Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Looking Ahead


As most readers who know ExecuNet are aware we have been up to our ears in the career and business issues impacting senior level business leaders for 21+ years.

Among other things this means as an organization which is focused on the executive level we have been around for the last three recessions and because of our relationships with not only our executive members but our RecruitSmart members as well we hear a great deal of the business buzz both positive or otherwise, and it is no secret that much of what all of us have been hearing for a long while falls into the category of "otherwise."

Nonetheless, we keep our radar open and operating and going back to March of this year and "otherwise" notwithstanding, we were reporting and seeing and hearing about "green shoots".

I am happy to say that this has continued, and if you are interested in a take on the economy both current and going foward gleaned from our somewhat unique perspective, you might want to take a few minutes (less than five) to hear what our President (and resident economist) Mark Anderson's thoughts are as he looks at where things stand now and what he sees in the coming months, all of which were captured by ExecuNet TV and posted on YouTube just yesterday.

Agree or disagree, feel free to comment.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Hiring Roulette


Among the all-time debates with no answers such as: nature or nurture; chicken or egg and of course DiMaggio or Mays there remains the nagging one of hiring or retention.

What is tougher, making a good hiring decision or retaining "A" players once you find them? These are issues that probably have been studied, surveyed, poked and prodded by more organizations than have sworn off applicant matching systems, attitude surveys and exit interviews combined, but that doesn't mean that we don't keep on looking for the answers even though much of the time the results in the real world make us think that our resident guru is Monty Python rather than McKinsey.

But undaunted, we keep trying, and even though the study will be a year old come October, the Corporate Executive Board and more specifically the Recruiting Roundtable which is a subsidiary of CEB released the results of a significant study last October which they say was the first of its kind in that they tried to actually identify the key reasons why more than 50% of the hiring organizations or the new hires themselves regret the decisions they made.

When one thinks of the time, energy and money that is focused on the issues of hiring and retention, this is not a number that generates optimisim on either side of the debate.

In any case and for sure, the issue is certainly not going to be solved here, but nonetheless I thought the study was of sufficent interest to share in the event there were those who might not have seen it or like me, had forgotten about it as we are wont to do. Even so, the data has lost none of its importance to any one of us who sit on either side of the desk:

The study details several contributing factors, including that 40% of new hires report the information they received about the job when they were applying was less than accurate. Overall, only half the time will organizations and new hires achieve a win-win outcome where both agree that they made the right decision.

"Given the high cost of early career turnover, organizations cannot afford to make the wrong hiring decisions," says Senior Director Donna L. Weiss. To save millions, the Roundtable aims to help organizations reach that win-win outcome closer to 100% of the time. After analyzing data from more than 8,500 hiring managers and 19,000 of their most recent hires, the Roundtable identified three important reasons organization fail to consistently hire high quality candidates:

(1) they over-rely on candidates describing themselves rather than having them demonstrate what they can do,

(2) they don't follow a consistent, evidence-based selection decision process and

(3) they fail to provide the candidate with enough information and 'experience' about what the job is really like.

Based on detailed quantitative analysis and over 100 interviews, the Roundtable has identified 10 key strategies that organizations can deploy to improve their selection processes.

One recommended approach is to move beyond the traditional selection process to include an experiential component to the process. Weiss adds, "By providing candidates with an experience that is either 'on-the-job' or that is key to job success, organizations can better observe a candidate's capabilities and a candidate can get a better sense of what the job is really like. This is one way to drive to more win-win outcomes."
If you felt the information in the study was interesting and/or helpful, on Friday, August 21st at 1:00 p.m Eastern, you might also want to consider joining Leah Haunz Johnson who is the Senior Director of the Corporate Leadership Council of CEB’s Human Resources Practice. Leah is going to be the featured presenter on an ExecuNet Webinar called: Motivation vs. Malaise: Driving Engagement in a Troubled Economy

About the Recruiting Roundtable

The Recruiting Roundtable provides research, training, and tools to help recruiting executives and their teams make decisions that achieve the highest return on their investments. Roundtable services address key recruiting challenges in areas such as recruiting strategy, sourcing, candidate assessment, diversity management, employment branding, onboarding, outsourcing, metrics, workforce planning, among others. Additional information on the Recruiting Roundtable can be found here.

About the Corporate Executive Board

The Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD) provides analysis and authoritative guidance to the world's most successful organizations. With a member network of over 80% of the Fortune 500, the Corporate Executive Board delivers indispensable resources for timely decision-making on all issues related to strategy, operations and general management. For more information you can click here.

I have purposely left the information on both the Recruiting Roundtable as well as CEB here in case some readers might be becoming aware of one or both for the first time. If you operate in or care about hiring and/or retention space either from the corporate side or the staffing industry side these are sources for thought leadership that merit your continued attention.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Choose One from Column A, B, or C














I guess I could have labeled this post as "A Public Service Announcement" but decided on the A,B,C theme since I wanted to draw readers attention to three totally unrelated but I thought interesting posts that came across my CRT this past week.

Since I stole GL Hoffman's gruzzle graphic (I know, I don't know what that means either, but that's what he calls them) so I guess I'll start there.

I, along with a cast of thousands, have been following GL for quite a while. He is, as those who read his What Would Day Say blog a very clever and insightful guy. In this particular post, I thought he demonstrated both of those traits very well as he gave us his take on the recent Beer Summit.

Not only is the visual pretty neat, what he had to say about it all was equally powerful I thought, so if you didn't happen to catch it, you can check it out here.

Next on the list was a post on ERE by Matthew Charney entitled Bullet Point to the Head which I am still laughing at. Given the well-known and often not displaced frustration that candidates have with the lack of communication with the recruiting world, Charney provides some "insights" that are not only very funny but since most humor comes from truth exaggerated some "learnings" that might help relieve some of that frustration.

You can read it here, but for sure you need to be sitting down otherwise you may fall down laughing.

Finally, if you have not been following John Sumser's latest venture for RecruitingBlogs.com in which he is attempting to ID those who he and/or others feel are the top 100 influencers in HR and Recruiting it's a fun pass time to watch the list grow.

It is sort of like those lists that ESPN or SI put together every once in the while of the top 100 pros of all time in whatever sport you want to name. The lists, of course, are subjective but so far as we know not influenced by direct bribes, and when folks like Peter Clayton are on the list, it helps to provide comfort that it's hard to argue with the choices made especially if you happen to agree with them.

As far as I can tell, at this writing, the list is up to 20 or so and who knows who the other 80 will be, but it is the sort of thing when you are old enough to probably recognize most of the names that appear you feel "qualified" to say to yourself, "Yeah, I buy that!" or "How the hell do you suppose he/she made the list?" That's what makes them fun, but be that as it may, I was happy to see Peter's name.

In my book, he certainly deserved the recognition along with many of the other names of folks that I have come to know at some level over the years and whose work I respect as well, including of course John himself.

On the other hand, I don't know where they got Peter's picture from, but I am guessing from his high school yearbook. [Just kidding Peter.]