By Amy Stark, Practice Director of Talent Acquisition and Connie Maniscalco, Practice Leader

Yikes!!! Your job posting hasn't been receiving the response rate as you hoped and your hiring manager is pressuring you for candidates. So, as a Recruiter you know it’s time for an alternative means to the traditional “post and pray” method, sourcing for resumes. Sourcing is the process of searching for resumes using an online job board such as Monster, Indeed, and/or Career Builder. You may also utilize various association sites, social media sites, and niche job boards. Of course, you want to be sure the job board you select is one that will get you, viable candidates. When sourcing for resumes, try a few of the following methods. They may just help you find the ideal candidate!

Perhaps you were promoted recently or have someone on your team who was,and will now be conducting interviews and hiring for the first time. You want to ensure that you are compliant, yet you also want to ensure you have a process which allows you to select the best candidate for your opening.

You may have heard that the OFCCP is getting ready to send a wave of Corporate Scheduling Announcement Letters(CSAL) to contractors that have been selected for an upcoming compliance review. And the news may be making you very nervous. I remember the first time I received a CSAL and I got so nervous at the thought of an audit. But when I realized that we were doing the right things and were prepared to respond, it really wasn't so bad.

A client recently came to me to as her HR Consultant to let me know that she was going to be having twins through surrogacy and wanted to discuss the short term disability benefits that she would receive as a result of having a child. As a human resources professional, I provided her with a straight forward response – you will not receive short term disability insurance if you are not physically having the baby yourself, as short term disability benefits are a result of a medical condition, childbirth for example, that prohibits you from physically doing your job. After talking through this with her further, we moved on to discuss the differences between the company’s medical leave policy that specifically referenced childbirth (this particular organization does not offer FMLA) and parental leave policy, which offered four fewer weeks of leave than the medical leave policy. This particular employee’s frustrations were around one single question: Why am I offered less leave for the adoption of a child than if I had given birth – I still have an infant to take care of? I realized through conversations with my colleagues that parents who adopt children often have this same frustration and do not understand why they are not offered the same leave benefits as employees who give birth to a child. We are seeing more and more organizations developing leave benefits for employees that take adoption into consideration; while this does not necessarily provide equal benefits to adopting parents, it does provide them with significant benefits that were not previously provided to them. Below is a comparison of leave benefits that may be available to a new parent who is either adopting or giving birth to a child.

As a Practice Leader here at Helios I have an opportunity to work with many government contractors grappling with the record-keeping requirements of maintaining their Affirmative Action Plans. Commonly referred to as an AAP, it's a program that outlines the equal employment opportunities and advancement, specifically for businesses with federal contracts or funding. As a government contractor, whether you are a prime or a subcontractor, your company must demonstrate the application of good faith efforts to increase the pool of qualified minority, female, veteran and disabled candidates when recruiting for open positions. The AAP plan is subject to scrutiny by the Office of Federal Contracting Compliance Programs (OFCCP) if your organization is selected for a compliance audit.