whole.

    So, for those needing jobs North Dakota seems to be the place to head. Of course, job-seekers heading to North Dakota will have to contend with the state’s harsh winters. The state’s politics may also be a point of contention for the unemployed coming from the east coast. As an example, temperatures in Fargo are set to hit -8 degrees fahrenheit Thurday night and North Dakota is currently in settlement talks with abortion-rights groups over the state’s harsh abortion restrictions.

  • Social Network Screenings Could Harm Businesses, Shows Study

    As the general public has jumped onto Facebook and Twitter in the past few years, more employers are now using social networks as human resource screening tools. Though there may be nothing illegal with businesses viewing public social media profiles, that action could end up leaving businesses in a tough spot – and could even cause considerable harm.

    A new study published recently in the Journal of Business and Psychology has found that using social networks to screen employment candidates could negatively affect the company’s image with potential employees. The study also warned that in the worst cases this type of activity could have legal implications.

    “Social network spying on job candidates could reduce the attractiveness of an organization during various phases of the selection process, especially if the applicant pool at large knows or suspects that the organization engages in such screening,” said William Stoughton, lead author of the study and a psychologist at North Carolina State University. “Because internet message boards and social media provide easily accessible forums for job seekers to share their experiences and opinions with others, it is very easy for a soured applicant to affect others’ perceptions of an organization.”

    The study surveyed job candidates on the hiring practices of hypothetical companies and found that businesses that review social network profiles were less preferred. Stoughton and his colleagues found that study participants felt that their privacy was violated by such practices, and that some of them would consider legal avenues for restitution if they encountered social profile screening. Study participants also interpreted such a screening procedure negatively as a sign of how the company might treat employees.

    Though the study warns businesses that poor performance and high turnover might result from a social network screening policy, the study’s authors are pragmatic when considering whether the practice will end in the near future. Potential hires are advised to stop using social networks as private forums with which to interact with friends and to remove any damaging material from their profiles to protect themselves from hiring screenings.

  • Since Layoffs, StumbleUpon Has Been Actively Hiring, Adding Engineers

    It wasn’t exactly a great start to the new year for StumbleUpon back in January, when the company laid off 30% of its staff, but that was a long time ago in Internet time, and the company has since been hiring, including some new execs and engineers.

    StumbleUpon’s Mike Mayzel told WebProNews back when the cuts were made that the company was restructuring to enable it to become “more streamlined, focused and to better execute” against its goals.

    “As a result of these changes, the company will be profitable and will operate more quickly and efficiently and experiment more aggressively,” he said. “We continue to grow and remain focused on providing the best discovery experience on the Web.”

    Since then, it’s been a fairly quiet year in StumbleUpon news. They hosted an Oscars contest, and got a new content delivery network, but there really hasn’t been much in the way of product announcements. Nothing like last year, when they launched new mobile and tablet apps, as well as a new desktop experience.

    “We’ve been heads down working on our product (both desktop and mobile),” Mayzel says.

    Cody Simms, the guy behind last year’s app launches, by the way, has left the company. TechCrunch reported earlier this month that he would transition to an advisory role, but wanted to move back to his home, which the StumbleUpon job took him away from. Here’s a statement from he gave the blog:

    StumbleUpon has a great mission and team, an innovative business model and is solving an incredibly interesting problem. My family and I recently made the decision, however, to return to family and friends in Los Angeles. As a StumbleUpon management team, we’ve worked together to ensure a clean transition during this time, and we’re excited to say that David Marks joined StumbleUpon just recently to take on the the role of VP Product.

    Marks is co-founder of Lumia, where he was also CEO and CTO. He joined StumbleUpon late last month as the new VP of Product.

    “Since the restructuring we have been actively hiring with a primary focus on engineering and product,” Mayzel now tells us. “We have filled several roles including a head of user experience (Shawn Elson), a VP of Product (David Marks) and several software engineers (Pam Lu-Stone and John Landahl, to name two). We continue to hire and have a number of open roles at the company.”

    Elson also joined in July, and previously worked at Workday, where he managed and designed for social and mobile. He managed his own UX consulting firm, Elson User Experience, which worked with the likes of Adobe, eBay, PayPal, Apple, Zynga, Tend Micro, LG, and others. He also worked on UX at Verisign and even Netscape.

    Open positions at StumbleUpon include jobs in business development, content quality, design, engineering and operations. You can see the specific positions here, but as the company notes on its Jobs page, it is also accepting general applications for those who are interested, but don’t see listed positions that they want.

    Benefits the company offers employees include breakfast and lunch, commuter reimbursement, gym/wellness reimbursement, company match for charitable gifts, a $100 monthly credit for the Uber car service, holiday shutdown and paid vacation, 401k match, “generous” family medical coverage, life/disability insurance, a kitchen stocked with snacks, quarterly team outings, an art program, and an onsite massage therapist.

    Mayzel says StumbleUpon currently has over 30 million registered users and 100,000 advertisers. The average time spent per Stumble session, he says, is 30 minutes, and on average, users spend 3.5 hours a month using StumbleUpon in general.

    The company is also currently holding a contest for data scientists, challenging them to design an algorithm to make StumbleUpon better at recognizing evergreen content. The winner, in addition to a cash prize, gets a chance to intern at the company. More on that here.

    Image: StumbleUpon

  • Apple is Hiring Software Engineers to Improve the iOS 6 Maps App

    It’s clear now that Apple screwed up when it gave Google Maps the boot, and now there is evidence that even Apple knows it.

    Ycombinator forums user hownottowrite pointed out this week that Apple listed six new software engineer positions specifically for its iOS Map Display team last week. The job description of the positions reads as follows:

    The iOS Map Display team is looking for a proactive and hardworking software engineer to join our team. Our team is responsible for displaying map content for the Maps application on iOS. It is used by millions of customers and it’s the best mapping program on any mobile platform. Our team is also responsible for map display via MapKit, the iOS framework that displays maps used by countless applications on the App Store.

    Best mapping program on any mobile platform? That clearly isn’t the case.

    When iOS 6 was released for download on older iPhones on Wednesday, the deficiencies of the Map app quickly became apparent. Pictures and reports of deformed roadways and missing, moved, or misnamed roads, building, and towns can now be found all over the web. Boy Genius Report points users to The Amazing iOS 6 Maps Tumblr blog, where a wide selection of the new Maps app’s failures can be seen.

    It seems clear from Apple’s desperation to get some new Maps engineers on-staff that the company won’t be crawling back to Google anytime soon. iPhone users will have to endure until Apple can make a maps app that “just works.”

    Luckily for iPhone users, Google hasn’t abandoned them. Google is working hard to have an Apple App Store stand-alone version of Google Maps available before Christmas.

    (via BGR)

  • Microsoft Signs Former CBS Exec to Head Xbox Studio

    Microsoft this week announced that it has hired Nancy Tellem, a former president of CBS Network Television Entertainment as their new Entertainment & Digital Media president. Tellem will oversee the launch of a production studio in Los Angeles that, according to Microsoft, will develop “interactive and linear content” for the Xbox and other devices. She will also be involved in Microsoft’s efforts to turn the Xbox into “a destination where consumers can enjoy all their entertainment in one place.

    “I am excited to be a part of the continued evolution of Xbox from a gaming console to the hub of every household’s entertainment experience,” said Tellem. “The Xbox is already a consumer favorite, and we now have a tremendous opportunity to transform it into the center of all things entertainment – from games, music and fitness to news, sports, live events, television series and movies – so consumers have one destination for all their entertainment needs. I look forward to building a studio team that embraces the challenges of creating true interactive content that the Xbox platform supports and to work with talent to create content that will change the way entertainment content is experienced and delivered.”

    Tellem served as president of CBS Entertainment for 12 years, from 1998 to 2010. During that time, she was responsible for choosing the TV lineup for CBS.

    Microsoft has been transforming the Xbox into a home entertainment platform for years. At this year’s E3, the company announced its SmartGlass technology, which will sync content over multiple devices, displaying extra content for a TV show on a tablet or smartphone, for instance. Even Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U, will include software to facilitate the viewing of on-demand television programming.

    It is also not surprising that Microsoft will begin to develop its own television content. Technology companies have begun to fill in the gap traditional television industry players are leaving when it comes to the web. Yahoo this year premiered a post-apocalyptic web series called Electric City. New episodes of a series Fox cancelled, Arrested Development, will debut exclusively on Netflix’s streaming service next year. Independent production companies, such as Machinima and Geek & Sundry, are also beginning to provide regularly scheduled programming via YouTube.

  • T-Mobile Appoints John Legere as New CEO

    T-Mobile Appoints John Legere as New CEO

    Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile USA, announced today that John Legere has been appointed CEO of T-Mobile.

    “John is a talented and proven executive who brings a successful track record of leading and operating consumer- and business-focused telecommunications and technology companies,” said René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “As T-Mobile moves forward with its strategic initiatives to improve its market position, including expanding its network coverage and initiating LTE service, John has obviously the right skillset to lead the business into the future.”

    Legere is a former CEO of Global Crossing, a former worldwide networking services telecom company. He has also in the past served as CEO of Asia Global Crossing, and senior vice president of EMEA and Asia-Pacific operations at Dell.

    “I am thrilled to join T-Mobile and lead the Company at such a pivotal time,” said Legere. “T-Mobile is taking a number of significant steps to revitalize the business and I look forward to leading our team and partners to accelerate these efforts to become a force in our industry.”

    Both T-Mobile and Sprint are positioning themselves as low-cost alternatives to Verizon and AT&T. Both T-Mobile and Sprint now offer unlimited data plans, in contrast to the more expensive “shared” plans that AT&T and Verizon rolled out this year. Also, T-Mobile has just begun trying to convince Apple fans to buy T-Mobile is in the process of implementing its 4G LTE data network. It will be that last of the major U.S. carriers to have 4G LTE.

  • Google: 2011 Will Be Biggest Hiring Year Ever

    Google: 2011 Will Be Biggest Hiring Year Ever

    The other day, I wrote a post about how Google should consider increasing its employees’ 20% time to encourage innovation. Given that this time is dedicated to innovation and some of the company’s most successful products came from it, it seems like a good idea to me, but Google’s strategy appears to be a mixture of a large amount of acquisitions, imitating successful products, and hiring (not that innovation has been totally lacking at the company. They did come up with self-driving cars recently, but as Danny Sullivan pointed out in his advice to Larry Page the other day, it’s about perception.).  

    Yes, hiring. While Yahoo is shedding employees left and right, Google has announced that this will be its biggest hiring year in company history. That could help innovation too. Increasing the number of people who can take advantage of 20% time is in some sense increasing 20% time as a whole. 

    Last year, Google added over 4,500 employees, mostly in engineering and sales. That was the second most in company history, behind 2007 when they added over 6,000 people. Now, they are looking to outdo both years. 

    Alan Eustace on Google Hiring Spree"We’re looking for top talent—across the board and around the globe—and we’ll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves," says Google SVP Engineering and Research, Alan Eustace. "There’s something at Google for everyone—from geo, to enterprise, to video—with most of the work done in small teams, effectively working as start-ups. (The average number of software engineers on a project at Google is 3.5.) That’s why the vast majority of our people stay with us, building their careers and taking on new challenges within the company."

    "I joined Google more than eight years ago—when we had barely 500 employees and still used Outlook for email and AIM for chat—and while there have been many changes, Google is still the same entrepreneurial company it was when I started, encouraging Googlers to take on big ideas and high-risk, high-reward opportunities," adds Eustace.

    Google just made two new acquisitions in SayNow and fflick. Earlier this month, Google acquired eBook Technologies. They’ve also got a Groupon clone on the way already (after failing to acquire that company), and they’ve announced some upcoming managerial changes.  It’s only 25 days into January, and Google is certainly not sitting still. 

    If you think things have cooled down at Google, while the company has lost some engineers to Facebook, you’re going to be in for quite a ride as the year progresses, it seems.