Khoi Vinh, who recently resigned as Design Director for NYTimes.com to go out on his own (again), has signed on with Authentic Jobs as a listing partner.

Khoi’s Subtraction.com, a daily visit for many of us in the design industry, now displays recent listings in the site’s sidebar:

Some of you may recall Subtraction.com was a listing partner once upon a time. However, when Khoi signed on with NYTimes.com, conflicts with his work and personal interests required him to cancel our agreement. The conflicts no longer exist, and once again we’re thrilled to offer employers featured placement for their listings on Khoi’s site.

Joshua Blankenship, Design Director at NewSpring Church, has published an article that Authentic Jobs can easily endorse, especially for those seeking positions listed on this site.

In What People Like Me are Looking For in Designer/Developer Portfolios, Joshua doesn’t spare any candor in his remarks and hits all the high points: show lots of work in an easy-to-browse portfolio, include a cover letter, sweat the details, and show passion.

Joshua’s first bit of advice is probably the most notable:

There are 12 year olds with a copy of Photoshop who can set some cool type on an image. Your grandma could learn basic HTML/CSS (hyperbole, maybe—but also probably true). Where’s the proof that you can turn complex thinking into seemingly simple solutions? Proof that you can take a client’s needs and translate them into real work?

If you’re a designer, show a variety of design solutions (include sketches and failed attempts, too—process is important). If you’re a developer, show live code examples (not just “I worked on this website” statements). If you don’t have real clients yet, try your hand at unsolicited redesigns. Just get out there, find problems and solve them.

Having been in hiring positions many times before, I can attest to the need to see one’s complete thinking, not just the end product. Sketches, notes, and failed attempts, as Joshua suggests, move your name to the top of the review list. For more experienced positions, I would even add including any material that demonstrates your involvement in the process of understanding the problem, not just creating the solution — whiteboard photos, an overview of the research you conducted, documents that define the problem, and so forth. (To the extent that you don’t breach confidentiality, of course.)

All of this demonstrates your ability to be a problem definer and not just solution provisioner. You’ll probably have a chance to share this information in the interview, but the supplementary materials you include may be the deciding factor in getting you the interview.

For example, if I were applying for a senior design position and I included screen captures of my work for this very site, I might also include this photo along with a description of it:

This is some of the planning I’ve been doing for upcoming features on Authentic Jobs. Included are comps, data about competitors, goals for the features, and so on. I call this technique the portable war room. It’s just a sheet of butcher paper to which I can tape anything I find or create related to the problem I’m trying to solve. I can pull it off the wall and take it with me to meetings as needed. (For more about this technique, see this article.)

Now, not every hiring manager is the same, and some care initially — and sometimes exclusively, unfortunately — only about the end product. Regardless, it’s probably safe to say that with most potential employers, if your portfolio isn’t stellar, it’s unlikely a hiring manager will take time to review anything else you’ve submitted. Your portfolio and supplementary material get you the interview. Your ability to clearly and confidently define yourself as a problem-solver for the company and its clients gets you the job. So submit your strongest stuff, and then show up ready to sell yourself.

For additional reading, see something I published a few years ago but still remains applicable today: Surviving the all-day tech interview.

We’ve added two new sites to our network of partners who feature, advertise, or aggregate Authentic Jobs listings.

Dan Benjamin’s 5 by 5, a collection of informative and entertaining podcasts, includes guests such as Clayton Morris, Jared Spool, Gary Vaynerchuk, Eric Meyer, and others.

With each page load, one Authentic Jobs listing displays in the sidebar on 5 by 5 throughout the pages of its (currently) 7 shows.

Also teaming up with us is the newly launched Endor.se, a lovely example of a site that does one thing really well: Provide a platform for endorsing your friends and colleagues. These endorsements can then be used by prospective clients for which you can’t take on the work, or by individuals searching for contacts with specific skills.

As with 5 by 5, one listing displays in the Endor.se sidebar with each page load — but with a few smarts under the hood. If you’re logged in as a user it displays a listing that is an approximate match to the job skills you’ve listed. If you’re logged out, it does the same but for the Endor.se member you’re looking at.

Post a job if you’d like to take advantage of the additional exposure, or keep an eye on the sidebar the next time you visit one of these sites.

Next week we’ll kick off our Spring/May Flowers/Whatever-You’d-Like-To-Call-It Promotion. We typically do only one 50% off promotion each year, so this is a pretty big deal for us.

We hope it’s a big deal for you, too. You get 50% off any listing–full-time, contract, or freelance–as well as our money-back guarantee. Valid Monday, May 3 through Friday, May 7.

Check back on Monday here, at our Twitter account, or our partner sites for the discount code.

Update: Here’s the promo code: MAYFIFTY

Following the feedback some of you provided regarding the blurring line between full-time and freelance, and with user testing from those who asked to be a tester, today we’ve added a third job type to the site, the “Contract” job type.

This new job type is for temporary or temp-to-perm positions, where the contractor usually works on-site some or all of the time. We felt it was necessary to clear up some of the confusion surrounding freelance listings, where some of these listings appeared to be more like full-time listings. This results in confusion for job seekers and therefore fewer applications for employers. Additionally, we’ve not previously defined the difference between each job type clearly, making it difficult to require employers to choose the proper job type based on our criteria. This update aims to correct all this.

Truth be told, we would have launched this feature sooner if it weren’t for all the vacillating we’ve done to be sure this is a sound decision for employers and job seekers alike. Not to mention the nearly impossible task of defining the difference between full-time, contract, and freelance, as these terms mean different things to different people.

In the end, we feel confident about the decision to move forward, and we anticipate it will help clarify the expectations of a position for employers and job seekers alike.

Please leave and feedback (positive or negative) and suggestions on this thread at Get Satisfaction: New “Contract” job type.

For production notes about the making of this screencast, visit Cameron’s site.

If there’s still a recession out there, it’s certainly not affecting our industry any longer.

Last month, Authentic Jobs had a record month. More job openings were posted during February 2010 than any other month in our four-year history. For me, this is clearly an indication not only that we’re doing something right but that the industry’s economy is rebounding in impressive ways.

This news, however, isn’t shielded from the reality that most of us, myself included, have family members and friends who remain unemployed or under-employed. Some industries have suffered severe layoffs and have been forever changed. I hope those of who are gainfully employed are doing what we can to help the less fortunate get back on their feet.

On a related record-month-coupled-with-reality-check note, Authentic Jobs contributed to 26 new Kiva loans last month. This is the most we’ve ever contributed to at a time, bringing our total to 176 Kiva loans to date. Our contributions to Kiva are a sobering reminder that many individuals and families throughout the world live in dire financial circumstances, and we’re trying to do what we can to help out.

Lastly, if you’ll be at SXSW Interactive this weekend, come find me (Cameron). I’ll have about 20 Authentic Jobs tees on hand, which look roughly like this:

To get one, all you need to do is tell me your AJ story: How did you use the site to find work or to find a new hire? Or better yet, why didn’t the site help you find work or a new hire? I’d love to hear your story regardless.

Thanks for making February a record month, and hope to see you in Austin.

(If you’re curious, the tees are printed on Alternative Apparel’s Perfect Crew, espresso color.)

We’re seeking new ways to expose employers and candidates to the work opportunities found on Authentic Jobs, and one of these is through sponsoring 5 by 5’s “The Conversation” talk show.

Hosted by the venerable Dan Benjamin, the show features a variety of discussion about all things internet. Go give the show a listen, or jump straight to episode 2 (where Authentic Jobs is mentioned around the 41-minute mark):

We discuss Flash, HTML5, and the future of the web, Gowalla, Daringfireballwithcomments – was it legal? was it wrong? was it funny? the newsvine acquisition and NOT selling out or giving up the indy spirit, how to not dupe your readers, technology and kids, comments and giving up control, and how creating an identity on the internet can be both good and evil.

Oh, and the Newsvine job opening mentioned by the equally venerable Mike Davidson? It’s right here: Interactive Designer, Newsvine.

We’re continually striving to make Authentic Jobs better for employers and job seekers, and we could use your help.

If you’re interested in gaining access to our staging environment to review and give feedback on new features and enhancements, please subscribe to our list using the form below. Not everyone will be approved for access, but many will be. (If approved, we’ll follow up soon with an invitation to begin testing.)

Today begins our annual New Year’s Promotion, but this year is different.

We’re calling it the Twenty Ten promotion. It works like this: Post a listing between now and January 22 and you’ll receive 20% off your listing. More importantly, 10% of your purchase will be donated to Charity:Water to help bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

Use promo code TWENTYTEN or any of the codes available from some of our listing partners.

You may also join in and donate to our campaign independent of posting a listing. We’re hoping to raise $5,000, which is enough to fund the development of a freshwater well in one village. (Coincidentally, Charity:Water is seeking a Web Designer / Front-end Developer in New York City.)

Here’s to a fantastic (and cleaner) 2010.

Update: We’re deeply saddened about the recent tragedy in Haiti. We had committed to Charity:Water prior to the incident and feel its cause is certainly still worthy of our efforts. Please join us in donating to the Haiti Earthquake Relief effort, as well.

Update II: Your purchases allowed us to contribute $1,044 to Charity:Water. Thank you. We will continue to keep this campaign active, and we anticipate more news from Charity:Water about their long-term water strategy for Haiti.

As founder of Authentic Jobs and watchman of its value for employers and job seekers alike, I’m very aware of the increasingly blurred line between full-time and freelance listings on this site.

First, understand some of the factors at play. It’s become increasingly common for employers to utilize part-time or full-time contractors in their project teams. These contractors typically are not full-time employees and could legitimately be considered “freelancers”. Other employers, especially in the UK, prefer to hire full-time employees on a probational or temp-to-perm basis before signing them on as an official employee. And finally, given the disparity in price between a full-time listing ($250 USD) and a freelance listing ($75 USD), it’s tempting for some employers to use the lower price point of a freelance listing as a means of posting a full-time listing and then suggesting it’s a freelance role. (In some cases, it really is.)

This is not an easy problem to solve, as it’s really up to the employer to determine whether his or her listing should be classified as full-time or freelance. However, Authentic Jobs is responsible for helping employers with this decision, as it does neither the employer nor the job seeker any good when listings are mislabeled.

Aside from spending more time reviewing listings on the site and contacting employers when I feel they’ve mislabeled their listing (which I already do), here’s what I’m proposing:

As this concept shows, we would add a third job type labeled “Contract”. This job type would be a catch-all bucket for positions that fall somewhere between an on-site, long-term, full-time position and an off-site, short-term, freelance gig. The price point for this type of listing would probably fall somewhere between the cost of a full-time listing and that of a freelance listing.

Additionally, we would encourage (and possibly even enforce) certain specifications when posting a listing, such as allowing freelance listings to be posted only with a location of “Anywhere”.

I need to hear from you, hopefully both employers and job seekers: Will this help the two of you to connect better?