Something Actually Useful - Online Recruiting Tools

Diigo

• Online collaborative research and learning tool that allows any group of people to pool their findings through group bookmarks, highlights, sticky notes, and forum. Shared company research, tap into communities of shared interest to get contacts by industry or profession.
  
• Free

Ning

• Limitless customizable social network. Not single sign-on for each group yet but still in development. Recruiter Earth group provides great tools and weekly contact lists by name/industry. Allows you to tap into communities by interest, profession, company, college attended.
  
• Free

Jobtarget

• One place to post your jobs to ANY job board on the Internet, allowing you to compare prices. Find and post to niche boards without setting up accounts, including user groups and associations.
  
• No mark-up on job postings.

My Perfect Gig

• Candidate matching site, takes the requirements in a job req and finds candidates with matching skills. Also includes intelligence and market data on similar openings. Find the number of jobs posted online, including location and the name of the company doing the hiring, as listed on industry job sites. Look at competitive demand and make job posting requirements realistic.
  
• Free?

Employon

• Database of online resumes and job postings by category. See who’s posting jobs and get free resumes emailed daily by your selected criteria.
  
• Fees vary

Alexa

• Web traffic metrics and site demographics, collected through installed toolbars. View which careers websites are getting the most traffic and compare over time.
  
• Free

Skill Survey

• On-demand reference checking technology enables employers to review applicants' professional references using a 360-approach for assessing applicants' past performance. This includes survey templates by role, allowing anonymous entry, with reporting on totals and comments. Get more details than name/dates or positive responses over the phone, to share with the hiring manager and candidate for coaching. Also tap into references as passive candidates or networking opportunities
• $50-$80 per check

That said - I'm still looking for a new job

In spite of all of that, I'm still looking for a new job, so I can move out of Fitchburg and back to New York (Albany area) to be closer to family. HR jobs seem to be few and far between right now, with lots of people laid off recently. I'm trying to expand my online presence, to network and be one of those sought-after "passive job seekers" so I'll be found. One frustrating thing about Twitter - my thoughts are too long winded and I may give up in favor of this.

Someone should make Match.com for job search and recruiting. I'd be happy to take a personality test and a skills assessment to be matched up by 'chemistry' to the right employer/opportunity. If anyone finds me on the web and wants to work on a business proposal, I'm slow at work right now so I'd be happy to put in some time on this during the day.

Update - there is a site that says it does this: www.realmatch.com. The jury is still out as to whether this actually works, especially since it only gets jobs from participating companies, not aggregating from other job boards or career sites like simplyhired.com or indeed.com.

Contemplating the Tidal Aspects of Economics Recently

Everyone seems to be on the band wagon that the economy is terrible - but my company is doing fine, and so is my husband's, so in spite of having a minor cut in my bonus, everything is still the same. I'm guessing this is the case for a lot of people, except those who unfortunately have lost their jobs. Gas is cheaper and food and utility costs and my mortgage payments aren't any higher than they were last year, when the economy was fine.

So I am officially not participating in the recession, and recently splurged on myself at the day spa (with my credit card rewards - I'm not that crazy). If everyone who has a job did this, we would be okay and maybe we could start an undertow pulling the economy out the other way.