From General Best Practice To Career Business Case

Recently a dear friend of mine asked for some resume advice. She’s in a career transition and wants to open herself up for a related, but a little bit of a stretch move. I’m no resume-writing expert (or more preferred, no online profile writing expert), but I do understand the importance of making your business case in keyword rich storytelling. What do you tell your friends (and candidates)? Read more here.

Right-to-work laws prohibit anyone from forcing a person to join or support a union as a condition of employment. That is to say, they protect an individual’s fundamentally American “right to work” without being forced to join, or pay any of their earnings, to any group. Right-to-work laws do not in any way prevent people from joining or paying dues to a union if they freely choose to do so. Read more here.

So often pronounced dying, dead, and all but useless for job seekers and employers alike that it’s passing into legend, job boards somehow manage to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of their pyres to successfully deliver candidates and hires to employers worldwide. For being so out of fashion, so yesterday, job boards manage to come out on top or top-adjacent on nearly every source of hire study. In a Bersin & Associates survey this fall job boards tied for first with internal transfers as the leading source of all hires. CareerXroads says job boards produced 24.9 percent of all external hires in 2010, second only to employee referrals (27.5 percent). Read more here.

There’s yet another misclassification of employment status that’s costing Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. (“Novartis”) $99 million. Over the past few years, there’s been a Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) collective action involving Novartis that alleges Novartis’ outside sales representatives are misclassified as exempt, and should be paid overtime for all hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek. Read more about it here.

Please urge your representative to support H.R. 2885.

Official HR 2885 Bill (as of Oct 2011)

as it provides long overdue employer support as reported by SHRM including:

• Preempt conflicting state employment verification laws
• Indemnify employers from liability when using the E-Verify system
• Create an entirely electronic employment verification system, which would eliminate the Form I-9
• Require that only new hires be run through the E-Verify system, with some exceptions
• Establish a voluntary biometric pilot program, where an employee could “lock” their identity with a biometric marker.

Moving the process from paper to a system will also allow contract recruitment firms and related vendors to offer this service, thus lowering employer costs through economies of scale.  The aggregate savings to US employers will be an enormous amount which in turn can lead to new job creation.

Another sign of improving economic conditions for Recruitment Process Outsourcing is reported in this Fortune article  Need a Job?  Startups Are Hiring.  Staffback is hearing these same reports from Bay Area Recruiters and we are encouraging companies who do not have a hiring solution in place to seek out help while Bay Area staffing resources and candidates remain available.

About this time each year my wife and I have a debate about Thanksgiving dinner. You already know who wins the debate but here’s the opposing views… my wife wants to prepare a huge meal from scratch and I want to buy a meal-in-a-box from local deli. I know, “Bah Humbug” right?!?  But hear me out: less prep, the deli has economies of scale so it’s more cost effective and on-demand, chance of a disaster is reduced, outcomes are predictable, clean-up is easier.  All this provides more time for the family to focus on other meaningful things like watching football and playing video games.   

It occurred to me, after losing the debate, that Thanksgiving dinner and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) are the same…  preparing and posting jobs is delegated, the RPO has economies of scale making it more cost effective and on-demand, hiring liability is reduced, outcomes are predictable, and providing candidates closure, giving them a positive candidate experience, is easier.

If your company is debating the make-it buy-it points of corporate recruiting don’t forfeit the RPO side of the debate… unless your boss is your wife. 

Happy Thanksgiving from Staffback!

During the past three months, Staffback has completed agreements with both Dice and TheLadders to add advertising and sourcing capabilities. The addition of these two new resources completes Staffback’s goal of obtaining every major job board and resume database for use in sourcing candidates for Staffback’s virtual corporate recruiting clients.

On Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at Noon Pacific CPE Link and I will be hosting a 2 hour webinar on Tips for Reducing Your (and Your Clients’) Hiring Liability. 

This webcast will provide a basic a look at key steps you can take to reduce your (and your clients’) hiring liability–while increasing the quality of your applicants.

Past attendees have commented:

“Thanks to both Ken and CPE Link for offering this webinar! Great/appropriate material… Could have gone on for another hour.”
“GREAT informative session – thanks!”
“I picked up some very useful bits of information which made the hour well worth my time.”
“Mr. Winters is an outstanding professional possessing extraordinary presentation skills. I wish I had the course years ago. Thank you!”

Who Should Attend:
Practitioners who would like an update on best practices in hiring procedures.

This webinar will be an extended version of the NCHRA: HR West Presentation scheduled for Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 11:00 AM Pacific time. 

Reducing Your (and Your Clients') Hiring Liability