Whew! Completed reviews of staffing pages for the last few sites on Fortune Magazine's list of the 500 largest public corporations late this afternoon. Tedious work this- a month of nose grinding...even splitting up the load, Mark and I each did 250 site reviews, methodically plodding through  a (survey monkey) checklist I put together several years ago (and keep modifying) to identify the extent that the sites Target, Engage, Inform and Respect the job seeker. Critical elements I maintain offer quality candidates a realistic choice and define the candidate experience.

 

After 6 years of repetition, I suspect there are some trends worth noting and I'll be trying to tease them out the next week or so before my sessions at the SHRM national conference in DC. where we will list the 25 sites with the best candidate experience. Mark is giving a couple sessions as well but on a different subject. This will be our 11th conference as presenters in the last dozen years.

 

Added to the mix above are the 100 additional corporate site staffing page reviews (and subsequent focus group out-takes) from 20 out of work HR leaders who voluntered to help us actually apply to ALL of Fortune Magazine's list of The 100 Best Companies in America to Work For. (All under an assumed name and mystery shopper resume of course). The anger exhibited by these volunteers over how poorly they feel they are treated in the online hiring process (especially by the acknowledged leaders in treating employees well) is a truly delicious irony given their chosen profession. If nothing else they commit themselves to making changes once they find their next gig.

 

Some of the early insights I plan to share next week at a presentation to the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers meeting in Calgary, Alberta. I probably won't finish the public whitepaper the subject until late July.