Even though the US Department of Labor reports half-a-million job losses in April, 2009, companies are snapping up 80% of those who have been let go.

Related to our recent post on Why Smart Companies are Still Recruiting, the Wall Street Journal published an article on the same topic, talking about how many companies are hiring, even while they still have impending layoffs on the books.

The WSJ article notes how large, multinational corporations like Microsoft, AT&T, IBM and Boeing are having to simultaneously let people go, while rapidly ramping up their workforce in other, key areas:

Boeing, for instance, plans to cut roughly 10,000 jobs in 2009, including 4,500 from the commercial-airplanes unit….

At the same time, Boeing has more than 1,500 current and anticipated job openings — in various stages of recruitment — most for mechanical, electrical, software and other engineers.
[Many Companies Hire as They Fire -- WSJ Online]

Like many companies in Boeing’s situation, the jobs they are hiring for are in different, or even new areas of strategic growth, as companies grapple with still-unknown fallout from the worldwide economic situation.  Boeing, for example, is looking to build up its defense unit, which makes military airplanes, where their layoffs are mainly affecting their commercial aircraft as well as administrative and contingent workforce.

The article continues to explain that smaller, even not-for-profit organizations, are feeling the pinch too, but find themselves in the same situation as relative behemoth, Boeing:

“A blanket hiring freeze was just not feasible,” says [National Public Radio] Chief Executive Vivian Schiller. “It’s not a smart way to run a business. The show must go on.”

What the article does not mention is how this simultaneous hiring and firing must be stressing the Human Resources organizations of these companies, large and small.

Engineering a vast, across-the-board employee termination program (including outplacement, exit interviews, and even the management of termination paperwork, unemployment, COBRA insurance and other administrative tasks) is a daunting enough undertaking for any HR function to manage well–especially while trying to maintain as much dignity for the employees being let-go.

Now pile that on to a simultaneous recruiting campaign in those same communities where you’ve just laid-off hundreds or thousands of people, or when you’re trying to recruit for skills or talents that you’ve not recruited actively for in the past, and you have a significant branding and recruitment advertising problem.

… Not to mention many companies’ recruiting departments have sustained deep layoffs already and are light on staffing bandwidth as it is.

I am sure this has happened in every economic slowdown, but with 24-hour news and the ubiquity of information today plus the fact that bad news travels faster than good news (just ask Spitzer, et al, Amazon or Domino’s Pizza), companies have a real dilemma on their hands when trying to re-focus* their workforce.

TalentSeekr by EnticeLabs provides HR and Recruiting departments with at least four key ways to tackle this problem in a smart, game-changing way:

• Use rich-media to engage and excite people about your company’s brand.  Help them know who you are and why they should want to come work for you.
• Leverage the power of the Internet and our unique geo/demo-graphic targeting algorithms to put the right job advertisements in front of the right people, wherever they are online.
• Leverage EnticeLabs’ buying power to ensure your employment branding campaigns reach the intended audience for much, much less than traditional or direct-purchase advertising would cost.
• TalentSeekr works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It takes no holidays, vacations, sick-leave or smoke breaks.  It constantly and consistently self-analyses and optimizes your career ad placements to ensure the most-qualified people are looking at your most-relevant opportunities.

Many of our clients have exchanged budget away from other recruitment advertising initiatives (with lagging ROI and questionnable candidate quality) and invested those same dollars in to TalentSeekr campaigns.  The resulting candidates are on-average more qualified, and more excited about the opportunity to work for you, thanks to our hyper-targeting and state-of-the-art candidate engagement platform.

Could hyper-optimized advertising campaigns like TalentSeekr provides help your business succeed in this difficult period of recruiting?   Investigate our technology by viewing two brief videos explaining TalentSeekr, or scheduling a no-commitment demonstration by calling 1-877-2-ENTICE or by emailing info@enticelabs.com.