I am a member of an online recruiter’s group and have a mild interest in their topics. What we do at Select Metrix is far from recruiting, but we often get lumped in with recruiters so I figure it is good to know the topics that interest them. One myth I keep encountering is this Jurassic-era myth that good salespeople do not look at employment ads. Only the “unhappy” salespeople look at ads. Here is a direct quote from one of the recruiters: People only look on job boards if they are unhappy with their job / boss / company. To recruit the happy people (happy typically equals good)…you need… Read More
Continue ReadingNew Google Base Beta
We are rarely on the bleeding edge here at The Hire Sense so maybe this isn’t news. Well, it is news to us. I stumbled upon Google Base this week. It appears to still be in beta test, but it looks like a fairly slick offering from the search juggernaut. You can post an item to a category whether it is from your blog, a want ad, a recipe, tickets, etc. It appears to be a real potpourri of stuff similar to Craigs List. We are checking out their job board to see what type of activity it generates. The site may be a bit too new to have much… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring Talent
Being Minnesotans, we are avid hockey fans and follow our professional team – the Wild. I was reading this article this morning and came across an interesting quote from the Wild’s General Manager: General manager Doug Risebrough demands fresh ideas from his advisers, and he praised Snow’s enthusiasm and work ethic as a journalist and his passion for hockey in announcing the hiring. “Where he came from was really academic,” Risebrough said. “I always believe if you get really talented people, you put them in a good environment and don’t constrict it. I don’t know how it will look in two years, but we’ll see.” The person he hired is… Read More
Continue ReadingSell What You Have, Not What You Hope
I’m fascinated by this behemoth airplane from Airbus called the A-380. I watched a show on Discovery that documented the engineering feats that had to be accomplished to build this thing – quite impressive. Today, I am reading about the delays in delivering this product on time. The plane is overweight which means it won’t travel the distances that the company claimed it would travel. The wings had a design flaw that has been “fixed” though strangely testing has not been completed yet. The plane will need to have a 10 mile gap behind it due to its jet wash which will require special handling by air traffic controllers. Is… Read More
Continue ReadingStats and Sourcing
First, the headline from the Pioneer Press article: State Jobless Rate Falls to 5-Year Low Now read it and you will see the business-challenged reporting we are treated to here in Minnesota. The unemployment rate is typically lower than the national average even during recessions. Our current unemployment rate is 3.7%! Yet this 13 paragraph article spends the first 8 paragraphs trying to paint this stat in a negative light. Unbelievable. But this statistic does bring me back to sourcing. With low unemployment in Minnesota, we are constantly looking for new sourcing channels for our local customers. We are consistent monster.com and careerbuilder.com users, but we have been branching out… Read More
Continue ReadingEmail Writing Tips
Admins Must Have the Write Stuff from monster.com provides excellent tips regarding proper email writing. The topics seem to be applicable to blog writing too. Quick quiz for you – what is a homonym? (answer below) I have broken almost all of their tips . . . recently. Anyway, I found this fact interesting: Use the Right Font: Most default fonts, like Times and Arial, are hard to read on screen. “You can cut down on missed typos by changing to Verdana,” suggests Peha. “It was specifically designed to be read on a computer monitor.” If your company requires a certain font, compose your text in Verdana and then change… Read More
Continue ReadingStyle Needed for the Job
I’m of 2 minds regarding this article from CareerJournal.com – Is Your Style the Right Fit For the Job You Are After? We always encourage companies to assess candidates even if it is only for communication style. Although hiring based on communication style is the least predictive approach of assessment-based hiring, it is still far superior to gut-level hiring. When looking for or accepting a new assignment, matching or adapting your personal style to the needs of the position can mean the difference between success and failure. Well, that is an easy concept for which to write, but a difficult action to implement. Rarely is there a position that requires… Read More
Continue ReadingJob Market Continues to Grow
The latest report on corporate hiring – 31% of U.S. Firms Plan to Add Staff – is good news for the economy. However, the labor market is tightening up fast. This market is different from the tech bubble of the late 1990’s as the author points out: On the whole, employers are still actively looking for workers in a variety of sectors, Joerres said. “They haven’t bloated themselves with excess people, so they’re consistently in the market. That’s very different from what we were seeing in 1999 and 2000,” he said. If you are planning to hire, expect a slightly longer process to source strong candidates. We are seeing this… Read More
Continue ReadingResume Enhancements
Nothing new in the fact that resumes are enhanced, but many companies continue to use them as the de facto first-pass filter for candidates. Three points from the article: A recent study by ResumeDoctor.com, a resume advisory service based in South Burlington, Vt., found that nearly 43 percent of more than 1,100 resumes it checked for dates of employment, job titles and education contained at least one significant inaccuracy. Nearly 13 percent of the resumes contained two or more inaccuracies. If 43% of the resumes a company reviews in response to an employment ad contain “one significant inaccuracy,” how reliable is that process for selecting the best candidate? “I think… Read More
Continue ReadingMonster.com stock options
Looks like monster.com has some internal issues with granting stock options to employees.
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