clipped from www.businessinsider.com

Why Should Your Employees Like You?

Employee Relationships in a Recession

But the recession won’t last forever and those companies that survive recessions are the ones that continue to focus on developing high performers and keeping people engaged, Murphy says. “The best way to win in a recession is to keep employees’ chins up.”

Murphy’s research shows about 70 percent of companies that make positive progress during a recession will continue those gains after the recession is over. The organizations that suffer during a recession “often maintain that suffering for a great deal of time after the recession is over,” he says, frequently due to increased turnover rates when the job market improves. “A recession shakes things up in the marketplace and offers an opportunity to take market share. What if you’re the one company that’s able to motivate employees and keep them going while your competitors’ employees are frozen in fear? This is your chance to win.”

Speedy KAVAINT.COM W3C Software Directory COUNTERDEAL.COM By: Twitter Buttons

It is likely that you have heard about the Yahoo/Microsoft deal. The question is whether or not this will have a major impact on the search engine landscape. The concern for many online small businesses is whether there will be negative (or positive) effects on their website rankings. Another concern is whether the number of visitors a website receives will be altered.

What happens?

The union of Yahoo and Microsoft means that Yahoo is going to give up their search technology and opting to use Microsoft’s search technology instead. Bing.com will be the power behind organic and the paid search results that Yahoo delivers (with the exceptions concerning the Yahoo premium ads).

Microsoft will be getting access to Yahoo’s search technology and use it to supplement its own technology.

How will this affect your website?

• 1. You should optimize for Bing.com. Since the combined market share of Bing and Yahoo are estimated to between 15-26%
  2. Loss of Yahoo’s inbound link data?.Yahoo will drop its index and this may mean that the inbound link data it has will be lost. It might be important to get a snapshot of the inbound links data before this happens.
  3. The face of PPC competition is changing.Microsoft will be providing the search ads for both Yahoo and Bing. Yahoo will not be offering paid search advertising on its own. This will make it easier to manage ads for Yahoo and Bing on one user interface. This may mean rising bid prices for these ads.
  4. Website closings.The future of the Yahoo Internet directory is uncertain as well as their SearchMonkey and SearchBOSS search applications. Other redundant services such as maps may be eliminated as well.
  5. Two independent search result pages.Since there will still be user choice as to which search engine results pages will be used, it will still be important to optimize a website for both of these.

Speedy KAVAINT.COM W3C Software Directory COUNTERDEAL.COM
By: Twitter Buttons

Social media is being used for all types of searches.

clipped from mashable.com

Do You Pass the Social Media Recruitment Test?

With the emergence of social media sites like LinkedIn (), Facebook (), and Twitter (), and their user bases growing by the millions, one would think that a headhunter’s job just got much easier. I mean let’s face it; nowadays we can find anybody whether it’s on one of these social networking sites, on a blog, discussion board, alumni list or via true and tried headhunting techniques.

So in today’s world of information overload where talent is literally available by the truckloads, I thought it would be relevant to write a post about how we evaluate a candidate’s social media footprint to determine (when all else is equal) which candidates we would contact and which ones get left by the wayside. I posed the following question to make it simple:

Speedy KAVAINT.COM W3C Software Directory COUNTERDEAL.COM

By: Twitter Buttons

Here are 6 great websites to help you with your career planning. Only 1 of these offers job listings. The others are aimed at helping you with all the other considerations that accompany making career decisions; whether you are just starting out or making a radical change.

Career planning should involve more than perusing job listings. Your 9-5 happiness (or whatever time schedule you have) strongly depends upon the understanding you have of your personality type, interests, aptitude, education and so forth. The following sites are great resources to help you figure a lot of this out.

Career Cruising – http://www.careercruising.com

Type – Provided by Anaca Technologies Ltd developer of online career guidance resources for the North American marketplace. This is a national source.

Affiliated organizations - Established in 1997, Career Cruising is currently used by over eight thousand institutions across North America, including schools, employment agencies, libraries, colleges and universities.

Group or population resource is intended to serve - interactive career resource designed for people of all ages. It has products to meet the needs of educators, career counselors, and workforce development professionals.

Goals and objectives applied to resource - Career Cruising offers a suite of online career guidance and planning tools designed for people of all ages. It has tools to help an individual find the right career, explore education and training options, build a customized portfolio, manage a school’s course selection process (for e.g. guidance counselors), or set up a career development network in a community. This website would be appropriate for most populations and would be used as long as a paid subscription exists.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives - Site has products and services for schools, libraries and employment centers such as a guidance system with add on modules (including course planner and network). Real time stats are provided to monitor student progress. Hundreds of occupational profiles are available which include: job description, information on working conditions, earnings, education and training, a sample career path, links to related occupations, other resources, and multimedia interviews.

Strengths of the resource – easy to navigate, user friendly, clean modern look, and it has lots of interactive features.

Weaknesses of the resource – may be more appealing to a more youthful audience. It requires a paid subscription for use.

Career Builder – http://careerbuilder.com

Type or category of resource: This is a international source created by Gannett, Inc. in conjunction with Microsoft

Affiliated organizations – Tribune Company and McClatchy Company

Group or population resource is intended to serve – International population of adult job seekers

Goals and objectives applied to resource – Company provides access to a vast amount of job posting information, links to companies posting jobs, ease of submitting a resume and cover letter, and notification of new job postings via email. It also makes job recommendations based on keywords and locations.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – Resumes and cover letters may be uploaded and submitted at the click of a mouse. Job postings are pulled up by keywords and location and may be organized by posting date, location and keywords.

Strengths of the resource –This site has an enormous amount of job information, is well organized and easy to use. There is no cost for the job seeker to use this service.

Weaknesses of the resource - This site only assist job seekers who have specific career choices in mind. Although it may suggest searches, these are based on the keywords that a job seeker has entered. There is no career guidance portion or information that gives occupational outlooks or profiles. Job seekers need to estimate the job outlook by the number of job postings that exist for a given keyword on a nationwide (or international) basis.

United States Department of Labor - http://www.bls.gov/bls/infohome.htm

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations - Bureau of Labor Statistics (fact finding agency for the Federal Government)

Group or population resource is intended to serve – This site provides free information for business leaders, consumers, investors, job seekers, media, public policy makers, students and teachers.

Goals and objectives applied to resource – Provides job outlooks, descriptions of occupations, profiles, occupational hazards and workplace injury statistics, typical occupational compensation in various geographic locations, educational requirements for each occupation. It has a very extensive database of free information.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – This site has lots of information that can assist a person who is wants to know more about any given occupation from many perspectives.

Strengths of the resource – Information is free and plentiful on this site. It is easy to navigate from one area to the next (even for those who are particularly Internet savvy).

Weaknesses of the resource – There are no job postings or means to take an inventory of a person’s traits or interests in order to make recommendations.

O*Net - http://online.onetcenter.org/

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations – many CIDS use this data base as an element of their research

Group or population resource is intended to serve – developed by the Federal Government and offered for online for free to individuals and organizations

Goals and objectives applied to resource – This site is a comprehensive resource that provides links to related sites, occupational descriptions, classifications, interest items and so forth.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – database of more than 900 occupations with information on tasks, knowledge, skills, work activities, work context, interests, work values, related occupations and job zones for each. Interest items use the codes developed by John Holland.

Strengths of the resource – This site is extremely powerful. It can “crosswalk” between different occupational classification codes (e.g. Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC) and Military Occupational Classifications (MOC)). It has online help and counselor resources. It is also available in Spanish.

Weaknesses of the resource – It is so vast that it requires some practice to be familiar with the site.

America’s Career Resource Network - http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/cte/acrn.html

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations – State government entities facilitate State Career Resource Network (CRN) activities.

Group or population resource is intended to serve – students and their parents

Goals and objectives applied to resource – Seeks to improve career decision-making by relating educational decisions and experience to occupational exploration, career choice, and vocational preparation. It informs students about the knowledge and skills that are necessary to pursue any given career path.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – database of teaching materials, updates, helps students with assemble college and financial aid information.

Strengths of the resource – Great career planning resource on the educational steps needed for a given career.

Weaknesses of the resource – Since the site is presented by the U.S. Dept. of Education, it has a singular education focus.

Veterans’ Employment & Training Service (VETS) - http://www.dol.gov/vets/programs/tap/tap_fs.htm

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations – United States Department of Labor

Group or population resource is intended to serve – U. S. Veterans and transitioning service members

Goals and objectives applied to resource – to provide Veterans and transitioning service members the resources and services to succeed in the 21st century workforce by maximizing their employment opportunities, protecting their employment rights and meeting labor-market demands with qualified veterans today.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives - Job grants on the State level are available for veterans, as well as transition assistance programs (TAP) and employment services. TAP Workshop attendees learn about job searches, career decision-making, current occupational and labor market conditions, and resume and cover letter preparation and interviewing techniques. Participants also are provided with an evaluation of their employability relative to the job market and receive information on the most current veterans’ benefits.

Strengths of the resource – effective resource to help Veterans and transitioning military personnel secure jobs sooner

Weaknesses of the resource – is singularly focused on military personnel and their families.