Recruiter News Line

Pre-employment tests plus two other techniques help reduce stealing and theft by your employees.

“Wall Street Journal” and Fox News reported (a) increases in employees stealing plus (b) employee theft’s financial drain on companies.

How financially draining is employee stealing and theft?  (A) The value of stolen items rose one-third in just two years, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers’

s survey of 5,400 companies.  (B) 20% of employers consider employee theft a moderate to very big problem, found Institute for Corporate Productivity research.

And how does employee theft impact your non-stealing employees?  First, your honest employees feel dismayed when co-workers steal.  It proves you hired lousy humans.  Second, employees know anything reducing profits impacts job security.  If a company loses too much to theft or stealing, eventually employees may get “de-employed” to decrease losses.

Fortunately, managers can use pre-employment tests and other methods to (a) avoid hiring job applicants who are thieves and (b) discover which employees steal.

1st WEAPON = PRE-EMPLOYMENT TESTS to HELP HIRE NON-THIEVES

Pre-employment tests that specifically predict or forecast dependability can help you hire Non-Thieves.  After all, the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to avoid stealing by employees is obvious:  Avoid hiring job applicants who will steal.

For example, in my pre-employment test research to create the Theft/Stealing prediction on the “Dependability Forecaster(tm) Test,” I used a two-step method to find out which test questions predict if someone may steal.  First, two groups of people answered my extensive list of research questions:  (1) One group was Thieves – hundreds of prisoners locked-up in jails for stealing and theft crimes.  (2) The second group was hundreds of Non-Thieves.  Then, I did statistics to find out which specific questions the Thieves answered significantly differently than the Non-Thieves.

Those questions became the pre-employment test’s section that helps predict if a job applicant may steal.

When applicants take the pre-employment test, companies immediately see if a job applicant scored like the Thieves or the Non-Thieves.  Of course, managers prefer hiring applicants who get the test scores of the Non-Thieves.

2ND WEAPON = BACKGROUND CHECKS

In addition to pre-employment tests that help predict Theft/Stealing, a company also might conduct a criminal background check to see if the applicant was convicted of stealing crimes.

Problem:  Unfortunately, a background check only will tell you if the applicant was convicted in the locale where you do the check, for example, your county.  Warning:  If an applicant was convicted in another locale, then you will not find out.

Solution:  First, administer a pre-employment test to help predict Theft/Stealing – before you spend your time and budget on background checks.  Then, if employment test scores show an applicant scored like Thieves, then you probably will not bother to waste budget doing a theft or criminal background check.

3RD WEAPON = ACT LIKE JAMES BOND

After you use pre-employment tests to hire the best, you still need to watch your employees to make sure they do not steal.  It may not sound nice, but you need to “spy” on employees.  You can install video cameras, tracking devices and other spying instruments that are allowed.

For example, an executive at one company called me for help to stop employee theft and stealing that harmed the company’s finances.

First, I helped the executive start using the pre-employment test that predicts possible Theft/Stealing concerns – so the company could avoid hiring thieves.  Second, I recommended the company “spy” on current employees by installing location-tracking devices on its delivery trucks.

Results = The pre-employment test helped the company hire Non-Thieves.  Among employees, the company discovered delivery drivers were (a) driving away from their most direct routes and then (b) selling company goods during their off-route driving.  The company’s stealing by employees came to a screeching halt.  And new employees were Non-Thieves.

Suggestion:  Make 100% certain employees realize you watch them.  Some may complain about “Big Brother” for awhile, but they will know your rules.  Your rules include no stealing is tolerated.  Plus, employees realize you use multiple tools to catch employees who steal.  Also, point out that stealing by employees creates less job security for everyone.  That will make them thank you for “spying.”

PRE-EMPLOYMENT TESTS, CRIMINAL CHECKS, & SPYING HELP YOU STOP EMPLOYEE STEALING

Employee stealing drains a company’s financial resources.  It also creates a lousy workplace for employees.  Research and news reports indicate employee stealing is a big, growing and expensive problem.  So, managers need to take three steps to stop theft by employees.

First, give pre-employment tests to job applicants to help you avoid hiring possible Thieves or people who may steal.  Second, conduct criminal background checks on job applicants who did well on the pre-employment test.  Third, monitoring devices catch employees who try to steal your company’s possessions.

Pre-employment tests, criminal theft background checks and “spying” give you a fantastic 1-2-3 punch to knock-out employee stealing in your company.

Employees showing up late to work? Deadlines missed? Economy got you thinking of cruising through with unwieldy staff at your side? Don’t let it. Don’t panic; we have a solution to get you through this transition.

“There is a bright side to the current economic situation for employers,” says Christine Campbell, Business Development Manager at Graham Staffing Services, Inc. “This is a great time to seek talented individuals that would otherwise be unavailable.”

Think outside the box when making assessments on your team. At a time like this when the talent pool is high, replacing your bottom 20% is a smart business decision. Christine says, “I’ve seen a large increase in the number of qualified candidates in our pool. Now is the time to tweak your staff.”

Need an applicant right now? You don’t have to wait; this is the time for a smart company to get even smarter. At a time when good talent is at our fingertips, be sure to take advantage of it!

5 Tips on Replacing Your Bottom Twenty Percent with Pure Talent:

1.   Evaluate your staff and then strategically prioritize the 20% that needs to be cut. Don’t try and fix everything in 1 day. Think of the top positions and begin recruiting in order of importance.

2.   Don’t wait. If you ponder over this decision, the talent that you needed for your company will be gone and you’ll be left asking, “what now?”

3.   Reevaluate the original job description of the employee. Should something be added or taken out? It’s important to understand what you want, so the candidate understands what is needed of him or her.

4.   Use a third party to assist with this process. Reasons why:
a.   The current employee won’t catch on to your plan
b.   You will have plenty of time to complete all of your daily tasks efficiently, resulting in job security
c.   Third parties assist in tweaking job descriptions so you get the best possible candidate
d.   You will reach even more of that available talent in the marketplace

5.   Cut the bottom 20% once your new talent has been selected and secured. The key is not to be hasty, but to be smart.

(Computerworld)

— Job cuts next year are expected to surpass 1 million, outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said today, but rising unemployment will also bring about its own boom in the use of social networking and tools such as video resumes.

Challenger, a Chicago-based firm that tracks job cut announcements, said 156,000 tech-sector job cuts were announced through November, or about 15% of the just over a million announced reductions this year. That’s in contrast to the period of the dot.com bust, when tech job cuts accounted for 36% of the overall total of job cuts in 2001 and 32% in 2002, the firm said.

As layoffs continue, job seekers will increase their use of Web 2.0 tools to network and to stand out in a crowd. “YouTube could become the sandwich board of the new millennium,” Challenger said.

On YouTube, a search for “video resume” brings up less than 2,000 results; a search on “resume” alone returns 26,000 results but includes anything using the word “resume.” Video resumes may still be too new and different for most. Management Recruiters International Inc. in Philadelphia did an online poll of visitors to its Web site last spring, and out of the 500 Web site responses, 4% said they had used video in their job search.

But video is getting serious consideration from recruiting professionals, such as Kip Hollister, CEO of Boston-based recruiting firm Hollister Inc. Hollister said she may use it to market some of her clients.

“One has to be very careful using this as a tool, because the first impression is a lasting impression,” Hollister said. “If one is going to do this, you really need to do it right. And if you do it with low quality, that will, in essence, leave a cheap impression of video resumes,” she said.

Hollister’s clients range from programmers with skills in .Net and Java, to business analysts and chief technology officers. Ideal candidates for video may be those seeking management jobs who may interact with marketing and other departments. Video might enable potential candidates to demonstrate their communication skills and charisma, she said.

But sending a video link to a large company may not help.

“The average recruiter at a big company is recruiting for 20 different positions simultaneously,” said Michael Neece, chief strategy officer at Pongo Software LLC, which operates PongoResume, an online resume service. Those recruiters, “are trying to screen as rapidly as they can” and may spend no more than 10 to 20 seconds looking at a resume.

Neece also said some employers may see video as a legally risky way to screen applicants because a video may give information unrelated to an applicant’s qualifications, such as race, size and disability.

Della Giles, director of BlueSteps.com, the career management service of the Association of Executive Search Consultants in New York, said resumes will become more graphically rich and may include snippets of video as part of an overall presentation. BlueSteps is now working with VisualVC Inc. in Reston, Va., which combines multimedia elements, including video, in a resume, she said. The association represents search firms that recruit executives.

“The resume should be more than just a simple kind of paper document” that “gives you the essentials, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you a lot about the broader aspects of an individual,” Giles said.

Recruit Hospital Executives, a leader in director and c-level search solutions, today announced the launch of www.recruithospitalexecutives.com, the first dedicated recruitment website for executive level job seekers, employers, executive search firms, and recruiters within the healthcare industry.

With the recent economic downturn, hospitals across the country are looking at ways to cut costs. This difficult financial climate has led to an increasing number of lay-offs and an uncertain future for many hospital executives.

Responding to the challenging job market and the inevitable changes facing the healthcare industry throughout the United States, RecruitHospitalExecutives.com has been designed to serve as a one stop resource for hospital executives and those who hire them. Because the site is solely focused on executive healthcare management positions, it is designed to meet the specific needs of the industry.

Anthony Paris, an account manager with Recruit Hospital Executives says, “It can be a challenging task for both hiring and searching for hospital executive positions. Jobs are often scattered over a wide range of websites or not posted at all, and there simply wasn’t a dedicated site for healthcare industry professionals. With time being an increasingly precious commodity, Recruit Hospital Executives is the solution for streamlining the efforts of finding, posting, and recruiting for these positions.”

Recruit Hospital Executives offers a variety of opportunities for executive recruiters and healthcare facilities to reach qualified director and c-level healthcare executives through several affordable job posting plans.  Single job postings start at $99 per month.

Executives can post resumes, search job openings, and keep current with industry news and trends on the site for free. As well, the company is offering, for a limited time, a complimentary professional email address for job seekers. This is a valuable tool for any executive seeking to align their online communications with their professional objectives.

The speed at which business is changing combined with new employment trends is why companies need to build a workforce that is flexible and focused. TrueBridge Resources, a leading professional staffing company, has opened for business to address this need and the increasing demand for professional contract staffing.

According to Workforce Management (10/20/08), the current performance of the U.S. staffing industry has been a tale of two sectors. Demand for skilled, professional workers has remained strong even as cutbacks hit the commercial sector, populated by lower-skilled clerical workers. The need to find the right skills to fill critical jobs could continue to bolster demand for certain types of professional temporary workers even if the economy worsens.

Information technology (IT) professionals are among those who are most in demand, partly because they are assigned to more important and integral corporate tasks and projects, so companies are less likely to immediately let them go.

TrueBridge Resources focuses on helping organizations identify critical needs in IT and professional back office staffing, then bridges the gap with professional candidates who can be immediately effective within an organization. TrueBridge partners with clients across a broad spectrum of industries to help find professionals on a contract, contract-to-

hire or full-time basis.

“We saw the growing need for organizations to use contracted professionals as a human resources and overall business strategy, especially in today’s dynamic work environment,” says Scott Kriscovich, president of TrueBridge Resources. “The biggest issues facing U.S. companies now and for the next two decades are a shortage of talented professionals and the growing costs of recruiting and training employees. We help companies engage candidates with proven professional experience for specialized skills. While perhaps needed only for a certain project or initiative, trained and highly-proficient support is critical during that period of time.”

By bringing in specialized talent on a contract basis, companies can be highly competitive. Barry Asin, chief analyst of Staffing Industry Analysts, says that one of the reasons temporary staffing is so popular with U.S. corporations is because of its flexibility. Companies can use temporary help to expand or shrink staffing levels to respond to economic conditions without the complications of hiring and firing permanent employees.

TrueBridge Resources helps companies make sense of these profound workplace changes. Its particular expertise is in placing skilled resources as business analysts; instructional designers and trainers; data architects, modelers and analysts; ERP (functional and technical); application developers (e.g., Java, .Net, C#, UI Design); project analysts, coordinators and managers; quality assurance professionals and testers; and financial analysts and accountants.

The need for top talent is greater than ever, yet this is the most challenging environment for filling critical, senior-level positions. Working with a professional staffing company like TrueBridge Resources allows organizations to better manage and reduce costs by paying for the right talent at the right time.

Online career businesses can now add a lucrative revenue stream by incorporating the unique JOY Sales Assessment Tests ™ into their career website, resume website, job board, job bank or sales resume databases for automated sales applicant screening and sales assessment testing. Dan Joy, Inc., has announced a sales assessments technology licensing initiative - http://www.danjoy.com/

In-house or corporate resume database systems can also benefit from the same sales assessment tools and technology. Employers who want to hire good sales people are often deluged with thousands of sales resumes in response to their online employment ads. How can an employer tell if a job applicant can really sell? An easy option would be to integrate Sales Assessment Testing directly into a resume collection website. Dan Joy, Inc., offers easy integration of its cutting edge sales assessment tests with high volume in-house sales resume sites, company job boards, and corporate career sites.

According to Dan Joy, the CEO of Dan Joy, Inc., “The JOY Tests ™ of Total Sales Ability ™ go above and beyond the mundane psychological and personality tests by testing for Total Sales Ability ™ — the actual street smarts of Professional Selling. We test for Sales Prospecting Ability, Objection Handling Ability, Sales Closing Ability, Personality, Psychology and much more. These are the best Sales Tests on the planet”.

A hiring mistake can cost an employer up to $100,000 or more. Many employers are deluged with sales resumes, but have no way of knowing who can really sell. So, they often tend to hire someone with whom they “feel comfortable”

, who is “like them”, who “looks good”, or has “industry knowledge”. None of that necessarily means that the person can actually sell. The JOY Tests ™ of Total Sales Ability ™ can help reduce subjectivity and guesswork, and help employers make more objective hiring decisions.

Dan Joy, Inc., can also design custom tests for specific needs, create multilingual sales assessments, and convert legacy (paper and pencil) tests to their online versions. Their fully integrated online sales testing system organizes, tracks, updates and saves the testing progress, scores, etc., and helps the employer monitor and follow-up easily, even for a very large number of candidates. Employers can save hours of interviewing time by using their Screening Test to filter out the non-candidates, then inviting only the shortlisted top candidates to an actual interview. For a limited time only, employers can receive 10 FREE Sales Assessments (Screening Tests) at http://www.danjoy.com/

Express Scripts, a Fortune 150 company headquartered in St. Louis, MO, uses Dallas-based PeopleAnswers to provide employee selection software that reduces employee turnover and related expenses across a vast employment network, thereby maximizing the service level in Express Scripts’ multiple call centers.

A recent year-long case study involving 1,000 Express Scripts employees confirmed the value of using PeopleAnswers:

employees “Recommended” by the PeopleAnswers assessment had a turnover rate 39% lower than employees who were hired without being assessed.

Kristi Robinson, Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Express Scripts, knows the benefits of retaining well-trained, productive employees over the long term: “We implemented the PeopleAnswers software tool to help us select candidates that are more likely to excel in a call center environment.  Our Patient Care Advocates deal with urgent needs regarding patients’ prescriptions, so the work is very detail-oriented.  The significant impact that PeopleAnswers has on our turnover allows us to recruit, hire, and train fewer people and focus our energies on maintaining our high standards for customer service.”

The recent hire/termination study provided strong evidence that PeopleAnswers’ patent-pending pre-employment assessment solution helps Express Scripts in two major ways:  employees hired using the behavioral insights extracted by the PeopleAnswers assessment are much more likely to stay with the company longer; and, using custom Performance Profiles™, PeopleAnswers can identify “Recommended” candidates who generate lower turnover rates compared to employees hired using traditional résumé-and-interview methods.

Ira Grossman, Vice President of Operations at PeopleAnswers, described the process that drives major turnover reductions like the one experienced at Express Scripts: “We’ve established a quick, proven process that helps our clients identify new job candidates who have similar behavioral traits as current successful incumbents.  The software does the heavy lifting for you, identifying the candidates most likely to enjoy a specific work style, company culture, and who have the behavioral makeup to succeed over the long term.  These traits aren’t discernible via résumé reviews or a 30-minute interview.”

Source: PRLog

Prevail Resources LLC, and Prevail IT, LLC  www.prevailit.com , announced today that it has launched a revolutionary live video interview program, created to enable customers the capability of viewing candidates in ‘real-time’

during the interview process.

Keeping with the newly released ‘Prevail-Green’ program, ‘Interview Now!’ allows customers to interview select candidates by live video feed through the Prevail website, at no charge. The program enables customers the opportunity to reduce significant costs such as transportation, travel and lodging, and continues Prevail’s mantra of virtualization as a means to remain ‘Green’.

The company is the first, if not the first, company of its size to offer this type of innovative program. Prevail customers should see immediate value with ‘Interview Now!’, as interviewing candidates at distance has always been a concern with most of its customers. At least the first, or second or even third interview can be completed with both the candidate and the customer comfortably participating right in front of their computer.

Interview Now! does not require the customer to secure a camera, download any software, or do anything other than access the Prevail corporate website.   The program is available for both contract and full time candidate interviewing processes.

The program is also targeted to assist with the engagement of IT contract consultants in which Prevail is involved. ‘Interview Now!’ will be beneficial in reducing the risk in utilizing specialized Contract Talent who are selected by Prevail and its customers with short notice after only a telephone/technical screening and without a face to face interview. ’Interview Now!’ insures the technical phone interview are true and accurate, by monitoring that the answers to the technical questions/scenarios are legitimate and don’t include the usage of notes or any other means of securing responses to highly technical questions. The program is just one more mechanism to improve the quality of IT consultants and outcomes provided by Prevail.

The beta testing of Interview Now! has been completed and the company is launching the program to its entire client base and recruiters this week.  The company will continue to modify and improve the program, and will be releasing more new and innovative solutions in the weeks to come.

For more information visit Prevail’s website at www.prevailit.com or the Interview Now! overview at www.prevailit.com/cap.html

 Source: PRLog

Need to know how to perform a background check on a nanny, babysitter, new neighbor, or potential employee? Spy Tools Directory (http://www.spy-

tools-directory.com/spy-software/background-checks.html), is now featuring detective software programs that make it easy for anyone to perform their own in-depth background checks from the comfort of their own home.

“We’re currently featuring several detective software programs that make it easy for anyone to perform a background check and get high quality, professional results on their own,” said a spokesperson for the Directory. “The cost for these programs is just a fraction of what it would cost to hire a professional investigations firm, yet the results are comparable. It’s definitely worth looking into one of these programs first. They take you step by step through the process of doing a background check on your own, and deliver great results.”

Featuring Net Detective as an ‘Editor’s Pick’, the directory also offers resources on may other background check programs such as Net-Vestigator, Webinvestigator, and InfoRegistry, some of which even offer trials and free background checks, and most of which cost under $30.

“We’ve set up our background check software category so that our site visitors can check out each product individually - whether though free trials or product review resources - so they can make an informed choice as to which program will work best for them,” the spokesperson continued. “If you need to know how to perform a background check on someone, these programs are the way to do it.”

Source: PRLog

FINDING HEROES: An Approach To Attracting And Retaining Human Capital, by author and executive entrepreneur Larry A. Dillon, provides innovative concepts for personnel managers to implement when both seeking potential employees and keeping exceptional ones.

The strategies throughout the book give insight to the interviewing process from both sides of the desk and covers the interviewer’

s role as it fosters an understanding of the interviewee’s expectations.

Finding Heroes can be utilized as a daily business tool that teaches self confidence and the ability to maintain control of the interview. It provides comprehensive and effective recruiting ideas that will benefit any company seeking to attract and keep their most valuable asset — their employees.

Source: PRLog