Simply Hired Blog

SimplyHired.com a Winner in Dept. of Labor Challenge

SimplyHired.com has been named a top 10 General Job Board in the Department of Labor’s Job Tool Challenge! A big thank you to everyone who voted, we truly appreciate your support and enthusiasm for SimplyHired.com.

The goal of the Department of Labor’s Job Tool Challenge is to create awareness of the great job search tools that are available to job seekers. In a tough economy with over 20 million job seekers finding a job is not a piece of cake, but with the right tools job search can turn into something that is encouraging and even fun.

The Department of Labor’s challenge was open for two weeks of voting in January and attracted over 16,000 registered users who cast 30,000 votes on the 634 submitted job search tools.  The winners are posted on CareerOneStop.org under six categories: General Job Boards, Niche Job Boards, Career Planning Tools, Career Exploration Tools, Social Media Job Search and Other Tools. SimplyHired.com was a winner in the General Job Boards category, which included general job boards, listing sites and aggregators.

Thank you again to everyone who voted for SimplyHired.com, check out our placement on CareerOneStop.org!

January 2010 Unemployment Report

The BLS just released their Employment Situation for January 2010 this past Friday, showing some positive changes in the U.S. economy. There was improvement in the unemployment rate over the month – now at 9.7%, falling from 10% in December. Also, half a million previously unemployed people are back in the workforce, as the number of unemployed persons dropped from 15.3 to 14.8 million in January.

The total nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged at 20,000 jobs lost in January. A majority of those lost jobs were construction jobs and transportation & warehousing jobs. Construction employment dropped 75,000 with nonresidential specialty trade contractors making up most of the decline with 48,000 jobs lost. Transportation and warehousing jobs fell overall by 19,000, mostly due to a loss of 23,000 courier and messenger jobs.

The report also highlights job growth in various industries, showing an increase in 11,000 manufacturing jobs, despite considerable losses earlier in the recession. In addition, there was continued growth in temporary jobs, retail jobs, government jobs and health care jobs over the month of January. The increase of 52,000 temporary jobs hints that companies have need for temporary help as they begin to build up again, and gives hope that those temporary jobs will turn into something more permanent in the future. In addition, as part of the increase of 33,000 government jobs, 9,000 were temporary jobs to gear up for the 2010 Census.

Overall, the report showed improvement in a number of areas and a positive start to 2010.

IDG Enterprise and Simply Hired Announce Partnership

Simply Hired is excited to announce its multi-brand partnership with IDG Enterprise, including the CIO, Computerworld, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World properties. Do you love learning about IT news, trends and best practices? With this new partnership, you’ll be able to find the most recent jobs in the IT industry as you catch up on your IT and tech news.

IDG Enterprise brands will integrate Simply Hired jobs onto their respective websites through jobs channels as well as Simply Hired contextual job widgets throughout the pages of each site. These job widgets enable readers to browse job listings that reflect the content of the page they are viewing. Hiring companies can also utilize these job channels for posting their own open positions.

The IDG Enterprise brands offer unique and highly targeted technical audiences:

• CIO provides IT executives with best practices and strategies through articles, peer-to-peer advice and news analysis.
• Computerworld provides peer perspective on IT leadership and business results for senior IT management through the analysis of IT news and trends. 
• InfoWorld engages IT managers as they strive to modernize enterprise IT for their organizations.
• ITworld is an open-exchange that allows IT professionals, technology vendors and others to participate in creating content that is of high interest to them. 
• Lastly, Network World provides information, intelligence and insight for network and IT executives responsible for managing the digital nervous system of large organizations.

Check out the new jobs channels on the sites listed above, and happy searching!

Read the full press release.

Steps to Keeping Career Resolutions

Job seekers on SimplyHired.com recently took polls showing the top career related New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to "get hired." While it is great that so many people are focused and resolved to find a job this year, it can also be a daunting task, and it's difficult to know where to start. Here are a few tips to keeping your career resolutions in the new year:

Break it down - Instead of making one large resolution such as "find a job," break it down into smaller and measurable steps.
   Example: Spend four quality hours each day focused on your job search.

Set mini-goals - Set smaller goals for each step you create and set dates for when you would like to achieve those results.
   Example: Apply to 15 jobs this week that you find interesting and only if you fit the requirements.

Schedule time - Sometimes the hardest part about keeping a resolution is finding the time to work towards it. Set aside time each day or week to work towards your goals and resolution.
   Example: Monday 8am-12pm: Update resume, Tuesday 6pm-8pm: Attend networking event.

Plan ahead - Create a long-term timeline for yourself of your main resolution, as well as short-term goals, and plans of your daily tasks. Work towards making the dates you set.
   Example: Each Sunday, plan out the tasks and goals you want to tackle during the upcoming week.

Multi-task - Save time and get more done by doing multiple smaller tasks at once.
   Example: Out to lunch? Take the time to search for customer service jobs online as you wait for your food to arrive, or even while you're eating (just don't spill on your laptop).

Tell someone - Finding a job doesn't have to be an individual activity. By informing others of your resolution, you may find someone who can help you achieve that goal or another person with a similar resolution who you can work with through the process. You could even share your job search progress or questions with our new Share feature.
   Example: Swap cover letters with a friend in the midst of the job search and proofread for content, organization and spelling/grammar errors.

With these tips, you will be having your first day of work at a job you love in no time!

Simply Hired is a Finalist in the Shorty Awards!

Thank you all for your votes for Simply Hired in the Shorty Awards – Simply Hired was announced as a finalist in the jobs category! Now, we need your help again in voting for Simply Hired to get us to the top. However, if you’ve already placed your vote, you unfortunately cannot vote again – but feel free to pass along this information to your friends and get the word out. Voting for this round (the final round) ends Friday, February 5th at 9am PST.

To find out more information on the Shorty Awards visit their website, and check out the video from last year’s awards ceremony.

Rules:

• You must have an active Twitter account prior to voting. If you create an account just to vote, your vote won’t be counted.
• Votes must appear publicly. If your Twitter account is private, your vote will not count.

How to Vote:

• Go to http://shortyawards.com/SimplyHired
• In the text box, type: “I nominate @SimplyHired for a Shorty Award in #jobs because…” Fill in the because section with whatever you would like to say.
• If you vote for Simply Hired twice, your second vote will just overwrite your first vote.
• Thank you for voting for Simply Hired in the Shorty Awards!