On Black Friday, Jdimytai Damour, a hulking man who was 6 foot 5 and 270 pounds, was mowed down just as he was unlocking the doors by an unchecked and unruly crowd of an estimated 2,000 people. Damour’s cause of death was asphyxiation, Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said in an interview.

It was later determined that Damour was hired via a staffing agency and had only been at the store for one week. He had not received training for any security assignments or crowd control and was placed at the front door because of his large stature.

This was a tragic occurrence that could have prevented had different levels of staff completed proper procedures. While Wal-Mart is at fault for not placing a heightened level of security in and around the store, much of the blame also lies with the staffing agency. It is clear that they did not perform adequate research about what the job would entail and placed a man who was not properly trained in a job that he should never have been considered for simply on the basis of his looks.

Lawsuits are being considered against Wal-Mart and other parties involved, a lawyer representing Damour’s sisters said. As of today, the staffing agency had not responded to press inquiries.

I remember when I began working at a well-known staffing agency a few years ago and was told about an incident that had occurred before I arrived. A man came in to one of the branches as walk-in, filled out some paperwork, was not interviewed, and was given a brief description of a job that he would perform at a local factory. Prior to this, the man had little to no manufacturing experience and was placed in the position simple because he appeared “blue-collar.” The onsite hiring manager put him to work at a machine that he was not trained to operate, and this mistake resulted in the loss of the man’s arm.

Even though there might be pressure to fill a job quickly, especially during the holiday rush when orders are firing in and hiring managers are demanding warm bodies, the recruiter should always visit the job site first and determine if there are any safety risks. Always get a detailed and accurate depiction of what the job will entail and assurances that in no way, shape, or form will the laborer deviate from the task to which he is assigned.

Since the worker is an actual employee of the staffing agency, it is their responsibility to make sure that conditions are safe, the job description suits the candidate’s background, and all necessary training procedures have been followed.

If this had been done in the case of Damour, a terrible tragedy might have been avoided.

Both CareerBuilder and Monster, two of the biggest job boards in the U.S., have announced they are each purchasing coveted Super Bowl air time.

Monster, who sat the bench the last four years, said they intend to advertise mainly to promote their site’s new “massive relaunch” set to debut in January.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Monster will also team up with the National Football League to air a promotion during the game that publicizes a contest. The promotion is the result of a three-year deal that Monster recently struck with the NFL, making it an official sponsor of the league.

Super Bowl ad time is currently selling for as much as $3 million for 30 seconds.

So whose ads will come out on top when the viewers vote? It all depends on the mood of the audience. CareerBuilder tends to spin more humorous campaigns, while Monster’s ads have been typically more conservative.

We’ll have to wait and see if the ads are enough to capture the public’s interest in Monster’s new overhaul.

One job seeker has a presentation tucked under his arm. The other carries nothing but a worn-out copy of his resume and a nervous smile.

The former sits down in front of the recruiter, takes a deep breath, and dives into his lengthy presentation, which he created on InterviewBest.com. For about $30 (and only two weeks of access), a job seeker can log on to the site and create a personalized portfolio to present to the hiring manager, complete with opening and closing arguments and a 60-day plan the job seeker has written out about performance expectations.

The second guy doesn’t even stand a chance. Or does he?

Most HR reps I talked to hated this idea and said it takes all control away from the interviewer and allows the candidate to direct the whole process. And who has time to sit through twenty pages of checkpoints and data?

Some, however, did enjoy the idea of the candidate’s preparedness and informed answers as opposed to meaningless drivel.

I say it’s too expensive, and the presentation needs to be slimmed down quite a bit to avoid the look of death from the recruiter when one strolls in carrying a thick binder and asks, “Just how much time do we have, anyway?”

Know What’s Publicly Available – Execunet.com conducted a survey of 100 executive recruiters, noting that 77 percent used sites such as Spock to learn more about a person and 35 percent of those had eliminated a candidate based on information uncovered. You should therefore get in the habit of regularly performing a Spock and Google search for your name and e-mail. Any information you see will represent what any good recruiter or hiring manager will look for before or after an interview. In this case it’s best to use a people specific search service, which will look deeper and is more likely to display information about you. Always remember to search for yourself by additional keywords such as location or university.

Along with checking your own online footprint, make sure to research some of your potential employers. Employee reviews sites such as JobVent and Criticat will save you time and help you avoid any scams or poor work environments.

Cast a Wide Net – Be aggressive in your search and post your resume in as many locations as possible. While sites such as Monster and Careerbuilder are great for advice and general search, you may be better off posting on smaller and more specific resume site such as SalesGravy or Dice.

Promote Yourself– While restricting access to embarrassing or inappropriate information is advisable, displaying your interests and hobbies on the Web is a great way for potential employers to get to know you better. Author Ellen Sautter notes, “Having an online identity is becoming increasingly important as a way to establish your credibility and personal brand and to attract career or business opportunities…” In today’s workplace, fitting in with a company culture and philosophy can be just as important as your qualifications. Therefore consider placing yourself on several different types of places on the Web. Keep in mind that you should remain consistent and professional on any site you join.

Optimize – Search engines are universally adopting the Google method of indexing unique and relevant content first. You should be optimizing your resume, blog or homepage in a similar fashion by being descriptive and creative with your keywords. This will ultimately help you optimize for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For any blogs add unique tags to a post so that you’ll get noticed by other readers. You’ll also want to comment on other people’s posts, which in turn should create links back to you. If you have a homepage, try to add keywords to the text title (the top bar across your browser).

Network - There’s a wealth of knowledge on the Internet so use it to your advantage. In addition to making your web presence felt, you should be networking with other people in your industry. Using professional sites such as Linkedin and Spock to connect, you should start taking part in forums, and checking out the latest trends. Jack Hinson in discussing how networking helped land him a job, told Margot Lester of Monster.com, “I’d spoken to the company’s founders about a year ago and stayed in touch…then I ran into one of them at a networking function”.

The site’s algorithm updates skill associations based on user input, enabling its knowledge base to grow organically and provide better matches, a spokesperson said.

“Our intelligent, guided-search interface reboots the recruiting world by enabling job seekers to discover available jobs via a common language with employers,” said Blair Heavey, CEO. “Those not actively seeking jobs can also discover the value of their specific skill within their market and more strategically plan their careers.”

The site does not require user registration or resume submittal. Upon locating a position from the skill cloud interface, the candidate can request to be introduced to an employer. The employer only then may request the candidate’s resume, after the candidate has identified their ideal job and requested the introduction.

I had fun playing around on the site, which is geared towards engineers, and whittling down the job search results by selecting skills from the cloud. I can’t say that I’ve come across such a unique user interface before, and I think job seekers will enjoy the simplicity and ease-of-use that goes along with the candidate experience.

According to Gawker, a recurring attendant of the fair called in and said ,”Usually the line is a block long, but today it’s wrapping around the avenue block.”

You can almost hear the moaning and groaning.

The event, which is being held at a Manhattan bar called the Public House, was created to unite victims of the credit crisis with talent-hungry scouts, both of whom are shelling out cash to attend.

According to the Financial Post, the organizers of the party, which is sponsored by both TheLadders.com and the Wall Street blog Dealbreaker, hope to raise $10,000 for the Ronald McDonald House of New York.

One recruiter said she hopes to fill about 20 open positions. Her company works with clients in financial services including hedge funds and private-equity firms.

“I want to collect as many resumes as possible because I may not have a job today, but I might tomorrow,” said Stacy Lentz.

I have a feeling we will be hearing about many more of these types of unique networking events. Here in Ohio, given the amount of people who have been laid off in droves recently, you could fill the entire Browns stadium with the unemployed.

Remember this?

CareerBuilder, who aired the chimp campaign during the 2005 Super Bowl, is taking another stab at generating some laughs this February for Super Bowl XLIII, a spokesperson for CareerBuilder confirmed. But he won’t say if they’ll continue promoting their current Start Building campaign.

The last two years have been disappointing, to say the least, for fans of the job board’s ads. In 2006 the same ad firm that devised the chimp ads, often lauded as some of the most hilarious Super Bowl ads ever, created a less-successful campaign that showed workers competing for raises and praise in a jungle-like environment. And who can forget 2007’s gross-out ad that featured a heart exploding from a chest and jaunting across the room to escape its owner? Follow your heart, CareerBuilder. Don’t do that to us again.

Monster and HotJobs have yet to announce if they will also be purchasing coveted Super Bowl air time, but I’m fairly sure that the former will make an appearance, considering that Monster’s been hyping up this “massive relaunch” for months and wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to parade their new product in front of millions of people.

One thing is for sure: you won’t be seeing any of these job boards putting monkeys in their ads anytime soon.

DirectEmployers, which powers JobCentral, will provide the search results from their list of over 400 federal contractors and “vet-friendly” employers who take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment veterans in accordance with Affirmative Action Programs, the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), and the Jobs for Veterans Act.

Simply Hired said the filter was created to aid the 23 million veterans currently living in the U.S.

Veterans can also search for vet-friendly jobs by accessing VetCentral, a site from JobCentral that helps them find jobs, locate military career fairs, and perform career research to find a job that best-suits their Military Occupation Classification.

The contenders are Yahoo! Hot Jobs, Monster, CareerBuilder, Jobfox, Craigslist, Indeed, LinkedIn, RealMatch, Simply Hired, or None of the Above.

The winner (thus far), who has collected 226 votes out of the 900 cast, is Jobfox. Second place goes to Indeed with 198 votes. Hot Jobs comes in dead last with only 18 votes.

Click here to check out the results or to cast your vote.

What Doyle asks is a question that should be presented often lest we lose sight of the objective: to put the job seeker first and foremost, above metrics and funding and intemperate CEOs, and to create an easy one-click world full of job search fun.

UPDATE: About an hour after I published this post, CareerBuilder, who had only a handful of votes before, now has almost 900 votes. Shady, shady, shady. How long will it take before they completely destroy this poll, which only gives CB 16 votes?