Employers

If young professionals could work anywhere, they would choose the most prominent companies in technology, a new study has found.

Consulting firm Universum has released a new study claiming about 20 percent of the 6,700 young professionals surveyed would like to work for Google, making the search giant the most attractive employer in the U.S. Apple came in second with 13 percent of professionals saying they'd prefer to work for the iPhone maker. Facebook took the third spot by attracting 9 percent of the professionals surveyed.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment … Read more

At some point, Generation Y (short for yak) will learn.

While there are those who believe social media is opening the gilded doors to a new world of joyous connection, some might wonder whether there's a slight downside for those who are able to make that joyous connection.

This dour notion comes to me on hearing of a labor tribunal in the United Kingdom. It reportedly upheld Apple's right to fire an employee for saying something not entirely flattering about the company on his private Facebook page.

As related by IfoAppleStore, an Apple store employee named just "… Read more

Imagine you referred to your supervisor as a "scumbag" in a Facebook post read by your coworkers. You might expect to be looking for a new job very soon thereafter, especially if your employer has a policy that prohibits making disparaging remarks about the company or posting anything about the organization or its managers without permission.

In a case involving Facebook posts by workers for an ambulance service, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that the employee's name-calling was "protected activity" because it occurred away from the workplace and on non-work time.

The employer … Read more

If you want to get a job at Google, all you need to do is make a video of yourself in your underwear. Oh, and it helps if you're wearing a false mustache.

This, at least, seems to be the view of Matthew Epstein who has raised some considerable personal visibility by creating just such a video and, indeed, a Web site, Googlepleasehire.me.

His video, thanks partly to the championing passions of TechCrunch, has already enjoyed almost 100,000 views.

Yet I must leave it to you, the great hirers of tomorrow, to decide whether Epstein is someone … Read more

LinkedIn has launched a new feature that gives job seekers another way to apply for a position.

The new "Apply with LinkedIn" plug-in can be added to company Web sites and allows job applicants to share their LinkedIn profiles to apply for a position. Upon clicking the button on an employer's site, applicants can edit their profile before submitting it. To save applicants time, the plug-in culls data from the user's profile and automatically populates the company's online employment application with that information.

To check on submissions, applicants can go to their LinkedIn profiles and … Read more

I had heard, perhaps erroneously, that Texas has budget problems that tend to rival those of California.

So I was stunned to be informed by KDAF-TV that city hall workers in Dallas appear to have vast amounts of idle time--for 50 of them have reportedly been censured for spending far too much of their working days on Facebook.

Perhaps it's unfair to say that Facebook represents idle time. Perhaps some of these highly valuable employees were using Facebook to improve their social skills, something very important in a city hall environment.

The Associated Press identified one of the apparently … Read more

I'm told that when you're attractive, it can go to your head.

You believe everyone is interested in you and it's therefore hard to decide who deserves more than a glance and a sneer from your perfect visage.

A start-up called Hipster has decided that it knows how to make attractive job seekers believe it should be their first and only date.

Unfortunately, we're only talking engineers here. So Hipster is offering some touchingly precise inducements to show its intentions are good: $10,000 and beer, for example. Yes, a year's supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

It doesn't stop there. Hipster's Web site adds that new recruits will get a bike, a pair of Buddy Holly glasses, a pair of authentic skinny jeans, a pinstriped bow tie, mustache-grooming services, and a pair of (worn, brown) boots.

Hipster is, so it says, "building a fun way to uncover the vast amount of information about real-world locations." Which sounds like a sort of local question and answer thingy on the go.

Doug Ludlow, one of the founders of Hipster, told the New York Times: "As you know, recruiting is insanely competitive right now, so we wanted to do something that would break through the noise, and get the attention of the people we're trying to reach."

Hipster is reportedly proud that this sort of incentivizing is far more effective than the hundreds of thousands the company would have to pay those slightly leechlike little middle people known as recruiters.… Read more

Editor's note: This is the first story in an ongoing series profiling college graduates throughout the United States as they hunt for technology jobs. Check out CNET's special report, "Wanted: A job in tech," for a story tomorrow on MBAs making their way in tech world.

TROY, N.Y.--The rain is coming down heavily this spring morning at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, one of the nation's top technical universities. But as seniors prepare to enter the work world, there's far less gloom here than in recent years.

"A lot of seniors I've talked with have something lined up," said William Jones, a mechanical-engineering major, who will graduate May 28. Jones, too, has something lined up: a position with the Engineering Leadership Program at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Pittsfield, Mass. It's a three-year opportunity during which Jones will rotate through three or four different technical posts.

If you need more signs that the economy is turning, albeit slowly, Jones and his fellow engineering majors offer some hope. Without question, many are still looking. But unlike the last few years, when the global recession kept many employers away from college campuses, jobs, particularly technical ones, are there to be had.

Just look at the data. A recent survey of 4,600 employers by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University found that hiring of new graduates with bachelor's degrees will climb 10 percent this year, the first increase in two years. Given that 1.7 million students will receive bachelor's degrees this year, according to the Education Department, a double-digit boost is significant.… Read more

Tech companies make a strong showing in a study released today on the firms young professionals most want to work with.

Google topped the list of most-desired employers, employer-branding company Universum found.

Apple and Walt Disney Co. were next in line. Amazon.com was the fifth-most-desirable employer. Microsoft came in seventh place, according to the survey, which polled 10,000 college graduates with one to eight years of professional experience. .

Those tech firms were surrounded mostly by government agencies. The Department of State was the fourth-most-desired employer, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation came in sixth. The Central Intelligence Agency … Read more