Articles - Lou Adler
RSS FeedRecognize These 10 Job-hunting Styles to Source More Top Performers
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
If you frequently find top people who are either over-qualified, uninterested, or tell you they've just accepted another job or are close to it, job-hunting typecasting can increase the number of top performers you see.
I've observed over the years that top people enter the job market in predictable ways depending on how satisfied they are with their current jobs. Here's a short video highlighting the job-hunting psychology of the top performer. Obviously, the more anxious they are about the quality of their current jobs, the more aggressive they'll be in looking for something else. Ten classic job-hunting styles stand out, from those who are simply open to talk about possible opportunities to those who are ready to accept a reasonable offer in a few days. From a consumer marketing perspective these would be called customer personas. Knowing the type of person you're seeking can help you develop a targeted sourcing strategy, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. Segmenting your candidate pool this way will become more and more necessary in order to increase the quantity and quality of top performers you're seeing.
» Continue reading "Recognize These 10 Job-hunting Styles to Source More Top Performers"
Recruiting Passive Candidates in Tough Economic Times
Topics: Networking, Recruiting
Consider this as a basic truth: in tough economic times every job looks better, especially the one you already have.
» Continue reading "Recruiting Passive Candidates in Tough Economic Times"
6 Steps for Hiring the Best Every Time
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Sourcing
Over the past 30-plus years, I've been involved in thousands of searches, worked with hundreds of hiring managers, trained 3,000 to 4,000 recruiters, and worked closely with dozens of major companies. Following are some of the common threads among the best techniques, processes, and tools that I have seen and used.
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A New Perspective on Sourcing Top Talent - Eight New Ideas You Need to Consider
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
Consumer marketing ideas have overtaken traditional sourcing approaches faster than anyone could have imagined. Job boards are dead; talent hubs are alive. Skills-based postings will soon follow the dodo bird into extinction, and will be replaced with ads focused on the future, not the past. They will be crafted with the latest search engine marketing concepts in mind. If you want your fair share of tomorrow's talent, you'd better start changing how you source them today.
Here's what I see as the fundamental ground rules for sourcing top talent, circa 2010. Implementing them now will give you a reasonable head start.
» Continue reading "A New Perspective on Sourcing Top Talent - Eight New Ideas You Need to Consider"
10 Steps for Hiring the Best Every Time
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
No amount of art or magic will help you consistently hire top people. A bit of science, however, might just do the trick. By this I mean a series of steps that if everyone in your company follows will allow you to hire more top people on a consistent and repeatable basis.
Over the past 30+ years I've been involved in thousands of searches, worked with hundreds of different hiring managers, trained 3,000 to 4,000 recruiters, and worked closely with dozens of major companies. Following are the common threads among the best techniques, processes, and tools I've seen and used. Collectively, they add up to a business process for hiring top people. While Performance-based Hiring provides a simplified high-level summary of these, it's the details and execution that will ultimately determine success.
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Abraham Maslow, SPIN Selling, and Recruiting
Topics: Assessment, Negotiating, Recruiting
Understanding human behavior can help you recruit more passive candidates.
When filling a job order, most recruiters search through virtual stacks of resumes hoping one stands out, matching most of the skills and experiences listed on the job description. When calling a person, the recruiter attempts to gain this same information by first describing the job and then asking the person to describe his or her background. If there's a fit, the selling process begins.
» Continue reading "Abraham Maslow, SPIN Selling, and Recruiting"
The Passive Candidate Recruiter's Scorecard – How well do you measure up on these 10 critical recruiter skills?
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
Many things have changed in the past few years regarding best recruiting practices, especially with the increased focus on passive candidate sourcing and recruiting. Based on this we decided to create a passive candidate recruiting scorecard. If you'd like to evaluate yourself, just review the following factors and rank yourself on the 1-5 scale described. This will be pretty insightful just to see where you stand if you're a recruiter, or where your team stands if you're a manager or director.
As you review each of the factors below rank yourself on the following 1-5 scale, with a Level 5 representing super star performance and a Level 1 representing absolute incompetence. On this scale a 2.5 would be considered adequate or average.
Level 1: Has no ability whatsoever, or doesn't want to do it under any circumstance.
Level 2: Has some ability, but needs urging or hasn't done it, but has the potential to learn.
Level 3: Has strong ability, has proven results, and is self-motivated to do it consistently.
Level 4: Has very strong ability with proven results and does it faster or does a lot more of it. Often trains others.
Level 5: Is one of the best in the business in this area. So good, in fact, is sought out to train others.
Four Trends Affecting the Future of Recruiting
Topics: Recruiting
This past week I spent time with a major recruitment advertising agency, a large direct marketing organization, and the top-performing office of one of the largest temp-to-perm employment agencies in the country.
These meetings revealed some trends that might help you develop your future recruiting strategies.
» Continue reading "Four Trends Affecting the Future of Recruiting"
Why a Nimble Early-adopter Sourcing Strategy Will Yield the Best Candidates
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
- Bob Dylan
As most of you would agree, how companies market and advertise jobs to top people is changing at an accelerating pace; in most cases, more rapidly than companies can respond. Simply put, the winners in the ongoing war for talent will be those who can establish nimble and targeted programs designed to both anticipate and subsequently lead these changes.
Understanding where sourcing has come from and where it's going can help you get the needed jump-start as you begin developing your sourcing strategies for the recovery just about to start.
In the Olden Days of Sourcing – considered anything before 1995, or pre-Internet – print media and the telephone were the primary sourcing tools of choice. This was the era of the hidden job market, classified ads, company loyalty, and where networking was largely Rolodex-based. Big display ads dominated the Sunday Times and Thursday's Wall Street Journal. Job changes were fewer, but each decision meant more.
» Continue reading "Why a Nimble Early-adopter Sourcing Strategy Will Yield the Best Candidates"
Assessing Team Skills
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
For most of us, cooperating with people, discussing ideas, collaborating on projects, influencing others, and working on cross-functional teams typically represents 50-75% of most workdays. Team skills are critical and those that do it well are rewarded in terms of influence, support, promotions, and bigger reviews. Those without it are avoided, shunned, or assigned to the proverbial closet. Working with people without decent team skills literally sucks the energy out of the rest of team, bringing everyone down.
» Continue reading "Assessing Team Skills"
The Uneven Evolution of Corporate Recruiting
Topics: Recruiting
Much of the hiring process from sourcing to closing to onboarding has changed significantly over the past 20 years. Much hasn't. And therein lies the problem.
» Continue reading "The Uneven Evolution of Corporate Recruiting"
Assessing Leadership Using the Two-Question Interview
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
As a recruiter, and as part of a rather callous objective of maximizing income in the shortest period of time, it became quickly apparent that being a better interviewer than my clients was a critical skill. The quest to achieve this was how the two-question Performance-based Interview and 10-Factor Candidate Assessment scorecard were born.
» Continue reading "Assessing Leadership Using the Two-Question Interview"
Your Recruiting Success Depends on How Well You Manage Managers
Topics: Managing, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
In a recent ERE article I made the case that a tipping point was close at hand for converting recruiting and sourcing into a scalable and systematic business process.
» Continue reading "Your Recruiting Success Depends on How Well You Manage Managers"
Use an Evidence-based Assessment Process to Hire More Top Talent
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
Sometimes the best person for a job is not the best interviewer. Most often the best interviewer is not the most talented among a group of three or four candidates. Frequently the best person for a job, who is a good interviewer, is underwhelmed by the opportunity available and comes across as quiet or uninterested. On top of these problems, add hiring manager bias, lack of understanding of real job needs, temporary nervousness on the part of good candidates, and lack of preparation on the part of the interviewing team members. Collectively, it's fairly obvious why current interviewing and assessment techniques are poor predictors of on-the-job success. All this suggests that the traditional unstructured interview as well as the structured behavioral interview are inadequate in overcoming these hiring process problems.
I recently had the opportunity to discuss this topic as a panelist on a Human Capital Institute web program with Cathy Lee Gibson, the former Director of the Human Resources Program at Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School. The focus was on how to better "manage" hiring managers. This is a point of significant interest to any of the recruiters among us who have lost a good candidate because one of our clients made an incorrect assessment. It should also be a point of major interest to any hiring manager who is at odds with their recruiting or HR group regarding how to best measure candidate quality.
During the webcast I described the evidenced-based assessment approach we've developed as part of Performance-based Hiringsm to specifically address this all-too-common problem. Our solution was to change the method used by the interviewing team to decide whether to hire someone or not. Rather than add up a bunch of superficial or biased yes/no votes, the idea was to delay the assessment until all of the interviewers could present their findings. Once this is completed, the group collectively makes the hiring decision based on all of the evidence presented. Cathy summarized this whole point succinctly by saying it was akin to being "a juror, not a judge," during the interview.
» Continue reading "Use an Evidence-based Assessment Process to Hire More Top Talent"
The Recruiting Tipping Point
Topics: Recruiting
I've been a judge for the ERE awards for the past three years and have attended numerous recruiting conferences around the world. As part of this, I've seen great ideas come and go, and some not so great, somehow hang on. So I'm a bit cynical with most of the hype and the emergence of the next great hope.
» Continue reading "The Recruiting Tipping Point"
A Dozen or So Different Ways to Ask the One-Question Interview
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Interview Training, Newsletter
Early in my search career I realized that many of my clients weren’t very good at evaluating candidates. This made me have to find more candidates than necessary to complete most searches. To minimize this wasted effort, I created the one-question Performance-based HiringSM interview, primarily to better defend my candidates from weak interviewers. Once I became proficient with the technique, I started training my clients how to use it. This helped prevent good candidates from being excluded due to bad interviewing, and required fewer candidates to be seen on each assignment. Here’s how the process works:
» Continue reading "A Dozen or So Different Ways to Ask the One-Question Interview"
Are You Suffering from Over-Sourcing Syndrome?
Topics: Assessment, Sourcing
O•ver sourc•ing syn•drome: the need to find more candidates than needed caused by inappropriately eliminating the good candidates you already have.
» Continue reading "Are You Suffering from Over-Sourcing Syndrome?"
Sourcing Basics: Stop Throwing Away Good Candidates for Bad Reasons
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
I can't remember a time when recruiters, recruiting managers, hiring managers, HR executives and company leaders didn't complain about the lack of good candidates. When the Internet and job boards came along we were promised the solution was at hand. But more than 10 years later the problems in finding talent have gotten worse, not better. Perhaps, just perhaps, the solution to better sourcing is not better sourcing.
» Continue reading "Sourcing Basics: Stop Throwing Away Good Candidates for Bad Reasons"
How to Interview Top Performers
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing
Top people cannot be interviewed the same way as everyone else. Although most recruiters and hiring managers know this, few know how to do it. It's not about selling the job, charming the person, and over-talking. It's about using the interview to get the candidate to sell you.
» Continue reading "How to Interview Top Performers"
All You Need to Know About Using ZoomInfo to Source Great Candidates
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter, Recruiting
ZoomInfo and LinkedIn should be the starting points for any search assignment from experienced staff to CEO. Here's the link to an article on how to use LinkedIn for passive and active candidate sourcing. This week's article will focus on using ZoomInfo to find more great candidates within hours.
ZoomInfo is different than LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an opt-in networking site whereas ZoomInfo constantly crawls the Internet seeking out information about companies and people connected to those companies. The company information includes an overview, basic financial performance, and an easy means to find industry information, competitors, and current and past employees. The biographical information is presented in a manner that appears to be resume-like, but in reality is a web page consolidating information from a variety of web sources about the person. This includes information like someone being mentioned in a company press release or having spoken at an industry event.
» Continue reading "All You Need to Know About Using ZoomInfo to Source Great Candidates"
The Imperfect Evolution of the Corporate Recruiting Department
Topics: Recruiting
Before we get to the future, a little history is in order. As part of the marketing for my retained executive search practice in the mid-1990s, I did consulting for dozens of mid-size companies through TEC (The Executive Committee) and YPO (Young Presidents Organization).
» Continue reading "The Imperfect Evolution of the Corporate Recruiting Department"
Great Active Candidate Sourcing Ideas
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Interview Training, Newsletter
There are some top-notch, fully-employed people who sometimes voluntarily seek out new career opportunities. Since they’re fully-employed and top-notch they don’t expend too much effort in looking for something else. When they get itchy or at the first hint of trouble they’ll first start networking with friends and former associates. Then they’ll contact a recruiter or two. Then they’ll probably Google for jobs (e.g., searching on the job title and a location) and check out some specialty or niche job boards. If nothing develops from these sources, they’ll probably look at the career websites of some highly regarded companies. As a last resort, they’ll check out the major boards.
» Continue reading "Great Active Candidate Sourcing Ideas"
Recruiting Ideas that Stand the Test of Time
Topics: Recruiting
Over the past 30 years, I've worked with thousands of managers, executives, and recruiters. While many things have changed involving recruiting over these years, a few things have stayed the same. Here's my short list of the best things I've learned about recruiting, sourcing, and hiring top talent that seem as true today as they did when I first started as a recruiter.
» Continue reading "Recruiting Ideas that Stand the Test of Time"
Back to Basics: Understanding Real Job Needs
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter
As far as I'm concerned, to be a great recruiter you need to understand real job needs. This is the core competency of the best recruiters. I've never met a top 20% recruiter who didn't understand that the real job was not the job description. A job description just lists skills, qualification, experience requirements, and an overview of responsibilities. The real job is what the person does every day: solving problems, making things happen, influencing others, overcoming challenges, making decisions, and getting results consistently. Those recruiters who use the job description to screen candidates are little more than box checkers, missing out on some great people who have comparable but not identical backgrounds.
» Continue reading "Back to Basics: Understanding Real Job Needs"
Passive Candidate Recruiting in a Slowing Economy
Topics: Recruiting
Lack of planning and poor execution are the two most common causes of failure, whether it's fighting a war, launching any type of business initiative, or reallocating recruiting resources. When business conditions change, appropriate planning and reallocation of effort becomes even more important. When done properly, you'll be able to anticipate problems before they cause too much damage. From a recruiting perspective, this planning needs to start by understanding the mindset of potential candidates while they contemplate switching jobs as economic conditions worsen.
» Continue reading "Passive Candidate Recruiting in a Slowing Economy"
10 Great Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find the Best Passive Candidates on the Planet
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Networking, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
LinkedIn is a great tool for finding passive candidates who want to be found. This is its little-discussed power. No one would publish their profiles otherwise. While some recruiters are still reluctant to jump on board, others have been making placements since day one. Here are some ideas on how to get started right away to take full advantage of this remarkable networking tool:
How an Intervene-Earlier Sourcing Strategy Can Multiply Your Pool of Top Candidates
Topics: Managing, Networking, Sourcing
We're currently conducting a major research project on how top people look for new jobs. This research will offer great insight into what companies need to do to better align their current sourcing efforts with market realities. If you'd like to take part, just send this survey link to all of your best candidates and those you've recently placed.
Inside the Mind of the Top Performer - Part I
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Interview Training, Negotiating, Networking, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
Top performers are different than average performers both on the job and how they look for a new one. Simply defined, a top performer is a person who consistently exceeds expectations. While you might be able to determine a person's potential to be a top performer in 30 days or so, it takes at least a few months to determine if a person is a top performer. This has to do with motivation, team skills, and the consistent achievement of results. For a variety of reasons, just because a person can do the work, it doesn't mean the person will do the work. Generally speaking, if a top person takes a great job that perfectly fits his or her needs and aspirations, it's unlikely the person would even consider changing jobs in the first year or so. The person is typically on a steep learning curve, making an impact, and highly satisfied with the current work and the potential future opportunities.
» Continue reading "Inside the Mind of the Top Performer - Part I"
A Tale of Two Searches
Topics: Networking, Sourcing
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
This past quarter, I conducted two senior-level management searches. Each one stands out as a shining example of what to do and what not to do. Understanding the differences can double your monthly placement rate in about half the time. Before reading the details, you should benchmark your own recruiting skills using this 10-Factor Recruiter diagnostic assessment to get a sense of what it takes to be a great recruiter.
» Continue reading "A Tale of Two Searches"
The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Everybody - from the Board and CEO down to every manager and supervisor - talks about the importance of hiring top talent. But only a rare few have converted the concept into reality. A number of companies have actually succeeded in embedding the idea into their corporate cultures, but in most cases, even these leave the "how" up to the recruiting department and each individual manager. Creating a road map on the "how to" of hiring top talent is the purpose of this book. It's now more important than ever. The worldwide demand for talent has increased as the supply of trained, talented, and available labor has declined. Even a temporary economic slowdown will not alter demographic trends and the long term need for talent.
» Continue reading "The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent"
Defend Your Candidate from the Competition and Superficial Assessments
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
I wrote a version of this article for ERE in April 2007. It seemed worthy of repeating as a year-end reminder of the critical role that recruiters need to play to ensure that bad decisions don't preclude the best person from getting hired. As you'll find out, the key point of the article is that good candidates, who we spent a great deal of time developing, can often be lost for easily preventable reasons. Setting up some process or check-point can prevent the problem from arising in the first place. If this isn't possible, you need to have some counter-measures ready to employ to mitigate any problems that do arise.
» Continue reading "Defend Your Candidate from the Competition and Superficial Assessments"
The One Single Thing You Must Do to Become a Better Recruiter in 2008
Topics: Recruiting
This article describes the most important factor involved in individual-recruiter success.
» Continue reading "The One Single Thing You Must Do to Become a Better Recruiter in 2008"
Don't Let The Grinch Steal Your Recruiting Season
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
Last week Lou gave you our prelude to the holidays using the "12 Days of Christmas" theme. Today we'll take a look at the realities of recruiting in today's tough market through the eyes of none other than The Grinch himself. So let me begin by quoting rather liberally from the beginning of one of the greatest holiday stories of all time. My apologies in advance to Dr. Seuss and to my eight children.
» Continue reading "Don't Let The Grinch Steal Your Recruiting Season"
12 Great Sourcing Gifts for the Holiday Season
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Networking, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
If you want to generate one great candidate day after day after day, follow my 12 golden rules for sourcing the best. These are this year's stocking stuffers whether you're hiring active or passive candidates.
» Continue reading "12 Great Sourcing Gifts for the Holiday Season"
10 Steps to Increase Interviewing Accuracy into the 90% Range
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing, Networking, Recruiting
There are two huge problems when hiring is viewed as an end-to-end process. The first one involves sourcing. Most companies are terrible when it comes to advertising, recruiting, and attracting the best. Of course, as a recruiter, how I make my money is by finding top people that others can't. And, in today's Internet age, this is actually quite easy. However, this is a big waste of time if you or your hiring managers don't know how to accurately assess candidate competency.
» Continue reading "10 Steps to Increase Interviewing Accuracy into the 90% Range"
How to Overcome Early-stage Recruiting Objections
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
After finding some interested candidates, transactional recruiters send in a stack of resumes to the hiring manager hoping one will fit. This isn't recruiting. This is roulette.
The best recruiters use a very sophisticated sales technique called solution selling during the sourcing process based on deep job matching. This starts by working with the hiring managers to clarify job needs, define the performance objectives, and develop an employee value proposition. From this, targeted sourcing approaches are developed that involve convincing the best people why they should consider your opportunity. Done properly far fewer candidates are presented to the client, all are seen, and one of them is hired based on an offer package emphasizing opportunity rather than compensation.
» Continue reading "How to Overcome Early-stage Recruiting Objections"
The Official Rules for Writing Creative Ads
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
Don't overlook online advertising as a means to find top talent. As described in an earlier section ("Understanding Top Talent"), it was made clear that top people look online for new career opportunities whenever they experience a "job dissatisfaction moment." While these online excursions are short – ranging from 30-90 minutes at a time – a well-positioned and compelling ad can often snare a few top performers. In this section we'll cover some of the tactics you can use to implement a targeted ad campaign strategy to attract this group of top performers.
» Continue reading "The Official Rules for Writing Creative Ads"
Hiring and Recruiting Challenges Survey 2008 Preliminary Results
Topics: Interviewing, Managing, Recruiting, Sourcing
We are currently in the midst of our somewhat annual Hiring and Recruiting Challenges 2008 Survey. You should take the survey. Just the questions will get you jazzed. The answers, on the other hand, will make you shudder.
» Continue reading "Hiring and Recruiting Challenges Survey 2008 Preliminary Results"
The Secrets of Top Recruiters Finally Revealed
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
I'm very proud of the fact that I've helped hundreds (maybe thousands) of recruiters in the U.S. and around the world increase their monthly placement rate by 50-100% and in some cases much more. As part of our planning for our 2008 "The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent" tour, I've put together my list of "recruiter essentials" we'll cover during the workshop. These are the secrets that every top recruiter follows in order to maximize their placement rate. [FYI: We've incorporated these same points into our final Recruiter Boot Camp Online program for this year (the four-part course starts Nov. 2, 2007) and our San Jose LIVE: Performance-based Hiring Tour 2007 event on December 5, 2007.] While there are about 20 key techniques we teach during the workshop, in my opinion the following 10 techniques represent the difference between average and great recruiter performance:
» Continue reading "The Secrets of Top Recruiters Finally Revealed"
How to Control Your Hiring Manager Clients and Make More Placements
Topics: Interviewing, Managing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Working With Hiring Managers
Our clients do a lot of dumb thing that cause us recruiters to work too hard. These all seem to fall into big buckets of lost opportunities. Here are the ones that head the list:
» Continue reading "How to Control Your Hiring Manager Clients and Make More Placements"
The Seven Axioms of Yves Behar
Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing
Don't use Wal-Mart advertising techniques to sell to a Tiffany's buyer - Lou Adler
Great design is at the heart of great marketing. For years, I've been preaching about the need to use advanced consumer marketing concepts to attract top talent. Every issue of Fast Company has some great marketing ideas that can be incorporated in your recruitment advertising and sourcing programs. The October 2007 issue is no exception.
» Continue reading "The Seven Axioms of Yves Behar"
The Official Rules for Advertising Your Jobs
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
- Show some R.E.S.P.E.C.T. This is the most important rule of them all: treat candidates as exceptional people and show them at least as much respect as you show your customers. It seems that retail organizations and those close to their end customer clearly understand this. From a sourcing standpoint this means you emphasize what's in it for the candidate over what's in it for the company.
» Continue reading "The Official Rules for Advertising Your Jobs"
How to Recruit the Best Passive Candidates
Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing
Passive candidates are, by definition, people who are not currently looking for a job. Despite this, most people in this category would be willing to discuss a new career opportunity if it offered some significant upside opportunity.
» Continue reading "How to Recruit the Best Passive Candidates"
The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
Every sport has rules, even pickup games. We even have rules for our kids - when they can watch TV, play video games, go to bed, etc. Business has rules for just about everything - important things like capital expenditures, accounting, SEC reporting, and product design and testing; or less important things like how to dress, when to come to work, how to earn vacation, and how to fill in expense reports. What's surprising is there aren't any rules for what's supposedly the most important thing a company needs to do - hire and retain top talent.
» Continue reading "The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent"
Hot Tip #29 - Humongous Techniques to Boost Your Recruitment Advertising Efforts
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
I've just finished reading Dan and Chip Heath's Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. This is a great book on marketing and how to influence others, and many of the ideas can be directly applied to recruiting in general and recruitment advertising in particular. When you combine this with Hire With Your Head you'll be finding more top candidates and making more placements before the week is out.
Hot Tip #28 - The Anatomy of a Great Ad
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiter Training, Sourcing
If you want to attract top people online, your ads need to be outrageous, compelling and found. To prove it we're launching our first annual outrageous ad writing contest. To win a fully-paid scholarship to Recruiter Boot Camp Online (a $1200 value!) you need to follow these guidelines on how to write and post ads that really pull in top people. We'll also award a second scholarship if you can get better results doing it a different way, but I personally wouldn't waste my time. With that said, here's the template we've used to write ads to successfully attract great candidates from entry-level to executive.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #28 - The Anatomy of a Great Ad"
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Topics: Interviewing, Negotiating, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
I'm in Australia this week working with a number of different recruiting organizations. In Australia the talent supply is far short of demand, so getting assignments is relatively easy, while finding and closing strong candidates takes exceptional sourcing and recruiting skills. Candidates always have multiple offers and counter-offers are standard. To meet this challenge head on, the recruiting teams I'm working with wanted to figure out how to double their monthly production within six months.
» Continue reading "Work Smarter, Not Harder"
The Psychology of Recruiting Top Performers
Topics: Negotiating, Networking, Recruiting, Sourcing
You've just placed a top performer in a new job. It's a great fit right off the bat. The job is as advertised, job expectations were clear, the person is making an impact, doing work she enjoys, working with a great team, and working for a top-notch manager who is a true mentor.
» Continue reading "The Psychology of Recruiting Top Performers"
Hot Tip #27 - Double Your Placement Rate in Half the Time
Topics: Interviewing, Networking, Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting, Sourcing
Let's start by identifying some of the biggest yield losses in the recruiting process and begin improving these. Starting with the worst, here are just basic metrics you might want to consider to achieve our goal:
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #27 - Double Your Placement Rate in Half the Time"
Are You Masking Your Hiring Process Problems with the Wrong Solutions?
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Just about every corporate recruiter has too many requisitions to handle as effectively as possible. The problem is magnified when good candidates get excluded for dumb and preventable reasons, generally weak interviewing skills on the part of the hiring manager or a candidate who wasn't at his or her best. Sometimes good candidates are excluded before they're even seen because they don't have exactly the right background. Sometimes good candidates pull themselves out to of the process because the job doesn't seem interesting or the candidate didn't like the hiring manager. Few companies address these problems directly--instead they avoid them, focusing most of their energy and resources on hiring more recruiters or developing new sourcing ideas. This is comparable to buying more raw materials than necessary for a factory that has an excessive scrap rate rather than fixing the scrap problem.
» Continue reading "Are You Masking Your Hiring Process Problems with the Wrong Solutions?"
Hot Tip #26 - A Partial List of the Ten Commandments of Recruiting Passive Candidates
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
There's a great article about recruiting in the September 2007 issue of Fast Company - "The Inevitability Of $300 Socks." Actually, it has nothing to do with recruiting unless you read between the lines. And what a great story is told between those lines! Chip and Dan Heath, the authors of the business best seller Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, make the point in their article that some basic products attain premium pricing when they're seen as ideas rather than mere commodities. The Heaths cite alcohol, jeans and spa treatments as idea-based products and oil changes and fax machines as idea-free. You obtain premium pricing and margins with idea-based products and basic market returns with basic commodities
Hot Tip #25 - A Partial List of the Ten Commandments of Recruiting Passive Candidates
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Here's a modified version of an earlier article that's worth considering today more than ever. Over my 25 years of recruiting experience, I've learned a few important principles about how to effectively recruit passive candidates. Most were learned by trial and error, and while they might not all be applicable to your specific situation, collectively they offer a pretty decent road map of what it takes to hire more top passive candidates on a consistent basis. Here are the first five of my favorite ten commandants for recruiting passive candidates. The next five will be covered in next week's Hot Tip article.
How to Assess Potential and Promotability
Topics: Assessment, Managing, Newsletter, Recruiting
In a recent email I paraphrased the following quote. My son had sent it to me in regards to training and evaluating officers in the military. He thought it would be useful in assessing managers, executives, and leaders. It's been attributed to a variety of different people, and I can't seem to find the originator, so I apologize for not giving the true author official credit.
Amateurs think tactics.
Professionals think logistics, planning and strategy.
Reformers think staff selection, retention and team development.
» Continue reading "How to Assess Potential and Promotability"
Hot Tip #24 - These Six Techniques Can Improve Your Productivity by 100%!
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting, Sourcing
Most recruiters waste too much time doing unnecessary work. The solution is not reducing your req load, it's cutting your sendouts/hire in half. This will increase your productivity by 100%. In the process you'll start hiring more people who are top performers, but not great interviewers, and you'll stop hiring people who are great interviewers, but not top performers. Here's how to pull off this amazing feat:
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #24 - These Six Techniques Can Improve Your Productivity by 100%!"
Hot Tip #23 - How to Prep a Candidate
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips
We all know that most hiring managers don't conduct broad-based, evidence-based interviews. Many base their judgments about candidate competency on some combination of first impressions, technical knowledge, academics, and smarts. One sure way to improve your hiring batting average (sendouts/hire) is to prep your candidates to cope with whatever questions or circumstances arise. If you handle the candidate prep well enough, you can also prep your clients without them even knowing it.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #23 - How to Prep a Candidate"
Hot Tip #22 - Sourcing Passive Candidates is More than Lead Generation
Are You Wasting Major Time on Minor Stuff?
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing
Here's my minimalist definition of sourcing: presenting qualified and interested candidates within a reasonable period of time to a hiring manager, and have 100% of them be interviewed.
The 10 Pillars of Effective Sourcing
Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing
Too many companies fall into the trap of using a "by default" sourcing strategy as their primary means to find top people.
» Continue reading "The 10 Pillars of Effective Sourcing"
Assess Your Company's Recruiting Department's Performance
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
» Continue reading "Assess Your Company's Recruiting Department's Performance"
Hot Tip #21 - Talent Hubs, Mashups, and Widgets
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting, Sourcing
The fundamental sourcing strategy for any major corporation should be the building of the biggest proprietary database of resumes, contacts, and leads as possible. From this database candidates should then be culled and contacted based on specific job needs. Building the database and keeping it warm are two separate tasks. For this article, let's address the building of the database.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #21 - Talent Hubs, Mashups, and Widgets"
Hot Tip #20 - Stop Googling and Start Networking
Topics: Networking, Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing
A piece of data worthy of note: some old friends just told us that their daughter - a very talented Gen Xer - has just joined a professional business network weeks after landing a new job. The only thing unusual about this was that she told her parents she was using this network to plant the seeds for her next job.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #20 - Stop Googling and Start Networking"
An Open Letter to Our Candidates
Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing
Imagine that this letter appeared on the first page of your company's career website, or perhaps on your company's home page in place of the "Careers" button.
» Continue reading "An Open Letter to Our Candidates"
Hot Tip #19 - Passive Candidate Recruiting Requires Professionalism and Product Knowledge
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing
If you do any passive candidate recruiting you should go to LinkedIn.com and link to me using my lou@adlerconcepts.com email address. Of course, I won't give you a pass-through to any of my one million plus first and second degree candidates unless you clearly understand real job needs (here's an article on how to take the assignment and using performance profiles that you must read first) and have sent me a compelling email as to why this is a great job for a great person. Of course, that's not the purpose of this article, but it's a good introduction to my real point on how to contact and recruit passive candidates.
Hot Tip #18 - On the Sourcing Edge - New Ideas for Passive Candidate Development
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing
I've recently created a ning.com business networking site called Sourcing Strategy. You should join it if you want to hear about the latest techniques in Internet sourcing. We'll be using this site to share, discuss, and create some great new ways to attract top people to a company's career website. The most obvious "in your face" idea is the use of a business networking site like this one to find and recruit top talent. I suspect some recruiters are already calling other recruiters who post clever, practical, and innovative ideas. Those who philosophize and pontificate are quickly shunned.
The Most Advanced, Innovative Career Website in the World
Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing
I'm in the process of preparing a product requirement document for a state-of-the-art career website, and I need your help. While cash is somewhat limited, creativity isn't. The client has even suggested that the product spec by shared with every other company in the world as long as they help input some ideas into the design process.
» Continue reading "The Most Advanced, Innovative Career Website in the World"
Using the Panel Interview to Save Time and Increase Accuracy
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training
If you want to increase assessment accuracy and save time, conduct more panel interviews. These are much better than an all-day series of one-on-one 45-60-minute interviews. When organized properly, panel interviews help everybody involved learn more about the candidate, even weaker interviewers, if they just observe. Panel interviews also provide a great means for subordinates to get involved in the hiring process. Subordinates should never conduct one-on-one interviews, since they usually are trying to work for someone they like, so they focus on the wrong issues. For another, they're rarely objective, and worse, many of them are weak interviewers. A panel interview overcomes all of these problems. However, I didn't always believe this strongly that panel interviews were that good of an idea.
» Continue reading "Using the Panel Interview to Save Time and Increase Accuracy"
Hot Tip #17 - Googling for Resumes Using Performance Terms
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting, Sourcing
When cold-calling passive candidates or searching for names, lists, and resumes on line, I make a point to maximize my time by only talking with high performers. This way, even if these people are not perfect for the assignment at hand, they know other top performers who are. Of course, to be a successful full-cycle recruiter you have to be very good at getting these top people to call you back, then recruiting them and then getting the referrals (we show you how to do this in Recruiter Boot Camp Online). To save time at the front end you must limit your calling to only top people. You can do this by adding recognition terms, honors, and awards into your online searches.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #17 - Googling for Resumes Using Performance Terms"
Hot Tip #16 - Six Simple Ways to Increase Interviewing Accuracy
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
- Make sure everyone who has a vote knows the job. If an interviewer isn't sure of the real job, he'll overvalue his intuition, his perception of the job, and the candidate's first impression and communication skills to make the assessment. As a result the assessment will be about 50% accurate for a yes vote, and a bit worse on the no vote side. Interviewers need to know real job needs in order to have a chance of making the right hiring decision. I won't take an assignment unless everyone on the hiring team knows what the person taking the job needs to do to be successful. Neither should you. Preparing a performance profile with the hiring team will help.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #16 - Six Simple Ways to Increase Interviewing Accuracy"
Being a Good Interviewer is More About Recruiting than Selection
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
I learned to become a better interviewer than my clients for only one reason: to prevent good candidates from being excluded for bad reasons. Too many of my clients were assessing candidates improperly, either overvaluing first impressions or using some narrow range of skills to determine competency.
» Continue reading "Being a Good Interviewer is More About Recruiting than Selection"
Are You Ready for the Upcoming Feeding Frenzy?
Topics: Newsletter
The jobs report for May 2007, which came out on June 1st, showed an unexpectedly large increase of 157,000 in non-farm U.S. payroll. At the 2007 June NACE conference in New York City, recruiters were clamoring for new ways to attract college grads and undergrads, especially MBAs. At a publisher's convention starting June 3rd, 250 CEOs from small companies were desperate for ways to hire top talent. And the list goes on...
» Continue reading "Are You Ready for the Upcoming Feeding Frenzy?"
Hot Tip #15 - The Second Part of the Two-Question Interview
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
If you want to better understand a candidate's thinking, planning, and job-specific problem-solving skills, just ask this question: If you were to get this job, how would you go about solving this typical problem (describe the problem)?
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #15 - The Second Part of the Two-Question Interview"
Hot Tip #14 - Why You Should Hire People Who Are Weak Interviewers
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
There is good news and some bad news on the hiring front. First, I'll give the bad news. There are three big hiring mistakes many people are now making in greater numbers than ever before:
- Hiring someone you shouldn't have. The person interviewed well, but underperformed once on the job.
- Not hiring a great person because the person didn't interview well. Many top performers are not great interviewers. In fact, this might be the easiest person to hire since no one wants them.
- Not attracting a great person who did interview well. Talented people who interview well are the hardest to recruit since everyone wants to hire them.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #14 - Why You Should Hire People Who Are Weak Interviewers"
The Elements of Applicant Control
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing
On January 3, 1978, I became a contingency recruiter working for a small, highly regarded, two-person search firm (I was number three). This was a pretty odd job to take at the time, since I voluntarily left my spot as VP and GM for a 300-person automotive parts manufacturing company. Somehow, working 80 hours per week didn't seem worth it.
» Continue reading "The Elements of Applicant Control"
Leverage "Leverage" to Get More Hot Referrals
Topics: Newsletter
This could be a very good article, maybe even a great one. It all depends on your point of view. For the chance it turns out to be a great article, wouldn't you agree that it's certainly worth investing a few minutes' reading time?
» Continue reading "Leverage "Leverage" to Get More Hot Referrals"
Hot Tip #13 - How to Use the Phone to Get Referrals
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing
I'll take Kevin Bacon's Six Degrees of Separation to a minor extreme, I suspect that with just the names on ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, or a simple Google search you are only one person removed from everyone in the country. (P.S. You can connect with me on LinkedIn using my email, lou@adlerconcepts.com. Everyone who buys my book can also connect with me and share advanced recruiting ideas like these on my Ning Recruiting Tactics site.)
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #13 - How to Use the Phone to Get Referrals"
Hot Tip #12 - Use MySpace to Get More Employee Referrals
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing
If you don't have a MySpace page, get one so you can see how it works. Once you have the page start linking to all of your friends, then start adding other recruiters to your Friends List. If you go to MySpace find me via email (lou@adlerconcepts.com) and send me your link, so I can add you to my Friends List. Of course, that’s not the point of this hot tip. Leveraging technology is the point.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #12 - Use MySpace to Get More Employee Referrals"
The Most Important Interview Question of All Time
Topics: Newsletter
If you want some quick insight into a candidate's technical competency, motivation level, and team leadership skills, start by asking this two-part question: "Of all of the things you've accomplished in your career, what stands out as most significant? Now could you go ahead and tell me all about it?"
Getting the correct answer to this question can tell you 65 percent to 75 percent of everything you need to make an accurate hiring decision. The correct answer comes by fact-finding and getting complete details of the accomplishment. As an example, let's try it out right now with you as the candidate. To start, write down a short description of your career-defining accomplishment. This would be the best work you've ever done. If you don't have a major accomplishment like this you can boast about quite yet, write down a project or an assignment you worked on that made you very proud.
» Continue reading "The Most Important Interview Question of All Time"
The Best People Are Looking - Finding and Hiring Them Is the Challenge
Topics: Newsletter
The Internet has dramatically increased workforce mobility. Job satisfaction appears to be at an all-time low. Turnover is rising. People change jobs on a whim. Counteroffers are more prevalent and more are being accepted. No wonder. To find another job nowadays, all a top person needs to do is Google a few keywords, a job title, and a city. When combined with a huge reduction in barriers to leaving a company (i.e., portable pension plans, reductions in health-care insurance, and fewer fringe benefits), employees are capable and willing to leave for minor infractions or slightly better offers. Turnover is no longer considered a character flaw. In this environment, a well-positioned ad or a timely phone call is sometimes all it takes to find a top performer. To take advantage of this trend, companies need to move away from a classified ad mentality of listing boring, hard-to-find jobs and, instead, adopt a consumer-marketing approach to advertising.
» Continue reading "The Best People Are Looking - Finding and Hiring Them Is the Challenge"
Hot Tip #11 - Time is Your Most Valuable Commodity - Don't Waste It
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Recruiting
Use the idea of leveraging time to your advantage whenever a candidate decides to opt-out of your process - under the contention that your job is no better than others she's considering. Here's an example of how this scenario plays out.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #11 - Time is Your Most Valuable Commodity - Don't Waste It"
Hot Tip #10 - New Weapon Now Available to Win the Talent Wars
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips, Sourcing
Stalemate.
If every recruiter and every company builds compelling talent hubs, creates search engine optimized career sites, runs exciting ad campaigns, implements a proactive employee referral program and uses the latest name generating techniques, all you'll get are average results. With a finite supply of top people what else could you expect? Of course, if you do all of these things first, or better, you will get exceptional results for a short period of time, until diminishing returns sets in. However, there is still one weapon that is more important than all of the rest combined - that few companies use to their advantage - the hiring manager.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #10 - New Weapon Now Available to Win the Talent Wars"
Speed Kills
Topics: Assessment, Interviewing, Recruiting
There is no longer a hidden job market. The line between active and passive candidates is blurring. Turnover is on the rise. Workforce mobility is increasing. It's easy to look for a new job, apply, and be interviewed from your desktop. The barriers to entry and exit are falling.
» Continue reading "Speed Kills"
Recruiting Is Not Selling, and Other Misconceptions about the Most Important Part of Hiring
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
Excerpted from the 3rd edition of Hire With Your Head (John Wiley and Sons, Inc. June, 2007)
After you've made an offer, but before accepting it, your candidate is probably shopping it around hoping to get something better. As soon as a candidate accepts your offer, the person gets buyer's remorse, wondering whether she made the right decision or left something on the table. Even if the person doesn't have a better offer on the table, lack of conviction when resigning sets the stage for a counteroffer. Effective recruiting becomes the difference maker when you want to ensure that more offers get accepted and stay closed.
Hot Tip #9 - Use the 30% PLUS Solution to Close More Deals
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips
Hiring the best is getting more and more competitive. To ensure you're hiring the strongest talent available you need to plan on offering them at least a 30% increase. However, this increase doesn't need to be all compensation. From what I can tell, more candidates are shopping their offers around and accepting counter-offers. If you find yourself in this squeeze-play, you'll need to reposition your offers as more than compensation.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #9 - Use the 30% PLUS Solution to Close More Deals"
Hot Tip #8 - Don't Get Snowed by Generalities
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
I advocate the use of a one-question performance-based interview. The essence of this is to ask candidates to describe significant projects followed-up by detailed fact-finding. If you do this type of questioning for 3-4 projects over 3-10 years you'll obtain a trend line of performance. Then compare these accomplishments to the performance profile you prepared when you took the assignment to assess job fit. The key to success here is to get details about each accomplishment, not accepting the candidate's initial responses at face value. An example best illustrates this point.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #8 - Don't Get Snowed by Generalities"
Learn to Defend Your Candidate from the Competition and Dumb Decisions
Topics: Negotiating, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
The demand for top people has exploded. Part of this is due to demographics, a strong economy, and a widening gap between those with high-demand skills and available supply. Matters are made worse by the increase in workforce mobility, the blurring of the lines between active and passive candidates, and the transparency of the job market.
» Continue reading "Learn to Defend Your Candidate from the Competition and Dumb Decisions"
Hot Tip #7 - Problem of the Week: Hiring Managers Making Superficial Judgments.
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiter Hot Tips
Last week I saw the play 12 Angry Men starring Richard Thomas and George Wendt. This is a great play to see if you want to become a better recruiter and be entertained at the same time. From a recruiting perspective, you'll quickly learn what it takes to defend your candidate from dumb decisions. This is very important if your clients or those on the interviewing team have ever made incorrect assessments using superficial information, wrong information, or on the quality of the candidate's interviewing skills.
» Continue reading "Hot Tip #7 - Problem of the Week: Hiring Managers Making Superficial Judgments."
Recruiting Lessons from an Advanced Practice Nurse
Topics: Newsletter
A few years ago, we helped a major hospital chain prepare a performance profile for an advanced practice nurse. A performance profile emphasizes what a person needs to do to be successful in a job, rather than the qualifications and experience. While both are required, it's better to focus on what a person does with his or her skills to more accurately assess their competency and motivation. Better yet, by clarifying performance expectations up-front, recruiters can find more talented people who might not have the exact mix of skills, experience and qualifications listed on the job description.
» Continue reading "Recruiting Lessons from an Advanced Practice Nurse"
Hot Tip #6 - Problem of the Week: Candidates rejecting offers or delaying their decision
Topics: Recruiter Hot Tips
This week's problem is one that most recruiters experience on a regular basis - candidates either rejecting an offer outright or saying something like, "I have to think about it," after getting an offer. This problem is easy to solve - never make an offer formal until the candidate has committed to accepting it, either on-the-spot, or the next morning.
Do You Have a Winning Sourcing Strategy?
Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing, Sourcing
What's your company's sourcing strategy? Do you have a target audience in mind you want to hire, and do you have the appropriate p