Parallel HR » Employer Advice

Job Seekers Show the Way for Forward-Thinking Employers

Chuck Loeher — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:46:07 +0000

Want to recruit top candidates? Start imitating them.

A recent study conducted by CareerBuilder and Inavero indicates that over the past several years, job seekers have developed a highly complex, multi-faceted approach to the job search, in which they utilize today’s sophisticated technology to their advantage. According to the study, job seekers today now utilize five specific methods to ultimately find their next job:

Search engines to find company, industry and job-specific information.
Vertical sites (such as job boards and aggregators) for jobs that fit their qualifications and have a great company behind them.
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to post and share content.
Corporate and career sites to find relevant news and information about specific companies.
User-generated content sites such as Glassdoor.com to get a better sense of what it’s really like to work for a company.

As evidenced in the Inavero study, job seekers today are accelerating their efforts, using the opportunities they find on job boards as the starting-off point of a more in-depth search to find the opportunities – and the companies – that are right for them. It’s time for employers to do the same. By taking a cue from job seekers and applying this efficient, proactive approach to their candidate searches, employers can create a more efficient, effective recruiting process. Five things today’s job seekers can teach employers:

Go mobile: The fact that over 300 million Americans use mobile phones today – and that mobile searches are up 130 percent over the past year – indicates a significant shift in the way people search for information. Not only are job seekers utilizing multiple channels to search for jobs (as shown above), but they’re also using doing so – increasingly – from their mobile devices. This shift in behavior opens up a huge opportunity for companies to reach job seekers anywhere, at any time of day. One of the smartest things you can do now to prepare your organization for long-term success in capturing talent is to mobilize your careers website.
Clean up your online reputation: Well aware that companies now check social media to screen candidates, the smartest job seekers proactively make an effort to clean up their social presence. Companies need to do the same. Thanks to the information available through social media and search engines, companies are more transparent than they’ve ever been. Job seekers can easily get information about a company’s organizational culture, the experience of working there, and what other employees think about the brand. Thanks to the vast reach of social media, companies also have the opportunity – and the need – to see what people are saying about them (on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, for example), become more robust in their employment branding efforts, and reach job seekers at every touch point.

Hire With Purpose: Q&A With Small Business Expert Jay Goltz

Mary Lorenz — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:00:26 +0000

"I’m not looking for great storytellers. I want to figure out what makes people tick and how they operate on the job." - Jay Goltz

In the following Q&A, small business expert Jay Goltz draws from his experience as an entrepreneur to discuss the lessons he’s learned – often the hard way – about what it really takes to hire and retain the best people to run a successful business (or, in his case, five). On Wednesday, November 9, Jay will host Hire with Purpose, a complimentary webinar to discuss insider tips, takeaways and tactics small business owners can apply right now to ensure they make the right hiring decision for their teams.

In your book, The Street-Smart Entrepreneur, you talk about lessons you learned the hard way. What’s your most memorable lesson in terms of hiring? I once interviewed a sales manager at a retail shop that had five salespeople, and I asked her, “How many people did you go through before hiring those five great salespeople?” And she said, “Just five.” I literally laughed and said, “Either you have much lower standards than I do, or you’re a hiring guru.” I hired her, and she turned out to be a hiring guru. She moved away about 10 years ago, but most of the people she hired while she was here are still with me. The lesson there is that part of hiring well comes down to who’s doing the interviewing. There are some people who can hit a fast ball and some people who can’t. Likewise, there are some people who are great at interviewing and some who aren’t. There’s some element of natural talent there. And that realization has had a profound impact on my company. It used to be, when I hired, only 30 or 40 percent of the people I hired worked out great, and now it’s up to 80 percent. And that’s because we’re much better at hiring. At the recent Inc500/5000 Conference, Gilt Group CEO Kevin Ryan mentioned how reference checks are often an underrated virtue of the hiring process. What’s your stance on that? I totally agree with that. Whenever I hear about people who are having problems with an employee, I always ask them, “Tell me how you hired this person.” No one has ever said to me, “I put an ad out, I interviewed a lot of people, I did some really thorough questions, and then I really checked references.” It’s always, “Yeah, I didn’t check references.” So people are getting what they deserve, I’m sorry to say. The other thing is, when you’re doing reference checks, you have to read between the lines. I had a call in about a designer one time, and the reference just blurted out, “Oh, she’s really talented.” After interviewing [the candidate] some more, I realized she was really neurotic, but the woman I used as a reference clearly didn’t want to say that. All of a sudden, it made sense why the reference didn’t say, “She’s great. You should hire her.” When someone’s a great employee, people say things like, “Oh, you’re really lucky she applied. You should hire her right now. She’s a wonderful employee. I really miss her.” Is reference-checking 100 percent reliable? No. Even if you do everything right, you’ll still probably only have a 90 percent chance of them working out – maybe 80. But if you don’t do everything right, those chances go down to 30, 40 or 50 percent. Aside from failing to check references, what are some of the biggest mistakes people make in the hiring process?

Do Employees Want the Boss’s Job? All Signs Point to: Not Likely

Amy Chulik — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:42:58 +0000

Earlier this week, employees everywhere helped bosses celebrate National Boss’s Day. Some gave flowers, or left a handwritten card on their boss’s desk. Others took their bosses out to lunch at their favorite little bistro, or treated them to that pedicure their toes had been screaming for. Still others just wished their boss a heartfelt [...]

Time for An Office Makeover? 5 Changes Employees Want to see Now

Amy Chulik — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:30:28 +0000

What do employees want? Oh, that's such a loaded question! I'm sure many of us could make lists the length of the office hallway detailing our opinions on what we believe makes employees happy. One thing do we know for sure is that employee morale isn't a trend, but an ongoing effort. Within that ongoing effort, though, how do we know what's on our employees' own wish lists? Well, a Staples.com survey released in observance of “Improve Your Office Day" has come along, peeled ink-stained paper out of the Trapper Keeper (where I have just decided all employee wish lists are stored), and shared their ~~M.A.S.H. results~~ survey findings with the world. Let's take a look. The survey, which asked employees about their likes/dislikes at work, as well as their suggestions for improving the office environment, found many employees aren't too pleased with their technology -- or their humble surroundings: More than half (52 percent) of the more than 300 workers surveyed gave their office furniture and office décor a "C" grade or lower, and 41 percent gave their office technology the same grade. Also on their lists? Politics, the right to work at home (or lack thereof), and privacy.

What is on employees' office-improvement wish lists?

Eliminating office politics (44 percent)
Allowing or encouraging telecommuting (41 percent)
Upgrading computers and other office technology (37 percent)
Getting nicer or more comfortable office furniture (35 percent)
Providing more private work areas and more flexible work hours (tied at 34 percent each).

Though it's true that some employees do think they can do a better job than their boss, employees seem happy overall with their superiors. Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents gave their boss a solid “A” grade, with a combined 78 percent rating their boss an “A” or “B.”

The snack dilemma

CareerBuilder Leadership Series: Spotlight on Wes Thompson, President, Sun Life Financial

Mary Lorenz — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:04:20 +0000

“I’ve always had the philosophy that strategy in leadership is as much about what you don’t do as it is about what you do.”

In the following interview for CareerBuilder's Leadership Series, Sun Life CEO Wes Thompson reflects on the importance of people as they relate to sustainability, what he looks for in candidates, and the value of trusting your gut. What do the employees at Sun Life mean to your organization? People are really the only sustainable advantage that any organization has over time. Products come and go. Ideas can be copied. These are not sustainable differentiators. Companies that are truly sustainable are those that focus on A-player talent, because you can’t copy talent. So if you’re able to constantly recruit, retain and develop the best people, you can differentiate in the markets that you compete in, and you’ll have a sustainable advantage. It’s really that simple in my view. What’s your philosophy in terms of how you find great people? There’s a lot of hiring that’s gut-related, especially when you get more experienced at interviewing candidates. Technical competencies, product knowledge—those kinds of things can be learned over time. Oftentimes, I’m looking for the challenges individuals have taken on in their lives and careers. I look for examples that clearly demonstrate they’ve been able to overcome some significant challenges. I try to ascertain the values they stand for and if they fit with our core values here at Sun Life. This fit is critical to building a solid foundation and culture at any good company. Throughout your career as a leader, what’s the best or most significant hiring decision that you've made? It’s hard to quantify your best hiring decision. As I reflect on my career, there are so many talented people that I’ve had the pleasure of hiring and watching succeed. In one instance, I hired someone that was my peer at another company. I knew our competencies were extremely complementary, which is important. And we both realized that we could build something unique. I firmly believe if you surround yourself with great talent, you’ll figure out how to win.

Choosing the Right People: 5 Lessons from Gilt Groupe’s CEO

Mary Lorenz — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:38:01 +0000

“At the end of the day, it isn’t just about a having a visionary idea or business plan. It’s about employees who bring passion and flawless execution.”

Such is how Kevin Ryan began - and set the tone for - his keynote address, Hirer’s Remorse? Why 80 Percent of Business is Choosing the Right People, at the recent Inc500/5000 Conference & Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C. Ryan should know a thing or two about what it takes to grow and run a business. He has launched several New York-based businesses, including Gilt Groupe (for which he is the current CEO), Business Insider, ShopWiki, 10gen/MongoDB, and, not least of all, DoubleClick, which he helped grow from a 20-person startup to a worldwide company with over 1,500 employees. Drawing from his own experience, Ryan discussed the beliefs and practices that have fueled his success as a business leader, the foundation of which, are based on people.

New Media Calls for New Recruiting Strategy | Free Webcast

Mary Lorenz — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:25:37 +0000

Do you realize…

…one in two job seekers want to find and engage with companies in social? …80 percent of companies use social media to recruit? …12 percent of job searches are done via mobile devices? …54 percent of job seekers are more likely to apply to your job at your company after they follow you on social media?

Yesterday, CareerBuilder’s Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Branding, Jamie Womack, along with CareerBuilder Area Vice President Andrew Streiter discussed these very findings in the featured webcast, Going Social: How to Leverage Social Media In Your Recruitment Strategy. In addition to these findings, they also gave practical tips for employers on the best ways to leverage emerging media to strengthen employment branding and recruiting efforts, including…

…the latest tools, trends and techniques for attracting top talent …what emerging media are and what they mean for your business …how to integrate emerging media into your current recruitment strategy

Missed the webcast? Download it now at www.careerbuilder.com/GoingSocial.

Keep the conversation going – use #CBGoSocial on Twitter… During the webcast, participants were urged to join in the conversation by following and posting the hashtag #cbgosocial on Twitter! Visit Twitter and search #cbgosocial and put in your own two cents! Related articles:

Missoni for Target: Applying Retail Marketing Tactics to Your Recruitment Strategy

Kristin Clifford — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:53:46 +0000

Earlier this month, Target retail stores and its online site were overrun with activity from customers desperate to own a piece of squiggle-patterned luxury at a bargain price. On Sept. 13, famed Italian house Missoni launched a line exclusively for Target, and everybody wanted in. The Internet traffic caused Target’s website to crash, and the Missoni line was essentially sold out in a few hours. If you visit the website today, you will see most items are listed as “out of stock.” It’s interesting that even in today’s economy, when many people are tightening their purse strings and have less disposable income, they still turned out in droves to spend on this collection, which, while affordable, is not comprised of necessities. People are even taking advantage of the craze by reselling the items on eBay at outrageous prices! The consumer enthusiasm was (and still is) certainly driven by hype and Missoni itself, but Target did a lot to ensure that the line would be well-received. Though they made some mistakes , there are still nuggets of information to be mined from this situation – namely, building excitement without creating disappointment. How can you apply the good pieces of Target’s tactics to your recruitment strategy?

Recruitment Lessons, Straight from the Navy Recruiting Command

Amy Chulik — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:06:09 +0000

“Diversity is included in everything we do – it’s a critical part of our mission. It’s so ingrained in what we do that we don’t even really see it.” These were some of the words spoken by Cmdr. Brent Mitchell, Director of Marketing and Advertising for the Navy Recruiting Command, on day two of the [...]

What hiring managers really want to see

Kira — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:01:13 +0000

By Alina Dizik, Special to CareerBuilder When you’re job searching, simply getting the attention of potential employers can be a challenge. [...]