Accounting Finance Jobs You Need to Check Out

Personforce recently expanded its job search capabilities to include accounting finance jobs from across our network and the web. While traditionally we've had mostly tech related jobs, we're gradually expanding into jobs in accounting, finance, and more. You can consider this post an invitation to check out specializing accounting financing jobs on Personforce.

We hope this career section will provide career opportunities that are at the intersection of accounting and finance. You'll find jobs in tax, audit, book-keeping, m&a, investment banking and more. Please check it out below:

Accounting Finance Jobs

Facebook Jobs - The Killer Job Board

I've often thought that Facebook jobs would be a killer feature for the social network. With a near monopoly on the attention of all college students and recent graduates, a Facebook Job Board would be the first place the new generation would look for jobs.

I often recommend to my friends with specialized hiring needs to create a targeted Facebook ad and see if they can hire someone that way. The problem with this is that it's very difficult to get someone's attention on Facebook via an advertisement. It's much easier to get someone's attention when they actively decide to go visit the Facebook job board and peruse job opportunities.

A Facebook job board combined with their targeted advertising system would be the killer jobs application of the next decade and a potentially $200 million source of revenue for the company.

StackExchange Needs an App Store

A few weeks ago, I created a StackExchange called Explain Business as fun side project. It's meant to be a site where entrepreneurs can ask questions about incorporation, accounting, legal stuff, employment issues, finding vendors, hiring, etc. Really, it's for all the boring but practical stuff no one ever teaches you. As a result, when it comes up, you have to ask an expensive lawyer or accountant.

So far, it's been very useful for me and a few of my former classmates to share startup tips and ask questions. I've been a huge fan of how well the platform is designed and how useful a tool it is to record knowledge. There are a few features I'd change here and there, but overall it is quite nice. I like my StackExchange.

I think StackExchange and FogCreek Software are on the verge of missing a really big opportunity though. While the original Stack Overflow caught on like wildfire, most of the StackExchanges seem to be sputtering and dying. In fact if you look at the 77 sites registered on StackExchanges Sites, only 5 seem to have achieved critical mass. Of those 5, some appear to be decelerating in activity.

FogCreek certainly has an interest in seeing many StackExchanges flourish so it can sell more licenses. Similarly Apple, has an interest in seeing it's iPhone developers flourish so it can sell more iPhones (and apps). When Apple launched it's app platform it created a concentrated distribution platform. This allowed it to ensure quality control, but also created a vibrant marketplace overnight.

To help StackExchange developers succeed, I'd suggest FogCreek implement an App Store where it can channel is huge collective audience (through Joel on Software and StackOverflow) to consumers who are looking for knowledge. FogCreek could be the Apple of knowledge applications. It's similar to what Philip Greenspun has proposed as a killer idea.

An App Store for knowledge communities could be a powerful thing. Right now there are some lists of StackExchanges here and here but nothing that drive significant adoption. Fog Creek will sill probably sell a bunch of licenses for StackExchange (especially for private company ones) regardless of what it does, but I think an App Store will help it become a truly transformative idea.

HBS Interview Questions

Hi all. I was going through my old business school admissions folders and found this listing of HBS interview questions that my friends were sharing. Hopefully a question or two here will be relevant for your HBS interview!

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What do you want to do with your career?

Why the MBA? Why now?

Describe your career aspirations

What would you do if not accepted?

What are your long- and short-term goals? Why?

Why are you applying to business school?

Why did you choose your undergraduate major?

How did you choose your job after college?

What would you do if a team member wasn't pulling his own weight?

Is there anything you would like to ask me/us?

If someone approached you with an idea, would I take the risk of developing the idea if they would not?

What is something from your past that you wish you would have done differently and why? The experience can be from work, school, other activities, or from your personal life.

Talk about essays

Who is a client you admire and why?

Since submitting your application, how have you continued to take leadership roles?

With all of your experience, why do you need an MBA?

What makes you think that you are prepared for the academic rigors of HBS?

The Secret to Finding College Jobs

With the Fall comes a rush of college students trying to find jobs. While most students think of on campus recruiting as the ultimate source of college jobs, this is not the case. In reality, less than 1/3 of college students find jobs from companies that hire through career services.

Personforce has thousands of jobs for college students and works with dozens of college newspapers, so I thought I'd take a minute to discuss finding college jobs.

So what is the secret to finding college jobs? Focus and persistence. I'm going to assume you've spent the last 4 years figuring out what kind of job you want and what industry you are interested in. Once you've identified your ideal post-college job, here is the secret to getting it.

Focus. First off, become an expert in your area. My number one recommendation is start a blog and post one entry every day about this industry and job function. You'll be surprised, but eventually people in this industry will start coming to your site (mostly through search engines). While the rest of your classmates will be searching for jobs, college jobs will be finding you. Through your blog you'll start to build relationships with people in the industry. They'll be impressed that a college student has taken such an interest in their industry.

Relatedly, build a focused online presence geared toward this industry. Create a LinkedIn profile, send some insightful tweets, create an profile on various career sites.

Persistence. Remember you'll probably be shot down for 95% of the jobs you apply for. You have to be darn persistent when finding college jobs. Create a spreadsheet of the top 100 companies you want to apply to. Then go through the list and actually do it. Go through your alumni database (or LinkedIn) and create a list of people you want to speak to. Then, contact each of them and try to set up "informational interviews" to learn more about the industry. Be disciplined and try to set up one call a day.

Finding college jobs is hard, but it's easier if you build a presence in the industry. The best way to do that is to start interacting with the industry by writing and meeting people. It's great if you can search for college jobs, but it's even better if they find you.

For more information about finding a job during your senior year, check out Personforce.

Production Supervisor Job in Ohio!

At Personforce, many of a the job postings we get are tech-related. Much of that is due to our location in San Francisco and base of publishers. We get job postings from all across the world and in all industries though.

Recently, there was a production supervisor job posted in Fremont Ohio. The Heinz Company (and more) are hiring production supervisors so get your applications ready! It has been especially popular so I thought I'd highlight it on this blog. Check out these jobs and more manufacturing jobs on Personforce:

Check out the production supervisor job board here.

MySpace Jobs is Gone

MySpace has decided to kill its jobs section, according to an interview with its new CEO. This has to be a big hit for SimplyHired, the company that powered the jobs section for the massive social network.

While the traffic loss associated with the termination of MySpace Jobs has to be significant, the bigger issue for SimplyHired is that its partners may increasingly start to question whether a jobs section is a productive use of their advertising real estate. More and more publisher may question the premise of job advertising networks.

In the same interview, it also came out that MySpace Classifieds (powered by Oodle) is gone as well.

A Career Advice Forum That Doesn't Suck

At Personforce, we help connect people with careers.

Often times in that process, people have questions when they are looking for jobs. What is the salary range for this position? How can I get a job in Homeland Security? Do I need a graduate degree for this position?

Until today, there has been no good place to ask these questions. You could email your friends, use a forum or bulletin board that sucks, or just hope for the best.

I'm proud to introduce the new Personforce Career Advice Forum.

Ask any question and our staff of career experts and community will answer your questions. It's built on the StackExchange platform that I've been using to power my business advice forum.

Go ahead, ask questions about your career now!

A New Small Business Advice Forum

I recently launched a forum for Business Advice using the stackexchange knowledge sharing platform. It's basically a site where small business owners can post questions and have them answered by the community.

The site is called Explain Business - you can check it out here.

Whether you are starting a business or run your own small business, I hope you'll find it to be a useful way to get business advice. You can ask questions about coming up with an idea, incorporating, hiring, firing, legal, accounting, or anything entrepreneurship related! The community also votes up the best questions and answers.

Review of Starbucks Instant Coffee: It's not very good

This morning at Starbucks they were giving out some free sample of their new instant coffee, Via. I had gotten a sample of it a few months ago and tried it again this morning.

My verdict is in, Via is not very good. Starbucks advertises their instant coffee as being as good their drip brewed coffee. This simply is not the case. Via definitely has the sort of burnt, stale taste of instant coffee. Via is a bit over-priced as well. An 8 ounce cup of instant coffee costs about about a dollar. That's practically the same price per ounce as Starbucks in store drip coffee.

However, Via does taste better than most brands of instant coffee I've ever had. I'd definitely take it camping with me but I can't think of when else I'd use it.

So final verdict: Via doesn't taste that great and is very expensive for instant coffee. As instant coffee goes, it's pretty good, but what does that really say?

Job Advertising Networks Generally Fail

It's now been about 3 years since we decided to start Personforce. When we first started, we had some idea about being a "Google Adsense for Jobs" or a "Ad Network For Jobs". After talking to potential customers, we dismissed the idea. Every few years though, a company tries to setup up this sort of ad network. There are a couple of reasons job ad networks are economically unsound ideas:

1. It's unlikely a job advertisement is the most lucrative use of ad space for a publisher. In fact, it's impossible.

2. Advertising to "passive job seekers" is a kind way of saying "advertising to people who have no interest in what you are advertising."

3. Cost per applications are very very expensive when you are advertising to people who have no "purchase intent" for what you are selling (your job opening).

4. An easier way to target passive job seekers is just to find their profiles on LinkedIn and message them.

These economic realities generally make it difficult to pull off an ad network for jobs.

Virtual Gifts on Twitter - Twitgift.ly launches!

About 6 weeks ago, I came up with an idea for a lightweight Twitter application that lets people send virtual gifts to their friends on Twitter. I decided it might be a fun little side project to bring this to market.

Today, I launched TwitGift.ly, a site that lets you send virtual gifts on Twitter. It was a fun project to do on the weekends and learn more about Twitter, digital goodies, and viral applications. I'll keep you posted how it goes and maybe do some more posts about building the site and the developing the idea.

Perhaps the neatest part of TwitGiftly is you can use it to raise money for charities like LIVESTRONG, Donors Choose, Charity Water, UM Health and more. All you need to do is send a charity gift and all the proceeds go to the non-profit.

Job Apps for iPhone, Android & BlackBerry

Oh my!

At Personforce we just launched our Mobile Jobs Platform. Basically we can help any job site take their existing website and turn it into an iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry app.

TechCrunch did a story on it here:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/15/personforce-launches-mobile-jobs-platform-to-develop-job-search-applications/

You can also check it out on our blog:

http://blog.personforce.com/?p=53

An iPhone jobs application from me

Silicon MBA readers,

Personforce and Next Mobile Web just released a free iPhone jobs application we think you like. The jobs app is called "High Paying Jobs". We're trying to help deliver high quality jobs that you can browse, bookmark, and apply to from your iPhone.

The application is totally free and hopefully will be useful if you're looking for a job.

Download it on iTunes here.

Let me know if you have any feedback on it. When the iPhone app platform came out, I was a bit skeptical if it would be useful for job search. Consider this an experiment as to whether iPhone jobs applications and mobile job search will be useful or popular.

"Sponsored Definition" - Ads come to Twitter

This morning on my Twitter, there was definitely an ad labeled "Sponsored definition" for the iPhone ExecTweets by Microsoft (and federated media).

When I clicked on it, it opened up my iTunes (somewhat annoying). I can only assume this has to be an ad? Is this the end of the free advertisements for Twitter apps?

Using Adsense to test your business model

There has been a lot written how entrepreneurs can use Google Adwords to verify whether customer demand exists for their products. Even before you have a product built, you can write a text ad and pay to have it displayed next to search results. If people click on your ad at a solid clip, you have a good sense whether customers are interested in what you are offering.

Another interesting tool is to use Adsense to test your business model. You can use Adsense to answer a simple but important questions - is there money to be made in what I am doing? All too often, entrepreneurs start a social network, blog, or site where there is literally no way to make money. This is a little diagnostic to help avoiding that. Here goes:

Put Adsense on your site. Observe the eCPM. If the CPM is high (say greater than 5 CPM) this is a good sign. If you have low CPM (say less than .5 CPM) this is a bad sign.

The eCPM of your site tells you two important things. First, are you in an industry where there is money to be made. You might not understand yet how to make that money, but someone out there is willing pay for traffic and therefore they know how to make money.

Second, the eCPM tells you whether your vistors have "purchase intent" for something. If they are coming to your site to read an article, message their friends, or write a post, they probably don't have purchase intent for anything and will exhibit a low eCPM. If they are looking for real estate, browsing car prices, or looking at electronics reviews, they will tend to have an higher eCPM.

If you are getting a very low eCPM, I'd encourage you to think very critically about the industry you are getting into and your prospects for making money. Your site could become massively popular, but your business could still be a failure. Your business model will feel like you are squeezing blood from a stone.

In short, you can use Adsense to determine industry profitability and whether you are attracting visitors that might want open their wallets. This does not mean you should use Adsense as your primary business model. Making decent money from 3rd party advertising (even at a high CPMs) requires a level of traffic that most sites will never achieve. However, if you are achieving a strong eCPM, there is a good chance eventually you'll figure out how to make money.

Does Craigslist make $96 million in profit?

The AIM Group is estimating that Craigslist is doing about $100 million in annual revenue. Given that you can physically count the number of paid listings on their site, I take this to be a solid estimate of their revenue.

The more remarkable fact is that Craigslist achieves this revenue with only 30 employees. They've built a product so compelling that they don't need any sales and marketing to achieve this revenue. Customers just show up and hand them money. If you assume a fully loaded average wage of $130,000 per employee, that comes out to a cost base of only $4 million.

So is Craigslist making $96 million dollars in profit? This leaves a heck of a lot of money to pay dividends to it's owners (and the government).

When I first started Personforce, I met with a former senior exec at Monster. The advice he gave me was try to be more like Craigslist and less like Monster. His point was that running a sales force is expensive and pushing a product that no one is excited about is not fun. Instead, build something that is so unique and compelling, it sells itself. Who wouldn't want to run a company with 95% net margins?

Ha, I was right about Stack Overflow jobs!

A few weeks ago I wrote a post saying that Stack Overflow would be come a recruiting and jobs site.

Today, I logged into my Google analytics for the first time a couple of weeks and saw a massive spike in traffic to that post. One of the co-founders of Stack Overflow linked to it on twitter, saying "the silicon MBA is on to us!"

Turns out I was right. They added a job board to the site and hinted about more recruiting functions to come. Looks like a solid move for the company and an innovative way to find technical talent.

Thanks for selling my information, Yahoo

About a year and a half ago, a friend and I decided to start a tshirt business on a whim. Our plan was to sell hyper-targeted tshirts to folks using Facebook's self-service ad platform. Our target market was management consultants, a market which we sized to be about $500 in annual revenue (if we achieved 100% marketshare) and we would have negative gross margins. Seemed like an inspired idea!

That very morning, we bought the domain and set up a store using Yahoo Stores to power our ecommerce site. Within 3 hours of thinking up the idea, we had our business up and running; 8020 tshirts was born!

By the afternoon we lost interest in the idea; 8020 tshirts was dead! After letting the site sit around for a while, we cancelled the account with Yahoo Stores (after paying them about $150 bucks in fees). So this business only lasted about 3 hours and the only one who ever knew about it was Yahoo.

But why the heck do I get junk mail almost every week addressed to 8020 tshirts? Credit card applications, small busines banking promotions, all sorts of crap. It's rather annoying actually (and a constant reminder of our sad business failure!).

I can only assume that Yahoo sold our information to a mailing list company. That seems like a pretty low move. I could never see Google doing something as greedy and short-sighted as that.

What gives Yahoo?

How this blog got me in Fortune Magazine

Well, around a month or two ago, I started writing more regular posts on this blog. There really isn't much of a purpose to having this blog other than it helps me learn about publishing, advertising, SEO, and content.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a Fortune magazine writer that was researching how small businesses use the iPhone. Apparently if you google "iphone small business", this blog comes up second. The reporter found the blog, contacted me and we set up a time to talk. When the article came out, it had this quote from me.

"I use my iPhone to react to information, but not for active tasks," says Rohin Dhar, owner of Personforce, a creator of online job boards. "Typing on it is really hard."

You can checkout the full article here. I have no idea whether the article came out in print.

So is blogging worth it? Well, the publicity generated from a quote in Fortune was . . . absolutely zero. No bump in traffic, no friend encountering it and emailing me, no inbound link, nothing really. I guess this bodes poorly for traditionally media...