Archive for December, 2009
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
In every specialty talent market, there is an underserved population. Often, this is where you’ll find some of the more interesting candidates, but they effectively take themselves out of the running because their resumes don’t resonate with corporate recruiters. The sheer volume of applicants for an open req, especially when the market is white hot, can cause recruiters to use formatting as an easy way to cut a collection of resumes down to a manageable number. At the same time, they may be passing implicitly on the top candidates.
In the clean technology industry, this problem will undoubtedly arise. Everyone from engineers to seasoned sales professionals will have a defined area of expertise … a reason why they will be of interest to a corporate recruiter in this space. To get on the corporate recruiter’s radar, though, they will need to have additional skills, from Microsoft Word to a sense of the aesthetic.
Is this really what you want to decide who your next clean energy engineer is? Or your next sales professional? Of course not! Talent should reign supreme. Fortunately, there’s a way to make that happen.
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Tags: BYTE, candidates, clean technology, cleantech, green, Green Future, optimizing recruiting, resume formatting, resumes, talent acquisition
Posted in Process | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
It’s never too early to identify the top talent in a sector. With the clean technology market growing aggressively already, your market entry plan should be followed quickly by execution. Even if you aren’t ready to hire, planning ahead will ensure that a pool of cultivated candidates will be waiting for you when it’s time to pick up the phone.
When bubble-caliber clean technology hiring begins, competing offers for the most coveted talent will drive prices higher and even the winners will have to cope with longer hiring cycles. The result is an increased cost to hire and degraded return on investment … financial implications that are magnified in a hot market. Every day you have to wait when trying to fill a high-impact req translates to a financial loss that can’t be recovered – and it compounds with every open position.
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Tags: bubble, clean technology, cleantech, green, Green Future, hiringcycles, KG Tiger, ROI, STREAM, talent acquisition, talent market
Posted in Process, Strategy | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Though California leads the United States in clean technology jobs, the United States doesn’t necessarily lead the world. Germany, Scandinavia and China have show remarkable progress, and clean technology interest has reached the Middle East, where many energy companies see “green” as a way to hedge against an eventual systemic threat to the oil market. For corporate recruiters at large firms, start-ups and everything in between, what is now a “new market entry opportunity” will soon become a “new market entry necessity.”
This is the sort of situation that excites the best corporate recruiters in the business – it’s a chance to define an industry! The workload, however, is immense. The research required to understand these regions and the talent markets within them is substantial, and action-oriented recruiting teams rarely have the resources on hand to gather and interpret the data needed to launch a coordinated market entry effort. Recruiters focus on addressing strength management needs – not background.
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Tags: California, China, clean technology, cleantech, Corporate Recruiting, energy, Germany, green, Green Future, market entry, market research, Middle East, Scandinavia, talent acquisition, talent management, talent market, TMR
Posted in Strategy | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 28th, 2009
If you’re not thinking about green talent pools right now, you’re a step behind the market. Every day, it’s looking more and more like the next economic bubble – in the United States and around the world – will involve clean technology. Cast aside your politics on this one – the argument over climate change isn’t relevant to the business opportunity. Instead, look at the data from the market. Private equity and venture capital money is increasingly headed toward green investments, and the talent market for this sector is gaining steam.
The trend is starting in California, as it did with the last technology boom. From 1995 to 2008, green jobs growth outpaced the statewide rate. And, it’s diversified across several segments of the green/clean technology space, suggesting the benefit of a diversified base. Of course, the market will reach across state and national borders as investment dollars continue to enter the sector.
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Tags: bubble, clean energy, clean technology, cleantech, Corporate Recruiting, green, Green Future, talent acquisition, talent management, talent market, talent pools
Posted in News, Transformation | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 25th, 2009
Did You Forget about the Next Talent Shortage?: Before the subprime mortgage market pushed the global financial system to the brink of collapse, nobody was worried about unemployment. Our priorities have changed, of course, now that the unemployment rate is at 10 percent, and recruiting isn’t top of mind. This myopic view of the talent market, though, means we’re just creating the next crisis. Have we all forgotten about the Baby Boomers?
Read the article >>
Five Ways to Supercharge Your Corporate Recruiting Practices: Corporate recruiters have always struggled to gain a seat at the strategic table. A support unit, it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to link what this department does to achieving company objectives. But, without an efficient corporate recruiting team that’s plugged into the needs of every aspect of the business, success can remain elusive.
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Bubble Watch: Are You Ready to Respond to a Fast Change in the Market?: Trick question! The correct answer is that your recruiting practices should be impervious to rapid changes in the job market. If you are recruiting constantly – building talent pools for when you may need them – you will be able to absorb the market conditions that will send your competitors scrambling.
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Tags: Top Stories
Posted in Week in Review | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Trick question! The correct answer is that your recruiting practices should be impervious to rapid changes in the job market. If you are recruiting constantly – building talent pools for when you may need them – you will be able to absorb the market conditions that will send your competitors scrambling.
Corporate recruiting isn’t something you do only when you need to fill positions. Instead, it should be as constant as pouring a morning cup of coffee or checking your e-mail. You should always be looking for powerful talent and tracking its availability, maintaining a pipeline of qualified candidates for critical (and even merely important) positions in case the need arises with little warning … as it usually does.
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Tags: bubble, Corporate Recruiting, optimizing recruiting, optimizing recruitment, ROI, talent acquisition, talent management, talent pool, TCO, TMR
Posted in Strategy | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Corporate recruiters have always struggled to gain a seat at the strategic table. A support unit, it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to link what this department does to achieving company objectives. But, without an efficient corporate recruiting team that’s plugged into the needs of every aspect of the business, success can remain elusive.
To keep corporate recruiting professionals focused on the most crucial business of their departments, a balancing act is necessary, in which the sensitive and high-touch are handled appropriately, with time-consuming administrative work dispatched to sources that can deliver at as low a cost as possible. Engage KGTiger’s BYTE services to handle the administrative, repetitive and low-value tasks, and you’ll be able to transform your department into a leading business unit.
Below are five opportunities to supercharge your corporate recruiting practices, which becomes more attainable when you have a partner to take care of the rest.
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Tags: BYTE, communication, Corporate Recruiting, hiring managers, KGTiger, optimizing recruitment, process improvement, talent pool
Posted in Process, Strategy | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Before the subprime mortgage market pushed the global financial system to the brink of collapse, nobody was worried about unemployment. Our priorities have changed, of course, now that the unemployment rate is at 10 percent, and recruiting isn’t top of mind. This myopic view of the talent market, though, means we’re just creating the next crisis.
Have we all forgotten about the Baby Boomers?
Only a few years ago, the retirement of the largest generation in the United States was seen as a catastrophe-in-waiting. Talent, experience and institutional knowledge were set to flee at an unprecedented pace, leaving businesses with substantial gaps in leadership – and profound shortages of employees. Contingency plans involving “Consulting Boomers” were put together in the hopes that increased longevity would prompt Boomers to stay in the workforce longer.
The problem hasn’t gone away.
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Tags: aging workforce, Baby Boomers, Boomers, bubble, financial crisis, Generation X, generations, recruiting trends, shortage, STREAM, subprime crisis, talent acquisition, talent management, talent pool, unemployment, unemployment rate, workforce
Posted in Intelligence, News | 1 Comment »
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Measure Compliance by ROI, Not Just Cost Containment: Most companies have a simple goal when it comes to compliance: manage risk while spending as little as possible. These efforts don’t contribute to the top line, so it seems the best you can do is to keep expenses under control. This sort of conventional thinking, however, comes at the cost of future opportunities. Plan and manage your compliance program effectively, and you could measure the impact in terms of ROI, not just cost containment.
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Explore New Territory … with a Map: “New” is the hardest part of growing any business. A new product line, new geographic region or new market is inherently daunting – it’s almost like building a new business from scratch. Part of the problem is a lack of understanding about the talent pool. After all, you need to be sure you can find the people you need who can drive the results you want to achieve. If you know the talent market before you enter, you can save yourself the pain of making a strategic misstep. The right decisions, based on accurate information, can also accelerate ROI – your actions will pay for themselves faster.
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Stop Chasing Trends: Effective Recruiting Never Stops: Corporate recruiting, as it’s generally practiced today, involves chasing trends. All is quiet when hiring freezes are triggered by dismal economic conditions. Then, when the market gains a bit of confidence, there’s a feeding frenzy for top-tier talent. It’s easy to lose under these conditions, especially when you see a competitor pick up that industry superstar you’ve been eyeing.
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Tags: Top Stories
Posted in Strategy | No Comments »
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