Making the Right Choices at the Water Cooler

A breakdown of the HR news for the week ending April 5, 2013:

How you Choose to Manage Job Candidates

If there’s one mantra we’ve all experienced first-hand, it’s this: no one is perfect. We all make mistakes big and small. But when you’re a hiring manager, those mistakes can feel a little bit bigger.

Finding quality new employees is crucial to your business' long-term success, not to mention the fact that a person’s livelihood is at stake. This week, TLNT breaks down the top ten mistakes hiring mangers make when searching for candidates. The mistakes can largely be boiled down to respect: don’t show up late for an interview, and don’t lead on a candidate you have no intention of hiring. Understand their time constraints and appreciate that looking for work doesn’t make a person untalented or a poor worker.

We’re all busy, but taking the time to show a little respect to the many people who come before you for assessment is not too much to ask. A little bit of karma goes a long way.

How you Choose to Recruit

Then again, many HR managers should get out of the business of hiring altogether. At least that’s the perspective of headhunting expert Nick Corcodilos in a special “Ask the Headhunter” column for PBS. The current idea of a “talent shortage” is a myth, he argues, created by HR managers who are inexperienced when it comes to the best tools and methodologies for finding good talent.

The economy has put massive numbers of talented workers on the hunt for good jobs, but too often HR managers rely on database searches, keywords, and collecting tall stacks of resumés to find good candidates. The people who are best at hiring get up from behind their desk to actually find, meet, and bring home quality candidates.

How you Choose to Manage your Culture

Another way to recruit top talent? Create a flexible work space, according to Forbes in an article on the value of offices allowing employees to work remotely at least some of the time. Evidence suggests that the practice is good for productivity. That’s great, but it’s also invaluable when it comes to bringing valuable workers on board.

Aside from the obvious benefit of getting to work in your pajamas, flexibility is also a telling insight into a company’s values. It suggests that an organization is willing to innovate, evolve, and adapt to a changing marketplace. Truly valuable talent—especially younger talent—wants a company with a fresh point of view and its head clearly in the 21st century. Outdated working structures are a quick way to communicate that your company is stuck in the past.

How you Choose to Monitor your Employees

Once you get your all-star employees, to what extent should you keep an eye on their social media lives? And when does what your employees express on Twitter become cause for firing? Five experts weigh this issue in this week’s New York Times “Room for Debate.”

As with many questions that have arisen in today’s digital age, we don’t yet have the answers. Respondents argued that hiring responsible people—and trusting them to their own personal lives—is key. Another point of view is that social networks are, well, social. They’re public, and anything said on them should be considered as such. But no matter what your company decides, it’s essential to get your policy in writing.

Want to know what’s new and interesting in HR? Get all the best HR news and register for free email updates or take a look at last week’s HR Water Cooler.

 


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