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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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Mark and I were going over this fall's conference season and I was struck at the number and quality of the conferences available...and these are just the ones where we are doing a session, moderating a panel (or just playing poker):
In September we are looking to connect with friends at Sourcecon in Atlanta...essentially the only conference of its kind devoted totally to the sourcing community. The contrasts here are fascinating to observe.
I'll head back to Toronto shortly afterward for Jason Davis' Recruiting Blog- Recruitfest. I'm thrilled to see Jason's community of recruiting iconoclasts grow and conbtribute to the voices that are out there.
The former is on a mission to become the standard bearer for HR technology standards while the latter offers organized insights into HR & Staffing technologies & applications that are changing the game. This conference may offer us the most controversial platform for us this year- to discuss the future of social networks. (We never speak to the same topic twice)
October is also an opportunity to enjoy the fall ERE Expo 2008 in still sunny Florida where we have hijacked three mystery panelists to help us assess new recruiter tools and apps. We'll also be running a small pre-conference workshop based on the methods we use in our CareerXroads Colloquium that we facilitate 6 times each year with invited staffing leaders.
As a student of the space, I hope to learn a great deal from my colleagues, eat well, enjoy deep conversations (or those that seem deep depending on the time of day) and perhaps...if I'm lucky, win a few hands.
Please support your favorite conferences this fall and stop by and say hi to Mark or myself. Take in an extra one if you can or send your team...you just never know when the budget for travel might get hijacked.
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
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During a recent meeting at Johns Hopkins, delving into college recruiting, one of the staffing leaders linked us up to a YouTube 5-minute video produced by nearly 200 students in a sociology class entitled A Vision of Students Today.
While most of the demographics are familiar, the mode of sharing them is highly personal- i.e. one young student holds up a sheet on which she has printed "I will read 8 books this year" and then replaces it with another the says "& 2800 web pages", "1280 Facebook profiles"...
Well worth perusing and adding to the library.
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Imagine you are a qualified candidate for a position in a great company. You don't make it to the interview stage and don't get the job but you do receive a turndown email that not only gives you the bad news but also offers you a consolation - an invitation to share your resume/profile with other great companies.
We've seen versions of this concept attempted by vendors and company consortiums in the past. The idea resonates because if you can't use the candidate maybe someone else can - and, in return, maybe someone who was a finalist in a similar firm or a great company near our location might be accessible and interested (as well as low cost to source) before we have to spend money on ads, or additional sourcing and marketing campaigns.
The challenges, however are significant. AllianceQ, recently launched on the premise above, might just have a chance at overcoming the obstacles by setting up a true consortium without vendor interference. We believe it will depend on the quality of the companies who participate.
Phil Haynes (who recently left Wachovia) is working the initial AllianceQ startup for QuietAgent, the firm behind AllianceQ. We can see dozens of possibilities if they limit themselves to great brands but there are plenty of landmines to navigate. I wish them well.
Collaborative trends however are inevitable. You only have to look at the values driving membership in HCI, Direct Employers, ERE, and others to see that models tapping communities of staffing professionals who are willing to share can move the game to a new level.
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This morning the car dealer that sold me my latest gas guzzler sent the following email to me:
From: Doug Wells at Ray Catena Motor Car Group
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 2:32 AM
To: Gerry Crispin
Subject: Is it time to trade in your C350w4?
Dear Gerry,
I was just reviewing your records and noticed that your C350w4 has almost 36,000 miles on it.
Are you interested in selling your C350w4? If so, there is a strong used car market and we may be able to give you more than you would expect.
Should you choose to purchase another vehicle from Ray Catena Motor Car Group, we have many new models to choose from.
Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you. Respectfully, Doug Wells General Sales Manager dwells@raycatena.com732-549-6600 P.S. - Should you decide to purchase a new vehicle from us, included in this email is a Check for $300 dollars towards the purchase of any new vehicle at Ray Catena Motor Car Group. Please present this check/email as verification. ----------------------------------
I loved the note and its obvious timing and have been looking for examples of CRM - that reflect touchpoints that could be translated to staffing situations- if only to contrast the current reality of CRM tools that are essentially empty contact management templates and little else.
Below I've rewritten a 1:1 translation of the above email with the notion that staffing could (in this fantasy) target their own employees from a talent re-acquisition perspective at a point where they are more likely to be vulnerable to turning over.
From: Doug Wells at our GreatCompanyToWorkFor
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 2:32 AM
To: Gerry Crispin
Subject: Is it time to re-consider your career with us?
Dear Gerry,
I was just reviewing your records and noticed that you have been with us two years working as an Engineering Project Leader.
Are you interested in continuing in your current role or are you looking to examine other career possibilities? If so, there is a strong internal and external market for your skills and, our staffing and development professionals may be able to give you more insight than you might expect.
Should you choose to look at new options at our GreatCompanyToWorkFor, you may discover we have many new career paths you can choose from.
Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.
Respectfully,
Doug Wells
Director, Talent Re-Acquisition and Development
dwells@GCTWF.com
732-555-5000
P.S. - Should you decide to examine a new career path with us, included in this email is an additional budget authorization for $3000 dollars toward your development this year.
Next week at our Seattle Colloquium meeting I plan to challenge teams to examine the connection between customer and staffing CRM thinking.
Do you have a customer CRM touchpoint that would turn staffing on its head?
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In our CareerXroads July Bellwether that goes out to Colloquium members we noted that
"after an initial 4-week onboarding, Tony Hsieh, Zappos’ president, offers each new hire in their Las Vegas headquarters a $1500 bonus… if they’ll quit… and 2-3% of their new hires actually take the offer and leave.
The idea is if the new employee realizes they made a mistake, they can get some coverage while they look for that new job. Employees to stay- choose to. Zappos does about $1 billion in online shoe sales and has 1600 employees."
Afterward, Heather Hamilton, one of Microsoft's staffing leaders riffed on the note and offered some excellent insights in her blog, One Louder.
Filling Up at Jobing
We also couldn't overlook the innovation in "pay" which afforded
"Jobing.com more press in the past two months than the largest job boards combined. The upstart firm (with a huge presence at the 2008 SHRM conference) was founded by Aaron Matos and gives new employees (after an initial period) a free car and free gas. The cars are wrapped with Jobing’s logo and are essentially mobile bulletin boards. "
While the cost of the benefit is expensive- until you think about the millions of dollars in free PR they received during the recent gas hike extolling the company’s foresight, the idea that a company can reward their employees in ways that fit the exigencies of the moment is worth a deeper look.
Mark and I applaud these two innovative retention concepts.
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The following is from our CareerXroads July Update. We've had significant response
Best of the Best
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While the attention of the staffing paparazzi is focused on the wows of the darling-of-the-moment, Microsoft has reinvented how the web can be used to build positive relationships and engage a new generation of prospects.
Microsoft has been listed by us ( CareerXroads' Top Ranked Websites for 2008) as among the 25 best corporate staffing web pages that we rank each year from the Fortune 500 list published in April. (We then presented these firm's best practices in our session at SHRM's national conference in June). This year Microsoft is arguably one of the firms at the top of the list.
Why highlight Microsoft? The reason is that a half- dozen, cross-referenced, career-related micro-sites - some carefully crafted, some organically grown and a few inserted to fill critical gaps - have been quietly launched and/or integrated with their Careers site. Microsoft may arguably be the most transparent firm on the planet. You just have to know where to look - and that is getting easier and easier to do.
The beauty of this suite of sites from our perspective is that they a) are all interlaced within a careers theme, b) cross-reference one another c) focus on specific target audiences, and d) have solid interactive elements i.e. 2-way communication, engaging graphics, video, etc.
A sampling of the new and the old(er) include:
- Microspotting: This popular blog is actually a microsite archive of interviews with interesting characters and their equally interesting views who all work for the "Empire." Ariel Stallings is a most unlikely part-time Microsoft employee devoted to finding and interviewing her colleagues. Read her bio and you will understand her appeal.
- Hey Genius: If a career exploration medium that is a cross between Marvel comics and 2nd Life appeals to your curious side (and that would mean you are likely a bit unusual) you will get this site's hold on the coolness factor. This is an award winner.
- Microsoft Jobs Blog: Published since 2004 and edited by Gretchen Ledgard this site offers a public face for several Microsoft recruiters. The blog is designed to engage those "who are thinking about applying for a job at Microsoft, already in the interview process, or just curious about we have to say." Other blogs of well known recruiters like Heather Hamilton's, One Louder, also offer the personal views of Microsoft's recruiting gatekeepers. This is a powerful opportunity for anyone getting serious about applying.
- View My World: This micro-site is Geek heaven for anyone looking to see the inside from someone like themselves. The site proclaims "this is a candid view of what it's like to be a techie at Microsoft, from those of us who actually are" and it delivers. The videos, audios and text offer a rich view found nowhere else.
- You at Microsoft: This is the newest of the career micro- sites and it's a deep dive into Diversity and Inclusion. We think it can be improved but it is already a step beyond nearly everyone else.
- Workin' It At Microsoft: This is Microsoft's Facebook page and, like other firms using this medium (such as EY, Deloitte, Yahoo, etc.), it is an experimental playground to brand and link a company's careers content.
- Microsoft Careers: And of course the standard (or in this case not so standard) Corporate Careers pages. Starting with a global landing page, seekers can navigate to locations, specialty careers, open positions and much more.
The bar has been raised.
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They are running out of engineers in Japan.
More precisely, fewer Japanese are choosing technology majors. The universities even have have a name for it -“rikei banare” or “flight from science”. At the root cause, according to this NY Times article’s author is a desire among Japanese to emulate Americans. How convenient. How dumb.
The problem with the artcle is that it barely scratches the surface of this critical issue.
While it isn’t likely that Japan will become an offshore destination for your engineering design lab anytime soon, the US suffers from the same lack of interest in engineering and science at the high school and college levels. And it is driving the war for talent. Eventually it will drive more and more firms to staff their core skills from off-shore sources.
Two solutions are obvious ( but not on any horizon I can see.) The first is a national commitment to a goal or vision that engages highschoolers... and those who educate them. Sputnik did that for us in the 60's. I'm guessing we'll have to wait til China lands on the moon...in 2012.
The second is fixing immigration. The strongest demographic among engineers who are US citizens is that they are 1st generation. Reduce immigration and you undercut the true innovation this country relies on for its dominance.
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Dave Williams was the nice guy at the Corporate (Recruiters) Roundtable who oversaw all those cool reports members received. (We got a few complimentary copies and an occasional acknowledgment for our contributions).
David left last year to become an author...of science fiction. His first work The Mirrored Heavens is out.
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I truly enjoyed Bill Kutik's excellent rant My Grudge Against Linkedin. It is a perfect example of a growing cynicism that Xers were defined by but has now spread to millennial and boomer populations.
It seems to many, inclduing me that the fine print in the social contracts between customers and the internet applications they use (especially the ones purporting to add social networking capabilities) is barely dry before the need to monetize overcomes their real and implied promises.
Facebook and Linkedin are two that are raising eyebrows at the moment but find me on a quiet day and I would be happy to share my own rants on a half dozen more of the biggest names.
Corporations are not immune. Most privacy statements are nothing of the sort- their legalese serves only to protect the firm against any and all breaches of confidentality. GE, State Street and 1 or two others are still the only folks who accept responsibility for the data they are given by applicants (and, in GEs case, they stand alone in offering the same protections globally that are required only in Europe.) The bar for privacy protection has never been lower.
I nearly went off the ranch myself the other day when I saw a video that suggested efforts were underway to open up the (dot).jobs domain beyond corporation names and allow urls like NewYork.jobs or Engineering.jobs. (You can be certain that would set off a new land rush for urls.) The problem is that SHRM was granted "Stewardship" of the domain and is charged with keeping it free of the scams and hype that typify the other domains and make it so difficult to identify the legitimate job boards. Fortunately, I was able to quickly confirm that the claim was groundless and the merely wishful thinking of SHRM's distribution partner.
The consequence of losing faith with "Trusted Partners" however will eventually redefine the recruiting industry.
I'm convinced that closed networks (limited to people with pre-existing affinity relationships like having graduated from the same school) are already exploding as a direct response to the perceived failure of web based services to protect their members privacy.
The stewards of these new networks will be the professional, social and educational associations- primarily non-profits... but not totally. Nearly every Corporation will soon allow employees, groups of employees (i.e. affinity groups, project teams, etc.) and former employees to maintain web-based social/professional network connections as a critical adjunct to their work contract- some firms will adopt this new approach kicking and screaming but most will accept it as an inevitable nod to the hive mentality a new generation of workers is exhibiting.
The engines partnering with these non-profits and corporations are behind the scenes (like affinity circles and select minds) and will be contracted to a much higher standard of data protection and limited acces from the outside. In response, the major social networks are already trying to offer corporate and member services by offering some "firewall" capabilities. I would only recommend that corporations and societies have a presence on these larger open networks as a means of branding their private...and separate social apps.
Recruiters within corporations will tap these closed networks from within in new and much more subtle and respectful ways to pump true employee/affinity referrals. Third party recruiters will have no legitimate means of access.
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Yesterday, during the last few minutes of my video interview with Bill Vick for his XtremeRecruitingTV show, I went on a rant (an enjoyable and constructive one) about the need for improving our "bench strength" in the US in Technology and Science...and how recruiters can make a difference in this critical goal.
My contention is basically that The US "starting team" in most areas of technology and science is as good as any other in the world...if not better than everyone else but, when we look over at the "bench" where the support should be, it won't match up to our industrialized competitor nations...or even emerging countries. And this spells disaster long term.
The source of my angst is a recent research report from SHRM (Workplace Visions on workforce Readiness No. 2 2008). The data they developed as well as sourced from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international body made up of the world's wealthiest and most developed countries offers the clearest indication yet that the US has fallen behind global competition in preparing young people for jobs for the future.
It's worse than that. Of 30 industrialized and developing countries we score dead last. We're behind Croatia and Latvia! Give me a break!
We tend to overlook or play down the problem however because the data seems so counterintuitive. After all, when it comes to our country's productivity, innovation, etc. we still look like we are on top.
It's a veneer which the OECD data helps to peel back. When we look at the scores of the top 15% in each country, the US matches the best- Finland, Hong Kong, Canada, Taipei, Japan and Australia. Its the next quartile and the one after that where the scores drop precipitously that we can see why they war for talent is fought over so few bodies...in the US.
At this rate, it appears clear to me that the Fortune 500 firms that are global (MNCs), along with other countries MNCs will undoubtedly drawing their next staffing leaders from somewehre other than the US
What can recruiters do? Lots, but it won't be just a short term commitment. As consultants we need to collect and assess the real gap between that quality candidate that we need on the first team and the pool of talent we have on the bench that may never get off the bench.
We need to inspire the "first team" to go back into the communities they came from and mentor others to reach a higher standard earlier in their education...and firms need to encourage and support that initiative. That means applying weight to volunteerism as a core value.
As experts in observing and sourcing people in specific scientific and technical niches at all experience levels, recruiters have a unique career management perspective about what it takes to be successful over time. They can look for opportuinites to share that with students ( who they may not be seeking for years).
Our companies need to lobby for workforce readiness initiatives, company-funded tuition reimbursement programs, company support for career education in local school systems and much more. Knowledgable recruiters can lead by exploring the gaps in their communities, target colleges and nationally and lobbying internally to have staffing drive some of these initiatives.
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