Google Trends is showing keyword searches with the keyword 'jobs' are up significantly this year starting midway through the year when typically they should be declining based on historical patterns. News reference volume is also up significantly.

See for yourself.

Yesterday we finished our first video, an in-house production giving jobseekers and employers a first-hand look into what it's like to attend one of our Hispanic and bilingual job fairs. 

This video represents a lot of hard work on the part of many individuals and great teamwork - a big thanks and congratulations to all of those involved including the kind and generous exhibitors featured in the video!! You can see it in high-resolution here or watch the YouTube version below. 

This video is about the exponencial growth of available information in our society and what might happen in the future (thanks Doug).  The video is a 2008 remastered version of the original 2006 presentation by Karl Fisch:

So what does it mean?

Coincidentally, I also received this today:

Hacking is one more pressure bearing down on the big job boards...probably an intense one.

If you're running a small niche board, you're not much of a target - I've written about our struggles with hackers but those have always been directed at our content management system and not our job boards.  From ZDNet.com:

Malicious hackers are exploiting a cross-site scripting flaw on Yahoo’s HotJobs site to phish for Yahoo credentials, according to a warning from Netcraft.

In the ongoing attack, Netcraft discovered that the vulnerability allows the attacker to inject obfuscated JavaScript into the affected page to steal authentication cookies that are sent for the yahoo.com domain.

We are in a recession - if it hasn't hit you yet, come back and read this later! We started feeling it six months ago and we are taking a beating this month. If you are feeling it now too - here's some good (and politically incorrect) reading for you.

Wednesday, LatPro held its first video conference! We used ooVoo.com's video conferencing application to hold our fourth quarter planning meeting (usually held on site in Fort Lauderdale, Florida).  It was a grand success and a great relief for those used to traveling to Florida, not to mention a significant cost reduction for the company! You will see in the screenshot below that my PC would not do the 3-D effect that you can see on the ooVoo homepage (but still might with a little tweak). Here's what it looked like:

So

I see the effects of this slow-down everywhere.   Recession talk, recession thinking and recession actions... it's driving a lot of change.

Having been through one of these before, it's important to remember a few things:

InternetRecruiting.US is a new place to promote your USA job board, ATS or related company - free to join and you are encouraged to post your press releases! Just make sure to use your company logo and not your picture.

Yes, it is another ning website.  Can it work like a directory for the Internet recruiting industry? I am sure that it can. And, it has the benefit of being more interactive than the typical directory.

Give it a whirl and let me know what you think!

"I CAN'T FAIL. I CAN'T GO BACK TO WORKING IN..." says the job board entrepreneur I talked to yesterday.

This determination reminded me strongly of my own attitude 11 years ago. I quit two jobs in a row after working in them only six months each. I told everyone I knew that I was starting a business and assumed that I was unemployable after that. I felt like failure was not an option.