weareallmukmuks.com

By JOE LIGHT

To make one hire, recruiters wade through more than six times as many applications from job boards than they do from their own websites, according to an analysis of hiring data by Jobs2web Inc., which helps companies track the sources of applicants and hires.

According to the analysis, companies look through about 219 applications per job from job seekers who discovered the posting on a major board, such as Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com, before finding someone to hire, compared with 33 applications per hire from job hunters who find the job on the company’s own career site and 32 per hire when a job seeker types the job they are looking for into a search engine.

Someone who is browsing on a job board might bump into many jobs that he thinks he might have an outside shot of getting, said Jobs2web chief financial officer Steve Shaffer.

On the other hand, someone who searches for a specific job on a search engine or decides to look at a certain company’s website probably has more relevant experience, he said.

“The fewer applicants you need to go through, the better,” he said.

There were about 116 applicants from social-media sites, like Facebook.com and Linkedin.com, for every one that was hired.

Even though job boards are more crowded, they remain a major source of hiring for many firms, noted Gerry Crispin, co-founder of CareerXroads Inc., a consulting firm. A January CareerXroads study found that about 25% of hires of external candidates came through job boards.

Still, for job seekers, getting a referral from an employee is far and away the best way to get noticed by a recruiter, Mr. Crispin said. CareerXroads found that recruiters made one hire for about every 10 referrals they received.

“It increases your chances of getting a job tenfold. If an employee makes a referral, they at least have some feeling that the individual will be a better employee,” he said.

The Jobs2web analysis included 1.3 million applications and 26,000 hires in 2010.

New York landlords Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs have taken full ownership of the classic Seagram Building in Manhattan after paying off various other stakeholders.

The partners, whose firm is RFR Holdings, borrowed about $1 billion to refinance their debt on the building, according to filings for a securitization of the loan. As part of that refinancing, RFR took out about $224 million in cash, filings show.

In 2000, RFR and its partners acquired the black glass skyscraper designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, winning it at auction for $375 million. RFR reached an agreement two years ago to buy out publisher Peter Brant, who had a roughly 39% stake in the building. RFR tried to raise money by selling about 49% of the tower, but with an asking price too high to find any takers.

RFR then borrowed $160 million from Blackstone Group LP

and others—which got a preferred equity stake—at an interest rate of 12% to purchase the Brant stake. RFR later acquired the last 14% of the building, held by another partner, Harry Lis, who this year settled his lawsuits against RFR in a dispute related to the building.

The terms on the new loan are considerably friendlier, reflecting the low-interest-rate environment. Most of the loan carries a 3.5% interest rate.

The Seagram Building, named after the Canadian distiller, was built in the 1950s and is close to fully occupied. Its largest tenant is Wells Fargo

& Co.

RFR began investing in U.S. real estate in the early 1990s. The company has purchased a number of trophy Manhattan skyscrapers, including the Lever House. The company also invested heavily in the Stamford, Conn., office-building market.

—Craig Karmin

Selling in Seattle

Beacon Capital Partners LLC dove into the Seattle area in 2007 by buying up some of the city’s largest towers.

Now, it is gradually getting out.

The Boston-based landlord has reached a deal to sell the 47-story Wells Fargo Center to a joint venture of Canadian pension-backed Ivanhoé Cambridge and Callahan Capital Partners, according to a real-estate executive with knowledge of the deal. The sales price for the 980,000-square-foot downtown office tower couldn’t be determined.

The sale, which hasn’t been finalized, reflects a strategy by Beacon to sell off individual properties from its monster $6.2 billion portfolio purchase from Blackstone Group LP just before the downturn. That deal included properties in Washington, D.C., as well as Seattle. Rents and occupancies fell with the downturn, and Beacon restructured its debt on its 20-building portfolio in 2010.

Last year, Beacon and its partners sold a 55-story downtown Seattle tower, 1201 Third Ave., for $549 million, and a Bellevue, Wash., office building for $187 million.

Of course, there is still plenty more selling to do for Beacon. The company owns the most prominent building in Seattle, Columbia Center, a jet-black 1.5-million-square-foot skyscraper that reaches 932 feet.

The Seattle office market has been strong lately, largely due to growth by Amazon.com Inc.

However, much of that growth hasn’t been in the central downtown near Beacon’s buildings, but rather in the neighborhoods to the north, where the online retailer has its headquarters.

—Eliot Brown

A version of this article appeared May 15, 2013, on page C6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Plots & Ploys.

By DENNIS NISHI

If you’ve been laid off and your former employer is hiring again, you might see the news as a chance to get back to work at your old firm. But first it’s important to consider whether it’s a good idea—and whether the skills you bring are what the company needs now.

The odds of getting an old job back are good if you were let go simply for budgetary reasons and the company outlook has been improving.

But before you get too excited about trying to return, do a self-assessment—and be honest. “Sometimes there is some selectivity in who is laid off,” says Jerald Jellison, a professor of social psychology at the University of Southern California who specializes in the workplace. He recommends asking yourself whether you created any bad feelings when you left or while you were working at the company. Was your work up to par? Was your role valued in better economic times?

You also should consider whether or not you feel a renewed commitment to the work you’d be doing, says Mr. Jellison. “I liken it to returning to an old flame. Is it really a good idea? Do you really want to be there?”

What the Company Needs

Next, consider what the company will need as conditions improve. If you were a marketing manager, figure out how you could return with a new angle of attack that could help make the company more competitive. If you’ve enrolled in any courses or have time to sign up for a webinar that will bump up your skills, highlight these efforts in a cover letter.

Keep in mind that even if your old firm is starting to rebuild and your position—something like it—is resurrected, you might not get the job. Approach the application process and interview as if you were a new candidate. Fine-tune your résumé, do research that shows you haven’t fallen behind on what the company has been doing, prepare for the interview and be ready to answer tough questions.

And before you apply, contact former co-workers who have kept their jobs to assess how things are now relative to when you were there. Get up to speed on any other news that can help you understand key personnel changes or staffing needs, says Ruth K. Liebermann, managing director of HR Insourcing in Boston. “Contact your former boss and let him [or her] know that you’re interested,” says Ms. Liebermann. “Tell your boss what new initiatives you plan to bring, with the benefit of hindsight, and what new energy you have coming back.”

No Grudges

When you contact your former boss or human-resources department, assure them that you harbor no bad feelings about being laid off and are eager to return to work. If you’re trying to persuade a new boss to bring you back, focus on your accomplishments and get references to back up your claims.

If there are no full-time positions available, consider asking to work on a contract basis. The pay is often higher and, though there are no benefits, the job may eventually transition into a full-time position.

Don’t be discouraged if you get through the interview process and find out the job now pays less than you earned before. “You have to consider the market conditions,” says Paul Glen, a management consultant in Los Angeles. “Everybody is taking pay cuts and losing benefits. That will change as the economy improves.”

Write to Dennis Nishi at cjeditor@dowjones.com

By ELIZABETH GARONE

Q:
I am a senior executive and haven’t looked for a job in more than 10 years. How can I make my résumé more current by today’s standards?

–Boston, Mass.

Getty Images

A: While the résumé as you know it from 10 years ago is still alive and kicking, there have been a number of modifications to it. No longer do job candidates simply present a Word document of their qualifications. Today, they need to craft a package both online and off to present to a prospective employer. This needs to include both a résumé and an online profile as well as an easy way for a prospective employer or recruiter to move back and forth between the two.

Embrace technology. The biggest change is also the most expected one: a move toward technology. An online networking presence is no longer just an option but a requirement.

In today’s executive search market, if you’re not on LinkedIn, you don’t exist,” says Wendy Enelow, author of “Expert Resumes for Managers and Executives” and “Best Resumes for $100,000+ Jobs.” Ms. Enelow suggests including live email links on your Microsoft Word résumé and live links to your LinkedIn profile. “Make it easy for recruiters and hiring managers to contact you with one click to your email and one click to your LinkedIn profile,” she says.

Don’t make assumptions. The job market is in a transition stage when it comes to applications and how they are submitted, says Mary Henige, General Motors’ director of social media and digital communications. Therefore, a lot of how you present yourself should depend on the hiring manager’s preference, she says. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s best to cover all of your bases. “I recommend that a candidate include both a link to his or her résumé and an attachment but to never assume it’s one way or another unless it’s clear,” says Ms. Henige.

Expansion is good. The one-page rule for résumés no longer holds true, according to Howard Seidel, a partner at Essex Partners, a Boston-based senior level career management firm. “While one page makes sense when you have little experience, it doesn’t make sense when, as a senior executive, you have 10, 20 or more years of experience,” he says. “Executive typically do themselves an injustice by keeping the résumé to a page.” Mr. Seidel suggests expanding to two or three pages but giving the first page enough punch to entice the reader to delve further.

Overused is out. At first glance, “team player” and “innovative” might sound like good words to use on your résumé, but that would be a mistake, according to Krista Canfield, a spokesperson for LinkedIn. The business networking site recently combed through millions of user profiles and came up with a list of the top 10 overused terms. These included innovative, dynamic, motivated, extensive experience, results-oriented, proven track record, team player, fast-paced, problem solver, and entrepreneurial.

“Your online profile is a valuable piece of professional real estate,” says Ms. Canfield. “The problem with using generic words and phrases in your profile and résumé is that hundreds, if not thousands, of other professionals are describing themselves the exact same way.” She suggests replacing the overused terms with descriptions of those specific projects that you have worked on, which resulted in concrete results for your clients.

Looks still count. Even with the explosion of email over the last decade, aesthetics still matter, says Mr. Seidel. In some ways, they are more important than ever. “In addition to information overload, many employers experience résumé overload,” he says. “If an employer or a recruiter is seeking you out because of a reputation, the résumé’s appearance may not matter. If you are seeking out an employer’s attention, its appearance often does matter.”

Scanned not read. One thing that has not changed is employers scanning résumés rather than reading them word-for-word, says Kathryn Ullrich, an executive career consultant in Silicon Valley and author of “Getting to the Top: Strategies for Career Success.” To differentiate yourself from the pack, broadcast your brand. One way to do this, says Ms. Ullrich, is to replace an old-school phrase like “summary” at the top of your résumé with your brand: “social media marketing” or “finance director, software,” for example. “Invite a longer, deeper look at your résumé by making your brand stand out,” she says.

Write to Elizabeth Garone at cjeditor@dowjones.com

I SPENT THE BETTER part of last week doing something that relatively few wine drinkers probably do: reading wine blogs. Not just a handful of blogs here and there but hundreds and hundreds of wine blogs from all over the world. I read until I was absolutely blog-bleary; I probably totaled 10,000 page views.

I did this partly out of curiosity. I don’t read many wine blogs, and I wondered what I might be missing. What was being discussed? What wines, wineries and topics were hot? After all, people in the wine trade have called bloggers a powerful force, capable of challenging—perhaps even eclipsing—traditional media and conventional wine critics. I’m not sure if that’s true, but the numbers are certainly impressive. There are about 1,450 wine blogs today, of which about 1,000 are nonprofessional endeavors (the rest are “industry” blogs), according to Allan Wright of the Zephyr Adventures tour operator, who has organized Wine Bloggers Conferences in North America for the past five years. But most bloggers haven’t been doing it very long: “Only 18% of [wine] bloggers today have been blogging for more than six years,” he said.

Most of the bloggers were doing it just for “personal satisfaction,” Mr. Wright said, since the possibility of making money was quite small. Alder Yarrow, who writes a much-talked-about blog, Vinography, told me that he earns $12,000 to $16,000 from it annually, most of which comes from banner ads. Said Mr. Yarrow, who began his blog in 2004 and has a day job: “Monetizing a blog is very hard if you don’t want to sell products, sell advertising to wineries and therefore look like a shill.”

“The best bloggers go beyond tasting notes, with passion and curiosity.”

Most bloggers are more like Alice Feiring, a traditional wine journalist and blogger who has never made “a cent” from her blog, the Feiring Line, which she started in 2004. (It’s one of the few that I read on a regular basis.) But unlike most other bloggers, Ms. Feiring has a newsletter; she has 450 subscribers paying $65 a year for 10 issues. “The blog was a soapbox; the newsletter is a mini-magazine,” Ms. Feiring explained.

A lack of profit potential isn’t necessarily the biggest blogger obstacle; time is in even shorter supply. Judging from the number of bloggers who allow weeks, months, even years to go by without posting a thought, it’s clearly hard to maintain momentum. Or inspiration. More than one blogger explained his or her absence with a post that began something like: “I didn’t drink anything worth writing about.”

The perceived need to pile up tasting notes in a quest for legitimacy is a problem in wine blogging. Many of the amateur blogs that I read were bloated with tasting notes, enlivened only occasionally by a bit of prose or a photo of the family dog (Rosie the dog’s winery visits in California’s Sonoma County, on the blog CorkPopper, were a bright spot). On the other hand, tasting notes are one way that a blog can be monetized. For example, bloggers who recommend wines are paid a small referral fee if they direct readers to sites like Wine-Searcher, said Mr. Yarrow, who makes some money this way as well.

A blog full of tasting notes helps to ensure the author receives plenty of free wine; wineries are more likely to send samples to bloggers who post notes. And yet, wineries do this less and less often, according to Lisa Mattson, communications director at Jordan Winery in Sonoma. Ms. Mattson said she sends fewer samples than ever, and the vetting process is intense. “We’re working with a much smaller set of wine bloggers who have remained credible,” she wrote in an email. What makes a blogger credible? “Reputation and awards. Design and writing style,” she said. And a blogger would do well to get rid of an AOL email address, which Ms. Mattson called a “credibility killer.” Most of all, a blog had to “be about something” she said.

I knew what Ms. Mattson meant (and not just about the AOL email addresses). I was looking for meaningful bloggers as well. I was hoping to find a few impassioned amateurs with no connection to wine other than a genuine curiosity and an interesting point of view (ones who kept their blogs current, too). Wine Bloggers Conference polled wine bloggers and found that a full 83% cited “passion” as a reason for keeping a blog. That’s an impressive number. It’s even more impressive when passion and talent happen to coincide—as it does with the following five bloggers, whose work I particularly admired.

Brooklynguy’s Wine and Food Blog

brooklynguyloveswine.blogspot.com

Brooklynguy is an education consultant who has been blogging from the most fashionable borough of New York since 2006. Brooklynguy posts about wine and food—often with recipes—but he writes brief vignettes about his life, too. For example, a March 10 post on the inadequacy of language culminates in a few notes about a Cheverney Rouge (a wine from the Loire). He seems like a thoughtful, even philosophical, fellow—and his palate is clearly refined (he loves white Burgundy)—but he’s no snob. He’s a Brooklyn guy, after all.

Cellar-Book

cellarbook.wordpress.com

Keith Levenberg may not post very often (there were four long months between his post of March 2 and his post last November), but his topics are truly stimulating. His post last August on why “buy what you like” is “absolutely terrible advice” was positively inspired. (Among Mr. Levenberg’s provocative statements: Taste is not as important as you think.) It’s a long post—in fact, most of Mr. Levenberg’s posts are more like essays than notes—but he raises, and argues, a number of excellent points. That’s not surprising, as in the real world Mr. Levenberg is an attorney in Washington, D.C.

Odd Bacchus

oddbacchus.com

This blog has an unusual premise: It’s devoted to odd wines and spirits. Why odd? According to its author, Chicago-based Rob Frisch, who works for Andrew Harper Travel, he was originally inspired by the wines that he liked—and that he could afford. “I didn’t start writing this blog until I walked into a wine shop and asked for their most obscure wine under $15,” he wrote in an email. The wine was from Serbia—and the blogging began. Notes are posted on both wine and cocktails—and occasionally beer—and Mr. Frisch points out that he buys almost all of his wines. That’s why they tend to be cheap.

The Cellar-Fella

cellarfella.com

Did the subhead of this blog—”wine, and words composed under its influence”—mean that its author, Simon Burnton, never posted when he was sober? Not really, replied Mr. Burnton, who explained that he hadn’t meant it literally. “I think it’s possible to be under the influence of wine while not actually drunk,” he said.

Mr. Burnton is a London-based sportswriter for the Guardian who took to writing about wine because he “needed a hobby that could be pursued despite a sudden inability to go out” after his first child was born. I found Mr. Burnton’s post on the Codorníu winery and its Cavas to be particularly interesting. Brits like their Cava cheap, Mr. Burnton wrote, and Codorníu actually wrapped bottles in pink and blue to give the wines a “premium” sheen for the U.K. market. (The accompanying picture of pink and blue bottles was decidedly alarming.)

Benito’s Wine Reviews

wine-by-benito.blogspot.com

The Memphis, Tenn.-based Benito, aka Benjamin Carter, spends his workday in quality assurance for a large corporation—and his nights blogging about wine. He has been blogging since 2005, when he was still “under 30″ and just learning about wine. He blogged in part to keep track of his own tasting notes.

Mr. Carter accepts samples but discloses when the wine he’s reviewing was free. He writes tasting notes—but they’re preceded by a long “pretasting” note. For example, for Francis Ford Coppola’s Director’s Cabernet Sauvignon, he begins with a digression on Roman Coppola’s nomination for an Oscar alongside “the great Wes Anderson” for the film “Moonrise Kingdom.” And yes, if you read to the tasting note, it turns out Mr. Carter did like the wine, too. He recommends drinking it with a steak sandwich.

See wine videos and more from Off Duty at
youtube.com/wsj. Email Lettie at
wine@wsj.com.

A version of this article appeared March 30, 2013, on page D6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Five Wine Blogs I Really Click With.