Gen Ys, raised mainly by Baby Boomer parents, have been encouraged to share their opinions, starting at a very early age. Baby Boomers decided to raise their children differently. Rather than following the Traditionalist paradigm of command and control and paternalistic child-rearing, Baby Boomers tend to want their children to experience more liberal formative years.

by Simon Parkin

One of the most important steps in the recruitment process is the offer stage – yet most companies don’t invest the appropriate amount of training and resources into this critical recruitment phase. Success in Recruitment must be defined mainly by the outcome – the Hire. In working closely with a large number of clients over the past year and closely analyzing the state of their Recruitment function with our diagnostic model, the offer stage is definitely one of the larger Recruitment capability gaps we encounter.

As Recruiters, we need to look at this phase as “closing the candidate”, and put the same importance the Sales function puts on “closing the deal”. An organization can have best-in-class sourcing channels but if they are unable to have their top external talent accept their offers and actually start with the company then they have failed. You aren’t classified as a top Salesperson by your company if you haven’t impacted the bottom line and closed deals so why should this be any different for Recruiters when it comes to closing the candidate.

by Ron Cox and Chris Cox

All new hires are not created equally. Dr. Joseph Juran taught us that a key to success lies in being able to separate the vital few from the trivial many. He gave us the Pareto Principle or 80/20 Rule. Not to disparage anyone by saying they’re less important, but as organizations go, some hires are more critical than others. If you don’t buy into that, talk to a board member about the search for the next CEO and compare that to what a recruiter is doing to fill other positions in the same company.  The reality is that, whether you know it or not, you separate the vital few hires and handle them very differently. It just makes sense. When you’re hiring an upper level player or key contributor, the stakes are much higher, as are the expectations of everyone involved.