Via The Daily Beast …

With unemployment over 10 percent for the first time in 26 years, The Daily Beast crunches the numbers to determine the careers with the best—and worst—prospects. The results: the 10 high-growth and 10 worst-growth jobs out there.

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Via philly.com …

For thirty years as an employment counselor I spent a lot of time getting jobseekers to write résumés that would capture the attention of a human reader. Occasionally, companies would assign initial résumé screening to trainee fresh out of college. I taught 1970s jobseekers to write catchy résumés with impressive bullet points and bold print. The challenge I gave my charges: “Your job is to write a résumé that gets through to Bill, my mythical screener, in 15 seconds.”

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Via Ars Technica …

More employers than ever are researching job candidates on sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter in order to find out more about their activities and character. And, it turns out, many candidates are doing a great job of showing their potential bosses poor communication skills, inappropriate pictures, and even how many workplace secrets they can leak.

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Via CareerBuilder.com …

Employers throughout the world are increasingly struggling to keep pace with expanding hiring needs. A recent workforce planning study conducted by Aon Consulting for one of its clients showed that nearly 60 percent of its key knowledge workers and leaders would need to be replaced in the next five years.

But, demand for talented employees exceeds the supply, leaving many organizations wondering what strategies to adopt to retain and expand the workforce to maintain competitive advantage. Systematic workforce planning linked to key strategies and business challenges is a foundation for informed talent strategies and processes that will impact the bottom line favorably.

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Via Forbes.com …

Once the recession ends, there could be a hiring boom. Using jobs numbers as an indicator to get in to an investment has worked before.

The national unemployment rate in July was 9.4%, down slightly from 9.5% in June. A theory is emerging that there will be a hiring boom once the economy gets back on its feet, in response to employers possibly cutting too many positions during the recession. You might want to check the job ads–not just for your own employment possibilities but as a way to spot companies that are bouncing back.

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Via CNN / Careerbuilder.com …

Recently, Stephanie Somogyi Miller was interviewing candidates for an entry-level public relations position at her company, Spread PR, a Miller/Hamilton company. Over the course of 20 candidates Miller quickly realized — much to her shock — that many job seekers were unprepared when she asked them, “Why should I hire you?”

“I thought it gave people the opportunity to tell me what they wanted to tell me, versus me asking a million questions,” Miller says.

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Via New York Times …

GETTING a rejection letter is a painful part of job hunting, but at least it means you’ve been noticed. These days, I’ve been hearing about more job hunters who respond to online job postings, only to hear nothing back from the company. Ever.

Was the position filled? Is the company just taking a long time to fill it? Did the hiring manager even see the application? You may never know.

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Via Harvard Business Publishing …

A recession might seem like good news for employers looking to hire: with unemployment rates up, you’ve got more people to choose from and the opportunity to hire at a lower price.

While the current economic situation might make this a great time for you to expand your team, it can actually make hiring more expensive. Post a job ad and you’re likely to be swamped with potential applicants; and if budget is tight on your end, you’ve probably got limited capacity to screen a large pool.

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Today’s job market has created a conundrum for growing companies. The landscape is rich with qualified candidates. But issue a want ad, and some statistics note that 200 applications are likely to respond.

How can any employer reasonably cope with that flood of candidates?

Those corporations, healthcare organizations and government departments using an applicant tracking system find they have a powerful, enterprise-wide job acquisition and talent management solution ideal for businesses in hiring mode – or even those that are fully staffed.

Today’s ATS provides web-based applicant tracking and candidate management systems that empower businesses with easy-to-acquire and easy-to-use tools to reduce costs and streamline business operations. They automate candidate application and resume management – and create an invaluable competitive advantage.

The solution starts at the beginning of the job requisition life cycle. Job requests entered into the system automatically are distributed to Indeed.com, SimplyHired.com and GoogleBase, expanding the reach of the company’s corporate career center and saving thousands of dollars in premium job board costs. Some ATS providers even leverage social media sites for locating applicants.

Once applicants begin responding, that’s where the magic occurs. Employers with an ATS solution in place make quick work of managing inbound resumes and pre-qualifying candidates. Even unsolicited resumes are handled easily and quickly. Every required form or document, from resumes to supporting documentation, is submitted online and stored on the host server. No more paper resumes and faxed applications, thereby simplifying handling, review and storage needs. Once reviewed, the candidate immediately can be entered into the prospect pool, or saved for future consideration.

The solution manages applications by categories, enables cross-department searches, facilitates job requisition approval chains, and allows for feedback on specific candidates from anyone in the organization– even if those submitting feedback aren’t paid users on the system.

What about the list of qualified applicants who weren’t hired? Companies used to delete or toss those applications. No longer. An ATS enables companies to retain documentation of pre-qualified applicants for when job openings arise. Just search – by geography, criteria, skills or other fields – from among the pool of highly skilled candidates who already have been vetted and met company criteria. Having this storehouse of candidates close at hand makes filling openings fast and easy.

An ATS also enables a company to be less reliant upon its human resources staff for such processes as forwarding applicants to appropriate departments or managers for review. The system collects and organizes information in a centralized database accessible not only to a particular HR staffer’s computer, but to anyone with account access.

A well-designed ATS also is highly scalable to meet the needs of a growing organization. Like many software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, the modern ATS is an evolving tool. New features and functionality that help users gain efficiency and streamline the candidate management process are added seamlessly. More recent additions include background check, onboarding and payroll functions. This makes today’s ATS an end-to-end solution for the entire candidate-to-employee life cycle.

Moreover, the best solutions feature a short learning curve. They’re staffed by experienced advisors with a wealth of knowledge about candidate management, and customer service representatives are standard as part of the service.

Simply put, a right-priced ATS application delivers leading-edge solutions and compelling return on investment. Starting at $100 a month, an ATS can be a cost-effective solution at a reasonable expense – regardless of whether your company is hiring today or tomorrow.

Via CollegeRecruiter.com …

There’s been an interesting discussion in the NACE JobPlace discussion list about the perception by many employers that students who do a more effective job of searching for employment opportunities will have a better chance of being hired.

I agree but caution those who believe that the best candidates are those who try the hardest to be hired.

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