Archive for June, 2008
New Recruiting Tool Combines Audio and Resume
Posted by JasonVerbal Summary launches tool that combines audio and Resume. The new Web 2.0 tool promises unlimited possibilities, including:
- Resume Presentation
- Reference Checking
- Extending a job offer
- Recruiter training
- Interview feedback
- And more…
Jerry Albright, Founder of Verbal Summary, shares that Verbal Summary has created the very first presentation tool designed for any desk in the staffing world.
Learn more about Verbal Summary by registering for their free upcoming webinar.
2008 Relocation Trends: Part 2
Posted by JasonIn part 1 of 2008 Relocation Trends, several trends were highlighted relating to relocation overall and the impact on recruiting with the real estate and employment conditions.
Consider some additional facts:
The Top Three Reasons for Reluctance to Relocate in 2008:
- 71% - Slowed appreciation/depressed housing market at departure
- 66% - High housing costs at destination
- 63% - Employee/family resistance to move
Many organizations have responded with changes to their relocation packages:
Home Sale Program:
- Keeping Homes From Entering Inventory and Cost Containment
- Employee Bonus Program
- Delayed Appraisal Programs
- Guaranteed Buyout vs. Buyer Value Option (BVO)
- Pre-Acquisition Fix-up Allowances for Home Sale Program
Changes in Relocation Benefits:
Companies who made changes to their policies centered their decision on the current real estate market and the negative impact on program costs and/or transferee satisfaction.
Financial Programs:
- Mortgage Subsidy Program
- Guaranteed Second Mortgages
- Cost of Living Adjustments
- Loss on Sale Protection
Fewer companies are also leaving real estate marketing decisions up to relocating employees. A recent study shows that more than 60 percent of companies provide employees with a list of brokers to choose from when listing their property, and nearly 60 percent also require employees to follow restrictions on listing prices.
More than likely small to mid sized companies will be affected most with their ability to recruit talent out of higher-priced markets.
Peopleclick Announces Strategic Partnership with CareerBuilder.com - will a new shared application feature really maximize the pool of quality candidates?
Monster.com today announced an In-house Centralization of all North American customer service functions at an attempt to ensure a best-in-industry service.
How does your organization stack up against Diversity Edge’s 2008 Best Companies for Diverse Graduates?
HR, Recruiting, and Marketing Community on LinkedIn
Posted by JasonI am excited to share that over the past 4 weeks 1,300 new subscribers have joined The Talent Buzz group on LinkedIn. Follow the link to join - other HR, Recruiting, and Marketing Community experts and members in our LinkedIn Group.
This is a great opportunity to network, share ideas, and expand your personal or professional network. Share the link or post with others in your network.
Just when HR and Recruiting professionals thought the big boards lost all innovation, CareerBuilder launches job searching for iPhones. While giving credit for trying to innovate - will successful, passive talent search and apply for their next career move on an iPhone?
Meanwhile, Monster puts money where its’ heart is, and like rival Yahoo! HotJobs, both are focusing on banner ads. Yes, banner ads.
Recruitment marketing firms choose JobTarget as an outsourcing provider.
Social Networking giant Facebook is in court again.
Options:
2008 Relocation Trends: Part 1
Posted by JasonThis is a 2 part blog post series on 2008 relocation trends.
In last week’s recruiting blog poll, the results showed based on the current employment market and economy 52% of organizations have increased their relocation benefits offered to new hires and transferees while 41% cited they have not changed their relocation benefits this year.
With over $32 billion spent annually, relocation is big business. Based on research, here is a summary of several current trends:
- Remember the stimulus rebates? The fact that the rebates phase out at these income levels has caused some companies to wonder whether, if taxable relocation benefits put the transferee into or above the phase-out income level, the company should consider compensating the transferee for the loss of the benefit of the rebate. According to the ERC, in general, companies should not do so.
- “Short sale,” “foreclosure,” “negative equity,” and “loss on sale” are benefits that employers are now generally including in their relocation program, when assessing their competitiveness. These benefits have varying degrees of tax consequences. In depth research is recommended to make a sound decision in developing and implementing policies for dealing with these issues in a real estate market like 2008.
- Even if home prices decline as expected, the volume of relocations in North America will rise in 2008. Experts cite corporate growth as the main reason for the increase.
- The top 5 foreclosure states last year included California, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. These 5 accounted for more than 50% of the nations foreclosure filings.
- Fewer companies are leaving real estate marketing decisions up to relocating employees. A recent study shows that more than 60 percent of companies provide employees with a list of brokers to choose from when listing their property, and nearly 60 percent also require employees to follow restrictions on listing prices.
- Loss-on-sale assistance is provided by about 70 percent of companies, and their caps range from $10,000 to $275,000. Although the real estate losses have been costly, companies are not likely to scale back employee relocations.
- The trend of relocation payback agreements continues to increase, with the agreement period ranging from 12-24 months.
Relocation is an important consideration for both organizations and new hires and as competition to recruit talent increases, especially for specialized or niche roles, you may need to address your current offering. The economy and real estate market almost demand it.
Recruiting Blog Poll: The Economy, Jobs, and Relocation Benefits
Posted by JasonThe weekly recruiting blog poll results are in from last week.
The question: How has the overall economy and job market impacted the relocation benefits you provide?
The results:
- Increased relocation benefits (52%)
- No change in relocation benefits (41%)
- Decreased relocation benefits (7%)
Check back tomorrow or subscribe to the recruiting blog feed for 2008 relocation trends in employment.
The new poll this week: How would you rate the overall effectiveness of your career site?
Indeed.com will be launching free job analytics for employers at the 2008 Annual SHRM Conference and Expo.
WHEN do you post your jobs? The Washington Post reported yesterday trends in job seeker traffic would suggest between Monday and Wednesday would be your best bet.
Tech News World on Video Resumes: Lights, Camera, your Hired. Or probably not…
After signing 94 more newspapers to its’ online advertising consortium, Yahoo’s total in this space increases to 800.
Is an ipo a real possibility in the future for LinkedIn? Dan Nye, CEO, announced on the LinkedIn blog they have raised another $53 million, after previously raising $27 million. This brings the overall value estimated at just over $1 billion.
Nye stated, “This additional funding will give us even more flexibility to execute on our vision for millions of professionals to increase their effectiveness by using LinkedIn to build relationships and exchange knowledge, opportunities and advice.”
With 23 million users overall, the site reported 7.5 million unique visitors in April, up 7.6% from March.
Related news coverage of the announcement:
Web 2.0 is about enhancing creativity, information sharing, and collaboration. The definition must have been written with the intent to exclude job postings and job boards as part of the world wide web.
With all of the talk about attracting passive talent, the war for talent and focusing on hiring quality, I was surprised to see little has changed - when taking a look at things from a candidate’s point of view.
I started with a simple search on a job board. After closing 2 pop up windows, here’s what the candidate would see with this example:
A page filled with paid ads:
- 1 on the page header
- 8 vertically on the right side of the page
- 1 on the footer
- 2 pop-ups
Within the job posting:
- Grammatical errors
- 40 different daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual responsibilities / tasks
- 9 requirements
Thinking this must be a fluke, I ran another quick search on another board. The first posting I clicked on was from 1 of Fortune’s Best Companies To Work For. Surely, this will be better…
This posting was much shorter, and contained:
- 9 responsibilities
- 8 requirements
- 3 portfolio examples
Since the organization requests you apply online through their site, I clicked the link, and found the following:
We’re kidding right? The candidate has to complete another search to find the position, which ironically isn’t even listed on the corporate career site. If it would have been and they would have applied, the candidate of course would have had to sign up for another profile too.
If you use the big boards for postings, consider the following 5 quick fixes you can control and implement:
- Utilize a branding template with all of the boards. Templates pushes the ads off the page, so the candidate is looking at your posting, in your brand. They’re not forced to look at the online degree programs, or the amazing work from home opportunity ads. All the major boards offer branding as a service and is easily negotiated as part of a package.
- If you believe recruiting is sales and marketing, then sell and market both your organization and opportunity. Don’t utilize a bureaucratic, and time consuming process to accept Resume’s.
- Link your posting directly into your A.T.S., so the potential lead doesn’t have to search again once coming into your site.
- Do not copy and paste you’re job description into your online posting. It doesn’t always format properly, and your main goal should be driving talent to your community or site. You can engage them further if they get there, so focus on selling in your posting.
- Use titles and keywords candidates search for, and limit internal acronyms.
When relying on a poorly written job description or web posting, there should be no surprise less than 10% of corporate career site traffic converts into a completed application.
While most of this seems fairly basic it appears there is still a tremendous amount of opportunity - and we have a long way to go in recruiting - in Web 2.0 standards.
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