The Dallas Morning News published a story Wednesday on RiseSmart’s partnership with the University of Texas at Dallas. Here’s an excerpt:

Business school graduates typically aim for high-paying dream jobs, but those are scarce today. Job competition is fierce. The nation has shed 5.7 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, including senior management jobs.

Help is on the way for students in the Executive Master of Business Administration program at the University of Texas at Dallas. The school recently hired RiseSmart to provide Web-based job search and outplacement services to all of its Executive MBA students. The program has 92 students.

“Increasingly, career management services are becoming an important part of the Executive MBA program,” said David Springate, interim director of the program… The UTD-RiseSmart partnership is the first of its kind among EMBA programs. RiseSmart, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., said it’s in talks with other EMBA programs, including two Texas schools.

Full story here.

As you can probably imagine, finding a job after graduation is increasingly a source of concern for today’s MBA student. This is particularly true for executive MBA (EMBA) students, who must balance a full load of schoolwork with career and family.

Now, some business schools are getting more aggressive in helping their EMBA students find jobs.

The University of Texas at Dallas has contracted with RiseSmart to provide job-search help to its EMBA students. As part of the contract, UT Dallas will offer students up to six months of job-search help via the RiseSmart Job Concierge service. RiseSmart assigns each student a dedicated HR professional, who uses RiseSmart technology to search jobs online on the student’s behalf, based on the jobseeker’s specific criteria.

Dr. David Springate, interim director of UT Dallas’s EMBA program, explains why teaming with RiseSmart adds value for students:

We encourage our EMBA students to actively manage their careers. Each student is paired with a personal executive coach who helps the student develop a career plan appropriate to the student’s skills, interests and personal goals. RiseSmart’s service is an important addition to our Career Center’s offerings -– particularly during difficult economic times, when students are concerned about the job market.

To our knowledge, no other MBA program in the United States is currently offering this kind of proactive job search assistance to students. We’re now in negotiations with several other university business schools, however, so we expect that to change soon.

Stay tuned.

They say two heads are better than one — so the same must be true of two “smart” companies.

RiseSmart is teaming with HRsmart, a leading global provider of integrated talent management software, to market RiseSmart’s Transition Concierge corporate outplacement service.

Hanny Shehadeh, chief product officer of HRsmart, explains why HRsmart decided to begin offering RiseSmart Transition Concierge through its U.S. sales channels:

HRsmart prides itself in delivering talent management solutions that are not only technologically superior, but also meet the need of the hour while remaining cost-effective. RiseSmart has found an ingenious way to apply technology to dramatically reduce the cost of corporate outplacement — while granting departing employees a more effective action plan. We are delighted to offer the RiseSmart Transition Concierge services to our more than 650 corporate customers, including some of the largest companies in the world.

For those of you who are familiar with HR technology vendors, you probably already know that HRsmart is a great company. So it’s quite a coup for us to have them as a Transition Concierge reseller.

This is just the latest in a series of achievements that demonstrate RiseSmart’s growing momentum in the corporate outplacement market. BusinessWeek has touted our business model as making “a lot of sense,” and the San Jose Mercury News says, “RiseSmart typifies the valley’s knack for using technology to disrupt standard business practices.” We’ve also earned the business — and public praise — of HR executives from Fortune 500 companies.

Going into such an entrenched market as corporate outplacement, we’ve made tremendous strides in a short period of time. We’ll continue to keep you updated on our progress.

Job interviews can be tricky for the job seeker and the interviewer. A person who interviews well may not be the best worker, while a bad interviewee could end up as a top performer. Discerning between the two can be a difficult challenge.

WIIFM - If you find yourself deflecting questions about salary and benefits long before you’ve even made an offer, turn and run. The “What’s In It For Me” factor is alarming in an interview, but disastrous in a team-oriented work environment. While you want someone assertive enough to stick up for their own interests, timing is everything. If the interviewer hasn’t broached the subject already, the pay and benefits discussion should come up when an offer is made, whether in the first or follow-up interviews.

Enough about you - Conversation domination is another red flag - i.e., endless talking about one’s own accomplishments, experiences, goals, etc. It makes a person come across as oblivious and possibly even arrogant. Instead, look for succinct answers with follow-up questions indicating interest in other topics. A top-performing team requires people who are willing to stop talking about themselves long enough to listen to others’ ideas.

Neggie Nellie - Are you dealing with an optimist or a pessimist? This comes across in how people talk about themselves, their strengths and weaknesses, how they carry themselves, and how they discuss past career experiences and future goals. Individual optimism, confidence and a can-do attitude provides a tremendous boost to the team.

Too much information - An oversharer of personal information can be a real drag. A qualified professional will understand that the job interview is not the place for personal stories about family, health, etc. This indicates a preoccupation with something other than work which can impede commitment to the job with an ultimate negative impact on the company’s financial bottom line.

Cell phone mania - Even on the vibrate setting, cell phones can be noisy and distracting. Once the person has joined the team, constantly being plugged in may be a desirable trait. In the interview, however, electronic communication should be shut down completely. It indicates respect and that nothing is more important than the interview at that moment.

Finally, the last sign it may be time to move on to the next job seeker: silly questions about the company. A qualified, hard-working professional who really wants the job will take time to research the company. They won’t ask questions about the job description or company history and objectives if that information is readily available on the company web site. Basic research is a simple step that indicates the job seeker really wants that job. Essentially, these common sense steps boil down to three main things: courtesy, self-motivation, and respect for your time.