Recruiting News Weekly RoundUp

This week's recruiting news:

Addressing the Skills Gap: The 10 Best Takeaways from Close It 2013
“Talent is the only sustainable competitive edge we have. We need to create awareness around the skills needed and invest in communities,” said Mike Barriere, executive vice president of Human Resources and Environment, Health & Safety at Alcoa, during inaugural Close It Summit, held last week in Washington, D.C. The three-day event brought together hiring professionals from across the nation to discuss the challenges employers face in closing the skills gap and explore new ways to meet these challenges.

Facilitating Diversity in Your Workforce
For a lot of us, the term diversity usually makes us think exclusively of cultural diversity, but it means so much more than that. The idea of diversity in the workforce has come a long way since the advent of affirmative action laws, but there is so much more ground to cover. As we evolve to see diversity as more about individuals and less about quotas, race or creed, we can start to value the various perspectives that a diverse workforce can bring.

Confusion about Criminal-History Guidelines
Despite a whopping majority of HR executives believing their companies are compliant with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity's criminal-background guidelines, a recent survey suggests otherwise. The first annual Human Resources Compliance Survey by Brea, Calif.-based PeopleG2 asked 1,493 U.S.-based HR leaders at companies with 25,000 or more employees worldwide whether they believed their organizations were compliant with the EEOC guidelines issued last year. The vast majority (94 percent) said they were, yet 74 percent said they ask job applicants about criminal histories in the application process instead of later in the interviewing stage -- the latter a clear directive of the guidelines.


How to Host a Virtual Career Fair
Career Fairs are great for networking and collecting resumes. A traditional career fair attracts all kinds of people seeking employment.  A Virtual Career Fair will help you target specific demographics for your recruitment marketing. The benefits include cost savings over a traditional career fair, and the ability to promote your company and employment branding more effectively, and on a more personal level without having to compete with 100 other businesses at the same time.

Reject Candidates - Right
Do you need a sample "thanks, but no thanks" letter? This is the letter that Human Resources people don't like to send. But, send it you must though even if it's painful, because no matter what, you can usually only select one candidate for your job.

The Problem With Putting “Do Not Hire” Notes in Personnel Files
If I ever handled a plaintiff’s case again, at deposition, I would be sure to take a page out of the playbook of Texas employment lawyer Mike Maslanka: Ask the manager who decided to fire the plaintiff whether he’s eligible for re-hire. An unprepared manager might blurt out, “Of course not; he’s suing us.” Say hello to a retaliation claim.


About iRecruit 

iRecruit is a cloud-based recruiting and applicant tracking software application that allows you to track and report on all of your job applicants and positions. Find out more and take a quick screenshot tour on our website at http://www.irecruit-software.com/ or join a demo on Tuesdays or Thursdays at 11am or 2pm. Call iRecruit at 1-800-517-9099 if you have any questions.  

How to Host a Virtual Career Fair

Career Fairs are great for networking and collecting resumes. A traditional career fair attracts all kinds of people seeking employment.  A Virtual Career Fair will help you target specific demographics for your recruitment marketing. The benefits include cost savings over a traditional career fair, and the ability to promote your company and employment branding more effectively, and on a more personal level without having to compete with 100 other businesses at the same time.

Here's how you can get started with hosting your own Virtual Career Fairs.

Set Up:
First, set up your meeting, date, time, and agenda (we'll come back to this). You can do this using various meeting hosting software like WebEx, GoToMeeting.  These services usually offer the ability for you to also host a conference call. Make sure you give yourself enough time to promote the event (4-6 weeks).

Promote, Promote, Promote!
This should go without saying, have a target audience in mind. Ideally you already have a mailing list that is already segmented into your target audience. If not, fear not, there are still plenty of places you can promote your career fair. Company newsletter, or blog. LinkedIn, promote to any groups, or pages you belong to. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, share with friends, family and your company pages and encourage all to register for your event. Do this weekly until the event date.

Finalize the Agenda:
Book your speakers. CEO to talk about what a great company it is to work for, your Recruiter to speak about specific positions that you are hiring for, and what kind of skills you seek, a fellow happy and engaged employee to speak about the benefits of working for you.

Send Meeting Reminders!
Send out your meeting reminders and login instructions 3 days before your event, and then again on the morning of the event. Encourage attendees to log in a few minutes before your event begins so you can get started on time.

Host The Meeting!
Ask someone else to introduce you as the Host, it always sounds more impressive. Use as few PowerPoint slides as possible. Thank your audience for attending, and set out the expectations and agenda for the meeting. If you can, use video or web cam during the session. Engage the audience throughout by using any meeting tools you have, such as polls. Engage on Twitter by using hashtags. Leave time at the end for audience Q&A.

Send Thank You Emails!
Thank the attendees for spending their time with you, and encourage them to visit your website to apply for any available positions. 

Secondary Marketing Opportunities
If you recorded the meeting, send it out to anyone who registered, but did not attend. Post to YouTube, your company blog, and social media.


About iRecruit

iRecruit is a cloud-based recruiting and applicant tracking software application that allows you to track and report on all of your job applicants and positions. Find out more and take a quick screenshot tour on our website at http://www.irecruit-software.com/ or join a demo on Tuesdays or Thursdays at 2pm. Call iRecruit at 1-800-517-9099 if you have any questions.