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.”

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.”

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.

According to TechCrunch, BrightScope, a San Diego-based company that helps employees better understand and manage their 401K plans, has raised $2 million in funding led by Steelpoint Capital Partners.

BrightScope quantitatively rates 401k plans and gives plan sponsors, advisors, and participants tools to make their plans better. Their rating algorithm calculates a single numerical score for each 401k plan in the country after considering over 200+ individual data points in broad categories such as total plan cost, company generosity and investment menu quality.

The TechCrunch article cites an interview with BrightScope in which the company said they’re providing a much-needed service, since 30 percent of workers don’t participate at all in their company 401k programs, 22 percent don’t contribute enough to maximize matching benefits from companies, and 80 percent of workers have no idea how much they’re paying in 401k administrative and other fees.

BrightScope is the brainchild of two investment portfolio managers and a long term HP engineering veteran.

CareerBuilder has created two tools to help job seekers look beyond their realm of expertise and find different areas of employment.

Jobs by Salary, found at CareerBuilder’s salary site CBsalary.com, and Job Discovery Wizard, found at CareerBuilder’s career resources and exploration site, CareerPath.com, were devised to assist the 71 percent of laid off workers looking for opportunities outside of their own industries.

With Jobs by Salary, job seekers enter in their preferred annual salary range and location. A list of positions in a wide variety of industries is generated. To help job seekers determine how they could transfer their skill into these positions, Jobs by Salary also provides the required training and education, full job description and long-term growth outlook through 2016.

For example, a job seeker who enters in a salary range of $65,000 to $69,999 in New York City, N.Y. can select “marketing communications manager” from the hundreds of different positions that are generated. The tool then offers the full job description for the position, that a bachelor’s degree is required and that the profession is forecasted to grow 14 percent by 2016. It also provides links to area colleges and universities if the job seeker is interested in further education.

The Job Discovery Wizard lets job seekers circumnavigate new areas of employment based on the strength of their current skills and education. Job seekers select their current strengths from two wide ranging lists; one on skills categories that includes selections such as writing or critical thinking, and one on knowledge categories, with entries such as chemistry and psychology.

Then job seekers rate their proficiencies on each skill and knowledge selection. A detailed list of jobs is generated. Each position includes a visual chart of the skills and knowledge a job seeker currently has a list of what skills and certifications they still need. A basic job description, training requirements and employment outlook are also featured.

“In this challenging market, job seekers are not only struggling to find employment, but also to find jobs that match their required salary or skill level,” said Liz Harvey, senior director of online products for CareerBuilder. “Jobs by Salary and Job Discovery Wizard help job seekers find this important information on both fronts – what positions will allow them to still make ends meet and what is needed to transfer into a new industry or profession. That way they can expand their job search into areas they may not have considered before.”

According to an article on Wired.com, the five-year exclusive contract the Bush administration signed with Monster.com to spearhead their hiring strategies is up for review by Obama’s camp next July.

At this point, it appears highly unlikely that the government will renew the contract with only Monster at the helm. “We’re looking at all options,” said John Berry, the government’s Head of Office of Personnel Management. Berry pointed to a mix of several possible strategies rather than outsourcing employee outreach to a single contractor, the way the previous administration did. He said he’s sat down with Facebook and Ideo to discuss recruiting and performance evaluation and is considering an open-source Twitter client like Identi.ca for facilitating communication between federal employees and potential applicants.

Changing the way the federal government recruits is all a part of a master strategy to make working for the government ‘cool’ again under Obama’s direction.

“Barack Obama is the first president since Kennedy who really gets this,” Berry said in the article. “Who understands the importance of the civil service — and that without it, this Constitution and this republic will not survive. We need the best and the brightest, and we won’t get it by denigrating them or saying they’re somehow second-class to the private sector.”

Berry also said they’re taking the public’s advice into consideration as well. Citizens who would like to be involved in the process can read (PDF) and comment on the OPM’s 2010 Strategic Plan.

A new program created to help students build their own personal brand online to get hired has launched.

WhyHire.me Corporation, a developer of tools and curriculum for personal branding through post-secondary education, has announced the availability of WhyHire.me. The program includes online or instructor lead curriculum, a comprehensive e-book, and an online personal profile that each student can develop.

WhyHire.me was developed at Algonquin College in the spring of 2009. According to a spokesperson for the site, faculty members saw a gap between today’s social media tools and the need to coach students through the new rules of online communications, job search and personal branding. “We saw the shortfall between Facebook and Linkedin,” said Wendy Threader, Professor at Algonquin College. “We wanted a place to teach the underlying communications skills and help our students demonstrate their potential to future employers when they were ready.”

The WhyHire.me program incorporates coaching, mainstream social media tools and branding techniques.

“By aggregating the latest social media tools such as blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, and RSS into an interactive profile, we provide the means to help create professional connections with future employers” says Andy Church, co-founder of WhyHire.me. “We advocate a clean break from Facebook to develop one’s brand with peers, professors and third parties. No matter how much fun sharing content online can be, party photos, sarcastic wit and gaming scores should be shared amongst friends, not professional contacts.”

Algonquin College is expanding beyond its initial pilot to allow several hundred students access to the program this September.

WhyHire.me is currently available through participating post-secondary institutions. It includes 8 hours of instructional learning that can be integrated into existing communication, technology or business courses, or offered through a general education class. The curriculum and accompanying e-book cover the 4 D’s of personal branding: Dig Deep, Declare Your Brand, Display Yourself and Deploy Your Brand.

Chris Russell, president and founder of AllCountyJobs.com and a ten-year veteran of the recruiting industry, has launched a new site intended to show entrepreneurs how to make money with job boards.

Through podcasts, screencasts, and blog posts on JobBoardSecrets.com, Russell will demonstrate how to start, manage and earn money with online job boards.

Russell says the content is created for beginner to intermediate job board owners and will focus on niche and local sites. Topics he’ll delve into include lead generation, web design, link building techniques, and SEO tactics to drive traffic.

“But I think even the experienced job board professional will gain knowledge and insight into what makes a better job board,” He noted. “The industry is still in its infancy and there are still many ways to make money, even during recessionary times. Doing simple things like re-designing your homepage or making the job posting process more user friendly can lead to an increase in sales.”

The price is $29 a month or $299 per year for complete access. A portion of the content will be free.

According to an article from the Associated Press, an analyst said Friday that Monster is the only major employment site that is stabilizing.

Consequently, shares of Monster Worldwide jumped 54 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $16.41 in morning trading, nearly triple its March 6 low.

Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel said in a client note, “While all three of the large job boards reported more declines in July, Monster stands out as the only one showing early signs of stabilization.”

He added that page views for Monster were flat in June and July, compared with declines of about 20 percent for CareerBuilder and about 60 percent for Yahoo! HotJobs.

For more on Patel’s analysis, including which site he thinks is capturing significant market share, click here.