KCRecruiting

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Remember that training I've been doing. Well, it's been converted to DVD form, with a series of live videos on using LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and blogs to recruit.  Five titles are available for sale and pre-sale, all ready this year, and 15 more titles are planned for 2009.

It's like nothing you've ever seen. If you're interested in being an affiliate or want to know more, contact me over at the SMHeadhunter site or through the email link.

What's Next For Recruiting Web Seminars

I have three webinars coming up in the next month.  The first will be February 19th at 12:00 CST for the Human Capital Institute. The topic I'll be covering is Talent Scouting and Social Networking: The New Employee Referral program.  To register for the 60 minute webinar, click on that link.   

The second event is the Recruiting Tour De Force,  March 6th and 7th, where I'll be presenting with Shally Steckerl and Margaret Graziano  We had a successsful event in San Antonio at the NAPS conference, and we're revisiting the event on the topic of What's Next For Recruiting.  Shally, Margaret and I cover the hot trends in recruiting from the standpoint of practioners.

No dull theory here.  We'll teach you how to make money and hire more people.  The cost of the event is $89.97, and you can sign up at either of the links below, or by sending me an RSVP to jdurbin@durbinmedia.com.

Shally has the event linked for the 6th here, and the 7th here. Margaret writes about it today on her KeenHire blog.

To help us out, link the post or make an annoucement on your own page.  I'll be happy to link back to anyone who advertises the events and sends me a note. 

Where Are The Computer Science Students?

I attended a roundtable employer forum at a local community college yesterday.

A few interesting things came out of the discussions.

1.) The number of kids going into computer science programs is dwindling because:

• There is no future in IT because all the IT jobs are being outsourced
• There are no entry level jobs in IT, no companies will hire without real world experience
• There are no jobs in IT because there are no IT jobs posted in the newspaper
• The academic programs are not keeping up with the changes in technologies

According the academics, they are given the above information by incoming/potential students. 

There were employer jaws hitting tables throughout the room and the school faculty members were VERY interested to learn that all the employers were struggling to find talent and the demand was only growing.

2.) No fewer than 5 of the 10+ employers in the room reported they were anticipating a need for COBOL programmers as the guys doing it today were retiring soon and there was no one in the bullpen to keep the mainframe lights on

3.) Junior/Community Colleges foresee a need to specialize in areas such as IT, Finance, Nursing, etc.  They will do this to attract regional students wanting to pursue a certain practice...ex. One school who is already strong in math and science will focus their IT curriculum on Application Development/Programming. Another strong in business will focus their IT curriculum on Project Management and Business Analysis.

These schools are getting smart about marketing and attracting those students not ready for a 4 year school, the non-traditional student returning to complete a degree and those people looking to brush up on skills or pursue certificate programs.

I was very interested in the disconnect between academia and corporate america.  For recruiters, there could be a potential pool of talent at the juco right down the street.

Get involved with the faculty, sit on employer panels, present opportunities to the teachers and get in front of classrooms to discuss employment opportunities.

The schools are begging for input and there is a group of people there trying to better themselves to get a job...will it be with you?

-Doug Burris,

Intronic Solutions Group

EEOC Says Requiring Employees To Speak English Is Against The Law

One of the scariest things that can happen to a recruiter is an EEOC lawsuit.  If you are unlucky enough to be caught in such a net, your best bet is to take the cash in your freezer and flee the country.

Well, not really, but you've been caught in one of the government's worst dragnets.  And you thought the IRS was bad.  The problem with EEOC lawsuits is they legally deal with your compliance with government mandates on hiring, but in reality, they are dealing with moral and ethical issues of whether or not you discriminate.

Now, in a perfect world, the EEOC would cover only real discrimination.  A manager refuses to hire a woman, or a black man, or a Sikh because he doesn't like that group. Pretty clear.  The manager gets fired, the candidate gets some compensation, and the company learns a lesson.  But that's not the way it goes.

The EEOC can file complaints against your company for unintentional discrimination.  Yep, involuntary discrimination occurs when practices you engage in lead to results that don't fit the government's view of the racial and gender make-up of your staff.  In practice, this leads to a massively complex series of hiring practices that catch up good recruiters and transform them into zombie paper-pushers, afraid to use their judgement because judgement is the legal equivalent of admitting your bias.

Try saying you were using your judgement in an EEOC lawsuit.   It's probably worth millions to the candidate for you to do so.

Of course, I can only write about this because I'm not recruiting for positions with a large firm, but it's worth it to take a look at what the EEOC can do to you, for something as simple as requiring that English be spoken for your job position.  An interview with Lamar Alexander on one of his recent amendments to the immigration bill speaks volumes.

What the EEOC has done is equated a speaking requirement that employees speak English with illegal discrimination based on national origin. That was never intended. And what it does in practical effect means that a shoe shop or a Senate office or a school or a department store or a Wal-Mart basically has to hire a lawyer to prove that speaking English is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to that business. The burden of proof would be on every business in America to show they have some reason to expect their employees to speak our common language.

That's right, employers.  Having a requirement that your employees speak English can be considered a violation of the EEOC policies regarding discrimination based on national origin.

I have no advice on how to solve the problem, other than to say that if your goal is to increase the size of the government, you have to expect the government to look for ways to employ those people, and they usually will be employed in creating mischief. 

Flipping Burgers For $150,000 A Year

In 1993, one of the Seniors in my fraternity got a job.  It was the highest paying job in his class, and he was going to make a whopping $32,000 by delivering chips for Frito Lay. 

This was '93, coming out of recession, so the college job market was not so hot, so that was good money back then (more than the Arthur Anderson hires were making), but the job itself was in a backwater of Kentucky.  My fraternity brother was actually hired as a fast-track executive, but to start his job, he had to ride on chip-delivery trucks in the rural parts of Kentucky for nine months to "learn the ropes."

He hated it, pitching crackers over voicemail to delivery truck drivers and salespeople, so he left to go be a maitre'd in the nation's capitol.  Frito Lay's loss, but better early then late.

These days, I don't know if that is still the way they hire, but a new way of training executives is taking over.  The company takes highly paid executives and puts them on the line for several days at a time, re-familiarizing the brass with what life is like in the trenches for the hard-working middle-class.

The Wall Street Journal talks about these folks, and explains how today's management is taking a top-down approach to customer intelligence.

Ms. Kibler is a vice president of the nation's No. 2 dialysis-treatment operator, earning a comfortable six-figure salary while overseeing 48 other clinics. For three days this spring, however, she helped treat seriously ill patients alongside technicians working up to 13-hour days for an average of $14.30 an hour. "The job is definitely more physically demanding than I had imagined," the 48-year-old executive admits.

That's precisely the point, according to DaVita Chief Executive Kent J. Thiry, who created the immersion program for his senior managers in 2002. "The experience changes their view of the world," he says. "They are better leaders as a result."

Millennials and Commuting

I recently met with a couple of college career counselors who shared some interesting information with me regarding Generation Y/Millenial students.

It seems driving to The Plaza, let alone downtown is too much of a commute for those living in the Johnson County Suburbs, Lee's Summit/Blue Springs or North of the River.

Even more amazing is that gas prices did not seem to be a motivating factor. Rather the inconvenience of driving more than 10-15 minutes to work.

I know this generation has been ruled over by Helicopter Parents, been raised with the convenience of PC's in every home, 200+ channels on every TV and cell phones in everyone's pocket. However, I did not realize they were so accustomed to having everything at their fingertips that they have the luxury of not considering employers that are not geographically desirable.

Is anyone having more trouble than usual attracting talent due to their location? If so are you considering opening up more opportunities for telecommuting? Co-Locating or leasing space for satellite offices?

We may have to in order to get this talent.

Virtual Interviews?

Have you seen the WSJ.com column about Virtual Interviews with Avatars in Second Life?

Okay, the fact that I have mentioned Avatars in regard to recruiting is indeed telling about what a cool age we live in. I for one had not used the word Avatar until 3 months ago when playing Wii with my teenage cousins.

Anyway, check out the column

Although I am geeking out about this, thinking it is very cool, I see this virtual interview thing as a great big can of worms.  I wonder about the realistic use of this concept.  There are enough legal potholes with pictures on resumes, let alone video resumes.  We can dive neck deep into the practice of seeking candidates out on MySpace, Facebook, etc. and the legal impacts of making employment decisions based on their web content.  I see this as just another slope to slip on.  The attorneys are going to LOVE this deal...

I can also assume that in it's infancy, this will be seen as a very cool thing to do and recruiters will talk more about the experience rather than the interview itself.

"My candidate seems to be qualified and interested, but his Avatar is named Fred Farcknuckle and he is dressed as a Viking...you gotta come over here and see this freakshow!"

Will companies seriously make hiring decisions based on a Second Life interview? 

If given the opportunity, I would love to check it out. I don't see Intronic Solutions Group or any of our clients jumping on board as early adopters. Maybe the next generation of recruiters, our kids, who will grow up in a world of Second Life, Wii Tennis and who knows what else, will make this a regular and accepted practice.

I don't think us Gen X'ers are quite ready for it.

Doug Burris

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Find thousands of Bilingual jobs at LatPro.com.

Time To Protect Your Home: Lock Bumping

This is a little bit outside of the realm of our normal topics, but lock bumping is a big deal - it's all over YouTube, and you need to know about this.

A video on how to lock bump - a technique that allow a crook to break into 90% of today's home with an altered key.  This is no joke.  Over 375,000 downloads, and the term, lock bumping is all over the place.

Honey - time to change the locks!

Top Trends in 2007 from Kennedy Info

Looking for Recruiting Trends in 2007?

CM Russell kicks it off at RecruitingFly.com (which can be used to search all the recruiting blogs).  He covers the trends as reported at a recent Kennedy Information recruiter panel.

My top two on his list?

:#3 - Smart Marketing Wins - search engines, job boards, and destination sites will continue to prove their ability to find elusive candidates through keyword buys on a targeted, per-click basis.

Recruiters, and it pains me to say this, are dreadfully behind the times when it comes to online marketing.  Employment is big business, but the old days of post and pray, as painful as they are, still bring in a lot of money for the large, middle of the road companies that know that mediocre talent can get hired in a tight economy, and a premium can still be charged for warm bodies.

Amid concerns from every executive surveyed that finding talent is a "top priority," one has to wonder at what point companies will begin investing in their own recruitment activities rather than sending money to the large job boards.

Job Postings are free in a world of blog software.  How long will it take major companies to start using that fact to their competitive advantage?  HR Executives looking to have an impact as business partners should sit up and take note (and remember to brush up on your branding and marketing skills).

#4 - Cybersonic Job Alerts - more recruiters will communicate with candidates directly from their desktops and less through resume databases.

Cell phones, text messages, news blogs, and blackberries are all the rage.  E-mail and snail mail, on the other hand, are overloaded with junk.   With most of the population under 50 owning a cell phone (or two), the smart thing to do is reach out to candidates on the one platform that they aren't disgusted with.

Smart cell phone and texting campaigns will make a difference, but I think this year will be more about stumbling in this market than overall effectiveness.  Look for the big mistakes to be showcased in 2007, followed by slower, and smarter campaigns.