Solve the labor shortage through human cloning?

Yea, that’s not going to happen any time soon. So what’s a girl to do?  HR and Staffing hold the key to solving the labor shortage.  Let’s try not to be all thumbs this time, okay? 

Here’s the key:  Getting people into the right jobs, before they mentally check out of their current jobs.  Think about your closest friends.  Chances are many of them don’t love what they do, and in some cases don’t even like what they do.  They are living Dilbert lives.  Not because their dumb or lazy.  Dumb and lazy isn’t genetic; it’s produced like a fine wine…over years of aging...in this case in a dead end job.  We don’t need more skilled workers.  We need to get people in jobs that they are passionate about and that challenge them.  I’d take 3 highly passionate and inspired employees over 5 bored ones any day, wouldn’t you? 

So, here’s my Top 10 list of ways recruiters can overt human cloning disasters, and help their fellow candidates reach career nirvana:

10. Find out from your hiring manager why someone should get excited about their job opening.

9. Educate yourself on the social and business relationship networking phenomena (www.linkedin.com, www.spoke.com, www.jobster.com, etc.).  They are the rolodex’s of our generation.  The more networked we are, the quicker we can get people into their dream jobs.

8. Spend a few extra minutes with your applicant’s getting to know what they are passionate about.

7. Practice gracious recruiting.  You don’t have time to talk to every candidate, but have processes that quickly tell people if you’re not interested in them.

6. Write job descriptions that are real: What’s in it for the applicant’s career?  What’s tough about the job? What’s unique about the environment?  Applicants should be able to pre-screen themselves in or out based on the job description details.

5. Get to know employees in the hiring group.  They are a great source of information about: the department, the management and the +/-.  Also, ask them what websites they surf, associations they belong to, hobbies they have (all clues to where you’ll find more like them).

4. Educate your hiring teams on effective interviewing and selection. 

3. Learn what HR is doing to help with retention and career advancement. 

2. Make your own education part of your daily routine.  Spend 10 minutes a day reading blogs listed at this site and others specific to your industry.

1. Mind your thoughts.  Whether you think you are just a “cog in a wheel” or a “dream weaver”, you’re right.

Comments

[Nadine]

Keep up the good work.
I'll keep reading for sure.
And thanks for the good infos.

[Alan Whitford]

Hi Jeff.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Blogs. I have joined as well, but still getting to grips with linking to other blogs and to driving traffic. In the midst of writing a Handbook for E-Recruitment for a client right now, then will have more time to get back to my blog.

http://abtechpartnership.typepad.com/erecruitment_strategy/

I have also tried a couple of different hosting methods - looks like typepad will win out.

Looking forward to your contributions.

Best regards

Alan