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>.
Good News for the Recruiting Industry!
On Thursday March 18, President Obama signed into action a new bill, which will directly affect the staffing industry over the next few years. Our industry has taken one of the largest hits over the past two years, since many companies reduced their hiring initiatives, which left many staffing and recruiting companies with half the volume they were used to in prior years. However, President Obama has made it one of his top concerns to get the whole country and economy back on its feet, starting with reducing unemployment. February saw little progress in decreasing nonfarm unemployment. The current unemployment rate has remained at 9.7% and February only saw 36,000 more employed Americans in comparison to January. The new bill will directly respond to these sluggish numbers by creating $18 billion in tax breaks for companies who hire in the next year. The bill is proposed to create 250,000 new jobs over the next year. Although that may not seem largely significant, it will bring new business for the recruiting industry, something that we can all look forward too!
Byron West
President
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Proactive Recruiting
Over the years, one of the biggest challenges Hire Velocity has faced is communicating the importance of proactive recruiting to our clients. A large majority of US companies approach recruiting from a much more reactive standpoint. For example, many companies fail to build the relationships and talent pipelines they should be building, when hiring is down. Instead, many companies wait until five electrical engineers are needed, and they post jobs expecting to get the five best electrical engineers out there. Although this approach does work occasionally, we have come to find that the best talent is acquired through continuous proactive recruiting. Creating a talent pipeline can enable your company to pick from the best available prospects when the time comes. Generally, companies may view proactive recruiting as the more expensive approach, but the cost of reactive recruiting can reach similar heights while necessarily bringing back the quality talent you’re looking for in a timely manner.
Instead, find a recruiting partner that can build relationships with prospective applicants and passive candidates in order to streamline the hiring process. The University of Illinois at Chicago did a study on proactive recruiting particularly pertaining to finding qualified female candidates. In two different job searches for the same position, proactive recruiting nearly doubled the number of qualified applicants and showed a huge increase in the number of female applicants. Proactive recruiting was defined as an aggressive search for talent rather than a simple job post.
In recent years, Technology has eased the pains of creating an effective proactive recruiting process. Applicant tracking systems such as Silk Road’s Open Hire, iCims, and Taleo, (for example) have enabled companies to build robust talent pools and ease the process of finding qualified passive candidates. Leveraging the right technologies can create the infrastructure and foundation needed to lower your recruiting costs and enhance your recruiting process. Thus, it’s essential to look past the “reactive” recruiting methods such as job postings, and create a proactive recruiting process that will build a much more qualified talent pool.
Finally, remember that it is always a good practice to continuously promote your brand from a recruiting perspective. Your career site is the door to your company and should display the goals, values and culture of your company. Once you do proactively get the candidate to your front door, make sure you leave a great impression!
Byron West
President
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The Importance of Diversity Recruiting
Most American companies view recruiting diversity as a burden for business, unrelated to the idea of having diversity in the workplace but rather the hassle associated with finding diversity candidates. It’s no secret that diversity recruiting is not a common result of the standard recruiting process. Many companies find that diversity candidates are not resembled in the majority of resumes on Monster, Careerbuilder, and other large job sites. However, there are overwhelming benefits to integrating a diversity of cultures in the office. Several companies have found first hand that the diversity of culture has led to several new ideas that have increased efficiency or led to new products.
Take the Frito Lay organization for example, their desire to recruit diverse candidates led to their product Doritos. Increasing diversity in the workplace will also increase creativity. Not all problems can be answered with one solution; other cultures can bring new ideas, which a homogeneous culture might not stimulate. Therefore, diverse recruiting strategies will bring benefits to the workplace, which are always worth pursuing.
Additionally, in an examination of common western culture in comparison to eastern culture, one noticeable difference is the view of relationship management. Eastern cultures rely on strong relationships between whom they work with. As a result, many customers of companies in the Far East have strong relationships with those they work with. Recruiting diversity more specifically from Asian countries can create stronger relationships with customers and strengthen the ties between those you work with. One downside to diversity in the workplace can be barriers in communication, however those barriers subside over time leaving the benefits of recruiting diversity.
Byron West
President
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Generation Y
As we look forward to emerging out of this recession and reducing unemployment, a new and highly anticipated generation of employees is moving into the workforce. There seems to be a lot of skepticism about how effective the “me” generation will be. Growing up in a culture centered on instant gratification and focused on efficiency, this new generation of the workforce will bring a new set of cards to the table. No longer is the time dedicated to a job, a justified means to being promoted. Generation Y will now see their performance as the most justified reason for upward mobility in the company. In addition 35% of Generation Y employees wish to communicate with their boss several times a day. What is to be expected from these new employees should be clear, obtainable, and concise. Focused on efficiency, the more communication will be essential in obtaining the optimal performance from new workers.
In addition, Generation Y, or the “me” generation, seeks to obtain the security and status their parents obtained much earlier in life. In a recent survey Generation Y respondents ranked “working with a manager I can respect and learn from” as an 8.74 on a 10 point scale. With most new employee’s eyes set on upward mobility, the ability to gain wisdom from their managers is becoming ever more crucial. Skepticism about this new workforce has led Generation Y to be referred to in a negative connotation. However, I believe that the new mold of employees can bring new effectiveness to companies through their aptitude with technology and ambition to jump through the necessary hoops to achieve success. Most of Generation Y has grown up with computers and has become extremely proficient at navigating the Internet. Their awareness with new developing technologies will bring technology options that may have gone unnoticed. Nevertheless, with the new employees coming into the workforce, I think we can all anticipate what Generation Y will bring to the table.
Resources:
Questions and Answers about GENERATION X/GENERATION Y. www.bc.edu/wfnetwork. Sloan Work & Family Research Network, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2010. <wfnetwork.bc.edu/pdfs/GXGY.pdf>.
Byron West
President
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Improving Candidate Experience
With 18 days till Christmas, many people are beginning to notice the elaborate Christmas decorations in malls, airports, and grocery stores. But why do so many retail centers choose to spend so much money on Christmas decorations, which they will be taking down a month later? One explanation is to improve the customer’s shopping experience. If a mall chooses not to decorate during the Holidays, customers will most likely choose another, more festive mall for their next shopping spree. The whole idea of improving the customer’s shopping experience seems to be common knowledge in the retail world, but why do recruiters overlook the applicant’s experience?
One explanation may be that there are so many applicants; it just isn’t feasible to ensure each applicant has a good experience. Well, isn’t that the case in most retail situations? An average Wal-Mart store serves over 3,000 customers per day, which exceeds the number of applicants most recruiters see per day. Thus, it’s just as feasible to ensure an applicant has a good experience as it is to ensure a customer at Target has a good experience. The next question would be, how important is it to ensure the applicant has a good experience?
After simply emailing unselected applicants, saying that someone more qualified has been given the position, we received great amounts of feedback telling us how much that simple email meant to them. With 10% of the country unemployed, it’s easy to overlook the importance of your company’s reputation in the hiring process, but in years to come, when unemployment goes down, the steps you take to improve your reputation for giving the applicant a pleasant experience will mean a lot. For example, if you apply for a job at a Consumer Goods company and are treated poorly, that could be a determinant in which product you choose at the grocery store. Your brand name is everything, and it includes your reputation in the hiring process.
Something that should not be overlooked is how easy it is to improve the candidate’s experience. Many applicants will say that no response from a company at which they applied would classify that company as failing to provide a good experience for the applicant. Therefore, it is as easy as creating an automatic response in your ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to thank the applicant for applying and giving them a little knowledge about their current status. In addition, mass emails to those applicants which failed to qualify, will also shed a more positive light on your company.
Simple steps such as these can help to improve your brand name, which can prove to be crucial in tough hiring times.
Byron West
President
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