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Over on Andrew Chen’s blog he recently posted a fascinating article on the correlation of interview performance to long-term job performance.  If he is right, what does this mean for the staffing and recruiting industry?  Read his article below and feel free to provide your thoughts below.

What if interviews poorly predict job performance? What if dating poorly predicts marital happiness?

1. The staffing industry employed nearly 800,000 fewer people in the first quarter compared to the same time period in 2008, a 28% decline.
2. Industry sales declined in a similar pattern, declining nearly $5 billion, or 27%.

Why then, do I feel this burden lifting?  This feeling I have – not quite optimism, not completely relief, but with remnants of both – it started about a month ago, and it is (slowly) getting stronger each day.  We’re hearing from our clients, and seeing evidence from my other favorite indicator, ASA’s weekly staffing index, that we are at least testing a bottom.

The questions I am getting now are more around what I think the recovery will look like (sharp, or gradual), and when I think we’ll start to pull the nose of the plane back up, now that it has leveled.  I believe we will be down in this trough throughout the summer, but I think staffing will start to maintain significant week-over-week growth starting in early August.  When it happens, I am expecting it to be more gradual than historical figures would suggest (which are dramatic), but less gradual than following 2001 where I believe massive productivity gains made through technology improvements slowed the need for staffing as we emerged from the recession.

What do you think?  Are we at a bottom?  When will we start to emerge?  Will staffing grow sharply or gradually during the recovery?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

What does it mean for staffing and recruiting?  My take is that we’ve seen the worst of it.  We may be walking along the bottom for a while, but I truly think we have found a bottom.  Why do I think it?  Take a look at the American Staffing Association’s weekly staffing index.  The industry took a hard and long fall from the cliff, but seems to be flattening out at the new level over the past 2 to 3 months.  When will we start to increase?  Not sure, but if you can sustain the level you’re at now for a while, my expectation is that short of any major shocks to the system, the industry will be flat for a bit, and once the ASA index starts to jump, we think it will be sustainable.

What is everyone else experiencing?  When do you expect to start back up?  Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

This is my attempt to do that for professional service firms.  Each week I will scour the online and offline world for content I think you may benefit from or find interesting, add my .02 to the mix and give you the link to the rest of the information.  If you find links you think should be included, please don’t hesitate to email them to me at egregg@inavero.com.  This is, after all, an open conversation.

• An interesting Inc magazine article about the staffing industry.  Two things stick out to me in this article.  First – it is nice for the industry to get some much deserved press in a positive light as a legitimate and strategic sourcing solution.  Second, this drives home a point I continually try to make with professional service firms – you have to be different in a way easily visualized by those outside of your organization to stand out.  The staffing firms in this article are – and they benefit from the press.
• A great post from Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs on blogging in the legal profession.  His findings show that 1 in 4 law firms in the AMLaw 200 have a blog, some with more than one.  In the research we have done, we consistently find that newsletters from professional service firms are one of the least valued “services” provided, what is to make the blog different?  My take on it is this: if more than 1 in 10 blogs reports “firm news” you are likely falling into the common newsletter trap of assuming that those outside the firm care about what happens inside the firm.  Blogs should be relevant and informative to your audience – write what is important to THEM, not what is important to YOU.
• An interesting article from Larry Bodine’s Law Marketing Blog (a great read if you get the chance) regarding the marketer to attorney ratio at law firms.  Roughly 27 to 1 on average.  Doing some very rough back of the envelope calculations utilizing findings from a study released by Altman Weil, we know that the revenue per lawyer is roughly $420,000.  That means the revenue per marketing professional for law firms is more than $11 million/marketer.  Seems high, doesn’t it?
• The Duct Tape Marketing Blog has an interesting take (and podcast) on branding “You”.  Professional service firms face a similar challenge professional sports teams do; should you market the team or the individual?  What resonates more with your clients?  There are challenges and advantages to both sides of the argument, but at some level, whether it is the firm or the individual – there is a brand “You” and it is important to understand what that means and how to leverage it.
• Knowledge@Wharton shares an article written by faculty that addresses the use (and misuse) of statistics.  In our field, I see this ALL THE TIME.  People like statistics.  They tend to believe statistics, and I am certainly not suggesting there isn’t significant value in many statistics you see quoted today.  What I am saying is….if you are quoting research or statistics, make sure you have done your homework and understand the sources and methodology.  Though as research professionals we should be judicious in what we allow to be printed, many aren’t.  “Four out of five dentists agree……” means a lot more if 1,000 dentists voted than if 5 did, not to mention questions about how the question was worded, how these agreeable dentists were picked, and the list goes on.
• And while we’re on the subject…..don’t quote a number if you won’t stand behind it.  Starbucks boasts offering 87,000 different drink combinations.  The Wall Street Journal’s “Numbers Guy” calls B.S. A little hint….if you don’t have solid math behind a number you quote publicly, at least try to throw the number geeks off your trail and pick a number that SOUNDS computed (86,597, for example).