Article and research by Charles Handler and Mark C. Healy
Over the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of assessment tools available for use in both hiring and developing employees at all levels of the organization.
Archive for May, 2008
CollegeRecruiter Shuts Off Resume Access
by John Zappe May 19, 2008, 12:10 pm ET
CollegeRecruiter.com has become one of the first if not the first commercial job board to stop selling access to its resume database. The redesigned site which launched over the weekend still collects resumes from jobseekers who want to submit one, but it no longer allows employers to search through them.
With the security of resume databases increasingly being threatened, Steve Rothberg, president and founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, told us there was no cost-effective way for his site to protect jobseekers.
“Resume searching was profitable, but not profitable enough to spend the money to make it secure,” he explained to us, adding, “This isn’t about ID theft.” The security threats he and other job board operators worry about most come from legitimate companies who farm resumes for marketing purposes. They aren’t looking to hire candidates, but to sell to them. Resumes have also been collected in order to be resold in bulk to other job boards.
Visa Changes: A Shot in the Arm for Nurse Staffing
by Elaine Rigoli May 19, 2008, 8:42 am ET
Nursing shortage? Yes, we’ve all heard of it, and most people would agree that a properly staffed hospital is a basic human necessity, not a luxury.
And if you’ve been hospitalized recently, or even had to wait in a doctor’s room lately, you’re probably aware that even the best nurses are over-worked and under-paid.
So no matter what side of the immigration debate you’re on, is there really a legitimate argument left over why we’re blocking the efforts of highly motivated nursing students to stay in our country and aid the sick, tired, and needy?
Understanding Why Fast Hiring Is Critical to Recruiting Success
by Dr. John Sullivan May 19, 2008
I have been writing on the need for increasing the speed of hire for nearly a decade. During that time, many corporations have begun to realize the benefits of fast hiring. Unfortunately, too many rely on a single time-to-fill metric as their way of measuring hiring speed.
There are many reasons why you should hire quickly in certain cases, but there are also problems related to using an average time-to-fill metric as an exclusive measure of hiring speed. Fortunately, there are several alternative measures which can better help you understand precisely when and where an organization should emphasize fast hiring.
Another Symbol Alum Joins Monster Exec Team
by John Zappe May 16, 2008, 10:47 am ET
Talk about one big family over at Monster (profile; site). When CEO Sal Iannuzzi’s executive team gets together for meetings these days, the new faces are the Monster veterans; half the 10 executives are now expatriates from Symbol Technologies, the company Iannuzzi captained until he sold it to Motorola in January 2007.
The latest addition to the team is James Langrock. He’s the new SVP Finance and Chief Accounting Officer, taking over from Jonathan Trumbull who had been Vice President, Global Controller and Chief Accounting Officer until May 9th. His departure was discovered in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Langrock was Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller under Iannuzzi when both were at Symbol. The other Symbol alums now on the Monster executive team are:
Hot Cooke
by Todd Raphael May 16, 2008, 8:46 am ET
Word on the recruiting street has it that Austin Cooke, the VP of recruiting for VistaPrint, is getting promoted to VP of HR for all of North America.
Here’s a mini-clip from Cooke, talking at ERE’s Spring Expo about paying non-employees for referrals.
Get Candidates Engaged
by Kevin Wheeler May 16, 2008
For several years I have been part of a virtual network called NextNow. It was founded and is stewarded by an eccentric ex-Sun Microsystems engineer who likes putting interesting people together.
It is for the most part virtual, except for the few locals. A handful of us get together maybe once a year and one of us always hosts visiting NextNow members from other places. From this network I have made connections and friends with people in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and elsewhere. Many I have never met but we correspond regularly and help each other with ideas and opinions.
Webinar: Web 2.0
by Madeline Laurano May 15, 2008, 8:27 pm ET
When I was asked recently about the top three trends in recruiting, my first answer was Web 2.0 Recruiting. So, when the time came to create this month’s webinar schedule, this topic was a must-have. I have noticed that many of the questions, discussions, and articles on ERE focus on Web 2.0 recruiting. These sites are so appealing because they allow candidates interactivity and a level of input through chat, blogs, discussions, and networking.
Love it or hate it, Web 2.0 is here to stay. According to a recent ERE article, “Compete.com’s recently released figures on the number of visitors to social networks show LinkedIn growing by over 700% in one year, Facebook by 77%, and Twitter by more than 4,000%”. There is no doubt these sites are growing like crazy! But one question I keep hearing is “how do we use these sites to find quality candidates?” I wish I knew this answer myself. The bad news is I don’t. The good news is I found someone who does…Kevin Wheeler.
View his webinar.
Scratching That Niche
by Elaine Rigoli May 15, 2008, 3:36 pm ET
Ever wondered how many online job boards — and which sites — professionals post their resume to when searching for a job? Beyond.com recently asked more than 6,400 visitors, “How many online job boards do you have your resume posted on?” and here are the results:
- 24% have their resume posted on one to two job boards.
Down on the Biopharma
by Todd Raphael May 15, 2008, 2:10 pm ET
Four hours of driving to and fro last night’s HR Strategy Forum was worth it, because the HRPS affiliate serves you up a higher-level audience than the annual swag-a-thon. The Forum’s audience is a lot like the Journal audience, but not as recruiting-centric.
One attendee is Debbie Rocco of Amylin, a fast-growing bio-pharma that’s hiring for many of the positions you’d expect as well as for an Ohio manufacturing facility. Interestingly, and fairly unsually, it also has a link to recruiter information on its website.
Amylin is a lot like a startup, and is just starting to do such things as “capacity planning.” It’s finding, for example, that in the past it hired a lot of specialists and needs to either hire more generalists or do more training to give people a broader background needed to start a new project when their last one ends.
Your Onboarding Program Needs a Pair of Fresh Eyes
by David Lee May 15, 2008
Do you know the impact your onboarding program has on your new employees, moment-of-truth by moment-of-truth?
Do you know what it’s like to experience your company as an employee on the first day of work? The first week? What about the week prior to that first day?
The Most Effective Way to Change Your Brand
by Harry Griendling May 14, 2008
One of my favorite recent hot topics in recruiting is employer branding.
The concept goes like this: All employers have a brand for the product or service they provide. So, too, they can develop a brand as a place to work. Everyone in the recruitment advertising world stands ready to help us build employer brands, including job boards (delivery vehicles for electronic employment advertising). Some firms have even devised ways to measure employer brand awareness and incorporate these results into targeted branding campaigns.
Chatter: A RealMatch for Interactive Applicants
by Elaine Rigoli May 13, 2008, 2:16 pm ET
An eHarmony of Recruiting?
RealMatch says keyword matching is so yesterday, so it’s out with a new profile-matching system that compares profiles of jobs with the profiles of candidates. While that seems potentially confusing, the company says it just means that the profile matching considers industry experience, title, and the skills that are associated with each job and each candidate along with their preferences.
What we like is how RealMatch’s interface lets anonymous candidates see jobs in real-time, while recruiters can see candidates filtered and ranked according to their suitability for the position, all in real-time and without any cost.
The New War for Talent
by Raghav Singh May 13, 2008
We may be in the midst of a recession with increasing unemployment and fewer jobs, but that’s not likely to have much long-term effect on shortages of talent.
We’ve all read about the aging of the population and other demographic factors. The likely effect of these on availability of talent has been extensively written about. But the problems are likely to be worse than we realize because of three factors: liberalization of immigration policies in other countries; more restrictive immigration policies in the U.S.; and supply of talent.
CareerBuilder Backs Off On “R Rated” Video
by John Zappe May 12, 2008, 8:25 am ET
Have a boring, crappy job? Do your co-workers celebrate your birthday in the morning with a half-hearted singing of the Birthday song? Are you pegged as the guy who mooches other people’s snacks from the office fridge?
Post your resume to CareerBuilder (profile; site) and your troubles will be solved.
That’s the message of a series of edgy, truthy enough animated videos produced by Wieden+Kennedy for CareerBuilder.
New Platform for Vurv Customers
by Elaine Rigoli May 12, 2008, 4:34 am ET
Consultants continue to talk about whether the Taleo/Vurv deal is particularly good for the Vurv customer base, as one of the risks in becoming the customer of a rapidly growing private software company is not knowing what the ultimate exit will be for the investors.
“Being acquired by a leading talent management solutions company is a very solid outcome, and the customers should have confidence that their interests will be held in high regard,” says Ed Newman, founder of The Newman Group (profile; site).
However, consultant Rick Fletcher with HRchitect (profile;site) mentions that some Vurv customers consciously chose to go with Vurv, instead of with Taleo, because Vurv has traditionally been the more innovative firm with some unique leading-edge product features. Some Vurv customers may initially balk at being asked to migrate to the Taleo applications over the coming year.
Using Messaging Campaigns to Spur Employee Referrals
by Dr. John Sullivan May 12, 2008
By Dr. John Sullivan & Master Burnett
Employee referral programs are a lot like bottles of wine. Most companies have at least one, the vast majority of which are average or less than average, and only a few ever truly become exceptional. But the similarities don’t stop there.
The Uneven Evolution of Corporate Recruiting
by Lou Adler May 9, 2008
Much of the hiring process from sourcing to closing to onboarding has changed significantly over the past 20 years. Much hasn’t. And therein lies the problem.
In some cases we’re past Web 2.0, in other cases we’re still using stone-age techniques to find, recruit, and hire top performers.
In Honor of Mother’s Day, Show Some Love to Your Flex-Time Policies
by Elaine Rigoli May 8, 2008, 10:50 am ET
The title “working dad” might seem silly, borderline redundant. Yet, no one pauses when they hear the phrase “working mom,” a title that now applies to me and one I wear with pride as I cruise into my first Mother’s Day this weekend.
As a new working mom, I realize that not everyone is lucky enough to work for a company as progressive as ERE Media. Not everyone gets a fair maternity leave, and not everyone gets to work with a team of really amazing people who value family life and relationships.
In fact, a new CareerBuilder.com survey finds that 43% of working moms would choose a pay cut in order to spend more time with their kids. Something tells me that 43% is a rather low figure, assuming the other 57% haven’t spawned a “problem child” who clings to them like a rhesus monkey that practices his high-pitched shrieks at 3 am.
Shaking or Quaking?
by Garry Kranz May 8, 2008, 10:09 am ET
Handshakes still count heavily among recruiters. A University of Iowa professor has done research on the topic and finds that the manner of a person’s handshake accounts for more than dress or physical appearance during job interviews. The full study won’t be released until later this year, but “the first impression begins with a handshake that sets the tone for the rest of the job interview,” says Prof. Greg Stewart of the Tippie School of Business.
A person’s firm grip (or lack thereof) either disqualifies them or gets them in the door, usually within minutes of an interview, according to Stewart’s research.
We all can relate to this. (Who hasn’t met someone with sterling credentials, only to be shocked when they extend a “dead fish”?)
