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I have never met an unhappy, urologist anywhere.

You may not have thought you want to be a urologist. That’s perfectly understandable. But after watching a video — one that ended with the quote above — that won a marketing award, you may change your mind.

This clip called ”Why Urology?” was just honored with a platinum from the International AVA Awards competition. That’s a contest put on by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, which gets about 1,700 entries.

The video was produced by the American Urological Association, and has been viewed nearly 5,000 times on YouTube. keep reading…

When the recruiting and marketing departments are on the same page, that’s a good thing. But what if they’re not only on the same page, but they’re the same person?

Indeed: the chief brand officer at Women’s Healthcare Associates, LLC is Anita Jackson. The director of human resources is also Anita Jackson.

In the video below, about 7 minutes long, Jackson and I talk about her unusual dual role at this Oregon gynecology and obstetrics organization. She shares whether this model could work in a larger organization, and how this structure affects the candidate experience. keep reading…

With unemployment rates hovering in the 9% range in the U.S., there are plenty of people for most every job. Actually, scratch that. It’s not quite true for Siemens, where it’s tough to find engineers and others with the skills it needs.

The German company has about 336,000 employees, 1,640 locations, and about 60,000 people, and growing, in the U.S.

Rachel Romaszewski, who recruits for Siemens’ energy business, and I talk about the skills shortage and what’s being done about it. She tells me (out of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) which social media site is working well, which one works less well, and which one’s hit or miss.

“We are just growing like crazy,” she says, in the seven-minute video, below. keep reading…

Twitter: for some, it’s a great source of news. For others, a way to broadcast jobs. For still others, a quick n’ dirty way to comment, spread links, or have the proverbial “conversation.”

Jody Ordioni, who’ll be leading a session at the Expo in March, and I talk about Twitter — what we notice, what seems to work, and what seems to not. It’s a bit over six minutes, below.

keep reading…

You’ve heard quite a few different suggestions as how to take a dent out of the hefty U.S. unemployment rate, but here’s one you may not have heard: pay people less, and more. Kevin Kruse says paying people a lower base salary and a bigger performance bonus would do wonders for the job market.

Kruse is the co-author of We: How to Increase Performance and Profit Through Full Engagement. Our conversation lasts about seven minutes, below. keep reading…

The lively discussion about favoring employed job candidates over unemployed job candidates sometimes includes a dichotomy: the recruiter’s open to people without jobs, but the manager not so much.

Ron Katz, of Penguin HR Consulting, and I talk for 10 minutes, below, about what recruiters can do in situations like that. We also get into what exactly’s behind the bias against the unemployed. And we touch on how the perception of HR/recruiting factors in all this.

keep reading…

What happens when your manager — who goes out regularly after work with a group of employees to scarf down chicken wings — has a hard-core vegan show up in the lobby for an interview?

That’s where “fit” comes in. You’ve heard it at conferences and read it here and most everywhere else people talk about hiring: you should look not just for hard skills, but hire for fit.

But, then again, you’ve heard the opposite: that you should seek out diversity, diversity of thought, people who bring different ideas, experiences, and perspectives to your organization.

Carol Schultz and I talk about this these two ideas, and whether they are contradictory, in the approximately 13-minute video below.

keep reading…

Your turn now: two recruiting industry professionals talk in the video below about President Obama’s latest jobs plan, and what they’d do that the president is not doing. Throwing in their two cents are Ted Daywalt of VetJobs.com, and Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com.

They cover:

• The 20-something-year-old who hopefully will jumpstart the job market
• Why China’s advantage over the U.S. is not low wages
• How what’s happening right now in the job market is a lot like the debate over President Clinton’s healthcare plan many years ago

Listen to what they have to say and add your own thoughts in the comments section.

keep reading…

Some folks talk about letting applicants know they didn’t get the job, and even letting them know why they didn’t get the job.

But is that communication actually happening? Often it’s not, despite the fact that job applicants are a source of employee referrals, and despite the fact that job candidates don’t forget their bad experiences when they look to buy consumer products.

I talk about this topic for about 11 minutes with Lisa Chartier of Alexander Mann Solutions, below. keep reading…

Should you pay people who refer to your company a job candidate who ends up getting hired? Or, should you pay people merely for sending in a name of someone?

Cathy Henesey, manager, career services, Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, talks about the latter — paying for names not just hires — in the 9 1/2-minute video below. She discusses whether some jobs or all jobs are eligible; how to handle situations where multiple people give the same name; and the results of the program. keep reading…

Often, managers think they know what they want in a candidate, but the person they want wouldn’t actually want to work at their company.

Carol Schultz and I talk about this conundrum in the 9 1/2-minute video below. We also talk about recruiters being undervalued and underpaid in some companies, and why that’s a penny-smart, pound-foolish plan. Schultz, a speaker at ERE’s conference this fall in Florida, shares her thoughts in the video below. keep reading…

Some of the ways employers screen out potential employees are inefficient, ineffective, and even immoral.

That’s according to Richard Hadden, who’s a speaker, writer, and coach specializing in leadership and employee engagement. In the 9 1/2-minute video below, he and I talk about some of the most common ways employers screen out candidates. Topics covered: keep reading…

The resumes a recruiter or HR professional screens in and gives to a hiring manager don’t fit the bill. The hiring manager scratches her head, wondering whether the recruiter understands the job, the job description, and what the manager’s really looking for in a candidate.

Sound familiar?

Obi Ogbanufe and I talk about this common scenario in the video below. She’s the founder of the Dallas, Texas, technology consulting firm Indigomark, and is the author of “Technology Made Simple for the Technical Recruiter — A Technical Skills Primer.”

We also talk about the many requirements found in job requirements that shouldn’t be in there and don’t translate into job success — such as requiring on MBA degree, a bachelor’s degree, or for legal jobs a degree from a top law school. It’s about 13 1/2 minutes, below. keep reading…

Is the conventional wisdom about Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn really true? Is social media time-consuming, or easy to manage and quick to do? Are people looking for jobs, or are most folks just “passive” candidates?

Autodesk’s Matt Jeffery and I talk about these issues and more. keep reading…

Pam Strohmeyer of the Michigan-Ohio-Florida financial services accounting firm Rehmann talks about the challenges of recruiting on college campuses when you’re not Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and KPMG. She also talks about transparency in hiring — giving prospective employees a chance to call your current workers and ask what it’s like to work there.

Strohmeyer also explains the No. 1 thing job-seekers ask her the most, all in the video below. keep reading…

A mistake in hiring is more than just a bad hire.

It’s actually a chance to improve your recruiting processes, rather than blame yourself or someone else, says consultant Steven Balzac.

We talk about this in the video below, as well as about the part of the hiring process (screening, assessment, job description, job ad, interview) that’s the source of the biggest mistakes. keep reading…

At last month’s ERE Expo in Florida, Mark Mehler and Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads assembled a panel of four of today’s sharpest young job seekers. Among the findings:

• Only one of them used LinkedIn
• They were not swayed by free swag at job fairs
• They were hesitant to be contacted by Facebook and SMS, which is often regarded as impersonal, unprofessional, or even spam.
• It they’re receiving text messages from a recruiter or employer at 9:00 p.m., it’s a bad sign that they’d be working until 9:00 on a regular basis at that company

Click below to watch the video and read more.

keep reading…

Want to hire someone who’s led a team, managed a huge project, saved lives, mastered technology, learned to handle pressure, and dealt with adversity, all by age 23?

Navy veteran Ted Daywalt, of the job board VetJobs, suggests you employ a veteran and that you don’t stick them in a menial job way below their worth. keep reading…

Jennifer Way, who consults with companies to improve the effectiveness of their recruiting efforts, talks about the rather imperfect experience job candidates are having when they apply for jobs, and what can be done about it. keep reading…

On Wednesday, October 27 at noon Eastern, we will be privileged to have a brief LIVE chat on our sister site, SourceCon.com, with the “personal branding guru” himself — Dan Schawbel. Schawbel is the managing partner of Millennial Branding, LLC, and the author of the #1 international bestselling career book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future. Me 2.0 made the New York Times summer reading list for job seekers, was one of three social networking books recommended by Shape magazine, was the #1 career book of 2009 by The New York Post, is a #1 bestseller in Japan, and is also being translated into Chinese, Korean, and French. Recently, Schawbel was named to the prestigious Inc Magazine 30 Under 30 list. Additionally, Dan’s blog, the Personal Branding Blog®, was ranked the #1 job blog by Careerbuilder in 2008 and 2009.

keep reading…