“Jobfox has trimmed seven sales representatives from its workforce to better meet 2009 expectations as a result of the slumping global economy,” said Barry Lawrence, Jobfox PR Director. “We feel fortunate that we have managed the growth of our business wisely so that we are not forced to trim, like many U.S. start-ups, by 30 percent or more. No further workforce adjustments are expected.”

They follow the lead set by the likes of LinkedIn to Jobster to a variety of employment-related players rumored to have slashed staff. It’s a list that’s sure to grow.

The question, of course, is whether or not such measures mean a business in peril or a business with enough vision and sense to prepare for the inevitable downturn. It could also mean both. Issues we’ve already covered and will likely continue to cover well into 2009.

“Sal our CEO seems to be upset with my Yahoo MB posting and keeps getting it pulled down! He cannot handle detractors who have figured him out. Here’s to free-speech,” said someone calling himself “Tim Goldman.”

Now, there’s no way I’m aware of that anyone can publicly know Iannuzzi is manipulating Yahoo!’s message board, or that this source is even legit. However, the post in question is in Google’s cache but not currently live on the message board (someone is even asking for it to be re-posted). Therefore, the post did, in fact, exist at some point (last indexed on Nov. 22) and was deleted at some point thereafter.

So what’s causing all the fuss? Here you go:

Investor day disaster-so who cares any more?
The investor day was a complete disappointment to Sal. He was so upset that more analysts did not turn up at JFK. The ones that did show to continue to show no support for Sal or his team. It’s a $5 stock by end of 2008.

I found it funny that both Darko and Steve Cooker both tried to make it known that they came in just before Sal..so as to disassociate themselves from the team led by Pastore/Pogorzelski (the guy with the real brains behind Monster)that took the stock from $8 to $60.

Darko was his usual truculant self and his star wars product roadmap was laughable. Did he really expect analysts to read it? He is completely useless and all his does is make a bee-line for Sal’s office when the going gets tough. But Sal will turn on him in January when there is zero new for the sales team to flog. Tell me again how a new job wizard competes with CraigsList or why enhanced candidate manager is a selling point vs HJobs? Who do seekers need their own home page a la MySpace? Good luck with networking.

Darko tried to justify spending $70M on Trovix by saying he acquired it for contextual seacrh. What a scam. No due diligence means they bought a lemon.

Ted the mkting guy is like the guy from the office. His big announcements were:
1. Do more with less.
2. Do the Superbowl (innovative)
3. Think local, act global (he should trademark that one)
4. Innovate or else. (CAN as a product is around for over a yr- no future there).

Poor Ted is miserable and is trying to understand how he was scammed by Sal. Give us a smile once in a while Ted please. Or else.

Cooker’s big thing was Teaming and Geos. He is moving all the accounts around and he will lose customers and reps. He is so far out of his depth. Another re-thread.

Andreas could not answer a simple question on pricing- not surprising since they eliminated the pricing team. Surely he could have anticipated a question on pricing?

What we did not hear:
1. How Monster will compete with Craigslist.
2. Why Monster is looking at acquiring HotJobs for $400-500MM.
3. Why bar-coders and bankers feel they are qualified to run an online recruiting company.
4. Why they spend $90M on capex in a down economy.
5. What they are doing to take the company private.
6. When Monster has to go back to it’s bankers for more loans as it’s on path to self-destruction with acqs and restructuring.

The analysts no longer believe Sal. No wonder he has a headache and is angry. Let’s hear some more on corporate philanthrophy from Lise P. Maybe we all can have 100% bonuses again this year in Maynard-please? Sal is clearly not qualified to be a CEO. Here’s to $5.

Pretty juicy stuff that certainly sounds like an insider, but it will remain hearsay unless someone official comes forward (which isn’t going to happen). A current post on the message board says Yahoo! HotJobs is interested in acquiring Monster, which could explain Y!’s motivation to keep the message board clean of negative comments, but that’s just for the big-time conspiracy theorists out there. And you know who you are.

Yahoo! HotJobs just released these three top ten lists that are pertinent to the job market and in accordance with findings on their own site:

Top 10 Cities with the Most Jobs

1. New York
2. San Francisco
3. San Jose
4. Houston
5. Atlanta
6. Oakland
7. Los Angeles
8. Phoenix
9. San Diego
10. Dallas

Top 10 Industries in Hiring Activity

1. Health Care
2. Retail
3. Sales
4. Technology
5. Accounting & Finance
6. Telecommunications
7. Manufacturing & Operations
8. Engineering
9. Clerical & Administrative
10. Pharmaceutical & Biotech

Top 10 Popular Career Advice Articles

1. 6 Signs Your Job May Be in Jeopardy
2. The Biggest Resume Mistake You Can Make
3. The Quickest Route to a Six-Figure Job
4. Does No Degree Mean No Job?
5. Quick Paths to a Health-Care Career
6. 10 Habits That Bosses Love
7. Recruiter Roundtable: The ‘Weakness’ Question
8. America’s Surprisingly Unhealthy Jobs
9. What the Boss’s Body Language Says\
10. The Big Question: ‘Why Should I Hire You?’

ITSlaves.com, a user-driven community focused on increasing transparency for software engineers, consultants and developers looking for a new job, provides members free access to their company ranking database.

Each time a member ranks a company, they are awarded points that can be exchanged for goods and services, such as computer accessories and programming courses and ongoing contests.

A company spokesperson said, “”We have a strong focus on companies that are hiring IT expertise, since we are IT people and our community consists of engineers, developers and consultants. Transparency is key when seeking for IT talent and the company that is open and honest about itself, will increase its chances to appeal to the bright, highly skilled.”

The site also includes a database of open positions, tips and tricks for job seekers, networking forums, and blogs.

On the site, recruiters and employers can exchange information on open positions utilizing a web-based portal that is custom-made for the healthcare industry.

Via the portal members can access tools such as automatic “match-making” emails when candidates who are already in the system are matched to new job openings, candidate lerts that let recruiters know by email the status of their candidates, and the ability to receive empirical data designed to improve a member’s hiring process.

“The competitive advantages of our innovative approach to online healthcare hiring that bring healthcare recruiters and employers together are beneficial to those in the industry”, said Hayes Milani, CEO. “We view it as the evolution of recruitment for Acute Care, Allied Health, Biotech, Life Sciences, Medical Devices and the Pharmaceutical Industries.”

Membership is free, and there is a contract and a terms and conditions agreement that both parties must agree to before working together.

McKelvey founded Telephone Marketing Program, a yellow pages advertising business, in 1967, which became TMP Worldwide. He was integral in acquiring The Monster Board and Online Career Center in the ’90s. Then four years later Monster.com was launched more or less as we know it today.

He left the company in 2006, dogged by questions about his role in backdating employee stock options. In January of 2008, he agreed to relinquish much of his voting stake in Monster and reached a monetary settlement with the company, federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Though not knowing him personally, anecdotal evidence points to a man who was shrewd and calculating in his business ventures. Family says he “lived by his own rules, and believed that timing is everything.”

Here’s how it works: the manager simply records a greeting and a series of interview questions. VoiceScreener then allows the hiring manager to invite candidates to interview either through a link in a personalized email message or via an “Interview Now” button, which can be inserted into any online job posting. The candidates follow the link to a customized web page that has details about the company and job being offered. After answering an optional series of knock-out questions on the website, candidates enter their phone number and respond to the pre-recorded interview questions over their telephones.

Once a candidate has completed an interview on VoiceScreener, the hiring manager receives an alert and can then listen to the response at a convenient time. In addition, hiring managers can invite team members to review candidate responses and rank them. VoiceScreener then automatically generates a report that lists the candidates who have completed the interview in order of team preference.

Kelly Fitzsimmons, CEO of HarQen, said, “VoiceScreener eliminates the most time consuming elements of phone screening, like upfront scheduling, prep before the call, reviewing the individual questions, getting non-fit candidates off the phone. In our early tests, we were able to reduce the traditional phone screen time by up to 70 percent. Recruiters can identify and then concentrate on the better fit candidates earlier in the process, which results in quicker start time.”

Fitzsimmons is offering 50 Cheezhead readers access to private beta trials. Enter in the code CHEEZHEAD on the site to receive 6 weeks of free platform usage and 50 call credits.

“Recruiters have spent decades phone screening, so switching this behavior will be an initial barrier,” Fitzsimmons said. “However, once they try VoiceScreening, they will have a hard time going back. Never having to get a non-fit candidate off the phone again? Priceless.”

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.

The company has experienced a steady string of setbacks, beginning with their Q3 financial call and continuing with a bevy of lawsuits that threaten to rattle the core of this globally renowned company.

Here’s what’s happened so far:

On November 3, the company reported disappointing Q3 earnings, showing that net income went from $2,233 million in Q3 2007 to a net loss of $ (8,151) in Q3 2008, due in part to the acquisition of Vurv Technology and disproportionate sales and marketing costs in relation to revenue.

On November 10, Taleo notified the SEC that its financial filings would be late while auditors Deloitte and Touche asked to re-evaluate the firm’s revenue recognition process.

On November 17, Taleo was hit with a class action lawsuit by Johnson and Perkins, a Vermont-based firm that alleges the company misled or failed to inform the investing public regarding their historical and current accounting practices with respect to the timing for recognition of application and consulting revenues.

On November 18, NASDAQ notified Taleo that it was no longer in compliance with listing requirements due to the delay in reporting their financial filings to the SEC.

On November 21, the law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP announced they are investigating potential securities fraud action against Taleo. According to BusinessWire, the firm will investigate whether Taleo and/or its executives conducted “extensive insider selling while improperly recognizing revenues by the Company’s leadership.”

Also on the same day, the law firm Bull & Lifshitz, LLP filed suit against Taleo and its executives, also claiming that the defendants misled or failed to inform the investing public historical and current accounting practices with respect to the timing for recognition of application and consulting revenues under generally accepted accounting principles in the United States.

Other law firms, including the Brualdi Law Firm, P.C. have announced similar lawsuits in the wake of the financial filings delay AND the alleged insider selling.

ZDNet writer Brian Sommers gave his own analysis of Taleo’s current situation and what repercussions may surface:

Apparently, some Taleo executives sold off shares of stock they owned in Taleo. In the last six months, insiders apparently sold approximately $10.8 million in Taleo shares. However, the law firm is reporting that insiders have sold approximately $121 million since the company went public in 2005. My math tells me that insiders have been selling a lot more stock in earlier years than they have in this last year of 2008. Does this suggest a smoking gun? I’m not so sure. Many software executives have pre-arranged sell orders with brokerages so that these individuals can make their investment liquid and/or diversify their holdings. Most executives have these plans as the planned schedule of sales is known and controlled by the brokerage and not the executive. This is done to prevent the appearance (or reality) of insider trading. Given the magnitude of prior sales, this may be a dubious claim if the sales were triggered by third parties.

The real issue here will be whether revenue was incorrectly recorded, the magnitude of the recording error, if any, and how it will affect the published financials. Given the time-intensive nature of these auditing/accounting reviews, this could be more than a year and maybe up to several years before it is resolved. The faster Taleo and Deloitte can get through this, the better for Taleo and its executives.

Does any of this reflect poorly on Taleo’s products or the Vurv solutions they purchased? No. Will it be a management distraction? Yes. Will it cost a lot of money? Absolutely. Will competitors bring this up in selling situations? Bet on it.

But unlike CareerBuilder’s free application, JobCompass will charge users $3.99 to download.

A writer for Mashable has already given the application, which was submitted to the app store Nov. 17, a thumbs up for utility and design, noting that the app “wears itself better” [than CareerBuilder's].

Currently JobCompass pulls listings from Indeed and also has connections to Monster and HotJobs.

Click here for a tutorial.