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I’ve always used a multi-factor approach to ensure candidates evaluate career opportunities across multiple factors, both short and long term. These typically included things like job stretch, impact, growth opportunities, learning, benefits, and compensation.

The idea here was to increase the likelihood the candidate would not overvalue compensation as the primary decision criteria when selecting one job over another. Since compensation was rarely ideal, broadening the selection criteria this way was a very effective recruiting and negotiating tactic. This week I learned how to make it even better – have candidates rank order the criteria when you first meet them.

As I began to consider this and try it out, I ran across a study prepared by WFD Consulting in a consortium with some major U.S. corporations. Their findings revealed that employees and candidates have varying needs that change over time depending on where they are in their career and family life-cycles. While many companies have addressed these issues in terms of retention, few have incorporated them directly into the recruiting process.

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In the United States, students are just beginning to return to campus after the summer holidays. For most organizations, college recruiting will also resume with the timeless routine of information sessions and campus visits for job fairs, interviews, and other related events.

But smart organizations are foregoing the traditional campus activities, in favor of leveraging the Internet. In fact, if you want to attract and hire the best students, forget going to campus at all; it’s not necessary.

College students tell me they are confused by the entire recruiting process. Organizations on the leading-edge of technology are still using the most traditional of methods to recruit them.

While every student has a Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace profile, most companies do not use them in the recruiting process at all. Students are actually a bit surprised that recruiters seem to use recruiting tactics that their parents relate to better than they do. Many are involved in virtual worlds, take online webinars, download lectures as podcasts, and learn from virtual professors. Yet, they must listen to a hiring manager and watch a PowerPoint presentation about some company in a stuffy room on campus.

Unfortunately, recruiters’ belief in the efficacy of past practices is reinforced with surveys by a variety of organizations and institutions with a vested interest in the status quo. But if you take a few minutes to sit down and actually talk to students, you get a different picture of what they would like, what would impress them, and what would engage them.

As demand for college graduates continues to steadily rise, the supply and demand figures for college students should be warning that times have changed.

The number of college students is fairly flat, growing at perhaps 1% a year, and is projected to remain that way for at least another four or five years. Another little-noted fact is that more women than men are enrolled in college and, unfortunately for the high tech and engineering worlds, women don’t tend to major in engineering, mathematics, physics, or computer science. All of these fields are facing significant declines in enrollments and in graduates.

Also consider the students of all age groups graduating from virtual universities that have no campuses. These students are valuable resources for corporations that are currently almost untouched and unrecognized.

Facing these challenges, I don’t see how organizations can focus on just a few campuses or limit their reach to elite schools. Here are a half-dozen tactics to guide your virtual efforts on campus:

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WorldatWork surveyed more than 2,700 organizations; members are employed in the HR, compensation, and benefits departments of mostly large North American companies.

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The victors in this year’s college recruiting wars may attract Gen Yers by throwing lots of green at them. Not signing bonuses and hefty salaries, but trees. Towers Perrin intends to appeal to new grads by demonstrating its commitment to the environment, so the professional services firm will donate 100 trees to American Forests’ Global ReLeaf education and action program for each of the 50 career fairs it holds on college campuses beginning in September. It’s a new twist to recruit “green-minded” grads by a company that doesn’t specialize in environmental jobs.

Towers Perrin has also printed all of its recruiting brochures and materials on recycled paper and will distribute T-shirts embellished with the phrase “Go Green” to grads who attend the firm’s office recruiting events, according to recruiting director Jen Warne.

“We’ve tied an eco-friendly theme throughout our entire recruiting campaign, including our pending launch of a new page on Facebook,” says Warne. “It’s a clear demonstration of our corporate values, so we’re hoping it will differentiate us from our competitors.”

A young recruiter form the UK ventured into a networking group (RBC) I belong to and asked where he could find technicians who work at BMW or Mercedes franchise dealers. He said the manager or the service receptionist names were easy to find, but he needed to find the guys working on the cars. I gave him some quick and easy advice.

“Call and ask for the breakroom or — is there a cafeteria? Ask for that. Many times there’s a black wall phone hanging over a grimy desk with lots of post-it notes and writing on the wall. If anyone is in there, they might answer! These sites usually have a car wash section too — they wash the cars for these high-end customers here in the states before returning them after service. Ask for the ‘car-wash person.’ When you get him or her on the phone, tell him you’re in the wrong place — you know that — can s/he tell you who one of the technicians is, so you might ask for him by name? Chances are he will tell you. And then when he tells you one, ask for another, and then another. Be gentle with him. Don’t scare him,” I add last, chuckling knowingly to myself.

And then I surprised myself when I told him, “Walk the grid in your mind — think about who works where and what they know — then go directly at them…”

“Walk the grid.” I suppose this is another way of saying, “Become one with your target and imagine yourself inside your target, walking around the place, looking here and snooping there, all the while minding your own very real business.”

And then, as a further surprise in my day, I’m lying in bed that night surfing the channels and what comes up but the movie “Bone Collector.”

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Little more than a year after introducing video resumes, CareerBuilder has discontinued the service. It was quietly taken offline in June.

The company won’t say how many jobseekers posted videos, but it seems the participation rate wasn’t high enough to warrant CareerBuilder’s effort. Job board spokesperson Jennifer Grasz told us, “We’re always testing the market with new tools and services to enhance the user experience. If the response rates are not there, we’ll reevaluate whether the market is ready and focus energies on other areas to aid in the job search and recruitment process.”

CareerBuilder’s main resume pages are still online, though no longer linked from the site. However, Grasz said the jobseeker videos have been removed. Jobseekers can always post their video to a service like You Tube and include a link in the resume or cover letter they have on CareerBuilder. When an employer downloads the resume, the link becomes hot.

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Rating employers is not a new idea. Vault has (profile; site) been doing it for years and for pay. There’s JobVent, which has an 11 point rating system and the ability to leave comments. Jobster (profile; site) has a feature where employees can talk about what it’s like working for their company. F–ked Company used to have the dirt on all sorts of companies until it got, you know.

So when we came across the announcement of CorporateGrade.com we were admittedly underwhelmed. But considered from the standpoint of it being part of a trend, the site takes on greater importance.

CorporateGrade.com is new and in beta, so it doesn’t have much in the way of content yet. But it’s easy to use and has a good bit of sophistication. Ratings can be anonymous, although the registration process does require a valid email address. Not that that’s going to deter bitter employees or ex-workers or even just someone out to sully a company. While that’s often the first objection raised by company officials (only the disgruntled participate in these sites), we found just the opposite to be true. CorporateGrade’s first participants appear to be a balanced lot, providing a good glimpse of life inside a company, a division or the office where they work.

Ratings have been around even before the Internet. But those were either compiled by an ambitious author (Places Rated Almanac, for example) or were limited surveys. The Internet expanded the reach, and opened the door to anyone who wanted to participate. Today, ratings have become so available and influential that a very high percentage of consumers both consult product reviews before making a buying decision and are influenced by what they read. Social media is increasingly exerting both an influence on decision-making and providing a way for consumers to offer feedback.

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Most university recruiting is pretty dull and ineffective! It takes little to no creativity or imagination to concentrate nearly 100% of a college recruiting effort on the events and activities formally sanctioned by university career centers. While the career event approach has primarily been the modus operandi for decades, it’s an approach seriously out of touch with how students study, live, and play today. In 1950 the best students would line up for nearly any opportunity to wow a potential employer in hopes of securing one of only a few choice jobs, but for students today the opportunities are many and diverse.

You can no longer expect the very best students to be found through career-center-sanctioned activities because the universities and the technographics of their student populations have changed. The increasing popularity of non-traditional academic programs like online degrees, night programs, weekend programs, and international programs, coupled with the fact that many students are now older and working full-time, means that many students just don’t have the opportunity to physically use the career center or even participate in career center events. In addition, the growth of Internet job boards and online career advice websites have eliminated the need for students to work through a tightly controlled process to reach employers who want them.

Today, if you want to identify, build your brand, and “pre-sell” the best students on employment opportunities with your organization, you need to go beyond the career center and build relationships with the faculty who know and have the ability to influence the decisions of college students.

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Who wants to be thought of as an “employer of choice?”

“Don’t we all,” says Karin Lash, regional director, interactive strategy for TMP Worldwide.

But, how do you do that? How do you build an employer brand?

We caught up with Lash and Ryan Estis, senior vice president and chief talent strategist for NAS Recruitment, who shared with us some of the essentials of effective brand building. Watch as these experts outline the ingredients for building a brand that will help you attract quality candidates.

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Stephen Lowisz, author of Six Good Metrics, isn’t fond of some of the most common measures of recruiting success. He talks about one company that’s doing it differently; how to measure whether recruiters are “just passing paper”; and the “biggest buzz” right now in recruiting metrics.

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You’ve done your homework and sold the boss on getting a company video made. In fact, you did such a good job the CEO is hinting around about having a starring role, and since it was your idea, you’re in charge of the project.

Now what do you do?

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This week:

• Non-compete clauses
• “Color tests”
• Internal recruiting
• Resume search/software tool
• Working from home
• Job board debate

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The hiring practices of one of the most famous entertainment venues in the world have been called discriminatory as the result of a background criminal check that turned up a job candidate’s assault conviction.

A New York City law firm filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming Madison Square Garden discriminates against African-American job applicants by illegally using criminal history reports in making hiring decisions.

The EEOC complaint alleges that Carlene Clarke, 27, received an employment offer letter from New York’s Madison Square Garden in September 2007 which was rescinded a month later after a background check discovered she had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault more than five years earlier.

According to the press release issued by Outten & Golden LLP, which represents Clarke, the rationale for the complaint is that “use of criminal histories in making hiring and other employment decisions has a disparate impact on African-Americans.”

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Even the military is not immune from the consolidation of job boards. Today, RecruitMilitary, LLC announced it bought competitor Landmark Destiny Group for an undisclosed amount.

A subsidiary of Virginian-Pilot Media Companies, a Norfolk, Virginia newspaper company, Landmark Destiny operates a job board for U.S. military personnel transitioning to the private sector and recently separated veterans. It will be merged into RecruitMilitary.com, a similar military-focused site.

Both LDG and RecruitMilitary also publish employment newspapers, distributing them on U.S. bases around the world. RecruitMilitary and LDG send their magazines to military bases for free distribution to transitioning personnel. RecruitMilitary publishes Incoming!, a six-page quarterly, and ships more than 50,000 copies to over 230 bases. LDG publishes Search & Employ, a 28-page bimonthly, and ships some15,000 copies to more than 75 bases.

Together the two sites have over 500,000 registered users. It’s not clear how many overlap or what percentage have completed resumes. Still, RecruitMilitary president Drew Myers said in the press release announcing the deal that the acquisition of LDG “greatly strengthens our company. We jump to first place in military-to-civilian job boards, matching our ranking in military-to-civilian career fairs. And the purchase gives us a highly competitive position in publishing.”

We couldn’t tell what ranking he meant. Even ignoring overlap, both sites together don’t come close to the traffic of Monster’s Military.com. Traffic metrics sites Compete.com and Alexa.com show Military.com far ahead in rank and visitors.

RecruitMilitary however, has been aggressively promoting its military career fairs. So far this year it has held 64 compared to 13 in all of 2006, its first year producing the fairs. The company produces career fairs in cooperation with HireVetsFirst, a part of the United States Department of Labor; The American Legion; and the Military Spouse Corporate Career Network.

RecruitMilitary also provides search services to companies looking for workers with military backgrounds.

The basic foundation for all recruiting is the ability to communicate and share information with potential candidates directly. In our modern, high-tech world, corporate recruiters have numerous channels they can use to communicate directly with candidates ranging from face-to-face visits to video chat.

However, there is only one tool that provides a “single point of contact” allowing the use of every form of messaging in use today at any time during the day and from any location. This tool, of course, is the immensely versatile smart phone.

Today’s modern smart phones pack more computing power than most computers did just a few short years ago. They can not only handle your basic person-to-person and conference voice calls, they can also interact with websites, publish blog posts, aggregate RSS feeds, send text messages, send multimedia messages, record/transmit video, record/transmit audio, send email from multiple accounts, take/send pictures, send and receive faxes, edit office documents, and interact with social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

While many organizations empower their recruiters with smart phones, few build a corporate-wide recruiting strategy that leverages the phone as the hub of recruiter activity. Aggressively using smart phones requires forward thinking, something many recruiting managers who came up through the ranks as a transactional recruiter dedicate little time to. In organizations where technology isn’t pervasive and doesn’t permeate every process, the smart phone is seen as just a phone that happens to be mobile, despite its potential to be so much more.

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I’ve been around a lot of years, and I can’t remember a time when recruiters, recruiting managers, hiring managers, HR executives, and company leaders didn’t complain about the lack of good candidates. When the Internet and job boards came along, we were promised the solution was at hand.

But more than a dozen years later, the problems in finding talent have gotten worse, not better. I’m going to suggest that sourcing is not the problem, and that much of the solution has nothing to do with seeing more candidates.

I equate hiring top performers as a business process similar to manufacturing. My early industry background was in high-volume consumer electronics and automotive components, so this comparison is easy for me to make. In a factory when you have excessive scrap you need to either buy extra raw materials or reduce the scrap rate. This is not rocket science, but somehow the obvious seems to be overlooked when it comes to hiring.

(Note: in this article substitute prospects or candidates whenever you read the term “raw materials.”)

When sourcing is viewed as a factory, with prospects coming in at the receiving dock and accepted offers coming out of shipping, you quickly notice two problems. One, the raw material is incorrectly specified or over-specified, and two, the process used to convert the raw material into accepted offers is based more on emotion than science.

In a factory, excessive scrap is usually due to a combination of bad material specs, inconsistent processes, and weak controls. In hiring, these are equivalent to weak job descriptions, managers who evaluate the wrong things incorrectly, and the lack of metrics.

This requires recruiters to find more raw materials than necessary. This becomes problematic when recruiters over-rely on boring advertising and unsophisticated selling techniques to attract a diminishing supply of coveted raw materials.

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I first met John Williams when I went to work for a large financial services firm. He had been at the company for over a decade and was a top performer.

Whenever I mentioned his name, many would respond, “Oh, John! He’s always helped me out when I had a problem.” Or, “He’s one of the best-connected people I know in the company. If you need something, he’ll know where to go to get it.”

He was smart, helpful, and connected, and that’s the formula we all preach about how to succeed.

Yet, John languished in a dead-end job that was 80% clerical. He was passed over for promotions and new opportunities because everyone assumed he was happy where he was and he never sought new positions. He did not manage up well, nor did he want to. He was hoping that he might be recognized for his skills and abilities.

While some might say he lacked ambition, what John really suffered from was a lack of self-confidence and an equal lack of encouragement. I worked with him and his boss, and we eventually found a position with more responsibility where he thrived. He sought out mentors from his network and he learned the key elements of the job in weeks. In the past, whenever we hired an outsider person for this type of job it took months for them to fully understand the intricacies of the job and who to go to for advice.

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If you’re into brown, blue and green you ought to go be a doctor or a forest ranger. See how easy picking a career is when you know your colors?

Like white? Then interior decorating is for you. (Too easy. Everyone knows white goes with everything.)

How about if your favorite colors happen to be black and red and orange? Maybe you just really like Halloween. Otherwise, you are “The Evaluator,” says a press release from CareerBuilder (profile; site), which just added a color wheel (parked on the old CareerPath.com website) to help jobseekers better assess their personality.

Before we get scolded for making light of a serious assessment tool let us note that the Color Career Counselor has been scientifically vetted with the results published in the North American Journal of Psychology. You can read the paper here, but fair warning: it’s full of the kind of statistical analysis we avoided in college.

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Having talked to countless hiring managers, one of their biggest frustrations is not knowing what is going on with a particular search. They post a position, talk to their recruiter, and then wait for candidates to come their way.

While many recruitment organizations have created service level agreements that define the recruitment/hiring process and each parties’ (hiring manager and recruiter) responsibilities, many do not define and establish a “time-to-first-submittal” SLA. This SLA is what I believe to be the most important.

We (and others!) call this SLA: Requisition Received to “First Submittal.”

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Are you a recruiter constantly away from your desk and unable to keep up with the recruiting cycle? Do you find yourself trying to find, evaluate, and recruit candidates while on the go? If this sounds like you, get an iPhone, and get access to everything you need right in the palm of your hands.

Without sounding like an Apple sales representative, I discovered that the iPhone opens up a huge playing field specifically for recruiters and sourcers who frequently travel, work in the field, or who work virtually.

The iPhone acts like a mini-computer, where users can access work email, use the Internet, read and produce documents, take notes, and stay organized all while on the run away from an office setting. The iPhone offers a view of the Internet that is exactly the same one would see through a web browser on a desktop computer. With new 3G wireless speeds and advanced security features, the iPhone is now also a very safe product to allow mobile access to systems, programs, sensitive files, key company information, and important documents.

With this in mind, the iPhone can significantly boost recruiter productivity and help to shorten the time-to-fill cycle for open positions. When a recruiter is moving between appointments offsite, the iPhone can access an ATS to update candidate information, grab key files on a shared drive online, or produce a report and email in a timely fashion to various managers and team members.

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