• We Expect You To Be A Magician:  We call you up, give you the jobs specs (which by the way is usually one of our toughest jobs to fill), and as soon as you start telling us how long it will take to find candidates, we stop listening.  Why?  Because we think you have this secret crystal ball that you look into to magically conjure up candidates or that you’ve got a bunch of candidates sitting right there with you in your office just waiting to take the job.  You tell us it will take 2 weeks?  We hear 2 days.
• We Show Off:  Let’s face it – most HR Pros think that bringing in a recruiter somehow reflects poorly on them and they want to prove otherwise.  So we show off.  You think you know the market, Mr. Recruiter?  Ha, let me tell you how WE find candidates.  Or we say things like “we have some great candidates already, we’re just looking for you to help us round out the field and give us some good comparators.”  Or we try to prove just how good we really are by listing off our staffing fills from the last 10 years.  Also, did I tell you, I once scored 4 touchdowns in a single game?
• We Nickel and Dime You:  This is my favorite (and I have to admit, I’ve done it myself).  Clearly we’re calling you because we have a hole that we’re not capable of filling ourselves.  So once we’ve told you we expect you to pull a rabbit out of a hat and have wowed you with stories of our recruiting prowess, we go after your fee.  25% fee?  How about 20%?  20% fee?  How about 15%?  The number doesn’t really matter when we’re negotiating with you – we’re just looking for a “win” so we can go back and tell our HR pals that we knocked down the agency fee by X%.  Meanwhile, what we don’t know is that 5% fee knockdown is probably the difference between having an experienced recruiter work on your opening instead of the new grad we’re going to get now!
• We Use You As A Scapegoat:  Yes, you sent us 5 really qualified candidates, fully vetted them and gave us the full rundown on the timing of their other job prospects.  But we took 2 weeks to get them in for an interview and surprise, surprise, we lost them.  Rather than telling our internal stakeholders that we dropped the ball we take the easy road and blame the recruiter.  Doesn’t matter really what we say you did or didn’t do, we just say “the recruiter messed up.”
• We Never Call You Back:  I’m sure this has to be the personal favorite of every recruiter out there.  After putting in hours of hard work sourcing, prepping and debriefing candidates, we give you the ol’ high school break-up move.  We avoid your calls until you get the picture.  No explanation, no discussion, we just fade away into the sunset leaving you to figure out what to tell your candidates.

That is, until we have another tough job to fill and we call you up and start the whole process over again.

Over the past month I’ve been asked several times by different individuals, what are my top 3 sites for sourcing and what are the tools I would recommend.  Got money to burn?  Think I’ve got nothing to do? I don’t know.  I’m happy to chat with you all you want, but I don’t know that I’m necessarily going to give you the answer you are looking for, every sourcer is different, every recruiting budget is different.

Here’s the deal.  There’s no rote answer.  You give me a laptop and an internet connection, and I’m going to find you people.  That’s my day, every day.  In my world, that is the world of the third party researcher, I deal with a variety of different positions.  I have ones I love, and ones I hate, but they all pay the bills.  I do not have a set list of sites I go to for each search.  I do keep track of past performance and am aware of what resources and search strings produce results regularly.  I’ve got bookmarks and file folders and can easily throw these winners back into play at any time.  The reality is the internet is fluid and new resources appear all the time…I would not be doing my job if I didn’t recognize I need to check for these with every search.

My day would be done, and quite dull, if I could get every single hire off of LinkedIn.  Don’t get me wrong, I do get a lot of hires off of LinkedIn.  And I do like to test it.  But because it relies so heavily on user generated content, sometimes I’m better off generating a name first via lists or directories or industry articles.  Or maybe I’m sifting through a company’s website, annual report, Hoover’s or ZoomInfo.  And no, I’m not doing that click by click….there are automation tools for that.  But if I had to, I could do it that way.  I’ll dabble in Beknown….because every once in a while it yields interesting search results and I do want a call of Facebook hires in 2012.  But so much of where I’m going to go and what I’m going to do is determined in a 30 minute strategy call with our lead recruiter.  That’s vitally important.  Gathering information, running search strings, shooting information back and forth that’s critical.  And this is where my most important tool comes into play, if I didn’t have it, my work day would be completely hamstringed and I’m quite certain I’d crash our mail server; it’s………Google Docs.

Did you know Google Docs is searchable? If you’re retaining candidate information in there, it can function as a mini ATS.  And did you know that if you’re using site: to search LinkedIn via Google or Bing because you’ve got a thrifty recruiting budget, well I’ll be darned if you aren’t going to see different results for the same searches.  And if you save those searches in different documents, or spreadsheets, you can combine them into one massive big daddy spreadsheet?  That’s searchable.  From the main google docs search bar as well as within the document itself? So if you’re absolutely sure you’ve seen Joe Knickerbocker before…you can figure out if you have or not in this pre-ATS tracking system.

And then there’s calibration….and re-calibration.  Where we, the Lead Recruiter, the research team and I,  really hone in on what’s generating the best results, where should we focus our research hours and where should we call it a day. Again…Google….Docs and now Google Chat comes into play.  When I’m working with a Lead Recruiter I don’t have to coordinate a webex or livemeeting….we can just jump into a document and simultaneously update.  And all of our recruiting team can track me down when I’ve shut down everything else to get my head in the game, because they know now I’ll be in Google Docs and with one click they’re asking me a super quick question via Chat.

So while I could suggest you invest at least 30 minutes a day honing your search skills on Google, Bing and Devilfinder (either do some training or find a mentor) or investigating tools like Scavado, The Boolean Bar or Broadlook, I have to tell you that the key to my success in 2012 will be Google Docs and the team I work with, the people I work with are so strong in recruiting and dissecting every opportunity we staff, that the rest is easy.  Those are the things I need to be successful in the TPR world.  The rest is icing on the cake.

Read the whole post over at The Tim Sackett Project (an FOT contributor blog).

Today, HR/Talent Pros would be publicly hanged for encouraging their IT staff and other hard to find talent to put their profiles up on LinkedIn.  You are basically encouraging your employees to go out and put up a billboard that says: “I’m available! Come find me and make me an offer!”  That is what LinkedIn has become – Generation-Next-Job-Board.  Don’t get me wrong – I love LinkedIn!  They are one of the largest sources of talent for my company.  When I was on the corporate side of the Talent desk – I still loved LinkedIn – because I could more easily yank talent from my competitors – but I also hated it for that same reason!

Facebook is what LinkedIn was 5 years ago – the Haters just don’t want to admit it.

Recruiting Pros, both corporate and 3rd party, love to rail against anyone who feels Facebook is the “new” LinkedIn – in terms of recruiting potential.  Here’s why -

The 3 Myths about Facebook as a Recruiting Source:

1. Facebook is for your private life – LinkedIn is for your professional Life!

You hear this right!  This is the same type of myth that LinkedIn perpetuated for years – “We are a professional network!” – yeah, right.  You might have started that way – but you are now one big job board – thank you!   Facebook is a “social” network.  Yes, but this is fast changing and will continue to change as people become more comfortable living one life, and learning how to use the Facebook tools and Apps to have both a social life and a professional life on Facebook.

2. There are too many people on Facebook to be effective as a recruiting source.

This is the lazy myth.  Basically, the haters are going to discount Facebook because there are too many people to choose from and that’s hard.  Sorry – you don’t get to say that!  Figure it out – the talent is there, the tools to find them are there – stop making excuses!  Facebook is 1 degree of separation for every person in the world.  Any time you spend trying to figure out how to take advantage of that won’t be a waste.

3. Facebook is a fad, it will be die out in 3 years. 

The one thing I know for sure is, Facebook has changed how our society communicates.  As a recruiting Pro – I want to be a part of how our society communicates. Will something new come out – sure it will. Will Facebook be gone in 3 years – probably not!   In the meantime, we have been given a list of every possible candidate we might ever want to contact, or at least be within one contact point of every candidate – Fade or not – Talent Pros need to take advantage – now. If it’s dead in 3 years, I’ll move to the next source – but for now – I’m using it!

Want to learn how you can take advantage of using Facebook for Recruiting?  Check out the FOT webinar TOMORROW February 2nd at 1pm Est – Register Here!

Read the whole post at Kris Dunn’s The HR Capitalist (an FOT contributor blog)

But it seems to be changing, doesn’t it?   Business is improving in talent acquisition shops across the country.  Thank goodness.

It’s time.  We got a little tired of being in the shadows.

Companies are now making aggressive talent adds as markets move, but many will need a different recruiting person than the sorta professional-but-passive recruiting guy who screened his way through the recession.  You know the guy I’m talking about—for the last four years, he managed small requisition loads, screened hundreds of active candidates, and worked with managers who had time to fill positions because they were still a little scared to add headcount.  Lots of “process enhancement work.”  That recruiting guy might not make it now.

How do you know if you have the right recruiting talent?  Let me help draw the picture.  Remember the scene from The Godfather when Michael Corleone plans the move to Vegas?  He meets with his senior team, including Tom Hagen, the family consigliere during the peacetime years.

Michael: … Carlo, you grew up in Nevada. When we make our move there you’re going to be my right hand man. Tom Hagen is no longer Consigliere.  He’s going to be our lawyer in Vegas. That’s no reflection on Tom it’s just the way I want it. …

[Everyone except Hagen leaves]

Tom Hagen: Mike, why am I out?

Michael: You’re not a wartime Consigliere, Tom. Things could get rough with the move we’re making.

Corleone needs a “wartime consigliere,” someone who knows how to operate in a rough environment.  Tom was all right in soft times, but not in hard times.  The famous Ben Horowtiz similarly compared wartime and peacetime CEOs in a blog post last year and noted these differences, all of which apply to recruiters:

• Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win.
• Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive.
• Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six.
• Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children.

And I get it—the analogy breaks down if I advocate recruiting pros killing people, and I do not want to imply recruiters go to war each day…they don’t.  Soldiers do.  Still, I like the concept—I want  competitive, aggressive, driven, (a little) paranoid and intense people when it comes to talent acquisition in tight markets.  Recruiters might have sat in the back row of the company meeting from 2007-2011, but that’s changing.  You don’t need someone to cut off a horse’s head, but you need someone who aggressively protects your interests, gives great counsel and is ready when, as Michael Corleone says, “things could get rough.”

View the video and read the whole post at Steve Boese’s HR Technology (an FOT contributor blog)

You know the scrolling ticker, on the right side of the screen posting status updates in real time.  I’m guessing this is Facebook’s answer to twitter.  Why reinvent the wheel right?

One of Michael’s friends, Rayanne Thorn, replied, “I don’t even notice it….hmmm.”

Yep.  Me neither.

If you have over 100 friends, let alone 1000, the ticker doesn’t stop.   As a matter of fact, by the time I notice something on the ticker, something worth checking out, it usually has already disappeared, replaced by a new status update.  So, now like Rayanne, I don’t even notice.  It is useless to me.  I’m blind to it. I quit looking months ago.  Facebook (and twitter in many respects) has cried wolf.

I am not a Facebook upgrade hater.  And I get tired of the wonks that make it a sport to complain about Facebook upgrades.  I mean who gives a crap. But there is an HR lesson to be learned.  Providing too much info is nuts.  It just doesn’t get your message across.  I struggle with this and have been coached on this.  Hence I am nuts.  But I digress….

So to curb content overload (written, spoken and read):

• If you think your email is too long—it is.  It just is. It JUST IS!
• Have someone proofread your messages.  No matter your “level” find someone to read your content.
• Regarding executive overviews:  have someone not familiar with your topic read the overview.  Someone with no knowledge of the topic should be able to understand the overview and the highlights.
• Check out any good direct mail piece (ie junk mail, coupons, etc.).  You may hate them, but they work.  Good coupons have virtually no text.  And they are actually read.
• Check out any Steve Jobs presentation.  The slides have just enough text to allow Steve to tell a good story.
• Give your audience/reader the benefit of the doubt they are not stupid.  Many times they can put the correct context into your shortened content.

Here is a small blurb from 37 Signals on the subject (People don’t scroll….emails).

There it is.  And for those of you who think this blog post is too long, I swear I’m working on it.  In the meantime, I guess you’ll have to do as I say not as I do….

Whether we can afford to build it or not at our company, we focus on thinking about the office layout and how tricked up we can make it look because we don’t have the guts to build great managers of people.

Keyword:  Employer of Choice.

What’s employer of choice mean?  Lots of things to lots of people.  At its core, though, is the thought that we’re going to do things differently enough at our company to make you want to work “here” for the same money as our competitors would provide – mainly because we’re cooler than they are.

We get it.  Those guys?  Not as much.  Just look at our space vs. theirs!!!

Of course, there’s more to consider than just space. What’s the stuff you can do to enhance your chances at being an employer of choice?  First, a list of the the easy stuff:

1. Provide great health care benefits that require no employee contribution for employee or family coverage.

2. Offer some killer benefits that look great but are hard to use.

 3. Broaden your approach to time-off policies.

 4. Invest in your workspace.

What do all these things have in common?  You just need to write the check as a company.  But, becoming an employer of choice to any degree over the long haul also means you’ve got to do some things that can’t be bought.  Most of them have to do with figuring out a way to grow how progressive your managers of people are related to their interactions with the “talent”.

The next list is hard as hell, with all of the items being mind numbing and requiring cultural transformation.  Good luck, sucker, because you and your company probably don’t have what it takes.  I don’t mean that personally, but as far as the bell curve goes, we’re all more “top of the curve” (translation: average) than we’d like to admit.

For example, to truly become an employer of choice you need:

1. True Organizational Transparency.

2. Real (and frequent) Two-way performance conversations.

3. Selfless Organizational Promotion of talent.

 4. Portable capital investment in talent that invests in associates without regard to the fact whether they’ll be there in 2 years.

Those last two also require an $$ investment of sorts, but the bigger burden is getting to the point where all your managers are rowing in the same direction and are actually willing and capable of having the types of conversations necessary to pull off all four items.

My college basketball coach used to trip on us by saying the following about our struggles with executing an offense or digging in on defense.  He said it in a way that sounded like Clint Eastwood in any movie:

“You think this is hard?  This isn’t hard.  Riding a bicycle on the freeway?  That’s hard.”

We used to laugh our a## off at him in the locker room about that go-to statement.  The old man is so funny.  What’s he know about fun?  About freeways?  We’re the youth gone wild.  He’s washed up.  Why can’t he just let us play?”

Then we grew up and found out he was right.

You think building great managers is tough?  It is.  So tough that we grew up and looked at that opportunity and needed a nap after pondering the complexity of making it happen.  So we write the check and build cool space instead.   Ping-pong table anyone?  The good news is the noise will make it even harder for the managers to have real conversations about performance and potential.

Which is exactly the way they want it.  Make it two ping-pong tables, Johnny.  We’ve got recruits to sign.

Hosts: Kris Dunn and Dawn Burke

Interview Segment: Tim Sackett 

Producer: Holland Dombeck

Music:

intro – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – “Someday I Suppose”

interview – Cypress Hill – “Rock Superstar”

outro – The Beastie Boys – “Egg Man”

00:43 - Kris Dunn and Dawn Burke discuss DB’s office space at Daxko, aka “the love child of Pottery Barn & Google.”

04:09 - Your hosts weigh in on 1. Employee Perquisite Programs and 2. The decision to cut or keep Colt’s QB Peyton Manning, in today’s news.

15:55 - Word from our sponsor: Worforce.com

16:59 - Tim Sackett joins the mix to interview guest Tom Williams from Happiilly.com, a software company that measures employee engagement through sentiment.

28:11 - Word from our sponsor: Jobvite

29:14 - The big finish – The CYA Report gang discuss what they learned from today’s show.