Employee Recruiting

Filipino exchange teacher Ferdinand Nakila landed in Los Angeles expecting "Pretty Woman" scenes of swank Beverly Hills boulevards and glittering celebrities. What he got was Inglewood, where he stayed for two weeks in temporary housing and encountered drunkards, beggars, trash-filled streets and nightly police sirens. It got worse.

Aiming to boost their sagging numbers, the Boy Scouts are launching a million-dollar campaign to draw more Latinos, a group that has long resisted Scouting's appeal. But the Scouts' national officials acknowledge that it may be a tough sell. Only three of every 100 Scouts are Latino, and some immigrant families see such groups as an indulgence of the well-to-do in their home countries. Some also bristle at the uniforms.

Google Inc., the company that always seems to be hiring, has finally started firing. And it's beginning with the people responsible for the hiring. The Web search giant, which went from a dorm-room start-up to nearly 25,000 employees in a decade, said Wednesday that it planned to let go about 100 recruiters. It also intends to shutter three engineering offices.

Xun Jia, a doctoral candidate in theoretical physics at UCLA, expected to find a job on Wall Street crunching complex financial formulas upon his graduation. But after meeting with 10 recruiters to no avail, the Chinese native is looking for new opportunities -- in the country he left behind. "I'm definitely considering moving back," said Jia, 27, who always envisioned himself establishing a career in the U.S. first but is now firing off his resume to contacts in China.

Former America Online Chief Executive Jonathan Miller is expected to join News Corp. as head of global digital strategy, according to well-placed sources. Working with the heads of News Corp.'s business units to spur digital initiatives across the company, Miller would be filling a void soon to be left by President and Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin, who is leaving in June. Miller is expected to report directly to Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Miller cannot join News Corp.

The Justice Department has launched a preliminary investigation into whether some of the nation's largest technology companies violated antitrust laws by negotiating the recruiting and hiring of one another's employees, according to two people with knowledge of the review. The probe is focused on search engine giant Google Inc., rival Yahoo Inc., iPhone maker Apple Inc., biotech firm Genentech Inc.

Appointing a new police chief will be "the most important decision I make as mayor," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday as he indicated that he favors a candidate who would largely continue the policies of departing Chief William J. Bratton rather than shake up the Police Department. "The next chief has got to be someone who has the respect of the men and women of the LAPD," Villaraigosa said after an appearance with Bratton in Hollywood.

Los Angeles County has lacked permanent leadership for its extensive network of public hospitals and clinics for more than a year, and that appears unlikely to change any time soon. A lengthy search for a new Department of Health Services head resulted in a single finalist -- Bob Sillen, former leader of the state prison healthcare system -- but county supervisors have rejected him, aides to two supervisors said this week. Sillen arrived in Los Angeles last week for his final interviews backed by William T Fujioka, the county's chief executive.

The Orange County Great Park board voted Thursday to keep the resumes from its search for a chief executive confidential, in the face of a lawsuit from two of its members who are demanding to see them. Irvine council members Christina Shea and Steven Choi filed suit Wednesday requesting documents, including the 150 resumes the city said it received for the position. The council members have questioned the fairness and scope of the search, which yielded two top finalists with ties to City Hall.

The county Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to spend up to $75,000 to hire a recruitment firm to conduct a nationwide search for Orange County's next sheriff. Supervisors said the firm would help them identify the most qualified candidate to replace former Sheriff Michael S. Carona, who resigned Jan. 14 while awaiting trial on criminal charges that he sold access to his office for cash and gifts. Supervisors John Moorlach and Chris Norby opposed hiring the firm, saying they wanted the county's human resources staff to conduct the search.