We are seeing positive signs of an economic recovery while at the same time still seeing plenty of signs of lingering problems.  One bright spot in the job market is a marked increase in temporary hires.  The American Staffing Association has indicated that temporary hires of contingent employees has risen by 23% since July 2009.  That percentage equates to 166,000 temp jobs created according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is fairly typical of what happens in a job market as the economy begins to emerge from a recession.  What appears to be different now, is that many employers are looking to stay flexible in the long term by using contingent talent to manage everything from projects to entire functional departments.  That also means the traditional definition of a “temp” is now expanding from clerical and manual labor roles to engineers, accountants, doctors, lawyers and other professions at all ranks and payscales.

We have also seen our clients inquiring more often about the viability of making some new roles into contingent or consulting-oriented hires. Qualifind, Inc. has had a number of clients convert middle management permanent hire roles into consulting roles.  These clients have done so in order to retain their flexibility during the tumultuous economy and also take advantage of the increase in highly skilled talent that is more readily available.

We don’t necessarily see this happening in Mexico and particularly in the maquiladora industry due to restrictions within Mexican labor law, however we may see an uptick in contingent hires for U.S.-based roles that have responsibility in Mexico.

Warren Carter is an Executive Recruiter in Qualifind, Inc. You can share your responses with Warren by e-mail at: wcarter@quali-find.com

Qualifind, Inc. provides professional and executive search services for specific disciplines and industries throughout the U.S. and Mexico. We are a U.S. based firm with our corporate offices in San Diego, California. We have branch offices and recruiting staff in the U.S. (i.e Chicago, Austin) and Mexico (i.e. Monterrey,  Mexico City).

According to the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC), the executive search industry is experiencing a significant increase in overall revenues.  Despite numerous trouble spots and pitfalls remaining within the global economy, we are optimistic that we may be experiencing the beginning of a recovery.  We are seeing new search assignments in both the U.S. and Mexico. 

QualiFind and AgriFind Executive Search has weathered other recessions (although not as severe as this one) and we are hopefully optimistic that what the AESC is reporting is a bellwether of what is happening in the broader global economy.

The AESC reported in January 2010 that executive search industry revenues in the U.S. rose by 10.5% from July to September 2009 over the prior three months.  Also, the AESC reported that executive search assignments increased by 11% over the prior three months and the revenue per search consultant increased by 12%.

Another positive economic indicator that our agribusiness search practice (AgriFind) mirrored was a small quarterly increase (+1%) in the number of search consultants employed by executive search firms on a global basis.  AgriFind just added a new partner and practice leader due to increased opportunities available in both the U.S. and Mexico. 

The AESC report suggested an end to the massive downsizing experienced by search and recruitment firms since late 2008.  These numbers and our own small increase in building our internal talent resources is expected to bode well for a pending recovery.

However, the AESC report also urged caution due to the large year-on-year declines that are still prevalent across all regions and industry sectors.  Their report indicated that revenues for the search industry dropped as much as 34% from Q3 2008 to Q3 2009.  Let’s hope the recovery continues…

Warren Carter is an Executive Recruiter in Qualifind, Inc. You can share your responses with Warren by e-mail at: wcarter@quali-find.com

Qualifind, Inc. provides professional and executive search services for specific disciplines and industries throughout the U.S. and Mexico. We are a U.S. based firm with our corporate offices in San Diego, California. We have branch offices and recruiting staff in the U.S. (i.e Chicago, Austin) and Mexico (i.e. Monterrey,  Mexico City).

The economic recession has created an ultra-competitive landscape for the unemployed and/or those seeking a career change.  Increased competition for a shrinking number of career opportunities have forced many active candidates to take a second look at how they’re competing in this tight market. 

This process in and of itself is not such a bad thing for employers or candidates.  Employers are able to find higher qualified talent more readily available than ever before.  Candidates are being forced to hone their skill sets, networking strategies and their career planning which will undoubtedly pay them dividends in the longer term.

One of the negative impacts of the recession is that we are seeing a growing number of candidates that are getting increasingly desperate at how they compete.  Two areas seem to be most common – factual changes to the resume and bogus academic credentials. 

Qualifind invested in candidate tracking software back in 2000 and as the technology has evolved, we have continued to upgrade.  Modern applicant tracking systems allow search firms and corporations to build historical data on candidates.  These systems allow the retention of earlier copies of resumes that were submitted in many cases several years prior.  When a current resume is entered into such a system, they are often tied to the older resume by name.  We find that we have to pay particular attention to comparing such resumes side-by-side.  Such comparison often reveals where candidates have made significant changes to dates of employment in order to mask gaps in employment. 

One of the greatest lapses of integrity seems to be candidate’s reporting phony academic degrees.  U.S. based background screening firm EmployeeScreenIQ recently released a new report, “Smoke, Mirrors and Resumes:  The Growing Threat of Diploma Mills” which is also in line with our findings.  EmployeeScreenIQ states that they are finding an explosion of candidates that are listing bogus academic credentials and also in candidates that are purchasing degrees or credentials from “diploma mills”.

The company conducted a test where they requested a master’s degree in economics for its president and COO, Jason B. Morris.  A prominent diploma mill offered to send him a “genuine” diploma for $75 and for an additional payment of $75, the company would provide verification of the education by phone or e-mail.  EmployeeScreenIQ states that they received the diploma within seven days and that it featured raised seals and was printed on the high grade of paper typically used for framing an academic degree.

Many of these so called “diploma mills” have names that are closely related to accredited institutions, so it is important to do your due diligence in the hiring process!  EmployeeScreenIQ provides the full list of these bogus organizations and you can download the free report at:  http://www.employeescreen.com/whitepapers_articles.asp

Warren Carter is an Executive Recruiter in Qualifind, Inc. You can share your responses with Warren by e-mail at: wcarter@quali-find.com  Qualifind, Inc. provides professional and executive search services for specific disciplines and industries throughout the U.S. and Mexico. We are a U.S. based firm with our corporate offices in San Diego, California. We have branch offices and recruiting staff in the U.S. (i.e Chicago, Austin) and Mexico (i.e. Monterrey,  Mexico City).

Diversity and inclusion may be the most poorly understood issues in business today. While many of us have come to believe that investments in diversity and inclusion are primarily about compliance, political correctness, sensitivity or special treatment, the truth is something different.

Diversity means difference. Difference can show up a lot of different ways, but within the context of work we can probably focus primarily on identity diversity (age, race, gender, geography, etc.), cognitive diversity (different thinking styles, mental orientations, and mental tools), and behavioral and communicative diversity. Diversity and inclusion work at its core is about sustainable and profitable practices — especially the effective and efficient identification, support, and deployment of talent to achieve business objectives.

Not only is there still need for clarity on what diversity and inclusion are, we should also get clear on this business case stuff. Do not be confused by what you have heard or read claiming that there is no business case for diversity, or that the business case is somehow fuzzy. Hogwash. Again, organizational diversity and inclusion work are largely about successfully finding, keeping, and using talent, which is increasingly business critical. The business case for diversity and inclusion is alive and well.

A specific business case is dependent upon the organization and the nature of the actual investment, but a few of the sources of value (explored in more depth in the December 2009 Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership) a case can be built on include:

Competitive Advantage

For more and more organizations in more and more industries, innovation is the new opportunity for competitive advantage. This is no secret, as there has been a great deal of discussion and analysis regarding the evolving role of innovation. Innovation is about more than just bringing new products or services to market. It also includes other aspects of business, such as approaches to collaboration, talent management, and engaging new markets.

Despite our affection for the myth of the lone genius, innovation does not take place in isolation. It happens at intersections. It happens when different experiences, perspectives, professions, organizations, and cultures rub up against each other. Without an understanding of, and some appreciation for, the value of difference (in opinion, identity, culture, profession, perspective, etc.) organizations will be hard-pressed to drive sustained innovation. Frans Johansson examines several great examples of this in The Medici Effect, including the story of the great Bletchely Park collaboration, where an incredibly diverse group of characters gathered to break the German coding system during WWII.

Demographic Changes

We are approaching a point where racial and ethnic minorities and women will represent 70% or more of new entrants into the workforce. Organizations that are not good at attracting, engaging, and retaining women and people of color need to fix that quickly, or they are going to be competing for a shrinking percentage of the available talent. Companies that only fix part of this will find themselves with costly retention and engagement problems. Real commitment to workforce diversity is no longer optional.

Talent

Regardless of our intentions, diversity is one of the social variables that can drastically diminish our ability to actually identify talent. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell shows us an example of this from the world of art. In the not-too-distant past, classical music was largely the domain of white men. “Women, it was believed, simply could not play like men. They didn’t have the strength, the attitude, or the resilience for certain kinds of pieces. Their lips were different. Their lungs were less powerful. Their hands were smaller. None of this seemed like prejudice at the time. It seemed like fact, because when conductors and music directors held auditions, the men always seemed to sound better than the women.”

As part of the push for legal protection, benefits, and fairness in hiring, musicians wanted the audition process to be formalized. This included erecting screens between the auditioner and those evaluating them. “In the past 30 years, since screens became commonplace, the number of women in the top U.S. orchestras has increased fivefold.”

Some of the women who stood out the most in these new auditions were the same women that had auditioned numerous times before the screens were added without making the cut.

I am not talking here about hateful people intentionally discriminating against others. That is another topic altogether. I am talking about human nature getting in the way of our identification of talent. If we want to improve our ability to really identify talent, we have to be aware of the influence of human nature and work to offset it as individuals and organizations.

People, teams, and organizations that are indeed serious about talent must also be serious about diversity and inclusion. Once, again, I am not talking about being tolerant or being sensitive. I am talking about understanding the value of difference and understanding what can easily and quietly get in the way, regardless of our intentions or our character.

The future of your organization may very well depend on it.

http://www.ere.net/2009/11/24/why-diversity-matters-now/#more-10816

Warren Carter is an Executive Recruiter in Qualifind, Inc. You can share your responses with Warren by e-mail at: wcarter@quali-find.com  Qualifind, Inc. provides professional and executive search services for specific disciplines and industries throughout the U.S. and Mexico. We are a U.S. based firm with our corporate offices in San Diego, California. We have branch offices and recruiting staff in the U.S. (i.e Chicago, Austin) and Mexico (i.e. Monterrey,  Mexico City).