Denver Business Journal - by Nicole Queen Denver Business Journal

Some local head-hunters are taking their pursuit online — and not just to the job boards.

People have used the Internet for all sorts of things. Some sell and buy products, get news and other information, while others use it to connect and share with one another. However, the line between what is considered public and private information on the Internet has become increasingly thin, especially with social networking sites.

Myspace and Facebook are social-network leaders. Myspace was founded in 2003, Facebook in 2004.

A social network allows a person to create a profile, usually for free, under any name they choose. They’re also given an URL domain they can customize, posting photos, music and information about themselves. After a profile is created, the user can connect other profiles on the network. Usually these social platforms include an internal search engine where people can type in someone’s name to find them — if they’ve posted a profile. These profiles also can be set to “private” if the user doesn’t want their information to be public.

Sometimes people connect and share a bit too much and it’s costing them their jobs, or has come close to it. Local case in point: Rob Smoke, chairman of the Boulder Human Relations Committee, almost lost his seat due to his notorious profile quote: “I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m horny, I’m stoned … and I’m a city official,” and also because of other postings on his page in 2006, according to a published report in February 2007.

Despite the negative attention social networks have received, people willing to share information about themselves online isn’t always a bad thing, especially for those who are hiring. Myspace and Facebook’s registered users are growing daily, with Myspace claiming 160 million users and Facebook claiming more than 70 million.

However, the numbers may be inflated because one person can create multiple accounts. Still, having access to millions of people with the click of a button is becoming more attractive to human resource and recruiting companies as a way to learn more about job candidates.

Just ask Michelle Parker, an executive recruiter for Ajilon Finance in Denver. Parker recently placed a candidate she found on Facebook with a large oil and gas company. A keyword search in Facebook for oil or gas-related work history produced 30 candidates. She narrowed them down and conducted face-to-face interviews.

“I think Facebook has been very useful,” Parker said. “And I think it’s a credible source for companies if they’re looking for a candidate who isn’t necessarily looking.”

They’re called “passive candidates,” according to Dan Robitaille, president of a nonprofit trade association, the Rocky Mountain Recruiting Association (RMRA) and owner of Denver recruiting company Xstaff.

He said there are more than 500 recruiting and staffing companies registered with RMRA; plus, there are many recruiters who work as independent contractors. Robitaille and other recruiters in Denver are joining the social networking trend.

Sue Kunimune, owner and executive recruiter of Kunimune & Associates in Littleton, said, “It almost gets to the point where I don’t even need to request a resumé. If I go to Facebook, LinkedIn and Myspace, I can get a pretty well-rounded view of who they are.”

Kunimune searches Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn for job candidates.

Other recruiters use social networks to screen prospective candidates.

“It’s kind of a new era and we can [now] learn about these candidates,” said GG Johnston, president and COO of Denver-based JohnstonWells Public Relations. “On the positive side, we can get some insight into what they like to do and who they are as a person. On the not-so-positive side, we can get some red flags about the candidate.”

However, Johnston and Parker said they’ve never come across any compromising content while looking at candidates’ profiles.

Recruiting companies tell people to be wary of the things they post online.

Frank Wagner, vice president of Excel Personnel in Englewood, said the ambiguous nature of social networks is why his company doesn’t rely on them to place or screen employees for his clients.

“The information on those kind of social networking sites is fairly unreliable,” Wagner said. “There are no controls for accuracy … the content has to be taken with a huge grain of salt. It doesn’t necessarily discount them as being an excellent employee during work time. Right now, as we sit, a very small percentage of our employees have come through these networking boards.”

Recruiters also still rely on traditional techniques, such as face-to-face interviews and online job boards such as Monster.com or Jobing.com.

“You do a disservice to yourself if you stop face-to-face communication and networking and if you rely too heavily on the Internet for networking,” said Sue Wyman, president of the Jivaro Group, a national executive search firm in Denver.

“I don’t think [social networks] are a replacement to job boards,” said Joe Cockrell, director of public relations for Jobing.com in Denver. “I’ve never had anyone say, ‘I’m going to use LinkedIn because it’s free.’ They’ll use as many resources as they can.”

Mike McManara, regional permanent placement director for Ajilon Finance’s Denver office, said many of his recruiters use the free social networks to find candidates, which can save them money, but they still use more traditional methods, such as posting positions on job boards.

He said recruiting costs for an accounting or financing position can be anywhere from 25 percent to 35 percent of the first year’s salary. And it can cost one to two times the annual salary to place a C-level employee.

Jobing.com is an online job board that caters specifically to Colorado employers and employees. It charges employers $389 to post one position for 28 days. On Monster.com, the cost to post one position for 60 days is $395; the rate improves to $135 each for each job listed when posting 100 to 249 positions for 60 days. Also on Monster.com, it costs employers $650 over a two-week period to view 400 resumés of candidates within a 100-mile radius. It’s $975 for 500 national views.

“[Recruiters] aren’t ignoring the job boards, but [social networks] are an effective tool and a lower price,” Robitaille said. “But the real key is that [social networks] provide us with a better source of people who aren’t actively looking, as opposed to those on the job boards.”

Recruiters say executive and C-level candidates won’t be found on the social network sites.

Enter LinkedIn, a business networking site designed so business professionals can network, recruit and find jobs by connecting with one another. It has more than 21 million unique users, according to LinkedIn.

It’s free for basic use. People post resumés, work experience and contact information on their profiles and can purchase packages, for between $60 and $2,000, for access to more networks and services. Recruiters say it’s a good deal because recruiting can be expensive.

Because the LinkedIn platform is getting so popular, Mike O’Neil, CEO of Integrated Alliances, a professional networking company in Denver, has created workshops specific to LinkedIn. They focus on how to build a company’s networks and recruit candidates, how to make a LinkedIn profile, how to build a network within the platform and how to use LinkedIn for company growth, to recruit possible candidates or find another job.

The courses cost between $39 and $149. Qwest, Time Warner Telecom and the Jivaro Group are among the companies that have sent employees to the workshops.

“What recruiters are looking for is to eliminate someone [from the application process] as quickly as possible,” O’Neil said. “We train people on how to use LinkedIn for business purposes, sales and marketing, recruiting, executive-level marketing and being visible to the world of marketing. It really becomes a strategy session.”

Facebook shows more promise in integrating its social platform into a more professional business platform than Myspace, he said. “I think Myspace will stay mainly social.”

The Internet opens up new possibilities to find people who wouldn’t otherwise be found. From Internet job boards and other community sites such as Craigslist, Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn, recruiters and companies are catching on quickly to the benefits on logging on and connecting.

By Anne Fisher, FORTUNE senior writer

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - Friends, be warned: If you’re hoping to find a new job through a job board or other online channel — or if you’re an employer seeking candidates on the Web — the world just got a little bit more difficult.

New federal guidelines meant to standardize how employers track data on the diversity of their job-applicant pool are taking effect starting today for jobs at federal contractors — and similar rules will kick in later this year at U.S. companies with more than 50 employees. And resumes and search approaches that worked perfectly well before may no longer do the trick.

In the new system, federal regulators will be checking to see that companies are keeping diversity data on all applicants, according to a new, more uniform definition of “applicant.”

According to this definition, an applicant must “express interest” in the job, whether by sending in a resume, applying on the company’s site, or whatever other means the company requests, says Gerry Crispin, founder and principal of CareerXRoads and a long-time Internet job hunting expert.

That “expression of interest” must show that he or she has all the qualifications for the job listed in the company’s job description (not just some or most of them) — and those qualifications must be specific and measurable.

The applicant must be considered for a specific current or future position, and “never remove himself from consideration for the job,” says Crispin. For example, “if I have a job opening in Boston, for example, and you’ve specified that you want to work in Chicago, I can infer that you’ve removed yourself,” he says.

To comply with these new rules and get the most diversity, employers will have an incentive to keep the pool of applicants for each job relatively small and as random as possible. To make sure you’re considered now, you’ll have to:

Follow the company’s instructions. “If an employer says that, to apply for a given job, you must go to their web site and enter a certain code number, then do that,” says Crispin. “Otherwise your resume will never be seen.”

Spell out your qualifications clearly. “Pay very close attention to the specific qualifications an employer lists for a particular job, and make sure your resume contains those exact words,” Crispin says.

For instance, if a job description includes the words “three years of credit accounting experience,” put “three years of credit accounting experience” on your resume. “Don’t just list a credit-accounting position with the dates you had it and assume someone will figure it out,” Crispin advises. This may mean you have to rewrite your resume for each job opening you apply for.

Keep your resume up-to-the-minute current. “The rules allow companies to pick a random pool of applicants by searching the job boards for ‘most recent’ qualified applicants,” Crispin notes. “In those cases, no one will even look at a resume that is more than two or three weeks old.” Yikes.

Target specific companies and visit their web sites often. “The first announcement of a job opening very often appears on a company’s own site before it is posted anywhere else,” says Crispin. If enough applicants turn up on the site, the employer is unlikely to look any further. “Companies really do not want 500 or 1,000 applicants for each job,” Crispin says. “If they get 30 who are qualified, that’s a reasonable number for a hiring manager to consider and select from.”

If someone is referring you for a job, make sure you — and they — understand how to do it. About one-third of all new hires now come through employee-referral programs, and companies are still permitted to run these however they like, as long as they follow a consistent policy. So if your pal at Ostrich Corp. wants to refer you for a job, know what Ostrich’s policy is (whether via the company web site, having your friend submit your resume for you in a particular way, or what-have-you) and follow it to the letter.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the new rules will actually increase diversity in companies or just create extra work for everybody. Either way, if you’re looking for a new job, you can’t afford to ignore them.

What you need to know is this: an offer of $30,000 will go farther in Atlanta, Georgia than it will in Boston, Massachusetts. It will go much farther in Akron, Ohio, than it does in San Francisco, California. If you make $30,000 in Syracuse, New York, you’ll need less than that to maintain the same standard of living in Wichita, Kansas.

The truth is, geographic location and cost-of-living play a big part in determining how much salary you will be offered-and how much you can afford to accept. Cost of living and salaries fluctuate among metropolitan, suburban, and rural areas. The starting salary for a sales job in a metropolitan area with a high cost-of-living will probably be significantly higher than the salary for the same job in an area with a low cost-of-living. Yet, the buying power of a salary in these locations may be similar.

Find a salary calculator online and you can compare the cost of living in a number of cities. Suppose you are offered $30,000 to take a job in Tampa Florida.

Move to Charlotte, North Carolina and you’ll only need $23,639 to maintain the same standard of living. You’ll need $42,682 in Boston; $56,019 in San Francisco; $28,560 in Wichita, Kansas; or $29, 511 in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Supply and demand also play a major role in the amount of starting salary you will be offered. For example, if you’re looking for a job in a field that has a healthy supply of candidates, you’ll probably find stiff competition for jobs; so, your ability to negotiate salary will probably be limited. On the other hand, some fields are so hot right now that graduates in those areas will find they have their choice of employers, many of whom will offer top dollar. But, even within fields, salaries vary, and industry and type of employer also affect salary.

Finally, you’re unique. Your specific qualities and qualifications will play a role in your ability to attract employers and negotiate a salary.

Below are starting salary ranges for selected disciplines. The ranges are provided to give you a rough idea of salary potential for a variety of majors, but keep in mind the factors that affect salary offers—and remember your starting salary may be higher or lower than the figures reported here.

• 57 percent of respondents indicated that HR is viewed as a strategic asset, compared to just 18 percent who indicated it is viewed as a cost center

• Over 70 percent of respondents indicated becoming a leader in “total talent management” (including recruiting, performance, learning and succession planning) would make HR more strategic to their organization; respondents from larger organizations placed even more emphasis on talent management than smaller organizations

• The use of alternative HR service delivery models, like shared services or outsourcing, was not viewed as especially important in enabling HR transformation; shared services scored a 3.1 on a 1-5 scale, outsourcing of HR IT received a 2.8, and HRO scored a 2.3; alternative service delivery models was more common and highly regarded among respondents from larger organizations

• Organizations that have undertaken Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) scored its importance to address talent challenges at 3.58 on a 1-5 scale

• The top factor driving adoption of RPO was to accelerate the recruiting and hiring process, as cited by over 60 percent of respondents

Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for five days before anyone asked if he was feeling okay.  George Turkelbaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers.

He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was working during the weekend.

His boss, Elliot Wachiaski, said: “George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave each night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all the time and didn’t say anything.  He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself.”

A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary.  George was proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.

You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally.  The moral of the story.  Don’t work too hard.  Nobody notices anyway.