The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you’re playing by somebody else’s rules, while quietly playing by your own. –Michael Korda

Losing a great candidate is a painful and disheartening experience. I for one, beat myself and wonder what I could have done differently as I do a cerebral post mortem. Sadly, it is the occupational hazard with which we live daily and it is a part of the game of recruiting. With that in mind, we all need to learn from our mistakes and do our best not to repeat them.

Losing great candidates will never go away completely. But we can look to some ideas and insights that will help that event to become less frequent. Please consider the following points and know that if you do lose a candidate, you played the game as well as possible. (more…)

No way, you say. Yeah, well, before you shoot that down, hear this. Brady, posing as a CIA operative, recruited not one but two ordinary, otherwise law-abiding folks to rob banks.

Brady, or Theo as he identified himself, never met the two 20-somethings. All his recruiting was done over the phone, yet he managed to get the man and woman to rob, or attempt to rob, several banks, even convincing friends and relatives of the two that this was indeed all in the interests of national security.

They all got caught, though it looks like everyone except Brady is getting off, and he’ll probably only get probation.

Granted, the robberies were all botched. But you know how hard it is to find skilled talent these days. Read the entire, amazing story here on Businessweek. (more…)

What I want to do is point to the things that haven’t changed; I want to talk about getting back to recruiting basics. Because not everyone can afford the fancy social recruiting suites and very few can veto the boss when he says no to a perks program. These are the skills that every recruiter should know and all recruiters used to know. These things obviously work with the new tools and platforms … but they’re effective without them. So let’s get back to the basics.

Here are five things not to forget in the social recruiting fervor. (more…)

The top 30 boldest actions for recruiting individual innovators

I just returned from the always-powerful CoDev conference, where a prime focus was on the difficulty of hiring and retaining innovators. Almost everyone agrees on the value of innovators, but unfortunately, because of their design and their lack of boldness, most corporate recruiting processes simply cannot successfully hire a highly desirable innovator.

In case you have been unable to get innovators to complete your interview process or to accept your offers, I’ve put together a list of bold but effective approaches that can make it possible to sell and land even the most fought-over innovators. (more…)

The salary reopener gives the new hire a chance to get that added money within a short period of time, provided that their actual performance for the first few months has been worthy of the higher salary. No candidate wants to wait, but if they are confident in their ability, they may be willing to wait a short few months to show you that you are wrong. All you are really doing with the reopener clause is postponing the final salary determination until the new hire has a chance to prove their worth. Salary reopener clauses are quite common in union contracts but they are unfortunately underused by recruiters.

A Hiring Manager’s Uncertainty About Future Performance May Lead to a Low Offer (more…)

But finding top talent among professionals is now becoming painless to the point where almost any firm can do it successfully. The time is rapidly approaching were nearly every professional and working individual in the developed world can be found by a recruiting function.

Finding Talent Is Easy Because Everyone Is Now “Visible” (more…)

It’s hard to find anything in recruiting that has failed to live up to its potential more than recruiting metrics. For nearly two decades recruiting leaders have poured resources into measuring recruiting success, and in most cases, the best that they have to show for it is being able to say “yes, we have metrics.” If you don’t know what’s wrong with most recruiting metrics, I have outlined in great detail in a previous article “what is wrong with metrics”).

So if you are a recruiting leader and you are frustrated or disappointed with your current metrics, this article will provide you with a list of the metrics that you should be using. I assure you that after reading this list you will definitely question your current metrics. The other possible option is that you may think that the metrics provided here are impossible, but you would be wrong (they are not).

Understanding the Three Time Periods That Metrics Should Cover (more…)

The most likely reason your company is failing to progress is that you still hire based on standard interview processes that have been followed for decades. You focus on qualifications only, and ignore focusing on the individual attributes that will help you find superstars, or game changers.

A game changer is a person who thinks outside the box and approaches problems differently from the rest of us. They approach problems with passion, a unique perspective, and their thinking inspires others to build on their ideas.

With game changers on your team you can move from average to an industry leadership position. Good examples are Apple and IBM, which transformed themselves from fading brands into dominant positions by adopting the ideas of leaders who were game changers. Three football teams have had great success this year bringing in game changers. The Seattle Seahawks (Russell Wilson), Washington Redskins (Robert Griffin III), and Indianapolis Colts (Andrew Luck) have seen vast improvements after they drafted rookie quarterbacks who have the unique attributes of game changers.

An example of a game changer in the music industry is Steven Tyler. In his entertaining autobiography he discusses how he approaches the four elements of writing a song: melody, words, chords, and rhythm.

He explains, “You know right away if a song has that magic. It has to have those extremes — the one thing it can’t be is okay. Okay is death.”

He adds: “Never mind the melody, never mind the chords — no, no, no. You start with infatuation, obsession, passion, anger, zeal, craze, then take a handful of notes, sew them into a chord structure, create a melody over that, and then come up with words that fit it perfectly.”

His diverse way of thinking is completely different from standard music writers, but as a game changer, his unique perspectives have resulted in incredible successes.

If we analyze the way the majority of companies hire, we see a system that is designed to hire okay performers. We focus solely on the tangibles: the candidate’s job history, education, and interview performance. We ignore the intangibles like diversity of thought, work ethic, intelligence, and common sense.

As an example, diversity of thought means approaching challenges using varied thought processes based on personal creativity and different life experiences. If you can combine diverse thinking with a strong work ethic, intelligence, and common sense, you have a game changer. The results of game changers can often transform the way we do business.

To hire game changers, you will need to make modifications in the following areas:  (more…)

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. –Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

As we emerge from the strains and exertions of 2012 and look to manage our recruiting efforts in the New Year, we are all sure to suffer one ongoing problem: distractions that will eat away at our time and our productivity. Too many things both online and off scream for our attention and too many people want a piece of our day. This is not good.

I believe that the time to clear off your desk and start afresh is now, and even more then the physical aspects of cleaning house are the mental aspects of knowing that if you have a job of any significant responsibility, the watchword for renewed success will be productivity. One’s ability to get their recruiting done despite the madness and the noise that puts us in the zone Stephen Covey referred to as “the thick of thin things” is an ongoing effort with which we all struggle. (If you have not read Covey’s seminal book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People yet, I can’t imagine a better way to kickstart the year off in your favor.)

With this in mind, I offer 10 insights that will surely contribute to enhanced success as a recruiter in the year all of us are about to enter. (more…)

Some hiring managers have an abundance of down time during this period, making it the perfect opportunity to interview and maybe even hire while a competitor is on vacation.

Though everyone needs some time off and has family obligations throughout the holiday, if prepared ahead of time, every recruiter has the opportunity to block an opponent snatcher, if not to be a snatcher themselves. Losing a candidate to another recruiter over the holidays can be avoided if certain precautions are set in place. (more…)

bust of Socrates

I’ve always thought corporate recruiters could learn a lot from “headhunters” — not because I’m biased due to years spent in third-party recruitment (both as a recruiter and manager). It’s just that when I came to the “other side” I noticed one glaring weakness.

Corporate recruiters are very “process driven” and not very good, well, “hunters”; at least that tends to be the case for corporate recruiters newer to the profession. They get the procedures down quickly but they just haven’t been exposed to the world of recruiting and closing higher-level talent. More senior corporate recruiters, on average, have been exposed to both sides and may already use some of the principles I’ll discuss.

A few quick facts about recruiting top talent in the U.S. Currently in the U.S. unemployment is hovering around 8%, yet, more than 52% of employers (according to the Wall Street Journal) say they cannot fill their positions. How can this be? How can we have, in this economy, a jobs gap of nearly 4 million? (more…)

Advanced recruiting tools and approaches (more…)

It’s promoting jobs at Aldebaran Robotics, a company that says it wants engineers who are “the most creative and experienced” … different, humble, and ambitious … if on top of that you are a funny geek, come join us!” (more…)

So you move your rock star forward — setting up an appointment with the hiring manager. Your candidate sounds excited, and you are looking forward to one more “fill” on your scorecard for the month. Life is good!

But not so fast. (more…)

Less successful salespeople, on the other hand, spend very little time consciously building their competency in this area.

But what are the elements of a great presentation? Is there a way to make a compelling presentation over the phone? And more importantly, what can recruiters do to build their phone presentation skills? In this article, I provide a simple 5-point checklist for recruiters who make presentations to candidates and hiring managers during phone conversations. (more…)

In Part 1, we looked at the importance of “knowing your numbers.” To be successful in meeting demand from hiring managers, great recruiters need to know how to move “suspects” (think: passive candidates) through a sales funnel, or pipeline, quickly, and effectively. And they need to know their conversion rates throughout the process.

In this article, we turn our focus away from the recruiter’s activities and look more closely at the passive candidate’s activities. In order to be effective at moving people through a sales funnel or pipeline, know the key factors that affect whether a person is open to moving forward or not.

So what makes a person even want to move from being a “suspect” to a “prospect”? From “prospect” to “candidate”?  There are three key decisions that your suspects, prospects, and candidates need to make in this “change process.” Let’s look at each of these.

Key Decision #1: Is This Worth My Time? (more…)

The second question involves asking candidates how they would handle one or two of the most critical job-related challenges defined in the performance profile. This is more of a give-and-take type discussion to get at thinking, planning, and the ability to visualize job-related problems.

These two questions in combination with the performance profile, and an in-depth review of the person’s resume looking for the achiever pattern indicating that the person is in the top half of the top half, is all that’s necessary to accurately assess a candidate across all job needs.

Using this information, the candidate can then be assessed using the following formula for hiring success, ranking the person on a 1-5 scale for each factor:

Hiring Success = (Talent + Management + Team (EQ) + Problem-solving)*Motivation²

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Organizational Fit

While the Performance-based Hiring process is an easy way to assess a candidate, you still need to  recruit and close the candidate on equitable terms. On this score, most managers, and too many recruiters, think recruiting is selling. You get far better results if you make the candidate sell you. Here are three ways to do this using the two-question interview: (more…)

1. Oral (Verbal)
2. Non-Verbal
3. Written

Each of these is necessary and they work together in concert. Your communication needs to be consistent from the CEO to the lowest levels of your organization. Without consistent, clear communication you will encounter a multitude of problems within your company. Inconsistent messaging and communication will consequently cause perception problems outside. Do you really want negative publicity running around the country? Here is an example of what I mean. It’s a bit long, but I believe it’s important to tell the whole story so you can see all the mistakes that were made.

Chelsea has just received her bachelor’s degree. She had an internship with a prominent firm in NYC the summer following her sophomore year of school. They liked her so much they invited her back the summer following her junior year. Before she went back to school to complete her senior year she was told by everyone she worked for (including HR) that they wanted to hire her after she graduated, and that she was as good as hired. They told her to reach out early this year, which she did.

The HR person she had dealt with during her internships (Mary) had been promoted and told Chelsea to contact the person who had backfilled her position (Karen). Mary said she’d let Karen know to expect to hear from Chelsea. Chelsea proceeded to email Karen to let her know that she still wanted to come to work for the company and would like to set up an interview. It took three weeks for Karen to respond to the emails (Chelsea sent two more over this time).

After finally hearing back from Karen, Chelsea said that she could be available any Monday or Friday (she was still in school) for an interview. Karen just told her to let her know when she’d be in the city and they’d schedule time to interview. Chelsea made it clear that any Monday or Friday would work. Karen still wouldn’t commit to an appointment to see Chelsea. (more…)

As part of a larger project I’m currently working on (developing a “bad manager identification” orBMI program), I have been able to compile a long list of how weak managers hurt both the speed and the quality of hire. (more…)

Her company is growing. They are actively looking for people. At the same time, this manager who has been tasked with building up her team is openly telling candidates that if she has her way, not one of them will be hired. Indeed, given the choice, it’s hard to imagine candidates accepting an offer if they did get one, compared, say, to an offer from an enthusiastic and confident employer.

While making the observation that this woman lacked confidence might be something of an understatement, it is only a start. (more…)