baselinr.

Guest Article : 5 Tips for Choosing the Right Job Candidate

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:57:51 -0400

Thanks to SourceSimple, you can now have an abundance of viable job candidates delivered right to you. This will save you a tremendous amount of legwork and leave you to the task of selecting the best prospects from the group. You have no doubt interviewed people in the past who seemed amazing, yet fizzled out shortly after being hired. Below are five tips to help you choose the right job candidate every time.

Consider the Applicant’s Soft Skills – Beyond an applicant’s education and work history, how are his or her soft skills? Personality traits and social interaction can greatly impact how a person handles a certain position.
Perform an Extended Interview – If you have narrowed your choices down to a few qualified candidates, do not rush an interview. In fact, you can call prospective hires back for a second interview if you have any doubts.
Review the Resume During the Interview – Keep the applicant’s resume handy during the interview, as you can go through it together for more clarification. This might help you to discover more about the candidate’s skills and experience.
Tour the Office Together – Sometimes, a tour of the facility will help you to get a feel for who is right for the position. How does this person integrate with the office? Does he or she ask questions and communicate well with potential co-workers?
Consider a Panel Interview – Sometimes, it is best to get other opinions about job candidates. You can do this by interviewing people with a few managers present. While this process may be a bit more intimidating for the applicants, it will also test how well they handle pressure.

Choosing the right candidate for a job is easier said than done. Even the most experienced recruiters will make the odd mistake and later realize they should have gone with another applicant. By following the above advice, however, you should become a bit more confident with your final selection.

By-line:

This post was contributed by Heather Johnson, who is an industry critic on the subject of becoming a pediatric nurse. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.

24 Hour SelectSimple Sale : Pay Less Now, Use Later

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:06:52 -0400

Today we launched the SelectSimple website. The service has matured substantially over the last month. Though it may not be perfect yet, we’ve been able to achieve positive actionable results for our pilot clients. If you decide SelectSimple is a service you’d like to try, I believe you’ll find it to be an incredibly useful tool in your recruiting arsenal.

To introduce the service, we are offering 10% off for the next 24 hours. We won’t be able to offer sales on SelectSimple very often because there are considerable fixed costs involved in delivering the services. This may be an excellent time to stock up on Contact Credits while the discount is still running.

Just visit SelectSimple at http://www.selectsimple.com before noon Central time on Wednesday, April 30, 2008, to benefit from the savings.

Make Money with SourceSimple

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:20:00 -0400

A number of inventive clients have found ways to make money on SourceSimple campaigns. By incorporating our resumes into their service offerings, some SourceSimple clients have created value-added bundles which they then sell to their own clients for a fairly significant profit. While we do not yet have a formal Partnership Process for such things, we are definitely willing to discuss any idea you may have to make money with SourceSimple.

Some of the ideas we are currently pursuing include:

Partners pre-pay for large bulk campaigns at a heavy discount, and then offer our campaigns to their clients for less than the list price on the SourceSimple website.
Partners refer clients to us, and then receive a portion of any revenue produced by the referral.
Partners write articles or create advertising for inclusion in our newsletters and anouncements.
Partners offer service bundles or discounted campaigns directly on our website, and we pass potential clients to them.

If you have an idea you’d like to implement, definitely contact me at phil (at) kalypxo (dot) com

To Catch a Thief - ERE Article

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:03:31 -0400

I’m trying to find the time to write a few articles on getting the most out of the resources you already own. Numerous clients have mentioned that they can access paid databases, but use our services anyway because we find resumes they don’t.

There are approximately 50 million unique resumes across the 3 major databases, so it’s a pretty fair bet that at least 1 candidate exists who matches your needs… if you’re not finding that candidate, there may be better ways to look.

Here’s my latest article on ERE: http://www.ere.net/articles/db/99CA714A22E24172BBB9F06770504BF6.asp

Applicant Review for Prepaid Campaigns

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:07:07 -0400

SourceSimple has offered discounts on Prepaid Campaigns for almost a year now. Many of our clients take advantage of our Prepaid Campaigns to save money and time.

In addition to the usual discounts and convenience, we are adding free Applicant Review to all Prepaid Campaigns purchased in April. This allows you to receive Applicant Review at no charge for as many campaigns as are in your prepaid account. As Prepaid Campaigns never expire, you can save quite a bit of money in both campaign fees and Applicant Review fees by pre-paying today for your future use.

To purchase a Prepaid Pack of Campaigns, please click here.

Announcing 'Applicant Review'

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:50:45 -0400

Quite a few of our clients have asked if we can review emailed applications from candidates. When a candidate applies to a current SourceSimple job advertisement, the resume is delivered directly to our clients without interference. This is a very effective strategy for clients who are seeking greater quantity of resumes; however we also have clients who would prefer to see only qualified applicants.

We are launching a new service called ‘Applicant Review’ to address this need. Applicant Review is very simple, and hopefully very effective — when a candidate applies to a job, we will receive the resume. We will then run it against the same criteria used to search the resume databases for that campaign. If it passes the criteria, we will forward it on; if it does not pass, we will not forward it.

Applicant Review is an optional add-on for SourceSimple campaigns. We are offering it FREE for a limited time on campaigns purchased during April. The ultimate pricepoint isn’t set yet, but rest assured that it will be appropriately low to add value cost effectively.

SelectSimple : Making Candidate Contact

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:33:17 -0400

We recently launched a new service to make the initial contact with candidates. The service is called SelectSimple. SelectSimple is a ‘baseline pre-qualification’ service, intended to establish a candidate’s interest, availability, and attitude.

Clients using SelectSimple provide us with the candidates they would like to be contacted, and as many as 10 questions they would like the candidates to be asked. We call and email the candidates over a period of 5 days — all contact attempts are made in the evenings and on weekends. Once we reach a candidate, we conduct the baseline interview and pass along the information we received.

Clients pre-pay for the number of candidates to be contacted. We hold the pre-payment as “contact credits” and deduct 1 credit for each interview. If a candidate is not interviewed, no credits are deducted. Credits don’t expire, so any credits not used in a given campaign can be applied to future campaigns.

SelectSimple is still in pilot mode with a small group of clients. Each day of the pilot we learn a new way to improve the service. We also discovered a fairly surprising positive consequence of contacting candidates in this manner:

Because we introduce outselves as a “pre-qualification service”, candidates tend to be more open in their conversations than they might be with a recruiter. We make it clear that we are not decision makers, and that our only goal is to save everyone time and effort by determining quickly if there is a reason for the candidate and the recruiter to talk. The candidates we’ve spoken to have been receptive and have had no qualms about sharing information with us.

Monster Courting Nurses

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:21:06 -0500

In early January 2008, Monster Worldwide acquired Affinity Labs, a San Francisco company that builds career-related communities. Among their 7 communities is NursingLink. Resumes uploaded at NursingLink go into the Monster database, and jobs posted on Monster can appear on NursingLink.

Affinity Labs also hosts communities for government, technology, education, and law enforcement. Monster is going after candidates where they are — in social environments. This will inevitably make them even more dominant in the recruiting space, and help to build out their candidate database considerably. As such, Monster will become increasingly important to SourceSimple and all baseline sourcing services.

Recession-Proof Your Recruiting

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:09:00 -0500

Economists seem to believe that a recession is on the way… either a recession or a slowdown which will put a damper on everyone’s day. One of the datapoints pointed towards is a 4.9-5% unemployment rate. This is a high figure for the United States. It signals that 5% of the workforce is not working.

But look at it from another angle: 95% of the people in the workforce have a job! If you scored 95% on a test in school, you’d be overjoyed. 95% is a pretty high number. It means that when you walk down the street and a huge crowd of 100 people walk past you, only 5 of those people don’t have a job. 5 out of 100 ain’t so bad.

Will this affect your business as an employer or a recruiter? Definitely. Does it mean recruiting will cease altogether? Definitely not.

95% of the population is employed. Life hasn’t stopped. Businesses haven’t stopped. People are working. Jobs exist. Recruiting must exist as well. There’s less money out there, so everyone has to spend less. The recruiting must go on, but it just has to be done with less money.

External recruiters fill a vital function that employers can’t do without. They tap vast candidate networks and utilize extensive candidate development prowess to locate and land the perfect candidate. However, there may be less recruiting work out there than before, so recruiters may have to cut back on expenses. External recruiters can let SourceSimple handle the baseline sourcing function, saving quite a bit of cash and allowing efforts and resources to be focused on client relationships, passive candidate search, and candidate development.

Employers with parse internal recruiting resources who want to compete in the same market as powerhouses may be looking for inexpensive ways to ramp up their recruiting efforts. SourceSimple provides the resources and manpower of a much larger organization without the risk and overhead of doing it yourself. It’s a very reasonable solution at a very inexpensive pricepoint.

There are, I’m sure, ways to save money that don’t involve SourceSimple… but for some reason I can’t think of them right now. =)

Use Resumes for Passive Searches

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:36:30 -0500

When an employed candidate puts a resume into a database, they are expressing their desire to talk to someone on the outside. They are willing to look outside of their current employment. They understand that the best way to explore other opportunities is to start some conversations. The resume is the conversation-starter.

It’s almost a guarantee that employed candidates with their resumes online will talk to you when you call them. In other words, they are the perfect entry point for a passive-candidate recruiter/sourcer to gather information about a target company.

When you start a passive search, ask SourceSimple to send you resumes for current employees of your target companies. Call up the candidates and interview them, even if they aren’t perfect for the job. Ask them whatever you want to know: who is their boss? what project are they working on? etc. You’ll be amazed at how much information you’ll receive.

Spend Less with SourceSimple

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:12:33 -0500

As the economy continues to slow down (the 4th quarter of 2007 was the worst quarter for the economy in 5 years), employers and recruiters are looking for ways to spend less without compromising their forward progress.

SourceSimple offers a very good solution.

Employers and recruiters can use SourceSimple baseline sourcing campaigns rather than paying for the staff and resources to do the work in-house. We use all the industry-standard resources (CareerBuilder, HotJobs, Monster, and more). All day, every day, we advertise and search for our clients. To use in-house resources to get the same results we deliver, you’d have to spend thousands of dollars per month.

SourceSimple campaigns start as low as $30 for 7 days of baseline sourcing. No long term commitments, no overhead, no risk. It really is the best deal in the recruiting world.

New 'Search Only' Option

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:29:42 -0500

Many of our clients already ran advertising before retaining SourceSimple, so they weren’t interested in the job posting portion of our baseline sourcing (BaSo) campaigns. Until today we used an ad hoc approach to this situation, calling the search-only campaigns ‘Modified Network Campaigns’.

Starting today we have a new option on our campaign proposals called ‘Search Campaign’ — we’ve been running these campaigns under a different name for a while now, so it’s great to have an easier and more intuitive method for clients to request this level of service.

Keep Longer Campaigns!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:12:00 -0500

Though SourceSimple changed our campaign lengths from 10 days and 30 days to 7, 14, 21, and 28 days, any client who wants to keep the 10 day campaigns for $30 is able to do so. We are grandfathering all ‘active accounts’ to maintain the longer 10 day campaigns, if desired.

‘Active accounts’ include all clients with pre-paid packs of discount campaigns or with monthly subscriptions. Simply make sure that the account always has at least one campaign in it, and you’ll be able to refresh the account with 10 day campaigns in the future.

If you don’t currently have an active account with $30 10 day campaigns, it’s not too late to get one. To ensure our clients are afforded the greatest level of convenience and flexibility, we are keeping the option open for clients to purchase a pack of discount campaigns. This option will be maintained on this page of the site until Sunday, 06 Jan 08.

Here’s the URL for the page: http://www.sourcesimple.com/lastchance.html

If you would prefer a monthly subscription, please send us an email with the specifics of your needs and we’ll work out the best solution.

Greater Flexibility in Campaign Lengths

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:35:32 -0500

Since our launch in 2006, SourceSimple offered clients 10 day campaigns and 30 day campaigns. The 30 day campaigns were priced at the then-maximum standard discount of 15% off.

Starting January 1, 2008, we are pleased to offer our clients greater flexibility in campaign lengths and deeper discounts for longer campaigns. Our new structure is:

7 day campaigns
14 day campaigns : 10% off
21 day campaigns : 15% off
28 day campaigns : 20% off

Though the 7 day campaigns are offered at the same price as the old 10 day campaigns, including Monster resumes in each campaign should increase the total number of resumes per campaign versus the prior structure. We believe that this change will help our clients better customize campaigns to their needs, while simultaneously getting improved results from campaigns.

Monstrous Improvement

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:12:00 -0500

At the beginning of December 2007, SourceSimple started to include resumes from Monster in all campaigns. That means that every baseline sourcing campaign we run for our clients contains a complete sweep of all three major general databases — CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and Monster.

Initial statistics support an approximate 20% overlap in resumes from the three sources. Thus the inclusion of the Monster database translates into a 50% increase in resumes per campaign.

Welcome to 2008!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:01:32 -0500

Today marks the beginning of the second calendar year for SourceSimple. From an idea and a basic website in fall of 2006, SourceSimple has grown to become a stable resource for hundreds of recruiters and employers. We still have a long way to go, and we strive to improve every day. We believe this is the beginning of something that will make a truly important contribution in the field of talent acquisition — that there will come a time when ‘baseline sourcing’ will be the defacto starting point for every recruiting endeavor.

We extend our warmest appreciation to our clients, to those employers and recruiters bold enough to try something new… and who then stuck with us through many more campaigns. Thank you!

Calculating True ROI

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:59:55 -0400

We want every BaSo campaign we conduct to create value. Real, identifiable, quantifiable value. The value is obvious when the SourceSimple campaign provides the candidate who is hired. However market statistics state that this is a fairly rare occurrence — according to data gathered over the last 10+ years, about 10-15% of positions are filled by applicants and database resumes. The rest come from internal moves, referrals, and external recruiters.

When we created the SourceSimple service, we took that statistic to heart. If our campaigns will only find the right candidate 15% of the time, is there a way to make SourceSimple consistently valuable to our clients? We decided there was: it’s all about necessity and pricepoints.

Both internal and third party recruiters already know that BaSo campaigns are a critical part of every search. Imagine spending 40 hours working on a passive candidate search, tracking down the names and numbers, making the telephone calls, asking prospects for resumes… only to discover that the ideal candidate had already uploaded a resume into a database. You could have saved a week worth of effort by searching the database first. BaSo campaigns quickly cut to the chase, and are highly instrumental in informing the rest of your search strategy.

Most recruiters know this already, and incorporate BaSo campaigns into their sourcing strategies. A thorough BaSo campaign at the beginning of a search will take 4-6 hours of searching, and about an hour of advertising. Follow up takes about an hour each day. Assuming the BaSo campaign doesn’t find the right candidate, which will happen 85% of the time, recruiters now begin the work of networking, passive candidate searching, and candidate development… in other words, the “hard” stuff, the stuff they get paid the big bucks to do. However, without the BaSo campaign at the beginning, recruiters would never know what “low hanging fruit” is available. The BaSo campaign is a necessity.

BaSo campaigns are usually pretty expensive.

* First, calculate time: a 10-day BaSo campaigns soaks up about 6 hours on the first day, and about 1 hour per day in followup for the next 9 days, for a grand total of 15 hours of work.

Next calculate the face value of that time: 15 hours multipled by $30 per hour (considerably more for experienced recruiters) is $450.

* Then calculate the opportunity cost of that time: 15 hours spent not marketing to clients or candidates, not talking to hiring managers and prospects, etc. It’s more difficult to tie a concrete figure to this cost, but that doesn’t make it less real.

* Finally, calculate the cost of your sourcing resources: $500 in advertising fees, plus $1,000 per month in candidate database fees.

Adding up the cost reveals a pretty high number. It’s a fair estimate that a solid BaSo campaign will cost $750 or considerably more, depending on the value of your time.

If you use SourceSimple, you know exactly how much your BaSo campaign will cost… and you know it’ll cost a tiny fraction of the $750 required for a BaSo campaign on your own. When SourceSimple finds the right candidate for you, the value is absolutely enormous — when SourceSimple DOESN’T find the right candidate, you still saved hundreds of dollars.

Whichever way the SourceSimple campaigns ends, our clients walk away in a better position than they would be otherwise.

SourceSimple Success Strategies

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:42:16 -0400

SourceSimple has a singular focus: Baseline Sourcing (BaSo). BaSo is the practice of locating active candidates and available resumes. BaSo is best done at the beginning of a search, putting down the baseline for the search much like laying the foundation before building a house.

A thorough BaSo campaign includes searching resumes and advertising. Every resume source should be tapped, including internal candidate databases, external candidate databases, and the Internet. Advertising should be delivered via media relevant to your target audience. SourceSimple can help with BaSo campaigns, but using SourceSimple should only be a component of your BaSo strategy. SourceSimple has access to general resources, so augmenting your SourceSimple campaign with resources more specialized to your industry would probably serve you well.

Here are some basic strategies for getting the most out of SourceSimple campaigns:

* Use SourceSimple as the first step in your search. You’ll know within a few days if the candidates you seek are readily available. You won’t spend time duplicating efforts that SourceSimple can do for you. Last but not least, you’ll probably have a few days left in your campaign to explore other sourcing directions.

* Explore other sourcing directions. The most obvious course for a SourceSimple is to look for the exact candidate you are seeking. However, there are other potential uses for a SourceSimple campaign. You can ask us to find resumes from certain employers — helps with competitive intelligence. If you are recruiting a salesperson, you can ask us to find resumes for people in the departments where your target is currently selling — potential opportunity to network back to the sought candidate through a referral. Etc. Feel free to get creative.

* Resume feedback should be changes, not just refinements. Look for ways to add to the search string so that it will produce different results. For instance, let’s say you were looking for a Business Development Manager. We used the search string (“business development” AND marketing AND sales). When you received the first batch of resumes, you realized you didn’t want marketing people. You provided feedback to eliminate the term “marketing” from the search string. While that’s important and useful feedback, it doesn’t really change the search — the new results from that point forward will just be a subset of the old results. To get different results, look carefully at the search string to see where synonyms can be added — for instance, using (bd or “business development”) instead of just (“business development”). This will produce a different set of resumes, and potentially get you closer to your target.

Over time I’ll continue writing down Best Practices for SourceSimple. If you have any experiences with using SourceSimple in a unique or interesting way, definitely feel free to tell me!

METROPOLITAN AREA EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT: AUGUST 2007

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:47:27 -0400

Unemployment rates were lower in August than a year earlier in 206 of the 369 metropolitan areas, higher in 134 areas, and unchanged in 29 areas, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Twenty-five metropolitan areas registered jobless rates below 3.0 percent, while two areas recorded rates of at least 10.0 percent. The national unemployment rate in August was 4.6 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

Metropolitan Area Unemployment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

In August, 118 metropolitan areas reported unemployment rates below 4.0 percent, up from 109 areas a year earlier, while 17 areas posted rates of at least 7.0 percent, down from 20 areas in August 2006. Idaho Falls, Idaho, again had the lowest jobless rate, 1.6 percent, followed by Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, at 1.8 percent, Billings, Mont., at 1.9 percent, and Boise City-Nampa, Idaho, at 2.0 percent. Strong economic growth in many Rocky Mountain states has resulted in low unemployment rates in several areas —12 of the 25 areas with jobless rates below 3.0 percent were in Idaho, Montana, Utah, or Wyoming. In contrast, the highest rates in August were reported by two adjacent heavily agricultural areas with extreme weather: El Centro, Calif., 20.7 percent, and Yuma, Ariz., 20.3 percent. Overall, 206 areas recorded unemployment rates below the U.S. figure of 4.6 percent, 157 areas had higher rates, and 6 areas had the same rate.

Two Mississippi areas severely affected by Hurricane Katrina reported the largest over-the-year jobless rate decreases in August: Gulfport-Biloxi and Pascagoula (-3.5 and -1.9 percentage points, respectively). Twenty-five additional areas had rate decreases of 1.0 percentage point or more. Eighteen of these areas were located in South Carolina, Tennessee, or Texas. El Centro, Calif., again registered the largest unemployment rate increase from a year earlier (+2.4 percentage points). Fourteen other areas, nine of which were in Florida, had jobless rate increases of 1.0 percentage point or more from August 2006.

Of the 49 metropolitan areas with a Census 2000 population of 1 million or more, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va., recorded the lowest unemployment rate, 3.0 percent, in August 2007. The areas with the next lowest rates were Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz., and Richmond, Va., at 3.2 percent each, and Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, Va.-N.C., at 3.3 percent. Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich., again posted the highest rate among the large areas, 7.9 percent. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., and Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, Ohio, had the next highest jobless rates, 6.1 and 5.9 percent, respectively. Twenty-seven large areas recorded lower unemployment rates than a year ago, 20 registered higher rates, and 2 had no change. Among the large areas, Memphis, Tenn.-Miss.-Ark., continued to report the largest over-the-year jobless rate decrease (-1.3 percentage points). Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., had the largest rate increase from a year earlier (+0.9 percentage point).

Metropolitan Division Unemployment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

Eleven of the most populous metropolitan areas are composed of 34 metropolitan divisions, which are essentially separately identifiable employment centers. The two divisions that compose the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va., metropolitan area —Bethesda-Gaithersburg-Frederick, Md., and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va .— reported the lowest division unemployment rates in August, 2.7 and 3.1 percent, respectively. Eight additional divisions registered rates below 4.0 percent. The divisions with the highest unemployment rates were Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich., 9.3 percent, Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich., 6.9 percent, and Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, Mass.-N.H., 6.7 percent.

Twenty-one of the 34 metropolitan divisions recorded over-the-year unemployment rate decreases in August, 12 had rate increases, and 1 had a rate that was unchanged from that of a year earlier. Among the divisions, Wilmington, Del.-Md.-N.J., registered the largest jobless rate decline from August 2006 (-1.0 percentage point), while Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill., reported the largest increase (+0.9 point).

In 7 of the 11 metropolitan areas that contain divisions, the ranges between the highest and lowest division jobless rates were 1.0 percentage point or more in August. The metropolitan area that had the largest rate difference among its divisions, 3.3 percentage points, was Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H. (Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, Mass.-N.H., 6.7 percent, compared with Framingham, Mass., 3.4 percent).

Metropolitan Area Nonfarm Employment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

In August, 311 metropolitan areas reported over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment, 40 reported decreases, and 16 had no change. The largest over-the-year employment gain was reported in New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.-N.J.-Pa. (+79,800), followed by Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas (+78,800), Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas (+64,400), and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash. (+57,600). The largest over-the-year percentage increases in employment were reported in Provo-Orem, Utah (+5.9 percent), Wichita, Kan. (+5.7 percent), El Centro, Calif., and Pueblo, Colo. (+5.0 percent each), Grand Junction, Colo. (+4.9 percent), and Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss., and St. George, Utah (+4.8 percent each).

The largest over-the-year decreases in employment occurred in Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich. (-22,000), Atlantic City, N.J. (-3,100), Flint, Mich. (-2,900), and Bloomington, Ind. (-2,700). The largest over-the-year percentage decreases in employment were reported in Bay City, Mich. (-3.9 percent), Bloomington, Ind. (-3.3 percent), Saginaw-Saginaw Township North, Mich. (-2.1 percent), and Atlantic City, N.J. (-2.0 percent).

Over the year, nonfarm employment rose in 36 of the 37 metropolitan areas with annual average employment levels above 750,000 in 2006. The largest over-the-year percentage increases in employment in these large metropolitan areas were posted in Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (+4.1 percent), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash. (+3.4 percent), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, Orlando-Kissimmee, Fla., and Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz. (+2.7 percent each), and Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C.-S.C., and Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas (+2.6 percent each). Among the largest areas, the only reported decrease in employment was in Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich. (-1.1 percent).

Metropolitan Division Nonfarm Employment (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

Nonfarm payroll employment data were available in August 2007 for 32 metropolitan divisions, which are essentially separately identifiable employment centers within a metropolitan area. Twenty-nine of the 32 metropolitan divisions reported over-the-year employment gains, 2 reported losses, and 1 was unchanged. The largest over-the-year level increases occurred in New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.Y.-N.J. (+62,700), Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas (+58,900), Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash. (+50,900), and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va. (+37,500). Over-the-year declines occurred in Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich. (-14,800) and Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich. (-7,200).

The largest over-the-year percentage increases in employment among the metropolitan divisions were reported in Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash. (+3.6 percent), Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas (+2.9 percent), and Camden, N.J., Tacoma, Wash., and Nashua, N.H.-Mass. (+2.5 percent each). Percentage declines in employment were reported in Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich. (-1.9 percent) and Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Mich. (-0.6 percent).

"I don't want candidates from a database!"

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:33:15 -0400

Almost every recruiter has heard it at some point:

“I don’t want resumes from a purchased database!”

While I understand the logic (the client already pays for databases, so they feel paying you for the same candidates is redundant), the logic is flawed. Here’s the problem:

* There are 80 million plus resumes in the more popular databases… that’s more resumes than there are books in the Library of Congress. Finding the right resumes among all of that information is no easy task.

* There are 80 million plus resumes in the more popular databases… and there are only 240 million people in the USA. People younger than 16 can’t legally work on a W2 in most states, so subtract the youngsters and you have about 50% of the workforce represented somewhere in a candidate database.

* There are 80 million plus resumes in the more popular databases… and nearly none of the candidates know about the open position. Even after being informed of the position, it’s a whole different ballgame to persuade the candidates of the value of the opportunity.

Recruiting is a unique skill. It involves detective work, intellectual rigor, and persuasive ability. It is solution-based selling at its best. Any client who won’t look at a candidate you found in a database either doesn’t understand the work you did to obtain that candidate, or doesn’t respect the work you do.

Resumes are useless without the recruiting effort to make great hires. Simply knowing that the resume exists is not at all the same thing as closing the deal.