The War for new-grad talent has never been fiercer. More and more companies are turning to universities as their main pipeline to build up their workforce of amazing engineers, designers, and quants. However, many companies who haven’t been active in campus recruiting for the past few years may be surprised to find that the game has dramatically changed.
Remember when you thought pizza and soda at an information session was enough? Now, it’s pizza and soda delivered to your dorm room during finals week with a personalized “good luck” note and invitation to interview. More than ever, companies are adapting to, and even embracing gen Y values in their recruiting processes to sign the best students from top-tier schools.
Jane Graybeal wrote a great piece titled “Valuing the So-Called Me Me Me Generation”, summarizing three key ideas around gen Y. While some companies may work against these “me me me” values, a handful have worked with them to get some of their best hires. Let’s take the three concepts that Graybeal summarized and apply them on a more practical level — specifically on how university recruiting programs are staying competitive on campus: keep reading…
With only days left before this year’s college seniors become alums, those who don’t already have jobs are going to find it as hard to find work as last year’s grads did. And for those in the liberal arts, in the last few weeks, three different surveys of hiring managers and recruiting leaders found employers are only planning slight — if any – increases in the number of entry-level grads they bring on board.
Most striking about the surveys is that while they measured different aspects of hiring plans, and talked to different types of companies and employers, the bottom line was the same: entry-level jobs in a grad’s field are few.
Here’s what the three surveys found: keep reading…
Today we pause in the hunt to source RNs to recognize nurses for the work they do and the dedication they bring to a profession that is among the most in-demand recruiting challenges in the U.S.
This is National Nurses Week, and today in particular, is set aside as both National Student Nurses Day and National School Nurse Day. In many of the English-speaking nations of the world, including the U.S. and Canada, May 6-12 is a week to honor professional nurses. The timing coincides with the May 12 birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.
Born 197 years ago into a wealthy, upper-class British family, Nightingale would be both amazed and pleased at how the work she did tending the wounded in Crimea has today become in the U.S. a profession of 3.1 million with responsibilities second only to the doctors with whom they work. keep reading…
NYU — one of the largest private universities in the U.S.
With the astronomical jobless rate and the skyrocketing cost of four-year college, many are questioning the value and validity of a bachelor’s degree. As a proud NYU alumnus, I treasure my education and wholeheartedly believe in the relevance of the college experience. However, over the years my black-and-white viewpoint on this subject has shifted to shades of gray.
That’s why the current educational phenomenon of “degree inflation” is so disconcerting to me. Economists and educators have coined this term to describe today’s hiring climate, where a college degree has become the basic requirement for jobs that don’t actually need an advanced education. According to Burning Glass, these positions include clerks, dental hygienist, administrative assistants, and paralegals. Corporate hiring professionals often adopt strict “degree required” criteria as a means of weeding out candidates and working with a manageable number of prospects. But very often this false criteria has no bearing on someone’s ability to engage, contribute, or excel in a role. keep reading…
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. – Mark Twain
See if you can place this current staffing model without skipping to the end.
You are responsible for an organization that has thousands of openings to fill.
For you, big data is an everyday part of your operational initiative. Everyone (and we do mean everyone) who could possibly join your organization is known to you. Access to the details about them has been cost effective (about $.35 per) for some time.
More than just a qualified lead with the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience, you also have access to other demographic characteristics (biodata) about each and every lead that relates to your organization’s “fit” and it all can be uploaded into your tracking system.
In fact not only are all (100 percent) of the potential pool of candidates known but your analysis of the factors that predict success for any one of these individuals can be calculated. So, without you ever meeting them, without their having ever heard of you, selection and assessment is moot for most. It is like finding a mine with the entire world’s supply of a given metal in a ready-to-use state … as long as you can acquire it. keep reading…
If you’ve known someone who has applied for an entry-level job only to be told they need to have experience — you’ll get it.
It is a new video by some Boston University students and grads, parodying Les Miserables using what the mock-movie-preview-makers see as a sad state affairs for liberal arts majors. keep reading…
If you work in an office, you realize that many times the Christmas season can be a less hectic and even a slack period. In most cases everyone, including recruiters, gear down and change their work patterns for the holidays. But if you’re a corporate recruiting leader, December should be viewed instead as a golden opportunity. It is a prime recruiting month (along with January and June) because many employed prospects have free time to consider a new job due to their own reduced workloads.
The end of the year is also a time where many individuals are reevaluating their current work and life situation and planning for the future. You may be skeptical but in this article I provide more than 20 reasons why corporate recruiting leaders should actually ramp up recruiting during the holiday season.
The Top 20 Reasons Why December Is a Powerful Time to Recruit keep reading…
If you are going to be strategic, you must be forward looking. Obviously forward-looking people stay aware of current trends. I’ve written extensively on recruiting trends, but the definition of “a trend” means that a significant group of firms have already implemented the practice. And that means that if you merely identify and copy current trends, by the time your firm implements them, you will have fallen behind the benchmark firms that would have continued to develop new approaches. If you are tired of simply playing catch-up and you want to “get ahead” of your talent competition, you need to move beyond current trends and instead identify “next year’s” upcoming practices long before they gain wide acceptance.
If you want to prepare for what’s next on the horizon, here is my list of “next year’s recruiting headlines” or “next practices” that will soon be adopted by leading edge firms. Don’t be surprised if you’re not familiar with some of these “next practices” because they are seldom written about and they are even less frequently implemented.
A List of the Top 20 Recruiting Headlines That You Can Expect to Read Next Year keep reading…
As the debate over the value of an MBA slogs on, tech workers are fairly convinced that adding the business degree won’t do much for their careers.
IT specialty job board Dice surveyed job seekers a few weeks ago about the value of an MBA, finding that 52 percent of them believe it’s not important to future technical careers. Only 32 percent saw it as adding value.
That might be expected, as the question was asked only of those who didn’t have a Masters of Business Administration. But even among those who do have the degree, many doubt its value. Dice asked MBA holders how having the degree changed their career. The most popular response was that it got them a bigger paycheck. Next most frequently cited response, though, was that it had no impact on their career. keep reading…
The Hilton in Istanbul
In part 1 of this article, I highlighted my top 10 recently implemented bold and outrageous practices in HR and talent management.
The goal is not to recommend these practices, but instead to more clearly define the leading edge of current practice.
In this part 2, I will highlight 13 additional practices that define the leading and “bleeding edge” of HR. If your goal is to “push the envelope” in talent management, this list can give you an idea of where the average ends and the truly bold practices begin.
Although every firm cannot directly adopt the practices listed here (some are reprehensible), I find during my corporate presentations that merely becoming aware of these bleeding-edge practices can create great energy and a strong desire for individual HR functions to do more and be bolder.
Additional “Bold and Outrageous” HR and Talent Management Practices
Here are my selections for the remaining top recently implemented bold approaches that define the bleeding edge of HR practices. keep reading…
Where’s it easier to get candidates to move to, and where’s it harder? That’s a question the search firm Heidrick & Struggles asked 50 of its U.S. search consultants. The least “recruitable” cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit (we’d have posted the results sooner, but we were stuck in LA traffic).
The easiest place to get people to move to is Atlanta, followed by Chicago.
It depends on the industry. San Francisco did better, for example, for technology, finance, and professional services.
What candidates don’t like is bad schools, bad weather, a bad commute, high housing costs (or trouble selling their current homes) and limited opportunities if you end up leaving the job you’re being recruited for. They also want a good business culture with big companies, partly for job options for the spouse, as well as an airport with good flight options, and as safe a town as they can find.
Living in LA, we can tell you the weather is a plus, though some natives do complain that’s it’s too hot when it’s over 75 and too cold when it’s under 74. But with so many folks we know looking to flee the city because of the schools, as well as having a tough time with underwater homes, we get all that.
An Embarrassment of Riches
With all the whining about how hard it is to find quality hires we thought we were in a parallel universe when we read that the supply of “extremely bright, qualified, and eager candidates is so high that it is nearly problematic.” keep reading…
About 40% of University of Wyoming students are non-traditional
Recent statistics say as many as two thirds of current college students are considered nontraditional students. Yet, most career development and rotational programs are tailored for the traditional student, and even screen out nontraditionals.
Who They Are
The National Center for Education Statistics loosely defines “non-traditional” students as meeting one or more of the following criteria:
- Delays enrollment; does not enter postsecondary education in the same calendar year that he or she finished high school.
- Attends part time for at least part of the year.
- Works 35 hours or more per week while enrolled.
- Is considered financially independent for purposes of determining eligibility for financial aid.
- Have dependents other than a spouse (usually children).
- Is a single parent.
- Completed secondary education with a GED or other high school completion certificate or did not finish high school.
Statistics from that same agency claim that 73% of all college students meet one or more of these criteria, which means most campus recruitment efforts only target the remaining 27%.
Nontraditionals offer employers many benefits: keep reading…
Recruiting is important at any firm, but it is super critical at startup firms. This is because when you have thousands of employees, you can still get by after hiring a few turkeys. At a startup, however, you are so lean that every hire must count and a single bad hire can cause incredible damage.
To further complicate the matter, large firms have a product and employer brand that can attract applicants. Startups have no name recognition, no recruiters, and only an informal recruiting process. The recruiting is made even more difficult because startups are often targeting engineers and IT staff, which are the second- and third-most difficult-to-fill jobs.
Don’t despair. It is possible to recruit great people to a startup if you are aggressive and you know the right tools to use. The following is a list of recruiting approaches and tools that are tailored to the limited resources and the special needs of startup firms. keep reading…
A day doesn’t go by that I don’t read a blog, LinkedIn discussion, or business article challenging the existence of a skilled worker shortage.
Just last week I presented a keynote address to the Executive Women’s Roundtable in Dallas, Texas. Most of the attendees were shocked by the statistics and trends I presented about skilled worker shortages. As suspected, I encountered a few objections. Most of the arguments targeted employers. The antagonists say that management in many companies simply refuses to pay qualified workers what they are worth. I can’t argue with them on that accusation. That is absolutely true.
Some employers still don’t get it — that high unemployment does not equal more qualified workers in this new global and technology-driven economy. The bar for minimum requirements has been raised substantially. Many previously employed and experienced workers now fall under the bar. To recruit and retain skilled workers, employers will need to re-examine how they compensate their workforce.
Supply and demand also plays a part. The supply of workers — domestic and international — available to do many task-oriented jobs far exceeds demand. Jobs that were once a sure bet to middle-class wages can now be performed at a fraction of a cost in developing countries or by automation. For those workers holding a high school diploma or less with no secondary education or trade school experience, I see low-wage, low-skill positions in your future.
But none of these arguments negates the fact that the U.S. has a significant and growing skills shortage. You need look no further than educational attainment, high school dropout rates, and basic literacy to see that U.S. employers are facing an acute shortage of skilled workers.
I can summarize my “case” for skilled worker shortages with two points. keep reading…
The war for top university talent is on. In less than two years, Generation Y will make up more than 50% of the workforce, and the winners in the war for talent will be the organizations that hire and inspire the most driven, adaptable, and agile young professionals – regardless of company size. But what does “talent” really mean, and how do you create a world class college recruiting program to attract, recruit, develop, and retain your future key business leaders?
For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on HR be sure to check out TLNT!
A new “matching” site, a new social media/employee-referral site, and the negatives of stripping.
Yes, it’s our regular roundup of recruiting and HR happenings, below.
The company that powers campus recruiting services, including NACElink, is under investigation by the FBI for allegedly attempting to hack into the computer systems of two competitors.
The investigation doesn’t involve NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Nor is there any evidence that NACElink was ever hacked or that any attempt was made to illegally access the system. However, Marilyn Mackes, executive director of the nonprofit association, says the organization is monitoring the situation and has been sending periodic updates to its member schools and employers.
“Is NACE going to be looking out for the interests of its members,” Mackes said rhetorically. “Of course it is.”
At this point, she says, it is “kind of premature” for the organization to make any decisions about the hosting of its career services network. keep reading…
When U.S. college students and recent grads go looking for a job, they want quick answers, trustworthy insights, and evidence the employers know how to use the various social media channels to add value to their search.
So says PotentialPark, a Swedish recruitment market research firm. Its annual survey (U.S. results were not posted as of this writing) of 3,552 U.S. college students and recent grads found young job seekers are comfortable with social media and expect that you will be too. While 86 percent of them make use of company career sites, more than half (56 percent) expect to find a company on Facebook, and 69 percent expect you to be on LinkedIn.
What PotentialPark found when it audited the corporate career sites of almost 500 U.S. firms was that only 57 percent link to their Facebook page; 79 percent connect to LinkedIn or some other professional network. The career site itself, says PotentialPark, “rarely offers any interaction.” keep reading…
With Google instead taking the lead, for the first year since 2008 Disney was not listed as the overall first-choice employer. Disney did rank in fifth place overall in our study of where high school and college scholars most prefer to work in the future.
That’s what we found at the NSHSS, an international honor society recognizing outstanding academic excellence in high school and college scholars globally — 750,000 scholars representing over 160 countries. The full list is at the bottom of this article.
Members were asked to rank their preferred companies to work for and selected from a list of more than 200 companies. The list of companies was created by combining the 2012 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity, selected companies from Fortune’s Global 500, and popular write-in choices from prior surveys. Respondents were given the opportunity to select up to three companies and were also allowed to write in choices. Results have are available charted by overall ranking, gender rankings, high school/post-high school rankings, and diverse/non-diverse rankings.
The most popular choices continue to reflect interests in technology and health fields, with Google moving to first place in 2012 as the most preferred employer. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, local hospital and health providers, and the Mayo Clinic all placed in the top 10 most preferred. Teach for America was a popular choice, ranking 16th. Many government agencies place highly as well. The FBI ranked #6 and the CIA closely followed at #8. The Air Force ranked #15, the Navy ranked #26 (up from # 31 in 2011), the Army ranked #28, and, the Marines ranked # 64.
Respondents were also asked about the importance of certain workplace factors when choosing an employer, with options separated into four categories. Students ranked responses based on what they most want in an employer, ranked below. The factors ranking as most important in each area included fair treatment, strong benefits, opportunities to enhance career skills, and the ability to create a harmonious work/life balance.
Several top Asian business schools are putting on an event the Sunday after next, telling future students about careers in Asia. This would not be noteworthy, but for the location of the workshop: Los Angeles.
