RPOlosophy

Recruitment Process Outsourcing – Behind the Curtain with Recruiting Industry Expert Mary Claire Ryan of Riviera Advisors

Click here to hear the Podcast

Over the past 67 years, Archie Andrews, of Archie comic book fame, has been faced with a dilemma; should he pick Betty Copper or Veronica Lodge? Both girls have been fighting for Archie’s affections since 1942 with Jughead Jones, Midge Clump, Big Ethel, and Reggie Mantle looking on.

Betty is the humble and wholesome girl next store, while her rival, Veronica, is the ambitious, spoiled and self-absorbed rich girl.

So who did Archie pick after 599 issues? The answer is: Read the rest of this entry »

When discussing hail, the common benchmark is the golf ball.  However, I recently learned that the US National Weather Service actually has 14 such descriptions of hail ranging from Pea to Softball. Hail the size of a Golf Ball ranks number 8 on the list with a diameter of 1 ¾ inches (see US Weather Service Chart below).

As usual, this got me to thinking about RPO and our industry’s benchmarking of providers. With hail, the ability to rank by size seems to be a fair method of categorization. After all, hail isn’t that complex (unless of course, you consider all the factors to go into its formation). 

However, RPO firms are much more difficult to grade. Recruitment Process Outsourcing is a complex business. In addition to size (which is typically defined as number of hires), there are also such factors as breadth and depth of services, quality of services, and (what I like call) degree of difficulty.

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently attended a Roadshow put on by Taleo in Atlanta and heard some statistics that astounded me: 33% of employed workers are looking for a job, 42% are disengaged from their job, and 50% of the current generation of senior management is going to be leaving the workforce within 10 years (all courtesy of Curt Brasfield, Group Vice President at Taleo). Add all these things to the pending economic recovery, and you have the makings of an interesting job market over the next few years. My sense is that there is going to be a flood of resumes and talent on the market, making it even more difficult to sort through and find the right talent for your organization.

About 4 months ago all I heard talking to friends, industry analysts, and colleagues was doom and gloom: Read the rest of this entry »

This week I spent a few days in Door County with my family. My in-laws have a beautiful cottage on the water.

For over 10 years, the same family has lived in the cottage just to the east. Prior to this year, there has always been some sort of unspoken guidelines regarding the neighbor-to-neighbor relationship. In my professional life, I would equate it to something like an implict Statement of Work (SOW).

In the past, the relationship with neighbors consisted primarily of waving, “how you doing?” and sometimes an occasional borrowing of sugar or ketchup.

For some reason this year the dynamic has changed. It may have been triggered by a simple get together for a beverage; however, it soon escalated to things like watching each other kids, sharing career guidance, and discussing child rearing techniques.

Things came to a head this past Saturday night at 9:30 PM. Read the rest of this entry »