In recent weeks there has been a lot of news about SB 1070 — The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act — enacted by Arizona. The law brings into focus the need for immigration reform, but other than that, the reaction to the law has been hysterical, over the top, and often grossly... [full article »]

A lot of employers that have started using social media are doing so without fully understanding the opportunities and challenges associated with it. The tendency is to treat social media as a mechanism to broadcast jobs; in other words, as an advertising medium. This reminds me of an interview I heard some months ago, with... [full article »]

Looking for a job as a recruiter? After a long lean period, things are looking up. The long night has ended and we’re still here. It’s over. After two years of layoffs the economy is now creating more jobs than it’s losing. In March, the economy created 162,000 new jobs. The Dow is 70% of the... [full article »]

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... [full article »]

In the movie “It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world” a bunch of people are trying to find a fortune buried under a “big W.” The movie ends badly for just about everyone, with no one getting the money — which had been stolen to begin with. The parallels between that movie and the current... [full article »]

The recent unemployment report showed that the loss of jobs for November was only 11,000, and average hours worked increased from 33 per week to 33.2. The Dow surged 130 points, and some analysts described it as a “wow” moment — explaining that the loss was so much less than expected. Wow! We really do... [full article »]

I recently tried to arrange a meeting with someone visiting the Twin Cities and learned from his office that he’d asked that anyone wanting to reach him should “Tweet me.” Tweet me? E-mail or text messaging not good enough? Let me get this straight: I should try and arrange a private meeting to discuss a... [full article »]

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics The economy grew 3.5% in the last quarter, signaling a definite end to the recession and the start of a recovery. That’s great news, but look closer and it doesn’t seem that there’s much to celebrate yet. Six-tenths of a percent came from spending by the federal government and another... [full article »]

I recently wrote about the need to directly stimulate job creation by giving employers incentives to hire workers. I’m glad to say that the government is taking the advice seriously. [full article »]

It’s not often that the government of the United States has anything to learn from the government of Singapore, but when it comes to job creation the city has something to offer. The Jobs Credit initiative provides cash grants to employers on a certain percentage of monthly wages per employee. The result: unemployment remains among... [full article »]

The hot stuff in HR technology these days is all to do with social networking. Recruiters are flocking to social media with the energy of a bull let loose in a pasture full of lonely cows during mating season. All that effort does produce some results — candidates (or calves; depending on what you’re thinking... [full article »]

… and nobody follows him, then was it written? Any discussion around Twitter raises a lot of questions from the sublime to ridiculous. And so it should be: Twitter is an interesting product, and there aren’t a lot of those in recruiting. My last article on social networking criticized Twitter, so I’ll start this one... [full article »]

Like prospectors during the gold rush, recruiters everywhere are flocking to social networks in search of hires. But like the experience of many during the gold rush, getting results in not easy. Reaping the benefits of social networking requires engaging with those networks. There’s plenty being written about how to do so, but to know... [full article »]

The Human Resources Commissioner for Chicago recently resigned. He had been originally hired to implement a hiring system free of politics. Apparently, the Commissioner had made some employment decisions that were influenced by politics, and then lied to the Chicago Inspector General about them. This was a great loss, given how high a priority the... [full article »]

With unemployment now reaching 9.5% and on track to hit 10% in the next few months, recruiters should consider their career options for the near term. Unemployment is a lagging indicator, so it may well be that things are getting better. There are glimmers of hope that may suggest the worst is over — The... [full article »]

Social networking is hot; at a recent event over 300 recruiters showed up to hear the experience of a company best known for making urinal cakes. It’s not easy to do — getting hires through social networking, that is (I can’t comment about the cakes). Some of the challenges were discussed in a previous article,... [full article »]

Social networking is all the rage in recruiting these days. Hearing or reading about some of the claims being made — that soon sourcing will become extinct as social networks begin to interact, for example, or that we are close to finding the “ultimate solution” as some would have us believe — one could be... [full article »]

The recession we’re in will have long-run consequences for employment and consequently recruiting. The world is about to see the biggest increase in unemployment in decades. The World Bank and the IMF predict that global trade will contract at the fastest rate since 1930 and global economic output will drop for the first time since... [full article »]

The recently passed “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,” aka the stimulus bill, includes a provision that restricts companies receiving federal bailout funds from hiring immigrant workers on H-1B visas. This provision was added by senators Charles Grassley, from Iowa, and Bernie Sanders, from Vermont. Considering that engineers, scientists, and immigrants with advanced degrees... [full article »]

Many employers are eager to tap the potential of social networks as sources of talent. The potential is huge, and facing difficult economic conditions, these can be a cheap source. But it’s easier said than done. Some employers have put up their own corporate pages on Facebook. But this accomplishes nothing more than to prove... [full article »]