A few days ago, The New York Times had this great article essentially about how bad waitresses’ jobs are. The short point is that their jobs - in a word - suck. The long point is that in an industry where 50% of the employees think their customers are just OK (not great or even good) and 25% are “awful,” it’s easy to imagine things like low job satisfaction and high turnover. Paradoxically, the article reports that

“American waitresses take pride in doing work that they realize many people, including some they serve so diligently, put them down for doing at all.”

“What’s this got to do with recruiting?” you ask, angrily? Only everything. It’s an example of the attitudes many talented employees have about their jobs. Many have the notion that a workplace is to be tolerated, and they still have great pride in their job and their abilities. To HR professionals, those employees are among the most wanted candidates: they’ve got talent, ability and dedication, but they’re probably interested in a way out - it you can give it to them.

To get them interested, you’ve got to be able to offer them “the whole package,” which is something we’ve written about repeatedly. Here, for example. Think about these figures: Google got 1.1 million resumes last year alone, according to Chris Russell (among others). Guess why. The salaries they offer are essentially in line with similar salaries, but the perks of working for Google are legendary. Those perks are often enough to make a candidate say, “Hmm, maybe I don’t have to tolerate this job. Maybe I should call that recruiter back.”

That’s why people like Toby Lucich recommends candidates “find that organization that operates like an Alma Pater [nutures growth and development, essentially] - this could be invaluable in your future career cycles.” Similarly, a study by the Chartered Management Institute argues that employees are less and less interested in playing office politics, in “playing dirty” to get ahead. You can show them there’s a way out of the soap opera of their current situation. Make sure you’ve got something better lined up for them, and you’re going to be able to attract the best and brightest every time.

Share This

We’ve talked before not only about what a Quiet Working Professional is but, even more importantly, why they’re so desirable. It’s an increasingly important topic as the war on talent continues to lumber ahead, so we thought we’d revisit some of our best QWP posts today.

Say goodbye to the passive candidate. Say hello to the Quiet Working Professional.

In this information age, recruiting a Quiet Working Professional differs from going after a passive candidate because of the “arrogance of supply.” In their book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business, Rusty Rueff and itzbig’s Hank Stringer argue that this arrogance of supply is a “disregard for the importance of great talent that some companies have grown accustomed to through decades of labor abundance.” The Quiet Working Professional is empowered by the Internet, and recruiting them means you have to “drive the process and actively go after the best people, the majority of whom most likely work for your competitors” (in the words of Krista Bradford). As Howard Adamsky pointed out some time back, they don’t need your job, your company, your opportunity, or you.

What puts the “Quiet” in Quiet Working Professionals

The difference is in a QWP’s latent desire for “something more” out of a job. A passive candidate is satisfied with their job and unwilling to participate in the very real stress of a placement process. However, a QWP, while not actively looking for another job, longs to be challenged in ways that their current employer doesn’t offer. A post on Sytematic HR claims that this underlying sense that a job is just OK or mediocre is why the best HR departments develop multiple career ladders. The post explains that many professionals who like their jobs aren’t necessarily interested in traditional advancement within their organization. They aren’t “on the market,” but they’re quiet (internally and externally) about their advancement needs.

Recruit Quiet Working Professionals by giving them a better work culture

A truly “Quiet” QWP may not have even considered how their work-culture could be improved, but opening that door for them can make them more receptive to the great opportunity you have lined up for them. Of course, as Barb points out, if their answers are simply money or advancement, you better be able to offer them those simple improvements too. However, it’s more likely that they’re going to want to be accurately matched with an opportunity that meets the broader spectrum of their work-culture needs. That means that you better have those kinds of opportunities lined up if you want to attract the QWPs in your network.

Share This

In an interview a little while back, Merck CEO Dick Clark (not that one; the other one) said that “‘culture eats strategy for lunch’ if a firm does not possess the ‘enabling systems and structures’ that support and co-ordinate with a desired strategic direction” (from a post on Consulting Times).

The post goes on the describe how few managers (around 20%) devote any real resources to the development of a hiring culture or even a work culture. But the kinds of “people problems” created by that lack of HR attention can have a disastrous effect on the bottom line and make it difficult to acquire quality talent down the road.

Referring to Clark’s statements, Gautam Ghosh points asks readers to

“guess which is the only function which impacts organisational culture everyday [sic]? Yes, our humble friendly HR function. Every person hired, every compensation cycle changed, every performance management change impacts the overall organizational culture.”

That means that merely going through the motions of talent acquisition without considering how you are contributing to the your organization’s HR culture means your HR department will suffer. Guess what happens if HR suffers? Bye-bye, bottom line.

We’ve written about how creating and maintaining a better hiring culture here, here and here, just to link a few. As we’ve said, a better hiring culture, which leads to better recruiting results, comes from a better overall work culture, if only because that’s going to make your organization more attractive to those hard-to-get candidates. Take a good look at your hiring/recruiting system, at the networking you do, at the online solutions you have in place for reaching that talent. Are you going forward with a culture or just a strategy? Which one do you think will attract top talent?

Share This

It’s easy to think, because of the speed of information on The Interwebs, that searching, sourcing and recruiting can be a fast market. And, honestly, sometimes it can. However, in general, finding and placing candidates is a time-consuming process.To be any good at it, you’ve got to have a long-term plan for going forward, and given the opportunity you’ve got to sell your own talents as much as you sell those of your candidates.

A long-term plan means that, even in this information age, you can’t have any real success with a get-noticed-quick attitude. Whether you’re growing organically and by spending money, it takes time to build your online network, create and grow your presence and get your SEO ducks in a row.

For instance, John Parker recommends on Search Engine Optimization Strategies that we should think of SEO like we think about weight loss. He points out that pre-packaged SEO deals (he calls them “Value meal SEO”), especially the kind that seem “filling” and quick, rarely have any real “nutritional” value. He also says that any changes you make have to be long term. Like a weight-loss pill or fad diet

“Quick tricks and algorithm loopholes might get you results in the short term, but you’ll be right back where you started (or worse) as soon as the search engines discover them.”

He also recommends against spam. Sorry, Hawaii.

In that long-term strategy, you’ve also got to be a heck of salesperson. You’ve got to let people know why your recruiting works (and it helps to be able to back up our claims), and you have to be able to sell your candidates. The organizations with whom you’re working have to be able to see why Candidate A is a better match for their needs than Candidate B, and they rely on you for that information.

Jason Gorham tells this familiar story over on Recruiting Trends.

“I can’t even begin to count the number of times I have found a good resume, called the candidate, and spent the next fifteen minutes explaining my company and what we do simply to get the candidate interested in listening to what I had to said.”

He says that the sales side of recruiting should leverage the technology at our disposal (but remember the above paragraphs about long-term SEO). Still, that technology definitely makes it easier to get your own message out there and keep it fresh. Then, when you have an opportunity to really pitch that message, try to target in on your audience’s hot-button topics. What are their needs as a candidate or organization? How can you meet those needs better than anyone else? Convince them, and you’re selling. Succeed, and you’re really recruiting.

Share This

Well, OK, they’re going to retire eventually (remember what Ben Franklin said about those two certainties in life…). But Boomers are evidently in no real hurry to retire, and why should they be? As the Talent War continues to heat up - partially because some Boomers are retiring, but also because of a scarcity of upcoming talent - organizations are starting to think more carefully about just how long their Boomers should keep working. At the same time, aging members of America’s talent force are taking careful stock of their lives and realizing that retirement may not even be an option for now.

Two of the hottest watchwords in HR right now are “talent management.” To many organizations, that means things like employee development and retention (see a recent post at the Lucas Group for another take on it).

That means refining the recruiting process to not only scope out new, young talent, but also to hunt down experienced talent like QWPs. Right there are two different fronts in the War: businesses keeping who they have, recruiters trying to take them away. Of course those two sides work together all the time, but it all puts Boomers in the driver’s seat. Why would they want to retire?

In a recent study by Buck Consultants, WorldatWork, and Corporate Voices for Working Families, 52% of the respondents said they were most concerned about a Boomer exodus’ effect on senior leadership positions. Big majorities said they were interested in developing “mentoring programs (57%), knowledge gap analyses (69%), and intergenerational work teams (44%)” to make use of the remaining time they have with Boomers.

“However, more than 80% of respondents, regardless of industry, have not surveyed their mature workers to determine future work preferences or intentions. Forty-two percent have not even identified who is responsible in their organization for knowledge transfer and knowledge management” (from College Recruiter).

Between their increased desirability and increased costs of living (meaning they can’t always afford to retire), Boomers are likely going to be an integral part of the workforce for the foreseeable future. The question is, what are you doing to recruit/retain them?

Share This

You might call it specialization, or you might call it focus. You might like finding a niche or a groove. If you’re a baseball fan you might think of it as a sweet-spot. Whatever metaphor is your favorite, the fact of the matter is that to stay competitive, discerning recruiters need to create a precisely-targeted discovery process if they want to see positive results.

Part of this specialization means you’ve got to figure out what you do best. Kind of sounds like advice for a first-time job seeker, doesn’t it? But many recruiters don’t follow this fundamental. In a post on Contract Recruiting, Doug Franklin says that many “recruiters looking for that next gig struggle to verbalize or even put in an email what their ’sweet spot’ is when it comes to recruiting.” But it’s pretty unlikely (as Franklin suggests) that a discerning recruiter is as good at filling industrial positions, for instance, as they are at healthcare or financial.

He argues that contract recruiters are being asked more and more often to perform vertical searches which almost always require some pretty specialized knowledge and ability. We’ve posted about branding before, and Franklin covers it too. He recommends three steps towards branding your recruiting specialty:

• Determine your niche recruiting strength and force yourself to write it on paper as a way to clean up the wording.
• Prepare your “elevator speech” which will clearly define your niche to any agency or company looking for a Contract Recruiter.
• Begin to build your brand. Put your marketing paragraph of your niche or expertise on your web page. Get involved in industry events specializing in this niche recruiting area. Comment in Blogs about your area of expertise.

A focused sense of your own recruiting strengths will put you in a better position to actually recruit: to understand the needs of the organization, to assess candidates and ultimately to place them by accurately matching their talents with those needs. As the recruiting world becomes a more specialized environment - as a result of more and more specialized job markets, niche job boards, etc. - recruiters are going to want to find their own personal sweet-spots and start swinging for the fence.

Share This

OK, the word “intangibles” in the title might seem a little esoteric, but it’s something we’ve all come up against in the HR world. We try to source candidates based on a sheet of paper (which we so often stress should only be one page). We ask a variety of questions in an interview - some of which give us useful results, some of which don’t. Then we make an offer that we hope will top talent will be enticed to accept.

Every step of the hiring process has costs attached to it, and we try to carefully monitor all of them. But are HR professionals ignoring the intangibles that can help them place the best talent? Are we forgetting to take into account the needs and desires of the candidates themselves?

If that sounds too “touchy-feely,” good luck in the ongoing War on Talent, because getting “touchy-feely” (maybe aka “recognizing intangibles”) are increasingly what makes the difference between an adequate candidate and a dream candidate. Which do you want to place?

In a great post on KnowHR.com Frank Roche recommends “hiring the best.” OK, sure. Sounds obvious right? Only, how do you assess “the best,” and what does “the best” even mean for your purposes. Well, for starters you better really understand the position’s needs. The next step is figuring out a candidate’s potential. Roche links out to a post by Mosiac founder Marc Andreessen, in which he argues that “intelligence, per se, is highly overrated.”

Instead, he says we should be assessing drive, curiosity and ethics in addition to demonstrated intelligence. He defines drive as “self-motivation,” the lack of which will cost an orginzation down the road. Curiosity is a “a proxy for do you love what you do?” Ethics is harder to asses, but an honest, ethical employee is going to provide obvious payoffs for any organization worth its salt.

The interview process is probably the most practical place to assess these intangible characteristics, which is why Andreessen advocates planning out your questions and watching for “the little things” during the interview. Reading the interviewee (like a poker player, perhaps) is at least as important as getting answers to interview questions.

Trying to assess the intangibles before the interview process is a little trickier, but not impossible, especially if your sourcing system is set up properly. Your criteria should be broader than just what a one-page resume provides. You should always try to read between the lines and gauge the candidates “intangibles.”

Share This

It’s too bad that The Box exists. “What box?” you ask. The one that organizations pat themselves on the back for thinking outside of. Now, that’s not to say that outside-the-box thinking is bad; quite the opposite. It’s just an unfortunate truism of business that The Box is where lots of businesses find a comfort zone for what they do, and then they “think outside” of it once every blue moon.

Sourcers, recruiters and HR departments often find a nice comfy spot in The Box and set up camp, and candidates regularly follow suit. As we touched on a couple days ago, candidates often generate resumes, maintain their networks and approach interviews in the old familiar ways. Maybe you’d respond, “Yeah, but I place candidates” or “Yeah, but I found a job.” Granted, but what about the ones you missed because you couldn’t get out of The Box?

Think, for instance, about the video resumes we mentioned in a previous post. Shocking? Maybe. A little ridiculous? Sure. Getting TONS of exposure for the candidate, his MySpace page, the blogs that post the video? You bet. It may seem like it lacks focus at this point, but that kind of novel approach coupled with an online network that can create fast, accurate matching has the potential to be the future of job discovery.

Similarly, some organizations are trying novel approaches to attract top talent. A couple recruiting videos that recently made the rounds through the blogosphere show that effort. One, by Ernst & Young is a creative attempt, if nothing else. The other, by online video start-up Vimeo is zany and engaging and has the potential to attract some high-quality creative talent.

Of course “outside-the-box” doesn’t necessarily mean “indulgent.” It doesn’t necesarily mean taking candidates “snow rafting” or offering free tickets to “baseball games and wine tastings” (from a Lucas Group Article). Then again…

However, it may mean establishing contact creatively, especially if you want to lure Quiet Working Professionals. That’s what videogame developers Red 5 did when they tried to recruit world-class designers by sending a recruitment package nested like Russian dolls with an iPod in the center. On the iPod was a message from Red 5 President and CEO Mark Kern about why the cadidate should come work at Red 5. They hired some of the top QWPs they approached, and their “resume flow is about 10 times what it was before the campaign,” according to Kern (from an article on WSJ.com.

Even among the niche job markets popping up out there, you can see a lot of innovation and creativity, and that has the potential to be a good thing. Still, none can offer what our network will be able to: the fine-tuned threshholding, privacy protection, plus accurate ranking and matching. With it, we’re offering candidates and HR professionals an outside-the-box solution. Here’s your ticket.

Share This

In the collection of tubes that comprise The Interwebs, there’s a lot of talk about SEO and keywords precision. Why is it then that generalities so often dominate the HR world - on both the employer and potential employee sides? Think, for instance, about some of the job postings you’re seen, whether your a recruiter, a candidate or part of an internal HR team. Think about some of the bullet-points you’ve seen on resumes or (gasp) that you’ve got on your own. Specificity doesn’t often seem to be the rule in job descriptions or personal histories.

A post over on The Hire Sense, laments one particular job post that includes under its “Required Qualifications”

“A bachelor’s degree in business or marketing and a minimum of 5 yrs of related experience; or, in lieu of the degree, a minimum of 9 yrs of related experience with ____________ and/or consulting is required.”

Blogger “The Velvet Hammer” argues that the post for a sales position “screams HR dept. instead of the sales dept,” and that the lack of precision is going to scare off most talented candidates. He goes on to says that the last bullet-point, which says only “Leadership skills,” is basically “a throw-away item.” There are any number of talented leaders out there with nothing in common and very different varieties of “leadership skills.”

On the talent side of things, candidates often feel so limited by the traditional “rules” of resumes that they sacrifice specificity for brevity. That’s a fancy way of saying, “They use bullet-points in place of meaningful content.” Unfortunately, that has great potential for landing their resume in the frequently-criticized Black Hole.

In a post over on My Global Career, the author contends that his resume has landed in that Black Hole because it “lacked the requisite keywords such as graduate degrees.” The post suggests that leaving a match up to that corporate career site (or HR’s sourcers) put too much emphasis on inaccurate (or missing) keywords.

Our network aims at bringing the precision back to the hiring world. As Joel Cheesman wrote yesterday the detailed screening process is simply geared for creating accurate matches. He points out that as

“users filter toward the desired job or candidate, a grade of up to 100 reveals the best fit. On the employer side, this grading system can even be utilized to keep out those who fail to reach a certain threshold.”

Then users - candidates and recruiters - get “content on-the-fly with each new search filter chosen.” It helps create the accuracy that we think is sometimes lacking in the employment world.

Share This

Of course it’s true that we put on different faces for different situations. You’re a different person talking to your spouse than you would be in front of a police officer, for instance. You speak one way to a VP of Sales and another way to a third-party recruiter. However, in a world increasingly defined by the ubiquity (a word we’ve now gotten to use twice in just a few posts) of information on the internet, the distances between some of those identities are shrinking fast. Candidates are realizing that an employer can have fast access to various versions of their identity, and for some that could mean lost opportunities… or could it mean access to the coolest jobs?

Think about all the recent buzz on video resumes. Lots of people are talking about how video resumes can show a “real” you, about how they can go viral and grow your network exponentially, about how hip and fun and cool they are. A video resume (of sorts) by a guy named Matt Bennett has become pretty popular in the blogosphere because of its zany approach. Joel Cheesman admits here that it’s “clever” but wonders, “Is this stuff getting people jobs?”

On the other hand, Kristi Young argues here that video resumes can accurately target the right kind of audiences for candidates seeking a specific work culture:

“Sure it’s a little over the top, but if one hiring manger out there digs it then I guarantee you this guy just landed his dream job with his dream boss. Matt will certainly get the last laugh!”

However, in a comment on her post, Tom Schmidt argues that “video resume does not integrate into present hiring processes especially at the top of the candidate selection funnel.” In other words, don’t expect a video resume from the next C-level candidate you try to place.

Similarly, many candidates may have a professional blog or website in addition to more revealing personal ones. Ryan Healy of Employee Evolution, in a post on Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist, points out that websites and social networks “are blurring the lines between personal and professional life” and “there is no reason these lines should not be blurred.” He goes on to say that

“If the world already knows what we do in our spare time and we are all able to be completely open about our interests, thoughts and ideas without fear of retribution or not being hired then we can bring our whole being to work everyday.”

John Sumser also argues that “helping people understand your biases and loyalties makes all of the difference in the world” and that “transparency” and “reliability of the information” are becoming the most critical business factors. He reminds us that, in our own Recruitosphere, we create alter egos for ourselves like The Recruiting Animal, Cheezhead, Mr. Moustache and The Chad. Can we really claim surprise then when we find out that our candidates have various personas as well? If they exhibit characteristics of a real person (meaning less-than-professional for some of their 24 daily hours), are we less likely to hire them?

Arguably not, especially when “89% of employers asked, said they would watch a video resume” (according to a Vault survey via Human Capital Considerations). While, according to the study, only 17% had actually watched video resumes, many more have scoured MySpace and/or the blogosphere for mentions of candidates. We’d like to know: are you finding information that slams the door on candidates, or are you rewarding outside-the-box creativity and honesty? Leave us a comment with your take on candidates’ multiple personas.

Share This