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Talent Acquisition 2009: Considering the Aberdeen Group Report


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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.)

An A+ for… Oops! No, wait–


KPMG Magazine

KPMG–a “mature” company that has reinvented its employer image with admirable panache–won the 2008 ERE award for Best Corporate Careers Site.  One of the practices they received praise for: “Weekly Web design and content refresh meetings ensure that the site content is always fresh.”

So I thought it would be interesting to see how things are going there a year later.  The main Careers site looks nice enough—though it seems a little overstuffed.  But actually I didn’t spend much time there, because a link labeled “Global careers magazine” caught my eye.  Several of my recent posts have addressed aspects of global recruiting, and there will be more, so I zipped over for a look.

And I loved the top page (which illustrates this post) right away.  The dramatic iceberg image captures attention for a strong message:  “Inspired to act.”  Focusing on sustainability as a corporate priority sets a great tone.

Scroll down, and there’s a rich array of content:

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There’s even a podcast on preparing for an interview.  Nice!

I was just about to enthuse about this excellent example of corporate communication when I noticed the line “Careers Magazine August 2009.”  I’m writing this at the beginning of October, so there’s a definite freshness gap.  Also—a promise broken.  Either it’s a monthly magazine, or it’s not.  (If it’s meant to be a bi-monthly magazine, the dateline should really say August/September; and besides, the section right below it is headed “Jobs of the Month”.)

Maybe there’s a more current issue that goes to subscribers?  I’ve joined the subscription list, and will update if/when something new appears.  But I have to report in the meantime that registering to receive this publication was not a positive experience.  The registration process itself was okay, but in order to sign up for the Global Careers Magazine I had to sleuth through a list of 25 (yes, really) publications, such as “Audit committee insights” and “Chemical issues monitor.”  Although the available items cover a range of types (magazines, e-updates, newsletters) and focus on a wide variety of industries, they are arranged alphabetically instead of being grouped by some sort of helpful logic.

These may seem like small items, and it’s unlikely that an out-of-date online magazine and an unwieldy subscription list will offend or even annoy most visitors.  But details like these leave an impression.  Did no one have time to publish a September issue of the magazine?  Why not?  Are they all overworked, has staff been cut back, has global hiring been put on hold?  I think these questions might cross many minds.

And the thing is . . . KPMG didn’t even actually have to publish a new magazine!  They could just have removed the word “August” from the page, and that would have fixed the problem, at least for most visitors.  Which makes me even more convinced that no one at the company is taking ownership.

So this is basically another opportunity to remark on the importance of (a) paying attention to the state of the website—and (b) watching out for those subtle, unintentional messages that can creep in while everyone is busy with something else.

Money and Happiness: It’s Complicated…

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According to this story from CIOZone, a recent study by staffing firm Robert Half asked 150 senior executives (from among the 1,000 largest U. S. companies) how they would be most likely to spend money on employee-related priorities.  New hiring was the top choice for 31%, followed by salary increases (21%), bonuses (15%), and training (9%).  Just 5% chose enhancing benefits.

But is it really all about money?  In a related blog post, commentator Ellen Pearlman says:

It’s time for managers and HR executives to identify the various needs their employees have and to craft reward systems that are more personal . . . One worker may need a flexible schedule to take care of an aging parent, another may need to leave early on Wednesdays to get to a class, and still another may want to work four days a week and have a day off to pursue other interests. Some may welcome a special assignment overseas or the opportunity to work with a skunkworks group researching a new product.

As Pearlman points out, this personal approach is much harder than just adding a little to everybody’s paycheck.  It may carry a lot of added value, though, especially among employees who have lost their passion for the company.  And that group is apparently growing.

CIOZone notes that the annual U.S. Strategic Rewards survey from consulting firm Watson Wyatt  and HR non-profit WorldatWork finds employee engagement levels falling 9% from last year’s survey—and “top performers” were even more likely to be disengaged (a 25% topple).   There was also a 14% increase in the number of employees who have already started a new job search.

With so many people unemployed . . . it seems like having a job is a reward in itself.  But in many cases, pay cuts or freezes, shrinking opportunities, and/or increasing workloads are sapping employee satisfaction.  When hiring picks up, these folks may bolt for greener pastures–so now may be the time to find ways of rewarding them without spending more money.

Relevance for the corporate Careers site?  Employees disengaged from their companies are perfect passive candidates.  If they aren’t actively looking, they may start any minute, and if they stumble across an interesting opportunity (or receive just the right email) they may be persuadable.  So it’s a good time for the Careers site to highlight content that promotes engagement—rewards, opportunities, culture, and support for the pursuit of happiness.  It’s also a good time to enhance communications and work on building connections.  When the hiring money flows again, having a good candidate pool will be a significant competitive advantage.


(Thanks to eye of Einstein for our greener pastures.)

Another Front in the Global War for Talent


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USA Today headline:  More of world’s talented workers opt to leave USA.

The loud public conversation in America about the complicated topic of “illegal immigration” has drowned out another significant concern that impacts business.  But “reverse immigration” may soon attract more interest.  According to Duke University’s Vivek Wadhwa, “What was a trickle has become a flood.”   He projects that “in the next five years, 100,000 immigrants will go back to India and 100,000 to China, countries that have had rapid economic growth,” adding that “for the first time in American history, we are experiencing the brain drain that other countries experienced.”

The article cites several reasons for the exodus:

  • These experienced and well-educated workers have excellent career opportunities in their own countries.
  • Family ties and cultural roots draw many people homeward.
  • Money goes further in their countries of origin, offering potential improvements in quality of life.
  • Immigration delays frustrate some, who are tired of having an uncertain status and may face waits of up to ten years for permanent residency.

How does all this impact recruiting and employer branding in the U.S.?  Perhaps not much in the immediate term.  Most of those leaving are actually leaving good jobs they already have—so at best they were passive candidates who will just not be available in the local pool.  But over time there will be a greater impact if certain talent areas are depleted faster than they are replenished.  This effect is most noteworthy in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (often referred to as STEM).

For companies that are really thinking strategically about staffing, the key may be in helping to create the future labor force, rather than just waiting to see what’s available when workers are needed.  A thought-provoking discussion recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education surfaces many of the problems affecting STEM education and touches on the effects of industry-education partnerships.

See what all this looks like from the other side—and get some interesting ideas—in How the Disciple became the Guru, a white paper from Global Engineering and Entrepreneurship @ Duke.  As the report explains, in India “several industries, including IT, have learned to overcome another major deficiency: India’s education system. They have adapted and perfected western practices in workforce training and development, and now take workers with poor education and weak technical skills and turn them into highly productive technical specialists and managers able to compete on the world stage.”

Final thought:  Smart companies doing business multi-nationally may find ways to take advantage of this trend.  Sometimes it’s a good idea to “think locally, and act globally.”

Strategy, Social Media, and the Dangers of the Shiny Object


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Commenting on a recent article by Jeremy Owyang, Albert Maruggi (founder of marketing firm Provident Partners) remarked:

Just spent a couple of days with health care marketers from a cross section of hospitals. I also had a session with a billion dollar plus business insurance company on their modest, and I mean modest social strategy.  My radar highlights significant hype fatigue, maybe even disappointment with the social space.

The problem may be adopting social media without a strategy.  Maruggi’s comment includes a link that leads to a few other links, which lead to posts that are (a) short, and (b) worth reading:

These posts are all written from the marketing point of view, so as you troll through them, remember that a big part of recruiting is marketing the employer brand.  But consider this also:  marketing the company as an employer is NOT the same as marketing the company’s products and services.  In fact, there can sometimes be a very big difference.

So while it might be a strategic mistake from the product marketing perspective to chase every “shiny object” (in this case, new social media platforms and technologies), it might not be a mistake from the recruiting perspective.  From the product marketing view, strategic focus may be on effectiveness with the largest possible audience—while recruiters may need to reach very specific groups of people.  The super-techie, super-social-media types might actually be impressed to see recruiters turn up in some edgy online locations, so if those are the folks you need, it’s a different situation.

Back at home base, Jeremy Owyang’s post was about three essential qualities for corporate media posts.  He says, look for people who:

  • Fulfill meaningful business objectives (“These individuals will be able to use brand monitoring tools, have analytical abilities, and be able to benchmark their efforts that tie back to business metrics–not social media metrics.”)
  • Bridge both internal stakeholders and customers (“This quality requires the professional to be able to relate to internal teams that may not understand the social culture, be empathetic, be able to communicate and train them . . . “)
  • Show credibility with the technology (Beyond expertise with current technology, they need to be “capable of learning new technologies, evaluating, and then applying for business needs.”)

Summary?  Whether it’s technology or people—keep strategic concerns in mind when making social media choices.


(Thanks to jayniebell for the great glitter.)

The Global War for Talent

Take China, for example. The new hotels we are opening will create over 30,000 jobs there. The job market there is extremely fast-paced, and quality candidates have a range of opportunities. We are competing with major multi-national companies for qualified and experienced staff across different skill sets, including HR, finance, sales, marketing and engineering.

That quote is from a “Hot Topic” article on the InterContinental Hotels Group website, written by Tracy Robbins, Executive Vice President of Human Resources for IHG.   I think for some folks—and particularly for some Americans—there’s a moment of disorientation upon reading that paragraph.  For one thing, the downturn in hiring (to say nothing of the increase in downsizing) has dominated the news about employment for so long that it takes an active imagination to contemplate hot labor markets.  But according to Robbins, “the number of workers with transferable skills is steadily increasing and people are willing to change jobs more often.  In short, we’re in a seller’s market–a market where talent matters, and talent wins.”

Wow.  And double-wow for the people who got ahead of the global curve on this one.  It’s been a surprisingly fast trip from the Cultural Revolution to the Capitalist Revolution, and I think it would be fair to say the China boom wasn’t an obvious development, viewed from twenty or even ten years ago.  But now it’s now, and the playing field has changed dramatically.

For another thing . . . there’s a lot of rhetoric about the impact of globalization on employment.  But most of the public discussion is about the shift of relatively low-wage manufacturing and customer service jobs to countries where labor is cheaper.  Much less is said about either (a) the opportunities in Asia and other countries for American and European workers, or (b) the competition for local talent in quickly developing markets such as China.

The IHG website features a gorgeous video about China, and their Careers site is worth a visit—not only for a look at their Asia initiative, but also to see their strategies for increasing employee engagement.  With a farflung workforce, it’s especially important to create a feeling of “corporate community,” and IHG is pursuing that goal with a lot of features on their main site, and a special campaign called Room to Grow.

If your company isn’t doing business multi-nationally today, it may be soon.  What’s the plan for expanding the recruiting message beyond familiar borders?