No real surprises from this CNNMoney.com article (emphasis mine): Employers are trimming their hiring plans but still expect to add workers in 2008, according to a survey released Wednesday. Online job search site CareerBuilder.com said its survey of 3,016 hiring managers and human resource professionals in the private sector found that 32 percent of companies plan to increase the number of full-time, permanent employees in the upcoming year. A year ago, 40 percent said they expected to add staff. Slow, steady growth is an ideal situation. The hiring trend has been on such a torrid pace that finding strong candidates has become an extended process. I’ve thought for the past… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Spam Trend
This is bad – straight from Online Media Daily: NEARLY 9 OUT OF 10 email messages delivered to large enterprises in November were spam, according to the latest stats from Proofpoint. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based data security company released its Proofpoint Spam Index and found that while overall spam levels dropped slightly (from 89% in October to 88% in November), large companies were still receiving an extremely high volume of spam–with an upsurge in attachment-based spam of almost every kind. If they think that is bad, they should see how much comment spam a blog can generate.
Continue ReadingManaging A Remote Salesforce
We talk about this topic at length because it is more than a trend. ManageSmarter.com’s Long-Distance Teambuilding addresses this topic in a real-world manner: “Sellers by nature like to be in a team environment—they want a high-five and a talk around the water cooler,” says Cowitt, vice president of national advertising sales for Freedom Interactive, the Internet division of Freedom Communications, a media company in Irvine, Calif. So Cowitt implemented a daily phone call, which lasts about 15 minutes, to allow salespeople to exchange ideas, successes and challenges. That is the right approach. We initiated a weekly conference call earlier this year with one of our customers with whom we… Read More
Continue ReadingGreen Monday – Better Than Cyber Monday
I didn’t know this: FORGET CYBER MONDAY. NIELSEN ONLINE has confirmed that Monday, December 10th was the biggest online shopping day this season, based on its Holiday eShopping Index. The index comprises data from more than 120 online retailers across 12 categories. The Index showed 34.9 million at home and work unique visitors on “Green Monday”–a term recently coined by eBay to describe the second Monday in December as the heaviest online shopping day of the season. Spending hit $881 million on Dec. 10, according to comScore, up 33% from last year. (From Online Media Daily)
Continue ReadingCube Rage
ManageSmarter.com offers up this article – Cubicle Conniptions – that discusses office behavior that mirrors road rage (emphasis mine): Workplace violence is increasingly common in offices, and it isn’t limited to physical injury or assault, but includes any act in which a person is abused, threatened, intimidated or assaulted at his or her place of employment. Thirty-three thousand workers are assaulted on the job each week in the U.S., and 17 employees are murdered, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. I’m speechless.
Continue Reading2008 Workforce Forecast
The Herman Trend Alert offers up their 2008 forecast in this week’s electronic newsletter. Since I do not have a link, here is the forecast in it’s entirety: This year, once more, we offer you our full forecast for the coming year: 1. Recruitment in a Tightening Labor Market Even the coming economic slowdown will not completely stop the creation of jobs. Moreover, stimulated by job creation and the fact that skilled workers in many occupations are in short supply, time-to-fill openings will also continue to increase as will the costs. 2. More Employers Turning to Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) In an effort to reduce costs, more large employers will… Read More
Continue ReadingMore Surprised Economists
Why do the so-called experts consistently error on the doom-and-gloom side of economic prediction? The latest numbers via CNNMoney.com’s Jobs grow more than expected: Employers added fewer workers to U.S. payrolls in November, according to a closely-watched government reading on labor market strength released Friday that still came in a bit stronger than Wall Street expectations. Folks, you ever notice they always expect worse numbers? Note how they open the article with a negative comment even though the number is 24,000 jobs higher than expectations. The number will be revised later and the economy is cooling off after a torrid pace during the summer. But it is still strong.
Continue ReadingA Future Shift In Sourcing Candidates
Well, the future is now when it comes to this topic. The social network sites are going to have a dramatic impact on finding strong sales candidates. First, this may be slightly off topic, but MarketingProfs.com offers up this article – Facebook: Changing Advertising Forever: At the November 5 launch of Facebook’s new advertising platform, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, presented his vision for the future of advertising: “Once every hundred years media changes. The last hundred years have been defined by the mass media. The way to advertise was to get into the mass media and push out your content. That was the last hundred years. In the next… Read More
Continue ReadingWork/Life Balance And Relocation
Work/life balance is a hot topic as the younger generations flood into the work world and Baby Boomers start checking out. One are that I haven’t considered is the effect this balance will have on relocation. Forbes.com’s Travel Sick? article does take up this topic (my editing): Throughout the country a growing number of executives are taking to the highways, railroads and even the skies to get to work instead of relocating closer to their job. This is hardly a newsflash to the nation’s executive recruiters. Of those surveyed 55% say it’s more difficult today than ever to convince job candidates to relocate for a professional opportunity, according to a… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Next Generation Is MORE Connected
And you thought Gen Y was the gadget-driven, totally connect generation. I was utterly shocked by this Online Media Daily story: The Nielsen Co. released the findings of an in-depth study on the mobile media and cross-media behavior of U.S. “tweens” (ages 8-12). The report estimates that: 35% of tweens own a mobile phone, 20% of tweens have used text messaging, and 21% of tweens have used ring & answer tones. While text-messaging and ringtones remain the most pervasive non-voice functions on the phone, other content such as downloaded wallpapers, music, games and Internet access also rank high among tweens. According to Nielsen, 5% of tweens access the Internet over… Read More
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