Dr. John Sullivan

Dr. John Sullivan, professor, author, corporate speaker, and advisor, is an internationally known HR thought-leader from the Silicon Valley who specializes in providing bold and high-business-impact talent management solutions.

He’s a prolific author with over 900 articles and 10 books covering all areas of talent management. He has written over a dozen white papers, conducted over 50 webinars, dozens of workshops, and he has been featured in over 35 videos. He is an engaging corporate speaker who has excited audiences at over 300 corporations/ organizations in 30 countries on all six continents. His ideas have appeared in every major business source including the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, CFO, Inc., NY Times, SmartMoney, USA Today, HBR, and the Financial Times. In addition, he writes for the WSJ Experts column. He has been interviewed on CNN and the CBS and ABC nightly news, NPR, as well many local TV and radio outlets. Fast Company called him the "Michael Jordan of Hiring," Staffing.org called him “the father of HR metrics,” and SHRM called him “One of the industry's most respected strategists." He was selected among HR’s “Top 10 Leading Thinkers” and he was ranked No. 8 among the top 25 online influencers in talent management. He served as the Chief Talent Officer of Agilent Technologies, the HP spinoff with 43,000 employees, and he was the CEO of the Business Development Center, a minority business consulting firm in Bakersfield, California. He is currently a Professor of Management at San Francisco State (1982 – present). His articles can be found all over the Internet and on his popular website www.drjohnsullivan.com and on www.ERE.Net. He lives in Pacifica, California.

The Top 8 Reasons to Refocus on Employee Referrals During Low Unemployment

Employee referral programs should be producing 50 percent of all of your hires because they are the most powerful corporate recruiting tool by far. Over many years, data has revealed that scientifically designed corporate employee referral programs, compared to all…

You Can’t Be Strategic Until … You Reward Managers for Great Hiring

In this continuing series of articles entitled “You Can’t Be Strategic Until …” I highlight the strategic actions that talent-management leaders should take to increase their measurable strategic business impact on their firms. In this case, the needed strategic action…

HR, We Have A Problem: Up To 80% Of Employees Don’t Trust Us

Building employee trust is a cornerstone of HR’s values. So, everyone in HR should pay immediate attention when they learn that in excess of 70% of employees working at each of the top 4 most valuable firms in the US…

The Top 10 Reasons Why Social Media Background Checks Are a Dumb Idea

The latest addition to the modern recruiting process, social media background checks, may be the dumbest element. Unlike most background checks, they don’t verify positive job-related information. Instead, they are used almost exclusively to reject candidates based on a subjective…

Excite Applicants by Boldly Providing Promotion, Pay, and Retention Info

If you need to gain a competitive advantage in recruiting, consider proactively revealing detailed information covering the attraction factors that applicants care the most about, including pay, development opportunities and promotion, and employee retention rates. Now before you prematurely reject…

Old-School Recruiting Messages Stand Out in a Digital-World

Most of your recruiting messages are simply lost within the literal flood of digital messages that top prospects receive every day. So, if you need your recruiting message to stand out, consider using unique but effective message delivery mechanisms that…

On Becoming A Scientific HR Function – Learning From Amazon And Google

Did you know that “becoming scientific” is a strategic goal that is shared by the HR functions of two of the top three most valuable firms in the world? Yes, Amazon’s goal is to “Become the most scientific HR organization…

How a Hiring Committee Can Dramatically Improve Your Recruiting Results

You probably already know that despite their good intentions, many managers are not very good at hiring. During simpler times, it made sense for supervisors to hire their own team members and for car owners to repair their own cars….

Offsite Recruiting — Boldly Recruit Where Your Targets Hang Out

If you’re having difficulty attracting applicants, consider adding an off-site recruiting component to your existing recruiting strategy. The standard corporate recruiting model is a “come to us” approach. Meaning that if you want a job at our firm, you must…

Using Incentives to Attract Interviewees — Don’t Miss This Trend

If you are having difficulty getting prospects to interview, join the trend of offering qualified candidates incentives for interviewing or job acceptance. This might initially sound like a crazy idea until you realize that using incentives to attract customers is…

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