The BLS labor stats came out recently, and it’s a bit perplexing for even us industry folks of what is happening to workers. The labor participation rate prior to the pandemic was around 63.3% and in the most recent month, it fell another .1% to 61.6%. Also, most experts predicted that job growth would be robust around 500K additional jobs, but in fact, we only got an additional 190K. The current unemployment rate has dropped to 4.8% from over 5%. Most pundits would call us fully employed around 4%, and most folks hiring know it’s super hard to hire once unemployment gets under 5%. Okay, but w ..read more

I’m Gen X. I’ve seen some things. Live long enough in the recruiting game, and you’ll have stories to tell. AWOL Candidates. Hiring Managers under the influence. Ghosting at a level that would make The Blair Witch Project seem like a cartoon. Do this job long enough, and you’ll become jaded, hardened, free of emotion about the process. Expecting the worse, surprised by nothing. Until something you haven’t seen before emerges. What could make say, “I’ve never seen that before?” For me, it was an interview request of massive scale. Delivered without shame. “Did that hiring manager just ask for t ..read more

Hey – it’s 2021. When’s the party getting started again? I kid, but not really. First, talent was slow to come back as the world recovered from COVID-19. Whether you believe that was a byproduct of government subsidies, fear of the workplace, childcare issues, or other factors, it’s clear that many formerly employed workers didn’t return to the workplace, at all levels. But wait! There’s more. Next, pent-up demand for quitting also happened as COVID lapsed in the early summer months. A seller’s market (that’s the candidate in this equation, folks) meant that people who needed a change were mak ..read more

“OMG! Tim is so sexist!” Actually, I just give you the facts and data, you decide if it’s sexiest or not! I tend to think, with almost three decades of marriage under my belt that women, in my experience, tend to be way more selective than men. The women I know would say that’s a positive, not a negative! Also, social media data proves out this point! In a recent study, it was found that women actually see fewer STEM ads than men, and it’s more expensive to get views from women than men! Recruitment Marketing Pro Tip – you will pay more to recruit talented women than similarly skilled men! Her ..read more

Hiring Recruiters is Hard – This Makes it Easier When it comes to Talent Acquisition, there’s one thing that can sneak up on TA and HR leaders – hiring recruiters for your own team. As good as you are at serving the needs of the businesses you support, having a strategy to land the best recruiting talent can be challenging. I’ve always used an assessment layer when we hire recruiters at our firm, so this Kinetix Labs paper, The Assessment Profile of a High-Performing Recruiter, outlines everything we’ve learned about using an assessment to hire the best recruiters and prevent false p ..read more

I’m writing this post in the aftermath of COVID-19, as masks come off, people think about shaking hands again, and companies ramp up hiring post-recession. But this post is relevant anytime your company is coming off a long hiring freeze or downturn and starts hiring at warp speed again in a frothy economy. So, see you again in 2027, I guess. History has a way of repeating itself. So you’re back at it. Hundreds, if not thousands, of open jobs. You’re hiring in a very competitive environment where candidates have options. It took you a couple of months, but the hiring machine is tuned up and hu ..read more

Dear FOT: I’m working through something and wondered if you had something that might help. It’s obvious to me that our exec-level population doesn’t understand that you recruit high-volume, contact center kinds of CS positions differently than what they’re used to (1 to 1 wooing and talent pool development). I want to educate them on how you manage this at the project level and thus do things at scale vs. individualized (they’re used to asking people for referrals and calling those leads in a 1/1 fashion—very much a high end, “all it takes is one good one” approach).  Any thoughts on the ..read more

In Episode 40 of BEST HIRE EVER, Kris Dunn talks with Tim Sackett (HRU Tech, Fistful of Talent, The Tim Sackett Project) on best practices when hiring recruiters at your company. Tim and Kris talk through important topcis of note when it comes to “recruiting recruiters”. Please subscribe, rate and review (Apple) and follow (Spotify) to get the latest delivered to you.  Click here if you don’t see the player below! SHOW HIGHLIGHTS: The whole remote/hybrid/in office question when it comes to hiring recruiters. Why your approach t ..read more

You should treat every single candidate like a customer! You should treat every employee like a customer! You should treat every stakeholder of your organization like a customer! You should treat every vendor you work with like a customer! You should treat every customer like a…hey, wait a minute! Can we break down the strategy of treating every candidate like a customer? Do we really mean this? Because I have to be honest. I don’t see us treating our customers very well! Here’s the problem with treating everyone the same – all these groups are not the same! They have different desires and dif ..read more

So, there was an HR Pro from Amazon who put up a post on LinkedIn, here it is: She blocked me, so I can’t put the link to it. But you should check it out. Jessica Lee and I discussed this on the HR Famous pod. I connected with Lisa on LinkedIn (she actually sent me an invite) and I privately told her I disagreed with her take. She didn’t like that, we went back and forth on our professional debate, and then she blocked me. To be fair, I have zero issues with Lisa and her post. In fact, it’s a great topic of discussion, that we just disagree on. It’s a perfect topic for HR and TA pros to debate ..read more