Recruitment Strategies
07 Feb, 2012
If you’ve had trouble hiring the right person for the job, you’re not alone. The best recruiting firms in the world know the cycle. They call it “hiring on skill, firing on fit”.
Why do we so often hire the wrong person for the job?
Obviously any candidate is going to need the necessary skills to do the job, so it’s easy to understand why many hiring managers prioritize skills to the exclusion of the candidate’s other qualities. Another reason is that skills are measurable and more objective, and therefore easier to base an important hiring decision on. Some candidate’s skills include selling themselves very effectively -- and they end up an imperfect fit. One final reason hiring managers hire on skill even when they know the fit is less than ideal is that their staffing needs are urgent or their applicant response has been less than stellar. But if you’ve experienced hiring someone who looked great on paper and fit poorly in your organization, you know this practice is costing you money and resources. Here are some ways to break free from the cycle.
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25 Jan, 2012
Last year, we saw a powerful shift in the communications industry, particularly in human resources and recruitment. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn continued to grow and benefit the HR communications industry by reaching passive and active candidates. Job seekers, already active on these sites, were drawn to branded employer pages that advertised open positions and content broadcasted through blogs, microblogs and status updates.
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18 Jan, 2012
We need to hire employees, but we’re so busy working in the business to replace the employee(s) who just left that we don’t have time to recruit. Sound familiar?
For many businesses having to recruit means that they are or soon will be short-staffed. In this situation, many small business owners find themselves struggling as they are suddenly drawn back or further into the daily operations of the business while simultaneously trying to run the business and of course, recruit quality candidates for the job.
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If you are a recruiting leader or recruiter who is constantly on the lookout for new recruiting trends, practices, and tools, you have surely already heard of QR codes.
QR codes are a second-generation barcode that allows potential candidates to quickly and directly access supporting materials and websites using only a camera equipped smartphone. QR codes have many uses, but are most often used to direct target audiences to online content that cannot be easily conveyed in print.
You can of course provide a printed URL, but if you have ever tried to enter a long URL into a mobile browser, chances are you wouldn’t do it again.
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14 Dec, 2011
Companies are increasingly using social media in recruiting, a trend known as social recruiting. The 3 main platforms to leverage for sourcing candidates are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Finding candidates won’t happen overnight, though. You must set up your profiles and work to build a community before you broadcast job openings. Start early, build your network and then leverage that network.
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I know that there are some folks who don’t believe a job description is necessary anymore and of course, that is the decision of the organization to make.
I do believe in job descriptions – and let me tell you why.
A job description helps a business in understanding what the needs are of a particular position. What are the functional responsibilities and skills required in the position? How will you know what a reasonable amount of pay should be if you don’t have some sort of understanding of the duties? How would you classify the role? Who would the person report to and who would be responsible to manage the incumbent? For that matter, how will you hire someone into a position that has no description? How would you construct a set of interview questions that would be relevant to the role?
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21 Sep, 2011
To attract your future skilled and productive employees, make your first impression count. No matter who you hire, you’ll be investing resources, training, time, and money, so sourcing skilled candidates is the first step to getting a solid employee ROI.
Solid candidates looking for a progressive organization, and meaningful work experiences, will overlook opportunities if you’ve failed to provide them with important information-qualitative information about who you are as an organization, your culture, values, offerings, and how you treat employees. People are looking for more than ‘just a job’.
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14 Sep, 2011
More and more small businesses are popping up due to the economic downturn. People are realizing that they need to become more reliant on themselves to be gainfully employed. As these startup businesses increase, there will be some challenges that must be considered.
One of many challenges will possibly be in hiring a strong and stable group of employees. The reality is that you will probably not be able to compete with larger employers that offer higher salaries; benefit packages; stock options; flexible work-weeks, etc. For a while, folks are going to try to hold out for these positions and may very well turn you down.
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18 Aug, 2011
Finding the right person for your job isn’t easy. If it were we’d all be happy and businesses would be humming along contentedly without any conflict whatsoever because we’d all be living in the fantasy world as illustrated in the satirical movie, “The Stepford Wives”.
So, we need to be honest here and figure out what you can realistically do to ensure you find the right person.
What I am going to suggest may sound to some of you like it’s too much work – but my years of experience have taught me that doing the work up front will save you ten-fold as you begin to move forward and people are indeed doing what it is you hired them to do.
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27 Jul, 2011
A couple of years ago, UBC conducted a study where 6,000 mock resumes were sent to employers in 20 job categories throughout the Greater Toronto Area. While resumes were tailored to the job and showed similar educational background and experience, those with English-sounding last names were 40% more likely to receive interview requests than those with non-English names.
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27 Jul, 2011
Recruiting new employees is never an easy task. From initial screening, through interviews and contract negotiation, the process can be time consuming and taxing and it’s only upon hire that the real fun begins! Building a successful team is an ongoing task, and it is important for all members to contribute to the department’s ongoing success. Building in a probationary period for new employees will help you manage the onboarding process and should benefit both the new employee and the company. So how does one ensure a successful probationary period? The following seven steps will help you get started.
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20 Jul, 2011
Barely 2 weeks old and the buzz of Google+ has already taken over technology blogs, business sites, and my personal Facebook feed (invites anyone?). According to a recent article in PC World, estimates for the social network’s user base run as high as 5 million (not quite the 200 million of Twitter or 750 million of Facebook, but it’s only been 14 days). I recently received my own invitation and can’t stop reading anything and everything about the new social site. Like its social networking cousins, Google+ has the potential to further revolutionize business – from new marketing and advertising techniques to personalized and quick customer service responses. But what effect will Google+ have on the recruiting world?
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My kids have always summed up my career in this fashion: “People pay mommy lots of money to find other people”. They have never questioned the logic of this. Mommy plays a mean hide n seek. Now that my baby has graduated from Kindergarten, I have come to realize that really, some of the most important elements of recruiting he has now mastered. Since school let out I’ve been watching him interact with his friends – and here’s what I’ve found...
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06 Jul, 2011
Many managers view hiring as one of the easier decisions they have to make. Problem is, it’s also one of the hardest decisions to unmake!
Here’s a common scenario for busy managers. A vacancy is posted on the web. Some promising, skilled candidates apply–you interview, conduct a reference or two, make an offer and you’re done.
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It’s a fundamental law in recruiting that you “are limited to hiring individuals who have applied for a position” (even direct sourced candidates will at some time will be requested to acknowledge application). Assuming you want an applicant pool that is bulging with superior talent, a logical question would be, ‘What factors restrict qualified individuals from applying?’. Prior to the most recent global economic meltdown, most recruiting professionals guessed that the top factors were pay, benefits, and employer reputation, which are important, but one factor has always trumped them: geography.
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09 Jun, 2011
It’s 2011 and what has seemed like a never-ending recession is finally, well, receding. Companies have been managing with overworked, overextended teams and while business is growing, the law of diminishing returns is rearing its ugly head. With layoffs not a too distant memory, many businesses are apprehensive about adding head count, but what happens when you are stretched to capacity?
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27 Apr, 2011
How to attract the players when the game itself has changed?
AART – Accessibility, Authenticity, Relevancy and Trust. These are the traits that your company must exhibit to attract and recruit Generation Y (born between ~1979-1999), according to Lauren Friese from www.talentegg.ca in a recent webinar. A member of the ‘where you want it, when you want it’ generation herself, Lauren has some excellent assertions which I think really embody this demographic.
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20 Apr, 2011
Of course you know about the rapid growth of the series of Facebook-based games Farmville, CityVille, and the like. Some estimates indicate as many as 250 million people play one of the ‘Ville’-style social games.
With so many people, across all demographic groups, engaging in these massively popular games online, it only makes sense for organizations that are facing recruiting challenges to look for opportunities to use these gaming concepts in their recruiting and candidate engagement efforts.
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The hi-tech industry in BC has developed a solid reputation locally and internationally. Many different types of information technology businesses fall under its umbrella and it has evolved in the last few decades. In addition to providing employment to large numbers of Canadians, it also brings a vast amount of other economic benefits to the province. Due to its much needed flexibility for temporary immigration, a further extension to the Facilitated IT workers program to September 30, 2011 is welcome news to many BC employers. Our businesses will continue to have an additional way to hire temporary foreign workers a little longer.
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16 Feb, 2011
The Canadian government has decided that it is time for temporary foreign workers to make their decisions about remaining in Canada more quickly. With the implementation of the new regulations effective on April 1, 2011, foreign workers will only be allowed a maximum four year work permit period at a time. At the end of each period, these individuals are required to return back to their home country for another four years before being eligible to apply for another Canadian work permit. There will be no reprieve for individuals on a work permit awaiting their permanent resident status approval. Even if they are pending the issuance of their landing status, foreign nationals will be required to return home to await final PR approval.
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I watched another webinar today that addressed social media and how it can be leveraged for HR and recruitment professionals. It was great to see company branding and marketing as part of the recruitment process as it is increasingly becoming an essential part of a company’s talent acquisition strategy.
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02 Feb, 2011
Fully understanding the job that needs to be filled is essential in order to be able to recruit the best suited candidate. Writing a clear and concise job description will enable you to identify the role and key responsibilities of the position as well as the qualifications required in order to be successful in the position.
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12 Jan, 2011
I was listening to a discussion the other day about reference checks and heard someone ask the question, “What can an employer say”?
I have been in human resources for many years and held management and supervisory positions prior to that – so I’ve been asked to supply references for years. There is no doubt that reference checks are not given as freely as they once were because of lawsuits that have challenged previous employers because of things said or not said about an employee. The thing is: reference checks help employers make good hires.
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09 Dec, 2010
At last month’s ERE Expo in Florida, Mark Mehler and Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads assembled a panel of four of today’s sharpest young job seekers.
Among the findings:
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08 Nov, 2010
I am immersed in Social Media Examiner’s month long Facebook Success Summit 2010. Through a series of webinars appearing between 1-3 times a week throughout October, the Web’s best authorities on Facebook share their expertise on ‘how to build a fan base’, ‘how to market your products effectively’, etc. etc. etc. There is lots of what to include in an effective Facebook Fan (or Brand) Page and many, many examples of companies who are doing it right on Facebook. And, there is a great deal of compelling evidence, facts, and figures on why Facebook, with its unique functionality and over 500 MILLION users is the BIG KAHUNA that isn’t going to go away.
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27 Oct, 2010
Think back three short years when skilled candidates were scarce. Some businesses closing their doors for lack of employees; wages at Tim Horton's in Alberta rose close to $20/hour, university students were working all summer, and even if you were fortunate enough to hire skilled employees, retaining them was another matter!
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07 Oct, 2010
Jessica Lee, corporate recruiter, discusses the ins and outs of social recruiting -- using social networking sites to identify and recruit potential hires. She examines how to create a strategy, establish goals and define measurement tools and success, while ultimately looking to increase job applications and improve brand awareness.
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23 Sep, 2010
Last week, SourceCon ran the first part of an article series on Twitter’s Hiring Strategies, outlining some of the significant new hires Twitter has made this year. I also showed you the video that Twitter put out to help its recruiting efforts. I was able to grab about 30 minutes with Twitter’s director of recruiting, Oliver Ryan, and talk to him about some of the recruiting and hiring practices that Twitter has in place for its internal efforts. While Twitter has talked with several tech media publishers about their recruiting video, this is the first time it has talked about their recruiting practices directly with the HR, recruiting, and sourcing community.
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16 Jan, 2009
Negativity at work is like the wind—too much causes destruction; too little and no transformation can occur.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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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.
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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.
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It's often said that kids today aren't what they used to be. But is this next generation of young workers really so different than previous generations?
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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Hiring people with disabilities can help you overcome the challenge of finding skilled workers. By hiring people with disabilities, you can tap a unique group of non-traditional employees who are often unrecognized.
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20 Nov, 2008
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.
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Recruitment strategies become vital in a tight job market. Many companies succeed by hiring non-traditional candidates.
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20 Nov, 2008
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.
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20 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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,
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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….
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24 Nov, 2008
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?
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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26 Mar, 2008
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:
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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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.
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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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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24 Nov, 2008
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.
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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
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12 Nov, 2008
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.
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20 Nov, 2008
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.
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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.
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15 Jan, 2009
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.
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17 Mar, 2009
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.
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23 Apr, 2009
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.
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29 Jun, 2009
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.
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12 Nov, 2009
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?
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20 Jul, 2009
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.
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28 Aug, 2009
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.
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27 Oct, 2010
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.
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22 Mar, 2010
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.
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26 Apr, 2010
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.
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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.
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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.
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28 Jul, 2010
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.
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24 Aug, 2010
On the average day, I read somewhere between 10 and 50 job postings. Yes, the life of a professional recruiter is not a glamorous one – shocking but true. Also shocking and true is the fact that 90% of those job ads have something in common that limits their effectiveness in a huge way.
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20 Mar, 2012
Would you hire someone from Gen Y (someone born after 1980) if you had the option to hire someone older? Is your preference about experience or preconceptions? Here are some generalizations about the generations that came before:
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