Cheezhead was an accident. A fantastically rewarding accident.

Before Twitter and Facebook, blogging was the quickest and cheapest way to create Brand You. So, when launching HRSEO in 2005, it was a no-brainer to blog in order to do those things, as well as create a positive image and maybe drive a sale or two. Any readers would have been a pleasant surprise, as I was focused on building a business and keeping a roof over my head.

But readers came. And as they came, sales followed. And thus began how much of the next 4 years would play-out. What started as a simple subdomain on Typepad quickly became the stand-alone site you see here today.

In 2008, I made the decision to hire employees and open an office, dedicating more time and energy around existing and new businesses. The plan was to continue doing more of the same. And then, sort of unexpectedly, opportunity came knocking.

Which interestingly takes us back to 2003. I first met Jobing CEO Aaron Matos in Cleveland while I was with CareerBoard, a locally-focused job board and my former employer. I became quickly impressed with Jobing’s leadership, team and direction. A relationship was born from then on that only strengthened with the visibility garnered by Cheezhead and the paths that continually crossed thereafter. And although it seemed tongue-in-cheek through the years, an inevitability that we would one day work together seemed like a foregone conclusion.

And that day is today.

This post serves as official news that Cheesman Group and its properties, including Cheezhead, have been acquired by Jobing.com. I’ll be joining their amazing team as Senior Vice President in Phoenix.

For loyal readers, questions will likely abound and hopefully be answered in due time via follow-up posts and commentary. However, rest assured, the timing, the organization (especially its people) and the opportunity were ideal, both from a personal and professional level. As Jobing’s newest employee, I will assume duties that take me everywhere from blogging to community building to search engine optimization to interactive marketing to, well, you’ll just have to stay tuned, I guess. But it should be lots of fun.

Evolution is inevitable and I’ve always embraced change and opportunity. The friendships and connections I’ve made over the last 5 years are both humbling and rewarding. I can’t thank readers enough for their support and goodwill. No doubt Cheezhead-as-you-know-it will change with the times, but Joel, the person, isn’t going anywhere. I’m also expecting all of Cheezhead’s team to be joining Jobing in Arizona to continue the success we’ve enjoyed.

In many ways this is just the beginning. Rest assured, it’s a good thing. Cheezhead has grown, evolved, made mistakes and hopefully done most things right in its first iteration, and it’s been one heck of a ride. That said, I’d like to ask for your continued support, not only for me, but for my entire team as we take this big step forward.

In addition to Cheezhead.com, I invite you to follow the acquisition’s ins and outs at Twitter.com/cheezhead, Twitter.com/jobing and/or Facebook.com/joelcheesman. And for the official announcement over at Jobing.com, visit http://phoenix.jobing.com/cheezhead-joins.

Jobvite, provider of next-generation recruitment solutions, has completed Series B financing led by ATA Ventures totaling $8.25 million. Jobvite said they will use the new funding to accelerate product innovation and meet growing customer demand.

According to a press release, CMEA Capital, who led Jobvite’s Series A financing, also participated in this round. Jobvite secured $7.2 million in Series A funding in 2007 from CMEA Capital, bringing its total funding to date to $15.45 million.

A Jobvite rep said the company has experienced strong sales growth over the past year, increasing its customer base by more than 300 percent. Customers include Accuweather, TiVo, Zappos.com, Mozilla and Yelp.

The company’s core product is an on-demand application that enables the whole company to participate in hiring and allows recruiters to tap employees’ existing professional and social networks to increase referral hiring.

Earlier this year, Jobvite introduced industry-first API-level integration with the leading social networks, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, to match jobs to referral prospects.

“This recession is fundamentally changing recruitment, pushing companies to become more cost-effective, innovative and strategic. Companies are looking to the technology industry to make this possible,” said Dan Finnigan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Jobvite. “Our growth this year proves we’re serving a big need and delivering immediate ROI to our customers. With this new investment, the strong additions made to our team this year, and the on-going advancements in our technology, I’m looking forward to what Jobvite will do for our customers.”

Jobvite also appointed Hatch Graham, Managing Director of ATA Ventures, to its Board of Directors.

“Jobvite has assembled an outstanding team, built an exceptional, growing roster of customers and proven the demand for its innovative products,” said Hatch Graham. “I’m impressed by Jobvite’s vision for the future of the rapidly transforming, multi-billion dollar recruiting sector and delighted to be a part of the opportunity. Now is the perfect time for expansion.”

“We’ve liked the way Jobvite has brought the benefits of SaaS and social networking together to solve real problems for its customers over the past year. We see a growing market opportunity as more companies look to reduce expenditures while ensuring the quality of their greatest asset: their people,” said Jim Watson, Managing General Partner, CMEA Capital. “The management team has proven it has the ability to both innovate and execute. That’s why we’re increasing our investment.”

HireVue and Taleo have teamed up to offer the industry’s first pre-integrated video interviewing solution for use with Taleo Enterprise.

The feature will allow Taleo recruiting on-demand software users to include live and virtual video interviewing within their hiring workflow. The integrated solution also allows customers to initiate, view, share and provide collaborative feedback on candidates who are interviewed using HireVue’s video interviewing platform.

HireVue’s video interviews can be performed virtually, with candidate’s responses to pre-defined interview questions being recorded via Webcam, or they can be conducted live over the Internet and recorded and stored so they’re available to view and evaluate through the company’s secure site.

Video interviewing allows interviews to take place on-site at a company’s location or from any location with a Webcam and Internet access. Each video interview is job specific and led with targeted questions to gauge a candidate’s relevant communication, thinking and technical skills.

“Every size and type of business is looking to reduce recruiting costs and hiring cycle times; HireVue helps make this possible,” Mark Newman, founder and CEO at HireVue, said. “Customers of Taleo’s market-leading talent management system will now have easier access to our video interviewing platform, gain a greater return on their Taleo investment, drive increased system and process adoption, and recognize cost and time savings.”

Activation of HireVue within Taleo is easy and takes minimal time to set up and start using. The HireVue pre-integrated solution has been tested and certified as part of the Taleo Premier Passport partner program.

“We are pleased to partner with HireVue to offer our customers yet another high-value solution to help enhance their talent management programs,” said Michael Gregoire, chairman and CEO of Taleo, said. “In this economy, being able to quickly and easily identify top talent is critical to the success of any organization. HireVue’s video interviewing platform is a solution that will help our customers reduce their recruiting costs and decrease the time it takes to fill critical positions.”

On September 23 and 24, I’m going to be in Toronto for the second annual RecruitFest. It’s the RecruitingBlogs.com conference event. It’s unlike any other get together in the HR – Recruiting – Talent Development industry. A regular review of the RecruitFest Facebook page will give you some idea of what’s in store.

Most conferences, inside and outside of the industry, follow the same old formula. You’re either a presenter or you’re the audience. Even the less structured unconferences have a hard time with the dynamic. The idea that authority figures have the answers is nearly hard wired. If that’s what you’re looking for, RecruitFest is the wrong place to find it.

The essential idea at RecruitFest is that we are our own best teachers.

The people who lead ‘tracks’ at RecruitFest are there to facilitate a conversation, not to pontificate and spew expertise. In a Web world, the difference between ‘expert’ and ‘not-expert’ is less distinct than it is on TV.

It turns out that you can learn more in a conversation.

The “I’m the teacher and you’re not” model has its uses. If you’re brand new to an arena, it’s easier for a one way conversation (lecture style) to be useful. Boot camp, introductory seminars, deep technical training and familiarization with precise procedure are all useful circumstances for a top down form of education.

Pontification (fortunately for me) also has its place. Strong opinions with substantive underpinnings can provoke extremely interesting conversations. Many people use strong opinions from others as a way of testing their own thinking. When focused opinion and theory are delivered properly, they enable others to think for themselves about issues they might have missed.

But, at RecruitFest, the idea is conversation in a community context. We learn together because we like learning and we like being together. Any of the tracks at RecruitFest could begin with the phrase ‘for your consideration.’

Even the Animal Radio Show, which will be broadcast live from the event, is about clarity of thought. Over the years, the Recruiting Animal has perfected a confrontational style of engagement that is both rigorous and entertaining. It is unlike anything else in the industry.

There is a generational difference at work. Take a look at the RecruitFest Facebook Page. What you’ll find is a ton of grassroots promotion by Gen X and Gen Y practitioners. It’s not your father’s Recruiting Conference.

Here’s why you should come to Toronto for the 2009 RecruitFest.

The essence of Recruiting in the future is collaborative relationships among people who share a worldview and business objectives. It’s not going to be a recreation of Recruiting the way your grandfather did it. It’s going to be all digital, non-hierarchical friendly and laid back. RecruitFest is an example of an event that’s designed to practice what it preaches.

According to an article on Reuters, the Partnership for Public Service released results of a survey estimating that the federal government will be looking to fill more than 270,000 positions, and Monster Government Solutions (MGS) has teamed up with the Partnership to help federal agencies attract and onboard qualified candidates.

The survey is called WHERE THE JOBS ARE 2009: Mission-Critical Opportunities for America, and it outlines government-wide projected hiring needs for the next three years, estimating that the federal government will hire nearly 273,000 new workers for mission-critical jobs by the fall of 2012 — a 41 percent increase in comparison to the previous three fiscal years.

The majority of new federal hires are expected to come in five broad professional fields: medical and public health, security and protection, compliance and enforcement, legal occupations, and administration and program management.

“For federal agencies, this is a great opportunity to capitalize on the number of skilled candidates who are in the market right now,” said Joyce Ceconi, vice president of sales, MGS. “But agencies need to do things differently if they truly want to capture the job seeker audience effectively and drive enough qualified candidates to available jobs. This dramatic hiring need requires a new approach to recruitment. Posting in one place and hoping for the best won’t drive results. At MGS, we work with federal agencies to provide solutions and advice to attract, assess, hire and onboard the top talent they will need to fill these mission critical positions.”

ResuWe is a new free site that allows users to reformat, restructure and optimize their resume simply by uploading a current version of the document.

The site’s technology recognizes the key components of a user’s resume and allows the user to quickly and simply rebuild their resume with minimal to no data entry.

“We’re doing this from a recruiter’s perspective and bring a combined 25 years of experience in the industry,” ResuWe Co-Founder Jeff Schwartzman said. “We’re fighting unemployment by showing people how to position themselves properly in a job search. We know how employers and other recruiters think.”

Schwartzman and Co-Founder Dan Boersma spend their time reviewing resumes so they know what works and what doesn’t. ResuWe allows job seekers the ability to easily reformat based on the standards preferred by companies and recruiters alike.

“Many resumes that look great in Word do not display well in HTML,” Boersma said. “ResuWe allows you to download your resume as a Word document that displays well in Applicant Tracking Systems that companies use to filter resumes.”

ResuWe has the ability to help users focus on personal branding by integrating with social media and blogs. The site also allows users to control their privacy settings from displaying a full resume to a minimal profile, which can be helpful to passive job seekers.

In addition to the interactive resume optimization technology, ResuWe’s Fight Unemployment blog also offers insider tips and articles on everything from handling counter offers to using a Google Voice phone number on your resume.

In the future, the site plans to add the ability to search for jobs, get tips on preparing a cover letter and download podcasts that you can listen to on your way to an interview.

TalentDrive, the creator of the resume sourcing technology, TalentFilter, has announced a partnership with General ASP, the provider of the web-based education-centered applicant tracking system, AppliTrack.

The partnership was formed to bring new recruitment and placement solutions to K-12 education institutions and to provide school districts advanced sourcing technology.

Users can source over 10,000 online resume locations to reach candidates through niche sites, social media and job boards. AppliTrack compliments the sourcing process with an applicant tracking system that allows users to sort, filter, and identify educators.

“This partnership brings a new depth and application for our technology, allowing us to serve an exciting new market and impact the future of education position recruiting. We are anxious to bring the members of the education community a tool that helps with one of their top priorities- matching the most qualified teachers with open positions- while saving K-12 organizations significant dollars. We are honored to join forces with General ASP, a leader in this niche market and proven technology for the education community,” said Sean Bisceglia, CEO TalentDrive.

“In our quest to bring a streamlined recruitment process to the education community, we found TalentDrive to be an attractive compliment to our technology offering. By partnering with a front end sourcing technology, we are able to deliver our users best-in-class sourcing for K-12 education. Users are able to leverage the internet to locate resumes and manage the new found candidates with our recruiting solution. TalentDrive brings a new piece to the online recruiting puzzle and we are anxious to bring to market our combined recruitment solution,” said Abe Reese, President and Founder of General ASP.

The Monster Employment Index rose in August, seeing its highest monthly rate of improvement in four years, as a majority of industries, occupations, and regions registered increased online job availability following the slow summer hiring activity. The Index’s annual rate of decline continued to moderate, indicating some signs of improvement in underlying demand for labor nationwide.

The Index is a monthly gauge of U.S. online job demand based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of corporate career Web sites and job boards, including Monster.

August 2009 Index Highlights:

• Index rises seven points, or 6 percent, the highest monthly rate of increase since August 2005

• Year-over-year decline eases to 24 percent, the most moderate pace of slowdown so far this year

• Retail, administrative and financial industries demonstrate solid growth

• Arts, design, entertainment, sports and media rise among occupations, whereas healthcare, community and personal care and services show softening demand

• New England leads all regions while Portland, OR sees the highest rise on the month amongst the metro markets

“The significant jump in the Monster Employment Index in August offers encouraging signs of improvement in the US economy with the demand for managers and professionals as well as sales and office workers picking up in time for the fall hiring season,” said Jesse Harriott, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at Monster Worldwide. “The Index is now at its highest since February while showing the most moderate yearly rate of contraction since December 2008.”

During August, online recruitment activity increased in 26 major metro markets and remained flat in two of the 28 markets monitored by the Index. Portland experienced the strongest monthly gain due to an increase in demand for workers in management, IT, arts/design/entertainment and sales.

Opportunities also expanded notably in Boston led by areas such as education/training/library, community/social services and military specific. Baltimore and Orlando were the only two markets to remain flat in August.

Click here for the full report.

Lately job board bashing seems to be all the rage in the recruiting blogosphere.  This article is my attempt to set the record straight and dispell the myths and rumors out there.

First, let’s be clear about the term job boards. There are many types of boards: general, niche, local, matching, etc. To classify all them as dying is stereotyping the entire industry. The fact is, there are many niche and local job boards who still have a lot of value to offer employers when it comes to recruiting talent.

However, I tend to agree with some who have said the big 3 boards have peaked in terms of sales and usage. But they are not going away overnight. No doubt social media has come on strong this year as the latest and greatest tool to recruit. But it is not the be all end all: it’s just another tool in the toolbox.

There are hundreds if not thousands of successful job boards, particulary in niche and local markets that provide a solid recruiting experience. We’re just another talent shortage away from seeing even more of them pop up. Yes, there are too many job boards that have sprouted, but this downturn will serve to trim the herd and keep it healthy.

Here are my top ten reasons for the continued existence of niche and local job boards.

• 1. Relevance: niche/local boards deliver targeted traffic of local job seekers or industry specific industries.
• 2. Cost: posting jobs on these smaller job sites often cost much less than the big guys and provide more bang for the buck.
• 3. Job Description: does anyone think the job description is going away? Recruiters need somewhere to post it.
• 4. Social Networks: I think these pipelines are best for sourcing and branding, not for filling immediate needs.
• 5. Hard to fill: in any economy there are always talent shortages in certain industries. Job boards will always exist to serve those needs.
• 6. Leads: recruiters are trained to use job boards. They’re not trained to use social networks. They still need leads for open positions.
• 7. SEO: job boards are better at driving search engine traffic to jobs than any employer or social networking group will ever be. Most candidates start their searches on Google.
• 8. Small business: they need job boards; we are their ATS! Small businesses create the most jobs, and their business owners need a quick and simple solution.
• 9. Evolution: job boards are morphing from just places to post jobs into valuable, relevant online talent communities.
• 10. Effectiveness: job boards still work. I should know since I run a few of them.

Planned job cuts declined to the second lowest level of the year during August.

A recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that employers announced a total of 76,456 layoffs last month, a 21 percent decrease from the 97,373 job cuts announced during July. This is the sixth time during the last seven months that job cuts declined from the previous month.

In addition, job cuts were lower than a year ago for the third consecutive month, with August cuts coming in 14 percent below the 88,736 layoffs announced during 2008.

Despite the declines, announced job cuts for the year have amounted to 1,070,504, which is 60 percent more than the same time last year and less than 200,000 away from surpassing the 2008 year-end total of 1,223,993.

The government and non-profit sector saw the biggest job cuts, with 38,586 planned layoffs. That represents the second largest monthly industry total of the year behind the 61,288 job cuts announced by the automotive industry in February.

The largest reduction in force in the government or any other sector last month was announced by the United States Post Office, which detailed plans to eliminate 30,000 positions from a 656,000 employee payroll. Most of those layoffs will be achieved through early retirement buyouts, which includes a $15,000 incentive for some.

“Until now, government job cuts have been dominated by local and state agencies suffering from depleted budgets,” CEO John A. Challenger said. “The federal government has been one of the few areas of the economy that is creating jobs. Fortunately, the job cuts by the Post Office are not indicative of a coming surge in federal government downsizing. Rather, the cuts are tied to falling mail volume as more Americans rely on e-mail.”

“Outside of government, many sectors are seeing the number of job cuts steadily shrink,” he continued. “The next four months will be very telling about the state of the job market. The final four months of the year are typically among the heaviest for downsizing. If monthly job-cut levels remain near 100,000 or lower, it will be a strong indication that the economy and job market are improving.

“That does not necessarily mean that there will be a sudden surge in job creation as 2010 gets underway, but we will at least be heading in the right direction,” Challenger added. “Unfortunately, the aftermath of this severe downturn may see excessive caution among employers when it comes to hiring. So, even when job creation begins, it could be a slow process.”