For new college grads it seems to be getting harder and harder to find work out of college.  Technology employers especially can be hesitant to hire someone without any real experience, and without an internship, many new college grads are having a hard time finding a job.  Recently more and more opportunities are becoming available because of open source programming.  In Amber Gillies’ article, Open Source Technology is Hungry for New College Grads, she writes of one program at Google, Google Summer of Code (GSoC), which sponsors open source ideas to fruition.  GSoC allows many inexperienced programmers to work with mentoring organizations to develop new tools and perfect old ones.  With experience in open source, many college grads are able to move on to careers as, programmers, system administrators, web designers, designers, instructors, technical writers, translators, specialists, and project managers.  Google isn’t the only company sponsoring open source development, so if you are having a hard time breaking into the industry, look around to see what programs other open source supporters are offering.

When hiring a search engine marketing consultant, it can be hard to find the right person; it’s even harder when you don’t know what being a search engine marketing consultant means.  Laura Callow over at, Search Engine Marketing Insights, has put together a great list of questions and answers to ask potential consultants in her article, Search Engine Marketing Consultant…Anyone?  Laura has done great job of providing employers with a set of questions as well as a guide for evaluating a candidate’s responses.  To better understand the Q&A, Laura has also listed a short glossary of terms she uses through-out the article.  So if you are looking to take the guess work out of hiring your next search marketing consultant, look towards Laura’s article.

On the other side of the spectrum, if you know what type of person you are looking for make sure that they really get “it”.  Rand Fiskin, of SEOmoz, wrote a great article last week about, The IT Getters and how they can benefit your business.  When adding people to your organization it can be very important to make sure they get “it.”  Professionals who really get “it” can contribute exponentially to the success to an organization.  They push other people to do better work, they push themselves to achieve more, and over all they produce more than people who don’t get “it.”  Before you go on a hiring rampage, make sure you are hiring smart.  People who get “it” are rare, but will bring tremendous value to your organization, whereas people who don’t get “it” can be common and can bring down the value of the work around them.  If you are looking to learn more about the “it getters” and how you can benefits from them, check out Rand’s article.

That's it for this week, check back next week for another update.