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

“Recruiting is just sales with a crummy budget.” So why haven’t recruiting leaders learned a lesson about incentives from their company’s sales function? Because sales leaders consistently operate under the proven idiom of “what you reward gets done.” So at least to me, everyone in the talent world should be …

I never had TV-hiring tips until Freddy was labeled as the best worker in his industry. Like most recruiters, I haven’t found TV shows to be a great source of hiring tips, until one episode of Deadliest Catch (a crab fishing documentary). It was clear that deckhand Freddy Maugatai was …

As the NFL season is about to begin, I wonder how many of those in recruiting have heard of the term “complementary football.”  This is a sports productivity and results improvement process that also works in business. This complementary approach improves your results by making it more likely that one …

Referrals are the most effective sourcing channel. And among all referrals, those from top performers are the absolute best. After you recognize these two facts, you should first identify and then prioritize the jobs where a top performer really makes a significant difference. Then you must develop a process for …

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. …