Most know references to be a tool for checking a candidate’s background, but it’s important to realize that reference related factors can also be one of the simplest, cheapest and effective areas for identifying top candidates. Even the best corporations that excel at recruiting routinely fail to realize that references …

If you’re not getting exceptional hires, it may be because your traditional interview process is simply not designed to excite them. Instead of dwelling on the past, a superior alternative is to ask them to solve real problems, to demonstrate that they are forward-looking and that they have solutions for …

Part 2 of a 2 part series (Click here for Part 1) A retention toolkit for innovators. As the economy picks up and unemployment rates continue to drop, I can forecast with a good deal of certainty that the turnover rates among all employees will increase. However, it is important …

Part 1 of a 2 part series (Click here for Part 2) A retention toolkit for innovators. Corporate executives are beginning to learn the high value of Innovators, which can be 5 to 300 times the value of an average employee. If a company doesn’t have enough innovators, a primary …

Take notice: If what you do produces only average results… prepare to be eliminated! We are witnessing a visible revolution and shift in corporate focus. The public visibility of this shift is unusual because strategic changes in the corporate world are normally slow in coming. In fact, the majority of …

Marissa Mayer’s decision to require Yahoo employees to “come into the office” has already been criticized by many. But most of the criticisms that I have come across have been based on emotion rather than data. If you understand the science behind increasing innovation through face-to-face interaction, her decision can …

Google has the only HR function on the planet that is managed based on “people analytics.” If you haven’t seen it in the news, after their stock price broke the $800 barrier, Google moved into the #3 position among the most valuable firms in the world. Google is clearly the youngest …

The Top 30 Boldest Actions for Recruiting Individual Innovators. I just returned from the always powerful CoDev conference where a prime focus was on the difficulty of hiring and retaining innovators. Almost everyone agrees on the value of innovators but unfortunately, because of their design and their lack of boldness, …

One of the most frustrating elements of recruiting occurs when after weeks of hard work, you have found an excellent candidate who is excited but you can’t get past the last sticking point: the appropriate starting salary. The candidate naturally wants more, but the company is often reluctant to offer …

With the growth of the Internet, social media and employee referral programs, “finding talent” is becoming amazingly easy. In recruiting, we call finding talent “sourcing” and for nearly 3 decades sourcing has been the most important but difficult aspect of recruiting. After all, if you can’t “find” great talent, you …