Todd Kmiec's Blog (197)

The End Of The World As We Know It

So the world is supposed to end in 2012. The only real reason that I know about this is, when I asked my daughter if she was excited about the new year, she told me the world is supposed to end. If the Mayan calendar is correct, this is it.

No need to worry, she doesn’t believe it. We don’t need counseling at this point. However, the world as we know it is ending. Change is constant, and looking back at recruiting over the past 10 years or so you see that we are…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on January 2, 2012 at 8:16pm — 3 Comments

A Good Year

2011 was a good year. For us it was a good year primarily because it was better than last year.

Business owners, recruiters, salespeople etc… we all set goals and have objectives for things we’d like to accomplish, levels we’d like to reach. But in the end, if we did more business this year than last year, it was a good year. Businesses want to grow. This is what they are built to do and doing more business each year defines growth.

For most in recruiting, 2011 was a… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on December 31, 2011 at 4:35pm — No Comments

Merry Christmas

What makes a Christmas Merry? There are a lot of good answers for this….Family, Faith, Good Presents (my kids would say). What I believe makes a a Christmas Merry and a New Years Happy for most people is optimism.

There are many people starting a new career or advancing their career with a new company. I know, we’ve placed a bunch of them. There are many companies growing and looking forward to reaching greater levels in their business. I know this as well, we talk…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on December 25, 2011 at 7:44pm — No Comments

It's Your World That Matters, Not The Whole World

Talking with a client today he said “It is going to be a very slow 2012 for technology hiring.”

Really? That’s one of the most surprising things I’ve heard recently. That is not what I’ve been hearing from others and not what we are currently experiencing. For this client, and really for all of us, what is happening in our world is far more important to focus on than what is happening in the rest of the world.

It is important to pay attention to what is going on…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on December 23, 2011 at 10:46am — No Comments

Is Everybody Coming Back?

I read a blog recently suggesting that young people should consider going into recruiting. I agree. As long as it is right for them.

Recruiting is a fantastic business. Tremendously rewarding. Great compensation. Incredibly complex and always engaging. But very challenging.

In ’08 and ’09 the air came out of the industry and many in recruiting were flushed out of the business. Things have improved since then and business is back. Is everybody coming back? I doubt it.…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on December 21, 2011 at 12:56pm — 4 Comments

Holiday Slow Down

The holiday slow down is here. At least for us it is. Every year around this time we see things slow down in recruiting.

Many companies shut down the process of hiring for certain positions until after New Years, many have budget and needs analysis going on, and of course many in recruiting/HR along with hiring managers are on vacation or wrapping up to end the year. So things slow down. Fewer new job orders, fewer things in early stages moving forward.

Looking back at…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on December 16, 2011 at 2:05pm — 1 Comment

Random Thoughts On Recruiting - We Are The New Japan

This is a great and quick look at where I think we are right now in regard to business conditions. For some time I have thought that we are much like Japan, 20 years later. They peaked in 1989 with a huge bubble and an older population, way too much leverage. 22 years later, there has been no real recovery from that. Not a depression, just a long malaise.

We peaked in '07. I don't think we have gone through any real deleveraging yet. To me it looks like we have a long road ahead,… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on August 14, 2011 at 11:05am — No Comments

Random Thoughts On Recruiting - Financial Crisis or What?

Fun week, wasn’t it? The Markets provided a lot of entertainment and food for thought this week. Meanwhile, business went on as planned. We had a good week, made placements, took on new job orders, set up interviews etc…. Business for us has been growing since it bottomed out in ’08 with the Financial Crisis. Yet there are a lot of bad things going on out there (long term unemployment for starters) and there is an underlying feeling that things are not so good. Here is an article from…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on August 6, 2011 at 9:10am — 1 Comment

Random Thoughts On Recruiting - The Death Of E-Mail? Laughable.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve heard more about the death of e-mail and even saw an article where a local professor is eliminating e-mail altogether. Years ago I heard about the death of e-mail and it is as laughable a concept now as it was then.

Simply put, e-mail is the greatest invention of our time. Sure it’s use is changing with other tools for connection becoming more mainstream, and that is a good thing. I have believed for some time that social media is reducing spam and… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on July 23, 2011 at 10:32am — 4 Comments

Bifurcation

I read an interesting article this morning about the Notebook and Tablet PC markets. The writer used the term bifurcation, which I’m sure was a thrill for him. I had to look it up. It means to divide or split into two branches, and the article made a solid clear point about the PC Market. That market is splitting into PCs for Creation of content on one end (laptops and desktops) and PCs for Consumption (tablets are great for this).

In recruiting we have seen this happening…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on May 30, 2010 at 8:53am — No Comments

Shrinkage. A Good Thing?

Shrinkage, shrinkage, there is shrinkage everywhere. I can’t help thinking of George Costanza whenever I hear the word shrinkage. Here’s the link to the famous scene from Seinfeld.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cUNNKzj_Nc

Pool or no pool, we have a lot of shrinkage. In nearly all industries you can look around and you have less competition due to…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on April 16, 2010 at 11:37am — No Comments

Survival of the Fittest

As the first quarter comes to a close, is there any doubt that we are in a Survival of the Fittest phase in the recruiting industry? In fact, this is the case in pretty much all lines of business currently. I’ve read some things recently that confirm a lot of what I believe regarding current business conditions and where we are going. The bubble burst in 2008, we are in the shakeout or survival of the fittest stage of things now, and it will be a…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on March 25, 2010 at 8:48am — No Comments

Innovation and Motivation In The Recruiting Industry

Recently reading a post suggesting that great innovation may be coming soon in recruiting from third party agencies or RPOs brought some great perspective for me. Where does real innovation come from? It comes from motivated individuals and that motivation most of the time is related to profit. So when I look at the recruiting world it makes all the sense in the world that the innovation will come from third party recruiters. Don’t get me wrong, there…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on March 16, 2010 at 9:25am — 1 Comment

The Challenge Of Running A Lean Operation

There is a link to a post by Kevin Wheeler on my Interesting Reads page http://bit.ly/6Efmse that I think is really worth reading for those of us in the third party recruiting world as well as those in corporate recruiting. It's a short…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on March 7, 2010 at 8:00am — 1 Comment

Stimulus Rally?

Our Socialist In Chief is out today claiming his stimulus package from last year worked. That's laughable. The stimulus hasn't done anything. Remember he said we needed the stimulus package because without it we may run up to 9% unemployment, and that would be disastrous. Well, he got his stimulus package and with all that it has done unemployment was up over 10% last month and…

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Added by Todd Kmiec on February 17, 2010 at 1:34pm — 2 Comments

Funny Math

There is some funny math going on here. Like my kids say, it's not funny ha ha.......it's funny strange! See, the numbers are always supposed to add up and make sense. But right now there is something missing. We had good production in the fourth quarter. The numbers were good for production in January as well. Number of interviews and candidates in the pipeline? All looking really good. Up and down the line, all of the critical numbers that we look at are good. Very good considering the last… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on February 3, 2010 at 8:57am — 4 Comments

Nice Legs

I like nice legs. We are in the midst of a little rally in the recruiting business and I hope this one has the legs to keep going for a while. Job orders are flowing in at a little better pace. The interview process in most cases is moving along a little more quickly, and our pipeline of deals looks better than it has in a long time. So this feels pretty good and many people will be tempted to call it a recovery. Recession over.

I don’t think I can buy that scenario. In the post… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on January 21, 2010 at 9:17pm — 1 Comment

Mindless Optimism

There is something said for Mindless Optimism. I heard the term a few weeks ago. I think it came from an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal in which someone was asked at a party how they were approaching 2010. The answer was with Mindless Optimism. What a great thought for today. Coming off of the last year or two, mindlessness feels pretty good, and optimism is always good.

But I see more wisdom in the term than that. I think mindless optimism gives us the freedom to focus on what we… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on January 13, 2010 at 10:01am — 4 Comments

Closing Out '09 With A Little Dose Of Optimism

As we close out the year I thought I would share some of an article that a colleague sent to me yesterday and my reaction to it. The article below describes a measured, but more positive outlook for the coming year.

Survey adds to positive hiring outlook

by John Zappe Dec 29, 2009

There’s a bit more to celebrate tomorrow night than the start of a new year. A report from CareerBuilder today says more employers are looking to hire next year; fewer… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on December 31, 2009 at 10:22am — No Comments

Families Served

Like many generous people throughout the country, my son's Cub Scout pack tries to do their part helping people who are less fortunate and I wanted to share the following story from our Cub Scout Pack Community Service Chairperson.

The second family in Hillsborough was probably the neediest family that we have helped so far. I delivered their gifts to their home in a government apartment building. When I showed up two social workers were there. I explained who I was and that… Continue

Added by Todd Kmiec on December 22, 2009 at 8:17am — No Comments