I’ve had many recruiting bosses, sometimes in large organizations, sometimes in small. I’ve been privileged to have had a few who have been exceptionally good. Here’s what the good ones had in common, and the sorts of things they would and wouldn’t do.
(more…)
If Dice Holdings is any kind of bellwether, Q1 is looking like it got off to a slow start for the publicly held job boards. The company reported this morning it earned 12 cents a share on $50.4 million of revenue, which put it mostly in line with what Wall Street was expecting and what the company predicted in January.
However, that was down a penny per share from the same quarter last year, and the analyst estimates were lowered after Dice issued a forecast below what Wall Street was looking for. The other indicator of a general job board slowdown is that most of the $4.3 million increase in revenue comes from the company’s acquisition of Slashdot last year. Taking that out of the equation, Dice Holdings grew organically by $300,000, and the tech and security sector saw a 2 percent increase. (more…)
The cost of hiring someone bad is so much greater than missing out on someone good. — Joe Kraus, partner, Google Ventures
Each company for which we recruit has a special set of circumstances and a unique story to tell. Large organizations like Raytheon sit and sell differently then giant fast-food places like McDonald’s. Google had its own special place and unique environment in terms of hiring, and hot Cambridge-based SasS startups like Quant5 also have their own set of challenges that require thoughtful navigation if hiring is to be successful. (Define successful as hiring the people you need, when you need them, and they do the job for which they have been hired.)
Like myself, those of you out there who have hired for startups know that even though a candidate might fit the bill in terms of qualifications, they still might not be the right DNA to be the right fit.
With this in mind, lets look at 12 factors that will address the people part of the equation in terms of the recruiting: (more…)
I was reading an article today about the ferocious talent wars for tech going on right now in Silicon Valley and a sentence caught my eye.
“Whether she is scouring Stanford or Parsons for up-and-comers or more established candidates, de Baubigny says, ‘I am always very open-minded about what good talent looks like.’”
Maybe it’s because I watched a new show this morning called Brain Games
or maybe it’s because I’m a compulsive anagrammer, or maybe it’s my Dyslexia kicking in — for whatever reason when I read the word “scouring” I saw “sourcing.”
I started to think.
Has sourcing become scouring?
I believe it has.
What a few of us began doing (and talking about) in the latter days of the 20th century and on into the present century has turned into an incessant scouring (for many) of what can be found on the Internet. (more…)
During the newly reinvigorated and exciting ERE conference, two attendees posed related but powerful questions to me. The first was “What advanced topics should be on the agenda of recruiting leaders at elite firms?” Or as another put it “What should Google be planning to do next in recruiting?”
At least to me, future agenda items are an important topic. Because after visiting well over 100 firms, I have found a dramatic difference between the agenda items that are found on 95% of the firms (cost per hire, ATS issues, req loads, etc.) and the truly advanced subjects that only elite recruiting firms like Google, DaVita, Sodexo, etc. would even attempt to tackle.
So if you have the responsibility for setting agendas or recruiting goals, here is my list of truly advanced recruiting topics that elite leaders would find compelling but that most others would simply find to be out of their reach. If you want to be among the elite, you should select a handful for implementation. However, even if you are currently overwhelmed by your current agenda, you might still find them to be interesting reading.
25 Advanced Recruiting Topics for Bold Corporate Recruiting Leaders (more…)
The way Chris Holmes quit his border security job must have made Gordon Ramsay proud.
It wasn’t a bad-boy, burn-the-bridge resignation that has garnered all the attention for the 31-year-old new father whose friends and co-workers call him Mr. Cake (for reasons that will become obvious in a moment). That might have been more the Ramsay style.
Holmes let them eat cake. (more…)
You have read all about what to ask in an interview as well as magic questions that will solve all your hiring problems. What about what not to do?
Make no mistake. An interview is not an opportunity to GetToKnowYa, but rather a verbal test. It has subject matter, questions, and answers that are scored. But you need to ask yourself: just exactly what are you testing for? The ability to answer silly questions? Whether you want to be friends? Whether you can trip up or intimidate a candidate? Haven’t you seen the thousands of books candidates read to fake their way through an interview?
How about learning whether the candidate has the right set of job skill s? You know, so you don’t have to waste everyone’s time?
If You Don’t Know What You’re Looking for, Any Question Will Do (more…)
Remember when the talk was about the great future that was available for people working in plastics?
Fast forward about 45 years, and now the discussion is about the huge changes coming to the workplace because of another trendy and cutting edge concept — robotics.
Attorney Garry Mathiason, chairman of the board of mega law firm Littler Mendelson, kicked off Day 2 of the Spring 2013 ERE Recruiting Conference & Expo in San Diego talking about Advanced Workplace Robots and Implications for Recruitment Strategies. While I admit that the title doesn’t sound like something you want to sit though early in the morning on the last day of a conference, Mathiason quickly said a few things that really got my attention.
Here’s one: “By 2025, robots will have taken over half of the jobs in the U.S.”
Robots Are Reshaping the Workplace (more…)
A problem common to most recruiters and human resources professionals today is a lack of understanding the actual job they are trying to fill. It’s really a fine line a recruiter toes, because understanding the role itself is not only imperative for sourcing talent but is also a huge advantage for closing that top passive candidate. The overall understanding of the role itself starts with the job title. If the job title is not a good fit for what you seek, you are likely in big trouble. (more…)
No one ever said that recruiting was simple, or easy, and if you were listening Tuesday on Day 1 of the Spring 2013 ERE Recruiting Conference & Expo in San Diego, you know that there is an overwhelming desire for how to do it better in today’s rapidly changing, post-recession workplace.
Ron Mester, the president and CEO of ERE Media kicked off the two-day event by observing that recruiting seems to be at a precipice and is viewed by recruiters and other talent managers in one of two very different ways:
- The Golden Age of recruiting is over – We’re not at the strategy table and technology is taking over. Call this the “Wile E. Coyote Group,” or the people who are always worried that the anvil is about to fall on their head. Or,
- This is the time for recruiting to break out and soar — Executives finally seem to understand how important talent really is, and we are all about to become “Masters of the Universe.“
