ERE.net

AIRS, the recruitment technology and training company that introduced “peeling back” “flipping” and “x-raying” to the recruiting lexicon, has been acquired by RPO servicer The RightThing.

The deal was finalized last week and will be announced this morning.

Speaking with ERE in advance of the announcement the CEOs of the two companies were ebullient over the deal.

“We’re giddy about this,” Terry Terhark, CEO of TheRightThing declared early in the conversation, followed by AIRS CEO Chris Forman pronouncing the deal “A great thing for both companies.”

A pioneer in online sourcing, AIRS will continue as an independent brand; its headquarters staying in the 200-year-old barn in Wilder, VT. Terhark and Forman, whose new title will be president of AIRS, said there will no layoffs and, in fact, both are looking to increase the 62 person staff as The RightThing begins to market the AIRS product line.

keep reading…

It’s official. Google is the #1 Best Place to Work in America according to Fortune Magazine. If you haven’t yet read this issue of Fortune, you should. It’s a powerful listing of what can be done by corporations in order to make their workplaces more exciting.

It’s also important to realize that even though the Fortune list is the granddaddy of them all, there are numerous other lists that also recognize firms as a top or best place to work. If you are on a recruiting or employment branding team, it is critical that you realize the tremendous value that these lists can have on recruiting. They are unequaled in their ability to help establish your employment brand image as a top place work, but they are also excellent sources of information on which firms’ recruiters should focus poaching efforts.

keep reading…

A couple of new studies are out with plenty of new data for you to analyze:

First up, the difference between a formal and informal contract labor program could save your company about 10%. A new Aberdeen study indicates that organizations that tie together procurement and human resources not only save 10% — a figure that is 115% higher than your competitors with no level of collaboration – but they also will fare better in “volatile” times.

The “Contract Labor Management” report shows blending centralized program management with technology and collaboration results in a 20% year-over-year cost savings on their contract labor spend; a 23% faster time rate to fill an open requisition; and shorter time periods to onboard new contract labor employees.

keep reading…

Over the past 30 years, I’ve worked with thousands of managers, executives, and recruiters. While many things have changed involving recruiting over these years, a few things have stayed the same. Here’s my short list of the best things I’ve learned about recruiting, sourcing, and hiring top talent that seem as true today as they did when I first started as a recruiter.

keep reading…

Keep ‘em busy and they won’t complain?

According to a surprising new survey, bored employees have a more negative impact than overworked employees on an organization’s overall morale and productivity.

Employees who report having not enough work are often doing work for which they are ill-suited, or have jobs that are poorly designed, according to Sirota Survey Intelligence research.

keep reading…

My friend Sue, a project manager and an expert in the biomedical arena, was looking for a job change. Her husband had taken a new position with a firm several hundred miles away from where they lived, and she was in pursuit of her next gig. As she surfed around the Web looking at various corporate recruiting websites, she was very frustrated. Mostly what she found were online brochures, nice, boring, and uninformative sites filled with corporate-speak. Clearly, these sites had been designed by a committee, written by PR departments, and massaged by lawyers until nothing of much interest was left.

I advised her to leverage her network and use the emerging Web 2.0 world to help get a more realistic picture of prospective employers, the corporate culture, and the kinds of people with whom she might be working. In the end, she used her Facebook network and a number of blogs to narrow down the firms she was interested in. She found a new position a couple of weeks ago, after a series of experiences that I will document in later articles.

keep reading…

Workstream is being bought in a merger with Empagio, a provider of payroll and human resources software, resulting in the only human capital management provider with a payroll services capability across North America.

Under the agreement announced Wednesday, Florida-based Empagio will own 75% and Ottawa-based Workstream will own 25%.

Wednesday’s announcement also means that analyst Jason Corsello’s prediction last month was more than a hunch. He said Empagio would become Workstream’s suitor — and his prediction was based on a variety of factors.

keep reading…

Few are likely to give pause before biting into a giant chocolate bar on Valentine’s Day. Instead, most will carelessly toss the foil wrapper and not realize that what they are holding is a piece of history, a previous day’s work for a factory employee, and a job that no longer exists.

Take the workers at perennial boxed-chocolate favorite Russell Stover Candies. The company has announced plans to eliminate the second shift and lay off about 150 workers at a production facility that staffs 480 people in Montrose, Colorado, effective April 1. These workers include maintenance staff, packaging staff, and supervisors. Russell Stover’s three other U.S. manufacturing plants will also see layoffs, according to the company.

Although its biggest competitor, Hershey provides some raw materials to Russell Stover. With Hershey’s plan to move some production to a plant in Monterrey, Mexico, along with inflation and increasing dairy costs, Russell Stover says these cuts – albeit “temporary” according to executives – are necessary to stay afloat.

keep reading…

The decision of whether or not to hire additional recruiters can be a struggle. During hectic times, the workload can be overwhelming. It can seem like an easy solution to increase the flow of resumes by opening up positions to numerous agencies. However, it is important to educate these staffing firms on the details of the job, the process, and the environment. Without this knowledge, they won’t have the information they need to deliver quality candidates. Using third parties can be a valuable strategy. But, being proactive and communicating with them every step of the way takes time. Without these extra conversations, positions won’t necessarily be filled more quickly.

Traditional Staffing Firms

keep reading…

If you are using the same recruiting strategy for both your salaried and hourly workforce, you might want to reconsider.

Often the toughest to hire–and then to retain, the hourly workforce requires a unique recruiting strategy. Most importantly, your strategy must be geared to the hourly employees now entering the workforce. Who are they, what are their preferences, how can you capture their interest, and where does technology play a critical role? Where kiosks and interactive voice response (IVR) used to be the latest and greatest, candidates are now more likely to respond to an opening on MySpace.

Join this session to learn best practices for creating an integrated strategy for the hourly workforce including:

• How to address demographic differences: the retirement generation going back to work part time, to digital natives entering the workforce for the first time.
• Technology advancements in applicant experience including text messaging, online assessments and contact management.
• How to extend your consumer brand and customer experience to the applicant experience.
• The current vendor landscape including continued consolidation, how vendors are embedding web 2.0 technology into their applications and alternative solution sets.
• How to tie an hourly recruiting strategy to your overarching talent acquisition and talent management strategy.

Before an interview, a recruiter reviews a resume. An impression is created before the candidate even engages. I examine a spot-on resume, but when the candidate arrives, I fail to see the connection between paper and person. Did this candidate truly accomplish what’s stated, or did he oversell to get the interview? Did the candidate actually write the document, or did he buy it from a skilled resume writer?

During the discussion, I’m not buying that the resume truly represents the candidate. This leads me to wonder if I’ve overlooked viable candidates (maybe the best candidates) because their resumes did not stand out or appeal to me personally. Maybe they didn’t know how to accurately portray themselves on paper. Maybe they couldn’t afford to engage a resume writer. Maybe their lack of knowledge in this area left the best candidates out in the cold.

keep reading…

by Dr. John Sullivan and Master Burnett

The U.S. economy is like a sprinter trying his best to run a long-distance race. It takes off at full speed until it burns up its resources and has to slow down while it recovers, only to take off again shortly thereafter. Time and time again, companies in the U.S. have weathered periods of economic expansion and contraction, but for the first time in recent history (since the Romans ruled civilization), the circumstances are a little different. The conditions are so different, in fact, that the recruiting profession may avoid being decimated this time around.

keep reading…

If you have been viewing more video resumes (or, what I like to call “vesumes”) recently, then you are aware of a growing trend that is replacing the standard 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper resume. And, with the speed of technology in our future, you are sure to see more.

Since I’m located in Hawaii, I have viewed a number of resumes as a part of my candidate searches, and it gives me a better picture of the candidate. Here is my advice on the 10 things that make a good video resume.

keep reading…

Now here’s a conundrum: On Wednesday Taleo reported the best quarter and the best year it’s had in, well, in years. On Thursday, a day the market was actually up, Taleo’s stock closed at $17.12, down 18.4 percent.

Why?

keep reading…

What’s better than having the business card of a software developer at Apple? Knowing that he was part of the UI development team for the iPhone. And therein lies the business model for Myndnet.com, a $1.75 million VC financed startup that pays a bounty for such knowledge.

Myndnet made its debut in September at DEMOfall07, a showcase for promising new products and companies, where it received warm coverage from the technology writers. Quietly growing since then, Myndnet has a few thousand members now signed up and responding to requests like a recent one for the name and contact information for ERP software buyers.

That one is still active on Myndset, so if you want to make a quick $40 all you need do is join the club and pony up your contact information.

keep reading…

RSM McGladrey recruiter Ben Gotkin on why candidates should pick his firm over the biggies. He calls out the differentiators over the “Big 4″ accounting firms and shares the secrets to attracting the best from the field.

Two Kaiser executives discuss the unique technology challenges and the compelling reasons that candidates would choose a career at Kaiser. Specifically, the company prides itself on “meaningful” work and technology that impacts the way healthcare is being delivered in the United States.

You would probably be very surprised to know what the CEO of your organization thinks about you. Rather than having a negative view, most CEOs I have spoken with believe you have almost magical powers. They assume you know where talent is located and how to find it. They assume you are well connected to the business goals of the organization and are striving to find candidates who are good cultural and technical fits.

They also assume you know the language of business and both understand and speak it fluently. It is a language centered on business concepts and a handful of assumptions they make daily. Many of our issues may simply be that we don’t speak or understand that language as well as they think we do.

keep reading…

February is shaping up to be a bad month for shopping fans but an interesting one for retail recruiters, as a rash of layoffs and store closings point to weaker-than-expected January retail sales and a pessimistic outlook for the future.

William Dreher, a Deutsche Bank research analyst, wrote in a report last week that as the economy begins to improve in the second half of 2008, “we expect several of our department store shares could do very well, including Kohl’s and Macy’s, though we are not pounding the table here yet.” In fact, the report upgraded the department store and mass merchant sector to neutral from cautious.

But on Wednesday, Macy’s Inc. announced its plans to slash 2,300 management jobs across three regional divisions to reduce costs and boost sales while adding 250 in-store positions to enhance product offerings in specific regions. The company will cut approximately 950 positions at the Macy’s North headquarters offices in Minneapolis, 850 positions at the Macy’s Midwest headquarters offices in St. Louis, and 750 positions at the Macy’s Northwest headquarters offices in Seattle. It is also consolidating several divisions, though all current store locations will remain in place. The company’s Miami-based Macy’s Florida and New-York based Bloomingdale’s divisions are not affected. The Cincinnati-based retailer said the consolidation will be complete in the second quarter of 2008.

keep reading…

Let’s fantasize about what it would be like to take maybe a month off (or, since we are dreaming, maybe even two) just to do succession planning. It would be a time frame when no jobs are assigned, and you have a complete focus on finding candidates for jobs that are not yet open.

At Brown Shoe Company, we have established a program to do this. We call it the “Strategic Month.” Each corporate recruiter doing full-cycle sourcing and candidate-relationship building is able to have two months without any job assignments. The overflow of additional positions that this creates is covered by the other team members and by a relied upon third party named Grapevine Group. In our structure, human resources and recruiting are separate functions that partner together, working with the hiring manager.

keep reading…