Your Recruiting Success Depends on How Well You Manage Managers

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0800

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.

How to Control Your Hiring Manager Clients and Make More Placements

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:51:46 -0800

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:

The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:27:46 -0800

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.

Learn to Defend Your Candidate from the Competition and Dumb Decisions

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 12:00:00 -0800

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.

5 Critical Things Recruiters Need to Do to Become Partners With Their Clients

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 11:55:54 -0800

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:

The Three Critical Things Recruiters Need to Do to Become Partners with Their ClientsOr, how to stop losing good candidates for dumb reasons

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 17:10:34 -0800

Our recently completed 2006 Recruiting and Hiring Challenges survey revealed some significant conflicts between recruiters and their hiring managers that aren't abating. Between 50-60% of the survey respondents indicated these were significant problems at their companies:

The More Things Change...

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 16:50:50 -0800

Does this sound familiar? "We are treated as short order cooks with staffing reqs when a position is vacated". Or maybe this one hits close to home for you: "Our hiring managers have unrealistic expectations, expecting above average performances and backgrounds in candidates while paying average salaries". And two comments that really crystallize the frustrations that recruiters are feeling today: "Hiring managers won't put in the time to clarify their exact needs" and "My biggest frustration is manager availability - it is very difficult to get time with managers and move candidates through the interview process in a timely manner."

The 15-Minute Hiring Manager Selection Training Course

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:00:00 -0800

I was recently reminded of an old story from my pre-ERE days and heavy recruiting days. You might find it useful as you attempt to train your hiring manager clients to become better at defining their real job needs and assessing candidate competency.

The Essential Elements of Every Great Hire

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:00:00 -0800

As I get ready for another great ER Expo in Boston (September 28-29, 2005) and a chance to meet old friends and make new ones, some big recruiting questions come to mind. Here's probably the biggest

How to Deal With Technical Managers and Other (Too) Bright People

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:00:00 -0800

Engineers and software development managers are the toughest hiring managers in the world to deal with. But that's only if you exclude sales managers, marketing managers, company executives, operations people, customer service managers, functional VPs, and of course, financial people at all levels.

iPods and the Weakest Link in the Hiring Chain

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 12:00:00 -0800

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.

Managing Hiring Managers

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:00:00 -0800

If it wasn't for hiring managers, recruiting would be so easy.

This is one of the conclusions drawn from my annual Recruiting and Hiring Challenges Survey 2005. Here are some other preliminary conclusions from the survey results:

Handling the Problems with Passive Candidates and Hiring Managers

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 12:00:00 -0800

There are more name-generating tools becoming available everyday. My favorites include Jobster, SearchExpo, Broadlook, ZoomInfo, AIRS Oxygen, and LinkedIn. These and the other networking tools should be checked out and used.

But there's more to recruiting and hiring passive candidates than generating a list of names. Success with these tools depends on how well you convert these cold names into hot candidates.

Here are some other factors that need to be considered when hiring passive candidates:

The Future of Hiring: It's Not Pretty

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 12:00:00 -0800

Here are a few random observations on a summer's day, as I contemplate what I'm going to say at ERE's upcoming ER Expo 2004 Fall in Boston on the state of hiring. Interesting. We're having a mild pickup in hiring and everyone is panicking (according to the Bush team we've turned the corner, and according to the Kerry team it's a U-turn, but that's a different article).

The Science of Recruiting - Part 8: Influencing Hiring Managers - The Hiring Decision

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:00:00 -0800

You can't afford to do searches over again. After you've presented 3-5 solid, maybe even superior candidates, the worst thing a manager can say is, "Do you have any more candidates?" Preventing this is one of the reasons why you must be able to influence hiring managers at every step in the hiring process.