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Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
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Sunday, November 11th, 2007Lay-by recruiting
Monday, July 9th, 2007Last week I went to the shops because there was a toy sale. It was the first day, so there was a toy overflow on the shop floor.. lots of people, parents with strollers filled with screaming kids, and me.The main attraction: the prices and supply were both good.
I went there mainly to lay-by toys for Christmas. Now, don’t get the idea that I am a fab planner and the ultimate smart buyer; the thing is if I don’t put these toys away now, I will never see them for the rest of the year, let alone closer to the Christmas season. The lay-by area of the shop was packed. You have to make an approx. 10% deposit of the total price, and few a couple more payments before picking the goods up.
I thought that maybe the store was leaving money on the table, that the discounts were too good for toys which people were effectively buying for the holidays. But, what is the shop gaining?
For starters the toys had to be picked up in November, until then they were not available. In reality the layby numbers were giving this people great marketing intelligence, which also impacts logistics, floor space utilisation, triggers other campaigns, etc.
How would lay-by work for recruitment?
- Employers would let agencies or their internal recruitment teams know the professionals they need 6-8 months in advance of actually needing the person
- External recruiters would charge 10% of the agreed fees; internal one would get an inter-department journal crediting their expenses.
- I am not sure if it would be necessary to discount fees significantly but if you take the cost of money, the upfront ‘deposit’ could enable an agency to reduce fees in accordance to their average financing costs
- Recruiters would work with significantly larger lead times to fill roles, with better understanding of the clients’ talent demands, and therefore with a more focused approach to talent sourcing
Do you think this would improve the timely supply of talent?
Is it realistic to know people requirements six months in advance, other than sudden departures, etc.?
What are the real-life show-stoppers to recruitment lay-by that you can foresee
* lack of trust that the recruiter will actually find the right person?
* hiring managers changing their minds?
re. LinkedIn Usage in Australia
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Usually I write a post and move on.
However this one got a good comment, which you may miss out on if you don’t check previous entries.
By good I don’t mean I concur 100%. I somewhat disagree with the outlook expressed in the last item. By good I mean it highlights a few key messages regarding using networks as a sourcing tool or advertising medium:
- The network environment gives you access to additional candidate info you may not get when advertising in the paper or a job board. It even gives you information about the people that decided not to go for the job; this has to be good intelligence for future postings
- Recruiting becomes more personal and symmetric. You as a hirer have a few more obligations in things like response management, to ensure that your ad increases the strength of your network as opposed to the other way around
- Networks as promising sources of good candidates may/will deteriorate IF the hiring processes do not adapt to a network environment and the behaviors it spouses
Here is the comment again. Thanks Anonymous
Pictures in my head
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007Thinker/doer Lou Adler from the Adler group has kicked off a project which aims to produce “The Most Advanced, Innovative Career Website in the World”. It is an open project in as much as he’s asking for everyone’s help in putting together all the elements of such a site, and has also considered the possibility of sharing the authoring of the final product.
The article outlining the project already includes some ideas to consider when thinking through the site’s content sources, function elements, backend, etc. Some of them are:
- Use private virtual communities.
- Take maximum advantage of user-generated content.
- Push proactive employee referral programs.
- Develop respectful, instant application processing.
- Add gadgets and feeds.
- Implement cultural branding.
- Take advantage of the current networking sites.
among others.
I didn’t think that any of those suggestions were bad or wrong. But as I was going down the wishlist, I got a picture in my head. You know those composite faces that get made from the best features of the most beautiful people (Julia’s lips, Scarlett’s eyes, etc.); and you know what happens inevitably, right? The face is at best ugly, sometimes it does not even look human.
If the best career website in the world ended up being like those composites, it would not be that great, would it? Imagine all these rich features vying for the web visitors attention making them feel sufficiently intimidated and lost to just leave the site.
And then I got the other picture in my head, which is the scene in city slickers where Curly (Palance) asks Mitch (Billy) about the ‘One Thing’ that matters most to him.
Maybe when designing a career website it’s worthwhile asking what that One Thing is. What do you want to achieve with this site first and foremost? It does not have to exclude other goals but it may steer the website’s design, development and operations in the right direction.
Hope you had a good humpday. I did!
recruiters that blog
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007Paul Lyons of ambition and cfoambition (liked the site); he’s started in March; good news.
Any other recruiters that you know are blogging in Oz?