Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

I've just finished a three-day recruiting swing through D.C., Atlanta, and Ft. Lauderdale. This week reminded me that we don't recruit like a lot of other companies. Both the Regional Manager with whom I was pared and some of the candidates weren't prepared for our focus on fact-checking as a fundamental recruiting discipline. Here's the how and why of our process. Facts are Important Fact checking in recruiting is so fundamental to the process and yet its often not done properly, if at all. HR practitioners often defer to the on-line criminal background check rather than vetting the candidate's resume or application face-to-face. In Christian business hiring managers often think the best of candidate and accept the facts presented by them at face value. I've even had Christian hiring managers and even HR practitioners express concern to me that we were unfairly questioning a candidate's integrity by questioning their resume or application. Depending on whos...

I'm writing this from a Fairfield Inn near Washington, D.C. We are up here on the first of a three-city recruiting trip looking for contract outside sales professionals for our Live Events division. I don't do a lot of this type of recruiting anymore, so this has been a great refresher course to keep my recruiting chops current. We've had a response ratio of about 130 resumes for every opening, and for "my" three cities its told me a lot about what's going on in the economy, whose up, whose down, and whose surviving. It also has reminded me of the dumb things people do that sabotage their own job search. Industries Responding While applicant flow is up overall due to higher unemployment, some segments of the economy are represented more than others. Since sales is a profession that cuts across industries, you can tell which sectors are suffering more by the applicant flow from those industries. I read a disproportionate number of resumes from auto salesmen, R...

Insurance renewal negotiations are on-going and I thought it might be wise to give everyone an update on our activities and likely outcomes. Like everything else in this economic climate, the news isn't pretty. Here's the latest, and the timetable for a final decision and announcement. Claims Experience For the last five years our claims have run 84 - 86% of premiums paid. That leads to a flat or slightly increased renewal, as underwriting typically involves taking the last 12 months and trending those costs 15 months looking forward . This is done because the broker uses claims and census data after 9 months of the current plan year, at which point it is 15 months before the end of next plan year. Medical costs typically increase from 9 -15% per year, and average about 12% annually, or 1% per month. So, when we run around 84 - 86% of claims-to-premiums, we usually end up with a 0 - 2% increase. This year our actual claims have been between 100 - 104% of premiums. We've h...