On a serious note here is a phenomenal list of 28 of your favorite writers and their thoughts on   what is and will become recruiting in 2009 and beyond.

Top 28 Postings in Recruitment this year

I’m back from #exceed09 the @Kenexa World Conference

I’m just getting back in from the @Kenexa #xecceed09 world conference in Dallas and I’ve got to say that it was a huge success. Not because I work for the company but the lien up of speakers were simply amazing and the content was beyond that.

I know I’ll forget to list most of the people I want to so I’ll just say a big thank you to all! What I won’t forget to post though are the videos of that crazy little bull riding and all of you line dancers.

I’m off to a much needed Vacation to Disney wiht family so I will be out of action through the 10th. Not that you all will be wondering about me or crying that I am gone, but I wanted to say Thank You.

Ryan Leary

I network. A LOT. I’m out there speaking in front of in-transition groups all the time. And the one thing I hear repeatedly is that “recruiters suck.” All of us. Job seekers have lumped us together, our reputations forever tarnished by the few. Or, is it the many? I’m not sure how many recruiters suck. I don’t have the statistics. But, when I get replies like this, in response to a simple two-line “standard” e-mail explaining that my client has filled the job, it really makes me wonder.

Dear Jennifer,

I just want to thank you very much for taking the time to send me a response, regardless of the outcome.  It’s unfortunate that the position is filled; however your response is above and beyond and is much appreciated with so many candidates in the market.

I hope we can work together on future opportunities.

We expect, rather, we demand communication from our candidates. If they don’t follow up with us on the status of their interview, if they don’t send a thank-you note, if they don’t communicate in the exact way we think they should, we blast them, or worse, remove them from consideration for our positions. If they communicate poorly, we may even blacklist them. But, do we treat them the way we expect them to treat us and/or our clients?

I am a recruiter. I have been a recruiter since 1993. I’ve worked for non-profits, corporations, and agencies. I think I have a pretty strong background in this industry. On the flip side, I’ve also been a job seeker. You know what happened when I sent my resume to other recruiters for review and consideration? I’m sure you can guess. And I can tell you how many (and which) of those recruiters sucked.

If you throw e-mail into this poor communication/lack of communication mix, well, then you’re opening Pandora’s Box! People still write e-mails using all CAPS, don’t spell check, don’t consider tone or possible perception…the list of blunders is endless.

I recently encountered a woman who is building an entire business, and a successful one at that, around teaching executives how to communicate via e-mail. The written word has a lot of power, and that power is often abused. People, even very professional people, frequently forget to think before they speak, or more unforgiving, think before they write and hit Send. So, possibly, the only thing worse than no response, is an inappropriate one.

Just today I had a conversation with a colleague about the potential impact of a negative e-mail communication. Can you defend it in court? Do you want to? No? Then don’t put it in writing. We know this. We say it to our clients. And, yet, sometimes we still forget. But, much like Pandora discovered, there is hope at the bottom of that box.

The hope is in our remembering effective communication. We need to communicate constantly and consistently. And NOT just on Twitter and Facebook. We need to at least attempt to create shared understanding. Our candidates deserve to understand why they’re not a fit for the job. They deserve to understand what they might do to differentiate themselves in this job market. They deserve to be told if their resumes don’t do them justice, or if they’re reaching for the wrong opportunities. They deserve candor, honesty, and—most of all—communication.

As a group, we don’t suck. We know right from wrong. We know how to be ethical and practice integrity in our profession. We know how to treat our prospects, our candidates, and our clients. We know how to treat each other.

Our reputations are all we have in a market where ANYONE can be a recruiter. Cost of entry is low, job seekers are plentiful, and it seems that everyone is an expert. People who have never used a resume to initiate a hiring decision are writing resumes. People who have never used social media to find a candidate are teaching job seekers how to use social media to find a job. And, it seems that if you once had to LOOK for a job, it means you’re qualified to help others find jobs.

While it may be these people giving the rest of us this bad name, how could a job seeker know that up front? So we need to work even harder to be sure we’re doing the right thing. Those who follow me know me for offering quotes as advice to job seekers. So, my quote for this post, “DO UNTO OTHERS!”

And let’s get it done!

About Jennifer

Jennifer is a talent acquisition strategist and career coach with over 16 years of recruiting experience and a passion for networking and social media marketing. As a strategist she creates innovative recruitment processes which support the ever-evolving needs of her clients, and acts as a trusted consultant to help them achieve their recruitment and retention goals. She has proven success in sourcing across multiple functions at any level in an organization, developing a consistent candidate pipeline, creating a positive candidate experience, and increasing employee engagement through inspiring orientation and onboarding programs.

As a coach Jennifer offers tactical approaches to the job search process in all of her one-to-one sessions and workshops. With the ability to reverse-engineer the recruiting process for those in transition, she inspires people to take action in their career campaign. As a dynamic and energetic speaker and new media marketing consultant, she can show you how to best position yourself and your business in this market using tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

In addition to continuously building her recruitment consulting practice, Jennifer is a Career Coach in partnership with Hire Aspirations, the Strategic Partnership Advisor and Networking Leader of Whine and Dine LLC, a social networking group for HR professionals, and a member of the Program Committee for the Southern Connecticut chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Jennifer is also the moderator for CT-Moms, the largest and most active networking group for mothers in Fairfield County, CT.

Jennifer welcomes the opportunity to become part of your network of professionals and is available for consulting engagements throughout the NY Metro area.

To follow me on Twitter, click here: http://twitter.com/HireEffect

To view my LinkedIn profile, click here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferscott

To view my Facebook profile, click here: http://www.facebook.com/jennifer.pashkin.scott

To view the Facebook Fan Page for HireEffect, click here: http://companies.to/hireeffect/

To visit the website for HireEffect LLC, click here: http://www.HireEffect.com

• Innovation
• Ethical
• Creative
• Communicator
• Leadership

 

When I see these kind of recruiting fouls, I send my candidate directly for the showers. Here are a few examples of  recruiting fouls that I have run into as well as  the traits they failed to demonstrate.

Raines writes, “Blogs are spreading faster than kudzu in the business world. Why? “Because, when done effectively, they are a great marketing, sales and public relations tool for corporations or entrepreneurs,” said Barbara Giamanco, CEO of Talent Builders Inc., which helps professionals attract business and increase sales by using social media strategies and tools.  

“You know it works when you start getting calls from people you don’t know who want to work with you,” she said. Recently, Giamanco garnered a major corporate client. A friend had referred her, but before calling, he did an online search, and read her LinkedIn profile and her blog, which relates to her core competencies of sales, people development and social media technology. “He liked what I had to say, so before he even met me, I had made an impression as a professional with credibility and integrity,” Giamanco said.”

What Giamanco describes are the fundamentals of relationship-based selling. These are the same principles that successful recruiters apply to their businesses, and a blog can be a fantastic vehicle to demonstrate your expertise and connect with others in the field, as well as with candidates and prospective clients.

“The technology has made it easier than ever to start a blog, and with search engines preferring content that is relevant and recent, blogs often top the results list of a search. That can be a business advantage—-or not.”

It is important to keep in mind that the same rules apply when using social media tools to build meaningful relationships with people. Nobody likes spam and people aren’t interested in “bots” spewing information at them. It’s the difference between the law of attraction and an obvious sales pitch. Developing credibility takes thought and energy. It’s an investment.

Says Raines, “A blog is not a brochure. “One of the quickest ways to fail is to make it an online sales pitch,” Giamanco said. “Nothing turns people off faster than a ‘slick Willy’ hawking his product or services. You want to have a conversation with people and get them to participate.”

Giamanco goes on to say. “People want to do business with people they know, like and trust, but building that relationship takes time. Don’t expect instant results.”

Raines says that you should be authentic when writing on your blog. “Use your own voice and be real,” Giamanco said. “But always treat others with courtesy and respect. If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it online.”

Brett Borders recently wrote on his blog, Social Media Rockstar, 10 simple ways to show kindness online, “Some of the top social media “rockstars” come across as incredibly nice people. They’ve cultivated a conscious, polished online interaction style that makes other people feel included, welcome, important and appreciated. An “aura of awesomeness” is crowned upon them, in part, because their fans feel good after interacting with them.”

Be prepared to make a commitment. Blogging requires time and effort to draw readers in and keep them interested and engaged. Once you get started you’ll need to post at least several times a week.

However, it doesn’t have to be as difficult or time-consuming as it sounds if you’re smart about it. There are so many things you can write about, and so many ways that you can structure a blog post without spending too much time. I suggest a healthy combination of several different types of articles.

• Write a response to something you have read. It could be something you read in a book, article, or blog post. I don’t comment on other people’s blogs very often but I do write blog posts in response to what I read and link back to it. (Bloggers like it when you do this FYI. Unless your blog post is horrible or you are launching a personal attack on them but let’s assume that’s not the case and I do not recommend either of these things.)
• Do an email interview with someone. I do these a lot. They’re easy to do for both the blogger and the interviewee and very popular with readers, and I love the fact that unless you are a complete idiot this leaves very little room for misquoting someone.
• Answer people’s questions in a blog post. I do this all the time too. Someone comes to me with a question and I ask them if I can write my response in the form of a blog post and I have yet to have someone say no. Plus even if they said no you could just do it anyway and not mention their name so there.
• Obviously you need to write about original ideas that you have related to your field. I’m just saying that not every single post needs to be one of these.

Michael Kogon, CEO and founder of Definition 6, a leading interactive solutions marketing company, suggests focusing on a subject “that draws from your expertise and is broad enough to interest readers. It should be professional, not your personal musings. No one wants to read your thoughts on the universe, unless you’re Stephen Hawking.”

Some of the things that I recommend when blogging:

1. Write about things you care about. Tell us what you do and how you do it and tell us how you feel about what you do and why you do it the way that you do.

2. Let us in to your life. We want insight. While we definitely do not want a play-by-play account of a day in the life of your pet snail we do want to know your interpretation of the information you are sharing with us so don’t just say Apple just released the next gen iPhone. Tell us if you bought it and if so why and if not why and do you like it or love it or hate it and why.

3. Put a picture in your blog post. At least one. Some of us are visual and some of us have absolutely no imagination whatsoever and we need to look at a picture.

4. Don’t be all business and don’t be stuffy. If we wanted to read a textbook we would buy one and no we do not want to read about your cat. That is not what I’m talking about.

5. Have a blogroll. Call it what you want but we want to know what blogs you read so we can learn more about you and also if we like to read your blog (?) we might also like to read some of the blogs that you also like to read.

Last but not least, do not forget: Links are good manners! Chris Brogan says, “Links are good manners. They signal intent. They connote sharing. They help your audience connect better. Link, even if it takes a bit more time. Fair?”

Ready to get started? I suggest you read How to get a job by blogging in order to learn how to set up the kind of professional blog that will get you hired. This is an excellent article that walks you through the process, step-by-step, with links to and explanations about the things you’ll need. And then check out and bookmark @Animal’s guide to basic HTML for bloggers.

About Stephanie:

Stephanie is Founder and CEO, Radiant Veracity in Atlanta, Georgia, at the intersection of Talent + Social Media.

She is a National Careers + Workplace Columnist for Examiner, a division of Clarity Media Group owned by one of the largest media investment companies in the world. There she authors a highly-regarded career and job search advice column for 70 major markets nationwide.

With more than 15 years of experience in corporate recruiting and executive search, Stephanie works with hiring managers, HR executives, business owners, and recruiting firms on recruitment and retention strategy including how to better utilize social media for talent acquisition and employee communication.

On LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, success starts with your profile, but does not end there. Don’t spare yourself ANY opportunities to be found on these great communities. Make yourself accessible. It’s amazing to me how many recruiters really keep themselves in the dark, not fully utilizing the “Big 3” (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter) with a complete profile, full contact details and other vital information.                 

Try these 12 fixes to get you on track:

1)      With the “Big 3” make sure you complete your profiles to the fullest extent. Don’t leave any sections or areas blank. This is crucial. With LinkedIn and Facebook, fill in your personal information, education, work experience, etc. All of this makes you more “findable” through searches in their systems. With Twitter, you only have 160 characters to work with on your bio, so make each character count by using abbreviations and symbols where you can. Also on Twitter, use a web link in your profile that makes sense for you, such as a link to either your company, career site or a current “hot” open position.

2)      Place your phone number(s) and email address on all three sites. Make it easy to be found by potential job seekers. LinkedIn and Facebook have dedicated contact settings sections to use.

3)      Each of these sites allow some form of customization with your page. In the case of Twitter, try also putting together a background wallpaper for your account that gives additional information about your company and who you are.

4)      Change your profiles and update your status frequently on all three. Give links to open positions. Drive traffic to your opportunities or career sites. Tell people why they should work for you.

5)      In LinkedIn, utilize the “Interests” area as a place to put key words to attract potential candidates to your profile. For example, I have ASP.NET in my interests area as a key word. The thinking is, if a job seeker is looking for someone in the recruiting field in Pittsburgh who specializes in ASP.NET technologies, then my profile would come up.

6)      LinkedIn and Facebook allow “vanity” URL’s. Take advantage of this. Twitter allows a screen name. My suggestion is to make your screen name your real name. This makes it easy for people to remember you and also associate the name with you.

7)      In LinkedIn, use your “Summary” section as a bulletin board to update your current network and new connections on what you do, your current open positions, and how to reach out to you.

8)   LinkedIn allows for applications to be added to your profile. Currently there are only a few to choose from. I recommend adding Slideshare (where you can share PowerPoint presentations), WordPress or Blog Link (where you can add a personal or company blog right to your page) and Box.net (where you can add documents from your company such as open positions and benefits). Facebook allows you to add applications as well to your profile. You’ll find applications for both LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as many other sites you may use. Add ones that are appropriate for you.

9)      Facebook recently updated their privacy settings, allowing members to share their profiles and status updates with not only their friends but with anyone on Facebook as well. This opens up the possibility to reach their enormous community of over 250M people. Learn to take advantage of this.

10)   Facebook limits you to one network at a time (i.e. my network is Pittsburgh, PA.). This causes limitations on who can see your profile in searches. They do however allow you to change it twice every 60 days. This can play into your Facebook strategy if you decide to move from one network to another to gain a larger audience.

11)   On LinkedIn and Facebook, a no-brainer fix is to join groups. On both sites, you’ll find thousands that can be utilized for finding top talent, as well as leaving an imprint of yourself for others to find you. Facebook Fan Pages (similar to groups) are another element for Facebook members to utilize. You always have the option to start your own groups or fan pages as well.

12)   Get yourself up on directories. For example, Twitter has WeFollow and TwitR where users can place themselves among other members using tags (or key words) to be discovered.

*There are many more fixes that can allow you to become more findable on the “Big 3.” Want to see some screen shots on these ideas? Need some further clarification on how to fully utilize LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter? Check out my recent webinar presentations on Advanced LinkedIn, Facebook Strategies and TweetTwainer.

About Geoff:

Geoff Peterson is the Managing Principal of General Lead, a national provider of talent delivery, advanced sourcing solutions and custom recruitment training, and is the Founder of RecruitChute, a targeted resume delivery service. In addition, Geoff is also the editor for StaffBytes, a blog dedicated to recruiting industry tips, techniques and instructional videos, and is the author of “The Sourcer’s Playbook.”

Feel free to take a look: 

 The Sourcer’s Playbook is a book dedicated to Sourcers, Recruiters and Researchers. This invaluable book is filled with over 100+ “play-by-play” tutorials for finding active and passive talent directly and indirectly using the web. Take a deep dive into Social and Business Networks, Social Media, Search Engines, The Blogosphere, Microblogs, Niche Communities, Groups, Mobile Technologies, and Sourcer Tools and Technologies. See how to harness the power of the web with advanced search techniques, strings, hacks, commands and sourcing strategies.

This post is dedicated to all the nay-sayers and people who keep belly-aching “Show me the ROI of Twitter”…. it’s time you stopped asking for proof that recruiting using Twitter works, and actually listen when people share proof with you. I recently used a fantastic resource called HARO (Help A Reporter Out) started by Peter Shankman, @skydiver on Twitter. I wanted to find individuals who have found their current full-time position through communication on Twitter. Take note: this could be via a job posting that was tweeted, an @ message from a company representative, or a DM from a colleague passing along some information about a position. Here are just a few of the responses I received. The results, quite frankly, I think are going to surprise    you…

1. Chris Kieff – Director of Marketing at Ripple6, Inc.: Chris lost his job in January of 2008. He did the usual things such as going to job boards and  applying for jobs, but he also started increasing his presence on LinkedIn and Facebook, and decided to start his own blog about internet marketing, www.1goodreason.com. He began writing about search engine marketing and internet marketing, and he started connecting with other bloggers through several social media resources and having offline meetings with people to solidify connections (hint). Chris had begun interviewing for various opportunities but as many companies ended up in hiring freezes, he simply wasn’t finding anything. After one such opportunity was lost, he went out to Twitter and tweeted ‘I just lost a job opportunity but I think they want me to be a consultant now…’ An observant employee at Ripple6 who was following him saw his message, said they were looking for a social media person, and he started going through the hiring process. He was eventually hired on full-time as Director of Marketing, based on a Twitter follower directly from Ripple6 who was keeping an eye open.

2. Megan Soto – Account Associate at LaunchSquad: Megan was recruited and eventually hired by her PR firm through Twitter. She was a senior at the University of Oregon and had a couple of internships in the queue for the summer. Megan was active on Twitter and had a class-assigned blog about PR, which was her focus in the Journalism school. She tweeted about one of LaunchSquad’s clients in reaction to a cool New York Times article they’d just secured. While scanning for Twitter activity on the article, Brett Weiner, a partner at LaunchSquad, found her tweet, which led them to her blog and they eventually contacted, interviewed and hired her as a salaried Account Associate.

3. John Robinson, Jr. – Interactive Developer at Balcom Agency: John started at Balcom in April of 2009. He is responsible for coding and helping design numerous websites for businesses and nonprofits using PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. John actually wasn’t looking for a new job when he noticed Balcom Agency’s tweet about a job opening for a developer for its fast-expanding interactive division. Still, he shot a quick direct message back to @Balcomagency to ask about the job, and by the time Balcom’s social media specialist, Kayla Bond, responded he’d already gotten a tweet from Balcom’s interactive account director, Chip Hanna. As webmaster for the Amon Carter Museum for five and a half years, John handled its Twitter account and the Balcom Agency was on the “friend” list.

4. Andrea Slesinski – Media Relations Specialist at MediaSource: Andrea was working at a full-service communications/branding agency and had been hunting for a new job for several months when she saw the post by the media relations director at MediaSource, whom she knew in “real life.” She sent her some correspondence and arranged for interviews via Twitter the entire way through. The only time they communicated outside of Twitter was when Andrea sent her resume and cover letter for the position, which she did via e-mail.

5. Rob Totaro – Account Representative at POTRATZ: Rob just started a job at the end of June 2009 that he found through an update on Twitter. He didn’t know Christy Potratz, one of the owners at Potratz Partners Advertising, but through other people she had begun following me. He followed her back and after a few weeks saw their posting for an Account Rep. He responded and interviewed, and eventually was hired.

6. Lance Hunt – Software Architect/Consultant at Cogent Company: Lance had been on Twitter for a good while before getting laid-off and had around 100 followers at the time. Before the RIF, he already had accumulated a few recruiters as followers as well as many key players/influencers in the .NET Development arena due to a variety of past discussions on technical, social networking, and philosophical topics. The initial announcement about and from Lance and others being caught in the Telligent layoff was a big surprise to many who had been following Telligent over the years, so the overall response from the community was great. It seemed like everyone he had chatted with in the past offered to leverage their contacts and tried to help. At least 75% of Lance’s twitter job prospects were identified indirectly through colleagues in the industry who saw the tweets and gave him a referral or sent his information to someone they knew. The remaining contacts were directly from employers or recruiters who were already active on Twitter and were either interested in topics that he had been discussing and found him through that, or were actively searching on terms around layoffs and job search and found him that way. Lance’s current employer, Cogent Company, was one of those who found him through the former method of searching on topics and following other peoples’ discussions. Marc Hoppers, the owner, had seen Lance’s tweets while researching discussions on social networking topics and contacted him via a DM to see if he would come in for an interview. The rest is history.

7. Tac Anderson – Social Media Director at Waggener Edstrom: Tac’s story is a personal one for me, because it was my direct message to him that alerted him to the position he now has. I had been following Tac’s blog, New Comm Biz, for a little over a year, and we had connected through Twitter and shared a few links and other niceties over time. When the position at Waggener became available, Tac was one of the first folks I reached out to for it. I sent him a direct message and asked if he might be interested. Tac was at a point where he was ready for a new opportunity, so he began the interview process at Waggener and eventually was hired.

8. ME! Amybeth Hale – Talent Attraction Manager at AT&T: I was laid off from my job at the end of February. Immediately, I started quietly reaching out to some of my network connections through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. One of the individuals I reached out to was Chris Hoyt, Associate Director, Talent Attraction with AT&T. Chris and I had been introduced by Jennifer McClure over the fall of 2008, and as we were both bloggers in the recruiting community, we developed a good friendship and respect for each other. When I told Chris what was going on, he set up a time for us to discuss an opening he had on his team, and it was a great fit for both of us. I was hired and started with AT&T at the beginning of April 2009.

I don’t know what additional proof anyone needs that Twitter is a helpful tool for connecting companies who are hiring to candidates who are looking. And for those who say this only works with certain job functions or in certain select industries – take a look at the variety in the stories presented here: we have marketing, PR, advertising, web development, software architecture, and recruiting professionals from companies operating in telecommunications, technology consultancy, interactive design, advertising, multimedia, and public relations. In addition, this worked for people ranging from fresh out of college to senior / director level professionals. So this isn’t limited to just the “social media” people or the “creative” companies.

Another interesting observation I had from reading through these stories is that the majority of the folks mentioned who were monitoring, seeking, and reaching out to these qualified candidates via Twitter were in fact NOT RECRUITERS, but observant employees and either partners or owners in their companies. So… perhaps this is a rude wake-up call to recruiters: the more you resist and poo-poo using tools like Twitter to find, connect with, and develop relationships with people, the more beneficial it will be for the direct hiring authorities, since they’ve already seemed to embrace this method of search.

So my recommendation to you is this: do what you want, and what you think is right for you. But stop asking for proof that it works, because it’s out there and you’re just not listening. And all those candidates are being grabbed up left and right by others who have chosen to embrace the tools, whether or not you do.

About Amybeth:

Amybeth began my career in research in the summer of 2002 as the sole researcher for an award-winning MRI-affiliated executive search firm in Ohio and then as the Manager of Internet Research for a recruiting franchisor in Ohio. Most recently, I worked as a Sourcing Strategist for a global public relations firm and am currently working as a Talent Attraction Manager with AT&T, doing strategic sourcing and brand evangelism.

Check out my blog at: www.researchgoddess.com

For example, you’re sitting across the way from a candidate who is sweating profusely.

Let’s rewind to before you realize he’s sweating profusely though. The chap has an awesome resume – maybe he was   even referred to you by a trusted source. You spoke to him on the phone and a five minute conversation was enough for you to realize that he’s a smart cookie. You’re looking him up on Facebook as you’re chatting. You don’t see anything scary while you’re on the phone so you invite him to meet with you. You greet him in the lobby and notice a slightly clammy handshake. No problem – we all get a little nervous. Five minutes, eight minutes, 14 minutes into the interview, you realize that it’s just not a sheen you’re seeing on his face – he’s sweating. Profusely sweating. And you begin watching the sweat beads roll down his forehead. The sweat has even gathered around his shirt collar which almost appears as if it is bleeding with the top half of his collar, the part touching his neck, darker than the rest of his collar because of the sweat dripping off of his noggin. (As I write this, I’m thinking in particular about this one candidate who was wearing a red collared shirt. The visual was made even worse as a result.)

With this sweating candidate, you take a quick break to look away from him – maybe you look down at his resume and out of corner of your eye, you see him quickly trying to wipe the sweat beads away. Or maybe you stop at another point to look at your computer saying that you need to look at the schedule to double check who he is to meet with after you – and in the reflection of your monitor, you can see that he is fanning himself with his papers. He knows that he is a sweaty mess. You know that he’s sweating. And pretty much, it’s at the point where it’s no longer possible for the situation to not be awkward. He’s uncomfortable, you’re a little grossed out. So at that point, what do you say? What are you supposed to do?

I’m a nice gal, for the most part. But I don’t like looking at people with sweat beads rolling down their foreheads. Neither do you. And it’s highly likely that your hiring manager isn’t going to like it either.  But your inner HR angel says it’s wrong to judge. Maybe the sweat is related to a health condition, which takes you down the path of whether you’re discriminating against him. At which point, you have a few options:

a) Let him flounder, sweaty mess and all.
b) Hand him a tissue.
c) Ask him if he wants a break for water or the restroom.
d) Abandon ship and call it quits. You can’t have a sweater working for you.
e) Fill in the blank…

Thousands of interviews under my belt, I still am stopped in my tracks when faced with a profuse sweater. Depending on the person, I might go for option c, d, or e… but it’s never not awkward, folks. At least for me. But I will say this wholeheartedly – these are the kinds of things we need to discuss. As recruiters, there are lessons I think we need to pass down to junior recruiting pros including the exit strategies we’ve devised over the years. (There’s that good ole.. “I think we have some scheduling difficulties. Crap! No one else can meet with you today! I am so sorry!”)  And for candidates,… well, the truth hurts sometimes but what hurts even worse is you not getting a job because you don’t realize how distracting and off putting something seemingly simple like sweat can be. I’d rather you be embarrassed as you read this, learn from it and land that job because the alternative is you sitting there clueless about what went wrong in your  interview.

So what else are we not talking about? Body odor. Overwhelming cologne. Slutty interview outfit. Too much makeup. I know you’ve got some good ones to share in the comments – and while you’re at it, hit the comments with world famous exit strategies because somethings, we need to just put on the table.
–
About Jessica:

 Jessica Lee is an Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide, a global PR firm in D.C. Like most upscale HR pros, she spends half of her time on recruiting, the other half on ER, Training and OD.  When she’s not hammering a candidate to determine Motivational Fit, she’s updating her spreadsheet to determine her lifetime “time to hire” and “cost per fill.”   See Jessica’s Riffs and Rants on Fistful of Talent by clicking here…

Talk to Jessica via Email, LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook…

In my recruiting career, I’ve come across many people who believe that sourcing is difficult to   learn. I think that there are a number of contributing factors to this belief, including the idea that sourcing is more art than science, exposure to poor and/or ineffective training, the lack of  access to a sourcing mentor, and in some cases – the absence of a true desire to master the craft.

I feel that sourcing is more science than art and can be relatively easy to learn, provided you actually WANT to learn and have access to the proper training and resources.

Art vs. Science

Dr. John Sullivan believes that “The primary difference between a function that is driven by science versus one driven by ‘art’ is that the scientific approach allows a business or recruiting process to be repeated again and again with the exact same level of quality and results.”

What some expert sourcers can do quite literally appears to be magic – I can understand where the idea that sourcing is an “art” comes from.  However, I am here to tell you that candidate sourcing CAN be broken down to a process that can be repeated by anyone, and breaking the sourcing process down to a repeatable science does NOT remove creativity from the equation.

Some people call sourcing an art simply because they are not able to break down their own sourcing process into a series of repeatable steps, including the analytical thought processes applied. The goal is not to remove thought from the process – in fact, it’s quite necessary. However, even the creative thought processes applied by sourcing “magicians” can be broken down into a process that anyone can follow and execute repeatedly, with excellent results.

How Do People Learn?

Part of the reason why some people believe that sourcing is an “art” is because of how they were trained, or more correctly, how they were NOT trained.

Mastery of the sourcing process does not come from reading books, blogs, or cheatsheets, nor does it come from attending seminars. Although quite a bit of information can be transferred from these training materials and means, the most effective method of learning exactly how to expertly source top talent comes from a combination of #1 Training that involves the ability to practice the sourcing techniques and strategies being learned with immediate feedback from the trainer, and #2 Having access to a sourcing coach or mentor who can provide you regular feedback and coaching on your sourcing efforts.

Occupational training studies have shown that the vast majority of people learn by DOING, not by reading and watching. Thus it is critical that any effective sourcing training will allow you to use the techniques you’re being taught under the guidance and evaluation of the trainer

After the formal training sessions are over, it is critical to have ongoing access to a sourcing mentor. Without a mentor, sourcers and recruiters don’t have any basis of comparison when it comes to the quality and effectiveness of their sourcing strategies and tactics. Without a basis of comparison, most people are simply not capable of objectively judging the quality and quantity of their search efforts. It’s similar to taking a single golf lesson and then going to play golf without the instructor watching and coaching you and expecting to become a professional golfer.

Lacking the ability to apply what you’ve been trained on under the guidance of an expert coach, there is no way for you to receive immediate feedback on the sourcing techniques you’re applying. Until a highly proficient mentor reviews and assesses your sourcing efforts and results objectively, you may actually be in a dangerous state of ignorant bliss. You don’t know what you don’t know.

Disturbing Statistics

I recently read Shally Steckerl’s excellent ERE post referencing the findings from the Arbita Recruitment Genome Report (a link is provided in the post to download the report) and learned that 81% of the 482 respondents feel Internet sourcing is a major part of their recruitment strategy, 79% manage Internet sourcing internally, and that 47% feel their team has inadequate training on Internet research and sourcing.

If most companies highly value sourcing and feel it is a major part of their recruiting strategy, and most manage the process internally, yet nearly half feel their team has inadequate training – the $64,000 question is WHY is the training inadequate for such a critical function?

Perhaps it is because many companies simply don’t possess strong in-house sourcing expertise? Or could it be due to a poorly designed and executed sourcing training program? The worst case scenario is that it could be both.

If a sourcing and recruiting team doesn’t already posses at least 1 sourcing expert – buying training materials, watching webinars, and attending seminars will not magically convert the team into a group of sourcing experts. What’s missing from these training methods is that when the team members who participate in the training go back to their office, the training has little chance of sticking without a highly proficient sourcing mentor on the team to evaluate their efforts and provide feedback, guidance, and a basis of comparison.

Ideally, a team with at least 1 sourcing expert can leverage that person to assimilate (Borg-style, if you will) all training materials, strategies, and tactics they are exposed to and incorporate them into an effective training program involving interactive feedback that is critical for learning and lots of deliberate practice.

Master your Craft

I’ve been told that sourcers and recruiters don’t want to know “this Boolean stuff,” that they just want resumes delivered to them with the least amount of effort, and that sourcers and recruiters want sourcing solutions that require little-to-no thinking.

That’s like being on the golf course and overhearing other golfers complain about how hard golf is, that they don’t want to put the effort into learning the rules or even a proper swing, and that they just want to swing a club and have the ball go into the cup, get it over with, and go home. Why are they even on the golf course if all they do is complain and they have no real interest in playing the game? Get off the course!

Similarly, if you’re a sourcer or a recruiter who is responsible for the finding candidates and you’re not interested in and dedicated to mastering your craft, you should look for another job. Unlike golf, which is a hobby for most, if you are a sourcer or recruiter, finding candidates is your job – it’s at least part of, if not all of what you get paid to do. But maybe that’s the issue – if finding candidates is just a job and not a passion, you will never master the craft of talent identification.

A Call to Action

• If you are a sourcer or recruiter and you’re not already a sourcing guru, commit to becoming one. You can’t hire or place someone you can’t find.
• Seek out training that #1 goes beyond the “what” and deeply into the “how” and the “why,” and #2 allows you to use the techniques you’re being taught under the guidance and evaluation of the trainer.
• Find and engage a sourcing mentor who is capable of expertly and objectively judging the quality and quantity of your sourcing efforts as well as capable of consistently challenging and pushing you just beyond your current ability.
• Perform deliberate practice of sourcing best practices under the guidance of an expert coach or mentor.
• If you manage sourcers or recruiters who are responsible for sourcing and you don’t already have at least 1 person with expert-level sourcing expertise – acquire one. If you want to have the best talent identification and acquisition team in the world, upgrade your entire team.
• Taking a golf lesson from Tiger Woods will not make you play as well as Tiger Woods. It’s what you DO with the training – be sure to attack the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable with passion, seek to figure out the “why” and the “how” and to continually improve your skills and ability.

About Glen:

Glen Cathey is the author of www.booleanblackbelt.com, a blog about sharing best practices for leveraging the Internet, job boards, resume databases, and social networks for sourcing and recruiting. With over 12 years of experience in the recruiting and staffing industry, he currently serves as the V.P. of Recruitment for a large staffing firm and trains hundreds of recruiters every year in the art and science of leveraging technology for talent identification and acquisition.

In May 2009, Arbita revealed the first survey results from the Recruitment Genome Report. The purpose of this multi-year research project is to define the most effective recruitment practices from among the thousands available.

Below are my thoughts about the results, but you can download the full 11-page report for yourself here: http://www.arbita.net/Offer/Recruitment-Genome-Report-Download.html

Why is this important to staffing leaders?

There are so many tools and services in our industry, each vying for your attention and promising to be the only solution you need.  However, many of them are mostly “bells and whistles”, providing little value to your organization’s employment brand or recruitment effectiveness. Don’t be alarmed – such is the case among vendors in every industry, not just in recruitment. Our industry has long needed a concerted, vendor neutral, consensus-based approach to answer the question of what works and what is just hype.

Our job as recruiters has always been incongruous. We must be masters of basic human psychology, well-versed in business rules and requirements, savvy in the use of tools and technology, and cognizant of the nuances of the industry and its unique business “ecosystem.” All the while, we receive little thanks from the customers we advocate, both our hiring managers with urgent job openings they have a hard time filling, and our candidates who depend on us to champion their cause and provide a good match. Both appreciate us only when we are most desperately needed, and otherwise tend to categorically dismiss us regardless of how often we prove our value.

It doesn’t help that the recruitment industry changes so dramatically from day to day. Modern recruiters must truly be project managers. No individual could learn how to handle the multitude of specialties found in all aspects of recruiting on their own in one lifetime. This is why the answer to “what works” must come from a community, not from one single person’s biased voice, no matter how experienced or seasoned a leader s/he may be.

This report is important to staffing leaders because:

• Our industry has long needed a concerted, vendor neutral, consensus-based approach to answer the question of what works and what is just hype. Through this report we intend to find some consensus around which technologies are appropriate based on real results, not just on speculation.
• The answer to “what works” in recruiting must come from a community not from one single person’s biased voice. New ideas are great. Innovation is necessary. But so is testing and validation, and not just in one environment. If a solution works only in specific, rare or controlled situations then it is not a best practice.
• Our service economy has given way to a knowledge economy. Knowledge comes from people and that makes recruiters critical to an organizations survival but the recruiting industry has not yet dealt with this shift. The recruiters role will become increasingly valuable as job seekers become more sophisticated at finding connections and networking for their next job.
• Most survey respondents believe Internet recruiting is so key it must be kept in-house but half felt team is inadequately trained. Just going out and buying any training is not the solution. First we need to better understand the gaps shared across many organizations, then we can devise the best ways to fill those gaps.
• Companies’ recruitment goals are not strategic when their staffing leaders highly value Internet recruiting, yet half feel sourcing skills are deficient and are not allowed to spend on developing recruiters’ skillset. It is not a leader’s job to know how best to do all the jobs but to make everyone’s job better.

The staffing leader’s world is extremely complex and not getting easier

Staffing leaders in both corporate and agency roles must contend with the latest and greatest employment branding challenges, online social and professional networks, job boards and resume databases, employment advertising destinations, recruiting exchanges, referral services, leads databases, resume capture and processing technologies, and communication platforms; not to mention contend with organizational requirements around Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs) and possibly even Contact Relationship Management (CRM) Systems.

“Our service economy has given way to a knowledge economy. Our economic survival now depends on the exchange of knowledge, not the exchange of services. Knowledge comes from people, and people are at the heart of recruiting. Therefore, our jobs will be even more crucial to our organization’s growth and progress in the years ahead. However, the recruiting industry has not yet dealt with that shift.”

As a longitudinal study, Arbita’s report is not yet complete but the first stage revealed to me a few surprises and confirmed some suspicions. Perhaps the most salient confirmation is that the recruitment industry, by and large, has not yet realized that our service economy has given way to a knowledge economy. Our economic survival now depends on the exchange of knowledge, not the exchange of services. Knowledge comes from people, and people are at the heart of recruiting. Therefore, our jobs will be even more crucial to our organization’s growth and progress in the years ahead. However, the recruiting industry has not yet dealt with that shift.

Anything short of a synergistic recruiting strategy involving all these components remains tactical no matter how excellently executed:

• Solid team architecture. This could mean centralization, decentralization, or a hybrid of both. And it could include various definitions of roles, both internal (employees) and external (vendors/partners). But what it must include is strong definition. There’s very little in the form of a “standard” for recruitment positions. How can an organization decide if it needs a dedicated sourcer, community developer, or candidate developer if the definition of the primary role of recruiter varies so widely? Answering questions around what kinds of team structures really work will go a long way in making more efficient use of the technologies available.
• Direct sourcing ability. Every recruiting organization should be able to find leads for their hard-to-fill positions. Finding talent and making connections is a core value we offer. Survey respondents clearly agree this is an important skill. Not all positions are “critical hires” but when they are, we need to be able to fend for ourselves and not depend on someone else doing it for us. This doesn’t mean every recruiter must be a master researcher, it just means every recruiting team needs to have some ability to get out of a tight spot and find a handful of leads at critical times.
• Functioning analytics. We don’t know what we don’t know. 62% of staffing leaders feel they have the wrong metrics but 70% of them feel their marketing strategies are satisfactory. How could anything be proven satisfactory when it is not being adequately measured? Before we can begin to target social media sites, focus our search engine marketing, or more accurately distribute our job advertisements, we must have complete details on every click and forward. Anything else is just guesswork. The only way to do this is with a system capable of tracking every source without requiring us to manually create or police the source categories inside our applicant tracking software.
• Grassroots social media involvement. Only 15% of respondents source from blogs! Only half of respondents identify talent on social networks or use search engine queries to find prospects. Each of these mostly ignored sources is larger than any one database, why overlook them? Recruiters can and should engage their target audience in their native habitat and that includes blogs, micro-blogs, networking sites, and online communities.
• Search engine optimization. Only 25% of respondents have effective strategies for optimizing their organic presence in search engine query results. Fewer than 25% of respondents use search engine marketing to have a paid presence among search engine results. Search engines are the first place where many people go to ask questions. Why are only a quarter of us using them to reach our target audience?
• Career web sites that provide an engaging user experience and that have full integration into your HRIS. If you are engaging prospects online keep they are going to expect your organization to be web savvy. We already know that arcane and dehumanizing online applications don’t get us very far, but what we are learning is that our applicants are expecting convergence. Next generation career websites will allow applicants to use them how they want to use them, and connect with your on their terms. This may very well involve following your organization on Twitter or belonging to your company Facebook fan page, but the point here is that it is their choice, not yours. Instead of making them go where you want them to go, you now have to be where they already are.
• Sustainability through nurturing a center of excellence, and championing subject matter expertise. Lets face it, nobody knows everything. But by putting a few good minds together we can certainly keep up. Organizations need a place to house their collective experiences, and a champion or two charged with keeping alive the body of knowledge. Wisdom comes from putting this knowledge into practice, so if the knowledge resides outside your organization, or can easily walk out the door, what becomes then of your wisdom?

Decreased Spending on Recruiter Development

Social media is bringing forward unprecedented change in how people network online. Networking is a critical component of career progression, and modern means for networking are evolving so fast that without learning from others, a recruiter could waste invaluable time just keeping up with the changes.

Social media is also disseminating what were closely-guarded secrets in recruiting and sourcing practices, thus making information freely and openly available. Information, however, is not knowledge. In fact, I would argue that what is available is merely data, not even information. The key to translating all that data into information and eventually knowledge is to determine meaning. Knowledge is what happens when we use our experience, and experimentation, to interpret information and make decisions on how to proceed. Expert advice in matters such as Social Media, SEO/SEM and Sourcing Skill Development is critical for survival, lest your recruiters waste too much time sifting through data, experimenting with dead ends, and re-inventing the wheel.

“An overwhelming majority of staffing leadership respondents indicated decreased spending on the development of their recruiters’ skill set, on search marketing, and on developing a social media presence. This is disturbing to me because we are in the middle of a digital evolution.”

Accomplished vendors, consultants and educators don’t just make guesses or relate data they picked up empirically. Instead, they synthesize it, separate what works from what does not, and act as trusted advisors providing significant value through their experience encountering pitfalls as well as successes. Another reason I find this result disturbing is the fact that nearly all responding companies believe that use of the Internet is such a key recruitment strategy that they see the need to keep this skill set in-house, yet almost half of them felt their team is inadequately trained and are dissatisfied with their current sourcing capability.

Recruitment Goals Fail to be Strategic

This finding is already clear to me just in reviewing the survey results from questions around recruiter development. What it tells me is most staffing leaders responding to the survey highly value Internet recruiting, and half feel their sourcing skills are deficient yet they are being directed to spend the same or less on developing those skills among their recruiters. Clearly, this means recruitment goals are not being thought through at the strategic level.

It is a widely held belief that recruitment goals should be tied directly to strategic business objectives. Survey results find most respondents agree with that belief, and in addition 70% report being satisfied that their company’s recruitment marketing strategy is driving the achievement of overall recruitment goals. However, being strategic about recruitment is not just something we do in marketing. Marketing is a critical component but it is only one of several which need to be executed with synchronicity and efficiency in order to achieve greatness in attracting the right talent at the right time.

Other components include solid team architecture, the ability to directly source a percentage of critical talent that will not respond to marketing, functioning analytics that clearly demonstrate ROI permitting more efficient spend, grassroots social media involvement, search engine optimization, career web sites providing a good user experience that fully integrates with the ATS and HRIS, and sustainability through a center of excellence that champions internal subject matter expertise. Anything short of an integrated strategy involving all these components remains tactical, no matter how excellently it is executed.

I didn’t cover all the points in the survey. Other strategic components of a synergistic approach to staffing are detailed in the full report here:
http://www.arbita.net/Offer/Recruitment-Genome-Report-Download.html

I didn’t cover all the points in the survey. Other strategic components of a synergistic approach to staffing are detailed in the full report here:
http://www.arbita.net/Offer/Recruitment-Genome-Report-Download.html

AWOL Metrics

I was not surprised to find 38% of survey participants felt they have the right metrics to support their recruitment marketing decision, until I realized what that means in context with the previous finding. How could this exist while at the same time 70% of respondents are satisfied with their marketing strategy? To look at this another way, 62% of staffing leaders feel they have the wrong metrics, so how could 70% of them feel their marketing strategies are satisfactory? How could anything be proven satisfactory when it is not being adequately measured?

The reason is adequate recruitment marketing analytics are AWOL (absent without leave) for most staffing leaders. Even more disappointing is how few leaders expect to improve their metrics in the coming year. Why? Because however critical, measuring marketing strategy is both very challenging and time consuming without the right tools. One example of missing data is that more than half of the surveyed population utilizes direct marketing, yet that method is in no way reflected under their source of hire metrics. Also absent are detailed metrics around responses to search engine marketing campaigns, social networking activity or even results of organic search engine optimization. Via the survey we know smart companies are employing them, but when looking at their source of hire these methods are inadequately represented.

Blogs, SEO, SEM and Social Networks are Underutilized

Measurement is not the only gap, the other large gap is utilization. Only about 15% of respondents are utilizing blogs as a source of talent, yet blogs in all their shapes and sizes are among the largest sources of information online, larger than any one database. Only a quarter of the respondents have effective strategies for optimizing their organic presence in search engine query results, and fewer than that use search engine marketing to have a paid presence among those same results. Just shy of half the respondents have effective strategies to identify talent via social networks, and about the same percentage utilize search engines to identify online talent. It is clear to me that even if they get good at measuring from where their best hires come, employers have still a long way to go in tapping all the best sources of talent.

Job Boards Are Ineffectively Used

Traditional job boards are an area where I would have expected surveyed staffing leaders to have the most established, refined and perfected recruitment practices, yet I was stunned to find almost half were dissatisfied with their performance and less than 10% will spend more on job posting solutions this year. Is this because job boards are becoming less effective? No, it is because employers continue to approach job boards the same way they always have, while the Internet population has grown in both size and sophistication, and become more resourceful. People are seeking ways to connect, not just be “talked at” by an advertisement. Vertical search engines specializing in finding information in only one discipline, such as cooking recipes (allrecipes.com), movies (imdb.com) or jobs (simplyhired.com), are living proof that advertising works when it connects with the community by adding some value.

Employers shouldn’t be surprised when response to their job board activity drops because they publish flat, un-engaging, untargeted and unimaginative content, without regard to their readers’ interests. Improvements in those areas would increase results.

But job boards offer more than just advertising; they also have searchable databases full of interested job seeking prospects. It may seem a simple function of “enter keyword and find matching candidates” but that approach often misses talent hidden in plain sight. Though it ultimately means the same thing, employees often describe what they do using language different than what hiring managers use to describe their requirements. As a result resumes, blogs, social network profiles and other relevant content seldom contains the exact same language as in job descriptions, and good prospects go unnoticed.

Appropriate Technology

Through my tour of service in the Peace Corps, working in one of the most remote and inhospitable environments in the western hemisphere, the focus was always to utilize “appropriate technology.” This term refers to utilization of technology that leverages local resources and is mindful of the population’s cultural and social outlook. Rather than forcing the utilization of resource-draining technology just because it is available, staffing leaders would do well to learn from such a highly sustainable approach and utilize the simplest level of technology that effectively achieves their hiring goals.

Initial survey results clearly indicate that not every available solution is appropriate to every environment, and that inexpensive solutions are often ignored while costly ones are ineffectively utilized. Wisdom is in formulating an integrated strategy that maximizes resources you already have, and makes use of a mix of appropriate technology you haven’t yet considered. My recommendation to staffing leaders is that they reach out to trusted external advisors who have their best interest in mind, and not just listen to vendors hawking their product or service as “the only solution you need.” Now is the time to act, while others wait for things to get better, and when your dollars stretch much further than they do in the midst of hiring frenzies.

Are you curious about any of my conclusions? Would you like to challenge them or find different ones of your own? If so, you can get the full survey report here:

http://www.arbita.net/Offer/Recruitment-Genome-Report-Download.html

About Shally:

Shally Steckerl is a talent acquisition consultant, strategist, and speaker originally from Colombia, South America, now residing in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Steckerl is the Founder and Chief CyberSleuth of JobMachine, now Arbita ACES (aces.arbita.net), the premier provider of sourcing consulting services and workforce development. Early in his career Mr. Steckerl realized that as a contingency recruiter he could beat the competition by finding people who were not available in mainstream sources. Since then he has been instrumental in building numerous world class sourcing and research organizations.

Because of his passion for the Internet as a recruitment tool and his continually innovative methods, Mr. Steckerl has developed a reputation as one of the most respected authorities in passive candidate research and talent pipeline development worldwide. A pioneer in recruitment Internet research, accomplished author and celebrated speaker, he is a regular contributor to many industry publications. Mr. Steckerl is frequently requested to present at leading domestic and international recruiting conferences and conduct private workshops.

Mr. Steckerl now spends his time consulting with organization interested in building passive candidate pipeline generation and recruitment teams, and developing their advanced sourcing skills.

Please visit the Press & Publications Page for a complete listing of Mr. Steckerl’s speaking engagements and publications. You can reach Shally at shally@arbita.net, MSN IM at shally_steckerl@hotmail.com, through Text SMS or via skype:jobmachine