Minnesota Headhunter

Kevin Garnett To Be Traded? Part 2

(This is a follow up to last weeks Kevin Garnett To Be Traded?)

Whew, the good news is in about 16 hours the NBA Draft will begin and by that time one would assume the fate of Kevin Garnett will be decided.

How big of a news item is this? I am not sure the Minnesota Timberwolves have had this much time on ESPN since our run to the Western Conference Finals a few years ago. Many local newscasts have had Garnett style in the first set of news items.

How big would a trade be with going to the Los Angeles Lakers be? Well, for one Kobe Bryant might finally check his ego and stop being a baby. For Bryant, if not the Lakers then where would he go? Where will he be “The Man”? New York Knicks? Chicago Bulls?

Please, it does not seem that they want him and I doubt he could go to the Miami Heat. That takes care of the big cities that could support his big ego.

How bad does it seem the Laker fans want Kevin Garnett? I submit to you the Get Garnett family of sites including Get Garnett (Blog), Get Garnett (Facebook), and Get Garnett (MySpace). Dang, these guys have been busy.

Rather than go through the once many and now few possible trade rumors I send you to I Heart KG. The site has been updated multiple times daily for the past week and always does a good job finding relevant quotes and links.

I still hope that when I wake up Friday morning KG is with the Wolves.

I do wonder how the relationship between Garnett and the team, management, and the city will be going forward. I think for the most part the fans understand.

If a trade is made KG will be with a title contending team and one hopes Kevin McHale and friends get something in return. If no trade happens I believe the fans will be behind KG.

Unlike Kobe Bryant, KG has always been loyal to the team and community.

Technorati Tags: Kevin Garnett, Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns

Jobster And Recruiting.com vs. RecruitingBlogs.com An Impartial View

Can’t we all just get along?

Here is the thesis of this post, Recruiting.com and RecruitingBlogs.com are not competitors. For this recruiter and for this blogger, they serve two distinctively different parts of my daily activities.

Recruiting.com:
1) For me, Recruiting.com is not a social network, maybe it once was a loose and informal one. It is a place I go to for information that my blogging colleagues are promoting Digg style. I also go there for John Sumser’s daily “Five” where he points out interesting blog posts. RecruitingBlogs.com does not do this.

2) Career related articles found at non-blogger sites, Forbes.com or CNN.com as examples, are linked at Recruiting.com. RecruitingBlogs.com does not do this.

3) John Sumser is starting his Recruiting Roadshow with us here in Minneapolis on July 20^th. An informal gathering of career related bloggers who will share experiences with HR, recruiting, and search professionals. RecruitingBlogs.com does not do this.

RecruitingBlogs.com:
1) Serves as a social network for me. Sort of a MySpace with pictures, RSS feeds, and general conversation between colleagues. I have a MN Headhunter profile on the site. Recruiting.com does not do this.

2) Groups can be formed within RecruitingBlogs.com. I started Recruiters on LinkedIn that now has 41 members. Recruiting.com does not do this.

Both sites have a similar Blog Roll. The Recruiting.com list has a cool feature where the most recent post first is listed by blog with their last five blog posts. A nice feature if you have been away for a while.

RecruitingBlogs.com has the traditional roll but it seems that there are more feeds available. More voices can be heard (seen) here.

Getting away from non-competes, whether sites are creating revenue, and traffic statistics (I will leave those debates to the “smart” people or those who think they are) for this participant (for this consumer) these sites are different.

I must say that my frequency to Recruiting.com started to slow down shortly after the Jobster acquisition and the change to a Digg style format. I liked when Jason Davis and the other main contributors used to pick out was going on in the blogs. They added insight into why it was important. They picked up the good content and promoted those writing it.

The new Digg style format has become a show of who can get the most votes not the best content and it is not moderated. For me, instead of going there multiple times a day I go once. The site has not changed much if at all so there has been nothing new added to re-grab my attention.

Please note until now I have not yet mentioned much the players in this game because for me they are not relevant. As a consumer their sites are relevant.

Here is my disclaimer on these guys as individuals:

As best as my memory serves I have never been in contact with Jason Goldberg. I have no opinion of him at all. I could care less about what people think of him. I have a profile on Jobster that I estimate I have visited less than 10 times. For my daily activities here in Minneapolis my belief is Jobster will not provide a candidate flow compared to other sources so I spend no time there.

Jason Davis and I spoke last week about domain name usage following a post he had on the subject. I would bet in the past two years there have been a total of 5 email and 2 phone conversations.

John Sumser and I never were in contact until about a month ago via email regarding the event we are working on here in July. I have been a more frequent reader of his daily article on Interbiznet since he took the reigns of Recruiting.com.

I have no dog in this fight. I own no stock in any company. I am not competing against anyone involved.

Seems to me the goal should be for Jobster to provide a service to its customers. For John Sumser and Recruiting.com to make some sort of change to the site and find it’s place on the web. For Jason Davis to continue to have a site that allows me and others the ability to further know our colleagues.

I did a last minute call in to The Recruiting Animal Radio Show to share the above opinions. My Canadian colleague Recruiting Animal had my friend Jim Durbin on talking about this issue. It was my debut on a radio show or pod cast of any sort. Complete with references to “Minnesota Moose Headhunter”, Prince, and my local blogging colleagues.

TechCrunch picked up the story yesterday with More Drama For Jobster and includes a response from Jason Goldberg. Honestly, I do wonder why this was not posted at Recruiting.com since it has allegedly been wronged.

ERE.net has Battle of the Blogs: Two Recruiting Websites at Odds with some interesting quotes from Jim Durbin and John Sumser.

More from Jim Durbin who had gone quiet but now saying how he really feels, Breaking News: Jobster Tries To Shut Down RecruitingBlogs.com and Analysis of Traffic Patterns in Online Employment

RecruitingBloggers with Don JGo Attacks JayDee

I made an honest effort to find a blog post supporting Jason Goldberg and his position. Other than a few comments on blog posts I was not able find any.

Hopefully this all ends soon and each site goes forward doing what it does best and my colleagues and I can get back to work.

Technorati Tags: RecruitingBlogs.com, Recruiting.com, Jobster

How To Exclude Qualified American Applicants

Attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby give an explanation on how employers can run classified job ads with the intent of not finding any qualified American applicants. Going one step further they briefly describe how to disqualify qualified Americans who do apply to an ad in order to comply with federal guidelines and secure work for H-1b workers.

I saw a piece of the video yesterday on a cable news channel, not sure which one. Apparently it has been making its way around the web the week.

While I am speechless that this is being taught I am not surprised and hope that karma comes back to get them one day.

I do not in any way condone this practice and have never, ever heard of a company in Minnesota doing this. Certainly not the clients I have worked with.

There are some amazing (crazy) quotes in the video. I am assuming the folks from the law firm are saying things were taken out of context. If so, what was the context because I cannot imagine another one.

What I really want to know is who their clients are. It would be great to shine a very bright light on them and then see if going forward they have a difficult time finding qualified American candidates because they are being boycotted.

Click Cohen Grigsby to be sent to Technorati to see other blog posts on this video and what Congress is starting to do about it.

A couple more good links to follow: Slashdot with How-Not-to-Hire-U.S.-Workers Law Firm Fires Back and BusinessWeek with Outsourcing: How to Skirt the Law.

Technorati Tags: H-1B, Recruiting, Cohen Grigsby

Nerd Search IT Jobs In Minnesota

 

Full Time IT Job

 

This position has been filled.

Click Minnesota IT Jobs  for more jobs & Minnesota Headhunter  for most recent blog posts. 

Paul DeBettignies
VP Recruiting
HireCast Consulting, LLC 
paul@hirecastconsulting.com   
 

Stay in touch with me by clicking:

Check out HireCast Consulting:

IT Volunteer Opportunities And Jobs With Minnesota Non Profits

The following new volunteer opportunities and technology jobs have been added on the MN Headhunter Volunteer Page:

Website Design Volunteer – Volunteer – Minnesota Children’s Museum

Strategic Information Database Associate – Full Time Job – American Refugee Committee International

Java Developer – Full Time Job – Hennepin County

Database Analyst Programmer – Full Time Job – Macalester College

Click weekly newsletter to receive the Wednesday message of nonprofit needs, IT jobs I am recruiting for, recruiting jobs, and most popular blog posts of the week.

If you are using a RSS Feed click Volunteer.

 

Technorati Tags: IT Volunteer, IT Job, Non Profit, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Recruiter Jobs With Minnesota Companies Added

The following new Recruiting jobs have been added on the MN Headhunter Recruiting Gigs Page:

Senior On-Site Recruiters – Full Time – Spherion Corporation

HR Recruiter – Full Time – Ceres Environmental Services, Inc.

IT Recruiter – Full Time – ShopNBC

Click weekly newsletter to receive the Wednesday message of nonprofit needs, IT jobs I am recruiting for, recruiting jobs, and most popular blog posts of the week.

If you are using a RSS Feed click Recruiting Gigs.

 

Technorati Tags: Recruiter, Job, Minnesota

The Minneapolis Pick-up Soccer Meetup Group Formed

As a kid I played a lot of soccer but stopped when I got to high school. I found it difficult to be both an athlete and a student. In other words if I was playing soccer or basketball, school work was not a priority. I was a fairly good midfielder (soccer) and a really good point guard (basketball) but I was not headed for the English Premier League or a Division I hoops scholarship.

So I quit. I figured being a student and going to college was a much smarter path take than all conference high school and below average grades.

When I went to college I played in some intramural leagues but it has been 10+ years since I put on cleats.

Last week I went online and did a search for minneapolis soccer pick up game and came across Meetup. I signed up more than a year ago on the site and as usual forgot about it.

I found a group of people who were wanting to play but no one had started the group so I did. Sent out an email to gauge interest and already have 17 men and women looking to play.

There are quite a few who sent me an email who have not yet joined. As soon as they do we will schedule our first game.

Interested in playing? All are welcome to join/play (it is free) and to do so click The Minneapolis Pick-up Soccer Meetup Group for more information.

 

Click here to check out
The Minneapolis Pick-up Soccer Meetup Group!

Technorati Tags: Minnesota, Minneapolis, Soccer

For Sale Ugly Home In Edina Minnesota

Not my home but the home of the Hrubey’s in Edina. Not even an ugly house but hopefully a marketing opportunity that helps them sell their home.

You can read all about their misfortunes on the blog they created after their Edina, Minnesota home being on the market for ten months now with no offers. Click Worst House In Edina to see the blog, pictures of the home, link to online listing and a press release Couple Can't Sell "Worst House in Edina." Affordable starter home seems to have zero appeal.

Interesting thing about the press release they also call it a stress release. Much like when I first started writing this blog they say that part of there writing is a way to “vent and share information”.

The story was picked up by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Home selling: A turn for the worst.

Technorati Tags: Minnesota, Minneapolis, Real Estate

Kevin Garnett To Be Traded?

Updated June 28, 2007: Click Kevin Garnett To Be Traded Part 2 for updated information.

Venturing very far away from my normal task on the blog but starting yesterday afternoon there has been a rumor regarding Kevin Garnett being traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to a handful of teams.

And I feel torn. I love KG. He has gone from “Da Kid”, to “Big Ticket”, to simply just being The Man. He is loyal, hardworking, involved in the community, always gives his best effort, and genuinely a nice guy.

I want him to stay.

And I want him to leave. I want him to leave to get to a new team that gives him a shot to win a title. He deserves that. For all the wonderful nights (11 years if I remember right) in the Target Center we have had over the years we should give him an opportunity to get the ring. Clearly Kevin McHale as a GM has not and will not be able to get it done.

The online rumor started yesterday on RealGM with Dooms Day (kg MIGHT be traded). As a KG fan, a trade to the Phoenix Suns has me thinking about how much fun it would be to see a Steve Nash and Garnett duo. Remember what it was like with Stephon Marbury? Now imagine an unselfish Nash dishing to an unselfish Garnett. Magic in the desert.

This morning Pat Forde on ESPN.com insider has KG on the move? Why a Garnett trade might -- or might not – happen. Forde mentions the Chicago Bulls in passing looks like he is going with the Boston Celtics rumor.

Another team in the mix could be the Atlanta Hawks.

On what has become our first rainy day this month it is only fitting that we may see the beginning of the end of the KG era in Minneapolis. Wolves fans will weep if KG goes.

Will he be traded? I do not know. Seems odd we would have picked up Juwan Howard if KG is leaving. The selfish side of me wants him to stay so we can continue to enjoy the man and the player. I respect him too much and if he can find a situation with a contender I will instantly become a fan of that team.

I Heart KG is a great Minnesota blog and has now picked up on this too with links to different message boards that have really been busy this morning.

Technorati Tags: Kevin Garnett, Minnesota Timberwolves, NBA

Recruiting Talent Is As Hard As You Make It Out To Be

This weekend I spent most of my time in the office. I have been working on some non-revenue producing projects and I needed to do some catch up on what pays the bills. Part of that included spending some time on the phone with a VP Human Resources of a large publicly traded company who was looking for some new ways to create a talent pipeline. Giving advice and getting paid for it is a cool thing.

Apparently they are still using the same techniques they used during the post tech bubble and recession of 2001. They are posting jobs online and have a rarely used referral program. That's basically it.

I pointed him to an article on ERE, Can't Find Talent…You Must Be Kidding! by Dr. John Sullivan that had just been posted and we read through it together.

He said, "Paul, that could be us. Are we really that far behind?"

I was not sure how to answer his question as I had some sarcastic responses in my head. The quiet must have been a few seconds because he said my lack of response was "loud and clear".

He said that the company is not going to quickly implement a blog or hop on the social networking sites any time soon. They were too busy to get into that. I did respond with if you are too busy and doing what you are doing is not getting desired results that they could not afford to wait any longer. Go where the candidates are versus waiting for them to come to you I said.

That was met with a long pause that to me was "loud and clear" so I moved on.

While we covered all of the points in the article I focused in on one in particular, what Dr. Sullivan describes as the 2002 - 2005 period as a time when quality candidates were abundant. I have never understood why companies did not save the resumes and contact information and create a newsletter or email, anything to have stayed in touch with them.

I asked my HR friend if by chance they had used any sort of applicant tracking system back then and he said but that any resumes would have long again been purged.

I then asked if they had a backup. He said of course but why?

Simple, I understand that the contact information may be outdated, that those inquiring may have had a career change but why not find out.

He said that would take some time, time they do not have. I then asked how much time does it take to send out a form email. He said not very long but what if there were more inquiries than they could handle.

My long pause was loud and clear. I was thinking that is the best problem they could have.

He started to laugh and replied with, "I really am being difficult, right? What I am looking for you to tell me is where the magic tree with all of the available candidates is. What I need to do is understand that there are different kinds of trees and that the trees look a little different than they did five years ago." (I love a good analogy)

"Uh, yeah." I said, "Recruiting talent is as hard as you make it out to be and right now, you are your own worst enemy."

He asked if I would be interested in meeting with him and his senior staff to talk about this further. I said I would think about it and could I write about our conversation on the blog and give him my answer there too. He said yes to both.

Mr. VP HR, I would like to come in and chat with you and your group.

While there, what do you say you and I sign a fee agreement and add me to your preferred vendor list and not just the "B list" but the "A list"? From the looks of it my search firm colleagues could use a little competition.

Recruiter Jobs With Minnesota Companies Added

The following new Recruiting jobs have been added on the MN Headhunter Recruiting Gigs Page:

Talent Acquisition Specialist – Full Time – Alliant Techsystems

Staffing Specialist – Full Time – Opportunity Partners

Recruiter – Full Time – Donatelle

 

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If you are using a RSS Feed click Recruiting Gigs.

Recruiting Roadshow Unconference Coming To Minneapolis, July 20th At Best Buy HQ

Many weeks ago I contacted my local career blogging colleagues about getting together for lunch or dinner and take some time to get to know each other. We read each others blogs and some of us have met each other but I am not sure if any of us had met all of the others.

While this conversation was taking place Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com was attending a national conference and had a chat with John Sumser who has taken the lead of Recruiting.com.

John has been writing for many, many years a daily called Electronic Recruiting News. His main site is interbiznet.com and is a fantastic source of information for anyone whose job relates to recruiting or supporting someone who is a recruiter.

John had an idea of taking to the road so to speak, I figured an airplane would be more involved than a car, to meet with recruiters in cities across the country.

As a group we decided that we should try and be the first city to host John and what is being called the “Recruiting Roadshow Unconference”.

I first wrote about this a few weeks ago, Minnesota A Career, HR, And Recruiting Blog Hotbed, but I was kind of vague as we were working out details. Our idea was to do it in June but we decided that it made more sense to take some time in planning the event, so July 20^th it is.

The event is free. Yep, no cost.

What is an “unconference”? Frankly, I am a little unsure exactly as this is sort of a new trend from what I can see. But the feel of it is a very informal gathering of professionals to share information and experiences. In our case we are inviting HR professionals, recruiters, search firm folks, and anyone related to the recruiting function like a web developer who works on a career site.

We have the topics picked out (these are not the titles of the presentation):

• Differences in generational recruiting
• Using blogs for recruiting and branding
• Recruiting and networking on MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networking sites
• Tips on optimizing corporate career pages, use of RSS feeds, and using newsletters

John Sumser and all of the local bloggers will be presenting. There will be networking opportunities and lunch is included. We expect the event will start around 9 am and go until 1 pm but we are still working out specifics.

For sure the location is at the Best Buy Headquarters in Richfield, a suburb of Minneapolis.

Steven Rothberg wrote about this yesterday, Minneapolis Recruiting Roadshow Unconference Announced and John Sumser today, Recruiting Roadshow.

Steven is giving me credit I do not deserve. All of my colleagues are volunteering their expertise in one form or another. I posted on Steven’s blog that I am just the “Cruise Director”. I like that better than party or event coordinator. Maybe I will bring a sailors hat with me that day.

Next week we will have a Word/HTML marketing piece that will be sent out and a web page to take care of registrations.

For my colleagues around the country John says in his post that other cities he would like to visit include Miami, Atlanta, Washington DC, New York, Boston, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Austin and Toronto.

John is looking for someone to help plan/host these other events. We will be sharing our material so the amount of time spent preparing future ones will be minimal. This has been a lot of fun so far and is a great networking opportunity.

If you have any questions about this event please send me an email, paul@mnheadhunter.com

May ’07 Minnesota Job Scene

Much will be made around the numbers this month’s employment numbers. Minnesota’s unemployment rate is now 4.6% with the US unemployment rate at 4.5%. This is the first time the Minnesota rate has been higher than US rate since 1976.

Aside from that the Minnesota numbers continue to outpace that of the country. Over the year job growth in Minnesota is 41,500 or 1.5%, .1% higher than the US rate of growth.

Of the past 25 months Minnesota has gained jobs in 20.

Unemployment rate:

• May ’07, 4.6%
• April ’07, 4.5%
• March ’07. 4.2%
• February ’07, 4.5%
• January ’07, 4.4%
• December ’06, 4.1%
• November ’06, 4.1%
• October ’06, 4.0%
• September ’06, 4.0%
• August ’06, 3.8%
• July ’06, 3.8%
• June ’06, 3.8%

Jobs Created/Lost:

• May ’07, +7,200
• April ’07, +500
• March ’07, ???
• February ’07, -1,200
• January ’07, +13,100
• December ’06, -1,600
• November ’06, +12,300
• October ’06, +3,300
• September ’06, -12,700
• August ’06, -300 (revised) -2,500 (first reported)
• July ’06, +11,600

All numbers above are seasonally adjusted.

Click Employment & Economic Statistics for more posts on the topic and MN Headhunter for the latest blog posts.

Technorati Tags: Minnesota Jobs

May 2007 U.S. Job Scene

I have not posted the United States monthly jobs reports in recent months. Below you will find all of the statistics from those months.

Other than a month or two of reasonably good job gains, job growth has remained nearly flat when you consider most agree that 150,000 jobs need to be created every month to keep pace with population growth. That being said, the economy is growing jobs.

So far in 2007 the economy is producing 133,000 jobs per month compared to 189,000 jobs per month in 2006.

I have inquired to a local economist how that works in years going forward (the need to create 150,000 jobs per month) if/when Baby Boomers start retiring/semi-retiring and will post that response when I get it.

Average hourly earnings were up $.06 or .3% to 3.8% for the previous 12 months.

National job gains, previous 13 months:

May ’07 157,000 (first reported) 150,000 (consensus)

April ’07 80,000 (revised) 88,000 (first reported) 100,000 (consensus)

March ’07 175,000 (revised again) 177,000 (revised) 180,000 (first reported) 168,000 (consensus)

February '07 113,000 (revised) 97,000 (first reported) 110,000 (consensus)

January '07, 162,000 (revised again) 146,000 (revised) 111,000 (first reported) 145,000 (consensus number)

December ’06, 206,000 (revised) 167,000 (first reported)

November '06, 196,000 (revised again) 154,000 (revised) 132,000 (first reported) 110,000 (consensus number)

October '06, 86,000 (revised again) 79,000 (revised) 92,000 (first reported) 160,000 (consensus number)

September '06, 203,000 (revised again) 148,000 (revised) 51,000 (first reported) 125,000 (consensus number)

August '06, 230,000 (revised again) 188,000 (revised) 128,000 (first reported) 125,000 (consensus number)

July '06, 123,000 (revised again) 121,000 (revised) 113,00 (first reported) 142,000 (consensus number)

June '06, 134,000 (revised again) 124,000 (revised) 121,000 (first reported) 185,000 (consensus number)

May '06, 100,000 (revised again) 92,000 (revised) 75,000 (first reported) 175,000 (consensus number)

National unemployment rates, previous 13 months:

May ’07, 4.5%

April ’07, 4.5%

March ’07, 4.4%

February '07, 4.5%

January '07 4.6%

December '06, 4.5%

November '06, 4.5%

October '06, 4.4%

September '06, 4.6%

August '06, 4.7%

July '06, 4.8%

June '06, 4.6%

May '06, 4.6%

Technorati Tags: US Job Report, Economy, Unemployment

My 30 Day Odyssey With Comcast

I had a conversation with a friend of mine regarding some customer service issues he was having with Best Buy and he asked me what my issues with Comcast had been and how come I never wrote about it.

What started with a simple email request on my part to have my then cable connection moved about 500 feet down the hall to a new space became a 30 day ordeal. The Friday before Memorial Day weekend I finally had a friendly tech show up at my door and he was done in less than 90 minutes.

I have had a couple of weeks to decompress and I also need to say that the sales manager and I had a nice chat and he gave me a rundown from his perspective on what went wrong. That defused me quite a bit and he did take some responsibility for the situation.

Funny thing was when he called I had just started proofreading a mighty long and descriptive blog post and email about the frustrations of this small business owner. Because we talked it out and he listened to me there was not much more to say.

For the most part I had forgotten about it until today when I was catching up on some reading and came across Why you should NOT buy Target's TruTech brand from Connecting the Dots. Near the end Steve writes “but it's the principle of the thing that gets me”.

While the local Comcast business sales manager and I came to a resolution on my situation I told him I was stuck on “the principle of the thing”:

-I spent at least 7 hours on the phone, writing and responding to email

-Relocated 5 meetings away from the office.

-Lost 10 days of using the office space.

(A reminder that I use VoIP. No cable, no connection, no phone)

-As an original Time Warner/RoadRunner customer I was grandfathered into the old rates. Moving 500 feet and reconnecting raised my monthly cost from $95 to $160.

-Technically Comcast does not offer cable to business folks in my area although they were supporting previous customers. Huh, you ask?

-I do not currently get cable TV. Oh, I get basic local channels. Actually I get channel 2 to 23. ESPN is fuzzy and no sound. Then I get channel 69 and higher. So I could get it but they “capped” the wire or whatever they call it.

-“Soon” there will be a business plan for cable TV.

I did get 2 months credit on my bill for the less than positive experience.

While I truly appreciate their acknowledgment of the hassle, 2 months credit is no where near “even” for me.

I have decided that at some point before the end of this calendar year I am going to recruit a happily employed and very skilled Comcast technology professional and place him/her with a client.

Then we can call it “even” and my “principles” will feel better.

Technorati Tags: Comcast, Customer Service

Recruiter Jobs With Minnesota Companies Added

The following new Recruiting jobs have been added on the MN Headhunter Recruiting Gigs Page:

Contract Recruiter – Contract – American Medical Systems

Staffing & Recruitment Specialist or Generalist, Project Work, Flexible – Contract – Employers Association

Staffing Specialist – Full Time Job – St. Jude Medical

 

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Technorati Tags: Recruiter, Job, Minnesota

Taking Windows Live Writer For A Test Drive

I have been up all night. For some reason I could not sleep with a lot on the mind and so rather than fight it I did some reading. In one article I may have what is for me the holy grail of all blog function finds.

Yep, that big.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata is a technology writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He also writes Your Tech Weblog and I have found quite a few gadgets and tricks over the past year plus from his stories and blog posts.

A few days ago he wrote Blogger-friendly Windows Live Writer impresses. He does a review of Windows Live Writer and WinJournal. Julio notes that both have local connections. Windows Live Writer with chief architect J.J. Allaire and WinJournal produced by the local group Mariner Software.

Because I trust Julio both as a guy who gives fair reviews and because he has used Windows Live Writer on his blog I am giving it a try right now as I type this.

So far so good. It's like typing on my blog. Right font, color easy to do web links. Put the cursor over a linked word and it turns gold. Right on!!!

Spell check picked up a word here and there. My big issue though is grammar check.

Previously I would write in Microsoft Word, cut and paste into the TypePad editor. That was when I was using Word 2000. For those reading my RSS Feed in recent weeks you have seen the frequent miscolored (spell check says the previous is not a word but I am rolling with it anyway) word and particularly web links.

That is when I started using Word 2003. For some reason it does not cut and paste like the older version.

This part right here I did write in Word to see how it translates. If this works I will be the happiest sleep deprived blogger you have ever seen.

Woo Hoo!!! It worked.

Mr. Allaire, thank you so much for creating this baby. Julio, thanks for the review and keep on doing what you do.

Check out Julio's review as he talks about the cool new features. As Julio notes WinJournal is not available in TypePad so I have no idea how it works. Frankly, I am so happy with what I am seeing I am not sure it would matter.

This was easy to set up. I think it took about 45 seconds and two mouse clicks.

So here goes, drum roll please... PUBLISH

Oh hell, I am trying to find where I add a category and clicked on tabs at the top. I clicked "New" as it looks like a drop down menu. WRONG. But made a setting switch to save the draft every 1 minute.

Whew, that saved me 15 or so minutes.

Found it, click "Properties" where you will find your categories. And oh hey, there is the split screen too for those of us long winded blogging types. Key words and Technorati tags too.

I know some of this is lack of sleep but this is awesome.

OK... PUBLISH

Technorati Tags: blog, software

A Different Kind Of Outsourcing, The Personal Kind

Originally in the Wall Street Journal and printed in the St. Paul Pioneer Press Personal Outsourcing is sure to raise some eyebrows on Main Street.

"The approach relies on the same model that drives corporate outsourcing: labor arbitrage, or benefiting from the wage differential between U.S. workers and those in developing countries. In the U.S., tutoring services charge $40 to $60 an hour for math help. Some skilled tutors in India are paid $2 to $3 an hour. In India, $20 is enough to buy a week's groceries for two people."

We have all been reading and some of us writing about the positives and negatives of outsourcing and offshoring for a few years now and surely it was bound to trickle down into our non work lives.

Minnesota Business Blogs Added From RBA Consulting, Space150, Capella University and HotGigs

My blog roll of Minnesota business blogs continues to grow with the following new additions:

RBA Consulting, Minneapolis based IT consulting company owned by Rick Born, has a group of infrequently updated developer blogs that can be found by clicking  RBA Consulting Blogs.

   

Space150, Minneapolis based web development and interactive marketing shop, has views from space.

   

Capella University, Minneapolis based accredited online university, has a new blog launched by three HR faculty members called Human Resource Management in the 21^st Century. They also have their own social networking portal Capella Commons where students, staff and faculty can set up their own blogs.

   

HotGigs has three blogs. I thought there was just one, StaffingExchange, HiringExchange and ConsultantExchange.

   

HR Search Marketing from Nicole St. Martin, a HotGigs employee.

Click Minnesota Business Blogs and Minnesota Recruiting And HR Related Blogs for a more extensive list of related blogs.

Flat World

The following is posted as part of my participation in the Recruiting Blog Swap:

From Talent in China

Last year's bestseller The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman took my fancy, so I bought it, and it was more than worth the money.

One story that really sticks out is the one about call centres taking over the ordering for drive-in McDonalds in Missouri. This is a great story and it has some lessons for hiring and retention. Not just in the US and especially as it relates to them being processes.

In summary, what happens is that order-takers are based in a remote call center instead of in the McDonalds location. The main call centre is in Los Angeles which is about as far away as Shanghai from Beijing.

The people in the call centre talk to the person in their car and take the order. The information is passed back to the person actually making the order in the McDonalds store, and when the customer drives around to the payment station the food is ready. They don't even know they were talking to someone who is thousands of kilometres away.

The logic of doing it this way is that the call centre people do a better job of getting the customer order. They do it to a script and this ensures all the right questions are asked, and any issue resolved quickly. They use software to create workflow that links processes together and reduces administration.

In the end the call centre people do a better job of order taking because they are chosen specifically chosen for this kind of work, they run it as a process, and it's all they do. (The follow up to this is to be found in a later edition of the New York Times. According the later NYT story, the call centre solution now covers the whole of the US right across to Honolulu in Hawaii.)

So what about China and our souped-up, catch-'em-quick-before-they-change-jobs hiring process?

Just think about McDonalds, or any fast food restaurant for that matter, looking for new staff in some city in China. The people they need normally come from the vicinity of the store, otherwise they will have a long commute.

But people in this industry don't do long commutes. Not for long anyway, and not when there are so many food 'n retail jobs available in China. So McDonalds gets who it gets in the vicinity of each store.

The call centre on the other hand looks for a specialised type of person. Someone that is suited to doing this work. When they hire they test candidates for skills and interview against behavioural issues that are associated with success in the job. Then they give the person the tools to do the job.

They substitute technology for proximity so they can cover any location.

Call centers locate in big cities because there is a readily accessible base of people to choose from. And they simplify the process by scripting it so that the accessible base of people is as big as possible.

Over time the call center company hones its skills by measuring everything they do. This goes down to a very low level of detail such as the time between the button being pressed and the delivery of the final order. Or the number of orders that have mistakes. And so on.

At present this is all being done from a central call centre but there is no reason that it could not be done from the person's home. Even on a part time basis. So it's not much of a stretch to imagine McDonalds orders in the US being taken in India, or China.

And it's also not difficult to imagine companies in China outsourcing their whole hiring process to that same call centre, or a company like it. Background checks and confirmation of educational achievements in China are already done this way.

Why not the whole hiring process?

This article is courtesy of CollegeRecruiter.com Recruiting.com Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com at, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching entry level jobs and other career opportunities, and Recruiting.com.