Please note: On a somewhat infrequent basis, Quintessential Careers asks noted
career experts five questions related to their expertise and publishes the interview
in the current issue of QuintZine,
our biweekly newsletter. Here is one such interview.
Steven Rothberg founded Adguide Publications, Inc., the parent company of
CollegeRecruiter.com,
in 1991 and remains its president.
Q:
What is the most important piece of advice
you feel you could offer job-seeking college students, graduates and recent graduates?
What's the biggest mistake these job-seekers make that your advice could correct?
A:
Most of these jobseekers have
never experienced a recession and the layoffs that inevitably result. As a result, many are defining
themselves too narrowly by the role they fill within their company rather than by their skill set.
Career and personal planning should not be separate areas, yet to many jobseekers, they are.
Q:
Since they haven't experienced an
economic downturn, do you therefore you see today's job-seekers at the college grad/entry level
becoming too complacent about job-seeking because of the robust economy?
How can job-seekers make the most of the strong economy and be prepared for when the
current boom subsides?
A:
I believe that we do not give
enough credit to the entrepreneurial drive possessed by college graduates.
Too many employers confuse this character trait with greed. College graduates understand
that they will probably not work for the same employer for a decade, let alone their entire career.
As a result, they see their job as a means to an end. They want their work to provide them with
personal fulfillment as well as a paycheck. They want more out of life than working in a cubicle for
50 years, and they know that in the new economy they have the ability to do far better at balancing
their careers with their personal lives than any generation before them.
Q:
What directions do you see online
job-hunting taking in the next few years?
A:
I believe that online job-hunting is
still in its infancy. The majority of jobseekers are not using the Internet at all, and the vast
majority are underutilizing it. In the next few years, job sites and corporate Web sites will
become faster and easier to use. Right now, there are too many variations from site-to-site,
which creates confusion for the candidates and recruiters. When that diminishes,
Internet recruiting will become even more powerful. The promise is there.
Q:
What trends and changes in
job-hunting in your area of expertise have you observed in the last few years that have little
or nothing to do with the Internet?
A:
The perceived lack of employees in
virtually every area of the economy. I use the word "perceived" because I believe that employees
have been quicker to adapt to the changing marketplace than many employers. There is a
tremendous amount of available talent for employers who are willing to hire
contract employees, assign them a task, and leave them alone to complete it.
These virtual workplaces have started to appear in the more technically advanced areas
of our economy and will spread to other areas as more and more employers realize that
they can get their work done through the use of contractors and other vendors with great speed and skill.
Q:
What distinguishes your approach to
college-grad job-hunting from everyone else's? What make it different/better?
A:
CollegeRecruiter.com is a leading
Web site for job-seeking college students, graduates and recent graduates.
Unlike many job sites, we built ours around the premise that jobseekers are at least as interested
in the company for which they may work as they job itself. As a result, we encourage the employers
that use our Web site to communicate not only information about their job openings and
the benefits that they pay, but also to communicate information about the company,
its mission and its culture.
Steven Rothberg founded Adguide Publications, Inc., the parent company of
CollegeRecruiter.com,
in 1991 and remains its president. In 1999, CollegeRecruiter.com began creating one of the
largest collections of free employment-related articles on any job site.
In January 2000, CollegeRecruiter.com and its partner, PerfectAgent, launched the most
powerful resume bank / matching system on the Internet.
