Crowdsourcing on Twitter: A New Way to Write a Job Description

You don’t need to put an ear to the ground to know that Twitter is one of the most talked-about Web 2.0 channels for recruiting. Posting jobs on Twitter, sharing company news with your followers, advertising about upcoming recruiting events—these are all ways that recruiting organizations are dabbling in this social media site.

However, sometimes it’s easy to forget the social aspect of this site and the collaboration that this channel enables. A few organizations are turning up the dial on Twitter usage by not only sharing information with followers, but also gathering feedback from them as well.

In one instance, Best Buy recently “tweeted” a job description for a media marketing position on its Twitter page, which triggered a number of re-tweets and blog posts discussing what the appropriate qualifications should be for this position.

This is a phenomenon known as “crowdsourcing”—outsourcing a task that is traditionally performed by an employer or contractor to a community of people in an open forum. In Best Buy’s case, the Twitter universe helped the company design a job description, a task that is typically relegated to recruiters and hiring managers.

The end result: a media marketing job description that is compelling and distinctive, clearly spells out the qualification requirements, and speaks to the right candidates (and hopefully, at the same time, deters unqualified ones without these skill sets from applying). For those of you who are familiar with our insights on quality of hire, you know how important defining a job description is for improving quality of hire (Members: Access this training guide to help you get the upfront recruiting activities right).

It’s great to see recruiting leaders starting to use Twitter and other similar social media in a Web 2.0 manner—not only maximizing the information-sharing aspect of these channels, but also emphasizing the collaborative aspects. In other words, don’t just push content to job candidates—also listen to them.

Written by: Xi Chen

Ratio of Job Seekers to Openings Hits Record High

Unemployed workers are facing one of the bleakest job markets on record, despite reports of an economic recovery in sight. Job seekers now outnumber job openings at a rate of six to one. To put this in perspective, the worst that this ratio reached during the 2001 recession was just over two job seekers to one job opening, and at the beginning of this year, it was four to one.

The outlook for job openings doesn’t look like it’s going to improve any time soon. The average work week for U.S. workers is at an all time low of 33 hours/week. And as the economy improves, organizations will be more likely to increase the workloads of existing workers before they start to hire new workers. Combine this implication with an environment of economic uncertainty, and prospects for workers’ job search become even bleaker.

How will this impact recruiting? There will continue to be fewer requisitions coupled with higher application volume—the noise in the labor market may not be dampened in the near future.

Week End Roundup: September 25th

In this week's Week End Roundup: Some U.S. states continue to see an increase in unemployment, despite improvements in national economic indicators; U.S. retailers expect temp hiring to decrease for the upcoming holiday season; U.K. graduate hiring finally sees an uptick; Canada's labor market experiences less permanency and less perks for employees; and recent studies show that employees with a strong sense of self-evaluation are more successful.

1. August Jobless Hit 10% in 14 States and DC (New York Times)
While U.S. national economic indicators, such as housing, have showed signs of improvement, 14 individual states and DC continued to post an increase in unemployment. Regions that were previously construction and manufacturing industry hubs suffered the most. States with the highest jobless rates included Michigan (15.2%), Nevada (13.2%), and Rhode Island (12.8%), while North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska had rates of 5% or lower. Although the U.S. government has enacted a number of programs to tame the recession, these programs may not be enough to prevent a jobless recovery.

2. Holiday Jobs Look Scarce As Pessimism Grips Retail (WSJ)
The U.S. economic outlook is appearing more promising, but the country’s top retailers aren’t as optimistic about sales for the upcoming holiday season. Many are expecting to hire 5% to 25% less temp workers this season as compared to the last. The retail sector has already lost 850,000 jobs and about 6% of its workforce since the recession officially began in late 2007. A decrease of 10% to 20% in temp jobs would represent 100,000 less jobs this season, many of which are typically filled by less skilled workers and new entrants to the job market.

3. Banks Show Signs of Recovery as Recruitment Season Begins (Times Online)
In the U.K., university graduates have been one of the recession’s hardest hit hiring populations. However, U.K. employers are expecting graduate recruiting to increase by 5% in 2010. This increase represents the first growth since 2007, but it represents only about 25% of the vacancies lost over the past two years. Organizations in the banking and financial services industry are amongst the first the hire graduates again.

4. Looking for a Job? It's an Employer's Market (The Globe and Mail)
Canadian workers are experiencing employers’ hesitation to hire full time, permanent employees again and their preference for maintaining flexibility in staffing. Two trends in the Canadian labor market are emerging: employers are becoming more prudent, offering more fixed-term contracts rather than permanent jobs and more stringent employee contracts with less “frills.” Analysts are seeing job security and more short-term and part-time arrangements in this region.

5. The Kinds of Employees You Want to Hire (BusinessWeek)
A decade-long study by psychologists finds that successful employees are those with a good sense of self-evaluation. These employees feel that they have a sense of control over events in their lives more than the events control them. Those with high self-evaluation are able to weather tough times, whether it’s bouncing back from negative feedback or tough economic times.

Now's Your Chance, Recruiting

Over the last six months, high-potential employees expressed a 13% increase in their desire to leave their company within the next year, compared to no change in this desire for non-high-potential employees. In other words, our best talent is sticking it out to weather the recession and thinking about leaving (and probably many will leave) once the recession eases.

What does this mean for Recruiting? It signals perhaps the biggest chance—and challenge—we’ve seen in recent history for Recruiting to support the business. Maintaining pipelines of quality talent was important during the “war for talent” a few years ago, in part to help strategic business expansions become successful. But today, the stakes might be higher. At many organizations, there will be a struggle for recovery and continuing (or even increasing) employee productivity, with creative use of dwindled resources.

With the risk of seeming overly dramatic, innovative talent pipelines is a “need-to-have” in this environment. RR members, see one organization’s approach. Everyone, see Executive Guidance for 2010: Confronting Six Enemies of Post-Recession Performance to support the case for Recruiting to maintain (or to start) talent pipelines today.

Finding Candidates in an Online Job Marketplace

Finding the right candidates for some positions can be really difficult, even in this economy. Search firms and headhunters are knocking down our doors, often times with less than qualified candidates. At the same time, many of us still need to turn to these third-party agencies for their expertise in filling these challenging positions. And you wonder—if there could only be a mediator to help you manage these search firms and headhunters without the laborious contracts (not to mention extra vendor management work) and your phone ringing off the hook.

Some organizations have turned to a new brand of service: online talent marketplaces. Vendors like Bounty Jobs, Recruit Alliance, and Dayak create an online job marketplace—a spot where you can post your available jobs and search firms/headhunters can view and submit candidates to fill those jobs. These marketplace vendors manage the third-party agency contracts, and get paid either by taking a cut of the payment made to the search firm/headhunter once a placement is made or by the organization paying a monthly fee.

Initial review of these marketplace sites are somewhat mixed. Some organizations love the freedom from contracts and vendor management, while others complain of quality issues. Search firms and headhunters aren’t particularly the biggest fans—they face increased competition when using online job marketplaces, share fees with the marketplace vendor, and lose the protection guaranteed to them through direct contracts. As hiring picks up, it will be interesting to see how well these marketplaces fair going forward.

Taleo Adds Worldwide Compensation to its Talent Management Suite

Taleo announced last week that it will be acquiring Worldwide Compensation for up to $16 million. Taleo has partnered with the California-based company since early 2008, and the acquisition is expected to complete in early 2010. Worldwide Compensation offers compensation solutions for global organizations, including total compensation planning software and tools for base and variable pay for global organizations.

Taleo’s recent acquisition introduces another prong to its multi-pronged talent management vision, which is now comprised of Recruiting, Performance Management, and Compensation. Taleo, founded in 1999 as a recruiting software provider, has made a fair number of acquisitions over the past two years within the recruiting space, including Vurv, one its major competitors in the ATS market. The company built its Performance Management system organically and released it in early 2008. Worldwide Compensation represents the company's first major acquisition outside of the recruiting realm (although Vurv did dabble a bit in performance and compensation as well). As of mid-last week, Taleo also announced a partnership with Learn.com.

With the downturn economy proving to be fertile ground for acquisitions, this recruiting heavy weight has been (and still is, it seems) poised to knock out its existing competition and its missing talent management pieces through acquisitions. The question remains, however, whether HR organizations today are ready for these integrated technologies.

To learn more about Taleo’s recruiting capabilities, check out the Roundtable’s Taleo Vendor Review (members only).

Written by: Xi Chen

Week End Roundup: September 18th

In this week’s Week End Roundup: jobless and initial claims in the U.S. fell this past week; the Bank of England announced that the U.K. economy grew in the second quarter; Hong Kong’s unemployment remains steady at 5.7%; Japan is striving to promote stability, but it may be overlooking its potential for growth; and the O.E.C.D. believes that global unemployment will rise to 10%.

1. Jobless Claims Drop 12,000 to 545,000 (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. Labor Department saw a 12,000 drop in the number of people filing for unemployment benefits last week, the lowest since mid-July. Initial claims also decreased by 125,000 as compared to March. About 9.53 million people (not seasonally adjusted) have claimed some form of benefits. Although some might interpret this as positive news, economists caution against regarding this measure in a meaningful way because decreases in job claims may also indicate that people are shifting to other benefits programs.

2. UK Economic Growth ‘Has Resumed’ (BBC)
Although the Bank of England indicates that there are signs of economic growth, recovery still remains “highly uncertain”. The U.K. economy contracted by 0.7% in the second quarter as compared to a 2.7% drop in the first quarter. The European Commission expects the U.K. economy to grow in the third quarter of this year. However, analysts expect unemployment to continue rising.

3. Hong Kong’s Jobless Rate Remains Unchanged (Wall Street Journal)
Hong Kong’s unemployment rate remained steady at 5.4% between June and August, and analysts expect that this figure will remain steady or rise in the coming months as employers remain cautious about hiring. In particular, graduates and “school leavers” have been the hardest hit given the already high unemployment rate.

4. Japan Strives to Balance Growth and Job Stability (New York Times)
Productivity in Japan has slowed over recent years, and economists argue that the country’s reluctance to alter its economic structure is partially to blame. Japan has traditionally valued unemployment and stability over growth. Economists point to the need for its service sector, which makes up 70% of Japan’s economy, to reform in order for Japan to extricate itself from the downturn and maximize on its supply of educated labor.

5. High Jobless Rates Could Last Years, O.E.C.D. Says (New York Times)
The Organization for Economic Cooperation (O.E.C.D) recently released its unemployment forecast for its 30 member countries, many with developed economies. It expects unemployment to reach 10% by the end of 2010, with individual countries’ unemployment rates varying from 6% (Japan) to 20% (Spain). Governments around the world have enacted programs to aid the labor market, but economies at O.E.C.D. argue that rather than focusing on job creation, government funding should target programs that help retrain those who have been unemployed for a long period of time.

The (Potential) Coming of the “Just-in-Time Labor” Market

There’s a lot of uncertainty about the labor market, how it has changed in the last year, and how it will evolve when the recession is behind us. One thing that is certain? The labor market is getting older.

In the U.S. between 2006 and 2016, it is expected that 93% of the workforce growth will be in the 55 and older age bracket. While some older workers continue to work because they have to, o- many older workers work because they want to. A recent survey found that only 17% of today’s 65+ workers have jobs because they need the money, compared to over half who said they continue to work because they want to. The question is: how will the growing aging workforce impact the labor market?

One possible impact on the labor market is an increase in older workers filling “just-in-time labor” roles. Older workers who voluntarily stay in the labor market are probably more likely to work part-time and take on jobs that interest them. In today’s world of virtual work spaces, outsourcing, and contract labor, the concept of a growing, highly skilled just-in-time labor force supplied by baby boomers is very plausible. This market of on-demand talent is still relatively small today, but it could grow very rapidly in the next few years as baby boomers move from traditional jobs to contract labor to help meet future demands quickly (that is, if and when the economy picks up). These experienced baby boomers could provide organizations with much-needed specialized skills, but on an “as needed” basis--helping organizations save money by maintaining only their core talent as employees and contracting out the rest.

Of course, for this to work, organizations would need to develop a highly efficient way of delivering talent so that a project was truly “just-in-time”. With a shift like this, a whole new type of recruiting could emerge—one that focuses on delivering “just-in-time” talent.

Week End Roundup: September 11th

In this week’s Week End Roundup: current U.S. job openings and future hiring outlook remain low, but the slower pace of temp worker job loss signal improvements soon; unemployment in Australia remained steady last month; and localized Canadian organizations stand by attending in-person job fairs.

1. Job Openings Fell to Record Low in July (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. Labor Department reports that job openings fell to a record low in July. At 2.4 million job openings, this figure is the lowest since the Labor Department started tracking this statistic in 2000. Economists are concerned that if hiring volume stays depressed, consumer spending will remain constricted as well.

2. U.S. Hiring Outlook Dips, Better Elsewhere (Reuters)
According to a recent global employment outlook report by Manpower, hiring intention in the U.S. was not as strong as that of Asia and Europe. In the U.S., education and health services was the only industry sector to show positive hiring prospects, while all other industry sectors (including construction, leisure and hospitality, and professional and businesses services) continue to expect a deteriorating outlook. The report suggests that India, followed by China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, had the most optimistic hiring plans, and Western Europe was more optimistic than Eastern Europe.

3. For Temp Employees, Losses Level Off (WSJ)
Positive signs in temporary employment often times point to similar changes in full time employment. If that trend holds true, recent figures released by the U.S. Labor Department show that there may be improvements to the broader labor market soon. In August, temp worker payrolls dipped by 6,500, as compared to an average of 51,000 during the first half of 2009. However, hiring of temp workers has been slow, suggesting that employers are hesitant to hire en masse.

4. Australia Jobless Rate Steady at 5.8 pct in August (AP)
Australia’s unemployment rate remained steady at 5.8% in August for the third consecutive month, better than expectations. However, this figure hides the fact that more workers had moved from full time to part time employment while unemployment remained steady, indicating that Australia’s economy has room for improvement.

5. Face Time Remains the Strength of Traditional Job Fairs (National Post)
Despite the availability of virtual career fairs, many recruiting organizations in Canada continue to participate in traditional, in-person job fairs. Large organizations with widespread presence in various regions were traditionally the biggest users of virtual career fairs, but many have curbed their use due to the reduced hiring volumes. Smaller organizations with more localized presence often put greater emphasis on interpersonal relationships. They argue that meeting face-to-face continues to be important for determining a candidate’s fit with the organization and for candidates to make more informed decisions.

Where Does Recruiting Belong?

There has been some discussion in the ERE blogosphere regarding whether Recruiting belongs under HR. Does any best-in-class recruiting function need to stand “on its own,” separate from HR? Does Recruiting belong under Finance?

These are worthwhile considerations, especially in the context of making Recruiting more strategic—a goal almost any recruiting executive will cite.

What I’ve seen over the years is that the core strategic value of Recruiting is its role in talent management. The recent shift towards “integrated talent management” (with Recruiting, L&D, Performance Management, and other groups acting more holistically) is a great example of the necessity of Recruiting in HR. Internal mobility, succession planning, workforce planning, defining hiring needs, and communicating the employment value proposition to the labor market—these are all activities that can only be performed effectively if Recruiting is closely intertwined with everyone else in HR.

In short, the best way for Recruiting to create value is not to declare independence from HR, but to work with HR.

Shorter and Sweeter: Branded URLs

If you’re a social media user like me, and frequent sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you may have noticed the use of mysterious-looking abbreviated links hosted by Web services like bit.ly and TinyURL. These services redirect longer URLs to a shortened version, allowing people to share previously long and unwieldy links in a small patch of social media real estate.

E-marketing gurus have discovered the power of using these shortened links for tracking the effectiveness of online campaigns. I’ve also seen a number recruiting organizations follow suit by using these shortened links within their Twitter and Facebook pages to direct their followers to their careers Web sites or job postings—a quick and easy way to source within a world-wide network.

But have you ever hesitated to click on one of these shortened links because you were worried about where it would lead you?

Coca-Cola claims that it is the first company to use its own branded URL: CokeURL. Not only does using its own branded URL allow Coca-Cola to track conversations about its products within social media channels, but the company also hopes to lend greater credibility to its followers that they would be taken to Coca-Cola sponsored Web page.

If using branded links take hold on Twitter, Facebook, and other similar social networking sites, imagine the implications for the recruiting world and the ability to control your employment brand and track conversations about your jobs.


Written by: Xi Chen

Week End Roundup: September 4th

The latest global labor market data was released this week. Read more in this week's Week End Roundup to start preparing for the 4th quarter.

1. Job Losses Moderate, but Unemployment Rate Hits 9.7% (Wall Street Journal)

The most recent data released today from the Labor Department shows that the U.S. unemployment rate has soared to 9.7%, the highest level since 1983. Since the start of the recession last December, the economy has shed 7.4 million jobs. On a (slightly more) positive note, last month’s job loss of 216,000 was lower than July’s figure and than economists’ forecast. However, most industries continued to shed jobs last month except for education and health care, which added 52,000 jobs.

2. Europe Unemployment Rate Rises to Highest in More Than 10 Years (Bloomberg)

The unemployment rate in the 16 member eurozone hit a 10 year high of 9.5% in July, an increase from 9.4% reported in June. Large companies across this region continue to cut jobs to shore up earnings, while consumers remain hesitant to spend.

3. Finance Jobs Hint at Recovery in Asia (New York Times)

Despite grim reports for the financial services and banking industries, there are hopeful signs that these industries are starting to hire again in Asia. Unlike the U.S. and Europe, which is nearing 10% unemployment, Asian unemployment rates have been comparatively low.

4. Who’s Hiring? (Globe and Mail)

The unemployment rate in Canada reached 8.7% in August. Canada’s labor market added 27,000 jobs, many of which were part-time jobs. Full-time jobs fell by 3,500. The retail, wholesale, finance, real estate, and construction industries added jobs, while the manufacturing and education industries lost jobs. Canadian organizations are hesitant to declare rebounds in large scale hiring. Headhunters and search firms in the region report an increase in hiring activity, and many are trying to fill jobs that were previously cut positions.

5. A Reluctance to Retire Means Fewer Job Openings (New York Times)

While the rest of the developed world is retiring according to plan (enticed by state and corporate pensions), older workers in the U.S. have been reluctant to face retirement as the recession takes a toll on their financial security and personal savings. Research finds that four in ten U.S. workers over the age of 62 say they have delayed retirement because of the recession. The lack of attrition in the older workforce has contributed to fewer job openings.

Alumni Recruiting: No Excuses

The benefits of rehiring corporate alumni (as in, individuals who are former employees of your organization) are almost too obvious to list. Alumni are a known asset, meaning we already know their strengths and weaknesses and can screen with relative ease. They also have prior organizational experience, meaning reduced onboarding time and assured cultural fit. In short, there are substantial performance and cost savings to be realized with alumni rehiring.

Yet surprisingly, on average only 5% of hires are alumni. This measly percentage is even more disappointing given today’s realities: layoffs, other labor market movements, and the renewed cost-consciousness of virtually every recruiting organization. There are no more excuses to pass up the opportunity to rehire former employees or keep former employees engaged for future rehires. You can start building a pipeline of these alumni easily by setting up free online professional networks on LinkedIn and Facebook, or a private social network using a third-party vendor. (Members, see the Vendor Directory for Online Social Networks.)

Also for RR members, check out our profile on how one organization approaches alumni hiring, and be on the lookout this fall for an upcoming toolkit to help you up an alumni recruiting program.

Unemployment Rate in Europe Highest in 10 Years

The unemployment rate for the 16 member euro region rose to 9.5% in July according to the EU statistics office. Although this is the highest rate this region has seen since mid 1999- is was actually right in line with economists' predictions. To make matters worse, there is little relief in sight. Unfortunately, most economists expect unemployment to continue to rise in the region until it reaches over 11% in early 2011. What does all this mean for recruiting? In all likelihood we will see a continuation of the trends we’ve seen this year- less hiring, more applications, and more aggressive candidates.