I tackled this question today on video because I think it’s easier to discuss it that way versus writing about my reply. All of us are doing background checks, but rarely do we find anything on those. We have the potential to catch way more misconduct issues on social media.
Let’s be honest, the process of hiring is a black hole. Despite our best efforts (and all the fancy technologies we use), predicting how a candidate will perform within our organization will always be an unknown. We may think we have it all figured out until they fail, then we blame them, not our inept ability to select the right talent for our organizations.
I have two quotes from Seth Godin regarding expertise.
1. “It’s easy to pretend expertise when there is no data to contradict you.”
This rings true for many HR pros and hiring managers who boast of their hiring powers without evidence. We’re quick to dismiss inconvenient data that doesn’t align with the narrative we wish to make. “Well, Ted is one of our best managers, he’s been here a long time. Sure his 90-day turnover is twice as high as the next hiring manager, but that’s not Ted’s fault, he has high turnover positions.”
2. “Relying on the ignorance of a motivated audience, isn’t a long-term strategy.”
These two quotes align perfectly. Often, hiring decisions are made by people who are rushed and under pressure to find talent quickly. When these factors come together, it doesn’t cause an immediate disaster, but it can lead to problems in the long run.
While many claim to be good at hiring, true expertise comes from listening to data and resisting pressure to make bad decisions. It’s not easy work. If you listened to me at SHRM Talent this month you heard me loud and clear… Recruiting is hard. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Mastering effective hiring isn’t just a goal; it’s essential for long-term success. Challenge the norm, use data wisely, and avoid the pitfalls of poor hiring decisions. Your organization’s future—and your career—depend on it.
Sometimes we get so far into the weeds in recruiting that we forget what is actually important.
We have to have a brand!
We have to have an ATS!
And now, a new ATS!
We have to have a CRM! What the hell is a CRM!
Our job descriptions need a refresh, and let’s face it, our career site could use some work too.
And don’t get me started on the employee referral program.
There’s always a million things to do in recruitment, and it’s hard to keep up.
But here’s the thing: recruiting isn’t rocket science. It’s just about finding people to join your team. There are plenty of potential candidates out there; you just need to let them know you’re hiring.
That’s the golden rule of recruitment: Spread the word that you’re looking for new team members.
It’s pretty straightforward, yet so many good candidates slip through the cracks because they didn’t know there was an opportunity.
Recruitment is all about getting the word out. Sure, you might get some applicants who aren’t quite the right fit, but that’s part of the process.
To find the right people, you need to cast a wide net and let everyone know you’re hiring. Cast that net people!
It’s not just about posting on job boards or your career site; it’s about creating a culture where everyone in your organization understands the importance of spreading the word about job openings.
Unfortunately, many companies miss the mark on this. Whether it’s because they’re too proud or they think it makes them look desperate, they don’t make enough effort to let people know they’re hiring.
This is a big mistake that can sink your recruitment efforts.
Recruitment isn’t about showing off; it’s about being humble and inviting talented individuals to join your team.
For the last decade, you could find content on how to hire on Twitter/X. it was mostly crap. No one was really hiring anyone on Twitter in any real numbers. It was like fishing for one certain minnow in an ocean. But, boy, did they like to talk like Twitter was a “real” source of hire. It wasn’t.
Elon bought Twitter, and changed the name to X, and decided, wait, we have this giant community why shouldn’t people be able to post jobs and hire on here? So, they made some changes. Will it be the next big great source of talent? Probably not, but it’s worth checking out because it’s definitely easier now to at least test it and see.
Hiring (beta) is now available to all Premium users in the US.
Add up to 3 jobs and feature them on your profile.
Some folks love to dump on X because of Elon. What I find is that recruiters are fairly agnostic politically when it comes to finding new sources of hire! It really doesn’t matter if you love or hate Elon. The job is about getting the best talent for your organization.
I’m a big advocate of Recruitment marketing and advertising, in that you get your jobs in front of everyone. If you can, you post your jobs everywhere. Your career site, Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, CareerBuilder, lawn signs on the corner, the bulletin board at church. EVERYWHERE!
Your job is to fill the req.
What does the X Talent pool look like?
500 million month users
The largest user group – males under 35 years (58%) – is more tech-savvy than average.
87% of X users also use Instagram (cross-promote)
Average users are on X for roughly 34 minutes per day.
Facebook is still the largest social media site, followed by Facebook-owned Instagram and TikTok – all have audiences in the billions.
Social media recruiting, in general, is tough. Those who do it best tend to be great content producers and build big audiences. Those who do it awful tend to just post jobs and ignore it. iIt’s very labor-intensive to do great social media recruiting. The average TA shop will not see social media in their top 10 sources of hire normally, so you must weigh the cost/benefit of this.
Now that I’ve told you how worthless social media recruiting is, I still like what X has done and is doing around hiring. There is a converted effort by X to cater to employers and make it easier to leverage their audience and your audience to make hires. X seems to be the only large social media company who is paying attention to recruiters!
Back in the day, sales, marketing, and recruiting weren’t about fancy automation tools. It was all about your trusty ‘date book’ or relying on your memory to give Timmy from HRU a ring just to check-in.
Old-school sales meant one thing: keeping at it. Reminding folks that you’re still interested, still eager for their business. It was all about bagging that deal before someone else did.
CRMs? They’re good at their job, but sometimes, they miss the mark. I can easily brush off those automated CRM messages—I’ve been in that loop. But you know what I can’t ignore? The persistent lady who’s left me nine voicemails. The power of a nudge. That level of dedication deserves respect. I get how tough it is to make that many calls.
I’m all for tech—I’ve tried it all and automation sure makes life easier. But there’s an art to the old way of following up, keeping at it, a rhythm and persistence that’s hard to replicate.
Sure, you might get tired of “John” who calls every month, but guess who’ll come to mind when you’re in a bind? Not the newcomers who show up when you’ve made it big, but John who was there from the start. John who kept at it.
The downfall comes when companies forget the human touch in their CRM strategy. It’s not about choosing one or the other—it’s about blending both. So, next time you see a familiar number calling or delete an email without a read, remember the effort behind it. The humans are keeping at it, working hard to keep those connections alive!
This holiday season, I’m stepping away from my usual writing to bring you some of the top-read posts from 2023. Enjoy!
The Reason You Got Ghosted by a Candidate!
Yesterday I answered a question from a candidate about why an employer ghosted them after their interview. Many readers were upset because they were also getting ghosted by candidates. In fact, like all the time, way more than they would ever ghost a candidate. Oh, two wrongs do make a right!
All ghosting is sh*tty behavior by candidates and by those of us who hire. Period.
The reality is that this is hard to admit, and as a professional, we own a portion of the candidate ghosting. Are candidates awful for doing it in the first place? Yes. I will not let them off the hook. But I also only control what I can control, and that is my process, behaviors, etc.
Why are candidates ghosting us?
1. We are moving too fast. Wait, what?! We are told to move fast because that’s what candidates want!? Yes, but when you move so fast, the candidates don’t know you (your company and you personally), the job, the boss, or the reasons why they should come and interview. It all doesn’t seem real. So, it becomes easy to just not show up. (Que Taylor Swift – We need to slow down!)
2. We aren’t giving candidates a way to easily tell us they moved on with another offer. Hourly candidates, especially, are moving fast and have multiple offers. You might have scheduled them for an interview later in the week, but they have already decided to go with another offer. While we gave them instructions on where to go and when we could have made it easier for them to opt out. Many organizations are using auto-scheduling tools like Paradox, which sends reminders and lets candidates choose to reschedule or cancel via text. Those organizations get significantly less ghosting!
3. We believe that once a candidate schedules an interview,our job is done. The most powerful human emotion in existence is being wanted by others. Candidates come to you for a number of reasons, all of which they can most likely get from someone else as well. But, showing them more desire than someone else is a key to great talent attraction. You still need to do that with your messaging even after the interview is scheduled.
4. We allow it to happen without any ramifications. (Okay, this might be a bit aggressive!) What if, every time a candidate ghosted you for an interview, you posted their picture and details on social media!? Yikes! Right?! “This is Tim Sackett, a cute redhead. He ghosted us for an interview yesterday at 3 pm. If you see him, tell him we are thinking about him!” Do you think it would get noticed? Heck, yes, it would!
5. We are making it too easy for candidates to interview. This is a catch-22. We need talent, so we reduce every roadblock possible for candidates. It’s so easy. Most don’t care if they burn the bridge or not. That is truly why employee referrals are so valuable for most employers. Referrals are far less likely to burn a bridge. That might be a trick to use. Ask a candidate: Do you know anyone at our company? Begin to tie the personal connection back to them, and they will be far less likely to ghost. Also, make it super hard to get an interview, and people will hold it as a higher value! “Only 1% of people who apply to our company ever get an interview! it’s a rare thing we offer to only the top candidates.” If you knew that was the case, you would show up for that interview!
I think most of the candidate ghosting is truly reflective of the poor morals and values of the people who are doing it. You made a commitment to someone. You keep that commitment, or at the “very” least, you inform that person you will no longer be able to keep that commitment. It’s a pretty basic human condition. Those who ghost probably had crappy parents and mentors in their life who didn’t teach them the basics. I’ve never once spoken to or met an upstanding individual who thought highly of themselves that would ghost. High-quality people don’t ghost. Low-quality people do.
People don’t like to hear that. They want to talk about circumstances and bad employers, etc. The reality is high-quality people will contact someone and let them know they no longer want to be considered, regardless of how crappy the employer may or may not be. Low-quality people just don’t show up. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game. I’m just telling you the truth. You already know.
If you’re an employer and you ghost candidates after interviews – You (not your organization). You, personally, are of low quality, just like the candidates who ghost you. I don’t like to hire low-quality people. But I also want to give every opportunity for a low-quality person to become a high-quality person.
In the world of recruiting, most conversations I’ve heard come in coded language. Understanding the true meaning behind these terms can be both revealing and enlightening. Let’s decode a few together:
1. “Offer Pending”
What it implies: “I’m preparing to extend an offer.”
What it means: “I’m uncertain about the candidate’s willingness to accept, or they haven’t responded yet.”
2. “Professional References”
What it implies: “Previous supervisors providing insights about your work.”
What it means: “References like your parent’s friend or your old coach don’t cut it. My boss wants your previous boss to tell us how great you are versus your priest telling us how great you are.”
3. “Market Offer“
What it implies: “Salary based on local industry standards.”
What it means: “We didn’t anticipate market changes; here’s what we can afford based on projections from a couple of years ago.”
4. “Excellent Benefits Package“
What it implies: “Comprehensive benefits covered by us.”
What it means: “Similar benefits to others, but ‘Excellent Benefits’ definitely sounds more appealing.”
5. “An “A” Candidate“
What it implies: “Top-tier talent with impeccable credentials.”
What it means: “This is the best person (and only person) we could find to accept your marginal pay rate, crappy location, and iffy company culture.”
6. “Niche Recruiter“
What it implies: “Specialized in specific skills or industries.”
What it means: “You think you need someone who specifically recruits only for what you are looking for. The reality is a great recruiter can find you whoever you need regardless of skill/industry, but it makes you feel better if we tell you we have that specific niche. So, YES, we are “niche.”
This recruiting jargon effectively masks reality and creates a culture of polite misdirection. We “dance” with each other and tell each other what we want to hear – and we leave with this wonderful false sense of security that everything is fine. Yet, when crucial decisions are at stake, transparency does matter. When in doubt – Speak the truth.
I recently applied for a position that I’m perfect for! A recruiter from the company contacted me and scheduled me for an interview with the manager. I went, the interview was a little over an hour, and it went great! I immediately followed up with an email to the recruiter and the manager thanking them, but since then, I’ve heard nothing, and it’s been weeks. I’ve sent follow-up emails to both the recruiter and the manager, and I’ve gotten no reply.
What should I do? Why do companies do this to candidates? I would rather they just tell me they aren’t interested than have them say nothing at all!
There are a number of reasons that recruiters and hiring managers ghost candidates, and none of them are good!
Here’s a short list of some of these reasons:
– They hated you and hope you go away when they ghost you because the conflict is uncomfortable.
– They like you, but not as much as another candidate. They’re trying to talk into the job but want to leave you on the back burner, but they’re idiots and don’t know how to do this properly.
– They decided to promote someone internally, and they don’t care about candidate experience enough to tell you they went in another direction.
– They have a completely broken recruitment process and might still be going through it believing you’re just as happy as a pig in shi…
– They think they communicated to you electronically to bug off through their ATS, but they haven’t audited the process to know this isn’t working.
– The recruiter got fired, and no one picked up the process.
I would love to tell you that ghosting candidates are a rare thing, but it’s not! It happens all the time! There is never a reason to ghost a candidate, ever! Sometimes I believe candidates get ghosted by recruiters because hiring managers don’t give feedback, but that still isn’t an excuse I would accept. At least tell the candidate that!
Look, I’ve ghosted people. At conference cocktail parties, I’ve been known to ghost my way right back up to my room and go to sleep! When it comes to candidates, I don’t ghost! I would rather tell them the truth so they don’t keep coming back around unless I want them to come back around.
I think most recruiters ghost candidates because they’re in over their heads with the amount of work they have, and they mean to get back to people but just don’t have the time. When you’re in firefighting mode, you tend to only communicate with the candidates you want, not the ones you don’t. Is this good practice? Heck, no! But when you’re fighting fires, you do what you have to do to stay alive.
What would I do if I was you?
Here are a few ideas to try if you really want to know the truth:
1. Send a handwritten letter to the CEO of the company briefly explaining your experience and what outcome you would like.
2. Go on Twitter, and in 140 characters, send a shot across the bow! “XYZ Co. I interviewed two weeks ago and still haven’t heard anything! Can you help me!?” (t will work on Facebook as well!)
3. Write a post about your experience on LinkedIn and tag the recruiter and the recruiter’s boss.
4. Take the hint and go find a company that truly values you and your talent! If the organization and this manager treat candidates like this, imagine how you’ll be treated as an employee.
I just returned from the SHRM Talent Conference in Orlando, and while it’s growing and getting bigger, I was somewhat shocked at the lack of big-name TA Technology vendors in our space who weren’t there.
The argument from the vendor community has been, “Well, Tim, SHRM Talent doesn’t have enterprise buyers.” The thought is that SHRM’s audience is roughly 65% SMB HR professionals. This is when the vendor community shows their lack of math skills. Or really it’s their marketing teams, so I guess we should probably have lower expectations on math skills.
Let me give you some personal data from my 2023 SHRM Talent experience. I was told there were 2300 participants at SHRM. It definitely felt that way. I had two sessions there that were packed with TA professionals, and the rooms were big (500+).
My connection numbers from SHRM Talent 2023:
Total LinkedIn connections: 163 (90% TA-specific titles)
Total downloads of an eBook offer: 141
NPS score of my talks (this is just bragging): 87%
Title level of connections by percentage: Over 50% were “Manager” or above. Of those, over 25% were “Director” titles and above.
Of the 163 connections, how many came from organizations over 5,000 people? 68and 26 were from organizations over 20,000. Including Toyota, Boeing, Siemens, Johnson and Johnson, Gannett, large universities, large health systems, banking and finance, state and fed gov’t, and large franchise organizations.
In one of my sessions, I asked how many folks were using Workday Recruit, and more than twenty hands went up. There were massive amounts of Greenhouse users, Paradox users, and HireVue users. None of those brands cared to show up. These are some of the biggest brands in our industry.
The SHRM Talent Attendees Are My People!
They are in the trenches, real talent acquisition professionals doing the work and using the tools. They are leaders of TA in organizations that are spending real money and buying technology. In my sessions, these professionals stood up and spoke about the tools they were using. The vast majority are desperate to find recruiting technology to buy, and they believe they have limited options because they aren’t being sold options.
I get asked weekly, by recruiting technology vendors, how they can get connected to our potential buyers. Every single time I tell them they have to get out and put themselves in front of them. It takes time to build the pipeline. People have to see your brand multiple times before they buy. They just don’t get an email and buy. I tell them to go to SHRM Talent, but most don’t listen.
The SHRM Talent Conference continues to grow. When I went a few years ago, there were 50 vendors at the expo. This year there were 100. Next year, it’ll be bigger. The reality is SHRM Talent is one of the only talent acquisition-specific conferences in the US that is really delivering content for TA leaders trying to get better. The sessions aren’t sold to vendors like most conferences in our space.
We (Talent Acquisition) need a great conference in our industry. SHRM is getting close. Having the great TA tech companies show up would definitely put it over the top. It’s a huge miss for the attendees who are there not to have access to all the great tech.
SHRM Talent attendees are the top 10% of talent acquisition professionals in the world. Why? Because they are few who made a conscious commitment to investing in their development. To be at the forefront of TA. To be interested in what’s next. To be open to new ideas and new technologies. You won’t change my mind on this. The vast majority of TA professionals in our industry just show up and do the job, and don’t look for further development. These folks did and I celebrate you.
I guess I need to start at what the hell is “recruiting” and what’s not “recruiting.” We have to because what most of you are calling “recruiting,” I call processing candidates who applied to your job. To me, that’s administering the recruiting process, not really recruiting.
If you post a job and someone applies, technically, most of you call that recruiting. You’re paying a full-functioning human anywhere from $65K to $165K for them to be a “recruiter,” and they are posting jobs and waiting for someone to apply. I used to say I could train a monkey to do that job, but now I get to say I can easily train A.I. to do that job for pennies on the dollar.
Posting and Praying is not recruiting. Posting, collecting candidates who applied, and screening them, is what I like to call “Inbound Recruiting,” and that’s not really recruiting. It’s just administering the recruiting process. Do. Not. Get. Me. Wrong. Being amazing at administering your recruiting process is still valuable and needed. The best “outbound” recruiting shops will still have about 70% of their hires filled by “inbound” recruiting!
Outbound recruiting is then “real” recruiting. That’s when a recruiter has a requisition and really has no valid candidates for the hiring manager, and thus they have to go out and find valid candidates. Now, part of that process might still be finding new places to share and post jobs, but that’s only one small part. The larger part of “real” recruiting is cold outreach to people who don’t know your job is open or might know, but they need some persuasion.
Okay, Why Aren’t Your Recruiters Doing Any “Real” Recruiting?
1. They don’t have capacity because, as humans, we naturally fill our time with what gives us the most success, and in your current state, that is “Inbound recruiting.” This means you tell your recruiters, and you expect your recruiters to do outbound recruiting, but they can easily fill their day with inbound recruiting, and it pays the same. So, why not take the easier route?
3. They aren’t rewarded and recognized for doing real recruiting. Almost every time I work with corporate TA teams, I find that the recruiter who fills the most jobs is looked at and rewarded like they are the top recruiter. What I find is they rarely are the top recruiter, but they are the recruiter who processes the most fills through inbound recruiting.
4. Your TA Shop is not structured to do real recruiting. See #1, but basically, you should have “processors” who only do inbound recruiting, and they are amazing at it, and then you have recruiters who only really recruit in a modern TA function. You can get processors for half the price of real recruiters, and they are measured completely differently than outbound recruiters.
5. Your hiring managers don’t know the difference. Right now, today, your hiring managers honestly believe that your TA team is recruiting for their opening. They have no idea that you are only posting jobs and collecting whatever person applies. Those people applying might be the worst talent in the industry, but you are selling them on they are the best. If they knew the truth, they would demand change. What I find is real recruiters work with hiring managers to actually uncover the best talent together in the best TA shops.
This isn’t easy!
I get it. The change management alone from moving from inbound recruiting to outbound recruiting is painful, which is why I think the best approach is to break up the function into two very specific processes of inbound and outbound. It never, and yes, I’m saying never, works to have and expect recruiters to do both.
We built the Michigan Recruiter’s Conference to specifically work with Corporate Talent Acquisition teams to start to work on these challenges and pain points, and I’m super excited to bring it back on November 10th in Detroit with our awesome corporate TA team sponsor DTE Energy onsite at their beautiful and modern campus. Join us!
