I had some fun bouncing around the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics Website yesterday. Pretty dangerous for a numbers geek like me. You can imagine that I soon found myself knee-deep into numbers. As you probably know, we are spellbound by lists here at The Hire Sense so this site was rich with stats, numbers and lists. Beautiful.

Well anyway, here are some interesting numbers I found that I thought I would share with you. As I posted earlier this week, the United States unemployment rate is at 4.7%, but if we look at the number of job openings as a percent of total employment, 2.8%, we can see by just shear numbers the unemployment rate would be below 2%. One cannot look at these percents this way because you have to take into consideration that those unemployed may not have the proper skills or even be in the right location to fill the open positions. But by looking at these numbers you can start to see why companies are changing their hiring processes to compensate for the tight employment market that exisits.

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I thought I would tie in to the Rock Star’s post about Attracting the Passive Candidate. Let’s look at it from the other side – what do candidates have to do to “be attractive” to the hiring company.

I was catching up to an older post from Guy Kawaski’s blog and something jumped out at me. Guy playfully submitted his email cover and resume for a Yahoo position and allowed these 2 items to be critiqued by a recruiting manager from Yahoo. I thought her analysis was excellent. This part caught my attention:

The resume calls out the positions held and a brief description of the responsibilities. What it lacks is the “so what.” What I mean by that is that it needs to call out what the impact/benefit was to the company when you held those roles.

As we become innundated with more information in the information age, standing out becomes increasingly more difficult. The “so what?” approach is one we use when determining a company’s value proposition. Whatever your value proposition is today, it should be able to answer the question, so what?

The same principle applies to candidate resumes. If they simply state they grew the territory by 115% . . . so what? It sounds impressive, but what did it do for the company? How did you accomplish such a feat? How did it stack up to other territories?

You get the point. A strong resume speaks to results and their impact within the company in direct details. We see many sales resumes that claim success without defining the impact. If you have read The Hire Sense for any amount of time, you know that we do not place much value on the resume. However, a strong candidate should not overlook the importance of a resume that easily passes the so what test.

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My kids returned to school this week. I know the Minnesota parents are saying, “This week? My kids have been going for a week or two.” Our district just built 2 new elementary schools this past year and summer break was extended to give more time in completing their construction. That mission was only accomplished for 1 of the 2 new schools (which my youngest attends).

Anyway, back to the reason for the post – I just learned today that September is Head Lice Prevention Month. With school starting in September and knowing that most elementary kids don’t have a lot of sense about these things, I can understand the need to discuss it in school. But honestly, to actually have it on a calendar along with other awareness topics like Fire Prevention Week, National Crime Prevention Month and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month seems trivial.

I actually did a little research and found a few different websites that have pages of different awareness and prevention days, weeks and months. As quirky as it sounds, I am hypnotically drawn to them and will soon find myself wandering back to the site to see what I should be aware of today.

I will waste my time so you don’t have to waste yours. I promise not to share each one with you since that would be . . . well, weird. But I will periodically post an update with the current awareness and prevention information for your reading pleasure.

Consider yourself “aware” of head lice prevention month.

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In a recent article on Weddles.com (the website provides resources for employment, personal development and career success) titled The First Four Lines, the author discusses the importance of catching the candidates’ attention in ads. In their own survey Weddles has found most visitors to the online job boards are now spending more time on the online sites than in the past.

They do provide some stats in the article, but unfortunately they do not provide a frame of reference as in per day, per week or per month or how much this has changed from past surveys. The article does give some great tips on attracting the passive candidates:

Passive job seekers aren’t job seekers at all. More often than not, they are already employed; to be recruited, therefore, they must be persuaded to move from their current employer to another. No one seeks the disruption such a change will cause, however, so passive prospects put it off by holding job postings to a very high standard.

Now they also go on to say that the passive job seeker represents the top talent that organizations hope to recruit. I would agree with this statement in that if your ads are only attracting the unemployed in an economy with a 4.7% unemployment rate (3.6% on our turf – Minnesota), then you are missing a huge pool from which to recruit. The article gives some great examples to use in trying to attract candidates who would be classified as passive job seekers. Passive candidates set their filter higher so they will not spend as much time reading your ad unless it grabs them in the first four lines.

They give 4 points to remember in writing your ad. I must say this is a lot to fit into 4 lines of an ad. It will take some creative writing to pull it off, but they do provide some great tips.

1. A powerful, compelling statement about why the opening is a dream job. Passive prospects are willing to make a change in employers, but only if they believe they will get to do interesting work and interact with talented peers.
2. An equally powerful and compelling statement about why your organization is a dream employer. Passive prospects don’t look for a job; they seek opportunities with employers that will encourage and support their best work and advance their careers.
3. A statement regarding the compensation the opening provides. A salary range is sufficient, but such terms as competitive and commensurate with experience are not. Most passive prospects don’t work for the money; they work for the intrinsic satisfaction they derive from doing interesting work for a supportive employer. In our culture, however, money is a measure of how much that work is valued, so they will not make a move unless they know there is a financial advantage to doing so.
4. A statement that underscores your employer’s commitment to protecting candidate confidentiality. Since most passive prospects are employed, they are risk averse in the job market. They can only be engaged if they are convinced that their identity will not be revealed at any point to anyone outside your organization.

They also provide tips on how to get all this information into the ad, like using short statements, talking in the second person and not using inside jargon. But the best tip they provide is:

Telling them up front what’s in it for them, that is the way you transform them from passive prospects to active-ready job seekers.

I would like to just chime in with a couple of additional tips for you in attracting these passive candidates and helping you tell them what is in it for them.

• Describe the things they need to do to be successful in the role and the skills they need to possess. They should easily recognize themselves in the ad.
• Most online job boards provide specific areas for listing salary, bonuses and commissions. Use those areas so you don’t need to mention those items within the ad. Instead, use the space to describe how the organization rewards employees in this specific position. Employee retention relies upon matching a job’s rewards to the employee’s rewards. For example, if the candidate is rewarded by material possessions, they are looking for positions that provide bonuses of cash, trips and other tangible items. If they are rewarded by self improvement, they are looking for continuing education opportunities, company training and career pathing.

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On SHRM’s website (membership required) they have an article about a survey conducted by SnagAJob.com from August 9th to the 23rd asking more than 2,300 people who they would most like to take to work. SnagAJob.com thought it would be interesting with all the different “Take Your . . . to Work” to conduct a survey with respondents choosing from a list of 12 celebrities:

Overall
1. Oprah with 26 percent
2. Angelina Jolie with 11 percent
3. Will Ferrell with 10 percent
4. Brad Pitt

Age 17 and younger
1. Oprah with 18 percent
2. Jessica Alba with 15 percent
3. Paris Hilton with 14 percent

Age 18 to 24
1. Oprah
2. Hilton and Jolie tied with 12 percent

Age 25 to 44
1. Oprah with 27 percent
2. Ferrell with 13 percent
3. Jolie with 12 percent

Age 45 and older
1. Oprah
2. Jennifer Aniston with 10 percent
3. David Letterman with 9 percent

Men
1. Jessica Alba with 16 percent
2. Jolie with 13 percent
3. Ferrell and Oprah with 12 percent