William Uranga
Are You A Top Chef Recruiter?
Is your organization tightening its belt? Are you and your fellow recruiters being asked to do more with less?
The food industry, from fine dining to drive-thrus are doing the same. They, in fact, may not have as many options to reduce expenses as you do. The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune have had recent articles about their [...]
Read More…
Being Value-added, Not The Middleman
Even in tough economic times, experimentation of new ideas and relationships continue. In recruiting, we need to regularly ask ourselves: Am I adding value? Now may be too late immediate impact, but the question should be regularly asked and answered with positive affirmation. Otherwise, we should be surprised to read about being bypassed as seen [...]
Read More…
How May I Annoy You?
This is a question that I should ask more often. It lies somewhere between being intimidating and blowhardville. One day I’m asked for an opinion or help, then later I think that this is how the world should run and you should know it too. The latter doesn’t attract clients, candidates or partners.
I painfully [...]
Read More…
Taking Our Own Medicine
If we’re not recruiting or being a career guidance counselor as recruiters, then we’re probably looking for next gig. The latter reminders us to heed our own job searching advice. A recent article by the One-Minute Career Coach entitled Smart Moves For A Dirty Job Market in Money magazine (August 2008), keeps things simple. I’ve added [...]
Read More…
When Its The Economy, its the Community
This is a departure from my usual format. Why? I think the times call for it.
There has been a lot of news about the economy. We can be outraged by leadership (or lack there of) in D.C. or in the private market, but when financial news affects people you and I know, well, then its [...]
Read More…
Honesty shouldn’t be a policy
I’ve recently rewrote part of my “Why” page on this blog to focus on what I’m passionate about pursuing. Today, on HR Minion the post talks about not following policy as it relates to customer service. It’s short and to the point. Yet I tend to noodle on and tinker with thoughts. So allow me [...]
Read More…
You Might Not Be A Recruiter If…
With Blog World Expo wrapping up in Vegas, I was amazed with the sheer size and coverage those in online media gave it. I mean it seemed like everyone calls themselves a “blogger”. I don’t know what you’d call me, but it certainly isn’t a blogger. Dave Armano’s post seeks to clarify the title “blogger”.
I think it’s time to do the same with “recruiter”. I’m going to start my own list. A list that, with humor, points out the less-than flattering stereotypes in recruiting. Ok, so you’re not a redneck, however you might also not be a recruiter if…
- Like car salespeople and IRS agents, people are only nice to you when they have to be.
- You think Linkedin IS the definition of sourcing.
- You can’t understand why applicants won’t stop calling and emailing you (thanks HR Minion)
- You only blog about recruiting. That makes you a blogger.
- After recruiting for 20 years you can only point to a list of companies, candidates, or metrics but nothing else that made your clients better.
- You think rusing is sourcing.
- You haven’t figured how how to work with your corporate (or agency) peers.
When Millions Like “Swill”
Interesting news about how McDonald’s coffee came out recently. They have seen an increase in their share of the coffee market, Starbucks has had a decline. The latter made news with closing their stores for a half day associate training. Apparently that investment hasn’t paid off just yet or, more likely, there are other forces are at work.
Clearly McDonald’s isn’t playing to the sophisticated coffee drinker. Do they have to? No. The key that I picked up was that McDonald’s has been willing to change how/what they’re offering to its customer. Before they only offered hot, brewed coffee. Now it’s iced coffee too – and with several different types of flavors. It has paid off. Sure market share is a fluid dynamic, but so is recruiting.
Some questions that this article got me to thinking about:
- What changes am I willing to make to improve things for mycustomer (hiring managers or clients NOT candidates)?
- Are my business hours convenient for them? Heck, do I even meet with them? If not, why? Could it be that they don’t see value in what I’m are providing? If so, who’s fault is that (hint: blaming the customer kills business)
- Am I giving them what they expected? Is it of value? If it is “the hire”, they could be waiting too long to see the value. What can I offer in the mean time?
- What is my product offering (read: candidates)? How am I improving that product? Is it flawed and am I hoping the customer will “settle” for it?
- There are more questions, I’m sure. Keep me honest and lay’em on me…
When you or I go into McDonalds we know what to expect (brand). It is the same with Starbucks. Both have coffee. One company is growing, the other isn’t. Am I growing? What do prospective (and repeat) customers expect when they hear from or contact you? If you and I don’t know or the answer is can be summed up in the word “candidates”, we’d better go back to square one.
Side note: When your competition says you serve “swill” or some other deriding comment, it means you’re hit a nerve and are being effective. 8~)
Quit Trying To Nail Everything
Today’s post by Kevin Wheeler (who is a smart and good guy) fired me up this morning. Yes there are a lot of things in social media (SM) for a recruiter to use. The “how” isn’t difficult for recruiters. Where they get SM wrong is on the “why”. If only see yourself as a hammer, you’re going to try to nail everything. This is looks silly when recruiters behave this way with SM and why Josh Letourneau post is rings uncomfortably true.
Here’s my response to Kevin’s post:
Kevin get’s it partial credit for a good post. Yes these are great tools…
The problem is with what most assume the definition of “tool” is versus what many of these items are: social media.
Social media isn’t just about marketing (or sales). If it was it would merely be a tool. Traditional marketing (or sales) is approached by recruiters as a way of finding people and TELLING THEM WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO HEAR. Blogs, who’s “comments” sections are sparse these days, and Linkedin are of this type (although there are some new offerings).
Social media is about a CONVERSATION between two parties. Most recruiters aren’t intersted or know what they have to offer (besides an opportunity or their corporate brand). You can’t effectively use Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Plurk etc. if you just want to broadcast your message.
Why use social media then? Because you are committed to building a community (maybe it’s with recruiters or a particular industry or a specific skill set) and will CONTRIBUTE to the conversation, not just “hit it” and give nothing in return.
Don’t have to be just a recruiter or just hammer. Nailing things get’s real old for you and everyone sees you as just a tool. You can be better than that. 8~)
Are you treating your applicants as leftovers?
An interesting post by Vanessa Dennis prompts this question.
Collaboration has broken out with several large corporations who apparently receive substantially more resumes than they can use. Rather than let the less-than-best-fitting sit, they are offering them to a select group of peers. No recruiting agency has access.
It would be interesting to hear about:
- The business model and how ROI will be measured:
- How much of this is viewed as corporate altruism and what brand impact will this have?
- How are the candidates directed to the joint portal? What sort of actions trigger the communication (assumed that it’s by email)?
That’s AllianceQ. How about our firms? What are we doing with candidates who don’t fit our current list of openings? To hear it from candidates, they rarely hear… anything from the companies they apply to.
We can unceremoniously make little changes that will have huge impact on our companies’ employment brand:
- Make a commitment contact and close out candidates when they are no longer viable for your openings. Commitment first, logistics second.
- Put the logistics into place and train to your commitment. For us, our ATS enables any candidate who applies to check their status. This is helpful at a basic level.
- When you first meet your candidates, message to them your organizations selection process including how they will close out. This sets expectations for the candidate and does obligate you to follow through.
- How you communicate the expectations should be at multiple touch points or mediums: verbal, website, email. My team verbally closes out candidates. There is more emotion, true. It is more time-consuming, true – but it was the commitment we made to our organization.
- Related to item #1, contact and close out all employee referrals. For most, this is their largest, best source of candidates. Spare no effort to do right by them.
- Think beyond recruiting. How can these candidates, who will not be hired (either now, maybe never), turn into customers? Discuss it with your marketing team. Thought needs to be given on messaging etc., but if you’re with a consumer-facing organization, consider it. Master Burnett presented about adding CRM to your ATS at a recent conference with a specific mentioning of SugarCRM.
Do you have other ideas to share? Please do. Applicants aren’t leftovers. 8~)
Is Your Offer Being Refused?
A prior post with a current twist: today’s local tech gossip rag, mentions a Google faux pax that has been off-putting to Madison Avenue.
Yes, we have all made mistakes. I’ve made some… twice just to be sure. Yet, making an error isn’t the point. The point is what can be learned from it.
Part 4 of 5: Managing recruiting projects
The prior post in this series, Applied Recruiting Project Management, covered why recruiting projects “go wrong”. When projects “go wrong”, you (as a recruiter) goes into recovery or course-correction mode. However, the price of lost time, energy – perhaps even a candidate or two has already been exacted. Here is how to proactively address those dangers:
When Serving Up Candidates, Don’t Double-fault
You have found a candidate that has all the earmarks of great success. He has:
- Demonstrated the ability to perform under great pressure
- Racked up a number of big, impressive wins
- Has a marquee name
- Competed a global stage with the best of his peers
Rescue your time
Just last week, I was talking with one of my recruiters about setting goals. One suggestion was better time management in her research, recruiting and client management. We discussed some options to employ and that we’d check-in later to see what progress had been made.
Question: How can you audit yourself?
