Management

Management

You will be playing the role of a senior manager whose business is growing and is considering bringing on additional staff. However, the HR manager has suggested hiring potential employees on a temp-to-perm basis. Many organizations are recruiting permanent employees using this policy.

Read the Case Application 2: Spotting Talent. See the case toward the end of Chapter 13. (WILL BE ATTACHED)

After reading the case, answer Questions 1, 2, and 5. Please list each question as it is stated in the text, then respond to each question directly and cite your sources as required per APA format.

Quality of the answers to questions 1, 2, and 5 will be based on the requirement that you research your responses and cite two (2) sources in APA format for each question. You can use your text as one (1) source, and include the use of another (1) unique source to further support your response.
CASE APPLICATION 2 Spotting Talent

Attracting and selecting the right talent is critical to a company’s success. For tech companies, the process is even more critical since it’s the knowledge, skills, and abilities of their employees that determines these companies’ efficiency, innovation, and ultimately, financial achievements.125 So, how do companies like Google and Facebook and even IBM and Microsoft attract the talent they need? As you’ll see, these companies use some unique approaches.

attract qualified candidates with technical skills and knowledge to consider a career at IBM, the mature tech company brought its Watson computer that beat two former Jeopardy champions in a televised match to Carnegie Mellon’s campus where students got a chance to challenge the computer during a symposium on Watson.

Modis, a global provider of IT staffing and recruiting, has an interesting philosophy about searching for talented tech types. As pressure has mounted on businesses to find qualified employees, the search for the “perfect” candidate has become increasingly competitive. This company calls this “search for perfection the quest for the ‘purple squirrel.’” Sometimes you just have to realize that, like the purple squirrel, the “perfect” candidate isn’t available or doesn’t exist. But that doesn’t mean you don’t try to find the best available talent. How do some of the big tech names spot talent?

For “mature” tech companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard (H-P), the challenge can be especially difficult since they don’t have the allure of start-ups or the younger, “sexier” tech companies. So these businesses have to “pour on the charm.” Take IBM, for instance. After its Watson computer beat two former Jeopardy champions in a televised match, the company hauled the machine to Carnegie Mellon, a top school, where students got a chance to challenge the computer. IBM’s goal: lure some of those students to consider a career at IBM. H-P is using the pizza party/tech talk approach at various schools trying to lure younger students before they get “snatched away by other tech companies and start-ups.” Microsoft, which was once one of those start-ups, has sent alumni back to schools to promote why Microsoft is a great place to take their talents. And it also hosts game nights, final-exam study parties, and appbuilding sessions and other events to try to lure students.

For companies like Facebook and Google, the search for talent is still challenging because of the increasing demand for and limited supply of potential employees. So even these companies have to be creative in spotting talent. Google, for instance, found they had been looking at resumes too narrowly by focusing (as expected) on education, GPA, and even SAT scores trying to find those candidates with the highest IQs. But they found that some of those so-called geniuses weren’t as effective on the job as expected. So, they began to “take a wider view.” Rather than looking at resumes the “traditional way, from top to bottom,” it began to look “upside down” at resumes, trying to find some “rare, special attribute that could point the way to greatness.” Facebook found that old-fashioned hiring channels weren’t getting the talent it needed fast enough. So it tried online puzzles and programming challenges to attract and spot talent. It was an easy, fast, and cheap approach to get submissions from potential candidates. Despite these unique approaches, it’s also true that younger tech companies, like these and many others, have a built-in appeal for candidates primarily because they’re what’s “in” and what’s “hot” right now. Also, in many of the younger tech companies, there’s no entrenched bureaucracy or cultural restrictions. If an employee wants to come to work in cargo shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops, they do. In fact, what attracts many talented employees to companies like these is the fact that they can set their own hours, bring their pets to work, have access to free food and drinks, and a variety of other perks.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.What does this case imply about the supply of and demand for employees and the implications for businesses?

2.What’s the meaning behind the “search for the purple squirrel” in relation to spotting talent? Is this relevant to non-tech companies, as well? Discuss.

5.Put on your “creative” hat. You’re in charge of HR at a tech start-up. What suggestions can you come up with for “spotting talent?”
Week 5 Case Study Grading Rubric

Grading Rubric for Week 5 Case Study:Spotting Talent
The case can be found at the end of Chapter 13 of the textbook.
This case is worth 80 points. Please name your paper, “LastName FirstName.”
After reading the case, answer Questions 1, 2, and 5. Please list each question as it is stated in the text, then respond to each question directly and cite your sources as required per APA format.

Quality of the answers to questions 1, 2, and 5 will be based on the requirement that you research your responses and cite two sources in APA format for each question.
You can use your text as one source, and include the use of another unique source to further support your response.

Requirements Points
Respond to the Case Study questions 1, 2, and 5.Your responses should be consistent with the case details and class readings; include specific examples; and include a justification for your point of view in question 5. 60
Organization, spelling, and grammar 15
Correctly produced APA parenthetical citations and references list 5

Each Case Study question must be supported with two unique APA sources cited: thetextbook and an outside source please for each. Note: Proper textbook APA format requires the page number and paragraph included in the source. APA examples are available in Doc Sharing, in your HUB resources, and you can use Word’s reference tool to format all your references. See YouTube videos for demos on using Word’s reference tool, if you are not already using this to cite your sources.