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Event: Workforce Planning Conference 2010
When: Monday, June 14 through Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Location: Chicago, IL

Sponsored by the Human Capital Institute (HCI), the second annual 2010 Workforce Planning Conference is designed with senior executives in HR, talent management and planning in mind. Since the economic downturn began, planning for future workforce needs has become more difficult than ever.

The conference is set to discuss the issues of workforce planning in challenging times. According to HCI:

“Rapid reorganizations, whether through downsizing or M&A activity, have made it difficult for companies to understand their current talent pool. Developing a hiring plan that accounts for a wide range of future scenarios is even harder. While many firms see the downturn as an opportunity to build a competitive advantage by acquiring top talent, this effort must be carefully guided by strategic workforce planning, with careful attention being paid to the alignment of talent with future business goals.

Conference Links
Conference Brochure
Meet the Presenters

Register Online

Also of Interest
Potential Position Descriptions for Information Engineering Professionals
What to Consider When Hiring a Technical Writer

Editor’s Note: This was the feature article in this month’s TechCom Manager newsletter, reprinted here with permission. Click the previous link to subscribe to the newsletter.

by Uri Galimidi

Job Hunting In Turbulent Times

Almost one year ago, unemployment in the US was 9.4% (or 14.5 million people) and job openings were approximately 2.7 million. If you have been laid off recently, you are probably asking yourself “What would it take for me to be successful in my job hunting?”

First and foremost, you have to be at the top of your mental form. You have to be very clear about your goal, be creative, resourceful, determined, understand the best techniques and resources out there, and have a strong support system.

This article aims to bring you an insightful Career Transition Framework^TM that will help you meet your career objective. Let’s start with an interesting job-hunting story.

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As the economy starts heating up, the demand for contract technical writers is likely to be strong. As a rule, in the early stages of economic recovery temporary workers are first to get hired. This makes it easier on employers who may still be uncertain how robust the recovery will be and how long it will take to fully recover to the point where business resumes its once-steady growth.

When it comes time to resume permanent hiring, if the company needs to add a full-time technical writer to its documentation team, it can be very beneficial to convert a successful and highly-valued contract technical writer to permanent status. This saves employers time and money in the recruiting and hiring process.

In this article, Writing Assistance Inc.’s founder Scott Hartmann provides valuable insight into how to go about hiring a contract technical writer, including the development of an appropriate job description and what to look for in contract technical writing applicants. His insights will provide guidance not only to those needing to hire contract technical writers, but to those who may be considering the possibility of adding one or more permanent technical writers to their team.

Read: Hiring Contract Technical Writers

Related topics:

• How to Justify Hiring Technical Writers During Hard Economic Times
• What to Consider When Hiring Tech Writers

LinkedIn, like other forms of social media and social networking sites, is growing increasingly popular as an effective way to recruit employees.

While recruiters are still using big job board websites, like Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and CraigsList.com to find applicants to fill job vacancies, contacts from these “traditional” sources often include hundreds of resumes from unqualified applicants and plenty of spam.

In her article, Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees, Susan Heathfield, About.com Guide to Human Resources provides specific insight from several recruiters on how they are using LinkedIn to find qualified applicants for open positions. And, as she correctly points out:

“The potential for LinkedIn and other social networking sites to play a major role in your employee recruiting strategy increases as millions of potential employees profile themselves on these sites each year.”

Source: Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees
For Applicants: Social Media – Are You Missing Out?
Follow Us on Twitter

If you have a group of stressed out and overworked technical writers and need to add to your staff, hiring the right technical writer can be a challenge. In his Considerations for Hiring Technical Writers, Philip Rastocny provides some tips on the hiring and interview process and what you might look for in exceptional technical writing candidates that will best fill the needs of your group of technical writers.

In Rastocny’s article, the scenario is this:

Your department is growing … things are starting to get out of control … your staff is about to mutiny. So it is time to expand your group. You already know what skills you need to handle the tasks, but what other assets can you get at the same time? Characteristics of a technical writer vary from individual to individual, and knowing what to look for before the interview process begins is half the way to hiring the right individual the first time.

Read: Considerations for Hiring Technical Writers
Get a Technical Writer from WAI

According to research from PJA Advertising + Marketing and community site Toolbox.com active use of social media has become a vital part of many HR professionals’ careers. This research shows that HR pros now spend more time interacting on social media sites than in reading editorial content.

About one-half of respondents said a social media presence helped build their personal brand and made them more valuable as a job candidate.

Professional networks, such as LinkedIn and Ryze were tops for HR pros followed by best practice social communities, like Toolbox.com and StackOverflow.

Results Summary and Charts on eMarketer

HRmarketer.com has released its annual research report. It includes an analysis of HR buyer research and purchasing trends and their budgetary priorities in 2010.

The data in this report is based on responses from human resource and employee benefit buyers, hereafter referred to collectively as “HR buyers”, collected during October and November of 2009. The key trends outlined in this report tell us the following about HR buyers and their needs going into 2010:

• Thirty-one percent of HR professionals report their company will hire 10-20 percent more staff in 2010;
• Twenty-six percent of HR buyers plan on increasing their budgets for HR-related products and services in 2010;
• As a group, HR buyers plan on increasing their budgets by 25 percent in 2010 for corporate social networking tools, employee wellness programs, management and leadership development initiatives, performance management systems, and other training and development programs;

Read the full report…

by Karen O’Keefe

In the same way that some people adopted cell phones and “smart” phones right away and others didn’t, there’s a huge discrepancy right now between those who understand the value of social media and those who don’t. You may know bloggers, Tweeters, or “people who Facebook,” or have friends with profiles on LinkedIn. You may even have participated in one or more of these social-media activities yourself. However, chances are good you still have something to learn, especially if you are over 35-40, which is where the generation gap falls. Older people tend not to be users, while younger people do. However, the trend is growing in all age groups, with baby boomers stepping it up in increasing numbers (www.mashable.com).

If you don’t currently use any social-media tools, let me share something with you a recruiter told me during my own job hunt last year: Executives and hiring managers at all Fortune 500 companies have a presence on LinkedIn, and 70% of high-tech jobs are now found through LinkedIn. Furthermore, more than 30 million people in the US and 60 million worldwide are on LinkedIn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn).

If that doesn’t give you pause, try this: Of those people on LinkedIn, users with incomes of $250,000 to 350,000 are seven times more likely to have 150+ connections (http://socialmediastatistics.wikidot.com/linkedin).

What does this mean? In a slow economy, you need to use all the tools at your disposal, and social networking is both inexpensive and effective.

Let me tell you my own story. Last year, I moved to Portland, OR and needed to find work. What did I do?
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by Whitney Potsus

Quick! Answer the following questions without putting a lot of thought into them. We want your instinctive, knee-jerk first response.

• Do you enjoy going to work each day?
• Are you excited about the projects you’re working on?
• Do you look for excuses to be late, leave early, or be off altogether?
• Are you in a bad mood more often than not?
• Do you feel like you have control over your job?
• How long have you been feeling like this?

If you answered ……

• “No”
• “Not particularly”
• “Yes”
• “Yes”
• “No”
• “Can’t even remember”

.….. keep reading. Whether you realize it or not, you’re probably displaying half the classic signs of burnout.
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by Steve Capri

So you’ve given it a lot of painstaking thought. It’s decided. It’s time. Time to move into management. After all, you’ve worked hard to get where you are. You’ve paid your dues working through the various levels of technical-writing jobs, and survived all the promotional requirements to get through each position, and so on. As a senior-level professional, you’re at a crossroads. How do you prepare and are you absolutely sure you want to make this transition?

Clearly, not everyone is cut out for management. For some, the thought of being responsible for more than one’s own work is unheard of….sometimes even frightening. For others, management is a logical stepping stone into an entirely new career.

This article is a collage of ideas and experiences from some people who’ve made the leap from writer to manager. Although it’s not a step-by-step guideline, it provides some compelling insight as to what individuals might expect as they transition into the management ranks. Even if you are an experienced manager, you might find these ideas helpful.

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