» 2007 » June

The blog, JOBMATCHBOX, is reporting that LinkedIn has created a Facebook application called “My Company’s Hiring.”

I’ve just found the application in Facebook and added it to my profile.

It’s extremely basic. And currently there are no direct ties with LinkedIn.

When adding a job through the My Company’s Hiring application in Facebook it looks like this:

I put in some very basic details to see what it would look like after. On your Facebook profile page it looks like this:

This is certainly an interesting move given the increased discussion of competition between Facebook and LinkedIn.

LinkedIn recently announced they were opening up APIs for developers, on the heels of Facebook’s booming success with the applications platform launch. And there’s also news of an impending LinkedIn IPO.

It makes sense for employees to help promote job openings at their companies. Assuming they like their jobs and the company they work for. And there’s no better place than a huge social network like Facebook. My feeling is that this is a first salvo by LinkedIn to capture some Facebook attention (within Facebook) and they’ll keep developing the application - specifically to create ties to LinkedIn directly, to draw people back.

The job market is a tough one. Smaller companies, with lesser known profiles, have a tough time hiring top talent.

Recently we published a video job ad for The Financial Aid Network/Edvisors seeking web developers.

Now they’ve told me they’re offering $10,000 as a referral fee. If you refer someone to them, they hire that person, and the person stays on for more than 90 days, they’ll pay you $10,000.

As Chris Penn of The Financial Aid Podcast pointed out:

Typically, when using a recruiter, a company has to pay 30% of base salary to the recruiter as a finder’s fee. I’m betting on my community instead - you guys. If we hire a candidate you refer and retain them for more than 90 days, we will pay you $10,000 cash.

Cash referral fees are quite common, but $10,000 is quite the number!

Chris also sent along the “toolkit” — pieces of information you’ll need to determine if you’re referring the right person for the job:

• Job Posting: http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/2007/06/19/wanted-senior-phpmysql-developer/
• Promotional Video #1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgbjqSnuXrE
• Promotional Video #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg4T6h2ziPU
• Email address: jobs@edvisors.com
• Corporate Home Page: http://www.edvisors.com/about/employment.html

If you know a top web developer in the Boston-area that might be interested in this opportunity, let them know about this job. It just might be worth $10,000 to you.

Resumes should be more like stories and less like grocery lists.

Stories inspire and teach. We learn from stories, but we’re also entertained.

Grocery lists put us to sleep, if we bother ever reading them.

Your resume is a story; the story of your working and personal history. It’s your life. Unique and interesting.

How can we make resumes into stories?

Edvisors Network, Inc. is a rapidly growing education marketing company providing a broad set of student loan products and education-related information to students, parents and the financial aid community via the Internet. Edvisors Network manages The Student Loan Network, one of the nation’s fastest growing providers of student loans and related information. The Student Loan Network can be accessed at www.StudentLoanNetwork.com. The Edvisors Network also includes a number of top education sites including Edvisors.com and HowToGetIn.com. Join us and help “to Better Educate the World” by developing our network of premier education websites, products and services.

Edvisors is currently seeking Web Developers to work full time in our Quincy, MA office.

[youtube lgbjqSnuXrE]

Senior Web Applications Developers

This position will be responsible for the development, enhancement, integration and production support requirements of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and other complex web applications. The successful candidate will be a team player, able to cohesively manage and integrate project requirements, and enjoy building dynamic applications in a timely manner.

Responsibilities

• Build and support complex web applications a in a LAMP development environment
• Perform complex testing of products, enabling data exchange and interface with our external vendors and partners
• Transform high-level business requirements into functional code
• Troubleshoot and resolve/debug issues with production software
• Involvement in full development lifecycle; design, coding, test, build, QA and deployment

Qualifications

• 5+ years development experience with advanced PHP and MySQL techniques
• Strong SQL skills, including data modeling and architecture
• Experience deploying applications in a Linux environment
• Firm grasp of web application security techniques
• Experience building web based CRM applications
• Creative problem solving skills and a strong work ethic
• Good analytical, troubleshooting and interpersonal skills
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment
• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or equivalent

Always A Plus

• Perl, web services, web design knowledge
• Experience in the financial services industry
• Experience with SOAP, Web services, AJAX, and state-aware web applications

Benefits

• Opportunity to work in a successful, fast-growing company
• Fun, friendly, team-oriented and collaborative office environment
• Competitive base salary with bonus
• Full medical benefits, disability coverage, 401(k)
• Free garage parking and MBTA-accessible location
• Casual office attire

How to Apply

Send an email to jobs@edvisors.com with the subject “Web Developer” and a resume in plain text or PDF format.

PHP & MySQL Web Developer

This is a fun, technically challenging opportunity for a developer with both IT generalist skills and a real talent for building simple, elegant and powerful web applications. Our IT department tackles anything that comes our way; our developers also assist in tech support for our small but growing office. Flexibility, willingness to share, learn, and take on new responsibilities is a must.

Job Description/Responsibilities:

• Develop, test, design and maintain web sites & applications using PHP, SQL, CSS, JavaScript and HTML
• Perform complex testing of products, enabling data exchange and interface with our external vendors and partners
• Transform high level business requirements into functional code
• Assist in the administration of day-to-day IT including; Troubleshooting network and software issues, providing direct technical expertise and assistance to staff and management, etc.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years experience building and tuning secure, scalable database-driven web sites
• Excellent MySQL and PHP skills
• Solid database modeling and design skills
• Basic Linux & Windows XP support skills
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting and interpersonal skills
• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or equivalent

Always a plus

• Experience with newer MySQL features (stored procedures, triggers, views, replication)
• Perl, web services, web design & SEO skills
• Televantage or comparable IP telephony software knowledge
• Multi-lingual abilities, particularly Spanish, a definite plus
• Experience in the financial services industry

Benefits

• Fun, friendly, team-oriented and collaborative office environment
• Competitive salary
• Full medical benefits
• Free parking and MBTA-accessible location
• Opportunity to work in a successful, fast-growing company

How to Apply

Send an email to jobs@edvisors.com with the subject “Web Developer” and a resume in plain text or PDF format.

Hiring the best people isn’t about throwing the most money at them or the most perks. Certainly money and perks help, but it’s how you package those things that matters. And that’s where your employer brand comes in.

The war for talent is most certainly on; there are countless reports, stories and anecdotes of companies struggling to hire great people.

Part of that struggle is a lack of people in specific fields, but the bigger issue is that companies don’t brand themselves properly when pitching candidates.

Employer branding encompasses everything and anything a company and its employees do to market to candidates. The most successful corporate brands are so powerful, we immediately get an impression any time we “touch” them. Bringing that to hiring is what an employer brand is all about.

And employer branding isn’t solely for attracting people to your company, it’s also about retaining existing employees.

Here’s a great definition:

Simply put, your employer brand is your organization’s “trust mark” - the sum of your parts, what makes you unique, what you stand for, your personality. It communicates your employer brand promise, what’s in it for the employee in the business relationship.

If you haven’t thought of your employer brand, you need to. For startups and early stage technology companies this is critical - you don’t have the presence in the market of Google or other “known names” - but you’re working on something cool, you have a great team and you’re building an amazing culture. Focusing on developing an employer brand will help you present that to the market and keep existing employees aligned.

Some additional reading:

• Your Employer Brand Must Lure the Right People
• Why employer branding is here to stay
• Employer Branding: A Recruiter Imperative

Our Ruby Guru, Marc-André Cournoyer, has written a Guide to Installing RMagick on Mac OS X. The existing guides and tutorials seem to miss a few critical steps, and his guide will be sure to save many people precious hours.

His guide made it to the front page of Digg today. Awesome!

Video is a great tool for telling a story. That might be the story of what makes a company unique and interesting for potential job candidates. It might also be the story of how a client uses your product or service successfully.

And that’s exactly what the folks at 37signals did. They took a video camera around to a handful of clients and filmed client testimonials.

The video quality is high, which is important, and the stories come across as authentic and worthwhile.

37signals says they didn’t provide any incentives to the companies. I see no reason not to believe them. Lots of companies ask their clients for testimonials; 37signals just takes it a step further. But the result is that each company providing a video testimonial gets far more exposure than they would through a text testimonial.

The testimonials do a nice job of highlighting the companies providing them, and also Basecamp, which is the product 37signals is pitching. You get to see enough of the product and how the clients are using it to pique your interest.

And overall the client testimonials continue to promote and enhance 37signals’ brand, and for them, that’s critical.

Plank Multimedia is a kick-ass web design company in Montreal, Canada. Our company is growing so fast that our old workflow process no longer work and we need your help! Traditionally our executives (President, VP, and Production Manager) have acted as project managers. But as our client list gets bigger and bigger, that is no longer possible. So we need you!

Plank Multimedia is hiring a project manager

[youtube xEDrCLcFhuM]

But we are not just looking for any old project manager. We need one to be the face of Plank. A friendly face. You are going to be our main client contact for several important clients. And at Plank we pride ourselves on our client service. You have to be able to be friendly, helpful, and supportive; and to be able to get things done. To us these are just as important, if not more so, as any technical knowledge or project management expertise.

We will list some qualifications for you, but in reality we are flexible. If you have an interesting background and that friendly face we are looking for, we will certainly consider an “alternative” C.V.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of project management experience, preferably in high-tech or design fields;
• University degree;
• Bilingual;
• Proficient in standard MS Office software;
• General knowledge of the state of the Web and Web browsers;
• Knowledge of the web and / or multimedia technologies we use - HTML, PHP, CSS, AJAX, Flash, and MySQL (you don’t have to be able to code, you just need to know what they do);
• Basic understanding of Web practices and principles and such as RSS, Accessibility, and SEO;
• Work well with others!

Responsibilities

• Meeting with clients;
• All other client communications on a day-today basis;
• Planning of projects, including all necessary documentation;
• Coordinating production with the production manager;
• General team support throughout the production process;
• Possibly other general administrative tasks.

This is a full-time position, in Montreal, with a competitive salary. If you think you’d like to join an amazing team, please send your C.V. to our President, Warren Wilansky, at warren@plankdesign.com

About Plank

Founded in 1998 by current President Warren Wilansky, Plank Multimedia Inc. is an advanced website & digital creation company that focuses on developing websites. Our aims are simple – to find ways to work with our clients to use digital solutions that will help to enhance their organization, and to offer them and their users new and inventive ways to benefit from our digital creations. We believe that a website must offer real, direct, and measurable value for the investment.

Our experience and expertise enables us to come up with creative solutions to all digital media challenges. We are able to offer our clients the highest-quality solutions to all internet, CD-ROM and DVD productions.

Over the years our client list has developed and grown into the diverse group it is today. It currently includes Michael Moore, Her Excellency The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, the Fantasia Film Festival, Airborne Entertainment, and 1-800-GOT-JUNK? among many others. We are also proud of our work with numerous non-profit and social activist organizations including current clients Just Vision and Apathy is Boring.

Plank doesn’t just have clients, we build relationships. Many of our clients have been with us for many years and through multiple versions of their websites. We build client relationships based on three pillars – flexibility, response time, and personal service.

Plank – websites that matter.

Recruitment videos (or video job ads as I often call them) are definitely growing in popularity. We’re seeing more and more of them crop up. Often they focus on an overall company environment, but there are numerous examples of videos being produced for specific jobs as well.

As more video job ads find their way online, it’s going to become more important for candidates to know what they should look for in those videos. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Very often recruitment videos are less about what the people are saying, and more about what imagery is being shown.

Sarah E. Needleman speaks to a number of these issues in a recent article for The Wall Street Journal’s Career Site, What Job Hunters Should Know About Online Recruitment Videos.

She makes a number of good points. Based on my experience producing video job ads for Standout Jobs, I have some additional ideas as well. Here are 5 things to watch out for in recruitment videos.

1. Work Environment. This is tops on the list of things a recruitment video shows you that you’ll never get from a text ad or other form of recruiting. What’s the office look like? Clean? Nicely designed and decorated? Lots of cubicles, or do they have an open concept? Some videos may even show outside the office which can be interesting; you’ll get a real feeling for where the office is located and the surrounding environment.
2. The People. Most good video job ads will show you the people working at the company. It’s even better if those people are speaking in the video. Candidates always want to know, “Who will I be working with?” So show them. Don’t use recruiters or “sourcing managers” (as they might be called), and don’t just use the CEO or upper level managers. When looking at the people in a video, pay attention to their attire and age, these are good indicators of the company’s culture.
3. The Extras. Visually, what else are you seeing in the video? The more a company shows you, the better. In many cases this can include screenshots (or even brief demos) of their product or website. This works particularly well for software companies. Instead of just talking about what their software does, they can show it to you, and talk about key elements that are unique and interesting.
4. Video Style. This might be harder to judge, but the style of a video is a good indication of a company’s culture. When a company produces a video job ad they should be representing their employment brand as accurately as possible. A fast-paced, heavily edited video tells you it’s a fast-paced, perhaps frenetic environment. A softer, quieter video with more relaxed, unscripted interviews has a completely different feel. Watch the video a few times to pick up on the overall style. More than anything, the video has to feel authentic.
5. Video Quality. Video quality isn’t the most important thing in the world. But a higher quality video does make a difference. The first impression a candidate gets will be based, in part, on video quality. To a degree, the video quality gives you a sense of how important the company considers the video, and by extension how important they consider the people watching it. So quality is important, but don’t completely judge a book by its cover.

Being a visual medium, video gives candidates the opportunity to look beyond the basics of job requirements or what a company does. Candidates should be given an “open door” into a company; to see the team, environment and culture. If that’s not coming across in the video, if you’re not getting a feeling for the company and what they’re all about, then think twice before applying.

The Band of Coders is a crack team of programmers and system architects that creates business applications, web applications, and front-end interfaces. We work with companies that know exactly what they want and are looking for the raw programming talent to make their vision a reality quickly and efficiently.

The Band of Coders is hiring Senior .NET Architects

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Type: Contract
Location: Toronto/Guelph

Qualifications

• Experience leading in the development and implementation of applications architectures at the senior level.
• Excellent time management skills with an ability to work autonomously as well as within small teams in a fast paced work environment
• Proven leadership and mentoring skills, passion to see other developers grow.
• Self-motivated, detail-oriented, and a quick learner
• Awareness of emerging IT trends and directions
• Proven analytical, problem solving and decision-making skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; interpersonal and negotiation skills
• A team player with a track record for meeting strict deadlines

Required Skills

• Extensive experience in systems analysis and design in large systems environments (5+ years experience in architectural infrastructure and design)
• B.Sc. in Computer Science or related discipline
• Extensive ASP.NET & C# development experience (Minimum of 3 years ASP.NET and Minimum of 6 months ASP.NET 2.0 experience)
• Experience with XML, SQL, AJAX, DHTML, SQL Server 2005, and database design.
• Experience with Web Services
• Practical experience with design patterns and Microsoft Enterprise Library
• Experience in setting best practices for .NET development
• Experience with open source platforms an asset

If this sounds like you, please get in touch at us@bandofcoders.com!