IT career site Dice.com is unveiling a new talent aggregation search tool it calls Open Web.
Similar to TalentBin, Dice’s new service pulls together bits and bytes of information about candidates, summarizing the individual’s experience, skills, and interests in an easily scanned profile. Open Web searches the accessible parts of some 50 social and professional networks — including such tech hangouts as GitHub and Stack Overflow — and the open Web, indexing a candidate’s contributions and postings to build the profile. A series of icons tells searchers where the information was found; a mouse click takes you to the source.
The goal of Open Web, explained Chairman, President, and CEO Scot Melland, is to give Dice recruiters “as complete as possible a picture of the candidate in the geography they are searching.”
Provided for now to Dice recruiting customers at no charge, Open Web is searchable in multiple ways. Besides a typical Google-type search, you can put together a profile by name. That’s particularly useful if you have a candidate in mind who may not have an updated resume.
Melland will officially announce Open Web Wednesday morning, during the quarterly financial call with investors and analysts. Dice Holdings, Inc., which owns Dice.com, eFinancialCareers, is expected by analyst consensus to report earning 14 cents a share on revenue of $51.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. keep reading…
You’ve probably heard the hype about Facebook’s new search utility, which it calls Graph Search. Unveiled just a couples weeks ago, it’s already being described as everything from a LinkedIn killer to a privacy killer, and a recruiter’s new best friend. For every one of those you can find an article — or 100 — that says the opposite.
Except when it comes to recruiting. While calling it a best friend may be premature, it won’t be long before Graph Search becomes as valuable to recruiters as Google and LinkedIn.
As Stephane Le Viet, CEO of Work4 Labs, wrote in a post on Forbes, “Graph Search is about discovering people — their work history, their education, their interests and their motivations — and using that discovery to recruit better.”
Described simply, Graph Search indexes and quickly accesses all the information each Facebook user has made available. This includes their profiles, photos, comments, likes, friends, and whatever else is out there. Theoretically, what Graph Search does was always possible. In practice, sifting through the thousands of pieces of data was such a huge, time-consuming task, it was all but impossible. keep reading…
There is nothing like a good controversy to stir up one’s feelings and subsequently a fierce debate. One of my favorite things about reading articles on ERE is how some of its contributors have a wonderful ability to write articles that generate comments a mile long because of controversial subjects covered. We were barely into 2013 when Adrian Kinnersley wrote an article entitled, “Why LinkedIn will never kill the professional recruitment industry,” which was very on point.
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 keep reading…
As an in-house recruiter or HR professional, have you ever been in a meeting with a recruitment supplier and been very impressed with their pitch and excited about the results that are going to follow, only to be completely let down by their performance? It won’t surprise you to read that you’re not the only one.
We all know that for every good recruiter who walks the earth, there are others who don’t quite make the grade. Many sell a value proposition that isn’t being followed up with action — recruiters who purport to headhunt and cold-call top people in the market, but actually only advertise their clients’ vacancies. As a client of these external recruiters you need to be in a position to make an accurate assessment of their worth — not just by what they tell you, but what they actually prove.
Many contingency-level recruitment firms haven’t evolved their value proposition as technology has evolved over the past 10 years. As in-house recruiters have been able to catch up with doing direct sourcing through job boards and social media, external suppliers should be getting more sophisticated in their approach to maintain a value proposition worthy of the fees that are charged — mapping out competitors, gathering referrals, building expertise and relationships in their chosen niche, for example. Too many contingency firms are still charging 15% to 25% for doing nothing more than advertising a poorly written or cut and pasted job spec, and it’s just not good enough.
So here are some questions to ask your suppliers next time you invite them in for an update or suppler appraisal. keep reading…
You’re at a social event, catching up with an old friend or meeting someone for the first time, and the conversation turns to your career. You say “I’m a recruiter.” Their response is likely, “Oh, like a headhunter?”
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? keep reading…
A new tech company launches today, aimed mainly for the recruiting needs of small and mid-sized companies. It says it has “sliced off the front-end of the recruiting firm.” That, and a new company in the mobile-phone-recruiting genre. And more, below. keep reading…
Recruitment, Recruitment Group, Talent Acquisition, Talent Acquisition Group, Executive Recruiters, Recruiter, Corporate Recruiters, Internet Recruiters, Sourcing Specialists, Talent Acquisition Specialist, and I am sure I am missing some monikers associated with recruiting.
I had a colleague in one of my 2012 meetings describe the job of the recruiters as being sourcing specialists. She went on to explain that recruiters don’t sit at a desk; they get out and they actively meet people. They don’t just post positions and do the administrative stuff. Sourcing specialists, on the other hand, use keywords and methodology to find key professionals to fill open vacancies … that was her way of explaining our recruiter role to some non-HR staff. In her mind, she believes that recruiters who aren’t out and about actively recruiting are sourcers.
While I spent most of my time in that meeting biting my tongue, her description caused me to think about recruitment as a profession and whether or not we are misunderstood or having an identity crisis. keep reading…
There is no index of character so sure as the voice. – Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister and novelist 1804-1881
When we open our mouths, we reveal all sorts of things about ourselves that can have nothing to do with the words we’re using.
We all know that our tone is important when talking with a Gatekeeper, but how many of us realize that pressing on just one word in a sentence can change the impression and sometimes even the meaning that the emphasis gives?
In all of our jobs there are times when we must think about how we’re going to say something (in order to get the best result) before we say it. So my advice below applies not just to phone sourcing but to any recruiting or business-related call, such as a call with a job candidate, not just a gatekeeper.
Nuances that include inflection, stress, and context are all meaningful signals that convey information but inflection is the one that can change entirely the meaning of a sentence and the idea(s) behind it.
The emphasis on a particular word implies additional information than what the words say.
Say the following sentences with emphasis on each bolded word. keep reading…
“There are hundreds of recruiting solutions available today,” Talent Sprocket says in its marketing materials.
Amen to that, but I have a couple you may not have heard of. Read on. keep reading…
Just weeks after I wrote a piece for ERE.net about talent communities, something happened on the Internet that excited much of the tech blogs and was acknowledged by many traditional press outlets; President Barack Obama held a 30-minute “ask-me-anything” session on the self-proclaimed “front page of the Internet” reddit.com. There is an important take away here for professional recruiters.
First things first.
Closer to the election, a day before in fact, the President took some time to once again drop in on redditors to ask for their votes. Contender Mitt Romney’s reddit.com appearances? Exactly two less than Mr. Obama’s.
The President invested some of his campaign time into a site like reddit because of its demographics. Google’s Double Click Ad Planner reports that reddit traffic is overwhelmingly dominated by people under the age of 35. In addition to reddit, Team Obama also spent a lot of effort on getting content broadcast on Tumblr, another social site that hosts far more under-thirty-somethings than overs. And while it is not possible to determine specifically whether or not Mr. Obama’s reddit.com investment paid off, election results sure do look like the strategy of going where the youth vote was more than likely paid off.
Not only did the President dominate the youth vote nationally (see the graphic below, click to enlarge), more importantly in critical swing states he actually improved upon his 2008 performance in the youth vote (also see the figure below), something he was unable to do nationally. 
The evidence suggests that the President’s investment to meet the key youth demographic where they were digitally clearly paid off.
Now to what it means to you. keep reading…
While there are many possible ways to use pre-hire assessments, there are some general truths associated with getting the most out of these tools. A good hiring process is a coordinated effort in which the right tool is selected for use at the right time in the process. In many cases talent acquisition professionals (including many of us I/O psychologists) are guilty of being myopic, choosing to focus on the ins and outs of one specific test. Be thorough when it comes to tests, but an effective hiring process requires a focus not only on the individual pieces, but also on the way these pieces work together.
“The funnel” provides the most tried-and-true analogy for configuring components to create a hiring process. Although the funnel may look vastly different in different situations, (for instance more emphasis on screening in high-volume situations), the overall goal is to evaluate people who are unknown to the organization in order to thin the herd while finding those who have what it takes.
While a winning hiring process should include tests, simply chucking a test in the hopper will not get the job done. Despite the many variations possible when constructing a funnel-based hiring process, there are some universal truths regarding what tools are generally most effective at various stages of the process.
Let’s take a look at a quick summary of the ideal components of a holistic and cohesive hiring process, as well as a generally accepted rough order in which they should be used.
Sourcing: Increasing the Odds Outside the Funnel keep reading…
Here’s a taste of a few recent new companies and other moves, from assessments to job-posting technology to screening tools, to job sites for recruiting veterans, young adults, and more. keep reading…
A new employee referral tool, a new way to source IT employees, a career site for developers and engineers, a young startup working on verifying resumes, and an applicant tracking system. It’s all below.
First, out of Bangalore comes WhistleTalk. The CEO tells me the company has closed a round of seed funding, and have seven full-time employees and a few freelancers.
In short, WhistleTalk’s a way for people to earn a bonus by sharing a job opening with their friends via social media. Here’s a short video about it. keep reading…
Over the last two years, LinkedIn has used its fast-growing user conference to roll out products that have become such a part of the daily life of LinkedIn-o-philes that we barely remember when they didn’t exist. The idea of pushing really targeted jobs to passive job-seekers was highlighted in 2010. Last year, LinkedIn unveiled the since-improved tool for managing candidates called Talent Pipeline. Those looking for an even-bigger announcement this week may be disappointed, but LinkedIn is, however, rolling out multiple improvements to existing products, and launching significant new ones.
It’ll soon make big, not-yet-specified changes to the profile pages. For now, though, here’s what’s new: a way to measure your brand against others; an index of the most in-demand employers; “sponsored jobs” to get your listings up higher in the results on LinkedIn; and, upgrades to LinkedIn Recruiter. keep reading…
A little of what’s new, from a “matching” site, to video, to job boards, a tool to find passive candidates, a place to review employers in Australia … and a look at what might happen if LinkedIn and eHarmony had a baby.
Let’s start with Jobdreaming. In short, here’s how it works. A candidate (U.S. only for now) puts in the type of job they want (let’s say a design job making $50,000 within a certain number of miles radius of a given zip code). An employer — right now for free — sends in a job listing to Jobdreaming. It gets sent to candidates who match, along with a question of the employer’s choice. The candidate is still anonymous at this point. But, if the candidate is interested, they can express interest, and answer the question. The employer receives the contact information on the candidate, as well as the answer to the question the employer posed.
Jobdreaming has under 10 employees and is funded by two VC firms. In response to my question asking how this is different than the laundry list of matching sites we’ve chronicled on ERE, the company mentions simplicity. Instead of starting with a specific job description and trying to match a long list of personal traits with it, this begins with the “what do you want to be when you grow up?” concept.
Entelo’s Passive-candidate Sourcing, and More keep reading…
“Send me a text!”
“I’ll text you!”
“Visit my webpage.”
“See the attached file…”
“Please electronically sign the contract and email it back to me.”
“Apply online.”
“’Like’ me on Facebook, Twitter, whatever…”
“Join my “GoToMeeting.”
It’s not at all unusual for new technology to produce crude results.
In our case, new technology is opening the door to weak communication skills.
Few stop to consider that all these impersonal communications may be endangering our work! keep reading…
The competition for recruiting top talent is already intense in certain industries and is soon to grow in many others. In this highly competitive environment, you can’t expect to fill your quota, no less recruit the highest quality candidates who you desire, without having a superior recruiting toolkit.
If you are currently dissatisfied with your recruiting results, you must adopt a more aggressive approach and begin to “push the limits” beyond the use of traditional recruiting tools. If you are a bold recruiter and you want to try something aggressive, I’ve compiled a long list of bold high-impact recruiting tools for you to consider. Each one has proven to produce results. The toolkit is broken into five categories, including sourcing, referrals, recruiting at events, college, and advanced recruiting tools. keep reading…
I was holding a confab last week with a few recruiting directors from some global companies discussing the future of sourcing and recruiting. The emphasis was how to get better results from LinkedIn Recruiter. Their contention was that more could be done, but their recruiters were balking. The discussion started with a few questions. Imagine you were there at the meeting. How would you respond to these points?
- Do you want to increase your emphasis on hiring passive candidates?
- Are you in a talent scarcity situation where the demand for talent is greater than the supply?
- Do you want to raise the talent level of your total current workforce, sustain it, or lower it?
All said they want to accelerate their passive recruiting efforts; they all thought they were in a talent scarcity situation for most critical positions; and, of course, they all said they wanted to raise their talent level. I suggested that to begin achieving these three results they needed to implement a 20/20/60 sourcing plan. This means that no more than 20% of their sourcing resources and efforts should be spent on job postings, about 20% on name generation and targeted emails, and 60% on networking.
This 20/20/60 sourcing plan maps closely to the job-hunting status of LinkedIn members. This is shown in the pie chart summarizing the results of a survey we conducted with LinkedIn last year. Based on more than 4,500 fully-employed members, 17% categorized themselves as active (Searchers, Networkers, and Hunters), 15% Tiptoers (only telling very close former associates), and 68% passive (Explorers were open to receiving calls from a recruiter to discuss a possible career move). To source and recruit the best of these people you can’t just post traditional job descriptions, send boring emails, or make dozens of phones call a day, and expect to attract and hire many good people.
Implementing a well-designed talent scarcity approach to hiring top talent requires that each part of the 20/20/60 plan be optimized to attract the best people in each job-hunting category. This then needs to be combined with rigorous performance-based selection standards and exceptional recruiting skills, to raise a company’s overall talent bar. I contended that without this type of overt and proactive approach it was very difficult to even sustain the current talent levels, since short-term needs dominated long-term decision-making.
The Essence of a 20/20/60 Sourcing Plan keep reading…
If your employer does business with the federal government, you already know — or should know — the rules about Internet hiring.
You know the four criteria for defining an Internet applicant are:
- An expression of interest (as in sending in an application);
- Meets the basic qualifications (education, years of experience, geography, etc.);
- You “considered” the individual for a job;
- The person never withdraws from consideration.
And you know about the recordkeeping requirements.
Now comes clarifications of these rules from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs that won’t make life any easier, but which do, at least, make it clearer what records to keep and who is responsible for keeping them. keep reading…
Source Mob helps you “plug into social media to sell your jobs.” This explains in brief how it works on Facebook; it also works with Twitter and other sites. Essentially, it’s pulling jobs from your applicant tracking system and spreading them onto social media sites.
Source Mob has about 18 contractors working for it, out of Minneapolis. It’s self-funded and plans on raising more money soon.
