If a manager is concerned about hiring a high achiever, you need to be concerned about the manager!
We just ran a quick poll to determine if hiring managers would trade off experience for potential if they didn’t have to compromise performance or results. Two-thirds agreed.
How would you answer the question, and how would your hiring managers?
If you’re not on the same page, you’re working a lot harder than necessary. Read more…
We just updated our Recruiter Circle of Excellence Competency Model to take into account the expected surge in hiring in Q2 and Q3. There was also an interesting story by the co-founder of Meebo who concluded that most recruiters are pretty bad.
Her big points: recruiters are afraid to pick up the phone and call, they don’t know the job so they sell smoke and mirrors, and most just post boring jobs or search through LinkedIn.
It was a pretty scathing summary. This approach might work when you’re trying to hire the 15 percent of fully-employed who are looking, but totally useless when trying to hire the 85 percent of candidates who are passive, even the bad ones! Read more…
As some of you may know, I think the continued use of traditional, skills-infested job descriptions prevents companies from hiring the best talent available.
By default, they wind up hiring the best person who applies.
That’s the same reason I’m against the indiscriminate use of assessment tests. While these tests are good confirming indicators of on-the-job performance, they’re poor predictors of it (square the correlation coefficient to get a sense of any test’s predictive value).
Worse, they filter out everyone who isn’t willing to apply without first talking with someone about the worthiness of the position. Read more…
For the past 30 years I’ve been on a kick to ban traditional skills — and experience-based job descriptions.
The prime reason: they’re anti-talent and anti-diversity, aside from being terrible predictors of future success.
Some naysayers use the legal angle as their excuse for maintaining the status quo.
To debunk this, I engaged David Goldstein, a pre-eminent legal authority from Littler Mendelson (the largest U.S. labor law firm) to compare the idea of using a performance-based job description to the traditional job description. Read more…
Every executive and hiring manager worth his or her salt will tell you hiring top talent is the most important thing they need to do. Unfortunately when it comes to putting their money on the table, most often all you’ll see is pocket change.
Somewhere in the bowels of the company’s mission statement is some form of the platitude “hiring top talent is a major company objective.” But in the field where the battle is played out, a different picture emerges.
Hiring top talent, especially those who aren’t looking for a job, is not about posting a boring job description on some site, getting people to apply, and then conducting a series of behavioral interviews. It’s about finding and convincing these top people that your position offers the best career move among competing opportunities. While many recruiters and individual hiring managers can pull this off one assignment at a time, only those companies with a compelling employer brand have mastered the art at scale. Read more…
I predict that the market is finally heating up. Of course, I’ve been wrong for the past few years, so you might want to take the next few ideas on how to get ready for 2011 with a grain of salt. Or not.
The market for top talent is definitely heating up, and you need to take some serious steps to stay on top of your company’s recruiting activities. In five informal surveys I’ve done in the last 15 days, three out four recruiters (sample of 1,000) suggest that for the professional worker, 2011 will represent the tipping for significant job growth, with 2012 being a banner year. At last.
Of course, all of this presumes that our political leaders don’t mess it up, which is a 50-50 proposition at best. However, assuming they’ll get it right, here’s what I see as some emerging trends that you need to consider as you get ready for the new year and beyond.
These are based on a recent comprehensive U.S. survey I conducted with LinkedIn this past quarter. In fact, here’s a link to the whitepaper that we just released with all the nitty gritty details on what over 5500 professionals think when it comes to job-seeking. Read more…
As most of you know, I think job descriptions are the primary reason companies why can’t find or hire top talent. For this reason alone they should be abolished. Here’s the first dozen of a zillion reasons why.
By Lou Adler
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Not being Valentine’s Day, nor the 24/7 romantic, some of you might be confused.
Of course, in this case I’m referring to quality of hire. It’s a worthy topic, but like a cloud, it’s hard to get your arms around. When should it be measured is as difficult to answer as how.
“Why” adds another set of variables to the mix. I’ve just volunteered to help HR.com develop a curriculum for a new Quality of Hire educational program it’s launching, so I figured it might make sense to get some discussion going on this important topic, starting with what, when, why, and how. My viewpoint follows, but don’t hesitate to add your own to the conversation.
Why you should measure is probably the best starting point. Some of my reasons for measuring quality of hire revolve around the following: Read more…
If job descriptions aren’t illegal, they should be.
Let’s hold a mock trial. You’re one of the jurors. We don’t need unanimity here, a mere super majority will do. Here’s a link to the public survey so you can be involved and register your verdict, and see the results. But before you vote, you must hear all of the evidence.
Let me first state my rather obvious bias and claims in my opening statement: there is no doubt in my mind that skills-infested job descriptions prevent companies from hiring top performers and limit their ability to hire diversity candidates. Furthermore, managers and recruiters who rely on these are doing their companies a great disservice.
I will prove this during this trial by providing convincing evidence to the following: Read more…
“Totally agree. Had to read a few times- and thought I was still being dumb. ;)”
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