Not Your Typical Graduate/Campus Recruiting

The contraction in hiring has hit the graduate/campus recruiting market hard in the UK. A recent survey by the UK based Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) reports that the number of graduate vacancies in the UK is projected to decrease by 5.4% in 2009 – the first decline since the dot-com bubble burst (2003). Previous years have seen a relative abundance of graduate positions, and accompanying year-on-year increases in starting salaries.

In 2008, unemployment amongst UK university-leavers was at its lowest level for five years following a sustained period of growing demand for well-qualified staff. As the financial crisis erupted in the latter portion of 2008, graduate hiring dropped suddenly as organizations tightened budgets and, in many cases, enacted hiring freezes. This heralds a dramatic change in fortunes for students graduating from university and could have longer term negative impacts on organizations’ talent pools.

Similar dynamics are playing themselves out in other job markets. In the U.S., the National Association of Colleges and Employers report that employers only expect graduate hiring to increase by 1.3% in 2009 as compared to last year, which is the weakest outlook in six years.

When it comes to graduate recruitment and the current economic environment, organizations are faced with two major questions:

• Should I sacrifice new graduate headcount in favor of protecting existing staff?


• If I am still hiring how do I deal with the increased volume of applications?

When deciding whether or not to continue/resume graduate hiring, consider a longer-term perspective on the following issues:

o What is the risk to my employment brand? Organizations with less well developed graduate branding strategies have an opportunity to establish a foothold in the graduate recruiting market as some of the larger players scale back their efforts.

o What is the risk to the future availability of graduate talent for my organization? Organizations hiring graduates with skill sets that are already in short-supply risk not only losing this year’s cohort to immediate talent competitors (who are willing to invest in the future) but worse, they risk forcing their talent pool to re-skill or seek employment in other industries.

o Could graduate hires be critical to our organization’s recovery? Organizations should seriously consider the role that new talented graduates play in the organization’s ability to maintain or create the competitive advantage that will help them emerge from the current downturn stronger than others.

For those of you continuing to recruit graduates, you will likely receive a flood of applications (if you haven’t already). To manage this influx, look at upfront screening processes as well as downstream selection activities. If you are seasoned in graduate recruiting, you should already have reliable and thorough screening systems for reducing initial applicant pools down to manageable levels for first round interviews. However, you should also ensure that you increase the rigour you place in the subsequent stages of the recruitment process. The reduction in the number of positions means that candidates are likely to be more willing to take sub-optimal positions, and that you will have more choice of well-qualified candidates who may not be a good fit for the organization or job. Ensure that you identify and select the best candidates for your organization by increasing the level of clarity you provide around the realities of the job – both positive and negative aspects. Doing so will help you hire candidates who are truly excited by the prospects you have to offer—those who are in it for the long-term, not just until the economy bounces back.

Note: Graduate recruiting in the context of this blog entry refers to people who have received a Bachelors degree (equivalent to Campus or College Recruiting in the U.S.).

Written by: Tom Handcock

The Dos and Don’ts of Online Networking in a Downturn

Think social networking sites are only valuable in a thriving economy? Think again. Your candidates are diversifying their job search strategies and thinking creatively in search of opportunities. According to Web traffic site Alexa, both LinkedIn and Facebook experienced an increase in site traffic of about 56% and 30%, respectively, during the last three months. Even though hiring has slowed down significantly for many, you can continue to promote (or defend) your employment brand and continue engaging candidates online while building talent pipelines for the future.

Here are some dos and don’ts when it comes to recruiting with social networking sites in a downturn.

• Do fish where the fish are. Facebook and LinkedIn have over 150 million and 35 million users, respectively. These usage metrics and web traffic statistics may vary depending on what part of the world you are recruiting. However, the message is the same for selecting your target social networking sites—be where your candidates are. In the U.S., consider Facebook (members only) and LinkedIn (members only); in Europe, I’ve also heard a lot about Xing. Some of you may feel that you need to shun these sites because many of your talent competitors are using them already. However, it’s difficult to ignore the sheer volume of people that use them--use this volume to your advantage and experiment with different targeted branding and sourcing approaches.

• Do join various niche Groups within these sites to target your branding and sourcing efforts if you are still filling critical positions. These niche Groups can focus on job functions, geographies, interests, and other areas related to positions you are trying to fill. People in these Groups are potential candidates. At no cost (or for a very little fee), you can access a pool of candidates that have interests/experiences in a particular area or region, you can stay “in the know” on issues that excite these Group members (to further polish your employment message), identify Group participants that may demonstrate expertise in discussion forums, etc.

• Don’t forget that candidates’ experiences extend beyond your interactions with them during the formal recruiting process. You can continue providing relevant employment branding messages to candidates via social networks (by using news releases, videos, or other messages) on how your organization is weathering these tough times. On the flip side of the coin, if candidates reach out to you, make sure to respond. Even if you are not hiring at the moment, be honest about the situation at your organization and collect their contact information to continue a relationship with these candidates for when hiring does improve.

Do you have additional suggestions to share on what has worked well for you when it comes to using online social networks? We welcome your thoughts, as always.

Written by: Xi Chen

Week in Review – April 24th

Slight gains in the financial world might start to be seen as a glimmer of hope, but not necessarily for the labor markets. Read more in this week’s Week in Review.

1. Jobless Rate Climbs in 46 States, with California at 11.2% (Wall Street Journal)
Unemployment rates rose in 46 states in March. California and North Carolina posted their highest unemployment rates in nearly three decades at 11.2% and 10.8, respectively. These states are now behind Michigan (12.6%), Oregon (12.1%), and South Carolina (11.4%) in unemployment.

2. Recession Has Bottomed in Britain (BusinessWeek)
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI), along with other economists, argues the UK recession is leveling. Although CBI expects the severest parts of the recession to be over, it does not see possible growth until 2010. Across this year, economists expect nearly 900,000 jobs will be lost, and for next year, another 500,000 jobs.

3. Employers Make Cuts Despite Belief Upturn Is Near (Wall Street Journal)
While many organizations have already used layoffs to reduce costs, many are considering further cost-cutting measures, including salary reductions and benefit cuts, in order to save current employees. Some worry that enacting these reduction policies may alienate current employees, while others argue that these measures are necessary to avoid further layoffs.

4. With Jobs Tight, M.B.A.s Head for Home (Wall Street Journal)
Significant numbers of graduating M.B.A. students are competing for fewer jobs and positions that are more selective. Those who saw their degrees as an opportunity to switch careers have been hit the hardest, and many of these graduates are forced to choose job security over career switching.

5. High Court Poised to Closely Weigh Civil Rights Law (Washington Post)
A recent civil rights case brought to the U.S. Supreme Court is thrusting hiring and promotional assessments into the spotlight. Firefighters in New Haven, Conn., accused city officials of violating civil rights laws when they threw out a promotion test that officials felt had disparate impact on minorities.

Recruiters are People Too

Continuing the thread that John started on our recruiting teams, I’d like you to take a moment and think about your colleagues on the recruiting team in your organization. I suspect a few of them are experiencing a pretty difficult time right now, professionally and personally.

On a professional level, they’re experiencing workload issues (as we “do more with less”), they may have seen some colleagues affected by a RIF (reduction-in-force), and they may be constantly working with candidates who are feeling desperate and anxious. On a personal level, they may own homes whose mortgages are “underwater”, their retirement accounts have probably declined in value, and they may be down to living off a single income.

It is said that times of adversity can drive people apart or bring them together. Data from our sister program, the Corporate Leadership Council, suggests that employees are looking for the latter: the impact of their emotional commitment to their teams on discretionary effort has risen by 10% since 2004. In other words, now more than ever, employees are working harder when they feel attached to and supported by their co-workers.

If your fellow recruiting team member seems a little down and out, consider what you can do to help him/her. Here are a few simple examples that we’ve seen have some success:

• Offer to cover for your co-worker so he or she can run some urgent errands, or when (s)he has to leave early or arrive late.
• Encourage your co-worker to build on some of his or her strengths; it’s more refreshing than the constructive criticism you might be tempted to offer first.
• Find a moment each day to celebrate successes (professional or personal) as a team, even small ones.
• If you’re a manager, give your employees a little more informal recognition than usual.
• Build camaraderie by doing something together outside of work to help those who have fallen on even harder financial times.

If some of these ideas feel a little uncomfortable, just remember that at some later date you could be in the same position as your co-worker. What you give today may be what you get in return later.

Now, back to your normal, hard-edged daily business conversations …

Written by: Mark Van Buren

Using Lower Hiring Volumes to Recruiting's Advantage

As the economy has caused instances of hiring-volume decline among a variety of organizations, some recruiting teams have seen the slowing of requisitions as a golden opportunity. During times of vigorous hiring, many recruiters have the challenge of merely keeping up with demand. During times of lower volume, however, many of the skill sets used to manage multiple job openings become less pressing. Some recruiting organizations are realizing that this is a golden opportunity for recruiters to enhance skill sets outside of the general recruiting cycle, or alternatively, to give more attention to crucial recruiting skills that may not get as much attention when recruiters are merely trying to keep their heads above water.

What have we seen recruiting organizations do to upskill during this downturn?

• Focus on skills related to “needs definition,” or the upfront cycle of the recruiting process, which may not get the attention they deserve during “triage” periods of hiring. Thus, periods of slower volume can be ideal to focus on skills that may be neglected in other environments.

• Give recruiters opportunities to enhance or broaden their skills toward areas such as candidate relationship management, which will be increasingly important over time. This not only deepens the arsenal of recruiting skills available to a recruiter, but also helps the function prepare for any future uptick in hiring.

• Use the opportunity to focus on strategic or wider business skills sets, taking advantage of cross-functional teams or new project work (e.g., workforce planning, technology strategy, or consultative partnerships). In some instances, recruiters are even working in other HR or business areas to widen their overall functional or business-related experience.

In this paradigm, lower requisition loads may actually make for more effective -- and more versatile – recruiters, over time.

Written by: John Davenport

Week in Review - April 17th

Welcome to our very first Week in Review post. Before you head out for the weekend, we want to give you a snapshot of this week’s world news and findings that impact recruiting.

1. With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King? (The New York Times)

Current economic conditions are changing how younger generations evaluate their career directions. Early indicators suggest that future career paths will center less on compensation and prestige, and more on solving the nation’s problems through public service, science, and education.

2. Job Loss Cities Revealed in Study (BBC)

A new Work Foundation study shows that UK cities outside of London saw the most job losses in the past year. Unemployment has risen most sharply in northern England where manufacturing and heavy industry jobs are traditionally located.

3. How P&G Finds and Keeps a Prized Workforce (Business Week)

P&G will receive approximately 400,000 job applications for entry-level management positions this year, but only expects to hire about 1% of these candidates. The company attributes its strong market position to hiring candidates that fit their cultural values.

4. Weighing Furlough vs. Layoff: Costs, Skills Figure in How Best to Weather Recession (Wall Street Journal)

As the recession forces more employers to cut jobs, some organizations are experimenting with furloughs in order to keep talent and win employee loyalty when the economy turns around.

5. Longer Unemployment for Those 45 and Older (New York Times)

As Sarah's post earlier this week discussed, more baby boomers are staying in seat longer than before for financial reasons. However, for those boomers who were laid off in 2008, their unemployment period averaged 6 weeks longer than younger workers. As a result, the EEOC has seen an increase in age discrimination complaints in the past year.

What Global Talent Shortage? Retiring Boomers No Longer an Issue

The mass retirement of the Baby Boomer generation has long been a concern for many organizations. Articles have been written about the devastating effects their exodus from the workforce are predicted to have. In the US, for instance, in 2007 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicted 15.6M jobs would be added between 2006 and 2016 while the core of the workforce, workers aged 24-54, would increase only 2.5M during that same time period. The anticipated gap between workers and jobs is in large part due to the aging of the Boomers – during that same time period the number of workers 55 and older is predicted to increase almost 12M. This phenomenon is not limited to the US, in fact across the globe in countries like France, Spain, and Russia the percentage of workers in the labor force is expected to decrease between 2010 and 2050.

For years organizations feared these older workers would retire in great numbers and take with them their knowledge and skills, creating a huge labor shortage. However, the current financial crisis may have severely altered many of these individuals’ retirement plans. A recent US-based report, released by D.C.-based think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research, estimates that Boomers between ages 45 and 54 have lost 45% of their median net worth leaving them with an average of only $80K for retirement. Older Boomers have not faired much better – those between 55 and 64 have lost 38% of their net worth, leaving them with an average of $140K. Moreover, many of the pension funds that Boomers have been counting on for retirement have been devastated by the recession, forcing employers to reconfigure payout options. Retiring at 65 may not be an option for the majority of Boomers who may discover they must work 5-10 or more years longer than planned.

While this is certainly not good news for Boomers, it can provide organizations with much needed relief from the looming aging workforce crisis. However, the increased supply of workers in the labor force, and the reductions in retirement rates, could have real impact on organizational hiring plans, and consequently Recruiting departments. The real questions remains – what will be the long term implications of this economy on Recruiting?

Here are some of our initial ideas on how these changes in retirement rates may impact recruiting – feel free to add your own:

1. Lower than expected attrition rates among retirement age employees will result in lower hiring volumes.
2. Long-term workforce plans will need to be revised based on new retirement rates.
3. Increasing importance will be placed on internal mobility and knowledge transfer as Boomers stay in the workforce longer.
4. More flexible hours – in some cases, Boomers may be working either full-time or part-time for the extra income, and options like that will increasingly be made available for them.

Written by: Sarah Andresen

5 Common Misunderstandings about Recruiting Today

There are a number of common misunderstandings about recruiting today that you and your peers have been sharing with us—misconceptions that many individuals in your organizations have about talent acquisition right now. And I’m not just talking about line managers holding these views either– some of these perspectives are held among HR peers as well.

I was in NY last week visiting a number of members and, among other things, heard a distinct majority of folks citing some of the most popular misconceptions about recruiting right now:

• Misconception #1: “Recruiters have capacity”
  While this may be somewhat true in a relative sense compared to prior years, the reality today is that any jobs we are left to fill are often some of the most critical roles with the same level of complexity as before; also many organizations are wading through higher application volumes and screening can take time to find good quality. Further, why is it always the case that pipeline building is somehow ignored as a critical task that might actually require time allocation?
  
  
• Misconception #2: “Talent is readily accessible”
  Oftentimes quality talent may NOT necessarily be active talent right now as companies struggle to hold onto their high-potential employees. Further, not everyone is in the mood to move.
  
  
• Misconception #3: “Fill time should decrease”
  Hiring managers are the particular culprits frequently harboring this misconception. For some positions, it may be true that talent is easier to find more quickly. However, the reality for some roles is that it can actually take longer than most hiring managers expect since application volume is quite high these days and legal screening procedures still need to be enforced (therefore, there is ultimately only a finite amount of time that can be shaved from the process).
  
  
  
• Misconception #4: “No one is recruiting these days”
  Au contraire…we may not be hiring at the same volumes as before (and yes, a handful of organizations have stopped external hiring completely) but the reality that many recruiting executives have told us is that “we may not be hiring, but we are always recruiting.” Thus, while basic recruiting is still ongoing (e.g., internal transfers, backfilling critical positions), everyone you come in contact with should be considered someone to build a relationship with for the future. This is how pipelining gets done on an ongoing basis.
  
  
• Misconception #5: “Things will bounce back to the way they were eventually”
  To be honest, we’re not so sure that even when hiring volumes do come back that recruiting organizations should be operating the way they were before. In the “new reality” of recruitment, there may very well be different business needs and recruiter skill sets required—we’ll address this in a future post.
  

Please add to our running list here by sharing your thoughts…what other misconceptions have you heard or experienced?

Written by: Donna L. Weiss

Lessons from the Marketing Playbook

Many professional job seekers start their job search on the Web in Google and Yahoo. Are your jobs showing up in these search engines? Type in a job category relevant to your organization or a position that you hope would surface when candidates do a job search. If your organization or position is not ranking well or does not show up at all, your careers Web site and job postings might not be search engine optimized.

Job boards are no longer the most cost effective way to market open positions. Progressive recruiting organizations cite that by using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, they have reduced job board spending by 50-90%. A number of different factors affect search (members only), including (but not limited to):

• Where key words that candidates search for are positioned on your Web page,
• How well your page is associated with other highly trafficked pages (e.g., your organization Web site), and
• The length of your URL, graphics, and positioning on third party Web sites (e.g., job board aggregators)

Budgets are tight these days. Work with your internal Web team to determine ways you can search optimize your Web site. Some of your peers have revised their job posts using SEO strategies to increase their views in search results. Others have internally created search engine optimized micro-sites to target a specific candidate population (without affecting the core careers site). For those of us with a bit of budget to spare, there are third-party vendor (members only) available to help optimize your job postings through targeted keyword searches.

Whatever your approach might be, consider using SEO as the first step to internet job marketing.

Written by: Xi Chen

Attracting Talent Today: Spending Less?

Even in today’s loose labor market and reduced hiring volumes, there are still business-critical positions to be filled. Further, the recent spike in resumes is failing to produce candidates with skill sets matching those needed, and budget cuts prevent expensive branding and sourcing initiatives. This is a common challenge that we hear from the membership today.

We also hear that member organizations are continuing attraction efforts as planned, but to a lesser degree. This sometimes means getting the brand message out via fewer or cheaper channels, spending less on job boards and other attraction vendors, and delaying a wholesale employment brand refresh.

Cost-cutting (members only) our attraction efforts is definitely necessary, but is it enough? Today’s employment brands may be too static to attract the right talent in a labor market that is more dynamic than ever. We face “spray and pray” applicants, business uncertainty among competitors and within our own organization, passive candidates who fear a move that compromises their employment stability, relocation concerns, and new Web 2.0 attraction channels (members only), to name just a few. All of these issues are changing rapidly in today’s economy.

For our employment brands to address these challenges today and tomorrow, we may need to fundamentally change our approach. Instead of striving to manage formal (expensive) employment brands that deliver flashy messages through traditional channels, we need to put in place simple, informal tactics to attract qualified talent. Can we competitively attract talent on a budget not by simply doing less of the same, but by doing something completely different?

What are your thoughts? How does this perspective relate to how you are going about attracting critical talent at your organization?

Written by: Emily Woods

It's About Time...

Welcome to the Recruiting Roundtable blog—and yes, it’s about time on many levels:

• Time you don’t have to waste finding the latest insights or trends in the recruiting function – this blog will provide you a snapshot of the types of things we see, hear, and are experimenting with from the Roundtable (in addition to the detailed resources available on our website when that is appropriate for your needs).

• Time to share your ideas with other recruiting executives. Now, we won’t pretend that we are the only forum out there, BUT, as always, we do promise our traditional commitment to quality information, data, and dialogue with us and your recruiting peers. We can help you cut through the clutter and focus on the top notch insights and compelling angles that many other basic sources of recruiting information overlook.

• Time we launched this blog (and thanks to the many members who have asked us over time where our Roundtable blog is—sorry to keep you waiting).

The value of our network is in sharing ideas with other recruiting executives across the globe, and sharing relevant information from our team to yours. While we’ll have posts from the various professionals on our staff about the latest best practices, data points, recruiting trends, implications of the economic forecasts on recruiting, etc., the strength of our network is reinforced by your own thoughts, feedback, insights. We invite you to post your reactions, experiences, and thoughts to keep the ongoing dialogue alive.

We hope you are constantly learning better ways of working from our blog, and it definitely keeps us fresh to hear more directly from you on an ongoing basis. Check back frequently, and participate often, and it’ll certainly be worth your time.

Welcome...

Written by: Donna L. Weiss