ERE.net

Workforce planning uses a blend of hard data, human intelligence, and management intuition to accurately forecast upcoming recruiting needs. While the process is vital, a challenge to forecasting efficacy is general economic trends that don’t always jive with the labor market trends.

This can make projecting employee retirement or turnover rates and swings in the labor pool difficult. Tracking labor market trends to proactively predict changes and comparing your company’s historical experience to those changes can increase forecasting accuracy and recruitment strategy effectiveness.

A new Employment Trends Index (ETI) developed by The Conference Board synthesizes data from eight sources to predict swings in the labor market. Since the labor market usually contracts before the general economy and recovers earlier, the index is helpful in spotting changes and explaining variances to senior leadership.

“I think this type of data always helps talent acquisition leaders become more strategic and less tactical in their planning,” says Kevin Wheeler, president of Global Learning Resources.

“The individual index components may also point out potential sources of employees. For example, increases in the number of working temporary employees might point to hiring opportunities within the temp workforce.”

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Do you know my friend MJ? You should, because that will almost certainly be you someday. But more on that depressing reality later.

Let’s start with MJ’s reality first. He is 45, brilliant, accomplished, and well-spoken. He is politically savvy, knows the right things to say in all situations, and even looks the role of a corporate executive. (Truth be told, he is almost as strikingly handsome as I am.)

He is technically up to date, communicates well, and has all of the requisite educational credentials. There is only one small problem. He can’t get a job.

To quote Ron Jenkins, “Something is wrong here; something is terribly wrong.”

If there is a war for talent, why can’t a highly skilled, amazingly talented overachiever who lives in a major metropolitan area find a job after one year of searching?

What expectations, position profile, ATS, political ramifications, compensation structure, communication protocol, workforce planning initiative, talent acquisition strategy, or lord knows what else has broken down so miserably, so totally and completely that all of the companies that are warring for talent have not hired MJ?

If the war for talent is as portrayed, companies engaged in this war should be beating each other with sticks to hire MJ. So, why can’t MJ get a job and how does it relate to this war on talent? (Please don’t tell me he needs to do more social networking or I might just have to get on a plane and slay you.)

We have heard for endless time of the war for talent. I remember the war on poverty, but we lost that one. We have a war on drugs but that seems to be a losing proposition as well.

But a war for talent? I find that to be an interesting war because there seems to be no winners, no losers, and little set out to define specific battle plans or terms and conditions for victory.

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Talent software vendor Workstream (profile; site), which Friday canceled its planned merger with Empagio, said today it expects its fourth quarter financial performance to have improved enough that it will show an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in the range of $400,000 to $500,000 before the costs of its abortive merger are accounted for.

If that turns out to be the case, it will be the first time in the current fiscal year that Workstream has posted anything less than a million dollar loss in EBITDA. In the last quarter, which ended Feb 29 (the company is on a June 1 to May 31 fiscal year), Workstream had an EBITDA of ($4.7 million).

In today’s announcement Workstream also reported it expected revenues of $6.9 million to $7 million, an increase of 11 to 13 percent over the previous quarter.

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The basic process of interviewing candidates for open positions hasn’t changed very much in the last century, despite radical changes in how people socialize and interact both in and out of the workplace.

Traditional interviews continue even though no one enjoys them! There is little argument that traditional interviews are time-consuming for all parties involved, often repetitive, and highly subjective. If you include the time it takes to write up notes and to debrief the interview team with time actually spent interviewing candidates and multiply that by the number of candidates considered, you would quickly realize what a serious “time drain” interviews are on corporate resources.

Fortunately, recruiters looking to embrace a radical new approach and save countless hours of needless work (not to mention misery and frustration) can follow the lead of singles looking for love.

“Speed interviewing” and the concepts supporting it come directly from the social phenomena known as “speed dating.” Supported by lots of cognitive research that suggests initial intuition is as accurate as or more accurate than prolonged assessment, a few leading-edge organizations are hopping on board and testing speed interviewing as a possible solution to end the giant disconnect between society today and the HR systems of yesterday.

Brave corporate pioneers include such firms as IBM, Abbott Labs, PNC Financial, Travelodge, Texas Instruments, the Salt River Project, and RBC. The companies use this process for experienced candidates and for college hires.

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While historically devoid of much diversity, the tax profession is starting to change.

Tony Santiago, who recently launched the niche site TaxDiversity.com, says he started this site to change the perception of an industry dominated by white males.

“As a recruiting firm and industry resource, we saw a lack of diversity particularly among minorities in the tax profession, as well as a lack of women in senior leadership roles,” says Santiago.

“While individual companies have developed certain initiatives, no one has stepped up to create a comprehensive plan encompassing the entire tax profession,” he says.

The site has job openings, forums, case studies, and video commentary from successful minority tax professionals.

Santiago says he has hopes of setting up scholarships and providing mentors to those who are interested in the profession.

Microsoft must have heard Santiago’s pleas, because just last week the company pledged $1 million to the National Association of Black Accountants.

Microsoft says this gift — a mix of cash and software over the next three years — can help to build a pipeline of African-American talent in the accounting and finance professions.

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Will flexible employers be the ultimate winners in the war for talent now that gas prices are in the stratosphere? Employers offering transportation subsidies, telecommuting options, and virtual office arrangements may be wooing the best and the brightest candidates right now, even without the highest salaries and biggest relocation budgets in the marketplace.

“It isn’t unusual to find employees driving 50, 75, even 100 miles each way to work and that can cost them $5,000 a year just in gas,” says Chuck Wilsker, president and CEO of the Telework Coalition, a Washington DC-based organization that supports telework options.

“When telecommuting is an option, it eliminates the geographic recruiting boundaries and increases the pool of prospective candidates. I have heard of specific situations where employers have been able to offer 15% less salary, simply because the employee will no longer need to absorb the daily commute cost.”

Employees who commute 30 miles or more to work are likely to turn-over at higher rates now that gas prices have sky-rocketed, according to Wilsker, and it will only get worse when the job market and the economy rebound. If more firms begin offering telecommuting options to appease employees, the competition for top talent will literally have no boundaries, since proximity to the office will no longer be a major recruiting criterion.

In addition, with no ceiling on gas prices projected anytime soon, Wilsker says that commute costs are starting to concern highly skilled employees, not just hourly workers. In the past, employees making $150,000 to $250,000 might not have considered long commutes when weighing an offer, now they are now thinking about it long and hard before accepting.

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We don’t usually think of anyone in our profession as heroic, yet there are recruiting leaders who have achieved amazing results.

HC is one of those whose modesty means he remains anonymous. He took over a recruiting function that was stumbling along, filling positions only after lengthy delays. Job requirements were not communicated clearly to candidates, hiring managers assumed the poor performance they got was normal, and senior leaders put all their positions out to search.

The career site was hidden, not engaging, and listed positions as “open” long after they had been filled. There was no sourcing function and no applicant tracking system.

Warning bells were ringing throughout the company, but no one heard them: engineers, the key to this organization’s success, were getting old.  The average age was close to 50 and there was no college hiring program.  Many critical positions were going unfilled for over 90 days and then were often filled with people who left within a year.

Everything in the recruiting function was reactive.  There was no talent community, no proactive sourcing strategy, and not much awareness of their own weaknesses.

While this sort of recruiting function is not all that unusual, this one was part of a well-known organization that has a high public profile and is considered a leader in its products and services.

Although no one knew it when he was hired, HC was going to turn this situation around. And he did it without firing any recruiters and without a lot of fanfare.

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CareerBuilder (profile; site) has just bumped up its coolness factor and raised the stakes in the competition to be the No. 1 job board in the U.S.

Soon, jobseekers with an Apple iPhone (the epitome of techno-cool) can search for a job on their phone as easily as on their MacBook. And actually, it might even be easier, since CareerBuilder uses the iPhone’s geolocation to identify your city. All you do is enter the relevant keywords and up pops a list of jobs. Scroll the list, jump back and forth, narrow the list with more keywords or change location, should you decide Las Vegas would be more fun than Topeka.

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The biotech firm Invitrogen has formed a new in-house team with the mandate of filling at least 10 executive (director and above) searches this year that would have gone to an outside, retained search firm. It hopes to save a half-mil in search fees (an initiative that Invitrogen’s James Seetoo goes into more detail about in the July Journal).

Here’s a look at Seetoo’s “SWOT” chart when it comes to moving search in.

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One of the most common questions I get from ERE members is, “How do I become one of them?”

By “them” — the ERE member means someone like Lou Adler, Kevin Wheeler, and any number of other writers on ERE.net.

The short answer is: contact me. I’m at todd@ere.net and I’m happy to talk about it via email or the phone. If you’re a recruiting leader, I can also talk to you about writing for the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, ERE’s print publication. Or, you can just send something in for me to take a look at.

The longer answer: here are some of the things we are and are not looking for in articles:

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If you’re reading this, you’ve probably noticed some pretty major changes to the ERE.net site and our daily newsletter.  It’s the culmination of months of work by Jim and Hunter, our crack development team.

The first things that you’ve noticed are no doubt cosmetic – we’ve got a snazzy new look!  But beauty is only skin deep, and (I hope) the new features that we’ve created are going to increase the value that you get from ERE.net in a fundamental way.

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HireRight and USIS merging.

HIRE stock is booming.

Only one year ago, it went public.

I don’t run into many recruiters/staffing/HR professionals who don’t agree with the statement: Recruiting is just like sales.

While we can argue over the differences between the two professions (please don’t lose sight of the trees through the forest on this one), we all know the parallels are overwhelming.

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When economic times are volatile and businesses are facing a downturn in revenue, many CFOs turn their attention to cost-containment. A logical place to start cutting costs is labor, given that in many industries labor costs account for an average of 60% of all variable costs.

The volatility in the business climate not only dictates that labor costs be contained, but also that organizations become more agile in their use and deployment of labor, a characteristic not generally managed well in the traditional employer/employee relationship.

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American companies are reluctant to hire, and the proof is in the Bureau of Labor Statistics new report, released early Friday morning. Here are some glimpses from the economic report, broken down into digestible nuggets:

Recession is real. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, says there is “no debate that the economy is in a recession.” Among other worries for the average American, beyond a lower net worth and smaller purchasing power, Zandi says it is tough to find a job, and “if you lose a job, it is tough to get back in.”

Jobless jump. The new BLS report shows that May’s jobless rate jumped to 5.5% from 5%, a sounding bell that U.S. growth is stalling.

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This past week I spent time with a major recruitment advertising agency, a large direct marketing organization, and the top-performing office of one of the largest temp-to-perm employment agencies in the country.

These meetings revealed some trends that might help you develop your future recruiting strategies.

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With the Clinton-Obama fight over, Softscape and SuccessFactors (profile; site) have stepped up to fill the void with the two HR software companies in court for the second time this year. This time the allegations include claims of corporate espionage, unfair competition and interference with contract.

The latest volley was fired today by Softscape, which claims in court papers filed in Massachusetts, where it is headquartered, that SuccessFactors hired its employees in order to learn company secrets, then used that information in the design of the latest release of its Performance and Talent Management Suite, ULTRA.

SuccessFactors, in an emailed comment to ERE, said, “Softscape’s recent complaint is a transparent and groundless attempt to muddy the waters to divert attention from their own well-documented illegal and reprehensible conduct. Their claims are vague and unsupported by facts, which suggest to us they have no legitimate basis.”

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The Employment Guide has launched www.WiserWorker.com, an employment website dedicated to job seekers age 40 and older.

It says its mission is to connect older workers with appropriate jobs, but since when did 40 become old?

If by old they mean “experienced,” or perhaps simply, “wiser,” then time will tell whether baby boomers and fringe Gen Xers find the site worthwhile.

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Employers worldwide can now incorporate video into their Monster (profile; site) job postings, a move that extends the U.S. born trend to a global market. Monster announced the rollout of Monster Video Profile this morning.

“Video allows employers to more effectively convey their culture, values and brand, which, in turn, helps job seekers better select the opportunities they apply to – and we fully expect that employers and job seekers around the world will benefit from this tool,” said Monster’s global CIO and head of product Darko Dejanovic.

The company first began offering video integration in the U.S. in September 2007. Companies could integrate their existing videos into their job offerings or, if they chose, have custom videos produced by MadDash E-Media, Inc. (profile; site) with which Monster partnered. Interestingly, Monster first rolled out its Video Profile product in India almost three months earlier.

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A recent ERE survey conducted with Knowledge Infusion indicated that the greatest individual challenge companies are facing in recruiting is identifying enough quality candidates (71% of respondents). Yet, 95% of companies believe that their sourcing efforts are average or above average.

Hmmm…this left me wondering if we needed to revisit e-sourcing and find someone with expertise in this area. We often find information on what methods and tools we should be using to identify and attract candidates. We often hear what benefits we would achieve if we did. What I wanted to know was how to see results in e-sourcing methods. And I knew just who to ask…Glenn Gutmacher, one of America’s top sourcers/trainers.

Glenn shared his knowledge with us on June 5 during ERE’s most popular webinar.

“The Sourcer’s Daily Dozen – A Top Recruiting Research Guru’s 12 Favorite Free E-Sourcing Methods to Fill Your Pipelines”.

View video on WebEx

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