Posts Tagged ‘unemployment’
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Unemployment doesn’t always equate to available talent. For highly specialized positions, an economic downturn does little to alleviate the pressure on corporate recruiters to source candidates with unique, coveted skills. The only solution is to have what amounts to a succession plan for key roles in your company, not just for the executive suite. Fundamental to this effort, of course, is to know every corner of your market. If you know the intricacies of the talent market for scarce skills, you’ll have an advantage when it’s time to fill open reqs.
Some talent markets are naturally small. Fields that require a considerable amount of education and experience of a specified nature in order for employees to be effective are essentially exclusionary. So, to attract talent, you often have to spend more than you’d like … and provide a work environment that will resonate with a particular candidate.
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Tags: candidates, market research, talent market, TMR, unemployment
Posted in Strategy | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 5th, 2010
There’s a lot of talk about social media and the job hunt these days. A combination of new channels and a still high rate of unemployment have made job-seekers more resourceful and hyper-sensitive to any opportunity to catch a corporate recruiter’s attention – however small it may be. For recruiters and candidates alike, this creates as much challenge as it does opportunity. I’ve covered the increase in application volume at length already, so this week, let’s take a look at perception – and the candidate techniques that recruiters will have to learn to see through.
There was a great article on social media blog Mashable a few weeks ago with plenty of advice for job-seekers. Now, it’s time to figure out what that means for those of us on the receiving end of the resume deluge. This week, we’ll take a close look at the tactics being employed by the hunters, and how you can refocus your recruiting efforts on the competencies, skills and experience most relevant to your open reqs.
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Tags: candidates, Mashable, social media, Social Media Strategy, social networking, unemployment
Posted in Strategy | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Talk of running a lean corporate recruiting operation isn’t new. Human resources functions have always felt disproportionate pressure to do more with less. Doubtless, an unemployment rate of 10.4 percent may cause “lean” to be pushed to new extremes, and for corporate recruiting departments, it’s just more of the same. These days, the big challenge is finding ways to go leaner without cutting into muscle. Even if you lose budget, your responsibilities are unlikely to change – and you’ll need tools to help you rise to the challenge!
KGTiger’s STREAM service can help alleviate the workload (and budgetary) pressures on your department, handling the 67 percent of your operation’s tasks that are rote, administrative and unlikely to tap the talent, skills and professional experience in your corporate recruiting department.
Below, you’ll find four ways that KGTiger can help you go leaner without compromising results.
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Tags: budget, HRO, human resources recruiting, outsourced recruiting, STREAM, talent, unemployment, unemployment rate
Posted in Process | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
So, what can we make of the talent market right now? A year ago, the situation was nothing short of dismal. Job cuts peaked in January 2009, according to the latest data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, with 241,729 layoffs announced – the largest one-month reduction since January 2002. And, the five months that followed continued to be severe. Since the start of the recession, 2.5 million positions have been cut, Challenger says, with 1.6 million of them coming between July 2008 and June 2009.
Yet, the second half of last year wasn’t nearly as bad. After January, the layoff rate did fall, though it stayed above a monthly average of 130,000 for the first six months of 2009. The situation became much better after July 1, 2009, and the monthly average for from July through November was only around 69,000, with November (the last month reported) coming in at slightly above 50,000 cut positions.
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Tags: BYTE, Challenger Gray and Christmas, hiring in a recession, job cuts, layoff, layoffs, recession, talent market, unemployment, unemployment rate
Posted in Intelligence, News | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Are you tending an electronic graveyard for online resumes? This is the public perception of the application process. Job-seekers are lobbing as many resumes as they can, in the hopes of either finding a better job or removing themselves from the 10 percent of the workforce that is unemployed. The sheer volume this creates, unfortunately, is the cause of the job-hunters’ belief that most of those resumes will never get anywhere.
High unemployment, of course, sends traffic flocking to job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder. Seven of the top 10 job sites, according to a recent Fox News report, saw traffic double year-over-year. In June alone, 65 million people visited job sites. The application volume associated with these trends, doubtless, is why resumes can sit in front of a corporate recruiter’s eyes for 20 seconds or less.
The easiest way to solve the problem of applicant volume, of course, is education. Explain to job-seekers that they need to tailor their resumes to each position … and that they should only respond to postings that match their qualifications. But, this won’t happen. So, corporate recruiters need to find operational remedies.
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Tags: BYTE, CareerBuilder, hiring managers, job boards, job sites, Monster, resume formatting, resumes, unemployment, unemployment rate
Posted in News, Process | No 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 »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
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.
Why didn’t you win? Because you just weren’t ready.
Most recruiters think speed is the problem when this happens, lamenting, “If only we’d gotten there faster …” In reality, the entire process is to blame. The key to winning the war for talent is to recruit constantly.
Hiring happens periodically; recruiting is ongoing. Today, with unemployment at 10 percent nationwide, corporate recruiters should be readying themselves for the next rush, which could begin as early as this summer, according to some estimates. It’s not too early (it’s never too early) to get started.
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Tags: Corporate Recruiting, optimizing recruitment, recruiting trends, STREAM, talent acquisition, talent management, unemployment, unemployment rate
Posted in Transformation | 6 Comments »
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