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The Fordyce Letter

Straight Talk for the Recruiting Profession


Industry News

ADP Report: Private Sector Jobs Continued Slow Growth in August

by on Aug. 31, 2011


ADP-Employment-report

If you subscribe to the notion that any growth in jobs is good, then today’s report from ADP will be encouraging. The payroll processor said 91,000 new private sector jobs were created in August.

That’s still less than the 100,000 economists were expecting, and it’s about a third of what the U.S. needs each month to bring down the unemployment rate. The company, and Macroeconomic Advisers, its partner in the monthly report, also adjusted downward its July estimate to 109,000 from the original 114,000.

In ever-so-cautious language, the report says that the slow job growth in August is “at a pace below what would be consistent with a stable unemployment rate.” That means that should the trend continue, unemployment may rise.

Economists expect that when the official employment numbers are released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor, they’ll show the 9.1 percent unemployment rate unchanged. New jobs are expected to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000 (Bloomberg News) to 80,000 (Dow Jones Newswires).

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Ask Barb

Ask Barb: Differentiating Yourself from the Competition

by on Aug. 31, 2011


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

Everyone is saying business is better, but everyone I’ve contacted is tired of all the calls they are getting from recruiters.  You are always suggesting that we differentiate ourselves from our competition.  I don’t know how to get that done.  Can you give any examples of how I could differentiate myself?  I used to be a top producer, but I’m really struggling right now.  Maybe I’ve just lost my touch.

Diane J., Carmel, IN

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Relationships

Harper’s Rules: A Guide to Recruiting, Written for Candidates

by on Aug. 30, 2011


Harpers Rules cover

By Danny Cahill

Since my divorce two years ago, I have become good at resisting men, and I have always been good at resisting headhunters, so when you put the two together, a male headhunter has no chance with me. They want to know if I am happy. Would I like to hear about a dream job? I know why they call—I am a successful software sales rep with a massive network of clients, and I’m an attractive woman. I don’t think much about happiness anymore. And I don’t deal in dreams. So I don’t return their calls.

Except Harper.

Harper Scott gets to me. He placed me once eight years ago when I was first learning how to sell software, and then again years later when my boss at the time started taking clients away from me because I was out earning him. Harper has been a successful headhunter for a long time. He seems to know everyone in my market space, and everything that is going on. Harper is connected. But that’s not why he gets to me.

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Industry News

Staffing Firms Top Inc. List Of Fastest Growing in HR

by on Aug. 29, 2011


inc-5000-HR-list-2011

From the giant IPO-bound staffing firm Staffmark Holdings, to Indianapolis’ 14-person HR services firm FlashPoint, 156 self-described human resource companies made the annual Inc. list of the 5,000 fastest growing businesses in the U.S.

Inc. ranks the companies, all privately held, by growth rate; the faster revenue increased over three years, the higher the company ranks. By that measure, HR staffing and services firm Nextaff was first among the HR companies that volunteered to participate. (Participation requires companies to divulge annual revenue, employee counts and growth, etc. Only some companies are willing to publicize that kind of proprietary information.)

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Fees, Jeff's On Call!

Jeff’s On Call!: Candidate Fee Reimbursements

by on Aug. 29, 2011


law_gavel

This week’s inquiry comes from Neil Arden:

Hi Jeff-

Enjoy your column!

Thank you for providing you services to the staffing community through the Jeff’s on Call column. I look for your columns and articles in The Fordyce Letter every month and would recommend everyone in recruiting profession to do as well. They too will see how your responses and tips are insightful and helpful when needing advice for different situations.

A candidate we want to hire has an agreement with a recruiter who placed him at a bank as a mortgage banker. It is a 100% commission job but receives benefits. He has been there for 3 months and has not had any luck closing loans. The deals he has brought to the table for the bank have either fallen through or been put on hold because of the overlays/underwritings of the bank. With some of the new regulations arising from the Dodd-Frank bill, he doesn’t see the light at end of tunnel with this company. He feels it is best to look around, but when he approached his recruiter who placed him at his current position (in good faith), the recruiter told him he will have to reimburse him the $10,000 placement fee he received from the bank.

My question is regarding a non-salaried/exempt employee; is a candidate liable to reimburse the placement fee to the recruiter, if the candidate wants to resign from his company within the guarantee stated by recruiter, if he is not earning enough income to provide for his family?

Is this agreement enforceable in court, when an employee cannot survive financially nor provide for his family?

Thank you!

Neil

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The Business of Recruiting

“The Phone Rang…”

by on Aug. 26, 2011


Office Telephone

Some years ago I came across a very detailed description of what we, as recruiters, do for a living. This is the first paragraph of that six-page, 1,469-word long document*:

“The basic function of this position is to promote sales of placement services to customers and prospective customers within the assigned desk specialty. To maintain and develop satisfied customers for the company through proper handling of customers and candidates and cooperate with management in resolving problems in areas of collections, guarantees and any other negotiations or functions that may be assigned.”

It went on to list our nine major responsibilities:

  • Selling Placement Services
  • Account Development
  • Pricing
  • Customer Service
  • Sales Estimates
  • Candidate Development
  • Records and Reports
  • Expense Control
  • Maintain Professional Standards

Does this sound like what you do? While in some ways I admire the detail (and I hope I handle all of those responsibilities effectively on my desk on a daily basis), I am not sure that it gives a true sense of what we recruiters truly do for a living. (*Call me if you want a copy of the six-page position description.)

To borrow liberally from another article of mine, there are five major tasks that we perform on a daily basis — and they all have to do with picking up the telephone!

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Industry News

In the U.S., Tough Jobs Are Getting Even Tougher to Fill

by on Aug. 25, 2011


Hardest-jobs-in-US-to-fill

With 25 million Americans out of work or underemployed, you’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to find a teacher, an admin assistant, or an accountant. But you would be wrong, according to Manpower.

Those jobs are among the 10 toughest jobs to fill in the U.S., says Manpower’s annual Talent Shortage Survey, which also reports that 52 percent of the employers in the survey are having trouble filling jobs. Only in Japan and India do more companies report talent hard to find.

Globally, a third of all employers say they have difficulty filling jobs. Lack of experienced workers is the most frequently cited reason, globally, as well as in every region in the survey. In the Americas, lack of experience was followed by a lack of skills.

Particularly surprising was the the rise in U.S. companies reporting hiring difficulty. In the 2010 survey, only 14 percent of companies reported problems filling jobs. Now the percentage has nearly quadrupled.

If it seems unlikely the hiring situation could have worsened so much so fast, part of the disconnect may have to do with when the survey was conducted – months ago, long before the current round of gloomy economic reports started coming out.

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The Business of Recruiting

Great Candidate, Lousy Résumé

by on Aug. 25, 2011


stack of resumes

If you have been an agency recruiter for any length of time, you have likely come across a candidate who has great skills and experience, but his résumé leaves a lot to be desired. I remember a time when I was an HR Director working with an external recruiter to find an IT candidate. Over the phone, the recruiter sang his praises, but when I received the résumé I was in shock.

The candidate had a photo on the résumé that looked more like a mug shot. In addition, all of the websites he worked on were highlighted in blue with links all over the page in 14-point font. There were so many bullets in a row that I felt like I had been shot by the end of the first page; and oh, by the way, there were seven pages. His title was Senior Manger of Information Technology. Need I say more?

The candidate may have been excellent at what he did; he certainly was said to have the right skills, but his résumé was a fright, and I told the recruiter I could not present it to the hiring managers in its current condition. We hired someone else, but I have always wondered, now that I am a professional résumé writer, if the result would have been different.

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How-To, Social Media

How To Quickly Search for Candidates on Google+

by on Aug. 24, 2011


google-plus-logo

Over on SourceCon.com, I’ve written a little dissertation on my journey through the nooks and crannies of Google+. I’m not going to bore all of you with a recount of what I found and my personal opinions on Google’s latest foray into the social networking world — I know none of you have time to read it.

What I do want to do, however, is show you a very easy way to search for prospects on Google+. My hope is that by the end of this article, even the most skeptical recruiter will see the value in using this new resource to unearth potential placements.

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Closing, Fees

Developing Exclusives – Q&A and Final Thoughts

by on Aug. 23, 2011


exclusive contract

Our previous three articles have focused on “how” to develop exclusive client relationships. In this article I will provide a summary of the questions from the near record number of calls and emails I have received in response to those articles.

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