Articles - Recruiting
RSS FeedThe 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.
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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.
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Get Ready for the Recovery - Now Is the Best Time to Build a Proactive External Talent Pipeline
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
Now is the time to get ready for the recovery. It may sound strange, but if you have been in recruiting for any period of time, you know that hiring fluctuates—it goes up and down, expands and pauses. These cycles come with the territory. Some shifts are more dramatic than others, and currently it appears we are in a more profound slowdown than we would like. The signs are all around us with the housing crisis, gas prices, and layoffs recently announced in some industries. Some leaders may be quick to question what recruiters are doing when there is little or no recruiting going on. Be ready with this answer: creating a proactive pipeline of great candidates for future openings.
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.
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Building Your Personal Recruitment Brand
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
When your clients or hiring managers think of you as a recruiter, what words come to their minds? Reliable? Insightful? Unresponsive? Bureaucratic? Whatever the words, these concepts define our personal recruitment brand. Hiring Managers may not communicate these directly to us in formal meetings, but they definitely share their opinions among their peers. Below is a short quiz which should help you get a jump start on where you stand with your personal recruitment brand. Ask yourself each of the following questions and be honest in your answers. No one’s looking, I promise.
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Effectiveness of Recruiting Tools/Techniques
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
It seems like every day you hear about a new recruiting tool or technique. The question is how many of them are really being used by recruiters? And more importantly, how many of them are effective? We asked that question on the Adler Group's Recruiting and Hiring Challenges Survey of 2008 to try to get some sense of how recruiters rate the tools and techniques they are using. The actual question was, “On a 1-5 scale (5 is best) how would you rank the effectiveness of these recruiting tools?” A rating of 3 means pretty effective, 4 means animportant resource, and 5 means an invaluable tool. In analyzing the results, a tool needs a rating of 3 or higher to be considered effective.
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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.
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Plan, Do, Study, and Act - The Foundation for Continuously Improving Recruiting
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
Plan, Do, Study, and Act is Dr. Edward Deming's approach to Total Quality Improvement. If you know anything about The Adler Group, you know that we believe hiring should be a predictable, repeatable business process. We advocate a process called Performance-based Hiring which we firmly believe allows organizations to systematically hire top talent. To make it predictable and repeatable there must be a structured approach to hiring that can be scaleable throughout an organization and a continuous process of planning, doing, studying, and acting to improve upon that process. There are four components to this process including the creation of a Performance Profile for each position, a focus on sourcing top talent (we call this "Talent-Centric Sourcing"), an evidence-based interview using our Two Question Performance-based Interview, as well as an integrated process for recruiting and closing the candidate. In our recent survey we asked candidates to measure the effectiveness of key aspects of the hiring process from the recruiter's perspective by answering the following question:
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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.
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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).
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Recruitment and Technology
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
Technology is both the booster and the bane of people-oriented processes. The combination of the major job boards and applicant tracking systems (ATS) has transformed recruiting, but has brought its own set of problems. It's a classic illustration of Michael Hammer's views on information technology. In an article published in 1990 in the Harvard Business Review, the MIT professor made the case that companies focus on fixing the wrong issues, using technology to automate existing work rather than using it to make non-value adding work obsolete. BPR, or business process engineering, postulates that unless you review your processes before implementing new technology, you run the risk of doing the wrong things faster. At the very least, you may add an additional administrative burden without concurrent productivity gains.
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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.
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Recruiting Metrics
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
Question 12: How would you rank your company in using the following metrics to track performance?
One of the areas we wanted to explore in our recently completed survey was the use of metrics in tracking recruiting effectiveness. We asked recruiters and recruiting managers to rank their use of a particular set of recruiting metrics in tracking their team’s effectiveness. We picked metrics that we considered to be some of the most important indicators of recruiting efficiency and success. These include:
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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.
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Winning Despite a Weak Hand
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
If you've been through our Recruiter Boot Camp, you know that we advise recruiters to stay current on the business events in their industry. In particular, news of layoffs, mergers, spin-offs and acquisitions, or anything that tends to make good employees nervous about their future at their current company. Good recruiters will immediately begin calling into those companies, using the uncertainty about their companies' future as a tool to coax top employees to jump ship. Many employees are willing to explore their options in these circumstances, so it's a technique that can be very successful.
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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:
The Year of the Race!--Recruiting, Restructuring, and Rebuilding
Topics: Managing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
2008 is the year of races, including the all-important race for the Presidency of the United States. As the presidential hopefuls gear up for their longest job interview ever, we shouldn't forget that the race for top quality talent in our own organizations has already begun, and candidates are bolting out of the gate at a tremendous clip. Unlike the presidential race, where now nine hopeful candidates are vying for one top job, the talent race is upside down with hundreds of thousands of candidates and even more open positions. As one pundit put it last year, "The talent wars are definitely over and the candidates have won!" Just like the bloated real estate market, we've got a glut of jobs and a shortage of talent (except perhaps in Michigan), and more recruiters than ever pitching their opportunities to an ever shrinking talent pool. Even if the economy dips into the dreaded recession, we'll still have jobs for talented people. It's a buyers market even for average talent, and recruiters are going to have to step up their game if they expect to attract top people. And just for the record... it's always a buyers market for top talent regardless of the position, industry, or economic circumstances.
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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"
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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Rethinking College Recruiting
Topics: Networking, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
College recruiting, like all recruiting, continues to evolve as the demographics in the US shift. Generation Y, also known as "Millenniums," have some distinct preferences in the way they look for work and the way they approach their careers. Even those companies that don't recruit entry-level people need to pay attention to these preferences. Gen Y, those folks born after 1980, make up close to 25% of the current and potential workforce. As the Baby Boomers begin to retire, this group and their attitudes toward employment will increase in importance to employers.
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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.
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Get a Life! AND recruit candidates at the same time.
Topics: Networking, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
Today I'll share with you the inside scoop on Sodexho's first foray into using Virtual Job Fairs in Second Life. I recently interviewed Anthony Scarpino, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition for Sodexho, and Amy Brooks, one of Sodexho's recruiters who participated in their first ever virtual job fair. Amy recently attended our online Recruiter Boot Camp and graciously volunteered to share her experiences using Second Life to attract candidates.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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To Poach or not to Poach - is that Really the Question?
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Last week on one of our free public webinars someone asked whether I thought it was okay for recruiters to "poach" another company's employees. This got me thinking about where the term "poaching" originates. Here are some definitions:
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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.
Fixing Corporate Recruiting
Topics: Networking, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Last week I met with a Director of Recruiting from a major Fortune 200 company in the Midwest. In a recent meeting with one of her top corporate executives, the executive made the comment that he finally considered the recruiting department "fixed." The Recruiting Director was so taken back by the comment that she didn't really know how to respond. She was genuinely troubled by his comment. What does he mean by "fixed"? Perhaps it was a backhanded compliment or maybe he meant "fixed" in the sense that he's crossed it off his to-do list—he's no longer worried about it. Perhaps he believes that because they recently installed a new ATS system, added two or three additional recruiters, and restructured their sourcing department, he doesn't really need to worry about it any more.
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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.
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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.
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Compared to What?
Topics: Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Performance Profiles, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
I spent the first half of the '90s working at GE. This was in Jack Welch's heyday: best practices, work-out, and management course from Harvard professors at the training center at Croton-on-Hudson (affectionately referred to as Camp GE.) It was a great experience, but there were a few things about GE's personnel policies that didn't really make sense. One of these was what we called the 10-80-10 policy.
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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:
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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.
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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
Unmasking the Well-Prepared Candidate
Topics: Assessment, Interview Training, Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting
It's back-to-school week here in Colorado, so my eight children are beginning yet another year of school. It's always interesting to me to gauge their reactions to their new teachers. They form their impressions very early, and some of those impressions are negative. Last night my son told me about his new sixth grade math teacher from you-know-where. "Oh dad, she is absolutely awful! She's extremely strict, she doesn't allow talking in class, and home work has to be in on time. If it's a minute late you get zero credit. She's way too serious, no fun, and she's the hardest, worst teacher in the school. Can you help me transfer out of her class?" We've all had teachers like this one, but what's interesting to me is that as you go through this process over and over with so many kids, you realize that the first day of school is very much contrived. It's a huge multi-act play. Every teacher has on his/her game face. Some try to scare the kids into submission while others try to win the students over by being open and friendly. Each has their own strategy and it's all carefully orchestrated to set the stage for the coming year. In two or three weeks once the impact of the teachers' "first day of school" speeches wear off, I'll start to get the "real" scoop. Sometimes the toughest teacher becomes my child's favorite. What I really care about is simply their ability to teach my children their subjects well.
» Continue reading "Unmasking the Well-Prepared Candidate"
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:
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Are You On YouTube?
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
The FBI is looking for a few good interns, and they are looking on YouTube. Surprised? You shouldn't be. In June I spoke at the Arkansas Association of Colleges and Employers. As I travel I always ask my audiences, "What's new in recruiting? What have you seen that's really innovative and cutting edge?" One of the leaders of this group, Ron, mentioned the new campaign that the FBI launched three months ago on YouTube. He was so excited about it that his career center is now in the process of producing something similar to promote internships at his college. Naturally I had to take a look.
» Continue reading "Are You On YouTube?"
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
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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.
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Making your Job a "Dream Job"
Topics: Networking, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
Depending on which survey you read, 40 to 60 percent of the workforce is just waiting for you to call them with a great job. The number of people who are dissatisfied with their current job seems to climb with every new report. CareerBuilder's "Dream Job" Survey in January 2007 revealed that 84% of US workers are not in their dream job. No, these are not the jobs we dreamed of as children (in case you were wondering, the most popular are firefighter, princess, dancer, and cowboy). The definition of a dream job for us "grown-ups" is far more prosaic that that. According to CareerBuilder, "Workers said they want to enjoy their work experience, apply their talents and feel like they're making an impact. Having fun at work was the most important attribute of a dream job for 39 percent of workers, which heavily outweighed the 12 percent who said salary was most important."
» Continue reading "Making your Job a "Dream Job""
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.
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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"
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"
In the War for Talent, the Biggest Talent Pool Wins
Topics: Networking, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
Last year, in 2006, a momentous event occurred - the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup (yeah!). In addition, however, and more to the point, the demand for labor statistically exceeded the supply. The long-predicted labor shortage arrived in fact. The timing and severity of the shortage over the next 50 years is subject to debate, but its existence is not. In the two decades between 1980 and 2000, the U.S. workforce grew by 54%. From 2000 to 2020, it is predicted to grow by only 3%, due primarily to the retiring of the baby boom generation. For those of us in the recruiting and hiring field, this makes a difficult job even more difficult. Given a projected gap of 14 million skilled workers by 2020, it's only going to get harder.
» Continue reading "In the War for Talent, the Biggest Talent Pool Wins"
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"
Waking the Sleeping Giant - Passive Candidates Won't be Passive for Long!
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
Life in recruiting used to be simple. Recruiters had exclusive jobs to offer to passive candidates who weren't looking for a job. Recruiters were the only ones who knew about these jobs, which gave them some element of control. The internet didn't exist and passive candidates stayed passive. Today the line between passive candidates and active candidates is crossed regularly.
» Continue reading "Waking the Sleeping Giant - Passive Candidates Won't be Passive for Long!"
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.
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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.
Retail Marketing Meets Corporate Recruiting
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing
Circuit City has taken a lot of heat in the last few weeks for their recent "wage" action. If you didn't hear, they recently fired hundreds of higher paid ($12/ hour) sales people only to replace them with lower paid ($8/hour) entry level sales - translated "they don't know squat" sales people. A bold but very misguided move on their part. So let's imagine that because of their recent actions they want to dramatically boost sales in the short run. They go out and hire a brand new Vice President of Sales to come up with a whole new approach to retailing. After careful thought, a few late nights and way too many "Red Bulls", the new Vice President decides that what they need is a much more structured and focused sales approach.
» Continue reading "Retail Marketing Meets Corporate Recruiting"
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"
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 plans, tactics, and resources in place to pull it off? If you do, you probably have this strategic plan written out with the trade-offs analyzed and argued about and each sourcing channel then optimized to produce results. Of course, before it was implemented, the plan was presented to your senior management with all of the ROI "guesstimates" for approval.
If you don't have this type of sourcing strategy process in place, you might find this article of interest.
» Continue reading "Do You Have a Winning Sourcing Strategy?"
Recruiting Circa 2010: Critical Hiring Trends You Must Watch
Topics: Interviewing, Managing, Recruiter Training, Recruiting, Sourcing
Web 2.0 has resulted in a rapid change in how hiring top talent could be conducted. But from what I can tell, very few companies are moving rapidly enough to take full advantage of this great opportunity.
» Continue reading "Recruiting Circa 2010: Critical Hiring Trends You Must Watch"
The Amazing, Confusing and Sometimes Shocking World of Government Compliance (Part Two)
Topics: Newsletter, Recruiting
You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough, in the second half you give what's left. - Yogi Berra
This week we'll talk about the issue of recordkeeping around individuals that have been considered for a job. (The second part of our two-part article on OFCCP compliance.) Unfortunately, it's not as easy as defining who is an applicant, following that definition consistently, and gathering EEO data on that applicant. The OFCCP now requires companies to keep records on individuals that have been considered for a job, not just on applicants.
Why You Must Eliminate Job Descriptions
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Taking the Assignment
As far as I'm concerned, the use of traditional qualifications-based job descriptions are the primary reason companies are not finding enough top people.
In this article, I'm going to prove that they are unnecessary, counter-productive, reduce the size of the applicant pool, encourage sloppy management, and are the cause of most hiring mistakes. Of course, your comments are welcome.
» Continue reading "Why You Must Eliminate Job Descriptions"
Are You Playing the Hiring Game to Win?
Topics: Recruiting
A few months ago I made the case in an ERE article (Hiring the Best is a Team Sport) that corporate recruiting departments should not be organized to compete with third-party recruiters.
Aside from performance-based compensation, there are a few obvious reasons supporting this philosophy:
» Continue reading "Are You Playing the Hiring Game to Win?"
How to Prep a Candidate
Topics: Recruiting
Many recruiters consider their hiring manager clients a bit weak on interviewing skills, assessing competency, and recruiting top people. Of course, most managers consider their recruiters a bit weak on understanding real job needs and finding qualified candidates.
A good candidate prep can sometimes reduce this gap.
» Continue reading "How to Prep a Candidate"
The Future of Recruiting: A Retrospective
Topics: Recruiting
In a recent ERE article, I made some predictions about the world of recruiting circa 2010. Based on what I saw at the recent HR Technology Conference in Chicago, it turns out I'm wrong. It looks like the predictions will come true much sooner than suggested.
» Continue reading "The Future of Recruiting: A Retrospective"
The Disruptors: Fundamental Changes in Recruiting You Need to Put on Your Radar Screen
Topics: Recruiting
To stay on the forefront of recruiting, you might want to read the October 2006 edition of Business 2.0. The cover story pretty much tells it all: The Next Disruptors: They're Gunning for Google. And Skype. And Citibank, Ford, Oracle and AT&T. Meet 11 Companies Whose Breakthroughs Will Change Everything.
What's Hot, What's Not - and What Should Be
Topics: Recruiting
I think I have been to every ERE Expo since the dawn of the Internet, but Dave and crew outdid themselves in Florida this year. It was filled with fresh faces, new ideas, and a new take on some lingering problems.
» Continue reading "What's Hot, What's Not - and What Should Be"
5 Critical Things Recruiters Need to Do to Become Partners With Their Clients
Topics: Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
Our recently completed 2006 Recruiting and Hiring Challenges survey revealed some significant conflicts between recruiters and their hiring managers that aren't abating. Between 50 and 60% of the survey respondents indicated these were significant problems at their companies:
» Continue reading "5 Critical Things Recruiters Need to Do to Become Partners With Their Clients"
Counterpoint: Why There is Absolutely No Difference Between Generations
Topics: Recruiting
We've been fooled: there's no difference in hiring and managing people of different age groups, whether they're 16 or 60.
» Continue reading "Counterpoint: Why There is Absolutely No Difference Between Generations"
Boom! Why We Should Blow Up the Recruiting Department and Start From Scratch
Topics: Recruiting
According to Ben Franklin, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
» Continue reading "Boom! Why We Should Blow Up the Recruiting Department and Start From Scratch"
Is the Transactional Corporate Recruiting Model Doomed?
Topics: Recruiting
We just closed our annual hiring challenges survey, with a few hundred participants describing their perspective on the state of the recruiting industry. From a preliminary review it's not comforting, especially if you're a corporate recruiter or recruiting manager. Most alarming is that things haven't gotten better since we took the survey last year. In fact, the situation has deteriorated. For example:
» Continue reading "Is the Transactional Corporate Recruiting Model Doomed?"
Is the Business Model for the Corporate Recruiting Department Fundamentally Flawed?
Topics: Recruiting
In this article, I'm going to make the case that the underlying organization and structure of most U.S. corporate recruiting departments are fundamentally flawed. In fact, in many ways they resembles the worst performing business model of them all - a not-for-profit, government-funded, bureaucratic monopoly. Worse, unless big changes are made, companies who use this outdated model will never find enough top people to meet their business needs.
How to Recruit Young Professionals
Topics: Recruiting
This is a true story about my first recruiting lesson. You might find it useful if you want to hire more young professionals.
» Continue reading "How to Recruit Young Professionals"
Recruiting is Sales: How to Become a Better Salesperson Today
Topics: Recruiting
Before you begin reading this article, write down all of the reasons your candidates and hiring manager clients give you for not moving forward.
» Continue reading "Recruiting is Sales: How to Become a Better Salesperson Today"
How HR/Recruiting Wastes $100 Million Every Year!
Topics: Recruiting
How many people will your company hire over the next 12 months? Multiply this number by the average salary (some number between $50,000 and $100,000). Now do the math.
» Continue reading "How HR/Recruiting Wastes $100 Million Every Year!"
To Hire More Top People, You Need to Become Talent-Centric
Topics: Recruiting
If you're not seeing and hiring enough top people, you have a problem. If things are getting worse rather than better, you have a bigger problem. If you're using more high-priced contract employees or more external search firms to fill in the gaps to meet hiring needs, you're masking the problem. Identifying the problems and providing a few solutions is the point of this article.
» Continue reading "To Hire More Top People, You Need to Become Talent-Centric"
Why We Lost the War for Talent
Topics: Recruiting
Over the past 67 months, I've asked 117 different Fortune 500 companies and 272 small to mid-sized companies if they've finally won the war for talent. Only a handful said yes.
» Continue reading "Why We Lost the War for Talent"
In Search of the Perfect Candidate - Part 1
Topics: Interviewing, Recruiting, Sourcing
Everybody wants to hire the perfect candidate. And why not? These are the people who have great track records, great academic backgrounds, great personalities, great experience, and have worked at companies doing just what you want done. Even better, these great people are just like you - smart, savvy, and ready to move ahead.
» Continue reading "In Search of the Perfect Candidate - Part 1"
Don't Let the Bureaucrats Win
Topics: Recruiting
There is a conspiracy preventing companies from hiring top people. The bureaucrats are behind it. We've been fighting the war for talent for a long time and nobody has won. Odd.
» Continue reading "Don't Let the Bureaucrats Win"
How to Defend Your Candidates from Stupid Decisions
Topics: Recruiting
In recent articles, I made the case that fundamental shifts in decision-making and perspective had to take place in order for a company to see any sustained improvement in its hiring results.
» Continue reading "How to Defend Your Candidates from Stupid Decisions"
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Topics: Managing, Recruiting
This article is exactly 1,000 words long. It contains instructions on how to draw a picture. Drawing the picture will have a profound affect on your ability to think strategically. It will also make you a better recruiter. Now grab a pencil and a blank sheet of paper.
» Continue reading "A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words"
Recruiting and John Wooden's Pyramid of Success
Topics: Assessment, Recruiting
A few weeks ago, my wife of 35 years saw my eyes fill with tears as I was watching TV. Fortunately, I was watching a basketball game, so she knew it wasn't too serious. After 35 years, she knew immediately the cause, and responded, "Oh, that John Wooden fellow must be speaking again."
» Continue reading "Recruiting and John Wooden's Pyramid of Success"
10 Steps to Finding and Hiring Diversity and High-Demand Candidates
Topics: Recruiting, Sourcing
Here are two basic principles of recruiting that you need to apply when targeting passive candidates, diversity candidates, or any type of candidates in high demand:
- The more competition there is for a group of candidates (like nurses, pharmacists, sales reps who always exceed quota, design engineers who were elected to Tau Beta Pi, diversity candidates, etc.), the more recruiting effort is required to attract and hire them.
- Top people want top jobs, regardless of their cultural, ethnic or religious background or gender.
» Continue reading "10 Steps to Finding and Hiring Diversity and High-Demand Candidates"
How to Convert Cold Calls into Hot Candidates
Topics: Networking, Recruiting
Jim is the best recruiter at LNM, a division of a Fortune 500 company. Karen is a strong marketing manager who is not looking for a job. Jim found Karen's name on ZoomInfo, and he is now cold calling her to explore the possibility of considering her for the position.
» Continue reading "How to Convert Cold Calls into Hot Candidates"
Recruiting Basics: Making Offers
Topics: Recruiting
This article was originally published November 12, 2004.
If you've ever had an offer turned down or had a candidate say, "I have to think about it," you made the offer too soon. You've probably also broken the cardinal principle that every recruiter must follow: "Never make a formal offer until it's been 100% accepted. Test it first, test it again, and continue to test it until the candidate says yes." Then make the offer.
Here's how this "testing the offer" process works:
» Continue reading "Recruiting Basics: Making Offers"
The #1 Secret of Hiring Success
Topics: Interviewing, Performance Profiles, Recruiting, Sourcing
If your hiring manager clients are not doing a good job of assessing your candidates, you should review this article with them. No matter how good a recruiter you are, if your clients pass on your good candidates, you're working too hard doing searches over again. The key is just to assess a candidate's motivation to do the work.
» Continue reading "The #1 Secret of Hiring Success"
10 Recruiting Initiatives You Must Start Immediately
Topics: Recruiting
No matter where you are in the world or what industry you're in, no matter how big or small you are, and no matter what types of positions you're trying to fill, everyone struggles with finding and hiring top talent. The solution for everyone is the same - unless candidate supply far exceeds demand or you're the employer of choice in your industry. But before I provide the solution, some background is in order.
» Continue reading "10 Recruiting Initiatives You Must Start Immediately"
iPods and the Weakest Link in the Hiring Chain
Topics: Recruiting, Working With Hiring Managers
I've been advocating the use of the iPod as a metaphor for better hiring practices. If you have an iPod, you know that it's much more than a music player. It's a complete, integrated music system. You can quickly download music and podcasts, burn CDs, and plug it into your car, home music system or Bose speaker set. You don't even have to read the instructions to do any of this stuff and get great music anytime, anywhere.
» Continue reading "iPods and the Weakest Link in the Hiring Chain"