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Dave Mendoza and I will be amongst the presenters at tomorrow's conference at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium in Denver. The conference for HR leaders is being organized by Bayard Advertising and will address branding and interactive issues specific to human resources. Dave will talk about blogging. I will talk about best practices for corporate employment web site design.
Those who look at generational differences understand that there are significant differences between Gen Y (70 million; born between 1977 and 2002) and the older Gen X'ers and Baby Boomers. Gen Y candidates are not grateful for a job. They know that they can get hired by a variety of firms and have their pick of opportunities. So rather than asking themselves if they're qualified like older generations did, they instead turn the tables and ask employers why their place of employment is better than the one across the street. This generation is poised to do great things and lead wonderful lives. They're confident, comfortable with technology, community oriented, and want to make an impact immediately upon starting a new position.
So how do you recruit them? In a great ERE article, Ryan Estis of NAS Recruitment Communications laid out nine steps:
If your organization needs to recruit a lot of people quickly, then targeted emails are an incredibly power product. Learn how to build your own list, how to rent a list, how to design your creative, and how to ensure your targeted email campaign message will be welcomed by those who receive it.
This best practices white paper was written with Campus Media Group, a leading high school and college marketing company that helps today's top brands and media agencies reach students on campus. To download a free copy, go to http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com/pages/white-papers.php.
It used to be that employers could correctly believe that they were in control of the employment game. They would advertise a job opening, receive dozens and perhaps hundreds of well qualified applicants, hire one, and know that person would never quit. Thankfully those days are long behind us. Our the economy and our workforce have changed, including the willingness and ability of employees to change jobs. So how does an employer make it really hard for its best employees to quit? Let me count the ways:
One of my spies (okay, it was Amitai Givertz) tipped me off to a story about a new social networking site for high schoolers. Apparently hoping to ride on the coat tails of MySpace and Facebook, Minnesota-based, business development firm BDC Capital Inc. said that it's in the process of developing a multiple-site online networking portal geared toward high school students and alumni.
DigitalTown will feature sites dedicated to specific high schools. The company apparently owns 27,000 domain names with each being comprised of the name of a high school and its mascot. The story used the example of edinahornets.com. That really caught my eye because my wife graduated from Edina High School and we live in Edina.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the people who will make the most money and have the most fun with this venture are going to be BDC's attorneys. I have to believe that the local high school districts are going to go ballistic over the use by BDC of these trademarks. I'm sure that BDC's attorneys have reviewed the issue and are convinced that they are on solid ground, yet I'm also sure that the attorneys for the school districts are going to say the same thing in the opposite direction. To greatly simplify the issue, this is basically going to come down to a legal decision as to whether BDC's use of these names is confusing to the average Joe. I think that it is safe to predict that the average Joe is going to expect that when they go to edinahornets.com that they are going to an official site sponsored or endorsed by the Edina High School.
I wish BDC the best...attorneys. They'll need them.
On Thursday, November 2, 2006, I will have the pleasure of working with the folks at Kennedy Information to present a 90-minute audio conference on podcasting and how employers can and should use it to help them recruit college students. Below is an (un)paid commercial announcement from Kennedy about the event:
 Podcasting: A Cutting-Edge Recruiting Tool to Catch Job-Hunting Students
A 90-minute Audio Conference Featuring Steven Rothberg, President and Founder of CollegeRecruiter.comThursday, November 2, 2006 – 1 P.M. ESTGiven the arrival in the workforce of millions of young "Gen Y" candidates, it should come as no surprise that one of the iPod generation's favorite toys should eventually become one of recruiting's newest tools. Indeed, the ubiquitous gizmos with their dangling white wires already have been enlisted in the battle for student's attention by savvy colleges like Duke University and others as they beam their lectures directly into the brains of their charges as they meander around the campus. Why not your recruiting message, too?
On Thursday, November 2, 2006, Steven Rothberg, President of CollegeRecruiter.com, will present a 90-minute, Kennedy-sponsored audio conference, Podcasting: A Cutting Edge Recruiting Tool to Catch Job-Hunting Students. Find out what podcasting is all about, and how to put it to work for you in attracting the best and the brightest on America's campuses. And remember, your entire staff can attend for one low fee! Registration fee is $225 per phone line for subscribers to Kennedy Information's Recruiting Trends or Executive Recruiter News (subscribers to Kennedy's free e-zine, Recruiting Newswire are not eligible). Fee for non-subscribers is $275 per line. Registration for this event includes a PowerPoint presentation, e-mail access to Mr. Rothberg before and after the event, plus live Q&A during the audio conference.
Guarantee: Send this audio conference notification to interested peers or colleagues, or have them sign up for their own notifications.
Please reserve my place for this audio conference and send me allaccompanying materials. $275
I cannot attend but would like to purchase the CD recording of this event,along with all accompanying materials. $275 Name: ________________________________________________________ Title: _________________________________________________________ Company: _____________________________________________________ Address: ______________________________________________________ Ciyy/State/Zip: _________________________________________________ Telephone: ______________________ Fax: __________________________ E-mail: ________________________________________________________ If you are a Recruiting Trends or Executive Recruiter News subscriber, please check below to receive your $50 discount: Recruiting Trends
Executive Recruiter News
METHOD OF PAYMENT:
I have enclosed a check for $__________ payable to Kennedy Information, Inc. Charge $__________ to my
Visa
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AmExCard Number: _________________________ Expiration Date: __________ | |||||||||
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If anyone had any doubt that on-line education has truly come of age, those doubts should quickly vanish. Harvard University, the oldest and one of the most prestigious post-secondary schools in the United States, has officially joined the world of on-line education.
Sunday. For some faiths, it is the day of rest. For others it is the beginning of the work week. For frequent travelers like me, it is an easy way to get a jump start on the week by flying out in the afternoon or evening so that we don't spend work hours flying. Of course, that comes at the expense of personal time so it is always a struggle.
I am about to board a flight for a one day trip to Lake Placid, New York for the 2006 NYSCEEA (New York State Cooperative & Experiential Education Association) annual conference. I was honored when they called and asked if I would be interested in being the keynote speaker. Tomorrow morning I will talk about how corporate and third party recruiters should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to include students and other candidates in the hiring process and how recruiters should not use social networking sites to exclude candidates from the hiring process. Should be fun.
After my presentation I have time to hang around for a couple of hours and then I drive to an airport to catch the first of three flights that will get me back to Minneapolis tomorrow evening. These trips are a lot of fun as I am usually fortunate to be able to connect with a lot of bright, passionate people. The downside is that not too many of them are likely to be sitting in the seats next to me while I'm flying or waiting to board my flight.
I received an email on Tuesday from Michael Kelemen a/k/a the Recruiting Animal. He gave me a heads up a/k/a warning that he and a few buddies a/k/a fellow goofballs are launching a new recruiting blog a/k/a web site by people with nothing to say for people with too much time on their hands.
Seriously, the new blog is called RecruitingBloggers.com because there are a number of recruiters participating in it: Michael Kelemen, David Perry, Maureen Sharib, Amitai Givertz, Shannon Seery & Julian Gude, YourHRguy, Colin Kingsbury, Glenn Gutmacher, Shally Steckerl.
Their goal (promise?) is to provide a well-rounded package of recruiting information a/k/a recruimation. Should be fun.
After you hire your ideal candidate, the goal is to not only fulfill the immediate needs of your company but to have that person stay at the company for many years. The time and money that is involved with training a new employee is very costly especially if the employee decides to leave the company within a short amount of time.
Retaining your employees is critical to the health and success of your business. Below are some tips to help you retain your employees and get the most out of your recruitment investment:
Hopefully by utilizing these tips you will be able to retain your best employees and build a lasting relationship with them.
Readers of this blog know that I love social networking sites in general and Facebook in particular. While they have their downsides, they make college campuses smaller and friendlier to students and that is a wonderful thing. But other than being used to meet friends on-campus, those who study Facebook are often stumped when it comes to listing tangible benefits.
The career service office at Sewanee: The University of the South recently came up with a wonderful program for using Facebook. Rather than the career service office fighting Facebook or trying to scare students away from it as some career service offices have done, Sewanee embraced Facebook by creating Facebook groups for Sewanee students who are interning in Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Charlotte, North Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; New York, New York; Dallas, Texas; and Austin, Texas. The office staff then invited Sewanee students to join the groups and communicate with each other by emailing the students and posting messages on their Facebook site.
The result? "Students joined the groups almost immediately," said Lisa Howick, internship coordinator at Sewanee. The city with the most interns was Washington, D.C. According to Howick, 40 students joined that Washington, D.C. group. They built a community by sharing information about housing, job opportunities, and more. Students in New York were informed that a university alumnus wanted to be contacted by students who were interested in working for her publishing company. She received three calls the first day. Awesome.
Source: Campus Career Counselor
Supply and demand. Economists will tell you that those are the factors that drive the economy. But do they drive sectors of the labor market such as the availability and pricing of interns?
"More students are seeking internships than employers can fulfill," said John Carvana, director of the career services office for the University of the Pacific. "Employers have become a bit more selective in terms of their criteria."
Interestingly, it appears that the increase in demand by students for internships has increased the supply by employers of internship opportunities, which in turn has increased the number of students who are searching for internships. "Employers who haven't offered internships realize their competitors are getting a leg up, so they need to offer them as well," said Carvana.
In other words, if your organization has historically been able to recruit a high enough quantity and quality of recent college graduates to fill the needs of your hiring managers, then beware that your college hiring program may need to adjust its hiring practices. Why? Because the employer across the street hired those graduates a year or two ago as interns and extended offers for permanent employment upon graduation to those students upon their successful completion of their internship program. So the students that used to be available to you upon graduation are now been hired a year or even more prior to graduation by your competitors.
If the success of your organization is dependent upon the quality of your labor force (I can't think of any organizations that don't fit that description), then it is imperative that your college hiring program adjust with the reality of the times. Not only are employers hiring an increasingly large number of college graduates in an effort to bring in the next generation of leaders that will replace the retiring Baby Boomers, but those employers are increasingly turning to their internship programs as an inexpensive, temp-to-perm, solution for identifying the best employees amongst those college students and those organizations are extending permanent employment offers to those students months and often a year or even more prior to graduation. If your organization sits on the sidelines and watches this developing practice, then your organization will be doomed as the quality of your labor force will gradually wither and fade away.
Adjust. Adjust now.
Source: Campus Career Counselor
The second largest school district in the country, and therefore one of the pacesetters, is the Los Angeles Unified School District. This is the nest from which our future workforce emerges. It is on its underpinnings that we rely on getting the best of the best. But LAUSD has long suffered from the black eye of not producing sufficiently trained and educated people from whom recruiters and employers may select their skilled talent.
However this past Friday, in a controversial move, the LAUSD announced its selection for the person to succeed retiring Superintendent Roy Romer. Retired Navy Admiral David Brewer. Brewer, in his acceptance speech, spoke of transforming the school district and the education one can expect from it into a world-class district where the fruits of its effort will be able to think and compete on a global basis.
The LAUSD has in recent years begun to pull itself out of nearly last position as far as academic performance testing, quite the opposite of its position in the late 1950s and 1960s of one of the top-scoring districts in the country.
There are many issues that confront the school district and its administrators in delivering quality education that produces the types of workers and leaders businesses need and demand in today's and tomorrow's business environment. With Brewer's acceptance remarks, it appears he plans to take on these issues and bring his constituency (which he sees as not just the students but the businesses and people within the school district) to winning the war for skilled talent.
Internship programs are probably more popular now than ever, and for good reason. Although today's interns look quite a bit different than the interns of previous decades (think tattoos and body piercing), today's interns are also better prepared.
"They know how to use all the electronic gadgets, which makes them better prepared in many ways than interns of the past," says Jan Nicholson, director of talent acquisition for Mellon Bank. "The culture is business casual, but they'll take that to the extreme. Many of them are tattooed and pierced and all those things. But they are who they are. They come in and hit the ground running, so you kind of put up with some of that stuff."
Although Nicholson has noticed that interns are more relucant to take on the menial jobs that stereotypically were the domain of interns in previous decades, he also says that interns of today are significantly better qualified than interns of previous decades, in large part because today's interns are so sophisticated with the technology tools that confuse their Baby Boomer managers.
"People worry about the youth of the nation, but I think we're in good shape," says Nicholson. "I think they'll be great."
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Campus Career Counselor.
Remember the (mostly) successful blogswap organized by Recruiting.com a few months ago? A few dozen (mostly) happy participants each agreed to write a blog entry once a week, have that entry published on another participant's blog, and publish a blog entry written by one of the other participants. Basically, you write an entry, send it to one person, receive a blog entry from someone else, and publish that entry. Nice idea, but it had a significant problem: not enough of the participants were able to write an entry each and every week and those who did felt a lot of pressure to do so.
I have been talking with Jason Davis, founder of Recruiting.com. He is such a pleasure to speak with that I'm going to have to start making up excuses just to get the guy on the phone. Whether you like his politics or not, people often remark that Bill Clinton has a way of making every person that he meets feel special. Jason has that gift too. Awesome.
So Jason and I have been talking about how to resurrect the blogswap and we're just about there. We need to iron out the rules/instructions but we anticipate that we should be ready to roll within one to two weeks. To solve the "no time to write this week" problem, we're dividing participants into two groups: authors and publishers. Many participants will want to both write (be an author) and receive content for their sites (be a publisher) and that's great. But some will want only to write so they can get their content out on other blogs and thereby increase the number of links back to their site, spread their gospel, etc. Others will want only to publish because of lack of time or perhaps they'd prefer to keep their content on their site. I will do both and I'm expecting that many and perhaps of the participants will also do both.
Authors will submit their blog entries to CollegeRecruiter.com (more details on that when we get the rules/instructions ironed out) and our content manager, Shawn Augustson, will then forward that entry with instructions to the next publisher on the list. We'll work in a wheel format so that if there are 10 publishers each publisher will receive every 10th entry. Authors can submit entries as often as they want. Some are prolific writers and may want to submit multiple entries a week. That's great. Others may only want to submit occasionally. That's great too. Publishers will be allowed to reject entries that are objectionable to them or may be to their readers. For example, I will likely reject entries that are targeted to Baby Boomer job seekers as few of our college student and recent graduate job seeking audience is going fall into the Baby Boomer demographic. A blog that focuses on Minnesota information technology workers will be unlikely to post an entry about nursing careers in Florida.
Wanna participate? I thought you would. Contact Shawn and let him know that you're interested so that we can be sure to get the rules/instructions to you as soon as they are completed.
According to the latest Spherion® Workplace Snapshot Survey, 60 percent of workers would not post their resume on social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook or Friendster for employers to see. Further, even if they knew their employer could see it, 37 percent say they would not remove any content they have posted on their MySpace, Facebook or Friendster site.
Conversely, the survey found that 19 percent of workers would post their resume on such sites, while a third (33 percent) would remove content from their MySpace, Facebook or Friendster site if they knew their employer could see it.
“At the moment, it appears that most workers are using their social networking sites for just that—socializing—rather than mixing business with pleasure by posting their resumes or altering their site content,” observed Nancy Halverson, Spherion vice president of talent development. “However, we believe that the number of workers who would post their resumes on such sites will grow dramatically, beyond the present 19 percent, in the next several years.”
The reason, according to Halverson, is that employers are beginning to use social networking sites as recruiting and prescreening tools.
“When you consider that MySpace is the third most popular site in the U.S., with 93 million profiles, it isn’t difficult to understand why employers would want to tap into this resource,” noted Halverson. “And in today’s increasingly tight labor market, organizations are beginning to use every means available to find—or screen out—potential workers, including social networking sites. In fact, many employers, including the U.S. Marine Corps, maintain their own profiles on MySpace as a way to actively recruit.”
Despite the fact that the majority of adults surveyed would not post their resumes on social networking sites for employers to see, it appears many workers acknowledge that companies’ recruiting and prescreening practices may shape the content of their sites, according to Halverson. “With one-third of adults saying they would remove content from their MySpace, Facebook or Friendster site if they knew their employer could see it, many workers are realizing that the World Wide Web is public domain and that anything posted on it can be seen by anyone—including current and prospective employers.”
Other results from the latest Spherion Workplace Snapshot Survey:
Workers aged 18–24 most likely to post their resume on social networking sites.
Female workers less likely to post their resume on social networking sites.
College graduates most likely to remove content if they knew their employer could see it.
Methodology
The September 2006 Spherion Workplace Snapshot is based on data from the Harris Interactive® QuickQuerySM online omnibus conducted monthly by Harris Interactive on behalf of Spherion Corporation. A U.S. sample of 1,601 employed adults, aged 18 years and older, was interviewed in a poll conducted September 5-7, 2006. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, income, education and region were weighted where necessary to bring them in line with their actual proportions in the population.
With pure probability samples, with 100 percent response rates, it is possible to calculate the probability that the sampling error (but not other sources of error) is not greater than some number. With a pure probability sample of this size one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- two percentage points. However, that does not take other sources of error into account. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
Note: Spherion is a participant in the CollegeRecruiter.com Insights by Employers Blog. To see their posts, go to http://www.collegerecruiter.com/employersblog/authors/index.php?author=Kip%20Havel.
I travel every week or two for work. It never ceases to amaze me that it is unusual when I find a surly customer service representative at a hotel yet it is unusual when I find an airline customer service representative who isn't either surly or under the impression that there is some national security risk should they provide me with even the most basic information on the status of my flight or the likelihood that my stand-by request will succeed.
You would think that the airlines would want to hire the same types of people, train them the same way, reward them the same way, etc. The hotel customer service reps usually seem to have the attitude of trying to find ways to help me, even if my check-in or other needs are incredibly routine. The airline reps usually seem to have the attitude of trying to find ways of getting rid of me so that they can get their work done. Of course, as their customer, I am their work but don't try to tell them that. They might just lose your reservation or book you into a middle seat at the back of the plane in between a 400 pounder who snores and someone who apparently has TB.
One of the big topics at the recent International Association of Employment Web Sites (IAEWS) conference in Chicago was whether and how employment web sites (job boards) such as CollegeRecruiter.com could work with applicant tracking system (ATS) companies so that our joint clients would better understand the source for their applicant leads. When viewed at a micro level, the problem isn't difficult. The job boards could pass a tracking code to the ATS systems that would allow the ATS systems to automatically credit the lead to that job board and not have to rely on the inherently flawed self-identification by the candidate approach that virtually all employers use. The problem is that there are about 40,000 job boards and thousands of ATS vendors. If each ATS vendor needs to set up a separate tracking system for each job board, well, that's simply asking for too much. But some very recent and significant consolidation in the ATS space should help remedy the problem.
The consensus at the IAEWS conference was that the job boards could and should come up with one standard tracking system. Those job boards that want their clients to know how many leads and which leads are coming from their job board would likely sign on and modify their systems. The technology is pretty straightforward and cheap. If most of the major job boards sign onto the system, then the ATS vendors will be far more likely to adopt that system and for the first time our clients will actually be able to understand where their candidates are coming from.
Within weeks of the IAEWS agreeing to move forward with creating the standard, two of the largest ATS vendors were acquired. First, Brassring was purchased by Kenexa and yesterday Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) purchased VirtualEdge. As stated by Jason Goldberg of Jobster, suddenly there are only a handful of ATS systems that matter. If the IAEWS can come up with a standard and if those handful of ATS vendors adopt it, then there will be considerable pressure on all of the job boards and ATS vendors to follow suit. Those which don't will not be serving the best interests of their clients and will likely see their business wither and eventually perish.
As one of the owners of CollegeRecruiter.com, this issue is near and dear to my heart. Few client conversations are more frustrating than those in which the client tells you that they believe that you provided fair value but that they are unable to expand the relationship because they can't provide solid evidence to their upper management so they're going to continue to send business to higher profile job boards or other media simply because upper management is more familiar with the brand names of those other boards or media. Of course, upper management can't track the effectiveness of those sources either but that's neither here nor there.
I vividly remember a client conversation from a few years ago that is directly on point. I received a call from a human resources manager who had just started with his company a couple of weeks before and was interested in using CollegeRecruiter.com to help him hire college students for internships and recent graduates entry level jobs. Before calling us, he had asked his recruiters to identify their sources of hires so that he could focus his efforts on the media that had produced the best results. The source that generated by far the largest number of leads was Monster.com. The human resource manager thought that made sense so he then asked his people to pull the contracts for each of the top sources so that they could calculate their return on investment or cost per hire. They found that they were not using Monster and had never used Monster, yet their applicant tracking system was identifying Monster as the largest source of their hires because the ATS was asking candidates to self-identify where they had heard about the opportunity to which they were applying. Fortunately, the human resource manager understood the difference between evidence (what the ATS was reporting) and truth (no leads from Monster because they had never used Monster).
There will be some winners and losers as the ATS systems implement real tracking systems and I believe that is good. I am sure that we provide extraordinary value to some of our clients and not as good a value to others. We will likely pick up some business and perhaps lose some as a result of the better tracking. But whether we end up better off overall isn't the point. The point is that our clients need and deserve to know where their leads are coming from and how much those leads are costing them. If they don't, we will continue to have an uneducated client base and as an owner of this business, I strongly prefer to work with clients who understand what they're buying and why they're buying it. They end up happier and then so do we.
Tamara N, one of the bloggers at Honeywell, has some brilliant advice for college students and recent graduates who are seeking internships or entry level jobs. Make sure that you market yourself to the needs and wants of the organization to which you are applying.
Your resume should be tailored to the needs and wants of the organization rather than just being a record of what you've done in the past. A resume is not an alibi, so don't list details about every position you've ever held and every educational accomplishment for which you can take credit. If they're not relevant to the position to which you're applying, don't include them. If the description of each item on your resume doesn't clearly relate to the requirements and preferences for the position to which you're applying, re-write the descriptions.
A typical resume is reviewed for just a few seconds before the recruiter moves on to the next one. Many resumes are not actually reviewed by humans at all and are instead reviewed by software engines that rank them based upon artificial intelligence algorithms. Given that artificial intelligence is in its infancy, those algorithms are often not terribly intelligent. Many are unable to distinguish between software developers who specialize in java and the baristas who make great coffee drinks at Starbucks. But don't give up. Instead, put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't know you, is focused solely on finding a handful of candidates to interview for a specific opening, and has five seconds to review your resume. Is your resume clear enough about who you are and to which position you're applying so that you will be amongst the handful of fortunate candidates? If not, re-write it.
One of the pleasures of my work is that I am able to meet and collaborate on a variety of projects with some truly wonderful, insightful people. Two of my favorite people are Terese Corey Blanck and Peter Vogt of College to Career. Along with Judy Anderson, they recently published two outstanding books, one targeted to the parents of college students and the other targeted to the college students themselves.
For parents of college students, they published "The College to Career Road Map: A Four-Year Guide to Coaching Your Student." It will help parents guide their college student through the career exploration and decision-making process. Parents will learn how to take on the role of career development coach—someone who doesn't have all the answers but who instead helps the student help himself/herself. The book also outlines the academic and experiential activities that are most critical for students to work on during their college years, so that they can confidently discern their future direction and boost their chances of landing a satisfying job after graduation.
For current and future college students, they published "The College to Career Road Map: A Four-Year Guide to Finding Your Path." It will help students discover the specific academic and experiential activities they can pursue—during each of their years in school, freshman through senior—to give themselves the best chance of landing a great job after graduation.
There are many career books on the market, but none like these. While some of the advice is not what you call revolutionary, it can certainly be described as evolutionary. But that's not why I love these books. I love them because the information is presented in the form of very easy to understand and follow road maps. Revolutionary or evolutionary, they're fantastic.
College students and recent graduates are highly mobile. They travel for fun and play sports at a lot of different locations, so having a great bag is pretty important to them. Even though I'm a lot older than a typical college student, my regular travels give me a pretty good feeling for some of the needs of that typical college student so I was really open to an offer by High Sierra to test out one of their new bags.
They were kind enough to ship me a sample so that I could try it out, and try it out I did. The High Sierra 7142 Cross-Sport Duffel is really sweet. If you play sports like basketball or football, it actually has an exterior, detachable pouch that you can use to hook up a big ball or helmet to the bag. It has a special section for, ahem, wet shoes or clothes so that they don't come into contact with dry items. There's a handy exterior water bottle pocket. If you work out on a treadmill or other such equipment and want a place to carry your CD or MP3 player, there's a pocket for that as well. There's even a roll-out mat that you can use for working out, changing your shoes, or sitting on wet grass.
I own a bunch of High Sierra products. Maybe I've been fortunate with them, but every one of them is great and I've never had any problem with any of them. I definitely can't say that about bags that I've purchased from other companies over the years. It got to the point with some of those other bags that I was expected the zippers to self-destruct before I even got home from the store. Not with my High Sierra bags though. They're built tough and built to last so even if you're as hard on your bags as I am, you'll be happy with your 7142.
Honeywell is one of the few large corporations that understands that blogging is both a recruitment and retention tool. Those who understand blogging almost all get that blogging is great for recruitment because of the highly targeted content that it builds and the one-to-one dialogue that it facilitates between employee and prospective employee.
Tamara N, one of the bloggers at Honeywell, recently posted an entry that reveals that she also understands that blogging is also a powerful retention tool. In Tamara's entry, she writes that Honeywell is trying to stress its Employee Value Proposition (EVP):
What Compels People to Join and Stay with Honeywell:Challenging Work: Opportunity to Make a Difference
Great People: Working with Smart People Around the World
Continuous Learning: Improving Our Skills and Insights
Competitive Rewards: Differentiating Performance
Career Development: Opportunities that Span Job Types, Businesses and Countries
Community: Making Things Better Where We Live and Work
If I were looking for a position that is available through an organization like Honeywell, then Tamara's blog entry would be music to my ears. Bravo!
In yesterday’s CollegeRecruiter.com Blog entry, I provided statistics to demonstrate how much stronger the job market is for 2006 college graduates than it has been in the past four years. Employers are hiring more recent graduates and are increasingly active in their college hiring activities when doing so. As a result, the starting salaries being offered to students and recent graduates who are searching for entry level jobs and internships are up across all fields.
How do the starting salaries being paid to this year’s entry level job searching students and recent graduates compare to the salaries paid to last year’s students and recent graduates? Business students continue to see their salaries increase. Accounting graduates saw an increase of 4.6 percent to $44,928. Business administration / management graduates saw an increase of 4.2 percent to $41,155.
Economics / finance graduates saw an increase of 6.2 percent to $42,588. Management information systems graduates saw an increase of four percent to $45,391. Marketing graduates saw a 2.1 percent increase to $37,191. Information sciences and systems graduates saw a 7.5 increase to $47,182. Computer science graduates saw a slight increase of 0.2 percent to $50,744.
Chemical engineering graduates saw an increase of 4.9 percent to $56,269. Civil engineering graduates saw an increase of 5.3 percent to $46,084. Computer engineering graduates saw an increase of 1.6 percent to $53,096. Electrical engineering graduates saw an increase of 2.9 percent to $53,300. Mechanical engineering graduates saw an increase of 3.3 percent to $51,808.
Political science / government majors saw a 0.3 percent increase to $33,094. English majors saw a decrease of 0.2 percent to $31,385. Psychology majors saw a one percent increase to $30,369. Sociology majors saw a 0.9 percent decrease to $31,096. History majors saw a 4.2 percent increase to $33,071.
Source: NACE
The indicators from all directions point to the fact that this is an excellent time for recent college graduates. Although many may not see it, employers are avidly seeking skilled labor (meaning people with communication skills, computer savvy, analytical and problem solving) and knowledge workers for their business initiatives. According to Jesus Chavarria, Editor and Publisher of Hispanic Business magazine (HB), the HB500 companies are definitely in this mode. However, the highly-sought new talent is difficult to find. That in turn is creating a talent war that according to Pasadena executive recruiter and CEO of Fluhrer & Davis, Alan Fluhrer, began around the middle of this year.
Employers are not bathing in dollars as some may envision as we speak of recovery and hail back to the Internet Bubble. They are being extremely careful about spending decisions. Their caution is fueled by the false economic starts stimulated by governmental tinkering with economic controls that create temporary mini-recoveries but not overall, long-term cures and healing. So employers are being conservative in their business strategies, making increases of all manner in small, cautious increments in order to avoid making a major economic misstep. What Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao sees is the need for employers to take a more assertive stand so that the recovery can be actualized. A more assertive stand would spell a stronger hiring initiative as well as higher entry salaries. According to HB, those are exactly the steps employers are taking.
Hispanic-owned businesses are experiencing a growth boom that surpasses records from ten years ago. In spite of this health, they cite two major challenges: capitalizing the growth, and debt or high-risk aversion. Two of the obstacles hampering further growth for these companies are market conditions and competition. The concepts new graduates should take from all of this is that they should look at companies as places where they can heavily market and trade on their special knowledge and skills in problem solving, analysis, and superb communication abilities. Many are teetering between trying desperately to be humble yet walk away from interviews frustrated that they were not as aggressive as they could have been in flaunting their hard-earned talents. The middle ground is bringing this new knowledge to recent graduates so that they can properly leverage their potential and allow those hard-earned talents to be properly exploited.
Unbeknowst to many, it is time for job seekers to look beyond the Fortune 500 companies and begin including the Hispanic Business 500 in their list of companies to research and pursue. These are young companies with a large amount of space for growth. These are vital companies that exist in all industries. Their locations are as diverse as their offerings. However, the majority of the fastest growing are in the South -- Georgia and Florida. Although the companies are in diverse industries, the inner workings of every company come down to the same essential elements: marketing, administration, accounting, IT. To the extent that these businesses can attract and retain recent grads from across the board, they will be ensuring their livelihood.
In fact, many of the companies are experiencing withdrawals from approximately 30 years ago as they find themselves in drastic need of qualified engineers. According to Secretary Chao, the nation is in dire need of qualified nurses. Whatever the industry-unique need, companies need people with recent and current knowledge who are receptive and professional. They need people who are trained or willing to be trained. And they are in need of people who listen while not feeling timid about stepping forward as a leader.
These can be rather tricky goals to fulfill. But then, who said anything worthwhile, like hiring qualified talent, is easy?
The class of 2006 had the good fortune to graduate into the best entry level job market for college graduates in four years. Quite simply, employers are hiring more recent graduates and are increasingly active in their college hiring activities when doing so. In a recent survey, 87 percent of college career service offices reported that their 2006 graduates had more job opportunities available to them than did their 2005 counterparts. In addition, 98.3 percent of schools reported that employers interviewed on-campus for full-time hires, 95.7 percent reported that employers participated in on-campus career fairs targeted to college students and recent graduates, 92.2 percent reported that employers participated in on-campus information sessions targeted to students and recent graduates, and 91.3 percent reported that employers visited their campuses to recruit students who were searching for internships and co-op positions.
So what has this increased demand done to the starting salaries being offered to students and recent graduates who are searching for entry level jobs and internships? They’re up across all fields. The average salary offers extended to ten of the most popular majors are:
| Management Trainee (entry level management) | $38,408 |
| Sales | $37,622 |
| Teaching | $31,954 |
| Financial/Treasury Analysis | $46,051 |
| Project Engineering | $49,759 |
| Consulting | $49,991 |
| Accounting (private) | $43,987 |
| Design/Construction Engineering | $47,881 |
| Accounting (public) | $44,776 |
| Software Design & Development | $53,330 |
The month of October is a busy month as relates to observations. Of the several, Roy Grizzard, Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy of the Department of Labor today released an announcement of the Department's recognition of individuals with work differences.
There are resources, recognition dates, and programs to assist employers, job seekers, and college career counselors in opening the diversity doors and creating employment empowerment for those typically called "disabled." One of the most significant programs encouraged by the Department is mentoring. Having a counselor who can guide a worker through the intricate employment maze and over the rungs of success is imperative to anyone's career. One who can help an intern or "young" worker navigate these trails is a proven factor to success on both sides.
So many times individuals with disabilities are rejected from employment opportunities because of their observed impairment without testing or asking if they feel they can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. It would behoove us to face the facts of workplace access and the opportunities that abound in creating a diverse environment.
How can you recognize the phoney resume? Excellent question. There was a recent debate about the practice of recruiters' posting fake resumes on job boards in order to assertedly test the waters and evaluate the interests of hiring managers. The recruiter also seemed to admit that this was actually a technique for getting job requisitions. There was an argument that this is an honest practice and carries absolutely no taint because of the research value, potential for building connections, and a "take it or leave it" opportunity.
Many recruiters who saw the admission decried the practice citing the fact that these ruses are a major waste of time. The time to cull a database, read and evaluate, and then do outreach is time that could have been spent on a real person who is legitimately looking for employment and is willing to entertain a potential situation. Even more vexing was the realization that the discussion was drummed up in order to draw attention to an article that was published the next day, to make innuendoes about a start-up business, and to promote the formation of a new discussion group. But those are somewhat tangential issues. Drawing all three together, however, is honesty about what is presented. That was what stirred up the most controversy -- honesty, credibility, ethics, trustworthiness, and respect -- respect of and value of one's time.
Gerry Crispin, two years ago, did a circuit of presentations on the Golde Locks resume. This was a phoney applicant. Several people with stellar credentials and backgrounds submitted the same resume to various companies. The candidate information, however, screamed the fact that the resume was not real because of things such as a dubious address, manufactured phone number and email address, and so on. The astounding thing was that so many companies were so detached from their recruiting models that they relied almost entirely on their ATS mechanisms. The companies took so little time actually evaluating what was submitted that their ficticious, perfect Golde Locks got invited to interview! So the question of how to recognize the fake resume while still giving legitimate applicants fair and equitable appraisal and opportunity to interview is problematic. Then the question becomes how far does one go in order to make certain this is a real applicant and not a recruiter on a marketing tear?
Equally important is the way this affects legitimate job seekers. They want their resumes to be taken seriously. They've spent hours and days and dollars to produce "the perfect resume." If it truly is the impeccable document that compares with that submitted by the desperate recruiter, we need to determine what should be done to shine, get noticed, and not get rejected as a phoney. What an enigma.
Potential Answer
There's one tip off to this. The resume is impeccable. That was the clincher with Golde Locks as well -- the resume was perfect -- except for the give away flags. Because Golde Locks was so impeccable, she got called in quite a bit. She also got rejected. The important matter, however, is that it seems all of these fake resumes have a commonality -- the perfectness of the applicant's background and skills. It may also be that the job for which they're applying is also far below their capabilities but I suspect not. An applicant gets called because they're such a good match for the job as advertised in relation to the announced job description. I believe these phoney resumes are not from over-qualified applicants but for dead-on just right types.
Perhaps this gives the "almost a fit" submissions a running chance. They will more than likely be real people who have diverse experience but not exactly on everything. Thus, it's worth it to look at the direct experience as well as the lateral. One shouldn't feel pressured to produce (talking a few minutes to a few hours, not months on end). On the other hand, one should know the job and the job description and actual requirements. There may be several resumes that are just right for what's sought. Several laterals who also have direct experience may be better fits for the position.
The Perfect Resume
This brings me to counsel the job applicant as well. This should be a red flag. Yes, the resume is supposed to be compelling and bring out your best qualities. It should not be so perfect that it bears the taint of being phoney. Therefore, don't give up when rejected. It could be that your resume needs some work to make it exceptional and attractive. But it could also be an indication that you've let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction. Evaluate your presentation documents carefully.
