A nationwide survey of recruiting professionals conducted by eBullpen (creators of TalentPen) shows 46 percent of new hires leave their jobs within the first year, and only 49 percent remain after two years.
When I first read this statistic, I was shocked and wasn't sure if I really believed it. But after thinking about it, I realized it was probably accurate. Just the other day I was talking to a very young senior executive (only in his 30s) at a well known financial services firm. He told me an amusing story about his firm competing for a large contract with another multinational. As part of the RFP his firm had to submit bios of the senior team who would be involved with the account. Each executive was asked to send a bio. Too busy to write his own bio for the RFP, this individual simply sent his resume to the RFP team (which included some of his firm's partners). He said that within one hour of sending the resume, he received a number of joking emails commenting how "up to date and current your resume is". I asked if he regretted sending a resume that obviously showed he was job hunting. His reply was something to the tune of "not at all, everyone knows there is no loyalty in business today. People have a known worth and if one company is unwilling to pay it, someone else will.....".
Wow.
Anyway, this TalentPen survey is very interesting. You can download the survey findings at http://www.talentpen.com/read_the_whitepapers.html. There is a lot of good tid bits of information including:
- In the current ‘buyer’s [employment] market,’ younger skilled workers can pick and choose their job options and loyalty isn’t high.
- While 75 percent of respondents named quality of hire and retention as the two most important HR metrics, 59 percent of those surveyed believe that less than half of all candidates interviewed are qualified.
- More than half of the respondents marked personality as critical for a good hire. Yet more than 80 percent are spending their money on standard criminal and/or reference background checks, while significantly less measure personality fit.
The whitepaper also offers some unique suggestions to employers, including the development of “talent pools” and active communication with prospects. Personality assessments are also cited as key measurements for how an employee fits a company’s culture, which directly impacts their loyalty.