Chapter 5 Discussion Post

1. Concept and Brief Description
2. Emotional Hook (provocative question/claim/real-life problem)
3. Key Points to Elicit in Discussion
4. Facilitative Questions

1. This chapter focused on the roles and responsibilities of recruiting. Every organization needs to develop a plan for recruiting and retaining employees. Unfortunately, our economy is constantly changing, and with it, the supply and demand for labor. Companies need to be able to foresee potential labor surpluses and shortages and know how to handle them effectively.

2. The book showed how HR professionals use trend analysis and transitional matrices to try and understand where people go and where they come from. Have you ever conducted a personal “labor forecast” to determine the jobs that you think are going to be in demand when you enter the labor force?

3. I think we can all apply these principles in human resources to our professional lives to improve our chances of securing high paying, quality jobs when we graduate. Jobs that may have been in high demand in the past may now be in low demand. Jobs that may even be in high demand right now may be in surplus by the time we graduate. If we know that a surplus of a certain type of worker means lower pay and less competitiveness by companies to recruit, we can safely assume that a different job may be more desirable. I think as we look around and read the news we can get an idea of where our economy is headed and conduct our own mental labor forecast to position ourselves into a demanded, high quality, high paying jobs.

4. What else do you use to determine job demand? Do you know anyone who got into the right field at the right time and it acted as a springboard for his or her career? Do you know anyone who got into the wrong field at the wrong time? Or even the right field at the wrong time? What were the consequences of that?