March 31, 2004

Audition candidates
Posted by at 10:32 PM

If you're lucky enough to have an open req, you're probably besieged by candidates. Even when they've passed your resume filtering and phone screens, you probably still want to interview many candidates. Auditions are a great technique to differentiate between candidates.

When you audition people, you're asking them to perform a limited portion of the job in an environment that looks a little like the regular work environment. When I audition technical people, I ask them to design a fix for a problem, test a product, write a defect report, facilitate a meeting, or something else that is a critical skill for the job's work. In-the-interview auditions help you detect the most critical behaviors and skills you want a candidate to exhibit.

You can also ask candidates to work for a while as a temporary employee or contractor. The duration doesn't have to be long -- back when I needed babysitters, I paid a potential babysitter to stay with my child for an hour. My hairdresser pays other stylists to come in and cut hair for a day. As a technical manager, I hired contract release engineers and testers to see if they would fit into the organization for a few weeks. On-the-job auditions provide you with data about how well the candidate will work in your organization, not just the most critical skills and behaviors.

No matter what kind of job you have open, make sure you audition candidates. A 30-minute audition (or a few-week temporary position) will help you evaluate candidates in ways you'd never thought possible.
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March 29, 2004

We like you too, John
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:22 PM

Editor/publisher John Sumser of Electronic Recruiting News has a neat story today entitled "The end of traffic" in which he talks about RSS (= Really Simple Syndication) feeds, online news aggregators and deliverers that allow you to get the info from various sites sent to you without visiting the sites (hence the end of traffic). In the piece, BostonWorks' Job Blog (sister to this HR Blog) gets a nice mention:

The BostonWorks (Globe) JobBlog sets a solid content standard.

Thanks, John. And by the way, thanks as well to our technical guru, Jason Butler. The BostonWorks blogs and other selected site content are RSS-ified - to learn more, start here.

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March 26, 2004

Microsoft's recruiters provide the inside scoop
Posted by Jason Butler at 2:08 PM

Microsoft opens the kimono with their own HR blog: Technical Careers @ Microsoft. Does your organization provide this much useful, human information to your prospective candidates?

(Via John Sumser's excellent Electronic Recruiting News)
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March 23, 2004

How to get the best work out of your advertising agency
Posted by at 5:33 PM

From Electronic Recruiting Exchange, this is an article that many of us will find useful. The story discusses the key principles to follow to ensure that you get the best work from your agency. They include truth, passion, and differentiation.

Clients that "get it" don't always have the most money to spend, the coolest projects to work on, or the toughest recruitment or marketing challenges to solve. But the work that is done for them consistently wins awards and the recognition of their peers, regardless of the scale. They allow their ad agency to create the innovations that other organizations try (and often fail) to duplicate.

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YAM (Yet Another Manifesto)
Posted by Jason Butler at 1:29 PM

In the proud tradition of Cluetrain, here is the Guru Red Manifesto, in which the authors give advice on how to structure companies and strategies in this new reality.

Stay fluid. Stay maneuverable. Become nomadic. Shed fixed obligations. Design business models with minimal fixed overheads. Control your core competency. Outsource everything else. Better to pay Kinkos 30 cents per color collated copy than $25,000 to Xerox for a machine that then costs another $10k per year to operate. It’s almost always better to buy or partner a non- core competency externally rather than “make-it” internally. Use short-term leases. Own as little as possible. Choose methodology over technology. Build throw-away/discardable infrastructure. Do not become prisoner of your income statement

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March 22, 2004

Resources? Performers?
Posted by Jason Butler at 11:04 AM

Frank Patrick has an interesting take on how to label people working on a project: performers, not resources.

So, if I'm unconsciously shifting away from the impersonal "resources" when referring to people, what word do I find myself using? Well, we already designate some people associated with project environments as"managers" -- project managers, resource or functional managers. "Contributors" has too much of a pro bono feel to it. "Team members" is an overused cliche. For some reason, I seem to have started using"performers", and kind of like the ring of it. Skills are resources, people who apply those skills are performers, individual and unique. [Emphasis in the original]

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March 17, 2004

Up to 13,000 jobs may be lost in Fleet merger
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:54 AM

Well, the other shoe is dropping as reports are now coming out that, with the merger of Fleet into Bank of America, up to 13,000 jobs may be lost. That's a big "ouch" anywhere, but here in New England, as we struggle to pull ourselves out of an extended job slump, it is not welcome news:

Bank of America Corp. plans to cut as many as 13,000 jobs as it completes its $47 billion acquisition of FleetBoston Financial Corp., according to a newspaper report.
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The cuts would come through layoffs and attrition from the operations of both banks and amount to about 7 percent of their combined work force of 181,000, the report said.
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"Attrition obviously plays a role in this, and you also have to assume that Fleet is not actively hiring new people right now," Cassidy said. "There will be a lot of vacant jobs, so the actual number of pink slips handed out will not be that many."

Local impact is not yet known.
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Dunkin' Donuts parent in possible bidding war
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:16 AM

Another local business story from the Globe reports on a possible bidding war between Wendy's and Dunkin' Donuts' parent Allied Domecq for 48 Bess Eaton-owned coffee and doughnut restaurants in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island:

Allied Domecq PLC's Dunkin' Donuts, the world's largest coffee and baked goods restaurant chain, is fighting Wendy's International Inc.'s plan to buy bankrupt Bess Eaton Donut Flour Co. and expand its Tim Hortons restaurants.
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Dunkin' Donuts said in the filing it is studying Bess Eaton's assets to prepare its own offer, signaling a possible bidding war. A group of Dunkin' Donuts franchisees is also exploring a buyout.

The court fight comes as Dunkin' Donuts faces increased competition from Tim Hortons and others such as Starbucks Corp. and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. Dunkin' Donuts, owned by Bristol, England-based Allied Domecq, has more than 5,800 locations in the United States and 29 other countries.

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Gillette consolidating some manufacturing
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:03 AM

Today's Boston Globe reports on Gillette's plans to build a plant in Poland to serve European market needs:

Gillette Co. yesterday said it plans to spend about $148 million to build a plant in Poland as the Boston company shifts manufacturing and distribution jobs from Britain and Germany to lower costs.

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March 10, 2004

Working the electronic grapevine
Posted by at 5:40 PM

We all know that this city is so small and the communities we work in, even smaller. That is why in this city, sometimes getting a job it isn't about what you know but who you know. Here is a story from The Christian Science Monitor that introduces us to a trend in networking for a job: online networking.

Networking sites are quickly becoming a mainstream way to find jobs or employees, make deals, and meet mentors. Several million people have raced to link up everyone in their little black books on the Internet. But as the technology evolves, others are hesitant, wondering whether these virtual webs will sufficiently protect against a flood of e-mails or a loss of privacy. Some think the quality of their relationships will be diluted by being digitized. And it's not clear whether the chasm between the haves and have-nots - in terms of the advantages of networking skills - will narrow or widen.

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March 2, 2004

Five critical skills recruiters should acquire
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:20 PM

Speaking of outsourcing, Howard Adamsky on ERE offers up more pithy advice for recruiters in this crash course in career development:

Let me ask you a question: Are you absolutely certain they can't send your job overseas for ten cents on the dollar? If you are absolutely sure this cannot happen, you are in the greatest danger of all — because you feel safe and comfortable in an economy [that] offers neither at the moment. To reside in that zone of perception is a very dangerous reality.

With the best defense being a good offense, I believe that recruiters must retool for the times ahead. If things get better, that's great. If they don't, you will be a more valuable asset to yourself and the rest of the world.

Following is a list of five skills that will be "must haves" for the times ahead. I strongly suggest you do whatever is necessary to incorporate them into your professional bag of tricks.

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Coalition battles outsourcing backlash
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:50 AM

The battle lines are forming in this presidential election year on the very hot topic of outsourcing, a political hot potato in an economy that shows strong signs of rebounding but is nowhere near recovering the more than 2 million US jobs lost over the last couple of years:

Some of the best-financed trade groups in the U.S. have formed a coalition to beat back federal legislation that would restrict foreign outsourcing by government contractors and limit visas for non-American workers with technology skills.

Calling itself the Coalition for Economic Growth and American Jobs, the new entity comprises about 200 trade groups -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Information Technology Association of America -- as well as individual companies.

Read the report from Dow Jones via CNN.
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