Forbes.com article – Are You Corner Office Material? (I am not) The article discusses techniques companies use to assess candidates for C-level positions. These techniques include a $12K, 1 day in-person assessment. Now that is pressure-packed role playing. The quote that caught my eye: Michael Butler, a vice president at Valtera, an HR consultancy, says companies are increasingly interested in his firm’s executive evaluations, partly because so many retiring baby boomers need to be replaced. Many firms will lose half of their senior executives in the next few years, “and they don’t even know it,” Butler says. “It’ll be a crisis in three years.”
Continue ReadingQ3 Hiring Outlook
The upcoming quarter looks to maintain the strong growth in hiring that has been occurring for the past 2 years. Some interesting statistics from the Manpower survey: Construction, 24%, down from 28% in the second quarter Durable-goods manufacturers, 23%, flat from 22% in the second quarter Finance, insurance and real estate, 23%, about flat from 21% Services, 23%, about flat from 21% Wholesale and retail trade, 21%, flat from 22% Transportation and public utilities, 20%, about flat from 17% Mining, 18%, down from 33% Non-durables manufacturers, 18%, about flat from 19% Education, 17% about flat from 16% Public administration, 16% up from 12%
Continue Reading“Digital Dirt”
I’ve never heard that term before (the title of this post). This CareerJournal article discusses methods for candidates to clean up their digital dirt. I suspect the solutions offered in this article sound good but I doubt they clean up the dirt all that quickly. Google seems to cache information for some time. Still, there are some good tips for using Google and I am a big fan of Pubsub. Now do what I just did, go Google your name!
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 ReadingQuick Ad Tip – Part 2
Monster’s June Newsletter provides the latest trends for candidate traffic to their site. Monday and Tuesday’s are their busiest days. The traffic now starts to pick up on Sunday and starts to taper off on Wednesday with the lowest amount of traffic hitting the site on Saturdays. We have had much success with Tuesday postings and but I think we will test some Sunday and Monday postings to see what happens. I would continue to post your ads the beginning of the week to take advantage of this specific monster.com traffic pattern and we’ll post later on our results.
Continue ReadingThe Tightening Market-Part 2
In a recent article on the Tightening Labor Market from the SHRM website (membership required) 2 recent surveys go beyond the unemployment rates and the number of new jobs created to show the demand for talented workers is increasing. Both of the surveys were conducted by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. The first one surveyed 3,000 job seekers and found that among those landing jobs in the first quarter, the median job search lasted just 2.7 months, more than a month shorter than the peak of 4.0 months reached in the third quarter of 2004. It was the lowest job-search time recorded since the second quarter of… Read More
Continue Reading76 and 44
One topic for which we write extensively is the upcoming worker shortage (see here). Obviously the economy will not stop, but there will be a real battle for talented employees. The Working Wounded Blog from abcnews.com makes an interesting statement that companies will have to go beyond salaries and stock options to secure the best talent. They will need to focus on the corporate environment to make it pleasing to the employees. Based on the facts listed below, I think he is hitting a topic that will be at the forefront shortly (emphasis mine): The key numbers for the U.S. work force for the next 10 years are 76 and… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Tightening Market
Strangely the economic news seems to have a hard time making it in to the mainstream media. In case you missed it, unemployment is down to 4.6% which is the lowest it has been since July 2001. We have entered our 34th straight month of manufacturing expansion – the longest stretch in almost 20 years. The labor market has tightened dramatically and finding strong candidates is becoming more challenging. We endorse the approach of looking for talent that will transfer into the needs of your position. When we define a sale, we build a blueprint of the skills, aptitudes, motivations and style that will be the best fit for successfully… Read More
Continue ReadingQuick Ad Tip
We are sourcing for a handful of different positions right now (more than just sales positions) and are seeing an interesting trend. The major job boards (CareerBuilder and Monster) are most active on Tuesday. We post our ads on Tuesday and receive most of our responses on that day and the next day (Wed.). The smaller, niche sites seem to be more active on the weekends – mainly Friday afternoon and Saturday. Keep that trend in mind next time you post an ad.
Continue ReadingAn Employee’s Market
The economy is roaring after 5.3% growth in GDP last quarter. We have recently started tracking this monster.com index and it appears to be quite accurate. The takeaway stat: The index, which Monster said is a strong predictor of overall U.S. demand for workers, is up 25 percent over the past year.
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