Archive for March, 2010
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Corporate recruiters haven’t had to worry too much about the availability of talent for a while. Even with the unemployment rate in the United States down to 9.7 percent, there is still plenty of talent on the market. In addition to those who have been laid off, there are “survivors” struggling with increased pressure and heavier workloads who are on the lookout for new opportunities.
Investing in talent pools can be a difficult sell. If you aren’t a corporate recruiter, it’s easy to be seduced by the notion that “more is better” and that only the availability of talent is important. Few understand that an abundance of resumes can obscure the few that you want to see. Beyond securing the horsepower to sift through the administrative tasks associated with this market condition, you need a way to improve where you hunt for talent and how you narrow the results into a short list of candidates that makes the best use of the limited time that you and your hiring manager have.
When you engage the CFO, the case again calls for both cost and ROI benefits.
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Tags: CFO, hiring managers, HR, HRO, human resoruces, outsourced recruiting, outsourcing, recruiting outsourcing, ROI, STREAM, talent market, talent pools, Talking Talent
Posted in Strategy | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
Process improvement projects are pitched to CFOs all the time, often with inflated (even absurd) ROI projections. So, it’s no surprise that these executives tend to be wary. Too often, these investments are nothing more than veiled attempts to increase headcount or decrease workload without regard to any meaningful industry benchmark. It’s no wonder that CFOs are uneasy about these projects.
For corporate recruiting, issues of process improvement and workload are real, and the advantages to be gained are substantial. Yet, it’s difficult to overcome the CFO’s objections, particularly given the view of the HR department as overhead. To appeal to the CFO successfully, you need to make a powerful case involving both cost cutting and ROI. The win for your company has to be easy to attain with overwhelming results.
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Tags: CFO, Corporate Recruiting, excutives, HR, HR department, HRO, human resources, operations, outsourced recruiting, outsourcing, recruiting, ROI, Talking Talent, time to hire
Posted in Strategy | 2 Comments »
Monday, March 15th, 2010
If you can convince the CFO of the value of an investment, life becomes a lot easier. Unfortunately, this level of comfort isn’t always easy to attain. CFOs are professional skeptics, tasked with weeding out the prudent from the frivolous. Even a great idea, if not expressed correctly, will fall victim to this executive’s budgetary scythe. Human resources investments are particularly susceptible to this fate, as the department tends to be perceived as pure overhead. You can change the image of the HR function – corporate recruiting, especially – as long as you learn to speak the CFO’s language.
Over the next few days, we’ll take a look at how to fame your investment cases for process improvement, talent management and talent market intelligence in terms and concepts that will resonate with the most diligent of finance executives. When you explain to the CFO that you have a way to cut costs or increase ROI through corporate recruiting initiatives, you’ll be more likely to find yourself with a new ally.
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Tags: BYTE, CFO, Corporate Recruiting, executives, HR, HR outsourcing, HRO, human resources, market research, outsourced recruiting, outsourcing, recruiting, ROI, STREAM, talent market, Talking Talent, TMR
Posted in Strategy | 2 Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Multitasking Hurts Corporate Recruiters, Too: It’s not just corporate recruiting: everywhere, the charge is “do more with less” is increasing workloads and robbing employees of the chance to focus. Multitasking, once considered a rare talent, is now an essential skill … but it comes at a price. As employees juggle tasks – and take this into their personal life, checking devices while pushing grocery carts and ordering dinner – they are paying with pain. Fortunately, there is a cure for what ails you!
Read the article >>
Five Expensive Corporate Recruiting Mistakes: There’s a lot of sensitivity in corporate recruiting departments about being a cost center. Like most HR functions, recruiting doesn’t bring in revenue, and the role it does play in attracting the talent that does is often overlooked. Absent a revenue angle or risk avoidance any corporate recruiting analysis by the finance department or C-suite comes down to cost. The way corporate recruiting tends to be conducted – a model that really hasn’t changed in more than 30 years – offers plenty of room for improvement, especially since there are so many “mistakes” currently being made.
Read the article >>
Overcome Information Overload: Most employees spend their days trying to keep up with the information that’s thrown at them. They check e-mail on vacation to avoid returning to an overflowing inbox, scan several blogs and maybe even read a newspaper. And then there are the meetings, hallway discussions and every other interaction. It’s no secret that employees are drowning in information and that the cause stretches beyond the usual suspects.
Read the article >>
Three Talent Revelations You May Be Missing: Do you know how well your company’s investment in talent is performing? Up in the C-suite, there are many measures used to gauge this, including revenue per employee, top- and bottom-line trending and even some sophisticated approaches around market capitalization created on a per-employee basis. You can get as creative as you want … but what are you really seeing? There’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty!
Read the article >>
Refine Your Business Acumen: For corporate recruiters, “business acumen” – i.e., quickly understanding and dealing with a business situation – is usually limited to interviews and filling reqs. In order to make a larger contribution to the company, though, business acumen needs to be applied on a broader scale. Think of the major strategic initiatives that corporate recruiters support, such as new market entry and product launches, and how your insights could be used to drive a more effective outcome.
Read the article >>
Tags: Top Stories
Posted in Week in Review | No Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
For corporate recruiters, “business acumen” – i.e., quickly understanding and dealing with a business situation – is usually limited to interviews and filling reqs. In order to make a larger contribution to the company, though, business acumen needs to be applied on a broader scale. Think of the major strategic initiatives that corporate recruiters support, such as new market entry and product launches, and how your insights could be used to drive a more effective outcome.
For the major strategic efforts, it isn’t enough to source candidates and scan resumes. Corporate recruiters need to identify talent pools that may be difficult to find, develop talent contingency plans and raise any issues that could derail execution of the strategy as a whole. Unlike traditional corporate recruiting tasks, entering new markets or launching new products and identifying talent requires solid business acumen of the caliber not often recognized in the Human Resources department.
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Tags: HR outsourcing, HRO, human resources, market entry, market research, outsourced recruiting, product launch, recruiting outsourcing, talent, talent acquisition, talent market, talent pools, TMR
Posted in Strategy | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Do you know how well your company’s investment in talent is performing? Up in the C-suite, there are many measures used to gauge this, including revenue per employee, top- and bottom-line trending and even some sophisticated approaches around market capitalization created on a per-employee basis. You can get as creative as you want … but what are you really seeing? There’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty!
I have to admit: I’m a bit suspicious of reality shows, and the new Undercover Boss series was no exception. But, the commercials alone made me wonder, in a more conventional sense, what revelations hiring managers are missing in their offices every day. It may not be feasible for a CEO to step into the trenches, but it sure is possible for a corporate recruiter to look at the workforce and ask: “What am I missing?”
Here’s what you’ll probably find:
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Tags: BYTE, Corporate Recruiting, HR outsourcing, HRO, human resources, outsourced recruiting, recruiting, recruiting outsourcing, talent, talent acquisition, talent management, talent market, Undercover Boss
Posted in Intelligence | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Most employees spend their days trying to keep up with the information that’s thrown at them. They check e-mail on vacation to avoid returning to an overflowing inbox, scan several blogs and maybe even read a newspaper. And then there are the meetings, hallway discussions and every other interaction. It’s no secret that employees are drowning in information and that the cause stretches beyond the usual suspects.
If you merely take control of your inbox, you won’t solve the information overload problem. Instead, you need to fundamentally change how you do your job. For corporate recruiters, accustomed to decades of habit shaped by our profession (and its tendency toward the status quo), this may prove difficult, but the benefits of progress will undoubtedly be substantial.
(more…)
Tags: HR outsourcing, HRO, information, information overload, outsourced recruiting, recruiting outsourcing, resumes, STREAM, talent management, talent market, talent pools
Posted in Strategy | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
It’s not just corporate recruiting: everywhere, the charge is “do more with less” is increasing workloads and robbing employees of the chance to focus. Multitasking, once considered a rare talent, is now an essential skill … but it comes at a price. As employees juggle tasks – and take this into their personal life, checking devices while pushing grocery carts and ordering dinner – they are paying with pain. Fortunately, there is a cure for what ails you!
A recent study at Ohio State University reveals an increase in emergency room visits, because pedestrians became distracted and got hurt. From 2007 to 2008, in fact, the rate of injury doubled. What’s worse is that this follows the doubling that occurred from 2006 to 2007. Not only are injuries mounting, they’re doing so with incredible magnitude.
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Tags: Basex, BYTE, Corporate Recruiting, injuries, Jonathan Spira, multitasking, Ohio State University, OSU, recruiting, workload
Posted in Process | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Five Expensive Corporate Recruiting Mistakes: There’s a lot of sensitivity in corporate recruiting departments about being a cost center. Like most HR functions, recruiting doesn’t bring in revenue, and the role it does play in attracting the talent that does is often overlooked. Absent a revenue angle or risk avoidance any corporate recruiting analysis by the finance department or C-suite comes down to cost. The way corporate recruiting tends to be conducted – a model that really hasn’t changed in more than 30 years – offers plenty of room for improvement, especially since there are so many “mistakes” currently being made.
Read the article >>
Professional Services Recruiting: How to Beat the Lag: Accounting, consulting and law firms tend to hire talent when the need is pressing. In fact, this is a common practice among all professional services firms. Only when the market has clearly recovered will they begin to add headcount. As client work rolls in, they rush to find talent, bring it in the door, often pushing them out to client projects very quickly. In a people-intensive business, you can’t have well-compensated professionals sitting on the bench for too long.
Read the article >>
The Corporate Recruiting ROI Case You May Have Missed: Did you know that nearly 70 percent of a corporate recruiter’s time is spent in labor-intensive, low-value activities? Think about it: how much time is invested in reviewing or re-formatting resumes, pulling together data for reports or trying to make confirmation calls or schedule interviews? These are not the activities that allow a corporate recruiter to shine, yet they dominate your workday.
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Baby Boomers Look at Company Websites: The high rate of unemployment right now is leading many candidates to pursue jobs through as many channels as possible. But, looking to the future, the dynamic is bound to change when the job market recovers. This means that job-seekers will settle into the venues in which they are most comfortable. For members of the Baby Boom generation, who are likely to resist full retirement, corporate website job pages will become increasingly important.
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Generation Gap: The Looming Challenge: Today’s workforce is comprised of four generations, each of which has a distinct way of looking at the world and approaching its careers. Rapid advances in technology over the past 40 years have done more than change the tools of the office – they have fundamentally altered how people interact, which in turn has shaped worldviews. The gradual progression that preceded the PC revolution (and the internet revolution after it) is now a relic, and corporate recruiters and hiring managers will have to develop the skills necessary to connect with a variety of candidates who prefer specific styles and even use vastly different language.
Read the article >>
Tags: Top Stories
Posted in Week in Review | No Comments »
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
There’s a lot of sensitivity in corporate recruiting departments about being a cost center. Like most HR functions, recruiting doesn’t bring in revenue, and the role it does play in attracting the talent that does is often overlooked. Absent a revenue angle or risk avoidance any corporate recruiting analysis by the finance department or C-suite comes down to cost. The way corporate recruiting tends to be conducted – a model that really hasn’t changed in more than 30 years – offers plenty of room for improvement, especially since there are so many “mistakes” currently being made.
What worked three decades ago probably isn’t optimal nay more, right? So, it’s time to take the errors out of the situation and focus on the efficiencies that can reduce recruiting expenses and drive better results.
Here are five costly mistakes that are actually quite easy to fix.
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Tags: budget, BYTE, Corporate Recruiting, HR, HR outsourcing, HRO, human resources, outsourced recruiting, outsourcing, recruiting outsourcing, ROI, STREAM
Posted in Process | 1 Comment »
