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.

Generation Y'ers - not for us, say SME's!

Generation Y staff are surprisingly not in demand for SME companies, says the latest report from the entrepreneur think tank, the Tenon Forum. They claim that these generation Y'ers are often not just up to the job, but also show a lack of work readiness. They also go on to say that over 30% of the SME's surveyed cited poor literacy and numeracy amongst school leavers as a key issue facing their business.

So, while the generation Y'ers are an employers future lifeblood, it does appear that companies that need 'real' skills are shying away from them.....at the moment anyway. So are companies starting to realise that the generation X and the boomer's are actually still worth employing? It appears that they are actively seeking them out!! 

Entrepreneur and Tenon Forum think tank member, Khalid Aziz, Chairman of the Aziz Corporation, says: "We are becoming increasingly frustrated with a lack of work-readiness amongst graduates, many of whom do not possess basic skills, such as mental arithmetic. Those under the age of 40 have never experienced high unemployment and this is contributing to a tendency for younger employees to take work for granted or, worse, treat it as an extension of their social lives. This failure to take work seriously is not an issue amongst more mature employees."

Retailers have a problem with Generation Y'ers

When I first started in work in retail many years ago there was one thing that was ingrained into me........"The customer is always right". Of course we know that is not always the case, but as far as the interaction with the customer goes, it is a strategy to keep customers coming back. It teaches you to manage expectation and deal with people in a civil and considerate way etc This has provided a great base for my career, especially in recruitment (although it becomes a challenge, believing it with some clients!!)

Over the weekend visiting a number of retail shops, it dawned on me that retailers WILL have problems with their Generation Y workforce.Their seemingly lack of interest and motivation, and 'what's in it for me' attitude doesn't mix with retail customer service too well. They don't like to engage with customers, won't accept they have made a mistake and certainly won't adopt the customer is always right philosophy (sorry Tescos, WHSmiths, JJB and Next but they don't!).

So how do companies with such key customer facing roles change the attitudes of their staff? They can't, but they can look at other companies that I believe get it right - namely Marks & Spencers and Waitrose (John Lewis). They start getting it right at the recruitment phase - knowing what they want in terms of staff quality, and sticking to it - and continue the process with regular training, mentoring, appraising. And this is just for their shop assistant/sales assistant roles!! Have you ever been into either of these stores and had a bad experience with one of their staff? Highly unlikely I suggest.

So all you retailers, recruiting generation Y'ers won't be easy, but try and engage with them, after all if they won't engage with you then they certainly won't engage with your customers!!

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!

Recruitment and Retention has now just got harder!!

While I appreciate that the whole world is having recruitment challenges, I wanted to highlight two problems that I feel are going to impact massively on recruitment and retention. I have actually already experienced both of them with candidates in the last few weeks, and I am sure it will just get worse.

So what am I talking about? Petrol and Houses. The price of petrol is rising higher and higher every week, so obviously your staff (and you of course) will be paying more for their commute into work. With this price estimated to get to £1.50 per litre by the end of the summer, then their commuting costs (by car) have just risen by 50%. How many will be looking to get a job closer to home to cut down traveling? What are you doing about it? Are you encouraging more home working? Are you being flexible with allowing them to come into the office less? Are you actually sharing your concerns with your staff? If you don't they will look for an employer that is doing something about it.

House prices - more importantly the mortgage rate - are stopping people moving. Higher interest rates mean that mortgages have lept up substantially this year, costing people more money. There are two implications from this, 1) they may now not be earning enough money where they currently work, and may have to look at another job and leaving your company or 2) the option of relocating for a new job has suddenly been diminished for the moment, not because they don't want to move, but because they may not sell their house! So recruiting for specific skills in a market where they are absent now becomes a real problem. Whereas, before you could relocate someone with the right skills, now it will become more of a challenge to convince candidates to move. So if this is going to cause you problems, what are you doing about it? Have you even thought of the long term implications? Should you be reconsidering recruiting lower skilled and training them? Should you look at retraining of existing staff? What about ad hoc pay rises?

The one thing that both petrol prices and house prices will definitely test, and that will be how creative a company can be with their creative retention policies!!!!

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!!

'Superheads' - THE most important Talent Managers?

There has been much debate about the pay of Head Teachers, especially with the news that 'Superheads' - managing large grammar schools - should expect to earn circa £200k for the work they do. So, what is the problem here, and why are so many people so shocked?

We have a 'talent crunch' (sounds better than talent shortage doesn't it!) occurring at the moment that will only get worse over the next few years. The school population is absolutely key to employers over the next few years. Everyone goes on about generation Y and generation Z, and how they are going to deal with them, but they are already being managed now - in the Schools!Head Teachers and 'Superheads' are managing our future talent for us - no one to my knowledge has yet to define how old talent is - and with 'Superheads' managing schools with as much as 1500 pupils + staff in (that's alot of potential talented people!), why shouldn't be rewarded with a market applicable salary? If you were a CEO of a 1500 strong company I would like to bet your salary would definitely exceed £200k anyway!!

The aptly named Mr Ed Balls - the Labour Schools Secretary - should be applauded (just for a change) for trying to ensure that these important Talent Managers stay within education. (Now Mr Balls, can you set about the rest of the education system please!!!!)

First the McDiploma, now a Tesco Degree....what next a BA with BA?

The big companies are finally realising that there is such a lack of interested talent in the job market, that 'growing your own' is the way to solve their future talent management problems. McDonalds were one of the first, creating their own McDiploma's, and Tescos have gone one step further and have developed their own 'every little (graduate) helps'  foundation degree.

I have to say that I think these are great initiatives going forward, but will it now become a pre-requisite for their competitors to match them and start their own qualifications? So what could be next around the corner?

A degree in Pocket Tapping (Asda if you are wondering)

Its not just any degree it is an M&S Degree

Try something new this September, try a Sainsburys degree

Or outside of retail, you could go for a BA with BA

I am sure you can be creative with some others!!

Twitter got me in the end!

Ok, I have to admit it I thought this Twitter thing was just a fad of social networking and something that would blow over! How wrong I was!  In the space of 20 minutes this morning, I had the social media evangelist - Peter Gold, banging on to me about Twitter and how good it was, then as if by magic, the latest post from Louise of UK Recruiter arrived in inbox on (check out Caroline Middlebrook's guide that she mentions)...........you've guessed it, Twitter!!

So having explored it in more detail, I realised that there could be something in this and took the plunge to experience what everyone is talking about. So follow me and lets see where this goes!! Here is my debut tweet.

After all if the marketing guru Seth Godin, is preaching about it then there must be something in it!