Issue #2 — April 2007

In This Issue:

• The War for Talent is Back
• Getting the Most Out of Myspace.com
• Executive Commentary: If You Build It, They Will Come (and Stay!)

Previous Issues:

• February 2007

The War for Talent is Back: Highlights from the 2006-2007 Selection Forecast Study by DDI and Monster

The 2006-2007 Selection Forecast study is a research project recently conducted by DDI and Monster. This research project is especially interesting because it compares and contrasts the beliefs of the three primary constituents in the hiring process: Hiring Managers, Staffing/HR Managers, and Job Seekers.

This triangulation provides clear evidence that the “War for Talent” is back. It also offers us insight into why companies are struggling to recruit top talent. While the Selection Forecast covers a vast array of topics, I will focus on these three key findings:

1. The “War for Talent” is back
2. Most companies are not prepared to fight this war
3. Most employment branding efforts are failing

The “War for Talent” is Back
73% of Staffing Managers (an overwhelming majority) reported that competition for talent has increased from 2005 to 2006. 79% of Staffing Managers also expect the competition to intensify in 2007. This change from companies being in the driver’s seat, to job seekers being in the driver’s seat is producing interesting effects. Staffing Managers are feeling pressured, Hiring Managers are feeling anxious, and Job Seekers are feeling bold.

Most Companies Are Not Prepared
Only 10% of Hiring Managers and Staffing Managers give themselves an ‘A’ (9 or 10 on a ten point scale) when rating their own companies recruiting and selection effectiveness. Most gave themselves a ‘D’ or a ‘C’ (6 or a 7 on a ten point scale). This means companies will have to work extra hard to improve the people, process, and technology aspects of the recruiting and selection process in order to hire top talent.

Most Employment Branding Efforts Are Failing
We asked Hiring Managers, Staffing Managers, and Job Seekers a simple question, “What do Job Seekers want?” We found a clear disconnect between perception (Hiring Managers/Staffing Managers’ beliefs about Job Seekers) versus reality (Job Seekers’ actual desires). For example, Staffing Mangers over-emphasized “Opportunity to Advance to the next role” and under-emphasized “Opportunity for Accomplishment within the current role.” This misalignment across multiple dimensions is a classic marketing problem. The Hiring Manager and Staffing Manager are selling one thing, but the Job Seeker wants to buy something else.

To complicate matters, the Job Seeker desires change based on age cohort. Younger Job Seekers focus on “A creative or fun workplace culture” while older Job Seekers focus on “An organization you can be proud to work for.” Hiring Managers and Staffing Managers need to re-evaluate their selling messages and make sure that you are providing the right messages to the right Job Seekers.

While the findings in the 2006-2007 Selection Forecast may seem bleak, there is hope. Most companies in the study are investing more time and money into their recruitment and selection efforts. Hopefully this study will help companies prioritize these investments.

To learn more about this and other Monster research reports go to http://intelligence.monster.com/

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Getting the Most Out of Myspace.com

According to an April 9, 2007 edition of BusinessWeek, "Last year MySpace users called up an average of 31.5 billion unique page views per month. That's as though everyone on the planet visited the site once a week." With numbers like that, you simply can't afford to ignore MySpace as a recruiting tool anymore.

Let's look at a few ways to get the most out of what Hitwise ranks the No. 1 trafficked site on the Web:

1. Secure your brand. Even if you don't plan on using MySpace today, it makes great sense to secure your brand(s) within MySpace domain addresses. When signing up for an account, users choose their URL, looking something like this: www.myspace.com/YOURCOMPANYBRAND. So, if you're IBM, you want to make sure no one else gets www.myspace.com/ibm - especially your competition. Signing up for an account is free and easy.
2. Fill out your profile. Time for your personality to show. Your profile is a group of categories for you to share specifics about your company to other MySpacers. These can include, bur aren't limited to, your company information to your heroes, like your CEO perhaps.
3. Invitation time. MySpace makes it pretty easy to use their own system to invite "friends" into your network via the Invite link on your login homepage. Another option - and this is perfect if you have a resume database of e-mail addresses you can take advantage of - is to use your own e-mail solution, providing a link for other MySpace users to join your network. A word of warning: Make sure anyone who receives your invitation has opted in for messages from you.
4. Go visual. MySpacers love eye candy. Be sure to consistently upload photos and video to your profile page, helping to paint a picture of your organization. These are a great way to showcase your employment brand. You can also easily add these elements to your MySpace homepage. A photo slide show, for example, is a popular choice.
5. Seek and recruit. MySpace allows users to easily search its nearly 170 million profiles by keywords. If you're recruiting nurses, a search for "nursing OR nurse" bring up over 1 million results. Too big? Add geo-targeted keywords like "Chicago." Once you find targeted candidates, invite them to be your "friend" via their Add to Friends link.
6. Comments. Once someone is a "friend," feel free to leave a comment on their page. For example, you might simply say, "Thanks for adding YOUR COMPANY NAME to your MySpace page. We look forward to connecting and sharing information about our company." In addition to reinforcing your relationship, comments serve as free mini-advertisements for your friend's friends to view, who can then click on your MySpace page to find out more about your company.
7. Post bulletins. Probably the best way to passively communicate through your entire network is by posting bulletins. Like a traditional bulletin board, these are short notes about pretty much anything. For example, you might promote a "hot job" or your participation at a job fair with a link to a page with more details.
8. Groups. There's pretty much a group for everything and everyone on MySpace. For example, I'm part of a recruiting group, which helps me connect with, you guessed it, recruiters. If you're employing a specific type of candidate, do a search through the many groups on MySpace and ask to join those which make the most sense for you. You can even create a brand new group.

The number of mediums outside of traditional print and online job boards is increasing continuously. Of them, MySpace is no doubt a place you should look into for broadening your reach, tapping into new talent pools and outsmarting your competition. And hey, once you're up-and-running, I could use some new friends myself: www.myspace.com/jcheesman.

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Executive Commentary: If You Build It, They Will Come (and Stay!) - Strategies to Attract and Retain High Quality Employees

Being a company that develops Talent Management solutions to help 4 million managers and employees achieve superior business results, we have set the bar high on HR practices…how could we not? And let’s face it, we are once again in a wildly competitive world for attracting and retaining top talent. Our goal is to capitalize on our existing top talent and to be flexible and creative in our recruitment strategies. If we can do this, we should outpace our competitors and set new standards for organizational performance.

At Authoria, our philosophy is to make Authoria the “Employer of Choice” and to have internal best practices in every area of employment. In other words, if we build it, they will come (and stay)! By being the best place to work, we intend to create a culture that others want to be a part of.

Being an Employer of Choice goes beyond the traditional view of competitive salaries and benefits, it encompasses all the components that make an organization’s talent their most important asset. Don’t get me wrong, competitive salaries and benefits are very important, but candidates and employees expect them to be competitive. They’re looking for more than that - flexible work arrangements, career opportunities, professional development, exciting projects to work on, and the accessibility of management.

Authoria strives to attain this goal by placing a high value on our processes for recruiting, developing, leading and retaining our talent. And it all starts with the candidate experience, whether it’s a new candidate looking at Authoria for the first time or an existing employee interested in another opportunity within the company.

Developing our own talent and motivating and retaining them are key steps to ensure a winning workforce. Creating career and development plans can help us to groom future leaders. Authoria leverages our own performance and succession solutions to give us visibility into the skills and ambitions of our existing talent. Yes, we drink our own champagne!

And when new candidates see the enthusiasm, commitment and consistency of those interviewing them, they get a strong sense of the culture and employee experience. It significantly enhances the recruitment process; candidates get the sense that this is a great place to be; they want to work here. They feel the energy and passion that existing employees have for their company. They begin selling themselves. But remember, the recruitment process has to be effective and efficient. Turnaround time has to be short so we don’t lose that momentum.

In addition, workforce planning is a proactive way to make sure we have the right people in the right jobs at the right time to execute our business goals and strategies. Being able to track candidate availability against current and future business needs will help us to be better prepared for the future. Authoria accomplishes this with the help of our integrated talent management solutions. Authoria Recruiting allows us to build a talent pool of qualified candidates and also assess those candidates that we are evaluating and considering, and later tie that top talent back to the hiring source.

And speaking of our top talent, doesn’t it make sense to leverage the top talent we already have to build a stronger team? Authoria has found that employee referrals are the best way to find talent. Authoria at times even offers incentives doubling our regular employee referral program to fill certain specialized positions.

Offering co-ops and internships is another example of how we attract top talent. Co-ops and internships not only help prepare our leaders of tomorrow, but they also work to begin branding our company among our intern’s college peers for future employment opportunities. Authoria has found great success with these programs in the areas of Engineering, HR and IT. The success of these programs has extended to the Career Counseling centers of local colleges that now recommend Authoria as an employer that should be considered.

Authoria has been open to alternate methods of recruiting and sourcing. The internet is a constantly revolving resource that changes the way people look for and gain information. Authoria has found social networking sites like LinkedIn, Craigslist, retirementjobs.com and other well-known recruiting industry sites valuable for finding candidates.

We make an effort to be flexible enough to bring in top talent when we find it. For example, Authoria has hired talent in the areas of sales, professional services, engineering and product management even when we didn’t have an immediate need or position available but the expertise was too great to pass up.

In summary, here are some tips based on Authoria’s experiences and lessons learned. Pay attention to internal and external worlds. Get and keep your house in order; stay on top of new places to find talent, as well as the supply and demand of skills and experience that you seek. Ask your employees and candidates what’s most important to them in terms of their day-to-day and overall career experience. Watch for consistency and then make sure you are adjusting your practices and processes accordingly. And don’t get too comfortable; one thing we can always count on is change, and we must be able to move on a dime. Otherwise, we become stale and who wants to work in that environment? That’s not what makes an Employer of Choice!

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