Onward Search Career Cast #6

Hiring Trends in 2010 for Internet Marketing and Interactive Jobs

In this episode of CareerCast, we focus on how companies are approaching their hiring strategies during 2010 and what that means for professionals in our idustries. Internet and interactive marketers will find a changing market place as hiring companies begin to recover.

Ken and Josh from Onward Search discuss how the job market is turning around and what kind of opportunities SEO, IT and Creative types can expect to see during the rest of the year.(download mp3)

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This is Peter Clayton and I’d like to welcome back everyone to the Onward Search CareerCast. I’m joined today by Ken Clark, one of the cofounders of Onward Search, and Josh Gampel, vice president.

So guys, 2009 is over, thankfully, and since we just wrapped up the first quarter of 2010, I thought it would be an opportune time to check in with both Josh and Ken on what they’re seeing in the job market for internet marketing and interactive professionals. So let’s get started.

Ken, I think the first question on everyone’s mind is how the job market is today and how was the first quarter. Are we in recovery or not?

Ken: It’s safe to say that things are getting better, particularly in our market, Peter, as you know just from talking with us over last several months where we specialize is everything in the internet and web marketing world, and what has been very encouraging for us is really, even starting back in Q4 of last year, absolutely driving through into this first quarter job orders which is really how we can see demand in the economy within our business have been increasing dramatically. Particularly this quarter, I believe every month of Q1, January to February, February to March, our job orders have been increasing, and what we’re really seeing is a lot of demand in the marketplace.

Why is that happening? Well, in a recession, usually the first jobs to come back are temporary jobs. And there was actually a report that came out about two weeks ago that couldn’t have been more encouraging. What it showed was that in the last five months, the number of temporary jobs created in the economy basically was unparalleled over the last 20 years. And if I remember the stats exactly, in the last five months, the total number of temp jobs that were created equaled the number of temp jobs created in the last recession over, I think it was, a 24-month period. So what’s happening is, luckily, these jobs are being created, the economy is moving, companies are starting to hire again. Why temp jobs are the first to recover typically are because companies are still being cautious with their money, and so they hire people on a temp basis.

Long answer, but things are looking very good for us; internet, interactive, anything in that space is hot. That’s where folks are spending their money. We’re pretty encouraged right now.

Peter: How about geography; are there any geographies that are particularly hot right now?

Ken: I would actually say if you look at, just mentally kind of take calculus of the ten big metro regions in the United States, that’s where the jobs are. Not coincidentally, you know where our footprint is, we target our offices in the major metro regions of the country. That’s where you’re seeing a lot of job growth – New York, Boston, LA, Dallas, locations like that.

Peter: You just opened an office in Los Angeles, right?

Ken: We did. Actually, we’re two weeks in, and we’ve got a terrific team there. We are super excited to have our first West Coast office. So yeah, things are going great so far.

Peter: Let’s talk for a moment about the trends that you’re seeing in the marketplace. I know we talked about this a couple of podcasts ago but it seems like everyone is going crazy now that the iPad is out and of course, just recently there was another Apple event where they talked about the new iPhone software 4.0 which is going to be doing multitasking, and also about the new iAd format which, I would guess, would create some real opportunities for some of your folks.

Ken: Yeah, absolutely. The whole iPad mania, frankly, over the last week or so I think is very good for the job market. I was one of the faithful, I bought my iPad on Saturday and it is just so cool to use. The interface is amazing. And when you use it, the applications style and application design of an iPad app is very unique compared to what you see in an iPhone. So it really is going to drive a lot of job growth.

The iAd feature of the 4.0 software is pretty interesting. There’s a whole development, STK, I believe around that. And again, I think what we’re going to see are companies insisting that they have iPhone/iPad platforms to access their aps, their sources, everything like that. So that is another space we operate in and demand, I’d say already we’re getting phone calls about do we have iPad developers. So it’s actually pretty cool.

Peter: Josh, let’s talk a little bit about SEO — search engine optimization. Is this still a hot place to be if I’m an Internet marketer?
Josh: Yeah, Peter. Absolutely. It’s still a hot place to be for many reasons. Actually SEMPO – Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization – just released a study this past week that companies are overwhelmingly moving spend from print to online. A huge portion of that is in SEO. On top of that, of the SEMPO companies that were reported that are already spending money on the internet, almost 50% of them said they were going to increase spend. So just that alone as far as increasing spend into personnel to build your in house SEO team or with agencies, or on your page search, increasing the spend in internet marketing is going to be huge just in the dynamics for SEO.
Another statistic to look at is just the demand for SEO. A company called Conductor recently released a study stating that only about 25% of the Fortune 500’s targeted paid keywords – meaning all of those keywords that they’re spending money on, about $3.4 million a day actually – only 25% of those ranked in the top 50 natural search results. That’s staggering, if you really think about the demand that’s needed in the Fortune 500 for an SEO professional and the amount of money that’s going to be spent across the board out of all these companies that are surveyed, that means the demand is very high, and we’re seeing that reflected in the amount of jobs that we’re getting as a company and the amount of candidates we’re continuing to place.

Peter: And Josh, if you were to give me the top three professions that you are seeing the greatest demand for right now, what would they be?

Josh: SEO is one of them but another thing that I want to mention, social media. Social media is very hot right now. And it’s not just about SEO; it’s about maximizing your marketing strategy around all forms of online. Social media, it’s predictably it’s the new hot skill. It’s really what SEO was three years ago. Three years ago if you could spell SEO, you were making a ton of money and you were getting a raise and you w ere getting offers all over the place.

There’s actually a great website, just an interesting stat that came out – I love statistics – but naturalsearchblog.com, about three years ago, they announced some of the top in house SEOs. They just did a new posting – I think it was today – came out today, April 9th is when we’re recording this – 46 of the people that were on the top in house SEO sheet moved, 22 stayed. There were 68 listed, 46 of them moved and they moved… if you look at the position titles, they were all an increase in title.

So, that’s pretty interesting to show that online marketers have gotten an increase from three years ago where SEO was really the hottest item; they have all advanced in their career and social media is really where that is right now. Social media SEO, those are really the acquisition pieces.

The other high demand area is once the customer or the user gets to the site, it’s about the experience. So we’re doing a lot of work with information architecture and user experience. It’s all about converting the customer once they get to the site. And that’s very high in demand as well, as well as Flash. That goes with the user experience, but if you’re a Flash developer, call us because we have jobs for you in every major metro.

Peter: There’s something you brought up that I think is really interesting. There’s a new job title, which is social media manager. Nobody had one of those a year ago, and now you go to these corporations and they’ve “got to somebody on this Twitter thing,” you know. So, I think you’re absolutely right; there’s all of these interesting dynamics.

Ken, let’s talk a little bit more about the economy and what tips you would give a job seeker today, given what you’re seeing?

Ken: Probably the number one thing that you have to think about if you’re looking for a job right now is that over the last 18 months, companies got a heck of a lot smarter. And what I mean by that is they got used to being in an environment where there was a lot more supply out there in terms of folks looking for jobs, and they got smarter on how specific and how high their standards are around hiring, and they are a lot more demanding.

So, when you’re looking for a job right now, probably the number one pointer that I’d recommend is you have to be able to really effectively demonstrate how you bring an impact and you bring an ROI to an organization.

If you’re going into an interview just trying to win it on your charming personality and smile with not a lot of meat behind it, it’s going to be tough because over the last 18 months, there was such a high inventory of people in the marketplace, companies got really good at narrowing down to only the best of the best. That’s number one of what I would say.

The second thing is, despite the optimism that, I think Josh and I have expressed in this podcast, you still have to realize that the economy is recovering, it’s not recovered. And what that means is you need to be flexible, you need to be aggressive in your job search. The days of throwing in a resume or an email and waiting for phone callback are certainly not going to be here for awhile. So, you still have to attack it and have a strategy around it.

Peter: I think that’s really important and to your point of showing an ROI because a lot of the people you deal with are creative professionals and they get really cranked up about this cool new thing they’re able to do in Flash, but what they really have to do is demonstrate that as an ROI.

Ken: Absolutely, and on the creative side in particular, and luckily, most Flash developers do a great job of this, but you have to have a really winning portfolio to get the job that you want.

Peter: Josh?

Josh: Yeah, Ken hit it on the head with the winning portfolio. Differentiate yourself somehow. If you’re a jobseeker right now and you’re looking for your next new role, differentiate yourself in the channels that the hiring manager lives in. Do something on your blog that’s creative. But then you’ve got to get your blog in front of him. How are you going to do that? Don’t just send it to him in an email; send it to him, phone call, send a handwritten note, go knock on the door if you have to. You definitely have to differentiate yourself, but don’t just do it the old school way by phone call and a handwritten note. Do something online in one of these new media formats that is going to grab somebody’s attention.

Create an iPhone application if you have some time. If you’re a developer, create an iPhone application about finding a job and send it to everybody. It might not necessarily get published but you can maybe have a demo version out there. Do something different.

The final part is network, network, and network. Don’t be afraid to network. There are events. If you go to meetup.com or if you go to LinkedIn, there’s networking meet-up groups for every single discipline out there right now. So go to those groups, network online and in person. That would be one of my biggest suggestions.

Peter: Okay, so let’s talk about some hot jobs that you have right now, Josh. You mentioned that you’re really looking for Flash developers. Can you give us some real specifics on some really hot jobs that you are looking to place right now?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, Flash developers everywhere. Every single market of ours is looking for Flash designers and developers. Some specifics – we have VP group account director, social and mobile for a major agency in New York City. That’s a hot opening that we’re working on. Also in the city, we’re working for a web developer, web master for a large financial services organization. We’re looking for information architects in Boston across agencies and on the financial services side.

Interactive designers are also needed everywhere on the agency and corporate side. I would say the financial services world; if you have financial services experience on the creative side, give us a call because that’s an area that they’re all making money again. The gloom and doom for them is way over and they’re back to making the big bucks, and they’re spending it too. So, give us a call because they are all redesigning their websites and they’re doing great iPhone applications and it’s all around the user experience.

And then search marketers, like we kicked off this conversation, every single company needs a search engine marketer of some form – SEO, PPC or also social media.

If you go to our website jobs.onwardsearch.com, you could see a list of all the active openings that we have right now, or follow us on Twitter, you get all of our most recent updates.

Peter: Josh and Ken, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us again. Great information and great advice.

Ken: Thanks Peter, we enjoyed it.

Thank you for tuning in to Onward Search Career Cast. For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at onwardsearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter. And you should also follow Onward Search on Twitter at twitter.com/onwardsearch.

Onward Search Career Cast #5

Executive Jobs and Hiring Trends in Internet Marketing

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The latest edition of the Onward Search Career Cast covers topics relevant to job seekers and companies seeking to hire senior level directors and executives to manage Internet marketing operations for a business.(download mp3)

Tom Hull, the vice president of Executive Search at Onward Search and Josh Gampel, vice president of Onward Search discuss the types of permanent positions that are available and how the process works compared short-term engagement contracts.

Host Peter Clayton guides us through what both job seekers and companies can expect when working with an executive placement firm.

TRANSCRIPT

We’re back in Wilton, Connecticut today with Josh Gampel who is the vice president and Tom Hull, The VP of executive search for Onward Search, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the current job market for interactive marketing at the executive level and to understand what a candidate needs to do to find the right next step in their career.

Tom and Josh, obviously we’ve had a big economic change, thank God, over the past 18 months, and if I’m a VP or a C-level interactive marketing candidate in the job market right now, what does the job market look like, Josh?

Josh: Thanks Peter. To say it short and sweet, the job market right now is great. I know it’s a sigh of relief for everyone to hear that. Our open job count is at the highest it’s ever been. Statistically speaking, for positions such as search engine optimization, from year over year, there has been about 100% job growth for job boards and ads that are online. Social media, there’s been about a 300% job growth. iPhone, I mean, it’s absolutely through the roof for the amount of open jobs that we’re seeing across the board, across the company, across the country, for many different type of acquisition marketing roles.

Basically, companies are reinvesting into their acquisition marketing strategy. There’s been a lot of cutbacks over the past several years, and really about six months ago, we started to see a drastic shift in okay the recession is over and we need to start hiring again, and marketing is one of the first areas that people are starting to invest in, specifically interactive and online marketing. We are really excited for where the market is going and have a lot of openings. We’re looking for talent everyday right now.

Peter: That’s really great news and, of course, most of our shows here on Onward Search Career Cast have focused on the temp market or the project-based, go in, do an assignment three months, whatever, and get out, but today, we’re really focusing on those permanent jobs and that’s really what Tom Hull, who is the VP of Executive Search focuses on.

Tom, talk to us a little bit about the executive search team, and how you work and interact with the contingency based team.

Tom: Hi Peter, thank you very much. It’s nice to be here. For our group, we focus exclusively on the permanent placement hires, those senior level executives that will really impact the business and lead the growth for years to come. The typical clients that we work with are companies that are usually frustrated by not having a committed partner, who don’t understand the business issues or have limited access to the right candidates, and that’s really where we come in.

What we’ve seen over the past year and a half or so is an improving job market. We’re starting to see a shift from what we say is a client-driven market where there is not as many jobs open that would see a lot of candidates for each position, where now where they’re looking to hire, there is not as many qualified people to get access to.

Choosing the right search partner is critical for business success, that’s really where we see our executive search team coming in to find the right talent.

Peter: We’ve talked in past episodes here about going from temp to perm. Do you ever get involved with the temp side, the project side of Onward Search when you start doing a candidate search for full-time employees?

Tom: What we do is we work with our clients to really determine what works best for them. In some circumstances, the temp model works great for them. In others, especially at the more senior level, bringing in executive strictly from a permanent basis makes the more sense for them. So, we really work with the client to understand what their needs are and we can work our business model around that.

Peter: If I’m a candidate or a client, why would I choose to work with a recruiter?

Tom: The short answer to that that covers both the client and the candidate is access. From the client’s perspective, the way that businesses grow is through talent and through money, and we offer the talent piece of that. We specialize in our marketplace for internet marketing creative, that’s the space to work in a daily basis, we know where the talent sits, and we know how to get access to them. We find those candidates that are passive, those that are not looking for their next opportunity. We constantly keep them aware of the opportunities in the marketplace, and then they can decide if it makes sense for them to make a change. Those are the ones that truly impact the business.

From a candidate perspective, same thing, access is supremely important. We have jobs that they’re not going to hear of to any other resource. For exclusive reasons or replacement of an incumbent, where it needs to be a confidential search, we’ll have access to those jobs. Looking for a job is almost like a full time job, so when you work with a trusted partner in an executive search firm, what we’re going to do is proactively keep you aware of opportunities that will match your skill set, your personality, and offer you that next step in your career that you wouldn’t hear about otherwise.

Peter: Josh, if I’m an active candidate looking for a new position, and I approach Onward Search, is there any cost to me in getting involved with you guys?

Josh: Great question, Peter. On the candidate side, there’s no cost at all. Basically, the clients pay for our services. On the executive permanent placement side, there’s a couple of different pricing models that we have but at the end of the day, we price it off of a percentage of the candidate’s salary.

If you’re a candidate looking for a job, you reach out to us, we get to really understand what you’re looking for, where you’re based out of, a lot of times we deal with relocation, are you willing to relocate for the right opportunity. We really looked to understand what you’re looking for as that next step in your career, what skill sets you have, and then we match that up with our client’s needs. If we put you into a position with our client, they pay the fee.

There’s never any charge to work with us, the benefit is to get access to the jobs that we’re working on it this time and many are not on the job boards. Our clients partner with us because of our relationships to really find them the best talent for the specific need that they have.

Peter: To expand on that a little bit, what are some of the segments and categories that employers are looking for right now, Tom?

Tom: Well, what we’ve seen specifically for within our niche in internet marketing creative, emerging technology, and mobile is enormous. You put the social media category in their a couple of years ago, everyone wanted to use social as part of what their strategy was going to be and unfortunately, it was basically put on hold. They said we’re going to focus on our course strategy, we know we want to do social but we can’t measure it, we don’t know how it’s going to impact the business, so we’re going to put it on hold. However now it is a core piece of everyone’s business. There’s a dearth of talent in this area, and finding somebody that can impact the business through social or mobile is in high demand.

Peter: Josh, can you give us three tips for a job seeker in 2010? What are some of the things that if I’m out there and I’m actively looking for a job, what are the main things that I need to concentrate on?

Josh: Another great question, Peter. It goes along with what Tom said about what the clients are looking for right now. As Tom mentioned, they’re looking for a lot of experience in the social and the mobile piece. Clients are looking for what have you done to attract customers and increase sales. They want to know what type of online marketing techniques have you used, and if you have used cutting edge or emerging technologies to help gain customers and increase revenue. That’s the hottest thing.

If you’re really doing the just print direct marketing world, a lot of companies are phasing out that spend and really going into the online marketing space.

From a three-tips perspective, your resume needs to reflect your online internet marketing experience as well as creative, also statistics are huge. You need to show revenue growth, you need to show quarter over quarter growth, new leads, return on investment, you need to speak the language that the internet marketers are speaking. Also throughout your career, make sure that your resume shows proven career growth every change and every step that you’ve made from an increased responsibility standpoint.

The next tip I would say is Twitter. A lot of people have made a lot of jokes about Twitter. If you haven’t already, jump on the bandwagon, jump on the bandwagon, start following people, and then start tweeting yourself. The most important part about that is myself as a recruiter, and Tom as a recruiter, and other employers out there are looking at it now. They’re looking at it, they’re seeing what type of things you’re saying, and if you start providing valuable content to your followers in regards to marketing, they know that you get it, and that you live and breathe in that space.

The final tip I would say is update your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has become a massive resource for recruiters, hiring managers, really anybody in this space is on LinkedIn. Recently LinkedIn has added the functionality where it updates, your Twitter account at the same time, so Twitter and LinkedIn really coincide with each other, talked to your LinkedIn community, join groups, be active in the groups, provide content for them, and myself as a recruiter if I see you’re on LinkedIn and you’re commenting on different group boards, and you’re answering questions, I know that you understand what you’re talking about when I look at your resume, I’ll see your proven revenue growth year over year, I’m going to want to talk to you, learn more about what you’re looking for, and really dig in deeper into that.

With a dearth of candidates out in the marketplace, you need to stand apart from the rest and LinkedIn, Twitter, and statistics on your resume are the top three things that I would suggest just to be noticed.

Peter: I think that’s some great advice, so sort of the old, either how you’re going to save me money or how you’re going to make me money, right?

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Peter: Tom, tell me about some of the hot jobs that you’re working on right now?

Tom: You’re going to see some general themes coming along with the jobs. When we focused within our niche market and we’re saying where we’re seeing some of the newest opportunities coming in, we’re working in mobile, we’re working in social, we’re working in search, we are working with e-commerce companies for their internet marketing needs, and we’re also working in web analytics.

Currently, we’re working with a major digital agency in Manhattan. They’re looking for a mobile marketing strategist. This is somebody who’s going to sit on the executive team and they’re going to develop the mobile strategy for major blue chip clients.

On the internet retail side, we’re dealing with the multi-channel organization that is looking specifically for a creative director who is responsible for the artistic direction and design oversight for the e-commerce activities. In conjunction, we’re working with them to find them their next VP of digital marketing, who is in charge of growing the business through social, through their affiliate network, through search, and through mobile.

That’s a real quick checklist of some of the things that we’re working on but it’s national. We’re working with blue chip companies that everyone has heard of, small entrepreneurial firms, major agencies as well.

Peter: That’s great, and these are all six-figure plus jobs, right?

Tom: Yes. They’re all permanent placement at the executive level.

Peter: This has been really interesting and I really appreciate your time today. Any last minute thoughts, Josh?

Josh: Get your resume out there if you are interested in any of the jobs that we have on our website. We also have @Onward Search, @SEO jobs and @PPC jobs – Twitter accounts, check those out. If you’re interested in anything, email us, reach out to Tom or myself, or one of our recruiters.

What we’re going to do is we’re going to have a conversation with you, understand what you’re looking for, check on what we have right now that may be a fit. We may not have anything right now, but our main goal would be really to establish a relationship for the future so when that right opportunity comes that meets our client’s needs and your needs, we’ll be able to make a match.

Peter: That’s great.

Thank you for tuning in for Onward Search Career Cast. For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at onwardsearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter. You should also follow Onward Search on Twitter @Twitter.com/onwardsearch.

Onward Search Career Cast #2

Episode 2 – The Staffing Process

Josh and Ken talk to Peter about how the staffing process works for Internet marketing and creative professionals. Onward Search places people in temporary and permanent, executive and specialist jobs and positions.

Hello and welcome to the second episode of Onward Search Career Cast. We’re in Wilton, Connecticut with Ken Clark, the Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Onward Search and Josh Gampel, Vice President of Onward Search.

In our inaugural episode, Ken told us how Onward Search came to be and we learned a little bit about the professionals that Josh’s team staffs. Today, we’re going to talk about how a typical assignment works for the candidate and give you some more background on how this whole process comes about. (download mp3)

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Ken, for someone who didn’t have a chance to listen to the first episode of the Onward Search Career Cast, can you just give us a brief overview of the staffing model for Onward Search, the types of assignments, and assignment lengths.

KEN: Sure. Thanks Peter. What Onward Search does is we are the nation’s leading provider of internet marketing and creative talent, and what that means is we provide everyone from internet marketing, search marketing, social media experts to flash developers, usability experts, iPhone developers on both temporary and permanent assignments across the country.

The way our model works is we have regional hubs in all the major metro regions across the country such as Chicago, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas to name a few of them, and we also have an executive search team which specializes in placing C-level, SVP, and director level candidates on a permanent basis.

PETER: Ken, can you walk me through how a candidate would go about getting started with a career with your organization Onward Search?

KEN: Sure. As you could imagine, our recruiters are talking to our clients and our candidates in our marketplaces throughout the day, networking and developing a database of great talent. We kind of eat our own dog food, so to speak. We’re very active using social media, channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, other sites that are specific to our niche, and what we’re doing is we’re working in finding candidates all over the internet and, frankly, just through kind of traditional hard work on the phone and things like that.
What we ask our candidates to do is typically either give us a call or fill out an online application on our website and once you do that, you’re going to sit with a recruiter, so to speak, speak with a recruiter who is going to walkthrough what you’re looking for in your career and help you really get started so we can find the right career for you.

PETER: Josh, can you kind of expand on that process for us?

JOSH: Yeah, thanks. Just to elaborate, once you’ve identified Onward Search and you give us a call or you fill out an online application, you speak to one of our recruiters and they’re really going to be looking at your background, your skill sets. If you’re a web designer, we’re going to want to look at your portfolio and we’re going to look at the look and feel and all the different aspects of the portfolio and really get to know why you did what you did and how you did it and make sure that you are the one responsible for all the work.

A lot of times, our recruiters are going to be interviewing you really to get a feel for your background and what your career goals, and what type of compensation you’re looking for and all those fun details and then when we present you to a client, a lot of it is subjective. Our client on the web design aspect may be looking for somebody that has a little bit more creativity in their background from their perspective, or a little bit more cut and dry in their portfolio. Web design, just to name that example, is very subjective based on what the client is looking for.

On the search engine marketing side, it’s black and white – how many keywords have you managed, what’s your budget, what type of responsibility have you had, and what have your results been. So a little bit more black and white on the search engine marketing side. But our recruiters are very skilled in asking you direct questions, knowing what your background is all about; most importantly, trying to understand what you’re looking for so we can match you up with the right career opportunity.

If you go on our website, you can see dozens upon dozens of job postings. They’re updated every day. There are feature jobs. They change all the time, and what a client’s looking for today may not be a fit for you, but it may be a fit for you two weeks down the road. So it’s good to get in touch with our recruiters, keep posted on what’s going on, on our job boards, and really keep tabs with us so we can present you the right opportunity.

On the executive search side, when you call in, we’re going to present a few jobs to you based on your geographic preference and your skill set. The interview process on the executive search side is a little more detailed, it goes more in depth. We present full write ups on our candidates to our clients that are behavioral based, and what I mean by that is we want to know what decisions you made, why you made them, and what the impact was and how it helped drive revenue for the top line and help increase the bottom line for your organization. So it depends on what your skill set is, whether you’re a Flash developer, a search engine marketer, or a VP of marketing, each kind of interview process is a little bit, but we try to cover all the bases.

PETER: So, when I call in, and I talk to a recruiter, let’s say I’m based in New York, and let’s say I’m an iPhone developer – using an example that Ken brought up – how do you decide which recruiter is best for me to work with? Is it geographically based? Is it based on skills?

KEN: We have recruitment teams that focus on both actually. We have recruitment teams as I mentioned all our metro areas, so if you’re a New York candidate, you are almost always can be speaking to a New York recruiter. The case where you may not be is on executive search.

Executive search, as Josh has mentioned, is a totally separate business from the temp business. It’s a different service to our customers and our clients. It’s a different service to our talent. So we have a dedicated team for executive search.

So if you were in New York, iPhone developer, and there was theoretically a perm position available for you, you may not be speaking to someone in New York.

PETER: Back to the temp side for a second Josh, if I am interested in working with you, do I have to come in for an interview or is this done over the phone?

JOSH: Great question. That’s all depends, depending on where you’re located. If you’re in New York, and the position happens to be located in New York, we’re going to speak to you on the phone first, qualify it, make sure that you’re a good fit and then depending on the situation, we’re going to ask you to come in and meet with one of the recruiters. Most of the time though, you don’t have to meet the recruiter. It depends on the assignment, it depends on what our client’s requirements are. It really varies from assignment to assignment. However, most of the time, we can at least evaluate you and have the initial conversation over the phone and discuss whether it makes sense to move forward.

KEN: Something that we also do with increasing frequency is we actually leverage Skype to have video interviews with our talent. Oftentimes, that’s easier for them but it still gives us the opportunity to meet face-to-face, so to speak.

PETER: I’d like to return to what you were talking about earlier as far as your employment of social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook; I know you have a Twitter feed, which is online search. Do you have a LinkedIn group, or do you have a Facebook fan pages?

KEN: We actually have the largest Twitter presence of any staffing company that kind of even remotely operates in our space. In addition to our main feed, Onward Search, which provides a lot of good news contents, promotes a lot of the jobs that we have, we have several segmented Twitter feeds. One example is SEO jobs, another is social media jobs, another is PPC jobs, that really focus on giving a stream of targeted jobs to the professionals that we work with. We also managed a number of LinkedIn groups that are designed really as discussion areas for our talent, whether we’re working with them or not and our clients, to discuss issues related to career topics and training and hiring within our segment.
Long answer but the short is we’re doing all of the above.

PETER: And I imagine those candidates who are very active on these sites, such as LinkedIn, really get your attention.

KEN: Yeah, and I’d actually like Josh to probably comment on this but if I could give one tip to anyone out there that’s looking for a job is make sure that you’re on LinkedIn , because it’s a great resource for the job seeker. There are a lot of great tips that actually we provide to our candidates and our talent about how you can optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Josh, maybe if you can talk about how our recruiters use LinkedIn to help source talent.

JOSH: Sure. LinkedIn is a great tool and as Ken mentioned, if you’re not on it, get on it right away, because when you look at ability to access information on the web all across the spectrum, our recruiters use LinkedIn first, and the reason being is we can really go into a company, understand who all the players are, what their roles are, you can look at recommendations of their work and really know what their career path has been before you even talk to them.

In regards to LinkedIn, I would recommend making sure you have a complete profile, adding multiple jobs that you have had on there, include your Twitter name, which Twitter and LinkedIn have recently merged so you can kind of sync the two together, and get references and recommendations for the work that you’ve done.
When I look at the candidate, and I’m looking through their background, I look at the companies that they worked for, I look at the descriptions of what they’ve done at those companies, and then I also get recommendations of their work right off the bat.

If this is what your intent is and you want to get a lot of calls from recruiters, and you’re good at what you do, update your LinkedIn profile and you’ll have your next job coming to you.

PETER: LinkedIn groups really, even over the past year, have become much, much more visible and important and powerful in help building your personal brand.

JOSH: Yeah. Each one of our recruiters has a few different groups that they manage. Just to name a few, search marketing careers; that’s one group that we manage. There are hundreds and hundreds of people in there that on a daily basis are commenting on different aspects in the search marketing world. E-commerce careers is another one, and then we have subgroups within these e-commerce careers that are on digital analytics. So anybody that is an e-commerce and really looks at the analytics, and they ROI on a daily basis, you’ll love that group because there’s a lot of topics going back and forth.

PETER: On your temp side, just out of curiosity, is there any fee for the candidate signing up on Onward Search?

JOSH: If you want to pay, sure. J No there’s no fee. The fees are on the client side. It’s absolutely free. All we ask is for your time and partnership with us and we’re going to give the same back to you.

PETER: And what happens when an assignment is over, Josh, do I remain under contract with Onward Search? Are you going to help me find a new position?

JOSH: Another great question. You are never obligated to work with us for any period of time. The employment is at-will employment. What happens is typically we’re going to put you on a project based assignment. Let’s say it’s three months, we’re going to expect you’re going to work on that project for the three months. At the completion of the project, we’re hopefully going to have another job for you based on a client’s needs and your skill sets. If we don’t have that, we’re going to actively work with you to help you find a new position especially if the employer beforehand has given you two thumbs up. However, you’re never contractually obligated to work just with Onward Search.

PETER: Ken.

KEN: You know, one other thing I’d like to add is in that process typically, what we do is when we have an expected end date of your assignment, usually about halfway through the assignment, your recruiter is going to start talking to you about what you want to do next and the reason that’s so important is because if you are on that six-month assignment, that conversation about where you see your career is headed, it’s happening somewhere in that three to four month time period. That way, you get to work with your recruiter and if you want to make a very large shift, or you want to stay doing the same type of work, we have enough time to help you find that right job.

PETER: One last question, Josh, let’s talk about some hot jobs or opportunities that you currently have at Onward Search.

JOSH: As I look at our job board and if you are by a computer onwardsearch.com, you can see all of our hottest jobs for internet marketing and creative. Right now, we’re looking for interactive copywriters, SEO analysts, SEO superstar is one of our job descriptions, so you better be good. We’re looking for a VP of Analytics for a digital marketing agency, A J2EE developer, social media specialists – you name it. I mean, all across the board – and iPhone application developers, as we’ve talked about before, are some of the hottest jobs that we have.

PETER: One last comment, you know, what I find really remarkable is three years ago, half of these jobs didn’t even exist.

JOSH: Me too. It’s a great point. I mean, if you look at the way the industry has changed, as Ken mentioned, it’s all about being able to really track your marketing span and if anybody hasn’t heard of Google, I don’t know, they’ve been hibernating under a rock. Google has really changed the way the world markets and the ability to track your marketing span down to the penny has really created a lot of the search marketing and acquisition jobs. And on the web design side, people being creative, have really been able to change jobs from back five years ago when it was just getting a website up and running, to now making sure the user experience is there, the website loads quickly, the images are fresh and keeping up with the competition because there’s always somebody trying to make their site look better than yours.

PETER: Ken and Josh, thank you so much for your taking time to speak with us again today on Onward Search Career Cast. This has been really informative.
Be sure to tune in next time for the next episode of Onward Search Career Cast.

Thank you for tuning in to Onward Search Career Cast. For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at OnwardSearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072, and speak with an experienced recruiter. And you should also follow Onward Search on Twitter at Twitter.com/onwardsearch.