As a professor and a corporate recruiting strategist, I can tell you that very few applicants truly understand the corporate recruiting process. Most people looking for a job approach it with little factual knowledge. That is a huge mistake. A superior approach is to instead analyze it carefully, because data can help you understand why so many applicants simply can’t land a job. If you can bear with me for a few quick minutes, I can show you using numbers where the job-search “roadblocks” are and how that data-supported insight can help you easily double your chances of landing an interview and a job.

Your Resume Will Face a Lot of Competition (more…)

A number of these suggested topics/tasks are useful (if not vital), and others aren’t. However, when we recruiters aren’t “drinking from a firehouse,” we’re wondering how soon they’ll lay us off, so in neither case can we work on these useful tasks. It would be valuable to have a company say to us:

We’re slowing down a bit now, so we’ll have you work on these other important tasks you haven’t had time to do up to now to keep you working for awhile.

Many companies are unable/unwilling to do this, and would rather lose our accumulated knowledge and practice and start all over again in the future with some largely/wholly new crew.

Anyway, back to those favorite wastes of time we’re supposed to do in the negative-5 to negative-20 hours of free time we have during the week: (more…)

Ron Mester, the president and CEO of ERE Media kicked off the two-day event by observing that recruiting seems to be at a precipice and is viewed by recruiters and other talent managers in one of two very different ways:

• The Golden Age of recruiting is over – We’re not at the strategy table and technology is taking over. Call this the “Wile E. Coyote Group,” or the people who are always worried that the anvil is about to fall on their head. Or,
• This is the time for recruiting to break out and soar — Executives finally seem to understand how important talent really is, and we are all about to become “Masters of the Universe.“

Challenges to Be Addressed (more…)

It came up with an uncommon answer, one its recruiting director Brendan Browne talked about at today’s ERE conference in San Diego. (more…)

For an individual recruiter, it’s building trust with your hiring managers. For a recruiting manager, it’s building trust and showing progress on hiring needs with multiple hiring managers.  For the leader, it’s driving quality of hire, building relationships with leaders, enhancing the brand, globalizing hiring if required, managing a large budget,  driving productivity outcomes with the teams they manage, and delivering on hiring goals set out by the company at all levels especially the executive level. Any talent acquition strategy has to be aligned to these company goals and directly to the HR vision.

HR has to build bridges with their finance leaders and with those who influence strategy. For this to happen, talent acquisition has to be the bridge with its HR leaders to be the subject matter expert in hiring practices; specifically, hiring practices that help reduce short-term attrition. (more…)

I am a second-generation recruit who knew he wanted to be a recruiter. In junior high I’d go to my dad’s office and stuff envelopes of candidates to prospective clients and help rewrite resumes. I went to school and studied HR management and organizational development. After a stint in social work to give back and learn more about how people ticked, I went into recruiting.

I have started departments, trained recruiters and managers on targeted interviewing, and worked for some of the top firms in life sciences and finance — making them able to compete in a global economy.

I have had the privilege to study sourcing from Shally Steckerl and to debate Lou Adler on the art of recruiting. And I read articles each day on the profession of recruiting.

So, I am stunned to say I am done. (more…)

Recruitment can mean different things to different people. There are a plethora of different business models within the staffing industry, so I thought it might be a good idea to define what I believe good recruitment is. This will perhaps put into context why I don’t believe that  LinkedIn — or for that matter any other web-based product — can ever replace the service we provide. I expect this will be particularly helpful for those who seem to feel that they are qualified to comment on the impending death of our industry without having ever having been a recruiter, or in some cases ever having recruited a person themselves.

Talent Is Not an Online Commodity (more…)

First it was 10% then 5% and later in the week 1%.

And I started thinking, “am I really not that cool to have ranked in the top 1%? How can that be?” (more…)

If you can’t get people through the door, there is no need for benefits, compensation, employee relations, or any other facet of HR because there is no one working at the company. Surely, if there are no people or hires coming through the door there is no way to keep the business going.

In many ways, the talent acquisition job is a thankless one. If you hire someone who doesn’t work out it is your fault. If a job needs to filled yesterday and other logistics prevent the group from proceeding in a timely fashion, it is Talent’s fault.

However, there are many instances in which talent acquisition misses the mark in delivering upon its inherent value proposition and there is no one to blame but itself.

(more…)

People are so polarized around this issue, but the comments section was what really made it an interesting read for me. If I didn’t know better I would have expected a fistfight to break out. One commenter even suggested that commission-only salespeople are unable to provide independent advice to candidates, and candidates know this. This inspired me to pick up my pen (figuratively, that is) and write, which I haven’t done lately.

The Demise of the Agency Recruiter (more…)

Do you have any answers? (more…)

Based on those factors, and a few others, dentist ranked at the top of the 100 Best Jobs list. Registered nurse was second, followed by pharmacist and computer systems analyst. Of the top 10 jobs on the list, six are in health care. The other four are in tech. (Telemarketer ranked at the bottom of the list.)

HR came in 72nd in the rankings, sandwiched between sales manager (71) and plumber (73). (more…)

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” –Howard Beale, Network

Hi Folks,

I’m making a late introduction – I started writing last week after not doing so since 2009. Though it’s much easier and more enjoyable to tear apart other peoples articles, I decided to start writing some of my own.

My madness is because much of what I read as “professional wisdom from “recruiting thought leaders” is: (more…)

If you are a headhunter, then the conversation moves on and everyone understands each other. But if you are a corporate recruiter, your response is typically “Well, not exactly; I am a recruiter for (Insert Company Name Here). This is typically followed by a quizzical look in the other person’s eye (especially if you don’t work for a company with a household name).

If your initial response was “I’m a sourcer” or “I’m a contract recruiter” or “I’m a recruiting manager,” or something along those lines, then you’ve likely just confused the other person even more.

Sound familiar? (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…)

According to Bersin & Associates, spending on outside recruiters represented a third of recruiting budgets in 2010; however, due to high commissions (averaging 21% of a new hire’s first year salary), spending halved in 2011 in favor of sourcing talent directly on social networks.

Of course, fancy recruiting IT is imperfect and can not (yet) replicate the intangibles of a seasoned recruiter. Plus, someone has to pilot the software — push the button, as it were. But make no mistake, the tech industry is going after 100% of the pie. And that means cutting out the middleman.

We’re already seeing signs of disruption. (more…)