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.