Blog

Tag Archives: HR

Are Mothers Getting Pushed Out of Tech?

In 1981, Virigina “Ginni” Rometty started at IBM as a systems engineer, a male-dominated job at a male-dominated company. From there, she worked her way up to lead the company’s global services and financial divisions, and eventually was named CEO of IBM on Jan. 1, 2012. What’s the secret to her success? Always pushing herself. “Someone once told me growth and comfort do not coexist,” Rometty said. “And I think it’s a really good thing to remember.” Unfortunately though, Rometty is the exception, not the rule. Despite plenty of tech companies publicly crusading for more women in tech and the …Read more »

Why Capital One’s Approach Is The Future Of Hiring

  If you are searching for a company that best exemplifies the future of hiring, look no further than Capital One, the Virginia-based banking company. Capital One distinguishes itself from other banks by stressing its focus on analytics, a keystone of today’s information age. And that is reflected in their hiring process, where seemingly every aspect – including the oft-overlooked candidate experience facet – is quantified, analyzed and expected to improve. What Capital One is trying to do is something many companies in America are trying to accomplish as well – take a process (hiring) that for years has been …Read more »

How The Web Has Flipped Hiring On Its Head

For more than a century, the challenges facing hiring managers remained constant. Because there was no easy way to reach people, applicant pools were limited by things like geography and just lack of access, and the fundamental issue was finding good applicants. Back then (which was only about a decade ago), there were only a few ways to build an applicant pool. Obviously, one was to go through your own networks or post the job internally. The second was to take an ad out in a newspaper, post a “help wanted” sign on the office building or go to career …Read more »

Xerox: A Hiring Process Worth Copying

A few years ago, Xerox became interested in cutting down the turnover rate at its 48,500 call-center jobs. Specifically, the company invests $5,000 in training in each new call center employee, and wanted them to stick around long enough to make that investment worth it. So, Xerox spent six months assessing its own hires, and then coupled that with information about their background and personality types. And what Xerox found was that experience had no correlation to employee longevity, but instead creative types stayed longer at the company than inquisitive types. Naturally, Xerox began targeting employees that were more creative …Read more »

Chipotle’s Brilliant Hiring Process

With its stock price increasing by 1,080 percent and sales jumping from $471 million to $3.2 billion since 2006, Chipotle was America’s fasting-growing fast food chain of the decade. That trend looks like it will only continue, as stocks have increased by more than 20 percent so far this year. So what makes Chipotle so successful? Obviously, to have that much success, there are several reasons. First off, it does a great job of appealing to America’s changing sensibilities, as it advertises (mostly) organic, GMO-free food, as an example. It also sticks to a clearly-defined mission and has strong processes …Read more »

Want to Get Rich? Forget About the Money.

I was talking to my brother the other day, and while he was never particularly gifted with words, he gave me the best career advice I’d ever gotten. He said, “Paul, the key to work is to find something you don’t mind doing. And then you’ll spend a lot of time there and work late, because you won’t mind doing it.” Pretty simple, right? But I think the deeper lesson in those words is the true key to getting rich: ironically, you can only get rich when work becomes about something other than the money. My Evidence The world’s most …Read more »

Forget Superman. Hire Like The Hulk

Want to overtake your rival? Maybe it comes down to writing better job descriptions. For years, Marvel played catchup to its chief rival, DC. DC would come up with some new comic character (like say the Joker) or some new idea (like having all their superheroes fight together in the Justice League), and Marvel would follow suit (i.e. the Green Goblin and the Avengers). And yet, today, that’s completely flipped. Marvel is now the leader in the pack, particularly when it comes to movies, the chief revenue and interest generator of both comic book companies. After all, it was Marvel …Read more »

Don’t Hire Superstars. Create Them.

When hiring, it is sensible to hire the absolute best people, right? No matter what the cost, if you can get a star in the industry, it is worth it, right? Well, not really. A groundbreaking study by the Harvard Business Review (HBR) found that hiring stars can actually have a negative effect on the business as a whole. The study, along with dozens of case studies, reveal that performance isn’t as fungible as it would seem and bringing in prolific people often leads to higher turnover and lower morale. Instead, there is a better way to build a long-lasting …Read more »

Gates Vs. Jobs: Who Hired Better?

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The two men are among the most successful entrepreneurs of the past fifty years. Gates grew richer, becoming the wealthiest man in the world, while Jobs touched more industries, including movies, music, TV and phones. The two men have always been compared to each other, as both men were born in 1955 and have competed against each other as they rose to success. People ask, who was more innovative? (Probably Jobs). Who had a better business mind? (Probably Gates). But who hired better? After all, both men weren’t just superstars by themselves, they had teams …Read more »

Is McDonald’s Headed For A Crash?

When Ray Kroc joined McDonalds in 1955 and built it into one of America’s biggest brands, it was lauded as the quintessential American success story, full of good, high-quality food and happy children. More than half-a-century later, that goodwill is all but gone. The restaurant chain has been a focus of protestors demanding higher wages (most McDonald’s restaurant workers make less than $10 an hour) and people are comparing feeding children a Big Mac to giving them whiskey and cigarettes. The company itself is still strong, with the stocks nearly doubling in the past five years and profits staying strong. …Read more »

Connect With Us

Scroll To Top
close