Viewing December, 2008 Archive

Employment in the headlines

Here is the digest from this week of employment in the headlines.  Hang on.

• Employers cut 533,000 jobs in Nov., most since 1974
• More than 10.3 million Americans were unemployed in November, the most in 25 years.
• Bush told reporters: “Our economy is in a recession. This is in large part because of severe problems in our housing, credit and financial markets, which have resulted in significant job losses.”

Who do you think is on the front lines of this dilemma in our economy?  Corporate Recruiting departments for one.

Layoffs are always a tough time for Recruiting departments; with fewer openings and more applicants, the tension between job seekers and Recruiters escalates.  It’s like calling the cable company customer service person for the 5th time in a month – you may want to rip his/her head off even though you know it’s not his/her fault your cable is out again!

This tension is caused by the conflict of job seeker needs and Corporate Recruiter bandwidth:

• Job seekers feel more desperate in times of massive layoffs etc.  It takes longer to find new employment and everyone’s senses are heightened in an environment of significant competition.  During this time, job seekers NEED more attention.
• Job seekers may not “trust” that Corporate Recruiters are actually concerned about their ability to find employment and therefore doing all they can to help.  Job seekers NEED reassurance.
• Recruiters are innundated with a significant increase in applicants for each job, reducing the time and effort they can give to each applicant.  Recruiters BANDWIDTH is minimized.
• Layoffs in Recruiting Departments mean that at this crucial time in “candidate experience”, many recruiters are carrying larger requisition loads than in go-go hiring times.  Recruiters BANDWIDTH is stretched paper thin.

So what can a corporation do to ease the fears and concerns of their job seekers and provide Recruiters with a way to meet the needs of the candidates (customers).

OVER COMMUNICATE

Many ATS systems are set up to send a “Thank you” when someone applies.  Many Recruiting Departments feel this is enough effort and FAIL to communicate when a requisition is closed or put on hold or filled.  The “BLACK HOLE” of recruitment gets bigger in difficult times because rather than face the tension mentioned above, companies hide from it.  The effect is that the tension INCREASES instead of subsides.

Most ATS systems have the ability to automate communication when a requisition is closed (if yours doesn’t, then send this post to your ATS vendor and ask them to help you solve the problem) and ALL ATS systems have the ability to custom craft an email for this “end of the line” communication.  Fix the black hole by crafting an honest, caring email and make sure everyone gets it:

Thank you for your patience while we executed our hirng process for the Accountant 2 position you applied for.  Unfortunately this position has recently been closed.  You’re application will remain active in our system for the next 12 months and we will certainly call you should a similar posiiton come open.  In the meantime, we wish you the best of luck in your job search.  We realize these are unique times and while we wish we could hire everyone who applies, we simply can not.

Or even better yet – put an offer in your email to help them find work!

Thank you for your interest in a position with <company>.
We realize that you recently applied for the Accountant 2 position.  Unfortunately that position is no longer vacant.  We encourage you to check our website to see if there are other positions that match your background.

If you don’t see a role with us that is of current interest we would still like to assist you in finding a new position by introducing you to other great companies who may be able to give you the position you seek, right now.

<Company> is a Member of AllianceQ – a partnership of leading companies collaborating to increase our ability to find the world’s top talent.

It’s an easy, free and confidential service.  Simply share your background and what you desire in a new job.  In addition to being considered by <Company>, you are automatically and anonymously considered for thousands of other opportunities with leading employers every day.

To join AllianceQ or for more information, visit: http://www.AllianceQ.com/company

Again, thank you for considering <Company> in your job search and we look forward to considering you for future opportunities.

This communication is guaranteed to reduce tension and provide the job seekers hope and a continuation of their job search.

All they really want.

Now is the time for CHANGE!

We are in one of the most turbulent times of change in recent history.
We just elected the first African-American President, Investment Banks, once the bastion of big risk taking capitalists are now bank holding companies and heavily regulated, the “big 3″ automakers may become the little two and we are seeing some of the most well known companies collapse before our very eyes.

Ahh, yes, change is upon us.

So as a Recruiting Leader – now is the time to change!  Heck, with all the bearish news and C-Level nerves at defcon 1 you can change your organization and no one will probably realize it until 2010 when we start to come out of this mess.  So what changes and when?  Here are 5 simple steps to greatness you should be taking today:

First; clean house.
Evaluate everyone in your organization and streamline your staff.  Keep only those Recruiters and Recruiting leaders who have headhunter DNA.  Anyone who is an administrative recruiter (those who shuffle paper, email or text everyone and don’t own a headset because they really don’t want to talk to candidates) needs to be redeployed.
The net effect of this single step is that you will create an actual recruiting department that is effective and focused.  Redeploy those Admin Recruiters to support the Headhunters in reference checking, scheduling interviews and putting together paperwork for new hires.  Chances are that’s really what they want to be doing anyway if they aren’t actually headhunting!

Second; Re-0rganize the department.
Thin on Leadership and long on talent is the optimum department.  Recruiting Managers who routinely meet with hiring leaders to put out fires for recruiters and “consult” on their behalf are rendered unnecessary by step one above.
Your staff should be comprised of 75% headset wearing, cold-calling agressive sales-type recruiters who can consult with leaders and drive hiring decisions, 15% support staff to manage process for these folks and 10% Leadership.  Today, I’ll bet you have 60% admin recruiters, 20% support staff, 5% headhunters and 15% leadership.  Totally inefficient.

Third; Run the department “like it’s 1999″.
Not a play on Prince’s song but a mindset that you must have even in this market.  Your recruiters (see 1 and 2 above) should be BUSY – building networks, identifying talent, interviewing people even if they don’t have jobs today.  The reason the C-Suite is so enamored with Retained Search is that this is what they are doing today – building supply IN ADVANCE of demand.  Business 101.  When you need them, don’t go looking for them.  Find them in advance and have them at your fingertips.  Try it, you’ll like it.

Fourth; Provide Value outside of hires.
Yes you can.  If you do 1-3 above, your department will be a storehouse of competitive intelligence, candidate/customer feedback and market data.  This is information that if gathered correctly, can give your company a distinct competitive advantage in today’s market.  Experience the joy of walking into the VP of Marketing’s office with reams of competitive data your team has gathered.  She will be forever your advocate and tell 6 of her peers what an amazing group you are.

Fifth; Get your systems in order.
No need to “buy” anything but during this lull in hair on fire activity, get a CRM system in place, connect it to your ATS and finally get your ATS to do what you need it to do (like talk to candidates and end the black hole!), not what the vendor tells you it can do.  Befriend your tech department (they are slow too) and divert some online advertising dollars to paying for changes and/or upgrades.

5 steps to create a real 21st century recruiting department.  Do it today, do it now.  If you wait the economy will come back, you’ll be forced into reaction mode again and you’ll look back at your chance that passed you by like you look at Christmas Day on December 26th.