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BEST of TLNT 2010

Don’t Facebook Me: Why You Shouldn’t Google During the Recruiting Process

by on Dec 31, 2010, 12:15 PM  |  No comments yet
From the HR blog on TLNT.

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 1 in our Top 25 — the most popular post from this past year. Thanks for counting down the Top 25 this week. Our regular content will return next Monday, January 3, 2011.

By Laurie Ruettimann

Last week, I participated on a panel hosted by the HR Technology Conference and Exposition in Chicago. I joined fellow bloggers Kris Dunn, Trish McFarlane, Mike Krupa, and Bryon Abramowitz to discuss a variety of topics from the role of blogging within the HR community to whether or not it is appropriate to conduct a social media background search on candidates.

It didn’t take long for the panelists to disagree on key issues. For example, I don’t believe it is appropriate for Human Resources professionals to hop on Google, root around the Internet, and look for incriminating pictures and create reasons not to hire qualified people during America’s worst recession in decades.

Googling is a sloppy, lazy, and unseemly method to verify a candidate’s character. And who the heck is HR to put itself out there as a judge of character? I told the audience, “Some of us in the room are human and screw up on a daily basis. If you can’t use Facebook to post pictures, where is the joy in life?” Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

What Today’s Young Job Seekers Say They Really Want

by on Dec 31, 2010, 11:17 AM  |  No comments yet
From the HR blog on TLNT. Photo illustration by istockphoto.com.

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 2 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

At last month’s ERE Expo in Hollywood, Florida, Mark Mehler and Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads assembled a panel of four of today’s sharpest young job seekers.

Among the findings:

  • Only one of them uses LinkedIn.
  • They were not swayed by free swag at job fairs.
  • They were hesitant to be contacted by Facebook and SMS, which is often regarded as impersonal, unprofessional, or even spam.
  • If they’re receiving text messages from a recruiter or employer at 9:00 p.m., it’s a bad sign that they’d be working until 9:00 p.m. on a regular basis at that company.

Click below to see the video with these four young job seekers: Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

SHRM Threatens TLNT With Legal Action for Using the SHRM Logo

by on Dec 31, 2010, 10:27 AM  |  No comments yet
From the HR blog at TLNT.

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 3 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

They say that no good deed goes unpunished. Perhaps they should say that no controversial news story goes legally unchallenged, either.

An attorney working for SHRM has sent a letter to TLNT’s parent company, ERE Media, demanding that we stop using the SHRM logo on the TLNT website. Despite the fact that the SHRM logo can be found in use on numerous websites all over the Internet, and that TLNT has used it on a number of other occasions (more on that later), SHRM has never made such a demand until we wrote about a new group of agitated SHRM members that the world’s largest HR organization probably wishes would just go away —  SHRM Members for Transparency. Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

Survey: 70% of Businesses Don’t Have a Strategy for Developing Women

by on Dec 31, 2010, 9:27 AM  |  No comments yet
WomeninBusiness

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 4 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

Does your organization focus on women when they talk about having a more diverse workforce?

Some do, of course, but the vast majority of businesses — 70 percent — say they don’t have a strategy for developing women leaders, according to a new survey by global consulting giant Mercer.

The Women’s Leadership Development Survey, conducted in September by Mercer in conjunction with Talent Management and Diversity Management magazines, surveyed human resource, talent management, and diversity leaders at a broad cross-section of more than 540 organizations throughout the U.S. Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

How to Make Better Hires: Do You Go for Creative Thinking, or Job Skills?

by on Dec 31, 2010, 8:07 AM  |  No comments yet
Hiring for creative thinking skills should be the goal of every hiring manager and HR professional. (Photo illustration by istockphoto.com).

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 5 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

OK, so I am stealing a story I read about 15 years ago in an airline magazine (If anyone out there recognizes it and can help me attribute this, please let me know!)

Here is the story – This was a science class and there was a homework problem which was the following: If you needed to find out the height of a tall building using only a barometer, how would you do it?

The “correct” answer involved measuring the air pressure at the top of the building and on the ground, and using the difference in air pressure to calculate the height of the building. Kids that used that approach and got the math right were marked correct and given full credit.

But there were two other answers that stood out to me, that the teacher marked wrong, with no credit. I would have marked these correct and given these two students a job! Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

How to Find and Recruit the Best Hourly Employees

by on Dec 30, 2010, 12:47 PM  |  No comments yet
Kronos front cover large

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 6 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

By Mel Kleiman

If you’re having a difficult time attracting enough quality front-line workers and retaining them long enough to realize a return on their investment, you’re hardly alone. Hourly employee turnover rates historically run from 70–120 percent per year in most industries.

As an employer or hiring manager, you may wrongly assume that there is nothing you can do to control or mitigate the enormous drain on profitability caused by turnover. This chapter will provide suggestions on how you can reduce turnover by recruiting and hiring the best hourly workers.

The best employees don’t just walk in and ask for a job — usually because they’re already working. If you want the best, you have to know what you need, where to look, and how to recruit them. Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

Five Reasons Your CEO Doesn’t Care About Employee Engagement

by on Dec 30, 2010, 11:55 AM  |  No comments yet
engagement

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 7 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard about employee engagement at various webinars, lunches, and conferences. We talk about ways to improve it, ways to measure it and ways to sell it up and get it implemented.

Wait a second, strike that last one. We never talk about why having strong employee engagement (a no-brainer in most progressive HR circles) doesn’t resonate with the CEO.

Don’t get me wrong, she might shake her head agreeing with you or he may say everything your saying is right on. They might even believe it (or believe they believe it). And everyone knows they like to talk it up too, especially to new employees.

But then comes the time to take action. Whether it is developing or moving a manager who shouldn’t be in their role, managing your compensation, or changing the tiny pieces of your culture that robs engagement, there is resistance. And while it isn’t explicit, there are five reasons your CEO rejects improving employee engagement. Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

What You Don’t Dare Tell Job Candidates (But Wish You Could)

by on Dec 30, 2010, 10:45 AM  |  No comments yet
Jobcandidate2

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 8 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

I’m always hearing recruiters say they want to be more helpful to candidates.

I wonder. I wrote the following with the idea that it might help some express some of their challenges through a third-party voice.

I’m a phone sourcer. That means I am paid to find people who hold specific titles or who are doing specific job functions inside (usually) specific companies.

I’ve been doing this a long time.

There are a few things that spell disaster for you as a job seeker. These are: Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

Don’t Manage Me Like a Millennial

by on Dec 30, 2010, 9:37 AM  |  No comments yet
Photo by Dreamstime

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 9 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

If there is one thing that will get me going early in the morning, it’s this whole idea of a multi-generational workforce issue being presented as something shiny and new.

It’s like previous decades of workplaces, where 20, 40 and 60 year-olds worked together, never happened. Or that previous generations didn’t bring in expertise in new technology when they entered the job market.

So when I see a generational guru speak to HR audiences, they are usually from the Boomer generation and they are usually talking to the audience like they are giving out some sort of secret code. They want to talk about how Millennials are born to multitask, are entrepreneurial, enjoy collaborative learning environments, want constant feedback, and are entitled workplace brats. The person speaking will unlock the code once and for all!

The problem? It won’t work. Read more…

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BEST of TLNT 2010

SHRM Board Quietly (and Secretly) Votes to Hike Pay for Board Members

by on Dec 30, 2010, 8:07 AM  |  No comments yet
From the HR blog at TLNT.

Editor’s Note: This week, TLNT is counting down the most popular posts of 2010. This is No. 10 in our Top 25. We’ll continue to do this through New Year’s Eve. Our regular content will return on Monday January 3, 2011.

Shortly before the Society for Human Resources 62nd Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego this past June, the SHRM Board of Directors quietly voted to increase the amount of the “honorarium” the organization pays each of them annually for their service, according to sources familiar with the workings of the SHRM Board.

The increases were was follows:

  • From $25,000 to $35,000 per year for the SHRM Board chair (currently held by Robb Van Cleave, the Chief Talent and Strategy Officer at Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles, Oregon);
  • From $15,000 to $25,000 per year for SHRM Board members who serve as committee chairs;
  • From $10,000 to $15,000 per year for regular SHRM Board members.

Few people besides the SHRM Board and a handful of staff members know of the increased “honorarium” the Board voted for themselves. That’s because a summary of SHRM Board meetings that used to be sent to the organization’s volunteer leaders, past Board chairs, and regularly published on the SHRM website, is no longer posted on SHRM.org or made available to SHRM’s 250,000 plus members and the public at large. Read more…

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