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How Staffing Software and Recruiting Software Helps Find The Right Culture Fit

Routine disagreement.  A new hire just doesn’t gel, disagrees with new coworkers and openly disrespects the way things are being done.  Frequent disagreements lead to lost productivity due to the constant need for discussion to clarify issues, impacting the bottom line.

Awkward social interactions and increased tension.  When just one person is on a different page from everyone else and is not willing to make the necessary change, it puts the rest of the staff on edge.  When everyone is on edge, workflow is disrupted and when that happens, the bottom line is negatively impacted.

A culture gap that just cannot be overcome.  An otherwise stellar Generation Y candidate you recruited simply does not fit in with a more traditional employer, leaving both the employee and the company unhappy.

When you engage in the staffing process, you’re typically looking at a number of factors to determine whether the candidate fits the position well. The backbone of our company’s staffing software and recruiting software, in fact, is the built-in functionality designed to help you find candidates with the right experience, skills, education and references.

Fortunately, staffing and recruiting software can help you move beyond searching for skills, education and references – and also help you find the right culture fit for both your clients and candidates. For instance, you can:

Filter candidates with short work tenures.  How often have you come across a candidate who has held multiple jobs over a short period of time that did not reveal some underlying issue with past employers? Even if your answer is ‘no,’ would this type of candidate be worth the risk with a larger client?  Using staffing and recruiting software resume harvesting capabilities, you can parse the candidates you have on file based on custom criteria, like length of time at past jobs.

Documenting the unstated portion of candidate interviews. The answers the candidate provided were on target – but there was something about the body language and interaction style that didn’t quite feel right. Documenting this type of information in your recruiting software – and making it searchable for later – can ensure you don’t inadvertently match up a client with the wrong candidate in the future, based on answers alone.

Sorting by industry. Would your client in a traditional industry – think steel working – gel with a stellar marketing candidate who has the right qualifications but comes from a more modern online background? With the right staffing and recruiting software – you can add in or segment out these candidates based on how you answer this question.

Ultimately – the purpose of your staffing agency, and what companies like mine try to help you do, is to put people back to work. But doing so at the cost of connecting the wrong candidates with the wrong companies is simply the wrong way to accomplish this.

Moxie Maven Alexia Vernon On What Your Staffing Agency Needs To Know About Onboarding Millennials With Recruiting Software

Recruiting software user – Alexia Vernon If you work for a recruiting or staffing agency, you have an opinion on Millennial – or Generation Y – candidates.  For seasoned recruiters or staffing professionals, these candidates – born between the early 80s and early 90s – can bring a frustratingly unbalanced mix of confidence and sense of entitlement.  And, of course, all the resulting headaches.

But is this a completely fair assessment of Generation Y recruiting? Or can staffers and recruiters relieve their headaches by taking time to better understand how the ‘wants’ of Generation Y sync with the ‘needs’ of clients? For help, I turned to consultant and author Alexia Vernon.

Called a “Moxie Maven” by the White House, since winning the Miss Junior America competition in college, Alexia Vernon has been working with companies, campuses, and community organizations to help develop successful, sustainable, and socially impactful employees and leaders. She has shared her advice with myriad media such as CNN, NBC, CBS MoneyWatch, FOX Business News, the Wall Street Journal, CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, and Forbes.com.

She is also the author of Awaken Your CAREERpreneur: A Holistic Road Map to Climb from Your Calling to Your Career, and most recently, 90 Days 90 Ways: Onboard Young Professionals to Peak Performance.

Below, Alexia shares what your recruiting or staffing agency needs to know when onboarding Millennial workers:

Some have referred to Generation Y as the entitlement generation. Do you feel that the fault behind this admittedly broad definition rests more with Millennials themselves, or with traditional employers being hesitant to change their views?

Alexia Vernon: While I like to think of Generation Y (Gen Y) or Millennials as “creative, collaborative, and tech- savvy” rather than “disrespectful, whiny, and entitled,!” I believe that Gen Y’s’ bad rap stems equally from the fact that EVERY generation is a little rough around the edges when entering the workplace AND that Gen Y, overall, has been a very coddled generation.

Scheduled play dates. Trophies for everything short of breathing. Oprah playing on our TV’s when we got home from school. Why Gen Y behaves as it does though, honestly, is not so important (unless you’re a demographer or run a Gen Y consulting business like me!). What matters is that employers understand how to meet us where we are when we come in the door and co-create solutions to take us where we need to be in order to capitalize on our lauded potential.

It’s been said that money is not necessarily a primary motivator for Generation Y. It has also been said that Generation Y employees will stay at their first job for only about two years. How can employers retain the most skilled Millennial employees, when traditional motivators are not what these employees are after?

AV: You are correct. Across studies, the #1 reason that Millennials consistently leave a job is because they no longer feel like they are learning and growing in their roles. And this is great news. Companies should not get in their own way of retaining top talent by moaning over the fact they don’t have the capacity to offer Millennials a raise or a promotion. Rather, employers have a real opportunity to put time and energy into ensuring that Millennials have opportunities to stretch. Whether that means participating in a formal learning and development program, sitting on a committee, spearheading a new project, or simply engaging in a mentoring relationship – it’s important that companies put their high-potential Millennials in these situations to keep them engaged and growing professionally and personally.

In your book, 90 Days, 90 Ways, you share strategies for employers to successfully onboard Generation Y workers. What advice would you offer to recruiters or staffing agencies that find themselves a few steps in front of the onboarding process, striving to effectively place the most skilled Millennial candidates with appropriate employers?

AV: Look for a strong cultural fit. While a candidate might look like a good fit for a company on paper – for the relationship to be a long-term, mutually beneficial one, it’s important that an employee fits in at a deeper level. Make sure you know how your talent communicates, creates, learns, handles conflict, plays, and so forth so that you are effectively playing matchmaker.

Based on your experience, what would you consider to be the most significant hurdle for any Millennial entering the workforce today?

AV: Unfortunately, I’ve been giving the same answer for the last four years. — the economy. When you have less educational and professional experience than Baby Boomers, Gen X’ers, and even older Millennials who were laid off, became under employed, and/or are in the throes of reinventing themselves, you really need to be clear about how you are uniquely poised to deliver the value a company desires in order to stand out in the application process.

Similar to the question above, what would you consider to be the most significant challenge that employers or staffing agencies should be aware of, prior to hiring or placing a Millennial worker, and how can this challenge be overcome?

AV: Companies that are employing Millennial talent should be aware that, as a generation, Millennials have had fewer opportunities to hone face-to-face communication skills than any previous generation in our nation’s history. While Millennials love to work collaboratively, build relationships, and so forth, they typically have a lot of room for growth in their interpersonal communication. The good news is that high-impact communication is a skill. As long as companies are aware that their young employees need formal and informal opportunities to practice their 30-second introductions, negotiation, feedback, banter, and presentation skills, they can efficiently and effectively get their young employees producing the results they seek.

You can learn more about Alexia at AlexiaVernon.com, follow her on Twitter @AlexiaVernon, or connect on Facebook and LinkedIn.

To learn more about how recruiting software and staffing software from Bond US can help your agency achieve its onboarding goals, regardless of what generation candidates you are bringing on, request a demo.

Legally Speaking: How Should Your Recruiting or Staffing Agency Address Social Media Privacy Issues?

I’ve recently made my opinion on employer Facebook snooping quite clear – any the negative feeling I feel deep in my gut is shared by nearly every other source I’ve seen.  Fortunately – it seems this negative view is slowly being transformed into laws and guidelines.

The furor stems over the demands of some employers, recruiters or staffing agencies to get social media passwords or log-ins from employees or candidates.  At the heart of the matter is the question of whether employees or job candidates should be forced to allow potential employers, recruiters or staffing agencies more access into their private lives.  While current laws may still leave room for interpretation – it is perfectly clear which way the wind is blowing.

A recent Denver Business Journal article points out that in Colorado, employees’ legal off-duty activities are protected, and that could extend to Facebook use.

Two Senators apparently agree that forcing job seekers to share Facebook passwords is a breach of privacy and possible cause for discrimination.  Charles Schumer (NY) and Richard Blumenthal (CT) have asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to launch an investigation into whether employers asking for passwords during interviews is in violation of federal law (New York Times, March 25, 2012).

In the article, a Facebook executive warned that “if an employer discovered that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer might be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it did not hire that person.”  Such protected information includes gender, age, religion and race – much of which you can find on Facebook profiles.

Today, only Maryland prohibits employers from requiring employees to turn over social media passwords.  However California currently has a bill before the Senate (having just won unanimous support in the House) which would also ban employers from demanding access to Facebook accounts (AB1844).

The challenge will be moving forward that with the interconnectedness of the Internet and the proliferation of information on social media, recruiting firms and staffing agencies will be tempted to use whatever tools they can to get a better idea of candidate personalities and profiles.

Case in point, many recruiting firms and staffing agencies rely upon LinkedIn as heavily as they do resumes to get a clearer picture of candidates.  However, the difference is, LinkedIn profiles have been created for that very reason.

The next year should produce an interesting array of new laws and regulations.  In the meantime, what actions should your recruiting firm or staffing agency take?

I say this not as a lawyer – but as someone that has worked in the staffing industry for several years.  While we may be tempted to take advantage of all information we are – currently – legally entitled to in order to find the right candidates, there are certain lines we simply should not cross.  While it may be true that asking for social passwords is not currently in violation of any laws in most states – the stain such an action leaves on an agency could be difficult to bounce back from.  This holds especially true if privacy laws change – and your agency’s actions are cited as even a minor reason as to why.

Bottom-line: employees and job candidates have private lives.  And as long as they fill your needs – or meet the needs of your clients – that’s OK.  My original position was to steer your agency clear of Facebook snooping stupidity.  And my opinion – now backed up by mounting legislation – has not changed.

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of social media – from both a business and ethical standpoint – and how our recruiting and staffing software can help, contact us or request a free demo.

Why Selecting Your Staffing and Recruiting Software Is Like Hiring a Top Producer

Improve your business success by using the same criteria for selecting your staffing software and recruiting software that you would use to select a candidate to boost your sales and recruiting bottom line.

Select software like you select a top performing sales personAs a staffing and recruiting professional, you know the value of a top producer in your business. They are hard to recruit, as you won’t find any colleges offering majors in “staffing and recruiting sales,” or “third-party recruiting and staffing.” More importantly, your top producers, whether in sales or recruiting, are likely to produce 80 percent of your business profits.

You want your business to grow profitably, so it makes sense then to apply the same criteria to your staffing and recruiting software selection as you would to hiring a top sales and recruiting producer for your business. After all, your recruiting software is the single most important tool your top producers have to produce results with. But how do you go about it? You can use the established character traits of top performers as principals for selecting your software.

Here we’ll apply the seven character traits of top performing sellers as described by Steve W. Martin, who teaches sales strategy at the USC Marshall School of Business, to staffing and recruiting software vendors:

  1. Modesty. A team orientation to your recruiting and staffing software solution. Your recruiting software vendor will recognize and position you and your staff side-by-side with their own staff (sales, technical support, development, etc.) as one team with one goal – your success. Your software vendor should have the deep expertise and skills in-house – from sales to development to training to support – to understand and address your business needs. Find out how many staff they have in key positions and how long they’ve been with the firm to determine how their teams’ experience can support your business.
  2. Conscientiousness. A strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor should take the importance of your business success very seriously and feel deeply responsible for the results. This “ownership” of your success is most often seen in their ongoing investments in technology development, their honesty in their business dealings, and the responsiveness and quality of the after-the-sale customer support you get, so find out how much of their gross is dedicated to development and talk to lots of customer references about product performance and support.
  3. Achievement Orientation. Understanding and measuring how your software fits into your business. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor should be fixated on achieving goals and continuously measuring their performance in comparison to their goals. This means that they are continuously refining their products and services based on your feedback (and that of their other customers) to improve performance. Learn how they measure their development and support performance and seek to improve it for insight on how key performance metrics play a role in their business.
  4. Curiosity. Inquisitiveness about your business that translates into effective solutions. Your staffing software and recruiting software vendor should have a hunger for knowledge and information about your business, your customers, and your industry. They will be driven to ask you difficult and uncomfortable questions in order to close gaps in information that will help them provide you the best solution and services.
  5. Lack of Gregariousness. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor is your technology advisor – not your BFF.  Your staffing software vendor should have long experience with many customers across relevant industry segments. That gives them deep insight into the business of staffing and recruiting and how their solution can improve your success. As your trusted advisor on recruiting and staffing technology, they may offer recommendations that, at first glance, may be counter to your own thinking, but are nonetheless sound.
  6. Lack of Discouragement. Competitive, never-give-up attitude to winning and keeping your business successful.  The staffing and recruiting business is a tough, competitive one and your recruiting and staffing software should be eager to help you compete. That means that, regardless of what the business climate is like, they are focused on developing and delivering the products and services you need with dedication, expertise, and staying-power to support you today and in the years ahead. Seek references that have been with the vendor for some time and ask about their software and business support experiences.
  7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. Aggressively capable of “thinking outside the box” to discover and implement new technology to enable your success. New technology and ideas confront old perceptions and ways of doing business daily. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor must be comfortable embracing changes in technology or business processes that offer you important new benefits and fighting for their cause even if it means rankling you in the process.

So there you have it – seven principles for selecting your next staffing software or recruiting software package based on the same standards you should use for selecting a top performing sales or recruiting staff member. If you are in the market for a change in business software, these can be helpful in your selection process. Even if you are not in the market for new software, maybe you should consider applying them to your current software vendor – you might find it enlightening.

If you would like to talk to us about how our staffing and recruiting software can improve your business, click demo or give us a call at 800-318-4983 today. We’re here to help you succeed.

Staffing Software & Social Media Are Your Tools… And Your Staffing Plan Is?

recruiting software social media strategyPart of an effective approach in candidate searches today includes leveraging social media.  Social media can be even more effective if the data you gather from this channel is successfully managed with the right recruiting software or staffing software.

I talk a lot here about the importance of integrating social media and staffing and recruiting software because I understand how important this is to you as a staffing professional and Bond US is committed to helping you make the most of this capability. But integrating social media into recruiting software or staffing software isn’t the end-all-be-all of recruiting and staffing efforts.

If your staffing agency or recruiting firm doesn’t have a wide-reaching tactical approach in place, then no amount of Facebook business pages, Tweets or even the best staffing software will bring you any closer to the ideal candidate.

Social media and staffing software are just two of many hiring tools available to you.  Consider the following and learn how social and staffing and recruiting software enhance – but shouldn’t necessarily dominate – key recruiting or staffing tactics.

• Finding Candidates –  Regardless of the tools you use to find or manage your candidates, you still need to start with a specific candidate profile. Your clients want to know everything about candidates you find for them, from prior experience to what they do in their spare time.

First determine who your clients are looking for, then use social media and staffing and recruiting software to find them.

• Communicating With Prospects– Some of social media’s greatest strengths are its abilities to be used as communication and engagement tools. But before you engage, you first need to know what to express for the best results and social media is just one of many ways to determine this.

Reviewing jobs on career boards, you competitor listings – and even stories in traditional media outlets – will help ensure the conversations you enter into are focused just as heavily on the needs and interests of your candidates and clients as they are on your own staffing objectives

• Understanding Client Needs – Social media can serve as an important resource when searching for background information on companies.  Not only can you determine their size, location and employment needs, you can also discern corporate culture by way of that company’s social media presence.

But effective research also includes the traditional channels of word-of-mouth referrals and networking. Though the internet does reveal plenty of information about clients, face-to-face conversations are still the best when it comes to learning about their needs.

Use social media and staffing and recruiting software as just two of many tools to find, communicate with and understand clients and candidates – and more importantly shape your overall staffing plan.

5 Location-Based Social Media Tips For Your Recruiting or Staffing Agency

Social media has given recruiting companies and staffing agencies a host of new ways to find the right candidates.  As a result, more firms today are leveraging staffing or recruiting software that integrates data from the biggest social networks – think LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

While it’s true that the biggest networks will hold the largest candidate pools, even more (and sometimes more job-ready) candidates can be found by exploring networks you may not have considered.

I’m talking about location based social media.

You’ve probably heard of location based social sites like Foursquare where users check-in to share their locations, activities and tips on special spots with others.

Leveraged correctly, these networks can become powerful staffing and recruiting tools.  Here are 5 easy ways to start:

  1. Find Candidates At Events – You’ve got a booth at a job fair or trade show and you want to attract candidates to come by.  You can keep track of candidate check-ins to the show and offer invitations for people to check out your kiosk.
  2. Provide Tips To Check-ins – Perhaps you represent a staffing agency that works with numerous candidates for temp hiring.  You can encourage prospects to check in to your location by offering valuable interview tips in return.
  3. Keep Track Of Your Competitors – Are people checking in with your competitors?  You can follow candidates’ traffic to your competitors and then encourage them to check out your location as well, i.e., “Searching for a job?  Check out Recruitment Solutions for the best job search options.”
  4. Engage Your Facebook Followers – Invite your fans to check in to your offices through Facebook Places, the network’s own location based check in application. Your Facebook business page updates can then draw attention to the buzz of activity surrounding your recruiting firm or staffing agency.
  5. Track Ideal Candidates – You’re looking for sports-minded candidates for your fitness equipment company client.  How do you find such candidates?  Try monitoring local fitness-oriented check-ins where ideal prospects might be spending time, such as rock climbing clubs or triathlon events.  Then let those candidates know you’re hiring.

And, of course, with the right staffing or recruiting software, you can integrate activity from each of these social channels seamlessly into efforts.

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of location based social media, and how our social media enabled staffing and recruiting software can help, contact us or request a free demo.

Facebook Timeline Changes: What Your Staffing or Recruiting Agency Needs To Know

Just when you thought you had your staffing agency’s Facebook page in perfect order, they went and made you change it.

Whether you are a staffing or recruiting agency, a staffing software or services provider – or any type of firm in between – your company’s Facebook page has likely been upgraded to the new Timeline format.  And you are somewhere on the spectrum of ‘loving’ and ‘adjusting.’

Regardless of where you find yourself, there are some basic truths that are constant:

 

  1. Change is inevitable, especially in social media
  2. With the opportunity that comes with change comes the opportunity for mistake
  3. Social media – and Facebook – remain one of the strongest tools in your staffing arsenal

So how can you ensure you continue to use this tool effectively, maximizing new opportunities and minimizing the type of mistakes that will earn either derision from social-savvy prospects or a firm slap on the wrist from Facebook?

Start by referencing our list of Facebook Timeline mistakes to avoid and opportunities to take advantage of below:

Facebook Timeline Mistakes to Avoid

1. Wrong Size Cover Photo
From now on, you’re limited to one large banner photo across the top of your page.  So you need to consider what type of image best communicates your recruiting or staffing agency’s brand message.

The photo can be a graphic or an actual photograph – as long as it is sized 851 x 315 pixels.  Any other sized image will simply look ‘off.’  For your image, you may want to show a location beauty shot of your firm’s exterior or even repurpose branding elements from your website, as we do on the Bond International Software Facebook page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Wrong Size Profile Photo
Every time you post, you staffing agency or recruiting firm profile picture will appear with your updates, so it’s important to find an image that will still maintain quality in a smaller size — 180 pixels that will scale down automatically to a length and width size of 32 pixels.*

To avoid viewing problems with the smaller size and to give your company instant recognition, consider using your logo as your profile image.

(*Update – per an email I received from Facebook today, the new profile picture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page, starting April 26th.)

3. Adding a CTA to Your Cover Photo
Facebook does not allow a call to action on either your cover or profile photo.  Call to actions include but are certainly not limited to:

  • Contact information
  • Price or purchase information
  • Asks for ‘Likes’ or ‘Shares’

Instead, showcase your brand in a way that makes it hard for visitors to resist liking you or being moved to action. See a great example of this below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook Timeline Opportunities:

1. Take Advantage of Content Display Improvements
The Facebook team constantly refers to the site as a story-telling channel.  With expandable photos that can span across your Timeline with just a click, visitors can get a strong visual sense of your company’s unique story.

Complement those stirring images with the compelling and relevant content you’re already featuring and you’ll provide a powerful reason for fans to visit often.

2. Share Company Milestones
Another interesting add-on to the business Timeline is the Milestones feature.  This allows you to showcase the history of your company by posting important events that have occurred over time and to provide your visitors with a multi-pronged illustration of your firm’s effectiveness in placing candidates over the years.

And don’t limit yourself to milestones that have only occurred since Facebook was launched.  Remember, it all starts with the Model T:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of the new Facebook Timeline updates, and how our social media enabled recruiting and staffing software can help you integrate candidate information from social profiles, contact us or register for a free demo.

Why are you wasting six seconds reviewing a resume?

Time is money - save both with the right staffing software or recruiting softwareThat’s ten resumes a minute, 60 in an hour, and 480 in an eight-hour work day (assuming you actually spent all that time reviewing resumes). That’s what a recent eye-tracking study of recruiters by TheLadders.com concluded.

Sure, the study was obviously self-serving (TheLadders successfully showed that the resume formatting on their website was easier for recruiters to use than that of the profiles on LinkedIn). The observation is that recruiters and staffing coordinators charged with determining the “fit/no fit” of job candidates really don’t spend much time on reviewing individual resumes. In that six-second review, the average recruiter might be able to read seven, that’s SEVEN words – candidate name, title, company worked at, and maybe their last job start/end dates. Think you can read more? Test yourself here.

So, my question is, why are you wasting those six seconds reviewing a resume? You’re really not getting anything substantive about the candidate’s fitness for the job in six seconds, so why bother? After all, according to many, “the resume is dead” anyway (a Google search for that term came up with 56,200,000 hits). Profiles, such as those on LinkedIn, have really taken their place, at least for many professionals.

Nope, the reality is that your staffing software or recruiting software should be doing the grunt work for you of “reviewing” resumes. The data you’ve collected on candidates through all of your sourcing – including those “dead” resumes and through your social media channels – is the data pool you swim in most often. Then you plug in the criteria for the job and the software spits out a list of the most likely candidates that will fit the job opportunity. Then you set up interviews, present the candidate(s), fill the order/placement, bill the customer, and collect payments. Repeat for continued success as a staffing and recruiting professional.

I know I’ve over-simplified the process, but that’s the gist of it, right?

What I’m saying is that you probably shouldn’t waste those six seconds looking at a resume. If you’re not wasting time looking at resumes, think about how many more placements you might make using your recruiting and staffing software to find the most likely candidates. More importantly, you can work at what software can’t do – build relationships that help you better understand your customers and candidates and that in turn result in sales and fills. Then your software becomes an enabling tool to help you manage those relationships successfully.

Naturally, each of Bonds’ staffing and recruiting software packages can help you do that.

Plus, while Adapt, eEmpACT, and StaffSuite offer tools for the business of staffing and recruiting, each has its own specific feature/benefit sets, so I’m confident that one of them can fit the unique needs of your firm. Click or give us a call at 800-318-4983 to talk about how your staffing software or recruiting software should be making your life easier today. We’re here to help you stop wasting time and effort reviewing resumes – six seconds at a time.

Staffing Software with Social Integration Helps Uncover Diamonds In The Rough

The sounds of businesses ramping up their employee hiring are all around us these days.  The improving economy has loosened purse strings and imbued companies with a spark of optimism.

This all leads to a ramp up in increased business for those in the staffing industry. Armed with the latest in staffing software and a large talent pool, recruiting firms and staffing agencies can find job seekers at every turn. However, are they finding the best candidates for the positions?

While firms may be ready to hire they may not be prepared to pay top dollar as they re-enter the employee-building business, so staffing companies need to search carefully to find the best candidate for the right price. Using top-of-the-line staffing software, staffing professionals can ensure that they are starting with the widest pool of candidates possible and narrowing them down to the closest matches for each unique position.

One of the most important additions to staffing software capabilities is social media integration. This software can record candidates’ online profiles at social media sites to offer a better understanding of their fitness for a job. Recruiters can also easily send job postings to their own social media accounts with little effort.

When a job order comes in, staffing software can help you sift through information from your entire pool of candidates to reveal the handful of people with the treasured skills your clients seek – diamonds in the rough, just waiting to be found. I’ll let you in on a little secret: There are some particular groups within the workforce that could be hiding people with treasured skills. If you can find them, they could be incredibly valuable for you and your clients.

Where to Dig for Diamonds

  • Recent Grads – There’s lots of talk about Generation Y and Z. Yes, they’re young but they are trainable, enthusiastic and ready to work for less than their older counterparts. They’re also well-versed and deeply-immersed in online and social marketplaces. Staffing and recruiting companies can develop specific strategies – including leveraging social media – to find the next crop of great employees.
  • Displaced Workers – Spotting displaced workers takes some knowledge of markets, both geographically and historically. Staffing software can help to find people that work or live, or used to work or live, in places that experienced heavy job losses in certain industries. Perhaps a potential candidate from a suburban town is working at a less-than-impressive banking job now after losing his position as a big-city mortgage broker in 2008.  Is he worth a second look?  You bet.  Don’t be distracted by the job the candidate holds now, look at the skills he’s most likely to possess.
  • Mature Job Seekers – It’s a fact that all of us will most likely be working longer into our future than we originally planned.  The good news is that those mature workers looking for a job have plenty of knowledge to share with companies.  Older can be better in terms of problem solving, confidence and leadership.
  • Military Veterans – Finding employees with military experience is incredibly easy using staffing software as it is a field that appears on nearly every employment application. As more servicemen and women return home, they’ll be looking for jobs in the private sector.  These Americans bring a number of positives to potential employees.  They understand commitment, discipline and teamwork.  Who wouldn’t want an employee who brings all that to the table?

When you automate your processes with the right recruiting or staffing software, you are able to invest more time into finding those unique candidates who really are diamonds in the rough.

Facebook Snooping: Steer Your Staffing Agency Clear Of the Stupidity

As CMO for a large staffing software company, I am fully aware of the need to vet job prospects.  No company is going to the last stages of interviewing without background checks and personality tests.  But requiring candidates to turn over their Facebook passwords? Absolutely over the line – for a number of reasons:

1.    Employers and staffing agencies alike will be flirting with discrimination lawsuits. 
While everyone is in an uproar about having to share personal information with potential employers in the form of photos, updates and friends, both employers and staffing agencies need to realize that other information on people’s profiles put them in a protected anti-discrimination class, such as race, gender, age and religion.

If a candidate makes it down to the wire of the interview process and then doesn’t get the job after sharing Facebook information, they’d have the makings of a discrimination suit.  Who’s to say that candidate didn’t get hired – not because of their photos or friends – but because of their religion?

2.    There must be a separation between private and public. 
It’s just plain wrong for corporations to require a look at an applicant’s personal Facebook page, regardless if it involves asking for their password or looking over their shoulder.  Just as with the separation of “church and state,” there needs to be a similar division between “public and private” in any democratic society.

Employer’s do have the right to determine if an individual will be suited to the corporate culture, and in the case of governmental agencies, to fit the personnel restrictions for prisons or law enforcement (i.e., no gang affiliations, etc.), but they do not have the right to snoop through a person’s personal, private information.  That’s akin to opening a job prospect’s mail.

3.    Facebook forbids the practice. 
Amidst all the fuss over this topic, Facebook came out with a statement establishing their position.  “As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job. And as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job. That’s why we’ve made it a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share or solicit a Facebook password.”

It’s important to note that not only does the network believe its bad internet protocol to share passwords; it’s also a huge security risk.

4.    Facebook snooping may soon be illegal.
Not surprisingly, the noise surrounding Facebook snooping has generated interest in the legislative arena, as well.  Just last week Rep. Chuck Schumer from New York and Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut called for investigations into the matter by the Justice Department and the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.

The investigation will explore whether this practice violates the Stored Communications Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Both acts prohibit intentional access to electronic information and computer access without authorization.

Schumer summed up his concern by saying, “In an age where more and more of our personal information — and our private social interactions — are online, it is vital that all individuals be allowed to determine for themselves what personal information they want to make public and protect personal information from their would-be employers. This is especially important during the job-seeking process, when all the power is on one side of the fence.”

Ultimate, any employer, recruiter or staffing agency that engages in this dangerous behavior is putting itself in a negative position when it comes to future hiring – because honestly – the best candidates won’t put up with this kind of nonsense.

I’m interested to know how other staffing or recruiting professionals feel about this topic.  Please feel free to share your opinion via a comment below.