Across the country, college classes are starting. In each of these classrooms, students are struggling with calculus, trudging through Candide, and wondering just what the hell they're going to do with their degrees upon graduation. The last of these is characteristic of every college student, especially those of us, with the foresight fortitude recklessness zeal to major in liberal arts fields (in my case, Philosophy).

The anxiety is a bit higher this year, given a high rate of unemployment, the likelihood of a "jobless recovery" and the fact that it could take years for destroyed value to be recovered.

The market's choppy/consolidating pattern continues, suggesting the need for an additional defensive play or two (or perhaps more). And in this category Hewitt Associates is worth a review.

Hewitt Associates, Inc. (NYSE: HEW) provides a variety of human resource-related services including payroll, organizational change management, talent consulting, reward consulting, and benefits outsourcing (medical, 301K, pensions).

Analysts expect 2008 revenue growth of 4-7% with strong gains in consulting. Benefits administration revenue should advance 3-5%. Margins are adequate. The Reuters FY 2007/FY 2008 EPS consensus estimates for HEW are $1.75 to $2.12.

Are recruiters using Technorati or other blog search tools to find talent? So says the Wall Street Journal in today's paper, pointing out how blogging used to be a screening tool (maybe you shouldn't have gone on that rant about your ex-girlfriend...) but has become, for many more mature members of the job pool, a gold mine. That "about me" page does have some use after all, and many blogs I've visited have a standard resume format where the ironic sideways self-portrait, list of favorite songs and stats on children and puppies usually go.

Who would hire from a blog, and what kind of people, exactly, might they hire? The WSJ uses Ryan Loken, a recruiter at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), as an example; he says he's hired about 125 people because of their blogs, but doesn't say in which departments.

You might expect graphic designers and web developers to be frequently hired because of their blogs and fun little "side" projects -- and they are, it's true, but don't decide to stick to anonymity on your blog just because you're not in a high-tech field. I'm in (variously) product development, parenting and financial writing, and photography, and all my interests have inspired the occasional recruiter contact to my personal blog address (but, for the record, I'm sticking with this job!). The companies they represented were ones you'd never think of: packaged goods, wireless phones, organic farms. I've found great candidates for contract writing positions in everything from scrapbooking to cooking to living a simpler life through the blogosphere, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Blogging is an invaluable way to showcase one's expertise in any area, from keeping chickens to CSS design to technical stock analysis, and it's becoming, more and more, the leading way to see and be seen. Networking clubs and who-you-know? Passé. It's about how well you SEO. And I could write a whole separate post on that...

As a result of the remarkably competitive environment for jobs in today's day and age, many job applicants have recently turned to trying to cheat the system to increase their chances of getting a job. For example, some job applicants place white typing on white background paper. This trick allows a false (but highly valued) characteristic to enter the rating system of automated resume sorters. In addition, some applicants type information that isn't legitimate in such a small font that it appears as a horizontal line.

However, according to an article in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, these techniques are no longer working due to improvements in technology. These technologies have come closer to perfecting the automated resume-reading process by only ascribing a rating to job experiences appearing under the job experiences category of the resume (rather than hidden throughout the page). Some of these new technologies are even able to penalize applicants who place hidden words and phrases on their resume, rightfully so!

While I had been aware of some of the cheating techniques used by job applicants, I was unaware as to the depth of sophistication behind these techniques. Thankfully, however, these technologies are making the job hunting process fairer for all by rewarding those with outstanding credentials and penalizing those who try to cheat their way to the top.

It is a truism that if a company cannot beat its competitors on price or product, then it must beat them on processes. Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE:BBY) cannot gain much advantage over Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT) on either price or product selection. So Best Buy has chosen to focus on businesses processes -- how it actually does what it does. Over the past year, Best But has gradually instituted a policy known as ROWE = Results-Only Work Environment. Employees at Best Buy's Minnesota headquarters are no longer required to adhere to a fixed work schedule. Many are not even required to show up at work. Despite misgivings from many managers who were afraid that "unleashed workers" would not be productive, they feared more that the corporation would find out that there is less of a need for managers in a post-geographic office. After some months of ROWE, Best Buy has found that employees involved in the program are 35% more productive, voluntary turnover is significantly down, and the potential savings on office space costs will help to pay for Best Buy's enhanced customer service programs.

ROWE is beginning to catch on in other large companies such as AT&T Inc. (NYSE:ATT), International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW). ROWE focuses on output and results, not on hours worked, not on managerial impressions, not on sucking up. Rather than measuring attendance, ROWE measures how much got done. But ROWE is not the only workplace initiative Best Buy is implementing. Unlike many large companies in which budgets are handed down from on-high to be routinely cursed at by front-line managers, Best Buy has begun soliciting collaboration from its 850 store managers in the budgeting process. Best Buy is trying to create accurate and relevant budgets by bridging the gap between what corporate wants and what operations knows. The timely flow of accurate information in both directions on the corporate food chain has shortened the budget planning cycle and laid the groundwork for rewarding managers who create actual value for the company.

A comparison between Best Buy -- whose stock closed on 2 March at $46.35, and which has enjoyed several splits these past 3 years -- and the stock of Circuit City Stores (NYSE:CC), still wallowing around in the $20 range, will give savvy investors reason to want to perform due diligence on Best Buy.