ERE.net

Competency-based selection (also known as behavioral selection) is a well-known selection method about which many books have been written, and many training courses delivered. Despite this, in my conversations with other in-house recruitment teams, it has surprised me how few companies apply the technique as part of their recruitment methodology.

I therefore thought that it might be helpful if I provided an overview of the concepts and logic behind this system. Whether or not you choose to actually apply the process, I certainly think it should be given consideration first. keep reading…

More workers than there are people in all of Miami were put out of work in June, a development that surprised economists and sent U.S. financial markets into a tailspin. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 467,000 jobs were lost last month, pushing the unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, a 26-year high.

A Bloomberg survey before the numbers were released this morning said economists were expecting a decline of about 367,000 jobs. Other surveys suggested an even lower number. Either way, the report was bad news and investors reacted by selling stocks, pushing prices lower the day before U.S. markets close in observance of Independence Day.

Monster Worldwide, which makes its money when companies are hiring, lost $1 on the earnings report. It was trading at $10.92 a share at midday in New York.

The job loss barely nudged the unemployment rate, which rose only one-tenth of a point from May. That suggests discouraged and long-time unemployed workers are taking themselves out of the labor market.

The BLS report says: “The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 433,000 over the month to 4.4 million. In June, 3 in 10 unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.” These are still included in the unemployment rate. However, the report notes that about 2.2 million more Americans are out of work, want to work, but have grown so discouraged that they have largely given up. These workers are not included in the unemployment figures.

When discouraged workers are included in the calculations, the unemployment rate is actually 10 percent nationally. keep reading…

Years ago, John Sullivan was doing some consulting work for W.L. Gore, the makers of Gore-Tex. “You guys are the best story never told,” he said to them.

Not any more. Gore will be telling scientists, engineers, and other prospective employees its story by launching a new global branding campaign from Arizona to China with a modest little theme: Join Gore & Change Your Life. keep reading…

Alan Strauss, who’s doing a talent-acquisition project for Lockheed Martin and is well-connected in the D.C.-area corporate recruiting community, talks below about bringing in “A-players” to corporations; what the best recruiters are doing to keep their jobs; and what sorts of questions recruiters should be asking their customers. keep reading…

It has been an interesting week as I have watched issues that I deal with on a daily basis become part of the mainstream news media. For those of you who are unaware, earlier this week the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in a case that deals with discrimination and employment testing. This case is highly relevant to what myself and other I/O psychologists do, and its complexities do not surprise me at all. I cut my teeth as a psychometrician for the City of New Orleans, helping to create and validate police and firefighter testing. I can say with confidence that, when it comes to test development and validation, public service testing carries with it by far the most potential for litigation. There are many reasons for this, all of which seem to hinge on the promotion (or lack thereof) of those in a protected class (e.g., minorities) over those in non-protected classes.

A complete discussion of the intricacies and technicalities of validation, discrimination, adverse impact, and differential prediction is beyond the scope of the words I am writing today. Suffice it to say that this case has placed competing priorities in the use of testing in the spotlight. These competing priorities are using fair testing while striving to eliminate discrimination in hiring. While title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has attempted to provide some guidance in relation to these competing goals, the Ricci case has laid bare some critical issues that in my opinion certainly call for the government to re-evaluate and modernize the standards it has set.

We are mandated to use valid tests. Valid tests can often lead to minorities being hired at lower rates than those of other races. This is seen as OK as long as the test has been validated, because in theory this means the test is job-related and job-relatedness is the standard by which the legality of testing is determined.

However, what are we to do when sticking to the use of validation — as we have been asked to do — creates a situation that actually inhibits the goal of ensuring diversity and fairness? This has been a thorny issue for those of us in my profession for a long time. There is no magic bullet. The dissenting opinion in this case led by Justice Ginsburg rallies around the idea that the spirit of diversity and fairness should be the highest standard to which we aspire in hiring. It is hard to argue with this point … except for the fact that there are technical issues which can stand in the way of our achievement of this goal.

So, what does all this mean for hiring in the corporate world? I offer my humble answer to this question as follows: keep reading…

The U.S. Supreme Court today gave employers some guidance today on the use of assessment tests, saying the results of these tests can not be ignored simply because they have an adverse impact on a protected group.

Ruling 5-4 in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, the court’s majority said just because a disproportionate share of whites pass a test does not make the test discriminatory. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said invalidating test results because of the statistical racial outcome, “… is impermissible under Title VII unless the employer can demonstrate a strong basis in evidence that, had it not taken the action, it would have been liable under the disparate-impact statute.”

Now, before an employer looking at the racial makeup of those who passed and failed a promotional exam and, almost certainly, other types of employment exams, can decide to throw out the results because it fears a discrimination lawsuit, it must have “a strong basis in evidence” to believe the test is discriminatory under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its amendments.

Employment lawyers reacted with caution, saying the 92-page decision, including a dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will take time to digest. Their initial impression, however, is that the court appears to have tempered if not invalidated the 80 percent rule of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That rule states that the selection of a group at less than 80 percent of the group with the highest rate will be considered by the EEOC as evidence of discrimination.

keep reading…

In the aftermath of ERE’s successful social recruiting summit two weeks ago, we might assume that talent acquisition professionals are on the cutting-edge of the latest and greatest in recruitment technology. Many best practice organizations are turning their backs on traditional sourcing tools in favor of mobile recruiting, social networking, and search engine optimization. One thing is certain: the talent acquisition system market is one of dramatic change and innovation. Both during strong and weak economies, investment in talent acquisition systems remains a priority for best practice companies looking to gain competitive advantage and secure a solid talent pipeline of both active and passive candidates.

When it comes to technology, companies have a unique advantage in today’s economy. They are in a position to ask more from their current technology providers and competitive options abound. Solution providers are responding by offering more features both through product development and strategic partnerships with companies such as Jobs2Web and Jobfox.

Yet, such opportunities raise critical questions. Are more features truly better? Do companies need innovation or just improvements in existing features and functionality? keep reading…

Here is what is going on this week in the ERE world:

• Later today at 2:00 p.m. ET, sign up for this week’s free webinar, Taking Control of EVP: How to Measure, Manage and Improve Your Employment Brand Presence led by Mitzi Adwell from The Newman Group. We’ll explore tactics for defining the attributes that differentiate your organization in the eyes of candidates and employees, highlighting those differentiators through your marketing and communications efforts to candidates, and opportunities for improving talent operations to bring those differentiators to life.
• Friday is the last chance to take advantage of the ERE Expo 2009 Fall early bird discount. This year’s event, returning to the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, FL from September 9 - 11 features presentations from Adidas, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, American Cancer Society, Fifth Third Bank, and many more. Topics include everything from employer branding, onboarding, and several topics focused on social recruiting.
• We’re going to add a new session to our Fall Expo agenda. It’s going to be a closing session on social media — an all-star panel including DaVita, Sodexo, Adidas, and others, moderated by Susan Burns. It’s just one more of a group of sessions we’re having on the topic, including one by Marvin Smith from Microsoft, a couple of legal sessions, a presentation on developing a social-media recruiting strategy, and more.
• Also this week, our Editor-in-Chief Todd Raphael talks to Alan Strauss, who’s doing a talent-acquisition project for Lockheed Martin and is well-connected in the D.C.-area corporate recruiting community, about bringing in “A-players” to corporations; what the best recruiters are doing to keep their jobs; and what sorts of questions recruiters should be asking their customers to become more influential and strategic.
• There have been 12 new postings during the past week on our recruiting job board. If you are looking for a new opportunity make sure to check it regularly and also follow new postings on Twitter at @recruiting_jobs. And if you are looking to add to your team, remember 30 day postings are only $25 through August 1.

Have a great week everyone, and for our US readers I hope you have a great 4th of July weekend!

Most of the media coverage these days about recruiting is devoted to social networking, mobile recruiting, and blogging, but the recruiting technology likely to have the most impact if it continues to catch on at the current rate is interviewing candidates “live” from remote locations. The approach I call “interviewing from anywhere” takes advantage of widespread broadband Internet access and inexpensive webcams, two factors that severely restricted videoconferencing as a feasible alternative to face-to-face interviews a decade ago. keep reading…

Over the past six months, I’ve worked with dozens of major companies and some of the latest new recruiting and sourcing technologies. Based on this, it’s not a reach to contend that how companies will find, recruit, and hire top talent in 2010 and beyond will be far different than how it’s been done in the past few years.

I’ll also make the contention that only a few companies are ready for this shift and none of the predictions below are far-fetched.

For one thing, they’re now being successfully tried out today in some form by big-time companies. More important — they work, especially on a recruiting-ROI basis. I define this as the quality and impact a candidate makes divided by the cost and effort to find and hire the person. (Email me if you’d like to review this Recruiting ROI calculation.)

To further validate some of the more “off the wall” predictions, I’ve tied the major points to an online survey. The results are currently posted, providing an instant view of where your company stands in comparison to your competition.

With the idea of getting ahead of the recovery, here are my 2010 New Year’s predictions for sourcing and recruiting: keep reading…

A cryptic post on the Chad suggests DirectEmployers Association may be ending or at least limiting the use of its job listings by other job boards.

Calling the mass distribution of job postings “problematic,” Chad Sowash, VP of business development, says DirectEmployers will be changing its terms of service in a way he expects will not be popular. “Will the answer to this problem be a popular remedy?,” Sowash asks. “Magic 8 Ball says “Outlook, not so good.”

Sowash could not be reached to clarify his blog post. The implication, however, seems to be that DirectEmployers intends to impose some restrictions on the use of its job listings by aggregators.

That could pose an interesting challenge since DirectEmployers lists a number of job boards as partners, including the two biggest aggregators online — Indeed and SimplyHired. Neither of their CEOs could be reached, so we can’t say what they might know about this development or if it will even affect their sites. keep reading…

In case you missed the Summit people are talking about up at Google last week, or just want to go back and take another look, here are some videos and recordings Brendan (poor guy had to stand all day) took. We don’t have all of the videos. Also, since this was live, streaming, video, it’s not going to be the picture quality of regular filming.

We’ve got the Fall conference in Florida well stocked with social recruiting sessions, if you missed the event we just had. Marvin Smith of Microsoft will be presenting; there’ll be a couple of legal-related sessions about recruiting using Facebook and other sites; Knowledge Infusion is talking about putting together a social-media strategy; and we’ll be adding another social media session in the coming days. Shoot me an email if there’s specific information on the topic you’d like. In the meantime, a few of the videos are below.

keep reading…

New LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner

LinkedIn named a new CEO today, as expected tapping its president former Yahooer Jeff Weiner for the job. Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn founder and its first CEO, moved out of the CEO job he re-assumed in December after a company shakeup. Hoffman will become a full-time executive chairman.

Weiner’s chief focus, according to a report on TechCrunch, will be to create “an independent public company, with three key revenue sources: premium subscriptions, corporate solutions, and advertising.” All three revenue streams are already in place, generating enough cash to bring the company to relative profitability. All that’s necessary to catapult the company into solid margins is an upturn in hiring.

Weiner is former EVP of Yahoo’s Network Division, the unit responsible for the company’s search, mail, and other key operations. He left in June 2008, during the company’s brain drain. Weiner joined LinkedIn in January after a stay as executive in residence with two VC firms.

His appointment as president came after Dan Nye, LinkedIn’s second CEO, left in December. Hoffman retook the CEO reins he had relinquished to Nye not even two years before.

In a press release, Weiner says, “Working closely with Reid and the team over the past six months exceeded all of my expectations coming into the company. I couldn’t be more excited about our progress to date, and the opportunity ahead of us.”

Hoffman, meanwhile, says in a blog post he will concentrate on “some big picture strategic issues for Linkedin — how Linkedin evolves to become more and more essential to professionals seeking to stay informed and find the right resources to accomplish their tasks fast and effectively.”

Well, besides the catchy title, I’m fairly bitter about most “social media.” I’m hoping I can get a few people to yell “AMEN!” here because I know this post will have its critics.

So… Why am I bitter? keep reading…

At a time when one of America’s largest newspapers is worth perhaps $1 — assuming it can be sold at all — is there any likelihood that the print industry’s single largest revenue category will ever even come close to approaching the $6, $7, and $8 billion glory days of a decade ago? keep reading…

New Vault

The new Vault came out of the vault this morning, and while it bears a family resemblance to the old site, it’s got deeper content, greater breadth, easier navigation, and enough improvements big and small that collectively they make the site more useful to more job seekers at a time when they need it most.

“Today, Vault is taking a major leap forward to provide our ambitious, educated audience with a faster, more comprehensive and personalized experience,” is how Vault president and CEO Erik Sorenson announced the release of the new Vault.

Founded in 1996, Vault has ever since served professional school students, recent grads, and, in increasing numbers over the years, mid-career professionals in the fields of finance, law, accounting, and consulting. Before consumer-generated content became a buzzword, Vault tapped into employees at major firms and companies in the U.S. who provided insider views of the work environment. They also helped Vault compile its salary information, its numerous surveys, and its famed company rankings. keep reading…

You have to wonder what a recruiter looking at Daniel Seddiqui’s resume would think.

Here’s an economics major from the University of Southern California who hasn’t held a job for longer than a week since graduating in 2005. On his website he admits, almost eagerly, that he went on 40-plus interviews and didn’t land a single offer in his field.

His lament is all too familiar to unsuccessful jobseekers: “I never received feedback from any employers.”

So the lanky 28-year-old began taking any job he could find. He tutored elementary school kids. Was a volunteer cross-country coach in Chicago, painting stairs, doing a little accounting, and some other jobs to pay the rent. When the cross-country job ended, he took another job in Indiana. And then another.

His resume now lists jobs as diverse as agronomist, hydrologist, cook, rodeo announcer, Border Patrol agent, and boilermaker. If you’re reading this during the fourth week of June 2009, then you’ll see 39 different jobs listed. This week he’s working as a furniture maker in Pennsylvania’s Amish country. keep reading…

For many people on the job market, the Art of Interviewing seems like a mystery. That’s why I decided to demystify it a bit by offering a few clues that will hopefully put the whole experience into perspective. I’ll start by looking at a few common words that hold within them a hidden clues about what it means to join an organization. Keeping these words in mind will help both recruiters and the candidates they are working with. keep reading…

(Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in Dr. Sullivan’s series. Here are Part 1, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.)

No matter how enthusiastic your employees are about participating in an internal movement program, they are bound to be somewhat frustrated if there aren’t a wide variety of assignments available for them to choose from. Even if you successfully excite your managers and other rotation program participants, you can’t automatically assume that they know how to identify or develop exciting assignments or rotations.

As a result, the rotation program manager needs to design a process and provide managers with a variety of suggestions and tips in order to make it easy for them to create internal movement projects, assignments, and rotations. This section highlights over 20 of the approaches that I have found to be effective in helping managers create more and better rotations. keep reading…

Here is what is going on around the ERE world this week:

• There will be no Fordyce TV this week, but we will resume again on June 30 with Jeff Kaye. However, if you are on the search and placement side of the business and weren’t able to make it to Las Vegas a few weeks ago for the third annual Fordyce Forum conference, you can still check out the slides of the presentations on our post-conference site. And save the date now, as the fourth annual Fordyce Forum will take place June 9 - 11, 2010 back in Las Vegas, so stay tuned for more info on that in the next few weeks.
• Last Monday, I and 225 of my closest friends, and thousands more at home participated in the first ever Social Recruiting Summit at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA. The event was a huge success where the discussion happened onsite, online, and throughout the social media world. Over 1200 tweets were sent out on Twitter throughout that day alone using the #socialrecruiting hashtag. If you missed any of the sessions, several of them are available here to view. Also check out this video that our chairperson Susan Burns and ERE’s production manager Brendan Shields put together on the Evolution of Recruiting.
• Remember, you can meet and network with others in the recruiting industry not just on our own community site, but also through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
• Time is running out to secure the early bird discount for ERE Expo 2009 Fall taking place in Hollywood, FL from September 9 - 11. Make sure you register by July 3 to receive the $300 early bird discount, and if you are an ERE subscriber, make sure to use product code FL09ERE to save an additional $200. The agenda features over 20 speakers touching on topics such as social recruiting, onboarding, metrics, employer branding and much more. View the full agenda here or download the conference brochure.
• There are currently over 15 recruiting positions posted in the past week on erejobs. If you are looking for your next opportunity, activity has been picking up on the board over the past few weeks so make sure to check the site regularly, or you can also follow @recruiting_jobs on Twitter. And if you are looking to add to your team, remember that 30 day postings are only $25 through August 1, so post your recruiting and HR positions today.

Have a great week, and feel free to leave any questions in the comments below.