Dr John Sullivan

Dr John Sullivan is an internationally known HR thought-leader from the Silicon Valley who specializes in providing bold and high business impact; strategic Talent Management solutions to large corporations.

Predicting Who Is About To Quit

I am continually surprised at managers who are surprised when one of their own top people quits. Identifying who is likely to leave is relatively easy-if you are aggressive and think ahead. Some firms have reached as high as 75% accuracy in predicting who is likely to leave. With a …

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Top 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Recruit From Dot-Com’s

When the stock market tumbles, there is often a cry heard at major firms: “Let’s recruit away the talent from dot-coms!” But I would urge caution before making any raids. Here are some possible reasons why hiring people from dot-coms may be a mistake for the more “established” firms!* Top 10 …

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Recruiting In Retail: Tips For Managers

Retail recruiting is different than most recruiting because the potential “prospects” have a varied background and can number in the hundreds of thousands. But on the other hand, because prospects are generally very visible (if they are currently working), they are easier to assess and communicate with. Here are some …

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Hire Your Customers!

If you’re having a hard time finding employees, look no further than the people that already know and like you…your customers! Because they know and like you, they are likely to need less training, stay longer, and be the most productive of all of your hires. If you are in …

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Training And Compensation’s Role In Recruiting And Branding

Most people see the role of recruiting as a relatively isolated one. Managers and recruiters are intimately involved in recruiting, but other HR functions (like training and compensation) play only a shadow role. This is a major error because the training and compensation functions need to accept that they also …

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Consider Other Firms As Your “Farm Teams”

In baseball, major league teams get much of their talent from “farm teams.” A farm team is a team that they sponsor so that when they developed talent beyond the skill limits of the farm league, the farm team then passes along that talent to the next higher level team. …

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Target The “Have To Be Asked” Candidate!

The forgotten target in recruiting is the currently employed person that will only consider another job when they are directly approached and asked the big question: Would you consider a job with our firm? I call them the “have to be asked” type. Let’s face it, most people are settled …

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Why Hiring Freezes Are Dumb

One of my pet peeves in HR is the “overuse” of hiring freezes. All too often, senior managers respond to a minor budget crisis by immediately putting on a hiring freeze. In some companies the freeze seems to be a predictable practice that is repeated once or twice a year, …

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Use A Dedicated Hiring Team, Not Individual Managers!

Most hiring decisions are traditionally made by individual managers; however, these are some reasons why hiring is better done by a small permanent hiring team.Why Managers Shouldn’t Do Most Hiring There are numerous reasons why individual managers shouldn’t be doing most of the hiring. They include: “Rustiness.” The limited volume of openings …

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