Think fast—after 30 years with the company, Bob, your VP of Sales, just announced his retirement. Coming in two weeks. (And a Happy Leap Day to you, too, Bob.) That’s not a lot of time for you, the HR rep, to prepare, especially since no one remembers that position without Bob. You may not be sure where to begin answering your questions: What does the position require these days? What type of candidate will work best? And more important, what will you write on the cake? (more…)

As the economy slowly recovers from layoffs and hiring freezes, the competition is heating up to fill vacancies with the best-qualified applicants.  For many management and HR teams, long spells of labor-pool lethargy have left them feeling out of practice.  If you need time to reacclimate to the hiring process, you’re not alone.  The good news is, there’s no better time to review current recruitment strategies and revisit ways to attract the best and brightest candidates.  One way to do that is through effectively written job descriptions. (more…)

Your phone is ringing.  Should you pick it up or not?  You know it’s HR, and you know what they want.  “We need a job description for that new position in your group.”  You sigh and start typing into the company’s job description template.

Too often job descriptions are seen as just something else human resources requires.  As a consequence, the document is assembled in a hurry, “cut and pasted” from other job descriptions, downloaded off the internet, or left to human resources to divine from just bits of information received during a brief hallway conversation.  Not a good start to creating a quality document!

(more…)