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Nearly every week a company president or hiring executive asks us if we use any form of psychological or psychometric “evaluation test”.
Our answer: “Yes”.
When the company official then asks “Which brand test do you use?” they are usually surprised by our response: Our own.

Every June, Major League Baseball drafts (selects) 1500 players from high schools and colleges across the US and Puerto Rico. It is important to understand that this player pool of 1500 is a very select group as it represents an extremely small percentage of the total population of players who play high school and college baseball.

TRENTON, N.J.  : Providing paid sick leave for all New Jersey workers would provide public health benefits as well as financial benefits for businesses, a study found.

Rutgers University's Center for Women and Work, which released the study findings on Thursday, found more than 1.2 million private sector workers in New Jersey don't get paid sick days.

Watch out for these cyberattacks that can turn smartphones into texting botnets, shut off electricity, jam GPS signals and more

- Criminal hackers never sleep, it seems. Just when you think you've battened down the hatches and fully protected yourself or your business from electronic security risks, along comes a new exploit to keep you up at night.

In today’s economy, vast numbers of people work for international companies that have offices all over the globe.

These include tens of thousands of foreign-born workers who are employed by companies overseas that have a parent, subsidiary, branch, or affiliate in the United States.

As a recruiter, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard the expression, “fifty percent of something is better than one hundred percent of nothing.”

To which I reply: Hogwash!

I came across the results of another survey of human resource professionals the other day that outlines the increased use of and investment in social media recruiting. The survey also identified the decline of more traditional routes, such as job boards.

The numbers were really nothing new.

For several years now, members of the California legislature have proposed legislation which would mandate paid sick leave for private industry employers in California. The legislation is back in 2011, with a vengeance.

Employers have done some form of background checks or employment screening for decades. In the early days, it was mostly reference checking and resume verification. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s things started to get a lot more formal as vendors and providers began to offer pre employment screening as a service you could outsource. Prior to that, it was the risk manager or human resources department that did the background checks.

Participated in an HR.com webinars on "Strategies for Sourcing the BEST Sales and Business Development Candidates" and something that was stressed in the presentation was that it's pretty difficult to sell a salesperson, especially when you're trying to discuss an employment opportunity with a successful and seasoned sale pro.

The Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 bypassed black firefighter candidates — and distribute “tens of millions of dollars” in damages to 6,000 others who will never get that chance — a federal appeals court ruled Friday, upholding a landmark ruling.

Building a broad and relevant Twitter following takes time and strategy. In Twitter, part one, we looked at View Suggestions, Browse Interests, Find Friends, and WeFollow. Part two will focus on Twitter’s Advanced Search option and organizational tools.

Twitter’s Advanced Search option can be found at http://search.twitter.com/advanced.  The search is very simple to use,

Simply because an employee performs work at home does not mean that under the “continuous workday” rule all time spent commuting to and from work is compensable, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, has held. The Second Circuit has jurisdiction over Connecticut, New York, and Vermont.

An employee handbook is the most important communication tool between you and your employees. A well-written handbook sets forth your expectations for your employees, and describes what they can expect from your company. An employee handbook should describe your legal obligations as an employer, and your employees' rights.

In the previous part to this series we began to look at the various types of wastes which could be hidden within your organization. In part 3 we continue that review with a look at the next three types of wastes.

Waste or Muda #4: Waiting

Waiting of any kind means that the process has slowed down.

New timesheet app to help ensure workers receive all wages earned

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the launch of its first application for smartphones, a timesheet to help employees independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they are owed. Available in English and Spanish, users conveniently can track regular work hours, break time and any overtime hours for one or more employers.

I have three daughters who were active in job searching during high school who combed the Kempsville area for a job.  They inquired at small stores, franchises, and multiple restaurants – dozens of businesses.  As a concerned mom, I coached them as they struggled through the forms.  Some online applications asked for personal information that had nothing to do with the job tasks. 

The unemployment rate for young workers was the worst on record in 2010, a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Briefing Paper finds.  High school and college students graduating in 2011 will thus enter a labor market that already contains a backlog of un- and underemployed 2009 and 2010 graduates.

A new California lawsuit accuses Apple, Google, Adobe Systems, Intel, and other tech companies of violating antitrust laws by allegedly conspiring to fix employee pay, as well as working out "no solicitation" deals with one another.

The suit (PDF), which seeks class action status, was filed today with the California Superior Court in Alameda County and alleges that because senior executives from Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar "entered into an interconnected web of express agreements to eliminate competition among them for skilled labor," affected employees from those companies are entitled to compensation.

Overtime violations found at retail stores nationwide

SAN FRANCISCO — Levi Strauss & Co. has agreed to pay $1,011,413 in overtime back wages to 596 employees nationwide after the U.S. Department of Labor found that the company violated overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

There are many techniques and strategies that can be used successfully for the direct recruiting of candidates. When properly executed these approaches allow an opportunity to quickly determine whether or not the targeted individual is both qualified for the open position as well as properly motivated to justify serious consideration.

BOSTON — The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered nearly $2.9 million in back wages for more than 500 employees of Stanley Associates Inc. and several subcontractors at various locations in St. Albans and Essex Junction, Vt.

The subcontractors joining Stanley Associates Inc. as parties to this settlement include Choctaw Archiving, Federal Working Group Inc., Northrop Grumman Technical Services Inc., P/Strada LLC, SPS Consulting LLC, TAD PGS Inc., TDB Communications Inc. and Westaff. The companies employed workers under a contract for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Vermont Service Center.

If there is any business within the health care industry that includes elective procedures, they understand the differences in “patient vs. client” theory.  As a Business Development Manager for a large ophthalmic medical device manufacturer, I had the challenge of convincing doctors and their staff to learn and embrace those differences. 

Last Friday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in EEOC v. Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. that will embolden "'The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission"-  EEOC's aggressive use of its investigatory powers to require production of evidence in a single employee charge that could support a more systemic investigation.

Panels of Speakers and Informational Fair Commemorate Equal Pay Day at Agency

WASHINGTON—Gender-based wage discrimination remains a problem today and a percentage of the wage discrepancy cannot be explained by non-discriminatory factors, said government and private experts at a public forum held today at the headquarters of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

In Part 1 of this series we discussed the fact that every process has non-value added activities as part of the process. They are there because we have not looked for them and in order to be part of the solution we need to begin to look at our organization with the sole purpose in mind to locate, identify and remove the obstacles to us operating our organizations faster, better and cheaper.

Today I was thinking about an interview I heard on NPR recently on social media networking. They were talking about an unfortunate incident that happened on Facebook, I think. Apparently, a woman wrote to indicate that she was considering suicide.

HCS Boss Ridiculed Maternity Leave as ‘Vacation,’ Fired Employee Seven Days After C-Section, Federal Agency Charges

MILWAUKEE, Wis. – HCS Medical Staffing, Inc. violated federal law by discriminating against a pregnant employee and then firing her while she was on maternity leave, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed here today.