June 30, 2005

What you can't say
Posted by Jason Tuohey at 10:42 AM

Fellow NYT company site About.com has an excellent job info site, including this article on "illegal interview questions." It's a handy list you might want to flip through if you plan on talking to some candidates in the near future.

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June 29, 2005

Hiring older workers proves beneficial in Japan
Posted by Kim Provencher at 5:21 PM

The number of young people available to fill jobs is shrinking. By 2036 20% of the U.S. population will be over 65. Okay, so that seems like a ways off, but the reality is an aging population and a declining birthrate spells big problems for companies. Who's going to do the work? Well, many older workers actually want to continue to work.

In Fast-Aging Japan Keeps Its Elders on the Job Longer from CareerJournal.com read how Japan is tackling this work force shortage problem.

...a problem that's just starting to sweep the world -- an aging population combined with a shrinking work force. The problem is unprecedented in modern times, and its most predictable effect would be to sap economic growth: If a country's work force declines and higher production per worker doesn't make up for this, its economy will shrink.

Unlike the U.S. Japan is reluctant to rely on large-scale immigration to bolster the work force. Instead it is trying another strategy: enticing the elderly to work longer before receiving retirement benefits, effectively dealing with old age by making it start later.

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Top ten workforce forecasts for 2005
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:15 PM

From The Herman Group, management consultants focusing on the workforce and employment, comes a list of trends for 2005. Here's a sample:

2. Employment will become a Seller’s Market. Employers will face the most severe shortage of skilled labor in history. Corporations will become more aggressive to attract and hold top talent. People will change jobs to find their personal employer of choice. Competition for qualified employees will intensify, endangering employers who are not able to maintain a stable, competent workforce.

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June 28, 2005

Interesting interview techniques
Posted by Jason Butler at 11:09 AM

I haven't pointed to Recruiting.com recently, but you should check them out. They are one of the early reads in NetNewsWire each morning. They're just added more new bloggers, and their blog is cranking out lots of interesting posts each day.

Here's one I really enjoyed: Smart ways to identify the best candidate for the job."

In a nutshell, Brad asks all potential candidates to fill in a series of essay questions before he'll talk with them directly. Most of them are basic interview questions like "why did you leave your last job?", but the set of questions are smart and thoughtful, and the entire technique is terrific.

I really like this screening technique. I'm hiring a bunch of people right now (including a product manager, designer and developer), and many seem qualified. I may steal this "essay questions" idea to use as a test between the first and second interviews.

He also talks about putting up barriers to applying. This is a conflict I have to manage each day when designing the BostonWorks site. We want to make it easy for people to apply, yet we want to make sure that there's at least *some* effort required, to ensure that the people are serious about the job. It's a tough balance. I'm not sure anyone's really nailed it yet. (If anyone has, let me know so I can see what they've done...)

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Special report on Sarbanes-Oxley
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:47 AM

For those concerned with recruitment and hiring of finance professionals, here is a terrific resource from CareerJournal. They have created a Special Report on Sarbanes-Oxley and the hiring opportunities it has created:

Hiring demand is extremely high for specialists who can help companies comply with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. Yet we often hear from finance professionals who say they aren't sure how they might translate their skills to opportunities in this booming specialty.

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June 27, 2005

Top ten soft skills sought
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:18 PM

As recruiters and hiring managers, we obviously value job-specific skills and knowledge when reviewing potential hires. But we all know these attributes alone are not enough.

Successful future employees also bring another set of attributes, "soft skills", that enable them to work well within an organization:

'Soft-skills' refer to a cluster of personal qualities, habits, attitudes and social graces that make someone a good employee and a compatible co-worker. Companies value soft skills because research suggests and experience shows that they can be just as important an indicator of job performance as hard skills.

What soft skills does your organization value? From an article via our NYT sister site About.com, here's a list of the top ten soft skills sought by organizations.

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June 24, 2005

Never too old to pursue your dreams
Posted by Kim Provencher at 3:53 PM

Ever feel like you've sacrificed your life's passion for the more traditional road? Is there a dream you've always wanted to pursue but feel it's too late? Life's excitement doesn't have to end at 30, 40, 50 or whatever age you'll hit next. Pursuing life's passions isn't just for the young. It's for the young at heart. In "Life Is But A Dream" from Time Magazine read about five inspiring retired people who buck the system and achieve their life's thrills. As the population ages, we will surely see more and more people seeking purpose in their retirement years.

Companies reinvent themselves. Celebrities remake themselves habitually. So why not you? We sought people who switched courses late in life to pursue a dream that had been on hold for too long.
"This is not a rehearsal. If you've got to retire and have nothing, it's a bit like dying. But if you have visions and ideas of what you're going to do--and those can be as simple as reading and walking--retirement can be the most energizing part of life."

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June 23, 2005

Dogbert - HR, search consultant
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:05 PM

Want a few yucks? Check out this week's Dilbert, in which Dogbert stars as an HR and executive search consultant. You can get there either via the BostonWorks.com home page (look for Dilbert on the lower right) or go directly to Dilbert.com to see today's strip. You can also go directly to the Dilbert archives.

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Questions for Engineers
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:52 AM

Interesting blog posting with three questions for hiring engineers.

1. Do you have a blog?
2. Do you have a personalized browser homepage?
3. Do you contribute to an open-source project?

The idea is that these questions are good markers for whether the person is a good communicator, and really enjoys tinkering.

I score two out of three (not a good-enough coder to contribute to open-source, though I've integrated a lot of open-source code into my own projects).

Make sure to read the comments too. Interesting viewpoints.

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June 22, 2005

Details emerging on CEO firing
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:50 PM

It's a big step for a board of directors to fire their firm's CEO. But Springfield-based insurance giant MassMutual did just that earlier this month.

Details are now coming out shedding light on why they took the action they did:

MassMutual Financial Group's termination letter to ousted chief executive Robert J. O'Connell said he had ''engaged in a systematic and pervasive pattern of willful abuse of authority" that included ''taking or diverting policyholders monies or assets for personal use," and resulted in a ''financial loss" to the Springfield-based firm and its owners.
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It is the first public disclosure of one of the key documents MassMutual's board assembled to support its sudden firing of O'Connell, and includes eight allegations of misconduct. The company previously has said little about the specific incidents and precise grounds that led to his firing.

Read the piece from today's Boston Globe. Then read the
related column from "Downtown" columnist Steve Bailey.

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June 20, 2005

Ever want to run a job board?
Posted by Jason Butler at 2:40 PM

BostonWorks is looking for a Senior Product Manager.

You'll be driving the development of the BostonWorks.com product, leading innovation and managing execution. ? You'll work on making the business cases for projects, building the ones that have the most market impact. ? It's your product. We expect you to be able to do something special with it.

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The dreaded "3.0"
Posted by Jason Butler at 12:42 PM

Interesting reading for HR managers. A Microsoft employee explains what it's like living under the "rank and stack" review system.

What a fun morale-killer.

I LOVE this company, but I hate The Curve. This is not how the great teams we do have should be rewarded. I certainly feel that if a morale-busting brain-dead review systems goes on too long, we might find ourselves with barely motivated contributors creating mediocre features that may or may not ship...

p.s., Wouldn't it be great to have this type of site about your company? You can learn more in a few minutes on this type of site than in weeks of meetings inside.

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June 17, 2005

The needs and expectations of today's college grads
Posted by Kim Provencher at 3:42 PM

What today's college graduates want from work is different from what those who graduated 10 years ago wanted. Believe it or not it even differs from what last year's graduates wanted. An article, "The New Crop", in this month's Workforce.com reports that what drives student's career decisions varies from year to year.

The most important criteria now are a job that fits with their skills, professional development opportunity and company reputation and ethics.

Holding onto good new employees is especially important now. With baby boomers about to retire, companies need to take proactive steps to avoid losing talented people, even those employees who are just starting their first jobs. "HR realizes that there's a talent crunch coming up, and (the rest of) management doesn't."

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June 14, 2005

How to hire a product manager
Posted by Jason Butler at 1:56 PM

I'm a product manager. I've always had a hard time explaining to people just what it is I do, my daily alchemy of trying to fuse sales, marketing, design and technology needs into a cohesive whole that can actually ship and can actually sell.

It's even harder to describe what you're seeking when trying to hire one.

I came across this article entitled "How to hire a product manager." It's fabulous, especially the description of product "spidey-sense."

I am a strong believer that certain people are born with innate product instincts.  These people just know what makes a great product.  They're not always right, but their instincts usually point in the right direction.  They tend to be passionate advocates of a point of view, sometimes to the chagrin of their colleagues.  I've had the good fortune to work with a good number of these people, and it's an essential trait in product managers.  And it can be tuned, but it can't be learned.

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June 13, 2005

Unlce Sam needs you -- the recruiter
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:47 AM

Electronic Recruiting Exchange (aka ERE) contributor John Sullivan says it's time for you, the recruiter, to step up and help the Army's recruiters - struggling to meet their quotas in a time of war - come into the modern era:

I believe, as professional recruiters, there is a role that we can play in helping the Army and the military better learn the latest recruiting strategies and tools. After reviewing their approach, their website and their strategy, it is clear to me that they could use some professional recruiting device [sic].

Read Sullivan's ideas as a stimulus to coming up with your own. And you thought your expertise could not be used in the service of your country?

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June 7, 2005

Do great sales people make great managers?
Posted by at 11:45 AM

Not all the time. This article from Electronic Recruiting Exchange lays out, simply, the differences between sales people and sales managers. What makes a good sales manager? Does your top performing rep have these traits? Before you promote, check out these tips.

Salespeople and sales managers are different. Salespeople usually come in one flavor: "doers." Sales managers, on the other hand, come in three: 1) doers, 2) coaches, and, 3) part-doer, part-coach. Does she or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure, but I'll share a few secrets with you.

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Got a question for our experts?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:31 AM

Just taking a moment to announce our newest feature on the Hiring Hub, launched at the end of May. Called "Ask the HR Expert", it allows you to address your HR issues to our panel of experts from NEHRA (Northeast Human Resources Association). You can:

> Check out our panel of experts across six HR categories
> Read the launch article, on "Employment Law"
> Submit your own question

And don't forget to come back every month for a new "Ask the HR Expert" column on a new topic. Next up, later in June: Recruiting & Retention.

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June 2, 2005

Best recruiter rant ever
Posted by Jason Butler at 12:50 PM

Microsoft's Gretchen loses it on her hiring managers.

So I guess I’ve just been really tired of (pardon my bluntness) the entitled, spoiled whiners lately. So much that it’s made me question my desire to continue working in a Recruiting function for this company. I don’t know how many times I can have the same conversation like, yes, Monster.com is a one place to search for candidates but it’s not the only place, and no, Mr. Hiring Manager, you don’t need your own account. We’ve got it covered. Thanks though.

Quite honestly (maybe here is where my tirade kicks in), I’m sick and tired of the Hiring Managers around here not trusting their recruiters. Hi there – news flash. Guess what? I probably have a higher IQ than you (yes, I just went there), and I “get” it. Trust me. They pay me the big bucks to be an expert on hiring for the company. You do your job; I’ll do mine. Plus, you don’t see me getting in your business every time some Microsoft program crashes on me, do you?

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Will your organization earn the seal?
Posted by Jason Butler at 12:31 PM

Lawrence Lessig puts forth an idea for a Good Housekeeping-like Fair Employment seal of approval.

The idea is simple, really. By signing the licensing agreement, an employer gains the right (but not the obligation) to use the mark and in return promises to abide by the word-for-word strictures of ENDA (the proposed federal statute that would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation). Displaying the mark on a product or service signals to knowing consumers and employees that the company has committed itself not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

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June 1, 2005

What defines employee commitment?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 5:27 PM

A recent Mercer HR Consulting study, the 2005 What's Working Survey, asks about employees' commitment to their employers. It also probes a little deeper to find out what drives employee commitment:

“There's a common assumption that pay and benefits are the most critical factors in employees' decisions to stay with or leave an organization,” [Mercer's global employee research director Rod] Fralicx says. “Our research shows that other factors – many related to career opportunities – play a much bigger role.”
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Eight Key drivers of Employee Commitment
1. Employees' confidence in their future with the organization
2. Employees' confidence in achieving career objectives
3. Employees' confidence in the future success of their organization
4. Degree of teamwork and cooperation
5. Employees' satisfaction with the type of work they do
6. The chance to do challenging and interesting work
7. The company's commitment to quality
8. Opportunities for continuous learning to improve skills

How's your organization doing against this checklist? Something to ponder in a time of rising employee mobility after a period of job market stagnation. Read the article from the Mercer website.

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