May

31

Best Employment Websites: 14th Annual Webby Award Winners and Nominees

Posted by: jjohnson | Comments (0)

The web is an integral part of today’s job search. The Webby Awards recognize the best of Internet excellence. This year’s Webby winners in the Employment category are a varied mix of resourceful corporate windows and engaging online experiences.

Webby Award Winner

START THINKING SOLDIER

https://www.armyjobs.mod.uk/StartThinkingSoldier/Pages/Default.aspx

Stunning photography, video and design with a strong call to action: “Join the missions now.” This site pulls you in to the Army experience about as far as a monitor can take you. From a soldier’s perspective, visitors are asked to think “on their feet” in the areas of Teamwork, Decision Making, Leadership and Fitness. Whether you’re delivering earthquake aid or parachuting behind enemy lines, you start thinking, “Yeah, I could handle this job.” The navigation says it all. An Army career will change your life. There’s no going “back” on this site. Do not use your back button. Read More→

May

27

A, B or C? Do Job Performance Metrics Make the Grade?

Posted by: jjohnson | Comments (0)

A Players: We want them on our team. We encourage team members to be more like them. We spend millions of dollars annually on trying to find them. Our hiring managers always talk about them. But how do you know an A Player when you see one? And what do A Players mean to your company?

Performance metrics are designed to tell us exactly that. They tie job performance to business results in qualitative and quantitative numerics. The problem is that few numbers have real inherent value. We assign numbers value, so like anything else, numbers can easily be misinterpreted and misconstrued. I know of recruiters who have even witnessed a single candidate get classified as an A, B and C Player during one interview by different interview members. If it is difficult to really identify what makes up and A Player, then why all the fuss?

Let’s be realistic for a minute.  We all want the so-called A Players on our team.  We have wild fantasies about how productive our companies would be, how profitable our companies would be, how much easier it would be to manage our team, if we only had all A Players.  Really?  Read More→

May

24

Recruiting Lessons from LOST

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The TV show LOST ended Sunday night with its final show and a new hire. Someone had to take Jacob’s job. Six seasons stranded on a remote Pacific island amounted to a job search – many candidates today go through the same hell!  One candidate must keep evil from escaping the tropical anomaly in exchange for ocean-front living as long as they can stay alive. Let’s recap the job and our available candidates:

The Job Description

Position: Head of Island Security. Keep anyone from entering glowing cave. Keep smoke monster from leaving island and killing you. Accept island as your purpose and drink consecrated water from container on-hand. Must be able to work independently or as a team. Must be available days, nights and weekends. Must be willing to relocate. Make up the rest up as you go along. Read More→

May

21

Stringing Candidates Along: Keywords and Search Queries for Online Sourcing

Posted by: jjohnson | Comments (0)

In many ways the Internet still seems like a bit of hocus pocus magic. You want something and poof! It’s there! (In a virtual sort of way). But remember those stories of genies in a bottle? When someone makes a wish and it goes terribly wrong because they weren’t 100% clear when they asked for what they wanted. The Internet, or more specifically search, is a lot like that: your wish is only as good as your command. So if you expect the Internet to magically deliver the perfect candidate for your job, you’d better think twice about what you type into a search box.

Sourcing guru Kelly Dingee drives this point home. You can’t randomly throw keywords into a search string and expect it to yield exact results. To source talent through online search, queries must be carefully constructed.

Read More→