‘How Gen Y and Boomers will Reshape your Agenda’ is an article in the latest Harvard Business Review (HBR July/ Aug 2009)
It talks about how these two generations of workers closely resemble each other as workforces.
Their shared features:
- eager to contribute to positive social change. They seek out workplaces where they can
- expect flexibility and the option to work remotely, but also want to connect deeply with colleagues
- believe in employer loyalty, but desire to embark on learning odysseys
Innovative firms are crafting packages accordingly
Categories: Corporates · Employee Engagement · Innovation · Mission
Tagged: Innovation, Gen Y, Boomers, Flexible Working
Some outputs from the Onrec 2009 conference and exhibition that have stuck with me over the last week (130 attendees: mainly corporates, which is a shift in previous vendor-rich prior years):
- for corporates, going direct to save costs is paramount. But their candidates’ journeys need a lot of attention: vendors and agencies are massively disrespecting the jobseeker
- 3 key personal brand management principles: Positioning (what do you want your promise to be: your reputation?), Communication (how do you effectively communicate your promise: your reputation?), Operations (living and delivering your promise: your reputation). The art of marketing is the art of brandbuilding. If you are not a brand, you are a commodity: then price competitiveness is everything
- Linkedin: trialling intelligent matching technology. Investing heavily in SaaS for inhouse recruiter tools. Introduced job seeking flag in profiles 2wks ago. European MD positioned them as being a ‘central source of the career history truth’. I questioned why they’re not allowing basic profile data exporting.
- Daxtra pushing multi-source search & matching
- Google typical push of all their launched services with no disclosure on any product related to jobs. Recruitment related stats from Google:
- 51% of recruitment searches include location
- search terms with 8 or more words increased 24% YoY
- job searches from mobiles, inc. with location-based queries, massively spiked over last 3months
- interesting demo: YouTube ‘nru from Lastminute.com labs – new G1 Android app’
Categories: Corporates · Matching · Online Recruitment · User Experience
Tagged: branding, Google, LinkedIn, Online Recruitment, Onrec
Satisfied by Steve Woods
There has been excellent explosion of comment, analysis and service offerings around candidate or job seeker services. Ranging from the standard fare of CV/ Resume critique/ writing, training and career advice; through to full online outplacement and career management services.
In the UK our efforts are moulded by a need to tread the fine line of compliance with BERR and the Recruitment Agencies Act, particularly to ensure there is no breach of the law in relation to a restriction of the ability to charge job seekers for finding them a job. As this extends to an inability to charge for inclusion in CV databases etc. the fine line that The Ladders and Workthing Plus are treading is well shown by the debate caused by the latter’s launch on Matt Alder’s Recruiting Futurology blog.
Yes, there could be considered to be moral issues if relative wealth is the differentiator between the ability to get a job or not, but the reality is that there is no difference here in the supply and demand of any service.
As Jamie Leonard pointed out in the comment string to the RF post, there are the tiered levels of service that will always develop according to budget: the business class/ economy argument. Similarly, services will develop according to perceived relative propensity to spend although ultimately everything is demand driven. The ‘career management’ services that have bubbled away over the last few years to treat top executive’s careers as actors, popstars and footballers have been by their agents have had a stilted and stunted development. Mainly because the demand is being fulfilled by the headhunter model where employers are charged, and the problem of transaction.
As mentioned many times in posts before, the breaking of the transactional cycle of job seeking (dusting off the CV when you need a new job) for active career management (whether done personally or outsourced) has many blockers: many rooted in base psychology and motivations. If you’re working hard at a job, and relatively satisfied, the investment of money and/or effort in career management or next job planning is a significant exercise in deferred gain. Those often lauded as proactive and heavily networked often are so by virtue of their current job and its requirements. Not through investment in extra-curricular networking activity.
Demand is what is causing services to proliferate in the job seeking area. The drivers of this demand are obvious. The matching of a supply to this demand may be perceived cynically by some, but for me it causes a number questions/ points to arise.
If job seekers have a demand for help finding a job, then they should be able to pay for it according to the price that they attach to that job. Within the existing UK legal parameters, the true test of any service which is developed to match this demand is the quality, and how well it fulfils the need. This will be what makes any paid-for non-job advertising services offered by any online recruitment site stand or fall. If I don’t get £15 or £50 per month’s value from a service, I won’t buy it on a repeat basis (and I will perceive the brand that tried to sell it me less favourably because of the poor ‘deal’
Where I leave a more ‘out-there’ open question is in relation to directly paying for job seeking services vs. ancillary services. What happens when demand cannot be met by supply in the UK for career seeking services. When people can’t pay someone to find them a job when they want to? Will it be this realization that tips people into active career management services? In the same way headhunters recommend the networking and maintenance of relationships over time, will the current pressure on white collar jobs lead people to merge the active/ passive job seeking boundaries over time? Will this be the legacy of the current recession: the birth of active career management? Or will the legalities be challenged?
Categories: Candidate Databases · Commercial Models · Disruption · Matching · Psychology · User Experience
Tagged: Candidate services, customer service, CV databases, Online Recruitment
Expectations of significant disruption in online recruitment abound with the increasing levels of traffic and activity on job boards and online job sites globally.
The shifts experienced in the dotcom bust are being replicated, but far more intensely. The increase in usage of corporate sites, increases in applicants, CVs posted into databases; all across the end to end recruitment process are challenges for value.
Social media and networking, TwitterJobSearch and the long tail of network driven search models are all the recruitment terriers snapping at the heels of the established online routes and methods: the often now labelled ‘old school’ of pay-to-post and monthly account CV database access models. But we know that the established models pay. They may not perform at the same levels as historically for a while, but if they do not fail through fundamental weaknesses in the way they have been commercially structured, then they have every chance of surviving and potentially re-thriving.
Some of the challenger models are falling by the wayside, and will fall over the coming months as funding dries up or their ad-supported models falter. As argued on JoBoOw before, these are opportune times for the strong models and companies without onerous debt refinancing requirements.
How the older will become reinvigorated by the new has been played out in many forms before. Some of the cash-rich and debt-free take their moments to acquire at heavy discounts. Some who don’t acquire invest more heavily in their own innovation: at technology, commercial model, process and organisational levels alike. They buy-up or adapt the innovations falling by the wayside.
As with all businesses at this time: pressure, if it doesn’t break you, brings out the best in you.
What is certain is that it is tough out there. With some boards reporting 30-60% down, and few obvious current opportunities to fill the hole, the pressure over the last 6-9mths to respond and roll-up-the-sleeves and get down into the deals is huge. Suppliers that can afford to are innovating to support, and the opportunities described for the well-placed (debt-free/ robust model) clients also present themselves to the suppliers.
Now is the time for the industry to work more closely together. To challenge its constraints and consider its alliances. To look at where more money could be made by removing some relationships or focusing on its competencies.
Now is the time to make sure we all remember to be as young and as agile as the online recruitment industry should be.
Categories: Commercial Models · Disruption · Innovation · Online Recruitment · Traditional Recruitment Services
Interesting couple of slides up at Onrec Dubai (which was a very nice toe in the water for all concerned I think) I wanted to comment on.
Bryan Fuge is Head of Recruitment for Al-Futtaim, who are one of the biggest corporates in the region, and globally with extensive reach under a number of well known brands outside of the GCC. Bryan came from being Head of Recruitment at Rio Tinto to give you a sense of scale.
The headline for him being there is that his recruitment disruption last November was to can all 121 (I think he said) preferred supplier recruitment agency relationships. Some had been in place for 30yrs or more. He dropped his internal team from 23 to 8, and is looking to fill 3,100 roles in a downturn…
How? They launched a good corporate site, are using a good regional player’s ATS which has been bespoked/ customized for their needs, they have a strong brand (on run rate to receive 3 MILLION CVs/ resumes per annum) and….
….most interestingly for me from a Madgex perspective was their relatively deep thinking on their job board selection. Pretty much straight from the two slides entitled Job Board Selection and Applicant Feedback (yes, they give detailed interviews during the onboarding process to ascertain the best candidates’ paths and preferences):
Job Board Selection:
- where does the applicant look first?
- and then where and in how many places?
- what is the applicant’s experience?: subjective feedback
- stats, stats and more stats (he went so far as to say he’d likely take a slot on a board based on stats mailed to him if they were good enough)
- price, employer brand alignment, ease of technical integration and technical competence
- zero tolerance of attempts to split the WWW. into regions or territory. Wants global reach from one board
Applicant Feedback:
- forget portals – need for cut-through job board SEO
- detest job boards with old jobs
- distrust blind upload of resumes without a clear vacancy (clarified as not acceptable without security settings)
- confusion when job boards try to act as recruiter
- Market segmentation is frustrating
- unrealistic applicant expectations e.g salary display in ad.
- poor ad copy frustrates applicants
- you have only one chance with applicants
Conclusion: they saw the future without aggregators or agencies. A direct relationship with candidates using their own site and carefully selected job boards. And savings figures in the multiple million being talked about around the discussion panel…….
Categories: ATS relationships · Candidate Databases · Corporates · Disruption · Labour Markets · Online Recruitment · Traditional Recruitment Services
Tagged: corporate recruitment, Dubai, Job Boards, Online Recruitment, recruitment agencies
