LinkedIn Recommendations: The Ask and The Give
Recently a virus requesting reference help has been going around and it reminded me of how LinkedIn referrals used to be sort of controversial. When LinkedIn began offering the service and automating it to some extent, many recruiters (simply by virtue of their number of connections) were deluged with referral requests, many from people who had less than a peripheral connection. Here's how to ask...
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Career Site Search Engine Optimization Feature Released by iCIMS
iCIMS, a provider of SaaS talent acquisition and recruiting software solutions, has announced the release of its newest update of Recruit: Career Site Search Engine Optimization, which allows recruiters to boost search engine rankings to draw more traffic to their organization's career sites. The Career Site SEO helps to reduce dependence on other, external recruitment marketing techniques such...
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How to Build Candidate-Powered Communities
Recently I was perusing the Twitters and I came across this video from ZenDesk. I was struck with the similarities between creating a customer self-serve community and building a talent community (you may know that I'm a big talent community advocate). For those that aren't aware a self-service community is a place where users of a software, product or service can go to get advice, tips and...
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Small Businesses Show Weak Employment Gains
The results of Intuit Inc.'s monthly Small Business Employment and Revenue Indexes show that small businesses are experiencing only weak employment and compensation growth while seeing a dip in number of hours worked and revenue rates. The Index shows an employment increase of 0.17 percent for July, equating to a current annualized growth of 2.1 percent (about 35,000 new jobs). Average monthly...
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BYOD Philosophy Allowing more Personal Tech at Cost of Security
OnForce's Q3 Confidence Index, which reflects the views of over 500 tech professionals, has shown that more than half of technicians that work in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) friendly workplaces have experienced an increase of at least 25 percent in the number of configuration or setup requests for personal devices within the past six month, but only 31 percent have seen a rise in requests for...
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Telecommuting: Today's Perk, Tomorrow's Necessity?
Why Telecommuting Policies Should be Core to Hiring and Retention Strategies With gas prices having risen over the past four years to unprecedented highs (when taking into account inflation), commuters will be losing more and more of their pay packet to fuel costs. We don't have to tell workers this; they will be able to see for themselves the surge in monthly spend on petrol, making roles...
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Can Hiring For Potential Solve The Talent Crisis?
Recent research by Manpower Group suggests that the global skills shortage shows no signs of letting up: 34% of companies said that they are having difficulty filling open positions. Some countries are having more problems than others. For example, in Japan, 81% of companies are struggling to find talent, and in Brazil this figure is 81%. The US is doing better, but nearly 50% of companies are...
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Power Fantasies vs. Power Moves: Two Very Different Employee Strategies
What is the difference between reading a comic book during a suburban commute to the office and reading a business software manual on the same train? The comic book makes going to work more tolerable; the manual makes it more rewarding, i.e., career enhancing. That's the difference in payoffs. But there are other differences, including professionally revealing differences in personality and...
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Productivity Found as Most Important Factor for Competitiveness
A Kronos commissioned survey has revealed that, of the 11 countries surveyed on the most important factor in achieving manufacturing success, labor productivity ranked the highest. Other factors, such as modern infrastructure, governmental support, and direct investment, also made the list behind labor productivity. Several new facts were gleaned from the survey including: • 70 percent of...
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3 Things Every College Grad Should Keep In Mind as They Look for a Career
I'm going to go ahead and guess that you're reading this because you don't have a job. You might even be reading this at two in the morning because you don't have to wake up early for work. But I know that many recent graduates are trying hard to get a job and aren't as lazy as older generations perceive us to be. Therefore, here are a couple of suggestions to keep you focused and away...
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Comparing Digital and Video Interviewing
By now you've probably heard about and/or considered incorporating video interviewing into your recruitment and hiring process. Video interviewing promises efficiency in the interview process, both from a cost and productivity standpoint. Broad adoption of video technology by consumers has further propelled interest in the video interview technology space. So why not just use Skype? Or start a...
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Size Matters when Attracting Talent
How to attract talent to a small business. It can be easy to think that large employers like General Electric who attract 50 applicants per post or super brand employers like Google – who reportedly received 75,000 job applications in a week have it easy when it comes to attracting talent. Disregarding the speculative applications, these applicants can simply place an ad, and, thanks to the...
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Survey: Less than Half of Organizations Use Credit Background Checks
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) report, "Background Checking – The Use of Credit Background Checks in Hiring Decisions," has indicated that over half (53 percent) of polled firms participating in the study choose not to conduct credit background checks on any candidates, a sharp increase from the 40 percent statistic given in 2010 which had risen from just 39 percent in...
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House Votes on Bill to Freeze Regulatory Action while Unemployment Remains High
A bill introduced into the House of Representatives by Tim Griffin (R-AK) is seeking support to freeze governmental regulatory activities from government agencies until the unemployment rate (current at 8.2 percent) dropped below 6 percent. Specifically, the actions being referred to include any government activity that would cost over $100,000, affect the market, conflict with other agencies,...
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Employers Debate Paying Healthcare Penalty
A nagging question for many employers in the run up to the 2014 deadline for healthcare coverage compliance with the new healthcare reform law is whether or not to drop healthcare coverage for employees. A provision in under the reform requires employers with at least 50 employers to offer a specified minimum level of health coverage or pay an annual penalty of $2,000 per staffer (excluding the...
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How ESOPs Contribute to Job Creation
A study out of Matrix Global Advisors has found that private employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) organized as S-corporations have increased employment by 60 percent over the past decade while the overall private sector has remained flat. Since a change in the U.S. tax code in 1998, thousands of ESOP-owned S corporations have appeared and employed millions of people. ESOPs drive participation...
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Facebook Profiling Moves from Art to Science
Facebook Beats Personality Tests for Predicting Job Success. Has Facebook unwittingly become a tool that can provide us with a valid psychometric assessment of a candidate? Not quite yet, but research conducted earlier this year by Professor Don Kluemper of Northern Illinois University's College of Business (discussed in detail earlier on Recruiter.com), shows that in their trial at least...
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The New Mobile Workplace [Infographic]
Everybody knows that mobile use has absolutely exploded. But how has it exactly impacted the professional workplace? HireVue, a leader in the digital, live interviewing space, recently studied mobile trends in the workplace and came up with this fancy infographic. Some of the most interesting stats? 91% of mobile workers use a smartphone for work and most now think that the traditional office...
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Four of the Most Common Resume Mistakes
Preparing your resume can be one of the most important steps in the job application. This is not only because it is what is needed to apply for the job, but is often the first thing an employer looks at. There are a few mistakes that are commonly made on resumes that can be surefire ways to make the employer toss your resume out before even fully considering you. 1.) The first, most common,...
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An Employer's Guide to Interviewing: A 10 Point Check List
Not everyone is a good interviewer. It's not a skill that one is born with – it's something you learn and then need to work on developing – like any other job aspect, it requires training and experience. I recently came to the conclusion that while I like to meet people and hear about their goals and aspirations, if I don't have a specific agenda in mind – the things that are...
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AccuScreen Upgrades Screening Platform
AccuScreen, provider of online background checking services, has launched its expanded Online Background Check Service with a new interface that allows background checks to be performed more efficiently and without duplication. Additional functionality arriving with the release of the Global Control Profile (GPC) includes new selection field options, multi-browser compatibility, and direct...
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The Staffing Olympics?
As you may or may not know the 2012 Olympics are right around the corner and the world is watching London as athletes and attendees alike descend on the city. The 2012 Olympics are projected to be the most watched Olympics in history. The 2008 Summer Games in Beijing were the most-watched television broadcast of all time, with up to 4.7 billion viewers, or 70 percent of the world's population,...
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SHRM: Fewer Employers are Background Checking Applicants
The Society for Human Resource Management has reported that fewer employers are conducting credit and criminal background checks on applicants than two years ago. SHRM has shared that 53 percent of respondents do not use credit checks at all during the hiring process, up from 40 percent in 2010. Similarly, employers who choose not to conduct criminal background checks rose from 7 percent in 2010...
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willbeHired Launches Recruiter Program to Improve Hiring Process
willbeHired has introduced a dynamic new recruiting solution that opens up new channels for recruiters to work with hiring managers and companies to find the best candidates. The program capitalizes on willbeHired's continued focus on collaboration and predictive analytics for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall hiring process. The new program gives businesses access to a...
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Outsourcing by Mid-Tier Orgs Experiences Big Growth
Information Services Group (ISG), a provider of market intelligence and advisory services, has published research showing explosive growth in outsourcing by mid-tier organizations, creating more opportunities and new challenges. Most sourcing takes place within the world's largest organizations where over two-thirds of the top 500 companies in the Forbes Global 2000 list have been outsourcing...
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Study Reveals the Real ROI of Wellness Plans
A recent analysis of 56 studies on work site health promotion programs, performed by the American Journal of Health Promotions, has been used to determine that the true ROI of wellness programs is staggering. According to the analysis, employers with sponsored worksite health programs see, on average, a 27 percent reduction in sick leave, a 26 percent reduction in health-related costs, and a 32...
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Retention Problems Closely Associated with Direct Supervisors
Two new studies have attempted to answer the age-old HR question of how to retain staff. The first study from the Harvard Business Review sought to determine the one factor that contributes most the level of engagement and satisfaction an employee feels towards his job. The results showed a strong correlation between effective management and committed employees. Similarly, according to a...
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7 Habits of Highly Effective Sales Recruiters (Part II)
Habit 4: Embed "just in case" accountability. Note: This is part 2 of a 2 part series. Part 1 can be found here. Just in time (JIT) may be a best practice for lean manufacturing inventory and financial metrics, but it's a "worst" practice for recruiting. Just in case (JIC) is the better mindset. In fact, sales talent management is the one place in a business where a JIC inventory...
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Overcoming the Three Most Hated Aspects of the Job Interview
For many job seekers, the interview is often considered the most dreaded part of the hiring process. Not only are you forced to be interrogated by a complete stranger holding the keys to your future in his her hands, but for all of the effort you put into preparing for this pivotal conversation, it can just as easily leave you with nothing to show for your toil. No matter how desperate you are...
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Fostering Creativity Isn't THAT Hard
Fostering creativity. It's sort of something that has remained elusive. Except for a few companies that are the supermodels of this behavior, most of us don't feel like our workplace is tremendously creative. And let's be honest, sometimes it's hard to find the creative bone in some companies' bodies. But just because it's harder to find doesn't really mean that creativity is any...
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Small Business HR Suite Announced by Ceridian Corp
Ceridian Corporation, a leading provider of a variety of workforce management and recruiting solutions, has announced the launch of HR Authority, a services suite giving small businesses tools for payroll processing and consolidating HR functions. "Small-sized businesses have long wanted a single cost-effective solution to HR management, payroll and benefits administration," explains Brian...
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U.S. Near Bottom of List of Global Salary Increases
Of the 13 countries taking part in WorkatWork's 2012-2013 Salary Budget Survey, only two countries, Spain and Japan, are ranked worse than the U.S. in projected 2013 salary increases, and all three trail far behind the group of top countries. Once again, India is far out in front with a projected salary increase of 10.7 percent next year, down only slightly from its 2011 increase of 11.2...
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New Solution to Integrate Social Conversations into CRM Data
Enterprise feedback management leader QuestBack has announced the launch of its new social engagement tool, Listen Act, that works to transform social media messages into dialogs that can be integrated into CRM data. Listen Act helps businesses sift through social messages while utilizing engagement tools like surveys and communities in order to create customer experiences based on individual...
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Leading Healthcare Recruitment Association Launches New Recruitment Resource Site
Formed out of a partnership between the National Association of Health Care Recruitment (NAHCR) and global recruitment marketing agency CRK Interactive, a newly launched recruitment resource portal, NAHCR.com, is set to provide educational information for job seekers and healthcare recruiters offering recruiter resources, educational articles, survey results, a recruitment handbook, webinars, and...
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4 Things Recruiting Technology Decision Makers Need To Know
Is your old recruiting system inefficient and causing your company to take too long to source and recruit candidates? Do you often feel that your organization just missed out on great candidates because it couldn't move fast enough to make important decisions? Do usability issues with your previous-generation recruiting system often frustrate your HR staff, candidates and employees? These are...
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8 Key Stats in the New Global Labor Market
International expansion is set to be a key agenda item for recruiters for many years to come. Research from Maxis Global Benefits Network shows that 1 in 3 multinationals is expecting 70% or more of its revenues to come from international markets in five years, and one in four companies expect to enter new international markets in the next five years. The Maxis research also shows that 60% of...
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At-will Employment Clauses get Attention from NLRB
Almost every employee handbook contains statements pertaining to the "at-will" status of employees. But recent actions by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) indicate that such employment clauses are beginning to come under fire. Recently, the American Red Cross Arizona Blood Services Region was found by an administrative judge to have violated labor law by including a provision in the...
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Employees at Large Companies have much Greater Access to Medical Benefits
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' recent report, Employee Benefits in the United States –March 2012, has revealed that 89 percent of private industry employees in larger establishments have access to medical benefits compared to just 57 percent in smaller businesses (less than 100 employees). And while shared premiums for employee and employer did not vary significantly for individual...
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Study Shows Customer Data is Primary Target of Exiting Employees
Information management company Iron Mountain reports that one-third of employees have taken sensitive information from their employer on multiple occasions, especially when changing jobs. Just over half of the information taken was found to be confidential customer data. Most employees taking the data reported no reluctance and felt they were doing nothing wrong, despite policies forbidding the...
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Failed HR Collaboration with Business Services Leaders to Blame for Growing Talent Crisis
According to a report by The Hackett Group, business services such as Finance, IT, and Procurement, among others, are experiencing an accelerating talent crisis due to the failure to collaborate effectively with HR. The new research states that these organizations are in the midst of a dangerous talent deficit and are dissatisfied with the level of support in these areas received from HR. This...
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Medical Loss Ratio Rebates not a Business Windfall Cautions Benefits Provider
Many employers will have already received rebates from their health insurance carriers by August 1. The rebates are the result of a mandate of the Affordable Care Act but should not be considered a business windfall and should be handled carefully in order to avoid legal mistakes. The provision sets a minimum medical loss ratio whereas if an insurer fails to spend a specified minimum percentage...
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Job-Market Scarcity and "Intelligent Design"
Ask anybody who has been unemployed for a year or is now homeless whether his universe seems to have been intelligently designed and whether scarcity is the root of all evil. Money? If it's evil at all, it's more the lack and scarcity of it, not the having. In any case, money is not the root, because evil existed before money ever did. But scarcity? It's the eternal troublemaker, whether...
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Is Workplace Rudeness a Kamikaze Tactic?
Rude employees, like killer bees, are an unpleasant fact of life—a mysterious fact, too, given that being uncivil to clients, customers or especially to your boss can get you fired if you are caught and not in possession of a prescription for very weird, but necessary meds. Yet it's a risk that all too many employees will run, even though it's a safe bet that the frequency of...
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TotalJobs Re-launches Ecommerce Service for Recruiters and Jobseekers
It used to be that if a recruiter wanted to place a job ad, they had to do it in the classifieds. Now, all that has changed with the growth of the online world and the fact that more jobseekers than ever are using the internet to look for promising employment opportunities. This has prompted many recruiters to turn to online job advertisements instead, and services such as the ecommerce platform...
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DeskAlerts Server Program Receives New Capability to Help Improve Corporate Communications
DeskAlerts has released the newest version of their alert software optimized to help large corporations improve their internal communications capabilities. The release, DeskAlerts 4.3.6, includes a command line API tool that allows companies to integrate the DeskAlerts Server with pre-existing corporate infrastructure. The software can then trigger alerts and improve communications automatically...
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Employers to see Shift in Supply and Demand of Talent
According to a study by Oxford Economics in partnership with Towers Watson and the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California, businesses are experiencing a current market shift that will affect the supply and demand for talent for at least the next ten years. This shift is caused largely by emerging economies that are increasing the supply of talent and as...
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SAP Upgrades Sustainability Solution
SAP has announced its latest version of the SAP Environment, Health and Safety Management application which aids in creating preventative safety cultures within the manufacturing sector. The update provides new risk-assessment capabilities aimed at asset-intensive companies that need to avoid dangerous incidents and keep operations running smoothly. The sustainability solution has extended its...
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Problems with HR Data
Enterprise business management solutions provider Workday has released a mini-survey which has revealed that HR pros want more workforce information access from their systems but many are not ready for cloud-based systems. Almost half of survey respondents said that they are unable to access enough global workforce data while an additional 30 percent said they did have sufficient data access but...
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