Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

One in Two Employers Impacted by a Talent Shortage

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8 Reasons Why Recruitment of Employees Needs to Change

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Monster News for Recruiting: New Facebook App Rivals LinkedIN

Monster.com, the online career board, announced yesterday (June 26th) that they are set to launch a professional social networking rival to LinkedIn on Monday, June 27th, 2011. The new professional networking site is called BeKnown and will operate on Facebook’s platform. Click on the link to find out how the new service works.

What does launching of BeKnown mean to recruiters?

1. Larger and younger market. As most people in the talent acquisition industry know, LinkedIn has become a major force in the corporate recruiting market. The company’s stellar IPO and rapid growth as “the professional social network” has created a transformational platform for corporate recruiters and job seekers.  Corporate recruiting is LinkedIn’s fastest growing revenue stream, and the company is now aggressively building new tools and services.  Today the LinkedIn network has around 100 million users and is growing at a rate of nearly 3 million per month.

Facebook reportedly has over 700 million users and many of the users are not on LinkedIn yet. Facebook users keep in touch with friends, play games, share photos and family news, publish personal information, and often promote information about their children, pets, and local activities.  They even publish their location. And as the data below shows, they tend to be younger, of a lower household income, and of a slightly lower education level. And because of the way Facebook works, the information they share is not “sanitized” or “edited” for business purposes.

The following chart reveals the demographic differences between these networks. 
 
Fig 1:  Facebook vs. LinkedIn vs. Monster Networks (Comscore March, 2011)

So despite the LinkedIn’s rapid growth, there is a huge pool of young professionals on Facebook, who do not take an advantage of professional social networking. BeKnown has the potential to bring a professional social networking to this large Facebook audience without mixing the professional and social identities. Also, as we can see from the chart, Monster’s client base is very similar to the Facebook’s, which makes the Facebook platform an ideal place for launching BeKnown.

2. The Use of Social Networks for Corporate Recruiting. It turns out, as the LinkedIn financials show, that social networks are powerful recruiting and job seeking tools. The $120 billion corporate recruiting industry is being transformed (and upset) by LinkedIn because the system is such a powerful tool for recruiters to find passive candidates.  People in the LinkedIn network maintain their profile actively, giving recruiters a real-time, highly accurate database from which to search and contact candidates. Recruiting companies are losing the value of their networks. Large job boards like Monster.com, CareerBuilder, The Ladders, and others are seeing job seekers (and recruiters) move their dollars and energy toward LinkedIn. The launch of BeKnown is a major move to change these dynamics and give Monster a significant opportunity to play in the Facebook network of job seekers and recruitment needs.

3. BeKnown – professional social network on Facebook. BeKnown will appear as an application on Facebook, but after you join and create an account you begin managing your professional network outside of Facebook. Your professional network isn’t limited to your  Facebook friends. In fact, your Facebook friends are not being revealed on BeKnown.

Some other key features include:

• The ability to invite connections from both Facebook and your LinkedIn network, Gmail, Yahoo, and other email systems;
• The ability to share different information and photos professionally than you do in Facebook today (a major important feature);
• The ability to claim and manage company profiles;
• The ability to post and share jobs;
• The ability to earn “badges,” which are professional achievements (a form of game rewards) for having the most number of connections, a large number of connections at the executive level, helping and endorsing others, etc.;
• The ability to give references and focus these recommendations based on a friend’s competencies or capabilities;
• The ability to follow companies and view jobs from those companies, which are matched against your BeKnown profile (and your Monster.com profile);
• Support for 19 languages.

4. Jobs. Since Monster is a talent acquisition company, the system has some unique features to help businesses recruit people.  It will proactively display your jobs which can be recommended by the potential employee’s friends (creating a “JobVite”-like referral network).  This is a significant opportunity for job seekers - making it very easy for them to see a customized feed of jobs that fits their interests every time they log on. Monster is giving the ability for the recruiters to post a fee for referrals and reward users who brought the person to the job. BeKnown is also free to recruiters. Monster jobs are incorporated there, so any user will see a good amount of jobs beginning on day one.

The BeKnown system has the ability to become a major force in the professional social networking. BeKnown extends Facebook with features to make recruiting far easier.  Recruiters can easily set up company pages, post jobs, create referral networks, and leverage existing Monster job listings among the BeKnown network.  The system’s features for badging, job sharing, job referrals, and company pages should quickly create a “market for jobs” which builds upon Facebook’s reach, but bypasses Facebook’s more generalized advertising system.

How To Recruit Millennials and Recent College Grads

Whether we like it or not, Baby Boomers are tapering off in the workforce. It’s leaving a skills and employee gap that needs to be filled. Millennials, also referred to as Generation Y, will help fill in the gap. They will also bring fresh ideas and an enthusiasm and motivation not seen in years. 

But recruiting and retaining these young workers won’t be a piece of cake. Many employers argue that young workers lack loyalty and have a poor work ethic.  That’s only one part of a bigger story.

But rather than debate the shortcomings of Generation Y or how business and economy have fallen short, let’s take a look at the solutions for the impending recruitment climate change employers face moving forward.

Millennials will take a job because they want to work there, not because they have to.  The decision to take a position or not involves many factors.  A good job is no longer defined by money alone.  A recent Corporate Executive Board study revealed that 80 percent of Millennials will stay with the organization if future career opportunities are available; 70 percent will stay for development opportunities.  Only 61 percent selected compensation as the most important factor.

In other words, what young people are looking for is making a difference in the world, or the company. “Millennials are far less likely than Boomers at the same age to agree with statements like “the most important things that happen in my life involve work,” and “life is worth living only when people get absorbed in work.” (Collegiate Employment Research Institute, 2007)

Success will come from differentiating your business from the rest of the competition. “Get them interested early on”, says Neil Howe bestselling author of Millennials in the Workplace.  Offering internship possibilities is a great way to catch their attention. That’s a good thing because according to NACE’s 2011 Internship & Co-op Survey, internships are an integral and ever-important part of the college recruiting scene. The survey finds that employers expect to increase internship hiring by about 7 percent this year and co-op positions by nearly 9 percent. Furthermore, they will draw approximately 40 percent of their new college hires for 2011 from their internship and co-op programs.

The Class of 2011 Study released by iloverewards.com states some of the best ideas as they come straight from the horse’s mouth: Millennials spoke out about will interest them in a particular company and how to keep them there:

• I’d like to hear more about corporate culture in job descriptions.
• I’d like to see companies recruit more via local job fairs at off-campus school locations, along with on-line virtual career fairs.
• If a company makes a recruit feel like they would be valued at the company, recruits would be more likely to work for them.
• If I were given the choice of picking my own employer, some of the things that I would consider would be how established the company has been over the course of its life, the moral values by which the company is guided and operates under and last but not least the work environment.

It is also well worth noting that 88% of new recruits will seek you out directly if your company branding strategy speaks to the values of Millennials. Seventy-two percent say they will use an on campus career service while more than one third will find their next employer through social media – (7% Facebook, 28% LinkedIn, and 2% Twitter.)  Only 28%, down 6% from the year prior, search for a job using newspaper ads.

The survey also revealed what terms young recruits use when searching for a job.  they use for seeking a job: 25% Position Title, 23% Entry level jobs, 19% Entry level careers, 15% Industry Title, and 18% Company Name.

It is also recognized that parents are well involved with their up and coming Millennials in searching for an employment opportunity.  The Collegiate Employment Research Institute reports that,
“Nearly a quarter of all employers have “sometimes” or “very often” seen parents involved in the recruitment and employment of recent college graduates. Forty percent of employers report that parents have called them requesting information about the company; 4 percent report parents actually attending the interview.

Although there is a fine line with this topic, Neil Howe recommends offering a constructive environment, rather than trying to block the parents.   “Keep the parents of young hires in the loop with parent newsletters or a parent section of your website. Allow them to engage personally with their children’s work environ¬ment through visiting days or special events.”

Read more: “6 Ways Parents Can Help Millennial Children Job Hunt.”

When all is said and done, Generation Y isn’t asking for things that are so different from any other generation: they want to be respected and recognized for their workplace contributions. They are however much more vocal about it.  And with social media forcing transparency and exposing deep dark secrets, companies need to take heed of the changing workforce climate. Understanding and being sensitive to the needs of Gen Y workers, as well as Gen X and Baby Boomers, will be the key factor in recruiting and retaining them. If you want employees to care about your company, show them that you care about them first.

Three Human Resource Trends That Will Change Small Business

I can’t decide if it’s complacency, lack of urgency, or arrogance. But there seems to be a business-as-usual attitude running rampant among small business owners when it comes to recruiting and retaining employees.  As I’ve been forecasting for over a decade, that attitude will eventually cause great harm to the competitiveness and bottom line of formerly great businesses.

A recent report by Deloitte, "Human Capital Trends 2011: Revolution/Evolution" identifies several critical 'game changing' trends that “will sweep through the field at an accelerated pace.”

Three of the trends highlighted in the report articulated with acute clarity the impact that demographics, technology, and globalization will have on even the smallest businesses regardless of the industry or region.

1. The corporate ladder is folding: Today's workplace isn't what it used to be. (How many times have you heard me say that?) Work will be more virtual, collaborative and project-based. The workforce isn't what it used to be either. Workers' needs, expectations and definitions of success now vary widely, rendering obsolete a one-size-fits-all approach to talent management. The Corporate Lattice is emerging.
2. Next generation leadership: Meeting emerging business challenges requires new skills and different qualities - and fresh models for finding, developing and engaging the next generation leaders. Given the demands of convergence, globalization, technology and the pace of change, organizations must rethink their approaches to developing next generation leaders.
3. Talent in the upturn: Companies are struggling to move beyond recession based talent approaches and turn their attention to retention and develop. High unemployment will likely continue to coexist with critical shortages in specific talent areas. The challenge will be even greater when rates of voluntary turnover return to normal post-recession levels.

While the report admittedly speaks to large, global organizations, small businesses can benefit a great deal about hiring and retaining employees by acknowledging and understanding these trends and observing how they approach solving them.

The report identified twelve trends: six revolution and six evolution categories. Five additional trends that I believe will have the greatest impact on small business are listed below. Or you can read the complete report on Human Capital Trends here.

Revolution

• Workforce analytics: It’s about time but HR is finally being held accountable for what it does. Moving forward, HR will be asked to justify, not rationalize, important decisions.  It will be required to produce more data, more information, and fresh thinking.
• HR in the cloud: Software-as-a-Service can and will improve service levels and new ways of controlling costs. For small companies, SasS services will include applicant processing systems, online performance reviews, and pre-employment tests.

Read about the other human capital revolution trends here.

Evolution

• Chief Operating Officers for HR: The creation of a chief operating officer (COO) role for HR is an emerging approach given the scale and complexity of HR operations and programs. The HR COO is the leader who focuses on how HR services are delivered, as well as the design, development and implementation of those HR services globally.
• Contingent workforce: Companies that understand the issues associated with contractors and manage them well, can benefit from improved operational performance, lower labor costs, smarter staffing decisions and stronger HR alignment with business objectives.
• Employer health care reform: With its far-reaching effects, health reform continues to compel employers to treat health benefits as a strategic and workforce planning issue.

Read about the more human capital evolution trends here.

Is Your Email Address Sabotaging Your Career?

When it comes to hiring, employers and candidates insist that first impressions still matter.  But apparently the brain hasn’t gotten the message when the lips are moving and fingers are typing.  Quite a few candidates are doing some pretty stupid things these days regarding finding a job.

Let’s start with what is the possibly the very first point of contact between a candidate and a company – the email address. The just released HR Magazine (May 2011) included an interesting article about how a cutesy, clever, or freaky email address might create a bad first impression with the employer.  For example, a few of my favorite inappropriate email addresses submitted by candidates applying for jobs at my clients included “[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ... and that’s just scratching the surface.  With high unemployment and employers practicing very selective hiring practices, turning an employer off with a provocative email address might not be the best way to get the hiring manager’s attention.

A recent study took this one step further.  Researchers rated the email addresses of30,000  job seekers applying for entry-level, non management jobs in the U.S. What they found was a potential link between crazy sounding email addresses and low scores on pre-employment tests.

For example:

• Cutesy and inspirational addresses and those with a money them scored slightly lower on pre employments assessment tests.
• Candidates whose addresses were rated inappropriate  scored lower.
• Candidates with appropriate email addresses scored higher in conscientiousness, professionalism, and work-rated experience.

I’m not suggesting – nor did the article – that employers should use email addresses as a screening tool.  But when combined with a pre-employment test assessing a candidate’s honesty, integrity, and work attitudes, the email might trigger greater scrutiny during the interview and subsequent background checks.

The study should prompt candidates to think twice about the email address they attach to the resume  they attach to the job application.

New Report: It Takes 826 Career Site Visitors to Obtain One Hire

Building a high performance workforce these days requires a fresh approach.  That is especially clear when you consider our daily news is filled with paradox: stories of layoffs, hiring freezes and reduced hours are just as common as the need to find and retain highly skilled talent.

The ability to stay competitive as the economy improves is forcing businesses to look at recruitment differently. But businesses need a workforce that is more qualified, more efficient and more skilled than ever before. Companies will not be able to fill new jobs they create or the jobs they have eliminated over the last few years using old strategies and technology.

10th Annual CareerXroads Source of Hire Report: By the Numbers Survey & Report released last week provides cues for employers ready to change.

One of the most powerful findings revealed that it takes 826 visitors to a company career site to obtain one hire. This excellent Jobs2web slide helps to illustrate that an effective recruitment strategy attracts candidates from a variety of sources including job boards, social media, and search engines. 
 
To compete for talent, employers must now add search engine optimizer to the list of responsibilities for recruiters and human resources professionals. Just last month 101,000,000 global searches on Google for ‘jobs’ last month (Source: Google Keyword Tool. From Davis Advertising, 2011 Second Annual Survey of Job Posting Sites, Chris Taylor). For employers, recruitment is no longer just a human resources function.  Getting candidates to find you requires a well-executed internet marketing strategy when writing ads, using social media, and designing a career site.

The report also reported that 57.1 percent of the respondents believed that social media played an important part in their direct sourcing program. Asked to rank the impact of social media on various parts of their recruiting program, respondents said its influence was greatest on direct sourcing, college hiring, and on hiring from job boards.

The most important finding might be that internal movement is the #1 Source of Hire. Yes that’s right – career sites, job boards, and ads on social networking sites may help increase the flow through the talent pipeline but more than half of ALL hires were filled from internal movement. It is the second year in a row that internal movement was attributed to at least 50% of the positions filled. 

Referrals contributed the most new candidates when evaluating external sources of hire, following by job boards.  Monster and CareerBuilder continue to be the leading suppliers of new hires. Of the responding companies, 88.9 percent reported making at least one hire from Monster; 85.7 percent hired at least one candidate from CareerBuilder.

Based on these results, I offer four recommendations if employers will be successful in their pursuit of skilled workers:

1. Candidates must be recruited from multiple sources including internal candidates, referrals, job boards, and social media.
2. A company career site is more important as a central point of application than a direct source of candidates.
3. An applicant processing system must be considered to facilitate the rapid and accurate screening of applications.
4. Referrals and word of mouth remain the number one source of external hires. Consequently, social networks cannot be ignored; they are a viable and important sources of candidates.