According to a recent SHRM article, …approximately 60% of the 3,100 human resource executives surveyed by Novations Group (a Boston-based consulting firm) said they see signs of a talent shortage, while nearly 10 percent said they have seen no shortage but expect to before the end of the decade. That leaves 30 percent that see no or few signs of the shortage. About 20 percent of respondents said they see no signs of a talent shortage but will remain cautious on new hiring in the year ahead and ten percent said they do not even anticipate a shortage of workers in the next decade. More than half of those seeing… Read More
Continue ReadingA Hiring Riddle
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein Here is a riddle we constantly encounter yet have difficulty solving. Let’s say you are the sales manager for a somewhat complex product sale and you have an underperforming salesperson. The salesperson is well below quota, has an ethereal forecast and is not making enough prospect connects to turn it around. What do you do as a sales manager? My solution – pull them from their territory for 1 week of intense product training. I’m talking deep training down to the part production, software coding, product assembly nether regions of operations. If you can pump… Read More
Continue ReadingUsing MySpace.com
Steve Rothberg has a definitive post on his blog CollegeRecruiter.com titled Searching for Entry Level Job Seekers on MySpace. I posted on this topic recently and followed the herd mentality about excluding candidates based on their MySpace information. Steve has a different take on it as he states: MySpace and other social networking sites are valuable recruiting tools because they provide employers with access to a desired demographic group: those who are searching for entry level jobs and internships. The sites also allow employers to connect with people who may not be looking for a job or who have chosen not to use traditional Internet recruitment sites such as CollegeRecruiter.com.… Read More
Continue ReadingAd’s Final Stage=Resumes
Just a quick tip about posting jobs on major boards. We have a couple ads expiring shortly (within days) and are getting swamped with emails. We’ve written about this phenomenon before. At the end of an ad’s posting window, a bubble of responses will flood in to your inbox. We do not get calls, just emails with resumes attached. One of our sales ads received 24 applicant responses alone during the final 24 hours of the posting.
Continue ReadingPhone Screening Tip
We use phone screens extensively in our sourcing activities. The first advantage to this approach is that it removes some biases from the interviewer. Second, it neutralizes a candidates ability to pour on their rapport-building skills. Thirdly, it is a much shorter time commitment than an in-person interview. I could go on, but you get the point. CareerJournal has reposted this article – Four Tips for Acing Interviews by Phone – which made me think about the candidate side of the phone screen. Tip #3 starts with this point: 3. Prepare in advance. If you’ve scheduled or are anticipating a phone interview, keep notes and your resume at hand, says… Read More
Continue ReadingNarrowing Down Applicants
A dated article in the Harvard Management Update caught my eye. The article provided some great practical advice that I thought would be good to pass on. If you are having trouble narrowing down the number of candidates, the author suggested asking each candidate to perform a simple task. Some examples: write a description of themselves or prepare a report on some aspect of your company or industry. A sizable percentage of the candidates won’t bother to do the task thereby effectively eliminating themselves from consideration. At that point, you can spend focused time with the applicants that have followed through on your request. This might be a great way… Read More
Continue ReadingProperly Using Pre-Employment Tests
CareerJournal posted this article – Six Things You Should Know About Pre-Employment Tests – earlier this week. The article is an excellent story for executive-level candidates to read closely. First, an interesting stat: Pre-employment testing is on the rise. In the past five years, 60% of companies have increased their use of workplace-behavior assessments, according to a survey of more than 500 human-resources professionals at U.S. companies… Second, a good point: “If you answer honestly and don’t get the job, it means the position wasn’t a good match for you in the first place,” he says. Third, something we can confirm in our activities: Senior executives are not exempt. In… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Industry-Experience Trap
An interesting article from ere.net titled The Role of the Hiring Manager in Recruiting. The author cuts to the quick in one of his bullet points: The industry-experience trap. Industry experience is not only highly overrated, but it’s also the quickest way to sub-optimize the talent you recruit. If you think of the pool of top-quality, top-quartile talent, the minute you say they must come out of the food industry or the high-tech industry, you’ve reduced that pool of available talent by about 98%! The fact is that for the majority of our jobs, top talent with high learning agility can learn the nuances of our industry, but industry-experienced candidates… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Sales Ads Don’t Work
I’m reading posts in recruiter message boards that are discussing low salesperson response rates to employment ads placed on monster, local newspapers and publications. From the amount of responses to this subject, it appears many other recruiters are having similar difficulties. I then read the opening paragraph from this article that states: Seventy-six percent of employees are looking for new employment opportunities, according to the 2005 U.S. Job Recovery and Retention Survey released today by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and CareerJournal.com. Sixty-five percent of HR professionals indicated they were concerned about the voluntary resignations at their organizations. To prevent a mass exodus, almost half of the organizations… Read More
Continue ReadingColorful Employment Ads
Seems like employment ads are the topic du jour on the The Hire Sense today. One thing I have noticed that truly cheapens an ad is to use extra large fonts, multiple colors and highlighting. Does this approach just scream multi-level marketing or is it me? Most corporations write their ads in a prim and proper manner which is ok. This approach reminds me of the Apple commercials with the PC represented by the stodgy, business-suit guy and Apple represented by the trendy, young guy. Formula ads with cliche requests for degrees, years of experience, etc. are similar to the somewhat boring PC guy. Of course, that approach is certainly… Read More
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