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Martin Snyder's Passing Scene

A weblog for the experienced consumer of factoids; welcome and enjoy.


  • Tilting at a favorite windmill, again.....Assessment

    Cross Posted from RecruitingBlogs

  • Super Bowl Ads 2009- FAIL ? It was a violent time of it.....

    Cross Posted from RecruitingBlogs

  • Tuesday Morning Quarterback on the Unwanted, Under Appreciated, and Poorly Assessed

    Cross-posted from Recruitng Blogs

  • The Passing Scene is cross-posting

    When ERE did its last redesign, it removed the blog headline feed from the front page, which cut the number of readers, comments, and exposure dramatically.  That coincided with a lag in my own blogging, which I tend to really do more of in the Winter months.   Here in sunny Cleveland, Ohio,  its not smart to blog on sunny days- they must be enjoyed when they come.....

    So when I have been blogging , I found myself at Cheezhead (who then also did a redesign to similar effect) and now mostly at RecruitingBlogs.com.   Jason is doing a great job with ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Assessment and Magical Thinking

    Will we adapt to talent management or will talent management be thrust upon us?

    That remains to be seen, but I remain deeply skeptical about many employment assessment practices- both pre-employment and performance management.

    When I was young and idealistic, I thought that ignorance arose from a lack of education and opportunity.  As I have moved through life, I have come to believe that ignorance most often is a symptom of Magical Thinking, which though affllicting us all to a degree, now seems acendnant in our complex society.    

    I have written what must be hundreds of comments on threads over ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Lou Adler rates Obama and McCain- his way.

    I have not posted in a long time.  Its been a busy summer but thats hardly an excuse.  I have not had much to say and since the ERE site was redesigned, for whatever reason, I have not been as involved.  As the days grow shorter, however.....

    Got an email today from The Adler Group about their Performance Based Hiring method.  Lou thought it might be interesting to apply it to the presidential candidates, but I dont think that was such a good idea.

    I normally only link rather than long excerpt, but I dont have a link, so here ...

    keep reading this post...

  • From The The Incredibly Wrong File: Tiger and the US Open

    When you believe virtually everything you read, life will be more interesting.  

    For example, when a senior writer for Sports Illustrated makes an impassioned argument, you might find yourself in agreement.  You would be wrong.

     

    Today's playoff win may have been 'the most amazing of them all' according to SI.  I know that very little work was being done in our office and that watching TV on the Internet is BIG- this was memorable to me for that observation alone . 

    Verily, you must never fully trust the experts - self-interest easily clouds judgement; this guy was mad that he had ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Get a data warehouse, or at least hire someone to sling bits for you

    SystematicHR  links to CedarCrestone's whitepaper research regarding the dollar value of human capital automation.  Some good figures in there in case you were wondering what it costs a large firm to change someone's salary for instance, or approve a promotion.   

    My takeaway: no surprise, organizations with data warehousing capability show superior return.  Also key: HR Help Desk systems and Competency Management systems.   I see the former as any workflow or task/ticket system - essential for coordinated efforts by small groups, yielding high productivity. 

    Yes its true- if you can slice and dice data and use whatever systems you ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Tuesday Morning in Cleveland - No Such Thing as a Free Lunch You Say?

    John Sumser has been out to prove otherwise

    He brings the tradeshow experience to recruiters who may have never been to a real event, and packs four hours of real content between a light breakfast, and yes, a free lunch.  His notion: bringing 125 recruiters together at no cost to themselves on a regular basis will naturally lead to good business activity and fun for all concerned.  Sponsors do pay (somebody always has to pay, but John will need to be extra clever to  figures that one out!) but the only expected ROI for a sponsor is the genuine and ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Big Problems with Relocated Talent

    More interesting news today for the industry, beyond the dismal employment numbers: internal migration (e.g. relocation) is way down in the past year and expected to decrease again in 2008-2009 timeframe.

    Reason: if you can't sell your house, you can't take that job in another city. 

    If you are a recruiter who does a lot of relo business, you are already probably more of real-estate expert than you might have expected to be at this point......I know I know more about mortgage banking than I ever thought I would.....  

     

  • Non-Competes and Database Transfers

    Intersting take on non-compete agreements today on thestreet.com

    The gist is than rather than attemp to complete/enforce an uphill battle, you might be better as a firm owner to sell departing recruiters their books of business for (a suggested valuation) 3X sales. 

    I think this indeed may be a more common practice in the TPR industry, as we now deal with database transfers to ex-employees at least a few times per month. 

    Some tips if you are including database elements in an agreement:

    -Make it clear if the transfer will be a move or a copy (e.g ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Arthur C. Clarke 1917-2008

    For those of you who know who he was, he probably had as much influence on you as he did on me.  We are far from a small group- so rather than echo what so many others have said about him, here are links to a Space.com tribute, part 2,  and his Wikipedia page.

    Many, many scientists, engineers, and aerospace types were inspired by his work, and as a vector toward the subject of recruiting, it should never be underestimated how powerful real inspiration can be.

    His passing marks the end of an era- although its been well and ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Profits are Privatized and Losses are Socialized

    Yes I am aware that ERE is not an economics or political website, but events are now so serious in the macroeconomic area that there is little doubt that recruiting will be impacted in the coming months and years by what is happening today.

    The bailout of Bear Stearns lasted about 48 hours before taking another turn; the essential wipeout of the firm, sold to JPMorgan for maybe the value of its office furnishings. 

    Nouriel Roubini has been an astute observer of the crisis- his Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster have been widely linked and discussed, and we now appear ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Treasury Sec Paulson: Talent is now the #1 measure of success

    I have been watching for what seems like years now as leaders recognize that talent has now almost wholly superseded capital as the key driver of business worldwide. 

    Secretary Paulson today gave an important speech regarding an interagency working group tasked with getting a handle on the ongoing credit crisis/ meltdown we are seeing.   I thought the speech was well conceived although I think he laid too much blame at the feet of investors-saying that they had to do more work to understand what they were buying, and that simply counting on credit ratings is not enough.  Frankly, nobody without ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Beyond Decimated

    I dont know how anyone in business could fail to be disturbed by this report.*

    Not only do we imprison more people than any other nation per capita, we have a ticking time bomb among African-American men, with more than 10% of prime career age behind bars.  Literally decimated. 

    In the past 10 years, more than 1000 measures have been passed to increase sentences, and not a single one to reduce them.

    This can't continue...... 

    *excepting folks in the prison-industrial sector, of course....  

      

  • 30 second interviews- hmmmmm

    Saw this item today about speed recruiting.  I wonder how its going to turn out ?

    Kevin Wheeler has a good item up today regarding just how selective one should be.  I think it varies by role- creative and leadership types should be wide open in terms of experience and qualification, while technical, medical, and engineering types should be very tight-for obvious reasons.  

    Credentialism can lead to ossification and caste-building systems that weaken a culture; on the other hand, when rewards are decoupled from contributions, you need some way to aportion the pie that does not include physical force.... 

  • Dallas Recruiting Roadshow - Nice Model

    I attended John Sumser’s Recruiting Roadshow in Dallas.  

    Amitai Givertz called me and proposed a sponsorship opportunity. 

    Because I know Ami and John, I knew this would be a great event,

    and it was.   You can read about the particulars here, but to me,

    this was an eye-opener in a few ways.    

     

    One was that of that 150 people in attendance, just a handful had

    ever been to real recruiting trade show like ERE Expo.  As a

    result, because of both the novelty and quality of the presenters,

    the audience was fully engaged for the entire event.  This could ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Politics Infecting Recruiting- Vector: OFCCP

     

    Howard Adamsky's emphatic post on the OFCCP Internet Applicant Rule, while overheated, is interesting to me for a number of reasons.   

     

    First is my long and extensively documented disgust with the rule.  I don't think keywords are a prevailing or even material tool of discrimination (but I do think names and ZIP codes are). I think the economic impact of the rule is way beyond $100 million (the threshold a rule must not cross to avoid an actual cost/benefit analysis by executive order).  I think the rule is unconstitutional as hell because you are forced to report ...

    keep reading this post...

  • Economy swings to 4k job loss from 100K expected gain

    Not much to report beyond the numbers.  News story can be found here
     
    From our trends over the summer, TPR remains healthy (but more competitive than ever) while corps are showing a mixed outlook. 
     
    Corps are showing distinct interest in sourcing and contact management as opposed to basic hiring systems. 
     
    Remains to be seen if these employment drops are connected to the summer financial crisis and are a trailing factor or if they signal a real inbound recession as a leading indicator.
     
    Gonna be a tense October in a lot of offices around the USA.
     
     
  • Monster Restructures: Forgets About Talent

    I first read of the Monster restructure on Elaine Rigoli?s  Vendor Report and I was gobsmacked (an ever useful adjective) by the apparent total lack of investment or discussion around Monsters talent strategy, both internally and for customers.

     

    I don?t know where the phrase came from discussing areas to be cut, but the line "non-revenue generating functions, such as human resources"  says it all.

     

    Were I come from; ALL revenue is generated by Human Resources.

     

    Considering that Monster?s customers are all about Human Resources, one might have hoped that they would be contemplating "world-class, innovative products" that ...

    keep reading this post...