Newsclips

New dog, old tricks
Job candidates with high-level dot-com experience are finding they have to tighten their resumes and highlight traditional skills such as project management/development and leadership abilities as opposed to the technical skills they acquired during their employment at a dot-com or start-up. Recruiters at Management Recruiters International Inc. (MRI) advise former start-up and dot-com employees who held high-level positions such as CEO, CFO, vice president of sales and vice president of marketing to include their dot-com achievements, but not to place of a lot of emphasis on their technology-based accomplishments.

”Top-level job candidates who have dot-com working experience but are not technology gurus have to prove themselves all over again to the traditional companies where they are seeking employment,” says Neil Fox, chief information officer for MRI. According to Fox, here are five career accomplishments most valued by employers:

• Describe how you created a marketing/advertising plan and how it was successful in getting the company branded in the media.

• Emphasize how you saved money for the dot-com or start-up and cut overhead.

• Highlight how you led an overall sales team effort, and how that generated revenue for your company.

• List new products or product lines that you developed or helped to develop while working for a dot-com.

• Describe how you improved the record-keeping process and effectively budgeted expenses.

M&As slowdown
There’s no shortage of critics this summer. Ask Steven Spielberg or Jack Welch. Ask anyone involved in the world of mergers and acquisitions.

While their past glories remain unquestioned, their most recent efforts have drawn an unaccustomed round of disappointing reviews from observers. After two years of history making deal activity and soaring deal values, the U.S. M&A market appears headed for an across-the-board slowdown in performance this year. Through the first six months of 2001, Mergerstat reports that dealmakers announced 4,293 United States and U.S. cross-border transactions, down from 5,259 such transactions in the first six months of 2000.

If the trend holds until the end of the year, it will be the first decline in year-over-year deal activity for the M&A market since 1991 and the lowest number of total announcements since 1998. To date, Mergerstat reports that U.S. dealmakers have disclosed just $336.6 billion of deal value, compared to $676.5 billion for the first half of 2000. If that trend continues over the next six months, dealmakers will have recorded their lowest annual total for disclosed deal value since 1997.

Mergerstat LP tracks mergers and acquisitions involving U.S. business entities, excluding the exchange of business assets, private placements, spin-offs and open-market transactions.

Foreign affairs
The U.S. economy owes much of its rapid expansion during the 1990s to substantial foreign capital inflows. But this boon to the economy carries with it some risks, according to a Policy Discussion Paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

The paper’s author, Owen F. Humpage, an economic adviser for the bank, points out that since the late 1980s, the stock of foreign claims against the United States has exceeded the stock of U.S. claims on other countries. This growing international interdependence increases the U.S. economy’s vulnerability to foreign economies.

If foreign economies improve as the U.S. economy slows, investors would likely pull money out of the United States. That would further diminish the dollar and raise interest rates, Humpage says. To read the entire paper, visit the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Web site at www.clev.frb.org/Research or fax a request to (216) 579-3050.

Rosy outlook
Thirty-five percent of companies polled plan to increase work force levels from July to September, while 16 percent report reductions will be necessary, according to a Manpower Inc. survey of employers’ labor needs.

Another 45 percent expect payrolls to remain steady. The outlook was higher last year, when 41 percent of employers expected to increase work force levels. Hiring activity is likely in the following Manpower segments: construction, transportation/public utilities, wholesale/retail trade, finance/insurance/real estate and education. Cutbacks are expected in public administration, according to the survey.

Crossing the border
TBG World, Inc., a rapidly growing Toronto marketing firm, signed a five-year lease on the ground floor of the Chester Commons Building in downtown Cleveland. The parent company, TBG International, has opened offices in eight U.S. cities in the past three years.

TBG’s national clients include Green Mountain Energy Company (BP), Sunoco, Talk America (AOL) and AT&T. TBG hired Lakewood-based TENANTreps.net Corporate Real Estate Advisors to broker the deal. A tenant space search and negotiation of office site alternatives resulted in TBG opening its doors in Cleveland in less than five weeks, says John Tobin, president of TENANTreps.net.

Get noticed
Here’s how your company’s press release can grab the attention of our editors, or the editors of your local paper or industry publication: ”Tell me a story, give me a local news angle, touch my heart, grab my pocketbook (save me or make me money), make my stomach turn (in horror or fear) or turn me on,” says Paul Krupin in his book, ”Trash Proof Press Releases.”

”Trash Proof” contains more than 120 original news releases, all of which Krupin says produced stellar publicity for their issuers and which can be used as models. It covers the how, why, when and where of using custom-targeted PR, including news release construction, delivery and follow-up in today’s fast-evolving media environment. Learn about custom-targeting technology, strategies and tactics that resulted in print, radio and television publicity for a wide range of authors, publishers, businesses and local and national nonprofit organizations.

A ”Trash Proof News Release Tutorial” can be downloaded for free (as an e-book in a PDF file) at www.Imediafax.com. The hard copy version of ”Trash Proof News Releases” is available at bookstores nationwide, online or by calling (800) 457-8746. Cost is $37, plus $5 shipping and handling.