Category HR Tips and Practices

International Recruitment Poses Significant Challenges for HR Professionals

Attracting staff from overseas remains a challenge for HR (Human Resource) professionals due to a low rate of labour market mobility. That¡¯s according to a new report compiled by the Intelligence Group, in association with StepStone, which reveals that willingness to travel abroad for work varies widely across Europe. While eight out of 10 employees in the UK are willing to work overseas, the Dutch (49%) and Danes (46%) are least likely to consider a job in another nation.

Of over 2,000 companies surveyed, 42% are currently recruiting internationally, primarily to address specific skills deficits. Shortages are worse in the engineering, IT and telecommunications sectors. But despite the opportunities which exist, the annual mobility of nationals in the European Union (EU) is less than 0.4%.

For those willing to work overseas, the primary motivation is to broaden experience (64%), followed by career development (50%) and the opportunity to obtain a more lucrative salary/benefits package (47%). The research revealed that workers are least likely to move abroad to follow a partner or for employer brand reasons alone.

When the decision to work in another country has been taken, a majority of job hunters (66%) start their search by visiting online job boards, whereas less than a quarter (23%) contact recruitment agencies. Only one-fifth of job seekers consult international newspapers.

Deciding how best to publicise a vacancy is just one element of how to devise a successful international recruitment strategy according to Matthew Parker, Group Managing Director of StepStone¡¯s Solutions business.

“It is important to remember that most workers don¡¯t automatically think about looking for a job abroad. It is only when they see an enticing vacancy that they might seriously consider relocating,” Parker says.

“It is therefore vital to not just post a job somewhere and wait until candidates reply, but rather to tailor each vacancy according to the factors that motivate the potential applicants that you are targeting. This research reveals that those motivations vary from country to country so any international recruitment strategy must be informed by these cultural differences,” he says.

Specialising in monitoring labour market trends, Geert-Jan Waasdorp, Director of Intelligence Group, believes that more companies than ever before will have to develop international recruitment campaigns to ensure competitiveness.

“The transition to a knowledge-driven economy in Europe has increased the demand for highly skilled workers. To remain competitive, recruiting and retaining the right staff is crucial. Companies must be prepared to wage a war for talent on a global battleground,” Waasdorp says.

One organisation that has already developed an international recruitment strategy is Marriott International.

¡°We have a wide variety of roles to fill each year, and without an all-encompassing international recruitment strategy, we would not be able to fill all our positions with the mix of skills we require,¡± Chris Dunn, Regional Director of Talent Management at Marriott International, says.

¡°Our international recruitment strategy is underpinned by e-recruitment software and services, which we find invaluable, both for publicising positions and for processing the thousands of applications that we receive on a monthly basis from all over the world. Use of these services and software has also ensured that our recruitment campaigns can be far ranging in terms of geographic scope but yet remain cost-effective,” Dunn says.

Other findings from the report include:

¡¤ Cultural and language differences are the biggest barriers for international recruitment strategies (43%), followed by legislative problems (31%) and the difficulty in checking candidate qualifications and references (26%).

¡¤ Companies in mainland Europe prefer to recruit from neighbouring countries, whereas firms in the UK have no particular preference regarding the country of origin of their foreign employees.

¡¤ Almost 40% of Britons would be amenable to working in another country for more than five years. However those from Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) prefer to return home within two years.

This 100-page report, which is entitled ¡®The International Recruitment Manual¡¯ was compiled by the Intelligence Group and features the results of surveys of 2,171 European companies and over 20,900 workers In addition, it provides HR professionals with practical advice on how to recruit staff from overseas.

what is Outsourcing?

Introduction to Outsourcing

In today¡¯s modern business environment the term Outsourcing is now common place. In fact perhaps without realising it, outsourcing is already a part of your organisation.

What is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the process of contracting out a company¡¯s non-core, non revenue producing internal functions to a specialist (Service Provider). Commonly within the Recruitment Industry this includes payroll, credit control, management accounts and other HR functions.

Advantages of Outsourcing

1. Outsourcing provides a service which might otherwise be performed by in house employees. In doing so it allows the redistribution of a company¡¯s key resources (it¡¯s employees) so that they can focus on other business issues.

2. Service providers will tend to have the latest technology to hand, technology which usually involves high costs to purchase and is simply not feasible for smaller companies to buy. By outsourcing you can indirectly have access to this technology.

3. Service providers will be specialists in their field and will closely monitor any changes in legislation or any new developments.

4. Improved financial monitoring – through the process of outsourcing a company will usually be subject to a fixed monthly cost. Due to this fixed charge, the cost of performing a task is now quantifiable.

5. Overall outsourcing can reduce costs and improve efficiencies.

Disadvantages of Outsourcing

1. You may become dependent upon the outsource provider

2. Sensitive information is more vulnerable

3. Can eliminate direct communication between a company and its clients. This may prevent a business from building a solid relationship with their customers, and often leads to dissatisfaction on one or both sides.

4. If outsourcing to another country, language, cultural and time zone differences may cause a problem.

Something to think about

If you¡¯re thinking of outsourcing there are four steps which we think you should consider.

1. How will outsourcing develop your business?

2. Which activities do you want to outsource, where do you want to outsource and which service provider will you use?

3. What contractual issues are there? How much will the service cost? What are your expectations of the service?

4. When will the change over take place?

How to Avoid Blunders During Job Interviews

What are the most common mistakes job candidates make during interviews? Talking too much and revealing that you didn’t do your homework about the company or position lead the pack, according to a global recruiter survey of consultants at Korn/Ferry International, a global executive-search firm.

WHAT TO DO: Read about recruiter code words identifying typical blunders made by job candidates. Remember that screening begins the minute a candidate enters the door. Use this prep tool with sample questions that you might be asked during an interview. If you’ve been asked to interview by phone, review these tips first. Note that behavioral-based assessments are becoming more common, as are personality tests and role-playing exercises; find out how to prepare for them. Consider that you may be asked to discuss personal topics or your weaknesses. Find out how to project self-confidence, not arrogance during interviews, and follow this advice on how to sharpen your mental game.

Fumbling the Interview
Common mistakes job candidates make during interviews, based on a recent global recruiter survey.

Talking too much
Lack of knowledge about company or position
Over-inflated ego
Appearing overly confident
Inquiring about compensation too early in the process
Unkempt appearance

Top Ten Guidelines For Working With Executive Recruiters

1. Select the right type of recruitment partner

Determine whether you would be best served by a retained, contingency, contract or research based partner at a global, national or local level.

2. Interview recruiters to find the appropriate fit

Effective partnerships are built on mutual interests, opportunities, values and performance.

3. Treat an interview with a recruiter with the same care and professionalism as a job interview

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

4. Develop an exclusive relationship with your recruiter

More is not better. Being presented for an opportunity by more then one firm can get you knocked out of consideration.

5. Have well developed job search criteria

Know what you want in a new position and be able to clearly articulate your interests and needs.

6. Understand who the real client is

You?re the ?solution? not the client. The real client is the company that has engaged the recruiter.

7. Do not pay for services

The employer has the responsibility for paying the recruiter?s fee, not you. Do not agree to payment for services.

8. Establish strong communication

Open, honest communication and feedback is key. Look for compatibility in work-style, personality and values.

9. Be your professional best

A recruiter may help you get in the door, but only you can win the job.

10. Actively pursue all other methods of job search while working with a recruiter.

Take a pro-active approach to your career transition with on-going use of networking activities, referrals, job postings, research and interviews throughout the duration of your search.

Jeannette Kraar, president of Performance Management International is the Breakthrough Career Coach and a highly-acclaimed trainer, speaker and consultant. Hundreds of PMI clients have succeeded even in the most turbulent times. Jeannette is the author of BREAKTHROUGH, The Hate My Job, Need A Life, Can?t Get No Satisfaction SOLUTION.

Tax Tips for Job Hunters:When Deductions Are OK

The tax man is on your side when you’re job hunting. Search expenses are deductible as long as you are looking for a new position in your current field — even if you’re still working.

Job hunters may be eligible for can take the following deductions, says Jackie Perlman, a senior tax-research analyst at H&R Block, in Kansas City, Mo.:

travel expenses

employment-agency fees

resume-preparation fees

career-counseling expenses

the cost of advertising your services

newspapers and other periodicals purchased for their help-wanted ads and

legal fees paid to an attorney to review an employment contract.

To take advantage of these deductions, you need to itemize, rather than take the standard deduction. Job-hunting expenses are reported as miscellaneous itemized deductions on line 20 of Schedule A. And you can only take them if the total of your miscellaneous deductions exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income. In other words, taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $50,000 can deduct miscellaneous expenses exceeding $1,000 (2% of $50,000). This applies whether you file as a single or file jointly with your spouse. If such a taxpayer spent $1,500 to land a job last year, he or she could deduct $500.

It’s important to keep good records. For instance, by scrupulous tracking the time you spend online to job hunt, you can deduct that percentage of your online hook-up and Internet access fees. Ditto for your home phone or cellular phone. Whatever percentage you use for job hunting can be deducted from your monthly bills.

Travel Expenses

Unreimbursed travel costs to meet with employers are among the most costly job-search expenses. In many cases, these are deductible, but “travel is the thorniest point of contention” with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), says Ms. Perlman. That’s because the IRS allows taxpayers to deduct the cost to travel to interviews only if the main purpose of the trip is to meet with an employer and secure a job.

In other words, if you fly to Boston to interview with one or two companies, stay overnight in a hotel, have breakfast with a recruiter in the morning and then fly home, all the costs associated with your trip are deductible. That includes airfare, the hotel bill and 50% of the cost of your meals.

However, if you visit Hawaii on vacation, decide you want to live in Honolulu and arrange a job interview while there, you can’t deduct those expenses because the main purpose of the trip is vacationing. It’s possible you could deduct the cost of using a rental car to travel to the actual interview if the rental was strictly for the purpose of getting to the interview, but you can’t write off the flight or your meals, according to Ms. Perlman.

What Else Doesn’t Qualify?

New clothes to wear to interviews aren’t deductible. Nor are your dry-cleaning bills between interviews. The IRS allows taxpayers to deduct only the cost of work uniforms that aren’t suitable for any other purpose. Other items that have to be worn as a condition of employment also are legitimate expenses.

If you’ve had a substantial break between your last job and your current job search, job-hunting expenses cannot be deducted. This is because the I.R.S. considers them as a business expense, and if you’ve been out of work for a long time, you’re technically not in business at the moment, says Martin Nissenbaum, national director of income tax planning at Ernst & Young in New York. Alas, the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t provide clear guidance on the length of time that you’d have to be unemployed before you aren’t allowed to take these deductions, he says.

About to graduate? Most first-time job-hunting expenses aren’t deductible. However, if you secured an internship and then sought a full-time position in the same field, expenses related to your search are deductible, says Mr. Nissenbaum. Again, you would have to itemize expenses on your tax returns and only those job-search costs exceeding 2% of your adjusted gross income would qualify.

Moving Expenses

Job hunters who move because of a new job can deduct moving expenses that they pay out of their pockets. To qualify for this deduction, your new job must be at least 50 miles farther from your home than your old job was. If your old job was three miles from your home, your new job must be at least 53 miles from your home. You also must work at the new location for at least 39 weeks during the 12 months after you move to get the deduction.

The good news is that there’s no cap on moving deductions. Moving expenses are reported on line 29 of Form 1040.

Trips back and forth to scout out a new area cannot be itemized, however, Ms. Perlman says. So any trips to a new location to look for a home or open a bank account aren’t deductible. Review IRS Publication 521 — Moving Expenses — for more detail.

Corrections & Amplifications:
Moving costs can be taken as tax deductions whether or not a job seeker itemizes; they are reported on line 29 of Form 1040. In an earlier version of this story, moving costs had been listed among job-hunting expenses that could be deducted only if a filer itemized.

— Ms. Byrnes is a free-lance writer in Wayne, N.J.

One Thing Wrong With Recruiting Today

Hiring Manager: And that sums up what you’re looking for.
Staffing Account Manager: I think we can find what you’re looking for. Let me ask you, what salary range are you looking at and do you already have an approved budget for this position?
HM: We’re looking for someone in the $60-70,000 range, preferrably the 60 – that’s what we start people out at in this department, and they’ll need about five years of experience.
SAM: $60,000-$70,000 is a bit low for this position – especially if it’s as important as you say. Do you have any flexibility?
HM: My best developer is making $70,000 right now and he has 12 years of experience. If I bring someone else in higher, my whole team will be at my door hollering for a raise.
SAM: What about someone with good potential but maybe not the degree of experience you just detailed. Entry level programmers are making $50,000, and that’s just with an IS Degree.
HM: I don’t need entry level – I have to have someone with real experience who is going to stick around and finish this project. Send me what you have.

**Back at the Staffing Office an hour later**
Staffing Account Manager: And that’s what we need – in the $60-70,000 range.
Recruiter: Does this one have to walk on water or would the trick with the fishes and loaves do it?
SAM: Let’s just send him what we have.

That little scenario is fictitious, but it plays out at staffing firms across the country every day. Salaries and job skill lists are written for positions and sent out to third party firms with the hope that a firm will turn up the diamond in the rough who has perfect skills and doesn’t know their own worth. Recruiters out of desperation send what they have, and hiring managers, desperate themselves, often hire whatever they can get.

It’s a bit like a woman asking you if she looks fat in her pants. If you’re a contingency recruiter (dating), you’ll be booted out the door. If you’re in house (married), you can’t be honest without taking the blame for the nice dinners and never going with her to the gym.

Honesty. Is that what we really want in business and life, or do we just want everything to magically work out?

Facebook Preview for Recruiters, Go Pouch..I Mean Poke.

So I created a Facebook account soon after they opened membership to select companies.I was hoping to offer some insight here on how the social network site might be applicable to recruiters. So far my experience has been interesting.

To poke or not to poke.

Soon after setting up an account, I logged in to find out that Mike Deluca, VP of Sales at Yahoo! HotJobs, once referred to as, ¡®the largest source of fear in my universe,¡¯ had, ¡®poked¡¯ me.

Facebook defines a, ¡®Poke¡¯ as¡­

“We have about as much of an idea as you do. We thought it would be fun to make a feature that had no real purpose and to see what happens from there. So mess around with it, because you’re not getting an explanation from us.”

The uncomfortable moment passed and I responded by poking Mike DeLuca¡­again and again and again and again. After a while I quit poking Mike Deluca. Regret set in. I began to think of career path and how with each passing poke that path may have become more and more limited. Then ADD set in. I quit concerning myself and got back on track to do some research.

I ran searches on company names.

Yahoo returned over 500 results
Google returned 498
Monster.com, 152
Jobster, 44

The site is clean and easy to use. If you are looking to source names from distinct companies or colleges then it might be worth checking out.

Back to career path¡­

You think I can get myself out of this poking mess by posting a highlight clip of Mike D¡¯s son in action at his football game?

Hiring Marketing Executives With Substance

If you’re a senior executive looking to add a key member to your marketing staff, but you’ve never hired marketing people before: buyer beware! Why do I say this? While there are a lot of talented marketing executives out there with an excellent repertoire of skills and experience, there also are marketing people who lack the substance, the training, the skill sets, and the understanding of marketing dynamics in order to really have a positive impact on your business.

What is the profile of an empty marketing suit? Well, typically it’s somebody who dresses well, is very polished, speaks nicely, and uses all the latest fancy buzzwords, but who has little/no track record of actual execution or success. This person is great at “wowing” a CEO through the interviewing process, but that’s about all they’re good at.

What you should be looking for is a marketing executive who’s got true substance and capabilities.

What I want to outline here are some of the key hiring criteria when you’re looking for a good marketing executive:

• They should have outstanding quantitative training with a strong background in mathematics, which translates into being able to do budgeting, forecasting and tracking.

• They should have proven analytical skills that are used to survey and analyze complex sets of data, do market segmentations, sizing, competitive analysis, etc.

• They should have strong strategic thinking skills and a strong grasp of marketing strategy, as evidenced by previous challenges they have faced and dealt with in their career.

• They should have formal training in strategic marketing planning, product planning, new product development, etc.

• They should understand the modern methods for marketing communications for both awareness building as well as lead generation. In particular, a marketing executive of today needs to have a very strong grasp of Internet marketing since that¡¯s how so much of today¡¯s successful marketing gets done.

• A marketing executive needs to be able to lead. That means they have to have very strong collaborative and influencing skills, that can be brought to bear on setting a direction for an executive team. They also need to know how to instill good marketing discipline.

Today’s “best in class” companies are both market and customer driven. The marketing leader needs to be the voice of the customer and the marketplace as it relates to setting strategy on target markets, new product development, gross margins, sales channels, messaging, etc. ¨C the list goes on. Given this level of complexity in skills and experience, making a good hire can be a real challenge for the untrained eye. This is why bringing in a recruiter or executive search firm which specializes in marketing is so important for many firms who lack this expertise in-house.

If you are in the process of looking for a member of your marketing team, make sure that you follow a rigorous process to clearly understand what’s under the hood with the people who you are interviewing. If you don’t, and you end up with an empty marketing suit, it’ll cost you tremendous amounts of money, lost market share, and lost opportunity.

Recruiting Top Sales & Marketing Talent: It’s All About Momentum

We’re working with a client right now on a sales search, and unfortunately she has dragged out the recruiting process to the point where we are considering whether or not we can complete this assignment. In particular, I’m concerned that this client is about to lose a candidate that we’ve worked very hard to put in front of them, who is ideally suited, and who is very interested in taking the job.

Every once in a while we run into clients that lack a sense of urgency when it comes to completing a recruiting project.

This troubles me because when we work with these kinds of clients, we can see that they become their own worst enemy. Sometimes, clients go very slowly and methodically because they’ve been burned in the past and they want to avoid a miss-hire. Other times, the person who’s responsible for making the decision has too many things on his/her plate, and is not able to continue forward at an acceptable pace.

Whatever the case may be, top sales and marketing candidates have a short “shelf life” for a specific position, and that shelf life can expire if the recruiting process is not proceeded through with haste. (When I talk about the word haste, I don’t advocate making a hasty decision. A good recruiting process, particularly in sales and marketing, always requires a very deep level of diligence and a very rigorous process as I’ve advocated throughout this blog and in other materials in our website). Having said that, proceeding with a lack of purpose and a lack of momentum tends to send a message to top candidates that you’re really not that interested in bringing them aboard.

The best sales and marketing candidates enter and exit the job market quickly, so you need to be willing to move quickly to recruit them onto your team.

The recruiting process needs to be looked at as something that has a start and an end. The end is either a yes/no decision and an offer letter, and in the middle, there’s a series of steps that you pass through or phases of the process that you have to go through in order to get to that conclusion. My advice to companies that are trying to hire the best, is to make sure that you proceed purposefully and swiftly through each phase without skipping any steps and always move towards finalizing the process as quickly and as efficiently as possible. If you do this you’ll have the best chance of capturing the kind of talent that you are looking for to drive the growth of your business. If you don’t you’ll end up losing the best candidates and have to settle for B or C players in order to staff your sales team.

The Resume-Interview Connection

Back in the 1950’s, a Time magazine reporter interviewed a world-famous pianist about his work. The reporter asked: “What’s most challenging about playing the piano?” The pianist thought for a moment and replied: “I do OK with the notes, but the spaces between the notes give me lots of trouble.”

What he meant, of course, was that he was very competent at the mechanics of playing the piano, but found the subtlety and nuance of making music, getting the “spaces between the notes” right, a continual life-long challenge.

Job seekers are getting great advice today from a variety of sources about pursuing career opportunities. The total job search process is well-documented in terms of how to perform discrete steps such as drafting a resume, preparing and using cover letters, using job boards on the internet, etc.. While mastering each of the steps is important, it doesn’t necessarily enable a job seeker to address the “spaces between the notes” of the Job Search process. Good mechanics may not be enough to get to the job offer.

Here’s a summary of some key issues to address to be effective in working on those “spaces between the notes.”

Understanding the first steps taken by the employer is vital for the job seeker, so let’s begin there.

Job Specifications: what the company wants
When a position becomes available in a company, the HR function and hiring manager review and reach agreement upon the criteria for selecting the right person. Job specifications define requirements such as education, work experiences, industry background, skill sets and technical proficiencies, which may result in eight to ten criteria for the hiring decision. The specifications, in turn, drive all phases of the selection process, such as resume screenings, evaluation of job fair candidates, interview assessments, etc., through to hiring of the final candidate.

The job specifications are readily available to job seekers in ads, postings on company web sites and other sources. The order of presentation of the specifications also demonstrates what is most to least important and may suggest possible tradeoffs and areas of flexibility as well.

The challenge of the job seeker is to get at the “spaces between the notes” by effectively addressing the job specifications at every stage of the selection process: the resume design, the phone screening interview and the job interview. Consider the following:

Resume Design: send a clear message
A resume screener searches for candidates who match the specifications. A strong, focused resume that captures three or four core competencies plus related accomplishments allows the screener to make multiple connections with the job specifications. The resume screener doesn’t need to know all that the job seeker has ever done; instead, he/she is looking for the match between the specs and the background outlined in the resume.

Some key points:

Core competencies are the key skills of the job seeker, those skills that are performed well, with subject matter expertise, supported by solid accomplishments.

Core competencies should be evident throughout the two-page resume.

Every job seeker has one set of core competencies, so one resume should be used, mixing and matching the presentation of the core competencies to improve the correlation with job specs as needed.

If the core competencies match up well with the specs, then the process moves forward.

Phone Screening Interview: get “on message”
Recruiters contact those prospects that appear to match up well with the specs to determine if they are viable candidates. Like resume preparation, there are abundant resources available for how to handle this step as well, but some key points to improve performance are:

Recruiters ask questions because they don’t know what the answers are. Respond to the questions asked, avoid using questions to segue into other areas.

Comments about career, job roles and responsibilities are most effective if the job specs are used to drive the details.

Core competencies should be presented using the priorities of the job specifications as script direction. Any shortcomings versus the specs should be addressed by citing other, comparable achievements.

Finally, close the call with a summary of core competencies and state a strong interest in a meeting to discuss the opportunity.

All other considerations being equal, the job seeker who stays “on message” by presenting his/her core competencies in terms of the job specifications will get the opportunity to interview for the position.

Interview: talk about the specifications
Interviewing job seekers enables a company to evaluate the candidates, test their own expectations and find the “best fit” to effectively meet their hiring goals. Consider some key points about job interviewing:

The job specs provide a “road map” for content. Use the specs to share details about career, job roles and responsibilities that connect to the specs.

Listen to the Interviewer and answer the questions asked.

Be prepared to ask a few solid questions that demonstrate knowledge and comfort level with the job specifications, which will illustrate that you “walk the talk” when it comes to the company requirements.

A final point: ask for the job!

Summary

Today’s job seeker is on a steep learning curve to successfully launch and sustain a career search process. But focusing upon one’s career, skills, abilities and goals is not enough. The key issue to address is the company goals and job specs. At each step of the resume/phone screen/interview process, the job seeker is challenged to integrate the job specifications with his/her core competencies, fully demonstrating the connectivity between their skills and company needs. Doing so effectively enables the job seeker to get the “spaces between the notes” right and greatly increase the potential for success in the interview/selection process.