Beverage giant Coca-Cola announced a huge initiative to hire hundreds of veterans for jobs in Atlanta, among other locations.

The company said this week it plans on offering 800 job and career opportunities to military veterans in 2012.

This initiative builds on a long-term company program to recruit veterans. Currently Coca-Cola Refreshments employs more than 5,500 veterans in a variety of roles across its organization, covering all 50 states.

According to an article about the initiative, Coca-Cola began its support of U.S. military troops in 1941 during World War II when former Company President Robert Woodruff committed “to see that every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for five cents, wherever he is and whatever it costs the Company.”

That same decade, the Company began a more than 70-year partnership with the USO. Today, the Coca-Cola system provides military personnel with more than two million beverage servings per day through its military channels. Coca-Cola Refreshments is also focused on implementing enhanced programs to recruit, retain and develop our nation’s heroes. In addition, throughout the year, many marketing programs pay tribute to and reward veterans for their service.

“Our military personnel have made incredible sacrifices to serve and protect their country and when they return home, they deserve support and recognition from companies like Coca-Cola,” said Steve Cahillane, President and Chief Executive Officer, Coca-Cola Refreshments. “It’s also in the best interest of companies to consider military vets as they offer a wide variety of skills, diversity of perspective and ingrained leadership and drive.”

The most recent scorecard from SurePayroll, Inc. shows that many businesses are very optimistic about the growth of Atlanta small business jobs.

The online payroll to small businesses nationwide announced April results for its monthly SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard® showing small business owners’ optimism at 65 percent, despite a slight drop in hiring and size of average paychecks. Optimism remains well off its low of 33 percent in September of last year.

For those looking to hire, 40 percent of small business owners said they are having trouble finding qualified candidates in the fields of technology, sales/marketing, customer service and administrative work.

“We have a double-edged sword — on one side there’s a shortage of jobs. On the other side, where there are jobs, there aren’t enough qualified workers to fill them,” said SurePayroll CEO and President Michael Alter. “As a nation, we need to look forward, educating and training in fields where jobs will be available in the future, instead of just training for the jobs available today.”

Month-over-month SurePayroll Scorecard data shows hiring just barely negative (-0.1) and average paychecks down 0.3 percent. Month-over-month regional hiring and paychecks were down slightly in all regions of the country except the South, where hiring was up just 0.1 percent.

Year-over-year, nationwide hiring is down only 1.4 percent and paychecks are down 1.3 percent. The South continues to show promising signs with hiring up 1.8 percent and paychecks up 0.4 percent. The West has had the steepest hiring decline at 5.1 percent.

As the first economic indicator created by a payroll company, the SurePayroll Scorecard has provided a monthly look on national hiring and paycheck trends since September 2004. SurePayroll’s Scorecard compiles data from over 35,000 small businesses, and exclusively reflects the trends affecting the nation’s “micro businesses” — those with an average of eight employees.

One local company is being lauded for creating great Atlanta jobs and being one of the best places to work in the area.

Pardot, a B2B cloud marketing automation software provider that increases revenue and maximizes efficiency for companies with multi-touch sales cycles, has been called the best small business to work for in Atlanta, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Top 100 Workplaces of 2012.

Pardot also received an award for having the best work/life flexibility across all companies.

The annual competition recognizes companies with outstanding employee satisfaction, based on anonymous employee feedback.

This year’s list was published in the Sunday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with leading SMB marketing automation vendor Pardot taking top honors in the small business category. More than 1100 organizations applied to be a top workplace.

We built Pardot around the conviction that employees do their best work when they enjoy their work environment and feel that they are a part of a valuable team,” said Adam Blitzer, co-founder and COO at Pardot. “Pardot takes a lot of pride in our company culture, and it’s very exciting to have one of our strongest attributes acknowledged publicly. I’m more proud of this award than any other we’ve been given. We think employee-centric environments like ours are the way of the future.”

Any Atlanta company with more than 50 employees is eligible to be nominated for the Top 100 Workplaces list. For each company that chooses to participate, employees are asked to fill out a 24-question survey assessing their workplace on six characteristics: direction, execution, career, conditions, managers, and pay/benefits.

HMSHost said it is looking to initially fill 150 hospitality jobs in Atlanta, with a total of 700 over the next four months.

The international airport restaurateur will open more than 4 new eateries throughout Terminal F. Among the nearly 700 available positions, HMSHost is building a team for the first four restaurants to open: The Pecan, Varsity, Pei Wei and el Taco.

Available food & beverage positions include experienced cooks, wok cooks, food preps, and cashiers. Retail positions are also available for a number of specialty retail stores, including premium cosmetic brands, Sunglass Icon Store, Clutch (accessories store with premium handbags) and Simply Books.

When: Monday, April 16th, 9am-4pm and Tuesday, April 17th, 9am-1pm
Friday, April 20th, 9am-4pm (F&B Management only Job Fair)
Thursday, April 19th, 10am-4pm (Online Job Fair) http://www.hmshostonlinejobfair.com
Where: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Concessions Recruitment Offices, (from the North Parking Lot, at ground level between the parking deck and the entrance to the terminal.)

One company has announced their intentions to hire for executive jobs in Atlanta.

Argonne Capital Group, LLC, a private investment firm, said it will hire Layton Grisette as a Principal and Bill Weimar as a Vice President.
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Storage Post said they just recruited for construction jobs in Atlanta.

The storage provider on the East Coast has hired Joseph Lyons as director of construction for the operations team. Lyons’ main responsibilities include refreshing the appearance of store locations, managing building renovations and revitalizing real estate as marketing tools.

Lyons is a construction expert with more than 30 years of experience in the retail and storage industries. He is familiar with all aspects of construction, including ground-up construction and complete renovations. Previously, Lyons worked with nationally recognized florist, 1-800-FLOWERS®, building the company 50 stores over 10 years. Read the rest of this entry »

Origin, Inc. said this week it has secured a key hire for management jobs in Atlanta.

Pam Glanvill will begin as President of Origin Consulting, LLC, a role previously held by the Company’s Founder and CEO Mark L. Black.

Glanvill will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the consulting company, including preserving the delivery of quality services, growing the consulting revenue, and driving a number of strategic objectives.

Glanvill previously served at Oracle, USA in a variety of positions. Her tenure at Oracle, and a company acquired by Oracle, SPL WorldGroup, spanned over 14 years. During these 14 years, Pam gained experience in the Oracle TUGBU product suite and the professional services organizations underlying their market success. She defined product strategy, developed go-to-market plans for emerging markets, and implemented and supported products.

“I delight in bringing Pam onboard as our next leader. She is a ‘natural’ in our industry — our clients will trust Pam with their challenges — she understands the industry and our clients’ business issues. We want Pam’s quality brand of leadership and extensive experience; she is well qualified in our consulting niche and has the depth and variety of experience that we want,” said Mr. Black. “Our hiring Pam represents the Company’s readiness to move into the next phase of our evolution.”

Micron Optics has announced it has secured a key hire for management jobs in Atlanta.

The provider of optical components and laser-based equipment has announced the promotion of Todd Haber to Chief Technology Officer and the hiring of John Floyd as Director of Product Development.
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Sun Life made the big announcement that it is recruiting for finance jobs in Atlanta.

The company hired Jay Hutchins and Marc Lower. Hutchins and Lower will report to Drew Niziak, Vice President, under the voluntary benefits solutions group led by Bob Klein, Vice President, Voluntary Benefits.

Hutchins comes to Sun Life Financial from Colonial Life where he was Vice President, Broker Marketing and Sales. Lower joins from ING where he was Head of Voluntary Sales and Strategy. Hutchins will be based in Atlanta, Georgia, and be responsible for East Coast voluntary benefits distribution, while Lower will be based in Gig Harbor, Washington, and handle West Coast distribution.

Both Hutchins and Lower will be responsible for building a team of voluntary specialists, all of whom will support Sun Life Financial’s existing group benefits representatives.

“We are very pleased to have top sales talent like Jay and Marc help lead our voluntary benefits team,” said Bob Klein. “Sun Life is committed to building a world-class value proposition in voluntary benefits and the appointment of these two talented RVPs is crucial to creating a strong experience for brokers and customers.”

Voluntary benefits are offered in the workplace, but are paid for entirely by the employee. According to LIMRA, voluntary benefits accounted for about a third of the total benefits market (both employer and employee-paid benefits) by in-force premium. Sun Life Financial last year announced a significant investment in its voluntary benefits business in order to become a leader in both group insurance and voluntary benefits in the United States.

Terminix said this week it is hiring for sales jobs in Atlanta.

Terminix, a division of the ServiceMaster Company, is the nation’s largest pest control provider, will be holding a job fair to attract job seekers.

The job fair will be held at its Norcross, Ga. Contact Center (located off of Peachtree Pkwy, 30 minutes northeast of Atlanta city center). The billion-dollar company is looking to hire 25 additional full-time inside sales representatives. Full-time employees are eligible for a competitive benefits package, which includes healthcare as well as 401(k) options.
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