Conducting Psychological Profile Tests in Candidate Interviews

Beyond the typical interview questions (“where do you see yourself in 5 years?”, or my personal favorite, “what is your most negative trait?”), many companies do attempt to evaluate job candidates at a deeper level. Canned questions usually garner canned responses, nullifying the purpose of the question entirely. Therefore, some creativity needs to be used…

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When 1099 Workers Function as Full-time Employees

Many businesses occasionally (or even frequently) require the services of part-time and/or specialty contract workers. Workloads may be seasonable. New projects require talent that is not currently available on staff. The business cannot find qualified permanent employees. Whatever the reason, sometimes the company must hire 1099 workers. 1099 workers generally consume fewer HR resources because…

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Who is Wrong – the Recruiter or the Candidate?

I read an interesting article recently about a recruiter that became furious when a candidate, who had originally accepted a job offer, reneged after reading multiple negative online reviews about the prospective employer. Apparently the recruiter became extremely belligerent to the candidate, seeing an expected paycheck fly out the window. Where to begin listing what’s…

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The Importance of Overseas Travel for College Students

When I was in college way back in the 1970’s it was relatively uncommon for average students to travel abroad, whether privately or through school sponsored programs. Foreign travel came (if at all) after graduation and after enough money was saved for the special trip. Unless you were a foreign exchange student or majored in…

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Make Sure You Know Who You’re Hiring

The pool of job candidates is vast and diverse, yet head hunters and hiring managers oftentimes struggle to find the “right” people to fill key positions because they lack soft, or interpersonal skills. And unfortunately for those prospects who don’t necessarily fit into the company culture, their job satisfaction is short-lived once the imbalance becomes…

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Submitting New Hire Candidates to Tests

Many companies subject potential new hires to various levels of testing to gauge overall skills and personality traits. Sometimes the tests are required to confirm specific required skills, such as expertise in a particular programming language or general typing skills. Other tests analyze fundamentals such as math and writing proficiency. Some employers actually subject candidates…

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Manage Talent Better with an HR Help Desk

A centralized and automated HR case management system can be a huge asset in managing talent better for companies of any size — even overcoming the shortcomings of many larger and more comprehensive HR technology, information, and talent management systems. Consider, for example, how an HR help desk can solve the challenge of gathering and…

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Using HR HelpDesk for Talent Management Processes

One of the hottest HR Shared Services products today is talent management software. Designed to manage the entire lifecycle of employee tenure within an organization, these solutions have become one of the most high-demand systems for corporations large and small. However, as they impact virtually every department within HR, from recruiting to benefits to payroll,…

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Closing the Gap in Talent Management Systems

Recruitment Onboarding Performance Training and Development Succession Planning Offboarding Yes, the very best Talent Management systems are designed to handle the complete lifecycle of your workforce. They connect and manage all of the stages of the employee’s career within the organization. Cradle to grave, as they say. Or do they? Is there something missing here?…

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Want to Support Talent Development? Get Vision Into Your Workforce

You probably wouldn’t think so, but Helen Keller had some advice for today’s HR leaders. “The only thing worse than being blind,” Keller wrote, “is having sight but no vision.” Today, HR leaders in enterprise organizations often have access to huge piles of data. It sits before them, a sight to behold, a mountain of…

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