Sirona Says

Google's Barbie Doll recruitment approach.

I read an article today by Matt Asay, which makes me wonder if Google are turning to blatant sexual stereotyping to aid their recruiting? Surely not I hear you cry, Google exploiting certain market sectors to get what they want?
Matt mentions that one of his friends was in San Jose for a corporate event. While waiting at the Marriott, he ran into a "swarm of beautiful young girls" that were "uniform in their good looks" and "Vogue like" beauties, coming out of the nearby Fairmont Hotel.

Bet you can't guess who they worked for? Google of course! And even better when asked what they did at Google the response was, "We're recruiters! Do you know Python?"  So no shallowness there then!! I wonder what the response would have been if he replied yes? Would they have sat him down and given him one of the impossible (and I mean impossible) Google tests (for engineers of course!)?

Using the "attractive young female" recruitment ploy in a male orientated market is nothing new, but with their position and status in the industry, do they really need to lower their standards and 'low-ball' their competition by using real life Barbie dolls to help them recruit staff? Maybe they should try the using the Stepford Wives next?

Travelodge and their 3 minute recruitment values

This week Travelodge publicly announced (personally I would have kept very quiet about it) their their new 'innovative' method for recruiting Managers is a three minute Q&A  session!! They are forgoing the interview for a three minutes of a candidates time! - what a fantastic way of really understanding your future management.....not!!  Their Resourcing Manager Ruth Sanders justifies this by saying that they,"..will recruit more than 1000 managers by 2020 and it is imperative that we continue to find new and innovative ways to recruit."

What does that say about the values and the employment brand of Travelodge? Remember this is the same company that have been found to promote overbooking and booking cancellation at the last minute. So maybe three minutes is all they need to establish whether the 'managers' have the particular ruthless character to carry out their 'business strategy'?

Or alternatively they are just too tight to do things properly!!!!

Get paid to interview - now thats different!

  I received an invited earlier today from something called Notchup, so I decided to investigate further.

This is the opening lines of the invitation:

NotchUp is a new way to manage your career. Instead of YOU having to sort through hundreds of job postings, NotchUp enables top companies to find you and pay you to interview for available jobs. It's 100% free to join and use. If you're happy at your job, and don't want to look for anything new, you want to be on NotchUp.

Obviously I have not used this (yet!) but there are some guarantees -  the site offers companies their money back and the individuals are not paid for the interviews if: a) The individual no-shows or shows up late for the interview b) The individual fails to take the interview seriously  or c) The individual has lied on their profile

It is certainly different, has anybody used it yet?

Is it any wonder recruiters go mad?

Reading a good post on small business interview process on HRWorld got me thinking. A recently frustrating experience with a client left me, as the recruiter feeling embarrassed on behalf of my candidate for the time it took for the interview process.

How about this then (bearing in mind the role is for a junior coordinator role, and it is urgent) for a timeline for recruiting this member of staff?

Take brief from Client------relevant cv's provided in 2 days--------1st interview 3 days later (going well so far isn't it!)----------now we start to hit the quicksand!!-----------although very pleased with 1st candidate, wants to see more-----------interviewed more 3 weeks later-----------take 2 to 2nd stage assessment interview (including my original) - we are now in 6th week(!)----------they dither and they can't make a decision so telephone interview the 2 candidates again - in another week!---------- hang in there it gets better!----------then in week 9 the candidates have to have a 'final' telephone interview with a very senior global head of business (remember, it is only a junior position!)---------- during week 10 they discuss the outcome of this interview-------------then finally in week 11 they offer the role to the 'other candidate'----------in week 12 they accept it!!!!!!!

And of course that doesn't include the notice period the candidate had to serve! so in total it took nearly four months to recruit a junior position!!! Is it any wonder that recruiters go mad quicker than other industry sectors??

(And just for reference, my candidate went to a different company interview at 2pm and by 5pm had an offer - she was so good they didn't want to lose her!!)

Any of you had any similar (or worse) stories?

The 10 most negative vibes companies give out at interviews

As an employer, recruiting staff is hard enough, but surely it would be easier to attain a higher success level, if you didn't give your job seeking interviewees bad vibes at the interview. Well I am afraid it is a very common occurrence with interviewing managers. I have certainly been on the end of interviews, where the person interviewing has decided to approach a 'warts and all' approach, almost being too honest with the situation at the company. But would I be interested if he told me that I would be working 75 hours a week, and be expected to be on call continuously? ...probably not!!  But it does appear that these examples are exactly what does happen at too many interviews

Here are the Top 10 negative messages from an IRS work survey given to job seekers by employers at interview: