Week End Roundup: December 31st

In this week’s Week End Roundup: wealth management, investment banking, and research are reporting the strongest hiring plans; majority of companies are concerned about losing talent due to recession cutbacks.

To Recruiting Roundup readers, have a happy and safe New Year!

Employers See Uptick in Hiring in 2010 (Washington Post)
United States employers expect to hire more new workers in 2010 than they did in 2009, a sign the U.S. recession may be easing its grip. One-fifth of employers plan to add full-time permanent employees next year, up from 14% in 2009, according to CareerBuilder.com.

6 Hottest Skills for 2010 (Computer World)
A slowly reviving economy will have organizations hiring in a few key areas, looking for IT pros with a mix of skills. According to Computerworld's 2010 forecast survey, less than 20% of the 312 IT executives polled said they plan to increase IT headcount in the next 12 months, compared with 26% in the previous year.

The Next Finance Hiring Spot (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street has undergone a radical face lift this year, but finance industry recruiters are expected to stick to roughly the same formula when looking to fill entry-level positions with college graduates in the future. Wealth management, investment banking, and research are expected to see a hiring surge in the coming years.

Compensation Trends Improving, but Employees Won't Make up Lost Ground from 2009 Just Yet (Economics Week)
According to the Towers Perrin research, 70% of companies are very or somewhat concerned about losing key talent as a result of the cutbacks made during the recession. This talent flight concern is likely warranted; many companies indicated they plan to increase hiring next year and will almost certainly look at competing organizations in their industry or region as a possible source of talent.

Tweet-Savvy Recruiters Needed

As the Wall Street Journal reports, getting a job is increasingly requiring expertise in emerging trends. Knowledge of Web 2.0—including social media and search engine marketing—stands out as a skill in demand for many different types of jobs.

This doesn't just mean that our recruiters are seeking Web 2.0 expertise among applicants; recruiters need Web 2.0 skills themselves. As we embark here at the Roundtable on our 2010 initiative on improving recruiter capabilities, we hear time and again from Recruiting executives that strategic online sourcing is near the top of the list of recruiter skill gaps today.

Social media is edging out traditional Recruiting priorities for 2010, and teams need recruiters who can execute to the fullest. How should recruiters step up their game in the social media space? We're working on that—stay tuned.

Week End Roundup: December 18th

In this week’s Week End Roundup: Australia’s investment banking sector on a hiring spree; Indian employers are reporting the strongest hiring plans globally; and due to the recession foreign-born professionals are retreating back to their home countries.

Bankers' Mega-Pay `Must Be Earned' Says Craig Drummond (The Australian)
Majority of investment banks in Australia have embarked upon a hiring spree over the past three months, after sacking hundreds during the crisis late last year.

Indian Employers Most Optimistic About Hiring Staff (Financial Express, India)
As per the global Manpower Employment Outlook Survey results, job seekers across most of the Asia-Pacific region should start the new year with employment opportunities similar to those seen prior to the global downturn. Significantly, Indian employers are reporting the strongest hiring plans globally. Meanwhile, employment prospects in America remain muted, but have generally improved over the past three months.

With Fewer U.S. Opportunities, Home Looks Appealing to Expats (Wall Street Journal)
With unemployment at 10% and prospects for finding work bleak, foreign-born professionals who came to the United States in search of better job opportunities and prosperity are now retreating. Foreign-based companies, particularly in Asia, are using the employment picture in the U.S. as a means to lure former residents home.

Slowly But Surely, North American Economy Prepares to Fly Solo (The Globe and Mail)
The central banks of Canada and the U.S. both noted for the first time that a job market crushed by the recession is finally beginning to turn. Improving labor trends and slowly improving economic growth show the aftershocks of the recession are beginning to recede.

Go HR

In case you missed the headlines in the Wall Street Journal this week, HR got some overdue spotlight. With organizations increasingly focused on people issues such as succession management and talent attraction, HR experience is in demand for filling board seats. It's a subtle but nice testimony to the rise in strategic nature of the HR (and Recruiting!) functions in the last fifteen years.

Week End Roundup: December 11th

In this week’s Week End Roundup: service sector showing greatest employment strength; unemployment in Hong Kong is forecasted to drop below 5%; and job creation and unemployment on the rise.

Employers to Hire More Staff in 2010 (The Australian)
Hiring intentions have almost returned to the pace before the global financial crisis hit, with over a quarter of employers intending to employ more staff. According to a recent Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, the services sector is showing the greatest employment strength, while weakness remains in the financial and real estate sectors.

Hiring Plans Not Keeping Up with Recovery (The Globe and Mail)
In Canada, the finance and retail sectors have the most optimistic hiring plans. Optimism about hiring has improved from previous quarters, with the first-quarter outlook brightest at both edges of the country. That said, about 13% of firms expect to cut jobs in the coming quarter - the highest level in three years. Hiring plans are especially weak for Ontario and Quebec.

Indicators and Forecasts for 2010 Good (China Daily)
Hong Kong increasingly shows steady signs of economic recovery. While the city's jobless rate decreases, major financial institutions are united in predicting that Hong Kong's economic growth will return to positive territory next year. Enoch Fung, a regional economist at Goldman Sachs, stated that "the unemployment rate will go below 5% in the coming months, and will roughly stand at 4% in 2011, if not lower.”

Job Creation Near but Likely to Be Painfully Slow (China Daily)
The economy is getting closer to generating jobs for the first time in two years, but it probably will not be enough to stop the unemployment rate from rising. Economists hope that employers will gear up hiring early next year and that the economy will start adding jobs in the first quarter. But the unemployment rate may still rise well into 2010.

Coming Up: Improving Recruiter Capabilities in 2010!

We’re kicking off our 2010 work on improving recruiter capabilities here at the Roundtable, and excitement is in the air. Most Recruiting executives are focused on streamlining recruiting systems, structures, and processes, but our data shows that improving recruiter capabilities is more than three times as effective at increasing quality and reducing time to fill. There is huge opportunity here to make improvements.

As you prepare for 2010 initiatives—including things like employment branding, workforce planning, diversity recruiting, and even the possible increase in hiring volumes—consider what kinds of simple assessment and development activities your recruiters will need to get the job done in an efficient budgeting environment.

Members, plan to participate in our 2010 research on improving recruiter capabilities. You may hear from us soon!

End-of-Year Presentations

Many of us are in the midst of strategic planning and preparations for 2010 as the end of the year rolls near. For most Recruiting executives, this means making presentations—business cases, strategic plans, discussion sessions, etc. Many of us are preparing for them in a hurry as timelines before the holidays are approaching. Some quick tips for effective presentations are in order.

To inform (e.g., updates to your recruiting team and hiring managers):

• Make sure the subject fits the time allotment


• Compare difficult to grasp ideas with familiar ideas


• Use visual aides

To convince (e.g., strategic plan proposal):

• Begin in a friendly manner


• Encourage "yes" responses from audience members


• Focus on conveying respect for the audience

To inspire action (e.g., hiring manager training):

• Begin with an example or incident


• State the point of the incident and the action the audience should take


• Include the benefits the audience will get from the action

For more tips on preparing content, rehearsing, and facilitating discussion, members of our sister program, the Corporate Leadership Council, can access Tips for Effective Presentations.

If you're preparing a presentation on a specific recruiting topic, members be sure to check the Presentation Materials section of the Recruiting Roundtable Web site—there might be a presentation template ready for you. For example, see business case templates on onboarding, defining hiring needs, and campus recruiting.

Candidate Advice Survey- Going On Now

Have you encountered too many candidates that are overly-aggressive, unprofessional and/or underprepared? Here's your chance to give candidates advice on what they should (and shouldn't) do during the hiring process.

We want your advice on how candidates should behave during the hiring process. We will be surveying recruiting professionals between now and December 9th about what advice they would give candidates. Roundtable Members look in your inbox for an invitation to take the survey, or click here to access via our website.

The survey will only take 5 minutes to complete. In return for your participation, you'll receive an early draft of the results (if you provide your email address) on Friday, December 11. You'll see what other recruiters think is most important, and you'll provide candidates with valuable guidance that will improve their job searches (and make your life easier).