As the days get short and the weather gets colder, it is a natural time to reflect on the year that was.

It is also New Year’s resolution time. Career advancement and physical fitness are always at the top of the list of commitments for the upcoming year. While we at Jobster don’t have a lot of fitness advice, we do have tips for career advancement.

To best take advantage of our advice, it is best to approach career advancement as an ongoing process and NOT as a series of transactions every few years. Let  us explain.

Do you have a MySpace page? Are you a regular on Facebook? Yelp? Flickr? Maybe you have a blog? It is important to consider your online presence. If you have one, is it what you want prospective employers to see? Recruiters and hiring managers are using search engines like Google to research prospects.  if you haven't "Googled" yourself lately, do it so you can see what others see about you online.

At Jobster, we've designed a way for you to create a professional career profile. You build it, we host it. Whether you’re actively looking for a job, need a place to manage your professional contacts, or you simply want to be more easily found by your professional connections and would-be recruiters; Jobster helps you create a highly SEOed (search engine optimized so your profile comes up near the top of web searches) professional profile, to showcase your skills and experiences.

Here are some of the ways you can use your Jobster profile:

• Tag yourself: skill tags are the easiest way to describe yourself on your profile. There's no need to write in sentences or paragraphs - think of tags as simple keywords about you. Tags could be skills (writer, programmer), industries (advertising, engineering), or just for fun (inspiring, leader, witty). Tags make it easy for other people to find you, too.
• Upload a video: Add a video resume or personal sizzle reel to your profile. If you aren't a videographer at heart, you can still use this feature to upload a video from You Tube that shows something about you - hobbies, sense of humor, etc.
• Set your current availability: let others know what you're doing on Jobster. There are a range of availability settings to choose from.
• Add links to your profile: You can add links to other sites to your Jobster profile. If you're a graphic designer, link to your portfolio. If you're a web developer, link to your latest website. If you have a Linked In profile, add that too. It's up to you.
• Create your personal URL: Don't forget, when you're finished creating your career profile, pick your personalized URL. Send it to potential employers, hiring managers and put it in your resume.

For the Active Jobseeker
It's easy to search for jobs using Jobster. You'll find jobs posted directly to Jobster.com, as well as jobs from across the web. Jobster crawls the web several times a day and gathers the newest jobs posted on hundreds of job sites. Currently, we have over 2 million jobs available.

You'll find a search box at the top of almost every page on Jobster. Just enter a job title, keyword, or company name in the box, add your city, state or zip code, and click the "Search" button. Use the "Refine your search" on the top right of your search results page to narrow down the list of results. You can also check out Jobster trends to see search terms and locations are hot right now.

For the Active AND Passive Jobseeker
We encourage all career-minded people to sign up to receive Job Alerts via email – just enter your email address, job interests, location, and delivery preferences (daily, weekly, monthly), and we'll email you as soon as new jobs that match your interests are posted. Jobster Job Alerts are the best way to stay up to date on the job market. The alerts let you know who in your industry is hiring and what positions they are hiring for.

So what are you waiting for? Create your career profile, get creative and find your dream job!

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (10)

Has worked slowed down a bit as we approach the holidays? Have you been itching to personalize your workspace a bit? If the tin foil, robocube has been played out at your office, take a look at Wired. The online version has a fun piece with lots of examples to get you thinking.

This “Zen Cube features faux-bamboo walls, hanging lanterns and plenty of plants to add privacy. Play in the tiny Zen sandbox for stress relief, and drown out the sound of your neighbor's nail clippers with a tiny water fountain.”

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (0)

Marty Nemko has a story in the current issue of U.S. News & World Report about Ahead-of-the-Curve Careers. Marty takes a look at cutting-edge careers that while relatively new, are already viable and promise further growth. It’s a good read and got us wondering how many of the jobs Marty identified are listed on Jobster. We did some probing and were pleasantly surprised by the results. They follow.

Growing healthcare demand

· Health informatics specialist (62 jobs)

· Patient advocate (3,152 jobs)

· Wellness coach (13,792 jobs)

The increasingly digitized world

· Data miner (592 jobs)

· Simulation developer (6,424 jobs)

Globalization, especially Asia's ascendancy

· Business development specialist (21,184 jobs)

· Offshoring manager (3,617 jobs)

· Immigration specialist (1,027 jobs)

The dawn of clinical genomics

· Computational biologist (195 jobs)

· Behavioral geneticist (6 jobs)

Environmentalism

· Green consulting (2,438 jobs)

Terrorism

· Emergency planning (27,041 jobs)

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

It is my pleasure to introduce the blogosphere to Jeff Seely, Jobster's new CEO.  The official press release can be found here.

Jeff Seely joins Jobster from Bellevue, WA based ShareBuilder Corporation where he served as CEO from 1998 until the sale of the company to ING Direct, which closed on November 15, 2007.

When I first met Jeff a couple of months ago he initially had little interest in going back to work so soon after the Sharebuilder sale.  But as Jeff dug in with our team, engaged with our board, studied our financials, dug into our extensive customer list, and analyzed the opportunity, it became clear to him that Jobster represents a unique opportunity to build on a solid technical product foundation to deliver great value in a huge market.   We're thrilled that Jeff chose to come work with us.

2007 has been Jobster's best year.  Our revenues are growing, our customer base is expanding, our client satisfaction is rising, all while we cut our expense base in half from 2006.  We've led the industry on Facebook and we are building an affiliate network of job distribution partners which reaches tens of millions of people.  This provides real value for customers posting their jobs with Jobster as a job posted with Jobster gets distributed across this network to reach the right job candidate at the right time on their favorite job sites. 

We've also recently entered into some truly game-changing partnerships to enable large publishers and website operators to build their own career networking services utilizing Jobster's technology.  We'll be announcing the first of these partners and launching their sites in early 2008. 

In sum, I'm very proud of the foundation we have laid here at Jobster and I have great confidence in Jeff and our team to guide us forward to even more success.  I am honored to have help found Jobster and to have been Jobster's CEO for its first 4 years.  Above all, Jobster provided me with the opportunity to work with some of the smartest and most passionate people in the world.  Notably, the current Jobster management team has an average tenure of 2 years with Jobster and all are excited to be helping Jeff guide the company forward for many more years to come. 

As for me, I will remain involved with the company from the board level, helping Jeff and the team on macro strategy, partnership, industry relations, and anything else they desire.  I will post more information about my next steps on my personal blog www.socialmedian.com. 

-jason

Jason Goldberg | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that “JetBlue Airways Corp. plans to be the first U.S. airline to provide free in-flight email and instant-messaging services when one of its A320 planes equipped with an onboard wireless network takes wing Tuesday.”

Given JetBlue is the airline of choice for many business travelers, we here at Jobster wonder how long before we start to see JetBlue as a top referrer of job search traffic – especially when flights are delayed and business travelers get fed up living out of a suitcase and decided its time to search for a job with less time on the road. What better time than from the road? Err, the air?

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

If you haven’t yet had a chance to join us for a webinar on accessing the Facebook audience with Jobster, please drop by the Community Building in the Age of Facebook conference at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle tomorrow. They had one or two spots left last we heard.

We’re presenting Building Talent Networks on Facebook at the conference -- put on by WebCommunityForum. The conference is a who’s who of social media and we are excited to participate. Read more about the forum and what we’ll be presenting at the WebCommunityForum site.

Update: The session went really well. The audience was engaged and highly knowledgeable about Facebook. It was interesting to me that so many of them had attempted, with varying degrees of success, to recruit Facebook users. Below is the deck we presented.

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

We hosted a webinar today on World-Class Sourcing Strategies with General Electric Infrastructure. It was part of our ongoing free Wednesday webinar series that we kicked off in July. The series has been incredibly well attended – so well, we extended it into the fall and will keep it going this winter. To get an invite to upcoming webinars, please email us at Jobster4me@jobster.com.

The webinar with GE was one of our most well attended to date. We talked about how GE drives powerful sourcing strategies using Jobster’s Team Edition. Sally Jones from GE  discussed her team’s approach to leveraging past applicants, capturing event attendees, and energizing employee referrals as well as how Jobster gives Sally an easy way to manage her team’s progress and efficiency for today’s hires, and track GE’s talent pipeline for the future.

We also discussed how GE’s recruiting team is finding success through Jobster. The session went really well. Like many of our other sessions, we received more questions than we were able to answer during the webinar. Following are answers to questions we receive about Jobster Team Edition.

Q. How does Jobster help with referral networking?

A. Top performers and new hires represent a great source of quality referrals. With Jobster, employers build a referral network of hard-to-find passive candidates with a unique combination of the latest online marketing techniques and social networking technology. Jobster helps get jobs in front of the right people wherever they are online -- even people who aren't actively looking for work. With Jobster, we make it simple to build a referral network full of prospects employers just can't find anywhere else.

Great people know other great people. While a recruiter may not know the perfect person for the job, they probably know someone who knows someone who does. Branded job advertising campaigns reach second and third degree contacts through viral social networking technology – so employers get jobs in front of the highly qualified people their network recommends.
 

Q. How does Jobster work with my ATS?

 A. Jobster works to supercharge the results employers see from their ATS.

• Drive prospects to an ATS from Jobster
• Leverage existing contacts in an ATS to proactively market opportunities to top talent.
• Automate the process of getting jobs into Jobster
• Accurately measure return on investment (ROI)
• Increase productivity and maximize existing technology investments

We have helped hundreds of clients get better results from their ATS. Our ATS partners are among the industry leaders. Click here to see a list.

Q. Can I use Jobster to capture prospects that visit my website?

A. Research shows that the highest quality candidates come from career websites and employee referral programs. With Jobster's Talent Network Portal service, we help employers leverage their current website to develop a network of potential future candidates and referrers — and then target them for even more qualified referrals and recommendations.

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

This fall Jobster’s Customer Education team conducted a user survey where we asked our recruiters what they needed from us to be successful.  Many recruiters asked for additional ways to learn how to take advantage of the many benefits Jobster’s Sourcing Tools have to offer.  Since recruiting seminars are one of the best ways to improve recruiting skills and learn new strategies and tactics, I’m excited to introduce Jobster’s New Webinar Series.

This series of instructor-led online training sessions provide recruiters with an opportunity to gain valuable insights into how they can leverage Jobster to improve their recruiting efforts.  The fall 2007 catalog offers topics such as designing a world-class ERP, building a strong talent pipeline and searching for passive candidates.  These webinars highlight a practical approach to recruiting utilizing Jobster, and focus on helping recruiters articulate a clearly defined recruiting strategy, identify key goals and milestones, and ultimately explore the most effective ways to use the tools to bring about results. 

Are you intrigued? 

Here is a list of our current webinars:   

·        Jobster Advanced Training: Jobs, Contacts, Prospect Follow-up

·        Your Jobster Talent Network on Facebook

·        Jobster and Your Employee Referral Program

·        Jobster for Managers

·        Jobster Recruiting Best Practices

·        Jobster Advanced Tips and Tactics

·        Passive Candidate Search and Jobster

You can find brief descriptions of the sessions, our calendar schedule and a sign-up link here: Jobster Live Webinars

We’re extremely excited to offer Jobster recruiters an in-depth look at some effective best practices. 

In the spirit of the upcoming holidays, I’d like to extend a special 2 for 1 Jobster Webinar Series offer good til the end of the year.

Here’s the deal:  If you purchase a training session before December 31st, you can take another session in Q1 (Jan 2008 thru March 2008) for free!  Simply use the link above to register for the course of your choice, or call our Client Services team and we’ll help you get signed-up.  Once you’re confirmed, we’ll give you a coupon code good for one training session in Q1 of 2008.

This is a great deal!  So, don’t miss the opportunity to learn some innovative ideas to strengthen your Jobster recruiting initiatives.

Melanie Roberson | Permalink | Comments (5)

Google (update: with MySpace) is leading a new project, called OpenSocial – a set of common, open APIs that developers can use to create applications that work on any participating social networks. OpenSocial will enable companies to develop applications like Jobster Talent Networks on Facebook for any social network participating in OpenSocial. More on the news here, here and here. 

As both a career network host and a consumer of social graphs, we support open APIs and standardization for applications. Jobster intends to support other social graph consumers in leveraging the community of Jobster users, and we are committed to providing our employer-partners with access to social networks/social media through innovative applications.

Jobster is the leading career network for the digital generation. Millions of individuals use Jobster to help them connect with people, information, and opportunities to further their careers. Jobster combines elements of social networking, job search, people search, user-generated content, and targeted advertising to enrich the career development experience. OpenSocial is a step toward openness and increased access to information as well as supports a more distributed web that Jobster has been and will continue to be a strong proponent of. 

In the coming weeks, we will be unveiling Jobster-powered networks for employers and Jobster platform partners to power their own vertical career networks. Supporting open APIs and standardization across social network hosts while powering Jobster.com and special-purpose networks will enhance our ability to provide access valuable audiences where ever they are across the web.

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

If you started your day with a cup of coffee and the morning news, you may have seen our chief Jobster on Money for Breakfast on the FOX Business Network. The video is embedded below. In it, you’ll see Jason talk with anchor, Alexis Glick about career networking and how Jobster is helping employers reach the digital generation.

Christian Anderson | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)