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8 things

findattr — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:36:00 +0000

Thank you Moises for tagging me. Here’s the eight things you don’t know about me. I was also tagged similarly a long time ago by Steven from Collegerecruiter.com, but like a bad social networker never posted it. So this hopefully honors my debt of Guanxi there as well.

1. I have a degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It’s a “Master’s equivalent” degree from Northwestern Health Sciences University in Bloomington, MN. I practiced acupuncture and herbal medicine for a few years until it became painfully apparent that I had no idea how to handle the business side of being in practice. Complicating my business ineptitude was the newness of Oriental Medicine to main street, U.S.A. After a few years of struggling, and working long hours for little pay, I had to change direction in my career. I learned a tremendous amount about people, health, and an the value of different paradigms. More than that I learned a lot about communicating a complicated and completely foreign systems of concepts (chinese medicine) to surgeons, M.D.s, and patients. The best part of this failure is I can still apply the concepts behind Chinese Medicine to the work I do now. This will require another post to explain.

2. My mother was a nun. When I ask my mom about the 60’s she says “I don’t remember that, I was in the convent.” Granted, she was smoking behind the furnace in the convent boiler room, but nonetheless insulated from outside society. She’s now doing massage at a local spot in Eagan, MN. Interesting twist, she’s now married to a guy who was in the seminary (my dad is agnostic). Also, her twin sister, who was also in the convent, also married a guy who was in the seminary. They are still married, have two grown children and several grandchildren, and about as far from monastic life as you can get. Great people.

3. I’m a U2 fanatic. At one point was probably in need of talking to someone about it, but am recovered a bit. I still think they are a phenomenal band, and still want to buy Bono and the lads a beer at some point in my life, but have broadened my horizon’s musically.

4. Outside of my family, my next greatest love is golf. If I was independently wealthy, I would golf alot, everyday, twice a day, or more. I have saved countless dollars, and hours on psychotherapy, by instead going to the driving range, or chipping in my yard. My boys both have hit real golf balls since they were in diapers, and hopefully will grow to enjoy golf along with my daughter. My wife used to play in high school and has a great swing. I look forward to playing St. Andrews with my kids some day.

5. I am an Aikidoka. Wha? It means I practice the Japanese martial art of Aikido. I started in College at the University of Minnesota Duluth. It, along with Traditional Chinese Medicine has been one of the biggest philosophical influences in my life.

6. My wife is also in sourcing/recruiting. She works for a small IT consulting firm locally. She isn’t as active in social media as I am, but she is an absolute rock star when it comes to sourcing and search.

7. My dad has no TV or cell phone. Not too many people out there who have neither of these by choice. He still has only a dial-up connection. Amazing since my dad is essentially a portfolio manager in practice for himself. He works on the stock portfolio’s of a small group of friends and their referrals. He’s made a go of it since being laid off from Control Data almost 20 years ago. My dad is a serious intellectual and reader and has influenced me through his ability to think clearly and always encourage me to find the answer, as opposed to telling me the answer.

8. I have a friend who was injured in the I-35W bridge collapse a few weeks ago. She works at Best Buy for Accenture. Her fiance is a good friend who used to work here in staffing as well. Jake and Mercedes are great people, huge music fanatics (Jake is also an award-winning local DJ) whose lives have been turned upside down since the collapse. Go here to read their story, Mercedes is still one of only 7 left in the hospital, and will be for another 2.5 weeks at least. Her injuries are consistent with someone having jumped out of an airplane with no parachute. She’s alive and will likely walk again, but has a long road to get there.

Great San Francisco jobs are at San Fran Jobs.

Turning the Haters -Chief Inspector shows us how…

findattr — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:06:00 +0000

This is what makes it cool to work at Best Buy/Geek Squad. This is also the epitome of lead by example, and shows the value of turning the haters. The Consumerist has been posting anti-Geek Squad stuff for awhile, some legit (GS isn’t perfect, yet) some flaming stuff. T. GS Chief Inspector, Robert Stephens stepped up and is personally doing something about it…..check it. Previously the comments have been very hostile toward GS. Now, follow the link to the original post, and you’ll see the comments now are quite in favor of Geek Squad. Hmm. Maybe there’d be a way to ‘Recruit the Haters?’ After all, they have passion around the subject, and in some cases are quite knowledgeable. Anyone doing this?

clipped from consumerist.com

UPDATE: Geek Squad CEO Promises To Resolve Any Consumerist Reader Complaint He Receives, And Then Does So 4,718 Views

Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens just emailed us:

I have some good news… I am building a full time dedicated team just for The Geek Squad to help with any service issues. We have also setup a system to manage the volume.

Email info@geeksquadcentral.com with the subject line, “For Robert”

Stephens says your email will go directly into a trouble ticket system that, “hassles me and the other execs until the stuff gets resolved.”

He gave us an email address like this before, and it’s worked wonders for readers who used it, but Stephens says the new address will get to him even faster than before. — BEN POPKEN

Accountant Careers.co.uk provides accounting jobs in the UK via its employment Web site.

C++ is the language of love, just ask Fabio

findattr — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:33:00 +0000

Has the gap between the jocks and the geeks finally been bridged?

Check out the video, you may pick up some tips on how to romance that special developer in your life…

Do you have a special developer in your life?

Refer them to these positions with the Geek Squad an earn some cash

Dot Com openings at Best Buy, update

findattr — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:52:00 +0000

Quick update on the post from the other day. We have a couple of openings now posted to H3. Both positions are within our dotcom department and involve work with our affiliate programs and Search Engine Marketing, if one has SEO in their background, that’s gravy.

Follow the link below if you’re interested for yourself or to refer others, $2000 referral reward for each position.

Dot Com Referrals

Cheers,

Josh

Find call center jobs at Jobs In Call Centers.com.

eCommerce opening at Best Buy, refer a friend, get $2000

findattr — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:37:00 +0000

Bestbuy.com has been doing well from a traffic standpoint lately. More exciting is that our website is going through a phase of growth and development right now. Becoming part of the BestBuy.com organization is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to be a part of what promises to be a Best in Class site, from a traffic standpoint, from a usability standpoint, and other, um standpoints. Changes are afoot behind the scenes and we’d love to talk with top talent about it.

Overall, our organization is growing like crazy, our China operation is already showing phenomenal results, after only a few months of the first Best Buy store in China (Shanghai) opening up. This growth into a global organization will affect our dot com department as well. Right now we are in the process of seeking conversations with top talent from the ecommerce industry. If you know someone in the industry or know people who know people in the industry, we’ll pay you for who you know. Go here to refer a friend, get $2k. Pass it on to the people you know, even if the aren’t in eCommerce themselves, if they know someone who is, send it to ‘em.

Cheers,

Josh

You’ll find physician jobs on The Recruiter.com.

Competition for Alexa?

findattr — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:20:00 +0000

For a long time my secret, to recruiting outsiders anyway- weapon was Alexa. Most folks that would read this posting know of Alexa. To my knowledge its stood alone as the standard for tracking traffic to most any site on the web. Thanks to my very functional google reader and Greg Sterling at Search Engine Journal, I’ve discovered a few competitors.

The first, directly mentioned in the posting on SEJ is Snapshot from Compete. Compete was started by Bill Gross, of ‘Goto’, and ‘Overture’ fame. I could bore you with my rendition of the features of this product, but why? When they’ve created this neato video complete with Blue Man Group background music.

The second Alexa competitor is mentioned in a comment on the SEJ blogpost mentioned above. This one is Quantcast, developed by engineers from NASA, Stanford, and Altavista. Co-founded by Konrad Feldman, former CEO of Searchspace, “until 2005. During this time Searchspace grew to be the largest vendor of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing detection software to the world’s financial industry.”

What I like about Quantcast is the way the info is presented, go here to see what they say about Alexa.com

If you are looking to target a certain purchasing demographic for instance, Quantcast has a graph for that. If you are wondering about the diversity of the audience for a particular site, they have a graph for that as well. They seem to be a bit newer than the other sites but I prefer their presentation of the data. Go check ‘em out and decide for yourselves.

Cheers,

Josh

CollegeRecruiter.com offers the latest on internships and entry level jobs.

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Alexa, Snapshot, Compete, Quantcast, Web Traffic, Site traffic, Web analytics
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Net Junkies Achtung! Web 2.0 Directory

findattr — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:04:00 +0000

Ever feel like there’s no way to keep up with the myriad new widgets, tools, programs, websites, services, networks, and plug-ins that have come out of the big bang of Web 2.0? I do. You and I are not alone. And thanks to Christian Mayaud we no longer have to be overwhelmed. He’s started an open directory for all things web 2.0. Its called, “All Things Web 2.0″ (Love the sensible titles.)

Here’s Christian on why:

First, there is no way any single person can keep up with something as dynamic (and ill-defined) as Web 2.0 (and there was no way I was going to even try.)
Secondly, it made sense to create a vehicule to facilitate aggregate of community-based knowledge tid-bits, to help guide others engaged in trying to keep track of all things web 2.0.

If you lurk and wander about the web as I do this is one of those sites you go to and you know immediately it will be on your favorites and become a resource to go back to again and again. Its open source so anyone can contribute ratings to any of the web 2.0 knick-knacks listed there. Or if its not listed, get it listed. Everything is categorized on the site and as clearly laid out as possible. You can also vote on your favorites. Kudos Christian, Good on you!

Thanks to Des Walsh, author of “Happy About LinkedIn for Recruiting” and moderator of the LinkedIn Bloggers group on Yahoo for talking about it.

Cheers,

Josh

For everything recruiting, checkout ERE.net.

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Open Source, All Things Web 2.0, Web 2.0, Christian Mayaud, Web 2.0 directory
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SEO SEM opportunity at Best Buy Co.

findattr — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:38:00 +0000

Thanks for your interest in the SEO opportunity at Best Buy corporate. Click the job title to go right to the description and application for the Manager of Online Direct Response.

As a recruiter I am always trying to be creative in finding new ways to reach the right people. If you have an SEO background and are reading this, maybe its working! Forgive the use of my personal blog as a pathway to this description and application, but its easier for me to track how effective some of my new approaches are that way.

Best Buy.com is actually the biggest store that Best Buy has. Right now we are looking for someone with experience in the realm of SEO/SEM to join our ranks. Check the description for the nuts and bolts. Keep reading for more info on working at Best Buy corporate.

If I were looking for a new gig, I would want to gather as much info about the experience of being there and the work environment. To that end I decided to repost my top ten reasons for why its cool and fun to work at Best Buy. One additional reason is R.O.W.E. (Click on it to see the TIME magazine article about ROWE.) Google “ROWE and Best Buy” to see more. Oh wait! As an SEO/SEM expert you’d already figure that wouldn’t you – silly me! Feel free to post comments with questions about the gig if you like! Here’s the top ten;

Top 10 fringe benefits to working at the Best Buy campus:
1. Get your car detailed and oil changed in the employee parking ramp.
2. Caribou Coffee is on site!
3. Outstanding lunches for $5.00 on average.
4. Break area has stand-up models of X-Box 360, PS2 (Until PS3 arrives) and gamecube, as well as a pool table, foosball tables, and chess area.
5. You might run into current celebrities on site such as (Will Smith, Ice Cube, Magic Johnson, or local sports stars)
6. You might see/hear has-been celebrities (Stephen Pearcy of Ratt, Janie Lane of Warrant, Firehouse, Don Dokken of Dokken, and Kip Winger of Winger) play acoustic sets of their eighties hits in Sandy’s Place (the eating area) while eating a burrito.
7. You may be in the line for the salad of the day with Geek Squad founder, and Chief Inspector Robert Stephens.
8. You may get to see traffic stopping national musical acts in the south parking lot (Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, or John Mellencamp, for example)
9. Award winning onsite full-service health club
10. You might get to hear Dave Matthews speak in the onsite theater.

Cheers,

Josh

Visit Recruit.net to find Australia jobs.

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SEO, SEM, ecommerce, e commerce, SEO jobs, SEM jobs, E commerce jobs, ecommerce jobs, Best Buy, Best Buy jobs, ROWE,
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Recruiting/Sourcing Opportunity with Best Buy and Accenture

findattr — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:14:00 +0000

Ok, trying out this blog board thing, sort of….

We have an opening on our team in recruiting here at the Best Buy campus in Richfield, MN (a suburb of Minneapolis). Click here to get to the description and application if you like. Remember, since Accenture handles the recruiting function for Best Buy corporate, you will be an Accenture employee, which has benefits of its own. Besides which being onsite at the fabulous Best Buy campus has other fringe benefits that you won’t find in any job description. Here’s my top ten….

Top 10 fringe benefits to working at the Best Buy campus:
1. Get your car detailed and oil changed in the employee parking ramp.
2. Caribou Coffee is on site!
3. Outstanding lunches for $5.00 on average.
4. Break area has stand-up models of X-Box 360, PS2 (Until PS3 arrives) and gamecube, as well as a pool table, foosball tables, and chess area.
5. You might run into current celebrities on site such as (Will Smith, Ice Cube, Magic Johnson, or local sports stars)
6. You might see/hear has-been celebrities (Stephen Pearcy of Ratt, Janie Lane of Warrant, Firehouse, Don Dokken of Dokken, and Kip Winger of Winger) play acoustic sets of their eighties hits in Sandy’s Place (the eating area) while eating a burrito.
7. You may be in the line for the salad of the day with Geek Squad founder, and Chief Inspector Robert Stephens.
8. You may get to see traffic stopping national musical acts in the south parking lot (Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, or John Mellencamp, for example)
9. Award winning onsite full-service health club
10. You might get to hear Dave Matthews speak in the onsite theater.

So there it is. Its not to tough to come to work with all that going on. Check out the link if you are interested.

Cheers,

Josh

Checkout London jobs at CanaryWharfJobs.com.

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Best Buy, Accenture, job, recruiting, corporate campus, opportunity, recruiting jobs, sourcing jobs,
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Creepy Cool Sitepal Avatars

findattr — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:52:00 +0000

Interactivity and a sense of user ownership, or at least user control seems to be where alot of web-gadgetry is headed. Not exactly breaking news to anyone not living under a rock, but its interesting to think about how that might apply to recruiting/sourcing.

Let’s take the typical job posting say. The look of it hasn’t changed all that much from the old classified ad bit, right? Sure, its electronic, and cheaper by and large, and you link to the application and what not, but the content is communicated the same way, a few paragraphs of a job description, then qualifications, (yawn). Rather boring look and feel usually. what if there were a way to make these darn things a bit more exciting, and up the connection factor and employment branding factor as well? Enter the folks at Oddcast with their product Sitepal. Sitepal is an avatar that can speak, either from pre-recorded material, or from text. It also will follow your mouse pointer as it moves around the avatar. This is slightly creepy but kind of cool at the same time. Think if you could have this avatar be a part of a posting. You could have IM features with it, ala Ikea’s ASK ANNA (from the link, click ASK ANNA) so that you could pose questions to the avatar about the job which it could respond to with text in the IM window, or via pre-recorded stuff from someone actually working in that job. There are a number of different iterations here, ranging from complex to simple, but you get the gist of it.

Its an interesting opportunity to craft your employment brand, and interact with potential candidates in new ways. Plus, if you do it right, think of the word of mouth on something like that! ‘DING’ and very likely word of mouth via other people in each person’s network that may share a similar background! ‘DING-DING’

Personally, I think this has potential to be an interesting topic, and as I write this I really haven’t done my research on who else might be thinking, talking, or doing something about this, but I will.

Cheers,

Josh

Technorati Tags:
Oddcast, Sitepal, Avatar, interactive, creepy, sourcing, recruiting, employment brand, job posting
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You’ll find marketing jobs in Canada at HigherBracket.ca