One of the re-occurring themes I come across in my experiences with employer branding and recruiting is the seeming competitiveness for IT talent out of college and shortage there of.

Employers looking for the top IT talent often times find themselves competing for a small pool of qualified applicants. If there’s been one consistent trend in Universum’s resarch, it’s that Google is winning this battle. But it may not be that easy.

I recently came across a very telling graphic from the folks at Top Prospect Blog (blog.topprospect.com). The bloggers over at Top Prospect took on the task of visually illustrating the internal recruitment battle that goes on between some of the top employers for IT Talent.

In reviewing this graph you’ll notice that each arrow represents the ratio of employees leaving one company for another. Therefore, you’ll be able to see, which IT employers are winning the head to head.

Pretty cool, huh? It looks like for all the talent Google attracts out of college, they are still losing out to Facebook and LinkedIn. It also confirms what a lot of us have known for awhile – Yahoo! is in trouble.

I really would have liked to see this graph include some newcomers like Zynga or SalesForce, to see how they measure up against these tech giants.

Anyway, as you can plainly see the battle for tech talent is fierce between these tech giants and although Google may be winning the battle of attractiveness for those coming directly out of college, they aren’t always able to hold onto them.

To check out the article from Top Prospect and get a closer look at the graph go here:

http://blog.topprospect.com/2011/06/the-biggest-talent-losers-and-winners/

Universum held the Fifth Annual Universum Awards in New York City last Wednesday. The event was hosted by the New York Times and featured a number of talented speakers and guests.

The featured speakers included Yolanda Mangolini, Global Director of Diversity Talent and Inclusion at Google, Paula Caligiuri, author, professor and frequent CNN analyst as well as New York Times Bestselling Author and Businessman Stedman Graham.

The night saw dozens of awards handed out to employers who were perceived to be the most attractive as voted on by over 65,000 undergraduate and MBA students in the United States.

To see a full list of the winners you can go to Businessweek:

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2011/bs20110511_024823.htm

Last week I mentioned that Universum’s first annual employer rankings for young professionals was released. The rankings saw extensive coverage and really helped ignite the conversation on just what makes an employer seem like a good place to work?

While many were content with just listing the employers as ranked by the 10,000 plus professionals, some decided to delve in more deeply to uncover just what makes an employer seem attractive?

Laura Vanderkam from the CBS Interactive Business Network decided to look at the rankings more closely and question just why a company that very few people are qualified to work for consistently ranks high on desired employer lists.

Vanderkam writes:

“Google’s perks in particular are legendary (free lunches! ball pits!) and nearly 25% of young professionals said they wanted to work there.

“But if you think about it, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Google’s a great place to work… if you’re a software engineer. If you’re a writer, chemical engineer, musician, botanist or any of a host of other specialties, the opportunities are a bit more limited.”

And she’s right, there are very few of us out there that would be qualified to write code, but essentially it all comes down to branding and positioning, two of Google’s strong points.

The Universum Survey is incredibly straightforward. Students and professionals alike are asked the simple question “Where would you consider working?”

The result represents the strength of employer brands regardless of industry or the individual’s qualifications. It’s not so much a job application as it is a wish list, and where employers rank on this list depends heavily on its use of employer branding and strategy.

You can read Laura Vanderkam’s article in its entirety here:

http://www.bnet.com/blog/time-management/what-makes-a-company-a-cool-place-to-work/373

In a recent article from Recruiting Trends, Author Chad Storlie discusses how military experience can translate extremely well into the work place. The example Storlie uses is that of Operation Command Centers or OPCEN. Walt Disney World recently opened a brand new Operations Center, “to ensure that theme parks guests, employee, and services run smoothly, effectively, and on time.”

Globally, there are several  hundred military OPCENs running all day and under combat conditions. Certainly, that type of experience could prove invaluable to Walt Disney World when looking for candidates to run their brand new Operations Center.

Since Gulf War Veterans make up less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, Storlie listed some incredibly useful ways for recruiters to learn more about adding value to their company by utilizing military experience:

1. Leverage Their Military Experience to the Company & Job

2. Mentor an Individual or Group

3. Further Education One Class at a Time.

Storlie goes over each of these methods in great detail and the whole article is worth a look. You can see the article in its entirety here:

http://www.recruitingtrends.com/how-recruiters-can-leverage-military-experience

There are many things the come to mind when thinking about diversity: race, sex, religion, sexuality and age are some of the first we tend to think of.

However, there is another valuable group of people that are often overlooked when employers think about diversity in the workplace–the disabled.

There is a recent article from www.diversityinc.com that discusses disabilities in the workforce. John Kemp, executive director of the US Business Leadership Network (USBLN) discusses the stigma that surrounds disability, and how employees often hide their problem from coworkers.

John Kemp knows a thing or two about the disabled in the work place–he started his life with his disability, and has two prosthetic arms and legs. Now, he says, is the time for progress.

“In October, the percentage of people with disabilities in the labor force was about 21 percent,” Kemp said. “That percentage hasn’t changed since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990”

It’s clear that the definition of diversity has changed over the years, and will continue to change and keep evolving.

So what is your company doing to address the topic of disabilities in the workforce?

You can access the article here: http://diversityinc.com/article/8127/The-Valued-Employees-Youre-Missing-People-With-Disabilities/