Over the last 365 days, DirectEmployers helped connect job seekers with disabilities to employers, joined the Social Jobs Partnership, provided tools to help veterans and military families find work and launched The .jobs Universe. Not to mention we also celebrated a huge milestone – our 10th anniversary.
Below, you’ll find our year in review – simplified.
A photo journalist captures the press conference.
January started with a lot of excitement as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted unanimously to approve Employ Media’s plans to expand the use of dot-jobs (.jobs) domains. Internet recruiting was finally under new management – the employers – and we continued the build-out of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) sponsored .jobs Top Level Domain (TLD). Shortly thereafter, 40,000 domains were pushed live. The current portal for job search can be found at jobs.jobs.
Several board and operations team members participated in a press conference to announce The .jobs Universe and address questions from the press. The press, recognizing what a great resource .jobs is for job seekers, picked up the story and provided coverage on several news outlets including NPR, CNN and ABC. Shortly after the announcement, over 11,000 .jobs domains were added.
DirectEmployers also launched The Employment Line video blog to help our Members stay connected to the latest trends, tips and tools in the recruitment industry.
We embarked on our first Employers Connect event in March. Hosted by Newell Rubbermaid and Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), the event was designed to expand thinking around current and new recruitment technology. Employers Connect provided Members another opportunity to network in-person aside from the Annual Meeting & Conference. Employers Connect events took place throughout the year in Atlanta, Indianapolis, New York, Seattle, Houston and Denver. Watch The Pipeline events calendar or your Pipeline Digest email for upcoming 2012 dates and locations.
Photo with Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis at the Summer Jobs announcement.
Veterans.jobs and MilitaryFamily.jobs launched in April, bringing more than 860,000 employment opportunities from over 90,000 employers nationwide to our nation’s armed forces, spouses, dependents and caregivers. Representatives on behalf of DirectEmployers flew back to D.C. for a press conference to share the excitement. Later that day, the group also met with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to show support for the Summer Jobs Initiative.
Next, we pushed the Pipeline live. This member-exclusive online community allows Members to network, share best practices and access webinar archives, tools and advice.
Another trip was made to D.C. in June. This time, DirectEmployers and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) sent expert staff members to testify on behalf of our efforts to put America’s veterans back to work.
DirectEmployers continued to support elite organizations through exhibiting and presenting at the National Industry Liaison Group, SHRM, and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conferences.
To help companies better communicate their employment opportunities to military men and women we launched the .jobs Military Crosswalk. The first four Member companies that piloted this tool were AT&T, Camber Corporation, Providence Health & Services and ConocoPhilips. Learn more about implementing your own .jobs Military Crosswalk.
In late September, we officially celebrated our 10th anniversary and hosted the Annual Meeting and Conference in Indianapolis. The event was packed with incredible educational, informative sessions and networking events. (Check out my blog post from the conference or our photos on Flickr.)
Centerpiece from the Annual Meeting & Conference networking reception.
In October, DirectEmployers Association partnered with the National Guard Bureau, Kenexa, Inc. and Military Spouse Corporate Career Network (MSCCN) to create the National Guard Employment Network, via National Labor Exchange (NLX) technology. The NLX job feed provides new opportunities on a daily basis with special emphasis on veterans and military, people with disabilities and diversity.
DirectEmployers also returned to D.C. – this time with Facebook, the U.S. Department of Labor, NACE and NASWA to announce the Social Jobs Partnership. The goal of this initiative is to facilitate employment for America’s jobless through the use of social networks. Look for more details in 2012 about this partnership and how Members can become more involved in recruiting via Facebook.
We proudly joined forces with Think Beyond the Label in November and announced a jobs portal for people with disabilities to help promote disability employment opportunities, grow the pipeline of qualified job candidates with disabilities and meet businesses’ hiring needs.
Lastly, we ended the year implementing a job posting schema on USA.jobs. This new standard is meant to help search engines categorize jobs by location, job title, education and veteran’s preference.
None of this would have been possible without the continued support of our Members and Board of Directors in addition to the dedication of our staff. I am so grateful for the amazing collaboration and end results that we’ve been able to produce over the last decade.
To see our accomplishments in more detail, please visit the 2011 Annual Meeting Archive in the Pipeline.
Looking forward to a productive 2012!
