The Art of Recruiting: IKEA Australia
IKEA has a well defined brand, so most people get this cartoon about Interviewing at IKEA:
The recruiting geniuses at IKEA Australia and their agency The Monkeys, Australia came up with a cheap, simple and effective method of publicizing their need to mass-hire for a new store. Check out this video for how they did it:
With all the hype about social media and complex on-line recruiting, it’s good for recruiters to remember that sometimes the simple approach works better.
For details on real interviews with IKEA, check out their Interview Questions and Reviews on GlassDoor.com.
How Not to Get a Job: Go to College
A story in yesterday’s WaPo sheds some interesting light on which type of college grads suffer more from unemployment:
Recent college graduates with bachelor’s degrees in the arts, humanities and architecture experienced significantly higher rates of joblessness, according to a study being released Wednesday by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.
Among recent college graduates, those with the highest rates of unemployment had undergraduate degrees in architecture (13.9 percent), the arts (11.1 percent) and the humanities (9.4 percent), according to the study.
The recent college graduates with the lowest rates of unemployment had degrees in health (5.4 percent), education (5.4 percent), and agriculture and natural resources (7 percent.) Those with business and engineering degrees also fared relatively well.
One of the study authors makes the point:
“People keep telling kids to study what they love — but some loves are worth more than others,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, one of the study’s authors. “When people talk about college, there are all these high-minded ideas about it making people better citizens and participating fully in the life of their times. All that’s true, but go talk to the unemployed about that.”
The analysis, which was based on 2009 and 2010 data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, comes amid an increasing debate over the value of college education…
The Hard Times report from the source, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, describes their major findings:
- Choice of major substantially affects employment prospects and earnings.
- People who make technology are better off than people who use technology.
- In general, majors that are linked to occupations have better employment prospects than majors focused on general skills. But, some occupation specific majors, such as Architecture, were hurt by the recession and fared worse than general skills majors.
- For many, pursuing a graduate degree may be the best option until the economy recovers. But, not all graduate degrees outperform all BA’s on employment.
All good points to keep in mind.
Study author Carnevale points that studying what you love (a.k.a. Following your Passion) is no guarantee of success. Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs spoke at “The Entertainment Gathering 2008″ and addressed that same problem.
Follow your passion? What could possibly be wrong with that?
Probably the worst advice I ever got. Follow your dreams and go broke.
That’s all I heard growing up. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I was told that if you follow your passion, it’s going to work out.
I can give you 30 examples right now.
Bob Combs, the pig farmer in Las Vegas who collects the uneaten scraps of food from the casinos and feeds them to his swine. Why? Because there’s so much protein in the stuff we don’t eat that they grow at twice the normal speed, and he is one rich pig farmer. And he’s good for the environment and he spends his days doing this incredible service. He smells like hell, but God bless him, he’s making a great living.
You ask him, ‘Did you follow your passion here?’ and he’d laugh at you. The guy’s worth… he just got offered 60 million for his farm and he turned it down. He didn’t follow his passion. He stepped back and watched where everyone was going and he went the other way.
And I hear that story over and over.
See Mike Rowe and the War on Work for the video. The Passion part starts at 12:00
Happy New Year!
Goodbye to 2011, and good riddance!
Here’s to 2012, which can only be a better year!
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.
NotHire: How to Sabotage Your Recruiting Efforts in Six Easy Steps
Somehow, your humble author missed this posting on Brenden Wright’s blog when it came out in 2009. But, since you know that the NotJobs motto is “Better Late than Never”, we’re pleased to offer this excerpt from Brenden’s work. The title is “How to Sabotage Your Recruiting Efforts in Six Easy Steps“, so Wright covers six things that managers do to ruin their chance of hiring the best (or hiring anyone.) You’ll need to see the article for the details, but here are the six sabotages:
Step #1: Beat up your recruiters about the lack of “qualified” candidates and then decline candidates based on your “gut” feeling about the resume.
Step #2: Once you finally find someone that passes the “fit” test and set up an interview, don’t make yourself available to interview. Pride goes before the fall.
Step #3: Be late for your scheduled interview time. Or better yet, just don’t even show up.
Step #4: Don’t prepare for your interview. After all, you have more important things to do – like the work of the employee you are trying to hire.
Step #5: Ask stupid questions.
Step #6: Don’t make a decision.Kill me now.
Agreed.
See the whole post for a great read.
NotJobs: “Take This Job And Shove It”
Beth Smith at A-List Interviews has an intriguing blog. A-List Interviews is the name of Beth’s company; she offers a systematic interviewing process to assist with selection and other recruiting services. It looks like a good model.
Blogger Beth has several things going for her – for one, she’s a local, and for two, she uses WordPress. Plus – in a recent post she also touches on one of the more useless features of modern telecommunications, the obnoxious and meaningless addition of music and delay to a telephone call. In particular, Beth learned something important about a candidate. Actions speak louder than words.
Here is Beth’s post (in full):
I placed a call to a candidate to invite her in for an interview. The message said “Please enjoy the music while your party is reached!” Then, I heard the song “Take this job and shove it.” Need I say more? Listen to the clues that people give you before, during and after the interview. You will be amazed at what you will learn.
Truth (at many levels.)
Thanks, Beth!
Catbert gets a candidate for his job posting
Sometimes the client is never satisfied.
Catbert on writing a job posting
“Cost of Livin’” is an interview
Ronnie Dunn (formerly of the country duo Brooks and Dunn) released his “Cost of Livin’” in June, and it has been getting some airplay again in Denver. The song is one side of an interview – the candidate, an out-of-work Army veteran, is applying for a job. Dunn has captured something that seems extra real and urgent given the state of our economy. His video makes it even more real:
Everything to know about me
Is written on this page
The number you can reach me
My social and my age
Yes, I served in the Army
It’s where I learned to shoot
Eighteen months in the desert
Pourin’ sand out of my boots.
No, I’ve never been convicted of a crime
I could start this job at any time.I got a strong back,
steel toes
I rarely call in sick
A good truck
What I don’t know, I catch on real quick
I work weekends if I have to
Nights and holidays
Give you 40 and then some
Whatever it takes.
Three dollars and change at the pump,
Cost of livin’s high and goin’ up.I put Robert down as a reference
He’s known me all my life
We attend the same church
He introduced me to my wife
Gave my last job everything
Before it headed south
Took the shoes off of my children’s feet
The food out of their mouths
Yesterday my folks offered to help
But they’re barely getting by themselvesI’m sure a hundred others have applied
Rumor has it you’re only takin’ five
Mr. Dunn and his co-author Mr. Coleman have a good one here.
BI: LOL Real Job Ads
Business Insider has a feature on “10 Real Job Ads That Made Us Laugh Out Loud.” The BI editors have picked some good examples of the kind of creativity that gets noticed.
Hiring Bus Drivers:
Hiring Computer Engineers:
Not all their examples are of genius work. One ad shows how narrow the line between creative and insane is:
See the whole article here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/funny-job-ads-2011-4
