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« Back to the May 2007 Explorer newsletter
What’s Hot & What’s Not
May 2007
Compiled by Mark C. Healy
Recent reports and happenings that affect your world. Rocket-Hire keeps an ear to the ground to learn what’s changing.
HOT
If there’s one consistent story in the recruiting space this year, it’s the fiercely competitive market for great talent. Job seekers, as well, are realizing that their skills may be in greater demand than even one year ago. Sometimes, though, news of a great job market (if you’re not a recruiter) doesn’t calm the anxiety of job hunting, especially if you’re a college graduate with no experience in the real world. But signs of competition for the best new grads are showing up at campus hiring fairs. A recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers points out that employers plan on hiring nearly 20% more college graduates this year. So what is the implication for recruiting strategy? Companies often review their job fair budgets the same way parents just back from Disney World review their credit card statements. Still, recent survey results from Manpower suggest recruiters should keep on competing, though an apparent softening of the upward trend of open positions may hit this year. More at: Read more here.
HOT
Sign-on bonuses for police officers!? The City of Schenectady, NY is looking into offering experienced police officers (usually known as “lateral transfers”) a $20,000 signing bonus to leave their current jurisdictions and join the Schenectady PD. Hardly a tradition in police work, citywide debate about the potential bonus gained national attention, partly due to the surprise that a police department in a somewhat blighted area has such trouble attracting strong candidates. But this tactic has already been used in some cities, though mainly for attracting entry-level candidates. Still, when traditional, highly regulated occupational sectors like police officers and fire fighters look toward aggressive recruiting policies to maintain their workforce, real changes in those sectors are afoot. For one, this possible trend indicates an occupation that is evolving in terms of who the candidates are, with long-term changes in the appropriate strategies to identify the best for the job.
See this article in the Times Union.
NOT HOT
Most senior managers admit to making decisions about candidates within just a few minutes of the start of the interview, according to a recent Robert Half Finance & Accounting study. In their survey of 150 executives, the average response to, “How long does it typically take you to form either a positive or negative opinion of a job candidate during an initial interview?" was 10 minutes. Surprised? Actually, the RHI report may even be generous in portraying the manner in which interviewers judge people, and by implication, how we judge each other during the rest of the day. Is it possible to train your managers to not be too quick to judge candidates? Interview training programs are often effective, but they’re fighting a very basic predisposition. Part of it is good old human perceptual tendencies, in which your brain really, really wants to judge someone quickly whether you intend to or not. Another is the stress and time-consuming nature of the hiring process, which many just want to get over with. Also, many experienced leaders pride themselves on being good judges of character. Overall, we’re quite motivated to figure someone out quickly, which results in both false negatives and positives when it comes to hiring.
Read the summary on PR Newswire.
HOT OR NOT?
How much leeway should convicted felons be given in the hiring process? Congress is currently considering the Second Chance Act of 2007, which channels funds toward programs that help recently released felons find work and integrate back into society. See an interesting opinion by Lawrence Aaron of the Bergen Record (NJ). Without saying it, he advocates job-related selection procedures – not someone’s past – as a way of choosing the best applicant for the job. A combination of careful hiring procedures and openness to giving everyone a real shot at a decent job is surely a natural extension of recent anti-recidivism efforts.
Rumor Mill:
Are top vendors like Kenexa starting to offer their assessments for free? Let me know. I won’t tell anyone, except in the next version of this column.
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