After recent announcements by Facebook and the rise of networking platforms like MySpace, LinkedIn, and Ning, social networks are once again gaining momentum. Usage is accelerating, new audiences are being drawn in, and new applications are being developed that can help us all better manage our lives and contacts. Recruiters stand to benefit most from... [full article »]

Making the move from a cost center to a profit center is a daunting task that most talent management and recruiting teams don’t attempt. Yet when the economy shifts, and it will again, this might be the most important thing you can do today to ensure that your budgets don’t get cut, your staff doesn’t... [full article »]

Passion is perhaps the most important component of performance. Blogs are providing a new window into what drives individuals that we’ve never been able to see on a resume. In the course of building my own teams and recruiting for other companies, there was always a certain intangible quality I sought that was one of the... [full article »]

Today’s entrepreneur is finding that it’s harder than ever to attract top talent. In the early days of the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, big employers were rightfully scared of startups hiring their people away with promises of unimagined riches, half-day ping-pong tournaments, and lavish parties. It was like summer camp with stock options. Yet one... [full article »]

Video resumes and video interviews are here. Yet some employers, afraid of the legal ramifications of reviewing videos of people in the hiring process, are curling up into the fetal position and taking steps to avoid them altogether. Here’s why you should do the exact opposite and fully embrace them. I recently had a conversation with... [full article »]

Over the last decade, we’ve seen a wave of innovation that the world has never seen. And this decade will move even faster. In an innovation economy, recruiting can play a central role in how new ideas are developed and taken to market. According to Ray Kurzweil, recipient of the National Medal of Technology and a... [full article »]

A fundamental shift in recruiting values is now taking place inside organizations around the world. At the center of this shift is a focus on more proactive recruiting tactics in order to help drive a higher return on investment from recruiting and develop talent pipelines ahead of demand. In a reactionary, requisition-driven recruiting model, overhead metrics... [full article »]

Just when you think you’ve mastered the Internet, along comes a new generation that is changing the way we use the Web. It will be incumbent on today’s recruiting innovators to rethink and shift their recruiting tactics in response to the changing dynamics of the Web’s second generation. Ten years ago, leading companies identified that the... [full article »]

As unemployment continues to decrease, local talent is becoming harder to find in many U.S. markets. Recruiters in hot job markets like Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Las Vegas more frequently have to relocate candidates from other areas. Determining which markets to target with your recruiting efforts doesn’t have to be a guessing game. In consulting... [full article »]

We all want the best available talent, but of course we’re not alone. As the market for great talent intensifies, some of the best recruiters will realize that there’s often a place for B players in their talent strategies. Identifying and exploiting these untapped talent pools can make your business a dominant force in your... [full article »]

For all staffing directors that lament that they can’t get a strategic seat at the table, Keith Hammonds of Fast Company magazine has an answer for them: “HR people are, for most practical purposes, neither strategic nor leaders.” It’s time to consider recruiting’s role in why companies hate their HR departments - and if leaving... [full article »]

The national unemployment rate, now at 4.7%, continues to decline. Recruiting costs are rising, and it’s taking longer to find and hire people again. Hiring managers are starting to get frustrated. Believe it or not, employers still have the upper hand ó but not for long. In 2011, the first big wave of Baby Boomers... [full article »]

In my time in the recruiting space, I have learned that there is one topic that routinely incites the masses: ethics in recruiting. The recent “Ethics in Recruiting” panel at the ER Expo in San Diego was an enlightening experience that will set the stage for years of discussion and debate in our industry. The... [full article »]

In the global war for talent, the United States has always been able to rely on our strong appeal as a land of opportunity to attract the best and brightest talent from around the world. With the rise of other economies like China, India, and Singapore, we are seeing increased competition for these resources, and... [full article »]

In the face of growing worldwide skills shortages, organizations will increasingly attempt to activate their employee base as the main engine of their recruiting efforts. This will eventually blur the line between where the recruiting department ends and employee referral programs begin. Furthermore, our traditional notion of what makes a great employee referral program is... [full article »]

At the beginning of every great business success there’s a human capital story, and that’s certainly the case with the iPod. In just over four years, the iPod/iTunes product and business strategy has helped Apple double its market cap, establish over 80% market share in two very profitable industries, and drive almost $3 billion per... [full article »]

Blogs represent an emerging and rapidly growing communication vehicle. Today, there are over 14 million blogs, and this number is increasing fast — over 80,000 are added each day. The applications for recruiting have been fairly limited (Microsoft’s brilliant marketing/finance and technical blogs aside). Yet there is a very real and powerful place for blogs... [full article »]

We’ve all been touched in some way by Hurricane Katrina, the worst domestic natural disaster in our lifetime. Ripple effects in our economy and our industry are only beginning to be felt. Heroic and tragic stories of friends, relatives, and colleagues continue to reach the public. Our own industry is also not immune to the... [full article »]

Since the late 1990’s, many in our profession have been consumed with the potential for a cataclysmic labor shortage in the U.S. We’ve all seen the numbers: a predicted 10 million worker shortage in 2010, and up to 35 million shortage by 2035. Will a combination of aging population demographics, a growing economy, and fewer... [full article »]

In Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, he demonstrates that the power of our unconscious biases is often greater than that of our conscious beliefs. What we believe is frequently overshadowed by assumptions we’re often unaware we’re making. Like it or not, this spills over into almost all of... [full article »]