ERE.net

Campus recruiting is where the action is this year. Demand will be up, and competition for the same students will be common. Technical graduates are almost impossible to find, and visa restrictions, along with increased security, will make hiring foreign nationals more difficult.

It is no longer possible to be a passive corporate college recruiter; you have to have an aggressive and well-thought-out strategy if you even hope to attract the candidates you really want. Social media and the Internet have changed the game, and college students are looking for and will expect you to have a strong and interesting online presence. Going to campus to hold information sessions is definitely 20th century, and should be phased out over the next few years.

It will be replaced with online networks, brand-building, interactive and virtual information, and virtual mentoring programs. I have compiled a list of 40 elements that I think a 21st college recruiting program should have. I’d love your thoughts and feedback. Let’s get a good discussion going as to whether the virtual approach that I advocate will really be the way it is done.

Here is my list of the elements that make up a 21st century college program.

1. keep reading…

Recruiting and HR will not evolve independently of global events and pressures. Geopolitical issues, energy, global warming, rapid industrialization, demographics, immigration, and the constant invention of new jobs and disciplines will always drive the day-to-day realities of recruiting and HR.

A key driver of the evolution of recruiting and HR is the amount of growth in the economy and in a specific business. Recruiting for new roles is significantly different than recruiting to replace. The more clearly a role is understood and documented, the more the market behaves in competitive fashion. Once the new role is completely commoditized, it’s easy to talk about job descriptions, resume analysis, and community development. As long as the role represents growth and innovation, it is hard to characterize, and recruiting involves more intuition.

Status also makes a difference. Methods and processes used for recruiting and HR vary on two dimensions: level of compensation and the degree to which the job involves intellect. When compensation is low and involves brute force, the issues revolve around safety and reliability. When the questions involve enormous fees and lots of conceptualization (and notably, few real safety issues) the game is very, very different.

The following brief scenarios will give you some idea of the way that talent acquisition and management could evolve given a shifting landscape: keep reading…

Monster’s acquisition of HotJobs is a major coup for the recruitment firm, catapulting it into the lead in traffic, and boosting its global growth prospects, while also helping it to gain greater entree to the small employers that to this day still turn to newspapers for recruitment.

The $225 million deal gives it HotJobs, a presence on Yahoo! sites in the U.S. and Canada, and partnerships with some 600 newspapers and media outlets.

No wonder that Monster CEO Sal Iannuzzi told Wall Street analysts in a conference call this afternoon, the purchase makes his company the “No. 1 global firm in our industry.”

Monster’s closest rival CareerBuilder may not agree, but Iannuzzi’s comment is no idle boast. Monster’s overseas revenue is on a par with its North American revenue. (In the 4th quarter of 2009 it had international revenues of $88.5 million. Revenue from the U.S. and Canada was $90.9 million.

Uncharacteristically, CareerBuilder did not respond to requests for its North American revenue (the only number the privately held company provides). However, in the third quarter it had North American revenue of $135 million to Monster’s $95.2 million. keep reading…

Monster is buying HotJobs. The news of the $225 million acquisition from Yahoo! was announced just moments ago in New York.

The deal includes a three-year agreement in which Monster will power the career channel on Yahoo’s homepage in the U.S. and Canada. Yahoo will continue to manage the 600+ newspaper advertising and content consortium it has put together over the last several years. Monster, however, will get the recruitment advertising, giving it a print and online network of more than 1,000 daily and weekly newspapers across North America.

The financial terms were not detailed in the press release, but are likely to be one of the topics to be discussed at a 2 p.m. PST conference call with financial and other analysts. That conference call was scheduled weeks ago to coincide with today’s release by Monster of its 4th quarter and 2009 annual financial results.

Monster’s financial report, released at the same time as the announcement of the HotJobs deal, shows revenue was off for the quarter by 27 percent and off 33 percent from the same periods in 2008.

For the 4th quarter, Monster lost 2 cents per share or $2.1 million. The average of analyst estimates had been a loss of a penny per share.  After accounting for certain adjustments, Monster’s pro forma performance was in line with the analyst average.

For the year, Monster posted a $18.9 million profit, which translates into earnings per share of 16 cents.

Recruiting often requires creativity, especially when candidates are hard to find. But sometimes creativity results in strange or weird approaches to recruitment. Take for example this recruiting video from a hospital in Canada. The video follows a woman who goes to drop off her resume at the hospital. There, she ends up singing and dancing with staff in its hallways. Patients dance with intravenous drips, a doctor sings, and a child plays with a stethoscope.

If that’s what hospitals are like in Canada I’ll be certain not to get ill if I’m north of the border, but apparently as a recruiting tool, it worked pretty well. The video has been viewed more than 60,000 times since its online release in mid-September. And the hospital received some 2,600 resumes within the first few weeks after its release, which equalled the number it received in the previous six months. It also managed to make 200 hires. keep reading…

Talent management vendor Kenexa eked out a small profit in the fourth quarter of last year, but still ended the year with a loss of $31.1 million.

It was an improvement over the $104.7 million loss the company posted for 2008. However, that loss included a $167 million downward adjustment for goodwill. The 2009 report includes a further $33.3 million goodwill reduction.

Without the goodwill hit and some additional minor and one-time charges, Kenexa earned $15.9 million last year on revenue of $157.7 million. That’s down from 2008 when the company earned $36.6 million on revenue of $203.7 million.

Kenexa’s numbers, released this afternoon, mirror the HR technology sector’s as a whole. Although most companies in the sector are privately held, the public ones have generally reported quarterly earnings in 2009 below those in the previous year. Most companies have also reduced the value of their goodwill.

In releasing the quarterly and annual numbers, Kenexa CEO Rudy Karsan said, “As we enter 2010, we continue to believe that Kenexa’s financial performance will remain consistent with recent quarters as the unemployment rate approaches stability, which is currently expected to occur around the middle of the year. As this occurs, we believe that Kenexa is well positioned to begin scaling its quarterly revenue run rate.”

The company said it expects revenue in the current quarter to be in the $38 million to $40 million range, resulting in net income between $2.2 million and $2.6 million. For the year, the company expects revenue to be in the $160 million to $168 million range and income between $14.5 million to $18.5 million.

One of the things I hear often, in many places I go, is that people tend to describe the downturn and the potential of the upturn in extreme terms. The downturn has been “all bad” and there’s “nothing good that’s come of it.” Similarly, when others talk about the upturn and 2010 (and beyond), I hear a lot unbridled enthusiasm and optimism.

To me, the truth lies somewhere in between. keep reading…

Coming up Friday is the monthly employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And if early indications are correct, it could confirm the hope raised by last week’s robust GDP numbers that not only is the economy recovering, but it is picking up steam.

As a barometer of the political economy, the employment report is closely watched, which will be especially true this week, coming on the heels of a State of the Union speech in which every other paragraph seemed to mention the word jobs. Friday’s release will offer the best indication yet of how much improvement there is in the jobs picture.

While many economists expect the report to show flat job growth — itself an improvement over the last two years of almost monthly job losses — there is a growing feeling of hope it might show the economy added jobs.

The Conference Board’s monthly report on job openings released today showed the number jumped 382,000 over December. According to the report, there were 4.024 million jobs advertised online in January. That’s the most since November 2008 and is the third month in a row that openings grew. keep reading…

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

• Sign up for this week’s free webinar on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET – The Art of Identifying and Recruiting Passive Candidates: Next Generation Search, led by Krista Bradford. Krista will share her secrets of this next-generation search so you can fill searches faster, better and more affordably.
• If you are on the search and placement side of the business, check out the just announced agenda and speaker roster for the fourth annual Fordyce Forum 2010 taking place in Las Vegas from June 9-11. Over fifteen big billers and industry experts will share their success strategies on how to increase your billings and improve your process. And register by Friday to lock in the $400 early bird discount.
• On the events front, both SourceCon 2010 & ERE Expo 2010 Spring are quickly approaching next month in San Diego. SourceCon, the premier sourcing event for our industry takes place March 14-15. Corporate recruiting leaders are getting ready to converge on San Diego for the 10th annual ERE Expo on March 15-17.
• During breaks at the Expo in San Diego, we’d like to show some of your videos. Make a 1-minute or shorter video of you telling your favorite recruiting story — it could be the most heartwarming advice or experience you’ve had, one that made you proud of the profession — or, it could be bad behavior by a candidate (or a manager!) during an interview, an employer brand gone awry, a botched recruitment ad campaign, or something else. Email Todd Raphael (he prefers PG-13 or cleaner) the Youtube embed code and we’ll pick some of the best to show at the upcoming conference.

If you have questions about any of this, please post them in the comments below. Have a great week!

We are looking for professionals who are unhappy/angry with the status quo, and who are willing to confront barriers and “find a way” to help us lead our industry. If you’ve got passion for your profession, well-thought-out ideas about a better way, and are angry with antiquated approaches that no longer work, submit your anger statement to our career website at www.getthehelloutofmyway.com. -Fictitious website

This might sound like an outrageous idea on the surface, but I’m recommending that as part of your recruiting strategy you target hiring “angry people.” keep reading…