3 Minnesota companies find themselves on ComputerWorld 2011 100 Best Places To Work In IT with all of them ranking higher than they did last year.

Click the company name to see why they ranked so high (will send you to ComputerWorld:

#2 Securian Financial (#9 2010)

#3 General Mills (#4 2010)

#23 Medtronic (#28 2010)

We have had a busy few months sponsoring, volunteering and speaking at events in the Twin Cities:

May

MinneBar 6: Best Buy hosted 1,000+ mostly IT professionals and held 50+ sessions on a variety of topics. Paul did a couple of sessions during the event “Managing Your IT Career: Part III” and “Recruiting For Start Ups (Or any Size Company)”

“Social Media and Talent Acquisition – Are You in Compliance with the OFCCP and EEOC Requirements?”: HireCast Consulting was a sponsor with Fredrikson & Byron and Oberon for Minnesota and HR colleagues. While most recruiters are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs etc. for many companies there are some reporting and tracking requirements.

Minnesota Recruiters Conference #14: HireCast Consulting is a sponsor of the Minnesota Recruiters. Paul is a co founder and coordinator of the group. This event was hosted at General Mills with 200 attendees in a structured unconference format.

Project Skyway Finalist Weekend: Project Skyway is Minnesota’s first “accelerator program”. 20 finalists (small groups/companies) were hosted for the weekend. As part of the weekend program the finalists met for 30 minutes with coaches who have expertise in the areas of law, marketing, technology and recruiting. Paul was the coach at the recruiting table.

UnSummit 5: HireCast Consulting was a sponsor of the event held at CoCo. Session topics included Agile development, Social Media, Mobile, blogging and community.

Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis St Paul #37: Paul did a no PowerPoint “Career Maintenance” presentation for 100 attendees at HealthPartners. You can see the full video (102 minutes) by clicking Video: SMBMSP #37- Career Maintenance

We are still just moving here on the site. We have been so busy merging R Biz Consulting and Nerd Search, meeting with clients and recruiting that the web site has been near the bottom of the list of to do items.

I know what you are thinking… how is a website the last of things to do?

Well, it’s a bit about prioritizing what the business needed first, second and third.

Steven Sorsveen and I have been at this business for so long that while needed to get our message out it was not critical.

But with a number of sleepless nights here we are.

So now that you are check us out and since we have your attention help us keep it.

Opt in to follow us however you feel most comfortable:

Have any questions?

Send me an email:

Paul DeBettignies

VP Recruiting

paul@hirecastconsulting.com

I think this is the first survey of 2011 and it comes from Forbes America’s Best And Worst Job Markets using statistics and analysis of the biggest 50 cities from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Juju.com’s monthly Job Search Difficulty Index for Major Cities and Moody’s Economy.com

It should not be surprising that Florida and California did not do so well.

Also not surprising is Minneapolis and St Paul rank as the 4th best city:

Unemployment rate: 6.5%

Job-seekers per opening: 2.68

In the Twin Cities area “employment is expected to recover fully by mid-2011, far earlier than nationally,” according to a recent Moody’s Economy.com analysis of the region. Look for growth in manufacturing and professional services jobs like accounting. Did we mention that the metro is home to the Mall of America, a retail and tourist destination, which is expanding?