No real surprises here from the Manpower quarterly survey of 16,000 U.S. companies regarding their hiring plans for the fourth quarter. From the report: Twenty percent of firms surveyed said they will be open to hiring in the upcoming fourth quarter, about flat with the 21% who said they intended to hire in the third quarter this year.For more than two years — 11 quarters, to be exact — the portion of firms who said they planned to hire has hovered around 20%. Interesting that it consistently stays at 20%. I’m no statistician (but I did take it twice in college for . . . nefarious reasons), but that consistency… Read More
Continue ReadingHP Fireworks Continue To Explode
Last week we posted on the fiasco involving a leaker on the HP board of directors in HP’s Internal Fireworks. In spite of her claims of support, chairwoman Patricia Dunn announced today that she will relinquish her chair position but remain on the board of directors. This scandal is going to blow up further as it should. “Pretexting” board members personal phones is beyond pathetic. I am surprised that she is allowed to retain her director position. Once the feds take a look into this fiasco, the other shoe may fall on that topic. What a cultural mess it must be inside of HP right now.
Continue ReadingOutsourcing Your Sales Dept.
Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power released an editorial titled Should You Outsource Your Sales Force? He starts right off with a statistic I have not heard: A few years ago, outsourcing a sales force was a novelty. Today it has become a trend that enjoys a 20% annual growth rate. I’ve always been a skeptic of this approach mainly due to my sales background. I cannot wrap my simple mind around the idea of a person from another company owning the relationship with the customer. Leveraging a better ROI is one thing, placing a degree of separation from your customer (read: revenue) base seems like Russian roulette. What if you… Read More
Continue ReadingRemembering 9/11
We have caught up to the numerous 5 year anniversary (is that the right term?) items in the news today. We are located in Minneapolis-St. Paul and do not have a direct story of the attacks that happened that day. We have friends who work in Manhattan who were able to get out on the last subway that day. We also have friends who were there for a convention and ended up being trapped there for a couple days and eventually rented a car and drove it back to the Twin Cities. Beyond that, we do not know of anyone who died that day. I’m sure that is not true… Read More
Continue ReadingMaybe I’m Missing Something…
Inc.com posted this howler today – Fearing Economic Uncertainty, Companies Put Spending Plans on Hold. Obviously, this type of story sounds like it will have an impact on our business for the remainder of the year. The opening sentence: Gloomy economic reports in recent months have many small and midsize businesses rethinking spending plans, a pair of new surveys show. Most of the stories I have read have mentioned how strong the economy is right now so I was taken aback by this revelation. The rest of the article speaks to CEO’s slowing everything down this year. I went back and clicked on the link found in that first sentence… Read More
Continue ReadingA Repeatable Scenario
Diggings has a post that is a microcosm of the impending shortage in the hiring market: In the last 6 years, the number of welders has dropped 10% to 576,000 people and the American Welding Society predicts that by 2010, the demand for welders will outstrip supply by 200,000 workers. We are involved in some highly specific searches right now and are encountering similar supply-demand issues. One search I am working through has led to two different final candidates that parlayed an offer into a better package from their current employers. As demand increases and supply diminishes, I am certain we will see similar behaviors.
Continue ReadingFakin’ It
We can’t stress this enough, if your first pass on applicants is to sort resumes, you are making a big mistake. Granted, you have to look at their history, but odds are you are looking at an embellished document. From workforce.com: ResumeDoctor.com says nearly 43 percent of people in a new study fibbed about their qualifications. The South Burlington, Vermont-based company scoured 1,000 résumés for factual errors on seemingly insignificant items such as dates of employment, educational and professional credentials, and job titles. The résumé-counseling company found that many people intentionally misstate or exaggerate these details in an effort to get better jobs–a tactic it says usually backfires. The study… Read More
Continue ReadingJob Seekers On Your Payroll
This article – MORE AMERICANS FED UP AT WORK (you have to love the capitalization) – is a throw away propaganda piece but it does contain an interesting set of statistics: Fifty-eight percent of workers may leave their employer if the economy continues to improve that’s up 12 percentage points from the 2005 study. Meanwhile, 74 percent say they are actively or passively looking for a new job, and 41 percent of those fessed up to looking for a new job while at work, up from 39 percent last year. We have beat this drum for some time but it is always worth revisiting. The modern worker is easily connected… Read More
Continue ReadingHP’s Internal Fireworks
Typically, I am not a fan of Newsweek but I was drawn to this story from the Drudge Report link – Intrigue In High Places. This long article discusses HP’s chairwoman Patricia Dunn’s use of data mining to catch a leaker from the HP board of directors. The whole sordid affair sounds like a movie plot. According to an internal HP e-mail, Dunn then took the extraordinary step of authorizing a team of independent electronic-security experts to spy on the January 2006 communications of the other 10 directors – not the records of calls (or e-mails) from HP itself, but the records of phone calls made from personal accounts. That… Read More
Continue ReadingPerformance-Based Compensation
As a lifelong salesperson, I have always contended that all employees should be on some variable, performance-based pay. This article from CareerJournal indicates that a trend is forming in this direction. Employers are making employees work harder for their money.Most workers will receive modest raises this year and next, as employers reward employees with performance-linked bonuses rather than broad salary increases, according to a survey by consulting company Hewitt Associates Inc. That first sentence is bunk. I’m guessing the author has not worked in sales. The better lead would be to state Employees now have a chance to earn far more money for their efforts. “More companies are relying on… Read More
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