A couple of weeks ago I had a Twitter discussion with a well known NZ recruitment industry figure Jonathan Rice about selling retained versus contingent recruitment. Jonathan made the point that, “[many recruiters] provide an excellent service but are too scared to ask for some money up front, probably missing a trick somewhere there!”

It was immediately obvious to me then that many recruiters’…

1. Ask us how long we have lived in the area. Do not ask us where we are REALLY from. Do not ask us what our nationality is when you mean ethnicity.  Aside from EEO issues in the US, these questions show  that you have already put us in a box as "other" and we are tired of hearing it.  Also, for Asian orphans, this can be a painful question. Some do not know. One woman I met was abandoned in Saigon as a toddler speaking Chinese in 1968. …

"Temps" are no longer low paid, entry level workers. This is not news to us here at Top Echelon Contracting, as we have been reporting on the executive temping trend for the past couple of years. But a recent article on FINS Technology, a career site from The Wall Street Journal,…

For every recruitment marketing campaign you run, you need to have ways for candidates to add themselves to your Talent Network.  Whether it’s dual purpose job ads, opt-in forms on your Career Site or your company’s social recruiting profiles, you need a way for candidates to interact with your employer brand and more importantly, ways for your company to engage with passive candidates who are not ready to…

 The number one position that recruiters posted over the past thirty days was for Computer Specialists. There have been over 220,000 new jobs for Computer Programmers, a 26% increase from the same time period in 2010.

Hiring Demand for Computer Specialists by Employers – Past 4 Months: …

Overworked and underpaid – this is a common saying amongst working individuals. However, no matter how cliché it sounds, overworked and overstressed employees will eventually have a negative impact on your company. As a manager, it is your responsibility to monitor your team’s workload and make decisions on when it is time to hire a new member in order to relieve…

Staffing and recruiting is costly and time consuming, but it has to be done. However, the frequency can be reduced by taking a few small but necessary steps toward employee retention. The first three to six months are crucial for new hires, as this is when they decide whether or not they will stay with your…

Experience: It’s a word that can either help or haunt you.  Everyone seems to be looking for experience, yet there are so many people without it.  It’s a catch-22.  You need someone to give you a chance (you having no experience) in the first place to…

There is something in the recruitment air.  I’m not sure what it is but I’m getting an increased number of calls from agencies claiming to be “head hunting” me.

I talked to a job seeker the other day and asked her how her job search was going. She replied 'its tough out there' but who can blame her. The competition is stiff and job hunting aint what it used to be.

We started discussing my local job boards (which she uses) and someone in the group mentioned looking for jobs on Craigslist. "Ugh" she said, "there's a lot of crap on craigslist".  

CL seems to be attracting anything and…

New York City area employers posted almost 170,000 new online job ads jobs in April. Although a drop from March levels, metro NYC hiring demand up 79% over its 4-year low in December 2008.

New York City Metro Area Hiring Demand — 4 year:

Source:…

Here is our weekly feature in which we share the top articles we enjoyed from the past week about recruitment marketing, social recruiting and anything else in the recruiting space. This week we’ll be talking about Google’s company culture, guaranteeing a job, the changing role of a recruiter, efficiency vs. effectiveness and training managers.

Here are the articles our that interested us this week (in no particular…

Last week was an exciting week in our industry.  LinkedIn now has a market cap of approximately 600 times its annual earnings. Expectations are lofty.  But, as I have said before, LinkedIn is not the only game in town.

The online recruitment paradigm has shifted and an organization should not put all of their eggs in…

Any recruiter who is assigned with the task of finding the right fit for a job opening has to essentially put on the shoes of a treasure hunter. Yes! Recruiting the best candidate for every single assignment is no cakewalk. When it comes to sourcing, Internet is the river of life for recruiters. And the list of avenues where they hunt is numerous. From Social…

In financial markets they talk about canny investors being “stock-pickers”, which refers to an ability to select ‘diamonds in the rough’; investments that will outperform over time.

Great recruiters are “talent-pickers”.

We would love to place every person who approaches us, or who we interview. But that is not going to happen.

In fact, spreading your talent activity too thin will dilute your ability to find people work. Candidate selection is key. Selecting the best…

If you did, I understand.  This season started very weak.  Lucky for all those who gave up on the show, I stuck with it.

I'm betting most of you felt like 'Dwight' in this photo after the first half of this season!

I've always enjoyed 'The Office' on NBC, because the…