ERE.net

Toby Nathan joined us on our webinar series to discuss the importance of establishing a personal brand, tips for doing so, and tools you can use to facilitate the process.

Watch it here!

Dan Kilgore and Jeremy Eskenazi returned to the show to give us an update on trends and predictions we had discussed at the beginning of the year. We took a look at how the past few months have played out, how the trends have changed, and what we can expect for 2010.

Watch it here!

ERE was joined once again by J.T. O’Donnell as we discussed generational differences and how to overcome them in the workplace.

Watch it here!

The comic strip on the left is NOT how you want your onboarding process to go.

We were joined yesterday by recruiting thought leader Elaine Orler of Knowledge Infusion to discuss onboarding with a limited budget. With budget cuts becoming widespread in many companies, onboarding is unfortunately a process that often gets cut.

Elaine revealed that an effective onboarding process will reduce turnover in the first 30-90 days and increase productivity among new hires. In addition, effective onboarding can help your brand and reputation.

New hires form opinions of your organization starting on day one. Through bypassing redundant forms and busy work on the first day, new employees are more likely to form a positive opinion of their new role. By welcoming an employee into your business culture as soon as possible, you are in turn preparing them to succeed at their job.

Throughout the course of the webinar, Elaine covered onboarding strategies that included extending existing technology, improving collaboration and communication, and introducing new tools that can help onboarding efforts.

By using a “conversation ecosystem” with third party applications like Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, it’s possible to quickly engage a new hire into the social community of your business environment. Also, by implementing a mentoring or “buddy system” with existing employees, you can acclimate new employees to their roles. In addition many of these strategies cost little to nothing.

At the conclusion of the presentation (about 40 minutes into the video) Elaine answered a plethora of questions from the audience. Among the topics covered were how to onboard current employees into new positions, the challenges of onboarding across different countries and cultures, and different strategies for onboarding across generations. View the slideshow and archived video of the presentation below to learn more!

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Effective onboarding is essential to any company’s success when new hires are brought on, yet it can be one of the first programs to be cut from the budget during a recession. By using creative techniques to advance the onboarding process, you can expect to increase your return on investment, enhancing the experience for new hires and improving employee retention.

Join recruiting leader Elaine Orler and I for tomorrow’s webinar, as we explore how to get the most out of your onboarding process in these difficult times. We will be examining methods to develop onboarding without raising costs, such as implementing new technology to increase collaboration and data sharing.

Elaine will be taking questions after the presentation to respond to your thoughts and concerns about onboarding. Make sure your company realizes the importance of effective onboarding to ensure employee retention. We still have plenty of space so sign up today!

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Wednesday, March 11th
2:00 – 3:00 PM EST
Register Here
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If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at brendan@ere.net.

As many in the recruiting industry know, it can be challenging to implement a talent acquisition system within an organization. However, with an effective talent acquisition process in place, a company can achieve great results as well as avoiding pitfalls such as reduced responsiveness and a negative impact on the candidate experience.

Join me, along with Sean Kent and Rob Sunderland, as we examine the advantages to an effective talent acquisition system and how to go about implementing one. Rob will speak from personal experience about how Southern Company, one of the largest electricity generators in the US, recently transformed its talent acquisition process and the positive results it had.

Sean and Rob will be addressing questions at the end of the presentation, such as how an effective talent acquisition system can specifically help your organization and what factors you should be aware of when implementing one. Many have already registered but we still have space available so be sure to sign up today!

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When: Wednesday, March 4th
2:00 – 3:00 PM EST
Register Here
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If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at brendan@ere.net.

Recruiter Academy Founder David Szary joined me and over a thousand others yesterday to cover how the role of the recruiter is changing in 2009. With a myriad of factors such as a struggling economy, new sourcing tools and technologies, and Gen Y entering the workforce, it was apparent that the recruiting industry is going through a period of major change. Szary addressed the need to adapt in order to succeed, stating that “the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting your results to change.”

In examining the trends, Szary predicted the end of an era for the “generalist” recruiter. As more sourcing technologies and specialties emerge, he made the point that being a jack of all trades and a master of none is no longer feasible. “Make yourself invaluable” was the number one takeaway of the presentation. By specializing and becoming an expert in a select few areas, recruiters are less likely to be considered expendable in tough times like these.

Following the presentation (about 45 minutes into the video) Szary took questions from the audience, addressing a variety of topics. I particularly enjoyed David’s thoughts on the future of middle class recruiters & sourcers and changing mindsets around the use of new sourcing tools. View the slideshow and archived video of the presentation below to learn more!

keep reading…

By Dr. John Sullivan & Master Burnett

This past week more than 400 ERE.net community members tuned in for a webinar on college recruiting with a shoestring budget.

Despite sour economic conditions, many organizations are continuing to hire, albeit maybe not with the gusto or resources they used to muster. Those organizations that continue to augment organizational capability and capacity with new college grads are doing a very smart thing, as several organizations that stopped college hiring following the economic collapse in 2001 can attest.

Entry-level hires from colleges and universities play a vital yet often undervalued role in many organizations. Cutting college intake even for a short time can have disastrous unplanned impacts.

Recent college graduates bring with them new skills, the ability to question tired thinking by asking “why,” and remain malleable enough for organizations to mold into entry-level management and core-contributor roles vital to the organization’s succession chain.

Organizations can cut costs, but they can’t stop time, so choking off college recruiting can lead to:

1. Acceleration of aging workforce issues. If you have an aging workforce now and you choke off hiring of younger talent, statistically speaking, the average age of employees in your organizations is going to grow at a significantly faster pace. While that may not seem like an issue in the short term, letting your workforce gray significantly may impact your ability to recruit college grads when your organization does restore its interest in college recruiting.
2. An empty succession pool. Many organizations cut college recruiting budgets entirely following 9/11. Due to a slow economic recovery following that tragedy, college recruiting budgets didn’t recover quickly. The result today is a number of organizations that have no choice but to spend millions poaching talent with 5-7 years’ experience from other organizations or hiring talent with 2-3 years’ experience and investing in rapid development programs. For organizations in that boat, they are realizing that it would have been more economical in the long run to have maintained investments in college recruiting.
3. Slowed innovation. Possibly the best thing about hiring recent college graduates is the fact that they don’t know anything. Well, that’s not entirely true. The truth is that they don’t know anything about why you do things the way you do, so they are more apt to ask why. When such discussions erupt, that’s often when new hires can introduce new thinking, new technology, and new approaches. Choking off the supply of individuals not subject to historical group think can stifle an organization’s ability to evolve and be innovative.

What follows below the webinar insert are the questions raised by those attending and our answers. If more elaboration is needed on any topic, use the commenting function below to not only engage us, but the entire ERE community!

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As the economy continues to affect the recruiting industry, companies have been making budget cuts in many areas. College recruiting is often one of the first programs to go when deciding how to appropriate the budget during a recession. However, as past recessions have taught us, this can prove to be a costly mistake in the long run, creating gaps in succession plans for entry level management roles several years down the road.

Join me, along with talent management strategist Dr. John Sullivan, for tomorrow’s webinar as we explore college recruiting during a recession.  We’ll be taking a look at why you should continue college recruiting despite the economy, the financial impact of your efforts, and how to attract the best talent using a variety of mediums.

Dr. Sullivan will be taking questions at the conclusion of the presentation to address your thoughts and concerns regarding college recruiting. Don’t wait until it’s too late to find out why and how you should continue your college recruiting efforts in 2009. We still have plenty of space so sign up today!

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Wednesday, February 11th
2:00 – 3:00 PM EST
Register Here
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If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at brendan@ere.net.

Even in a recession, employment branding is still counts. During times of instability where employee trust and loyalty are eroded through short-term cost cutting and job shedding, employee engagement plummets.

Many employers in return can count on employees’ feeling less connected to the organization, and being less productive. But even in a crisis where 2.6 million jobs were lost last year, there are organizations that will seize the opportunity and achieve a significant competitive advantage by continuing to build and sustain employer brand strength.

In an outstanding webinar delivered for ERE this week (and embedded at the end of this article), Frank Lane, author of Killer Brands, offered this definition: 

A Killer Brand exists when an entity derives a disproportionate amount of success in its category because of a compelling and differentiated expectation that comes to be associated with its name.

A quality employment brand strategy proactively and appropriately manages expectations, reputation, and image, all toward what you’re trying to do — attract and engage a skilled and productive workforce, which is the most critical driver of business success. Even in today’s environment, “A” players will exercise careful choices about where they come to work and what they want out of the employment relationship. Many will also be preparing for change as that market recovery presents new opportunities. Every category-leading “brand” is focused on two primary channels to grow share:

• The attraction of new customers
• The continued loyalty of existing customers

While attraction/recruiting needs have certainly lessened (although in some sectors critical skills are still in high demand) the brand loyalty of existing employees will certainly be an issue into the foreseeable future. And while many people may be thankful or merely satisfied to have a job today, that level of brand equity will not necessarily translate into productivity, engagement, and retention tomorrow. That’s why forward-thinking organizations will use this down cycle to prepare and deploy a strategy to grow and sustain a true talent advantage.

And it represents an opportunity to consider what “disproportionate amount of success” your organization derives because of the desire among A-level talent to apply their skills to your business?

In evaluating your organization’s employment brand strength, consider these four primary objectives:

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Last Friday I was joined by talent acquisition gurus Jeremy Eskenazi and Dan Kilgore of Riviera Advisors to discuss what 2009 has in store and how we can gain an advantage even in these difficult times. Although hiring is expected to continue to weaken throughout 2009, they showed that by thinking creatively, companies are able to survive and even succeed during the recession.

For instance, companies have been able to compensate for a reduction in placements by insourcing what is typically outsourced, unbundling packaged services, and conducting internal assessment to weed out inefficient practices. Sometimes practices are so steeped in tradition that it takes a step back to realize they are no longer working. It’s a time to optimize your business and resources such as applicant tracking systems to be as efficient as possible.

They also discussed how difficult recruiting passive candidates has become as people have become afraid of leaving the security of their current jobs. There are still pros and cons to passive recruiting, but the dangers of exclusively recruiting passive candidates in the current economy were made clear.

At the conclusion of the presentation (about 45 minutes into the video) Jeremy and Dan fielded questions from the audience. I found their thoughts on recruitment process outsourcing and passive recruiting to be particularly interesting. View the slideshow and archived video of the presentation below to learn more!

keep reading…

The last hour and a half has been an exercise in frustration.

I spent most of it freaking out as I tried to connect to today’s webinar and listening to busy signals and dropped audio on my laptop’s speakers. The rest of the time I spent on hold waiting for technical support at GotoWebinar, the company whose technology we were hoping would power future ERE webinars.

We will not be using them again.

The virtual meeting room that we used was supposed to hold up to 1,000 people, and since we regularly get large groups of 500 or more on our calls this was important. This time, we hit 250 listeners on the call when the problems began.

GotoWebinar has no emergency line, and when I finally got through to them I was informed that they were “already investigating issues with that phone number.” When I asked to speak to a manager and said that it was urgent, I was asked for my number and told that I would get a call back. They did not ask for my name, and I am still waiting for the call.

My apologies to every person who was on the call and experienced the poor audio quality.

My apologies to those who could not even make it on to the call because they got busy signals when they dialed in.

Especially, my apologies to Jeremy and Dan who soldiered on through the webinar in spite of the technical issues — they behaved like the pros that they are and did not miss a beat.

Update: 1/29/09

Jeremy and Dan have been gracious enough to offer to repeat the webinar on Friday, February 6 at 2:00 PM EST. Register here.

Also make sure to check out the slides and a re-recording of the presentation below!

I believe it was Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” that gave us the ever optimistic “Always look on the bright side of life.” While times are certainly tough as we get rolling in the new year, prospects may not be as bleak as anticipated at the close of 2008. Join me, along with talent acquisition experts Jeremy Eskenazi and Dan Kilgore, for a webinar this Wednesday as we discuss what we can expect, both the good and the bad, in 2009.

As we all know, the recruiting industry is always changing and we can certainly expect more new developments in the months to come. We’ll be taking a look at trends to see what kinds of big picture changes we can expect this year, and more importantly what this means for YOU.

Jeremy and Dan will be taking questions after the presentations to address your thoughts and concerns for what awaits us in 2009. We already have over 400 people registered but still have plenty of space so make sure to sign up today!

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When: Wednesday, January 28th
2:00 – 3:00 PM EST
Register Here
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If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at brendan@ere.net.

Ed Newman, president of The Newman Group, joined me and 920 others yesterday on a webinar to discuss more efficient ways of finding talent.  Ed addressed the problem of wasting valuable time “funneling” a large group of potential candidates to make a placement.  Using the age old wisdom of quality over quantity, Ed shared his tips for increasing social ties within one’s own organization and finding employees with the most social currency. I found particularly interesting the points about how hiring managers should focus more on true networking relationships with a smaller group of quality candidates rather than aggressively marketing to a larger group of people.  Networking events and meetups can foster a strong relationship, worthwhile because “hiring people we know increases quality because there is a shorter time to employee engagement.”  These points are covered 15 minutes into the video.

He also covered how social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and newer developments like Twitter and TouchGraph, can help to understand your network better and make more efficient placements.  Ed also fielded such tough questions as “How to organize a successful social event to help hiring managers initiate” and particularly interesting to members of Gen Y like myself “How to separate your personal and professional life on Facebook and other social networking sites.”  See the slideshow and archived video of the presentation below to learn more!

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It is now more important than ever to be able to effectively find top talent. While it may be tempting to start with a large pool of potential candidates and narrow them down, this method is hardly efficient and uses up valuable time. Join us for this free webinar as Ed Newman addresses this problem and offers effective talent acquisition solutions for the new year and beyond.

Beyond the Funnel Mentality — How a Shift in Thinking Will Transform the Way Companies Engage Quality Candidates.

Over the past two decades, companies have strived to become more efficient in the way they handle talent acquisition. Traditionally, that has meant reaching out to large numbers of candidates and sifting them through the largest funnel possible in the hopes of identifying a few top choices — but the funnel mentality has its limitations. The process is cumbersome, and it does not always yield the quality candidates an organization seeks. The good news is companies have many options for breaking out of the funnel mentality.

Ed Newman

In this session, Ed Newman provides insight on an approach to better understanding available talent; building networks; measuring, managing and improving those networks; and creating a talent acquisition culture that is focused on delivering known, high-quality candidates. This is a chance to learn about an approach that is practical, results-driven, and promises to transform the way companies drive talent acquisition in the future.

Hope to see you there! Check out our other upcoming webinars as well:

• January 28: 2009: Corporate Staffing & Recruiting Trends and Predictions.
• February 11: College Recruiting on a Shoestring Budget — Low Cost Ways to Land the Very Best.

Some reflections on the HR Tech Conference in Chicago that ended Friday:

• Talent management technology will be to the next five years what the ATS was to the last;
• Recruiters need to engage with line supervisors on a regular basis, and not just when a req comes through, because you will be measured on how well your hires do;
• For the same reason, recruiters need to play as big a role in the selection of HRMS tools as every other HR division;
• All HR professionals must become more proactive in identifying and implementing tools to help workers better engage with each other and the company and, for that matter, with their peers in the wide world.

The need for HR to take a more aggressive role was made so very clear in a conversation I had with a bank personnel officer on the last day of the conference.

keep reading…

A recent ERE survey conducted with Knowledge Infusion indicated that the greatest individual challenge companies are facing in recruiting is identifying enough quality candidates (71% of respondents). Yet, 95% of companies believe that their sourcing efforts are average or above average.

Hmmm…this left me wondering if we needed to revisit e-sourcing and find someone with expertise in this area. We often find information on what methods and tools we should be using to identify and attract candidates. We often hear what benefits we would achieve if we did. What I wanted to know was how to see results in e-sourcing methods. And I knew just who to ask…Glenn Gutmacher, one of America’s top sourcers/trainers.

Glenn shared his knowledge with us on June 5 during ERE’s most popular webinar.

“The Sourcer’s Daily Dozen – A Top Recruiting Research Guru’s 12 Favorite Free E-Sourcing Methods to Fill Your Pipelines”.

View video on WebEx

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Do recruiters care about retention? If not, I think they should.  I also think that Marty Fischer, Director of Talent Acquisition at T-Mobile, would agree with me. The role of the recruiter is to identify candidates. Today’s recruiters achieving competitive advantage are also measuring their efforts to prove that the candidates they acquired are the “right fit for the organization”.

Marty was kind enough to share his success story in obtaining spending and advertising metrics for T-Mobile. To that end, Marty discusses how they used that information to make better recruiting decisions and validate their recruitment strategy. His presentation includes:

·      Implementation of online tracking and management tools.

·      Analysis of metrics and quality of hires.

·      Results (improved negotiations with media, diversification of spend, reduced costs, and enhanced employment brand exposure).

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When I was asked recently about the top three trends in recruiting, my first answer was Web 2.0 Recruiting. So, when the time came to create this month’s webinar schedule, this topic was a must-have. I have noticed that many of the questions, discussions, and articles on ERE focus on Web 2.0 recruiting. These sites are so appealing because they allow candidates interactivity and a level of input through chat, blogs, discussions, and networking.

Love it or hate it, Web 2.0 is here to stay. According to a recent ERE article, “Compete.com’s recently released figures on the number of visitors to social networks show LinkedIn growing by over 700% in one year, Facebook by 77%, and Twitter by more than 4,000%”. There is no doubt these sites are growing like crazy! But one question I keep hearing is “how do we use these sites to find quality candidates?” I wish I knew this answer myself. The bad news is I don’t. The good news is I found someone who does…Kevin Wheeler.

View his webinar.

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Your role as a recruiter is continually evolving. Join this event to learn what over 700 of your peers answered to important questions facing recruiters today in an ERE/Knowledge Infusion survey. You’ll not only learn the survey results, but understand from Knowledge Infusion leaders what the results mean and how you can take the learnings and apply a solution to you role to be more effective. Topic covered will include:

• Current recruiting models and responsibilities in your role
• Recruiting effectiveness
• Greatest challenges
• Sourcing effectiveness
• Technologies used including portals, social networking, and candidate relationship management

You’ll leave the event with data to benchmark your own organization against others, and better understand how to address many of the challenges that organizations face.

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