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« Back to the Winter 2006 Explorer newsletter
What’s Hot & What’s Not
Winter 2006 Edition
Recent reports and happenings that affect your world. Rocket-Hire keeps an ear to the ground to learn what’s changing.
HOT
Kenexa has acquired Psychometric Services Ltd (PSL), a UK-based selection and assessment firm. Kenexa, already one of the largest and best-known providers of recruitment, selection, and performance management solutions, recently acquired BrassRing as well. The addition of PSL to Kenexa’s comprehensive suite of products and services is intended to augment their expertise in employee selection and assist with their expansion into broader non-US markets. As we’ve mentioned before, mergers in the completely fragmented HR and Training sectors are rapidly on the increase. With hundreds of firms searching for ways to increase their share of the same market, expect even more partnerships and acquisitions in 2007.
HOT or NOT?
New guidelines for determining just who and who isn’t an applicant within a web-based hiring process have produced a lot of discussion and concern. But Dan Biddle’s excellent summary of the new Internet Applicant Regulations clears the air and lays out a plan to help an organization develop the documentation and processes necessary to comply with new rules. For the most part, compliance with these guidelines center on establishing a fair and transparent hiring process through development of basic qualifications based on a job analysis, and using a step-by-step review process to carefully narrow one’s applicant pool. Check out Dan’s review and advice in his latest newsletter.
How HOT will it get?
How long should your first interview with candidates last? Half an hour? How about 10 minutes? Foster Wheeler USA, the American arm of a global engineering firm, hopes to sift through more candidates at an upcoming job fair by spending less time with each one, and asking more specific questions about relevant skills and knowledge. The tactic is not particularly new or uncommon, as recruiters have been conducting quick screening interviews since the age of the Paymaster. But attempts at improving the tedious pre-screen interview are welcome, as is any effort to raise the value of resource-heavy job fairs. Just make sure the questions are focused and job-related, and don’t turn your quick review of skills into the lamentable “stress interview.”
NOT
Having trouble finding seasonal workers to stock holiday shelves or shovel snow off of the walkway? You’re not alone. The low unemployment rate is back, and many recruiters are experiencing the drawbacks of lower unemployment and a smaller labor pool. In beautiful Park City, Utah, local restaurants, shops, and resorts claim to have exhausted temporary worker and immigrant populations and are struggling to fill hundreds of positions. Louisiana-based retailers predict more minors (as young as 14 years-old) on the job this winter, particularly in retail. Nonetheless, if you or a friend is still looking for work, try networking at holiday parties or taking the CIA’s tongue-in-cheek personality test.
Briefly:
Even more hiring scandals to warm up your special pair of holiday socks. Mayor Daley of Chicago notes that just because you’re corrupt doesn’t mean you’re not “a fine young man”…The hiring of two brothers (relatives of the Chair of the Civil Service Commission) in Avon Lake, Ohio makes one wonder if it really is nepotism if the beneficiaries are well-qualified…Sheboygan, Wisconsin makes its own contribution to the history of favoritism in the public sector…Small town Connecticut politicians continue to fret over writing new job descriptions.
Compiled by Mark C. Healy. Mark C. Healy is a consultant, teacher, and business writer based in Oakland, California. He assists companies with the development of their human capital strategy and designs hiring, leadership development, and training programs. Mark teaches Statistics and Psychology at De Anza College in Cupertino, California.
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