You mention mentoring and "speed of movement" as positives. More specifically, showing new recruits a career path or offering Gen Y (notorious for job hopping) support for their choices, even if the choices tend away from the current company, would be interesting options. The idea would be, "We are such a great company, you wouldn't want to leave, but if you do, feel free to give your current supervisor as a reference." That would be a company worth investigating. Unfortunately, I don't know of one. Do you?

Miriam Salpeter
Keppie Careers

The Electronic Recruiting Exchange (ERE) has a great overview of some of the companies who won the Best of 2008 Recruiting Awards this year. There are some really innovative ideas here.

My Favorites:

AIMCO created an online card game for employees that assesses what is important to them individually and determines whether or not those preferences are strengths or weaknesses of their current jobs. A report is provided at the end of the game that provides each employee with an individualized action plan to drive engagement, productivity, and retention. (This innovative approach for identifying what motivates each individual employee in order to improve his or her productivity and retention is the best that I've seen anywhere in the world.)"

Intuit'sBat Computer: Talent Acquisition (TA) created a customized database that they call the "Bat Computer." Just as the Batmobile allows Batman to respond quickly and save the day, the TA "Bat Computer" has drastically increased their productivity and efficiency. The tool takes information from their Applicant Tracking System (ATS), budget forecasts and actuals, hiring forecast and trend data, and other information to address business goals. This tool allows them to monitor TA performance, recruiter productivity, and candidate generation strategy performance, and highlight best practices immediately."

Ernst & Young used an online video development contest to get current students to write and produce videos starring themselves and talking about what was important to them in a career in professional services. The winning video team won a trip with E&Y's CEO."

Also, E&Y has an "extensive Facebook profile, group, and messaging allow students to dialogue with one another and current E&Y employees about careers in professional services."

Dear Madam,
A very interesting post, it really true that round the world it's becoming difficult to get good quality manpower. Often recruiters go to campus for selecting the best minds, promising good salaries and perks but very often it’s seen a majority of them can't perform or live up to the expectations and get frustrated and leaves the firm in short time.
You said about mentoring, feedback, career advice it's wonderful, but very few firm practice it. Even the firm wants to go along with good HR Practice, but very few boss practice it, http://insidework.net/resources/articles/entry-0000011646
There is an acute shortage of MENTORS in the corporate world. If you have Mentors who can really make more mentors you don’t have to look back.
Retaining talents can helps in attracting talents, it’s the WOM and reference plays more
Important role than advertisements.

With Warm Regards,

What's your advice for graduates with less stellar grades from less prominent schools -- has the softening economy affected their prospects yet?

Great information, right on target to the situation we are facing in our recruitment efforts. I am currently repositioning the branding strategy, messaging and dynamics of hiring for a state government enterprise. My research has also shown us that not only is this next generation of workers seekers of innovation, creativity and community, but also of immediate opportunities. career paths, mentoring, coaching...consider all of these needs, and the melting of generational personalities; makes for a very interesting campaign in recruiting fantastic talent.

mb

I suggest that Internal Marketing with focus on process is better than deceptive External Marketing designed to snare the gullible. The efforts of google and Abbott to provide employees with enabling work atmospheres are fundamentally different from suggesting that a career in an airline is about freebies. It might appear, from demographics of new recruits after the invasion of Iraq, that the U.S. Army claim reported in this article does not work. I would hope that the over-riding lesson of Enron is the imperative for honesty rather than the need for accountants. The sub-prime shame of the United States, in any event, does not show the Financial Sector in good light.

Dear Mam,
It’s been a good read going through the post. Especially, with a thriving and ever evolving knowledge industry, recruiting budding and suited talent has gained its importance like never before...

An example of how TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)is inducting top line Science graduates into its IT Services business... TCS has designed an extensive and specific program ("IGNITE") ensuring seamless integration of the Science Grads into the organization which historically has been heavily fueled by Engg. and Tech Grad ..

http://pygmalion.tcs.com/index.html

Warm Regards,
Souparno..

Dear Mrs Erickson,
The Talent War, as some people want to call it is a very interesting topic to discuss. What companies are promising them is another. It is a reality that Yrs Generation like to have everything "now". Aligning expectations of how the company see them would be a very good begining. They are talents, and as that, not ready to assume any position but to experience and be prepared for decision making positions later. I think a big talent retaining issue today is expectations not aligned with reality. If I am a talent, then I am ready to assume a managerial position and it is not true. Be a talent mean that I have the desired skills and behaviours and therefore could potentialy ocupy a position of bigger responsabilities in the company in the future. In my opinion, attracting is easier, if you are a multinational company with opportunities abroad and a good compensation and benefits package, but retaining, here is where the problem may be bigger.
Now, I would make a comment on why I think the big auditing firms have no problem recruiting talents. At least in Latin America, all the candidates know that this an entrance door to the big multinacional finance department. I have heard many recruiters say when they need a candidate for their finance department: "Let's see what we can get from our training centers" refering to the big audit firms.
Well, this is just a personal opinion that reflects what I have experienced.

It's really nice to read the articles and its comments.
Very nice.

can any one tell me the name of the insurance company that is offering Gen Y the opportunity to build homes with the CEO once they have been employed for over 18 months?

Thanks

One sound way of attracting and retaining good talent is to support continuing education. Many a times it is found that quite a lot of people are motivated by continuing education and studying. When they get an opportunity to do so while they continue earn, it becomes mutually beneficial. After all, research has proved that money comes quite down in hierarchy as a reason for working in an organization.
This is more so in research oriented companies. But I feel that this phenomenon is going to increase since more and more jobs are becoming knowledge work.
Any organization that has understood the employee's goals and has aligned it its own goals has been and will continue to be able to retain talents. However this needs to be done while interviewing the candidate and not anytime later.