ERE.net

The U.S. EEOC has new “guidance and instructions for investigating and analyzing charges alleging discrimination based on religion.”

The agency lays out three examples of how discrimination can crop up in the recruiting-hiring-promoting process.

Borrowing from comedian Monty Walker of Beatle Bailey fame, the title reflects a bit of light humor in what is often a spirited debate surrounding the question of “How much is enough sourcing?”

This is perhaps the most commonly asked question I get when presenting workshops, seminars, and keynote addresses. Allow, via this humble blog post, my attempt to answer this question for recruiters by and large. Please note that I am writing this not with full-time, dedicated sourcers in mind, but for you, the full-desk recruiters who struggle to create time enough for completing your required tasks, much less for filling a pipeline with so-called passive candidates.

As my full-time sourcing brethren well know, there can never be enough research conducted as there will always be more we can do to find the right people for the right jobs, so please excuse me, but this is not written for you. For all the rest of you who carry large loads of requisitions, I hope this gives you peace of mind.

Not All Reqs Are Created Equal

Though it may feel like they are, not all of your requisitions are of the absolute “highest priority.” In fact, most of them don’t require much sourcing at all. Before you guffaw, let me define what I mean by sourcing — I mean research and identification of leads for hard-to-fill positions. Or another way to put it would be name generation for positions which cannot possibly be filled using traditional talent sources. Most reqs could benefit from some downloaded resumes, but that is a task simple to automate and one that creates little heartburn for experienced recruiters.

About 10% to 15% of open requisitions on a typical recruiter’s desk can only be filled by some kind of direct sourcing activity. To avoid a debate about this point, let me explain that of course that percentage is going to vary by industry, by function, and even by organization, but 10% is a good starting point for this example. Say that you work 35 simultaneous requisitions. Then by this calculation roughly four of those may require serious research. The rest will have an influx of candidates from one to a myriad source, with varying quantities and assorted quality.

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If video resumes are the future of recruiting, then FutureResume.com is a peek at what’s to come. The brand new site showcases candidate videos that are linked to digital resumes, cover letters and references packaged together with a rudimentary skills and background profile to make candidates searchable.

The slickly designed site launched a few weeks ago with a handful of employers. More are to be added when the site officially opens up to employers, who, like the jobseekers, can also post videos to supplement traditional job postings.

There’s nothing especially remarkable about FutureResume. CareerBuilder has been offering video resumes for more than a year. FutureResume takes it a further step, making the video the main attraction, rather than an additional element. Even though jobseekers can post a “paper” resume and skip the video, they’ll be discouraged by the $14.95 monthly fee FutureResume will begin to charge next year.

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Sometimes you want interviews to, well, explode. So does the law firm Halleland Lewis, so it’s smartly making fun of them to its own benefit. It’s targeted to lawyers, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see another employer in another industry build a similar site. To build the site, Halleland sought help from its own employees, as well as an agency, Foote.

I am keeping the Seven Wonders of the Week alive but I need your help! I picked out six of the top discussions and wanted to ask what you think #7 should be. What discussion should I add to the list? Let me know what you think by posting a comment below.

Monster and CareerBuilder- Do You Need Both?

Interesting…this was actually a topic of discussion at this month’s ERE happy hour in Atlanta. Matt Faskamp wants to know if his company can save costs by using only one job board subscription instead of two. Do Monster and CareerBuilder really have unique visitors? Mike Jenkins says you only need one but not to forget to add Yahoo! Hot Jobs to that list. He recommends looking at your companies’ specific needs (i.e., international capabilities, board that provides more candidates for critical positions, user feedback, and capabilities of your ATS). Chandra Bodapati is the first to recommend Internet search instead. Kristin Gissaro and Sam Morse agree that Matt might want to take a different approach and turn toward niche boards and social networking sites. Kelly Dingee wisely advises Matt to run stats from his ATS and ask candidates what they use. She has personally had success with all three big boards…it depends on the reqs. She agrees with others that Matt should consider niche boards, Internet search, and social networking sites. Good luck, Matt. Let us know what you decide to do!

Is Outsourcing Outrageous or the Natural Way of Things?

This topic first posted by Maureen Sharib on July 15 continues to dominate the ERE discussion boards a week later. Maureen addresses the “biggest boogeyman” in today’s campaigns…outsourcing. More specifically Maureen argues that U.S. companies are motivated to outsource their call centers because of worker productivity and efficiency not necessarily lower costs. One reason might be that these employees receive a defined career path with opportunities not available for U.S. call centers. T Tallis believes that “part of the problem is unions.” Charles Hillman disagrees, defending unions, and focusing on the negative impact outsourcing has on American workers, families, and the economy. Amanda Blazo can sympathize with both sides having managed operations for two offshore Internet research centers. Whether offshoring or not, Amanda says it boils down to the fact that “some companies do certain jobs better than others.” I am not sure Jeff Weidner would agree; he believes these efficiencies are a result of the low cost-to-hire allowing for more employees to work on one job. Mike Johnson refers to a study by Booz Allen Hamilton and Duke University reminding us that “off-shoring high-skilled functions does not replace jobs offshore.” Joshua Letourneau also refers to an article he wrote that “takes a deeper dive into the globalization and commoditization of names sourcing today,” including issues with telephone name generation training and competition. Deborah Jones agrees with Amanda that outsourcing is not outrageous but natural since these centers in the Philippines and India offer more opportunitites and agrees with T Tallis that unions are to blame. She draws a parallel to the automotive industry. Maureen Sharib shares the news the GM has cut health care benefits for its employees. Joshua Letourneau and Paul Davenport empathize with employees but defend GM’s position. Joshua reminds us that “the point of a publicly traded company is to create shareholder value — nothing more, nothing less.”

The conversation has continued to heat up this week…you might want to check it out!

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FriendFeed is a social networking community of roughly 75,000 people currently. FriendFeed is technically a microblog, in the same space as Twitter, but with more options.

Per its site, FriendFeed “offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends.” I have been using the site for the past few months; it’s a new craze among the technically savvy and Web 2.0 crowd. If you are looking for a way to connect with passive technical talent and the young Gen-Y crowd, this is a site you want to invest some time on.

With FriendFeed, users setup a free account and customize a “feed” of content they share from other sites online. Everything then funnels into FriendFeed for people to see. The content shared can be from sites you have accounts with and use already to include news, bookmarking, status, video, photos, blogging, music, and more. These sites can include Twitter, YouTube, Digg, LinkedIn, Google, Blogs, and up to 30+ others. My feed allows others to see status updates and comments I posted out on Twitter, in addition to updates to my LinkedIn profile and articles and posts from several blogs. If you don’t use a lot of sites for sharing content, you can simply post and share anything directly on FriendFeed. It’s dead simple to use.

Users of FriendFeed have the option to subscribe to “feeds” of other users and in turn they can discover yours. When a user shares something in one of their feeds, they are telling the rest of the site and users who subscribe to them what they are doing currently, what they are interested in, and what they want to talk about.

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One of the hottest topics in talent management today is employment branding, in part because applicants rank brand as the second most influential factor when deciding whether to accept an offer.

Just five years ago, less than 1:10 Fortune 200 companies had a dedicated role to manage the employment brand, yet today more than 1:4 Fortune 200 companies have dedicated headcount and budget to the practice.

Employment branding is the practice of managing your firm’s image or reputation as an excellent place to work. Because so many factors influence how an organization is perceived, employment branding is loosely defined.

Most of the individuals involved in employment branding use a “learn as you go” approach, actively trying a market basket of brand manipulation activities to see what works and what doesn’t. Quite often, initial employment branding efforts are weak and full of elements that need serious improvement.

To have an effective employment branding function, periodically conduct an assessment or audit of the three critical branding areas:

• Your branding program’s design elements.
• The information that you provide.
• The approaches used to establish each of your sub-employment brands.

Whether you want to audit your existing effort or get a new effort off on the right foot, here is a quick audit checklist you can use to judge where you are now and where you need to be.

Incidentally, if your goal is to build a powerhouse employment brand like Google’s, recognize upfront that each individual audit item is important, so don’t skip a single one.

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Consider this as a basic truth: in tough economic times every job looks better, especially the one you already have.

This would imply that during recessions there are fewer good people actively looking and it’s tougher to get the best passive consider to even discuss your career opportunity. If this is the case, one could conclude that the bulk of the people who are looking during economic downturns tend to be those who are unemployed or marginally employed.

Since this group does not represent the best-of-the-best, you’ll need to rethink your entire sourcing strategy to make sure it’s targeting the people you want to hire. Here’s a short video describing how good people enter the job market. Now here’s a quick test to determine how well you’re doing: if you’re seeing less good people than last year using the same sourcing techniques, stop using them!

However, if you do find a few good people, regardless of how you’re finding them, expect these candidates to have more objections and concerns than usual. And the better the candidate, the more objections the person has. So, if you can’t smoothly and professionally handle objections, you won’t be placing many top performers.

Here are some ideas on how to deal with some common objections. They’re more prevalent with the economy on shaky ground. The theme behind them all is to reveal very little information about your assignment until you have a complete understanding of the candidate’s background. By withholding information, you’ll gain candidate interest. This is the key to applicant control.

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While U.S. recruiters debate the value of text messaging, one of the largest franchise operators in the Middle East has jumped in with enthusiasm.

“From now on,” says Nic Beesley, a senior HR vice president with M.H. Alshaya Co., “All jobseekers applying for Alshaya vacancies will henceforth know exactly where they stand. Whether they are short-listed or called for an interview, every candidate will receive real-time SMS updates, regardless of which part of the world they live in.”

The company operates some 1400 retail outlets for brands such as Starbucks, Estee Lauder, Mothercare, Foot Locker and Pearle Opticians. More than 14,000 people work for Alshaya in 15 countries, mostly in the Middle East, but also including Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic.

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As we enter the dog days of summer here in the United States and Europe, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on some of the blogs and websites that I find valuable. As an avid bog reader, I know how hard it is to sift through the hundreds that are available and narrow it down to just a few.

I have chosen four blogs/websites that I think are useful to recruiters and add new knowledge and perspectives. Each blogger that I have chosen is also an author of a book or two and is a researcher in his/her area. They all are looked upon as experts by their peers.

This list could be much longer, of course, and I know I have missed some other equally good blogs.  If you have a favorite, please send me a link and let me enjoy it too. I will do a new column from time to time and add more to the list.

Value Networks is a site that adds depth to the discussions we have about social networks. Verna Allee, the principal behind this site and discussion group, is known all over the world for her work in mapping networks – in other words, graphically showing us how people interact and with whom in a value chain. She has written several books on knowledge management and on social networking and has been a regular faculty member at my Future of Talent Retreat. Her website discusses and provides tools for value network analysis, which is a methodology for understanding, using, visualizing, optimizing internal and external value networks, and complex economic ecosystems.

While this may sound overwhelming, the site contains rich information about social networks and how to understand the interactions and interrelationships between the members of a network. The methodology is being used by many organizations to better understand how their customers interact with them and each other, how suppliers interact with customers, and how employees network both within and outside the organization.

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• Zacky has settled with the OFCCP. Because of hiring practices the Labor Department believes disproportionately rejected female applicants for some jobs, the company will pay about $347 to women turned down for jobs; hire some who weren’t hired; and monitor its hiring process to make sure it’s not discriminatory.

• A new report on healthcare and manufacturing in Ohio finds that, regarding healthcare, “In a worrisome trend, some of the healthcare occupations that experienced the strongest growth also had declining real median wages. These jobs tended to be healthcare support positions that required little or no classroom training. This trend was exemplified by the home health occupation, which grew by 56 percent in just three years by adding 17,100 jobs. The real median wage in this occupation fell by 5.6 percent.” And regarding manufacturing, “Guidance counselors do not understand the opportunities available for manufacturing careers or choose to direct students to other fields.”

• One group says it has “something exciting” to announce, which it says will be the “next best thing in Web 2.0 recruiting.” Meanwhile, InovaHire says its “design and functionality will be Web 3.0.” What’s on the Inova site isn’t much now, but we’ll keep in touch with the company and fill you in.

• CareerBuilder has launched a new job board, for retail.
  

• Speaking of CareerBuilder, which recently launched a new iPhone app … Nate Swanson, who analyzes HR/recruiting-related stocks for ThinkPanmure, says the recruiting/HR field will move quickly into mobile-device adoption. He writes: “With early movers such as salesforce.com, Oracle, and CareerBuilder already live with mobile applications on the App Store, we believe that it is only a matter of time before the human capital management space begins to push into the mobile frontier … we actually project an inflection point in growth 12-18 months from now as HCM applications converge with social networking and Web 2.0 technologies … We believe that the iPhone is pushing these boundaries fast, really fast, and other mobile device manufacturers are now scrambling to catchup.”

• A lousy candidate experience? According to Dubai-based Hiring Solutions, its client Alshaya, also in Dubai, is one exception. Hiring Solutions says in an email: “Every job seeker at Alshaya will henceforth receive SMS updates on their job application, regardless of which part of the world they live in. The SMS will inform candidates whether they are short-listed or called for an interview and ask them to check their email for complete details. This spares jobseekers the agony of second-guessing their application status and helps Alshaya to reduce its average time-to-hire.”

An automated e-mail response, which roughly translates to: “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” is the only communication most applicants receive after they’ve spent 15 to 30 minutes online filling out applications, questionnaires, and experiencing the frustration of pasting their resumes into boxes, (only to find the plain text version looks like it’s been encoded for secret transmission by the CIA).

The fact that most companies now acknowledge applicants by sending a generic e-mail is actually a significant improvement, according to the CareerXroads 2008 Mystery Job Seeker Survey, because some companies still don’t reply to applicants at all.

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Disaboom has teamed up with the Military Order of the Purple Heart Service Foundation to help combat-wounded and disabled veterans. Disaboom says it’ll hire virtual agent graduates of the Purple Heart Service Foundation’s job training program, “Veterans Business Training Center.”

All training grads are home-bound, combat-wounded, or disabled veterans, fully skilled in call center and contact center technology, and all have successfully completed an online training program offered through the Purple Heart Service Foundation and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Sliced bread it’s not, even if Jim Stroud is doing a happy dance over ZubedJobs.

The latest import to hop the pond is a job board with a mapping utility so jobseekers and employers can find each other by entering a location and skills. Look closely and you’ll see that Zubed is a mashup of Google Maps and geocoded resumes and job offerings.

It’s kind of fun to see how many Java programmers are being sought in London or how many of them there are in the area. But this isn’t exactly new nor the money dance. keep reading…

Last week I posted a summary of the most relevant, thought-provoking discussions of the week, and after hearing from several of you, I thought I would make this a weekly tradition. I picked out six of the top discussions and wanted to ask what you think #7 should be. What discussion should I add to the list? Let me know what you think by posting a comment below.

Preventing Applicants from Bypassing HR. The shaky relationship between the recruiter and hiring manager has always been an interesting topic of debate on ERE discussion boards.

Coral Blankenship wants to know if there is a “diplomatic way to inform candidates in a posting not to contact the hiring manager or any other person other than the representative listed in the posting.”

Amanda Blazo and Rob Levin were realistic, saying that unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to prevent someone from contacting a hiring manager, especially with the amount of information available through the Internet.

Amanda advises corporate recruiters and TPRs to respond to every applicant “qualified or not” and Rob added that many people pass over HR because “they know it will get them nowhere.” Mike Johnson included some helpful language to include in job postings while Jeff Altman wrote about the benefits an applicant might see in going directly to HR and included an example. He also sympathized with Coral’s situation since he agreed that most applicants can’t do an “adequate job of presenting themselves on a call.”

Monday’s Question of the Day. Work/life balance has become part of our everyday vernacular. We hear about it on the news, read about it in studies, and discuss it during interviews, but I couldn’t help wondering: Do most companies really want their employees to balance both and possibly leave work early for dinner plans and yoga classes? Elizabeth DeLouise feels that “It still seems the person who is willing to put in the longer hours are the people who get ahead.” David Rees questions the phrase “work/life balance” and asks, “does that mean that work is not part of life?” He also believes that work-life balance does not affect TPRs as much, since they are “evaluated on effectiveness not hours worked”? Anyone disagree? I wonder if work-life balance is truly a question about generational differences. Is this workplace philosophy accepted for younger generations and not Boomers? Maureen Sharib included some interesting data from a Monster survey conducted in 2007 that you might want to check out.

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Larry Horton, a police-officer-turned-recruiter for the Phoenix police department, talks about one of his favorite of the general job boards (hint: it’s not Monster, CareerBuilder, or HotJobs). He also discusses the part of the U.S. where he’s finding the most physically fit applicants; his employer brand, and more. keep reading…

How many times have you heard a manager complain, “I don’t have time to interview people! I’m swamped and understaffed and have to spend every minute and then some just to get my real work done!”

This is the one of the classic responses we get when we try to partner with managers to fill their positions. Filling jobs is HR’s job. “Can’t you just find me someone?” the manager will say. “And better ones than you found last time? The last one didn’t stick around very long. I don’t think he even lasted a year. Left after eight or nine months.” Sound familiar?

To effectively fill jobs today, we can’t just keep “throwing spaghetti at the wall” hoping that it will stick. We need to establish a partnership and a process for working with the managers we support to insure that we are finding the people with the correct skills mix who will be successful in our organization’s environment.

Many organizations have clear, well-defined processes for both recruiters and hiring managers to use when staffing. Whether it means using a sophisticated applicant tracking system or some homegrown system using e-mails and online requisitions, the process involved in getting new staff on board is usually well defined. All too often, the hard part is getting our managers to work with us to achieve the mutual goal.

Too many managers are unwilling or unable to actively participate in the hiring process, thereby dooming it to fail. Hiring new staff is too important a task to leave to human resources. This is not to demean HR. But to really make sure we are bringing in the staff with the skills and talent we need, who will be able to get the job done in our organization, we need the involvement, the support, and the active participation of the hiring managers. The first thing to do is to try to figure out why the manager is reluctant to commit their energy to partnering with the recruiter in this crucial process.

Why don’t managers get involved in hiring? How much time have you got? The reasons I’ve heard are as numerous as the excuses terminated staff give for why they were fired. But the majority seem to fall into five categories.

• The insecure manager who is unsure how to hire (”I don’t know how.”)
• Managers who have been burnt in their hiring efforts before (”I’m not good at this.”)
• Managers who are constantly fighting the clock (”I don’t have time.”)
• Managers who think its HR’s responsibility (”It’s not my job.”)
• Managers who are unfamiliar with the software (”I don’t know your system and don’t have time to learn it.”)

Each of these require us to take a different approach to resolve the problem, reassure, and engage the manager, and find a way to make the hiring manager our partner.

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For as long as HR has been a separate function from the business, there has always existed a certain tension when it comes to who is primarily responsible for influencing employee retention.

Business management often argues that recruiters are not presenting the right candidates, and in perfect “hiring hindsight” find fault on the basis of candidate education level, character attributes, work experience, technical skills, compensation, etc.

Recruiters are quick to remind management that they present, but do not select, candidates for hire, and that most employees who leave a position do so because of other issues such as training, keep reading…

During hard economic times, it’s survival of the fittest. Yet many corporate recruiters fail to understand or acknowledge the cyclical nature of our business; every five to seven years, recruiters are let go en masse.

If you work for an auto company in Detroit or an airline or a mortgage company, the time to prepare for layoffs has already past. For the rest of us, the time is now to improve your job security.

While recruiting can be a team effort, it is also essential that you take some time to be selfish in order to protect your own career.

Here are 15 concrete steps to improve your job security as a corporate recruiter:

1. Make the business case for the department. Before you start being concerned about your own job, consider building up the reputation of the recruiting department as a major contributor to corporate success. The best approach is to lead a team that builds a strong economic case for the direct dollar impact recruiting has had on business revenue (work with the CFO’s office to make those calculations credible). Help the department demonstrate the catastrophic recovery time required following the last dramatic reduction in the recruiting function. Not only will this effort help limit departmental layoffs, it will also demonstrate to recruiting leadership that you know how to make a strong business case and that you’re doing your part to support the team. Build the case for continued hiring during tough times because of the wealth of talent that is available. Demonstrate to managers the high quality of hires who can be obtained by poaching the very best from firms that have been weakened by the economic downturn.
2. Be recognized externally. If any recruiters are to remain, those who have received external recognition for their excellence traditionally have been much more likely to be retained. External recognition can include winning awards (like ERE, RASBIC, or Optimas) or becoming an officer in professional recruiting associations like EMA. Write articles for the leading recruiting websites (like ERE.net) and the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership. Speaking at local and national recruiting events can also improve your credibility internally as well as your visibility externally at other corporations that might consider hiring you.
3. Focus on growing business units. Most corporations have learned the value of continual hiring in certain key strategic business units even while simultaneously laying off employees in others business units (ask someone in strategic planning to point out the growth areas). Focus on requisitions for these key business units or consider a transfer so that you become the assigned recruiter for one of these growing business units, because this will decrease your chances of being laid off. If you can impress the GM of that business unit by producing some significant recruiting results, they might agree to go to bat for you with your director of recruiting. If you make yourself indispensable, some business leaders might be willing to actually fund your position during down times.

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Ron Hanscome’s serious thoughts of moving from HRchitect to Kenexa (profile) began during Kenexa’s “analyst day” this past April. But Hanscome, the new veep of product strategy, met Kenexa’s CEO more than five years ago, when Hanscome was at the META Group, and always had in the way back of his mind that Kenexa could be an interesting future employer.

At the analyst day, “the connection got rekindled,” he says. The company was looking for someone who could “bring it all together, think holistically” — with “it” referring to the company’s diverse group of products.

Hanscome’s name and face are as familiar to recruiting-conference-aholics as Jason Corsello, Sammy Jo’s Pop, and stress balls. Before Kenexa and HRchitect (profile), he was an Oracle VP, overseeing its HR tech products.

Hanscome had joined HRchitect about a year ago, and led that company’s creation of the “The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management” report.

“Ron is not the kind of resource that is easily replaced, and he brought a lot to the table,” says HRchitect’s bizdev director Matt Lafata. “Fortunately, everything we do at HRchitect is done in a very collaborative manner so one person doesn’t make or break any project, or practice. Ron worked with a team of consultants who are continuing on projects without skipping a beat. Ron was very good at sharing knowledge and working as a team player. As a result of all of that, we are certainly keeping our eyes and ears open for a similar-caliber person to lead our strategic planning group and in the meantime, our VP of Consulting Services, Dan Katavola, is overseeing the handful of people we have involved in strategic planning projects.”

Hanscome found Kenexa attractive partly because of its emphasis on the science of assessment and “fit”; it brags about its 100 I/O psychologists on staff. “They’ve got science around measuring fit, measuring assessment, that really adds to the technology as the delivery vehicle,” he says. “Case study after case study.”

Three Favorites

In a recent report for Think Panmure, Nate Swanson analyzed Kenexa and its competitors from a Wall Street perspective, writing:

Our best three HCM ideas are Taleo, SuccessFactors, and Kenexa. Taleo and SuccessFactors, pure-play on-demand vendors within the HCM space, are pulling away from competitors such as Oracle and SAP with product depth, breath, and functionality. We see Taleo and SuccessFactors creating innovative ways to further extend their product reach through the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and the integration with new social networking sites. With recurring revenue contract terms lasting three to five years, Taleo and SuccessFactors should have some near-term insulation even if the current economic environment gets worse. We expect each company to meet or beat our estimates. We like Kenexa as an attractive value play within the HCM space, but note the company’s recruitment outsourcing services may be more sensitive to the current economic headwinds. The company’s recently announced acquisition of Quorum should help diversify this risk as the company is able to expand and strengthen its services in EMEA, an area previously identified as a weakness.