Staffing 2016: How Talent & Opportunity Connect

By Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler

This futuristic account of Jaime-Beth, a job seeker in the year 2016, is intended to examine where today’s technology might take us and raise the level of debate about some of the issues we’ll encounter along the way. The earliest version of this article was first published as "Making Sense of the Cyberspace Sizzle: How Talent and Opportunity Connect on the Internet" in Employment Management Today (Fall, 1998) and reprinted for the CareerXroads 1999 edition and again revised for the 2001 and 2003 editions. (The 2003 installment is available in two parts: Part One and Part Two.) This article has been extensively revised over the last decade and an edited version appeared this Fall as "Staffing 2010" in Human Resource Executive: Forecast 2006.

Technology promises new solutions but only if we can remember the original problem.

It was Monday morning and Jaime-Beth, "JB" to her friends, was already having a bad day at Black Rock, Inc., her high-tech employer located inGrass Valley. A growing community nestled in California’s historic gold mining country and the home to more than 30 other corporate satellite work centers, Jaime’s mom had called just minutes before from her home outside Charlotte, N.C. and it wasn’t just to wish her a Happy New Year. Her mother’s once minor infirmities were getting worse, "and that spells trouble with a capital T", Jaime thought to herself.

Jaime’s drive to build a successful career by developing engineering applications for the health-care industry was beginning to conflict with her equally strong desire to be near her mom and she was second-guessing her decision two years earlier to locate across the continent from her. She wanted to make a difference in all aspects of her life and, it seemed something had to give.

To complicate matters, Jaime’s significant other, Jim, was struggling as an administrator in a nonprofit agency that was resistant to his ideas. His patience was wearing thin and lately he had been talking about making a switch. If that weren’t enough, Sally, their daughter, was showing exceptional academic potential in a school system that appeared to have trouble challenging her. Jaime and Jim felt like they were candles burning at both ends.

Knowledge Management is creating paths to follow in a forest of data.

With a few minutes left before her scheduled project meeting, Jaime quickly drilled her company’s intranet links to their support for relatives section and read the company’s eldercare policy. She wasn’t quite sure how far this policy would go toward solving her problems however and touched the examples button on her PEA screen (portable expandable assistant) to get a better idea of the extent of the policy. A set of interactive FAQs with text, audio and video options available on command appeared but a quick scan of the subjects discussed in the examples displayed there confirmed her suspicion that none were related to her situation. She deftly pressed the "call me" option.

Immediately, a smiling face appeared in the corner of her screen. She recognized it instantly as Jason Hunter, one of the three HR Client Support experts working for Black Rock’s highly effectiveUS human resources function. Jaime smiled back at the screen recalling the internal networking team she and Jason had both participated on last year while marveling over how quickly connections were made in a company that was spread out over three continents and 40 facilities. She remembered Jason worked out of Black Rock’sOregon facility three days a week and was on call from home at other times as well. Their brief company connection was part of the intense training that Black Rock’s core employees go through to develop their competencies in collaborative tool sets and, not incidentally, to bond with one another. It was one of the reasons top performers cited a why they come and stay at Black Rock- not to mention its competitive edge in driving the firm forward.

“Hi-Tech” without "Hi-Touch" can’t raise the “bar” even a single notch. Together, they change the nature of the bar itself.

Jason Hunter looked up at his screen when he heard the tone signaling a customer inquiry. He wasn’t surprised to actually "see" Jamie-Beth because he knew she preferred to maintain her visual-link options in the "on" mode when she worked (There were still many in the company who preferred "voice only”- to many). It was also helpful that his HR configured PEA screen offered an employee ID feature, a printed name under her image and a link to "files", should he need it. He didn’t. Jason, only minutes before, had engaged the HR customer system and he was ready to receive inquires.

Typically two of his NA (North American) colleagues were also available during us NA working hours and the system automatically routed connections to whoever was free (or explained why not, offered an estimated response time and an override option to kick up the inquiry to "urgent" if necessary).

Sometimes, when it really got busy, Jason thought how it was in the "old days" when there were three times as many people in HR to serve the company’s 4000 employees with few measures demonstrating the quality of the service provided. Then, you could simply turn on a voice message that promised nothing other than “I will call you back as soon as possible”. The problem with that approach however is it no longer worked in a globally competitive environment. Communication, Collaboration and Commitment, Black Rock’s performance mantra, signaled a far different approach to customer centered behavior and was also the foundation for the company’s staffing message.

"Hi JB", said Jason, "Great to see you. Your ’screenlink’ indicates you may have a question about our eldercare policy. What can I do for you today?" Jaime described her concerns about her mother’s situation and quickly realized from Jason’s explanation that travel was not covered by the company’s elder-care plan nor were there any plans to open a center nearCharlotte- at least for the foreseeable future.

Before cutting the connection Jason said, "we’re flexible and creative enough to work with you on this, give me some time to check out a couple options and I’ll get back to you before the end of the week." He finished by noting for the record, "I’ll need to access your personal file. Do I have permission?" "Of course", said Jaime, "I appreciate anything you can come up with.

Jaime murmured "break" in order to command her PEA to cut the connection with Jason and then looked up as Bob Ender walked in the office to ask if she were ready to start the meeting. "Absolutely", she replied and Bob sat down, stretched his PEA on the side table to accommodate the space and spreadsheets he typically enjoyed having for his sidebars and pronounced himself "ready". Pressing the project function icon on her command screen, Jaime automatically alerted all of her project team leaders that they would begin their scheduled meeting in three minutes. She and Bob were the only participants located inGrass Valley. The rest were connecting from whatever facility they had chosen to work out of although two members worked totally out of their homes. The corporate shift out of the cities had accelerated during the last decade driven by security concerns and the growing ease and comfort in using multimedia technology applications for everyday communications. Small, regional based facilities offered realconnect opportunities that most professional employees needed but a few pursued full home-based options for any number of personal reasons.

The "Baby Boomers" will trigger (once again) the changes that lead to the reinvention of work.

Jaime was still amazed that she had been able to entice Bob to join her team. Nearly thirty years older than her "thirty-something" project leader, Bob had retired "early" from one of Black Rock’s fiercest competitors. He was one of the "Baby Boomers" that began leaving corporations in large numbers nearly a decade earlier. It shouldn’t have been a major shock to corporateAmerica when younger professionals with technical skills just didn’t fill all those empty cubicles- but it was. Jaime briefly reflected on how much had changed in such a short time.

The opportunity the Boomers eventually capitalized on was the continued and dramatic decrease in technical graduates from US colleges during the 90’s and the first few years of the 21st century when Jaime received her degree. Jaime was one of only 40 students in her University to graduate with a Computer Science degree in 2001. Two other women were in her class. The 23,000 BSCS graduates in theUS that year (2001) were in sharp contrast to the nearly 40,000 graduates a decade earlier in 1991 (even more so when considering that many of her fellow students weren’t even eligible to work in theUS). Still, it was actually hard for her to find a job during her first year. She supplemented contract work with continuing education- mostly e-learning courses that resulted in two technical certifications.

With talent so scarce during the years of hyper-competition that began after the recession of 2001-2002, Jamie eventually had to swat away uninvited opportunities like so many ants at a picnic. The late 90’s "War for Talent" was a 60’s "Love-in" by comparison. It took a very long time by some estimates for companies to begin taking the longer view and join together to educate high school students in the value of careers that were most needed- technology and health care. Only now, nearly a decade later, were these efforts beginning to bear fruit.

Lots of companies folded during the last decade. Not for poor products or services but want of the people to do the work. Hundreds of other firms were forced to relocate their operations overseas since theUS immigration quotas had become more and more restrictive despite intensive lobbying from IT, Pharmaceutical, Health Care, Hospitality and other affected industries. Growth in a recovering economy nearly stalled in 2009 for want of a pair of hands. There were plenty of MBAs, accountants and business majors then but they couldn’t manage, finance and sell what they couldn’t create. It was the technicians, engineers and scientists in the thousands of technical specialties along with the people who teach them that provide the real engine underlying a service economy and they were missing.

While the largest companies moved more and more of their technology capabilities off shore a counter trend began as companies realized how fitting jobs to people instead of the other way around offered competitive advantages that moved performance and productivity up another notch. Schools also began to learn how to recognize, nurture and develop the potential for success in most young students and to teach the skills necessary to succeed. These empowered young professionals, though few in number, were making JobFit a core of a new career management movement.

Coincident with the changes in attitudes toward work and careers, companies like Black Rock, saw the wisdom of decentralizing large-scale obsolete facilities to less costly and more environmentally sustainable regional work centers- small networking hubs for people and technology in places where people wanted to live. The final touch was the exploding adoption and integration of Hi-touch, multi-media applications removing the need for collecting large numbers of people in one place.

New solutions often require an attitude adjustment.

The Boomers were hampered by an additional problem. It seems silly now but then, ageism was still embedded in our working psyche, laws to the contrary notwithstanding. Managers resisted hiring the folks they might have to train on the latest skills and technical languages. Few recruiters were asked to source, screen and select someone who could be trained. An especially the thought of managing someone "old" let alone trying to "teach an old dog new tricks" conjured up images that contributed to finding the most obvious solution.

"Overqualified", "too highly paid" was the excuse used by a generation of hiring managers (including many of the Boomers themselves- when they were younger of course). Looking to legally avoid targeting the AARPs as we began calling them, companies "branded" their websites with the young and able and classified publications used images and copy equating "energetic" with young folks willing to work long hours for untrained managers in crowded, unsafe locations.

Firms finally realized that no amount of money was going to attract the best and the brightest of a younger generation and sustain a growing economy as large as theUS. The best and brightest just weren’t there in the numbers that were needed. Even global solutions were eventually recognized as limited since cheap labor alone would eventually undermine the ability of the people (whose jobs had been offshored to pay for the products or services. More companies were dropping or renegotiating long-term health care and pension benefits- too often after the people affected had retired.

This was just the trigger that changed both attitude about work and how work was "engineered". So what if Boomers wouldn’t commute 9-5, or week-to-week or even 12 months at a time, they were still interested, healthy and capable of making significant contributions- in large numbers. It was this attention on how to keep the Boomers engaged that caused competitive firms to once more reinvent the workplace- for everyone.

Fitting a job to a person is not the same as selecting someone for a job.

Companies had been moving in the direction of cataloguing the skills, experiences, roles and responsibilities needed to accomplish projects, tasks and functions. Unfortunately there were so many competing approaches that no real attention was paid in the employment marketplace beyond the academic community. Traditional job descriptions had to be replaced in favor of far more flexible arrangements that mapped and valued "jobs" in a way that people with the interests and capabilities could understand and compare them. This meant a standard approach was needed but this didn’t happen without a fight.

Companies, indeed most employment professionals, were still stuck on trying to improve one-sided selection tools. "What we need are better tools to ’hire for style’, ’train for skills’," they would say. Efforts to differentiate potential candidates based on personality factors and other selection criteria were extremely popular- and flawed. There were several reasons for this but the most important was the simple fact that the candidates in the most demand were the least likely to provide the data. They were increasingly concerned about privacy and the extent that information ranging from SAT scores and gene profiles were being collected with few controls and little disclosure. These professionals recognized that if THEY know more about the goals, challenges, opportunities and flexibility- even the "personality" of the company they could participate in a more balanced selection process.

The idea that the job seeker would participate on an equal level in the selection process developed slowly as an outgrowth of alliances made at the turn of the century between the Department of Labor and a number of major online job boards. Toward the later days of the century’s first decade, the remaining job boards evolved by adopting a standard, common set of requirements that companies could use to "describe" their jobs. It was an advanced version of a DOL database that had been available online for more than 10 years but never used. It became practical for job seekers to search and compare similar positions- and for companies to deliver a consistent message wherever job seekers might gather. The outcome was that job seekers could truly focus on researching and selecting the culture and conditions of the companies they were considering while demonstrating to these same companies that the "skills" they sought were the "skills" they had or could acquire.

Employee Referrals will remain the core source of new talent.

This was all transparent to Bob by the time he first "retired". In the midst of looking for a place to live, Bob received an email from a colleague at Black Rock explaining the company’s desire to create a flexible work environment and encouraging him to check it out. It didn’t take Bob long to realize that he could work on his own terms and, coincidentally, (or so he thought) the community near one of Black Rock’s work centers was ideal. At Black Rock’s web site, Bob saw that instead of job titles and descriptions, the company offered a cafeteria menu of stand-alone capabilities and experiences that, when selected, displayed examples of how these were "clustered" into projects and functions that Black Rock was attempting to fill. People who had been responsible for similar work then offered (not in real-time however but through a knowledge management archive) to explain what and how they did what they did. Bob winnowed the choices down by sharing his restrictions and, when Black Rock committed that the agreed on opportunity was viable, he then demonstrated his capabilities to handle the position; sharing his profile, completing a case study assessment, a remote screening interview and a background check (once permission was granted, this last item only took minutes to confirm).

Diversity is simply a description of the how we make use of everyone’s capabilities.

Jaime dove into her project meeting by reviewing the progress, goals and deadlines while encouraging team members to share challenges and recommend solutions to the various obstacles. Most of the team members were visible on the side-screen but one or two still preferred to connect via voice and documents. One team member, Joan, was deaf but the only way you would know that was from the short delay in translating her comments via the relay service provided by a national organizations devoted to work accommodation technology services. Most disabilities had one technical communication accommodation or another built into the collaboration tools Black Rock used. Putting people with disabilities to work was now way beyond the physical accommodation stage and easily a a multi-billion dollar industry in its own right.

Ongoing Career Management services are critical to the success of educational institutions and professional organizations.

After the meeting, Jaime navigated her PEA to the career center at her Alma Mater’s, "Alumni in Transition" service. An updated checklist was available covering the salient points to a basic career process that included "defining values & interest", "exploring careers", "acquiring & managing networks, leads and connections" and "selecting, joining and succeeding".

There were many choices where professionals like Jaime could manage their career activities but the personal and private nature of these services demanded high trust, a commitment to excellence and the ability to demonstrate that the service actually cared about you. Colleges, professional associations and a growing cadre of individual web-based career coaches were becoming the primary providers.

Job boards, staffing agencies and others just weren’t effective and had lost much of their market share of the employment process. In the case of the major job boards, their quality suffered in an attempt to extract more money or, as in the debacle of 2004, they were caught selling the data they collected. In any case, job seekers increasingly had alternatives that they could trust implicitly because they paid for the services through their membership while the job boards, outplacement firms and staffing agencies were perceived to serve the needs of the corporations that paid them- no matter what they said.

Number one on Jaime’s list of places to search was her technical professional association. A member of a national technical society since her student days, Jaime updated her skills profile, interests, and other key criteria that she kept in the association’s "Registry." She also added a note that the states surrounding the Research Triangle area were preferred. When active, the registry feature allowed anyone to view them. Even so, a recruiter using the registry’s search engine would access an anonymous profile. These documents had been on inactive status since Jaime joined Black Rock, which meant that no one had access but her. Now, with a simple command, she changed the status to "active" but kept several "deeper" certifications, test results and work preferences hidden.

A quick search of current jobs posted at the association site for members only returned nothing of interest but, in their resources section was a great article recently written by a member of the association about a job transition, as well as several links to other technical and scientific niche sites. Jaime scanned the former and saved the latter to her growing bookmarks in a "future job/career" file.

Productivity tools that connect talent with opportunity will be ubiquitous. Niches will be aggregated by trusted and transparent suppliers.

Jaime tapped a link that led her to an association approved Help-Wanted search app. A convenient tool, it offered the promise of all jobs currently available. The only difference between this application and others offered in the dawn of the internet age is that this application actually delivered the goods. Jaime quickly highlighted her interests, experience, location and industry restrictions on a "top" level as well as the details preferences for style of work and management and required benefits on a deeper level.

The results page also offered that within the last 24 hours nearly 400 firms had similar positions posted. The total numbers of firms accessed within her industry and locations that produced this result was 76,000 and the application estimated that no more than 4% of the jobs she sought were not published on the sites of the firms or were listed exclusively with 3rd parties.

The internet app offered to work with her personal and private agent software to automatically and continuously screen these prospect firms more deeply against her second level preferences on a real-time basis. Using the template offered Jaime adjusted her top and second tier preferences to reduce the totals to a more manageable list and approved the ongoing PEA agent access and screening capabilities.

Continuing to review the remaining jobs displayed on Jaime’s PEA, she noted that several offered a blinking link for "immediate live discussion". Satisfied, but out of time, Jaime put aside several prospects for later review.

Before getting back to work, she sent a message to two outside technical network groups asking colleagues living or working in the Research Triangle area to contact her off line because she had a few questions about relocation.

Retention and Employment are linked. Privacy and Disclosure are Linked.

Jason hung up from his conversation with Jaime with a sense that her concerns were more urgent than she let on. A quick check of her file confirmed that she was considered a "key" employee to the success of the company’s business plan and was also listed as a high potential candidate for any one of three team leader positions expected to open up during the next year. Accessing her "personal" file in today’s world of privacy protection automatically triggered a note to Jaime indicating who had accessed the file and why. Jason checked that his access had been based on "prior-permission from employee"- one of several approved access categories like "corporate wide research" and "performance review" that were pre-established reasons for access.

Ironically, on Jason’s list of goals to finish this week was a plan for staffing up Black Rock’s NA workforce to twice its current size in the next 12 to 18 months. Ignoring a key retention issue for an A player even if it is justified was only going to complicate meeting this goal.

In the meantime, Jason decided to test how well his sourcing systems were shaping up. In a worst-case scenario, he wanted to see how hard it would be to come up with a replacement for Jaime’s projects and, possibly, justify a solution that was forming in his mind.

Data Collection, Data Analysis and Planning will drive staffing processes- all centered on communication with targeted talent and those who influence them.

An individual’s data can not be warehoused without permission to access it- each and every time.

From a staffing control panel built into his PEA dashboard, Jason checked an "Interest" database composed of nothing more than emails linked to location and skill requirements. The database was the result of visitors “driven” or invited to Black Rock’s website who eventually ended up leaving a non-work e-mail address for positions that weren’t yet open. Black Rock promised that when these positions became available, they (the visitors) would be the first to receive the announcement, along with an invitation to demonstrate their qualifications or have their questions answered. Jason found nearly 20 registrations showing “interest” in positions similar to Jaime’s. Jason also noted that nearly half of the visitors who registered had also engaged and completed a skills “contest” designed to help them become candidates and learn what it takes to succeed at Black Rock. The contest was not designed to select, only guide, but, the results showed Jason that at least 3 of the registrants were already qualified- even though he couldn’t tell which ones.

While curious about the source of potential candidates, Jason ran a report that showed-as expected-nearly 50% of all registered visitors had come to the site through employee referrals. Newspaper ads, journals and banners on association and niche third-party sites were evenly split. Several hundred individuals were registered by agencies that Jason occasionally worked with who constantly monitored the company’s newest openings. Many came from local library and college resource centers. Several were from a community service agency specializing in helping the physically challenged that Jason had been developing a relationship with to increase his ability to target.

Few “resumes” were ever entered into the system that Jason and his colleagues used for hiring and even then they were maintained on a temporary basis for the first stages of active openings until the candidates became real applicants and engaged in the critical back and forth with hiring managers to determine selection. If the applicant was hired, the relevant data collected during the hiring process was then automatically transferred to the enterprise database and, if not, the resume was archived and contact and “qualified but not hired” was redistributed to one of several opt-in "contact" databases and re-connected to an “interest” status. The entire system was designed to keep-in-touch not keep in limbo and, using readily available content from internal and external sources, potential candidates were periodically made aware of what Black Rock had available that matched their skills as well as how to get and demonstrate the skills to needed to best compete for open positions. In any case, the hiring managers seemed to be managing their end and few red flags were present.

Next, Jason checked the web site of the consulting agency that Black Rock partnered with to implement and suggest staffing strategies. Jason noted a job fair was taking place inPhiladelphia next month with a focus on candidates with just the skills he sought. Jason hadn’t actually been to a job fair in years and this one like the others he used to attend offered a virtual component that would allow him to interview attendees from his office inGrass Valley. He sent a message to Black Rock’s account representative asking for more information and details and asked for a meeting to discuss ramping up their efforts for the next few months.

Returning to the Jaime question, Jason left an voice mail message for his boss outlining his interest in discussing a retention issue and e-mailed Jaime to see if she might be available to meet on Thursday hoping he might have a few options to outline to her by then.

The most successful corporations will develop strategies that emphasize candidate selection processes, not company selection.

When Jaime arrived home an hour earlier than expected, she saw Jim’s note that said he was at soccer practice with Sally. With some time alone, Jaime decided to follow up on her previous efforts. She was also thinking about Jason’s intriguing note that she received just before leaving work. Jaime hoped there might be a solution at Black Rock to help her balance her work and family obligations. But just in case there wasn’t, Jaime needed some back-up strategies. Opening the file took a moment but a moment to see firms with active or acknowledged near term openings and researching more than a dozen of these companies high on her new employer of choice list took only a few minutes more.

Based on the content available on the companies’ websites, five firms were of immediate interest. One company had a great "Getting To Know Us" section with dedicated text, video and audio streams from employees describing their challenges and opportunities. Another had a graphic sequence of their project life cycle with clips and links to individual participants. Most companies had eliminated "resume builders" and simply captured a link to her "registered profile" along with permission to retrieve it. All of the sites offered to include her in their pipeline services or to engage her immediately at her option but now was not the time. The most persistent just wouldn’t let her go with a simulacrum of their recruiter appearing and pleading for her to refer a friend. Turned off, she declined.

Almost all of the corporate websites provided a glimpse of company culture, values, vision, benefits and a means to self-select (realistic previews, self-assessment, etc.) before requiring a visitor to register their interests (never personal or skill related details). This was extremely helpful to Jamie in narrowing her search. She was also glad that she had gotten into the habit of saving the addresses of the headhunters who had contacted her over the years and periodically stayed in touch. In five minutes, she composed a broadcast note to them and attached the link to her abbreviated profile on the association registry.

Checking messages, Jaime saw two from colleagues on the discussion groups she had contacted offering assistance and she replied with a series of questions about the Research Triangle area. Coincidentally, one message was from a member who was working at a company she had just researched minutes before. Jaime asked if she might connect real-time with the intent of having him refer her. She assumed it would be important knowing how Black Rock’s employee referral program worked and hoping it might be the same elsewhere.

As Jaime worked, responses to her earlier messages were coming back acknowledging her interest and promising to keep in touch if her qualifications matched open positions. One message even described how to use the company website to track the progress of her application, even going so far as to assigning a employee who volunteered to guide her research and answer questions. The employer that sent the message also invited her to answer a few optional questions about her experience so far but promising to protect her privacy and explaining how the data would be used to improve the company’s plans. She complied.

A flashing icon appeared in the bottom right corner of her monitor, indicating that someone was on-line and inviting her to connect for a quick discussion. “Someone must be working late”, Jaime thought. Tapping the connection, Jaime found herself in an audio mode with John Singh, a recruiter located inChicago, who had accessed her profile. He was sitting on the elevated subway on his way home from work when her forwarded profile had activated his PEA. He was working on two related assignments inNorth Carolina. After a brief discussion, Jaime agreed to forward a deeper profile layer for review. John also asked Jaime if she would be available for an initial 2-way screening interview the next day. Jaime agreed to a4 PM central time after checking her calendar and then broke the connection. Jaime couldn’t help thinking that it was a busy day at Black Rock and there was a lot to discuss with Jim.

An Unrealistic Scenario?

Black Rock’s size, human resource capabilities, location(s), staffing needs, budget, scarce skills, business plans, investment processes as well as their relationship with colleges, industries, communities, vendors, professional associations, etc., may never develop quite like other companies. Their technology however, is very real. All of the products and services implied in this story exist today- it’s just the combination and that priorities that require imagination. And, of course, what might happen if scarce skills, concerns over privacy, migration away from cities for work, are not as important? While few companies have seamlessly integrated their hiring process, it isn’t technology that is the problem. Vision, leadership and solid business skills are what too often overlooked.

Can you write, rewrite or extend a paragraph or scene for 2016?

The real challenge is to develop a Vision of staffing for your own company.

Here are a few thoughts about researching the tools and toys in this rapidly growing industry and becoming a force for change:

Follow the job seeker: Conduct focus groups with new employees as part of their orientation process. Discuss how they were found or how they found you. Survey the employees who have left you- especially six months after they have left. Not only for the typical traditional reasons but, increasingly, you’ll find that the techniques they used once they decided to look, have a bearing on your policies and choices about the tools and techniques you might use.

Draw your employment process: Can you draw it from your candidate’s point of view? Is your process linked to the performance of your organization and people within it?

Network to build community: Get personally involved in regional and national meetings of professional associations, where the best employment and HR practices, issues and ideas are discussed in a setting that maximizes professional learning. Join online discussion groups and message boards where recruiting discussions take place and where practitioners share tactics and strategies. Develop your strategy around communicating with potential candidates and applicants rather than collecting and storing outdated and potentially flawed resumes.

Become Transparent: Protect jobseeker privacy, disclose what you’ll do with their data and walk the talk.

Measure something that matters: There is no substitute for results that can measure your process and your contribution to your company’s business plans. Look for research-related articles and surveys where hard data minimizes the hype and, focus on the facts that compare products that claim to meet your needs- your processes, not their view of your process.

Imagine the possibilities. Remember, the first step to getting there is knowing where you want to go.

Gerry Crispin, SPHR and Mark Mehler

The Staffing Strategy Connection

Gerry and Mark are commited to writing, researching and sharing their adventures, opinions and data about evolving staffing models with the HR profession, clients and friends. Together they strive to observe and influence new and evolving models that aspire to world-class, measurable standards and satisfy every stakeholder. We are passionate about how firms design and build staffing processes, the technology to enhance them and the systems to manage them. We are constantly on the lookout for stories about staffing challenges, benchmarks, and results as well as the people who live the stories they tell.

If you have questions or comments about this scenario, you can visit Gerry and Mark at http://www.careerxroads.com or reach them at mmc@careerxroads.com.