Can't afford to hire locally

In the past, we’ve only hired local sales people but we’re looking at the possibility of hiring remote reps. I know it’s hard to find employees in South Florida and I was wondering if you have any staff that works remotely and if so is there anything you can tell me that would help us?

My answer -- you can't afford not to. We tried for years to grow our sales team by hiring locally. We would hire-train-fire and then repeat. But all the while, I was watching Don Firth (friend and fellow Florida job board entrepreneur) grow his sales team three and four times as fast by hiring virtually from around the country.

Sued for job ad text - 'only H-1s apply'

Both our immigration law and enforcement are pathetic in this country and job boards find themselves in the middle. Doesn't make sense to block highly skilled workers from coming here while letting anyone who can wade through the Colorado river come in and stay. Doesn't make sense to legislate but not enforce and the $45,000 fine is a joke. Story at Computerworld:

DOJ settles H-1B job ad case for $45,000
Complaint filed by Programmers Guild over H-1B-only job ad

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I'm on twitter -- fashionably late?

I'm on twitter now too -- fashionably late according to Toby Dayton. Until recently, I thought twitter was just foolish but somehow in a very short matter of time, I have completely reversed my opinion. It took me a few years to start blogging and I generally prefer to arrive late to a technology party. So, I still consider it a bit early for twitter in spite of Toby. In fact, I am intrigued by my own reversal.

The most important reason, is perfectly articulated by Joel:

Meet Recruiting Nevada founder Doug Geinzer

Doug Geinzer just announced the sale of his job board (and second recruiting business) RecruitingNevada.com. Here’s Doug’s bio:

Doug Geinzer has been in the recruiting business since 1989. Prior to Recruiting Nevada, he owned a media group, which included the Las Vegas Employment Guide; Las Vegas Career Fairs, Las Vegas’ largest career fair company; Las Vegas Job Guide; and Diversity2000 – the first diversity recruiting magazine in the United states, which was distributed to every college campus in the country. Geinzer sold the media group to Cox and Landmark Communications in 1999 and then directed his focus to Classified USA! – Nevada’s largest recruitment advertising agency, which he co-owned with Ted Stepien.

Internet recruiting news

We launched a new website today that aggregates Internet recruiting news (and opinions of course) so please have a look at InternetRecruitingNews.com. I wish there were more relevant feeds available, but there aren't many bloggers or publishers who stay focused enough. Originally, I included an Onrec.com feed even though I was uncomfortable about the number of posts that are off-topic. And then I saw this in my feed:

Depression Awareness Week, 21-26 April 2008

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) welcomes the opportunity provided by Depression Awareness Week to raise the profile of and encourage more employers to address the stigma of mental ill health in the workplace

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Matt Cutts on exact match domains, parking, purchasing, sandbox etc.

Matt Cutts at Domain Roundtable talks about exact match domains as reported by randfish:

Owning a keyword match domain name is going to carry some weight in Google for the foreseeable future. It is something they want to reward.

And more detailed notes on Matt's speech and Q&A session from Johnon.com:

Job boards with vc funding

You can still start up a job board in the spare bedroom and work like the devil. But, Venture Capitalist firms have been backing job boards for years and with the right pedigree or a prior success in an employment related business, VC money might be waiting for you. Venture-backed job boards may also benefit from the business experience and resources of the backer along with the cash. Either way, you'll work like the devil to succeed.

Here is a list of vc backed job boards and their backers:

Big shots start their own job boards

As the job board industry blossoms and matures from a few big generalist boards to a niche job board for almost every demographic and industry, it's only natural that employees of the large boards are spreading their wings and starting their own boards:

Recent job board launches

The past few years have been big ones for the Job Board industry. They saw the launch of scads of new job boards in large and niche markets. This year seems to be following suit. Here are some of the most recent new job boards hitting the market.

April 2008