Skill shortage -- is there really a skill shortage?
Skill shortage – academics, industry experts and human resource planners often bandy about the term. By now, you may have heard “skill shortage” so many times that you wonder if Canada really faces a labour crisis.
[ go]
Job reference checks: avoiding pitfalls in the job reference check process
Job reference checks may seem like old hat to some hiring managers. After all, job reference checks tend to be done at the last minute, after an employer has already decided on a candidate. But, by incorporating reference checks into earlier parts of the interview process and planning ahead, it’s possible to avoid making a poor hiring decision.
[ go]
Internal Hiring: Promoting from Within to Fill a Job Vacancy
Internal hiring is rarely used when it’s time to fill a job vacancy; most companies simply don’t think to promote from within. They advertise the opening in traditional and online media, hire recruiters to search for candidates and sift through resumes as they pour in.
[ go]
Company culture as a recruiting technique
Company culture can help your firm recruit and retain top employees. Just as any group has shared values, beliefs, rules and practices, so does a company. Company culture or the “company vibe” spans the voice, values and practices of members of a company.
[ go]
Recruiting for small companies
Recruiting for a small company involves creative thinking. To compete against big businesses with big budgets, you need to convince superstar employees and job candidates that your company offers something the big companies don’t.
[ go]
Search resume database systems with ease
Search a resume database with ease and improve your recruitment processes. From Google to resume databases, online searches have become an everyday part of human resources management.
[ go]
Hiring a foreign worker or non-Canadian
Hiring a foreign worker may seem like a struggle, causing many employers to skip over a non-Canadian’s resume in favour of the next. However, by hiring a temporary foreign worker, companies can better compete in a job market during labour shortages.
[ go]
Hire a student | Tips to help you hire a student
When you hire a student, you tap into inexpensive, motivated labour with fresh ideas. Hire a student and gain enthusiasm that can spill over to your other employees.
[ go]
Employment assessment test tools catching on
Employment assessment test tools help employers select top performers – from entry-level workers to high-flying executives. With an employment assessment test, it’s possible to screen for knowledge, personalities, past behaviours, and job fit.
[ go]
Work design methods: Think balloons, not boxes
After his company restructured, operations manager Dave Green (fictional name) needed to re-think the jobs in his department to reflect new duties. However, he dreaded having to rewrite outdated, seven-page job descriptions. With so many rapid work changes ahead, he knew that he'd probably be back at the drawing board in a few months, addressing further job redefinitions.
[ go]
Self Assessment and Reality Checks
Most of the contemporary literature on hiring and gaining corporate advantage stresses the importance of recruiting top performers to drive companies forward. In the upcoming “war for talent”, so the story goes, successful companies will be the ones who are staffed with “thoroughbreds” who can quite simply out-perform other employees and competitors.
[ go]
Use of Psychological Tests
A Google search on “employee recruitment testing” results in more than 2,000,000 hits. Many of the top results focus on the types of tests employers might use – thousands of services “promise” a good employee/employer match through some form of psychological testing.
[ go]
How to truly empower your employees
Employee empowerment is a challenging goal for many managers. Providing workers with increased autonomy involves taking a risk and giving up a degree of control and hands-on supervision. But not allowing them to make their own decisions when appropriate is a potentially even bigger problem,
[ go]
A Better Way to Give Feedback on Employee Performance
In a perfect world, you would never have to correct or criticize your employees. Your staff would perform their jobs flawlessly, without errors or oversights. Project teams would function with the ease and efficiency of a well-engineered machine. There would be no miscommunication, omissions, misplaced files or missed deadlines. Productivity would soar….
[ go]
Global Recruitment: Tips for closing the deal
Recruiting locally within Vancouver, BC, or even Canada isn’t easy, but it sure isn’t the same ball game as recruiting globally. The global talent competition for the best and the brightest is fierce, with candidates taking offers from you and your U.S., European, and Asian talent competition. You may have found the perfect candidate, now how do you convince them to relocate to Beautiful British Columbia?
[ go]
How to Effectively Screen Resumes
Effectively screening and evaluating resumes can be time-consuming, since resumes can vary widely in formatting and content. There are certain steps you can take to make this process easier and help you choose an effective shortlist of candidates.
[ go]
Immigration: Tips for Hiring Internationally
International recruitment is a challenge and the immigration piece of the process is no small task either. Once you’ve embarked on the search for an international candidate and found the perfect person, you’re not done yet:
[ go]
Recruitment Cycles – Planning When to Hire Employees
Many HR departments schedule large recruiting efforts according to a specific recruitment cycle. The recruitment cycle may be determined by factors such as seasonal needs, project-based resourcing, pre-determined growth periods, and even graduation cycles of local or prestigious post-secondary schools.
[ go]
Recruiting students: 10 tips
Recruiting students helps many organizations get ahead. By recruiting students, companies tap into fresh ideas, emerging skill sets and lower salary structures. But, given media saturation, it can be a challenge to capture the attention of students.
[ go]
Auto responders for human resources
Many organizations have stopped responding to job applicants, citing an ever increasing pool of applicants. But, just as the Internet has opened the doors to a wider pool of applicants, it has also ushered in an era of lower cost ways to respond to applicants.
[ go]
Social networking: how to mine the richest passive candidate pools in North America
You’ve heard the names: MySpace. Facebook. LinkedIn. In fact, if you’re one of the 13 million Canadians between the ages of fifteen and forty-four, there’s a sixty percent chance you already have a personal profile on at least one of those leading social networking sites.
[ go]
Foreign credentials - tips for assessing international training
With today’s international mobility, companies can expect to hire people who’ve lived, worked or studied in other countries. Hiring global candidates with foreign credentials has become a great way to attract star employees and cope with a skills shortage.
[ go]
Overqualified job applicants bring added value
Employers have traditionally avoided interviewing overqualified job applicants, either because they feel they can’t meet their salary expectations or they’re afraid these individuals will leave as soon as a better opportunity comes along.
[ go]
Using your BC Jobs account to manage candidates
Did you know that BC Jobs makes it easy to manage job candidates? With the saved resume explorer and saved search and resume alert system, you can create a job applicant filing and tracking system.
[ go]
Why you need job descriptions
Writing job descriptions is an important step in planning your staffing programs. They form the foundation for many important processes such as job postings, recruitment, selection, setting expectations, compensation, training and performance management.
[ go]
Online recruiting: is it right for you?
Over the past few years, the number of companies using the Internet to advertise employment opportunities has exploded. More firms than ever before list available positions on their corporate web sites and hiring managers often post the same information on Internet job boards. While recruiting on the web can greatly expand your reach, it’s just one of many tools at your disposal.
[ go]
Job specification – your key to improving recruitment
It seems easy to simply tell a recruitment consultant over the phone the sort of person you're looking for and what they'll be doing. However, there are benefits from developing a good understanding
[ go]
Analyzing Resumes
You've advertised that you are recruiting for a particular position, and now have a significant number of resumes to sort through. The key now is to extract the v ital details from these resumes so that you may compile a list of the best available candidates.
[ go]
Recruitment budget planning – upfront spending pays
Recruitment budget planning can help you mitigate employment costs down the road. By spending more on the recruitment process, you can help reduce future retention and turnover.
[ go]
Recruiting in a downturn: hiring during uncertain economic times
Recruiting in a downturn offers a mix of opportunities. Favour tends to shift to those doing the hiring, since there are more people looking for work in a downturn. But recruiting the best and brightest can still be tricky, since star employees often hang on to their jobs. Put a plan in motion and you’ll be in a better position to recruit and retain employees.
[ go]
Career Event Best Practices
Career Fairs are a common practice in building candidate pipelines, and a great opportunity for face-to-face contact with interested, active job seekers. Many hiring organizations attend career fairs regularly; however, career fairs have recently ranked at the bottom of the source value index, according to the Direct Employers Survey by Booz Allen Hamilton.
[ go]
Social Networking and Your Staff
Have you ever wondered why a seemingly perfect employee just didn’t work out in your corporate culture? There are so many dos and don’ts when it comes to hiring, but many of these rules fail to mention obvious things that could cost you a poor hire. One of those things is the advent of technology—specifically when it comes to Generation Y—and the effects of social networking sites on your company.
[ go]
AVOIDING THE PITFALLS OF ENTICEMENT
In employment law circles, the terms “enticement” or “inducement” refer to the more aggressive methods by which an employer will woo an individual to accept an employment offer. In a competitive job market, employers will often go to great lengths to convince a person to leave his/her existing employment and join the team.
[ go]
It's a Recession: Should You Stop Hiring?
Throughout the recent global economic boom that started with the rise of the technology sector in the late 1990’s, organizations across every industry spent a great deal of time, energy, and money vying for top talent. Employers had to dangle all the carrots they could find including higher-than-usual starting salaries, accelerated raises and promotions, and stock in the organization.
[ go]
Recruitment Advertising Media Options
Employers in major metropolitan areas of British Columbia have a number of methods to advertise their available job openings. From out-of-home to sponsored job fairs to social media, organizations in large BC cities can often reach talented candidates due to their location. But what about smaller BC communities?
[ go]
Preparing for the Upturn in the Market
Lately there has been a lot of news in the media that Western Canada is seeing the first signs of economic recovery. Housing sales and starts are up, unemployment numbers in June were significantly lower than predicted and companies are starting to hire again.
[ go]
Career Fair Preparation
Career-fair planning should begin a few months before the exhibition dates and summer is a great time for you to get organized—recruiters should ensure all display equipment is in working order, marketing materials are ordered, and a publicity strategy is in place.
[ go]
Generation F in the Workplace
It is undeniable that the culture of BC is shifting quickly along with the pace of technology. A few years ago very few people knew of Facebook and now it is hard to find someone who is not on it. Generation F- the Facebook generation, refers to those of us who have grown up “online”. This is a generation who is highly capable of retrieving information on the net.
[ go]
Break Bad Hiring Habits
Finding the right employee for your team can be like searching for a hard-to-find puzzle piece. With thousands to choose from, the task can be overwhelming. Choose wrong, and your new team member won’t be the right fit for your job opening, your team, or your company. A problem far more frustrating than a missing puzzle piece, hiring an employee who doesn’t complement your team can result in lost time and productivity, turnover, and endless hours of headaches for you and your staff.
[ go]
Top 5 Employee Hiring Mistakes
Whether you've just started a small business or are the head honcho in a entrepreneurial corporation, any of the following top ten employee hiring mistakes could prove disastrous for your business.
[ go]
Top 10 Social Media Myths and Your Online Reputation (Part 1)
1. All the information candidates need to know is found on our careers page.
Your website is top-notch; you’ve added videos, pages of content and employee testimonials. Not enough. Job seekers want more.
[ go]
Top 10 Social Media Myths and Your Online Reputation (Part 2)
6. Social media is only used by kids looking to socialize with their friends.
More than half of Facebook users are outside of college.
The fastest growing demographic is that of those 30 years old and older.
The average age of a LinkedIn user is 45, and the average age of a Twitter user is 31.
[ go]
CO-EMPLOYMENT AND MANAGED SERVICE PROVIDERS
The Canadian labour market consists of nearly 1 million finance professionals; 1.1 million workers in the Educational Services sector; and just over 950,000 professionals in Public Administration. All of these are examples of sizable, high-impact industries within our economy.
[ go]
