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Futurestep has quietly been developing a tool called “Foresight” it will be rolling out to its clients, a dashboard meant to make heads and tails out of the recruiting information global companies have stored in their many databases.

Futurestep (a recruitment outsourcing company owned by Korn/Ferry) started thinking about this about a year ago, and has had an internal technology team working on it. It’s “high-end, graphical, display analytics,” Bill Sebra says.

Sebra is Futurestep’s North America president. He says the company’s global clients wanted more data — more real-time data. You may have “the people in China running something different from the folks in North America” when it comes to HR software, he says. “If you’re the chief talent officer, it becomes very difficult.” This challenge can be multiplied if you’re a company with, say 8-10 different firms you bought, all around the world. keep reading…

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” — Charles Darwin

There is a great article by Adrian Kinnersley on Why Recruiters Will Be at the Heart of Our Corporate Future. I agree with some of the points. The rumors of our professional death have been always greatly exaggerated since our early ancestor recruiters found the first stone-age axe makers. Our profession, however, will change due to disruptive trends (Doesn’t it always?). These trends and their impact apply to in-house, outsourced (RPO), and  third-party recruiters alike.

My focus here is on two specific disruptive trends and the strategies to adapt and re-invent if needed. This article is more than about skills development, though some suggestions will help you in your recruitment efforts. As a former AIRS trainer and talent acquisition leader having developed training programs for recruiters, I can say that constant learning is what keeps gives us the edge in changing times (it always will).

Trend #1 — Emerging Technology Will Continue to Disrupt Recruitment keep reading…

I don’t have a crystal ball. Nate Silver, who wrote a bestseller and predicted the outcome of presidential election better than any other pollster, said that his goal is to get 80-85% of his predictions right, not 100%. To get the right predictions, he says, test your hypothesis in the real world. I’m aiming for that here.

I’ve tested what we call RPO in a global setting since 2006. I’ve built business cases which supported or negated moving forward with RPOs and I’ve implemented them at some large Fortune 100 firms. In addition, having worked as a talent acquisition leader for an RPO firm responsible for more than 25,000 hires in a year, I’ve seen the internal challenges faced by RPO firms and been able to stay current on challenges for the RPO industry today.

I don’t currently work for the RPO industry so I have no vested interest in sharing my views. I don’t advocate for any specific company. But below I’ll look at some trends in outsourcing and add my predictions. keep reading…

Bob is the kind of guy people don’t look at twice. He’s described as a family man, quiet, and inoffensive. For years he got stellar performance reviews, describing him as “the best developer in the building.”

But Bob had a secret. Years ago he had outsourced his job to China. Instead of slaving away writing software code, Bob spent his day surfing the Internet. Investigators discovered what Bob was doing only because his Chinese contractors regularly logged into the company’s network. When they dug through his work computer, they discovered “hundreds of .pdf invoices from a third party contractor/developer in (you guessed it) Shenyang, China.”

As they dug deeper, the investigators reconstructed a typical Bob day: keep reading…

If you are a recruiting leader, I would like to introduce you to a concept that many are not familiar with, which is “whole career employment.” The premise of this hiring and workforce planning model is that instead of the traditional expectation that employees will work at a firm continuously from their hire date until they retire, leaders need to plan for the eventuality when top employees may come and go from your firm several times throughout their whole career.

This new model is necessary because it fits both the changing loyalty levels and expectations of workers and the evolving way that work is done. The average tenure of the American worker at a single firm is just over four years and Americans may hold between 5 and 10 jobs throughout their career. This process of hiring, losing and bringing back employees requires a hiring model that is more flexible and sophisticated than most firms currently have.

A whole career model is a hiring and workforce planning strategy that focuses on the reduced loyalty and retention levels among top performing employees. Instead of focusing on hiring a top person only one single time, it plans on targeting them for rehire at several different points throughout their entire career. Smart firms will plan to recruit and hire the very best back into regular or contingent jobs at points in their career when we need them and when they are willing and able to work for us in some capacity. The goal is to get as much high-quality work from top performers whenever they are available throughout their career.

Lifelong Employment Is Coming to an End keep reading…

In recent years issues with the RPO model have been well documented. It’s not so much the model itself because the theory is sound, on paper. It’s the execution of the model and competition driving cost-saving promises which can’t be met unless corners are cut or high volumes of lesser-experienced RPO recruiters are hired to fulfill demand.

Whether it’s an RPO model or simply an in-house direct recruiter model, the same conundrum exists. keep reading…

Kenexa’s stock is up about 40% early today on news IBM’s buying the company for about $1.3 billion.

IBM says it’s buying Kenexa to bolster “social business initiatives.” IBM tells me that Rudy Karsan, the well-regarded founder and CEO of Kenexa, will stay with the new company.

Kenexa has a mix of products and services, from RPO to applicant tracking systems (through its BrassRing product).

Last month I participated in a joint webinar with my RPO business partner and provider on the topic of “True Business Partnerships.” As I geared up and prepared for the webinar, it made me think about the current relationship in place with my RPO provider and all the other fantastic relationships I have developed during my tenure at Clear Channel. Of course not every product and service is right for our business, but I make it a point to look at everything and at the very least see the product or service first hand.

For our enterprise-wide initiatives, it was and is very important for me to find true business partners that not only offer innovative and customized solutions, but also to find and identify those business partners who we can trust, who we can lean on for expertise, who are accountable, and who can listen to our business needs and then go and execute for us.

Call it destiny or luck, but I have been able to locate and meet some of the most amazing and high-performing business partners to service our needs when it comes to RPO, HR technology, website design, and recruiting. Of all the great qualities that our business partnerships have forged, one of the main action items that has stuck out to me is that they all possess a vested interest in our success at Clear Channel — and in turn, we have a vested interest in their success as well.

In writing this article on the basis of partnerships, I simply equate the idea of a professional business relationship the same as a personal relationship that one may enter in to. Relationships are hard work. There needs to be communication, interaction, visibility, and transparency. In a personal relationship, those are all items that will keep both individuals happy and on the same page — so why not bring those same characteristics into the corporate world and apply them toward your professional business relationships. But most importantly, the golden rule of partnerships is that it is a two-way street — not a one way, and that is where I see most partnerships fail and not be successful.

I value the advice, guidance, and support that my business partners provide me. Whether it be on human capital, technology, communications, or design, each acts as a trusted business advisor. There is no way we can be as successful as we have been without each of them. With all this said, there are two sets of advice I would like to pass on to both parties — those who sit on the same side as I and who own business relationships, and those prospective business partners who are actively engaged in offering solutions and services …  keep reading…

A time right about now,

In a galaxy not far, far away …

The war looms among recruiting service providers and the definition of RPO,

Some staffing agencies masquerade as RPOs while other suppliers

Offer promises of full cycle outsourcing yet cannot retain recruiting staff to deliver.

An expanse has been created between marketing realism and actual delivery,

The lines have been blurred between true RPO suppliers and imposters;

Which leaves clients to sift through the jargon to find the right solution…

As I adjust my storm trooper helmet to return to the frame of mind of Star Wars as a metaphor for RPO selection and implementation, I delve ever deeper into the RFP process. We last left our story and main characters, C3RPO & RFP2D2, heading for the planet of “Demo-gobah” as we developed the business case for selecting an RPO supplier.

Outlined in the first article of this series, RPO Wars: Episode I – C3RPO & RFP2D2, you need to develop a business case to understand “why” an organization should consider partnering with an RPO supplier and “what” services will help you solve your business needs.

Like the Alliance Starfighter squadron preparing to destroy the death star, I emphasized the importance of following a project plan and working through the four phases of project management: Discovery, Development, Implementation, and Ongoing Improvements. We are focused on the steps of the Discovery phase: Requirements, Evaluation, Selection, and Negotiation. We traveled through the Requirements stage and now enter the Evaluation stage beginning with the development of the RFP.

Creating the RFP keep reading…

Recruitment process outsourcing by definition is a form of business process outsourcing where an employer outsources or transfers all or part of its recruitment activities to an external service provider. Each letter in the term RPO represents a valuable and equal piece of the RPO process model, yet more and more RPO providers today are using the letters in the phrase but not performing up to standard expectations around each functional letter R-P-O.

Whether outsourcing any particular business function is good or bad can be debated, but for those companies who choose to outsource their recruitment departments and select an RPO provider, there are several key elements that will either make or break the initiative. Most important, understand what a particular RPO provider is willing to deliver and what they are good at delivering. Through personal experience it seems that most RPO providers have forgotten or ignored the “R” or “Recruitment” in RPO and spend the majority of their time and resources focusing on “Process” and/or “Outsourcing/Optimization.”

For me, the “R” is the most important aspect in the term RPO and is what I focus on. If a provider can’t deliver on the “R,” then “P” and “O” are useless to me.  Other organizations may place a higher value on the “P” and “O,” and again it is all what is best for organizational needs. To me, most RPO providers have lost the concept of recruiting and now focus on the outsourced part.

Although it may be more efficient and although it may be more cost effective — I still demand a certain bang for my buck and while I don’t expect executive-search-quality candidates for every position, RPO providers should still be focused on providing candidates of a certain level of quality and not just numbers.

Lucky for me after trial and error, I was able to locate a provider who has not lost focus on “recruitment” and that can and does deliver at a high level, and that is what it is all about for me. Do your homework, talk to some other professionals in the industry, and conduct a proper assessment prior to partnering with an RPO provider. And if all else fails – meet me at the 2012 ERE Expo in South Florida where I can tell you an RPO story that will make the hair on the back of any HR executive’s neck stand straight up. See you there.

For those who thought Manpower’s contract with the state of South Dakota was big, try Australia on for size.

ManpowerGroup has landed a contract with the Australian Defence Force, one that’s worth at least $400 million for five years, and could even get extended to five more. It is an extension of an existing relationship and will involve soup-to-nuts recruiting: recruitment marketing, medical and psychological assessments, offers, and more.

The Aussie Navy, Army, and Air Force handle about 20,000-40,000 candidates annually out of 16 national recruiting centers. These candidates include everything from sailors to soldiers to engineers, doctors, lawyers, and pilots.

The new contract begins in November 2012; Manpower calls it the “largest and most complex RPO program in the world.”

The company recently “crushed” Wall Street expectations of its earnings.

The Value of Offshore Recruiting Teams

Corporate recruiting departments and staffing firms have a continual need to lower costs while increasing recruiting productivity — and some recruiting organizations have turned to outsourcing. Outsourcing can take many forms including retaining a U.S.-based recruitment process outsourcing firm, sending job orders to staffing agencies, participating in split-fee recruiter networks, or hiring U.S.-based contract sourcers and/or recruiters.

A less-expensive solution being implemented by progressive U.S. companies is partnering with an offshore recruiting firm. Most offshore recruiting firms have recruiting operations in India. The cost of an offshore sourcer or recruiter is generally about one-third to one-half the cost of a U.S.-based contract sourcer or recruiter. Offshore recruiting firms allow U.S.-based in-house recruiters to offload time-consuming, but important tasks, such as candidate sourcing and screening. With the additional time, in-house recruiters can work on and close more open positions, focus on complex tasks requiring the greatest skills, provide a more positive experience for candidates, and delight hiring managers by presenting higher quality candidates.

You Cannot Outsource Your Problems

Offshore recruiting is not a magic tonic. A dysfunctional recruiting department will not suddenly have success by outsourcing — whether the recruiting functions are outsourced to a U.S.-based or an offshore firm. keep reading…

SelectMinds, TheLadders, an RPO, and more are making announcements at the ERE Expo in San Diego today. Just a sampling:

First SelectMinds, which “moved deeper into the employee referral world” a couple of years ago and then into the “talent communities” competition, today is launching what it calls the “first-of-its-kind software to allow corporate HR to automate all aspects of social recruiting.”

It’s an upgrade to the company’s TalentVine product with six new modules: a jobs distributor to send out listings and links to company Facebook pages and Twitter accounts; a talent community module; a referral program module; a Facebook jobs page builder; a social-media-friendly career-site builder; and a module that optimizes job listings for mobile phones. keep reading…

A time right about now,

In a galaxy not far, far away,

A world exists where recruiting labor swirls

Within corporate hiring needs,

Melding with sourcing and branding,

Colliding with hiring process and adoption,

A war has erupted in the expanse of options in how to best recruit to fill corporate talent voids: Outsource vs. In Source; RPO vs. RPWhat; RPWho vs. RPHuh?

I am not a Star Wars geek but a fan of the movie series (as a child of the 1980s). When I sat down to write about recruitment process outsourcing services and the necessity of developing a comprehensive Request for Proposal process when selecting a supplier, I realized the story was much bigger. The title popped in my head as I looked at the evolution of RPO. But as I continued to write, I realized that RPO is a world into itself fighting for relevance as it continues to be defined.

I opted to tell the story from a corporate staffing leader’s perspective, taking it from the initial decision point of whether or not to outsource recruiting labor. keep reading…

Never before has the time been riper for recruiters to make a real difference to the profitability of their firms. The differentiator between profits, innovative products, and long-term success is, very simply, the quality of talent.

As gatekeepers, your function is far from trivial. You are key to finding the best talent and therefore ultimately a core player in corporate success. But we continue to act like our job is about as important as sorting screws or stocking shelves. We are rarely influencers or early adopters of technology.

Influencers are noted for focus, their ability to make a case for what they want that is backed up with data, and for empowering others to act. In many cases, they also use the latest tools to raise awareness and efficiency.

If you want to be an influencer here are some ideas, concepts, and provocative moves you can use to transform your recruiting function.

Narrow the Field

Most recruiters have too large a scope and hence spread themselves very thinly, pleasing no one. keep reading…

Marine Drive - Mumbai

After declining for about three years, India’s popularity as an outsourcing hotspot for tech companies has increased sharply.

That’s according to BDO USA, an accounting/consulting organization, in a poll of 100 U.S. technology CFOs.

BDO also found that: keep reading…

I was just reviewing the predictions I made for 2011 written at roughly this time a year ago. Much of what I thought would happen unfolded as expected, except for talent management. I had thought there would more focus on integrating the employee development and recruitment functions, and more internal hiring. I still think that’s on tap for this year. I was on target regarding hiring: There was no great uptick in the volume of hiring, and unemployment remained static. And I was on target with predicting that social media would be core to recruiting success and that RPOs would thrive.

Over the past two years, the way we think about work has changed. Perhaps accelerated by the recession, there is more focus now on finding satisfying and rewarding work than on just finding a job that pays the most.

More people are thinking about finding something interesting, challenging, and perhaps even fun to do that provides enough income. The key words here are interesting/challenging and enough. Fewer expect to get rich and there is less focus on the money. There is more focus on lifestyle, flexibility, free time to pursue other learning or hobbies or sports, and less interest in family. I’ll do more columns on these trends soon, but partly because of them here are the major changes that I see happening this year.

Internal Recruiting Goes Mainstream

Perhaps one of the most significant trends will be a greater focus on finding current employees to fill existing jobs. keep reading…

ADP, best known by the adjective “payroll processor,” will need to launch a rebranding campaign. Something like, “ADP, the full-service human capital company.”

The $10 billion company announced today it is acquiring The RightThing, a leading recruitment process outsourcer, which three years ago acquired AIRS. Terms of the deal weren’t announced.

It’s the second acquisition for ADP in as many months. In September it bought Asparity Decision Solutions, a supplier of  employee health benefits decision support tools.

Besides giving ADP a strong and immediate presence in the burgeoning RPO business, The RightThing’s AIRS unit brings a sophisticated recruitment technology and a well-regarded recruiter Internet training component.

However, the announcement strongly suggests that it was the RPO side of the house that ADP was after in the acquisition. keep reading…

Doing less with more. We measure it. Monitor it. Optimize it. Benchmark it. Roll it. So many schools of thought channeling through webinars, blogs, SMS feeds, etc. assail the minds of talent acquisition leaders daily. It can be hard to take the time to process it all, let alone roll out a custom implementation when what is really needed today is a purple squirrel with an engineering degree willing to relocate for less money. Late nights at the office resuscitated the question, “Can we get back some of the time we spent executing necessary, yet time-consuming transactional activities and reallocate the team’s time to more strategic client-facing initiatives and management’s time to taking care of the team?”

I approached this conundrum earlier in my career with the help of my talent acquisition team at that time. As we began an examination our own processes, we tried to keep a “lean-esque” perspective on what we see is the incremental value recognized through individual process steps. The central challenge became whether we could change the way in which something is executed, while still retaining (or increasing) its incremental value. Ultimately, can we do it quicker, cheaper, and not cannibalize our effectiveness and efficiency?

keep reading…

As the years have rolled by I have become increasingly aware of how poorly internal recruiting functions perform when compared to recruitment process outsourcing organizations or agencies. These have to make a profit or go out of business. They have to operate efficiently and continue to innovate and stay ahead of the demands or questions that clients will have.

Internal functions don’t have to do any of these things. They are entrenched in almost all organizations, and because their function is perceived as incidental to overall organizational performance or success, not much in the way of efficiency is really expected or, unfortunately, rewarded. This means that few recruiting leaders have any incentive to improve their function. In fact, doing so may mean a smaller budget, less headcount, and even less status.

So this leads to the headline question: Do we need an internal function at all? Does it do something that an external provider cannot do? Can it do it at least as cheap or as fast? Can it provide a higher-caliber candidate?

Some thoughts: keep reading…