We last covered aggregate stats in the middle of December and the new numbers are similar to what we saw then. IT and software companies are hiring more than anyone else, but marketing firms are now hiring more than publishing and social media companies, a switch since our last report.

The "Other" category includes the long tail of "hard to categorize" companies, like government hires, health care tech and gaming. Who are all these companies and people hired? You can see the lists at these links:
IT/Software
Marketing
Social Media/Social Networking/Publishing
Hardware
All new hires

We didn't break out hires by job title for this report but we did when we reported hiring numbers in November and December. Just for interest, here's those numbers from that report.

Have you made a new hire recently, or just been hired in a tech or new media position or company? Fill out our submission form and let us know.

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One of the most interesting ways to get an idea where companies of interest are headed is by watching who they hire. That's one of the reasons why we launched Jobwire, our site tracking who gets hired in tech and new media. SourceForge, also the name of SourceForge and Slashdot's parent company, has made a couple of interesting hires lately.

The company told analysts in its final earnings call of this year that it is now limiting hiring to "a few key select positions and only when we can find exceptionally well qualified candidates who might be coming on to the market." Combine that statement with Brondsema's mention of a whole new project and we're pretty interested to see what SourceForge has come up with.

Earlier this month, we reported on the hire of a new CEO at SourceForge. Scott Kauffman will take the helm on January 5th. Kauffman has a diverse background, ranging from music to advertising companies.

Neither the company nor the new developer hired have responded to several inquires this morning about the new project. It won't likely be a software index, that's taken care of already, nor an open source development tutorial site - the company's already got one of those too.

What will it be? We look forward to finding out more.

Update: A spokesperson for the company contacted us today and confirmed that a new project is in the works but said that "SourceForge is not quite ready to talk about it just now over the holidays." Watch this space for coverage when the news is ready!

We've tracked these and other interesting stats and stories about people still getting jobs at a time of economic downturn. Check out our chart-laden full coverage of this season's new hires in tech and new media over at our hiring news site Jobwire.

The Debate

On the pro side, Greg Fish argued that social networking profiles aren't resumes and companies should not use them when determining if an applicant should be hired. "A public profile is a vehicle for casually interacting with others in an informal setting, on personal free time," he wrote. "When companies use these profiles to find not only a professional but also an ideological match for a job, they’re misleading themselves and building ill will with talented prospective employees, who might decline to apply for a job for fear a comment about China on their blogs makes them persona non grata."

Fish's arguement hinged on the premise that by utilizing social networking profiles in the hiring process, employees were opening themselves up to potential discrimination lawsuits, and worse may be doing so on the premise of false information.

On the con side, Timothy Lee said that there were plenty of legitimate reasons for employers to look at social networking profiles of prospective hires. "Employees in sales, public relations, and customer service function as representatives for the companies they work for, so employers have a legitimate interest in ensuring potential workers won’t embarrass the company," he wrote.

According to Lee, people shouldn't fear that an employer will get a hold of their social networking profile, but instead they should expect it and use it to their advantage. By using your social networking profile and other bits of your online persona as an "extended resume," workers can "demonstrate passion and depth of knowledge for his or her area of expertise."

But Do We Actually Control Our Own Profiles?

Both Fish and Lee make compelling points. Certainly social networking profiles and other stuff you put online is public, and you should expect that anyone might see it. Carefully crafting your public online image to emphasize your best qualities is a good idea -- treat how you behave online the same as how you'd behave in any other public place.

But at the same time, the way many social networking sites are set up, we don't necessarily control all the information we put out there. It's true that you probably shouldn't be posting party photos from your college days on Facebook while you're applying for a job as an elementary school teacher, but do you friends know that? What if they tag you in those photos? You can remove the tags -- but only if you're a member of Facebook. Is it reasonable to expect people to actively maintain profiles on every popular social network or photo and video sharing site just to keep on top of photos that your college buddies might post?

The bottom line is that employers can, will, and probably should look at social networking profiles and other online information sources when making hiring decisions. But they should also take the information they find there with a large helping of salt and keep in mind that the Internet is not necessarily the most accurate representation of that real world.