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Whole Brain Interviewing

Lou Adler, August 20, 2008

Topics: The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent, Newsletter

Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder – Lie Zi

I was in Moscow the day the invasion of Georgia began. Our Russian guides, who up to that date were pro-American, saw the same conflict as a liberation clearly provoked by Georgia. Some of the more vocal on our tour, as well as the Russian guides, saw Barak Obama as the new American ideal, with John McCain being quite troublesome. Others saw Obama as a neophyte, ill-equipped to go belly-to-belly with Putin the Terrible. A former CBS Moscow bureau chief on the tour suggested diplomacy was called for, while the hawkish Americans in the group wanted a strong U.S. counter-attack. It seemed most Russians wanted an escalation of the conflict to demonstrate that they were no longer going to be pushed around by the West. I could go on, but by now you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with recruiting.

» Continue reading "Whole Brain Interviewing"

Go for the Gold!!! Shifting from a Traditional, Reactive Corporate Recruitment Model to a Strategic, Proactive Framework

Carol Bernstein, August 13, 2008

Topics: The Science of Recruiting, Newsletter, Recruiter Training, Recruiting

In the spirit of the Summer Olympic Games, let's go for a gold level of service in recruitment – striving to be winners by providing best-in-class service to your clients.

Recruiting has been in a state of change for several years. As Applicant Tracking Systems have found their place in the hiring process, leaders are shifting their focus to finding ways to improve service levels to both candidates and hiring leaders. While there is no one solution for this next level of problem solving, one area of focus getting attention is the notion of shifting from the traditional, reactive corporate recruitment model to a more strategic, proactive framework. Currently this approach has a few different paths that it is taking – for some, it is a complete organizational redesign of the recruitment team, creating internal sourcing and research groups, alignment by function or job type, and one point of contact for hiring leaders; for others, they are dabbling in the concepts, applying what makes sense for their organization. Either way, it presents change of varying degrees with the potential for exciting results.

» Continue reading "Go for the Gold!!! Shifting from a Traditional, Reactive Corporate Recruitment Model to a Strategic, Proactive Framework"

Random Chance and How Managers Make Faulty Hiring Decisions

Lou Adler, August 6, 2008

Topics: Interviewing, Newsletter, Recruiting, Sourcing

Hiring is too important to leave to chance, but that's exactly what hiring managers do when hiring experienced outside people.

Consider this: managers typically make three different types of hiring decisions – an internal move (either a promotion or lateral transfer), hiring a rookie right out of college, and hiring an experienced outside person for an open position.

What's surprising is that a different set of rules applies for how each decision is made. More surprising is that the success rate for recent college grads and internal moves is far more predictable than for an outside, experienced hire. This suggests that it might make sense to change the outside hiring decision to more closely mimic the process used for college grads and internal promotions.

» Continue reading "Random Chance and How Managers Make Faulty Hiring Decisions"

Use the One-Question Interview to Make More Placements with Fewer Candidates

Lou Adler, August 1, 2008

Topics: Interviewing

You need to become a better interviewer than your clients if they're excluding good candidates even before they meet them, or if they're not too good at assessing competency.

» Continue reading "Use the One-Question Interview to Make More Placements with Fewer Candidates"

Oddball Sourcing

Bryan Johanson, July 30, 2008

Topics: Newsletter, Sourcing

The very fact that you were enticed to read this article proves that Oddball Sourcing works. Just the nature of the title allowed us to attract a different audience. As you may have guessed, we're looking for some oddballs – recruiters and sourcers with open minds, creative approaches, and somewhat odd tendencies. You know who you are, and apparently you've got what it takes to be an Oddball Sourcer or you wouldn't be reading this article.

Some people just think differently. Einstein developed most of his theories while watching the sun rise and set. He asked a lot of questions that other people weren't asking like, "How does a beam of light travel through the universe?" and voila – he invented the Theory of Relativity. I recently listened to the book on CD, Freakonomics, by Steven Leavitt. The entire book is about using common sense, logic, and data to answer some interesting and challenging questions. For instance:

» Continue reading "Oddball Sourcing"

Recognize These 10 Job-hunting Styles to Source More Top Performers

Lou Adler, July 23, 2008

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

Lou Adler, July 18, 2008

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"