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Showing posts from August, 2011

Employers' Big Frustration – “We can’t find the right people to fill our openings”

Did you ever hear one of your single friends say something like, “There are no good men/women out there”? You hear that and feel like you need to respond with, “But, there are lots of good men/women out there that would be great for you…you’re just looking in the wrong places”. That is how more and more employers are beginning to feel. On the surface, that statement seems ridiculous yet, maybe not so much…Last evening I heard one story on a national news broadcast about there being nearly 14 million Americans still out of work (with video showing thousands of people lined up for a job fair in Atlanta), followed by a story that Siemens, a huge multi-national company with over 400,000 employees in 190 countries (with 62,000 employed in the U.S. throughout all 50 states), has nearly 4,000 open positions and “can’t fill them”. A Siemens’ VP who was interviewed stated, “If we cannot fill these positions, it is going to limit our ability for growth.” WHAT…?! Not wishing to be one o

Candidates May Need Some “Tough Love” to Succeed

Over the last week, I’ve met or spoken over phone with a couple dozen or so people in transition to do some resume/job search coaching. Often, I find that a good deal of what is discussed and recommended during such conversations is difficult to hear for the person being coached. After one such session with a former Human Resources executive, whose resume needed quite a bit of work (it did little to reflect her supposed HR expertise), the individual looked at me and remarked, “Wow, that was really tough love, wasn’t it?” Yes…and the frustrating part for today’s hiring managers and recruiters is that this type of discussion needs to occur with way too many candidates. During this same time period, I met with an executive coach, a Global Recruiter for a large, multi-national company and spoke at length with a career coach/recruiter at a large corporate outplacement firm. Below are some of the main points they shared with me when asked about strengths and weaknesses of the resumes