Career Watch: The scoop on a new job board

March 10, 2008 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld -

Q&A

Colleen Haviland The director and founder of Ready to Hire explains how the online job board differentiates itself.

What is Ready to Hire's business model? Ready to Hire is similar to other online job boards, but we have gone a step further. At Ready to Hire, a prescreening process is implemented that ensures that every potential hire we offer to our clients is actually qualified for the positions they're looking to fill. To put it simply, job candidates in our database have to apply and be approved to even be listed with Ready to Hire.

How rigorous is the qualification process? Ready to Hire acts as the first screening call that will capture tangible information to see a candidate's qualifications. Every candidate for our database must speak to one of our representatives before being included. If we can't capture 100% of the important candidate data that employers need to know, the candidate is not included in our database. And even after we first insert candidates into the database, Ready to Hire follows up with them every 45 days to ensure that information is kept current and accurate.

Colleen Haviland

Are IT professionals willing to undergo this preliminary review? Yes. We currently have over 10,000 IT candidates across different disciplines, with hundreds more being added every day. And it's because they see the tremendous value in the service being offered that they are so eager to join. -- Jamie Eckle

What CIOs Want: Skills, Skills and Skills

CIOs were asked: Of the following staffing issues within the IT department, which do you consider to be your greatest challenge as a CIO?

Finding skilled technology professionals: 24%
Providing staffers with adequate professional development resources to keep skills current: 23%
Keeping employees productive: 17%
Dealing with personality conflicts among employees: 11%
Developing defined career paths for IT staff members: 10%
Other: 5%
None/don't know: 10%

Source: Robert Half Technology survey of more than 1,400 CIOs at U.S. companies with at least 100 employees, February 2008

Rose-Colored Retirement

Active workers expect personal savings to be among their largest sources of income in retirement. Those already retired are more likely to cite Social Security.

	Workers (expected)	Retirees (actual)
Personal savings	50%	24%
A workplace retirement savings plan, such as a 401(k)	28%	6%
Other personal savings or investments	22%	18%
Social Security	14%	40%
A traditional employer-provided pension	13%	21%
Employment	11%	2%
The sale or refinancing of your home	2%	2%
Something else	3%	4%
Don't know/refused to disclose	6%	5%

Multiple responses allowed.

Reported total savings and investments, not including value of defined-benefit plans or primary residence, for active workers by age group, 2007:

		Age	Group
	25-34	35-44	45-54	55+
Less than $10,000	50%	36%	24%	26%
$10,000-$24,999	18%	16%	10%	5%
$25,000-$49,999	9%	10%	11%	9%
$50,000-$99,999	10%	14%	15%	11%
$100,000-$149,999	7%	7%	9%	11%
$150,000-$249,999	1%	9%	10%	9%
$250,000-$499,999	1%	4%	12%	11%
$500,000 or more	4%	4%	9%	17%

Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute and Mathew Greenwald & Associates Inc., 2007 Retirement Confidence Survey of 1,000 people age 25 and up. Percentages may not equal 100 because of rounding.

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