Category Archives: Recruiting

Hiring Friendly

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This past week I was in Myrtle Beach, SC for speaking gig and got to spend some alone time with my wife.  It was my first trip ever to Myrtle Beach.  Here’s my assessment:

  • It’s hard to knock any place that is on the Ocean. Beautiful sand and water.
  • That being said…Myrtle Beach is Jersey Shore South – arcades, cheap beach crap stores and carnival food.  I was somewhat surprised there weren’t signs that said “Welcome to the Guido Vacation Capital of the World!”
  • Oh, and there’s a bunch of golf courses.
  • I saw more dolphins in one place than I’ve ever seen anywhere else.

Here’s the other thing they have – Chick fil a restaurants!  My close friends know this is a weakness I have.  Look I know they don’t like gays, and that upsets me.  It doesn’t upset me enough to stop eating their crack-like chicken sandwiches, but to prove my displeasure with their stance of the gay community, I refuse to purchase their waffle fries. So there!

The one thing Chick fil a does exceptionally well, besides chicken sandwiches, is hiring ridiculously friendly people.  No, you have no idea.  I’ve been to Chick fil a restaurants in countless states.  The one thing I can always count on is the fact that someone will take my order that seems way to happy to be working at a fast food restaurant.  I want to speak with Chick fil a’s HR team to find out what kind of screening they do to hire such friendly folks!

People need to stop concentrating on what Google is doing in HR and start looking into Chick fil a.  I can’t think of one other organization that does this so well, not even the folks at Disney.  If I had to guess Chick fil a probably has gone to only one screener type question:

Is this person ridiculously friendly and happy about life?

Who cares about skills! Just hire super friendly people and your customers will put up with almost anything.  It’s something we don’t want to admit in HR about selection, especially in service type industries, but friendliness might be the most important competency any hire needs to be successful.

If anyone has a contact at Chick fil a please let me know, I now want to know the truth.  How do they hire the nicest people ever?

Is LinkedIn’s Recruiter Certification A Scam?

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At LinkedIn’s (LI) annual Talent Connect Conference last week they announced the addition of a certification program for recruiters.  I love the idea!  Much like SHRM has their PHR, SPHR and GPHR certifications, no real recruiting certification has taken hold.  A number of organizations have tried, the most successful probably being American Staffing Association’s Certified Staffing Professional and AIRS Internet Recruiter certification (CPC through NAPS for my Agency friends), but all seem woefully incomplete and none have really ever gained traction as ‘the’ certification to have if you’re a true recruiting professional.  That’s why LinkedIn’s announcement intrigued me.  LI has the brand recognition and money to really own this space if they decided to.

Unfortunately, I think the new LinkedIn Recruiter Certification is going to cause confusion in the corporate and agency recruiting ranks.

Here’s why it’s probably is worthless:

1. LI’s Recruiter Certification has very little to do with actual recruiting and everything to do with how well you know how to use LI’s Recruiter product.

2. If you get ‘certified’ from LI you get to add a ‘badge’ saying you’re a ‘Certified LI Recruiter‘, which is cool enough, but I think that title is easily used to give a false impression of what it really means.  “Oh, you’re a ‘certified recruiter’ that is really impressive!” Instead of the reality ‘Oh, you’re a ‘certified LI recruiter’ which means you know how to use one recruiting tool really well.

3. LI is charging people to get ‘certified’ on a product they are paying for.  Does this seem odd to anyone? Anyone?  Let me see if I get this right.  I pay around $8K per seat annually, and you make me pay another $199 every two years to show you I know how to use the system I’m paying for. Yes. Okay, I thought so.  Can you now punch me in the face?

4. Most of the content you get tested on to gain certification, from LI’s on certification program book, seems to be process oriented.  Do you know how to post a job? Do you know how to search? Do you know how to effectively use InMail? Is this the kind of ‘certified’ knowledge we need for the recruiting profession?  Can you do the process of recruiting?

Here’s why it’s going to be wildly successful:

1. LI gives you a certification badge.  Recruiters are extremely hungry for validation.  We see our HR brothers and sisters with PHR and SPHR, dammit, we want something at the end our name too!

2. LI knows that Talent Acquisition leaders will easily pay a ‘little’ extra to ensure their people are using and understand their big spend (LI Recruiter).

3. People like being a part of a tribe. LI has a special invite only group for LI Certified Recruiters.  Want to make something popular? Make it exclusive!

4. Many HR Leaders don’t get ‘recruiting’ so they will believe this is hugely important and teaching their recruiting team how to really recruit.  It’s not, but no one really looks into the details for $199.

It does really open up a broader conversation about why no one has really been able to create a recruiter certification program that is widely respected and used.  It might be that recruiting, like sales, is hard to train and even harder to come up with concrete components around what makes a recruiter really good at recruiting.  There are so many opinions on that subject and ways to do the job effectively.

Does being a Certified LinkedIn Recruiter make you a better recruiter? No. Will it make people think you are? Yes.

Is it a scam?  Well, it definitely seems a little ‘scam-ish’.  I won’t say it’s a complete scam because they are very up front at what they are delivering for your money. Does LI really need the extra $199 per recruiter? Sure! Every company needs incremental revenue, LI is not different, they’re aren’t a non-profit. God bless them for coming up with a great idea on getting another $199 per recruiter out of your organization.

Here’s my question: Would you pay $199 to become ADP certified? What about Oracle? Halogen?  SuccessFactors?  That’s what this is.  Your HR vendor partner charging you to become a certified expert on their system.  This isn’t transferable.  You can’t leave your company who uses LI and go to a new company who uses Monster and say “Well, I’m a ‘Certified Recruiter’.  You’re not.  You’re just certified on one system. By the way, your two years is up, please send another check.

 

 

 

 

It’s Hard To Judge People

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I was out walking with my wife recently (that’s what middle aged suburban people do, we walk, it makes us feel like we are less lazy and it gets us away from the kids so we can talk grown up) and she made this statement in a perfect innocent way:

“It’s really hard to judge people.”

She said this to ‘me’!  I start laughing.  She realized what she said and started laughing.

It’s actually really, really easy to judge people!  I’m in HR and Recruiting, I’ve made a career out of judging people.

Candidate comes in with a tattoo on their face and immediately we think – prison, drugs, poor decision making, etc. We instantly judge.  It’s not that face-tattoo candidate can’t surprise us and be engaging and brilliant, etc. But before we even get to that point, we judge.  I know, I know, you don’t judge, it’s just me — sorry for lumping you in with ‘me’!

What my wife was saying was correct.  It’s really hard to judge someone based on how little we actually know them.  People judge me all the time on my poor grammar skills.  I actually met a woman recently at the HR Tech Conference who said she knew me, use to read my stuff, but stopped because of my poor grammar in my writing.  We got to spend some time talking and she said she would begin reading again, that she had judged me too harshly and because I made errors in my writing assumed I wasn’t that intelligent.  I told her she was actually correct, I’m not intelligent, but that I have consciously not fixed my errors in writing (clearly at this point I could have hired an editor – I probably have at least one offer per month!) — the errors are my face tattoo.

If you can’t see beyond my errors, we probably won’t be friends.  I’m not ‘writing errors, poor grammar guy”.  If you judge me as that, you’re missing out on some cool stuff and ideas I write about.

As a hiring manager and HR Pro, if you can’t see beyond someone’s errors, you’re woefully inept at your job.  We all have ‘opportunities’ but apparently if you’re a candidate you don’t, you have to be perfect.  I run into hiring managers and HR Pros who will constantly tell me, “we’re selective”, “we’re picky”, etc.  No you’re not.  What you are is unclear about what and who it is that is successful in your environment.  No one working for you now is perfect.  So, why do you look for perfect in a candidate?  Because it’s natural to judge against your internal norm.

The problem with selection isn’t that is too hard to judge, the problem is that it’s way too easy to judge.  The next time you sit down in front of a candidate try and determine what you’ve already judge them on.  It’s a fun exercise. Before they even say a word.  Have the hiring managers interviewing them send you their judgements before the interview.  We all do it.  Then, flip the script, and have your hiring managers show up to an interview ‘blind’. No resume beforehand, just them and a candidate face-to-face.  It’s fun to see how they react and what they ask them without a resume, and how they judge them after.  It’s so easy to judge, and those judgements shape our decision making, even before we know it!

 

Recruiting Is Worthless

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Paul DeBettignies a while ago had an article over at ERE – Where Have All the Recruiters Gone – which gave me the idea for this post.  In Paul’s post he wonders why recruiters are networking face-to-face anymore. I think many of us in the recruiting field who have been in the field pre-internet, probably wonder this and many more things as we look at how the industry has totally transformed over the past 20 years.  A person today can get into recruiting, sit at a desk, have great internet skills, marginal phone skills and make a decent living.  They probably won’t be a great recruiter – they probably won’t make great money – but they’ll survive – they’ll be average or slightly above.  It’s why the recruiting function in most organizations gets a bad rap!  In corporate circles I’ve heard it called “worthless” many times – and for some this is their reality.

Recruiting is Worthless, if…

…you’re a hiring manager and you never have face-to-face conversations with your recruiter when you have an opening, and when you don’t have an opening.

…you’re recruiters believe it isn’t there job to find talent, talent will find them.

…your organization believes it’s the recruiting departments job to find talent.  It’s not, it’s the hiring managers job to ensure they have the talent they need for their department, recruiting is the tool that will help them.  This “ownership responsibility” is very important for organizational success in ensuring you have the talent you need.

…your recruiting department acts like they are HR – they aren’t – they are sales and marketing.  Too many Recruiters, in corporate settings, don’t want to recruit, they want to be HR – which makes them worthless as recruiters.

…if your recruiters have more incoming calls then outgoing calls.

…if your recruiters believe their job begins Monday thru Friday at 8am and ends at 5pm. The best talent is working during those times and most likely won’t talk to you while they are at work.  That’s not a slam on you or your company – they are great employees, it’s what we expect from a great employee.

…your senior leadership team feels they have to use an “executive search” company to fill their higher level openings, because our recruiting department “can’t handle it”.

…if they are victims – “it’s not my job”, “we can’t do that because…”, “marketing won’t allow us to do…”, “our policy won’t allow us…” etc.

…if they just send hiring managers resumes of candidates that have come to them, without first determining if the person is a fit for the organization and a fit for the hiring managers position – before sending them on.

…they haven’t developed the organizational influence enough to change a hiring managers, hiring decision.

Recruiting is worthless if in the end they have failed to show the value of their service back to the organization.

Recruiting is the one department in the organization, besides sales, that truly has the ability to show ROI back to the organization, yet so few of us take advantage of the opportunity we have!  There is nothing more important, and have a bigger competitive advantage, than our organizations talent – and oh by the way – THAT IS US! We control that.  Recruiting isn’t worthless, unless you make it worthless.

Top Cities To Find The Best Workers

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Movoto Blog (a real estate blog) recently listed the Top 10 hardest working cities in America.  The data is based on number of people working full time, unemployment rate, commute time and number of residents in a household who hold a job. Here’s the list:

  1. Miramar, FL
  2. Corona, CA
  3. Mesquite, TX
  4. Olathe, KS
  5. Grand Prairie, TX
  6. Alexandria, VA
  7. McKinney, TX
  8. Pembroke Pines, FL
  9. Rancho Cucamonga, CA
  10. Hampton, VA

I’m sure a lot of time and research was put into this list.  I also don’t believe any of these cities have the hardest working people!

Here’s my criteria of how to find the hardest working workers in America:

1. Don’t look in California.  I like California, the weather is great, but let’s be real, no one truly believes the hardest working people live in California. That eliminates numbers 2 and 9.

2. Texas is big and friendly – but if you’re looking for hard working you don’t need to look at Texas suburbs, or any suburbs for that manner. That eliminates numbers 3, 4, 5 and 7.

3. No one really works that hard in South Beach, which eliminates numbers 1 and 8.

4. If you work for the government, or are connected to the government, clearly hard work is missing. This eliminates most workers in number 6.

5. If you live within 3 miles of a beach, or work in a beach community you really don’t work that hard. This eliminates our last city at number 10.

So, what is fundamentally wrong with this list?  The theory that a low employment rate in a city would equate to hard working workers.  This is a completely no causation with these two things.  Also, that commute time equates to hard working, if anything I could argue long commute times lead to less hard work because the worker believes that their commute time is part of their work time.

So, what cities do have the hardest workers?  That’s easy!  Think of the crappiest places ever you would not want to live!  If you’re working in Gary, IN, you really want to work!  If you’re working in Fairbanks, AK in the dark and cold for most of the year, you have work high ethic!  If you show up to work in any city where there is good chance you’ll see gunfire throughout your shift — Bingo — you’re a hard worker!  If you work in a company and in a position where daily you might lose your life or a hand, you’re a hard worker!

Want really hard working people for your company?  Find the worst places in the world to work, and recruit those workers.  They’ll love you, they’ll show up each day and they’ll work their butts off.   Want some workers who have to leave at 4pm to make their 10U soccer coaching gig, or don’t show because the surf is up, or just feel like they should use one of their 47 PTO days — you might not have such good luck on the hard working side!

Dice Open Web Review

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(I just returned from the 2013 HR Technology Conference where I got to see all the latest and greatest HR technology, and speak to some wickedly smart people.  So, for the next week or so, my plan is to share some of the products and insights I gained from this experience. So we are clear, no companies I write about have paid me to write about them. Enjoy…)

Let me start with a little background.  My company does IT and Engineering contract placement (that’s really high-end temporaries for those who don’t know what I’m talking about) and contingent technical staffing.  We were a paying Dice.com costumer for many, many years until 2010.  In 2010 I stopped paying Dice because they were not delivering the talent we needed.

Fast forward to SHRM National 2013 in Chicago.  Dice sponsors the Bloggers Lounge at some big conferences, as they did for SHRM and HR Tech this year.  As part of that sponsorship Dice gets to pimp it’s new products to a captive audience — that’s business, you want a free soda and wifi, you get to hear about our new stuff.  This was when I was first introduced to Dice’s new Open Web product.  Being in recruitment for 20 years, I was a bit skeptical.  You know, job board trying to hang onto last little bit of hope by launching something new which is probably just a new way to searching their database, type of thing.

I was wrong!

The product demo seemed similar to products like TalentBin, but also was seemed much more far reaching.  I don’t recruit in Silicon Valley, I recruit in Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Dallas, I need a product that can find talent everywhere.  This is what I found with Open Web.  In fact, what we found was it finds way more than just IT talent!   Dice’s Open Web product builds profiles of potential candidates from over 50 different sites. The expected sites like: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. To the unexpected sites like: Github, Quora, StackOverFlow, About.Me, Google Profiles, Gravatar, Instagram, etc.  It takes all this data from all these sites and makes unique resume style profiles of candidates that didn’t apply to Dice. With each profile is a number of ways to contact the candidate based on where the candidate was found (might be email, might be twitter, etc.)  If Open Web finds a Dice candidate resume it will also link that resume within Open Web as well.

Basically, Open Web is a finder of passive candidates. Thousands of passive candidates! Candidates we could not have previously found in our Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn subscriptions.   All in one place, with a ton of information you don’t normally get on a resume.

While we found a completely new pool of talent, we also found some hiccups!  Contacting someone from a major job board site like LinkedIn, people expect to get contacted about jobs.  Open Web, for the most part, is uncovering socially active, passive job searching candidates.  You have to be ready to sell them fast and different than folks you find at CareerBuilder and LinkedIn.  With a passive candidate you have a small window to make an impression, before you get thrown to the side.  It’s real recruiting!  Not many recruiters, today, are use to ‘real’ recruiting.  The cool part of Open Web is that with all the data you get in the profile, you can easily come up with something to help you make that impression.

Being a former Dice customer, I asked Dice to let me try out Open Web in a live environment on real searches in my own shop.  It has worked just like the demo. Also, we found it works on much more than just IT, in fact, finding both engineering and some skilled trades types for orders we had with an automotive client.  It’s building from searches on the whole web, not just a certain geographic area.  Of course because of the sites it searches, you’ll find more IT profiles than some others.  If you have done so check out Dice’s Open Web product, it’s going to be a big hit!

 

Cool New HR Tech…that you might even be able to afford

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(I just returned from the 2013 HR Technology Conference where I got to see all the latest and greatest HR technology, and speak to some wickedly smart people.  So, for the next week or so, my plan is to share some of the products and insights I gained from this experience. So we are clear, no companies I write about have paid me to write about them. Enjoy…)

Here’s a run down from the HR Tech Conference Expo:

BambooHR: Tagged as your “1st HR system” or “we love you, if you use spreadsheets as your HR system” – Ben Peterson, the CEO, was by far the coolest and nicest and real CEO (and maybe person) I met all week at HR Tech.  They don’t like to use ‘HRIS’ because small and medium sized businesses and HR shops don’t even really know what that means.  BambooHR is an easy to use HR system and nicely designed, for a very, very cheap price.  Don’t let the price scare you off — cheap, in this case, doesn’t mean they try and a one-size and process fits all perspective down your throat – they’ll customize for you – and still be cheap!  If you are looking for your first HR system, or to up grade your old system, and you don’t look at these guys, you should be fired as an HR professional.

Blissbook: “Employee Handbooks to Smile About”.  I know, I know — Tim, you’re talking handbooks!?  Here’s the deal.  They have a super cheap, super cool UI (user interface — BTW, no one at HR Tech talks English, they only talk tech).  So, you can put your handbook online and add video, and hyperlinks and all kinds of stuff, and they make it really easy.  Don’t think PDF of your handbook on your careers site, it’s more than that.  Think of it as a cultural narrative of your organization having it’s own website.  One issue I see them having, the examples they show are really cool and hip.  So you think you can do the same thing, the problem is content isn’t easy to write to be cool and hip.  If you aren’t creative, neither will your Blissbook.

SumTotal: SumTotal is like BambooHR, if BambooHR was a gigantic enterprise total HR solution for your business.  Let’s be clear, SumTotal is a big company, like Oracle, ADP, SuccessFactors, etc. Big companies have the resources to do some really cool things, and Sum Total did that this year.  They added the industry’s first Context-Aware user experience. What’s Context-Aware?  You know when you go online to a store and look at a really nice pair of shoes you want, you put it in the cart, but last second you decide, I just can’t get these today.  We all do it.  Context-Aware marketing is the Ad a few days later on the side of another site you’re reading where those exact same shoes you were looking at pops up and now are 10% off!  How does this work in an HR system? Let’s say you have an employee who is not reaching their sales goal.  SumTotal’s new addition will recognize the employee is missing their goal, and without prompting or any HR or manager interaction at all recommend a training course for this person to take to better help them make their goals and maybe even a mentor in the company they should speak with who could help them become better at their job.  I don’t do this justice — trust me, it was super cool!

Work4Labs:  Work4 does Facebook recruiting, in an industry where no one has really figured it out yet (do you hear that Facebook?).  Work4 makes an solution that makes it really easy for companies to get their jobs posted on their company Facebook page and help them navigate, very easily, how to search for talent on Facebook’s Graph Search.  Also, they do this for a rather cheap price!  (Cheap meaning the cost of one or two headhunting fees, so you can see a very quick ROI)  Matthew Brown, Head of Product and co-Founder, might be 24 years old, which also helps let you know these guys get Facebook!

WePow: Formerly known as Wowser.  WePow is a video interviewing platform.  They’re really good at branding.  They gave out royal blue Converse Chuck Taylors at their booth and had pairs for all the big name pundits in our industry: Kris Dunn, Steve Boese, Gerry Chrispin, John Sumser, William Tincup, Laurie Ruettimann, etc.  Those kinds of things make a splash and get a good buzz going about their product.  Apparently, I’m not a big name in the industry, I didn’t get a pair of shoes (which is really the only reason they get mentioned here!).  Also, apparently, they are “like HireVue” when I asked their booth crew what they did.  Thanks HireVue for being so good at marketing you now have become the Kleenex of video interviewing.

YouEarnedIt:  New up and coming awards and recognition firm, designed around delivering a product that small and medium sized businesses can use.  Think Achievers, for smaller companies, and a lot less money.  Much more accessible for smaller companies because you aren’t forced to purchase their catalog of merchandise/awards which usually carry an industry standard 20% markup.  They do have that as well, but much more cost effective than the giants in the industry.

More next week – I’ve got two companies – one really well known and one hardly anyone knows doing some really cool things!

LeBron James Isn’t Good Enough For My Team

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Just putting together the roster for my annual Men’s City Rec Basketball team.  I’ve been pretty lucky in the past and have gotten some great players to come out and let me jump on their back to the championships.  As of right now here’s my roster for 2013-2014 season:

Current Starters (based on last years roster):

Point Guard: Craig Miller – Mid 30’s, 5’10”- still in ‘decent shape’ (this means he’s younger and faster than most of us).  He’s good for one wide open layup per quarter and one turnover.

Shooting Guard:  Don McCormick – 39, 6’0″ – He’s flat out money, I don’t think he’s missed a shot since 1998. Played DIII ball back in the early 90’s.  His job sometimes makes it so he can’t make games – we struggle in those games.

Small Forward: Marcus Jones – 47, 6’2″ – He’s our one black guy (we’d like more black guys, but it’s hard to find middle aged black guys in the suburbs who want to play with a bunch of white guys), he’s also the oldest guy we have.  Really never makes a mistake unless it’s a no look pass to one of us which we weren’t expecting.

Big Forward: James Brookes – 32, 5’11” – He’s not a basketball player, he’s a weight lifter.  Can’t shoot or dribble, but he’s good to hurt at least one opposing player each game, sometimes two.

Center: Mikey ‘Stretch’ McGee – 42, 6′ 5″ – He’s our tallest guy.  He likes to shoot the three.  Could have played D1, ended up going the CC route.  Currently he’s a UPS driver.

The Backups:

Point Guard: Me – 43, 5’7″- player/coach/manager – I get in if we are really up big or down big.  I’ve never seen a shot I didn’t like.  My philosophy: ‘Shoot till you get hot, then shoot to stay hot”

The 6 footers:  Ben, Jerry and Ken: All of these guys are 6 foot and basically play any position.  I lumped them together because they really are the same player. Solid, can do it all, just don’t make them run too many minutes at one time.

We are looking to add one more player to our roster this year.  We lost Billy.  He had to have his knee replaced and his real estate business was taking off again after the recession, so he’s out.  Here are the three candidates we have to replace:

1. Matt Smith – New guy in town.  He’s really in shape.  His wife is way hot.  He has a great basement man cave.  Seems like he would fit in with the guys really well.

2. Josh Moore – Another six footer.  He’s subbed for us in the past.  Likes to shoot (meaning he takes my shots).  The guys know him, but he rubs some guys the wrong way (mostly me, he takes my shots)

3. LeBron James – Yep! You read that correctly.  Let’s just say I have a connection.  Nothing in his contract to stop him from playing with us on Tuesday nights.  His schedule actually allows him to make 90% of our 12 game schedule.  We would own the league!

Seems like a really easy choice right!?  Wrong!  You see, I went to the guys to vote.  Knowing they would all laugh and Lebron would get his ‘Legion 124’ jersey shipped in the mail.  But to my surprise Matt Smith won the vote.  I couldn’t believe it, I had to find out why.  Across the board the guys came back with the following reasons why LeBron wouldn’t be a good fit for our team:  Wouldn’t find it a challenge, he would be bored, he was over qualified, he would end up quitting half way into the season, he wouldn’t take it seriously.

We had a shot a Lebron James for our team, and we didn’t take him.  Hard to believe, right?

It’s your reality.  Everyday you turn down great talent in your organization.  You turn down LeBron James because you’re scared.  We don’t say we’re scared.  We give ‘legitimate’ reasons like: “You’re over qualified” and “You wouldn’t find this position challenging”.  But we are just telling ourselves this, to make us feel better about making a terrible decision to turn away great talent.  ‘Being over qualified’ for a position is the single lamest reason to turn down talent that HR and Talent Acquisition has ever come up with.

The question is, would you turn down LeBron James if he wanted to join your team?

Introduce Yourself in 90 Seconds

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First let me tell you this is not a paid post or endorsement.  Second, I’ve found something really cool for Free! HR and Talent Acquisition folks love FREE!

I found a company called ZipIntro.com and basically what they do is give anyone a really simple platform to make introductory videos for free.  Check out the one I did on the link below:

http://zipintro.com/v/timsackett/intro

As you can see it’s pretty bare bones, and that’s what is great about it.  As a recruiter I don’t need bells and whistles, I need simple and easy, and this is as easy as product as I’ve found for candidates to begin using video as part of their resume submission.  If I can use this, it’s almost completely idiot proof!

Here’s what I know after working in HR and Talent Acquisition for 20 years:

1. It’s tough to get hiring managers to move on the candidates you’ve presented to them.

2. Many times by the time they do get around to looking at them, the best ones are gone.

3. A quick video intro of a candidate gets hiring managers to react.

Why?

Here’s something about hiring managers they don’t want you to know.  They actually trust that you can find talent for them that will be close to what they need!  So, going through each resume and giving you feedback seems like a waste of time.  Watching 3 videos that are all 90 seconds in length and telling you which ones they want to interview — well, that’s really easy!

I have a classic real-life example of when I working with an executive on trying to fill one of his direct report positions.  I presented resumes of pre-screened candidates of over 20 individuals over a period of months.  Each time I would force myself into his office and get feedback.  Always the final answer was “No”.  I almost gave up when I decided to do one more thing.  I had my best three candidates come into the HR office and I set up a video camera (yeah, this was way before all the cool apps and sites now – VHS baby!).   We went live, I asked each the same three questions, and we let it roll.  Each video was less than five minutes.  I asked the executive for 15 minutes to present three ‘new’ candidates.  I didn’t take any resumes.  He watched the videos and decided to interview all three live.  One of those three eventually got the job.  All three had previously been turned down when looking only at their resume and my feedback.  Video is very persuasive!

What else is useful about ZipIntro?  Well, you can use it to intro yourself!  Think about what happens when you send out those 50 emails per day to potential candidates.  Usually, none of those 50 people have any idea who you are.  All they have is an email telling them you’re interested in them.  But who are you!?  Having a ZipIntro url in your email signature gives them the ability to ‘check’ you out very quickly, and allows you to send a compelling message to potential candidates.  You can be professional, you can be creative, you can be funny.  It’s up to you.

Like I said — ZipIntro isn’t paying me for this, I just wanted to share a free and very easy tool that might help you get a job, and/or land some candidates. Enjoy.

 

5 Ways for Recruiters to Engage Talent minus the Stalking!

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Let’s face it, it’s easy to say you’re going to build talent pools filled with passive candidates—but it’s hard to actually do. And it’s even harder once you’ve built a talent pool in your area of need to figure out what to do next.  You know how to recruit, but what do you say to a talent pool filled with passive candidates who aren’t ready or willing to buy in to the positions you’re selling?

 Never fear, Fistful of Talent (with an assist from our friends at Jobvite) is here. We thought about the pain described above and created our October webinar entitled “5 Easy Ways For Recruiters to Engage Talent Pools – Without Looking Like Complete Stalkers” to help solve the problem.  Join us on October 3, 2013 at 1pm EST and we’ll hit you with the following:

 ·         A simple definition of what a talent pool is, how you organize it in your ATS, and how to manage the concept of “opt-in” to the people you include in that talent pool.  The definition of who gets included and “opt-in” is important, because you’re gong to broadcast a bit over time– which will feel different (in a good way) to candidates included in the talent pool.

·         A checklist of information you already have access to in your company that those passive talent pool candidates would love to hear about.  It’s a checklist!  All you have to do is go find the info we list and you’re golden.

·         Data on best practices in thinking like a marketer (do you use email, LinkedIn, snail mail, text, etc.) to engage your talent pool – without looking like a stalker.

·         Grand Finale, we’ll deliver the top 5 ways to engage talent pools – and for each engagement method, we’ll list what the communication looks like, where to find the information and why doing it the way we recommend is the best practice.

Special Bonus: we’re even going to give you a monthly calendar of what to do and when to do it related to our list of 5 ways for you to engage your talent pool. It couldn’t be simpler than that.

 It’s time to make the talent pools you’ve built in your ATS actually like you and your company.  Join us on for October 3, 2013 at 1pm EST, “5 Easy Ways For Recruiters to Engage Talent Pools – Without Looking Like Complete Stalkers” and we’ll show you how.