Bryan's shared items in Google Reader

11/10/2009

2009-11-10T16:14:57Z

Our 2010 membership drive has begun. New this year is a student membership category at a significantly discounted rate. Current members will soon be receiving renewal invoices, and we are welcoming new members. Now that we are an independent organization, we depend upon member dues more than ever before, and are looking to greatly expand our membership. Please consider joining us!

Build a Tribe

2009-11-10T10:22:10Z

Great people don’t make a job change for money. Great people have to be enticed to talk to a great organization. How I overcome this is by arguing that my “tribe” is a better fit for them than their current tribe. My tribe is cooler, funner, more interesting, faster, more successful, and contains less management-by-spreadsheet than their company. Come jump ship and work with us. This is the difference between “sourcing as selling” and resume mining.

I chose the word tribe because it is a good, short noun for the idea that “birds of a feather flock together.” And top managers can be a destination. They have their own posse and peeps who follow them wherever they work. I know: I work for one. But even the most incredible managers eventually run out of people to call when rounding up the usual suspects. This is where I come in. I sell the manager and the team. I look at the group that I am headhunting for and try to find some common denominators.

Get the existing team’s resumes. Use LinkedIn, resource managers, or go to their portal and search the bios. Look for common schools, themes, associations.
Ask the manager where he found them. Who is his best hire? How did he find them?
Take a look at the companies they worked for, and when. Is there a theme?

You figure out that Java developers in Europe like Twitter, W.O.W., Ruby games, and Stockholm. To get them to leave their company to come to yours, build your own tribe’s membership theme. To get a pitch, figure out what membership privileges are:

Ask the people who work for your “chief” why they worked at three companies for him.
Ask them what they like about the company.
Ask them how it was different than the company they came from.

You can build a message from this, like “we still have Peet’s coffee! We still have Thirsty Thursdays! Conference Calls longer than 17 minutes are forbidden!”

That is the message. Not “Java Consultant — EMEA.”

If they are doing the exact same thing, why would they leave one software company to come to another? To come back to a tribe like them.
Examples of common denominators might be, “worked in start-ups,” “went to MIT,” “plays W.O.W.” or “brags about Platinum status.”

Here is a thumbnail of my tribe:

Bay Area Software Company. Managers who are Java experts. Peet’s Coffee. Thirsty Thursdays. “It’s-It” ice cream bars. People from Cal and Stanford.

I get that tribe. It’s the tribe of the Bay Area software engineers.

If you have ever been a worker bee or a headhunter in the Bay Area, which I have during several waves (1990, 1999, 2009), you know that there are companies with handbooks containing phrases like, ‘Managers must wear shoes. Beer Me Fridays are mandatory, and don’t get Folgers or you’re fired.” They stock Peet’s coffee; everyone is a Stanford and Cal grad; and now, It’s It (a Bay Area ice cream bar with a cult following) is in the breakroom. These people swarm to the new “it” company and they don’t stick around when Folgers makes its debut.

Call them and/or connect with them on Twitter, LinkedIn groups, user’s group meetings, industry associations, however, whenever. I may even ask an Internet sourcer to find some profiles to add to the pile. I look at my Rolodex. I put the whole lot of them into one big pile and I begin to air out my message that “we want you eventually and this is why.”

This is where the Tweetups come in. If I can get the manager/chief to ask the real qualifying questions that I mention above, it is not a stretch to get to the next piece. “If I find someone from Cal working at XYZ company, would you buy him a coffee in Stockholm?”

Or even better, “Tweet me before you go to Stockholm … and let’s find a place to meet … and if you have time, let’s send out a TweetUp to all of the Java developers in Stockholm who are following me on Twitter, and get them to meet you somewhere. We’ll Tweet that the first round of Guinness is on you at The Rusty Nail pub across the street from our client.”

That way I can put real live candidates who don’t have resumes in front of a real, live “chief” and without a lot of wasted time. Sounds expensive? Twenty five rounds of Guinness is a helluva lot cheaper than 35% of an annual package which the agencies are charging us, and you get to meet a real live person and do the puppy dog close.

For those of you with ADD, here is the upshot:

Analyze the tribe. Who are these people and what do they do and care about?
Evangelize the message of the tribe through your grapevine — Twitter, LinkedIn, your company’s career page, user group meetings — heck, anywhere you can.
Sell the manager on selling his job on the fly.
Always be closing the candidate on why your tribe kicks their tribe’s ass. Ask: “When they can come have a look see?”

There are going to be accountants and HR people who read this and say, “how does that fit into $10,000 cost per hire, and how do we know that this will work, and why do we have to do anything since everyone is unemployed and is dying to work here?”

But top-tier people are always taken out of companies. There are some things that just can’t be automated and outsourced and cost-optimized, such as building a A-team, building a tribe, and building loyalty.

An Examination of Blue- Versus White-Collar Workers’ Conceptualizations of Job Satisfaction Facets

2009-11-03T21:30:15Z

Publication year: 2009
Source: Journal of Vocational Behavior, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 31 October 2009
Xiaoxiao, Hu , Seth, Kaplan , Reeshad S., Dalal

This study examined the degree to which blue- versus white-collar workers differentially conceptualize various job facets, namely the work itself, coworkers, supervisors, and pay. To examine these potential differences, we conducted a series of analyses on job satisfaction ratings from two samples of university workers. Consistent with the study hypothesis, results revealed that blue- and white-collar workers held different conceptualizations regarding the nature of coworkers, pay, and the work itself, but not of supervisors. In general, more dimensions for each facet emerged for the white-collar workers, suggesting that these individuals possess more differentiated and multidimensional evaluations of these job facets...

Trait Entitlement and Perceived Favorability of Human Resource Management Practices in the Prediction of Job Satisfaction

2009-11-05T19:03:52Z

Abstract

Purpose Inconsistency in offerings of human resource management (HRM) practices across organizations is potentially problematic for employees with high levels of entitlement as they tend to believe they get less than they deserve. The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effect of trait entitlement on the relationship between the favorability of HRM practices and job satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach Self-report survey data were obtained from 190 employees from nine different firms.

Findings For those high in trait entitlement, perceived favorability of Recruitment and Selection practices were positively associated with job satisfaction. For those low in trait entitlement, favorability regarding this practice was not significantly related to job satisfaction. For those high in trait entitlement, perceived favorability of Safe Working practices was negatively associated with job satisfaction. For those low in trait entitlement, favorability regarding this practice was positively related to job satisfaction.

Implications Employers cannot assume that offering more or better HRM practices will be associated with high job satisfaction. Employees differ on their expectation of what they deserve, and therefore, employers need to consider other factors than just employee satisfaction when deciding what HRM practices to implement.

Originality/value This study examines the relationship between perceived favorability of HRM practices and employees’ job satisfaction, which is unlike previous studies that tended to focus on employee satisfaction with HRM practices themselves. We focused on understanding the relationship between perceived favorability of HRM practices and job satisfaction, and the extent to which trait entitlement alters those relationships.

Content Type Journal Article
DOI 10.1007/s10869-009-9143-z
Authors
- Zinta S. Byrne, Colorado State University Department of Psychology Fort Collins CO 80523 USA
- Brian K. Miller, Texas State University Department of Management McCoy Hall 544 San Marcos TX 78666 USA
- Virginia E. Pitts, Colorado State University Department of Psychology Fort Collins CO 80523 USA

Journal Journal of Business and Psychology
Online ISSN 1573-353X
Print ISSN 0889-3268

The Language of Success

2009-11-03T22:02:35Z

There is a common language used by top-level managers in every company. It is a language centered on business concepts and understanding a handful of concepts.

For example, CEOs instinctively move toward the action that will maximize profits and minimize costs or expenses. Investment is the first concept and cost savings is second. To them this is as basic as breathing, and they often don’t consciously realize that they have moved in that direction. However, many HR professionals focus on costs or on how a candidate feels about a given action, and they emphasize these over the investment side or over the impact on profits in presentations and conversations.

For example, I might hear a recruiter say, “I felt that the extra time spent with that candidate as worth it because they will now say nicer things about us to other potential candidates.” A CEO might, instead, phrase it this way, “Spending a few extra minutes with the candidate could result in our firm making 2 or 3 additional hires because of the positive comments we’ll get. That would mean we’d be able to spend less on advertising and make faster hires.”

They are really saying the same thing, but the focus and language are different.

Here are 4 other things an executive assumes you know and practice:

Assumption #1: Knowing and Responding to Business Priorities
A business priority is defined by Ram Charan, Harvard business professor and author of an outstandingly valuable book called “What the CEO Wants You To Know,” as “the most important action that needs to be taken at a certain point in time.”

Priorities can change quickly and CEOs expect that you understand that and are prepared to react accordingly. Positive response to change and understanding that there are no absolutes are key attributes of a business-focused manager.

Assumption #2: Having an Investor Mentality
Do you think like an investor in your company would think? Your CEO has to think like an investor and make choices, even unpopular ones that give investors confidence. They focus on improving business processes and finding ways to cut costs. HR is often perceived as acting the opposite. They request expensive tools (e.g. ATS and HRIS systems) without showing how they will add to the profits or improve the investor perception.

This is the hardest of all the assumptions for us in recruiting and HR to deal with. We seem to be predisposed to focus on process improvements over costs savings or other metrics that CEOs understand. You have to understand what your CEO is thinking in order to have any chance of creating a successful way of influencing her.

Assumption #3: Quality Counts More Than Ever
Yes, every CEO In know believes in and supports total quality. It has become a mantra in the best firms and most large (and many smaller) companies have instituted Six Sigma programs and Black Belt training. HR has to emphasize quality and establish its own “black belts.” What would an absolutely first rate, 100% “defect free” recruiting process look like? What would it “buy” your organization? Have any of us used this slower time to think about this and begin to set up a Six Sigma recruiting process in our firms?

Your CEO assumes that you are doing this (or maybe not, as you are just recruiters, after all).

Assumption #4: Knowing How You Fit into the Strategy
The CEOs I work with assume that all departments, except usually HR and staffing, know how they contribute to the big picture. They are expected to present what they will do to help the firm achieve its strategic goals, imperatives or whatever you call them. Talent strategies are critical to every organization. If the CEO cannot get the talent she needs to execute strategy, the strategy will fail and along with it the organization. That is why I see some firms turning away from recruiters and HR when it comes to formulating and carrying out a talent strategy. They are instead asking a line manager, a project manager or some other business-focused person to lead the effort. Numerous firms are replacing the vice president of HR with a non-HR professional for the same reason.

You must know how you fit into the overall vision of the firm and you must show how you can contribute to achieving business success. That means showing how what you do will increase the profits of your organization.

This is the language that your CEO knows and what he wants you to know as well,

Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009

2009-10-21T19:02:00Z

Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others--up from 11% in April.

Gen Y Savvy at Job Search, Craves More Info, Still Values Email

2009-11-04T20:34:05Z

Searching job listings is a core part of every career exploration process, so we set out to learn how Gen Y conducts their job search to help employers recruit them better.

For starters, the top resources Gen Y turns to for opportunities are company websites (73%), university or alumni career centers (70%), career fairs or events (69%) and job board sites (60%). Students tend to use career fairs and university career centers, while alumni rely more on company web sites and job boards.

To narrow their online job searches, Gen Y typically uses two to three criteria , most often job function (65%), type of job (53%), and experience level (50%). Location is also regularly used.

In the job description itself, students and recent graduates agree on three “must have” requirements: location (77%), qualifications sought (76%), and roles & responsibilities (74%). Students, however, have two additional “must haves” - majors sought (53%) and start date or estimated time to hire (50%). They want more information so they can see how their skills align with the job.

While there are lots of ways to find out about job opportunities, respondents say they primarily stay informed through emails from their school (73%), search agent emails (52%) and updates in their school/alumni portal (47%), indicating that email is not dead!

Employers, for tips on how to position your company well in the Gen Y job search, download the whitepaper.

The Truth about Gossip and Reputation

2009-11-04T21:22:00Z

From the beginning of personality psychology as an academic discipline in the 1930s, the conventional wisdom has maintained that reputation is an epiphenomenon of no real psychological significance or interest. Instead, according to Gordon Allport, personality psychology concerns the factors that make each person distinctive and unique. This was a mistake for two reasons: (1) it is impossible to generalize from uniqueness; and (2) reputation is easy to study and is a powerful predictor of behavior.

Another suspect topic is gossip. Conventional wisdom has maintained that gossip is little more than character assassination, and is something that right minded people will avoid. In the 1970s researchers began studying normal conversations and discovered that when real people (as opposed to academic psychologists) talk, they mostly (about 70% of the time) engage in gossip—they talk about other people.

That which reputation and gossip have in common is language. Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, is credited with the view that language evolved as a mechanism to organize and smooth social interaction. Dunbar thinks conversation among humans takes the place of social grooming in chimpanzees (our nearest relative); he thinks conversation serves to create social bonds.

I have argued for a long time that much conversation is actually about gossip and gossip is mostly about coming to a common agreement about another person’s reputation—hence the link between gossip and reputation. Knowing another person’s reputation is quite helpful in deciding how to deal with that person in future interactions. Gossip tells us who we can trust; conversely, the prospects of acquiring a bad reputation serves to control people’s otherwise selfish tendencies—gossip functions as a mechanism of social control.

Ralf Summerfield and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that is an interesting contribution to this line of thinking. They used the standard game theoretical paradigm in which two people interact, and each has the option of competing or cooperating. If both cooperate, both win; if one competes while the other cooperates, the selfish person wins even bigger. In this study, participants were provided information regarding the other person’s reputation as either selfish or cooperative. As expected, they found that if a person expected to interact with someone with a reputation for selfishness, he/she would behave selfishly, but if a person expected to interact with someone with a reputation for cooperation, he/she would tend to cooperate.

The real news in the study, however, concerned a particular wrinkle. In some cases they would provide the participants with both data regarding other person’s performance and a description that person’s reputation. Participants invariably believed the gossip rather than the data. As Sommerfeld noted: “It could be that we are just more adapted to listen to other information than to observe people, because most of the time we’re not able to observe how other people behave. Thus we might believe we have missed something.”

There are two points about this that are worth remembering. First, people believe gossip over actual data regarding a person’s performance. And second, smart people will try to keep their reputations in good shape.

-- Dr. Robert Hogan

Google Hiring 200 Recruiters. NOW!

2009-11-04T20:56:06Z

In what is by now an open secret, Google is hiring 200 recruiters and sourcers for a one-year gig.

Details are sketchy, but Dave Mendoza did post an email about the hire to his site Six Degrees From Dave. The email is from a recruiter for Nelson Staffing and says the firm got a contract from “A Major (and pretty exciting) employer in the South Bay here in N. CA.” The email doesn’t name the employer, but it says Nelson needs to find “200 upbeat and enthusiastic recruiters and sourcers for them — by next week.”

While California’s Bay Area — home to Silicon Valley — is crowded with tech employers, few are big enough to support a need for 200 recruiters. Google is. The company laid off about 100 contract recruiters at the beginning of this year, which was 25 percent of its recruiting force. The fact that the company is now hiring 200 suggests that it expects to grow in 2010.

Some 70 percent of the new positions are at company headquarters. The rest are in other parts of the U.S. and in other parts of the world. All the positions are onsite; “no work from home.”

I’m guessing that the positions on the Nelson job board for recruiter and sourcer in Mountain View (Google’s HQ) are the same ones referred to in the email. If so, the pay scale appears to be in the $40-$45 per hour range for sourcers and $60-$70 for recruiters.

Incidentally, Mendoza’s post doesn’t mention Google by name. Nor would he confirm that the online search and advertising company is behind the hiring. Other sources, however, did confirm that it is Google.

Mendoza’s blog post has all the details — they are also in the online job postings — but briefly, here’s what Nelson Staffing says it wants:

Experienced Recruiter (minimum 5 years total in both corporate and/or agency recruiting) – Technical, sales, product marketing. Recruiting experience on resume in ’09;
Recruiters (minimum 4 years recent exp) – Candidate sourcing;
Sourcers (minimum 3 years solid recent exp) – Ability to reach passive candidates – exceptionally internet savvy;
Recruiting Coordinators (minimum 2 years in an HR support or recruiting support role) – heavy scheduling, process management.

How Strategic Recruiting Drives Business Performance During the Recession

2009-10-26T16:41:00Z

Best practice companies make talent acquisition a key priority during both strong and weak economic conditions. It may seem hard to believe…why would companies want to recruit during a recession? Furthermore, how can sourcing and screening strategies take precedence over other key talent initiatives such as downsizing and restructuring?

To maximize talent investments during an economic slowdown, organizations need to rethink their current strategies and make the necessary changes to not only reduce costs but improve the accuracy and quality of hires. With more candidates in the workforce, recessions are an excellent time to “upgrade” your talent pool.

Sound simple? Well, unfortunately it’s not. Just ask GSK. The leading global pharmaceutical company has invested a considerable amount of time and energy to restructure their sourcing and screening strategies with a heavy focus on two major themes…integration and innovation. It is important to note that these changes did not happen overnight. In many cases, they began as early as 2004 and will continue beyond 2010 as GSK continues to prioritize and re-evaluate their strategies.

How Has GSK Invested in Strategic Sourcing?

Internal Sourcing Function- GSK created an internal sourcing function under their global talent solutions department with the goal of reducing costs spent on executive search firms. Over the past few years, this sourcing team has filled 500 roles, saved $15 million and provided organizational benchmarking data as well as competitive intelligence.

Global Talent Center of Excellence- Over the past year, GSK has continued to move away from a decentralized sourcing model by including this function in the global talent center of excellence with the goal of integrating talent acquisition with talent management.

Technology Investment-GSK selected Peopleclick’s RMS solution as a robust solution for global enterprise organizations. As an early adopter of Peopleclick, GSK has continued to align with companies that prove to be innovative in their approach to talent acquisition.

How Has GSK Invested in Screening and Selection?

Recruiters Toolkit- This end-to-end toolkit includes two primary tools used for the selection process across the organization. Some of these tools vary by the needs of different business units. They are integrated in the recruitment workflow and help inform hiring decisions, limit the risk that the company enters into when making a hiring decision, and reduce the cost associated with a new hire.

Skillsurvey- As an innovative organization, GSK selected SkillSurvey to automate the reference checking process and move this process to the beginning of the recruiting lifecycle instead of the end. GSK has measured several key performance indicators including time to fill and recruiter workload.

Standardized Assessments- GSK’s pre-hire assessment model is consistent throughout the organization and utilizes the underlying framework of their behavioral leadership framework. This behavioral leadership framework is used for the post-hire phases and will help integrate talent acquisition and talent management through the center of excellence.

These continuous talent acquisition initiatives during both a strong and weak economy have helped GSK reduce the redundancy associated with a decentralized model, increase communication and improve efficiency. We are publishing a more indepth case study on this topic…stay tuned.

74% of users have positive impression of companies who use new media

2009-10-30T13:19:03Z

Here is further proof that if you use new media to communicate to your customers your company will have a much more favorable impression. Research firm eMarketer released this latest info which caught our eye. Podcasting your jobs is a perfect example of new media in action.

To succeed the article says: “If companies are going to be a mainstay in new media, they’re going to have to realize consumers expect more than a passive existence,” said Mike Hollywood, Cone’s director of new media, in a statement. “New media are about experience, dialogue and immediacy. There was a time when just being in new media got you the gold star for effort. But consumers are continually refining their expectations and more and more are looking for specific interactions.”

Hispanics Respond to Cell Phone Ads 5-10 Times More Than On-line Ads

2009-10-28T13:33:42Z

One of the under reported aspects of cell phone text messaging (SMS) and other forms of mobile marketing is that it is not a level playing field. The conventional wisdom is that younger people tend to use their cell phones more and be more receptive to receiving ads on them than older people. While that is certainly true, there are also significant socioeconomic and racial differences in usage.

One of the key reasons that Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the primaries and then John McCain in the general election is that Obama had an extremely well thought out and integrated mobile marketing strategy. Clinton and McCain did not. Obama understood that it wasn't just the key demographic group Gen Y who used their cell phones more than the average eligible voter, but also the African-Americans and Hispanics. A year after the election, it is hard to remember that our first African-American president did not have the support of African-Americans early in the primaries. Clinton did. So Obama needed a way to reach and get out the vote amongst his supporters and part of that strategy was sending his message to the only device that we almost all carry around everywhere we go: cell phones.

Federal Diary: OPM's Berry talks of ending GS system

2009-11-03T05:00:00Z

If the federal civil service had a flag, it would be flying upside down.

Men and things, women and people: A meta-analysis of sex differences in interests.

2009-11-03T18:31:44Z

The magnitude and variability of sex differences in vocational interests were examined in the present meta-analysis for Holland’s (1959, 1997) categories (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional), Prediger’s (1982) Things–People and Data–Ideas dimensions, and the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) interest areas. Technical manuals for 47 interest inventories were used, yielding 503,188 respondents. Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things–People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and Investigative (d = 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (d = -0.35), Social (d = -0.68), and Conventional (d = -0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and mathematics (d = 0.34) interests. Average effect sizes varied across interest inventories, ranging from 0.08 to 0.79. The quality of interest inventories, based on professional reputation, was not differentially related to the magnitude of sex differences. Moderators of the effect sizes included interest inventory item development strategy, scoring method, theoretical framework, and sample variables of age and cohort. Application of some item development strategies can substantially reduce sex differences. The present study suggests that interests may play a critical role in gendered occupational choices and gender disparity in the STEM fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

Guess Who’s Naked?

2009-11-03T09:47:23Z

The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson is about an emperor who hires two swindlers to create a new suit. The emperor presides over a kingdom of prosperity and peace and is pretty concerned about appearances. The swindlers manage to sell him a new suit of invisible material that they claim is visible only to those worthy to lay eyes upon him. Once it is “finished” they drape him in pantomime and he proceeds to swagger naked amongst his minions only to called out by a child who says “the emperor has no clothes!” The moral of the story is that none of his loyal inner circle bothered to tell him he was naked. It had to be a kid on the street who didn’t have anything to lose to point out his folly.

In today’s age, the fable is a metaphor for those in HR who are unwilling to state an obvious truth to a higher up out of fear of appearing stupid, sacrilegious, or politically “incorrect.” They would sooner let a company’s reputation stick out buck naked than tell the truth about the company culture and reputation. This is co-dependency with a superior who wants Yes-men, not accountable partners.

I arrived at this observation because I am always struck by the stark difference between what companies think their employees think about them and what they tell me when I interview them. I also am always shocked about what those employees will say on Twitter, Vault, and any other number of “pink slip” sites about these top-rated employers. I wonder if anyone in competitive intelligence, PR, marketing, or HR ever reads about the fallout of bad managers making bad decisions, including furloughs, reduced hours, wearing double hats, etc. When did having a bad reputation not count?

I’ll give you an example of something that happened to me at Wal-Mart. I haven’t recruited for Wal-Mart. Last week I watched a show on the Discovery Channel about Wal-Mart’s Super Store operations. They have onboarding sessions and songs that everyone sings that promote team spirit at Wal-Mart. They showed the droves of people who drove for miles to work there. Right after I watched the show, my iPod had to be replaced. Since I was too lazy to go to the Apple store, and I wanted it right now, I went to Wal-Mart. While I was standing at the counter trying to get this chick to hand me the iPod, she turns her back to me and starts complaining about her hours being reduced to another guy who is complaining about his benefits. I finally interrupted them and asked her to please hand me the iPod and take my money. I got home, got down to my iTunes work, and opened up my gmail account, and there was an email about boycotting Wal-Mart on account of some hideous thing that it did to bust a union. In the course of one week, I had some serious employment brand material in my consciousness.

What is interesting about the TV show, the store experience, the e-mail, and the press about Wal-Mart is that there is a level of chatter about its brand that is beyond their control. Wal-Mart feels it is well on the way to rehabilitating its image through a new logo and green Super Stores; yet, that doesn’t match my personal experience in that week. What can it do about Twitter, e-mail chains, at the store, in the news, and across the Thanksgiving dinner table, especially if one incident adds fuel to the fire?

I chose Wal-Mart because well, that happened to me last week, and that is a fairly large target. I won’t be the first one to raise this reputation issue about them. Frankly, it probably doesn’t matter what people think about its “employee” brand because they employ groups of people who have limited choices and who presumably grow in faster and larger numbers than let’s say, semiconductor design engineers with PhDs. What is interesting is when all of those things collide and affect more vulnerable brands.

The war for top talent is going to get fought and influenced by Twitter, Vault, users groups, and former employees. And in a country like the U.S. where services and design are the only real place where job growth is, people know each other. Maybe some companies should consider cutting down spend on money for logos and Superbowl ads, and treat people better.

Federal Jobs: Easy to Spot, Hard to Get - WSJ.com

2009-11-03T18:28:00Z

More than a quarter-million federal workers are expected to be hired in the next three years, but the government, it turns out, isn't very good at hiring.

Race Matters

2009-11-03T18:17:06Z

Shared by Bryan
Study abstract here: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/605946

Does the race or ethnicity of hiring managers affect the diversity of a company's workforce? Absolutely, according to a recent study. Whether there is intentional discrimination, however, is another question.

Just Tell the Truth

2009-10-28T13:51:21Z

By Matt Paese, Ph.D. Yesterday I attended the Human Resources Planning Society conference in Chicago where something interesting happened in a group discussion about talent management with about 40 HR executives from around the country (don’t act surprised). Searching for some bottom-line answers, we asked a simple question: If your talent management system were an engine, what should happen when you switch it on? -“More leaders ready at the right time for the right jobs!”, called out a participant. -“More people ready to do what the business needs!”, called another. Wide consensus. Heads nodding. Organizations need an engine that manufactures...

TARGET-SEARCH PEOPLE PROFILES USING TWEEPZ

2009-10-29T15:48:59Z

When it comes to finding relevant talent on Twitter, a great new no-cost profile search tool has emerged from Exalead, one of our favorite advanced search engines: Tweepz.com just searches the biographical data on over 8 million profiles. You can do keyword stemming (e.g., analy* finds analyze, analysis, etc.) and even proximity searches (e.g., Sarbanes NEAR/2 pricing). Or simply combine a keyword (CPA) and location (Atlanta), as in this example:

http://www.tweepz.com/search?q=bio%3ACPA+loc%3Aatlanta&C=

“Tens of Thousands” of New Dot-Jobs Boards Coming

2009-10-29T16:25:20Z

In a joint venture with the manager of the .jobs domain, DirectEmployers has launched the first of what might become tens of thousands of new geographically and occupationally focused job boards all sharing a .jobs extension.

The new sites, identical in design and structure, made their appearance earlier this month. Among them are Atlanta.jobs, Boston.jobs, Mexico.jobs, and India.jobs.

“We just started pushing them out,” says Chad Sowash, VP of business development for DirectEmployers, a non-profit HR consortium, that has recruiting as its focus. Among its services is the Job Central job board, to which members can post jobs without additional fee.

“It’s a new playing field,” Sowash adds. “What this is going to do is allow thousands more, perhaps tens of thousands more” sites where job seekers can look for jobs.

Assuming job seekers ever become aware of the existence of a domain offering only jobs and career information, then those looking for opportunities in a specific geography — Atlanta, for example — need only enter that area and the extension .jobs. Those looking for an occupation-specific opportunity enter the title and the .jobs extension.

Members of the DirectEmployers consortium can request the creation of any site name they think will be of benefit, said Sowash, suggesting an oil company might want to use refinery.jobs for its openings.

“It won’t belong to any company, but if a company wants us to offer a name, we can. The registrar isn’t selling these domains. They still have them,” Sowash explained. “We can light up every combination someone can think of.”

Tom Embrescia, CEO of Employ Media, the administrator and manager — registrar, in Internet parlance — of the .jobs domain, said the venture with DirectEmployers is a “great way to see what the world wants.”

The domain — technically a sponsored top-level domain — was pitched to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) by Employ Media and its partner the Society for Human Resource Management. The proposal, approved in 2005, argued that a .jobs extension would make it easy for job seekers to find the career site of individual companies and would provide a modicum of protection against scam job postings.

Companies could only get a .jobs address by using the company name and by pledging to adhere to the SHRM code of ethics.

Although about 15,000 companies signed up for the .jobs address, job seekers are largely unaware of its existence. As a consequence, most .jobs addresses get little traffic.

Building sites on the “reserved” occupational and geographic addresses, says Embrescia, is a marketing experiment. “It’s a beta test,” he says, explaining later in the conversation, “We need to build consumer awareness that these (addresses) exist.”

Besides providing the technology to power the job boards, DirectEmployers’ dozens of Fortune 500 and 1000 members will be encouraged to promote them. “Now I’ve got Fortune 1000 companies working,” Embrescia beamed.

Besides members of DirectEmployers, other firms with a .jobs domain address will also be able to post their jobs to the new sites.

For member companies posting jobs to Job Central, the additional placement on geographic and occupational sites will be automatic, Sowash told me. They are also likely to get a premium posting position.

Non-members, who own a .jobs address, might have to post their jobs manually or pay a fee for automation.

Others who want to post to these sites might have to pay a posting fee, or have some other limitation.

“The rules haven’t been hammered out,” says Sowash. There’s also a 40-company advisory group providing input on site names, practices, and feedback on the design and functionality of the job boards, which, Sowash is quick to point out, don’t look like job boards. “These are not going to look like your father’s job board,” he vows.

I asked Sowash whether he and DirectEmployers expected push back or opposition to its exclusive deal with Employ Media. “Yeah,” he acknowledged, “we’ll probably hear from some people who are not too happy.” But he didn’t anticipate resistance from the job boards, most of whom are struggling in the economy and couldn’t take on a project of this magnitude.

Bob Etheridge, a co-founder of JobCircle and a former VP of another job board, GettheJob, says he suspects “job board owners are walking the fence, trying to determine are they friends or are they foes.”

There’s suspicion now that Employ Media is not only a names registrar, but “they are getting in the publisher business.”

Those quoted here and others who talked with me either for background or anonymously all supported DirectEmployers for its aggressiveness and initiative.

DirectEmployers approached Employ Media with a proposal almost a year ago, but Embrescia said he wasn’t ready then. Conversation resumed about the time Embrescia publicly floated the idea of selling off the reserved names.

“They had a good plan and when we were ready we talked with them,” Employ Media’s Embrescia said. Their facility with the technology, flexibility, and non-profit status, and their enthusiasm were convincing factors.

Still, a top executive with a leading job board who asked not to be named, said he initially was upset over the lack of openness in the process of developing the joint venture. Now, though, he doubts the new sites will do anything more than simply add to the already cluttered job board environment.

Coming at it from a different perspective, Gerry Crispin, CareerXroads co-founder and a leading recruitment consultant, complained that the latest turn means an end to “the embedded, implied promise” that all the jobs on a .jobs site would be legitimate and are those of the company whose name appeared before the extension.

“It no longer has the same aspirational goals,” laments Crispin, a member of the original SHRM advisory group that supported the .jobs creation. “It’s still milk, but there’s no guarantee it’s pasteurized.”