The Internet has dramatically increased workforce mobility. Job satisfaction appears to be at an all-time low. Turnover is rising. People change jobs on a whim. Counteroffers are more prevalent and more are being accepted. No wonder. To find another job nowadays, all a top person needs to do is Google a few keywords, a job title, and a city. When combined with a huge reduction in barriers to leaving a company (i.e., portable pension plans, reductions in health-care insurance, and fewer fringe benefits), employees are capable and willing to leave for minor infractions or slightly better offers. Turnover is no longer considered a character flaw. In this environment, a well-positioned ad or a timely phone call is sometimes all it takes to find a top performer. To take advantage of this trend, companies need to move away from a classified ad mentality of listing boring, hard-to-find jobs and, instead, adopt a consumer-marketing approach to advertising.

Circuit City has taken a lot of heat in the last few weeks for their recent "wage" action. If you didn't hear, they recently fired hundreds of higher paid ($12/ hour) sales people only to replace them with lower paid ($8/hour) entry level sales - translated "they don't know squat" sales people. A bold but very misguided move on their part. So let's imagine that because of their recent actions they want to dramatically boost sales in the short run. They go out and hire a brand new Vice President of Sales to come up with a whole new approach to retailing. After careful thought, a few late nights and way too many "Red Bulls", the new Vice President decides that what they need is a much more structured and focused sales approach.

You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough, in the second half you give what's left. - Yogi Berra

This week we'll talk about the issue of recordkeeping around individuals that have been considered for a job. (The second part of our two-part article on OFCCP compliance.) Unfortunately, it's not as easy as defining who is an applicant, following that definition consistently, and gathering EEO data on that applicant. The OFCCP now requires companies to keep records on individuals that have been considered for a job, not just on applicants.

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." - Yogi Berra

Now that the OFCCP's Definition of an Internet Applicant is starting to be tested in audits, confusion continues to reign around what companies should and shouldn't be doing to comply with the regulations. The best source for answers to this is the OFCCP itself. Here's a link to their continually updated FAQ. For those who want a little background, here's an overview of what the OFCCP said and some ways to make compliance easier.

Recently, during a training class in Houston last week, I was asked a very interesting question. As many of you know from following Lou's columns over the years, Performance-based Hiring^sm has three fundamental principles. One of those principles is to "wait 30 minutes" during the interview to assess the candidate's possible fit for the job. (Just for fun, I'll send a free copy of Lou Adler's Basic One-Question Interview CD to the first five managers who email all three fundamentals to Kathy@AdlerConcepts.com.) "Wait 30 minutes" arises from the fact that the typical employment interview renders a 57% accuracy rate -- only 7% better than flipping a coin. In fact, the Wall Street Journal did a study showing that 70% of hiring managers make a judgment to advance the candidate (or not) in the first three minutes of an interview; then spends the rest of the interview gathering information that reinforces that first impression. (This first impression is based on the candidate's presentation -- how he or she looks, speaks, dresses, shakes your hand, meets your eye, etc.)

Okay, I admit it. I was a liberal arts major. I never took a single college level math or statistics course. And yes, sometimes I forget what you have to divide into what to get the right percentage. Despite this, I love metrics. Maybe it comes from my years at GE where measurement was more than a science and more than an art; it came close to a religion. If knowledge is power, then metrics are the basis of knowledge.

Here you are: an experienced recruiter with a high-profile requisition involving hard-to-find experience. You rise to the challenge, investing time with the hiring manager to define the 6-8 critical things the person needs to do to be successful in the job (what we call a Performance Profile). Next, you write a great job ad with an attention-getting title because you know to find top talent you need to offer a top job. You post your ad on all the big job boards, including some niche boards that have been successful for you in the past. You use the latest networking tools, like ZoomInfo, LinkedIn and Jobster to come up with names that seem to have the right experience. You network your socks off generating a short list of qualified people. Of course, all of them are currently working. So you turn on the charm, approaching each of them with both persistence and respect, and manage to get three of them to agree to an interview.

There has been a lot written about the cost of a bad hire. The cost of replacing an employee has been estimated at anywhere from one times salary to three times salary, depending on who you ask. But how do you estimate the cost of not hiring a great candidate? Or even a good candidate? How do you estimate the impact of a non-event, of something that doesn't happen?

In this week's article, I interview Doug Berg, CEO and Founder of HotGigs. He and his team have recently developed a new product called Jobs2Web which addresses a growing issue for many companies. This interview is not intended to be an endorsement for the Jobs2Web product, but rather an exploration of the issues that make such a product necessary for companies that want to fully leverage the internet for recruiting.

First some background. When the Internet was first invented (not by Al Gore) it was touted as the great disintermediary. No longer would we have to go through middle men to get to products and services. The Internet would flatten the world, allowing buyers to purchase directly from the manufacturer at lower prices, with greater service and more communication. Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions such as Ebay, the first wave of successful Internet companies has really just been another vehicle for middle men to tap their target markets. Job seekers still generally go through middle men like Monster or CareerBuilder.com or any number of other niche sites. With the cost of ads rising (over $400 an ad) and the reach declining, these middle men are getting top dollar, delivering less and providing a market place which does not differentiate job offerings. Doug Berg describes why companies should start driving traffic to their own websites and not rely solely on the job boards. So sit back and enjoy a different world view:

The Magic Number

Three is a magic number,
Yes it is, it's a magic number.
Somewhere in the ancient, mystic trinity
You get three as a magic number.

The past and the present and the future.
Faith and Hope and Charity,
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three as a magic number

From Schoolhouse Rock.
http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/Three.html