In this, the ninth year of the ERE Recruiting Excellence Awards, finalists include a New York hospital that’s a finalist in two categories, a flower delivery company, a big technology and a big banking company, government contractors, management consultants, and a fast-growing home-loan organization.
“It really brings me hope to see people doing excellent things,” one judge wrote to me, about the industry’s leading awards for talent acquisition.
We made a few changes since last year’s ERE Recruiting Excellence Award winners and finalists were announced. For the first time we have an onboarding category. We split the “department of the year” into large and small companies. We altered the “careers website” a bit to encompass more than just a company’s own site, but social media and similar sites as well. And, we added an “innovation,” award, which will be announced at the upcoming Recruiting Innovation Summit.
The other winners will be announced at the ERE Recruiting Conference & Expo in San Diego, where the finalists will up on stage in a perennially popular q-and-a session for the audience.
Here are those finalists in alphabetical order within the categories: keep reading…
Never has current and future talent been more important to business success than it is today. Today, organizations discuss having a “people advantage” and work with “talent optimization.” There are also new titles and positions like “Chief Talent Officer.” Attracting and retaining the right talent is becoming a key organizational capability. The industry is quickly moving away from a short-term recruitment focus to a long-term employer branding focus.
Companies will gain a competitive advantage by taking a long-term approach to investing in employer branding and developing their brands to align with long-term business needs.
Here are some concrete, step-by-step tips to help develop your own employer branding strategies: keep reading…
One time, at cheerleading camp in Texas, one of the camp counselors asked us, “What do you do if your football team is the worst in the district?” The answer was to cheer anyway, because that is your responsibility. In fact, you have to cheer louder and bigger to motivate the team, the spectators, the alumni, and the students.
A recruiter is a cheerleader for the company. You are looking for the best team, and encouraging them to join because you know that this position at this company is a possibility of a lifetime. So how do you recruit for a company that has the reputation of being as “The 11 Worst Companies to Work for in America!”
My suggestions and thoughts: keep reading…
Talent is the magic that makes a business work. A loyal employee will move heaven and earth to make sure that everything they do is unmatched, both in quality and timeliness. To attract such talent:
Examine your “why” and weave it into your culture. Simon Sinek gave a talk several years ago regarding the “Why” and how that can create leaders. The “Why” is defined as the reason a person goes into business — the paramount desire that drives the business owner to spend their own money and invest all of their time into a concept. Many businesses tend to focus on the bare essentials to be the best at customer service, drive business and succeed, but these narrow goals do nothing to reflect the company’s culture. keep reading…
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For the fourth time, Google has captured the top spot on Fortune’s annual Best Companies to Work For list.
The company, which last year bumped SAS out of first place, held onto its ranking this year. SAS, meanwhile, edged past Boston Consulting Group to take the No. 2 spot on the list of 100 companies.
Of last year’s top 10 ranking companies, eight are still there. Two are new. Ultimate Software moved up from 25 last year to ninth in the current list. Hilcorp,. a Houston-based energy company, made the list for the first time this year, coming in seventh. It’s one of five energy companies to make the list. In 2011, the company appeared on the list of Best Medium (size) Companies.
Published on iTunes today, the list will be released on the web Thursday morning on the CNN Money site. Fortune Managing Editor Andy Serwer, interviewed on CBS’ morning news show, said the list is based on more than simply the benefits and pay a company offers. “Obviously, pay and benefits and all are really, really important,” he agreed, but added that perks demonstrating corporate citizenship — hours off for volunteer work — and an effort to create an appealing work environment are as important. keep reading…
Many of the mighty have fallen, but much of the cream of last year’s “Best Places to Work” remains.
Glassdoor’s annual list of the 50 best places to work, as determined by the scores awarded by employees and former employees, is out, and fully half the list is new. But among the top 10 for 2013, four companies remain from the 2012 list: Facebook, McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., and Google. All four were in the top 10 last year.
Facebook is a double winner; it ranks #1 for 2013, and also took the top spot for 2011. In the 2012 survey, it ranked third, right behind Bain and McKinsey, where were one and two respectively.
“We’re honored to receive this award from Glassdoor,” said Lori Goler, Facebook’s vice president of people and recruiting. “We strive to make Facebook a place where everyone is able to have an impact doing what they love. Receiving this award is a testament to the culture of builders we’ve worked hard to create.” keep reading…
If you’re a startup recruiter, before you set out to compete for world-class talent, ask your client, “why will the 20th talented person to join your startup join your startup?” keep reading…
Conversations around talent communities have been steadily increasing in the U.S. in the last 12 months. Brands are looking to engage above and beyond existing social media platforms by creating professional candidate communities. Driven by particular segments of talent that are becoming increasingly hard to find, the need to have a pipeline or a pool of potential employees is now, for many, an imperative.
For instance, there is an ongoing requirement in the FMCG industry in North America for sales and marketing talent — making it a vibrant, fast-paced and ultimately competitive recruitment market. Organizations are battling with the fact that they know they will need talent at a point in the future, but in today’s economic climate they don’t have the luxury to hire them when they first encounter them.
It is against this backdrop that talent and recruitment professionals are exploring the role that talent communities can play in adopting a more strategic approach to recruitment. keep reading…
In the modern age of recruiting, reputation is everything. Before (pre-modern Internet age), recruiters would make their money on referrals or word of mouth with maybe a newspaper ad thrown in the mix for good measure. But it seems that in the age of the Google, job boards, and social networks, your name might not carry the same weight it used to, right?
Yes, and no.
Job boards are still a big source of the job search for most professionals, and oftentimes job postings are anonymous with regard to companies. For most job seekers, it’s an opportunity to fire through job applications in one sitting hoping that something sticks and they get a reply from a hiring company.
Gone are the days where it seemed that all you had to do to attract candidates was turning the phones on in the morning. Now recruiting has shifted to where competition is so crowded that you not only have to go to the job seeker, but convince them your opportunity is unique — not an easy task. So how do you separate yourself from your competition?
Online reputation.
Here are four simple but important things to be aware of regarding your reputation online: keep reading…
Exactly three years ago employment-branding expert Dr. John Sullivan published the insightful: “Your Employer Brand is No Longer Owned by Your Firm” and challenged practitioners to recast themselves as influencers, rather than controllers, of employment brands.
No doubt this wisdom extends to brands of all types, but for most people employment is their most frequent “transaction.” Courtesy of new media, brand control is now firmly within the hands of consumers. Current, former, and prospective employees have multiple online means to share opinions and experiences, which combine to form a collective perception about “What it’s really like to work there.” Employer/employee review has been for some time a reciprocal aspect of the recruitment process.
Since Dr. Sullivan’s article, Facebook and Twitter have each cemented their place as the dominant players in the social media and micro-blogging spheres respectively. However it is the rise of websites (in full disclosure, mine is of course one of those sites) providing anonymous and authentic workplace reviews and freely advertised jobs that is the strongest emerging trend.
Pioneered by San Francisco’s Glassdoor in 2008, North America has seen a steady stream of new entrants to this social media space welcomed by active and passive job seekers determined to “look inside,” to research a prospective employer, before making a critical career move.
So does this trend pose an opportunity or a threat to recruiters and employment branding devotees? keep reading…
We have finally found the reason why the American economy has been able to do so much with so few employees. Before we explain the roots of this high productivity we need to explain that a new survey shows that “nearly 50% of men are hiring the women they date in this economy.”
Who were the respondents to this survey? None other than 40,000 members of SeekingArrangement.com, which bills itself as “the world’s largest dating website where women seek (the) ‘well-to-do.’” Yes, this totally perfectly clearly scientific report shows that “46% of ‘Sugar Daddies’ have employed, gone into business, or helped start a small business with their ‘Sugar Babies.’” keep reading…
Employer branding is the new black.
According to George Anders’ recent article on Forbes.com, LinkedIn is spreading the word about the significance of having a strong employer brand, and at the same time providing more tools and resources to help companies promote one on their platform.
This is great news for talent acquisition professionals who are on the front lines of trying to win the hearts and minds of top talent everywhere. And while there are many who question the economic recovery, U.S. unemployment levels have dropped to a three-year low and in the IT sector, many companies are offering employees up to $10,000 in referral bonuses. The message is clear: it’s time to look at your employer brand.
So you’re not Apple, Amazon, Deloitte, or Disney. Don’t despair. That doesn’t mean you can’t have an employer brand or employer value proposition of your own.
Here are four things to tell your boss when you’re putting it into your 2013 budget. keep reading…
Corporate recruiting is a field where there are distinct and measurable differences between the average and elite functions. In short, what that means is that “elite” recruiting functions (defined as the top 1%) produce superior results and act in ways that are totally different from the average function.
I am frequently asked during corporate presentations to cite the difference between “good and great” recruiting functions. Well, as a former chief talent officer and someone who has spent years devoted to identifying what makes the handful of elite recruiting functions unique, I’ve come up with an assessment tool. It is a checklist that can be used by recruiting leaders as a self-assessment tool in order to determine how they compare “side-by-side” to the few firms that have reached this elite status. The 40 defining characteristics are broken into seven distinct categories and they are listed in a numbered format for easy scanning.
The 40 Defining Characteristics of an “Elite Recruiting Function” in 2012 keep reading…
Over the last two years, LinkedIn has used its fast-growing user conference to roll out products that have become such a part of the daily life of LinkedIn-o-philes that we barely remember when they didn’t exist. The idea of pushing really targeted jobs to passive job-seekers was highlighted in 2010. Last year, LinkedIn unveiled the since-improved tool for managing candidates called Talent Pipeline. Those looking for an even-bigger announcement this week may be disappointed, but LinkedIn is, however, rolling out multiple improvements to existing products, and launching significant new ones.
It’ll soon make big, not-yet-specified changes to the profile pages. For now, though, here’s what’s new: a way to measure your brand against others; an index of the most in-demand employers; “sponsored jobs” to get your listings up higher in the results on LinkedIn; and, upgrades to LinkedIn Recruiter. keep reading…
Google. Google. Google. Let’s just give the company the permanent cup, and then disqualify it from consideration for all those best of talent acquisition, and best company to work for lists for at least five years.
I say this because the company-who-shall-not-be-named is now at the top of yet another best list. Universum says Google is at the top of both the global business and global engineering lists in “The World’s Most Attractive Employers 2012″ survey. In case you’re wondering, Google was at the top of both lists last year.
What this means is that the company was again the top choice of business and engineering students in 12 of the world’s leading economies: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, UK, and U.S. Universum, a global employment branding firm with a strong focus on students and recent graduates, surveyed some 144,000 students in those countries to come up with the rankings. keep reading…
When you are battling for talent in a highly competitive environment, you are likely to encounter more than your share of failures. In fact, because underperformance in recruiting is so common, I am constantly surprised when corporate recruiting leaders have no formal process for identifying specifically why their current recruiting efforts don’t produce their desired level of results. The formal method for identifying the factors that cause a process to fail is known as “failure analysis.” But unfortunately, even though it is used throughout business, failure analysis is seldom applied to the recruiting process.
I was recently reminded of the need for failure analysis while researching the extensive recruiting problems of oil and gas firms in the booming area around Alberta, Canada. I’ll be presenting my recruiting solutions at the Talent Hub Conference, Metropolitan Centre in Calgary, on Wednesday, September 19, 2012. But if you’re not involved in the petroleum industry, don’t worry because the same failure identification and prospect research processes can and should be used in any industry. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “prospect research” it is a form of market research which involves the use of surveys and interviews to identify what worked and what didn’t work during the recruiting process and precisely what factors attract and turn off top prospects.
Prospect Market Research Is Required keep reading…
Think you don’t need an employer branding strategy? Read on about a few numbers.
In the corporate world, HR leaders are frequently considered some of the most conservative and risk-averse. Running HR in a conservative manner might have served your company well in the 1990s, but unfortunately it may be inappropriate and even damaging today. This fast-changing and highly competitive business world has caused senior executives to now expect innovation not just in their product lines but also in all of their business processes.
As a result, it’s time for HR leaders to realize that in a battle to attract and retain top talent and innovators, your firm has to act differently with superior talent management approaches if your firm is to develop and maintain a competitive advantage in the talent marketplace. In fact, from an employer branding perspective, your firm needs to do a few unique things in HR if it is to stand out as a great place to work.
As a professor, I am fortunate to have the time to track and give corporate presentations on the array of leading and “bleeding-edge” programs that a handful of firms have had the courage to implement. Almost by definition, bold HR programs are new, controversial, and full of risk, so don’t be surprised when you don’t agree with many of the listed approaches. I suggest that you compare them to your own programs in that functional area in order to see if perhaps your firm is being too conservative and is falling behind the leading edge.
The Top 10 Bold and Outrageous HR and Talent Management Practices keep reading…
Informatica, multiple honoree of the ERE Recruiting Excellence Award, has launched a new careers site whose design isn’t full of bells and whistles, but whose verbiage touts Informatica’s “big data, big difference, big purpose.” It’s part of an ongoing relaunch, with more changes to come.
The company, fighting hard to bring in hundreds of people, got help from an agency not well known in the recruiting field — Emotive Brand, which had about 10 people working with Informatica from start to finish.
What Emotive delivered over the past year was more than a site, but a larger strategy as to how to recruit. Its research showed that Informatica had a strong company brand, but not a strong employer brand. Put differently: you may not have heard of this company. Perhaps more important, “I don’t think people really knew why Informatica mattered,” says Emotive Partner Tracy Lloyd.
Screen shot of the top of Informatica's previous careers main page
Cindy Cloud, talent attraction consultant at Informatica, says the site has been designed to be “teed up” for a mobile version. In other words, it was built in such a way that it’ll be easy to convert to a mobile site, and has a bit of an iPad look to it. “Minimalist on content,” she says, “big on job searches. You don’t have to read through blah blah blah, culture this, culture that — this just accentuates our brand discourse, our language, instead of the usual.”
Monster and its client Marussia — a British auto-racing team — are running a turbo-charged recruiting campaign for car-racing-related jobs, one that’s relying heavily on social media and video, and in particular a contest, a bit reminiscent of Sunglass Hut’s, that has entrants essentially doing a bunch of employment marketing for Marussia on Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube.
This all began in the latter half of 2011. Marussia was a newer team (once called Virgin Racing) on the Formula 1 circuit that has hired 13 people this year and has 21 open jobs now.
Its HR team was practically a one-woman band, using Excel spreadsheets. That one woman was Katie Allen. Allen had been using agencies, as well as magazine ads, to attract people. The candidate experience was suffering a bit. Unbeknownst to her, her marketing department had been talking to Monster about a marketing partnership. Monster was, truthfully, a company that gave her slight hesitation. In her mind it was associated with, she says, a “high volume of candidates, with limited results.”
As conversations with Monster began, she began to change her thinking.
Marussia and Monster were, and are, looking for some fresh ideas for finding people, something to reduce headhunter spending in such a competitive industry with jobs like one involving buying metallic components. Marussia wanted Monster to help it appear “cool” and to have jobs that were so; in turn, Monster was happy to have a way to raise its cool factor — more on that latter point in a minute.
Marussia lacked the funding of some other teams, and was in less of a position to compete on what David Henry calls the “merry go ’round” of Formula 1 talent. It’d be harder to poach people from other teams. keep reading…
