Month: July 2008

Categories
Background Checks

Network Groups for Jobs and Business

Not all networking groups are created equal. Some can promote some beneficial interaction whether you are looking for work or seeing how best to improve your business. Then there are the networking groups where you have everyone looking for a job, trying to interact with everyone else who is looking for a job. It is a case of mutual desperation over snacks and coffee.

Hannah Clark Steinman has posted a blog in Inc.com entitled, Gold Plated Networking Groups. In her blog, Seinman discusses the top notch netwoking clubs where you have access to notables and doables. With some of the clubs to which the article refers to qualify you have to have generated either substantial revenue in sales or built a company that is worth a number of millions. These gold plated groups can run you a few hundred to $10,000, annually. For that kind of money, you had better be able to network in the type of business circles where you can realize a hearty return on your investment.

Since Corra Group is a background checking company that also provides corporate research, we are always seeking ways to expand our business. We are always looking to meet new people and engage with different businesses, either locally or around the world. With this in mind, I sat down with a chapter head of one of the networking groups that are listed on the blog’s hyperlink. I won’t name which one.

I was given a big build up and told to meet with Mr. Guy, the leader and a really dynamic human being. I will grant he was a successful guy, at least according to Mr. Guy. He had made umpteen millions doing this and that. He knew everyone worth knowing in the world.

Sounded fine. But then, after a few minutes into our coffee, he started testing me in order to gauge my reaction, emotionally and otherwise. It was the kind of push your buttons and see how you react type of testing. Right out of somebody’s play book. Kind of obvious, I thought, and he seemed frustrated when I didn’t rise to the bait.

Not long after I found Mr. Guy was fishing for clients. This wasn’t a sit down and discuss how the experience at the gold plated club could prove mutually beneficial. This was instead a not so discrete solicitation for Mr. Guy’s consulting business. This came, of course, after Mr. Guy attempted to show me his human side, including photos of his grandchildren and the wondrous ways he worked his IPhone.

I should have known when he handed me three separate business cards that he was fishing without a pole. But when I heard him discuss more his consulting prowess than the merits of joining the gold plated networking club, his motives were one too difficult to discern.

To be fair, I am sure this was the exception to the rule. I am sure that most of the networking groups have their motives in the right place and will work hard to help you facilitate your business. After all, their business is based on their ability to facilitate your business. Whether it is worth the bigger bucks or not is hard to say. It may come down to the individual and what they are looking to gain from experience. Sometimes one really terrific insight is worth the cost, especially when it proves beneficial over the long run.

I am open to looking into other networking groups. Just not where the Mr. Guys have three different business cards to hand out. Because when I see three different business cards, this doesn’t tell me you are really, really busy. It says, you are desperation.

Categories
Articles Background Checks Economy Human Resources Miscellany Personal Background Checks preemployment screening Retaining Employees Staffing Uncategorized

Online Job Sites, Are They Worth the Bother?

According to Media Post Publications, a very reliable source, Monster leads all career advertisers in June for the most overall traffic. Monster garnered more than 82% of the overall impressions, totaling close to 400,000 unique impressions. That is no mean feat.

This is while Monster is second in overall audience and reach. Career Builder, the leader, has an audience of 7.5 million and a reach 5.42 percent. Monster’s unique audience is just under 5 million with a reach of about 3.5 %. But in June more job seekers clicked on Monster than anyone else.

While impressed by these numbers, I have to wonder is it worth it? Are job seekers doing wasting their time with these countless submissions, or worse doing themselves a disservice by distributing their resumes to these job sites? Some head hunters I have spoken to claim that yes they are.

In fact, only about two percent of the job seeking population ever land a job through one of the job sites. That ain’t much. At the height of the dot.com era it was a mighty four percent. But now it is half, some say. Coupled with that, recruiters tell me you dilute your efforts. Why? Because most recruiters will not touch anyone whose resume is all over the Internet. This, they say, creates too many obstacles and works against their efforts. An employer can claim that they are already in receipt of a candidate’s resume and nullify the submission. This doesn’t serve to motivate recruiters, knowing they may never be awarded their commissions.

Recruiters tell me that the main purpose of the employment recruitment sites is to sell their services to the employers so the websites in turn can sell advertising. Advertising is their main source of revenue. Whether job seekers are hired or not is relevant only in the most peripheral of manners. If too many get wise to the paucity of success, then the resumes will stop coming forward and revenues may fall.

And what of all the resumes submitted for a job? Well, most never past the first review and find their way to the round file. In some cases the response is so overwhelming that very few resumes at all are even read by the human resource managers. There are just too few HR people and too little time.

As a background checking company we at Corra find this most curious. And having been one of those souls who hopefully submitted resumes to everywhere but Iraq, we recognize the frustration and even the desperation in those who are unemployed. It is tough going.

Anymore than it is more of a ruse for the poor employment candidate to conduct a background check on themselves, as encouraged by many of these job sites. The logic is that you as a candidate will be pre-approved and cleared of any messy history, criminal checks or otherwise. Sorry, but this just isn’t the case. Any employer worth his salt will have its own pre-employment screening program in line and won’t be accepting your self conducted background check. It’s just a waste of money. A waste of money at a time when you are out of work and can probably use the extra cash.

So keep this in mind the next time you start feeling like the rat in a psych lab, banging down on the service bar, as you blast your resumes in hope someone will respond. Sometimes they do. I had people respond to me. A few. Out of countless submissions. So maybe there is something better you can do with your time. Keep plugging.

Check them out before you hire.

Categories
Articles Background Checks Business Research Economy Human Resources Miscellany Personal Background Checks preemployment screening Retaining Employees Staffing Uncategorized

Who Wants to Move to the Top Cities to Live and Work?

We may not know what the price will be for gasoline. We may not know where we will find our next job. We may not know how we can afford to send our kids to college. And we may not know as a business where you will be recruiting talented employees as your job hires.

But there is one thing we know for sure. There will always be lists. There are lists for everything. The ten most expensive automobiles, the ten least expensive automobiles. Ten ways to do this. Five ways to do that. Eight ways east of Sunday. And my very own favorite, the top whatever cities to live and/or work in. this list can vary. Some can be a list merely for living, while others can be a list merely for working. Some lists combine the two. And then there is the list for the top ten places where you can retire.

Since Corra is a background checking company, specializing in pre-employment screening, we are always interested in the best places for employment. We are even more interested in the quantity of publications that produce these lists in any single year. The most recent, at least up until five minutes ago, emanates from the sage minds of CNN or more precisely CNNMoney.

Now I don’t know if their list is accurate or more accurate than the last list put out by another media venue or study group. And since each list from each publication may vary in listing their top ten favorite places, it is hard to say who is right and who is wrong. I suppose to compensate for any oversights and so not to slight the cities that may indeed feel slighted, most publications list the top hundred cities. That’s a good idea.

One thing I have noticed, recently. With few exceptions most of the best cities for living and working are either in the Midwest or back East. So what happened to California? Corra is based in California, so it is of concern to me. As for Portland, Seattle, some of the slighted mountain states, they will have to work it out for themselves.

So what happened to California? I realize it is congested, the infrastructure may be falling apart. I realize people have issues with Los Angeles for being too self-obsessed and too materialistic, and people have issues with San Francisco for being…well…San Francisco. Orange County may have lost its cool since the television show went off the air, and San Diego may be in a slump. But this is California.

Each week more people move here. They come from all over the world. You don’t hear a plethora of songs written about other cities, well maybe New York and Chicago, and no one surfs in Indiana. The rest on the list may be wonderful cities in truly good states. I have been to most a number of times. They are unique and pretty terrific in their own special ways. But, hey…dude…this is California. There are few places where you can stand at the ocean in seventy degree weather and look up at the snow covered mountains.

There is a lot of money in California. There is a lot of money in Los Angeles. People come here to realize their dreams. Some achieve the realization, and some don’t. But that’s how it does. Some come to say get into show business and end up founding a cookie or fudge business instead. Could be worse.

We have factories and industries. We make entertainment for the rest of the world. Most of the really cool blue jeans are made here. It’s a good place to live, especially in February when three fourth of the nation is plowing through the rush hour snow. It is a good place to work. Life is casual. There is culture, great food, from gourmet cuisine to pungent ethnic store front fare. People make money here.

So how come we aren’t on any lists? Maybe we were, but the reporter got stuck in rush hour freeway traffic and was never heard from again.

Check them out before you hire.

Categories
Background Checks Business Research Economy Human Resources Miscellany Personal Background Checks preemployment screening Retaining Employees Staffing Uncategorized

Who is Really Who? And How Do You Know? The Pre-Employment Guessing Game

Now that the federal government is implementing the I-9 for verification of those legally capable of working in the United, States, the critics have come out, decrying it for one reason or another. Some claim it is draconian, even racist, while others, more correctly, question the accuracy of the I-9 Verification.

The I-9 Verification has its place, but so does a thorough Social Security Trace. The Social Security Trace should be among the background checks a company conducts as part of their pre-employment screening program. The SSN Trace will reveal residential history as well as validate the number. While the more basic Social Security Verification will issue a valid or invalid response, the Social Security Trace with employment history will list any persons who have used the number.

Sometimes, for an HR Manager, looking at all those names can be confusing. With the proper background checking service, you can often determine who is the rightful owner of the SSN. Sometimes the date of issue will give it away. Or sometimes the prefix, the first three numbers, will tell you in what state the SSN was issued. By eliminating the people listed as users, one can find the rightful owner. Maybe he is your employment candidate, and then again maybe not.

But with all the Federal crackdown on undocumented workers, it is best as a business to find out who is legitimately documented and which candidate is not.

Check them out before you hire.