Recruiting in China

Who Really Has the Upper Hand? Employers or Job Seekers?

When members of the Employment Management Assn. gathered in Orlando for their 31st annual conference in early May, the big topic was recruiting and retaining employees in today's red-hot labor market.

Little wonder. In April, the national unemployment rate had dipped to 3.9%, its lowest level in 30 years -- about as long as the association has been holding its annual gatherings. And while it ticked back up to 4.1% in May, no one is ready to declare the labor crunch over.

For the group's membership, some 6,000 corporate recruiters who work to keep their companies fully staffed, the shrinking labor market means major headaches. For job seekers, though, it's a bonanza: Only once in every two or three decades are employees in the position of being sought-after commodities.

On the eve of the conference, Business Week Online Senior Writer Pam Mendels caught up with Barbara A. Mitchell, president of the association, which is a branch of the Society for Human Resource Management in Alexandria, Va. Mitchell discussed how employees can best use the tight labor market to plot their career strategies. Here are edited excerpts of that conversation:

Q: What jobs are particularly difficult to fill?
A: It's pretty much across the board. Everything from the very high-end Web positions -- Web designer, Webmaster -- all the way through to programmers, systems analysts, anything to do with Visual Basic or C++ programming. The very, very high-end programming jobs are especially difficult to fill.

Q: Outside of technology, what other kinds of jobs are begging for employees?
A: Certainly in the service sector many organizations are taking people who would primarily have been service workers in hotels and restaurants and training them for technology positions. So that's leaving the service industry very much in difficulty. Every organization is having trouble at entry levels because there are fewer people at that level coming out of school.

Q: How can job hunters best take advantage of this labor market?
A: I think it's a marvelous time to be an applicant because you have your pick of the field you want to go into, and you can negotiate far more benefits and a better salary than I can remember ever before.

I think what job applicants need to do is research. And the best place to do that is through the Internet. There are thousands and thousands of sites for job seekers that give tips on how to ace interviews and how to find out everything you want to know about a company.

Q. What kinds of things might a job hunter negotiate?
A: Certainly for salary and time off, which has become the most difficult commodity, I think, for anyone in today's workforce. Because there's a shortage of workers, people are having to work longer hours. And so, negotiating for time off is something that people should do up-front -- maybe an extra week's vacation, maybe a trip they've already planned.

People are now negotiating for [instant] vesting of their 401(k) or stock options. It used to be that organizations set how vesting would be done, and it usually was a four- to seven-year schedule. Now, people are asking to be vested when they start, so that every dollar that they earn or the company puts in is theirs to take if they leave.

Q: Is that a negotiable item even with companies that have set policies?
A: It means that sometimes exceptions have to be made or plans have to be reviewed, but it's definitely being done, especially in technology organizations.

Q: The rule of thumb used to be that you had to stay in a job at least a year before moving on. Has the tight labor market changed that?
A: Absolutely. No longer is it a negative for people to change jobs quickly. But still, applicants need to be able to explain why they made the change. It can't be just that they didn't like their boss, or they didn't like the culture.

That sends a message to the new company they're applying to that this is a person who didn't do their research. That this is a person who, perhaps, makes very quick decisions. So, even though it's more acceptable to make frequent changes, applicants still need to have a good business reason why they made the change.

Q: And what about notice? How much warning does an employee have to give an employer before taking a [new] job?
A: It depends on the level the person is working at. The higher the level, the more notice organizations usually require. But that's usually up-front with the employee. In their employee handbook, they'll know if it's two weeks or if it's a four-week notice.

In today's world, those [rules] aren't always followed. People will sometimes make very quick decisions. I'm hearing about people whose boss [says] something to them that they don't like in the morning. By noon they've got their resume on the Internet, and by the end of the day, they've got job offers, and they leave. It can happen just that quickly.

Q: If you're happy in your current job, but you get an offer for another position, do you ignore it? Or should you use it as leverage to negotiate a better deal?
A: I think it depends upon how long you want to stay with your current organization. I don't think you should ever ignore another opportunity. But if you're happy where you are, and you go to that organization and say that you have another offer, you may be putting your current job in jeopardy if you have a manager who values loyalty, who may see the fact that you're even looking as being less loyal.

So, you really have to weigh your options. I would recommend not using [an offer] as leverage, but perhaps using it as information when you go for your next performance review or your next salary review. So, you can kind of let them know that you know what's happening in the marketplace.

Q: What are common blunders that job seekers make?
A: The biggest blunder I see applicants making is not knowing anything about the organization they are applying to. With the Internet, there's no reason at all why an applicant should not be very knowledgeable about the organization. Say the interviewer says: "What do you know about our company, and why do you want to work here?" If the applicant says: "Well, nothing, tell me, start at the beginning," that sends a message that the applicant really isn't interested in your organization.

So first, I would say: Be knowledgeable about the organization you're applying to. And other blunders? What people wear to interviews is still important, even though we are in a very casual business atmosphere. Applicants need to err on the side of being a little more formal for job interviews. It's always a good idea to find out what the culture is before you go for the interview.

Q: But when in doubt, be conservative?
A: When in doubt, be conservative.