Problematic Hirings of The Newly Graduated

For anyone that has graduated from a university/college, you have first-hand knowledge that it is not an easy task to locate and land a job. Even if you do indeed land one, there's no guarantee that you will be employed for very long. According to the New York Post; this new-grad-group does not have a good image, as they are being called “The Worst Generation,” citing research that shows these new group members as being very narcissistic and with a high sense of entitlement. Many of these newbies come straight out of college, expecting to be in prime position to be atop of the ladder in whichever field they are in. High-dollar salaries, nice lifestyle, and paid time off...a lot of paid time off.

Sadly, it's not completely their fault, as I can attest; many professors, counselors and whathaveyou, will instill in students that they will be asssited in locating/landing a position of high-caliber once they graduate and are also telling the students of how much of an excess of money that CAN be made. What they fail to fully translate to a language that graduation-ready, money-starved students can understand; is that the potential to do so is out there...NOT as soon as you throw that cap in the air and hang up the gown.

"This group was raised to expect, receive, and question everything. This sense of privilege has caused many in this group to lack patience in developing professionally; an unconcern with “paying their dues”; and a different perception of how “work” should work. Research also shows that they often feel entitled to a level of respect and rewards that aren’t in line with their actual ability and effort levels, and so they might not get the level of respect and rewards they are expecting. They feel cheated and might try to obtain rewards they feel they are entitled to through unethical means. For example, they are more likely to manipulate performance data to achieve higher bonuses." quoted from Raghav Singh. He continues with, Census data shows that the likelihood of 20-somethings moving to another state has dropped well over 40 percent since 1980. While there is plenty of demand for workers in skilled trades, many prefer to stay unemployed and few are willing to do this kind of work even though those jobs can pay far more than working in retail or as a waiter or waitress. Having been told by their parents and even icons like the late Steve Jobs to “follow their passion” or “do what you love,” many do just that when it comes to picking a college major, leading to a situation where far too many have degrees that are not particularly valued by employers.

Despite the fact of the highlighted turbulence that befalls the new grads of this generation; they still do have the mindset to make it in the workforce, and the skillset that many employers are looking for and can work with.

Using LinkedIn to Recruit Passive Candidates? Yep!

It’s a fact that companies are still filling 80% of their jobs with active candidates – candidates who are actively seeking other employment. Yet, most of the A-playing talent is found within the passive pool, a much smaller pool. How in the world will you be able to hire quality passive candidates if they are not applying for jobs? The most valuable and effective tool for finding and communicating with passive candidates is LinkedIn!

After reading this tidbit of interesting information; how many of you have been in or have known someone in that very same position? They are brought onto a job into a position that is more or less meant to be a mere stepping stone for what they truly want? Honestly; how many of us can say that we have never been at that same position?

LinkedIn is one sure-fire way to locate those prime-candidates that are not actively seeking other employment. It's as if you are walking around outside the local restaurant, not paying attention, and "OH!" there is a $20 bill that is off to the side, stuck in a bush. Now, you weren't looking for a $20 bill, and oh what an odd occurence that you have found one minus the effort. LinkedIn is your bush to find your $20 bill...uh...candidate.


The quoted first paragraph is from Strategic Advisor, Jennifer Millman.

Recruiting’s Dirty Little Secrets — What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

Two of the hottest topics in corporate recruiting today are the candidate experience and need for transparency. And although many corporations are making a sincere effort to improve that candidate experience, they often pay only lip service to becoming more open, honest, and transparent. No corporate leader that I know directly lies to applicants.

However, if you consider omitting information that could directly help the applicant successfully understand the process or land a job to be a lie, then there are quite a few areas where corporations are omitting the complete truth.

from Dr. John Sullivan


Dubbed "dirty little secrets" due to insiders being well aware of them, while most applicants and business reporters haven't a clue. Let's sift through several areas where corporate recruiting could seek improvement.

• The corporate black hole — because of recruiter overload, the volume of applicants, and technology problems, a resume submitted to a corporate career site may actually have a zero probability of being reviewed. In the industry, it can be referred to as “the black hole.”
• Looking for an excuse to drop you — there are books written about the need to focus on the positive aspects of individuals, but the entire screening process is often focused on finding a single error or lack of “fit” to quickly eliminate any applicant. If you are categorized as a job-jumper, you are unemployed, you have bad credit or Klout scores, you live in a distant zip code, or they find weird things on Facebook about you, you will be immediately rejected without knowing why. As a result, those who fail to make a single mistake during the process, rather than those who are the best, are the ones that are most likely to get hired.
• The rejection letter is designed to avoid complaints, not accuracy – if you actually get a rejection letter or e-mail, you should be aware that canned phrases like “we decided to move in another direction” or “there were other more qualified candidates” are pretested or lawyer-approved phrases that are designed to quiet you and keep you from making a follow-up inquiry. In many cases, the person sending the letter won’t even know the actual reason for your rejection.
• The interview process will likely be disjointed – applicants invited in for interviews routinely complain about disorganized interviewing, death by interview (having to go through 10 or more interviews), continually getting the same repeat questions from different interviewers, and having to return multiple times on different days. If the process seems poorly managed and disjointed, it is probably because it usually is. The overall corporate interview process is more often more whimsical than scientific and integrated.
• Some jobs are not really available to outsiders — although legal requirements may require an organization to post all open jobs, in some cases, the hiring manager has already predetermined that they will hire internally. There is no way for an external applicant to know when a job is “wired,” so applying can only lead to frustration and you will never know that you did nothing wrong.
• Some companies are blocked — if you work at a company covered by an informal “non-poaching” arrangement where two firms agree not to hire from each other, your chances of getting hired are near zero. Even though these agreements are illegal, they are secret, so your application will never be considered and you will never know why.
• Recruiters won’t know if you are a customer – you might think that being a loyal customer might help your application, but most corporations have no formal way of identifying an applicant as a customer.
• We will keep your resume on file (but we will never look at it again) – is certainly true that when they tell you that your rejected application will be “kept on file” it will be. However, it will be kept almost exclusively for legal reasons. The odds of a recruiter scanning through a corporate database of thousands of names in order to revisit a resume that has previously been rejected are miniscule. Unless a recruiter remembers you by name, assume that your resume has been dropped into the “black hole.”
• You will never know the real odds – although corporations regularly calculate the percentage of all applicants that are hired, you will never find that number on the corporate website. Although the lotto is required to publish your odds of winning, corporations keep it a secret. For some jobs, the odds are well over 1,000 to 1.
• Technology may eliminate you — and most large organizations, resumes are initially screened electronically. Unfortunately, if the software is not fine-tuned, the recruiter is not well-trained, or if you fail to use the appropriate keywords and phrases, no human will ever see your resume. In one test, only 12% of specially written “perfect resumes” made it through this initial step, although in theory, 100% should have made it.
• Busy people are forced to take shortcuts — during a down economy, the volume of qualified applicants can force recruiters and hiring managers to take shortcuts. For example, recently a coordinator asked the recruiter which one of a handful of resumes should be invited in for an interview. The response was “I don’t have time to look at them; just flip a coin and pick them.” Hiring managers are also known to make choices based on snap judgments or stereotypes that add a degree of randomness to getting a job.
• Don’t call us, we’ll call you — if an applicant is rejected at any stage, there is no formal process to help you understand where you need to improve in order to be successful when applying for a job in the future. Unlike in customer service, there is no 1 -800 number to call, and because of weak corporate documentation, recruiting might not actually know (beyond a broad reason) why you are rejected and how you could improve your chances.

Would You Hire Him? Someone Did

Bennett Olson, a normal Minnesotan man looking for a job, decided to take his campaigning for a position one step further.

Bennett recently placed his happy-go-lucky, grinning face along with the words "HIRE ME" upon a large digital billboard in hopes of gaining the attention of a potential employer. Lucky for him, this wild idea actually brought on several interviews and ended up landing him a job! He paid $300 to have his ad rotate with others for 24 hours, and during that 8-second flash of his face and website; within a day's time, it seemed to have made a big enough splash to snag a position. Way to go Bennett; now I wonder if that same campaigning would work on government electoral votes?



via: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/minnesota-mans-desperate-hire-me-billboard-actually-works-140177

A Grocery FRESHER Website

If you are familiar with western-states, Arizona, Nevada, and California, then you are probably well-acquainted with the chain of grocery stores populating these great states. Fresh & Easy, which was founded in 2007, has launched a newer, fresher look to its website talking about jobs within the British-owned grocer.

On the Fresh & Easy homepage, not the careers home page — the words “A Great Place to Work” (in lieu of “jobs,” “employment,” or “careers”) will swing you on over to the careers page, which includes videos, a q-and-a about the interview process, a blog, and more.

Fresh & Easy is recruiting employees and interns on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Spicing up your company website seems to produce a heavier flow of traffic to your business. Whether it is creating new and improved ads, or even a simplistic yet developed career page; updates are always looked upon as keeping up with the times and an interest in your establishment.


via: http://www.ere.net/2012/02/02/grocer-freshens-up-website/

Effective Employee Referrals? Really?!

They say the way to get places these days is by knowing people. They also say that conversation is better by the water cooler than through emails. This could very well prove to be true, especially in the business world. So who exactly are they and how do they know so much?
Employee referrals are possibly more effective than we are led to believe. CareerXroads now brings forth evidence that hires from employee referrals are under-counted. Over the years we have all accepted that the average number of hires from employee referrals was somewhere in the ballpark of SHRM's 24% (for non-exempt positions) to about a third.

“Referrals permeate the recruiting process more than we think,” says recruiting consultant Gerry Crispin, a CareerXroads, principal.

Big or small, two-thirds of the respondents offer a bonus for every referral hire. Most common (44%) is $500 for a non-exempt hire. One-in-five will pay $1,000 and a few more (28%) will pay that for difficult to fill non-exempt positions.

Interesting concept that's widely happening at many companies. Hmmm, do you know anyone that you would like to refer to your current company? Their just might be a bonus in it for you.


via: http://www.ere.net/2012/01/31/employee-referrals-may-be-even-more-effective-than-we-think/