February 11, 2009

Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Published by Success Performance Solutions. Major Sponsor,

2008 Best Places to Work In Pennsylvania

What's Inside this issue of The TotalView:

1.  The Resurrection of Reference Checks

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Warnings

3.  Reference Checking with LinkedIn

4.  Leading Your Career

5.  Quotes from the Hire Authorities

1.  The Resurrection of Reference Checks

Up until just a few years ago, reference checks were the nemesis of hiring managers.   Former employers are as reticent as soldiers captured behind enemy lines to provide anything more than name, rank and serial number to inquiring recruiters- or in the case of candidates, their name, previous title and employment dates.

Now imagine you had the capability to check a potential employee's references and get the real scoop before you even received his or her resume. Through the connectivity of the Internet, reference checking has been resurrected from the catacombs of human resource tools. Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and Jobster and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are making it easier for employers to get the skinny on candidates who may have inflated credentials on their resumes or who weren't quite as loved by everyone they worked with as they might have you believe.

This reference checking resurrection, which started mostly with Web-savvy recruiters in the technology industry, is spreading. Recruiters just a year or two ago used networking sites to check on entry-level and midlevel job seekers. But today even professionals and CEOs are subject to being evaluated by this "informal reference checking."
 
Recruiters use such sites to find mutual connections they can hit up for information. Through the networking sites, they get in touch with people who have worked with job candidates in the past or know them personally. Many hiring managers say they even check to see if they have mutual connections with a candidate on Facebook and MySpace, the popular social-networking sites.
 
Traditionally, recruiters have called references after a thorough face-to-face interview. The contacts were provided by the job seekers and were typically people who were most likely to provide a positive recommendation.  But when the recruiter contacted previous employers, the conversations have been polite but succinct as human resource and supervising managers headed into their bunkers under the threat of defamation.
 
For example, let's say John Smith is your top choice for the vacant operations manager position in your organization. John graciously offers the names of previous bosses and co-workers.  Before sites like LinkedIn, you attempted to reach these reference sources and wring out whatever information you could. 
 
Networking sites have completely changed everything.  With over 33 million members on LinkedIn alone, recruiters can access entire personal networks. Many hiring managers and recruiters check Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites for mutual connections even before any consideration is given to interview a candidate in person.  Instead of restricting your reference checking to the candidate's sources, you simply can type in the name of John's previous employer and dates of employment.  Depending on the size of the company you might come up with one to a hundred former co-workers or managers who might know something about John that neither John nor his listed reference was willing to share.

LinkedIn, Facebook and other networking sites are a wonderful networking tool but like everything else you get out of it what you put in. If you put no effort into recruiting, screening and reference checking, you'll get little to nothing out of it.

2.  Perfect Labor Storm Warnings   

Subscribe to the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog and receive skilled worker shortage updates like this:

Employers are estimated to spend at least $13B per year on health care costs for obese and overweight employees, who are responsible for an estimated 27% of annual trend in medical premiums paid by private employers. For each unit increase in BMI, direct health care costs increase by 2.3%, and the excess cost of obesity at a 1,000-person organization is about $285,000 per year.
 
Source: America's Weighty Problem by Free and Clear

 

Learn more about workforce trends. Purchase the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 books (soft and hard cover versions) at PerfectLaborStorm.com.

New Perfect Labor Storm videos added. Watch now!

3.  Reference Checking with LinkedIn

The learning curve to use tools like LinkedIn is very short.  Using LinkedIn to search for reference is really quite easy.  Of course, there a few things you'll need before getting started: 

• LinkedIn account (it's free!)
• Computer with Internet access 
• Knowledge of the years of an individual's employment 
• Knowledge of the company an individual worked for

Once you create your LinkedIn account, you're ready to begin your search.

• Step 1: Go to the LinkedIn Web site to begin (www.LinkedIn.com)
• Step 2: Log on to your LinkedIn account and begin from your home page.
• Step 3: Access the site map, located at the bottom of the home page. You can also access the "Full Sitemap" by clicking on the link within the small site map.
• Step 4: Find the first category, titled "People." Notice the subcategories within "People."
• Step 5: Click on the "Reference Search" link subcategory.
• Step 6: Enter the name of the company and the years of employment for the individual you are checking. You will enter this information into the boxes provided for you.
• Step 7: Click on the "Search" button to begin your reference check.

To learn more about how LinkedIn and other social networking sites are changing the way business will recruit, manage and collaborate, call 800.803.4303 to schedule a keynote or workshop.

4. Get  the Right Clues before you hire!

Are bad attitudes, lack of commitment or low morale cutting into your bottom line? Are you frustrated by new hires not showing up for work, stealing you blind, or having a short fuse?

Get Candid Clues before you hire. Candid Clues exposes a candidate's attitude toward dependability, honesty and frustration tolerance plus the optional scales for computer abuse, sexual harassment and illegal drug use.

Read more about Candid Clues for honesty and integrity checks.

5. Quotes from Hire Authorities

"The problem in my life and other people's lives is not the absence of knowing what to do, but the absence of doing it."
 
Peter Drucker

Permission is granted to consultants, managers, business owners and HR professionals to reproduce content from this newsletter for your internal publications, or to distribute copies to your workforce, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2008 Ira S Wolfe."  We also hope you will forward the newsletter in its entirety and recommend to others that they subscribe.

Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.