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Newsletter Archive

10 Great Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find the Best Passive Candidates on the Planet

By Lou Adler January 23, 2008

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:

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The Year of the Race!--Recruiting, Restructuring, and Rebuilding

By Bryan Johanson January 16, 2008

>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

By Lou Adler January 9, 2008

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.

However, after a period of time even top performers can experience a decline in growth and satisfaction. Under these conditions a top performer might proactively seek out other opportunities, but generally speaking, not too much time will be spent looking. To take advantage of top people looking infrequently you'll want to make sure that your open opportunities are both easy to find and compelling enough to get the person to respond.

Continue reading "Inside the Mind of the Top Performer - Part I" »

The Official Rules for Hiring Top Talent

By Lou Adler January 2, 2008

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

By Lou Adler December 19, 2007

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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Don't Let The Grinch Steal Your Recruiting Season

By Bryan Johanson December 12, 2007

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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Translating Marketing into Recruiting

By Lou Adler December 5, 2007

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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Translating Marketing into Recruiting

By Kathy Barton November 28, 2007

I've always thought there were a lot of similarities between marketing and recruiting. Both are often considered "overhead" positions. Both work at proving their value to the business. Both can be poorly understood at the executive level. And both are often undervalued – after all, anyone can be a recruiter (or marketer), right? I once worked at a company where my predecessor as SVP of Marketing had previously been the VP of Engineering. He hadn't worked out in engineering, so they moved him over to marketing – after all, how hard can it be to run marketing (or recruiting)? He was actually there for over a year before he was eased out of the company.

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