There was an interesting article recently in the Globe and Mail looking at some of the possible long-term effects of the current recession on employment, company cultures, job development and other areas. I found the changes for young workers (the oft-discussed Gen Y) particularly of note.

[M]any young people I talk to have significantly, and resentfully, lowered their expectations. They didn't imagine themselves in this situation in their wildest dreams.

Nor did many others. Generation Y will be most affected by the cutbacks, downsizings and marked change in organizational cultures over the past few months, but the recession ...

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There was a great post on blog The Anti-Pimp recently, 7 Things Recruiters Do That Irritate Me. I had to laugh -- so many of the things listed are complaints that I've heard from quite a few candidates myself.

So I started speaking to contractors that I know to see what other things irritate and annoy them -- sometimes to the point of refusing to work with a particular recruiter or company. In this far-from-scientific survey, I've spoken to a few IT consultants (business analyst, systems analyst, technical writer, and a programmer), as well as a contract HR specialist, a ...

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I spent some time recently searching for new and interesting blogs (always keeping an eye out for recruiting/HR thought leadership!), and Glen Cathey's blog Boolean Black Belt stood out as a good resource for online recruitment and sourcing. He clearly breaks down specific techniques and search strategies, and has an easy to read style supported with graphs and graphics.

He recently put together a "best of" page with some of his top posts. Seems like an excellent starting place for up and coming recruiters, or those looking to polish or upgrade their e-recruitment skills.

So this evening I saw a tweet from @mayhemstudios (a RT from @the_gman - good lord it's hard to keep track of these complicated crediting of information sources these days) referring us to an article on The New PR:  How to write effective press releases in the age of Twitter.

Since I'm responsible for media for both Head2Head and Retired Worker - a quick Google of 'Sarah Welstead' will reveal just how shameless I've been in the past few years - I of course dashed right over to the article. 

If this tweeted-about article had some handy hints, then I ...

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The other day I wrote another in our ongoing series of Egregiously Bad Candidates blog posts, where we - as recruiters - get to laugh about some of the more hilarious stories of candidates who just don't get it.

One of the comments on that post was about candidates who keep on applying for jobs at your company, even though they keep getting turned down.  Specifically, why do these candidates keep applying, when it's 'obvious' you don't want them?

Except, I don't think it's always so obvious.  (In fact, I've blogged about this before.)  These poor ...

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So tonight Dan Schawbel, self-proclaimed Personal Branding Guru (and maybe he  is a guru - after all, he's got 23,000+ Twitter followers and I haven't even cracked 1,000 yet) tweeted about Katie Konrath's blog post, "Personal Branding:  It's Not About You".

It caught my attention, because a while back I wrote "An Introduction to Personal Branding:  It really is all about you."

Of course, those of us who are out here blogging and tweeting and social media-ing all the time know that a decent title can ensure even the most dreck-filled article or PowerPoint deck ...

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NOTE:  If what you really want are just the stats about how Canadian recruiters are using social media, just scroll down - there's a handy bulleted list at the bottom.

While there are plenty of great things about living and working in Canada, there is one drawback:  The companies large enough to have offices in both the US and Canada tend to have their research and marketing functions headquartered in the US. 

This means that when they're determining budgets for market research, they often figure, "Oh, Canada is pretty much the 51st state anyway - we don't  have to ...

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I don't know what the heck's happened in the past couple of weeks, but the flow of Egregiously Bad Candidates has increased considerably.

The thing is, after I finish laughing at some of the emails we receive, I do feel kind of sorry for these dingbats, because they seem determined to ensure that no recruiter gets past the subject line of their email, let alone ever takes them seriously as a candidate.

So to these job-seekers, I offer the following:   The 7 things most guaranteed to ensure a recruiter never looks at your resume, let alone calls you ...

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An interesting article showed up on my radar recently: "Talent on Demand: Applying Supply Chain Management to People," which highlights some of the talent management ideas discussed in a new book by Peter Cappelli.

The attraction of his approach is clear: by applying the principles and rigour of supply chain management to human resources and recruiting, we can develop a more effective and responsive talent management strategy. To do so would clearly be a big shift in thinking in numerous areas -- the author questions everything from the value of the vaunted "big talent pipeline" to common hiring and skills development ...

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In the past couple of weeks, everyone I've talked to - both in recruiting and in other professions - agrees:  the worst of the recession is behind us, and by Christmas we'll see some real recovery.

But it wasn't long ago that plenty of economists were saying that the recession may last until 2010.

So what gives?

Well, writing an article today - about how the recession is making us all more creative - I found myself comparing the current economy with being in London in WWII. 

There's a reason there are so many romantic novels and movies made about ...

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Job postings remind me a little of profiles on dating sites: sure, all the information's there, and there's something (or someone) real behind the façade, but read enough and they all seem the same. Responsibilities, experience required, skills desired, cut-and-paste company profile ... boring, generic -- and did I mention boring?

In a sea of "long walks on the beach" job postings, when a company does something a little different -- like show some real personality -- the opportunity seems to leap from the screen. A little over a year ago, we mentioned the success we had with a series of ...

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Today I received an email from a guy who said he was doing an article on whether social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn deliver value in a business context, and if so, in what ways.

One of the perils of our networked world is that anyone can call themselves a 'reporter' and anyone with a blog can refer to their 'online publication' to give them credibility. And plenty of legit media channels have terrible websites, so an amateur-hour site doesn't necessarily mean the reporter isn't credible.

In other words: It's entirely possible that the email ...

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It's news to no one that social media is changing the recruitment landscape: names like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have been on the lips of many top bloggers so often that they might as well be tattooed there.

But more is changing than just the ways we source and relate to candidates. A recent article in The Toronto Star begins, "The last time Canada went through a recession, there was no Facebook, no high-speed Internet access and no online chat rooms. Email was in its infancy. That meant public perceptions were shaped largely by economists, politicians and pollsters. The ...

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"Be all that you can be..."

If you ever watched American cartoons as a child of the 80s and 90s, chances are you can sing the end of that jingle.

Around the world, military recruitment is still a heavily advertised art and those trends impact how our own brands of recruitment work in the private sector. It is interesting to see how these early ads, run through a relatively peaceful time in history, see a military career as a means of self-actualization and career development while, as global events put service personel in greater danger, the emphasis shifts away from ...

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Based on the responses to our Global Workplace Quiz so far, it looks like our blog readers are a pretty knowledgeable bunch when it comes to world work culture. Have you tested yourself yet? 

Over at this month's poll, thoughts about the current recession are pretty optimistic. Be sure to get your opinion in before the poll closes down on the last day of the month.

If you work in recruiting and have been even semi-conscious in the past 12 months, you know that social networking + the recession = the demise of the big job boards (for real, this time).

And if you work in recruiting and have been even semi-conscious in the past month, you know that people with creative titles like 'Social Media Architect and Chief Disrupter' are predicting that pretty soon, everyone'll just find jobs through Twitter, but most people on Twitter spend a lot of time talking to other people on Twitter, so they tend to forget that the average person is ...

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Organizations fail when pay incentives like bonuses, retention payments and performance-based salaries aren't managed properly. Caps and other controls, whether implemented by companies or governments, are part of that potential mismanagement.  

At least, that's the argument put forward by Jackson Nickerson and Todd Zenger, both professors at the Olin Business School housed in Washington University, St. Louis.

You see, it isn't greed that rules the world of work. It's envy.

"Our argument is the fact that people envy you or make 'social comparisons' creates costs in organizations. A manager has a variety of ways to address ...

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Can you imagine viewing a job application on video? Think of it as a talent showcase for potential hires. What about reading a personal essay, like on a college application? It may not be a bad idea.

Opportunity Knocks, a job search site for the non-profit sector, recently launched a contest urging job seeker's to submit a video of their talents or to write a 300-word essay about their most memorable job interview.

The videos posted as examples are certainly very memorable. Here's one:

[Editor's note:  Karina Sumner-Smith is a technical writer here at Head2Head.  Oh sure, she SEEMS quiet, but she sits there in the corner just seething with opinions.  Here, she expresses some.]

Would You Work for You?

Recruitment and human resource professionals place an emphasis on creating positive candidate experiences throughout the hiring process to create and maintain a positive employment brand.  But candidates base their impressions on more than just what you do and say:  the office environment itself can create a strong impression.

Pretend you’re coming in for your first interview, and follow the path that a ...

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Corporate philanthropy programs which involve high levels of employee participation: We all know they seem like a good idea, and HR specialists will tell you that they make a difference to the organization in all kinds of ways.

But do these 'grassroots' giving back programs in fact translate into improved business success?

In terms of HR and recruiting specifically, do these programs increase the level of 'employee engagement', resulting in easier recruiting, improved retention, and increased productivity?

The answer is yes.

In this document, Head2Head analyzes current research and our own data to better understand the role of grassroots giving ...

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