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Hard-to-find talent isn’t interested in submitting resumes or engaging with career sites. These are busy people, deeply focused on a project or idea. Reaching them is not only difficult — it’s often next to impossible.

Many do not have an online presence. Most will not respond to emails, Tweets, or phone calls — if you are able to find them. They are known to their circle of friends and colleagues only, and participate online primarily in technical forums, professional sites, and through emails with associates.

An engineer I know is top in his chosen field. He is highly sought after by a small circle of technical experts for his depth of knowledge and experience. He has no LinkedIn profile, no Facebook page, and does not Tweet. He only answers his phone when he knows the caller personally. Yet, he regularly changes jobs depending on how interesting the project offered. He has never spoken with a recruiter (other than me as a friend). He finds his projects through his narrow but powerful network of fellow engineers.

How would a recruiter ever find him — or the hundreds of others who are similar? keep reading…

Practices: The return of talent agents; HR owns M&A; and hiring without degrees

Anyone who tracks advanced trends in talent management knows that many of them  originated in the Silicon Valley. However, you probably also know that many of the publicized practices that start in the Silicon Valley are so unique and even outrageous (like the free Sweets Shop that is part ice cream parlor and bakery at Facebook), that no firm outside of the Valley ever copies them.

The three Silicon Valley practices that I am highlighting today probably won’t require immediate action at your firm, simply because they are so bold and outrageous that conservative talent managers will not even consider them. As a result, I am labeling them “leading edge practices that you should simply be aware of.” keep reading…

During the newly reinvigorated and exciting ERE conference, two attendees posed related but powerful questions to me. The first was “What advanced topics should be on the agenda of recruiting leaders at elite firms?” Or as another put it “What should Google be planning to do next in recruiting?”

At least to me, future agenda items are an important topic. Because after visiting well over 100 firms, I have found a dramatic difference between the agenda items that are found on 95% of the firms (cost per hire, ATS issues, req loads, etc.) and the truly advanced subjects that only elite recruiting firms like Google, DaVita, Sodexo, etc. would even attempt to tackle.

So if you have the responsibility for setting agendas or recruiting goals, here is my list of truly advanced recruiting topics that elite leaders would find compelling but that most others would simply find to be out of their reach. If you want to be among the elite, you should select a handful for implementation. However, even if you are currently overwhelmed by your current agenda, you might still find them to be interesting reading.

25 Advanced Recruiting Topics for Bold Corporate Recruiting Leaders keep reading…

Remember when the talk was about the great future that was available for people working in plastics?

Fast forward about 45 years, and now the discussion is about the huge changes coming to the workplace because of another trendy and cutting edge concept — robotics.

Attorney Garry Mathiason, chairman of the board of mega law firm Littler Mendelson, kicked off Day 2 of the Spring 2013 ERE Recruiting Conference & Expo in San Diego talking about Advanced Workplace Robots and Implications for Recruitment Strategies. While I admit that the title doesn’t sound like something you want to sit though early in the morning on the last day of a conference, Mathiason quickly said a few things that really got my attention.

Here’s one: “By 2025, robots will have taken over half of the jobs in the U.S.”

Robots Are Reshaping the Workplace 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…

Hiring is slowing from last year, and the trend is predicted to continue at least through the rest of the first half of the year, says a new report from CareerBuilder.

The job board’s quarterly employment forecast says the U.S. should expect somewhat slower hiring through the end of June than it saw for the same period last year. That comes on the heels of a first quarter that was slightly better than what CareerBuilder’s survey foresaw three months ago, but which was still down from 2012. keep reading…

Even as the number of tech jobs in the U.S. was steadily climbing in 2012, hitting an all-time high last month, workers were feeling just a bit less confident in their ability to find a new job.

In the last few days, several reports and forecasts have come online, all of them showing that tech workers, despite their own confidence issues, will be hard to recruit.

TechServe Alliance declared that the number of tech workers in the U.S. grew in 2012 by 4.14% to an estimated 4,339,800 workers. That’s more than two-and-a-half times the national rate of job growth (1.52%) exceeds even the growth in the health sector, which increased by 2.26% between January 2012 and last month.

Yet a Randstad Technologies poll conducted in the fourth quarter of last year found 44% of the participating IT workers confident of their ability to find a new job. In the third quarter, 55% were confident. Workers’ confidence could have been shaken by the showdown over the fiscal cliff issues. Another possibility is that with only 275 IT workers in the survey, a few real worriers could have skewed the results.

In any case, employers aren’t buying into that fear. CareerBuilder’s 2013 job forecast says 27% of hiring managers plan to hire permanent, full-time IT workers this year. That’s also what TechServe Alliance expects. keep reading…

With the growth of the Internet, social media, and employee referral programs, finding talent is becoming amazingly easy. In recruiting, we call finding talent “sourcing,” and for nearly three decades sourcing has been the most important but difficult aspect of recruiting. After all, if you can’t find great talent, you certainly can’t interview and hire them.

But finding top talent among professionals is now becoming painless to the point where almost any firm can do it successfully. The time is rapidly approaching were nearly every professional and working individual in the developed world can be found by a recruiting function.

Finding Talent Is Easy Because Everyone Is Now “Visible” keep reading…

More than half the employers in three of the four of the world’s biggest developing nation economies say they’ll be adding staff in 2013, a marked contrast to Europe and the U.S. where the majority of firms expect no change.

Hiring will be most aggressive in Brazil, India, and China where more than half the employers — almost three-quarters in Brazil — say they’ll be adding workers this year. Russia, where mining and energy exports are fueling growth, is more conservative in its hiring; just under half of employers expect to hire.

Elsewhere among the world’s 10 largest economies, far fewer employers expect to add workers. According to a CareerBuilder survey, in the U.S., Japan, and four European countries, the largest share of employers either expect to cut staff or make no change during the year. Even in the UK and the U.S., where more than half the employers surveyed report being better off financially than a year ago, not many of them plan to hire. keep reading…

I recently got one of those year-end surveys asking about the significant developments in recruitment in 2012 and trends and predictions for next year.

My inclination was to ignore it; I’ve got enough to do keeping track of today, let alone trying to figure out what next year will bring. As for 2012, without the perspective of time, it’s hard to tell tell what will turn out to be significant in the long run. A few developments, though, will undoubtedly make the survey.

Social media for recruitment will be there, as will the drive to mobile. My list includes growing buzz over “big data,” even though it’s nowhere near clear how it will eventually make a difference in hiring and workforce management.

Vendor consolidation also makes my list. So too does the changing composition of the traditional workforce composition. By that I mean specifically the use of temps and contractors as a strategic component of the workforce, coupled with the growing cadre of professionals who, having turned to contract work (consulting, to put it politely) out of necessity are finding it suits them and provides a work/life balance companies mostly just talk about.

However, after thinking about my list, I realized that it’s the mergers and acquisitions that will have the biggest impact and will come to be seen as one of the more significant industry developments since the recession forced all of us to completely rethink and restructure what we do.

Much of what went on in 2012 was evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. And this is certainly true of the consolidation of the talent acquisition and HR management system vendors. It has been going on for some time now, though the setting was on simmer. But then SAP’s acquisition of SuccessFactors, technically a late 2011 event, turned up the heat. In short order Kenexa and  Taleo got bought up. And later, Bullhorn picked up Sendouts and MaxHire. There were also smaller deals that kept the pot boiling throughout the year.

The significance here isn’t the transactions themselves; it’s what’s behind them and, even more so, what it means for the future. keep reading…

We’re always looking for new ways to engage with candidates; we want to be first, and get there faster and more effectively. This year, we saw three key shifts in how job seekers consume career information that we foresee carrying over into the New Year.

Trend #1: It’s All About Mobile keep reading…

The Federal Reserve says hiring activity in the nation generally has improved in the last several weeks particularly in some of the high tech and energy-producing parts of the country.

In its just-issued “Beige Book” report on the economic condition of the country, the Fed says that in more than half the districts, which carve the nation into 12 financial geographies, it’s seeing “modest gains in hiring.” However even in these areas, the Fed got mixed signals from the employers and staffing firms it contacts for insights on economic conditions.

For example in the Chicago district, covering the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the fed said “a number of firms were putting hiring on hold and had delayed temp-to-perm conversion decisions until next year.” In Richmond, the Fed found the employment market less positive than it did when it published its last report on October 10.

The one common thread running through each District’s report on its employment market is a reference to the shortage of skilled labor. While different skills are at issue, depending on the District, almost every one says employers and staffing firms mention shortages. 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…

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…

My philosophy is that the best candidate is the one who is not, and does not need to look for a position. I am finding that in the past 12 months, there are fewer and fewer candidates who are not in the market for a position. People are more willing to speak with a recruiter, there are fewer objections I need to overcome, and it has been easier to reach people. I am sure I am not alone, and that these previously “passive candidates” are also speaking to the other recruiters reaching out to them. The data supports this; the recent Careerbuilder 2012 Candidate Behavior Guide showed that 74% of currently employed individuals are looking for a position in one form or another.

There are a few reasons for this: keep reading…

It’s not the big that eat the small. It’s the fast that eat the slow! --Author Jason Jennings

If the rate of change inside your firm is slower than the rate of change occurring outside your firm, your end is in sight. --Jack Welch’s philosophy

Even the most optimistic business leaders have begun to realize that the incredible business turbulence that we have been undergoing for the last decade isn’t going to end. In fact, turbulence, volatility, and continuous rapid change are likely to become the “new normal.” Recently an excellent research study by the leading consulting firm BCG effectively identified and then quantified this high level of turbulence. A summary of some of their key findings include:

• Turbulence strikes more often than in the past — More than ½ of the most turbulent quarters over the past 30 years have been in the past decade.
• Turbulence has increased in intensity – Volatility in revenue growth, in revenue ranking, and in operating margins have all more than doubled since the 1960s.
• Turbulence today persists much longer than in preceding periods – The average duration of periods of high turbulence has quadrupled over the past three decades.
• Turbulence in key business results – key business areas including revenue growth, profitability, and industry rank have all shown triple-digit percentage increases over the last few decades.

The Goal Is to Become an “Adaptive Firm” and Function keep reading…

(This article was co-authored with Amy McKee, Sr. Director, Global Talent Acquisition, at Autodesk.)

Mobile …finally! DNA footprints in the cloud; recruiting back to basics: getting to know the candidate; the end of the traditional ATS; emerging markets dominate; augmented reality; disruptive marketing and stunt PR; the end of social media; candidate cloning and the end of recruiters as we know it!

The impact and level of debate created by Recruitment 3.0 & 4.0, certainly took us by surprise. Based on feedback, it is clear that there has been healthy discussion and many companies have re-appraised/reviewed their recruiting strategies.

Recruitment 5.0 is the final paper in the trilogy.

3.0 was all about building.

4.0 all about driving value.

5.0 is all about … Personalization, self-sufficiency, predictability, big data, and back to basics.

The defining features of Recruitment 5.0:

• Mobile recruiting finally takes off and becomes the dominant channel.
• Recruiting gets back to basics and focuses on building relationships. Included in this is a focus on personalization/humanization and dominating/driving communications.
• Footprints in the cloud. Companies obsessively get to know their customers/consumers, and recruiters do the same with their “corporate” talent pools
• Data DNA: Companies draw data to profile candidates based on online habits and trends.
• Technological developments bring an end to the traditional ATS.
• Emerging markets emerge and dominate.
• Augmented reality and disruptive marketing dominate recruiting marketing.
• As companies seek to attract the best talent in a candidate short market, they set up their own courses, universities/academies, and “clone” future employees.
• As talent becomes more scarce, talent becomes more contract by nature and more flexible.
• It’s the end of recruiters as we know it … the death of the recruiting profession?

Some meaty stuff.

Reviewing these bullet points, some companies are already experimenting and executing on elements, but as time passes, these will become dominant in our thoughts, plans and strategies.

Let’s explore in more detail. keep reading…

A new report from Deloitte, one that’s hard to characterize as liberal or conservative, offers some ways to address the U.S. unemployment problem and just generally make the U.S. more competitive.

Like other past reports, and pleas from some in the HR field, this one argues that more skilled employees be allowed to immigrate to the U.S.  keep reading…

The world is suddenly waking up to the discovery that employers are bringing on temp and contract workers at a pace that will soon surpass the peak numbers of 2006.

Subscribers to The Fordyce Letter first read about the surge in temp workers in the May issue. Following the release of the June employment numbers by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, FordyceLetter.com reported, “There are now 2.534 million contract and temp workers in the U.S., a number just a few months shy of exceeding the all time high of 2.657 million reached in August 2006.”

Now, U.S. News says “Temp Workers Make Huge Comeback.” The article points out that the staffing industry has regained almost all the jobs lost in the recession, while other employers have added just over half the ones they shed. It’s not simply a sign of cautious employers bringing in extra help while waiting to see what the economy will do, but evidence of a trend.

Says the article, “In 1983, temporary workers made up just over half a percent of all employment. Now, that figure stands at nearly 2.3 percent — a remarkable change, despite the small numbers.”

“It’s a structural transformation,” maintains Arne Kalleberg, a professor of sociology at University of North Carolina who studies the labor force. keep reading…

Baseball is like recruiting. Every seasoned expert knows how to achieve success and can easily spot the obvious traits of great performers. Or do they? Moneyball, the Michael Lewis bestseller and Brad Pitt film, shows that the experts do get it wrong – or, at least, there are better, more reliable ways to learn and understand the secrets of success. Put most simply: look at the facts.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!