While many companies take pride in how they interact with the professional community from which they recruit, others are clueless about the damage human resources (HR) departments inflict on their corporate image and reputation. Sometimes a reader’s question reveals what’s wrong with Amercia’s employment system. This is one such story. In the June 23, 2009 edition [...]

So what’s new with offshoring IT work nowadays? Have overseas costs begun to outstrip the value of offshoring? Has the U.S. economy triggered re-thinking the offshore strategy? I’ve contended for a long time that as technical “stars” start to develop their careers in India and elsewhere, they’re not gonna be very happy staying on the farm… [...]

Employers hire on a bell curve. Most hires are pretty good, and they fit somewhere with most employees, on the fat part of the curve, doing their jobs, but nothing to brag home about. Now and then, along comes an exceptional talent with skills and knowledge to put the experts to shame. He’s on the [...]

Employers have an edge today when they’re hiring. More people are out of work. So employers up the ante and bargain harder. More companies are insisting that people sign non-compete agreements (NCAs) before they’ll hire them. An NCA protects a company from you after you leave because it restricts where you can work, what kind of work you can [...]

What really goes on in the room where job ads are written? I saw a listing for a security specialist the other day. It listed a  bunch of high-level requirements and looked interesting, though I noticed they also said “heavy attention to detail.” Is that a  realistic expectation for someone who has a more strategic thinking mind?  Can you [...]

This is a very painful experience. Sometimes, though, an employer shows integrity and the job candidate reveals common sense. This reader has been through the mill, but has survived and gained an unexpected benefit… I just read your article The company rescinded the offer (Ask The Headhunter newsletter, 4/14/09 — too late to get that [...]

We’ve talked about disclosing salary to employers, and we’ve discussed when it’s appropriate to bring up money during the hiring process. The conventional wisdom says job applicants shouldn’t bring up money at all — wait until the employer brings it up. (I think that’s nuts. But I’m not conventional.) I think it helps to consider [...]

Employers are more cautious than ever about hiring people. The cost of hiring the wrong person is just too great because budgets are so tight. Managers want to get it right the first time. We all know that traditional interviews are not a great way to evaluate a job candidate. And I talk myself blue [...]

We don’t often talk about employee relations — so let’s do it more. A troubled reader submitted this: How do you get people to stop making negative comments about other employees? I worked for a company last year and had several employees on my project who I discovered were trashing others — and they were really going after one employee [...]

Auren Hoffman has reinvented headhunting and escaped from Armchair Recruiting: Hiring what comes along. This is a genuine compliment, not a backhanded one. I’m tickled that someone else is writing about this. In Why hiring is paradoxically harder in a downturn, Hoffman realizes that when more people are looking for jobs, employers get more garbage resumes [...]