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What’s Hot & What’s Not

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 really going on in recruitment and hiring.

Hot

The job market appears to be holding steady despite the economic decline associated with the poor housing situation in the U.S. CareerBuilder.com and USA TODAY recently released the "Q4 2007 Job Forecast" which surveyed 2,700 hiring managers and human resource professionals in private sector companies. One-in-four employers (27%) report they will add new employees in the fourth quarter. Only 6% percent expect a decrease in staff levels while 62% anticipate no change (just 5% were unsure.) Consistent with previous surveys, hiring activity is expected to remain strongest in the South and West. Twenty-six percent of employers in the West and 31% in the South plan to increase their staffing levels, compared to 23% in the Northeast and Midwest. Plans to reduce headcount were highest in the Midwest (7%), followed by the Northeast and South (6%), with the West at only 5%.

For more demographic breakdowns, find the summary here. And check out this link for a related discussion of hot U.S. job markets.

Not

Will huge one-size-fits-all job sites become a thing of the past? Research firm Borrell Associates sees big growth in niche, industry-specific sites, but stagnation for the likes of Monster and CareerBuilder. Of all online recruitment tools, this market is changing the fastest, but reports of the death of the BIG job board appear to be premature, with millions of job seekers utilizing CareerBuilder, Monster, and Craigslist to find jobs across the occupational spectrum. Still, a market valued at $5.9 billion today is projected to increase 64% to $9.7 billion by 2011, Borrell estimates. That growth is expected to come both from large companies already using online recruiting as well as more locally focused businesses that usually don't use the Web to find applicants. But it’s hard to put this trend up against any particular industry, as the prevalence of focused, niche job search sites varies a great deal across different functions, occupations, and salary categories. It looks like some hiring initiatives may rely mostly on these more specific sites, while others will still benefit from the high volume of job seekers on the larger sites.

Hot

Finally a truly integrated assessment platform with a deep array of hiring tools: Previsor has announced Select2Perform, which integrates assessment content from their various companies, including Brainbench, ePredix, and Qwiz. This vast platform of skills tests, competency assessments, and cognitive ability measures also supports Interview 2.0, Previsor’s new interview guide generation and scoring platform. Rocket-hire is running across more of these complete or near-complete solutions, but none as extensive as this one. In the future, look for more alliances, buy-outs, and product integration platforms that provide simplified administration and access to a much greater variety of hiring tools.

Hot or Not?

Online recruitment with assessment for free?  The State of Florida recently announced the Florida Ready to Work program. Organizations can sign up to tap into job seekers who are “certified” in math, reading, logic, and related sub-areas. Job seekers, for their part, can access job opportunities via their free membership and credentialing at the Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels (based on test scores.) Other states are rolling out similar systems, but formal reports of success have not appeared. Could a (mostly) “free” assessment platform and job matching service seriously compete with standard (not free) systems? If it takes off, this could very well accelerate the trend toward more cost-effective (i.e., much cheaper) employee acquisition and assessment tools.

Hot or Not?

Suggestions for acquiring and managing “Generation Y” workers (aged 18-30) run the gamut, as this recent article points out.  As usual, this fad may simply underscore what we already know about good recruitment, management and the motivation of workers. Sure, newly minted college graduates and others in the Gen-Y say they want certain things from their employer: Structured and obvious career paths, relevant training, and flexible work hours. Nonetheless, it seems that the reported lack of ingratiation of today’s young job seekers is what is most off-putting about this group; but isn’t it possible that the confident attitude exuded by the stereotypical Gen-Yer is simply a reflection of the positive job market for young applicants…which is mostly due to a steady decline in the US birth rate since the late 70’s? Either way, the Rocket-Hire staff will always caution against using media-driven stereotypes as a basis for employee development and hiring systems. It remains to be seen if these supposed differences actually result in a different set of best practices recruitment strategies.

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