I’m Recruiting Crazy Russian Climbers
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 30, 2007
- Category: Recruiting, Business Matters
- Tags: Center of Excellence, People and Players, Performance Staffing, RCI, Recruiting 2.0, STREAMline Training
- Comments: 2
Guess what, we’re recruiting!
Parkour represents more than physical agility. It is a metaphor for problem solving, determination and recruiting excellence!
If you can get through the first couple of minutes of this video you’ll see some feats of amazing ingenuity too.
These runners represent the indomitable human spirit that can rise from the ruins of urban blight to conquer the limitations of an unforgiving landscape and “self.”
They also represent the exceptional recruiters who intuitively overcome every obstacle, recruiters who realize that the insurmountable difficulties and problems that invariably arise with a linear process or in a psychic prison can be overcome with a disciplined approach to developing new approaches and an awareness of new dimensions.
I really want to connect with a few exceptional recruiters who not only understand about the “art of displacement” but have this passion for the job built into their sinews.
Do you know any “runners” who fit the bill? Are you a runner?
Send me an email if like.
Oh, yeah, I’m looking for salespeople too.
Help Wanted, Dead or Alive
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 28, 2007
- Category: That's Life
- Tags: Applicant Tracking, Talent Management
- Comments: 0
As I was going through the military blogs this morning to research a somber post for this Memorial Day I came across an incredible report on MSNBC, Army urged dead soldiers to return to duty.
Reading about the Army’s sorry leadership and staffing blunder lead me to a reflection very different from the one I imagined I would be sharing now.
Thinking about the upset that the families of the 275 officers who were killed or wounded in action, and who subsequently got letters calling them back to active duty must have felt — the insult on injury — has left me subdued for sure.
But seeing the MSNBC report also reminded me about something I had read on Dave Lefkow’s blog last week, I see dead people… on ZoomInfo. Reading that post again, and realizing the mortality of your talent pools should not preclude good talent management from leveraging opportunities regardless, gave the Army’s shocking mismanagement in this instance some context.
I guess Memorial Day is a day for remembrances and reflections of all sorts, no?
Are Recruiters Going the Way of the Dinosaurs?
- Author: Shally Steckerl
- Posted: May 25, 2007
- Category: Recruiting
- Tags: No Tags
- Comments: 5
My buddy Carl Chapman not only has exceptional taste in picking restaurants — maybe stemming from the fact that he’s a big shot in the restaurant recruiting biz — but he is one heck of a smart guy too.
I had read the Tech Crunch article Online Job Hunt 10 Years Later - Still Sucks and resulting debate but hadn’t sounded off on it until Carl’s comments about Jason Golberg’s impassioned contribution to the debate. Jason says a new marketplace is evolving where technology will “eliminate the need for the specialist (recruiter).”
So is it time for you gentle readers to brush up your writing sills and start crafting yourselves some new resumes?
No. Well… and yes.
I agree with Jason about the development of technology in our Industry, but I see that as a very positive effect. Our roles are going to change dramatically as technology gets smarter at automating boring and repetitive tasks - thankfully! In other words, I believe our jobs will change for the better but I don’t believe our jobs will simply be eliminated.
But what does Carl have to do with all this? Well Carl is first and foremost a strong businessman who clearly understands the inherent value of any middleman. Carl infers that recruiting, like any other trade, is not just about introducing a buyer to a seller.
If hiring managers one day had access to tools like Jason Goldberg envisions will be built then its possible that hiring managers may be able to meet a certain percentage of their hiring objectives via self service “candidate vending machines.” But ultimately tools can not replace all hiring.
Recruiters are specializing, just like most other corporate functions have. For example, there was a time when there was simply a Corporate Counsel, yet now Greg Roth will tell you the legal department has specialists in IP, litigation, labor law, taxation, regulation, negotiation, securities, international and finance among others.
Or you can ask Microsoft’s Heather Hamilton, the marketing department has specialized into online, print, PR, advertising, promotions, competitive intelligence, pricing, channel management, market research, market analysis, and so on.
Even our parent organization, in most cases Human Resources, has specialized away from a “generalist” role into disciplines like payroll, benefits, compensation, employee relations, organizational development, and so on. So why is recruiting just “Recruiting?”
Tick…tick…boom(ers)
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 25, 2007
- Category: Recruitment Communications, Employment Branding
- Tags: Recruitment Communications, USNews & World Report
- Comments: 0
In this article Planning for Tomorrow Today the issue of aging boomers in the workforce – specifically the healthcare industry – is detailed. One quote stands out:
“A recent report by the U.S. Government Accounting Office shows that most employers have taken little action to prepare for the demographic transition that will come when their baby boom employees retire.”
As detailed in previous posts here and here, the hiring of qualified healthcare professionals can be a daunting task – even for the most seasoned HR professionals. Add to that the fact that many of the nations’ soon-to-retire boomers are in the healthcare field, and the task becomes even more difficult.
As stated in the article, U.S.News & World Report’s America’s Best Hospitals ranked NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital should be considered as a model of an organization that has the tools in place to survive in an ever-tightening job market. What is your organization doing to ensure a fully-staffed future? Here’s an idea…
It’s important to look beyond immediate staffing needs and focus on long-term recruitment and retention strategies; and by utilizing effective employer branding, you will create a strategy that works both now and in the future.
Are You Getting Paid What you’re Worth for Recruiting Pharmacists and PTs?
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 25, 2007
- Category: News and Events
- Tags: No Tags
- Comments: 1
Here is the simple truth:
If you are recruiting nurses, pharmacists or physical therapists you know that you have any number of legitimate reasons to weep. But really, who cares? We are measured by results not excuses.
Getting qualified candidates who you can engage in the recruiting process is expensive. Look at your own cost-per-hire. Sometimes it seems to take forever. Look at your time-to-fill metrics. Regardless, however good you are it is virtually impossible to maintain staffing levels. It’s the truth and you know it.
Recruiting success varies form market to market and from provider to provider. But it doesn’t matter what level of competency you have reached staying competitive as a recruiter in healthcare is a struggle for most. True or not?
The only sure-fired way to guarantee you’ll get a hire is by using a retained search firm and paying the full contract-fee. Everything else is a gamble.
The reason why retained search is so rarely used for nursing and allied health is because the expense can be outrageous. At 25 – 35 percent of the first years salary — rarely with any guarantees beyond the first 120-days of employment — what would it cost to hire five nurses? Two PTs, a pharmacist? What would it cost to replace them?
Another reason healthcare employers reject retained search is they cannot give up control of their recruiting function to a “mercenary operation” of hired-guns. And what then to do with our own recruiting staff? Fire them?
For freelance healthcare recruiters who do have the corner on retained search — or equivalent — they are modern day bounty-hunters. They are earning small fortunes. As an employer and given the choice which suits you better: paying for a hired-gun or running your own team of top-gun recruiters? Paying for retained search or doing it yourself?
It’s the FAST that Eat the Slow!
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 17, 2007
- Category: News and Events, Tools and Resources
- Tags: Center of Excellence, Leadership Training, Seminars, Training
- Comments: 2
It was just a short while ago that I was introduced to Laurence Haughton. In the few weeks that we have been talking I have come to recognize in him some of the qualities and traits that I covet for myself. Laurence is smart. He communicates complex things in simple terms. Laurence is generous. Already he has given me so much of what I have asked for — what he knows — and he has not asked for anything in return. I don’t suppose he will.
I think Laurence Haughton is a class act. But that’s just what I think. You have to make up your own minds, right?
On May 29th at 9:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time Laurence will be teaching three strategies to think faster, execute faster, and make speed a competitive advantage. The session is based his first bestseller It’s Not the Big that Eat the Small…It’s the FAST that Eat the Slow. The title of the workshop is (of course) It’s the FAST that Eat the Slow.
In this hour-long LiveMeeting Laurence plans to share with us:
- How to spot trends before the competition
- How to get people who will follow through fast
- How leaders can make fast decisions that they’ll never regret
This workshop is the result of over 5,000 one-on-one interviews with entrepreneurs and executives in the fast (and not so fast) lane. Best of all you should plan on being there to hear Laurence the storyteller telling his stories, giving a new twist to “anecdotal evidence.”
The event is being sponsored by Microsoft Office Live and MasterCard. I don’t know if there are any limits on the number of people who can log in but I just signed up here: It’s the FAST that Eat the Slow. I suggest you do the same too and do it now. After all, It’s the FAST that Eat the Slow you know.
Baby Boomers and the 21st-Century Talent Shortage
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 17, 2007
- Category: That's Life, Miscellaneous, Employee Retention
- Tags: Employee Retention, Recruiting, Workforce Planning
- Comments: 3
In an article that appeared recently in Talent Management magazine Stephanie Klein asks what these people have in common:
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bill Clinton, Katie Couric, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, Madonna, Brad Pitt, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Steven Spielberg, Jon Stewart, Donald Trump, Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey.
The answer? Well, this “diverse group of entrepreneurs, politicians and entertainers” are all high performers and for another, they’re all baby boomers. As the basis for a piece that suggests employers couldn’t do better than to recruit and retain knowledgeable, experienced, motivated boomers.
I cannot fault the logic of her argument. Can you? After all, a lot of people aged between 42 and 60 have a work ethic American business is banking on. Boomers too.
Recruiting for Healthcare: An Unconventional Approach
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 15, 2007
- Category: Recruiting, Sourcing Strategies
- Tags: Media, Print Media, USA TODAY
- Comments: 3
Following up on my post from last week about the mind-numbing nature of recruiting in healthcare — in the month of May mostly but any time really — something practical to think about and do.
For anyone who has been recruiting nurses and what-have-you for longer than a month or two knows the systemic shortage of qualified personnel — not to be confused with the shortage of available candidates, availability having more to do with economics than it has to do with sourcing — knows they have a problem, quite a few problems actually.
One such problem is how in the face of upside-down supply and demand and pinched budgets do we balance the long term strategies of diversity recruiting, employment branding and retention for example with the immediate need to alleviate the pressures created by staffing shortfalls and the attendant heavy workloads, low morale and work-related stress.
It seems this problem is made worse by the failure of traditional recruitment advertising like newsprint and professional journals — themselves heavily subsidized by recruitment ads — to deliver tangible results. The reasons for this are many. They include an outmoded pricing model for recruitment advertising that correlates circulation numbers with price. Despite declining readership and response rates the price does not adjust accordingly. This means the cost in real terms continues to increase.
Another factor is an increasingly disinterested audience who has developed such a heightened sense of situational awareness that it is almost impossible to stimulate them with media they now have little use for. Sign-on bonuses, student loan forgiveness, relocation assistance and other incentives have become so commonplace that such goodies often fail to motivate the few remaining readers who — at best — browse the help-wanted classifieds.
On-site events like job fairs and open houses — often driven by the recruitment advertising that now goes unnoticed or unattended to — are also becoming increasingly difficult to successfully pull off. There are some that can still do it but too few I think.
For many direct recruiting may have compounded the problem. The most accessible candidates are being overworked. State lists and the usual job boards are being bludgeoned to death by well meaning recruiters blissfully unaware of how they are contributing to a process of candidate alienation.
With too little time and money being invested in recruiter training the pile-and-file and smile-and-dial techniques that barely worked a few years ago have all but stopped being effective except for a few lucky ones. A reluctance to try new things means that many recruiters go hungry even though there are good candidates who could be engaged if only…well, you might know how that goes!
Of course, there are no easy solutions. No silver bullets. No panaceas. But there are opportunities if you choose to view them as such.
USA TODAY Remains Top-Selling Newspaper in the United States
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 14, 2007
- Category: Recruitment Communications, Business Matters
- Tags: Media, Print Media, USA TODAY
- Comments: 1
There have been a number of reports recently that have piqued my interest. As it relates to recruitment advertising and old-media in particular:
It goes without saying that Rupert Murdoch’s recent overtures to buy the Dow Jones & Company for around $5 billion will come as no surprise to those who have watched the Digger’s decades-long strategic expansionism, picking up some interesting morsels along the way.
In this case one suspects that the object of Rupert Murdoch’s desires is the Wall Street Journal. This would be consistent with his strong sense for chum in the water — see the Wall Street Journal’s circulation numbers below — and his taste for gaffing the occasional trophy.
Also of note, Microsoft has bought a 4 percent slither of CareerBuilder for an undisclosed price which includes, no doubt, unlimited job postings. This leaves Gannett who publish USA TODAY — one of RCI’s recruitment media partners — with a little over 40 percent of the CareerBuilder pie the rest owned by Tribune and McClatchy. Under the radar, the more newsworthy item I think is that Microsoft’s MSN and CareerBuilder said they have also extended their partnership for job board distribution. This makes CareerBuilder the exclusive job board supplier for MSN Careers in the U.S. with CareerBuilder paying MSN up to $443 million over the next seven years, based on the traffic MSN delivers.
Broken Promises
- Author: Amitai Givertz
- Posted: May 11, 2007
- Category: That's Life, Blogging
- Tags: No Tags
- Comments: 3
Well, it is rather late and I really should be tucking the children into bed and making cocoa for my long-suffering missus. But I have the notion that I can dash off a quick post, by way of an update on my Recruiting.com-in-transition thingie. I did promise I would be home before whatever-o’clock and I still have a minute or two, don’t I?
9:48pm: Recruiting.com
Parts three, four, five, six, seven and eight and nine and ten of my hypothesis on the future of Recruiting.com will not be published after all. Although it has subsided now, I’m afraid two or three weeks ago when I started the communal histrionics surrounding the outgoing Jason Davis and incoming John Sumser combined with my running out of emotional pocket-change left me uninspired, counting pennies.
I will say, having spoken at length to the now-gone and now-here bloggers-laureate I am convinced that my theories about Jason Goldberg’s strategic positioning of Recruiting.com as some kind of money-making proposition to rival David Manaster’s ERE (formerly Electronic Recruiters’ Exchange) may have exaggerated:
a) Jason Goldberg’s commercial interest in the so-called “Recruiting Community Portal” and in providing value-added content (read: profitable) to the market;
b) His tolerance for an unwise crowd of yahoos – or a vocal minority depending on the generosity of your point of view — enfranchising one minute and disenfranchised the next; and
c) Any interest in making good on his “endowment” to what must seem to him now to be a bunch of ungrateful link-gluttons, myself included.
I also think in comparing the two I might have unwittingly understated David Manaster’s ability to quietly get on with his affairs without drawing the ire of a whole genre. Certainly there is more to contrast Jason Goldberg and David Manaster. I wonder how the two men really view each other as movers-and-shakers, authentic and transparent. Much in the same way as a mirror reflects the reverse image to the observer I suspect a close scrutiny in the looking glass would leave David Manaster the only one of the pair able to distinguish the realities of online publishing and community from delusions of grandeur.
So there you have it, broken promise, number one. Or, is it two?
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