Mobile Recruiting, Why Hiring Decisions Go Bad, Other RPO News

A good hiring decision is much more than providing that great offer to that qualified candidate, or filling a position that's been unfilled for months. It's also about knowing how to find them and how to nurture that talent as it's applied in your company. This week's RPO news roundup covers these issues, going over some of the trending ideas in engaging employees, engaging potential candidates, and making the most of the hiring resources you have.

4 Best Practices for Your Mobile-Career Site

A mobile recruiting strategy is no longer something that is nice to have. It is something that is necessary in recruiting the best candidates. Since only 20% of Fortune 500 companies actually have a mobile-optimized career site, a mobile recruiting strategy is pivotal to keeping and to setting your competitive edge in recruiting. A couple of best practices for your mobile-career site include choosing the right mobile vendor and ensuring that your application process is short and simple to do.

70% of U.S Workers are Disengaged with Their Work

"If 67% of the population will continue to work after winning $10 million – and fully half of those will stay in the job they currently have, why do we care about engagement?" It's a great question posed by China Gorman in her latest post, as employee engagement isn't the best in this country, but the problem doesn't receive much attention in the media (besides hiring and recruitment media, that is). Part of the discrepancies might have to do with the definition of engagement, who is defining engagement, and even human nature. People tend to favor the known and the routine, versus the unknown and the uncertainty, and even $10 million dollars might not erase a fear of uncertainty.

Involvement Key to Great Hiring Decisions

Essentially, hiring decisions go wrong because executives aren't involved in the process the way that they should be, or that the resources and the infrastructure isn't there for hiring managers and recruiters to make these great decisions. Sometimes, they make the mistake of outsourcing a little too much, relinquishing the whole recruiting process to someone else because they have no idea how to recruit for their organization. Other times, executives are too involved when recruiting isn't the best use of their time and talents. Part of making great hiring decisions is knowing enough about what's happening to ensure the result you want, and to do so every time.

Creating Jobs to Fit the Talent You Have (and Want)

Much of the discussion around finding great candidates involves finding the right people for your open positions. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's not the only way to do things. Organizations can also assess the talent, and talent pool, that they have, and then create and tweak open positions that fit this talent. Australia-based hearing-aid manufacturer Cochlear was able to do this by align its leadership roles with their candidates' individual strengths and to their individual career aspirations, and started this program as a way to increase the number of women in its candidate pool. Such an idea not only helps those currently in your company advance and to put their talents toward company goals, but it also appeals to potential candidates who want to be in companies that will invest in their career development.

6 Questions to Ask Whether or Not You Need a Managed Staffing Program

This articles from the Seamless Workforce makes a great point about the availability of resources for recruiting and human resources, particularly when it comes to hiring and managing temporary labor. Executives tend to think, according to the article, that temporary labor is HR's problem, or that there isn't that much temporary labor in the company so it's not really something to worry about. However, asking these six questions is critical to knowing what's happening when it comes to your contingent labor, and whether or not a managed staffing program would help your organization.