BoB

• They Pay Too Little, They Pay Too Much A pleasant morning sitting in the backyard. Reading the newspaper. My wife notices an article that explains that people are upset because of the large sums paid in compensation to the new dean of a medical school. It's a public school, so people feel that the person shouldn't be paid so much.  My wife asks for an opinion. She does this because she knows otherwise I will wander off to watch TV or drink a beer at 10:00 a.m. in the morning. But I pretend that she actually wants to know what I am thinking. (Talentism)
  
   
• We the Killers of Innovation What kills innovation? When I think about true innovation I think about the things that truly change the way I view the world and my work. When a friend of the family showed me that he could write code to develop games for the Commodore 64 it mesmerized me. I never knew a regular person could understand dots and dashes in a way to create something logical and stimulating for a human being. This was the first glimpse I had into what was about to occur. It was innovation self aware. (Steve Fogarty)
   
• HR Technology - State of the Industry This is a reply to Jeff from the talentism.com blog, who in his post about quality vs cost, invited me to comment about waste in systems and technology.  (Dub Dubs)
   

• return of the counteroffer a number of folks have been reporting an increase in counteroffers recently.  we've had a couple happen to us here at jobster as well.  the war for talent is certainly on ... it's certainly true that "if you're not re-recruiting your own best employees, you can be darn sure that someone else is." (Jobster)

• Web 2.0: Sell-Side Job Advertising I was on the Web 2.0 search innovation panel: Search by Another Name: New Ideas in Search. It was moderated by John Battelle and the other panelists were Rahul Lahiri from Ask Jeeves, Michael Tanne from Wink, and Bob Wyman from PubSub. Each panelist presented a different perspective on search innovation. Mine was "sell-side job advertising" - the application of the sell-side advertising concept to job search, with Indeed's advertising system as an example.  (Indeed)
   
• What's a portal? Usually I'm right there with the 3 major consulting firms (Mercer, TP and WW). However, this time I'm not quite sure if Mercer get's what a portal is vs a web page. (Dub Dubs)
   
• Potential pitfalls in a hiring manager self service model Quick recap after my holiday break - I started to post on how some of the less critical roles a company recruits for through primarily administrative, paper-shuffling processes could be automated with a hiring manager self service model. (Lefkow)
  
  
• How "Star" Power Impacts the Complex World of Competitive Advantage  When Phil Jackson announced his return to coaching the Los Angeles Lakers in June, the team's prospects went up considerably. But does his skill as a coach and current team roster guarantee that The Lakers owners will realize the fruits of a competitive advantage? (Emory via Sean)
   
• Wharton: The Trade-off between Talent and Disruptive Behavior. OK - this is way outside of my comfort zone and expertise. However, Wharton pushed out a great article on the Tyrell Owens debate called 'One for All' or 'One for One'? The Trade-off between Talent and Disruptive Behavior.  (Dub Dubs)
   
• Hiring People Who Can Stuff it  Mary Clingman was once discussing the bushes in the neighborhood with another woman. A man came by and asked for directions. Clingman watched while the woman, rather than merely providing him directions, actually led the guy all the way to where he needed to be. (Todd Raphael)
   
• How to Run a Useless Conference Forward this to the VP of Meetings in your organization. (Robert Merrill)
   
• When Will They Ever Learn? A friend of mine contacted me and told me that he applied for a job. Part of the application process included filling out a questionaire which asked a number of questions around faith. He was told that he was not being hired for the position due to the fact that they felt he would not be a good fit as he appeared to represent himself as a member of a particular religious faith. The hiring person also told him (via email) flat out that she/he did not like persons of that faith. (HR Lori)
   
• Focus on employment marketing In the recent For Immediate Release podcast Neville Hobson discussed 'titling' when referring to fellow bloggers in response to my clarification on what I do. I thought that it was worth adding some thoughts here. It was timely as I tighten the focus on what this blog covers. (Resourcing Strategies)
  
  
• Thanks Jason! Jason over at Recruiting.com notices the Business 2.0 article on TheLadders.com.  Like a lot of folks, our new business model takes a moment of reflection to fully understand:

  • I have never been crazy about charging people to help find them jobs but if people have jobs and want to pay a service to keep them abreast of what else is out there, well I guess that's ok. Maybe a system where if you have a job you pay and if you don't have a job, you don't pay.

  (Stone)
   

• print strikes back ... well, maybe In response - or retaliation - to the growth of free classifieds provider Craigslist and, to an unknown degree, the oncoming apocalypse that is Google Classifieds, print is striking back (or at least giving it a good 'college try').  According to a story in MediaPost, alternative chains New Times Media and Village Voice Media are expected to expand the availability of free classifieds via Backpage.com. (Cheesman)
  
  

- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

For many HR Directors, internet job boards were a failed experiment. Essentially, too many candidates. Not enough qualifications. And absolutely no guarantee that any of them would fit comfortably into your corporate culture.

Referrals from trusted associates, on the other hand, have always been the safer route. Unfortunately Employee Referral Programs tend to limit the scope of your search. The solution, devised by companies like H3.com, is in developing a Talent Scout Network-a small group of good people, both inside and outside your company, who know lots of other good people.

Talent scouts are a breed of people who keep their ears to the ground, who know your industry, and who always seem to know who's coming and going before anyone else. They're people who don't just connect you to a good candidate. They connect you to an entire community of good candidates. Like having a squadron of headhunters, but without the high headhunter fees.

A free white paper from H3.com discusses the new phenomenon of talent scout networks. And the success that HR directors are having with them.

To get a copy, visit H3.com.

• Learn how to cultivate and maintain a talent scout network.
• Learn how they're helping HR work more efficiently with hiring managers.
• Learn how they're helping to slash recruiting costs.

At H3.com you can also experiment with the system by launching a risk-free search.