Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

Archives for October 2009

And Now for Something Completely Different: Happiness at Work


Monty Python

In honor of the fortieth anniversary of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, here’s a slightly quirky post.

As a quick reminder for those who don’t remember, MPFC was a British television series (1969-1975) featuring comedy sketches so satirically wacky that many people, even today, can recite/re-enact some of the most popular segments.  E.g., “Dead Parrot,” “Spam,” or “Confuse-a-Cat.”  (Can’t resist a little Python nostalgia?  Find all the sketch scripts here.)

What makes Monty Python relatively relevant to a column about Careers is that troupe-member John Cleese went on to found Video Arts, a company that makes/distributes training videos which “help you put across your learning messages in an entertaining and memorable way.”  They combine humor with business expertise, in a style that might be called charming . . . or campy . . . or both.  But see for yourself, with previews of several Recruiting/Interviewing videos.

Cleese also appears at companies and conferences around the world, amusing and inspiring audiences with a message about creativity in business.  Which brings us to the second part of this topic:  What makes potential employees really want to work for your company?

After monetary motives—ranging from really, really needing a job to really, really wanting a better compensation package—the main thing most people wonder is “will I be happy at Company X?”  (Or at least not unhappy.)  And one of the ways many prospects make that judgment is by a visit to the corporate Career site.

Hence the popularity of employee interviews extolling the company culture, day-in-the-life videos, and so on.  But of course all that is staged, as everybody knows—not necessarily with a dishonest intent, just with a certain amount of inevitable manipulation.  So direct messaging may have only a limited effect on savvy prospects.

Which leaves indirect messaging.  The “look and feel” of the corporate Career site communicates at a deep level the way a company views life and work.  Site visitors pick up that communication without necessarily even realizing it.  They just go away with an impression that may be stronger than anything they actually read (or heard) in the direct messaging.

Yet as a rule, no one in the organization is tasked with asking some fundamental questions that would ensure effective delivery of the good-place-to-work message.  Several of the needed considerations have been discussed in previous posts, but here’s a convenient recap and checklist:

  • Do clear organization and intuitive navigation create a pleasant visitor experience?
  • Are the colors and images not just “inoffensive” but actually interesting and memorable?
  • Are there touches of humor and imagination?
  • Does the site offer evidence (not just glib assurances) to demonstrate the company’s social engagement, sensitivity to work-life balance, commitment to diversity?
  • Will visitors leave with something that persists—a communication link, helpful tips, useful insights, next steps?

If prospects don’t feel valued during their website visit, they are unlikely to assume the company will suddenly start to value them as candidates or as employees.  First impressions!

Or as the Monty Python boys say:  “A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh?”

Talent Acquisition 2009: On the Other Hand . . .


Big 3

This is the third post considering Aberdeen’s recent report, Talent Acquisition Strategies 2009: Cutting through the Clutter and Proactively Managing Quality Candidates,  and the goal is to drill down on a couple of aspects.  Starting off, here’s an essential assumption of the report, based on the drivers defined by respondents:

More companies are competing for the same skills or competencies, but are doing so from a pool of quality candidates that has not grown in proportion to the overall pool of available labor.

That really is an interesting proposition.  I interpret it to mean that (as a simple example) if there were 100 candidates for Job X in 2005, 20 were really top drawer, and if there are 500 candidates for Job X today, fewer than 100 of them would be excellent.  And whereas 10 companies were competing for the top 20 folks in 2005, 20 companies (let’s say) might be going after the fewer-than-100 great catches in 2009.

The seriousness of this problem would depend on the actual shrinkage of the high-quality pool, and the actual increase of the competing-companies quotient.  Let’s say it’s half and twice:  50 of 500 candidates are highly desirable, and 20 companies are competing for them.

This brings up a big question:  Why are there fewer excellent candidates?  The obvious answer would be that the best folks are holding onto their jobs and the candidate pool is filling up with the least successful employees.  And that would make the hunt for passive candidates even more urgent.

But there might also be additional explanations for the presumed decline in candidate quality.  One might be that expectations are rising—so an excellent 2005 candidate would be considered merely adequate today.  That might flow from tighter budgets and increasing scrutiny of new-hire performance, creating pressure to maximize the value of every hire.

Another explanation might be that (incredibly enough) high-value workers are leaving the corporate playing field for entrepreneurial opportunities and even non-profits.  Reverse immigration could also be a factor, along with a retirement differential effect, in which the better-off boomers leave the workforce while the less successful have to remain.

So what does all this argue in terms of online recruitment?  For one thing, this may be a good time for companies to reassess their expectations to make sure “good” candidates are not overlooked while everyone searches for the elusive “best” candidates.  And for another—companies need to be increasingly creative in their recruiting if they want to entice the reluctant and attract the excellent.

The Aberdeen report seems to emphasize a by-the-numbers approach, in which the Best in Class are all doing all the same “right” things.  But sometimes coloring outside the lines is a good way to break away from the pack.

One last contrarian thought.  Aberdeen’s report focuses on strategy, tactics, and tools.  All good.  But there’s something else worth considering.   In How to Harness Instinct and Intuition to Make Better Business and Career Decisions, CIO notes that “When CIOs discuss the worst candidates they’ve ever hired for jobs, as they often do in CIO.com’s  Hiring Manager Interviews series, their hiring mistakes almost always come down to this: I didn’t trust my gut. The CIO knows deep down that the candidate isn’t right for the position or the IT organization, ignores his instincts and hires the individual anyway.”

Check out the CIO story for some interesting ideas about why the gut-check is an indispensable aspect of successful decision-making.


(Thanks to pastaboysleeps for the BIG Number 3.)

What Social Market Are You Appealing To?

Baby boomers may prefer the landscape over at Facebook, while the high school demographics prefer MySpace more. It could be a toss-up between the movers and shakers and the well-to-do when it comes to who may prefer Twitter more. This interesting article recently reported by CNN may in fact arm your company with the necessary information that you need to make an impact in the social networking  community when it comes to statistics and where your marketing dollars may be better spent.

Online marketing is leaning heavily these days towards social community portals. Companies are finding that their target demographic markets are online and centered mainly in the three most popular portals; MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. This is not to say that other social outlets aren’t used, but just that these three seem to be the leading ones. Depending on your product and/or service, you may decide to concentrate on a particular source, or you may even use all three. But which is right for you?

Deciding on the “right” social portal to use is a relative decision. What are your goals? To whom do you want to appeal? Is your product tangible (a widget) or intangible (a service)? What delivery method(s) will you use to satisfy the customer? All of these factors go into deciding what is the best use of your marketing dollars and how it may be best spent.  To help you decide, consider these suggestions:

1.) Participate on the social networking sites. Set up accounts on each on and begin interacting. Look at what people are talking about and the questions they’re asking. Are they relevant to your product or service? Can you perhaps answer a need that they may have voiced?

2.) Be consistent. When you begin participating, be consistent with your posts and your updates. People like to see that you’re active and not just a dropper-by only when you have great, new information to share. Which leads to…

3.) Be genuine. Talk from a real world perspective. Share business stories, tips and advice that you have experienced yourself. This helps your audience to identify better with your message and to feel more a part of what you’re offering.

In your approaches, you may find that you appeal to perhaps one or many sites where there is an interest in your services. Carefully market and strategically place yourself in those areas where you think you may be able to make the most impact.


What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 4: Share Price Charts

Last week we focused on immediate share price information and today we will be looking at stock charts. At its very basic, a stock chart should clearly convey the price history of a stock over a defined period of time. So at a minimum, a line chart over the past year with a clearly defined axis showing the price is what investors can expect. Most companies also include a volume chart below the share price. Scottish and Southern Energy has a nice example of this simple approach and I’ve reproduced it below.

Scottish & Southern stock chart
Click image to enlarge

You will note that the charting page for Scottish and Southern Energy also includes a selection tool that allows investors to select the time period that they wish to view, ranging from intraday to five years in length.

This is the next iteration of choice for price charts and very helpful for someone thinking about purchasing the stock.

Taking it one step further, some companies also allow user selected dates to define the beginning and end of the chart. This makes sense for people who already own the stock as chances are most investors did not buy the stock on the one, two or five year anniversary of their looking at the chart.

A good example of this capability is the chart of Friends Provident Group, reproduced below, where I’ve arbitrarily chosen to look at the share price performance since the beginning of the year 2000.

Friends Provident stock chartA close inspection of the chart will also show that investors have the capability to chart against other companies (in this case, up to eight pre-selected companies), indexes and sectors.

As an investor, this is useful, because you always want to know “Compared to what?” however, it probably comes under the “Nice to have“ category as opposed to essential information.

Finally, a feature I really like, but which I don’t see that often, is illustrated on the chart from ENI. (If you really want to see a well-executed investor site, visit ENI’s site www.eni.it.)

eni stock price chart
Click image to enlarge

They have overlain their interactive chart with indicators of the release of corporate information. For example, by scrolling over April 24, 2009, you are able to see that the rise in their stock price coincided with the release of ENI’s first quarter 2009 results.

I find this particularly helpful when I look at a large rise or fall on a stock price chart as it often helps me understand what may have been causing the movement.

In this series:
Previous post: Share price information
Next post: Historical share price data

Talent Acquisition 2009: No Surprises


Big 2

Looking over Talent Acquisition Strategies 2009: Cutting through the Clutter and Proactively Managing Quality Candidates, a new report from the Aberdeen Group, there’s a definite sense of familiarity.  Almost every finding and every recommendation is related to strategies and tactics that have been covered here on Corporate Eye and widely discussed among recruiting professionals.  So the value of the report is not so much in big news as in validation of the conventional wisdom–and some ideas for strategic fine-tuning.

As mentioned in the introductory post for this series, the report covers a lot of territory.  So I will focus on highlighting the information that pertains to corporate websites, social media, and employer branding.  By way of introduction:

  • The report defines three “maturity classes”—Best in Class (20% of respondents), Industry Average (50%), and Laggards (30%)
  • Class placement is assessed on four measures—percentage of new hires that were top choice; year-over-year increase in candidate quality; year-over-year increase in retention; percentage of new hires meeting or exceeding requirements on first review
  • Differences between Best in Class and Laggards were fairly dramatic in some cases—with BiCs getting 90% of their first choice hires, Laggards only 27%, but . . .
  • Laggards were not as far off in employee success measured by first reviews, with the BiCs showing 90%, the Laggards 71%

So what do we learn about Best in Class practices?  Among other things:

  • BICs are much more likely than Laggards to have a well-defined candidate relationship management process in place
  • As a preferred response to economic stress, expanding the candidate pipeline proactively was the top choice for BiCs (39%) and scaling back on recruiting efforts was the bottom choice (14%)
  • BiCs are significantly more likely than Averages and Laggards to use a variety of pre-hire assessments

In terms of how to build/expand the pipeline of quality candidates, the top two BiC choices were:

  • Cultivating employee referrals (which entails the need to increase employee engagement)
  • Maintaining “an engaging and informative company career portal”

As for other aspect of technology–large percentages (70% to 90%) of all three maturity classes have adopted:

  • Applicant tracking systems
  • Hiring management systems
  • Background screening solutions, and
  • Online career portals (both external- and internal-facing)

The gap between BiCs and all others is also relatively small when it comes to the use of “Web 2.0 and social networking,” but in this case the percentages are all low rather than high.  Less than 30% of companies in each maturity class utilize these capabilities now, with another 30% “planning to use.”

Note that (a) this assessment leaves about 40% with neither implementation nor plan, and (b) BiCs are no further along than Laggards.  (Though of the BiCs that do use social networking tools, three-quarters say their recruiters are trained on use of the tools, while just under half of Laggard users have training in place.)

In a related Aberdeen report (HR Executive’s Guide to Web 2.0: Cracking the Code for Talent Management), a survey of more than 500 companies found that less than half were using Web 2.0 and social networking tools for talent acquisition, but noted a 105% rate of growth in use over the the previous year’s figures.  Respondents in that study identified the greatest value of Web 2.0 tools in recruitment as “[giving] the candidate a sense of the company’s culture.”

I hope anyone who gleans further insights from the Aberdeen report will share—and in the meantime, I’ll offer an additional line of thought in the next post.


(Thanks to gthomasbower for the visual mash-up of Number 2.)

Talent Acquisition 2009: Considering the Aberdeen Group Report


Big 1

A new report from the Aberdeen Group researchers–Talent Acquisition Strategies 2009: Cutting through the Clutter and Proactively Managing Quality Candidates—offers much to think about.  In fact, there’s so much thought provocation that I’m going to walk through the topics in three posts, looking at some aspects of the Aberdeen findings and exploring some contrary/complementary ideas.

First, the background.  The Aberdeen study, conducted between June and August, 2009, examines “the use, the experiences, and the intentions of more than 420 enterprises regarding their talent acquisition initiatives.”  The largest percentage of respondents (36%) were HR managers, with directors coming in next (23%), and CEOs/VPs totaling 17%.  Industries were represented fairly evenly, but a whopping 73% of responding companies were from North America, with Asia and Europe dividing 23%, and everywhere else providing just a sprinkle.  About a third of responding companies were “small,” with annual revenues of $50 million or less, and fewer than 500 employees, with roughly another third mid-sized, and 27% humongous (billion-dollar plus, more than 5,000 employees).

Second, fair warning.  If you want to view the whole report, you have until October 31 to access it via free registration.  After that it becomes content for sale.  (You can’t save or copy it, by the way, but you can print all or selected pages.)  Quick note:  Research reports have become quite expensive, which increases the value of the Aberdeen approach.  In their model, sponsors underwrite access to reports for a limited time—and that means you have to pay attention to what’s available when–so you have to pay attention to Aberdeen.  Rather clever . . .

Third, a strategy.  The report is rather complex in its organization, and it uses a sort of proprietary framework for analysis.  So it is not what I would call an “easy read.”  If you do read it, try going through first with a focus on the raw data and second with an eye on the interpretations and advice.  Make notes, use a highlighter, etc.—in short, treat it like a school assignment.   This could be a worthwhile effort if the report is used to: (a) organize thinking about issues/opportunities in the identification and management of candidates, and (b) review gaps and accomplishments in your own organization.

Fourth (and finally), a preview.  For the next post, I’ll get out my decoder ring and highlight some important points in the report.  After that, I’ll offer a mildly contrarian response to some aspects of the report.


(Thanks to the bbp for opening the door with Number 1.)