Sirona Says

The 10 things Employers HAVE to understand about recruiting staff

As an employer, you don't want to be reading this list, but you HAVE TO READ IT!! It is what the recruitment market is like currently, and if you don't take these points on board then you will have bigger problems that you think, when it comes to recruiting your own staff!! Reality hurts sometimes, and for some companies, who stick their heads in the sand it will end up being very painful indeed!! So, here are my 10 things that employers have to understand about the recruitment market place:

• Candidates receive multiple offers. You must understand what your prospective candidates are really looking for and sell your company and your opportunity accordingly. Candidates will have more than your offer to choose from, make it count.
• Nearly all candidates will receive a counter-offer from their current employer. Be aware and offer a good package or you simply won't get that second chance!
• Past employers return like sharks. They wait for you new employee to have been there 1-2 months and return with another counter offer and a 'is it really what they told you?' approach.
• Recruitment agencies are also sniffing for blood. A fact of employment life is that your good staff WILL be getting calls from recruiters, looking to prise them from your company. Ignore this fact at your peril.

Resume Forensics - How to find free CV's on Google, Yahoo and Live

Jim Stroud of the recruiters lounge, the award winning blogger/recruiter/speaker has written a book that is going to be very popular amongst recruiters and even some corporate recruiters. It is called Resume Forensics - and it is a comprehensive guide on how to use Google, Yahoo and MSNLive to find CV's - free! Click here to download the ebook . In the meantime here is a video to give you a taster of what to expect in the ebook.

There's being clever, and there is being different...not sure where this fits?

I came across this site today, and I have to say it is certainly a little different. But did it get the message across - not immediately, and I had to try and figure out what they did! It is all well and good having fancy clever animated sites, but unless they convey the message clearly then they sort of miss the trick don't they?

Nice idea, but a little off track for me!

How to use SEM / SEO Tools to write job adverts

As a recruiter, one key part of your role is writing advert copy for your own online adverts. There will be many recruiters that simply place the 'actual' job title and 'actual' job spec onto their chosen job board or portal such as Broadbean or Conkers, and leave it at that. They then wonder why they get limited response. I have previously posted about writing creative adverts, but my point is this time to for recruiters to actually consider what the job seeker is searching for.
Search engine marketing (SEM)  and search engine optimisation (SEO) consultants use keyword searching tools such as SEO Book, Wordtracker or AdwordsTools to identify keywords people are using when they search online.  But how many of you are doing the same when you write a job advert? After all you are trying to get the same effect - people looking for jobs using keywords to search.

The latest Manpower Annual Talent Shortage Survey - the UK's 10 toughest jobs to recruit

According to the latest Manpower Annual Talent Shortage Survey, these are the ten hardest jobs to find candidates for, in the UK.

1. Skilled Manual Trades
2. Administrative Assistants & PAs
3. Engineers
4. Sales Representatives
5. Management/Executives
6. Laborers
7. Accounting & Finance Staff
8. Chefs/Cooks
9. Machinists/Machine Operators
10. Supervisors

Mind you, if you are in these sectors you probably already know that!!

Who is Talent Management more important for? - Generation X or Generation Y?

Reading an article by Kristin Gessaro today made me wonder if companies are actually giving enough credence to the employees they currently have - Generation X and Baby Boomers (the two age groups that span the ages of 28 - 61), rather than focusing on what they haven't got yet - the new Generation Y employees they will soon be recruiting? Yes it is a fact that there is a shrinking pool of skilled workers, but I wonder if companies are just getting caught up in the hype of always looking at the youth and not looking at managing their own talent more effectively?

I appreciate that blogs (like mine) bang on about all the different generations of workers, and how company's need to listen to the future needs of the new generations - Y and Z , but what about the needs of their current employees. I think companies forget, these are the people with actual skills and valid experience, and who can add value to a company very quickly.  A new generation Y'er, will need lots of learning, training and development to get close to some of the skill levels of the older generations. Kristin rightfully raise the point that companies, put new young employees on rotation programmes, to give them different experiences of different facets of business, yet do not do the same for older workers.

Surely talent management should be applied to the whole workforce and not just to the new entrants to the business. I know some companies do apply this theory, but many I speak to seem to forget that they have such a wealth of experience and talent already in their business! Do they know what talent management really is?

Let me explain more with a video...

Some of you may have seen the yellow graphic in the sidebar to the left, some of you may even have linked through to the site as well. Jobinablog.com is a forward thinking website aimed at SME companies who fail to use their own website to recruit staff (shame on you!). Of course they are happy to moan about the fact that they can't recruit staff, but they never do anything about it. So last year I combined the idea of this opportunity, with the power of the blog to create Jobinablog - I call it a career site with a difference. So for an easy explanation I have produced a video presentation explaining how it works in a very easy way!! Here goes:

By the way, how do you like the Kyte interface - I like it and it's a bit different!

Could this approach to passive candidates work?

Headhunting / executive search / passive candidate attraction have all been around for ages, and there doesn't seem to be much innovation in the sector. So while reading an article by Kevin Nale, one of his points intrigued me. He advocates creating a short professional introduction video, personalised to the target candidate you are trying to 'hook'. In other words, a simple personal request for a coffee or lunch meeting to discuss the opportunity face to face.

I think the idea is good, and certainly inventive as some of these candidates are elusive to say the least! As Kevin says, 'if your pipeline is diminishing, just remember it is not you, it's how you are presenting the great opportunity'. My only problem with this is the logistics of this idea, the numbers needed, and how you deliver this video file so that the target candidate watches it.

One thing for sure though, is that they will really appreciate the time you have taken to record a video specially for them, won't they?

Do you know anyone who has tried this method?

Stepstone's Total Talent Report - Something doesn't ring true here!

Just looking throught the Stepstone Total Talent Report 2008, and there seems to be some very strange stats used that don't seem to make sense - it's Talent Management gone mad!! The answers shown to this question go against everything that the recruitment marketplace is telling companies what they need to do to recruit people!! They pose the question, "Which steps has your organisation undertaken in the past to overcome recruitment difficulties, and which would it consider undertaking in the future?"

The answer responses are in the relevant colours    Have undertaken in past | Would undertake in future

Provide additional training so that positions can be filled by internal candidates 46% | 36%   Down 10%

Improve benefits package  47% | 33% Down 14%

Offer higher starting salaries 54% | 24% Down 30%

People Talent Magnets

  A question I have for companies so worried about talent management, is whether they do really think ahead and consider the impact of recruiting the right leaders for their company?

Many good candidates are attracted by the calibre of the leaders (Managers and alike) in a business - they see them as a quality benchmark, charismatic people, people they would would enjoy working for and people they would follow. In simple terms these leaders are people talent magnets. They have skills, aptitude, charisma, gravitas and above all, great leadership skills. Managers like these are great at attracting like minded individuals to companies, and are usually the reason why really successful teams are built. So bearing this in mind, do companies actively try to recruit these types of people? Do they target future leaders when recruiting? Can they even identify future leaders and the benefits they could bring to the business?

I am not sure that many companies are even looking that far ahead when recruiting, but they should. People talent magnets will help solve some of the future recruiting problems - recruit them and talent will follow them into your company.