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It is common knowledge that the job market is difficult in these tough economic times. The Obama administration has been working hard to find ways to create new jobs for the unemployed. The efforts to increase jobs have been very effective in some states, while other states are finding it difficult to increase jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released a report containing state-by-state employment figures from January 2010 to January 2011. Texas topped the list, adding 253,900 jobs. Coming in behind Texas is California, which added a total of 89,400 jobs. Other states that added over 50,000 jobs are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and New York.

While some states are seeing big increases in jobs, others are actually seeing a decline in jobs between January 2010 and January 2011. New Jersey lost 20,900 jobs, the most out of any state.  Coming in behind New Jersey, Nevada lost a total of 7,800 jobs. Other states that had a decline in jobs are Georgia, Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico, Alabama, and Rhode Island.

Thomas, Scott. “State employment totals (January 2011).” Buffalo

Business First (2011): n. pag. Web. 14 Mar 2011. <http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/datacenter/state-employment-totals-january-2011.html?appSession=616100782312532&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=&cpipage=4&CPISortType

Is it becoming harder to find employees who are engaged and loyal to your company? If you answered yes, you are not alone. 80% of employers say that it is difficult to attract talent. Businesses want employees with the skills and experience to do the job correctly, but 57% of employers say that those employees are the hardest to attract. Compromising on the quality of new hires comes at a high cost; 51% of employers experienced a loss of business due to the lack of the right people.

The UNIVERSUM Employment Branding Insights 2011 survey shows that 64% of the 632 companies included in the survey say that their key employees leave to pursue new professional opportunities. The top performers are looking for greater challenges and opportunities or more money.  The high turnover rate requires companies to spend more time and resources looking for qualified potential employees then ever before. Many companies are turning to outside firms, like Hire Velocity, to help with the recruiting cycle. These resource process outsourcing (RPO) firms are able to find qualified, available, and interested candidates fast using the trained recruiters and specialized tools.

This has not always been the case. Past generations have typically had the mindset that they will stay at the same company for their entire career, moving up the ladder to better positions. Generation Y has a different mindset and companies can no longer rely on people to stay with an employer for their whole career. It is difficult for employers to keep their most talented employees while other opportunities open up for them. Generation Y is slowly dominating the workforce with 74% of employers looking to hire talent who have recently graduated from college or have 8 or less years of experience. This is making it difficult for senior professionals, people with more than 8 years of experience, to find work as only 18% of the employers surveyed are looking to hire them.

The future is not hopeless; employers agree that a long-term employer branding strategy leads to better recruiting results. Creating and implementing a long-term employer branding strategy will improve the company’s ability to attract and retain the right talent. The positive sign of this survey is that 82% of employers are now investing in talent attraction which excludes direct recruitment, but includes employer branding and communicators. Many of these employers believe that developing brand awareness and esteem are the solution to this growing problem.

On today's RPOA Executive call we discussed a trend towards a reduction of online applications. Some niche candidates are just not applying to job although they may be interested in hearing about career opportunities. This, by in large, and in the opinion of those on the call was driven by the Black Hole phenomenon that has been present for years.

While candidates in the downturn applied to jobs, the recruiters were not there to follow up with the increase in traffic as most recruiting departments had been reduced thus understaffed. So now there is a huge increase in jobs and the Black Hole is empty. People, in some niches are just not applying to the jobs.

Here are three things we can do to offset:
1. Nurture the talent community - those that do apply should be well served.
2. Dont let the breakdown in one process step destroy the other functional workflow steps.
3. Increase the use of alternative technologies that drive traffic.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. 

2010 was a difficult year for those looking for a new career with a high unemployment rate and a competitive job environment. Open job positions are getting flooded with a large amount of applications making it more difficult to get chosen. However, President Obama is proud to announce that the employment rate fell to 9% in January, down from 9.4% in December. This could be a good sign for the upcoming year with hopes that the unemployment rate continues to decline.

But it is not all good news; only 36,000 jobs were added overall. This is lower than projected, meaning that people may have dropped out of the job market. However, the White House is staying positive saying, “The 0.8 percentage decline in the unemployment rate over the past two months is a welcome development… However, the rate remains unacceptably high.” The Obama administration will continue to work towards a lower unemployment rate and more jobs being added.

Source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/02/obama-gets-good-news-bad-news-on-jobs/1

The unemployment rates in 2010 have been the highest in well over twenty years. It has been a difficult year for the unemployed who have had trouble finding a position in their field. With many mass layoffs by United States based companies, the job market has become extremely competitive. There have been a record number of applications for many open positions, which makes it difficult to land a career in your specialized field.

However, stronger employment trends are expected in 2011. Harris Interactive conducted a survey of more than 2,400 hiring managers and human resource specialists. The results of this survey concluded that more employers plan to add more full-time employees in 2011 than in 2010. Job creation will be gradual, but steady, so the change in hiring may not become immediately apparent. Matt Ferguson of CareerBuilder explains that, “More than half of employers reported they are in a better financial position today than they were one year ago.” This is a good improvement and will allow these companies to hire more employees in 2011.

The results of the survey showed that 24% of employers plan to hire full-time, permanent in employees in 2011. This is an improvement from the 20% who said they plan to hire in 2010, and 14% in 2009. 13% of employers said they expect to hire part-time employees in 2011, which is up from 11% in 2010 and 9% in 2009.

Some fields will be in higher demand during 2011 than others. The top 10 fields can be seen below:

1) Sales – 27 percent
2) Information Technology – 26 percent
3) Customer Service – 25 percent
4) Engineering – 21 percent
5) Technology – 19 percent
6) Administrative – 17 percent
7) Business Development – 17 percent
8 ) Marketing – 17 percent
9) Research/Development – 15 percent
10) Accounting/Finance – 14 percent

“Stronger Employment Trends Expected for the New Year, According to CareerBuilder’s 2011 Job Forecast.” ShareBuilder (2010): n. pag. Web. 26 Jan 2011. <http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?id=pr611&sd=12/29/2010&ed=12/31/2010>.

The holiday season is right around the corner and retailers are preparing for an increase in foot traffic. 58 percent of stores expect to increase sales 6 percent this season compared to last year, according to the Michigan Retailers Association. These stores need to be able to meet the increasing demand and that means hiring temporary employees this season. There are tens-of-thousands of companies looking for season employees to help meet the customer demand. Additionally, many of these positions have the potential to turn into permanent employment.

Many companies see seasonal employment as an opportunity to attract and retain the best talent. Seasonal positions can be looked at as an audition and new hires should take initiative in showing how hardworking they are.  JCPenney plans on hiring 30,000 seasonal workers this season, an increase from last year. Ann Marie Bishop, a spokeswoman for JCPenney, explains, “getting a seasonal position allows new associates to experience working at JCPenney and decide if it suits them.” She explains that the company sees seasonal hiring as an opportunity to attract and retail the best talent.

This increase in seasonal hiring does not come without great competition. According to Bloomberg, there are about five applications for each job opening. With about 15 million Americans without a job, there are a lot of people looking for employment, even if it is only temporary. While the increase in seasonal hiring looks appealing to the unemployed, it still may not make it easier to find a position this holiday season.

Choosing a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) firm to outsource your hiring needs is a great choice when you’re focused on maximizing financial and operational results. To maximize the benefits of using an RPO, it is important to have a well-formulated Service Level Agreement, or SLA. An SLA is an agreement between the customer and the RPO that specifies expectations, objectives, needs, numbers, procedures, and quality of the candidates. This agreement is developed before the RPO begins working on the recruiting tasks and is the backbone of the partnership that is about to begin.

The SLA guides the success of the partnership between the internal recruiter and RPO.  It helps guide the RPO to understand what types of candidates the customer is looking for, the process that will be used and the key metrics for success.  By having these specific details outlined, the RPO will be able to work more efficiently and achieve better results.

The SLA can also be used as an incentive for the RPO to meet the outlined goals.  By basing the part of the RPO’s compensation on meeting the goals, it will ensure the best results because the compensation is based off of the final result, their performance.

The typical RPO SLA is made of seven sections:

• Objectives and Needs Assessment – Defines exactly what the customer is looking for and what the final result should achieve.
• Scope Statement – Summarizes what process and methods that will be used to source and screen the candidates.
• Pricing and Cost Estimate – Outlines how the pricing works and the cost per resume, cost per qualified submission, or cost per hire.
• Organization Chart – Establishes the roles and responsibilities of each contributing member on each side.
• Measurements and Metrics – Discusses how performance will be measured and monitored.
• Work Schedules and Communication – Describes the expected hours of operation and how the two parties will communicate.
• Response and Escalation – Creates a communication plan for issues

Resources:

Anapol, Stan. “Recruiting Process Outsourcing: Using a Well-defined SLA and KPI to Engage the Right Vendor and Set Correct Expectations..” HR Management n. pag. Web. 9 Nov 2010. <http://www.hrmreport.com/article/Recruiting-Process-Outsourcing–Using-a-well-defined-SLA-and-KPI-to-engage-the-right-vendor-and-set-correct-expectations/>.

The Department of Labor Statistics estimate that 24 million people will leave the work force and 19% of all executives, managerial & administrative personnel will retire within five years. So there is a need for fast, efficient, time saving ways of hiring. RPO’s can be the solution for that problem. NelsonHall, a Boston-based research firm specializing in business process outsourcing, has projected a 37% annual growth in the RPO industry.  They forecast that the RPO industry will become a $7 billion industry globally in 2010. RPO’s are becoming the new way to solve an organization’s hiring needs, so it’s essential for an organization to understand what an RPO can do.

The first thing an organization considers when making a change from the status quo is the cost. An organization can increase their ROI with efficient employees and services that can save their organization large amounts of money. Most RPO’s offer customized packages that can fit an organization’s hiring process needs.

Most importantly, a company wants to see results; an organization will be able to see an expanded candidate pipeline, increased candidate quality, shortened cycle times, reduced cost-per-hire, and improved measurement of recruitment metrics. Hire Velocity was approached by an organization looking for diverse candidates.  In less than a month, more than 500 candidates were screened with over 90% of those screened being selected to move to the next stage. This is the type of results that an RPO can deliver as an extension of your team.

HR departments are limited in their resources, while RPO’s typically have unlimited access to a multitude of paid and free job boards. RPO’s also use alternative ways to capture potential candidates and have recently been taking advantage of Social Media, which is a fairly new aspect in recruiting services.  Having these resources available presents your hiring manager with more choices for selecting top performing candidates.

Hiring managers utilize RPO’s because it provides the best fit candidates.  It is a cost effective approach to an organization’s hiring needs. RPO’s are essential to acquiring top notch candidates while freeing up internal HR resources/recruiters and their hiring managers to perform other important tasks.

Candidates find the RPO process less stressful and more convenient. As a candidate, you are receiving more specialized attention, and the process is smoother. Some organizations are lacking the appropriate screening process which can leave candidates feeling like a small fish in a big pond.

Recruiters are able to use RPO’s as alternative resources giving them more access to sourcing resources than they would normally have.  Because RPO’s cast a wider net and handle all the screening and admin work, recruiters can focus on qualified, available and interested candidates versus weeding through piles of unqualified candidates.

RPO’s can save your organization time, money, and energy in your quest for quality talent. It will free up your staff to stay focused on their goals of increasing profits to your company’s bottom line. It is clear that RPO’s really do work and the results are tangible.

One new tool is giving organizations the ability to search for quality candidates for free! Social Networking is taking over and if your organization is not already on board it’s time to jump on. Social Networking gives an organization a glimpse into a potential candidates work and school history, likes, dislikes, and personality.  No other resource gives an organization the ability to essentially know a candidate before ever making contact with them.

Not only can organizations benefit from using Social Networking but candidates can benefit as well. Candidates are gaining access to the hiring managers, CEO, and CFO of all types of organizations including Fortune 500 companies.  It can allow candidates to get their foot in the door and gain knowledge about that organization and their staff.  If a candidate utilizes the resource they may discover some information about the hiring manager and the organization that can be beneficial during an interview.

Before an organization starts using Social Networking there is pertinent information to know to make Social Networking successful for your organization.

Make the commitment- Social Networking is not just a trend; it is becoming a main resource for recruiting.  Once an organization starts there is no turning back. Your organization needs to stay committed to it.  Make sure there is consistency in the tone and activity.  It is also important to comment on other organization’s blogs and posts; this is free advertisement for your organization.  When your comment is posted, it is now publicly seen on your organization’s site, which can attract viewers to your site.

Use resources within your organization- Become “social friends” with your organization’s current and past employees. Being social friends expands a company’s potential candidate pool by providing unlimited access to this network of “social friends”.   “Social friends” may share similar interests and work ethics as them and lead to potential recruiting opportunities.  Also use employees to promote the organization’s site and potential open positions.

Measure the success- Organizations depend on certain metrics to determine the success of a resource.  Social Networking gives your organization the ability to measure the success and customize how your organization chooses to measure the information.  An organization needs to set quantitative goals and then track the contacts, candidates, and referrals that result from their social media efforts.