February 25, 2008

When good offices go bad
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:20 PM

Here's a retention issue I bet you don't think about too much: your office building.

Yup, according to a new piece in HR Executive Online:

One-third of office employees worry their buildings are unhealthy or unsafe, and 20 percent say conditions in their offices are hurting productivity and motivation, a new survey has found.

And all this is a reflection on the employer. More than three-quarters of those surveyed say the condition of their office buildings affect how they see their companies. And, 17 percent say they've left a job because they disliked their building's conditions or amenities.

Some of the specific issues?

Nearly one-third of those surveyed complained of unclean or under-stocked rest rooms. Among other gripes cited by office workers were outdated furniture and decor (28 percent), unexplained odors or foul/unclean air (21 percent), rodents/insects (20 percent), theft/crime (21 percent) and leaky ceilings and windows (21 percent).

Building owners and tenants, time to clean up your act?

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February 22, 2008

Hiring candidates - the Monster way
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:23 AM

Some of you may be familiar with the Monster Careers book series for job seekers. Three titles cover the basics of the job search, interviewing, and networking.

Now the folks at Boston.com's recruitment partner turn their attention to the other side of the table: the employer's side. In their latest book, Finding Keepers: The Monster Guide to Hiring and Holding the World's Best Employees, just out from McGraw-Hill earlier this year, Monster insiders take their typically iconoclastic look at the hiring and retention of employees, turn it inside out, and do it their way. From the release notes accompanying the book:

In Finding Keepers, Monster presents its unique and comprehensive program for recruiting and retaining the world's best employees. The program -- called the Engagement Cycle -- consists of producing a brand experience that attracts the best employees, treating them right, and helping them create a culture that continues to attract more great employees.

Successfully performing the three phases of Monster's Engagement Cycle program
enables you to:

* Build your hiring practices around the unique attributes of your organization.
* Attract skilled workers with a compelling employer brand.
* Get the best candidates to "buy" your company.
* Use your employer brand experience to hold onto the best employees, even in
tight hiring markets.

Packed with practical tips that businesses of all sizes, in all industries, can start applying immediately, Finding Keepers is your action guide to attracting, acquiring, and advancing the smart, capable people you need.

The book, co-authored by a trio of senior Monster execs, Steve Pogorozelski, Jesse Harriot, and Monster Careers co-author Doug Hardy, breezes right along and makes the case with plenty of snappy sidebars and graphics - all in the Monster-branded purple ink.

Monster definitely knows job seekers - their site services millions of job seekers globally each day, and their resume database numbers in the tens of millions - and now they've proven they know employers, too. In a time that's tight on talent, it's definitely worth the read.

Learn more at the Finding Keepers page on the Monster site.

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February 19, 2008

Brazen advice for employers
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:47 AM

Our Boston Globe Careers section columnist Penelope Trunk is known for her brash, iconoclastic advice in her bi-weekly "Climb" column. Now the author of the recent book Brazen Careers: The New Rules for Success, offers some brazen advice for employers, too:

There is lots of chatter about how resumes are on their way out. There will be blogs, and videos, and LinkedIn profiles and other mechanisms to downplay the concept of a linear career and put upfront the way someone thinks and the ideas he or she has. There should be similar chatter about the near-death of the job listing. Here are ways companies can hire people without focusing on the job listing itself.

Just how brazen is her advice? Try Tip #1 on for size:

1. Tell people where they'll go next. Michael Arrington, co-editor of the popular blog TechCrunch, just lost his right-hand man. What did he do? He wrote a very public thank you for good work done - so that people know how appreciative he is. And he wrote a little side note about how everyone who has left TechCrunch has gone on to amazing jobs.

I was talking with Dylan Tweney, the editor of Wired online, and he was using a similar hiring tactic, showing people how a stint with him at Wired is a stepping stone to places like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Read the full piece from the Boston Sunday Globe.

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February 18, 2008

It's Engineers Week! Buy Locally
Posted by Maureen Crawford Hentz at 9:19 AM

It's that time of year again: Engineers Week. At ths time of year, we celebrate the people who really do solve the world's problems. As I think about engineering hiring in Boston, I am continually struck by how little attention we pay to our home-grown talent. Yes, we know there are behmouths of engineering education in town, but there are also a number of lesser known gems. Want to stop Boston's braindrain AND celebrate the engineer? Focus some of your recruiting here:

• Merrimack College. Yes, Merrimack. Who knew they had an engineering program, but they do and their graduates are among some of the brightest in the market today. We've snapped up a few recently ourselves.

• Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology. BFIT has one of the highest enrollments of minority and women engineering technologists around and a very high proportion of first generation college students. These students are dedicated to their education, and willing to work hard. BFIT students can work directly after their associates degrees, and some transfer to 4 year programs in Boston.

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute. What a school this is and what a great asset to our Northeast community! WPI's Global Perspective Program is gem. According to their website, WPI currently sends more undergraduate engineers and scientists abroad than any other American university. Why aren't we talking about this more?

  
  

• Wentworth Institute of Technology. Prior to coming to Osram Sylvania, I was the Director of Career Services at WIT. This experience made me the unabashed evangelical I am about this curriculum, this co-op program and these students. You simply cannot find a better hands-on engineering and engineering technology program in Boston. WIT students are bright, eager to learn, hardworking, and all graduate with two or more co-ops of real-world experience. Their career fair is coming up in March. Often overshadowed by their Huntington Ave next-door neighbor with the bigger advertising budget, WIT is THE undiscovered treasure for engineering recruiters.

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February 17, 2008

Why this economy may be good for women
Posted by Diane Danielson at 6:21 PM

Chrystia Freeland of the Financial Times writes about how women find it easier to adapt to new situations than men.  She focuses on a study about analysts recently published in the Harvard Business Review.

I am also a strong believer in the idea that the best way to effect real change is for sisters to do it for themselves. That's why I am taking such comfort from research published in this month's Harvard Business Review suggesting that female analysts are more likely than male ones to flourish when they move to new firms.

One of the things that I like about Professor Boris Groysberg's finding is that it was accidental - his analysis builds on previous research warning managers that hiring star performers from the competition usually doesn't work. But when Groysberg combed through his data, he found one surprising exception: women. Appealingly, Groysberg attributes this gender divide to the strategies and skills the star female analysts had to develop to thrive in a sexist environment: call it the uses of adversity, or finding lemons and making lemonade.

Facing "less-than-wholehearted acceptance" on Wall Street, successful women analysts "built their franchises on portable, external relationships with clients" rather than the internal schmoozing the guys focused on. That made it easier for them to move smoothly from one firm to another.

Click here to read the complete article.

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February 14, 2008

To work, perchance to dream
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:48 PM

As Human Resource Executive Online reports, work is not only part of our everyday reality. It's increasingly part of our dreams, as well:

Work issues and experiences are expanding their grasp on employees' lives, occupying increasing amounts of time during both day and night. The second annual Staples National Small-Business Survey reveals that about half (51 percent) of respondents admit they actually dream about their work. Of those, nearly 70 percent say they wake up and put their work dreams into action.
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"People have always thought about their work," [global director of employee research at New York's Mercer HR Consulting Paul Sanchez] says. For workers involved in "creative enterprises," Sanchez says, "[such thoughts any hour, night or day is] often the way the creative process works."

Knowledge workers involved in the creative process are likely to have work/life boundaries that are "very thin," he says. "They're more likely to have this continuum of 'work is always on my mind.' "

Sound familiar?

Read the full piece.

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February 13, 2008

Give this to your IT people
Posted by Maureen Crawford Hentz at 3:00 PM

Are you having a hard time getting the career page's updates to the top of your corporate IT priorities?

We all know that the career site is the critical entry point (literally) for employees. You probably know what needs to happen to make your site better. today's Wall Street Journal has some excellent fodder for your conversation. The article refers to Potentialpark Communications' survey of company career portals.

Meeting job hunters' expectations is critical for employers. Company Web sites are the second most common source of new hires, preceded by referrals, according to a survey of 50 U.S. companies with 5,000 employees or more due out later this month from CareerXroads, a staffing-consulting firm.




Features that respondents say they most want to find easily include detailed company and job profiles, descriptions of ideal candidates, insights into long-term career opportunities and a clearly defined application process.


Regular readers of this blog know that any time generational differences are referenced, I'm all ears. In this particular case, Mr. Clegg makes a cogent connection betwen what we know about millennials and what we should do differently in business.




We're paying attention to voice of generation X and Y," says Paul Clegg, director of global talent acquisition at Raytheon Corp., which holds the No. 26 spot in the ranking. "Their values are so different than the boomer generation, and in order to attract and retain them, we've got to shift gears."



Want to see how your site measures up, click here for a link to the articles' graphic on what the top 10 companies in the ranking did right.


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February 11, 2008

Hiring the right types
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:13 PM



Personality types, that is.

Today's Boston.com chat guest, Paul Tieger, author of career guide Do What You Are, says employers should be aware of the diverse personality needs of their organizations:

Type_A__Guest_: Paul, as an employer, should I look to hire a variety of personality types or stick with one type?

Paul_Tieger: Good question and it depends on the tasks and functions you need from your people. Some types are decidedly better at some things than others. For example: if you have an accounting department where people have to pay a lot of attention to details, you "probably" want a Sensing type ("probably" because there are exceptions to every rule), and an Intuitive (someone who looks to the future and likes to consisder creative possibilities) in your marketing department. But we need ALL points of view to make the best, well-rounded decisons.

Read the full transcript of today's chat with Tieger.

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February 1, 2008

Will your firm have Super Bowl Fever?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:55 PM

Local workforce management firm Kronos has issued survey results that point to a rash of sick days after the coming weekend. How do they know?

They call it "Super Bowl Fever":

CHELMSFORD, Mass., Jan. 30, 2008 -- New survey findings suggest that an estimated 1.5 million employed U.S. adults may call in sick to work the day after the Super Bowl. The "Super Bowl Fever Sidelines Employees on Monday Morning" survey of 1,430 adults employed full-time was sponsored by The Workforce Institute (TM) at Kronos (R) Incorporated and conducted online via Harris Interactive.
- - - - -
Super Bowl-related absences could be particularly striking for organizations with a high population of Gen X and Gen Y employees, as the majority of the employed adults who say they may call in sick the day after the Super Bowl are males and females between the ages of 18-34 years (4 percent and 3 percent, respectively).

Read the full release on the Kronos site.

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Why recruiters love SuperBowl ads
Posted by Maureen Crawford Hentz at 11:46 AM

I hear there is a big game coming up this weekend. I think that's the reason my husband has been acting so strangely. Today for example, he wore a Patriots hoodie to work, a radical departure from his all-Brooks-Brothers-all-the-time gestalt.

I've always been more of a commericals fan myself and for the past few years as a recruiter, I watch the commercials with even more anticipation. Why? Because of the SuperBowl phenomena: more applicants on job websites in the week after the SuperBowl. My CareerBuilder rep sent me an email to let me know that last year their SuperBowl commercials reached 139.8 million views and drove 1.6 million candidates to the website.

Curious, I went to the referenced source of their data, www.comscore.com. Although I didn't find the Careerbuilder data specifically listed, there was lots of interesting information. Comsource's press release from yesterday has a plethora of interesting facts about the SuperBowl and internet useage.

• more than a quarter (26 percent) [of survey respondents]actually preferred watching the ads [as opposed to the game].
• Males, in particular, were significantly more likely to prefer watching the game itself, while females preferred watching the ads.
• Super Bowl ads will also drive viewers to the Web, with 16 percent of respondents saying they would go online to visit the Web sites of Super Bowl advertisers, while 13 percent said they intended to watch Super Bowl ads or video clips online.

This is all great news for recruiters and a phenomenon I've incorporated into Osram Sylvania's recruitment planning. Even our hiring managers -- who think our department can conjure perfect candidates out of thin air -- are talking about the impact of this weekend's advertising on their open requisitions.

Only time will tell, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for GREAT career site commercials.

CareerBuilder and Monster, if you're listening, please make your commercials particularly appealing for power electronics engineers and internal auditors---I really need an influx of applicants.

Go Pats!


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