Chicago : Braintree parent to add 360 jobs

Credit-card software company Braintree Inc. plans a hiring spree at its large new headquarters in the Merchandise Mart.

California-based eBay Inc., which acquired Braintree in 2013, plans to add 360 jobs in the next three years, confirmed Gov. Pat Quinn's office, which is providing $12 million in state incentives.

Crain's last month reported Braintree's lease for 60,000 square feet at the Mart in River North. It will move there in the third quarter, from 27,000 square feet at 111 N. Canal St. in the West Loop.

Braintree, owned by eBay, is moving to the Merchandise Mart. 

San Jose, California-based eBay doesn't plan to waste time filling Braintree's significantly larger Chicago space. The PayPal parent has pledged to create 216 new full-time jobs by March 2016 and another 144 by March 2017.

If it meets those targets, eBay will receive $12 million in Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) tax credits paid over 10 years by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Mr. Quinn's office confirmed.

$24 MILLION INVESTMENT
“EBay Inc. is built on innovation and we welcome its interest in providing quality jobs for Illinoisans,” Mr. Quinn said in a statement. “By coming here, it will benefit from our state's leadership in emerging technology and from access to a workforce with skills that are second to none.”

Under the EDGE agreement, eBay will invest $24 million toward expanding Braintree in Chicago.

It was acquired by eBay for $800 million late last year. Spokeswomen for Braintree and eBay and Braintree CEO Bill Ready did not respond to questions about what is driving the rapid growth or how many people Braintree currently employs in Chicago.

The number is 140, according to a DCEO spokesman.

"Everyone at Braintree is pumped to be moving to bigger digs in Chicago to support our growth, just six months after joining the PayPal family," Mr. Ready said in a statement. "We're looking forward to moving into our office space at the Merchandise Mart soon and continuing our involvement in the budding Chicago tech scene."

Chicago : Uber hiring 150 people

Uber is hitching a ride to Chicago's meatpacking district, where it plans to hire another 150 employees in its Midwest headquarters by late 2015.

San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc., which brought its taxi-hailing and ride-sharing smartphone appto Chicago in 2011, signed a three-year lease for the 12,000-square-foot building at 370 N. Carpenter St., where it plans to move by June, said Midwest General Manager Andrew Macdonald.

The property owner, Chicago-based developer Sterling Bay Cos., is in the process of gutting the interior of the building, a former Kingdom Farms Inc. meatpacking facility, Sterling Bay Managing Principal Andy Gloor confirmed.

“We looked at staying in River North, but we bought into the vision Sterling Bay has for the area,” Mr. Macdonald said.

Uber is already on its third Chicago office, moving in February to nearby 300 N. Elizabeth St., also owned by Sterling Bay, the most active developer in the area on the western edge of the West Loop, a hotbed of development. Previously, Uber was at 750 N. Orleans St., where it moved from shared office space at another River North loft building.

Sterling Bay's many nearby projects include converting the former Fulton Market Cold Storage building into the future Chicago office of Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. a block north of Uber's destination. Google's venture capital arm is an investor in Uber.

EMPLOYEE GROWTH
Uber expects to go from about 50 employees here now to 100 by the end of this year, with 200 Chicago employees by late 2015, which could cause the firm to outgrow a fourth Chicago office, according to Mr. Macdonald.

“We wanted a landlord we could grow with,” Mr. Macdonald said. “If we need to move again in a year or two, we feel there will be options.”

Uber was represented in the lease by First Vice President Paul Reaumond and Senior Vice President Brad Serot in the Chicago office of CBRE Inc.

Uber's Midwest office includes marketing, customer support and operations employees for Chicago, as well as teams serving Minneapolis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City and Milwaukee, Mr. Macdonald said. Dallas, Denver, Toronto, Montreal, Houston and Columbus, Ohio, all have workers based in their cities who Mr. Macdonald oversees, he said.

As privately held Uber moves into new markets, such as St. Louis, Kansas City, Louisville, Ky., Madison, Wis., and Tulsa, Okla., employees serving those cities also may be based in Chicago, Mr. Macdonald said.
Uber's temporary space on Elizabeth is part of a block-wide parcel Sterling Bay bought Jan. 31 for about $22 million, including a loan assumption, according to Cook County records and Mr. Gloor. Sterling Bay bought the property from a venture of Chicago-based Marc Realty LLC.

In addition to two existing office buildings, including the one where Uber is using short-term space, the property includes the partially built headquarters of now-defunct MarchFirst Inc. Sterling Bay plans to complete that building, 1380 W. Fulton Market, where construction halted in 2000 as consultancy MarchFirst spiraled into bankruptcy. The developer is in talks with large tenants to take all of its 300,000 square feet of the building, Mr. Gloor said.

Amazon to hire 2,500 across U.S.

• Hiring at five shipment centers
• Company has about 117,000 full- and part-time employees

SEATTLE — Amazon says it is hiring more than 2,500 full-time workers at its order fulfillment centers around the U.S.

Amazon.com Inc. plans to announce Wednesday that the jobs are available in Chester, Va., and Petersburg, Va.; Coffeyville, Kan.; Columbia, S.C.; Dupont, Wash.; Murfreesboro, Tenn.

The world's largest online retailer says last year it hired more than 20,000 people at its fulfillment centers, with more than half starting out as seasonal workers. Amazon says the median income for people working at its order-fulfillment facilities is higher than at traditional retailers.

The Seattle-based company had 117,300 full-time and part-time employees at the end of 2013, according to a regulatory filing.

Evercore Partners is hiring

Boutique investment bank Evercore Partners had a record-setting 2012, setting the firm up to add talent in the coming year while larger rivals cut staff.

The New York-based advisory firm shocked Wall Street by doubling to $195.5 million its investment banking revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to the previous year’s Q4, and earning advisory fees from 169 clients, up from 127 in the same quarter a year ago. Evercore saw its profit for the year jump 265% from 2011.

Unlike other U.S. investment banks that booked strong end-of-year results, Evercore will invest its newfound cash in employee compensation and fresh talent. The firm plans to hand out larger bonuses and continue to add to its headcount, which rose from 357 in 2011 to 391 at the end of last year, according to Financial News.

“In 2013 we see a number of opportunities to add senior managing directors and we expect to add additional talent during the year,” Ralph Schlosstein, president and chief executive officer of Evercore, said on an analyst call.

Evercore declined to provide additional comment on their hiring plans. The firm doesn’t advertise specific positions on its website, but is accepting applications for interns, analysts, associates and experienced hires within its investment banking division in the U.S. and in Europe.

Valued at $1 Billion, On Way to IPO, Evernote to Hire 150

Evernote plans to hire as many as 150 new employees this year after raising $70 million in new venture capital earlier this month. The company was valued by investors including Meritech Capital and CBC Capital at $1 billion, putting it in the rarefied company of privately-held tech companies like Pinterest and Dropbox that have entered the billion dollar club.

Founded in 2006, Evernote makes computer and smartphone software that lets users organize and save content from the Web. "Our goal is to help you remember everything," said Vice President of Products Phil Constantinou. The company, which has 150 employees, has more than 25 million users across desktop and mobile, Constantinou said.

Constantinou plans to hire at least 70 new employees for the product group. Open positions will include user experience and user interface designers, front-end and back-end engineers, data analysts with a machine learning background, and iOS and Android developers. Evernote will also be hiring for its marketing group and business development.

Employee perks include house cleaning, unlimited vacation time, free lunch, and public transit subsidies. The company is considering buying its own shuttle buses to ferry employees to and from work as many other Silicon Valley companies do.

Cash and equity compensation is competitive, Constantinou said. He declined to discuss the company's total revenue but said that the company generates revenue of over $1.5 million a month from credit card payments on the company's premium products, and additional revenue from partnerships where the company's application is bundled with that of other software makers.

The company's chief executive, Phil Libin, has said that the company aims to go public by the end of 2013. However, an IPO isn't something that employees spend much time thinking about, said Constantinou. Employees have already been able to cash in shares on secondary markets, he said, and they'll continue to have such opportunities before an IPO.

The company's culture is design-centric, Constantinou said. The company determines the user experience it wants to create, then figures out how to accomplish it technically. "Designers play an instrumental role and engineers seek out the designers because they know their work isn't going to be valued if it doesn't look beautiful," he said.

Capital One hiring 500 in Delaware, getting millions in incentives

Capital One Financial Corp. has committed to expanding its Delaware work force by 500 jobs, state officials said Monday morning.

In June, Capital One announced its plans to acquire Delaware-based ING Direct USA for $9 billion. In August, it said it would acquire HSBC’s domestic credit-card business for $2.6 billion. HSBC’s domestic card business also employs Delawareans.

The 500 jobs announced Monday would be in addition to all of the ING and HSBC employees that would become Capital One employees after the acquisitions.

As part of the expansion agreement, Capital One will receive a Delaware Strategic Fund Job Creation Incentive of $5.6 million and a Capital Improvements and Equipment Cash Incentive equal to 3 percent of the total capital expenditures the bank makes for its new Wilmington facility, up to a maximum rebate of $1.5 million. The funding is contingent on approval by the Delaware Council on Development Finance. Under the agreement, the 500 new jobs must be in place by December 2013.

A Capital One spokesman said the jobs will entail a wide variety of functions including retail banking, information technology, human resources and risk management. Two separate sources familiar with the situation said the jobs will pay an average of at least $135,000.

McLean, Va.-based Capital One (NYSE:COF) is parent to Capital One NA and Capital One Bank (USA) NA. It had $126.1 billion in deposits and $199.8 billion in total assets as of June 30. Capital One NA has about 1,000 branch locations primarily in New York, New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Canadian Banks to Hire As Wall Street Firms Lay Off

Canadian banks, which brought on bankers displaced by the 2008 financial crisis, have accelerated staffing plans this year to capitalize on Wall Street's woes. The investment banking arms of the Big Five -- Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce -- plan hires for M&A, advisory, underwriting and other investment banking work, according to recruiters, analysts and bank spokespeople.

"Canadian firms are no longer looking at themselves as being a little firm north of the border," said Bill Vlaad, the founder of Vlaad and Company, a Toronto-based capital markets recruiter. "They have a defined presence in the U.S. and they're willing to look for good talent."

Vlaad said his firm has had more phone calls in the second quarter asking for U.S. professionals than in the previous seven quarters combined.

One reason for the hiring: Canadian banks emerged from the debt crisis in better shape than American banks. They took on less risk and were subject to tighter regulations.

The Canadian government required banks to meet a leverage test that maintained the ratio of total assets to total capital at 20 to 1. Many American banks, on the other hand, had been levered 30 to 1, or in the case of Merrill Lynch, 40 to 1, as a result of a 2004 Securities and Exchange Commission rule that allowed banks to more than double their leverage ratios.

Bank of Montreal Capital Markets is continuing to grow headcount after hiring during the U.S. financial crisis, said Perry Hoffmeister, head of U.S. investment and corporate banking, BMO Capital Markets.

"Our view was Wall Street's landscape is changing," Hoffmeister said. "There's an opportunity for a bank like BMO to build its wholesale business. Not only because there are great bankers who wouldn't be available otherwise, but there are fewer competitors. We believe we're taking share and on that basis we intend to keep growing."



Who They Will Hire

Admittedly, Canadian banks won't bring on thousands and provide a job for every laid-off Wall Streeter.

"The number of employees at U.S. firms dwarf Canadian headcount," Vlaad said. While the investment banking business at JPMorgan employs around 26,500 people, the average Big Five bank has between 1,000 to 6,000 employees in that division.

Firms are looking for bankers with specific knowledge of resource-based industries such as mining, oil and gas, pulp and paper and energy sectors, which are the bread-and-butter of Canadian banking, Vlaad said.

Banks are also focused on recruiting senior, seasoned talent. BMO's Hoffmeister said that of the 203 bankers added to his group since 2009, 134 have been senior bankers and traders at the director and managing director level.

"They want senior players who can gain client attention," Vlaad said. "They're looking for generals, not foot soldiers."

Hiring can be expected to take place across both the U.S. and Canada. BMO, for example, will recruit in Chicago and New York, its largest offices, as well as in Houston, Boston and San Francisco, Hoffmeister said. Nearly half of BMO Capital Market's staff is U.S.-based.

The demand doesn't look like it will abate any time soon.

"If you're in a strong position in Canada and right across the border there's an opportunity in the investment banking market to build out a capital markets business, it makes a lot of sense to do that," Hoffmeister said. "That's why BMO made a strategic decision to expand capital markets. The landscape had changed, and the quality of bankers willing to move was pretty great."

CIBC is thinking along the same lines. A source familiar with the matter said that the bank will continue to pursue a hiring strategy consistent with the growth opportunities in the investment banking arm the bank is currently experiencing. Over the past three years, CIBC has added talent to its offices in Canada, New York, London and Asia. The bank declined to comment.



Financial Crisis Hiring Surge

Having emerged from the financial crisis in relatively stable positions, Canadian banks were able to bring on staff.

Scotia Capital, the investment banking division of Bank of Nova Scotia, grew to 1,776 employees in the second quarter 2011, up from 1,553 in the second quarter of 2009, the official end of the recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Toronto Dominion has added around 400 employees to its investment banking division since the second quarter 2009.

BMO grew to 2,043 employees in the second quarter 2011 from 1,821 in the second quarter 2009.

CIBC employs 1,144 in its investment banking division as of the second quarter 2011, compared to the 1,089 it had in second quarter 2009.

RBC Capital Market's U.S. investment banking staff has grown by more than 25% over the past three years, the most recent information that was available. The unit now has 370 bankers who work in the U.S.



Canadian Hiring Freeze

While Canadian banks have maintained a stronger position than their American counterparts coming out of the financial crisis, they haven't been immune to some of the market forces dragging down business this year.

Like U.S. and European banks, Canadian banks are experiencing low trading volumes, said Michael Goldberg, a financial services analyst and vice president at Desjardins Securities, the brokerage unit of Desjardins Group, the Quebec-based financial group. "They had been building up desks to grow the trading side of the business, but I don't think they will want to do that to the same extent now."

One managing director at a Big Five bank who did not want to be named said he had seen several trading teams imported from the U.S. over the past several years, but that he doesn't expect the trend to continue in light of the sluggish trading activity.

"The decline in [trading] revenue is prevalent on both sides of the border," he said. "It's a function of reduced hedging volume plus a general lack of risk taking, not to mention much narrower bid/offer spreads."

While banks won't add to trading teams, they will lay off lower-performing employees and replace them with top producers.

"If there's going to be any activity in sales and trading, it will be to increase the quality of existing teams," Vlaad said. "They're going to get rid of their bottom tier and upgrade their talent."

Canadian banks also won't be hiring tech bankers. "Canadians want the meat-and-potatoes businesses, things they can touch and feel," Vlaad said. "That's how they establish their business. They don't want high tech and you won't see Canadian banks with huge businesses in Silicon Valley. They don't have that risk appetite."

Chicago: Walgreen to add 600 city jobs

Chicago: Walgreen Co. and Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans Wednesday for dozens of new food outlets as the retailer upgrades stores and expands in Chicago, adding 600 jobs in the city over the next two years.
 
In a news conference at a South Side Walgreens store, Mr. Emanuel and company officials announced the huge drugstore chain will add food products to roughly 40 additional stores in so-called food deserts, up from 11 currently that sell a wider range of groceries.

The deal includes no city incentives, according to Mr. Emanuel's office

The Deerfield company also is ramping up its downtown e-commerce and information technology office.
 
Each step will add about 300 positions when combined with at least five new stores to be opened in the next two years.
 
“Walgreens is proud of our historic roots in Chicago and pleased to take our place in the city to a new level,” President and CEO Greg Wasson said.
 
Filling food deserts in inner-city neighborhoods has been a top priority for Mr. Emanuel.

In his first weeks in office, he also has been busily announcing a variety of job expansions here, some brand-new and some that already were in the works. On Tuesday, he announced that Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc. would add 300 people to its Chicago office.

Halliburton Will Expand Its Workforce by 15,000 in 2011

Hiring at Halliburton Co. is in full swing. The Houston-based energy equipment and services company expects to add 15,000 employees by the end of the year, a jump of about 25% from its current staff, the company said.

In fact, the entire oil and gas industry is booming, and the hiring will include people with careers in technology, marketing and sales.

"2011 seems to be a return to the glory days with regards to oil and gas hiring," said Mark Guest, president of global job board OilCareers.com, in an email. "There is demand for increased technology, and in turn, sales and marketing."

Halliburton, which has a staff of more than 60,000 globally, has already hired about 5,000 people this year in a wide range of jobs, including manufacturing and engineering positions. The company anticipates hiring another 10,000 employees before the year is out, said company spokesperson Tara Mulee Agard. She didn't specify the exact nature of the positions.

Revenue is surging. Halliburton reached a record of $5.3 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2011, chief executive officer Dave Lesar said in a company statement regarding the company's earning release in April. Increased demand in the United States accounted for the more than 40% increase from a year ago.

Uncertainty over the economic recovery is driving up the price of crude oil and boosting needs for equipment and services, Guest said. More than half of the number of open job postings for the top oilfield service providers are located in the U.S.

Job hunters should focus on key companies if they are looking to get in on the expansion, according to data from OilCareers.com. Halliburton, Schlumberger Ltd., Baker Hughes Inc. and Weatherford International Ltd. are the driving forces behind the hiring.

Halliburton careers website:

Ex-Googlers Hiring Engineers at TellApart

Burlingame, Calif.-based startup TellApart will hire up to 20 employees in the next year after raising $13 million in new financing.

Founded in 2009 by two ex-Googlers, the company helps online retailers target visitors to their sites who haven't purchased anything, but who might be persuaded to with the right advertising.

Of the planned 20 hires, about a third will be technologists, said Mark Ayzenshtat, co-founder and chief technology officer. Because TellApart's success relies on its ability to predict who will actually make a purchase, the company will be hiring people with expertise in operational machine learning. The company crunches a lot of data, so engineers with distributed systems and Hadoop experience are also in demand.

The company is also hiring business development and sales and marketing employees to help it acquire new clients.

Because of the company's Google roots, it hires engineers who are autonomous, take ownership of projects, and can succeed with little coaching or guidance, Ayzenshtat said.

TellApart offers competitive cash compensation and generous equity rewards, Ayzenshtat said.

Unlike the Google interview process that Ayzenshtat himself endured, TellApart doesn't ask abstract brainteasers to test engineering candidates' mettle. Instead, it asks questions meant to see how easily intimidated and adaptable candidates are.

For instance, an interviewer might ask how one would go about building Google's search engine. The best candidates will take a crack at it, Ayzenshtat said. Sub-par candidates will betray their lack of imagination by noting that they don't have experience in search. That's a warning sign, Ayzenshtat said, because startup engineers will have to tackle a lot of problems they're not experienced in.

"People know what they're good at and they expect to be asked about that, but if you throw so meting at them from left field, they often are put off," he said.

Candidates who make it through the interview process, though, can expect some nifty perks. Ayzenshtat and co-founder Josh McFarland -- who worked on Google's AdWords together -- took the entire 21-person company on a vacation to Hawaii after they met their quarterly goals last year.

Google Hiring 6,300 This Year, Including in Finance

The tech giant is in the midst of hiring 6,300 workers, a mandate that has forced the notoriously selective firm to streamline its interview process and recruit at less prestigious schools.

The roles span the gamut, from engineering to finance. For example, Google is looking for 65 finance professionals to work in its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, including a director of equity programs to orchestrate the firm's storied stock options.

Of the 1,916 people Google hired in the first quarter of 2011, more than half are working on YouTube, the Chrome web browser, mobile and enterprise technologies, said Jeff Huber, Google's senior vice president of commerce and local, in a conference call this year with investors.

Chicago : United Airlines boosting workforce by 1,300

(Crain's) — Chicago is beginning to reap the rewards of the merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines.  United said Friday it is adding another 1,300 jobs in Chicago, which is headquarters to the newly combined airline. The announcement brings downtown workers from elsewhere in the two carriers' operations.

It also adds to the number of those making the move from operations in Elk Grove Village, as the carrier has begun moving into Willis Tower. The downtown move was under way when United announced last year it planned to merge with Houston-based Continental Airlines.

The jobs are in a variety of roles, including operations, technology and human resources. The moves are expected to be completed by the end of next year.

Originally, United said it would bring 2,500 jobs downtown from Elk Grove Village.

Last fall, parent United Continental Holdings Inc. decided to increase its space at Willis to 12 floors from nine. United already is beginning to move workers into the building, which ultimately will house the airline's operations center.

The carrier is working toward federal approval to operate as a single airline, expected later this year.

“As Chicago’s hometown airline, United is pleased to announce that we are bringing an additional 1,300 jobs downtown from locations throughout our system by the end of 2012,” United Continental Holdings CEO Jeff Smisek said. “Mayor (Rahm) Emanuel recognizes the importance of keeping Chicago competitive with other cities and expanding job growth here, and we look forward to working together with him and his team.”

Said Mr. Emanuel: “I promised to foster a business climate that attracts and retains the greatest companies in the nation. I am happy to announce that United has substantially increased their commitment to the city of Chicago, by bringing these jobs to the hardest-working people in America.”

Skype and Amazon are hiring in Silicon Valley

Microsoft’s latest acquisition, Skype, is going to stick to its plans to hire hundreds of people in Palo Alto. The company’s going to maintain its own offices rather than move into Microsoft’s campus in Mountain View. Also, Skype says it will continue to invest in Silicon Valley.

 Amazon’s also looks to be hiring in California. Lab126, the subsidiary that works on Kindle and other tablets, is supposedly renting “lots” more office space in Cupertino. The company’s reportedly working on a full-blown tablet and maybe a smartphone.

A new kind of brute-force recruiting is emerging. Engineering talent is so in demand that large companies are acquiring small companies not for their products or ideas but for the warm bodies they employ. The buzzword is acqhiring. So says The New York Times. Big companies and small ones just keep saying they can’t find enough good tech people. So, they’ll give them everything from free iPads to entrepreneurship lessons to attract them. Start-ups in particular are looking for people. Total job openings at venture-backed startups in Silicon Valley have risen to 3,609 from 1,739 in April 2008. Elsewhere in the U.S., they rose 69 percent in the same period.

McDonald's aims to hire 50,000 people

(Crain’s) — Big Mac wants you. 
Hyping what it calls National Hiring Day on April 19, McDonald’s Corp. launches an ambitious campaign Monday to recruit a whopping 50,000 people to its already massive workforce of 60,000.

The push aims to recast McJob — a derogatory slang for a low-paying, dead-end job — into a desirable employment opportunity.

“McJob is going to enter the conversation,” said Rick Wion, social media director at McDonald’s USA. “Rather than avoid the term, let’s embrace it and turn it on its ear.”

The company said it is looking for all types of employees, from crew members to managers to corporate employees, in anticipation of the busier summer months. Prospective employees can apply in person at any of the company’s 14,000 U.S. locations or through the McDonald’s website.

The campaign will appear in print magazines such as People, Us Weekly, Ebony, various ethnic publications, on the chain's social-media and digital channels such as Twitter, on local radio spots, as well as point-of-purchase, in-store marketing and on packaging on certain items.

And although the campaign is in conjunction with McDonald’s National Hiring Day, much of the advertising push -- especially in print -- is dedicated to highlighting McDonald’s restaurant employees in various ranks in an effort to improve the image of working at McDonald’s.

“The creative part is really highlighting the people at McDonald’s and dispelling the myths that there isn’t opportunity working here,” said Marlena Peleo-Lazar, global creative officer at McDonald’s USA. “We really wanted to highlight our crew.”

The McDonald’s effort was created by Citizen2, a consultancy and advocacy organization in Chicago and the Washington, D.C., area. The social-media effort is handled in-house, alongside the company's public-relations agency, Interpublic Group of Cos.’ GolinHarris.

One medium this campaign is not using is TV. “We found that print was the best medium to communicate the story about the brand and the opportunity people have here,” said Tania Haigh, marketing manager at McDonald’s USA. Video will be relegated to social media, which will include short videos of employees discussing why they love their McJobs.

While the campaign’s primary goal is to change the perception of working at McDonald’s and recruit prospective employees, it comes at a time when more marketers, including the likes of Pizza Hut, Overstock.com and Southwest Airlines, have put forth their own workforce as the stars of their advertising.

Oak Brook-based McDonald’s last week launched an internal campaign in which it asked employees to create their own video testimonials on why they love their McJobs, for possible future use in the campaign's social media effort.

While this is the first time the chain has done a hiring day on a national level, the company’s western division held a hiring event last spring, and in the process employed about 13,000 people.

McDonald’s is competing in an improving labor market where existing and potential McDonald’s employees have opportunities to pursue jobs at other companies with higher pay. The U.S. economy has added jobs for 13 consecutive months; the unemployment rate (8.8%) is at a two-year low, according to an Ad Age DataCenter analysis of data from Bureau of Labor Statistics.

McDonald’s campaign could give the company an advantage over competitors by making a potential pool of candidates think of McDonald’s first. It could also generate goodwill among customers who like the idea of seeing a company bring jobs into a community.

According to the fast-feeder, more than 50% of McDonald’s franchisees and 75% of restaurant managers started as restaurant-crew employees. Among long-term McDonald’s employees is McDonald’s USA President Jan Fields, who started by making fries at a restaurant.

For the national hiring event, McDonald’s drew on research extrapolated from company-owned restaurants and compiled by Dennis Tootelian, who studies business trends and policy at the Center for Small Business at California State University, Sacramento. Mr. Tootelian estimates that McDonald’s and its franchisees will lay out at least $518 million more in wages and salaries during 2011 than the prior year — an average of more than $1.4 million every day.

KPMG to hire 250,000 employees over the next five years

KPMG recently announced its plan to hire 250,000 employees over the next five years. The firm is particularly interested in recruiting mid-level talent for the advisory business

Recruiters in KPMG’s advisory unit recently took the time to answer some questions for Vault readers regarding the firm’s plans to hire a quarter of a million new employees in five years. Specifically, the recruiters talked about what kinds of consultants they’re actively seeking, in terms of experience, expertise and overall ability.

Q: KPMG recently announced its intentions to hire roughly 250,000 new employees in the next five years. Will the firm's advisory division also see big headcount increases in that timeframe?

A: Yes, the Advisory business is one of the key growth areas for KPMG in the US and globally, and therefore in order to meet our growth expectations, we do expect to significantly increase headcount in Advisory over the next five years. In the U.S. alone, Advisory is hiring more than 100 people per month.

Q: In terms of experience, what type of candidate will see the most attention from advisory recruiters? Entry-level? Mid-level? Manager-level?

A: Currently, KPMG Advisory is actively recruiting at all levels, but our greatest need is for mid-level talent. However, our needs tend to change depending upon client needs, so all levels are encouraged to apply.

Q: What particular skills do KPMG's advisory recruiters value? Is the division looking for quant-jocks, versatile strategists, or those with more job-specific skill sets?

A: KPMG Advisory is hiring across our three service groups – Transactions & Restructuring, Performance & Technology, and Risk & Compliance. Within those groups, we have a wide array of needs that require job-specific skill sets, such as in technology, risk management and transaction services, and are also looking for versatile strategists and project managers. We also have some positions that require industry-specific experience, with high demand right now in Financial Services, Health Care, Pharmaceutical, and Energy.

However, beyond job-specific skill sets and/or industry experience, the most important skill that we are looking for is excellent consultative abilities. Talented individuals that can meet with clients, recognize and articulate high value solutions, and then implement those solutions are critical to our success.

Q: What kind of working experience awaits newly-hired KPMG consultants?

A: KPMG offers an award-winning work environment, the opportunity to work with leading companies on challenging projects, outstanding career development programs, global work opportunities, and the chance to work with some of the best and brightest people around the world.

Ally Financial Revs Up Hiring

Ally Financial, the lender formerly known as GMAC, is stripped down and posting hundreds of job openings after a major retooling precipitated by the crisis.

The Detroit-based firm, which became a stand-alone bank in late 2008, is angling for a bigger share of the auto finance market and has a new online banking platform offering checking accounts and a range of CD products. The firm is slowly building out both units in advance of a hoped for initial public offering next year, according to Ally spokeswoman Gina Proia.

"Over the past few years, there's been a number of changes, not the least of which has been transitioning from a captive organization to a market-driven organization," Proia said. "In short, we're continuing to add the talent and capability where we need it."

Like many of the Detroit-built cars that it financed over the years, Ally used to be much bigger and less efficient. In 2009, it trimmed 17% of its workforce as it sold some units in Europe and laid off employees in the U.S.

At the end of 2009, Ally had 18,800 employees.

The bank declined to provide a more recent headcount; however, there were 214 jobs openings listed on its Web site this week, including 25 postings in risk management and a number of financial analyst positions in Detroit.

"It's more just an effort to streamline overall and look at ways to be more efficient," Proia said. "It's about focusing on our key markets and our key lines of business."

The company is trying to gain market share with car dealers that sell its financing to customers. It also hopes to gain market share among young car-buyers.

Ally has been boosted by resurgent auto sales. In the most recent quarter, it lent $8.3 billion to U.S. car-buyers, a 48% increase over the year-earlier period. And the firm recently inked agreements to provide financing for U.S. Fiat sales and Chrysler dealers buying vehicles wholesale.

Ally returned to the unsecured bond market in February and sold almost $1 billion in asset-backed debt last month. The company hopes to sell shares to the public next year in order to repay roughly $17 billion in federal bailout money.

GM, however, recently bought AmeriCredit Corp., effectively giving it an in-house financing option. Ally financed a little more than one-third of GM vehicle sales in recent months.

PwC Hiring 10,000 in Asia by 2016

Accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers is looking to meet the increased Asian demand for financial services pros by adding 10,000 new jobs in the region over the next five years. The new hires are set to join PwC's 10,000 employees already based in mainland China and Hong Kong, where portions of its advisory and consulting businesses are based.

PwC's current Asian operations include advising and consulting practices for M&A, corporate finance and restructuring, and financial due diligence. The growth will be centralized in the firm's advisory arm. Specifically, the firm will add 2,000 fresh graduates to their Asia-Pacific ranks in 2011, and will more than double its headcount in its Guangzhou, China, location, bringing in 650 staffers to fill its newly expanded downtown office space.