Questions on Accelerating Innovation

Some futurists claim that the "future" is approximately 30 years away (ref 1). Whatever the "average" amount of time between conception of a "new" idea (the future), and its attainment, the interesting question is whether a society has the ability to "accelerate" innovation. Is there something that society can do to increase the rate of change of innovation and discovery?

The creation of the internet emerged from the US Department of Defense that was aimed at increasing research productivity through a shared network of scientists communicating and sharing information with each other. Having achieved a world-wide, inexpensive to use system, are there any other strategies that society can harness to speed up the rate of innovation?

In April 2010, a team of prominent deans of business schools under the auspices of the AACSB International (an organization that grants accreditation to business programs) published their findings related to the role of business schools in promoting innovation. Lead by Dean Bob Sullivan (University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California), the team suggested that business schools have not exactly been invited to table by media, governments and trade organizations interested in advancing innovation. The team observed that many reports dealing with the need to promote innovation that received extensive publicity did not include representatives from the nation's business schools. The team called for efforts by business schools to re-look at their curriculum.

Years ago, academe debated whether entrepreneurship is an innate talent or whether entrepreneurship can be taught. After nearly a decade and thousands of published studies, most business professors concluded that entrepreneurship could be taught and courses in entrepreneurship jumped from some 250 in the early 1980's to well over 2,000 courses by 2000.

Questions on Accelerating Innovation

As with entrepreneurship, the issue of innovation will require wrestling with some basic questions: can it be taught? If so, how should it be taught and by whom? It is one thing to talk about behavioral issues such as government incentives for entrepreneurship, it is quite another to define the skills sets and information that would actually train or educate a person to be "innovative." Some will argue that being innovative is a state of mind, like a personality trait that is either present or absent. But, it may be likely that academe will find that as with entrepreneurship where necessity is the motherhood of invention, the same may be observed in innovation.

It may be useful to explore a strategy to better investigate innovation. First, developing a focused definition may be useful. And second, the proper context is critical. For example, innovation should not be tied to scientific, patentable inventions or we will be looking a merely developing more engineers in the name of promoting more innovation. A definition that allows innovation to span all types of organizations (such as government, private business, and non-profits) may allow for a more significant path of discovery. Getting to a definition is important because too narrow a definition may shut out other disciplines such as psychiatry, psychology, education, fine arts, political and other social sciences as well as the business disciplines.

The next line of inquiry may be to investigate how we recognize what is innovative. My studies reveal that much innovation is quite hidden from the casual observer or that the innovation is so prevalent that it remains unseen and unstudied. For example, one of the major innovations that literally transformed Wall Street and the merger and acquisition industry was the development and use of electronic spreadsheets (LOTUS 1-2-3, and Microsoft's Excel). While many attribute Walmart's success to their innovation of "everyday low prices," such a strategy would not have been profitable if Walmart had not developed incredible logistics and inventory management systems.

There is a body of research and commentary that may help in the quest to determine whether innovation can be accelerated by education that includes the works of Schumpeter and Drucker and Chao. Drucker's book on Capitalism and Innovation written in the early 80's suggests seven different sources of innovation. Chao's Innovation Nation builds a strong case that America is losing its competitive advantage in being entrepreneurial.

The effort to investigate our understanding of the process of innovation has significant implications for management education. Managers in all forms of organizations need to be better equipped to manage the process of encouraging innovation while also having a deeper understanding of how to influence or develop an innovative culture within their organizations.

6 Top Tips on How to Promote Innovation in Your Organisation

Wikpedia provides the following definition of Innovation:

"Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself."

So effectively innovation is making better something that already exists.

Creativity, new ideas and inventions are precursors to innovation. Without innovation, progress will not occur. Innovation will support the growth and health of a business by providing improvements in efficiency, productivity, development of new or improved products and operational effectiveness.

Innovation requires:

•     Creativity
•     Lateral thinking
•     New ideas
•     Proactive attitude
•     Teamwork and Collaboration
•     Change
•     Focus on improvement

To encourage the required elements of innovation in an organisation requires a culture of continuous improvement that will foster consistent focus on being innovative in every area of business operation.

Develop a Continuous Improvement Strategy Vision Statement

Be clear and transparent about the desired objectives. Communicate effectively and ensure that all stakeholders understand the vision. Support this with a documented plan that can be shared with transparency and clarity.

Support Continuous Improvement with robust change management strategies

If you are making a change in how your organisation functions, then you must have change management strategies in place to ensure that your employees will embrace the new culture. Ensure that employees understand the benefits that will be gained not only for the organisation but for themselves.

6 Top Tips on How to Promote Innovation in Your Organisation

Empower Employees

Create an environment where employees understand that they are an integral part of the business. There should be a reciprocal process in place so that feedback is a 2 way process. Employees should be listened to - and not just listened to but their feedback should be acted on wherever possible. Employees should be given the authority to make decisions and implement required processes or changes within a defined structure.

Ensure that a strong Teamwork ethic is in place

It is vital that an ethos of collaboration and sharing of ideas is cultivated. Without effective teamwork, you will go nowhere fast with your efforts to support innovation.

Provide a framework that will recognise and reward innovation

Everyone likes to be recognised for their contributions. The most effective way or providing recognition is to do this tangibly. Whether you create awards, provide bonuses or simply announce achievements in interoffice newsletters or intranet updates, you will create a goal that employees will aspire to. And if you can be innovative in how you provide the recognition then all the better!

Support employees with the necessary coaching or training

Some employees will require additional support to up-skill and develop their competencies, knowledge and understanding of the continuous improvement process. Training employees is an investment in the underpinning of the vigor of your organisation and the support of future growth and increased market share.

5 Tips For Promoting Innovative Thinking

Innovation in business is a survival trait in today's world. Our world is changing on a scale that has never been seen before. And businesses have to keep up or they will be swept aside. Whether it's new communications media, new markets or new technology, your business is under attack from constant change. Innovation is critical. And promoting innovative thinking is a critical success factor.

But how?

After all, innovative thinking is a pretty nebulous concept to try to encourage. But it is possible to promote creativity within your business or organization. It is possible to promote innovation if you understand the parts that turn creativity into innovation.

In this article, I'm going to share five tips for promoting innovative thinking in your business. They are:

1. Reward Try

2. Look Outside

3. Don't question, Test

4. Build for fun not fear!

5. Understand the 3 Organizational Structures

Periodically, you'll hear the tip "Reward Failure" given as an innovative tip. It's probably the most popular one in fact. But the truth is you don't want to encourage failure. Failure is an inevitable result. A negative one at that. What you want to encourage is trying new ideas and new business models. That means you need to accept failure. But you want to encourage the best effort possible.

It's been said in many ways, that innovation always comes from outside. Einstein for example said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Using the same thinking leads to at best improvement. True innovation comes from using a fresh set of eyes on an old problem. It comes from applying a simple solution from one industry on another industry's problems. The old adage of "If it wasn't invented here, it's no good" must be removed from your organization's lexicon.

One of the greatest enemies of creativity is time. Most organizations like to see some sort of preliminary analysis before money is spent. Unfortunately, this analysis takes time. Making the situation worse is the fact that innovation often involves the unknown. Rather than spend a great deal of time in analysis of ideas, try testing them in a small situation. Not only will you gather the information you need for analysis but also you'll learn valuable lessons if you decide to proceed.

5 Tips For Promoting Innovative Thinking

One of the fastest ways to discourage innovative thinking is to build an environment of fear. Failure is inevitable in a culture of innovation and if people learn to fear failure then they will quickly learn not to innovate. On the other hand, people who are having fun are fully engaged. Their minds are active and they will almost inevitably approach problems creatively.

Innovation is the product of creativity and implementation. Most tips for promoting innovative thinking concentrate on the creativity. However, you also need to focus on implanting that creative idea. There are three parts to any well-functioning business. At the one end of the spectrum is the day-to-day operation. Its focus is on doing the same thing over and over. Change is the enemy of efficiency. At the other end is strategy. Its focus is on identifying change and trends that will affect the business. In essence, it is the creativity in innovation. However, to change the operations appropriately -- in other words, implement innovation -- requires a specialized set of management skills. These skills are called project management. Your organization must have someone who is focused on gaining ideas -- from outside the organization, from within the internal hierarchy and from outside the normal structure. And it must have a group of managers who have the skills to bring change to your organization.

Innovative MLM Recruiting Techniques To Follow

In multilevel marketing, the old-school recruitment techniques of running from one coffee shop presentation to another, handing out network marketing flyers outside the mall or across the street, or making a list of friends, family, co-workers and business associates, just doesn't work anymore today. With the advent of the Internet, and with the discovery of new technologies, network marketers must know how to harness modern technology, for them to be bale to find appropriate niche markets, target high-quality prospects, and sign-up more leads as possible. Here are some of the innovative and effective MLM recruiting techniques that truly work.

Harness The Resources and Tools Provided By The Internet

The Internet is probably the network marketer's best friend. On the Worldwide Web, a lot of network marketing tools, videos, articles, blogs, lead generation resources and systems are available to help people market their products or services the right way. On the Internet, an individual marketer can use blogs, articles, social networking sites, social bookmarking venues, as well as their own Web site, for selling and promoting their different products and services.

Brand Yourself As The Expert

In network marketing, effective branding is essential. Branding requires that you not only make your products and services look appealing and valuable to your customers, but you must also be able to brand yourself as an authority or expert in your chosen field or market niche. By effectively branding yourself, as well as your products, more people will trust you and consider you as an expert in the field you've chosen, and will be more likely to sign-up for your business opportunity as well.

Innovative MLM Recruiting Techniques To Follow

Learn to Build Relationships With Your Prospects

Once you start calling your leads, don't sound like a shrewd salesman who prods them to buy whatever it is you're offering. When you're on the phone talking to prospects, you must sound like a caring friend, and learn to develop relationships with them first. Always find out how you can help or be of service to them, but don't mention what company you're working for in the mean time. Once your prospects start calling and ask where they can sign up, this should be the time you'll tell them about your business opportunity, and lead them to your Web site's sign-up page. If ever you encounter a number of cold callers, relax and just move on to the next one, but never give up.

Another innovative MLM recruitment tip includes touching base, and connecting with your target niche or market. Once you've found your target market, it should be much easier for you to craft a marketing strategy, target more prospects, and sign-up those prospects for your MLM business opportunity. Online marketing definitely requires a lot of hard work and patience. But if you know how to leverage the broad reach of the Worldwide Web, you'll easily be able to draft an overall MLM approach that will help you quickly each out to your prospects, and allow them to easily find your presence online and offline as well.

Construction Recruitment Prospects In Australia

The Construction Industry is considered as one of the economic accelerators of any country. Its distinct characteristic of being both a capital and labor intensive industry makes it as a potent component of every economy.

The industry demands a significant number of the labor force, which in return provides employment opportunities to the local populace. In like manner, the industry requires different capital and all those innovations to continuously improve its production process.

The nature of the Construction Industry already provides a preview of the recruitment prospects it demands. The Australian Bureau of Statistics specifically reports the products and industries that serve as a key requirement to its operations. These key capital industries include the following:

1. Metal Industry
2. Wholesale Trade
3. Cement Line and Concrete Slurry
4. Wood Production
5. Electronic Equipments
6. Scientific Research
7. Plastic and Other Concrete Products
8. Fabricated Metals
9. Electrical Equipments
10. Ceramic Products
11. Iron and Steel
12. Road and Transport

Without these sectors, the building Industry cannot perform its function to the economy. In like manner that these 12 identified industries cannot flourish without the demands of the Construction Industry. As a proof to this, the Australian Bureau of Statistics also recorded that the Construction Industry generated a value added income of $ 30 billion, making it as the one of the largest industries to its economy.

Another empowering feature of the building Industry is its capacity to recruit local resources. It requires inputs that are produced locally. Statistics particularly support that 88% of its resources are produced locally and the remaining percentage are imported from other economies.

Construction Recruitment Prospects In Australia

The 12 mentioned industries cannot equally function without the labor resources. Aside from the employment and salaries provided, Economics and Statistics provide a more insightful way to measure the employment effect of the Construction Industry. The Multiplier Effect coefficient, a key indicator in the two fields of discipline, provides a measure of the contagion effect of any industry. To illustrate the Multiplier Effect, assume that a Construction Company hires 10 employees. These 10 employees will later be paid. Part of their salary will be used to purchase local goods and services. The expenditures made from local goods and services will later become an income and an opportunity to grow for business engaged in trade and production. In the case of the Construction Industry, the local Statistics Bureau reported that the Construction Industry provides an overall multiplier effect of $ 2.886 million of output in 2009. If the Construction Industry of Australia was not existing and performing, the entire economy of Australia will not realize such million dollar amount of income.

From 2006 to 2011, the Construction Industry in Australia recorded peaks and troughs in its performance. The Industry Structure Report recognized the 16% increase in the Gross Value Added contribution of the industry from 2001 to 2003. The industry unfortunately remained static in 2008 to 2010. It the next years however, the industry recorded an upsurge of 6.3%%, making it as another key contributor of the economy. The positive outlook of the Australia's Construction Industry will definitely generate additional income to other industries that serve as its recruitment constituent.

The growth of the Australia's building Industry is expected not only to diversify its operations. As the industry continues to grow, time will come that its recruitment requirements will likewise expand and diversify. The Information Technology Sector will soon be identified as a key partner of the Construction Industry. Innovations and technological breakthroughs will be facilitated by the rapid changes in the IT industry.

The Art and Interior Design business is another potent complement. As population increases, the demand for versatile and affordable residential sites will be best handled by the fusion of Interior Design and the Construction Industry. As the world is leaning to become environmentally friendly, the need for green architecture and engineering is also gradually steering the economy. A niche to this market demand is emerging. Hence, the Construction Industry is later leaning to the field of Environmental Sciences as part of its recruitment prospects.

Similar to any industry, the growth of the building Industry equally signals divergence and convergence. It exhibits divergence because of the recruitment prospects of its partner industries. It also manifests convergence because it moves other industries closer to its prospective growth.

Generating Innovations in HR

Every company has that top level employee that seems to be a rainmaker. They cannot do anything wrong and the company that if it's immensely because of their actions. A competitor may also know about this rainmaker and look for ways in which they can recruit them. Why would a top level employee leave their current employment to seek out other opportunities? Generating innovations in HR is one way to give the appearance that the grass is greener to make that employee make the switch.

Many people think that one person would leave their current job for another solely for a salary increase. This often is not the case and it is up to human resources to identify incentives to recruit as well as retain staff. The company needs to recognize what are issues that are important to employees so that they can meaningfully gauge how to increase company return on investment for a strategic hire.

Does an existing employee feel like they are consistently hitting a brick wall when it comes to collaborating on team projects? HR global innovations would include using the best tools that technology has to offer that can provide seamless integration between project teams on a global scale. It is commonplace for teams to be scattered throughout the world and they must work effectively across multiple time zones. These technology platforms provide the basis for effective collaboration across many projects. Future teams can also learn and implement the successes from previous projects across the network as well.

Generating Innovations in HR

What are some tools that can be used for generating innovations in HR? Collaborating across the globe is not an entirely new concept, but technology makes it easier than ever. Having the ability to access tools for document sharing as well as virtual conference spaces are some of the many ways in which employees can boost productivity. Web 2.0 properties as well as the increasing power of mobile phones allows employees to conduct business wherever they are on the planet. They no longer have to be in a specific location in order for work to be completed. Internal technological security has also seen great improvement over time so the consideration of a breach has also been alleviated.

Some companies encourage interaction between employees and their direct consumers. HR global innovations allows employees to share information that may be important to consumers via a company's Google+ or Facebook Fan Page. No longer does a company have to work in a vacuum strategizing on a product that the marketplace may not want to purchase. By using these platforms, a company can solicit responses and feedback from potential and current customers to ensure they are on the right path with regards to product development. This is also a great incentive to employees who have a strong desire to build a community not only within the company but also on the web.

Generating innovations in HR is an ongoing process to recruit and retain top level employees. By developing strategies to meet employees needs while also focusing on a positive return on investment will keep companies on the leading edge.

Six Bottom-Line Best Practices in Recruiting

Recruiting strategies may flex and change with economic conditions and in reaction to competitors in the market. But there are certain best practices that are a constant benefit to every organization that adheres to them, whether the economy is up or down. Recruiting excellence has a direct, and positive, impact on the bottom line. Increasing revenue per employee and saving turnover costs are two important benefits. Here are six recruiting best practices that will make a measurable difference in your business.

One-Assess candidate and culture fit.

Go beyond the usual tactical list of competencies and required experience; hire to fit your culture and values. A better understanding of a candidate's personality traits, motivation factors, work behavior and preferred activities is often the most important in determining a candidate's potential success in your organization. Additionally, in making hiring decisions don't give much weight to your personal instincts, which are sometimes accurate, but frequently not. Instead, use assessments to gain insight about candidates and eliminate subjectivity. There are many excellent assessments on the market to measure candidates' character, values and soft skills; and quantify the data to show the cultural fit with your organization. Best practice includes hiring a neutral third party to administer the assessments, and then get a second opinion.

Two-Outsource some of the process.

In recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), an organization contracts with a provider to act as its internal recruitment function for pieces of the recruiting process, or to manage the entire function for a period of time. RPO providers do everything from profiling candidates through on-boarding new hires, providing staff, technology, procedures and reporting. RPOs increase the quality of the candidate pool, improve the time to hire rate, provide metrics, help ensure compliance, and reduce costs. They also allow your managers to focus on the right candidates. Best practice includes making sure that RPO provider and management thinking on recruitment is aligned.

Three-Establish a robust referral program.

Employees usually refer only family and friends they trust and know will fit into the culture of their organization. This makes employee referrals some of the best possible hires. Organizations like Ohio's AmTrust Bank, which won the 2008 ERE Media Recruiting Excellence Award for innovative retention, have found that their referral programs have increased performance and retention. An effective referral program makes it easy for employees to provide information about their organization. Providing a card or flyer that explains the benefits of working for your organization helps. Best practice includes rewarding employees with something they truly value.

Six Bottom-Line Best Practices in Recruiting

Four-View recruiting as a life cycle process.

Put effective procedures in place to transition people from candidate to employee, ensuring that recruiting and on-boarding processes reflect well on your organization. Get feedback from new employees as they merge into the company culture and continue this dialogue with employees throughout their employment, and when they terminate. Best practice includes a formal and ongoing program for effective employee communication.

Five-Make retention part of your recruitment program.

Turnover is costly, with estimates running from 150 percent of annual compensation for typical employees to 400 percent or more for key people. Use metrics to identify and analyze turnover trends in your organization so that you can better predict recruitment needs and plan for succession. Best practice includes providing managers with a retention toolkit and making retention planning part of every manager's performance goals.

Six-Keep up to date with trends.

Recruitment is riding a wave of innovation. The increased ability to make hiring decisions based on data rather than intuition is helping organizations anticipate and manage future needs and events with greater business acumen. In order to remain competitive today, you need to be creative in incorporating new ideas into your recruiting program. Best practice includes adopting social media and metrics in recruitment and ensuring flexibility in your culture in terms of benefits, work hours, work location and other areas that workers increasingly expect.

Best practices in recruiting cannot stand alone, but they are an effective start in reinforcing your culture and improving your bottom line. Align them with best practices in other areas of your organization and you'll ensure a strong, competitive position in any market condition.

Innovative Efficiencies in Recruitment

A Pig and a Chicken* are walking down the road.

The Chicken says: "Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!"

Pig replies: "Hm, maybe, what would we call it?"

The Chicken responds: "How about 'ham-n-eggs'?"

The Pig thinks for a moment and says: "No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"

The fable above echoes the yawning gap Recruiting as a function & Industry must navigate from its commonly perceived role as a tactical support function to one of a genuine business partner. The increasingly VUCA environment we find ourselves in & the trends driving today's recruiting marketplace are creating special challenges for organizations in the way they attract & engage with Talent. The shift we are seeing here is one of moving away from the model of attracting & selecting the best talent to one of attracting, engaging & selecting the best talent. Another challenge is that talent acquisition has become far more resource intensive than the recruiting function of the past. Resources are needed to develop the employment brand, create referral programs, manage candidate audiences, campus programs and similar such strategic initiatives. Making a strategic impact in the face of pressures to reduce recruitment costs resembles a Sisyphean task.

The changing scenario & trends necessitate that the recruiting function create innovative efficiencies to make a visible impact on the organization performance and work as true, committed value- adding partners with key stakeholders.

So how does the recruiting function go about creating innovative efficiencies that drives strong corporate performance?

The answer probably lies in leveraging some of the innovations we are seeing around us, specifically the advent of Big Data and the ramifications it has for recruitments going forward. Imagine functions such as marketing, finance, production proposing solutions to their key constituents unsupported by data points, but the logic of the recruiting function has always been centric around trust and building relationship capital -the antithesis of analytical, evidence based decision making. While relationships have been and must continue to be the epicentre for the recruiting function it must take its data savviness to new heights

Innovative Efficiencies in Recruitment

At its core the real value of Big Data is its ability to give us quantitative insights, throw up patterns from the end user perspective about where do we currently stand and where are we falling behind in our services. Interpretation of this data can provide us the answer to what to do for our end users - hiring managers, business leaders, candidate- in terms of innovation. A word of caution though - As producers and consumers of data analysis it is important that we as recruitment professional are able to differentiate between an unbiased interpretation of data and one that uses data to tell a story.

One could draw a lesson here from Nate Silver- the political predictor and the baseball sabermetric man - who didn't just understand data to predict the US Presidential election results with certainty, but understood storytelling & that data must be baked into a broader and better story within a context. Recruiting professionals must regularly evaluate the data and information as it guides and leads the businesses it operates in attracting, engaging & selecting the best talent.

Innovative Human Resources Ideas

The human resource department in any company is a central hub of activity. It's where management connects with labor and labor airs its grief about management. Its where recruiting, hiring, and terminations are done, where benefits are administrated, and where innovative ideas come from. They didn't mention that last part when you were hired into human resources, did they? Yes, the innovative recruiting and management ideas come from your department. Do you have any of them? Perhaps we can help. Here are a few things you might not have thought of yet.

Analyze past advertising and create more targeted ads. This is Creative Writing 101. Take a look at previous ad campaigns and pick the ones that were most effective. Use those ads to create new ones and target those new ones in mediums that brought you the best returns last time. Here's a tip: Readerships and circulations may go down for print publications, but internet numbers typically go up over time. Use online billboards whenever possible.

Scrap the stock hypothetical situations and create some real ones to test applicants with when interviewing. Every human resource department has these stock "hypothetical questions" they ask when interviewing job applicants. Get rid of them and use some real life situations. How would they handle the 2008 Wall Street crash if it happened today? What would their recession plan be for the company? Log the responses in your recruitment tracking system and compare them with performance when they're on the job.

Rotate HR jobs on a regular basis. No one wants to answer phones or enter data all the time. Rotate jobs and cross train every member of your human resource department. Teach everyone how to use your cloud based ATS applicant tracking so you'll never be stuck when someone calls in sick. This will make life easier for those in the department. They can actually take vacation time without having to worry about whether or not their job gets done. You can even train someone to do your job.

Innovative Human Resources Ideas

Plan company events to cultivate employee unity. Team building exercises are not used often enough. Barbecues, dances, and softball games are great ways to blow off steam and get to know each other in a casual environment. Companies that play together stay together. It's part of your job as a human resource professional to facilitate that. Take some time and work with other members of your department to put together some events where fun can be had by all. You'll see a big difference in morale if you do.

Invest in and use an applicant tracking system. If you're still managing your recruits and new hires with file folders, you're in the dark ages. Even if you upgraded to a computer database, if its not cloud based, you're still behind the times. Continuously adding more data to your hard drive will eventually lead to a crash. Store that data safely and securely online and your job applicant tracking will be more efficient.

How Do I Become A Virtual Recruiter?

Timing is everything and this is a GREAT time to learn how to become a virtual recruiter! Why? Just check the job listings under 'recruiter' or 'talent acquisition'. There are thousands of jobs for all kinds of recruiters in our current candidate- driven marketplace. Another reason? The old staffing agency model is slowly dying and being replaced by experienced virtual recruiters working from home. And, more importantly, there is a looming labor shortage being caused by the current generation of retiring Baby Boomers!

Up until the last couple of years, you HAD to work for someone else if you wanted to be in the staffing and recruiting industry! The overhead, franchise fees, office equipment, training, back office systems and memberships just made it too expensive to work on your own.

Recruiting... Staying the Same but Constantly Changing

Recruiting basics remain the same but the 'recruiter' job description is always changing. Today's modern recruiter has basically gone rogue' and discovered the wonderful world of independent recruiting - working from home -- and earning higher commissions than on-site recruiters. Being a recruiter is one of the few jobs that actually lends itself to working remotely (virtually). In fact, recent studies show that virtual recruiters (those working from home) are actually MORE productive than on-site recruiters! Working primarily at home is the main difference between a virtual recruiter and the old staffing on-site recruiter role and, best of all, you will probably earn higher commissions working independently.

So... How Do I Become a Virtual Recruiter?

The most important step is to study the job description and daily habits of an experienced recruiter and determine if you have the skills, commitment and interest to make it as a competent, full-cycle, money-producing recruiter. Though the following requirements of the 'recruiter' job description are NOT all inclusive, they will give you a pretty good idea of what your daily tasks will be.

The first set of requirements come from the 'traditional staffing agency' recruiter job description and the second list includes qualifications that I would include for all forward-thinking, effective and successful future virtual recruiters:

 How Do I Become A Virtual Recruiter?

Traditional Requirements for Recruiters

1. Complete knowledge and control of 'cradle-to-grave' placement process (25 or so unique steps) including:

•     relationship building
•     creative sourcing and recruiting
•     managing the entire interview process
•     controlling all critical aspects of a successful placement
•     liaison between your candidate and your hiring company
•     billing and collecting your fee

2. Meeting educational requirements (4 yr degree a plus) and/or industry specialization and training

3. Acting professionally and ethically at all times

4. Maintaining good time management skills; being self-motivated and results driven

5. Personable with good communication, listening and writing skills

6. Computer/Internet savvy with knowledge of social networking and other passive recruiting techniques

Future Qualifications for Virtual Recruiters

•     Always stay in learning mode; pay attention to industry/job trends in order to act as a true consultant to your clients
•     Understand that job board candidates only represent 20% of the possible workforce; most candidates are happily employed and are NOT on the job boards
•     Understand the baby boomer generation and looming labor shortages
•     Know your metrics - and how to adjust them for best results
•     Keep abreast of trends and innovative recruiting techniques to stay competitive in state-of-the-art recruiting practices
•     Always be involved in training, training, training
•     Listen twice as much as you speak and know the right questions
•     Learn to leverage your time and grow your business through outsourcing

BUT... Is It Worth It?

The answer is simple. A contingency fee recruiter can easily earn $50-$120K a year; in-house corporate recruiters with full cycle recruiting skills will earn $60-$95K or more. Contract recruiters make anywhere from $20-$75 per hour -- depending on their skills and the industry. Virtual recruiters earn up to 80% of the placement fee* vs the average 20-30% for on-site recruiters. Not only can you earn a very generous income but you will have the luxury of working from home!

The Most Important Element of Your Success

The most important requirement for success in your new virtual recruiting career is... training, TRAINING, TRAINING! It's like the old paradigm used when starting a new business of 'location, location, location'. You must find a great training program and a mentor/coach who will help you stay focused in applying your new skills and guiding your career as a recruiter. Your comprehensive training will teach you all of the traditional and future qualifications listed above.

Recruiting is not rocket science! You are not born with recruiter skills - they are all learned. And, the recruiter with the best training and time management skills will WIN every time in this exciting career opportunity of the future.

*Placement fees are paid by the hiring company based on a per cent of the first year's compensation of the newly hired candidate. Fees range from a flat fee up to 35% of first year's compensation.