We live in an age when the one-company individual no longer exists.  Your father, mother or grandparents may have worked for one company their entire lives.  Now it is not uncommon to be employed by three, four and even five or more companies during one’s worklife.

Accelerated by unending layoffs, the number of managers and executives who have changed jobs four or more times has increased dramatically according to surveys our company conducts among the individuals who go through our program. (more…)

Holiday Cards Unlimited is a Chicago-based web business selling customized greeting cards.  With all the cries of Internet-created pain from the publishing industry in recent years, it’s interesting to find an online business dedicated to selling a printed product.  Founded in 2005, it breaks from the “typical” Chicago post-dotBomb start-up, in that it’s based on licensed technologies, rather than open source development.  Holiday Cards Unlimited starts with a base card design and allow the customer to add customized text and logos to the card.  Typically, this lends itself to institutional bulk purposes, though “holiday” isn’t the only type of card sold.

Tim Christopoulos, Holiday Card Unlimited’s President, recently took time to answer a few questions about his company. (more…)

Hiring authorities have spoken and they agree; networking is the most valuable tool in the job seeker’s arsenal.  The least effective process for finding a job: attending job fairs.

In a new survey that asked human resources executives to rate the effectiveness of various job-search methods on a scale of 1 (least effective) to 5 (most effective), networking averaged a 3.98.  About half (48 percent) of the respondents gave networking the highest effectiveness rating of five.  (more…)

As approximately 2.9 million young men and women begin their post-secondary education, many are pondering ways they might be able to avoid the high rate of unemployment and underemployment facing the most recent crop of graduates.  They might consider the advice of human resource executives, who said in a new survey that they would advise college freshmen to pursue degrees in engineering, computer science or health care.

According to the survey, which was conducted in August among about 150 human resource executives by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., the career paths to avoid included law, marketing/advertising and, ironically, human resources. (more…)

This month we’ve added 28  more entries to the Chicago Tech Companies List.  The list is now well over 575 companies. Listed below are the updated categories and the number of new entries in each.  New entries will be in bold on the actual pages.

Chicago Area e-Tailers (2)
Chicago Area Hardware/Software Vendors (1)
Chicago Area Hosting and Access Providers (Data/Voice) (2)
Chicago Area Interactive Developers (7)
Chicago Area IT Consultants (1)
Chicago Area Mobile Developers and Products (2)
Chicago Area Online Media, Content & Services (6)
Chicago Area Recruiters/Staffing Firms (3)
Chicago Area Software Developers (3)
Chicago Area Tech Associations, Government Agencies and Public-Private Partnerships (1)

As social and professional networking websites like Facebook and LinkedIn become more popular for connecting with friends and family, more and more people are visiting the sites for more specific reasons, namely the job search.  As the number of unemployed workers continues to grow, job seekers are using these sites to brand themselves to future employers.

LinkedIn has always been touted as the site to network professionally; however, job seekers are now also turning to Facebook and Twitter for job leads, advice and contact building.  Hundreds of recruiters are trolling Twitter, searching for applicants with relevant skills, while job seekers post links to their resumes, websites and examples of their work for previous employers. (more…)