Sunday, March 23, 2008

Know When to Fold Them or Maybe There's Another Way.

I often hear this story from managers and business owners (for many reasons, HR professionals don't do it).

"Jerry is a terrific person. Smart, affable, a really 'good guy.' He loves what he does and is passionate about it. It isn't enough. No answer to a question is right the first time. Work goes on for too long. I feel compelled to monitor whatever he does more than anyone else. He isn't incompetent; he's semi-competent."

Every company wants to hire knowledgeable people who require no oversight. At the same time, there are some employees who are almost competent. They torture you with their potential only to consistently disappoint.

Replace them.

To avoid such problems in the future, hire people on a temp-to-perm basis--that is they initial work for you as a temp with the plan to convert them to employee status in 90 days. Establish criteria in advance that will allow you to determine whether to convert them to employee status.

If they fail to meet that criteria within 60 days, spend the next 30 finding a replacement.

As an article I wrote some years ago observed, pebbles in your shoe never go away, despite how much we wish they would. They often cause hip and back pain that can be debilitating. Better to eliminate a problem than torture yourself and your organization indefinitely.


Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

Plus

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Are Your Politics Keeping You From Considering Some Very Talented People?

It is popular to be opposed to the war in Iraq, just as it was to be opposed to the one in Viet Nam before that.

No one likes to think of themselves as biased and there are certainly "valid and objective reasons" for not considering these men and women as candidates for positions.

At the same time, these are individuals who have leadership experiences far beyond their civilian counterparts at the same age.

Who have had the experience of working as part of a team or leading teams of men and women toward a common goal.

Who have worked under extraordinary circumstances with a desire to serve.

Who are motivated by furthering the mission and are extremely disciplined.

If they have attended graduate school, they may have applied under the most incredible of conditions--taking calls from admissions officers in the field with shells flying over them.

There may be cultural differences between what they are used to and what they might have in civilian life. They may have physical challenges as well.

At the same time, dismissing people for no more reason than they are ex-military or based upon your assumptions of what they will be like does not serve your organization well.

HireVeterans is a site you can use that caters to ex-military men and women; another is HirePatriots.

I hope you open your eyes (or continue to reach out) to these men and women.


Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

Plus

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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Out-of-the-Box On-Line Recruiting

When most people think of recruiting on the web, they are talking about running ads on job boards. You know those dry job specification advertisements that demand 325 different skills and experiences and do nothing to describe the ojb or how wonderful the employer is to work for.

Yet the public statistics on the source of new hires is says that recruiting on job boards fills an extraordinarily small number of positions (I think the figures in these surveys are extremely low; after all, employment agencies are listed as a separate category and many of them find their candidates from job boards. Why shouldn't many of the jobs credited to agencies be attributed to job boards?)

Part of successful marketing in the employment field is creating an online persona for your firm--an online brand--that is attractive and makes the right people favorably disposed to joining your company before they walk in the door.

After all, when I say "Google," you have an impression and, statistically, speaking the impression is extremely favorable. When I say, "Ox and Ox" (a name I've made up; if there is a business by this name, I did not find it in the first few pages of Google searches), you have no impression or are somewhat quizzical.

For many of you, your recruiting brand is slightly above Ox and Ox.

Here are a few ideas to improve it dramatically--not instantly but over time.

Write your job ads with the employee in mind, too. Why should they join your company? What's in it for them? And don't write dry copy. Make it friendly and warm.

Develop short videos for YouTube and your company's website. There was quite a bit of buzz about some online ads that Sony Ericcson developed last year that highlighted their work space, information about their US headquarters environment and much more.

Develop an interesting looking career site presence for your website. Most are extremely boring. Take a look at some of the jobs developed on the site www.standoutjobs.com. The page is interesting and leaps out at you. I'm not endorsing the servie; just the look and organization of the pages. Which brings me to

Blogging about your company. Why aren't the top people in your firm taking two minutes with twitter and blogging bout your company. Why don;t you have the CFO, COO, CTO and Director of HR, Head of Engineering, blogging about working at your company? Which brings us to

Develop an online presence. Why aren't all them on Facebook, myspace, LinkedIn, Xing and others developing an online persona for your firm to attract talent.

Google for candidate leads. I developed Search4Candidates.com to simplify recruiting for passive job applicants. You enter a typical Google search into the search field and then narrow the search by clicking on LinkedIn or Xing or other services to turn up leads of passive candidates to recruit. The service is completely free.

Make finding the Career Page on your website easier. Too often, finding the career pages requires going down two or three levels on a drop down menu. It's stupid! Just put a button on your home page and every other page of your site that says, "We're hiring!" When they click it, the person is brought to the search page.

Use pop-unders like Internet marketers do. When people are about to leave your site, have a pop-under that says something like "Wait! before You Go! We're hiring! Want to search some our job listings?

There are a lot of things that you can do to incorporate online recruiting into your repertoire. Take the time and make the effort.


Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com
© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

Plus

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Out-of-the-Box Conventional Recruiting

How do you find people to fill your requirements?

If you're like most firms, you list jobs in newspapers or on job boards, work with a few recruiters, have an employee referral program and maybe, just maybe, you have an in-house recruiting team who is aggressively trying to find people for you who are not looking for work.

Pretty standard stuff and has been used by firms since before I started in recruiting and that was 1972.

How many of you :

Create an alumni program to stay in contact with former employees and encourage them to return or offer referrals to you?

Use your data base of interviewed applicants for periodic direct emails to stay in contact and foster hiring (NOTE: Do not cheat recruiting firms that help fill that data base)?

Run contests that pose difficult questions and interview people who are successful answering it like Google does.

Establish recruiting programs for men and women who are leaving the armed forces?

Work to recruit spouses of military personnel?

Advertise at movie theaters during those times when we are waiting for the movie to start and have a captive audience?

Advertise or have a booth at trade shows or sports events encouraging people to apply to join your firm?

Advertise on mass transit (like the back or front of a bus that people who see for long periods)?

Have your company's business cards printed with a recruiting message on the back?

Recruit workers offshore (like in Canada or Mexico [taking advantage of NAFTA] or Puerto Rico) for US-based jobs?

Advertise on Spanish language tv, radio and print media

Use offshore recruiting resources to support your US recruiting efforts?

Provide small "giveaways" or premiums to people who interview with your firm?

Contact firms that are laying off people and setting up interview days?

Advertise your firm is hiring by printing bookmarks and donating them to libraries and universities?

Being creative involves thinking outside the box and frankly will become far more critical at the end of this recession when firms will want to attract superior talent and find it in far more limited supply than even now (More on that another time).

Start to put together a plan to leverage your company's brand in its industry with an eye toward recruiting.


Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a practicing psychotherapist and is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search job openings, use his free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe. to subscribe Jeff’s free job search ezines, Head Hunt Your Next Job and/or Natural Selection (his free recruiting ezine), or to find out about his VIP Personal Search Agent service, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff or locating consultants, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

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