Cheezhead Recruiting News and Opinion

the slice (8-25-09)

a fleeing workforce

By Jen Carpenter - Is a high rate of unemployment and a low chance of finding exactly the right job driving American workers out of the country? How to keep the American workforce - especially younger and Generation Y workers - in the United States is an issue that recruiters and employers are increasingly having to deal with. The problem isn't that there aren't enough workers to fill positions, as there are often several available job seekers for any one opening. However, many of the country's more skilled workers are getting frustrated with taking pay cuts and jobs below their experience level, so they're seeking new opportunities in new places.

the unconference movement

By Jen Carpenter - The unconference movement has been gaining a lot of traction as of late. Instead of the traditional conference format, where attendees sit in a room and listen to a presenter for a good chunk of time, unconferences allow for a more open format that seems to result in a more interactive learning and sharing experience. While there have been a few unconferences in past years, the movement seems to be picking up. ERE's Social Recruiting Summit 2009, BarCamp and RecruitingBlogs.com's upcoming RecruitFest are just a few of the big unconferences that have garnered a lot of attention, not to mention the local-oriented unconferences that have been going on for years.

power starts with a p …

By William Tincup - When it comes to power in an organization, who owns it? You're kidding right? That’s a no brainer; the CFO has ALL the power. Why is this? They have the money, the title, the influence ... and the folks in sales are drawn to the sweet smell of Benjamin’s coming from their pockets. Why care? Well if you're in HR and you need a reason to care about the technologies and solutions that your department will use ... we probably need to have another conversation. However, maybe you're just resigned to the fact that you'll never get to have a say, and you've just given up hope. I see new and different HR solutions, literally, every day. What blows me away is how, except in only the most challenged products, it takes only nanoseconds to imagine how useful it could be to an HR department.

an urgent round of funding

By Jen Carpenter - Urgent Career, a start-up that hopes to use a better way to assess salespeople, today announced that it has secured a round of Series A funding from iNovia Capital, a Montreal-based manager of seed and early stage venture capital funds. The company will use the funding to advance its ALPE, or Algorithmic Linguistic Profiling Engine technology, which serves as the driving agent behind the company's assessments. On top of that, the company has continued to grow and expand since we first wrote about it last year.

exclusivity is in

By Jen Carpenter - Although Ivy Exec has been around since 2006, the site is just now starting to get some serious attention. CEO Elena Bajic said you can think of the site as a sort of "high-end Ladders." Ivy Exec runs on the idea of exclusivity, as it only accepts what it deems to be the best candidates, and that's only after they've had their resume reviewed by a recruiter and passed a quality standards test. The idea seems to be working, as Ivy Exec now has about 26,000 members, most of who have at least one degree from a top grad school. Companies searching for only the top-tier candidates come to Ivy Exec, which also works to cut down on costs for screening professionals and increase success rates.

are you being productive?

By Jen Carpenter - Tuesday is traditionally an employee's most productive day of the week, so I thought it would be a good time to take an in-depth look at how employee productivity is being swayed by the current state of the economy, a topic that has been gaining a lot traction as of late. Employee productivity is something that affects employees, employers and HR teams, especially during a recession. Some experts say the economy is increasing employee productivity, because people who are scared of losing their jobs are going to work harder in hopes of remaining employed. Others say the overwhelming fear of being unemployed is getting in the way of everyday tasks, including work.