Of course a search engine is going to take the top prize in the annual advertising competition known as the Superbowl. How could they not given the drivel put forward by Doritos, GoDaddy, Skechers, and most of the other advertisers?

The ads were generally disappointing this year (Monster and Careerbuilder’s spots were particularly weak), with only a few exceptions. The E*Trade spots were amusing (Dad?!?!?), the Coke ad in Africa with Bolero playing was great, as was the Bud Light Lost spoof, and the Brett Favre spot was good. Flo TV’s spots weren’t too notable but their technology looks awesome and I’m sure they will be firmly planted on their target demo’s tech gadget ‘must have’ list thanks to the $20 million or so they spent yesterday. Other than that, most of the ads were terrible.

But without a doubt, the absolute best ad of the day was Google’s ‘Parisian Love’ search ad. As CEO Eric Schmidt warned via Twitter, hell has frozen over and Google has finally decided to start marketing its search engine via mass media. What a debut it was. I’m sorry that we had to wait so long for such brilliant marketing.

January’s jobs report from the Department of Labor is scheduled to be released later this week and based on data released this morning by LinkUp, Friday’s report will show that the job market improved sharply during the month. LinkUp, a job search engine that indexes jobs from over 20,000 company websites throughout the U.S., reported that new job listings on company websites rose by 69,082 (18%) from December. Total job listings on company websites in LinkUp’s search engine increased by 34,525 (4%). This is in sharp contrast to LinkUp’s dismal December report in which new and total job listings plummeted by 24% and 17% respectively.

Increases in job listings were widespread throughout the country, with 44 states (45 including Washington, D.C.) reporting more new job openings on company websites than the previous month and only 6 states reporting declines in new job listings. Total job listings on company websites rose in 43 states (44 including Washington, D.C.), with only 7 states reporting decreases in January.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web, indexes job listings from over 20,000 corporate and employer websites throughout the country. Because the index is updated daily and only includes job listings that are found on career portals within company websites, the completely unique jobs data is extremely reliable. There are no jobs from recruiters, headhunters, search firms, or staffing companies, and no scam jobs, phishing jobs, ‘money mule’ ads, or other fraudulent postings.

And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source – the hiring company itself – there are no duplicate listings that pollute job board aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. Perhaps most importantly given the current high-unemployment environment in which companies are not compelled to advertise as aggressively in order to generate candidate flow for their openings, the jobs data is not based upon paid help-wanted advertising activity.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Texas, Florida, and Virginia showed the largest increases in new job listings, while California, Massachusetts, and Tennessee reported the largest declines in new job listings.

Yesterday, G.L. and I were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in a Careerealism webinar for job seekers organized by career advice expert J.T. O’Donnell. During the discussion about how to effectively use online resources in a job search, we mentioned the risks associated with traditional pay-to-post job sites such as Monster and Careerbuilder as well as job aggregators such as Indeed and Simplyhired that republish job listings from Monster, Careerbuilder, and thousands of other pay-to-post job boards.

The risks we mentioned result from the prevalence of fraudulent listings that include scam jobs, phishing posts, identity theft, and work-at-home scams. Additionally, criminals  mine resumes on job sites to recruit new victims. In the current high-unemployment environment, this kind of activity is worse than ever. Because LinkUp’s job search engine eliminates these risks due to the fact that we do not collect resumes, only index jobs from company websites, and do not allow anyone to post jobs directly onto LinkUp, this is a major point of differentiation between LinkUp and other job listing sites on the web.

Lest anyone accuse us of hyperbole, I thought I’d write a post about ‘Money Mules.’

Money mules are people that unwittingly use their bank accounts to help criminals launder money. Money mules are recruited through work-at home job postings on Monster and Careerbuilder with titles such as ‘Financial Manager’ and a job description that involves ‘moving money for an international company.’ These new recruits then provide their bank account information to their ‘employer’ and are told to withdraw cash that has been deposited into their account at a specific time and wire it abroad via Western Union or Moneygram.

Brian Krebs, a reporter at The Washington Post from 1994 to 2009 has written extensively on this issue and has exposed hundreds of these scams. I would strongly recommend that anyone looking for a job online as well as those offering advice for job seekers take some time to read his outstanding work highlighting this fraudulent activity. A few of his blog posts can be found here and here and here. I’ve also included portions of those posts below that relate to the scam listings on Monster and Careerbuilder:

“…Money mules are recruited through work-at-home job offers that arrive via e-mail, usually claiming that the prospective employer found the recipient’s resume’ on careerbuilder.com, monster.com, or some other job search site. Recruits are told they will be helping to move money for international companies, and are asked to provide their bank account and routing numbers so that they can receive incoming transfers.”

“…The Sanford mule — who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals by the hacked company and perhaps by the hackers themselves — said the Scope Group approached her via e-mail, saying it had found her resume on Careerbuilder.com, and would she be interested in a work-at-home job acting as a “financial manager”? Having worked as a payroll manager in a previous job, the mule said she thought it was a perfect fit. Besides, she said, she’d been out of work since March.”

“…This type of crime is impossible without the cooperation of so-called “money mules,” willing or unwitting individuals typically hired via Internet job search Web sites to act as “local agents” or “financial agents” responsible for moving money on behalf of a generic-sounding international corporation, legal experts say.The mules are then instructed to withdraw the cash and wire it via Western Union or Moneygram to fraud gangs overseas, typically in Eastern Europe. It is not uncommon for a single cyber robbery to depend on the help of dozens of money mules…”

Fraudulent job listings on traditional pay-to-post job sites are a serious risk, and the industry has to be more vocal about educating the public about using sites such as Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed, and Simplyhired.

Nick Corcodilos, aka Ask The Headhunter, has written an outstanding article on his blog about what an absolute scam The Ladders is and how fraudulent their claims are about delivering to job seekers ‘only $100K+ job listings.’ I have written about what a rip-off The Ladders is in the past, and I applaud anyone who helps shine a light on what a disservice Marc Cenedella and the other hacks who work for The Ladders are doing to job seekers, employers, and the entire recruitment advertising & talent acquisition industry. I especially applaud Nick for writing such a thoughtful and well-researched piece that featured actual stories from actual victims of The Ladders scam. As I mentioned in my comment that I posted on Nick’s blog (copied below), this article is not a must read for everyone in and around the industry, but one that all of us within the jobs, career, and recruiting industries shouldpublicize as widely, aggressively, and frequently as possible.

Thanks Nick.

My comment posted on Nick’s article:

By Toby Dayton
January 26, 2010 at 8:27 pm

Nick,

This is an excellent article and one that everyone in and around the industry should publicize as widely, aggressively, and frequently as possible. The recruiting and recruitment advertising industries should do a far better job than they do of not only establishing guidelines and policies for ethical standards and best practices, but also policing themselves and calling out those who blatantly violate those standards.

Even absent those industry standards, there is absolutely no doubt that the Ladders is one of, if not THE most horrendous, fraudulent company in the industry. Thinly disguised as a job site, they are one gigantic scam. Worse than Madoff or Tom Petters (a $3 billion Minnesota Ponzi scheme), the Ladders scam is enabled by an enormous, national marketing campaign broadcasted daily on major cable channels.

It is the worst of the worst, and The Ladders should be shut down and its CEO Marc Cenedella fined and maybe even thrown in jail. In the meantime, the company should be collectively tarred and feathered, so to speak, by everyone in the industry until the noise is loud enough to be picked up by national media. This company has no business operating in our industry, and they have to be stopped.

Toby Dayton
President & CEO
LinkUp & JobDig

Everyone at NBC has completely lost their minds. The ridiculous episode with Conan O’Brien (by far the funniest and most entertaining person to ever appear on late-night TV) is exhibit BB in the ongoing saga that is the largely self-inflicted demise of traditional media.

As we anticipated, the jobs report released this morning by the Department of Labor was far worse than the consensus estimates. According to the DOL report, U.S. employers shed 85,000 jobs in December yet most economists expected to see a net increase in jobs. As the New York Times indicated:

The United States economy lost more jobs than expected in December, tempering hopes for a swift and sustained recovery from the Great Recession. The government reported on Friday that the economy lost another 85,000 jobs last month, but that the unemployment rate held steady at 10 percent. And in a surprise that highlighted the erratic nature of economic renewal, the Labor Department reported that 4,000 jobs were actually created in November — rather than a loss of 11,000 the government originally projected — the first gain in nearly two years. Another 16,000 job losses were added to October’s tally.

There are two interesting aspects to the data that was released. The first is that an additional 660,000 people stopped looking for work in December, most likely due to the combination of growing discouragement and the holiday season. This is precisely why the unemployment rate stayed at 10%. As absurd as it may seem, those people who are classified as not actively looking for work are not counted in the unemployment figures.  So as bad as the numbers are,

The second interesting aspect of the DOL report was that November’s jobs figures were revised and showed that 4,000 jobs were actually created in November, far better than the 11,000 job losses that were initially reported last month and the first actual monthly increase in jobs since December of 2007. While this is certainly something to celebrate, it also more closely matches the LinkUp data from November in which we reported that new job listings from company websites rose by 39,496 (9%) and total job listings on company websites rose by 33,208 (4%).

In a continuation of yesterday’s jobs report from LinkUp, we also are releasing December jobs data by industry. Not surprisingly, the data by industry is just as grim as it is by state. New job listings on company sites dropped by 37,658 (-10%) and total jobs by industry dropped by 36,452 (-5%). (as an aside, not all jobs indexed in LinkUp’s search engine are categorized by industry, so the numbers do not square up with the state by state data). Just as alarming as the overall declines, 25 of 36 industries showed declines in new job listings, and 29 of 36 showed declines in total job listings.

In terms of specific industries, Engineering & Architecture, Sales, and Consulting added the most job listings in December, while Health & Medical, Restaurant & Food Service, and Supply Chain & logistics lost the most job listings.

The Department of Labor will release its jobs report for December tomorrow, and the data will undoubtedly show that the economy is a long way from healthy recovery mode. Economists are expecting that the U.S. economy actually added jobs during the month, marking the first monthly job gains since December of 2007. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index, which rose again in December, adds a faint glimmer of hope that this might be the case.

Not a chance.

If LinkUp’s data is any indication, the U.S. economy is still on life support and job growth remains a mirage. LinkUp, a job search engine that only indexes job listings that are found exclusively from over 20,000 corporate websites around the U.S., released its December jobs report today and the news is grim. Job listings on company websites in the LinkUp index dropped by 108,837 (24%) from November. Total job listings on company websites dropped by 142,641 (17%).

Job listing declines were widespread throughout the country, with 44 states (45 including Washington, D.C.) reporting fewer new job openings on company websites than the previous month and only 5 states reporting an increase. Total job listings dropped in 40 states (41 including Washington, D.C.), with only 8 states reporting an increase in December.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web, indexes job listings from over 20,000 corporate and employer websites throughout the U.S. Because the index is updated daily and only includes job listings that are found on career portals within company websites, the completely unique jobs data is extremely reliable. There are no jobs from recruiters, headhunters, search firms or staffing companies, and no scam jobs, phishing jobs, or other fraudulent postings. And because LInkUp only indexes jobs from a single source – the hiring company itself – there are no duplicate listings that pollute job board aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Vermont showed the largest increases in new job listings (though the gains were still anemic), while California, Texas, and New York reported the largest declines in new job listings.

First the Chrome ads popped onto Google’s homepage, and then, as expected, the Nexus One ad appeared shortly thereafter.

So much for the clean homepage that was such a part of Google’s identity.

My initial assumption is that the new clutter on the Google homepage shows just how formidable an opponent the search giant perceives Apple to be. With Chrome v. Safari and iPhone v. Nexus One, Google is willing to retreat from the sacrosanctity of its homepage in an effort to win market share. Never once in the dozens of battles with Microsoft, did Google ever feel compelled to jeopardize its homepage. Based on that fact alone, I’d chalk up round one for Apple in what is surely to become the largest corporate behemoth battle of the decade.

I hadn’t been to the Google homepage in a while and was surprised to see an ad there…..Maybe the Nexus One ad will pop up later this week.

From the Harper’s Index in the current issue:

Average number of minutes unemployed Americans are spending looking for a job each day: 18

While extending unemployment benefits is no doubt justified for millions of Americans, this shocking statistic (if true) raises serious questions about the manner in which states are administering those benefits and the oftentimes lax requirements they impose (or don’t) to receive them.

By the way, the source for the statistic is the Department of Labor.