…ring, ring

Me:  This is Chris

Jeff:  Chris, this is Jeff Smith, man how are you?  I need your help!

Jeff Smith is calling and needs my help?  I immediately get into my normal excited state knowing that something great is coming.  Either he needs to hire a new team member or perhaps has a client that can utilize the support of my team for their hiring needs or recruitment training.

For years Jeff was consistently a top competitor when we worked together at the same company, relentlessly trying to outperform each other in a very positive but “A” player sort of way. Not just making the President’s list but getting the shiniest trophy and most time with the CEO and other Sr Managers.

Me:  Jeff how can I help you? What is going on with the greatest global sales manager I know?

Jeff:  Nothing good, I was just released (from Fortune 225 Company) last week…

Wow, not the call I expected from Jeff. How will they manage the millions in revenues he has brought in over the years?

…Pop, pop, pop CK is sending me instant messages.

Me:  Hey CK, what’s up, how hot is your desk right now?

CK:  Not so great, I need your help.

Me:  Can you give me 5 and I will call you, where are you in the US today?

CK:  At home, not sure I can talk right now.

Ok, if CK is IMing me and needs my help then we must get ready to put a new staff member on her team or she has a project she needs us to help recruit on which they have sold. After all, she is 300% above budget for the year and the last hire we made produced revenues in her second week! CK is the top GM for her niche and is great about not only hiring, training and managing her people but also the strongest operations manager I know.

Me:  Ok, must be swamped how can I help?

CK :  Need a job, and a few minutes tonight to help me walk through where I might have gone  wrong

Me: Job? Did you quit lol

CK:  No Sir, they cut my entire staff 30 minutes ago, including me and replaced us with a support team from home office

If you have not clued in yet, the two examples above are “A” players in their industries and have been released from their respected (well not by them any longer) companies. See, I am writing to bust a myth I keep hearing and reading about from various periodicals, organizations and “people in the know;” Talent Management, SHRM, NAPS, SalesDrivers, News Paper Writers and Editors, Employment Gurus, Trainers, and Business Coaches. The myth which seems to persist is that “A” players don’t or are not being cut nor impacted by the current economic conditions. WRONG!

Ridiculous I say, spend a week on my phone or in my email and I can show you hundreds of “A” Players who have been impacted over the last 20+ months now, and it continues. For definition, an “A” Player is someone at that top 3-10% level in any company, any skill set and in any industry. Some are only known internally in large-mega organizations while others are known internationally or industry wide. It has long been a myth, and more so true with the current economic conditions, these people just don’t get released, laid-off, downsized, or whatever your terminology is for them losing their job while still being at the top.

So why do the top 10% of any job category get impacted?
Too expensive – Top 10% performers generally receive compensation rates commensurate to the level of their performance. One way companies perceive they can impact the bottom line and make true reactionary decisions is to cut the most expensive people and replace them with technology, jr-level home office support or in some cases they do nothing with the expectation that it will not negatively impact the company’s revues or client retention.

Marginalized business – Many companies and some industries operate on such low margins that any blimp on the economic cycle creates major cash-flow and credit issues, so the top just have to go and more jr people or senior management get handed business or jobs the “A” players worked so hard to attain.

Poorly supported region or geography – Lack in upper management leadership or true “out of site out of mind” support for a region that may be profitable but not large enough or unknown to senior management is likely to get the axe.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) – As we have seen in all industries, the consolidation has created duplicate roles or left individuals and their projects totally unsupported or not needed as the new company has a different vision and/or resources.

Person was miss-hire to begin with – Some of these cases are truly a miss-hire and the company was overly ambitious or sometimes exceedingly lucky to gain the addition of an “A” player in their industry. The company has just not been able to keep pace with this individual and in many cases their production has lead to cash flow, product production or servicing issues for smaller companies

Why this blog piece? I thought it was important to highlight the reality behind the unemployment numbers as we continue to hover around >10% in the US. These 8 million or more impacted are not all the bottom performers of our workforce, nor just hourly, nor retail or manufacturing, nor in outdated industries. In fact, many were high-earners for their employers that for some reason or another their organization just could not “afford” to keep that individual onboard. So I caution, before over-looking the unemployed take a minute to truly study this individual’s background and track-record. After all, unemployed is not, and should not be a four letter word when hiring for top talent!

UPDATE: Jeff went on to take one of three offers, running the West coast Division of another fortune company. CK is managing a new company that has a unique service offering, adapted to the changed economy we now love.

Chris

To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.

Wow, I don’t think this was at all what people were expecting to see and read about, DOL News Release. Most had predicted as high as 11% unemployment and continued doom and gloom in the job market. The impact of a much stronger (lower) unemployment number is not hitting the markets yet, the DOW again for a second day has started off below 10,000.

So what is truly in this DOL report and what can we take away from it? First, the overall number has not changed and is in fact negative by 20,000 more unemployed Americans. While job losses have slowed the job increases have not caught up yet. Healthcare continues to be a strong and growing sector, opposite to the continued decrease in construction jobs in the US. Manufacturing jobs rose by 11,000 while an even bigger gain was seen in retail jobs, 42,000. Transportation took a hit, but it’s such an undefined or obscure category that needs further analysis of the data points and types of jobs lost to understand the root cause. An interesting statistic on job increases was the number of new Government hires in January. 33,000 people put to work, with just less than half of that being the 2010 Census project, so more hires will be coming in this sector for sure.

One great sign for professionals in the recruitment and more so temporary labor industry, 52,000 new heads out in January. For those who have studied this piece of the overall trending data going back generations now, temporary help is a first key indicator of jobs coming back. It’s a “dip your toes in the water” scenario, if you will, by many employers to see what impact that person(s) may have in driving ROI to the organization. A great data point which is not tracked nor communicated well is the ratio of temporary labor headcount turned into full time employees. Since September, the temporary labor job number has increased by 247,000.

Ok, if you have looked at the numbers and are hearing the news then 9.7% does not seem correct. We went to the negative more but had a decrease in the total unemployed? My speculation for this is twofold. First, more people are getting out of the mainstream job market and starting their own businesses. Not hiring others, but sole proprietors working now in every niche from drug development consulting to accounting services and even a major spike in network marketing enrollees. Secondly, some people have simply quit looking for a job and their unemployment has run its course. As a result they are not reporting weekly status updates to the Fed, and as such the DOL can’t report data it does not have.

In the DOL’s own release 2.5 million people were not counted as “They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.” These are mainly disgruntled Americans who feel there is no work for them.

Overall, it is exciting to see that we are back in a more “normal” range for unemployment. I am a believer that levels we have been seeing over the past 6 months are the new norm. 4-5% unemployment rates are in the past or the distant future until all the uncertainty surrounding healthcare, small business (individuals making over $250,000) tax rates, lending and other impending items are worked out between Congress and the Whitehouse.

Chris

“ABC Recruiters company has just added Dr. James E Worthing Jr. as Managing Director of the company’s X niche recruitment focus…Dr Worthing has spent the last 35 years of his career in senior management with a number of well-known companies…”

Being so involved in all aspects of the recruitment or executive search business, I see headlines, email blasts (spam), self made PR pieces, tweets, etc all with a very similar theme. Someone with a great career in another industry making the jump now into recruiting based solely on the credentials they have on their own resume. I am not saying this is good or bad as I myself have focused 7-8 years of education on the FDA regulated product development niche. What I will attempt to do in this blog segment is help educate you the consumer (hiring company or job seeker) on what to look for when you see this information or someone selling their past career and not their current results.

Let’s start with the obvious. How can someone who knows NOTHING about the recruiting, executive search, or the staffing industry all the sudden be an ideal “Managing Partner, Principal, or General Manager of XYZ division?” That is like saying, “we have a new Partner in our law firm with a chemicals background, he never went to law school but he has managed a chemicals plant.” What? Can this new figure-head, who has never gone through the training nor put in the time to become a professional recruiter, suddenly lead a team of people through a true talent search process?

At this point I am going to get, “Chris, they have been a senior manager before and have hired people.” That is great, it means they have been handed pre-screened resumes or the application of someone who works in another area of the company and went through a predetermined interview process, WITH ALL THE RESOURCES OR WORK DONE FOR THEM. What they lack is the 2-6 months of training before being put on your most critical staff need or taking and helping to structure your resume and bio to represent you at their client. You see, just being a manager and having to hire in the past does not anoint them as a true, professional headhunter. It goes to the old belief that if we hire a PhD in Chemistry every Chemical Company will want to work with us, ignoring the fact that we may not have a database, network nor the experience as a firm in that niche.

I have had a lot of experience in my career dealing with this very same challenge in adding staff or growing a company. Do you hire experienced recruiters to meet either your internal needs or as headhunters to meet the need of your clients? Or, do you hire someone from their industry and hope they can pick-up the recruitment piece? 9 out of 10 times the second scenario does not work out in the long run. Short term it seems great. They have a lot of connections, make a number of calls, etc, etc, etc. But, that call list grows short very quickly, more so when the past companies they have worked for are large fortune or global in nature. Take IBM for instance. Hiring an ex-IBM executive was a major trend a number of years ago with both the Manpower’s and Korn Ferry’s of the industry. The trend we thought, was if the individual has been there in the past they can call back in and WHAM we have business or we’ll have an immediate candidate base. Well, that was not the case. People, more so Sr Management, worked in very specific groups, had limited networks and employee access, and did not want to start at the bottom and work their way back into a new career (which is truly what this situation is). The same goes for ex/current legislators, judges and even HR Directors.

Here are a few questions to ask when a firm is trying to sell you on the non-recruiting credentials of this new figure-head:

1. What training have you had on the latest recruiting technologies and techniques
2. What is your firms on-boarding and training program
3. How many similar clients and staff searches do you have under your belt
4. Name some of the tools and resources you might use to fill our need
5. Do you have an HR or Recruiting Certification (to ensure they don’t get you into a hot mess by asking illegal questions on your behalf)
6. Who is on your team doing the actual research, sourcing and headhunting work
7. What is your recruitment process

At the end of the day, the headhunter or recruitment firm is representing you, your company or your brand. Be cautious on who you select with this invaluable possession – for it is not enough to have the working knowledge of your industry – the person or firm must also have the training, technology and recruitment process expertise to make them a true extension of your recruitment resources.

Chris

^{To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.}

Released just over three hours ago and already a lot of web-chatter, news announcements, emails and calls to my office about the latest job numbers from the US Department of Labor. The summary report can be found at Department of Labor New Release.

So what is all the hype about? 331,000 reported job losses for the month of July. Now that may seem like a very high number but its more “normal” than the losses from November 08 to April of this year, which averaged almost twice as many at 645,000 job losses per month. Total unemployment was down by.1 percent to 9.4%, not a significant change. The sector which had job gains continues to be Health Care with an increase of 20,000 jobs.

Since my ear is constantly to the ground for the staffing and recruiting industry, I had to take notice and point out the impact of the past 10 months. The temporary help market has lost 844,000 jobs while the entire business services sector has been impacted by 1.5 million jobs lost. The release notes this decline has lessened Substantially over the past three months. These numbers reflect the contract, contract to hire and consultant employment areas and not so much the direct hire or executive search services.

While this appears to be good news, the job losses we are still seeing in the staffing and recruitment industry to me is a key indicator that the US is yet to hit the “bottom” of the job loss portion of this economic turndown. In studying trending data for the last 25 years, until we begin to see a rise in staffing numbers we have yet to make a full turn in the positive. With staffing companies (IT, Engineering, Administrative, Day Labor, Etc) still laying off internal staff I don’t see a lot of confidence or stability in overall employment for the US.  

So, is it good news that perhaps the US is slowing on the job loss front? Unemployment seems to have stabilized for now right at 9.5%, not at the 10% plus which so many news media and talk show host predicated. Unfortunately I foresee these numbers rising again for a short period of time this fall as government and state budgets get approved, many of which will call for job cuts.

Chris

OK I SAID! Now that I got that off my chest let me point you to the root of my angst. Recruiting, like any other profession, has it s own social media / networking sites where we all get to share insight, tips, tricks and yes even humor. One such site is ere.net. The post getting all the attention today was “Bullet Point to the Head” by Matt Charney.

Matt’s post was very well written and very much on target. Just look below the article at all the comments. Everything from “I can relate” to “no, that is not me.” In my years of living as a professional recruiter I have seen his comments in-action more times than not. Too much perceived work on a recruiter or even HR’s desk so they have to fly through resumes as fast as they can, learning tricks to skim and weed-out in what they feel is an expeditious manner. Why, because they are lazy.

Don’t believe me, ok. But here is a true fact. Most large HR groups, Staffing Firms and Professional Search Groups receive so much resume traffic they have to hire staff just to filter and scan or purchase software to totally remove the human component. I can remember weeks at Manpower where we might receive 5,000 applicants. In addition to this the recruiting publications are now telling HR and Talent Manager they NEED to automate. Check out the latest Talent Management article on “Make HR Happy.”

On top of this, many of today’s recruiting demographic has the technology / MTV curse of “if it’s not instant it’s not worth my time.” So, they expect every candidate to have a resume laid out in a similar fashion with all the goodies at scan level in 2.3 seconds. The trouble is that many professionals are great at their jobs but not with working on their resume (see my previous post on 8 Musts for an Effective Resume). Lazy recruiters are grab-and-go, great recruiters are diamond miners, polishing off the mud to find the sparkle below…many times at their own expense.

What is the solution? I think the bump we hit in the economy helped create some of the cure, causing recruiters and HR to transform their skills or try performing it from the unemployment line. The other solution, better management of both corporate and third-party recruitment practices. Accountability to the primary goal, recruitment and review with the intention of uncovering the best talent for the right job.

Chris

To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.

I seem to be a magnet for publishers, direct mailing companies, aspiring writers and all in between…to include my neighbor’s mail at times! The flip side to this is that I AM a knowledge pack-rat. I have books upon books, magazines that have come and gone, brochures, conference binders, clipped WSJ articles and entire newspapers all which had some nugget of information or learning moments I could put into practice. So it’s no surprise to visit the mail box at 12:16 each day to find a new magazine.

This week I received a recruiting / staffing magazine, Employment Marketplace. Now forgive me as I may have received these in the past, but I had idle time on the exercise bike to flip through this 24 page (cover to cover) magazine and read each article. What follows are my thoughts on the magazine and some of the writers, one of which I think very highly of for many years now.

Apparently Employment Marketplace has been around for 26 years as their website quotes. The publication I received was Vol. 27 Issue 111, for what that might mean. To me it’s like a check number. “Mr. Wellington, what check number would you like to start with…2009?” Not being facetious but it’s very colorful, lots of pictures, MANY advertisements and oh-so very Thin. I think most of the publication is vendors, advertisers or people trying to sell their works through snippets or rushed articles.

It’s understandable in tough times to adjust and modify to survive, but most companies that survive make this morph with more service than pay, not true in this case. While I like some of Steve Finkel’s work, the Manager’s Corner piece was a tough read. What was the point, I never got there? Temp Track was even less understandable, although I did highlight a couple pieces in the last two paragraphs. Frank Risalvato’s sales call advice is sure to get you fired in reputable company.

It’s obvious this magazine is funded by NAPS and vendors for they had Frank Burtnett write a piece on NAPS National Conference. I have known Frank for years, think very highly of him, and assisted or initiated his support in dozens of people becoming NAPS certified at conferences or even in my offices. That said, he is the fly-in fly-out consultant there for certification and rarely seen during the remaining hours of any conference? I would like to see more on how to achieve and maintain certification and why that sets you apart as a true Professional from him. 

My favorite piece by far was Tuning out the Noise by Neil McNulty. I have no idea who Neil is but I will be watching for more of his work. This article was only one page but very precise and on message. So much so that I sent a copy to each member of my team, some of my peers and a couple clients for the accountability he wrote about transcends the recruitment industry.

It’s too bad the entire page of pictures on the NCASP and SCAPS annual conference were taken at the cocktail party or lunch verse the actual learning sessions as it would have been great to see the 3 people attending from The Wellington Group on the page verses the NCASP board.

In short, was worth the time to review and read verses my current book or CD. I did pick up a couple of pieces of information to use and put to memory. Will not be paying the $148 for the annual subscription to get a 24 page, self-indulged magazine 4 times and some on-line info.

As a professional headhunter paid to uncover names and talent my final question is…how did they get my current address?

Chris

Follow The Recruiting Guy on Twitter…@therecruitinguy.com

To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com. 

*Employment Marketplace and EMinfo can be found at www.eminfo.com.