Job search cartoons courtesy of Teena Rose and Resume to Referral

"I've spent the past three years researching Millennials, writing about them, conducting seminars about them for corporations ... so I know first hand the power of this young generation and the impact they are making, and will continue to make," said Orrell in a recent press release.

Orrell's monthly podcast, "Millennials in Motion," debuted in October with a candid interview with Ryan Healy, the co-founder of Brazen Careerist. Orrell will showcase a different successful Millennial each month, in an effort to inspire and motivate members of her Gen Y audience who may be feeling discouraged by unsuccessful job searches or disengaged with unfulfilling jobs. She will focus on interviewing Millennials involved such pursuits as in philanthropy, entrepreneurship, business, entertainment, sports, music, politics, and entertainment, and she will also interview young people who have
overcome substantial personal obstacles to achieve their goals. In addition to her new podcast series, Orrell also has a new book, scheduled for release later this month, Millennials Into Leadership.

Sometimes the only thing a young college student or recent graduate needs inspire him to keep pursuing his dreams is to hear how his peers have made their own dreams come true.

10. Do not bring your boyfriend, best friend or children to an interview. This is horrible interview behavior. I once had a candidate bring her entire family - there were seven very rowdy people in our lobby. You can imagine what we were thinking.

9. Do not curse or use profane language during an interview. Absolutely someone has done this before and they were promptly removed from the running. Using profanity during an interview is unprofessional.

Thanks to an amazing membership with Career Directors International, I had the distinct pleasure of hosting a booth at the most recent National Careers Job Fair. Three hours of job seekers pouring in through the doors and my assistant and myself providing free resume analyses. I spoke to 100+ job seekers and found one common thread among them all--they had no idea who they were ... on paper.

I must have repeated the phrase, "What do you want to do?" a hundred times. I know I asked all but two job seekers that question. I remember the two I didn't ask because their resumes stood out from the rest. They had professionally branded themselves, and it was obvious to me exactly who they were and what they wanted.

"I would say that the phrase 'being likable' implies that you are easy to get along with and that you respect other people, whereas, 'being nice' denotes a lack of sincerity," said Holly Stokes, author of "Train Your Brain, Get Results."

Commis Chef

Most chefs begin their careers as a humble apprentice, or commis chef, assisting the line cooks and chefs de partie by peeling vegetables, practicing knife skills, and learning the skills needed to succeed in the culinary world. This entry-level position offers a chance to experience the fast-paced restaurant business firsthand. Many well-known and respected chefs began their careers as lowly commis chefs.

Fired Due To Error In Background Check, Carroll Woman Still Jobless

Eschol Amelia Studnitz lost her $58,000 accounting job July 31 because a government background check deemed her "unsuitable" for a low-level security clearance. She was stunned. She had no criminal record.

"I kept thinking, 'What could I have done?' " said the 59-year-old Carroll County resident, who goes by the name Amy.

Her shock was warranted: Her firing was based on a mistake. And within days, her employer, Corporate Mailing Services of Arbutus, heard from the Social Security Administration that she could, in fact, work on a new contract handling mail for the agency.

But three bewildering months after her dismissal, Studnitz has not been rehired or found other work in this tight job market. A single woman who's relying on her $405 weekly unemployment checks, she says she is behind on the mortgage for her Manchester home and has a shut-off notice from Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.

"I'm in a jam, a real jam," she said, "and I didn't do this to myself." She wants to regain the job she landed in April 2008, but the company now says it won't rehire her due to supposed performance shortfalls. She would like to sue the government for thousands of dollars of lost income, but could face long odds.

More

Article by, Jason Morris and courtesy of EmployeescreenIQ

As this topic is rather broad, for the purposes of this web site, we will limit the discussion to recruiting and hiring employees or staffing up a business.

Can You Really Effectively Outsource Human Resources?

The short answer is yes but it depends on the size of your company. HR outsourcing is an effective option for small to medium small but growing companies.

It can come in different forms. For instance maybe you only need some part time consulting. You can outsource specific task, such as developing a recruiting plan or helping with the review of resumes. Whatever your need it can be customized to your budget and the size of your company.

This means you would interview a CFO differently than a line manager or billing clerk. So let' begin with the best way of how to conduct an interview. Well there are elements that should go across demographics of the positions. While there is more at risk when hiring a CFO than a billing clerk, you still want to hire the best candidate possible.

The Process

Assuming you have done a good job of screening your candidates, you have some notes, a resume and some reference checks, the next few steps might look like this;

• Skills or personality testing
• Interview
• Interview Assessment

Skills/Personality Testing

The skills or personality testing is always done before the interview as it can factor into the interview. Different companies have different philosophies on the topic of personality testing.

My personal opinion is that there may be some value in certain kinds of personality test for specific jobs but on the whole they don't offer much a skilled interview can ascertain. One example where there may be some value is for a sales position where you need to know a person has the personality to take rejection and press on. It is up to you and your company whether this is valuable to you.
Note: The one thing I will suggest is that if you use this type of testing, do it for all candidates. Do not selectively administer tests. It is bad policy and could subject you to a lawsuit if you are not careful!

The Interview

The actual interview can take shape in a number of ways, you can have 1 person sit down with a candidate and just ask a bunch of interview questions (and make sure they don't ask the illegal interview questions as well). Another possibility is have a series of people involved in the process like managers, peers and HR. This can take place in a panel interview or in a series of one on one interviews. As mentioned in the section on the employee selection procedure, having a team approach can yield an excellent overall measure of a candidate.

The Assessment

Finally before making a decision, there is often an interview assessment. This assessment is where the information gathered at the interview along with testing results is collected and reviewed resulting in a selection. If you have done the up front work, this will be simplified significantly.

The only thing left is to make an offer and get that diamond on board and integrated into your team!

After 20+ years as an engineer in the R&D world, Tom Tassinari found himself in the recruiting world. By adapting the problem solving and process discipline skills of engineering to the recruiting world, he now works with companies on locating and hiring top talent...with his own techie twist.

Hiring employees is the single most critical aspect of recruiting. Poorly handled, the whole thing could blow up faster than you can imagine. What could be worse than getting to a job offer and having the candidate say no thanks.

Reason for the No

There are a few common reasons why a candidate might say no,

• Counter Offer


• Salary Negotiation Breakdown


• Failed Background Check


• Resume Issues or a Social Security No Match


• Slow Decision


• Problems with H1B Visa Transfer Issues


• Poorly Handled Offer Letter

The good news is that much of this can be handled or avoided with proper planning and screening.

Elements of a Good Hiring Process

The following are elements of a good offer/hiring process.

1. Quick Selection Process


2. Expedient Salary Negotiation


3. Submit Offer Letter


4. Clear Pre-Employment Process


5. Professional Onboarding Process

It does not have be a fast process. What it needs to be is predictable. This means you need to lay out for the candidate the time frame and meet that time frame. When is the decision going to be made? Once made, when does the offer letter come? How long to take a physical and/or drug test? To the extent that you can meet the time line as described, it will inspire confidence in the candidate that this is just your process.

Other Ideas

Once the time and resources have been invested in making a hiring decision, often times it comes down to a couple small items. As I mentioned earlier, too many times I've seen things blow up for the smallest of reasons. Without exception, once the damage is done, it can't be repaired.

For example, we had a client who spent 3 months interviewing candidates until they found someone that was perfect. The sticking issue was a start date. The candidate had a bonus due in 30 days and wanted to make sure there was enough time to transfer his responsibilities to another person. He really needed the 30 days to transfer his responsibilities.

The client offered a signing bonus in their offer letter and asked him to start in the traditional 2 weeks. When they consented to the 30 days, they withdrew the signing bonus because they said it was in lieu of the bonus he was not going to get. This connection was not specifically spelled out in the offer letter.

The mistake the client made was not listening to the candidate. He needed the 30 days to make sure his responsibilities were properly transferred. It was a matter of integrity, a great quality for an employee. Instead they focused on the bonus money.

The Big Picture

In the end, they spent 3 months of time and resources interviewing dozens of candidates only to lose their prize candidate because of a difference of 10 working days.

The lesson here is when the deal comes down to finally hiring employees, don't lose sight of the big picture. I does not mean you have to roll over on everything but make sure you understand what is important to a candidate.

Final Thought

There is one last part of the hiring employees process. Once you have made the offer, it is accepted and your candidate has passed all the conditions of employment, don't forget about the candidates who did not make the cut. Send them a rejection letter letting them know of your decision. Nothing fancy but it should be professional. This just ties up all the loose ends and makes you company stand out from the rest!

After 20+ years as an engineer in the R&D world, Tom Tassinari found himself in the recruiting world. By adapting the problem solving and process discipline skills of engineering to the recruiting world, he now works with companies on locating and hiring top talent...with his own techie twist.

Best Free Records

The best ones to use are the federal, state and county records. There are a number of records available for free and easily found online. Examples include,

• Professional Engineers
• Trades Skills licenses
• Disciplinary Records
• Sex Offenders
• Teaching Credentials
• Patent Searches
• and more...

As you can see there is a wealth of information available. It often depends on your state or county if the records are online.

Proper Use of Records

While it is good to look at free online records, it is important to remember they are free, therefore, should be taken as a verification of information already in possession. For example, if a candidate claims to be a registered professional engineer, but the candidate's name is not listed on the state's online database. This does not mean the candidate does not have a PE. It means you should find another way to verify the PE.

Court Records

One should proceed with caution when examining court records. For example in Orange County, CA, the superior court records are available online. Before entering the site there is a disclaimer that warns the user the record is only a public service and subject to errors and omissions. This means if you use these records they are for reference only and should not be assumed as factual.

The end result is that you should read all disclaimers and warnings about the information being provided. Use your information to add to your knowledge of a candidate. Verify what you know. Be sure to seek other means of verification if the information gathered raises questions and you have a great free resource.

After 20+ years as an engineer in the R&D world, Tom Tassinari found himself in the recruiting world. By adapting the problem solving and process discipline skills of engineering to the recruiting world, he now works with companies on locating and hiring top talent...with his own techie twist.

Who Gets Tested

To be safe it probably has to be every candidate. You should have a workplace drug policy that backs up the testing of candidates.

When To Test

Once you decide to make an offer to a candidate then, like taking a physical, you make the offer contingent on passing the drug test. Never give a candidate too much time to get into the clinic. Make the offer contingent on getting to the clinic and passing the test within a reasonable time frame like 24 to 48 hours. If there is any hesitation or stall, it could be a sign of a problem.

The employment background check is often one of the last things done before hiring a person. In fact often employers make an offer contingent on passing a background check. The decision is up to you.

Disclaimer: As with all matters that pertain to legal issues you should always seek legal counsel when considering the ramifications and liabilities of having employees with criminal records or anything related to liabilities you may be exposing you or your business to. I'm not a lawyer and I don't pretend to be giving legal advice. Check with your own lawyer who knows your business and your local laws.

Impact to You?

What this means to you or your company only you or your corporate council can be sure. What we have done in practice to develop good habits is to make sure we document everything. To the best of our ability we capture every incoming resume submission, every fax and hard copy submitted. When a candidate is clearly lacking the job skills, we document it. When a candidate does not return a phone call or email, we document it. When the contact information given sends us to a disconnected number (you would be surprised!) we document it. After a short time, it becomes a habit and really does not take too much time or effort.

Finally, please do not assume this does or does not apply to you and wait for something bad to happen. See the advice of a business attorney if you have any questions about whether this applies to you and your business.

After 20+ years as an engineer in the R&D world, Tom Tassinari found himself in the recruiting world. By adapting the problem solving and process discipline skills of engineering to the recruiting world, he now works with companies on locating and hiring top talent...with his own techie twist.