Category Archives: Selection

Where Have All The Recruiters Gone?

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Originally posted on Fistful of Talent back in April 2011.   Maureen Sharib reminded me of this on Twitter and I wanted to share. Enjoy.

I don’t get it – I don’t get why somehow over the past 5 years it’s not alright to be called a “Recruiter.”

Okay, let me back up a bit. I’m sick of hearing about “Sourcers”! You know what a Sourcer is?  It’s someone who can’t close a candidate. In the beginning, recruiters had to do it all – put together the JD, come up with a marketing plan (oh, I’m sorry we call that “sourcing plan” now), go out and actually find the candidates (oh, my bad again “go out and source”) and then we had to actually call up the candidate and see if they were someone we had interest in moving forward into the process.

Look, I’ve seen the recruiting desk cut up more ways than a mom trying to be creative with a PB&J in May, after making 180 PB&J’s throughout the year (parents making their kids lunch each day get this reference, others won’t!). I get that it can be more “efficient” to separate out “Sourcing” and “Recruiting.” I read 7 Habits, you didn’t discover something new, companies have been cutting up the recruiting desk for decades. In 1993, I was hired into staffing to be a “Research Assistant”. Guess what that was? Yeah, some idiot who didn’t know how to close (yet) but could go out and find potential interested candidates (by any means necessary) to give to the “real” recruiter who could close them on a position.

So, here’s the rub, right? Who’s better, Sourcers or Recruiters? I’m guessing in most organizations  using this model, they are selling it as if they are equal, which blows all of your efficiency right off the bat. They aren’t equal, one is collecting shells on a beach and one is polishing shells and telling sucker tourists how rare and valuable they are to make a buck and keep the lights on. If the shell picker-upper went away, would the shell polisher/seller go out of business? Hell no, they’d take their butt over to the beach, pick up some shells, take them back to the shop, polish them up and sell them. Would they be as successful? No, but it’s all relative since they also wouldn’t be paying the overhead of Mr. Picker-upper.

I actually like the Sourcing and Recruiting dual model in shops that have that kind of volume, it makes sense. Someone who is exceptional at sourcing combined with someone who is fantastic at recruiting will place more great talent than 3 people all doing it on their own. But let’s not start handing out trophies to the Sourcer.  I can train anyone to source. I’ve failed many times at training someone to close. One of those skills is transactional. One is transformational.

There are a number of companies right now in India that for pennies on the dollar will source candidates for you, and they’ll do it better than Steve who is sitting on Facebook right now “building his Talent Community”. It’s transactional. It’s a process.  it can be outsourced without a slightest blip to your recruiting function.

And okay, haters, before you go all crazy in the comments, let me say this, I think the sourcing technology, tools, etc. are all great. I love reading and trying out the techniques that are shared constantly by FOT’s own Kelly Dingee, or others like Glen Cathey, Amybeth Hale, Maureen Sharib, Jim Stroud, etc. (it’s amazing industry changing stuff). I don’t hate sourcing. In the right organization it makes perfect sense, but be careful. What I find is that many organizations want to move their best sourcers to recruiting and they fail because it’s two different skill sets. Don’t make that mistake.

So, where did all the recruiters go? The fakers – the ones who don’t want to pick up a phone – want to call themselves Sourcers. Why? Because the accountability of finding someone vs. closing someone – is on two different levels. I can find who is the top developer at a company, but it’s a different story in talking that developer into why they need to join my organization. The recruiters are still there – just look for the ones with the phone to their ear.

Do Your Employees Really Like Your Organization? #EWS2014

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Hey, gang I’m running a sponsored post by the great folks at Spherion regarding their 2014 Emerging Workforce Study which has some really great data, check it out.

I’m a company guy.

When I make the decision to go to work for an organization, I’m both feet in.  I’ve always been that way. I’m the dork who loves to get the company logo gear and I don’t just wear it to work on ‘casual’ Friday, I’ll wear it to my families holiday get-togethers!  To me, supporting the organization you work for is a non-negotiable. I want to work with people who want to work with the organization we work for, and if you don’t, get out!

Spherion’s 2014 Emerging Workforce Study found some really interesting statistics around this, that blew my mind!  Crazy as this will seem to you, not everyone thinks like me! Check this out:

    • Only 35% of workers would say something very positive in discussing their company with other people.

35%! If you would have asked me this question, without me first seeing the data, I would have said this was 75%.  I was way off.  This is a major problem for organizations!  65% of your employees basically believe they could not say something very positive about your organization.  Ouch! That hurts.

You want to see another major disconnect that is playing into this lack of engagement?

    • 64% of companies believe their younger workers lack the business and life experience required for leadership positions.
    • While companies believe younger workers lack experience, 61% of Gen Y workers agree they have greater opportunities available to them because of their age.

Organizations are finally really starting to feel the pain of their aging Baby Boomer workforce beginning to leave their positions.  This is that ‘oh crap’ moment when you realize you don’t have the proper succession in place for the future. To make this situation worse, your younger workers believe they’re ready to ‘drive’!  They want the keys to the executive washroom, but you know they’re not ready.

Put on top of all of this, about ten years of not developing your leadership competencies because of the recession, and you my friends have some major organizational issues you are about to face!

What can you do about this? Here are a few ideas:

1. Hire people who really, really want to work for you. Brand advocates will stick with you through thick and thin, even when you’re not at your best.

2. Teach your leaders to be ‘great’ at performance management.  Spend money and time on this.  There is great technology out there that can help as well.

3. Know who your true internal influencers are on your staff, and invest in them.

There is no easy way out of this, for any of us.  But, the awesome part of this mess, is that HR can have a great impact in making our organizations better.  Time to sharpen the saw and get to work HR Pros!

 

Disclosure Language:

Spherion partnered with bloggers such as me for their Emerging Workforce Study program. As part of this program, I received compensation for my time. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about any idea mentioned in these posts. Spherion believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Spherion’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. 

The Container Store Doesn’t Want to Hire Harvard Grads

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You probably saw this on the web this past week, but in case you didn’t a former Harvard University graduate and Emmy award winning writer got rejected for a job at The Container Store for the holidays.  She was very surprised by this, in a pompous I’m-really-to-good-for-you kind of way, but I’m desperate, so you would be lucky to have me. Here it is in her words:

“The email from The Container Store asking for holiday help arrived a week before my rescheduled MRI. Of course I applied! You would have, too, if you had one kid paying his own way through college, another applying, no health coverage, a bum boob, a broken marriage and an empty bank account. There is no time for shame in a recession. You do what you have to do. There are worse ways to spend your day than greeting visitors at the front of a store run by a company whose products you actually use. A week later, I got an email from the Manhattan Loss Prevention department at The Container Store. Here’s what it said:

Hello Deborah —

Thank you for your interest in employment opportunities at The Container Store.

We carefully review all applications and consider each person for current or future opportunities. At this time, we are moving forward with other candidates for this position.

Again, we thank you for your interest in The Container Store. We wish you much success in your job search.

Sincerely,

The Container Store
Manhattan Loss Prevention

Reader, first I laughed when I read this. Then I cried. Oh, Reader, I cried and I cried, long and deep and mournfully. I cried for me and my kids, then I cried for everyone else in my same boat, then I cried for everyone in far worse boats. Because seriously, if an Emmy Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and Harvard grad cannot land a job as a greeter at The Container Store — or anywhere else for that matter, hard as I tried — we are all doomed.“

Really?  We are all doomed because someone who has a Harvard degree and can write can’t get a service level holiday job?

Let’s take a look at why she probably didn’t get hired. I’ll give you some possible reasons on why The Container Store decided to go another route:

1. It’s a temporary job for the holidays, where they need someone to greet stressed out holiday shoppers.  Many people work these jobs each year to get extra holiday money, they have experience doing this, they can be counted on, not to quit after the first rude person yells at them. Experience counts. Even in ‘crappy’ jobs.

2.  These jobs are boring and monotonous. Service level companies know that most Harvard educated folks would be bored and not engaged in these positions.

3. Looking at the application of someone with a Harvard education and being a writer, they might have decided the person would work only until they got a better job, and they wanted to ensure the person stayed on through the completion of the assignment.

4. Maybe they had someone who has worked ‘temporarily’ for them in the past apply to come back, that had previously performed well.

5. Maybe they got internal referrals of friends and family from their employees, and decided those hires might ‘fit’ better.

No doubt Deborah is smart and a good writer. That doesn’t mean she would be good for the container store, and it is pompous of her to believe she would be.  She didn’t see this ‘job’ as good, she saw it as a step down, and something she was ‘forced’ to do.  Sounds just like someone you really want working for you, right?  “Well, I don’t have anything else Container Store, I guess I’ll take your crappy job.”

The Container Store rejected a Harvard graduate because a Harvard graduate isn’t the best hire, the best talent, for the position they were hiring for.  I might not be a Harvard graduate, but that seems pretty simple to figure out.

It’s Not a Talent Contest

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I think most of us have gotten away from using the phrase “a war on talent’ throughout the industry.  It’s not really a war, and if it was most of you would lose.  Most talent acquisition shops are unwilling to do what it would take to win a war, that’s just a fact, not a shot at your shop.

There’s a better phrase that I think should encompass the plight of talent in our organizations that is used frequently in sports:

“It’s not a ‘talent’ contest. It’s a ‘winning’ contest!”

This means it doesn’t matter how talented the other team is, it all comes down to winning the game.  Great, you have the best talent, but if you’re losing the game/contest/event your high level of talent means nothing!

HR, Talent Acquisition and most executives have a hard time with this. They want to get the ‘best’ talent.  When, in reality, the best talent might not help your organization ‘win’.  Yes, you win or lose in most organizations.  You either make the sale or don’t make the sale. You either launch on time or don’t.  You either design award winning products, or you design products that never make it market.  Those are winning and losing in a business sense.

Business isn’t a talent game. It’s a winning and losing game.

What does this mean to HR and Talent Acquisition?  You don’t always need the most talented individuals to win.  What you need is people who are willing to give that little bit of extra effort, over those who won’t.  This discretionary effort gets you the win, over talented individuals who aren’t willing to give such effort.

You need individuals that put the goal, the vision, first.  Again, nothing to do with talent.  They believe in what you are doing as an organization, and do what it takes to make those goals reality.

You need individuals who want to see those around them succeed and are willing to sacrifice themselves, from time to time, to see their peers and coworkers succeed.  This sacrifice has nothing to do with talent.

I love talent, don’t get me wrong.  All of us need a certain level of talent to do what we do, but almost all of us don’t need to be the ‘most’ talented to be successful.  When we go out and build our talent strategies we have to be aware of this.  It’s not about hiring top talent.  It’s about hiring the talent that will make our organizations successful.

I don’t want my organization to be in a talent game.  I want my organization to be in a winning game.

Are You Reliable or Flashy?

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I’m going to put this into a car analogy.  Reliable is a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry.  Flashy is a Chevy Camaro or a Dodge Charger.  You really can’t be both. In the auto world the closest thing to being both is a Tesla, and most people can’t afford one of those!

You either lean one way or the other.  If you want flashy, you are comfortable with the fact you might not get to work every day, because those cars tend to break down more often.  If you want reliability, you probably aren’t turning any heads, but when you turn your key that engine is starting every time.

I find most people select people like they select cars.  You are biased one way or the other, and find most people biased towards ‘flash’.  They like the good looking people and the smooth talkers.  Damn the results.  That person made me turn my head! They must be ‘good’.  Therein lies one of the major problem we have.  Looking good has absolutely nothing to do with being good.

People look at that new Audi A8 and believe because it looks awesome, it must be awesome.  Do a little research and it becomes a bust of a buy, because it constantly breaks down and has problems.  They look at a Subaru Forester and think ‘boring’! Until they realize that thing will still be running well after you retire.

So, what I’m saying is people are basically cars, minus the extended warranty!

I tend to lean reliable.  It’s not that I don’t like pretty people who speak well.  I really do.  But I really love people who come to work every day and bust ass.  You can be both, you can be a Tesla, but let’s face it, most of us can’t afford that talent!   We make offers to Camrys.  No one pins up photos of Camrys in their bedrooms as a kid.

It’s just so easy to get sucked into flashy.  They’re all bright and shiny, and smell good, and you feel better about them representing your brand, that is until they completely screw something up.   Then you’re out there trying to explain why you hired them to begin with, knowing you can’t say the truth. “Well, have you looked at him!?  He’s gorgeous! How could we not hire him.”

So, the question to you HR and Talent Pros – are you a Toyota Camry buyer or a Chrysler 200/Dodge Avenger buyer? Same exact price point, one is a considerably better buy than the other.

 

Recruitment Marketing Is Not One-size Fits All!

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Hey, gang I’m running a sponsored post by the great folks at Spherion regarding their 2014 Emerging Workforce Study which has some really great data, check it out. 

The big ‘Wow’ that came out of the study for me is how organizations might be discounting how potential workers are using social media to influence their decision on who they work for! It used to be we would primarily rely on our social networks to give us insight to how we thought about potential employers.  “Oh! I know my aunt used to work there and she loved it!” Or, “I know my neighbor works there and says it’s awful!”   Now, it seems like we have an endless supply of opinions and connections about potential employers via the use of social media.

From the study:

    • 44% of workers believe social media is influential in their view of a company they might work for.
    • 51% of workers agree their company’s online reputation impacts its ability to recruit workers.
    • 46% of workers say when they consider new employment, the company’s online reputation will be as important as any job offer they are given.

Too many organizations still do not believe social media really has that much of an impact to their hiring, or their ability to attract the best hires. This is especially true in small and medium sized businesses (SMB). In reality, SMB organizations might be impacted by a negative, or positive, social media perception of candidates than larger organizations, where the data gets washed out by the many numbers.

One other piece that came from the study is how organizations are failing to market towards all generations.  Some of this, for sure, is based on the use of new media, which tends to target a younger workforce.  Organizations really need to dig into their recruitment marketing strategy and specifically look at what mediums are we using and what are those mediums getting us from a candidate demographic perspective.

More interesting data from the study:

    • Less than half (45%) of companies utilize tailored recruitment strategies based on different age groups or professions.
    • Yet, recruiting workers isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Manufacturing workers are mostly likely to land their job through a staffing agency, while accountants rely on professional associations and networking, IT workers use online sources and admin/clerical workers secure their jobs through classified ads and company websites.

The reality is most organizations don’t dig into this, because like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, you don’t want to know the truth!  The truth is, in my opinion, most organizations want to market towards younger workers, so they’re completely fine using a one approach marketing strategy that misses out on older, more experienced workers.  It’s a poor strategy, for sure, as more competitive organizations are figuring out very quickly on how to use and leverage a more experienced aging workforce.

Check out the 2014 EWS Infographic:

Spherion EWS Employment Life Cycle Infographic (first 3 phases)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclosure Language:

Spherion partnered with bloggers such as me for their Emerging Workforce Study program. As part of this program, I received compensation for my time. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about any idea mentioned in these posts. Spherion believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Spherion’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. 

Employee-Zero

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All this Ebola talk and Patient-Zero stuff has got me all fired up to be an investigator!  I can’t even imagine the nightmare it must be to try and track back all this illness to the first person.  But, it’s also the coolest thing that they can actually do that!

What if we could trace back to ‘Employee-Zero’?

You know, that one hire, that one employee, that turned it all around for your organization.  I’ve worked at some really successful companies, and I’ve worked at some companies that were successful and then on a downward trend.  I like to think that my hire didn’t put us on a downward trend, but let’s face it, no one really did any due diligence to find out for sure!

You see organizational leadership do this all the time for bad hires and bad results.  I have to say, usually, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) take the brunt of this.  “Well, we were great before they hired that new CMO, then sales went into the tank and we haven’t been the same since!”  CMOs become Employee-Zero more than any other single employee! They get way too much blame for bad results, and way too much credit for good results!

You almost never hear about Employee-Zero when it comes to good results!  “Yeah, you know when we really took off, it’s when we hired Tim!”  Bad results equal a bad individual hire.  Good results equal a team of good employees and good hires.  Like how that goes!?  We like to place blame on a few, but give credit to many. Welcome to modern day leadership theory.

We measure almost everything in in HR and Talent Acquisition, you would think one of the new shiny data analytics companies would come up with some secret sauce on how to figure out which one of your employees is Employee-Zero.  Why would it be important?  If we could figure out why that one employee, or why certain employees early on made us successful, or put us on the path to success, don’t we really finally solve the hiring equation?

It’s a bit altruistic I know.  The reality is we would be looking at historical data, the times have changed, the conditions have changed, there is no real way of us replicating that exact scenario again to get the same magical results.   Regardless, I think it would be cool to know, I’m a HR geek that way.  Talk about analyzing your hiring!  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time, many organizations obviously have the data, we just need some data scientist to believe it matters.

What do you think?  Do you know who your Employee-Zero is?

Top HR Products for 2014!

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I like new technology, which is why I’m headed out to the HR Technology Conference this week.  HR tech has continues to transform how we deliver HR and Talent solutions to our organizations.  I’m always amazed at the new stuff that comes out each year.  Human Resource Executive named their 2014 award winners for Top HR Products last week, and the awards are given out at the HR Technology Conference.  I’ll be checking all of these out for sure, but here is a preview of the award winners:

Appcast.io – www.appcast.io

A recruiting marketing platform that helps organizations fill their hard-to-fill requisitions by marketing it to 6,000 career and consumer sites on a pay-per-applicant basis.

Entelo Diversity – www.entelo.com

Entelo claims to have a program that will help you hire black people! Or women, veterans, Hispanics, etc. Basically, you can stop trying to search job boards using words like “Black” and “Spanish”.

Halogen 1:1 Exchange – www.halogensoftware.com

Halogen takes performance management to the next level with Halogen 1:1 Exchange.  This is a one-on-one meeting-management tool that works with other Halogen TalentSpace modules and is designed to spur greater communication, collaboration and coaching. The module tracks the frequency of these one-on-one meetings to provide employers with evidence these discussions are occurring. It also correlates the impact they are having on performance ratings, engagement scores and turnover.

Health E(fx) – www.healthefx.us

Health E(fx) is a stand-alone solution designed to help employers avoid penalties while optimizing their benefits strategies, decisions and costs within the Affordable Care Act environment.

HireVue Insights – www.hirevue.com

I’ve seen this one live and it’s awesome, can’t say enough about it! Basically, it analyzes your digital interviews to automatically give you the best candidates based on 15,000+ attributes. All your candidates.  Have 1000 apply, and you know you’ll only really look at the first 25 you applied, even though number 999 might be your best? Insights solves this! Plus, tells you which hiring managers are your best at selection!

IBM Social Learning – www.ibm.com

IBM Social Learning, powered by IBM Kenexa learning solutions and IBM social-collaboration and analytics tools, is designed to help people engage with one another, contribute expertise and learn from others using interactive media in near real-time.

Match-Click – www.match-click.com

Match-Click is a video-driven recruiting platform designed to let employers give job candidates a preview of their new corporate environment and potential supervisor and co-workers, through short, 20-second video clips featuring hiring managers and would-be colleagues describing the position and the organization.

QUEsocial – www.quesocial.com

Another one I’m really interested in seeing live! QUEsocial blends employer branding and social recruiting into a social talent-acquisition Software-as-a-Service technology platform. The idea is to enable recruiters and — by extension, employers — to “amplify and extend” the employer brand through individual recruiter and sourcing networks.

RecruitiFi – www.recruitifi.com

RecruitiFi is intended to offer organizations a new way to source talent by letting them select and post jobs to 250 expert recruiters from its membership pool of approximately 2,000.

Skillrater.com – www.skillrater.com

Skillrater.com is a cloud-based performance-feedback tool that incorporates social networking and collaboration.

There will be hundreds of other companies as well. I’ll make sure to give you a run down on some companies and technology that you haven’t ever heard of, yet, when I return.  The coolest part of HR Tech is finding a company that is nothing today, but will be industry leading in 3 to 5 years.  Last year I saw Blackbook HR and their Sense product and they are blowing up – such a great piece of technology to help us with one of HR’s biggest issues – Turnover!

Who will it be this year? I can’t wait to find out.

The Crappy Job Badge of Honor

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As some of you may have realized from recent posts (Wanted: People Who Aren’t Stupid), I’ve been interviewing candidates recently for the position of Technical Recruiter working for my company HRU. I love interviewing because each time I interview I think I’ve discovered a better way to do it, or something new I should be looking for, and this most recent round of interviews is no different.  Like most HR/Talent Pros I’m always interested in quality work/co-op/internship experience – let’s face it, it’s been drilled into us – past performance/actions will predict future performance/actions.  So, we tend to get excited over seeing a candidate that has experience from a great company or competitor – we’re intrigued to know how the other side lives and our inquisitive nature begs us to dig in.

What I’ve found over the past 20 years of interviewing is that while I love talking to people that worked at really great companies – I hire more people that have worked at really bad companies.  You see, while you learn some really good stuff working for great companies – I think people actually learn more working for really crappy companies!  Working at a really great companies gives you an opportunity to work in “Utopia” – you get to see how things are suppose to work, how people are suppose to work together, how it a perfect world it all fits together.  The reality is – we don’t work Utopia (at least the majority of us) we work in organizations that are less than perfect, and some of us actually work in down right horrible companies. Those who work in horrible companies and survive – tend to better hires – they have battle scars and street smarts.

So, why everyone wants to get out of really bad companies (and I don’t blame them) there is actually a few things you learn from those experiences:

1. Leadership isn’t a necessity to run a profitable company. I’ve seen some very profitable companies that had really bad leadership – people always think they’ll leave those companies and they’ll fail – they don’t.  Conversely, I’ve worked for some companies that had great people leaders and failed.

2. Great people sometimes work a really crappy companies.  Don’t equate crappy company with crappy talent.  Sometimes you can find some real gems in the dump.

3. Hard work is relative.  I find people who work at really bad companies, tend to appreciate hard work better than those who work a really great companies with great balance.  If all you’ve every known is long hours and management that doesn’t care you have a family – seeing the other side gives you an appreciation that is immeasurable.

4. Not having the resources to do the job, doesn’t mean you can’t do the job. Working for a crappy company in a crappy job tends to make you more creative – because you probably won’t have what you need to do the job properly, so you find ways.

5. Long lasting peer relationships come through adversity.  You can make life-long work friends at a crappy job – who you’ll keep in contact and be able to leverage as you move on in your careers.  And here’s what each of you will think about the other: “That person can work in the shit!”  “That person is tough and get’s things done” “That person is someone I want on my team, when I get to build a team”

We all know the bad companies in our industries and markets.  Don’t discount candidates who have spent time with those companies – we were all at some point needing a job – a first experience, a shot at a promotion or more money, etc. and took a shot at a company we thought we could change or make a difference.  I love people who worked for bad companies, in bad jobs with bad management – because they wear it like a badge of honor!

Recruiters! Conferences Don’t Care About You!

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I’m down at ERE’s Fall Conference in Chicago this week.  It’s a conference designed for Talent Acquistion leaders (FYI – they don’t like to be called ‘Recruiters’).  It’s really cool the folks at ERE do a great job putting together great content and work to push the role of Talent Acquisition forward in organizations around the world.

HR Tech also does a great job for HR folks looking for HR Tech.  So does Sourcecon, for people wanting to be better sourcers.  So does TLNT’s Transform for HR leaders. Heck, even SHRM National has some great content.

Besides ERE, though, where does a TA leader or Recruiter go to keep up on their industry. To get better. To challenge and measure themselves and their organizations to get better?  No where, that’s where.

ERE does a fall and spring national conference.  If you don’t have the budget for a national conference, usually $1-2,000 to attend, plus travel which usually doubles the cost, you’re screwed when it comes to getting really good recruiting content.

SHRM has both local and state opportunities for HR Pros to get further development and expand their knowledge base.  Do you have a local recruiting organization or a state recruiting organization that will offer this to you?  Most likely No, unless you live in D.C. (RecruitDC) or Minnesota (Hello Paul!).

It’s crazy when you really stop and think about it.  Almost no where are we really leveraging the minds and the dollars to bring these people together at a state or local level.

I’m in Michigan.  I know right now I could put two days of content together, leverage some awesome Recruiting talent from around the world to come in and speak, and get 250-500 Recruiting/Talent Acquisition Pros from Michigan to attend at $400-500 each.  That’s anywhere from $100-250K just in conference fees, not including probably another $100-200K in sponsors. So, some company isn’t interested in $400-500K!?

Southeast Michigan is begging for technical talent. Organizations would spend the money to spend their TA teams to something like this.  All across the country many areas are hurting for talent and willing to invest (a little) to get their recruiting teams better.  But, most are not willing to have those same teams travel across the country at the price tag of $3,000 each for the same content.

Build it and they will come…just don’t build it too far away!

I see this work on the HR front.  Monthly local SHRM meetings will get 50-100 participants at $50 per meeting for lunch and one hour of content! State conferences give you a day and half of content for $500-750, and most of that is vendors trying to sell you crap.

It just seems insane to me that someone who actually does conference planning for living can’t figure out how to leverage the largest 25 metro areas and put together a calendar of ‘local’ level recruiting conferences.

Like I said, ERE does a good job nationally, their just leaving about 90% of the money that is available out there locally on the table.