Employee Recruiting

It's the old rich-get-richer story: If you need a job, you can't get one. But if you already have one, you get offers of more. Most executive search firms are besieged by out-of-work executives, said Paul Hawkinson, who publishes the Fordyce Letter, a newsletter for the executive recruiting industry. "But generally search firms aren't interested in those people. Those are the people who answer ads. Their resumes go everywhere on their own."

Boise State Coach Chris Petersen chose lifestyle over money, sending UCLA's search for a coach in a new direction Friday. Petersen had been targeted by UCLA officials after Rick Neuheisel was fired as the Bruins' coach Monday, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak on the matter. UCLA pushed hard, people familiar with the talks said, putting together a package that would have paid Petersen nearly $4 million per season and provided more than $2 million annually for assistant coaches.

They both have been lifeguards since their teens. Now, Michael Gaughan and Jack Lincke find themselves in need of 60 of those rescue officers of the water. The two Orange County men recently formed a company called U.S. Ocean Safety to provide lifeguards to patrol 15 county-run beaches. "There's never been a call for this many lifeguards at one time before," said Lincke, 44.

Wanted: a general manager who can run Los Angeles' municipal animal shelter system. The successful candidate must be compassionate but business-minded, able to inspire the army of staffers who care for the city's abandoned animals and lost pets; to survive interrogation by the L.A. City Council; and to appease the legions of devoted volunteers, rescuers and advocates in the city's humane community. The new steward of the city's Department of Animal Services should be steeled for the fact that one of the "services" the agency offers is euthanizing animals.

Shortly after his release from prison four years ago, Julio Silva entered the apprenticeship program in the Ironworkers Union Local 433 in La Palma. To his alarm, he learned that ironworkers called all first-year apprentices "punk." He had been an East Los Angeles gang member, a drug user, and a car burglar in and out of jail. In that world, a "punk" was someone's prison sex slave. But Silva tried not to let it bother him. The more he worked at his new job, the more his skills improved.

Marvin Diaz quit a $700-a-week job delivering magazines to learn how to drive a public transit bus. He excelled behind the wheel but flunked out of the training program. The native Nicaraguan speaks English but had trouble reading and comprehending the test questions. "It was a little confusing," said Diaz, 38, of Sun Valley.

As he drives through South Los Angeles on an overcast afternoon, Special Agent John Pi of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is having trouble--as usual--making up his mind. Pi, who in sunglasses looks far younger than 36, has an organized-crime case to work. But the call over a bureau radio is clear: The SWAT team is about to enter a house where it believes kidnappers are keeping a 3-year-old taken from a San Marino family two weeks earlier. The address is only five minutes away.

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.

Kilbarrack is an unlovely blue-collar housing project on the north side of this city, a place of drab, gray, unattractive postwar dwellings. Garbage is strewn across its streets; young people huddle on street corners looking poor, suspicious and vaguely threatening. Nothing about Kilbarrack invites you even to step out of your cab, but at this project and half a dozen like it, unemployed kids, obsessed by pop music, save their welfare money to buy guitars and amps.

Suited up and armed with a stack of resumes, Julie Newsome marched up to the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District's hiring booth at the Los Angeles County Teacher Recruitment Fair on Saturday and got straight to the point: "Are you hiring?" she asked. "Not this year," answered Richard Bernier, a recruiter for the district. "Well, are you laying off?" Newsome replied. "We've sent out a few notices," Bernier said. That was all the 24-year-old job hunter needed to know.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Even as it struggles to expand, the Los Angeles Police Department will face a dramatic departure of seasoned veterans when a special retirement program enacted four years ago to keep senior detectives and commanders in the ranks begins pushing them into mandatory retirement next year. The exodus will be caused by a deferred retirement program meant to give the LAPD time to fill veterans' shoes and build its ranks over several years. Budget problems kept that expansion from going as planned.

With a focus on Los Angeles, the State Department is pressing to bolster the number of Latinos, African Americans and other minorities in the U.S. Foreign Service -- the diplomatic force that staffs and manages American embassies abroad. The department has been criticized for years because of the low number of minorities in its diplomatic corps. But raising awareness in minority communities about Foreign Service careers has been particularly challenging, officials said.

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.

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.