Behind The Numbers – Unemployment Rate and Recruitment Success

There is certainly no lack of statistics and data regarding the current national employment situation. One question we have heard over and over since the beginning of the year: “With so many people unemployment, why are we struggling to fill our job openings?” The answer may or may not be your recruiting processes.

Like many employers, do your job openings require a bachelors degree or higher? If yes, the unemployment rate for those who meet your job requirements is significantly lower.

Employment data kept by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the unemployment rate for those with at least a bachelor's degree was 4.5 percent in July 2010, while 10.1 percent of high school graduates who didn't attend college were without jobs. Add those who never graduated from high school, and the unemployment rate creeps up to 11 percent.

If your job openings require a bachelors degree or higher; solid recruitment practices and strong employer branding are still critical to attracting top talent even with today’s difficult economy.

Solving Real Recruiting Issues - Online Job Interviews Beta

We build our services to solve not only the pain hiring managers feel with recruiting; but also what we ourselves live as recruiting specialists. That said, we think we’re well versed with the time and money cost associated with recruiting and finding top talent.

Job boards, ATS, resume search, phone screening candidates, on-site interviews, spending a day having the team interview top candidates… it all has a real cost which can easily add up to thousands of dollars.

We are in the process of adopting virtual interviews as a best practice within our process of evaluating job candidates. Our goal - get a better feel for the candidate. We believe virtual interviews will give decision makers the ability to quickly get a solid feel about candidates in the shortest amount of time. Stay tuned for more information on this new service feature.

Instigate Releases Conference List for Fall 2010

Instigate, Inc. is pleased to announce that they are scheduled to exhibit at the following upcoming conferences:


• Iowa SHRM Conference – The Amazing HR Race
o September 29th to August 1st – Des Moines, IA

• Wisconsin SHRM Conference – Chart Your Course on an HR Voyage
o October 6th to October 8th – Appleton, WI

• Minnesota SHRM Conference – HR Building Bridges for Success
o October 10th to October 12th – Duluth, MN

Please look for us at these exciting conferences. For more information or to schedule a meeting while attending a conference; please contact Matt Schreyer, President, at 651-429-1131 or 1-800-259-9865 ext 12.

Is Recruitment Outsourcing for Small and Mid-sized Businesses a real option?

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is not new. Large companies have been outsourcing segments of their recruiting process for years. Over the last decade, smaller businesses haven't had many options - having neither the scale and buying power of large firms, nor the staffing volumes to make a business case an in-house recruitment function.

Small and medium-sized businesses [SMBs] often rely on the most expensive and often least effective candidate sourcing options – staffing agencies and recruiters. They are still left with the time and cost burden of a majority of the recruitment functions such a screening resumes, interviewing, on-boarding; which often falls on the hiring managers who are also responsible for managing the business.

Even for SMBs, the recruitment process has many tasks or transactional based activities that can be completed outside the organization, increasing efficiencies through economies of scale. Over the last several years the RPO market has continued to evolve and now provides viable options for SMBs.

Now is an excellent time to look at RPO providers focused on providing solutions to small and mid-sized companies. These providers likely have affordable solutions that can take on the burden of operational recruitment activities, allowing businesses to focus on core value-creating and strategic activities. By transforming processes, utilizing best practices, and replacing a fixed cost base with a variable charging structure, RPO can significantly reduce the cost of recruitment. The time has arrived – RPO for SMBs is now a real option.