The Hiring Site

Temperatures Aren’t the Only Things Rising This Summer

2012-05-16T14:06:47Z

There’s more to look forward to this summer than just beach trips, baseball games and US Weekly’s annual “Best and Worst Celebrity Beach Bods” issue…

In a positive sign for the economy, seasonal hiring is expected to increase over the summer months, according to CareerBuilder’s annual Summer Job Forecast.

Of the more than 2,000 hiring managers and human resource professionals who participated in the survey, three in ten (29 percent) plan to hire workers for the summer, up from 21 percent in 2011 and an average of 22 percent over the past four years.

The busier summer hiring season is likely due to a combination of stronger-than-expected growth in the manufacturing sector and increased consumer confidence. Employers in the following industries are expected to lead seasonal hiring:

Manufacturing: 45 percent [plan to add summer workers]
Hospitality: 44 percent
Retail: 34 percent
Finance: 31 percent

Beyond these industries, customer service, office support, information technology, research, engineering and sales will also be hiring hotspots.

“Confidence is up among the employers we most closely associate with summer hiring,” said Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America, in a statement for the press release. “The forecast is a strong indicator that the job market will continue to strengthen as we come closer to the second half of 2012.”

What’s Hot This Summer: Three Workforce Trends
The survey also indicated the following trends among employer behavior this summer.

Full-time work potential: 71 percent of employers hiring this summer said they’ll be considering some hires for permanent positions. In fact, 39 percent of employers said they’re less likely to hire someone who isn’t interested in working beyond summer.
Increased pay: A majority (64 percent) of employers will pay their summer hires $10 or more per hour – up from 58 percent last year.
Late-in-season hiring: While 42 percent of employers report that they typically complete their summer hiring by April, 38 percent complete it in May and 19 percent will hire in June and beyond.

Tell us: How do your hiring and compensation plans compare to the above findings?

Contributing to a Stronger Economy: How Coinstar Empowers Employment

2012-05-15T13:55:43Z

As one of today’s fastest-growing companies, Coinstar, Inc. is in the unique position to hire workers across multiple functions and contribute to economic growth. Learn more about how Coinstar is empowering employment in the following video, or read the Q&A below with Coinstar’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Raquel Karls.

What does Coinstar do to ensure employees perform to their highest potential?
Coinstar has a clear mission to reimagine the possibilities as we pride ourselves on finding new and better ways of doing things. We’re focused on making products and services more accessible to consumers than ever before. The same holds true for our workplace. Coinstar employees are encouraged to leverage their skills and are supported in their development as they focus on achieving individual and team goals. For example, through our learning management system, Learning Central, employees have access to self-directed training materials, and we have tools to support individual development planning throughout the organization.

How does your growth make an impact on the local communities you serve? Coinstar’s growth has enabled us to be a strong employer across the U.S., with growth in jobs, opportunities and new communities every day. In 2011, Coinstar filled over 600 roles nationwide, with very little turnover, and 2012 is trending even higher.

How do Coinstar employees contribute to this impact?
Coinstar employees are working in our retail partners’ businesses each and every day- so they’re making an employment contribution and providing a great service in those communities all of the time. As well, our employees are paid for time spent participating in company sponsored volunteer service events in addition to matching funds for giving by employees.

What advice would you pass on to your peers?
Finding the right talent is an investment that has massively exponential returns- you have to know what you’re looking for not just for today, but for the longer term, be diligent in finding it, and then proactively develop it within the workplace.

How is Coinstar, Inc. empowering employment?
Coinstar provides employees great, independent roles in a growing, thriving business. It’s the right balance of having the freedom to create and innovate with the resources to make those ideas come to life. Not many companies in the US could come close to matching what Coinstar is doing, and it’s an exciting place to work as a result!

Want to learn more about how other companies like Coinstar are working with CareerBuilder to empower employment? Visit www.empoweringemployment.com

CareerBuilder Finds Its Way by Defining Its Employment Brand

2012-05-12T02:56:20Z

“If a candidate comes into your organization and asks three different people, ‘What is your employee value proposition?’ every one of those people should be able to provide a similar answer,” says Rosemary Haefner, on what it means to have a clearly defined employment brand.

As vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, Haefner recently spearheaded the initiative to define CareerBuilder’s own employment brand.

“Your brand is basically your commercial,” Haefner explains. “It’s what should come to people’s mind when they hear your company’s name.” While CareerBuilder has always enjoyed a reputation as a great place to work, Haefner wanted to clearly define what CareerBuilder stood for as an employer and what the company offers its employees.

“If you’re not specific about who you are as an employer, you can’t as easily determine which candidates will be successful in your organization or if employees are fulfilling their potential, and you won’t know what investments you need to be making in your organization.”

The problem some companies encounter, however, is that who they think they are as an employer and how others actually perceive them don’t always align. “You might think your brand is one thing, but then your employees might have an entirely different opinion. It’s almost as if you need a mirror to tell you who you are,” Haefner says.

Not wanting to fall into this trap, Haefner and her team sought objective feedback from current employees and prospective candidates. “We interviewed people both in and outside the organization, basically just asking them, ‘When you think about CareerBuilder, what rises to top?’” Haefner says. After a while, a similar theme began to surface from the survey results: “The answers were all about different ways to learn – both personally and professionally.” The surveys provided a foundation on which CareerBuilder could then build its employment brand strategy.

Finally, after an intense several months of interviews, surveys and discussion around “where we want to be as an organization and what we have to do to get there,” CareerBuilder was ready to begin promoting its new “Growth through Learning” employment brand. “This brand captures the idea that, if you’re open to learning, and if you’re game to be challenged, this is the place for you,” Haefner says.

Looking back now, “Growth through Learning” seems like an obvious description of CareerBuilder’s employment brand. After all, education and learning have always been integral to the culture at CareerBuilder. In addition to the company’s generous tuition reimbursement program, employees have access to a wealth of free career-related courses through CBLearn, its internal training portal, and in 2006, CareerBuilder launched the Leadership Development Series. The invitation-only, MBA-style program is taught by business school professors and designed to prepare high potential employees for higher levels of responsibility.

But educational opportunities go beyond classes and coursework at CareerBuilder. “We believe that learning isn’t just about sitting in a classroom. We’re always looking for ways to expose employees to new opportunities to learn,” Haefner says. Those opportunities come in nearly any form conceivable – from exposure to the influential leaders who come to speak at the company’s annual kickoff event (past speakers have included Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright and Jack Welch) to work exchange programs with the company’s international offices, to community outreach and company-administered volunteer events. Understanding that competition and innovation are also key to learning, CareerBuilder encourages employees to come up with business plans for its annual Ideas from Everywhere contest and holds regular Hack Days.

While these initiatives would likely exist in some form or another without having gone through the exercise of creating a defined employment brand, chances are they would have taken much longer to execute. With “Growth through Learning” as the framework on which all company initiatives are based, Haefner says, “It’s easier to make decisions now on where to invest our time, effort and money, because we already know that, in the end, everything should come back to growth through learning.”

Survey: Working Moms Taking Less Maternity Leave

2012-05-16T14:07:37Z

Stars: they’re just like us! They buy their own groceries, they pump their own gas, and they even cut their maternity leaves short and struggle with work-life balance!

According to CareerBuilder’s annual Mother’s Day survey, one in four (26 percent) working moms who have had a child in the last three years reported they did not take the full maternity leave allowed by their company, and one in ten took two weeks or less.

But while celebrity moms are more likely to take shorter maternity leaves because they need to fly to Germany to film a shampoo commercial, the mothers in CareerBuilder’s survey had arguably less glamorous reasons for doing so: Competitive work environments, demanding positions and financial pressures played key roles in respondents’ decisions to go back to work early.

According to the survey, 39 percent of working moms are the sole financial provider in their household, compared with 43 percent of working dads. Working dads who are the sole breadwinner were almost twice as likely to earn $50,000 or more and were approximately three times as likely to earn six figures as working moms. Women were much more likely to earn less than $35,000 compared to men.

How much time do working moms get to spend with their families?
Unsurprisingly, with so much pressure to be in the office, women also reported feeling a struggle to find a healthy balance between work and family life. One in four (25 percent) working moms feel they have to choose between their children and being successful at their jobs, and 24 percent say work obligations caused them to miss significant events in their children’s lives.

When asked how much time they’re able to spend with their children during the work week, half of working moms said they average around four hours of quality time each day, while nearly 30 percent spend two hours.

What can working moms do to find a better work/life balance?
Looking for a way to balance your work and family life, but lacking the help of a live-in nanny, personal assistant and bodyguards? Hope Gurion, Chief Development Officer at CareerBuilder (and mother of two), offers the following tips for working moms to better manage work and family.

Go in with a game plan – The vast majority of working moms who have taken advantage of flexible work arrangements said it hasn’t negatively impacted their careers, so talk to your supervisor or HR department and explore options. Make sure to come to that conversation with a game plan on how you can manage workload, cover responsibilities, etc.
Keep an “I’m Fabulous” file – Keep track of all of your accomplishments within the organization, quantifying results whenever possible, and list out the additional responsibilities you have taken on in the last year. It helps you to build your case when negotiating for a better salary or consideration for promotion with your employer.
Get organized – Structure in your life will save you time, stress and mental energy. Keep one calendar for business and family commitments to avoid double-booking. Set up a schedule for chores, homework, family activities and playtime.
Remember quality over quantity – Make the most of your personal time. When you’re home, it’s all about them. Wait until after the children go to bed before checking email or finishing up that presentation.
Schedule “me time” – Working moms need to take care of themselves too. Put actual time on the calendar for an hour or more of doing something you enjoy such as going to the gym, taking a walk, reading, etc.

Tell us: How do you balance work and family life?

Why Your Onboarding Should Be More Than a PowerPoint Presentation

2012-05-07T17:44:34Z

Ninety days is the amount of time most new hires have to lay the foundation for success in their companies. And according to positive psychologists and neuroscientists, it’s also the number of days it takes to make a new habit a way of being. Because onboarding is the process of getting new employees integrated into your company culture, competent in their roles and consistently delivering the results you expect of them, your onboarding process should be more than a one-day orientation or even a week-long employee training program.

Here are the key reasons why your onboarding process should extend throughout your employees’ first quarter and how you can ensure that you best meet your new hires where they are, and partner with them so they get to where you need them to be.

Habits Are Created Through Daily, Intentional Practice. If you want your new employees to be peak performers, make yourself a partner in their learning and development. Give them the knowledge they need to successfully perform their work and make yourself accessible to support their growth, ideally through weekly check-in meetings. Encourage them to book time with you whenever they need it—regardless of what the issue is. If you make it easy for your new employees to come to you with questions and concerns, you can nip any issue in the bud before it becomes a real problem.

It Takes Time to Create a Culture Fit. As Zappos founder and CEO, Tony Hsieh says, “If you get the culture right then most of the other stuff will happen naturally.” Unfortunately, for a lot of new employees, the first 90 days at a new job can feel more like a dress rehearsal than a final performance. New hires don’t yet feel like they are a part of their company culture, and yet they must before they can make positive contributions to it. There are a few key tactics managers can put into practice to expedite the process:

Connect new hires with all the right people: Immediately introduce new employees to the colleagues, clients, and other stakeholders they will be working closely with. By facilitating these connections, you ensure that your employees have the people resources they need to be successful, and you give them a supportive community which will help them feel strong and supported.
Demystify company and field jargon: There is nothing worse for a new employee than to hear other people using abbreviations or industry terms that they don’t understand. Help them become a part of your tribe by giving them the inside scoop on words and phrases they can expect to hear.
Hook young professionals into your company’s unique cultural features: Get your new hires excited about your team and company traditions and rituals. One of the easiest ways to get your young professionals involved in your culture is to have them share their experiences with it. Whether it’s writing testimonials for your Facebook fan page or employee blog, documenting colleagues at work (and hopefully sometimes at play!) for company events, or having them share their candid experiences with prospective new hires, when employees have the opportunity to reflect on the culture they will take more of an active role in it.

A successful onboarding process requires the support of everyone who has a stake in new hire success, e.g., hiring managers, HR, training, and a direct supervisor. It takes time and should be ongoing. In order to inspire the performance you want from your new employees, you have to invest time and energy in bringing them on board and welcoming them into your workplace family.

Alexia Vernon is an author, speaker, International Coach Federation (ICF) certified coach, trainer, and media personality who specializes in helping organizations recruit, retain, educate, and grow their young professional workforce. In her book 90 Days 90 Ways: Onboard Young Professionals to Peak Performance, Alexia demonstrates how to achieve the goal of getting new employees oriented, integrated and trained within 90 days of their employment. As a member of Gen Y and with her unique approach to talent development, Alexia has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including CNN, NBC, Wall Street Journal, CBS MoneyWatch, FOX Business News, Forbes.com, ABCNews.com, TheGlassDoor.com, and Mint.com. To learn more visit www.AlexiaVernon.com and connect with Alexia on Twitter @AlexiaVernon.

Do We Assume Too Much About Diverse Candidates?

2012-05-08T13:42:57Z

Diversity is important in today’s business world. At least that’s the claim many employers make, despite not having sufficient diversity initiatives. Why the contradiction?

Perhaps in an effort to attract candidates, some organizations are only saying what they think candidates want to hear. They might be surprised, then, to see new research from CareerBuilder indicating that diversity isn’t the number one (or even two or three or…) factor diverse candidates want from their employers.

According to a recent survey of 4,000 workers nationwide:

African Americans rank diversity seventh their list of most important employer attributes. Diversity follows compensation and benefits; advancement; training; work-life balance; interesting assignments; and appreciation by management, in order of importance.
For Hispanics and Asians, diversity falls even lower on the list. It ranks below (in order) compensation; benefits; training; advancement opportunities; work-life balance; interesting assignments; good reputation; financially strong; high quality; good culture; and personal impact.

Given these findings, is it even worth it for employers to invest in diversity initiatives? Absolutely, says Andrea Briggs, Project Manager of Talent Intelligence and Consulting for Personified. Because while diversity might not rank as highly as one might expect among diverse candidates, it ranks much higher among diverse candidates than white candidates: It’s among the top 10 for 37.5 percent of diverse candidates overall, compared to only 29.5 percent of white candidates. This disparity, Briggs says, is significant.

“For organizations trying to recruit more diverse candidates and diversify their workforces, this should definitely be a part of their message in their employment brand,” she says. “Diversity resonates much more with diverse candidates, and even though they consider other factors more important, when an organization wants to differentiate themselves in the minds of diverse candidates, diversity in an organization is one way to do that.”

If these results surprise you, you may need to re-evaluate what you know about the candidates you hope to attract to your organization. These findings further underscore the need for employers to research their target talent – whoever they are – to ensure they’re sending the right message to the right candidates.

What are your thoughts? Do these findings surprise you? How do you ensure you’re sending the right message to the candidates you want for your organization?

Think You Can Spot a Fake Resume?

2012-05-09T19:39:15Z

According to one CareerBuilder survey, 38 percent of employees have embellished their job responsibilities at some point, while 18 percent have lied about their skill sets. Other common lies surrounded information about employees’ start and end dates of employment, academic degrees, previous employers and job titles.

6 Ways to Keep Candidates Legit
Use the following tips as you evaluate candidate resumes moving forward:

Perform a standard background check on things like work history, residences, dates of employment, etc. Look for discrepancies between what the candidate submitted and what the reports reveal.
Check for red flags: Unexplained gaps in employment, a reluctance to explain the reason for leaving, and unusual periods of self-employment can be a tip off to false employment history. Always check references, including clients, for self-employed work history. Because even references can be fake, check the web sites of previous employers and use the phone numbers found online for employment verification. (Can’t find a previous employer’s web site, even after you’ve “Googled” it? The Better Business Bureau or the local Chamber of Commerce are good resources to check, too.)
Utilize social networking sites. Social networking profiles contain public information that may help you verify certain information such as a candidate’s work history or education credentials. (Just be aware of the possible legal ramifications of using social media to screen applicants. It’s probably best not to ask candidates for their Facebook passwords, either.)
Test their skills. Knowing that employers use keyword searching to find and qualify their resumes, applicants may include keywords for all skills required for the job – regardless of whether they have them or not. Find out if they’re embellishing by asking specific technical questions about the skills they claim to have and actually test their computer skills.
Be fair. Remember that mistakes and misunderstandings do happen. If you find a discrepancy, give the candidate an opportunity to explain.
Use common sense. Trust your intuition and experience. If something doesn’t seem right, follow up on it.

Do you have an experience with a candidate or employee who lied on his or her resume? Share with us in the comments below.

Editor’s note: This post was adapted from an earlier post about resume lies, which includes true life stories from readers sharing their own ‘fake resume’ experiences.

April Job Numbers Show Slow Gains, but Job Market for Graduates is Improving

2012-05-04T19:00:50Z

Today, Matt Ferguson, chief executive officer of CareerBuilder, spoke with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop” about the April employment report and the outlook for the U.S. labor market.

Payrolls climbed 115,000, the smallest gain in six months, after a revised 154,000 rise in March that was more than initially estimated. The job outlook for recent grads, however, is the best it has been in three years. A recent CareerBuilder study shows more than half (54 percent) plan to hire recent college graduates this year, an increase from 46 percent last year, 44 percent in 2010 and 43 percent in 2009.

Below is Ferguson’s interview with Liu:

31 Percent of Employers Plan to Hire Executives–But Where’s the Diversity?

2012-05-07T21:04:13Z

Things are looking up for experienced talent. That’s right — the hiring landscape for executives is improving along with the rest of the labor market, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder and HeadHunter.com (a recruitment site dedicated to connecting employers with management and executive-level talent) of more than 2,000 hiring manager and HR professionals.

Just how much? Well, 31 percent of employers expect to hire for executive-level positions over the next six months, up from 23 percent in October 2011′s executive forecast.

Despite this boost in hiring, we’re still facing a deficit of diverse workers and women when it comes to taking on executive roles. Let’s take a closer look.

What’s ahead for executive hiring

Employers are recruiting senior leadership for a range of business functions, but some areas are more in demand than others:

Nearly a quarter of employers (24 percent) will hire in business development
23 percent will hire in information technology
22 percent will hire in sales
19 percent will hire in marketing and 19 percent in accounting/finance

As Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America, observes, the need for diverse talent is paramount:

“Hiring trends for executive-level management mirror what we’re seeing in the labor market for all workers. As companies look to expand their sales force, develop new products and improve their tech infrastructure, the need for diverse, experienced leadership grows along with these initiatives.”

Demographics: Where’s the diversity?

Many hiring managers revealed they are still lacking diverse leadership at their organizations. Twenty-two percent of companies still don’t have female executives — not a surprise given that a mere 14.1 percent of women reportedly hold executive officer positions at Fortune 500 companies. In addition, 41 percent of companies do not have even one executive-level employee in any of the following demographics: African American, Hispanic, Asian, LGBT, and Disabled.

One in five companies have Millennial-level executives

One demographic that is seeing a rise in executives is Millenials; with the emergence of digital, mobile and IT as high-growth sectors, more Millennials are climbing their way to the top. Twenty percent of employers say they have executives under the age of 30.

What do employers (really) want in executive talent?

Often, employers will more heavily weigh prior accomplishments and demonstrated leadership ability than expertise in a particular industry. Though most hiring managers say prior experience in the industry for which a candidate is applying is a crucial requisite for landing a top job, 35 percent say they’ll consider candidates who don’t have a background in the industry.

The top qualities employers say they seek in executive-level candidates:

Proven ability in addressing problems with effective solutions (62 percent)
Adept at motivating others (54 percent)
Can act with speed and agility in a changing market (47 percent)
Is creative (43 percent)
Has emotional intelligence (38 percent)
Experience in different areas (37 percent)

It may come as a surprise to learn that only 20 percent say they look for an MBA or comparable higher-level degree when evaluating executive candidates.

Does anything surprise you from the latest executive hiring forecast in relation to your own hiring?

ABOUT HEADHUNTER.COM: HeadHunter.com is a recruitment site for management and executive-level talent. Founded in partnership with CareerBuilder.com, HeadHunter.com is a targeted approach for connecting high-level, experienced professionals with their ideal career opportunity. For more information, visit www.HeadHunter.com.

Recruiting By the Orange Book: Q&A with Concentra’s AVP of Recruiting

2012-05-03T15:56:27Z

“Every day, I hear stories from new hires about how happy they are to have found their home at Concentra.”

Tara Petty is the Assistant Vice President of Recruiting at Concentra, a national health care company where, she says, “employees are the company, and the ones who make a difference in the lives of our patients.” In the following Q&A, Petty details what it means to empower employees at Concentra, and how her team finds the talented individuals on whom Concentra’s success ultimately depends.

How do you describe the culture at Concentra? There’s a feeling that’s palpable when you walk through the doors at a Concentra clinic or at our corporate office. You can tell the people here genuinely care about each other and about our patients and clients. We’re a family, and we support one another in our cause of “improving America’s healthcare, one patient at a time.”

Does the culture influence the way you recruit? Absolutely. Technical expertise is obviously important and critical in hiring, but finding someone who is also welcoming, respectful and skillful is equally as important.

How does Concentra work to make an impact on the communities you serve? Giving back to the community is an integral part of Concentra’s culture. A strong community relationship between citizens and the local center team is essential to the success of our business. Our colleagues regularly participate in fundraising events, volunteer efforts and donation collections to support locally-based organizations.

How does Concentra empower employees to make a difference in people’s lives? At Concentra, we believe that who we are as a company is made up of the things we do as individuals. Our Orange Book is a collection of letters and testimonials from patients who’ve highlighted some of the ways Concentra colleagues have made a difference in their lives. We encourage people to give perfect service, from the inside out, and the Orange Book is our guide on how to provide perfect service. It is part of the fiber of our company, and we regularly highlight and recognize people who are living ‘Orange Book values.’

How did the idea for the Orange Book come about? The concept began after seeing how other service industry leaders equipped their employees with the right tools and messages to empower each person to deliver great service. Because the work environments can vary significantly at Concentra, our marketing department developed the book to give colleagues a way to keep those messages close and put the keys to great service in their hands.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job? Recruiting clinicians. There is a shortage of physicians in America, and we are competing against a lot of companies vying for this small talent pool.

How has this shortage changed the way you recruit? Our primary recruiting goal for 2012 is to position our openings and company benefits in front of the right physicians. We are working with Personified to create a diverse recruitment advertising program, which includes using niche job boards, search engine marketing and optimization, as well as traditional recruiting techniques like e-mail and direct mail campaigns. We also have a physician referral program that pays $7,500 to any full-time colleague who refers someone we hire, and we’re attending more than 20 health care conferences this year to get the word out that we’re hiring.

What specific qualities do you look for when hiring? That’s simple – it’s our values: A healing focus, a selfless heart and a tireless resolve.

What is the most rewarding aspect of your job? I’ve been given an opportunity to revamp the way Concentra goes to market with its recruitment initiatives. Every day, I hear stories from new hires about how happy they are to have found their home at Concentra. Without the enhancements we’ve made and the way we recruit, these colleagues might not have found us, and that’s what’s most rewarding.

What do you wish people knew about what goes into recruiting for Concentra?
At Concentra, we know the right people in the right position create the perfect experience. Our talented recruiters work very hard to ensure we find the right fit for our open positions. There are plenty of people who could “do the job” but we search to find the person who embodies our values and demonstrates the exceptional technical abilities to make the position and the person most successful.