Made You Smile

It came to me the other day, that there are so many more people actively looking for employment that would not normally be in the market. You have people who have been employed in their jobs for over 20 + years with the government and school systems that are actively looking. You have people who are recently graduated from college or graduate school that are in the job market for the first time. All of this leads me to my story that I hope makes you smile.

I recently was speaking to a group of professionals of all ages at a recent event. I was speaking to this group on how people can take control back over their job search, stand out in the process and do it in a manner that would be encouraging to them and not isolate them with the gate keepers. That is the hiring manager, recruiter or anyone who is managing that job search. I have to say that I thought the speech went very well and the feedback from the audience was very positive.

Once the event was over, I stayed to answer questions and speak with the attendees. There was one baby boomer who asked me a question about following up with someone after receiving their business card. The question went something like this. What is the protocol for following up with someone if they give you their business card? I want to call this person, however it seems from their card that they are only in the office on Tuesday, Monday and Friday.

Now this was a perplexing statement to me as I could not quite understand why the person put that they were only in the office on Tuesday, Monday and Friday. Now that was the order of days given to me the person was available. I asked the gentleman if by chance he had the card on him, so that I may take a look and he said he did. When he handed the card to me, I could not find the persons availability as he mentioned. I then told the gentleman that I did not see the persons days of availability on their card. He then pointed out to me that it was there. There was a T: 555-xxx-xxxx for Tuesday, M: 555-xxx-xxxx for Monday, and a F:555-xxx-xxxx for Friday. And in all of my days I have to say that I was frankly bewildered and then it finally clicked. This gentleman could not figure out which number or day to reach this person because there were 3 numbers listed and each one started with a letter. I then told him that these weren't days they were available and their numbers, but that T: was for Telephone, M: was for Mobile and F: was for fax.

Yes, we all started to laugh. It was at that moment I could see a light bulb turn on as the gentleman realized that he was having worries for no reason. He smiled and said thank you. Well, there was a light bulb on moment for me too as I realized that there are so many things, we take for granted that we think people will know.

So my parting thought to you would be this. Take time out to smell the roses. Don't move so fast that the simple things in life don't make you smile. Encourage someone today, they may just need to hear one encouraging word.

Small Business Owners & Campus Recruitment

Over the years small business owners have struggled at winning talent from some of their larger competitors or just larger firms period. The economy and current business climate lends for great opportunities for the smaller business owner (SBO) to hire business school students who would have not been normally in the marketplace. This is taking what some may say is a negative business climate to a win-win opportunity for the small business.

As a SBO, the recession should cause you to think about the talent you currently have in your organization and where some of the gaps in talent may exist. As students start to expand their job searches, this is a prime opportunity to recruit students into your company as you can offer them opportunities to be more than just a number, allow them to cross train to use their skills and knowledge in more than one area and provide them with purpose. In turn, many of them will bring to you new and diverse thoughts, updated knowledge and abilities with technology and the ability to hit the ground running as you can often time see an immediate impact.

Now you may be thinking who has the money or the budget to develop a campus recruitment program or you do not know where to start. Well, my company Mahogane Management is a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) provider that works with start-ups, small and mid-size businesses to create solutions for recruitment as part of our On Demand RPO solutions. This is a great alternative recruitment solution to paying a staffing agency fee to find your next employee which often time takes a percentage of 20%-30% of your new hire salary. This is often a very expensive hiring solution to the business owner. Now ask your self, who isn't looking for an alternative way to save without compromising service, that is cost efficient and deploys best in class practices? Our On Demand RPO solution partners with you to design a customized recruitment solution to address your needs and if designing campus recruitment program is part of that solution, we can provide you with an alternative to traditional staffing services.

Mahogane not only provides flexible intake methods for candidates to capture their information from applying via PDA, IVR, and Web to just name a few to creating a video to add to your company site to share with candidates about your company and/or the job itself. Our creativity and technology is endless and we partner with you to simply connect the pieces. Now that my shameless company plug has been included, think about whether developing a campus recruiting program is something that is right for your organization. Here are a couple of points to keep in mind.

1. Are you an Employer of Choice?
This will help you think about how your organization is viewed not just internal but external out in the market. Are you committed to meeting the varying needs of your workforce both in and out of work?

2. Do you offer a Competitive Compensation/Benefits Package?
Is your compensation and benefits program in line with the market? If you offer salaries below market, do you offer other rewards or benefits such as flex time, more vacation, company perks?
You can still be competitive as most grads are looking beyond compensation to more of a quality of life package that focuses on the mind, body, and career first then pay. Quality of life and enjoying what they do is more important than the quantity of the pay.

3. Do you offer a formal Training & Development program?
Effectively communicating a company's training and development opportunities are part of the campus recruiting process. As graduates look for opportunities that will allow them to continuously broaden their expertise through extensive training whether functional, being cross trained or offering professional development courses, you too can compete with larger companies if you can address one or more of these needs.

Quick tips: You can identify an e-learning provider to assist you in implementing e-learning courses to train and develop your workforce online. You can provide professional training opportunities through various associations and organizations. Create a network with local consultants, providers or other businesses to sponsor monthly or quarterly workforce trainings.