Some points to make before you read this article: It’s somewhat controversial, but by the end you’ll agree (if you get that far). If you’re a corporate recruiter or HR leader, put your confirmation bias in the parking lot before reading this article. You might want to listen to this YouTube video of a webcast... [full article »]

Spend your days driving a honkin’ dual-tandem, 700 hp eco-machine through the most beautiful city in the world. This was the winning job posting for a creative job posting contest we recently ran. This one was for a bus driver for the city of Vancouver, Canada. Keeping on the bus theme, most of us recall... [full article »]

As I ponder the future of where our industry is headed, I’m reminded of Geoffrey Moore’s technology adoption curve, from his fine book, Crossing the Chasm. It describes how users (aka “buyers”) of technology follow a predictable adoption rate, generally based on their comfort with the technology and their ability to implement change. It’s not... [full article »]

There’s an old adage that you should treat candidates as customers. Somehow this has been forgotten in the current era of high unemployment and slow job growth. I’m going to reframe this idea and suggest that if you want to hire the best people possible, treat everyone as if they were a passive candidate. This... [full article »]

Every executive and hiring manager worth his or her salt will tell you hiring top talent is the most important thing they need to do. Unfortunately when it comes to putting their money on the table, most often all you’ll see is pocket change. Somewhere in the bowels of the company’s mission statement is some... [full article »]

As many of you know — I announced it at the ERE Expo in San Diego — I’ve decided to bring recruiting back to recruiting. This is my new old mission. Somehow this has been lost in the past few years when overall candidate supply exceeded demand. Hiring top talent is not the same as... [full article »]

As the economic outlook improves, companies will need to rethink their hiring strategies in order to maintain their current quality of hire, as well as fill an increasing number of open positions. Much of this will require an increased emphasis on passive candidate recruiting, and less on active candidate sourcing. In a survey conducted in... [full article »]

I just finished my 10th year of ERE Spring Expos (March 23-25, 2011) and I left with a great deal of optimism about the prospects for our industry over the next one to two years. However, with that general positive underlying feeling about economic prospects, I also have major concerns that not much has changed... [full article »]

I recently reread Michael Gerber’s business best seller The eMyth and found that many of the principles he suggests for growing a business apply directly to the corporate recruiting department. You might want to follow some of his advice if any of your recruiting processes are not working as efficiently as you’d like. One reviewer... [full article »]

Many recruiters lose too many good candidates at the beginning of the sourcing and recruiting process, due to lack of basic recruiting skills. As a result, they work too hard screening more candidates than necessary and lowering overall candidate quality, since they let the best ones get away without a fight. The problem starts by... [full article »]

I’m just a recruiter, not some Ph.D., OD guru, or stat-type, but over the years I’ve developed a theory about interviewing that seems to work 84.27% of time. Using it for the past 25 years, more than 84.27% percent of my candidates have been called back for second round interviews. Ninety percent of these pass... [full article »]

In a recent ERE article I made the contention that if you wanted to convert a corporate recruiting department into a competitive internal executive search group, you had to first develop the hiring process recruiters would use, before you hired the recruiters. This is primarily attributed to the fact that the external executive search business... [full article »]

As the hiring recovery gains momentum, some older recruiting strategies are coming back in vogue. One that seems to be high on many HR executives’ action plans is the need to develop an internal executive search capability within the corporate recruiting department. While the idea offers great merit, the approach many companies take is hiring... [full article »]

Although there were some naysayers about my predictions for job growth in 2011 (Dec 14, 2010 ERE), it’s more clear that 2011 will be banner year for professional hiring, coupled with the added impact of employee churn. Even if the prediction is somewhat premature, get ready for it anyway. What else are you going to... [full article »]

I have a brilliant nephew — Harvard grad, etc., — who is, shall we say, a bit left of center. He has an executive position in the California state government, which is enough to further pinpoint his political persuasion. While I love him dearly, during the holiday season we have some rather contentious discussions regarding... [full article »]

I predict that the market is finally heating up. Of course, I’ve been wrong for the past few years, so you might want to take the next few ideas on how to get ready for 2011 with a grain of salt. Or not. The market for top talent is definitely heating up, and you need... [full article »]

In his book Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande contends that good people underperform largely due to errors of ineptitude — not doing what we know needs to be done — rather than errors of ignorance or inability. With this as a backdrop, he goes on to demonstrate that the proper use of checklists can minimize ineptitude-related... [full article »]

Every action has an opposite and equal reaction — Newton’s Third Law of Motion There is a dark side to a company’s ability to identify and recruit high-potential fully-employed passive candidates. The problem: the fully employed people they’re identifying, recruiting, and hiring now work for your company. So as LinkedIn’s “auto-connect your employees with every job posting”... [full article »]

As most of you know, I think job descriptions are the primary reason why companies can’t find or hire top talent. For this reason alone they should be abolished. Here’s the first dozen of a zillion reasons why. [full article »]

In my mind, there are four types of corporate recruiting styles. These are shown below. In fact, I’ll contend (and attempt to prove in this article) that this style directly impacts the quality of people brought into an organization. If quality of hire matters, recruiting leaders need to take this “recruiting style” issue into account... [full article »]