Wendy Weber on Executive Recruiting

An indication that the job market is improving can be surmised through increased activity on job boards.

A number of job search engines have seen postings rise significantly in recent months. Simply Hired, a job search engine that culls data from job boards and the websites of individual companies, newspapers, staffing agencies, government agencies and nonprofit groups, reports job postings approaching pre-recession levels.

These openings tend to be clustered in metropolitan areas, and interestingly, most are posted by companies with under 500 employees.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration just unveiled the appointment of Rachel Sterne as New York City’s first Chief Digital Officer.

The 27 year old NYU graduate was hired to improve the city’s digital operations. Her first project is to create a report examining how the city can enhance it’s digital footprint, streamline existing social-media interactions, and create public/private partnerships in the digital realm.

She will receive a salary of $115,000.

Ms. Sterne has very little experience in management, and even less in public policy. “Apart from the internships, I don’t have any full time policy experience,” she recently acknowledged in an interview with Adweek.

Hmmn…Crandall clients are apparently much more discerning than the city.

I’m scratching my head with wonder…

This month we finalized 2 placements with 2 different clients in Erie PA!

With all due respect to Erie PA, it’s an industrial city probably known best for being in the snow belt that stretches from Cleveland to Syracuse. It was ranked #13 on a list of the towns with the highest average snowfall.

I am told it has big city amenities with small town values… that the community boasts a rich, deep history with outstanding health, educational and cultural facilities and events. I’m told by one of the candidates we placed that it’s absolutely “charming.”

Still, it makes no sense that I am conducting a search for a client in Orlando Florida that has yielded fewer interested candidates! Anyone with me on this?

Empathica, a customer interaction consultancy which specializes in retail clients, just released a study indicating that men and women use social media differently.

Empathica’s survey found more men citing looking for information as a primary goal (36%) than women (28%) when interacting with a retail brand through social channels. But the gender split among those looking to stretch their budgets was far greater: 47% of women say searching for coupons and promotions is their primary use, compared with 33% of men.

To learn more, click here.

Here’s the link to the study: click here.

In a nutshell, good looking men are apparently more employable, while good looking women are perceived as a threat, and thus are less employable!

This according to new research from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).

Marc Cendella of TheLadders.com wrote a very relevant Monday morning letter about the Job Boards, which I am re-printing in large part:

If you’ve been looking for a job recently, you’ve discovered the ugly truth: job boards are broken.

They don’t work, they don’t help, and they aren’t getting you where you need to go. Sure it sounds nice in theory — making it so easy to apply to jobs for anybody from anywhere at any time.

But the truth is that the Internet has made it too easy for anybody to apply to any job.

So what happens? Everybody applies.

The typical job posting on Monster or CareerBuilder can get hundreds of applications, which means talented professionals like you can’t stand out from the crowd of student drivers, stand-up comics, and late-night janitors who have also lobbed in an application.

And recruiters and hiring managers have discovered it as well. Job boards are broken for them because when they have an important position to fill, and only a little bit of time to do it, they don’t have hours and hours and hours to sort through all the inappropriate applications that come to them over the internet.

I mean, c’mon, how many folks do you know in HR with tons of extra time on their hands these days? With all of the budget cuts over the past few years, they have less time than ever for each job they’re working on.

Just like the snowflakes, each one of us is unique — we’ve got special backgrounds, a twist on our experience, or insights that nobody else has. It’s this special background, after all, that makes you so valuable to employers.

Are you doing the most to make yourself stand out? Are you taking the right steps to make yourself more attractive?

Is your approach on the phone, in email, in person as effective as it could be to make yourself stand apart? Are your marketing materials (your resume, your interview answers, your interview questions) designed to make you irresistible to your future employer?

If not, if you’re just another form to be processed, another LinkedIn profile to be stacked up, another in the long line of applicants to be weeded out… you’re not making your job search as attractive as you could be.

And that’s why job boards are broken… by shoe-horning you into the same cattle chute as all the other applicants, job boards fail at the essential task of highlighting your special experience and background.

Wendy’s note: I could add here that executive recruiters take a more personal approach…that as our client, you will receive a presentation with a limited number of pre-qualified resumes targeted specifically to your opening. That as our candidate, your resume will be presented in its best possible light, often for positions that aren’t even advertised on the job boards. But if you have read this far I would guess that I’m preaching to the converted!

Attitude research company Siroto Survey Intelligence says so. To read the piece in it’s entirety, click here.