Even in these tough employment times there is a scarcity of good technical talent for the most important jobs. Unfortunately, traditional recruiting methods do not always work well in staffing technical positions. To reach these valued candidates in a sea of employment clutter, you need to be both creative and on the cutting edge of staffing efforts. One option I recommend is employing the best practices of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). This is the case because many scientists, engineers and IT professionals are frequent users of such social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

In order to learn the best practices of SEO and SEM, I recommend the SES (Search Engine Strategies) conferences. Every several months across the globe SEO and SEM experts gather at SES to discuss the cutting edge techniques. The next SES show will be held in San Jose, California August 10th to 14th (Please go to http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sanjose/ for more details).

To improve your chances of landing a job in these tough employment times, you need to be creative. To that end, I recommend both uncovering new job fields and employing unique job-hunting strategies. The SES (Search Engine Strategies) conferences can provide you both! SES is a series of seminars, conducted every several months across the globe, which provide attendees with cutting edge information in both SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Since search engines like Google, ASK and Yahoo are like high technology versions of the old Yellow Pages, SEO and SEM strategies are extremely important in getting your products or services noticed.

In the case of employment, SEO and SEM provide a plethora of opportunities for traditionally trained job seekers, with limited job prospects in these tough employment times, to re-purpose themselves into fields that are quickly staffing up. For example, newspaper journalists, copy writers and statisticians can all quickly adapt their skills to SEO and SEM in order to find employment in such growing areas as content creation, link-building and web analytics.

In the case of interviewing, job seekers can employ techniques learned at SES to stand out among the crowd of others seeking a job change. For example, by learning to optimally use social media sites like Twitter, job seekers can better reach staffing decision makers. This beats having your resume thrown into the dead file by human resources!

The next SES show will be held in San Jose, California from August 10th to 14th. Please go to http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sanjose/ for more details.

Forty years ago we placed the first man on the moon. President Kennedy started this Herculean effort not because it was easy, but because it was hard! Major technology efforts are usually very difficult and often have low probabilities of success. Does that mean that we should avoid them?

In order to create more jobs for the United States in the future, employers need to spend a lot more on cultivating technical talent. Instead of taking the easy route of farming out our R&D, scientific, engineering and technical jobs to India and China, we need to refocus our efforts here. For example, a lot more needs to be spent on internal retraining at companies and on assisting the public sector on improving our math, science, engineering and technology educational programs.

When the Japanese first entered the semiconductor market, they didn’t have any proven semiconductor manufacturing expertise. Instead they retrained top manufacturing people from other industries such as steel, who had already proven themselves in manufacturing, but lacked the specific industry acumen. Instead, our multinationals lay off key talent from dying industries while recruiting in their growing ones. We need to learn from the Japanese lessons of the past and place more emphasis on retraining our proven workers for growing new fields. This may be difficult and costly, but the long-term benefits to this country are exponential. If we outsource all of our technical expertise, we will soon be a second-rate power with no ability to manufacture our own planes, tanks and armaments in time of war. We need to act now before it is too late!

In order to interview, you need jobs to interview for. Unfortunately, employment opportunities have decreased exponentially! One big reason for this jobs malaise is president Obama’s misguided focus on big companies (to save jobs) including bailouts of GM and Chrysler. This emphasis has cost taxpayers billions and billions of dollars with little to show in jobs production! When is the government going to wakeup?

Instead President Obama should focus on small businesses, which have generated almost 80% of the net new jobs annually over the last decade and have produced 13 times more patents per employee than large firms according recent statistics by the Small Business Administration (SBA).

A lot more needs to be done to assist small businesses. One answer may be substantially expanding successful programs like the SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives, a counseling arm of the Small Business Administration). They have a proven track record in helping small business owners to succeed and in turn creating more jobs, which will more positively affect our economy than anything the government can do personally. The programs already in existence at SCORE and the SBA, including educating new entrepreneurs on how to start and operate a successful business, may not only improve their own financial situations but also, may help improve our national economy!

I would also advise the government to refocus efforts on R&D, scientific, engineering and technical jobs and companies and not the dying industries like autos. According to the Center for Automotive Research, the Big Three automakers only employ only about 200,000 workers. Furthermore, this number of jobs is declining daily. There are better ways to invest the money. We need to become leaders in growing industries such as nanotechnology, healthcare and new energy sources. These will provide more prosperity for the U.S. and the world in the future.

If you want to help, please contact your politicians and instruct them to refocus their efforts on small businesses. Also, tell them to develop R&D, scientific, engineering and technical initiatives. These will create real employment. Tell them not to waste your hard earned tax dollars on dying industries like autos. If we wait too long, it may be too late and there won’t be any jobs to interview for!

Today is my recruitment firm’s 20th birthday. Strategic Search Corporation opened its doors on July 14, 1989, which is also known as Bastille Day or French Independence Day. This was after establishing myself as the top R&D, scientific, engineering and technical recruiter out of 150 recruiters at a large, Chicago-based employment agency. How time flies when you are having fun! One secret to my success is sticking to my knitting of R&D, scientific, engineering and technical recruiting from staff (e.g. mechanical engineer) to C-levels (e.g. CIO). This has helped me to flourish when others have failed.

Today is my staffing firm’s 20th birthday. Strategic Search opened its doors on July 14, 1989, which is Bastille Day or French Independence Day. Time flies when you are having fun!

We have always stuck to our knitting of R&D, scientific, engineering and technical recruiting from staff (e.g. electrical engineer) to C-levels (e.g. CTO). That is why we have been so successful when other recruiting firms have failed.

I want to thank all 79 recruiting clients and candidates who attended  our 20th anniversary party (20 years in business as a recruitment firm) at Lux Bar last Friday, July 10th. It was nice to remove my recruiter hat and enjoy  myself with employment friends. All had a great time including venture capitalist Larry Sucsy venture capitalist with Sucsy, Fischer & Company. Larry and his wife are very photogenic and figure prominently in several of our staffing party photos.

Once again thanks for your support of our recruiting firm over the last 20 years!

If you go to photos you will see pictures commemorating my staffing firm’s 20th anniversary. There were 79 employment clients and candidates in attendance including venture capitalist Larry Sucsy who figures prominently in several of the photos with his lovely wife Rowena. How time flies. I remember just yesterday my first job placement at Stewart Warner. Now after many hundreds of jobs filled, I am commemorating my 20th anniversary. The official date that Strategic Search opened its doors was July 14, 1989, which is Bastille Day. This is also known as French independence day. This date was not planned. Instead, the recruitment firm that I was working at withheld my fees. I wanted my money to buy a new house. They refused. So after several attempts to gain my money, I left, sued them, won and started Strategic Search. The rest is history!

Many employers wrongly believe that because of the terrible employment situation, including the 9.5% unemployment rate, they are in the driver’s seat. This is flawed reasoning. This employment situation will turn around. As a result, you need to continue to aggressively recruit key technical talent and follow good recruiting practices.

This is the case because any substandard employment efforts will come back to haunt you later. For example, if you take too long to notify candidates that they are no longer being considered in your interview process, word will spread to other technical people including those engineers, scientists and R&D people that you value most! Technical talent tends to be on the cutting edge of using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. As a result, these candidates will notify others about how you handled them in your recruitment process. So remember to follow good recruiting practices even during bad employment times!

easy to let down on your interview preparation efforts when things are going bad. Especially, with a 9.5% unemployment rate and jobs so scarce. However, this is the time to push even harder and do even more to obtain interviews.

In my own case, I have invested a lot in redesigning my web site and ranking for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) despite the high costs and the terrible jobs outlook. I have had to repeatedly remind myself that: a) this horrible employment situation will pass and b) the means justify the ends. This has helped me to work a lot harder and be more creative during these tough employment times (e.g. I opened new employment markets such as healthcare to compensate for the lack of jobs in my traditional areas). I recommend you follow similar tough measures to achieve your interview and job success.

For example, I recommend developing a daily log of your jobs activities. Include: (1) daily and weekly employment goals (2) achievements and (3) analysis of your job efforts. Give yourself a rating every week from 1 to 5 where 1 is terrible, 3 is average and 5 is excellent. The caveat is you cannot control the output (e.g. job offers or interviews), but you can control inputs (e.g. how many employers you called on). I hope this helps you. Please share any ideas that have worked for you.