Happy New Year

Wow! Before my very eyes, almost 365 days have passed and we are looking straight into a new year and a new decade. So how am I going to spend my new year?

• Living a more balanced life
• Concentrating on relationships and taking care of myself
• Living a healthier lifestyle
• Working on enhancing my knowledge base for my career.

I wrote my goals down and I plan to work very hard on achieving them. Put your goals in writing. It gives you a new perspective on commitment.

Using social (and “professional”) networks should be a common practice among recruiters. Just the other night I used my knowledge of social network sourcing to generate a handsome list of candidates for a client. I personally use LinkedIn as my professional networking site. You can say that Twitter is my a networking tool as well. Facebook is all about me and the friends and family I associate with. Very savvy recruiters learn to take advantage of these sites by joining groups and becoming fans of organizations.

There are many ways to take advantage of social networking sites. Here are some ways that recruiters can use social networks to their advantage:

• Establish your own business profile
• Build business-relevant networks
• Maintain a networking interchange
• Make new connections
• Conduct candidate searches
• Find new business
• Research people and companies
• Real-time communication
• Expand visibility and influence
• Develop information exchange portals

This list is not exhaustive by any means. With functionality and benefits like those on the list, it is no wonder social networking has been widely adopted by recruiters. Jobscience even integrates their ATS and strategic sourcing tool with today's most popular networks including: LinkedIn, MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.

You would be amazed at the amount of information that is accessible within seconds. Invest in yourself and career and join a social network. The experience and networking will be valuable.

How to Search Spoke, ZoomInfo, and Jigsaw for Free

How to Search Spoke, ZoomInfo, and Jigsaw for Free

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Does preparation make for better recruiting?

Do you prepare for each day you work in recruiting? Do you script your phone calls to passive candidates? Do you prepare for each job order by researching the job market?

I have learned through experience and by reading many books on sales and recruiting that preparation is an enormous differentiators when it comes to recruiting and sales. Those that want to win the war on talent prepare for battle every day and adjust as necessary.

Preparing for your day. Before your day starts you should finish it on paper. Set goals to be completed for the day. Allow for fires that seem to start everyday in Human Resource management. Set aside some time each day to read and update your knowledge base. Make new connections as a part of your daily plan.

Scripting your calls provides a smooth and seamless message to your contacts. But practice makes perfect. If you don't rehearse your calls then you sound like you are reading from a prompter. Develop a script for voice mails too. Let each caller "hear" you smile whether it is a direct connection or a voicemail.

Every job order or requisition should start with a battle plan. First thing. Are you and the hiring manager/client on the same page? Are there any internal candidates they are thinking about? Second, you should consider your existing database of candidates. Unnecessary money is spent on advertising or search firms for candidates that could be easily minded out of your own ATS. If you don't have a good search tool, find one.

Build and maintain a candidate pipeline for all of your anticipated openings. Strong candidate pipelines communicate strong employment brands, long-term growth expectancies and potentially prevent salary wars with your competition.

Prepare for recruiting the way you would prepare for battle. Understand the market, know thine enemy, and develop relationships with your existing candidates. This will set your recruiting apart from any others and give you that competitive edge.

LinkedIn by the Numbers

LinkedIn by the Numbers – Searching by Title and Clearance

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Developing a strategy for employment branding

Employment branding isn't rocket science. It is using basic marketing principles to set the stage for jobseekers. Your employment brand is important to your success in recruiting. If you have a strong employment brand don't break it down by hiring jobseekers who do fit culturally. Here are four basic things to focus on when developing your employment branding.

1. Create an incredibly easy-to-remember and powerful story regarding your organization. It has to be unique and stand out. Remember that people are your best marketers and that they can spread your storey much faster than advertising ever could. Think about the power of social networks.
2. Actively engage and participate in every recruiting and job hunting discussion you can find. Start having conversations with your jobseekers and current employees. Offer seminars for jobseekers. Be active leaders in the community regarding your niche.
3. Set up a closed community of people who already love what you do and love your organization. Use them to collect information to maintain a good reputation in the employment community. This community should only be open to the employees in your organization. Poll them often to keep your employment brand relevant and pure.
4. Own your career website and make sure that you are providing not only information about your organization, but make it the place for anyone who is looking for information regarding your community. If you endorse community participation, put that information there. Help people get connected in your community.

There are millions of job postings on the web. What makes your career site and organization stand out from all of the clutter? Think about this and use the four steps to creating an employment brand that attracts the right kind of jobseekers.

Always Be Closing

Always Be Closing

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Finding Value in Social Networks

Finding Value in Social Networks

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Recruit Veterans | Hire Military

Recruit Veterans | Hire Military

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Need to Cut Labor Costs but Avoid Layoffs? A Checklist of Cost-cutting Options (Part 1 of 2)

Need to Cut Labor Costs but Avoid Layoffs? A Checklist of Cost-cutting Options (Part 1 of 2)

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20 Ways to Tweet: For Companies, Corporations, and Small Business

20 Ways to Tweet: For Companies, Corporations, and Small Business

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Social Media: A Primer

Social Media: A Primer

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The Hub and Spoke Model for Passive Candidate Sourcing

The Hub and Spoke Model for Passive Candidate Sourcing

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How to Use LinkedIn in Your Job Search | Boolean Black Belt

How to Use LinkedIn in Your Job Search | Boolean Black Belt

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Do you have a social media policy?

Do you have a social media policy?

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7 Great Recruiting Practices You Haven

7 Great Recruiting Practices You Haven’t Tried

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How to Stay Relevant

How would you feel if your favorite athlete never committed to continuing to improve performance? What about a doctor that didn't keep up with the latest diagnostic advances? To be considered a professional you would expect the individual would be committed to self education and improvement.

As a recruiter, do you feel you have conquered everything there is to know about recruiting? Probably not. New recruiters are starving for ideas. How do you maintain competency and excellence in your profession.

Tonight I completely read through a book called 101 Strategies for Recruiting Success. Best book I've ever read. Was a fresh look into all aspects of recruiting. Get a copy of this book. It will put many ideas into your head on how to turn your good recruiting plan into a great recruiting plan.

Even though the book did not mention the changes to recruitment marketing (Due to 2006 printing no mention of the use of Social Networks), the advice was solid. Christopher Pritchard did a solid job with this piece and is to be commended on the advice he gives to keep 3rd party recruiter costs down and how to defend yourself against the raiding of head hunters.

Make plans to improve your performance by investing in your career and skills by reading and researching the latest trends.

Time Flies

I can't believe I've waiting two months to contribute to my blog. It hasn't been for lack of content. There has been a ton of information out on the web. Jobscience even sponsored the ERE Social Recruiting Summit at the Googleplex a couple of weeks ago.

From the Tweetup, the Summit, and the reception following I had the opportunity to meet and converse with some of the great recruiting and sourcing minds. Our challenge is how to promote social recruiting and sourcing throughout the job market.

Every day I talk to HR departments that tell me that they are not hiring or have more applicants than they need (even if they aren't qualified). We need to educate more than ever that relationship development and social connections will be the items that separate a successful organization from one that never started using their relationships as leverage for identifying top talent.

I'd like to personally thank Jenny DeVaugh, Shally Steckerl, Glen Cathey (aka BooleanBlackbelt), ERE and all of my new friencs for helping me stay connected and for giving me new tools and ideas to pass along.

Recruiters and Relationships

I was bothered by an article today that was discussed why HR people act badly.  Since my background has been HR and Recruitment I took the article to heart.  Unfortunately I have to admit that over the years I've committed some of the infractions.  Now more than ever, we need to over extend ourselves as recruiters and HR professionals to create and nurture relationships with our fellow employees and jobseekers.

Number one, these people deserve respect.  Also, they may be the one who provides you with a perfect candidate later one.  

Recruitment to Go!

Take a look at this cool new feature from Jobscience!  Talk about being able to recruit from the road.  Recruitment on the iPhone

Using This Time to Become Strategic

This week I was asked by my company (Jobscience) to facilitate webinars on advising recruiters to become more strategic during this economic slow down.  We asked the attendees what changes were their HR leaders making in their function now that hiring freezes, reductions in force and budget cuts seem to be the norm.  I was shocked that very few of these recruiters were actually taking the time to prepare for the labor shortage once the economy turns the corner.  It isn't because the industry is not telling them to prepare.  But much like the corner prophets warning for the end of the world go unheeded so is the advice of the wise recruitment consultants and teachers.

What should you be doing during this time.  Here are a few suggestions that I've picked up during my recent readings and webinars:

• Make sure your website or at least your career site is optimized for the jobseeker who searches opportunities using Google, Yahoo, etc.
• Start now by developing talent communities and establishing relationships with those passive and active candidates to call on later.
• Make a genuine effort to partner with your hiring managers and/or customers to understand their needs.
• Clean up your job descriptions and make the worthy of a look by the jobseekers.
• Populate your descriptions and career site with key words that matter.

If you don't take this time to prepare for the future you will find yourself at the bottom of the food chain wondering what happened.

Does News Print Advertising Really Deliver

This week I was the presenter for one of my company's webinars called Active Sourcing.  During this webinar the audience and I discussed the different types of sourcing typically done noting the difference between active and passive sourcing.  Of course the number one passive sourcing strategy was advertising in newspapers.

When I look at today's job market I see the need for jobseekers to be as productive as possible.  So online job hunting makes sense, saves time, and saves gas.  Why would anyone want to pay for an ad in a newspaper?  At one time I worked as a recruiter for a large healthcare system.  When I joined this organization it was spending over $250,000 per year in paper advertising.  After three years I had reduced the advertising to less than $60k and even increased the amount of jobseekers applying.

How did I do this?  First I listened to what other people were doing.  Next, we purchased an ATS from a company called Jobscience.  We had to provide a lot of education to the hiring managers who felt recruitment wasn't doing their job if they didn't see the job in the newspaper.  If you are still using newsprint as a means for sourcing, take that money and invest in Google Ads or Job Boards.  You're just throwing away money if you continue.

What Are Recruiting Functins Not Doing

I was reading an article today on a need for a paradigm shift from a Sales role to more of a Marketing role. The idea promotes a turn from selling the organization to developing an employment brand based on employment satisfaction. APQC and Kennedy performed a survey asking the respondents if they every measured the satisfaction of the recruitment experience. Sixty-two percent said they did not.


The article also implied that recruiters are pressured into a sales role because of the desparate need for qualified resources. In addition, the sales roles focuses on the internal needs of the facility to fill a position and not necessarily the needs of the individuals. I'm not sure I completely agree wth this due to the nature of the competitive market. More often than not we accommodate as much of the jobseekers desires as we are able to afford (politically speaking).


I do see the advantages of employment branding. It is effective and sells the organization's goals, mission, beliefs, etc. Branding is not dating; it's commitment. I learned a lesson when I was recruiting in healthcare. If you sell a brand new facility, you'll receive candidates who want the newest and the best and will leave when someone else has built a new facility. If you sell comp and benefits they'll leave when someone pays more or offers better benefits. We tend to sell for the short term.

If you sell your employment brand then you will attract candidates who are looking for the same values, goals and business objectives. This could be more of a match made in heaven. If you are trying to recruit for the long-haul, employment branding may be your best bet.