Purple squirrel is a term used by employment recruiters to describe a job candidate with precisely the right education, set of experience, and range of qualifications that perfectly fits a job's requirements. [1] The implication is that over-specification of the requirements makes a perfect candidate as hard to find as a purple squirrel. [2]
While in theory, this prized "purple squirrel" could immediately handle all the expansive variety of responsibilities of a job description with no training, and would allow businesses to function with fewer workers, [3] [4] [5] [6] it is commonly asserted that the effort seeking them is often wasted. [7] [8] In addition, being open to candidates that don't have all the skills or retraining existing employees are each sensible alternatives to an over-long search. [2] [9]
While it is unclear when exactly the term was coined, it was in use by 2000, [10] and in 2010 CBS published material using the term, writing that "businesses are looking to do more with fewer workers, so they want [purple squirrels] who are able to take on a wide range of duties." [3] In 2012, Google recruiter Michael B. Junge published a popular job search and career book Purple Squirrel: Stand Out, Land Interviews, and Master the Modern Job Market, which helped popularize the term. [11] Elon Musk tweeted in 2012, "Do not search for purple squirrels! Giving them attention only makes them want to be more purple." which is likely also a reference to this term. [12] [13]
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. They are typically undertaken by students and graduates looking to gain relevant skills and experience in a particular field. Employers benefit from these placements because they often recruit employees from their best interns, who have known capabilities, thus saving time and money in the long run. Internships are usually arranged by third-party organizations that recruit interns on behalf of industry groups. Rules vary from country to country about when interns should be regarded as employees. The system can be open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
Staffing is the process of finding the right worker with appropriate qualifications or experience and recruiting them to fill a job position or role. Through this process, organizations acquire, deploy, and retain a workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the organization's effectiveness. In management, staffing is an operation of recruiting the employees by evaluating their skills and knowledge before offering them specific job roles accordingly.
A background check is a process a person or company uses to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and this provides an opportunity to check and confirm the validity of someone's criminal record, education, employment history, and other activities from their past. The frequency, purpose, and legitimacy of background checks vary among countries, industries, and individuals. An employment background check typically takes place when someone applies for a job, but it can also happen at any time the employer deems necessary. A variety of methods are used to complete these checks including comprehensive database search and personal references.
Recruitment is the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for jobs within an organization. Recruitment also is the process involved in choosing people for unpaid roles. Managers, human resource generalists, and recruitment specialists may be tasked with carrying out recruitment, but in some cases, public-sector employment, commercial recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies such as Executive search in the case of more senior roles, are used to undertake parts of the process. Internet-based recruitment is now widespread, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. From 2015, most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. LinkedIn has more than 1 billion registered members from over 200 countries and territories.
An employment agency is an organization which matches employers to employees. In developed countries, there are multiple private businesses which act as employment agencies and a publicly funded employment agency.
Executive search is a specialized recruitment service which organizations pay to seek out and recruit highly qualified candidates for senior-level and executive jobs across the public and private sectors, as well as non-profit organizations. Headhunters may also seek out and recruit other highly specialized and/or skilled positions in organizations for which there is strong competition in the job market for the top talent, such as senior data analysts or computer programmers.
On-the-job training is an important topic of human resource management. It helps develop the career of the individual and the prosperous growth of the organization. On the job training is a form of training provided at the workplace. During the training, employees are familiarized with the working environment they will become part of. Employees also get a hands-on experience using machinery, equipment, tools, materials, etc. Part of on-the-job training is to face the challenges that occur during the performance of the job. An experienced employee or a manager are executing the role of the mentor who through written, or verbal instructions and demonstrations are passing on his/her knowledge and company-specific skills to the new employee. Executing the training on at the job location, rather than the classroom, creates a stress-free environment for the employees. On-the-job training is the most popular method of training not only in the United States but in most of the developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, etc. Its effectiveness is based on the use of existing workplace tools, machines, documents and equipment, and the knowledge of specialists who are working in this field. On-the-job training is easy to arrange and manage and it simplifies the process of adapting to the new workplace. On-the-job training is highly used for practical tasks. It is inexpensive, and it doesn't require special equipment that is normally used for a specific job. Upon satisfaction of completion of the training, the employer is expected to retain participants as regular employees.
Overqualification is the state of being educated beyond what is necessary or requested by an employer for a position with the business. There can often be high costs for companies associated with training employees. This could be problematic for candidates resulting in failure to secure employment for the position in question. Employers foresee costs related to hiring such “overqualified” candidates. When seeking employment, candidates should consider providing explanation to potential employers as to why they are seeking a position that requires less skill, education and therefore less pay than their education and experience qualify the candidate for.
Sourcing is a talent acquisition discipline which is focused on the identification, assessment and engagement of skilled worker candidates through proactive recruiting techniques. Professionals specializing in sourcing are known primarily as Sourcers; but also Internet Recruiters, Recruiting Researchers or Talent Scouts.
Corporate social media is the use of social media platforms, social media communications and social media marketing techniques by and within corporations, ranging from small businesses and tiny entrepreneurial startups to mid-size businesses and huge multinational firms. Within the definition of social media, there are different ways corporations utilize it. Although there is no systematic way in which social media applications can be categorized, there are various methods and approaches to having a strong social media presence.
Competency-based recruitment is a process of recruitment based on the ability of candidates to produce anecdotes about their professional experience which can be used as evidence that the candidate has a given competency. Candidates demonstrate competencies on the application form, and then in the interview, which in this case is known as a competency-based interview.
CareerArc Social Recruiting is a social recruiting software company headquartered in Burbank, California. The company was founded in March 2009, and is a division of CareerArc Group. The company has offices in Burbank, California and Marlborough, Massachusetts. The platform provides a social recruiting system to connect job seekers with hiring employers.
A pre-hire assessment is a test or questionnaire that candidates complete as part of the job application process. The use of a valid and expert assessment is an effective way to determine which applicants are the most qualified for a specific job based on their strengths and preferences. Employers typically use the results to determine how well each candidate's strengths and preferences match the job requirements.
Alexandra Levit is an American writer, consultant, speaker, workplace expert, and futurist. She has written ten business and workplace books and is currently a nationally syndicated columnist for the Wall Street Journal. In 2019, she was named to "The Thinkers 50 Radar" List. In 2021, she received a certification in strategic foresight from the University of Houston.
Shift-based hiring is a recruitment concept pioneered in Singapore that hires people for individual shifts, rather than hiring employees before scheduling them into shifts. Originally, it was intended as an efficient way to schedule shift-based part-time work, but it is now known that this concept can be applied to any job that requires a number of consecutive hours of commitment as a shift. This hiring concept focuses on employing workers for a particular shift on that particular day, rather than focusing on employing a worker to work recurrent shifts that can become part-time or full-time work, although the latter can be a result of employing a worker to work shifts that run at the same timing periodically. Every shift or a group of recurring shifts may be a unique job posting.
Arnnon Geshuri is an American corporate executive. He was vice president of human resources at Tesla, Inc. from 2009 until 2017, senior director of human resources and staffing at Google from 2004 to 2009, and vice president of people operations and director of global staffing at E-Trade Financial Corporation circa 2002. In 2023 he is Chief People Officer at Teladoc Health.
Resume parsing, also known as CV parsing, resume extraction, or CV extraction, allows for the automated storage and analysis of resume data. The resume is imported into parsing software and the information is extracted so that it can be sorted and searched.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg, a businessman and former mayor of New York City, began when he filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission for the office of President of the United States as a member of the Democratic Party on November 21, 2019. His principal campaign committee was called "Mike Bloomberg 2020, Inc." The campaign officially launched on November 24, 2019, in Virginia, later than most other candidates for the Democratic nomination.
Tesla, Inc. is an American electric car manufacturer which as of January 2024 employs over 140,000 workers across its global operations, none of whom are unionized. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has commented negatively on trade unions in relation to Tesla. Despite allegations of high injury rates, long hours, and below-industry pay, efforts to unionize the workforce have been largely unsuccessful. As of February 2024, there are active labor disputes with Tesla in the United States, Germany and Sweden.
