Our May Industry Employment Trends provide the strongest evidence yet of an improving job market. May 2010 shows year-over-year job posting growth in all 12 of the major industries we track. This is the first time we’ve seen positive growth in all sectors since launching Industry Employment Trends in February 2009.

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Many interviews open with what I like to call “inkblot test” questions. Inkblot questions are those open, seemingly harmless questions which interviewers use as icebreakers to learn more about what’s important to someone.  I call them “inkblot” questions because, like the traditional Rorschach test, they ask candidates to express an opinion about a seemingly neutral item. As innocent as they seem, however, a poor or strange response from a candidate can end their chance of getting the job.

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The technology industry, an engine of innovation and U.S. prosperity for more than half a century, is accelerating its recovery from the recession with surging earnings that have spurred companies to sharply ramp up their hiring.

The latest evidence for the rebound came Thursday, when Internet giant Google Inc. posted a 37% profit jump for the first quarter and chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. reported a 34% revenue increase to record levels. The results follow the strong showing of bellwether Intel Corp., which Tuesday announced quarterly profit that nearly quadrupled on a 44% jump in sales.

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With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

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A reporter from the Wall Street Journal once asked me what I thought was the greatest secret in recruiting. Such a broad question would usually cause one to ponder, but my immediate response was that abusive hiring processes cost organizations millions of dollars by turning possible customers into lifelong “haters.”

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Ever applied to a job online only to have your résumé seemingly vanish into a void?

From crafting a winning cover letter to acing an interview, landing a job is tough enough in this market. But millions of job seekers can’t even get a foot in the door as they apply to countless positions and seldom hear anything in response.

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More employers plan to increase college graduate hiring than decrease it for the first time in more than a year.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers‘ index for college hiring rose to 98.2, up from 87.2 in November. The index, based on the organization of career counselors’ survey of 122 employers and released Tuesday, covers employer expectations for January through March.

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Most applicant tracking systems do not have auto referral source tracking because it’s really hard to do and it is cumbersome to implement. Those that do have it typically require users to generate site-specific tracking codes that need to be placed in external postings. We think those are bad ideas and require too much manual labor, so we’ve automated the process and made it ridiculously easy to implement. Simply log in to your Hirebridge account, click on the Administration tab and look for the Automated Candidate Referral Source Tracking Maintenance link.

If you need any help setting this up, send an email to support@hirebridge.com and we’ll get back to you promptly with details.

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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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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