Which is the way to go: direct hiring or recruitment agency? Both have their advantages. Businesses today “continue to take a long hard look at their bottom line and there’s been a definite trend towards cutting out the middle man and hiring direct”.

This article was inspired by “So you think you can hire?”, by Alastair Cartwright, and many of the ideas in the original article have been republished in this blog post.

By Jens Trulsson

It is now best practice to afford a “prospective employee the same consideration you would a client or customer”. In a world where reputation is all, every organisation should factor this into their recruitment strategies.

“A prospective employee handled shabbily by a recruitment consultant can have a disproportionately negative impact on a brand reputation thanks to mediums such as Facebook and Twitter. Conversely, a positive candidate experience, whether the candidate is successful or not, can help enhance” the organisation’s brand.

However, taking the hire function in-house doesn’t guarantee a great candidate experience. The offer process is a traditional agency area and it’s a make or break stage of the process that affects what opinion a candidate takes away with them.

HR’s biggest challenge is to bridge the gap from transactional function to strategic partner. HR teams should identify skill gaps and predict where business growth lies by identifying the right employees with the abilities and vision to move the business forward. Actually identifying the suitable talent to enable this type of strategic hiring is the biggest hurdle to overcome for in-house teams.

The agencies’ edge have been their early adoption of the available online tools and strategies. Employing resources such as LinkedIn and applicant tracking systems are simple ways of improving candidate identification.

In-house teams have the potential to out-perform agencies, especially for volume hire and middle management roles. There will always be a place for a third party where very specific skills and experience are required and industry sensitivities dictate a more tactical approach. Agencies, executive search companies and head-hunters have the networks, tools and negotiation skills that are just not practical for companies to have on the payroll.

The value for an organisation is having a skilled, experienced and well supported in-house recruitment team on board. Direct hire can be about much more than improving your bottom line if done well, it can make real strategic difference to an organisation.

Hi everybody! We hope you all had a great weekend. Our poll of the week is to see how many of you use social media for your employer branding work.

If you would like to see the results of the previous poll: “Why do your top performers leave?”, click here

Please remember to vote before Friday, as we’ll close the poll and reveal the results then – in advance, thanks for your participation.

 Loading ...

Some interesting results of this week’s poll: Why top performers leave?

1. Career comes first above all else – meaning that top performers like to be challenged, learn new things and develop. One thing to take away with us, keep your top talent by giving them new challenges!

2. “Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man’s world…”
Like the Abba song, everybody would like more money. Top performers, if headhunted, will most likely leave you for a higher paycheck somewhere else – who wouldn’t? Recommendation: keep your culture appealing and give your top performers the challenges they like.

3. Shocker: mismatch of expectations! That’s likely to occur if you over promise on your employer brand and do not deliver. Simple advice: don’t do it!

4. Not everyone is meant to get along – no harm done if your top performer doesn’t like you. If your values are important to you, alas, you’ll have to let that person go.

5. “Should I stay or should I go?” 16% say their top performers stay – good for them!

To see results, click on infograph below: Why Top Performer Leave

Click on infograph to see results

“Until there is a cure for diabetes, this Danish company will stay busy”. Novo Nordisk is Denmark’s flagship company and employer-of-choice among professionals in business and engineering/natural sciences. Being one of the world’s leading producers of human insulin, insulin analogues, injection devices, and diabetes education materials, it comes as no surprise that it’s also an attractive employer.

In addition, even its sister company, responsible for “brewing your beer, washing the mustard stain off your shirt, turning corn into ethanol for your car, or even treating your medical condition…” is the second employer-of-choice for engineers and natural scientists – well done Novozymes. It’s  the company that produces more than “700 kinds of enzymes, microorganisms, biopolymers, and proteins used by more than 40 industries in 130 countries worldwide!”

Last week Denmark released the results of its professional survey and the list of the most popular companies. Borsen and TV2, among many others, covered the story. To find out who else topped the charts, click here.

Please find below the top 5 articles of last week:

1. 5 habits of a great recruiter

Here is a list of 5 things most successful recruiters do. How to measure being successful can of course always be discussed, but if you have a proactive approach and are open to new influences you are already ahead of many others.

Read more

2. 10 tips when using social media for recruiting

The awareness of the commitment it takes to use social media for recruitment is increasing; nevertheless, there are still a lot of misconceptions and mistakes made. Do you know where to find your audience online? Moreover, do you have interesting and engaging content on your profiles?

Read more

3.What is your Employee Value Proposition?

Why would top talent in your industry want to work for you? The answer shouldn´t only be written in words, it should be a part of your company’s culture. New studies show that in the tough job market it’s the culture, and not a high salary, that is important for employees.

Read more

4. The onboarding process is becoming digital

An effective onboarding saves the employer a lot of money. New software, mobile apps and social media make the process more technical and transparent. “In many businesses, senior people are being given smartphones before they start, so they can hit the ground running and we expect to see more mobile apps relating to onboarding” says Ann Brown, vice president UK HR Capgemini.

Read more

5. HR at IBM

The HR department at IBM has taken a proactive role to drive operational improvement and change how the company is working. The focus is to develop innovative employees and the external branding is closely linked to the internal brand.

Read more

We’re happy to introduce a new category on Employer Branding Today called the “Universum Poll”.  Every week we’ll ask you one question and reveal the results on the Friday. If you would like to submit an idea for a question, feel free to contact us or place a comment below. We hope you enjoy this new feature.

Please find below our first question of the week.

 Loading ...

By Rob Toledo, outreach coordinator for Distilled Creative

Article was first published in HRZone

As we move forward, it has quickly become common for the modern workplace to relax in order to stay competitive.
In a world now dominated by startups and “Google” environments, things like allowing a relaxed dress code and being able to enjoy the occasional beer at work are the new norm.

So what are some fun alternatives you can consider to create a hiring edge? Here is a list of some unique options that should appeal to a wide variety of candidates: Read the rest of this entry »

We introduce a new section every week of the most read articles from the Daily Buzz called “Best of the Buzz”. Here are the top 5:

1. 6 competencies for a successful HR professional

According to “the largest global study ever on human resource professionals” there are 6 competencies you must have to become a successful HR professional. Read more to find out how to become one, and how to build an effective HR department.
Read more

2. Recruitment in 2012

Over the past years, the way we think about work and recruitment has changed. Gone are the days when everyone was a regular employee, working all hours from the office and wanted the job that paid the most. Two of the reasons are of course the turbulent economy and new technical tools.
Read more

3. IKEA got thousands of applicants without spending money on media

In Australia, IKEA has been running a recruitment campaign, from which they got over 4000 quality applicants, without spending a dollar on media. By using their own specific channels and tone of voice, they successfully hired almost 300 staff to a new department store.
Click here to view video

4. How to recruit passive candidates

The best candidates are often the passive ones, and the process of recruiting them is completely different from how to recruit active job seekers. Does your company have a strategy for how to attract and hire the passive candidates?
Read more

5. HR 2012 forecasts

What are your predictions for 2012? “More Social, More Data, More Job Boards, More Acquisitions…” says John Sumser in HR Examiner. He presents 13 hot topics and explains how they will affect you this year.
Read more

By Roger Philby, founder and chief executive of The Chemistry Group in Recruitment

Article was first published on HRZone

A couple of years ago, we asked a number of FTSE 250 HR directors the question: “Given the option, would you rehire your workforce or would you start again?”

While the response to the survey wasn’t huge, it was sufficient to draw a few conclusions – not least because a huge 68% of respondents said they would choose not to take on their existing personnel again.

But I wasn’t as shocked by this finding as you might think. Once upon a time, I asked a chief executive client which members of his sales force he would hire again based on what he knew now. In addition, I said that, if he could name more than 25 out of 100 of them, I would give him an eye-watering discount. He got as far as 17. Read the rest of this entry »

By Daniel Wägerth and Joao Araujo

Joao Araujo

Daniel Wägerth

2012 is here and after over 20,000 meetings with companies held by Universum’s team throughout 2011, we’ve had interesting discussions about what to expect this year.  The first impression is that our colleagues in Africa, Asia and US are feeling that the competition for talent is getting fiercer, while the European colleagues see a market where employer brands are getting more innovative and competitive. All in all, we see seven trends that might shape 2012:

1. New players will take up the space left by those that retreat due to the uncertain market conditions.

We’re just in the second week of the year and we are already seeing new companies jumping into the world of employer branding. But would this represent a fiercer competition in the talent market?   In the stock market there’s a term dubbed “shake out weak hands” which happens when oscillations in the markets make those that don’t truly believe in an investment to get rid of it. 2012 might be the “shake out weak hands” for employer branding and talent attraction: those companies that don’t yet truly believe in the benefits will withdraw and focus on short-term recruitment, while those that have defined their long-term goals will keep working strategically and aim to be the ideal employer of their talent groups. Read the rest of this entry »