The gates have opened ...

In the past couple of months, our inbox runneth over. We're averaging about 50% more resumes than we have in the past several years. It appears that jobseekers know the timing is right for a new job, or just a job, if they've been out of work. News sources have been warning companies that a lot of employees are unhappy and biding their time to make moves to new jobs. It appears they were right.

Digital traffic control is slowing down with this influx, so remember to re-attach your resume when corresponding with hiring managers or recruiters. This is especially helpful if you have followed the path of responding to a post and then are fortunate enough to have pull-through from a referral on the inside of the company.

There are new positions opening up every day, but most positions have narrow requirements and the line of qualified candidates is long, so make the effort to stand out from the crowd in a positive way.

Is this Spring? Really?

Advice to the joblorn, new, available talent and a note to employers can be found in our March newsletter:

http://conta.cc/hF16pB

Warning: Some of your very best are burning out

We are hearing from lots of people recently. Yes, some calls are happy "we need to hire" calls, and there are still lots of unemployed jobseekers. But the preponderance of contacts recently has been from employees who are working and over-worked as business has picked up. One salaried person has logged over 80 hours in a week (so, no over-time and may not receive compensatory time either); another replied to a post for a lower-level job saying "I have to get out of here, before I have no family left." Another said that they've never seen a comparable firm staffed this sparsely and that the work was suffering from it.

Employers, take note: lots of people have been giving it their all and then some to overcome the deficiencies in this business economy. If you want to retain these people and want to avoid the high cost of replacement (ramp up and training time, internal and external recruiting costs, customer relationships, benefits administration, etc.) but you're not certain where the staffing budget will end up, consider using temporary/contract staff. Every field has staffing specialists who can provide every level of expertise within your business.

We know many employees happily situated in new jobs who were hired as temporary contractors, then converted to full-time, permanent employment. Try-before-you-buy works for all concerned.

Winning in the economy recovery

He who hires best, first, wins the economic recovery race.

Everyone senses or is experiencing the long-awaited turnaround in the marketplace. Thankfully, that includes recruiters, who are suddenly very busy again. Unfortunately, some employers haven’t caught on that it’s not business as usual when making hires. They still think they’re in the driver’s seat and can operate the way they have for the past few years. The opposite is true.

The reality is that the best candidates are finding jobs—quickly! Over the past few months we have seen too many companies lose out on great new hires. The practices of dangling offers, low-balling compensation and relo packages, and dragging out the process while searching for the elusive “more perfect” candidate have ended with no hire being made and highly talented candidates being hired by the competition.

Here are some tips to get your hiring practices in line with the new realities:

*Identify which hires you need to make to immediately to help your company or department get ramped up for growth.

*Create a well-defined, realistic job description with appropriate, competitive compensation and benefit packages.

*Initiate recruiting plan using posts, social media, in-house and external recruiting.

*Identify the best candidates and initiate interviews quickly.

*Merchandise your organization, environment, and benefits.

*Evaluate the finalists and move to offer.

*Don’t allow the process to get bogged down or sidetracked at any point.
Sign up for the LandaJob newsletter: http://www.landajobnow.com/ for monthly news of available candidates and industry updates.

And we're the ones with all the proofreaders!

We sent an unedited version of our newsletter yesterday, and then recovered with a second one, headlined "Oops ..."(http://conta.cc/gSax9y)

Lots of people will agree: recovery is everything. There's no way to avoid falls, slip-ups, mistakes in life, or in your career. One of the most important questions I ask in an interview is "Tell me about your biggest screw-up." If they take too long to answer, I assume they haven't experienced it yet. Or, if further along in their career, I make a note about their humility.

I'll tell you that we've already gotten calls about some of the talent we featured -- hiring is still ramping up! -- and no one mentioned the errors in our newsletter. And, hopefully, that's a mistake we won't make again.