When I started out as a recruiter, some 30 years ago, it was pretty clear that you could make more placements if you were a better interviewer than your hiring manager clients. Not only would all of your candidates be interviewed, but your best ones wouldn’t get tossed under the bus by superficial or narrow... [full article »]

The financial gain of hiring A-level talent is probably 10-100 times the person’s compensation. The financial cost of hiring a walking lawsuit is probably 10-100 times their compensation. Assuming the duds and the stars represent 10% of your total hires, it’s what you do with the other 90% that really matters. [full article »]

There was a great op-ed in a recent LA Times written by Jonah Goldberg, called Avatar and the Faith Myth. Mr. Goldberg, obviously a very educated person, at times complaining about the superficiality of the movie and at others describing the religious implications of the movie, both positive and negative, depending on your point of... [full article »]

Maximizing your use of time is the key to hiring more top performers. In a recent webinar with Jobs2Web, I described the sourcing sweet-spot. This is the point just before and just after a fully employed person decides to consider looking for another position. This time-frame represents the window of opportunity to hire the best... [full article »]

In a previous article, I suggested that most companies don’t have a formal hiring strategy in place that drives planning and decision-making. As a result, some default strategy predominates how hiring is done; generally, some mashup of competing ideas. Typically this is hiring manager-driven with individual managers determining who gets hired. Few managers are great at... [full article »]

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 »]

Over the past several months I’ve been advocating a strategic view of the recruiting function based on quality of hire as the metric of choice. In case you missed any of the missives, here’s a quick summary of what some would contend are blasphemous repudiations of the recruiting department of yesteryear. [full article »]

In all the brouhaha about great new sourcing initiatives and Web 2.0 tools, how much have your recruiters and hiring managers improved their ability to hire great people, not average people? In my opinion, we’ve downplayed what it really takes to be successful in our profession — recruiting, counseling, and closing top people who have multiple... [full article »]

Over the past few months I’ve been describing a new approach for determining quality of hire, and using changes in this to justify any new expenditures on an ROI basis. While the methodology is pretty slick, the pushback is coming not from the process, but from the idea that HR/recruiting is responsible for quality of... [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 »]

Many years ago, in the land of Spamalittle, King Rter lived in a tiny castle near a pond. It was a noisy pond filled with the sound of croaking frogs, day and night. In his quest to maintain rule over his tiny kingdom, Rter needs mighty knights to fight dragons, battle anarchists, fight off industrial demons,... [full article »]

Over the past few months, I’ve been tracking employee satisfaction vs. job hunting activity. Here’s the link so you can take the survey yourself, see the results, and forward it to others. The idea here is that by tracking changes in satisfaction and the job-hunting activity level for the fully employed, we’ll have a leading indicator... [full article »]

A small trickle of new jobs will cause a tidal wave of unexpected replacement hiring. Here’s why you need to get ready now. Hopefully, it’s not too late. In a recent ERE article, I made the point that “employment churn” (fully employed people switching seats) will increase dramatically three to four months before any pickup in... [full article »]

The baseball trading deadline has just passed, and 100 or so players have new jobs with different clubs; however, total player employment is still exactly the same. Employed people switching seats with other employed people doesn’t count as a positive in the employment statistics, regardless of how much effort it entails. I refer to this... [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 »]

Despite my optimistic view of the past few months, I’m considering the possibility that the recovery could be very long in coming and very slow in growing. If so, it’s important that you start planning your recruiting activity and resource needs for this worst-case situation. To take a stab at this complex issue, imagine you’re in the... [full article »]

Over the past six months, I’ve worked with dozens of major companies and some of the latest new recruiting and sourcing technologies. Based on this, it’s not a reach to contend that how companies will find, recruit, and hire top talent in 2010 and beyond will be far different than how it’s been done in... [full article »]

Whenever I need an idea for an article I call Doug Berg, the CEO and/or founder, or something like that, at Jobs2Web. So to meet this week’s need, Doug suggested I write about my reticular activator. I thought this was a bit personal, and while initially offended, it turned out to be great advice. I... [full article »]

If it wasn’t for hiring managers, recruiting would be so easy. But, alas, this is not to be. Instead, we can either confront them head on, or put our heads down in despair, and find still other perfectly qualified candidates they still won’t like. Unfortunately, too many recruiters fall into this endless productivity-draining black hole,... [full article »]

Fast forward to January 15, 2010. What are some of the hiring challenges you’re now facing? As you put the list together, consider these assumptions: The trough of the economic downturn was reached in April 2009. Job losses continued through October 2009, but at a declining rate, with job gains finally turning positive in November 2009, at around... [full article »]