Engaging Employees is Key to Retention and Results
Is it becoming harder to find employees who are engaged and loyal to your company? If you answered yes, you are not alone. 80% of employers say that it is difficult to attract talent. Businesses want employees with the skills and experience to do the job correctly, but 57% of employers say that those employees are the hardest to attract. Compromising on the quality of new hires comes at a high cost; 51% of employers experienced a loss of business due to the lack of the right people.
The UNIVERSUM Employment Branding Insights 2011 survey shows that 64% of the 632 companies included in the survey say that their key employees leave to pursue new professional opportunities. The top performers are looking for greater challenges and opportunities or more money. The high turnover rate requires companies to spend more time and resources looking for qualified potential employees then ever before. Many companies are turning to outside firms, like Hire Velocity, to help with the recruiting cycle. These resource process outsourcing (RPO) firms are able to find qualified, available, and interested candidates fast using the trained recruiters and specialized tools.
This has not always been the case. Past generations have typically had the mindset that they will stay at the same company for their entire career, moving up the ladder to better positions. Generation Y has a different mindset and companies can no longer rely on people to stay with an employer for their whole career. It is difficult for employers to keep their most talented employees while other opportunities open up for them. Generation Y is slowly dominating the workforce with 74% of employers looking to hire talent who have recently graduated from college or have 8 or less years of experience. This is making it difficult for senior professionals, people with more than 8 years of experience, to find work as only 18% of the employers surveyed are looking to hire them.
The future is not hopeless; employers agree that a long-term employer branding strategy leads to better recruiting results. Creating and implementing a long-term employer branding strategy will improve the company’s ability to attract and retain the right talent. The positive sign of this survey is that 82% of employers are now investing in talent attraction which excludes direct recruitment, but includes employer branding and communicators. Many of these employers believe that developing brand awareness and esteem are the solution to this growing problem.
How to best utilize social networking in recruiting
Social networking has become a great way to connect with clients and potential recruiters. Utilizing social networking is important regardless of if you are looking for a job or looking to hire new employees. However, it is important that you choose the right social networks that will project a professional image on you and your company.
Facebook is a great tool for businesses as a whole. The smart companies have created a Facebook Page for their business and encouraged clients and potential clients to “Like” the page. The Facebook Page will allow your company to post updates to all of the Facebook users who have liked your page. This is a great way to attract traffic to your company website and encourage customers to voice their opinion. It allows your business to have two-way communication where the customer can interact with you, and you can interact with the customer.
On the other hand, Facebook is not a good tool for those who are looking to get hired. Facebook is typically used as a personal social networking site among friends and family members. Leaving your Facebook page open for employers to see can stop you from getting a position based on a picture you have been tagged in or a comment that was left on your wall. For this reason, it is important to change your security settings to limit the amount of information that people who are not your friend can see.
LinkedIn is a more appropriate place for job seekers to network with employers and contacts. This social network is used for professional uses and shows off your experience, education, recommendations, and more. It is a great way to reconnect with a possible contact that may be able to help you get that interview. Additionally, you can search for open positions from some of your favorite companies using the social networking site.
LinkedIn is also a great tool for businesses because it gives a quick overview of the company and allows people to see who is working there. The front page of the LinkedIn page gives a snapshot of the company size, industry, year founded, headquarters, and more. Recruiting managers will be able to utilize LinkedIn by posting open job positions (for a fee) for any LinkedIn member to check out.
These are a few of the many social networking sites available for businesses or job seekers. It is 2011 and it is essential that your business have a presence on the social networking sites. To even better improve the customer experience, businesses should post updates on a regular basis and make sure that they are interacting with the customers.
Check out how Hire Velocity utilizes social networking sites by visiting our LinkedIn and Facebook pages.
Unemployment rate falls to 9 percent; lowest since April of 2009
2010 was a difficult year for those looking for a new career with a high unemployment rate and a competitive job environment. Open job positions are getting flooded with a large amount of applications making it more difficult to get chosen. However, President Obama is proud to announce that the employment rate fell to 9% in January, down from 9.4% in December. This could be a good sign for the upcoming year with hopes that the unemployment rate continues to decline.
But it is not all good news; only 36,000 jobs were added overall. This is lower than projected, meaning that people may have dropped out of the job market. However, the White House is staying positive saying, “The 0.8 percentage decline in the unemployment rate over the past two months is a welcome development… However, the rate remains unacceptably high.” The Obama administration will continue to work towards a lower unemployment rate and more jobs being added.
Source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/02/obama-gets-good-news-bad-news-on-jobs/1
America’s Hottest Job Markets
With a new year comes new hot job markets in the United States. Monster.com released a report showing the top ten job markets that are great places for job seekers to look. The hottest job markets are:
- Washington, D.C.
- San Francisco
- Boston
- Baltimore
- Seattle
- Minneapolis
- Cleveland
- Tampa
- Dallas
- Kansas City
Monster is also reporting that the information technology and health care industry are the winning industries to be in right now. The economic recovery has prompted many companies to spend more on IT infrastructure and install new technology. The health care industry has not been impacted much during the recession with many baby boomers, who previously had the health care skills, retiring and leaving positions wide open.
Van Der Pool, Lisa. “Survey: Boston third hottest job market.” Boston Business Journal 21 January 2011: n. pag. Web. 26 Jan 2011. <http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2011/01/21/survey-boston-third-hottest-job-market.html?surround=etf&ana=e_article#ixzz1ByzW9a8y>.