Last week, MRINetwork released a statement discussing the momentum that contract staffing has been gaining lately:

The contingent employment industry is traditionally a leading indicator of post-recession economic conditions and a reliable predictor of future employment trends. Cautious employers hire temps first, hedging their bets on the recovery, recognizing it is easier to scale back if demand doesn’t materialize. This cycle is no different, say the contract staffing experts at MRINetwork, except this time employers plan to maintain a larger portion of their workforce as contract employees even once business recovers.

This is something that we, and many of you, have made note of in the last several months. Tim Ozier, director of contract staffing at MRINetwork, states, “During the recession, employers learned to refocus on their core business, realizing that a smaller core workforce that was well trained and technologically astute was more effective and nimble than their pre-recession staff. As firms emerge from the recession they are, of course, beginning to hire full time workers but they are also seeing a larger role for highly skilled contract workers who are engaged on an as-needed basis.”

Good business owners observe market trends and learn to adapt their business to meet the needs of their customers. But do you think this is a staying trend, or simply a typical gun-shy reaction to the supposed end of a recession?

We recently polled some Fordyce readers on their thoughts and involvement in contract staffing:

• 60% of those polled either already offer some contract placement services or plan to in the coming year.
• Some of the reasons cited for wanting to pursue adding contract placement to current business offerings include:
  • Prior experience offering contract placement services, but unable to sustain the staff to keep it going. Now that things are getting better, would like to re-start that business offering
  • Seeing a need to expand the business in this direction
  • Understanding that companies want to ‘test’ new workers, and they don’t want to have to pay benefits
• Some of the reasons cited against adding contract placement to current business offerings include:
  • The need for more staff to handle this, but not enough incoming revenue to support it yet
  • Need to focus on one element of recruiting; to be really good at one almost dictates that you won’t be really good at the other
  • Too small a revenue stream to justify having dedicated staff

Though there seemed to be a pretty even distribution of Yes’s and No’s regarding personal pursuit of contract placement services, 63% of respondents agreed that contract placement is a rising trend in the recruiting world and should be paid attention to. Many recognized that more and more employers are looking for full-service firms to take care of both temporary and permanent hiring needs, and that by not at least exploring the option of having contract placement services, they run the risk of losing some of their clients. Others cited economy recovery and employer reluctance to hire full-time employees. As one respondent put it, “I think the economy is still ‘on the mend’ and companies are reluctant to hire full time. A company may have a sporadic surge of business but may not be sure of how to read it — whether it is a fluke or if business is indeed picking up for them. They can hire temporary employees for a short period of time. If their business continues to increase, they already have that option of hiring their temporary employee that knows their business, is already trained, and knows what their expectations are. If not, they do not have the concerns of unemployment issues, bad morale, etc.”

Here’s your chance to share your thoughts — do you think this trend will stay beyond the coming months, or do you think this is a knee-jerk reaction that will fade once we are clearly on the road to economic recovery? Do you think, as a contingency or a retained search professional, that it is important to explore the option of adding contract placement services to your repertoire? Or do you feel that it will take focus and resources away from already successful business practices? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

In President Obama’s recent State of the Union address he said, “We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.” He’s 100% correct, but is the United States prepared to focus its education system on building tomorrow’s generation of engineers and scientists so it can “out-innovate” and “out-build” its competition?

Before you ask, “What this has to do with recruiting?” consider that if America does not invest in education and innovation we as professional recruiters may not have the quality candidates to recruit and place with our clients in the future.  This means a potential and significant reduction in fees!  If the United States starts to run out of domestic technical talent to fill the ranks of companies such as IBM, John Deere, or Yahoo!, what is to prevent them from moving their technical/engineering centers to countries like India and China that have more readily available technical talent to fill their job openings?

We’re deeply mired in the age of globalization.  US-based companies have not hesitated to move jobs to developing countries where the technical talent and quality exists at a lower price.  I believe today’s third-party recruiters need to be deeply concerned about this technical brain-drain phenomenon because if we bury our heads in the sand we’ll end up being sorry for it in the not too distant future.

I believe this has everything to do with recruiting, and we should be paying attention and doing what we can to help further this cause.

This is a topic I’m obviously passionate about because it has already started to affect my business; moreover, I fear that it will significantly impact my business for the worse ten or twenty years from now. I specialize in placing engineers with Commercial Vehicle and Diesel Engine manufacturers. There are times when I’m called upon to recruit for engineering positions that require the candidate(s) to have a Master’s or PhD Degree. Last year I filled three PhD-level positions with my clients. Not one of the candidates I placed was born in the United States; however, they all received their Master’s and/or PhD Degrees at universities in the United States. According to the 2010 report provided by the highly respected Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) the United States possesses eight of the top ten universities in the world, but what is the United States doing as a country to “out-educate” our global competitors at the K-12 level? The answer is appalling because the United States lacks focus, commitment, and a concerted effort to emphasize STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education at the non-university level. With the dearth of STEM education, how will the United States be able to “out-innovate” and “out-build” the rest of the world? Here are some eye-opening statistics to consider:

• On January 30, 2011, CBS’s Sunday Morning program televised a segment called, “America’s Brain Drain.” In this program, it stated, “…more than 690,000 foreign students came to the United States to study this past year. Nearly 105,000 of those came from India and nearly 128,000 came from China.” The segment also went on to state that foreign students “earned more than half of the doctorates awarded by American universities in math, computer science, and engineering.”
• According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “In 2007, U.S. eighth-graders’ average mathematics score (508) was higher than the average scores of eighth-graders in 37 of the 47 other participating educational systems, lower than the scores in five educational systems, and not measurably different from the scores in the remaining five educational systems. All of the educational systems that outperformed the United States in eighth-grade mathematics were in Asia (Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore).”
• Bruce Nussbaum, who wrote a blog on January 26, 2011 in the Harvard Business Review on-line edition titled, “What’s Wrong With America’s Innovation Policies,” stated, “A devastating National Science Foundation Business R&D and Innovation Survey that generated almost no media discussion when it was released in the fall showed that only 9% of the 1.5 million for-profit public and private companies in the U.S. had any product, service, or process innovation between 2006 and 2008. Of manufacturing firms, 22% innovated. In non-manufacturing, a mere 8% innovated.”

I’ve presented just of a few of the eye-opening details. It’s obvious the United States isn’t committed to “out-educating” and “out-innovating” its global competition at the present moment. What can be done to rectify this problem? Here are some of my solutions:

1. Federal and State governments need to mandate that 75% of curriculum taught at the K-12 levels in public schools or any parochial schools that receive Federal or State funding needs to be focused on STEM education. Moreover, any educator that teaches in a STEM field at the middle school or high school level needs to possess a Master’s or PhD Degree in their discipline to further drive home subject mastery to their students.
2. Any student who is identified as above average or superior by means of their high school transcripts and SAT/ACT scores in a STEM field will have their tuition completely paid for at a top technical university in the United States. How will this be paid for? By what Fareed Zakaria calls an “Innovation Tax.” An “Innovation Tax” is a 4-6% tax incurred by all working Americans that will go to fund STEM education, at all educational levels. The tax will also go to fund government-run (e.g. DARPA, NIH, etc.) agencies so that they can invent new products or services that when commercialized create jobs for the 21^st Century. For example, without the innovative and government-funded work – from American taxpayers – that DARPA performed previously the commercial business world would not have IT-related technologies such as time-sharing, computer graphics, microprocessors, and the Internet. There is a price to be paid for anything worthwhile. I would not mind paying this tax if I knew it would ensure America’s place as the global leader in STEM education, innovation, and job creation.
3. I would also propose what I like to call a “Corporate Innovation Tax Credit.” Every time a company that is incorporated and has its headquarters and over 50% of its workforce located in the United States is awarded a patent or creates an invention that has the potential to create tangible domestic job growth in 5-10 years, the organization will receive a Corporate Innovation Tax Credit for its following fiscal year. I’m not an economist or finance expert by training, but I’m sure smarter people than me can flesh out my “Corporate Innovation Tax Credit” so that a company’s tax rate is reduced to foster further innovation, capital investments, and training for its employees.
4. Foreign-born students who come to the United States to receive a Master’s and/or PhD Degree in a STEM field who graduate and are subsequently hired by a company that is incorporated and has its headquarters and over 50% of its workforce located in the United States will immediately receive their US Permanent Residency. Also, these foreign-born students will have a five-year obligation to remain in the United States to work for the company that hired them. If they do not honor their five-year obligation then they will receive a substantial fine including paying full restitution (i.e. tuition, roam and board, etc.) for their graduate level education.
5. All recruiters who place professionals in STEM fields need to play an active role in promoting STEM education at the K-12 levels. Recruiters should get involved and volunteer in after-school science programs. Also, recruiters should volunteer to speak to high school math and science classes so that we can give these students a glimpse of the fruitful opportunities that await them after they graduate with their technically-focused college and graduate degrees.

I want to leave the readers with one final story and thought. When Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb and numerous other sublime inventions, merged his Edison General Electric Company with the Thomas-Houston Company to form the General Electric Company in 1892, little did he know that his light bulb would eventually create over 300,000 jobs around the world today. Google, Apple, Caterpillar, and Proctor & Gamble are also companies with strong brand reputations, innovative products, and thousands of employees around the world. What do these four stalwarts of the global economy have in common? They’re all science and engineering companies at their core. Without the scientists and engineers at these companies no one, not the human resources generalist, the accountant, or the manufacturing worker, would have a job. Without their continuous research, development, and innovations the rest of the company would cease to exist.

If America wants to “out-innovate” and “out-build” the rest of the global economy in the 21^st century, it needs to wake up fast and start focusing on STEM education, investing in government and commercial innovation, and rewarding those organizations that do create jobs through their innovative ideas or face falling significantly behind its competitors in the next ten to twenty years.

As recruiting professionals, we need to embrace this and support it, or else our livelihoods may very well be at risk in the coming years.

There are lots of kudos today for the tenor and tone of President Obama’s State of the Union speech, particularly his call for a bipartisan effort to build the economy and grow more jobs so America can can continue to lead the global economy.

That’s what American workers want to hear, of course, but they want the president to do a lot more than that, according to a new workplace survey that zeros in on the specifics people feel are needed to actually drive our economic growth.

According to a survey by Adecco Staffing US, nearly three-quarters of Americans (73 percent) believe that President Obama should change current tax policies to better encourage businesses to hire.

In addition, more than 68 percent of respondents want businesses to be offered more incentives or tax breaks to encourage them to hire. Further, 67 percent would like to see the government eliminate unnecessary regulations that discourage businesses from hiring in the first place.

Not working well enough, or quick enough

These are huge percentages, and they point to one thing: American workers are VERY focused on what is needed to drive business growth and really get the economy rolling again.

“The message is loud and clear: Americans feel changes are needed in government’s approach to jobs and labor in order to get people back to work quicker,” said Tig Gilliam, CEO of Adecco Group North America, in a press release about the survey.

“What we have now isn’t working well enough or quick enough and people feel it, especially the unemployed. That said, Americans aren’t asking for a handout. Rather, they’d like to see some of the barriers to jobs lifted – better alignment of incentives and elimination of barriers – to free up hiring.”

According to the survey that was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of Adecco Staffing US, part of the world’s largest recruitment and workforce solutions provider, more Americans are focused on “bulking up” their skills and expertise in 2011; one-third (35 percent) of Americans indicated they plan pursue additional training and education in 2011, up from only 21 percent in 2010.

However, workers may be planning to parlay that increased education and skill into a new job as more than 30 percent indicated they plan to look for a new job in 2011. This is especially true of younger generations; 50 percent of 18-to-34 year olds plan to look for a new job in 2011, while one quarter (26 percent) of 35-54 year olds plan to do the same.

Men more likely to look for a new job

That workers are ready to jump to a new job isn’t a great surprise, of course, because many other surveys have shown the same thing. It’s a referendum on how too many companies treated their employees during the Great Recession, and it speaks to a real problem with employee engagement that will be extremely difficult for many organizations to overcome.

Some additional findings of note from the survey include:

• Employees plan to ask for more rewards in the workplace in 2011. A renewed sense of confidence in the direction of the economy may be the catalyst that’s inspiring workers to ask for more in the year ahead. While only 9 percent of Americans asked for a raise, bonus or promotion at work in 2010, this year that figure will more than double, with 20 percent of people expecting to ask for these rewards in 2011.
• Men more likely than women to look for a new job, expect a raise in 2011. Compared to women, in 2011 men are more likely to look for a new job (38 percent compared to 21 percent), start a new job (34 percent compared to 22 percent) and expect a raise, bonus or promotion (41 percent compared to 29 percent).
• Younger generations want President Obama to create retro “New Deal” and a stimulus to boost jobs. When asked what advice they’d give President Obama to get more Americans back to work, more than half (51 percent) of 18-34 year olds would recommend he create a significant public works plan similar to the New Deal from the 1930s, whereas 41 percent of those aged 35 plus do.
• More working parents plan to pursue education/training for career advancement in 2011. For Americans with children, 46 percent plan to pursue additional education and training in the year ahead, compared to just over a quarter (29 percent) of those Americans without kids. These career boosting efforts might be paying off, too. In 2010, more than a quarter (27 percent) of parents received a raise or promotion or bonus at work, compared to 17 percent of those without children.

Americans want stronger action

“The results of this survey confirm Americans want to see the government take stronger action to boost jobs creation,” said Gilliam. “When you see results that indicate only 2 percent of Americans think the efforts underway are effective – that’s a call to action for change.”

Yes, President Obama was encouraging in his speech, and yes, his call for change as we face “our generation’s Sputnik moment” resonated with a Boomer like me who well remembers the challenges and great accomplishments that came out of President Kennedy’s call for Americans to come together behind a plan to go to the moon.

But as the Adecco survey shows all too well, American workers have strong, specific, and focused opinions on what their government needs to do to help get jobs and the economy moving again.

Like most Americans, I want President Obama’s words to be the start of something big. I hope that is the case, and that our “Sputnik moment” becomes the beginning of a real focus on jobs and growth rather than just another line from another speech that will soon be forgotten and discarded amidst partisan bickering by all too many of our decision makers inside the Beltway.

I was reading a post recently that discussed the pros and cons of offering bribes or kickbacks to candidates to take jobs. In the post, the author stated:

“We can understand why a candidate would want to use a recruiting firm that gives them $10,000.00 or whatever it is when they place them. That’s a lot of money anywhere…When you get that $10,000.00 it’s almost like a justification for moving.”

As well:

“…I understand why recruiting firms would want to offer it. It is a great way to drum up business; especially if you advertise it. You can advertise that you pay money to people when they are placed. That’s something that certainly will draw in lots and lots and lots of candidates.”

However, the post continued on with some of the business and ethical reasons why this may not be the best route to take. Some discussed included:

• Paying out candidate kickbacks takes money out of your placement fee, and ultimately out of your operating budget.
• If you advertise this practice and your clients know about it, they may approach hiring any of your candidates with more extreme caution.
• Your clients may be led to believe that the candidate wouldn’t have taken the job if there were no kickback from you.
• There is the potential of attaching a stigma to your candidates if they are hired; their new co-workers may view them in a less than favorable light.
• Once a candidate is known to accept kickbacks, they may be suspected of being disloyal to any potential new employers.

So, there are certainly plusses and minuses to this practice. Paul Hawkinson covered this topic a couple years ago too in the Fordyce article Inducements, Kickbacks, Bribes, Sweeteners. What are your thoughts on this? Please share in the comments below!

Let’s say you’re in the middle of a batch of marketing calls. You’re smiling and dialing, wheeling and dealing, spinning and grinning. You get a new prospect on the line and they like your MPC. You talk through your candidate’s skills, walk them through the fee agreement, when suddenly… you’re hit with an objection. You’re trying desperately to close the deal, but your mind is drawing a blank. What do you do?

You whip out your iPhone. There IS an app for that.

Earlier this month, Cardone Training Technologies Inc. released its CloseTheSale app on iTunes. CloseTheSale is a complete list of closing lines from Grant Cardone, international sales expert, sales trainer, sales motivational speaker and NY Times best selling Author. According to the app description, “Every situation from, “I need to think about it”, to “price”, “affordability”, “budget”, “third parties”, “terms”, “payments”, “down payment”, “difference”, “the economy”, “never make rash decisions”, and every conceivable stall you will ever hear is covered here.” Check out these screenshots from the app:

In this day and age where nearly everything we need or want is available at the swipe of a finger, I have to think that while convenience is great, is it dumbing us down regarding basic skills? What do you think?

In a recent discussion, an unemployed job-seeker shared that she had been on five interviews and was certain that she wasn’t offered a few positions because the salaries they were offering were lower than what she was making at her previous job. She had concluded that the companies were most likely wary of hiring her at a lower wage, for fear that she might leave for a higher paying position once the economy improved. Frustrated, she asked for help on how to approach the delicate topic of compensation for future opportunities.

There were responses coming from all kinds of perspectives for this inquiry:

• “Remember that salary requirements should never be spoken about in first interviews (provided you know that there will be a 2nd or 3rd round of interviews). Unless the employer brings it up in the first interview, don’t bring it up.”
• “Start by being honest with yourself, why are you taking a step back? Are you going to bolt when something better comes along. You need to research the position you are applying for and tell them that you are aware of the difference in salary. You need to look at the role and state honestly why you want it and what you could do for them.”
• “Generally candidates try to deflect discussions about salary and benefits until they have been offered the job and persuaded the interviewers that they are ideal candidate for the job. Smart candidates will do everything to avoid answering direct questions about salary and benefits. Try to bring him back to the parameters which he is looking for and put emphasis on your your suitability for this job.”

This is a tricky topic these days with lots of job-seekers putting themselves up for positions that are a level or two below them simply because they need to make ends meet. There is always the possibility that these candidates will cut and run once things improve, but this is also a very real situation that doesn’t seem to have any one agreed-upon answer.

There are really two issues here: interviewing for positions that are a notch or two below one’s current level, and discussing salary during the interview process. Would you send a candidate to interview for a position that was below his or her current level? How do you advise your candidates on when to discuss salary? Weigh in with your thoughts below.

Our goal is to move beyond ‘vendor’ status to become trusted advisors and consultants with our client companies. So – how do we get past scenarios like the ones outlined in this video?

How many of you have ever encountered situations like these? Clients essentially asking you to work for free, or wanting to ‘test out’ your services with a promise to pay next time, or even haggling your fee to an unacceptable low. Forming strategic relationships does require some negotiation, but this must happen on both sides of the table. Sustainable relationships involve both parties benefiting (known in nature as a symbiotic relationship), not just one (known in nature as a parasitic relationship).

How have you or your company gotten past these types of scenarios? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

William Tincup was featured recently in John Sumser’s Top 100 Influencers, which is a running series that Sumser is doing on recruiting and HR professionals who have made an impact in our industry. While Tincup isn’t a recruiting agency guy, he is a self-employed professional services guy, just like many of you. Tincup, along with Bret Starr, co-founded their company Starr Tincup in November of 2000. Starr Tincup is a marketing consultancy that serves the recruiting and HR community. He has been responsible for building the company brand, including the website, book (Try Not To F&ck This Up), direct marketing, email marketing, event strategy, social media strategy, and so forth. Tincup has been known (affectionately? notoriously?) throughout the recruiting and HR community for his low-brow sense of humor, colorful language, and yet his approachability and willingness to have conversations about his work and his thoughts on business and marketing strategy.

Recently, he fell out of love with his work and decided to move on.

At this point, you may be wondering “What does this have to do with me? This guy’s a marketer; I’m a recruiting professional!” I promise – there is a good point to all of this.

Falling out of love with one’s work is common. We’ve all had days where we’ve sworn that if we get on the phone with one more rude person or if one more client tries to cheap out on paying a fee, we’re through. Of course, few are the time when we actually follow through on those threats. But that thought is still lingering in the back of our minds – “Is this all really worth it?”

William Tincup’s story struck me because he detailed the reasons he decided to throw in the towel. He stopped believing in the outsourced marketing services business model. He was frustrated with the double standards applied to his efforts vs. in-house marketers’ efforts. He became annoyed that, as an external service provider, his status was constantly being threatened by these ridiculous standards. And the final straw for him, as he states:

“…the realization that over the course of 10 years in the game I might of [sic] been told “thank you” seven or eight times.  I (read: my firm) changed lives, changed destinies, built lasting brands, created market share, created real value, got people promoted, etc, etc. Yeah, I know – payment for services rendered was my thanks.  Yeah, well, that wasn’t enough.”

I would be very surprised if just about every person reading this article hasn’t struggled with at least one of these issues at some point during your professional recruiting career. Who hasn’t felt like the red-headed stepchild at least once when working with a difficult client? Who hasn’t been held to some crazy standards as an external recruiter that an internal employee would never be held to? And who hasn’t wished that once, just once, someone would thank them for all of the amazing talent they’ve helped shepherd in to an organization?

When you really fall out of love with your work, how do you know when it’s time to say “Enough!” and leave before you become bitter? Is it just a bad case of the Mondays, or is this a recurring gut feeling that just will not go away? How do you get past the rut and fall back in love with what you do? Weigh in with your thoughts in the comments below. Sharing your experience might just save someone from calling it quits!

Our friend (and yours!) Jerry Albright made a brazen announcement yesterday that he is quitting Twitter, and that as of June 30th his account would be gone. On his blog, he states:

“It was pretty easy to feel “OK” about being on Twitter during most of 2009. Everyone was there – and more were joining every day. It was “interesting” to feel like one of the first rather than one of the last – so I hung out. It has now become apparent to me that there is no viable BUSINESS reason to spend much time on Twitter as a 3rd party recruiter. Might be great for plenty of other professions – but recruiting? No way. Sorry.”

This is a common sentiment in our world of recruiting – that Twitter is a waste of time, and that real recruiters are on the phone with candidates and not tweeting out job opportunities. On the other hand, others argue that Twitter is a growing source of candidates, as well as a valuable tool to develop a good online presence and enable candidates to find you as well.

As search professionals, to which of these thought processes do you subscribe? The way we approach recruiting is different than the way our corporate recruiting counterparts do. Neither way is right or wrong; they are simply different. Twitter certainly has value it can offer, but does it belong in a 3rd party recruiter’s resource toolkit?

We want to hear from you! Do you use Twitter? Do you find it to be a waste of time, or a good resource to add to your arsenal? Have you made placements or gained new clients based on conversations you’ve had via Twitter, or has it been a dead-end street for you? Share your experience in the comments below.