ExactHire

Whoo, man.  The flood is coming.

First, let me stress that the more than 90 out of 100 people who want to work in this country are working.  Second, most organizations are surviving, and will make it into 2010 with their businesses intact.

That said, the flood is coming.  I just read the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the subject, and it isn't pretty.  You can read it here.

"Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed tem-
porary jobs increased by 547,000 to 8.2 million in March.  This group has nearly 
doubled in size over the past 12 months."  Yikes.

So...what?  It means that the businesses that are hiring are going to get flooded with applicants, and at a time when HR departments are slammed with too much compliance, employee relations and harassment stuff.  It means the hiring processes will be quickly overwhelmed, and two things will probably happen.

1 - The best candidates will be drowned in the clutter of all of the volume.  Lots of lost opportunities from hiring the first one that fits, rather than the best.

2 - The ability for people who are not a fit to sneak through and get hired is up - because the time to do a good screening job just isn't there.  If HR is overwhelmed and understaffed, then bad decisions can sneak through.

What to do?  Leverage your technology and raise the standards.  Implement a well-thought out talent acquisition strategy, use pre-employment assessments, and focus on metrics that indicate job fit.   Then you will have a process that supports good HR and can drive employee engagement.

Then you have a swimming chance against the coming flood...