Does the Festive Season Affect Recruiting?

Two years ago, I wrote an article for this newsletter, concerning seasonality in recruiting from the point of view of both candidates, i.e. the times of the year when candidates were looking to change jobs, and employers, i.e. when employers were most looking to hire. 

The conclusion I drew was: "it depends". That is "it depends" on the industry, in particular if there is seasonality in the business and when bonuses are paid. For example you don't go looking for winemakers in vintage because most winemakers are up to their gumboots in grapes and have little else on their minds other than fermenting grapes. Similarly the best time to recruit an accountant is not around the new financial year. A bonus for a salesperson often falls due in July, so June is not a popular month to move.

 

On a similar vein and as it is nearing Christmas, I thought I would tackle the question of "does the festive season affect recruiting?". This thought is prompted because some of our clients have raised the question "Is it worthwhile to advertise vacancies over the Christmas/New Year period?".

A decade or more ago, I would have said yes, the "festive season" does affect recruiting, because job vacancy advertising, before the formation of internet job boards, shrank to practically nil over the Christmas and New Year period. Some 15 years ago, practically the only advertising medium was newspapers and candidates were conditioned by long precedent that there were very few positions advertised until the 3rd or 4th week of January. In addition most candidates on holidays in those days didn't have access to a printer and so had to wait until they were back at work to submit an application.

All this has changed since the advent of internet job boards and more recently, Smartphone's and tablet computers. For example, I read last weekend that the average person on holidays expected to spend three hours per week on their Smartphone/tablet/laptop, checking emails and work matters. Work has invaded the annual leave period, especially for anyone who has a portable device.

Candidates are nowadays checking job boards and receiving job emails from job boards, getting job notifications by Twitter and from Facebook friends, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Because most ads are up on job boards for 28 days (versus the one day of newspapers), candidates can now check at their leisure for job opportunities all through their holidays. In addition, a resume can easily be sent by email or uploaded from your Smartphone or wherever in the "Cloud" you keep it.
One of the key factors here is that people who are often passive candidates (i.e. those not actively looking for a new role) can become active searchers over the vacation period. Whilst on holiday they have the time to search for new roles and more importantly they have the time to think about change. Thus some of the best candidates can come onto the market and so it is important to be there, ready to tell them about a marvelous new role.

Of course people don't just take holidays over the Christmas and New Year break, but a sizeable portion do take at least a week to two weeks over this period and to miss out on this opportunity just because of an outmoded impression that the whole nation turns off would be unfortunate.

From an employer's / recruitment point of view, the sensible thing to do is to plan to advertise across the "festive season". After all the relatively modest cost of internet advertising and the potential benefit is such that you can't afford to miss the opportunity.

In closing, I would like to extend to you all our best wishes for a very happy Festive Season and all the best for a prosperous and healthy New Year.

Are Australian candidates amongst the "most demanding" in the world?

A survey of six advanced countries (Australia, United Kingdom, USA, France, Germany and the Netherlands) undertaken by HR Software company; Success factors has turned up some interesting results.

For example the survey revealed that over 80% of Australian candidates requested benefits beyond what they were originally offered by future employers and that they were most likely to ask for: Flexible working hours (59%), higher pay (54%), training (44%) and flexible working locations (31%). Australians were more likely to ask for flexible working conditions than those in other surveyed countries. Approximately 70% of the requests were granted, which means that candidates have a high probability of success with their requests. 

The survey also found that employers are more likely to grant candidates non-financial requests. With 71% allowing additional training, 63% flexible working hours, 55% flexible job locations and 46% a hiring bonus, followed by 45% for higher pay. Typically the most likely pay increase granted was between 5% to 20% (78%). Australia was the least likely (along with France) to grant, just 12% of the time, a pay increase over 20%.

Across all countries surveyed; woman are more likely to ask for flexible working hours (50%) and flexible working locations (40%) whereas men tend to ask for higher pay (45%), a hiring bonus (43%) or a higher job title (39%). Women want flexibility, Men want money and prestige.

The survey also found that differences were greater across generations than sex, with Generation X being the most demanding, which is interesting given the attention given to the needs of Generation Y in the popular Press. Baby Boomers were the least demanding by a long shot with just 12% (the highest figure in their group of parameters) asking for additional leave. Generation X asked for higher job titles (49%) than Generation Y (24%) and the Boomers (6%). Similar figures were recorded across the generations for: Pay, Bonuses, and Flexible working hours. It was only in training that Generation Y (40%) exceeded Generation X (17%) and the Baby Boomers (2%). 

Across the range of parameters Baby Boomers were very modest in their demands, meaning that they were probably just grateful to get a new job. Generation X would appear to be well within the sought after sector of the employment market, to be able to demand and largely achieve their requests. Whilst Generation Y are still in the experience accumulation phase of their careers.
A conclusion to be drawn from this survey is that no matter the age or sex of employees, there are significant differences in what individual candidates aspire to in seeking employment compensation and that every negotiation with a new employee needs to be individually tailored.
 

Plain packaging for all tobacco products sold in Australia

posted by Employment Innovations on November 20th, 2012  Posted in Blog

Next month sees the start of plain packaging laws for all tobacco products sold in Australia. From December all tobacco must be sold in olive green plain packets featuring no commercial logos. Australia is the world’s first to try this approach to stamping out smoking; but we wonder how much further this fight can go and whether the workplace will now become the new frontier?

Even though Australia’s public health insurance program does not discriminate against smokers there is increasing appetite for this to change. The annual Private Health Insurance Report conducted by CoreData suggests that most Australians think those who lead unhealthy lifestyles should pay more for private health insurance; their survey of 1213 people reported 73% agreeing on higher premiums for smokers.
So, should Australian employers follow suit? Whilst we are at the forefront when it comes to tobacco packaging, further advances in policies and attitude are occurring overseas.

In the US, some employers have already taken initiative in the face of rising health insurance premiums; ProMedica, owning several hospitals in Michigan and Ohio, only hire employees who pass a pre-employment nicotine screen. This policy was implemented back in January 2011 and is still going strong. There is, however, a clear financial incentive because US employers typically cover the cost of employee health insurance. Other US organisations have also implemented smoking cessation programs followed by zero tolerance, demanding increased health standards from employees and even random drug and nicotine screenings.

Only 29 US states have legislation in place to protect employees’ use of tobacco from becoming a condition of employment, but for many employers, it remains a grey area. Whilst it is not a requirement to permit smoking breaks on or off the work premises, prohibition can be a gateway to intrusion of privacy and even discrimination.

Starting Out and Staying Ahead in the Career Race

This presentation gives you tips on what to do when applying for a job...

5 Tips for Recent Graduates Applying for Their First Job

It can be pretty exciting and downright scary when you apply for your first professional role. You may have already applied for vacation or part-time jobs to help pay your way through your education, but now you are ready to take on your first career making role. So what do you need to do when applying for that first role?

One of the first things you really need to do is to ask yourself: 

1. Why do you would want this role?
It’s a good idea to ask yourself the question: Why do you want this role? Before applying for any role. There is absolutely no good in applying for roles that you don’t really want – some graduates do this, applying for every role they see, in a scatter gun approach, hoping that they will land at least one role. You are far better being selective and only apply for those roles that will forge the way for the career you really want to develop. Think about what you want and ask questions of people already in these careers, do some investigation, regard the process as a project and do some planning.
Next it is a good idea to find out:

2. What people typically do in this type of role?
It is one thing to think that you want to be an astronaut, but for many jobs the reality is different to that of the outsider’s expectation. So it really is a good idea to do some checking with people who already working in the kind of role that you aspire to check that it really is your thing. In addition the process of learning about a role will be also beneficial when you come to a job interview you will know what it takes to do the role.
Now that you know what the role is about, the next thing to do is to: 

3. Research the employer.
Employers vary greater in particular organisational culture; it really is a good idea to get a handle on what an organisation is like culturally as well as just knowing the nature of its business. In addition knowing about your potential future employer will impress your interviewer when you are interviewed.

Having researched your potential employer and decided that they are people you could work for, it is time to put down on paper:

4. What do you bring to the role? – Put it down in a cover letter.
A good thing to do whenever you apply for a role is to carefully craft a cover letter that introduces you to a potential employer; it is also an opportunity for you to address the key criteria in a role. It is good discipline to do a new cover letter for each new role that you apply for. And the process of doing a cover letter and answering the key criteria will also alert you to whether you are at all suitable for the role.

Now that you have put together a great cover letter, you need to back your application with a brief and to the point resume that supports your contention that you are the ideal person for this role. So you need to:

5. Put together a resume of 2 – 3 pages.
A resume should list:
• You name,
• Contact details,
• Education , (Academic)
• Training, (Vocational)
• Plus a list of your work experience and should not extend to anymore than 3 pages if you are a recent graduate. Your most recent experience should come first with earlier experience following in order.

Does asking candidates crazy off the wall questions work?

What vegetable would you be? Why are manholes round? Teach me something I don’t know. 
There are all kinds of tactics for getting to the heart of your candidates knowledge, creativity and problem solving skills, but is asking something that open-ended and high-pressure, especially in an interview setting, really useful?

Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway says no – it just causes stress and confusion. The question was asked at the Hay Festival of literature and arts, and a panel of writers struggled, with one saying they didn’t know anything other people didn’t know and whatever he used to know he’d forgotten.

“Listening to this, I changed my mind,” Kellaway said. “Mr. Page’s (from Yahoo) question (Tell me something I don't know) isn’t great at all. It is as hopeless as all the other things people ask applicants.”

The theory goes that by asking a question the applicant isn’t prepared for, the answer will carry more meaning compared to things like “Tell me about a time you showed courage.”

Kellaway lists some of the oddball offerings collected by Glassdoor.com, including these gems:

• If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender how would you get out? (Goldman Sachs)
• What do you think of garden gnomes? (Trader Joe’s)
• If you were a Microsoft Office program, which would it be? (an unnamed auto repair shop)

As fun as these might be to ask – especially if you enjoy making interviewees sweat – studies show the results are little better than picking people at random.

The question “What is 37 times 37?” might show some useful information about a candidate, Kellaway added, but she suggested interviewers ditch the off-the-wall approach if they want to get more than a look of terror from candidates.

Do’s and Don’ts of Skype/Video Interviews

It is not all uncommon nowadays for Skype (or similar technologies) to be used to interview candidates who for whatever reason are unable to attend an in person interview.

A Skype interview has a great number of advantages in our busy world, it is economical and with the right equipment easy to set up. Having said that, there are also a number of disadvantages too. These disadvantages fall into two categories, firstly those that relate to technical limitations such as bandwidth where you get poor picture quality, jerky images, out of sync sound and so on and secondly those that relate to perception and presentation.

Unfortunately a proportion of candidates who allow them-selves to be interviewed via Skype, don’t prepare themselves as well as they might for a regular in person interview. Please find below some Do’s and Don’ts when preparing for a Skype interview.

Do:
1. Dress as well as you would expect for a person to person interview. Just because the interview is taking place in an environment that you may choose, is no excuse to wear your old tracksuit.
2. Make sure that you are well groomed. There is no excuse not to be well scrubbed.
3. Be ready at your computer, just as you would turn up in time for an in person interview. Make sure that your computer is up and running ready to receive the connection. Make sure your internet connection is reliable. Take advantage of the "Test" feature to test both Video and Sound before the interview. Be ready to go to Sound only if the Video is bad or fails.
4. Prepare yourself for the interview. Do exactly the kinds of preparation as you would for an in person interview. The interviewer is going to ask the same questions and judge you on the same standards as for an in person interview.

Don’t:
1. Set up the interview where distractions come into play. You may think it is cool to conduct your end of the interview in a café with your nice new iPad, but don’t forget that extraneous noise will be picked up and people passing by may be an annoyance.
2. Think for one minute that a Skype interview is a rehearsal for the real thing; it is just as serious and important to your success in working your way through the recruitment process as any other step.
3. Forget to look at your interview position from the interviewer’s perspective, make sure that you are located in a comfortable chair that allows you to sit with an erect and alert posture. Adopt a posture that shows you are interested and keen for the role. Make sure that the background behind you is uncluttered and non distracting. Specifically ensure that the background is not too brightly lit, otherwise you will appear as a dark silhouette against a glary background, likewise don’t set yourself up so that you are staring into bright light, squinty is not a good look.
4. Forget to be as attentive as possible to the interviewer, paying careful attention to the interviewer is perhaps more important in a Skype interview because you don’t have the same benefit or intensity of all the audio visual cues found in an in person interview.