The International Space Station: Choosing the right talent for the job This weekend the Space Shuttle Endeavour seeks to add another piece of Japan's Kibo space station lab. At 335 tons in weight and falling at an incredible price of about $ 100 billion, the International Space Station is the largest engineering project ever undertaken. With more than 30 shuttle launches to place the material in space, and more than 100 spacewalks to perform construction, assembly of the orbiting laboratory requires a talent acquisition process that would support the private sector most envious. Despite the obvious appeal of the magnetic space program has highly trained engineers, many of the same strategies, technologies and nuances apply to talent acquisition in the private sector.
Building a brand
Let's face it, all from the early days of the Mercury program children have looked into the eyes of their parents and cried: "Daddy, I want to grow up to become an astronaut." Behavior is a byproduct of years of advertising and video cold war propaganda machine that took a Sham-Wow patriotic and polished up the public image of the space program. Live heroic men to take the first steps on the moon helped seal the deal. These are the astronauts, the best of the best, test pilots flying high experimental military programs. As with most things in life, marketing is everything. Companies may take notes on the pages of NASA. Building a brand that attracts not only customers but also inspires talent is a surefire way to push your organization to new heights. Just take a moment to watch the talent pool of companies like Google and you'll get better understanding of what branding can do for your company human resources department. Even with a small business, selecting the best talent is much easier when people are knocking at the door.
Understanding your needs
At a conference in the 60s, a reporter asked what he thought John Glen as he sat in the Mercury capsule moments before it became the first American to orbit the earth. Answer Glen, "I thought the rocket had twenty thousand pieces, and each was made by the lowest bidder. "Glenn's point hits the mark. With the Apollo program, a launch system infinitely more complex, not a single astronaut is killed during launch or in space flights. Despite the fact that there was major technical problems during Apollo 13, the balance of the program is surprising given that the contract for each component was awarded to the lowest bidder that could be had the technical expertise to offer. Develop an understanding Clear your needs can go a long way to improve the hiring process for almost any business. Many times, because of miscommunication or misinformation, a company will open a job search when they have enough internal resources to manage things. In other cases, the HR team can not define the requirements of good work to fit the hand position. Always make sure you have done and what you need before acting.
Process Development
NASA has a long history of developing their talents astronaut existing government resources. Before the existence of spaceflight, the space program has been in charge of requirements for applicants with perfect for the early days of the space program. These requirements have highlighted several key features, including the experience of flight (pilot test in particular), military training, the stock of physical environments and to a lesser degree in engineering. Given these requirements, the space program developed a clear process for accepting new astronauts, which included reviewing the experience of flight, direct recommendations by top military official.
Posted on May 19, 2010.