Recently, while I was surfing the web and generally pondering the world of hiring, I arrived at a couple possibly controversial, and definitely thought provoking observations:

Observation 1: Two thirds of job seekers do their searches primarily from bed or the toilet.

OK this is really just a fun fact and probably hasn't changed much in 100 years. A survey found that 52 percent of job seekers do their searches from bed, while another 15 percent use the rest room (statista). I wonder if they used our GPS trackers to figure this one out.

Is there any useful insight we can take from this fact? I suppose it's just reassurance that "you’re not alone."

Observation 2: LinkedIn - the best social network for recruiting apparently screens candidates without even trying.

87% of recruiters consider Linked In the most valuable social network for recruiting (statista) and 94% of them use it in their work (jobcast). This is amazing considering that LinkedIn reaches only 19% of the online US Population (statista) and only 14% of all LinkedIn users check their account on a regular basis (jobcast). When you combine these statistics, this means just 2.6% of the US online population regularly checks their LinkedIn account. Yet it’s recommended by 9 out of 10 recruiters. Amazing.

So what's reason behind this overwhelming endorsement by recruiters? Apparently, they like a tool that weeds out somewhere between 80 and 97 percent of candidates before they even log on.

Observation 3: Bigger companies generally hire better.

That's a bold statement. But Aberdeen Group research shows companies with a formal hiring process are 40% more likely to be rated best in class than those who don’t have one. How does this manifest itself? In a thousand different ways, of course. For example, let’s consider pre-employment testing – a topic very close to my heart.

More than 80% of U.S. Fortune 500 Companies use psychometric testing in their hiring processes. However, only 26% of hiring managers companies of all sizes do so (Psychometric Success). Why the disparity? It’s because even though testing is standard practice in large companies, its utilized less often in smaller companies (at least today), and there are a lot of small companies to skew the data. As a testing professional, I’m fascinated by this situation. Years ago, it was difficult to implement a pre-hire testing program. Today it’s much easier. In fact, companies like HR Avatar make world-class pre-employment testing available to any company in less than five minutes. Don’t believe me? Try it absolutely free right now at https://www.hravatar.com/freetrial.

Beyond testing, bigger companies tend to have better systems in place for managing candidates through the hiring process. Additionally, they have rules that prevent hires done "outside" of established good practices. The result is that they tend to hire more consistently.

So what’s the insight here? Sometimes bigger often companies gain an edge simply by having a process in place that smaller competitors feel they cannot afford. But smaller companies can today access the same tools that larger ones can, without great effort, if they choose to. Hopefully they will soon.

References: I found these fun facts on several websites, including:

A. Statistica (www.statista.com)

B. Jobcast (www.jobcast.net)

C. Psychometric Success (www.psychometric-success.com)

D. Aberdeen Group (www.aberdeen.com)