If a new survey is correct, about 84 percent of workers are planning to look for a new position in 2011.

If this is so (and, frankly, 84 percent sounds like a staggeringly unrealistic number to us), companies around the country are at big risk of losing their top employees.

Research on employee motivation has found that a worker’s earnings and the benefits provided by an employer don’t have as much impact on a worker’s satisfaction and engagement as job quality and workplace support.

With that in mind, we offer some ideas below that can help you engage, motivate and keep your top talent.

• Offer meaningful work. Let your employees do what they do best by engaging their top skills and affinities. This is a key to retention and engagement.
• Ask for ideas. Allowing workers to have input into decisions gives them a big sense of control and being a part of something “bigger than themselves.” Soliciting employee input also shows them that their opinion matters to you. It also helps employees accept the resulting decision once it’s been made because they had some say in it.
• Tell people where they stand. Let your employees know how things really are within your company. Ask them to set tough but realistic goals; this actually helps motivate workers, especially when things are tough.
• Keep true to your word and consistent in your actions. When leaders are reliable and accessible, trust builds in the workplace.
• Help employees create personal goals that reflect your company’s goals. This helps ensure that everyone is working toward the same outcome. It also helps employees see how their efforts really affect a company’s success.
• Provide room to grow. How effective are you when it comes to promoting from within? Really take a good look at how often employees have a chance to move up within your organization. Top employees especially want to know they will be challenged and have an opportunity to let their skills shine. Are you truly hiring from within, or are your managers, supervisors and even executives coming from the outside?

Are you prepared for a possible talent exodus from your firm? A call to The Wellspring Group may be in order. After all, if IT employees from your competitors are looking to leave, you’ll want to be ready to entice them join you.  Contact us today.

The Corporate Executive Board surveyed data on 50,000 employees across the world earlier this year and found that “high potential” workers increasingly are disengaged and looking elsewhere for their next career move. In fact, 25 percent said they plan to leave the firm at which they now work; this up from 10 percent in 2006.

This could be very bad news for businesses as the job market improves (however slowly) in 2011.

The high potential employees were identified as such by their employers.

The CEB gave six suggestions as to how to first identify your high potential employees, engage and keep them. They are:

1. Aim to give workers stimulating work. Recognize and develop potential leaders quickly as these individuals can disengage quickly.
2. When interviewing, use assessment tests to gauge candidates’ engagement, abilities and aspirations so that you can get an idea of applicants’  potential for growth and leadership.
3. Make sure to manage high-potential workers at the executive or corporate level to prevent line managers from “hoarding” talent, thereby limiting the high-performing workers  opportunities.
4. Put your top talent in positions that challenge their abilities and where new competencies are needed.
5. Provide salaries and recognition to these top performers as appropriate.
6. Include your top-potential workers in your firm’s strategic planning while emphasizing to them how much their work will positively affect your company’s success now and in the future.

If you’re looking for future IT leaders for your organization, contact The Wellspring Group. We will source, vet and present to you the top three candidates we find, based upon your exact needs and desires for the person who fills your critical positions. We look forward to hearing from you.

As the nation slowly recovers from the recent brutal recession, employee morale is low — very low. In fact, a recent survey of about 200,000 workers showed that employee morale is the lowest it’s ever been.

Employers risk losing workers with low morale as soon as the job market warms. Replacing an employee can cost anywhere from one-half to more than two times his or her annual salary!

So it will behoove you to buck up your current employees, and you may do in two simple ways:  praise and recognition  for their efforts, especially when those efforts go above the usual.

Sixty-five percent of those workers surveyed said they had not been recognized at all for their hard work in the year prior to the survey. Of those who left an employer, about 80 percent said the main reason they left was because they felt unappreciated.

Yet — and here’s where you should sit up and take note — of those companies where employee morale is high, almost all workers said that their managers recognize their employees’ efforts.

What’s more — and really pay attention here – the survey found that those organizations who recognized their employees for their efforts usually were more profitable than those who didn’t recognize workers.

As you work to make your company’s culture one of appreciation and recognition, be sure you praise and acknowledge not only top performers, but “average” and underperforming employees — when they make an extra effort for even the smallest of things. Praise can go a very long way to helping your employees get to a level of performance where you want them to be.

If you’re in the search for exceptional, hard-working, top-notch IT professionals, contact The Wellspring Group. We will source the most talented IT workers possible. We look forward to hearing from you!

If you’re thinking of approaching an executive recruiting firm in order to be considered for new opportunities, here are some tips to help you.

Remember, the headhunter is not there to find you a job. The recruiter works for the client company and has been engaged to find the right person for a certain position. This doesn’t mean the recruiter can’t act as a sounding board and give you general advice, but if you realize from the get-go that the recruiter does not work for you, your relationship will be all the smoother and more successful.

Be sure you “sell yourself.” That is, be sure you let the recruiter know exactly about your skills, abilities, educational background and education. The more specific you are, the better. The more you tell the recruiter, the easier it will be for the recruiter to then promote your candidacy to a company.

Don’t sit back and wait for the recruiter to do his or her magic, especially if there’s a specific opening to which the recruiter is presenting you. You should research the company’s performance, history, future plans, etc. You’ll need to be well-prepared for your interview.

Be sincere. Be yourself. If you’re trying to fold your personality and experience into something you think the recruiter and the employer want in the person they choose to fill the position, they will sense it.

Tell your recruiter about other opportunities you’re considering. There’s little worse than accepting an offer and then reneging on it because another employer — about whom you kept mum — offers you a better opportunity. You can be sure you’ll never hear from that recruiter again, meaning you could truly lose out on some great opportunity in the future.
Be forthright with the recruiter about any and all issues you feel may impact how you’re perceived by a prospective employer. Better to “‘fess up” to negative information yourself rather than having the recruiter or the company find out on their own.

Learn and accept constructive criticism. This can be especially applicable if you’re a little out of date on either your skills, your certification, etc. If you don’t get the job — or even an interview — because you’re lacking in some area and the recruiter tells you what that lack is, thank the recruiter for his or her candor. And then go out and “fix” whatever it is you lack.

The Wellspring Group partners with some of the country’s most recognized and desired organizations—offering you access to highly sought after IT opportunities. Contact us today so that we may hear more about your background and your career goals.

When you need professionals with high technical skills, call The Wellspring Group.

When we source the talent you seek, we’ll present you with just the top 3 candidates and we’ll do so with exceptionally detailed profiles, including their educational credentials — degrees and certificates. You can trust that the professionals we find for your have been thoroughly vetted, not just for their backgrounds, but also for the “intangibles” that can make or break a placement — work ethic and how they’ll “fit” in your company’s culture.

We’d like to give some information about the types of professionals we will find for you. Please keep in mind that we can find entry-level, to mid-management to executives in these fields — whatever you need, whenever you need it.

Our client companies come to us to search for high-level talent for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to:

• Not having enough time to do it themselves.
• Are small firms with no human resources department.
• They are under extreme pressure to fill one or more key management positions.
• The company recently acquired a new client and needs to ramp up with staff immediately.
• A recruiter has connections within a particular specialty.
• The company wasn’t able to find the people it needed on its own.

The Wellspring Group particularly specializes in sourcing talent in the the following sectors:

• Financial
• Banking
• Commercial
• Telecom
• Manufacturing
• Insurance/Reinsurance
• Hi-tech

As for the types of talent we will source for you in those sectors, we can and will find:

• C-level Executives
• Senior Level Management
• Web Technology
• CRM/Data Warehousing
• ERP
• Systems/Database Administration
• Client/Server Development
• Systems Architecture
• PMO
• Testing
• Business Analysts
• Financial Operations/Front Office & Back Office
• Project Management Testers

So when you’re ready to have experienced professional recruiters source, vet and present the top three candidates for your critical positions, contact The Wellspring Group.  We look forward to hearing from you.

There are a number of ways in which you can recruit for new staff members for your company. After all, reduced staff through open positions can contribute to increased stress on other employees and decreased efficiency in your company overall. Hiring new employees and recruiting your industry’s stars is essential in a company’s ability to move forward.

Another way in which you can find qualified personnel is through an outside staffing or recruiting firm. There are many benefits to working with this type of service, as its staffing managers often have contacts to qualified personnel looking for gainful employment in your industry. Moreover, they can offer assistance with initial interviews, call backs and other facets of the hiring process that prove to be time-consuming for busy executives and companies already working with the minimum amount of staff.

In order to reap the benefits of working with an outside staffing firm, you need to understand how to do so correctly. The more effectively you can work together from the outset, the better your chances are for successfully finding the right fit.

To start, you must clearly communicate your needs. Draft out, in writing, exactly what you are looking for in a potential employee. Be specific in terms of skills and experience. State your terms on salary, benefits, probationary periods and anything else relevant to finding the right person to fill a particular position.

Allow the staffing company to do its job – don’t try to micromanage the search for a new employee. If you are working with a reputable company, then you must be able to “let go” and  allow the staffing firm to find you a new employee without the need to be involved in the process until you need to be (usually only for final interviews with the top candidates).

When you need the expertise to find IT professionals for the jobs that need doing and you want the search done as easily and successfully as possible, contact The Wellspring Group. We’ll make the whole process flow efficiently and effectively. Contact us today!

If you’ve ever hired someone who had a terrific resume, who came to you via an in-house referral, who interviewed exceptionally well, but who then turned out to be a bad hire either because he or she couldn’t do the tasks necessary or was a poor personality fit for your company’s culture or your department, you’re not alone.

Most hiring managers have at least one “bad hire story” to share.

Yet the number of your poor hires could well be decreased with the help of one or more of the many candidate assessment tests and tools available today.

These tools allow employers to measure a candidate’s personality, sales ability, even his or her customer service skills. Tools also exist that can help you determine if an employee is truthful or even a hard worker. You also will find assessment services that will help you in pre-employment screening, as well as what are known as 360-degree employee performance evaluations. And let’s not forget background check services as well as job simulation screenings, in which your potential candidate is scored on how well he or she will actually perform the skills necessary to succeed in the position. (These tests are particularly helpful for vetting potential sales people, helping you to see how a sales candidate deals with objections and closings.)

If you’re a fan of benchmarking, many assessment tools are available that will allow you to set benchmarks for certain positions and then compare applicants’ skills to the requirements you set. This then allows you to take the guesswork out of making hiring decisions.

The companies and services offering assessment tools often will send you reports that detail how candidates scored in areas you deemed critical to on-the-job success. The reports can give you assessments regarding applicants’ skill sets, personalities, even their critical-thinking skills.

If you use assessment tools on one candidate, you should use them on all candidates. This will allow you to put into writing how you select your employees and will help you justify hiring or not hiring certain candidates. This can come in very handy should you ever be at the wrong end of a hiring discrimination lawsuit.

Let The Wellspring Group take the guesswork out of sourcing, vetting and hiring your IT employees. We can provide you with experienced IT professionals on a contract, contract-to-hire and full-time basis. Contact us today!

Many people in the human resources and staffing industries believe that hiring is more of an “art” than a “science.”

We disagree.

We believe there are proven steps you can take to make your hiring process more efficient and successful, each time you need to hire someone.

Here are the five key steps we believe constitute an effective hiring process:

1) Probably the most important step, and one which is relatively easy to do well: write an effective job description. This should take you some time, at least a couple of hours. But it’s time well spent in the long run. A good description states clearly what the position’s responsibilities are and the minimum background and skills needed to perform well in it. A good job description also acts a marketing tool for your company, so include a bit about your company’s background and future, focusing on this part of the description on the “what’s in it them” for an applicant.

As you get ready to interview, put together a grid that allows you to evaluate candidates based on your hiring criteria. This not only will help you remember who’s who, it will help you rank candidates objectively.

2) When you’re actually conducting interviews, remember to flush out three key things:

• the applicant’s career and how it fits or doesn’t with your needs;
• a candidate’s skill sets, as compared to your needs; and
• the reasons why a candidate would want to accept a job at your company.

Here are some questions to consider asking:

• Tell me about your career so far.
• Why did you make a career shift (if applicable)?
• Why did you get this college major (if applicable)?
• Why did you leave your previous employers?
• Tell me about a project that best demonstrates how you were able to use the skills you have to your best ability.
• Give me an example of how you responded to [a relevant problem].

Don’t be afraid to ask “challenging” questions. You want to hire the type of people who rise to the occasion. Be careful not to ask questions that are too challenging or just plain weird: “If you could be a plant, what type would you be?”

Don’t forget to tell your candidate why your company is a great place to work. After all, you’re selling your company just as much as your candidate is selling her services.

3) Take your hiring grid and discuss your candidates with either your search/interview team or with colleagues in your company whom you trust. Discuss each interviewee in depth, not only talking about how well their skill sets fit your needs, but also how their personalities might “fit” in your department/company.

4) Now’s the time to vet your short list of candidates. Verify past employment and check references. Instead of asking the candidate for a short list of three or so references, ask your top candidates for a list of several people for whom the candidate now or once worked. Ask for bosses, subordinates, colleagues, even customers. If your candidate prefers you not contact her current supervisor, ask her if there’s anyone in her company now she feels could speak with you in confidence.

The reason this approach works so well is that you get third party confirmation of the candidate’s abilities. Aim for balanced, not perfect references.

5) The offer. Call your top candidate first and make a verbal offer. Aim to know what the candidate is earning now before you call. Tell your top candidate the reasons you’re making her the offer. Aim to get verbal agreement before putting your terms on paper.

Be prepared for salary negotiation. Top candidates at any level increasingly are looking to negotiate. If you can’t budge on salary, consider offering such benefits as more PTO, a different title, a salary review in six months (instead of a year), etc.

When you’re looking to hire right the first — and only! — time, contact The Wellspring Group. We will source and do the preliminary interviewing and vet high-quality candidates for your firm. Contact us today!

This post isn’t going to be one of our typical posts where we offer advice to an executive on how to find good people or how to manage her workforce, followed with a final paragraph touting The Wellspring Group’s services.

No. Instead, we’re going to be upfront and tell you how our flexible staffing and the several recruiting options we offer can help you and your business.

If you’re OK with middle-of-the-road recruiters finding you middle-of-the-road talent then we’re not the recruiting company for you. We specialize in sourcing what we call “Top 3″ talent: those skilled IT professionals who continually over-perform in any assignment or project on which they happen to be working. We send only the “Top 3″ candidates to our clients for their consideration

In addition, if you can see how hard we’re working for you, we’ve failed, for our goal is to make the finding of top talent for your IT needs to be as stress-free and “invisible” as possible.

Here’s the bottom line. Using The Wellspring Group to help you find contract, contract-to-hire and full-time professionals will do the following:

In a search for a full-time professional: We can and will find you the stars, the exceptional and experienced professionals who aren’t looking for work. They’re not unemployed. They’re not surfing the job boards looking for a better opportunity. They are now doing exceptional work for their employers, employers they’ll leave if they are presented with the right opportunity.

We will save you money. We also will save you time (which will save you money) because doing a search in-house with your own employees conducting the search takes them away from what doing you’re paying them to do — make sales, managing a team or projects, creating product for your customers — while they cull resumes, call candidates, assess applicants, conduct preliminary interviews and final interviews, conduct background checks, and so on.

Instead, The Wellspring Group will take over the whole search process, except for interviewing the final “Top 3″ candidates. From sourcing candidates, to conducting background and reference checks, and everything in between, our seasoned recruiters will do it all.

We begin by speaking with you to discover the exact requirements you seek for an opening. Your assigned recruiter will take the time to find the skills and personality traits of your top performers, which helps us discover the IT professionals who will excel in your company’s unique environment.

Once we’ve sourced who we believe to be the top three best candidates, we’ll provide you with a detailed profile of each one and will help arrange for those candidates to meet with you. We even can help with salary negotiation, if you desire.

The Wellspring Group will partner with you no matter your recruiting needs. We constantly source and identify top talent and we keep a database of their availability. If you need an IT professional in a hurry, we can bring an experienced individual to your site within days or even hours on a temporary basis, contract-to-hire or direct-hire basis, allowing you the flexibility and efficiency your company needs.

When you need strategic IT staffing solutions and high-level consulting expertise, contact The Wellspring Group. We look forward to showing you how cost-effective, efficient and successful working with us can be. Contact us today.

Social networking sites can be an extremely valuable tool in building your professional career, establishing yourself as a leader in your field and attracting top talent to your organization.

To help get you started, here are a few tips to keep in mind when using sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn:

1. Position yourself (and your company) as an expert. Whatever your area of technical specialization, you can use online networking to showcase your talent and expertise.  Join groups, participate in discussions and offer your expertise and insight. Be a leader, not a follower. Develop thought leadership in your specific practice area by posting articles that are ahead of the curve in your area of technical expertise. Or, establish your own intellectual community within a networking site by creating a group. Your group can offer a discussion forum for hot IT topics relative to your business, publicize upcoming events and share information with customers and job candidates.
2. Share links to helpful content. Keeping current with developments in technology can be a full time job. As a result, timely, relevant information is extremely valuable to your clients, prospects and other contacts, and your social networks allow you to easily share the most relevant technical news.
3. Attract top talent. The best IT professionals stay on top of their game by constantly seeking out new information. Become a trusted source they turn to. Write and post articles about the aspects of technology most important to these professionals, and you’ll attract more top performers to your organization.
4. Answer a question in your field to attain expert status within your network. If you’re selected as having the best answer to a particular problem, it will show up on your LinkedIn profile. Providing answers is also a great way to strike up online conversations with new contacts and expand your network.
5. Put your best foot forward. When it comes to social networking for business, more is not always better. While you may be tempted to get every programmer on staff blogging about your latest upgrade, their chatter may only be perceived as noise (not to mention a huge waste of productive resources). Be selective. Make sure you pick the right people in your organization–talking about the right things–to have the strongest possible presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media.

We hope you find this information helpful.  And on a related note we would love to become your trusted advisor.  Please leave a comment below and let us know what topics you would like us to cover in future blog posts.  Whether you’re looking for job search advice, recruiting and workforce management tips, project management best practices or something more specific we would love to hear from you.