By Gillian Seely
 

Now more than ever, the attention of job-seekers is turning to companies that offer a unique culture, non-traditional management hierarchy, and flexible policies that allow employees to lead well-balanced lives.  This increasingly European approach to workplace norms may cause companies a heap of trouble in coming months as more jobs become available, and retention becomes a concern of traditional “dinosaur” CEOs.  This will be particularly true of bosses who extended hours, cut pay, nixed benefits, and laid-off workers en masse in 2009.  On top of knowing that new Gen-Y friendly companies are out there, employees who work for dinosaurs will remember if they’ve been treated poorly and abused in the name of “tough economic times”, and aren’t likely to forgive.  Staying in an office where they felt undervalued will no longer seem logical, and many will opt to leave for more charismatic and innovative employers.
 
One such innovative leader is inbound marketing and web analytics company Hubspot.  With an almost revolutionary approach to running a business, HubSpot’s leaders have basically handed employees the reins.  Bear in mind, this is no “Mom and Pop Shop” where employees wear Hawaiian shirts on Fridays.  HubSpot is a hugely successful company with well over 100 employees.  The stakes were high, but HubSpot firmly believes that their approach to conducting business is the best all-around fit for management and staff alike, and it seems to be working! 

 “A “common sense” policy really governs everything our employees do,” says Joe Sharron, Director of Talent Acquisition at HubSpot.
 
 Here’s a look at some of the more unique offerings on the corporate table at this company.  Traditional corporate types, hold onto your hats…
 
HubSpot TV on Fridays
This is a Good Morning America style podcast that HubSpot hosts weekly.  With as many as 100 local business owners, marketing professionals, and prospective hires present at the live recordings, HubSpot invites people in from the streets to showcase the latest developments in inbound marketing.  Before and after the taping, refreshments, including cold beer, are served, as employees network and socialize with guests.  The likes of MC Hammer and the Founder of Twitter have made appearances, as have various venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.  HubSpot TV is currently one of the most popular podcasts on the Web. 

HubSpot TV

Ping Pong Tournaments
They periodically hold  internal tournaments, and all employees, including executives, participate.  Needless to say, these can get very competitive!
 
No Door Policy
HubSpot has, of course, taken the “Open Door Policy” one step further and, um, removed their doors.  Actually, even the executives don’t use offices.
  
Companies seem to be realizing that open communication is essential to employee happiness.  Meeting behind closed doors screams “corporate gossip” and makes employees feel ill-at-ease regarding their job security and their performance.  At HubSpot, it’s all about transparency.  Employees know they can approach each other at any time, and never feel as though they are being discussed or talked badly about behind closed doors.
 
Dress Code
There isn’t one.  Most people opt for casual or business casual.
 
Social Media
As you may have guessed, social media is strongly encouraged here.  Employees blog, Tweet, Book Faces on FaceBook, and Link In on a regular basis, with no restrictions on content.
 
Vacation Policy
HubSpot’s new policy states that in 2010, there is no formal vacation policy.  No forms necessary, no permission needed, and  no limits on how much vacation time you can take, and no accrual or carryover issues.  Once again, common sense is the name of the game. 
 
What’s the Catch
Thanks to the office beer coolers and fully stocked refrigerators, you may fall victim to the “HubSpot 15”.
 
So What?
As you might imagine, HubSpot does not anticipate having any retention problems in 2010, partially because they hire well to begin with, and largely because of these amazing policies that have many desk-jockeys green with envy.  In 2009, the company was pleased to report a total of zero layoffs. Since the beginning of the recession, they have grown by 350%.  Get the picture?
 
“I’ve been recruiting for many years,” says Sharron.  “You can always tell when someone works for a good company because they are literally impossible to recruit.  At HubSpot, we make it our intention not just to have appealing policies in place, but to offer our employees a way of life.” 

To learn more about HubSpot visit: www.hubspot.com

Changing the Job Board Game

By Meg Toland

As mentioned in an earlier post, the online recruiting space has rapidly evolved within the past year.  Innovative technology is enabling startup job board companies to compete with big players like Monster, Hotjobs and Career Builder.  In this Job Startup Series, we will highlight some of the noteworthy players in this startup space.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet with Jindrich Liska, CEO of Jobmagic, a startup job board company that is really making a name for itself within both corporate and agency recruiting. As suggested on the company’s website: “Jobmagic’s solution is elegant and efficient, a game-changer in the online careers space.” The technology behind the product assesses every dimension of a candidate – their unique skills, education, experiences, and preferences, and matches these elements against detailed job profiles to return only the best matches.

Jobmagic Empowers Recruiters With Social Media-Enabled Job Postings

New Jobmagic application allows recruiters to add their Facebook®, LinkedIn® and Twitter profiles to their job postings and to automatically publish them to major social media outlets.

The next-generation recruiting platform Jobmagic today announced its new social media application, which expands recruiters’ reach by leveraging the power of social media outlets such as Facebook®, LinkedIn® and Twitter.

Jobmagic’s application enables recruiters not only to efficiently attract qualified candidates through their many referral networks, but also to grow their networks. Job postings feature one-click buttons to recruiters’ Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter profiles, making it easy for candidates to immediately connect and stay in touch. Networking is a key success factor in recruiting, and the social media-enabled job postings give recruiters a strong competitive advantage above plain text job postings.

“Jobmagic puts a recruiter’s social media brand one click away from millions of job seekers 24/7,” says Jindrich Liska, founder and CEO. “It brings recruiters closer to their candidates and allows them to engage in an immediate dialogue.”

Jobmagic’s new application fully automates job publishing on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, each job is automatically published to a recruiter’s network news feed, where it can be shared and further virally distributed. In addition, a recruiter can specify a frequency at which jobs are automatically re-published or re-tweeted. The application has been successfully used by recruiters across the entire spectrum of the industry, from executive search firms to staffing agencies, from healthcare to technology.

“Many recruiters are already using social media by manually publishing jobs through their status updates, job notifications or tweets,” says Liska. “Jobmagic improves efficiency by automating those processes.”

Additional features of the application include:

LinkedIn

• Post jobs to LinkedIn Groups.
• Send jobs to LinkedIn contacts.

Facebook

• Publish jobs to friends’ news feeds.
• Add full-featured, keyword and location-searchable job boards to recruiter’s profile.
• Enable fully automated job re-publishing.
• Send jobs to Facebook friends.
• Show featured jobs directly on recruiter’s Facebook profile.
• Use Facebook Connect for one-click login from the Web.

Twitter

• Tweet jobs to the company Twitter account.
• Enable fully automated job re-tweeting.
• The Jobmagic application for recruiters is available on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/job-magic/.

About Jobmagic

Jobmagic is a comprehensive recruiting platform for social media job publishing, referral hiring and high-accuracy profile matching. Jobs published on the Jobmagic platform are social media-enabled to allow recruiters and candidates to engage in the fastest way possible. The patent-pending, profile-based matching system generates a ranked list of the most qualified candidates for each job opportunity. Jobmagic is a service of Vitruva, Inc.

Walking into the weekend, here is some food for thought on the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring & retention model, and some questions you should be asking yourself (and your staff) about your company:

• What are the top three reasons that people work for your organization? Consider surveying your staff on this, but don’t feed them options on this question.  Let your employees fill out their own thoughts to ensure you are getting the most honest responses. 
• What reasons (other than money) are revealed for voluntary departures in employee exit interviews? Are you tracking this?
• What are the top three professional characteristics that your strongest employees/performers share?
• What percentage of A, B and C candidates are hired annually?
• Do your employees believe in your company vision, product/service value proposition and culture?
• Do management styles fluctuate across the organization?
• What percentage of your employees would feel confident recommending your organization to a friend or contact as a great place to work?

By Gillian Seely

A government official is delivering a press conference on a matter of grave importance.  No one dares to make a sound.  Quietly, one man turns his head and nudges the person beside him. “Do you smell smoke?” he whispers. Three other people hear him and turn around to confirm their suspicions. A nervous ripple moves through the audience, and one bold woman musters up the courage to yell, “FIRE!!!” Chaos ensues as people dash for the exits en masse. No one wants to be left in a burning room.  Commonsense though it may seem, many CEOs abandoned this truth to the wind when the going got tough in recent years.

Word-of-mouth and hype are powerful tools. Your treatment of employees during difficult economic times could have hurt your brand more than you know. Before you know it, you may find yourself facing an exodus of talented employees, with little or no fresh talent wanting to come in the door.

Is your company a burning building, or have you been treating your employees well? Your behavior during a recession may have seemed appropriate. It’s undeniable that companies have been under severe budget cuts and you’d be hard-pressed to find a company that has survived without some degree of layoffs. However, the extent to which you flexed your corporate muscle and intimidated or even emotionally abused your employees with threats (overt or subtle) of layoffs will determine how you come out on the other end.  It will also determine to what extent fresh talent wants to work for a company that regularly laid-off hard working employees and was unwilling to sacrifice for the good of the team. 

Employers, take note! You probably think your employees are more satisfied than they really are. A 2009 Salary.com survey on the topic of retention showed that 65 percent of employees admitted to passively or actively looking for a new job, compared with employers’ estimates of 37 percent. 77% of employers believe their employees were at least somewhat satisfied in their jobs, while in reality, only 65 percent said they were satisfied.  The key takeaway from the survey is that employers have felt confident that simply giving someone a job is enough to retain them during a recession, but that has never been entirely true, and now the tides are turning!

So as 2010 progresses, and the nebulous “when the recession ends” nears, focus your efforts on retention. It’s important now, more than ever, to treat your employees well and reward them before it’s too late for the valuable contributions they’ve made to your team during hard times. Click here for some tactics on retaining your company’s most valuable asset.

Survey Reveals Drop in Job Satisfaction Among American Workers

2009 was quite the year for Boston businesses and their workers.  Between mass layoffs, budget cuts and hiring freezes, local businesses have been faced with challenges that have more than likely impacted their workforce. 

This morning I came across the NECN report/video below.  As the market starts to turn around for many (not all) local companies, I’m interested in hearing from Boston hiring professionals on the following:

1. Do you fear that you will lose some great talent over the next few months or in 2010?
2. Would you say that your employees are satisfied in their jobs and working for your company?
3.  What current employee retention initiatives/practices do you have in place?

 (Comments welcome below report)

NECN REPORT:

Job satisfaction down among American workers

(NECN: Greg Wayland, Boston, Mass.) – Whether you’re lifting, lugging or living high off the corporate hog, a new national survey claims odds are less than even that you’re lovin’ every minute of it.

The Conference Board Consumer Research Center surveyed 5000 U.S. households and found only 45 percent of workers were satisfied with their jobs.

That’s down 61 percent since 1987.

They also claim people’s interest in their jobs dropped nearly 19 percent during that period. A sense of job security dipped 17 and a half percent, and according to this survey, 22 percent of workers didn’t even expect to be in their current job in a year.

NECN’s Greg Wayland spoke to people today about their jobs. Link to NECN: (http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/2010/01/05/Job-satisfaction-down-among/1262738443.html)

By Gillian Seely

According to a Boston Globe article, the results of a recent Massachussetts Innovation & Technology Exchange hiring survey show that things are looking up in the digital, online, and technology spaces.

The Globe report details the survey’s optimism, saying on average, respondents will be looking to hire six new people per company, with one company (Boston-based CSN Stores) planning to hire 50 or more.  The most sought-after positions will be in the areas of Web development, creative & marketing, account services, design, and IT.

The survey results show that 95 percent of respondents will be hiring for jobs that require a BA or BS, while 81 percent are looking for advanced degrees.  77 percent will be hiring both.  Students and recent graduates will be happy to know that 81 percent of respondents will be offering college internships, and 76 percent of these will be paid.

(“Good news from the HR office: Digital media and marketing gigs may be more plentiful in 2010”, Scott Kirsner, Globe Staff / Dec 17, 2009)

Job Seekers Sound Off on Their Biggest Peeves of the Hiring Process

ABC NEWS COLUMN – By Michelle Goodman

It’s been a horrific year for U.S. job applicants.

The average length of unemployment in November was 28.5 weeks. At last count, there were six job seekers for every opening. More than nine million Americans now work part-time because it’s the only work they can find.

The grim statistics go on and on.

But stiff competition isn’t the only hurdle job hunters have had to clear this year.

In this employers’ market, companies have become pickier than a five-year-old at the holiday dinner table. Employment scams have spread faster than H1N1. And much like the budget surplus of the 1990s, hiring managers who respond to candidates in a timely manner have become an elusive, distant memory.

I asked some intrepid job seekers and employment advocates for their biggest peeves of the hiring process. Following are the top indignities they would like to see wane in the coming year.

Labyrinthine Job Application Systems

If there’s one thing I hear more job hunters harrumph about, it’s the maddening online application tools so many companies use. No one’s suggesting employers do away with online job applications altogether, just that they bring their systems up to twenty-first century computing standards.

“Not only do most of them have the job seeker input all of the information from their resume — redundantly at times — but half of them shut down, crash your computer or steer you into dead ends,” said Dick Barnes of The Freeland Group, a management consulting firm in Bellevue, Wash., that frequently helps employers with the hiring process.

“The really top people look elsewhere,” he added. “They become disgusted with a process that treats them as children.”

Another common complaint:

“No acknowledgment that your resume or cover letter went through,” said Robin, a marketing professional in Washington, D.C. who didn’t want her last name used. “I know they are getting hundreds of submissions, but this is easily automated.”

Overly Demanding Job Listings

Once upon a time, a person could apply for a job as a plumber, software programmer or public affairs officer. Now we have job listings calling for programmers with marketing experience, plumbers with a project management background and publicists who have a knack for accounting, mediating personnel issues and troubleshooting a leaky toilet.

Deirdre, an executive assistant in Los Angeles who didn’t want her real name used, said she has seen a rise in such demanding, kitchen-sink job listings during the 16 months she’s been looking for work.

“Two years ago, you could transfer skills to any job,” said Deirdre, who’s been in the workforce more than two decades. Not so much for today’s vacancies, which often require personal assistants to have a background in the employer’s industry, be it entertainment, real estate or banking, she said.

“Some have crazy requirements,” said Deirdre, who’s grown accustomed to seeing listings for executive assistants who can work on call 24/7, drive a limo and speak a foreign language — all for 30 percent of what she earned before the economy tanked.

Unscrupulous Recruiters

I don’t have anything against recruiters. Legions of them are stand-up individuals who excel at connecting job seekers with employers.

But like many vocations, recruiting has its bad seeds. They seem hell-bent on giving the profession a bad name. And when it comes to these bad seeds, job seekers don’t mince words.

“I’d love to see an end to the recruiter calls for positions that don’t exist,” said Paul Riddell from Dallas, a technical writer and Web designer who recently gave up the job hunt to open his own plant nursery.

“I’m talking about the situations where a recruiter calls up frantic over ‘a really exciting opportunity’ but can’t say anything about the position over the phone. It’s only after a face-to-face interview and two hours spent filling out applications that you realize that the recruiter is just trying to fill a contact database — and that the recruiter has as many actual positions available as he or she has brain cells.”

Endless Interview Loops

Some hiring teams have elevated finickiness to a new art form. Just ask Jonathan, a search engine optimization specialist in San Diego who’s waiting to hear if he successfully clinched a position for which he spent 10 weeks interviewing.

“This hiring process has been insane,” Jonathan said. “I’m used to meeting with multiple people during the interview process, but my average over the past 10 years has included one or two phone interviews followed by a final in-person interview.”

Instead, his bid for the position has taken six interviews: three one-hour phone calls and three half-day meetings at the employer’s office. All in all, he’s spent about 15 hours interviewing with 17 different people at the firm, including a presentation he was asked to give company executives on how he would improve their Web site.

“I’ve gone from being thoroughly enchanted by [the company] and the position to feeling annoyed and afraid that everything [there] is going to be bureaucratic, slow-paced, micro-managed and excessively time-consuming,” Jonathan said.

No Follow-Up with Finalists

Candidates know HR departments and hiring managers are beyond busy. Between their job hunt, volunteer work and the part-time cashier position they took to make ends meet, candidates are spread thin too. That’s why it drives them bonkers when a company they’ve interviewed with fails to tell them whether they got the job.

For candidates who’ve made it through a couple rounds of interviews and have been told that they’d need to start ASAP if hired, this radio silence is especially frustrating, said Jeffrey Deutsch, a Seattle-based life coach who works with job seekers.

“People deserve to know one way or the other whether or not they need to clear their calendars,” he said.

Julie Yoder, who teaches English as a second language in Washington, D.C., agrees.

“You call in an attempt to get some kind of information so you can decide where to put your energy, and they act like you have some nerve to be bothering them,” said Yoder, who grew so frustrated with the job hunt that she started her own business.

“Following up with applicants has gone the way of RSVP’ing for parties. No one does it anymore.”

This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.  For Full Article- http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-worst-hiring-trends-year/story?id=9354641&page=1

Michelle Goodman is a freelance journalist and former cubicle dweller. She is the author of “My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire” and “The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube”. For more information, see Anti9to5Guide.com.

By Meg Toland

A few years ago if a new job board company were to request a meeting to discuss how their services would be of value to corporate and agency recruiters, they’d likely have a slim-to-none chance of being heard out.  A few years ago a good job board meant a huge following of candidates.  Today with the online recruiting space rapidly evolving, these startup job sites are exactly who we want to be talking to as their integrated technology comes with far more targeted intelligence than our industry is used to.  

Today’s Spotlight: New York – Based, JobThread
Based in New York, JobThread helps employers and recruiters reach highly qualified candidates – both active and passive job seekers – by delivering targeted job ads alongside appropriate content on its network of more than 50 Web sites. The JobThread Network generates 46 million monthly impressions and reaches 9.8 million unique monthly visitors. Recruiters select the desired applicant profile and set their budget for each job; JobThread then displays the ads to network visitors whose behavior, skills, interests and location match the profile. JobThread’s network includes: Wired, paidContent, Silicon Alley Insider, IDG’s online publications and TreeHugger.com. More information about JobThread may be found at www.jobthread.com.

By Gillian Seely

Last Thursday, I attended the Massachusetts Conference for Women in Boston. Aside from having a fantastic time networking with Boston’s finest, I was in complete awe that the organizers were able to gather 5,000 women in one massive venue and orchestrate a full day’s worth of events, talks, keynote speeches from an all-star lineup, meals, and career sessions with such ease. Sessions ran like clockwork, and the whole day was really a study in efficiency and energy.  It was a sight to behold. The conference was, by name, for the Massachusetts woman. Sessions dealt with everything from successfully funding startup businesses, to women’s health and sexuality. While the panels and sessions covered the full spectrum of woman-centric topics, the conference was undeniably geared towards female job-seekers. The afternoon featured career sessions where anyone could have their resume critiqued and network for good leads on new jobs…all very useful when looking for a job! The majority of people I chatted with were doing just that- trying to build their networks in the hopes of finding that dream job.

Finding the perfect job is like finding your soul mate. Why settle for less?

As I followed our CEO Kip Hollister to her various sessions, and listened to her speak about founding a staffing firm at the age of 26 that would go on to connect some unbelievable talent with some of Massachusetts’ best organizations, and as I witnessed thousands of people networking, something dawned on me.  Finding the perfect job is extremely difficult, especially as job seekers’ demands heighten.  Times have changed.  We are no longer happy to stay in a job that pays well simply because it pays well. We want to work for companies with values, that allow us to find balance in our busy lives, and we want to work for organizations that we love, doing jobs that fulfill us.  In this moment of clarity among these thousands of women, I likened the job-search to the quest for the perfect ‘marriage’.  Let’s face it- we are all after the perfect relationship, so why shouldn’t we be after the same perfect match in our professional lives?

Don’t give up on your dream job…even if you’re not sure what it is yet

Advocating a search for the perfect job might seem a little idealistic, particularly when thinking about the current financial upsets and crises millions of Americans are facing. Still, as I dwelled on this, I couldn’t help but think about my own career changes over the last few years, and how each time I left a position I felt something like a sense of relief, in spite of how badly it was going to impact my finances. Even something as drastic as being laid off can really be a freeing moment when you realize that you actually worked for the world’s most inefficient boss, didn’t agree with the culture of the company (or perhaps it didn’t even have one?), and weren’t given the autonomy to be yourself professionally (of course, none of these things have ever applied to my past jobs!). I was relieved after each job-change because I knew these had not been jobs that I wanted to invest my energy in long-term, and because I heard a little voice telling me to “Keep looking! It’s out there!”

You have the right to be picky

So as you continue your quest for the perfect job, I urge you to be picky with your long-term goals, even if it means taking a temporary job that you’re not crazy about in the interim.  It’s SO important to follow your heart. Doing what you’re passionate about might not always pay off in the short-term, and sometimes it’s necessary to tough it out while looking for the perfect job, but following your heart is the only way you’re ever really going to shine, and it’s a sure-fire way to propel yourself to the top of whatever profession you go for.  Don’t get stuck in an arranged ‘marriage’ that will only lead to misery and /or ‘divorce’. You can rest assured that your soul mate is out there somewhere…waiting for you!

By: Shawna Wright

Next to a competitive salary, health insurance is often considered the most important thing a company can offer its employees. A 2008 Towers Perrin Health Care Cost survey reported that companies routinely pay an annual average of $9,000 per employee for health care. However, an increasing number of companies are asking employees to shoulder more and more of the costs, or are even altering their health insurance policies in an effort to cut company overhead. 

On the other hand, a growing minority is incorporating wellness programs into their company culture, attempting to minimize common health concerns that plague employees including; stress, weight-related heath issues and smoking. Wellness programs are preventative measures. If a company can help to improve the health of their employees in the office, then out-of-office health expenses decrease, and employee productivity and morale increases.

Employers are offering Weight Watcher classes, subsidized gym memberships, on-site vaccinations and more, often on company time Another study by insurer giant MetLife found that 94% of companies with wellness programs actually reduced their medical costs. For instance, more active employees tend to have lower blood pressure and cholesterol, two health issues with medications that cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per employee. 

Starting a wellness program at your company involves time and effort, but the best part is that they are completely customizable to the health concerns and wants of your employees, as well as your budget. They are also a great way to entice job seekers and give current employees another reason to get excited about coming to work.