The 20 billion in tax cuts for homebuyers and businesses to help create jobs and revive a sluggish housing market is about to be signed into law today. The legislation, which provides up to 20 weeks in additional pay to more than 1 million people who have lost or are in danger of losing jobless... [full article »]

There was a blog posting by David Lynn recently here on ERE that asked where recruiting belonged: under HR? I could feel the blood rushing into my fingers as I answered: “I have strong feelings about this. It belongs under finance with a leg into biz dev and mergers & acquisitions as well.” And it does. Here’s why: [full article »]

You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in. — Heraclitus There’s a huge controversy that raises itself now and then here in the Recruitosphere and that’s the idea that one type of candidate (passive) is better than the other (active). The thinking goes along the lines of “If they’re... [full article »]

Do you see what I see? A star, a star Dancing in the night, With a tail as big as a kite. –Do You See What I See, song lyrics I was watching a movie a while back and I heard a line in it that has stuck with me and I think of often. It’s... [full article »]

Silence is golden; speech is silver. ~ American Proverb My brother-in-law visited the past week from New York City. He comes, usually, every August to stay a week or so with us here in part of the heartland of America, southwestern Ohio. That’s when the corn starts coming in and the tomatoes are ripe... [full article »]

I was talking to my brother a couple days ago and we were talking about the economy. “It’s bad. That’s spelled B-A-D,” he moaned. “No, it’s spelled V-E-R-Y B-A-D,” I corrected, a habit of mine he doesn’t like me for. “Let’s hope the stock market gets back to 10,000. That seems, to me, to be... [full article »]

For you who have created social networks, what do you do to drive activity and success on your networks? I recently asked that question over on LinkedIn. Let’s put the answers I got in groups, and talk a bit about them. [full article »]

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful.” ~ Alan Alda What kinds of things can you learn in a company’s telephone directory? If you have a company you admire (Hey! I’d hire just about anyone from there!) it might profit you... [full article »]

A valued customer asked me to ferret out 1,000 names and numbers from a satellite office of a large company (22,000 employees total). I’ve done this work for him before — I’m not sure but I suspect he uses the work for sales development, the theory being that these people all have well-paying jobs in... [full article »]

Many sourcing expeditions are doomed to failure because the sourcer “assumes” they have found what the customer wants. The fact is, in these instances, the sourcer hasn’t asked enough questions of the customer on the front end of the process to know what the customer wants. This is because they do not possess... [full article »]

I just got off the phone with a recruiter who had been let go on Monday of this week. Like many in this situation, he wasn’t surprised, but always “kind of thought” there would be another position in another division of his company to segue to. Not this time. One month severance pay plus a couple... [full article »]

I am getting one or two calls a day and three to five emails a day (on average) from sourcers looking for work. Sourcers who have been “let go” in economic moves by companies who have slashed their HR staffing departments into the bone, as one of my astute sourcing brethren pointed out this past... [full article »]

Recently I posted a piece about namby-pamby sourcing, part of which was about being afraid of your own shadow in these troubled times. In it I stated that one way to improve upon scaredy-cat sourcing processes was to keep a journal about your daily sourcing routine. That way you could “see” and... [full article »]

A young recruiter form the UK ventured into a networking group (RBC) I belong to and asked where he could find technicians who work at BMW or Mercedes franchise dealers. He said the manager or the service receptionist names were easy to find, but he needed to find the guys working on the cars.... [full article »]

I have a 10-month-old granddaughter. She just started crawling. What happened in the beginning was interesting to watch. The task at hand was to get her knees up under her and her backside lifted. Watching this was a comedy of errors and a lot of fun. A week or so of this... [full article »]

I wrote a post awhile back in the MagicMethod group here on ERE called “Get a Group, Get a Blog, Get a Website” and I know at least one person (Sam Medalie) followed my advice and started two groups here on ERE – the informative “Finding Passive Candidates” group and the ever-interesting “Interviews With Hiring... [full article »]

Catch and release is a practice within recreational fishing intended as a technique of conservation. After capture, the fish are unhooked and returned to the water before experiencing serious exhaustion or injury. According to the Wikipedia definition, using barbless hooks makes it possible to release the fish without removing it from the water (a slack... [full article »]

I’d forgotten the fun of Internet search. I had a job come in during January. The position was for a senior-level manager in the R&D software group of a major storage business. The customer told me in the specifications that the person we were looking for was “an uber-geek who has the capacity and the desire... [full article »]

If you routinely call gatekeepers and get lines like, “You need a name to be transferred to anyone,” it could be that you are routinely doing or saying something that is causing that gatekeeper to view you as a threat to her company’s infrastructure. Effective communication skills allow you easy entrance to most any gatekeeper’s psyche.... [full article »]

When I was a baby sourcer, I was filled with all sorts of terrifying fears about what I would say, what I would do, what would happen IF that Gatekeeper asked me any questions! I laugh now at my (mostly) unfounded fears, but I understand this is a common thread that runs through all telephone... [full article »]