Bearing Fruit Consulting

John Sumser On Recruiting Demographics

Joel Cheesman posts a video of recruiting legend and guru John Sumser over at recruitingblogs.com that is a much watch. 

John makes some rather pointed, yet pretty accurate, remarks about young people and recruiting in Cleveland and Detroit (I know they are accurate as I have led recruiting organizations in both cities) but more importantly he paints the picture of current demographics in recruiting very nicely.  Thanks to the Cheez for the great video!

The Recruiting Animal On Gen Y, Boomers and Business Reality

The Recruiting Animal tells it like it is about Gen Y pushing out the Boomers.  Here is the money quote:

Young people can take over in a consumer-oriented business like music in which the performers and the market are dominated by young people.

They can even have an effect on an election in which anyone over 18 is allowed to pick the CEO. But, in business and the professions, they can only shove people aside if they have more know-how than anyone else. That can happen in two ways.

First when the individual, not the generation, is especially talented. Second, when what happened yesterday doesn't count. And how often is that the case?

Wow is that ever on the money.  Fundamentally it comes down to performance and real world results of talented people.  Regardless of age, demographic, gender, race or generational affiliation it boils down to who delivers and get results. 

It is meritocracy at its finest. 

So what is the talent acquisition lesson here? 

Talent Acquisition, emphasis on talent, must be about finding, attracting, hiring and keeping the best performers.  Your organizations talent acquisition strategy and tactics must be geared and pointed in this direction.  Focus on talent!  Not more applicants or candidates but more talent.  If your process, selection tools, job descriptions, bureaucracy, HR, lawyers etc are getting in the way of that simple goal then you have a big problem.     

Monday Morning Quick Hits

Every Monday morning I thought I would post a few links to some of the more interesting things I read over the weekend or first thing Monday morning.  Well, at least interesting to me and I hope you will agree.  My intent in sharing these is not to comment at length but to bring your attention to some interesting items that, in my opinion, resonate and have congruence with recruiting, talent management and leadership.

• Jason Goldberg, former Chief Jobster, hits on the hot topic of buying your presence online or growing it organically.  I have lots of thoughts on this topic but I will hold off on getting detailed until later.  His blog Social Median is smart and should be on your short list of those you read regularly.
• My good friend Dennis Smith (excellent recruiting leader and all around good guy) shares a conversation he had with Jason Davis, (great recruiter and recruiting blogosphere leader) in which he explains the sourcing and recruiting advantages of blogging.  Dennis claims he won't stop blogging - a good thing for us all.
• Great real life lessons in sourcing from people who don't source for a living.  Read this carefully and apply some the creativity and thinking to your next search.
• Collegerecruiter.com has 14 Ways to Get More Candidates To Apply.  Here you will find some great suggestions for how to structure your online application and a few other ideas.  The only question left unanswered here is how do you get the more of the RIGHT candidates to apply?
• Finally, Seth Godin got my attention again.  This time with a post called Who Are These People?  Of course he speaks from a social media and marketing perspective but again the cross over to talent acquisition and talent relationship management is obvious and significant.  Is it better to attract hordes of people to your jobs or just the right people?  As Seth says:

Doesn't it make more sense to incrementally earn the attention of a smaller, less glitzy but far more valuable group of people who actually engage with you? And the best part is, your odds of success are a lot better.

Extrapolating this concept the question becomes; Is it better to practice candidate relationships management or talent relationship management?  Is there a difference?  CRM is pointless in recruiting.  You can't possibly have relationships with every candidate.  To get the maximum ROI for your time and effort you should only have relationships with talent in your industry or career discipline.  Develop, manage and grow relationships with great talent and you will find the very best for your current and future openings.   

Recruiting Gen Y: New Thoughts

Penelope Trunk is really smart and I have always enjoyed reading her blog Brazen Careerist.  Her ideas are fresh, intuitive and always significant.  Today I read her post The Real Deal about Gen Y and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  In my opinion, here is the money quote:

Gen Y does not admit it, but their top priority is stability. This is a fundamentally conservative generation. And in the middle of this very long article in Business Week, is  an important quote from Andrea Hershatter, director of the undergraduate business program at Emory University and veteran of college recruiting:

“There is a strong, strong millennial dislike of ambiguity and risk, leading them to seek a lot more direction and clarity from their employers, in terms of what the task is, what the expectations are, and job progression.”

Hershatter gives a great interview because she explains in detail why young people today are fundamentally conservative in their goals and decision making. Not conservative politically. (In fact, we know they are not conservative politically.)  But conservative in their lifestyle. They are not risk takers, not boat rockers, not revolutionaries. Young people today want a safe, nice life, and clear path to that goal.

I have long been an advocate that Gen Y was going to cause a major shift in corporate America mindset.  After all, every study and article written about Gen Y and their attitudes about careers and life pointed in the direction of a maverick generation that would buck against the ultra conservative, static and rigorously structured corporate world.  I have even written and spoken publicly that Gen Y would cause Recruiting teams all around America to have to re-think their recruiting strategies because Gen Y's attitudes would lead them away from working in corporate environments.