Archive for February, 2009

Okay, I don’t usually watch The Millionaire Matchmaker.  I only happened to catch it last night because (and I’m totally stealing my co-worker Craig’s lame excuse here) I lost my remote somewhere in my house last night, thus crippling my efforts to change the channel and forcing me to watch it.  If you’re not familiar with this Emmy-worthy show, it’s about professional matchmaker Patti Stanger‘s adventures in finding love matches for single millionaires.  

Anyway, somewhere between scenes of awkward date #1 and awkward date #2, it occurred to me how much Stanger (baby doll dresses and generous use of bronzer aside) is like a headhunter.  After all, what recruiter can’t relate to the pressure to deliver the best matches possible to a customer in hopes that one of these candidates will be become its happily-ever-after?

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on February 27, 2009
• There are 6 Comments. Join the discussion.
• Categories: Talent Acquisition

I don’t often invoke the music of Survivor in my posts — okay, make that never. But who am I kidding? I’d do it all the time if I could. We’ve talked before about cutting corners in your recruiting process to make your life a little less stressful and find better-suited candidates in less time. Continue reading

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• Posted by: Amy Chulik on February 25, 2009
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• Categories: Free Tools You Can Use, Talent Acquisition

Lost your BlackBerry somewhere along St. Charles Avenue (you know you had it with you at Popeye’s…) during your visit to New Orleans for Mardi Gras?  You might come back to more efficient employees because of it…at least that’s what you could take away from this recent Harvard Business Publishing article.  

In his post about helping employees choose by eliminating choices, blogger Peter Bergman includes an anecdote about an employer who wanted to get his employees in the practice of going to each other instead of him (presumably, I’m hoping, to encourage collaboration and innovation and not so he could play endless hours of peaceful, uninterrupted Facebook Scrabble), so he took a three-week vacation and didn’t check his email or voicemail once.  Ah, of course.

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on February 25, 2009
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• Categories: Talent Acquisition

It’s 7:45 a.m. on Tuesday morning. As you’re drinking your double espresso and fumbling through a slew of new e-mails, your phone rings.

“Hello?” Continue reading

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• Posted by: Amy Chulik on February 24, 2009
• There are 9 Comments. Join the discussion.
• Categories: Employment Branding, Generational Hiring, Leadership Development, Survey Results

According to IBM employee and blogger Adam Christensen in his recent post, The Impact of Corporate Culture on Social Media, “[Corporate] culture is…the most overlooked, underestimated factor determining whether social media succeeds or fails in a company.”

He ought to know. IBM has successfully implemented social networking into its day-to-day employee and customer relations – something Jennifer McClure of the Society for New Communications Research talks about in this recent interview podcast from Marketing Voices.  She argues that corporate culture is one of the greatest predictors of a company’s ability to successfully adapt to social media.   

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on February 23, 2009
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• Categories: Employee Engagement, Social Media

Last week, my colleague, Amy Chulik, wrote a post about how the number of working women is set to surpass that of men for the first time in history. 

Now, the Financial Times is reporting on another gender shift: The increase of men undergoing plastic surgery or non-invasive cosmetic treatments to further their professional longevity.  According to the article: Continue reading

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on February 19, 2009
• There are 2 Comments. Join the discussion.
• Categories: Economy

By now, you’ve all seen the CareerBuilder Super Bowl commercial…right?

Well, we’ve made our favorite koala (Is he British? Is he Australian? We don’t really know) into a minor celebrity and put his likeness on some limited-edition T-shirts. This is where you come in.

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• Posted by: Amy Chulik on February 19, 2009
• There are 23 Comments. Join the discussion.
• Categories: Contest, Employee Engagement, Fun and Games, Retention, Talent Acquisition

We all have our little wish lists of things we want someone cool to invent, like, immediately. One of mine? Most recently (as in, this past Sunday), I had a moment of panic and thought I was out of my beloved Metropolis coffee. Right then, I longed for the existence of at-home coffee delivery. You say lazy; I say easy and time-saving. I’m sure someone, somewhere, has already thought of this — and for those poor decaffeinated folks out there, I sure hope so.

When we stop to think about it, most of the little gadgets we desire do something for us. They may save us time, money, hassle, for instance. As an employer, your hiring wish list is likely long. But those little tools — the ones that make it easier for you to talk with candidates, store your needed information (and access it at a moment’s notice), and communicate with your fellow colleagues about your open positions — are often the most valuable.

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• Posted by: Amy Chulik on February 18, 2009
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• Categories: Free Tools You Can Use, Talent Acquisition

As the most visited Web site among all of the Big Game advertisers, according to Hitwise Competitive Research, immediately following the airing of its commercial during Super Bowl XLIII, CareerBuilder amplified its traffic and furthered its reputation as the go-to job seeker resource online. Partnering with CareerBuilder means the opportunity to reach more job seekers than ever before.

With over 600 TV news stories featuring its Big Game ad, (including “The View”, “Good Morning America”, “TODAY Show”, “ABC World News”, CNBC, FOX Business, ESPN) CareerBuilder had the 6th highest TV news mentions around the Big Game. Audience impressions for CareerBuilder came in at 59.6 million – nearly ten times that of our closest competitor in the industry!

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on February 18, 2009
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• Categories: Talent Acquisition

Looks like Starbucks’ dollar coffees are coming at the perfect time for the thousands of U.S. employees who are soon going to have to start paying for their morning caffeine fixes.

Following in the steps of Google and the like, nearly four in ten (38 percent) employers plan to cut back on various benefits this year, in efforts to curb overall operating expenses, according to CareerBuilder’s most recent survey  of over 3,000 hiring managers and HR professionals nationwide. 

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on February 18, 2009
• There are 0 Comments. Join the discussion.
• Categories: Retention, Survey Results