May 2009
Finding Jobs and Changing Careers
More than 15 million people find themselves unemployed each year. Millions of others try to increase their satisfaction within the workplace as well as advance their careers by looking for alternative jobs and opportunities. Statistics show that you will make more than 10 job changes and between three and five career changes during you lifetime.
Most people make job sports career transitions by accident. They do little other than take advantage of opportunities that arise unexpectedly. While chance and luck do play important roles in finding employment, when you plan for future sports career changes, you will experience even greater degrees of chance and luck!
Finding a job or changing a career in a systematic and well-planned manner is hard yet rewarding work. The task should first be based upon a clear understanding of the key ingredients that define jobs and careers. Starting with this understanding, you should convert key concepts in to action steps for implementing your job search.
A career is a series of related jobs which have common skill, interest and motivational bases. You may change jobs several times without changing careers. But once you change skills, interests and motivations, you change careers.
Continue Reading:
Building Your Own Career (PDF)
-
We encourage you to download these articles if you find them of value. We suggest you to share them with other members of your hiring team, as you see fit. We also encourage you to contact the author of any of these articles for any additional information and/or insights.
May 2009
Searching for work during a recession requires a delicate balance of patience, endurance, assertiveness and just plain luck. If you rely too heavily on a “scorched earth,” assertive approach, you will no doubt end up alienating many of the same people who are vital to you in helping successfully locate that elusive and lucrative position lurking around the next corner.
At the same time, sitting too patiently waiting for a call back from the vice president with whom you interviewed two weeks ago is apt to result in someone much more savvy and aggressive snaking his way into the position on which you had your sights firmly set.
But how much is too much?
Continue Reading:
Balancing Tactics (PDF)
-
We encourage you to download these articles if you find them of value. We suggest you to share them with other members of your hiring team, as you see fit. We also encourage you to contact the author of any of these articles for any additional information and/or insights.
May 2009
Are top performers expensive? If you ask any expert in compensation to tell you what the typical pay differential (i.e., salary and bonus) is between an average performer and a top performer in the same job, you might be surprised to find out that the differential isn’t much.
The analysis goes something like this:
Top Performers Can Be Paid Slightly More
- Top performers generally do get paid more than average performers. But the extra compensation for top performers rarely exceeds 40% over what average workers get in the same job.
Top Performers May Cost No More Than Average Performers
- In some situations, the pay differential between a top and average performer may actually be a negative number. In other words, top performers may get paid less than average performers. For example, universities, government agencies, and other unionized organizations may actually compensate an individual that outperforms other workers less because of their lack of seniority or because they have been out of school for a shorter period of time than their “seasoned” counterparts. They also may get paid exactly the same because there is no performance bonus program.
- Since benefits are not based on performance, there is no additional benefit costs when hiring a top performer.
- Top performers require no more management time, training (they may actually require less), or travel expenses than average performers.
- Top performers require no unique or additional equipment.
- The cost of recruiting a top performer is, in most cases, no higher than hiring an average performer.
So What Does This All Mean?
What it means is that when you calculate the difference in total costs (including all of the above listed factors) of managing the employee from hire to termination, the actual net cost of hiring a top performer is generally no more than 25% higher than the cost of hiring an average performer.
Asking The Important Question: If I Spend More, Do I Get More?
Continue Reading:
The Big Secret (.doc)
-
We encourage you to download these articles if you find them of value. We suggest you to share them with other members of your hiring team, as you see fit. We also encourage you to contact the author of any of these articles for any additional information and/or insights.
May 2009
You’ve made the offer and Superman has accepted… now it’s back to doing what you’re supposed to be doing; recruiting is over… life will soon be very good again. Or will it?
The statistics on new employees ‘sticking’ are woeful… 42% of new employees LEAVE before their first year! That means you’re right back ‘recruiting’ again… paying additional fees, conducting multiple interviews, entertaining candidates and their spouses and training and… not doing YOUR job, all over again. It’s not what the grand plan was all about… and the hard truth is that your new employee probably started to leave within the first week on the job.
New employees who leave invariably leave because of a difference in their perception of the job and reality. Losing a new employee is simply expensive. According to Bliss-Gately1 the cost to replace an employee is 100-200% of their salary. This range is dependent upon their tenure and the complexity of the position. The further you head up the organizational chart the relative costs to replace a tenured position increase, but the cost to keep that newly hired executive is amazingly cheap.
Continue Reading:
Onboarding & Employee Retention (PDF)
-
We encourage you to download these articles if you find them of value. We suggest you to share them with other members of your hiring team, as you see fit. We also encourage you to contact the author of any of these articles for any additional information and/or insights.
May 2009
Products of the Reagan era or later, millennials have little if any memory of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. For most or all of their lives, they have been “connected” by computer and wireless phone, have lived in an age of instant reality (with satellites providing real-time coverage of world events) and have been coddled by hovering “helicopter parents” anxious to provide them with every possible competitive edge in today’s flat world.
During their formative years, signs on their parents’ cars warned “Baby on Board,” while bumper stickers asked less considerate parents, “Have You Hugged Your Child Today?” Their moms and dads even went with them to college orientation week, helping them select the right courses and sometimes demanding to interview their teachers.
Wisconsin’s Beloit College for some years has published its famous “Mindset List,” which attempts to help its faculty understand the event horizons of incoming freshmen (i.e., what they have always known to be true). The entire list of 75 unique frames of reference can be found at www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/index.html
Some examples:
- This year’s entering class grew up getting lost in “big boxes.”
- They have never heard anyone “ring it up” on a cash register or sound like a “broken record.”
- A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.
- “Google” has always been a verb.
- Disney theme parks have always been in Asia and Europe.
As the college observes, the list is neither critical of anyone nor all-inclusive. For example, there is likely to be a Beloit student who owns an “antique” typewriter or eight-track tape player. Equally true, not all Millennials are fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have had helicopter parents always at their side—or money to spend on the latest iPod model and hottest Razr phone. And countries today that place PCs on every student’s desk are educating a far different generation from those in countries with few or no computers for their schools— creating a chasm known as the “Digital Divide.”
Ideal ways to integrate Millennials
- Reverse mentoring—Young Millennials coach senior employees in the use of technology.
- Create rationale as to why tattoos and suggestive attire are not appropriate in your workplace.
- Review your current organizational style (traditional vs. flexible).
Skills needed to manage Millennials
- Flexibility
- Ability to challenge them continuously
- Organizational interest in technology
- Willingness to look at organizational issues in new or different light
Continue Reading:
Managing Millennials (PDF)
-
We encourage you to download these articles if you find them of value. We suggest you to share them with other members of your hiring team, as you see fit. We also encourage you to contact the author of any of these articles for any additional information and/or insights.
May 2009
When you are glancing through the business section and see that an individual who you think highly of has joined a startup or smaller company, do you ever just wonder why? Why leave a secure position with a major player in a specific market sector to join a company which has promise but lacks the resources of the bigger company?
Many have realized that this is an opportunity to play a pivotal role in a leadership capacity and to truly leave an imprint. Sure, the risk and reward components are present; but the bottom line is the internal drive the individual has to make a difference and the desire to be the architect of an organization.
Continue Reading:
Attracting World Class Talent (PDF)
-
We encourage you to download these articles if you find them of value. We suggest you to share them with other members of your hiring team, as you see fit. We also encourage you to contact the author of any of these articles for any additional information and/or insights.
May 2009
Paul Hawkinson, The Fordyce Letter
“When I need a heart by-pass, rest assured that I won’t select my surgeon on the basis of what he charges.”
That’s what an ailing executive recently opined when he was informed by his doctor about his arterial blockage problems.
Why then can corporate executives be so tightfisted when dealing with what is so commonly thought of as the “heartbeat” of their companies . . . top-talent?
Companies think very little about paying the often exorbitant fees charged by their outside accounting and legal firms . . . or even to the gaggle of consultants who promise cost-cutting and streamlining miracles in other areas of operations.
Yet, when faced with brain drains, talent deficiencies or the need to replace an employee with a better one, their thoughts too often turn to parsimony. This K-mart mentality belies and contradicts their stated objectives to “hire the best,” especially at pecking order levels below the “big picture” executive suite inhabitants.
Of course recruiting fees can vary from firm to firm but, when they do, you will almost always find that those on the low side are sure to exclude some very key portions of the process, all of which are vital to providing the indispensable services necessary to satisfy the needs of the employer.
So why are recruiters worth what they charge? Just a few of the often unspoken reasons are:
Continue Reading:
Why Recruiters are Worth What They Charge (.doc)
-
We encourage you to download these articles if you find them of value. We suggest you to share them with other members of your hiring team, as you see fit. We also encourage you to contact the author of any of these articles for any additional information and/or insights.
May 2009
The retained search commits both parties to working with each other. It makes the recruiter “accountable” to the client for results.
It affords the recruiter the opportunity to get to know the client better. It enhances the recruiter’s ability to understand the corporate culture and personality, it’s goals and client base, as well as identifying and targeting new clients.
It insures that the recruiter will find the best employee with the best “fit” for the client company. In a contingency arrangement, the recruiter will likely place the candidate in the company with the fewest barriers to hiring, or the one paying the higher fee or starting salary, simply to improve their income. Contingency recruiters will frequently “migrate” to the opportunities that will pay them the fastest. The retained recruiter identifies the proper candidates for his client, then recruits those candidates and supports both through the hiring process.
Download the full document:
Why a Retained Search (PDF)
Read the rest of this entry »
