Frontline Report

Since this is an election year, I have set aside my crystal ball for forecasting employment trends in 2008, but I am giving a little friendly advice: If you can tear yourself away from the Presidential Primary coverage long enough to count your lucky blessings this New Year, you should do it. Because if you watch too much TV you run a risk of falling into a deep depression: dirty politics, looming recession, lousy housing starts, inflationary concerns and consumer confidence falling. No Wonder. What good news have we heard lately? If all of this isn't true, if we talk about it long enough, we will create a worse situation than the one we have.



Well, in my world things don't look so bleak and I'm going to turn the television off and be grateful for what I do have. From a recruiting perspective, consumer confidence may be lagging but companies needs for talent is not, nor for that matter, is candidate confidence waning.



We have been talking to some sharp people lately who are very interested in talking about their future and their career. I can't think of a time in recent history where more candidates know exactly what they want. They are pretty good at articulating it too. Our advice is to make sure your interviewers are as good at articulating the importance of the perspective role and the reason a candidate should join the company.



Although everybody can't be a great sales person, everyone on an interview schedule should at least make an attempt to answer the question, "Why should I work here?" Candidates--like any consumer--have become savvy to jargon and look for authenticity in a message so having the leadership team share personal experiences and real data is more important than ever. I think everybody should go through an interview a time or two at their own company to test it out. We have suggested to a few of our clients, the "secret shop" approach where you hire a person to go through the interview process and evaluate the "experience" on a scale of 1 to 10.



We have discovered candidates are like restaurant customers: if one has a bad experience, they tell twelve others, if they have a good experience, they tell a few friends. If your Corporate message is good, but the individual message to candidates is not, what is the point? As bonuses pay out over the next six weeks, we anticipate the job market to pick up which makes this an excellent time to double check the message your team is conveying.