The next generation of employee referral programs will focus on improving quality of hire.

All talent leaders try to be strategic, but most fall short. And it’s not because leaders don’t get the Xs and Os of recruiting right. Instead, my research has found that many fail to reach strategic status because most recruiting leaders are not strong business leaders. This lack of business …

Competitor talent mapping identifies the best recruiting targets at your competitors. This competitive intelligence approach’s strength is identifying top talent at your competitors before you need to recruit them. So that there is time to assess thoroughly, and in some cases, build a relationship with them. This extra pre-hire time …

You’re sure to land top talent if you recruit when the supply is high and the competition is low! Fortunately, we are now experiencing this high supply-to-low-competition ratio. It will remain that way during the rest of this year (2025). So, even if you have limited recruiting resources, realize that …

The shutdown has forced millions of well-trained and experienced employees to consider a new job. So why not target and then cherry-pick from among the most desirable ones? During this time period, many federal employees and contractors are thoroughly frustrated. To show you why you shouldn’t pass up this rare …

With record applications (up 45%), mostly from AI agents, 20% of employers are considering pay to apply. “Pay to apply” is a process for discouraging the shotgunning of applications by charging a small application fee to candidates. And incidentally, the “AI agents” driving this massive increase in resumes aren’t people. …

Few have what it takes to qualify as a strategic recruiter. One of the actions, for example, is developing your own distinctive recruiting approach that provides your company with a measurable competitive advantage over your top talent competitors. Do you meet the requirements? Well, it’s not enough to just assume …

Employed candidates are the most valuable because their skills and experience are up-to-date. But because they are busy working, employed candidates usually have the highest “didn’t complete” rate among all interviewees. This checklist is intended to be used as a tool for dramatically improving your interview completion rate, especially among …

Expect little impact because out of 100 jobs that drop the BA, only 4 will be filled by the non-degree.In addition to expecting few recruiting and business impacts, I realize the painful truth that individual hiring managers have often replaced this BA requirement with what I call voodoo candidate assessment …

Blame sourcing and its metrics when you’re not getting top candidates. It is increasingly important to focus on the effectiveness of both sourcing and recruiting. First, because all corporate overhead functions are being pushed to “do more with less.” Second, AI and machine learning are slowly creeping into sourcing and …