At an early age I had the unique opportunity to work at the corporate offices of two different Fortune 500 companies. One was number 37 on the list, and the other one 497. While there, I learned a few timeless strategy lessons. They might be useful as you develop the hiring strategy for your company... [full article »]

Despite mixed results with HR outsourcing, outsourcing parts or all of the recruitment process is growing as companies discover the flexibility and scalability that external worker provisioning can offer. A new study from outsourcing research firm Everest Global suggests that while the recession is reducing the size of RPO contracts, interest is growing, especially among employers... [full article »]

Social media presents progressive organizations with a plethora of recruiting-centric opportunities. Every day, new ways to directly source talent, support the engagement of people with the organization, market employment opportunities, and influence the employer brand arise. The sheer volume of potential directions to follow is confusing, daunting, and at times, just plain overwhelming. While some organizations... [full article »]

How do you convince cynical executives to fund a social network recruiting effort? It’s hard to argue against the statement that social networking (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) is an extremely hot topic in business. But I have yet to find a single CFO or senior executive willing to fully fund a comprehensive social network recruiting strategy... [full article »]

When Dr. John Sullivan said last week that employers have lost control of their brand, he likely wasn’t thinking of Sidewiki. Why should he? When the article was published Monday Sidewiki was not even three weeks old; Google launched it on Sept. 23rd. But Sidewiki’s potential for deconstructing a brand is enormous. Unlike all the networking... [full article »]

For more than a decade, I have worked tirelessly to maintain my status as a recognized global expert on employer branding. I have advised numerous firms; developed positioning methodologies now in use by many HR consultancies and recruitment marketing firms; given dozens of employer branding presentations; and have even written a book on the topic. Despite... [full article »]

No matter how long you have been in the HR profession, this might be the only comprehensive list of retention strategies you have ever seen. This is true because retention is not yet a distinct discipline, and because most retention managers and consultants laser-focus on their favored approach. In order to provide you with a big-picture view... [full article »]

Every vendor in the recruiting space touts their latest recruiting and sourcing tool as the next killer app. If you were there, you saw many of them at the last ERE Expo in Florida in September. As the economy recovers, there will be many more at ERE’s Expo 2010 in San Diego next March. Some... [full article »]

Shopping for a car? Need groceries? Want new clothes? Looking at trying a new restaurant? Whether we are actively searching for a given product or not, we form opinions and make decisions based, at least in part, on the marketing messages we receive about them. The world of employment advertising is no exception. Attractive logos, extensive... [full article »]

One of the worst-kept secrets in recruiting is that source of hire data is inconsistently gathered and rarely accurate. To many corporate recruiters, the validity of source of hire data is a non issue; after all, once the hire is generated, their role is over. However, if you view recruiting as a marketing and sales... [full article »]

It’s hard to argue against the concept of strategic integration. Having related business units working closely together, rather than operating as independent silos, almost always increases efficiency, reduces errors, and improves overall results. There’s no better example of what integration can accomplish than the modern-day supply-chain organization, which used to operate as four independent functions (purchasing; inventory... [full article »]

When many organizations are faced with the need to cut labor costs, the approaches taken are generally unscientific and poorly researched. Many simply do what other organizations acting before them have already done. The decision-making seems almost whimsical, with the final option selection process akin to throwing darts. The end result of such whimsical action is... [full article »]

Over the past few months I’ve been making some not-so-bold predictions about the demise of job boards and the rise of the “hub and spoke” sourcing model for finding a better class of active candidates. Rather than repeat the prognostication here, I’d suggest that despite the shift to this new and improved sourcing model, in... [full article »]

The list of companies offering resume writing, enhancement, and tracking continues to grow faster than you can say LinkedIn, with new vendors entering the market this summer. [full article »]

Attention you would-be tweeps and tweeple. You talk a good game, but you don’t tweet one. In fact, you don’t tweet at all. Half of all those registered on Twitter have not tweeted once. Half of those registered have no followers. Half follow no one. Nine percent of Twitter’s estimated 5-6 million registered users (the company... [full article »]

In the aftermath of ERE’s successful social recruiting summit two weeks ago, we might assume that talent acquisition professionals are on the cutting-edge of the latest and greatest in recruitment technology. Many best practice organizations are turning their backs on traditional sourcing tools in favor of mobile recruiting, social networking, and search engine optimization. One... [full article »]

Here is what is going on this week in the ERE world: Later today at 2:00 p.m. ET, sign up for this week’s free webinar, Taking Control of EVP: How to Measure, Manage and Improve Your Employment Brand Presence led by Mitzi Adwell from The Newman Group. We’ll explore tactics for defining the attributes that differentiate... [full article »]

Most of the media coverage these days about recruiting is devoted to social networking, mobile recruiting, and blogging, but the recruiting technology likely to have the most impact if it continues to catch on at the current rate is interviewing candidates “live” from remote locations. The approach I call “interviewing from anywhere” takes advantage... [full article »]

Here is what is going on around the ERE world this week: There will be no Fordyce TV this week, but we will resume again on June 30 with Jeff Kaye. However, if you are on the search and placement side of the business and weren’t able to make it to Las Vegas a few weeks... [full article »]

As the summer’s gathering of social-media-using recruiters kicks off at Google’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, recruiters at DaVita, KPMG, CO-OP Financial Services, Burger King, California Pizza Kitchen, and the University of California we talked to over the last couple of weeks say that social media is an ongoing experiment, one that in some companies... [full article »]