October 2010
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| Learn the purpose behind the chart and the Blackberry. |
Ah-Ha! Moment – In late September, one of my colleagues told me she anticipated needing two more people working 20-25 hours a week the entire month of October to meet a project's deadline – and she needed these two persons starting no later than October 2! Wow – talk about a tall order! How could I get two people identified, screened, interviewed, reference checked, hired, and oriented in 6 business days? I'm glad I talked with my Office Assistant, a senior at UNC-Greensboro, who told me about SpartanCareers, a web site linking employers interested in hiring UNC-G students. I reviewed the site, registered, and quickly constructed a job description for the positions.
Imagine my amazement when I started receiving resumes within a few hours of the job being posted! I obtained resumes from ten good quality candidates within a few days, allowing me to winnow out the ones with insufficient available hours and little relevant experience, bringing in four for interviews, and finding two top-quality people who could start just in time for the project!
Even after the two folks began work, I kept the job posted on SpartanCareers – and I'm really glad I did! In mid October, my Office Assistant, who was working an unpaid internship, had the sudden opportunity to convert this into a paid position – thus requiring her to give notice to me. I checked the resume inbox – and found nine more students to consider! From these, three were interviewed, and we found a great new Office Assistant – who started work three business days after we interviewed her.
The lesson? Sometimes you have to "Add Value to the People" – and other times you have to "Add Valuable People." This month, I learned about SpartanCareers and found a great new way to identify some really talented students.
PS – It is a little tricky to find the employer (versus the student) side of SpartanCareers on the UNC-G web site, so here are two helpful links:
- To learn more about the overall process as an employer, you can refer to: http://csc.dept.uncg.edu/employers/postjobreferral/EmployerGuide.pdf
- To register or login as an employer, just visit: https://www.myinterfase.com/uncg/employer/
