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CareerBuilder’s Latest Acquisition Takes Them Into ‘Whole New Arena’

After Monster announced its acquisition to Randstad last month, one of the inevitable questions that arose was, “What’s going to happen to CareerBuilder now?” The answer is becoming more clear with their latest purchase.

CareerBuilder announced today that it is acquiring WORKTERRA. If you don’t know WORKTERRA, you’re not alone. Frankly, who they are isn’t that important. What they do – software as a service – is, however.

“CareerBuilder has reinvented who we are as a company over the last few years,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. “This acquisition is a defining moment because it enables us to step beyond recruitment and become an end-to-end human capital management firm. WORKTERRA is a fast-moving, fast-growing company with deep functionality built from the ground up. Working together, we will bring an unprecedented scope of innovation to market that will solve critical issues clients face in hiring, developing and managing employees.”

Translation: This whole job posting thing isn’t exactly a growth engine anymore, so we’re going to get knee-deep into this technology thing.

Vendors love to bang the job-boards-aren’t-dead drum every chance they get and they’re right. But the drum they’re beating isn’t nearly as loud as it used to be. Not only is the pie getting smaller, but the players who get the biggest pieces are changing drastically. The graphic below encapsulates this reality:

The graphic should be titled “Job Board Industry” instead of “Recruitment Advertising Industry,” but you get the point. Ultimately, Indeed is eating everyone’s lunch. They’re a runaway train the competition apparently feels can’t be caught.

“A lot of niche boards don’t do a good job at marketing themselves and keeping up with technology,” said industry veteran Chris Russell of CareerCloud. “Therefore, many of them are on a downward spiral. Those sites that actually understand marketing and developing customer relationships are doing fine, though there is more competition as Indeed’s footprint grows. Also some employers have learned to do more with less after the recession hit.”

CareerBuilder’s brand new toy, as well as Workday’s recent strong earnings report, helps underscore the new reality: Tech rules. WORKTERRA checks off a lot of boxes. CRM? Check. Mobile? Check. Onboarding? Check? Compliance? Check, check, check.

The acquisitions in our space are getting hard to keep up with. Speaking of Workday, they recently gobbled-up Platfora, which offers business intelligence on data stored in Hadoop open source Big Data software, and Zaption, which allow teachers and companies to host videos or use existing videos for teaching purposes.

Expect more acquisitions from CareerBuilder to keep up with the trend. Unlike Monster, who seemingly threw in the towel by selling to the most attractive sugar daddy willing to swipe right, CareerBuilder is circling the wagons and fighting on. Only time will tell if they end up looking more like Custer or Grant.

About the Author

Joel Cheesman has over 20 years experience in the online recruitment space. He worked for both international and local job boards in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. In 2005, Cheesman founded HRSEO, a search engine marketing company for HR, as well as launching an award-winning industry blog called Cheezhead.

He has been featured in Fast Company and US News and World Report. He sold his company in 2009 to Jobing.com. He was employed by EmployeeScreenIQ, a background check company. He is the founder of Ratedly, an iOS app that monitors anonymous employee reviews. He is the father of two children and lives in Indianapolis. Yes, he’s on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Tag, You’re It: The Social Dynamics of Referral Technology

We know that referral programs deliver the best quality employees, and we need tech to help us. These are the dynamics and deal breakers you’ll need to know when evaluating that software.

Think back, way way back to the times when you played tag on the playground. For the young ones among us, tag was the game we played before all the kids had cell phones and only walked to PokemonGo gyms. On the off chance that anyone reading this doesn’t remember playing tag or can’t remember how it works, the game is pretty simple. One person who is “it” chases everyone else to try and tag them. If they get a hand on the person – that person is now “it” and they’re off to tag the next person.

While it’s pretty simple on the surface level, there were player dynamics. There were the people who would find hiding places, hoping that the person who was tagged “it” may never realize their hiding place and they’d stay safe from being tagged. There were the kids who would quickly identify the slowest or smallest kid and tag them. The kids who would turn around to tag the person who was most recently tagged. The ones who wouldn’t tag their friends but would have spies amongst the ranks who would rat out the people in hiding places. The list goes on.

While we, as kids, weren’t thinking about the dynamics and strategies of each child – we were learning a few marketing lessons, unbeknownst to us. We learned how to motivate action, how to inspire certain behaviors and, how to get out of the hot seat, of course. Slowly but surely as we grew up, we started to recognize these dynamics as an inevitability of life and interaction.

Marketing and Referrals

From the marketing lense, we realize the reason tag works is because there’s an endless stream of sharing and connectivity. We’re constantly looking for the next person, it’s easy to add new people to the mix and there are player dynamics. All elements of a great game and, in marketing or recruiting – a great referral program.

Referrals make sense, of course. Grow my business and I’ll reward you handsomely with some percentage of my earnings. It sounds a bit like a mob when I say it that way but in essence, they are – in fact – trying to create a mob. They need a network of advocates to sustain their business and new growth is much easier when you don’t have to nudge people through the top half of the funnel. People trust their friends. 94% of consumers trust referrals from people they know.

These leads come more qualified too, in both recruiting and marketing. In a buying scenario, they’re 4x more likely to convert, they stay longer and they’re more likely to share again, starting the cycle all over again. In recruiting, the numbers are just as impressive. These people are more likely to accept offers, to stay longer and to be happier overall. Win, win, win.

It makes sense that marketing and recruiting departments are constantly bombarding us with messages to refer a friend. In recruiting, we offer scaling rewards from a $10 gift card to $10,000 at some companies. So with the constant advertising and requests, why aren’t we all rushing to refer a friend? Why don’t people just jump on board when we throw money at them?

Not so fast. We want to protect our reputation even more. $10,000 isn’t worth losing a friend and their trust. Because when it comes to work, even more so than products, there’s a certain level of trust implied with a recommendation. And the question “will you refer” is asked before people build the infrastructure to make it easy while at the same time, playing to the egos and motivations of the end user. That’s part of what goes into companies with crappy referral programs –ego, of course. If getting someone a job or helping them accomplish a task doesn’t result in a thank you and some kind of reward, we’re less likely to do it.

Rewards and Referral Tech

But rewards aren’t everything when it comes to referrals. While there’s a whole group of people who can’t generate referrals because of a terrible company culture, there are also people who haven’t figured out how to inject marketing principals so it’s easy in the first place for people to refer and rewards are easily executed.

A great referral program and referral software mirrors a great marketing call to action – and uses a lot of the same models to keep it functioning. As more companies are looking to evaluate referral software, there are a few things that come to mind.

Check Yourself: One traditional referral model does not fit all. Consider what motivates most of your employees or, consider offering different levels of rewards. For example, Teamable found that executives and junior employees respond to different rewards. Senior employees/executives are more motivated by protecting their reputation and competition among other senior employees/executives whereas junior employees are more motivated by recognition and small rewards for actions that are in their control such as messaging people in their networks about open positions. Remember, junior employees have a lot less input into the ultimate hiring decision so making a reward contingent on a hire can be demotivating over time if the things that are out of their control (salary, hiring manager preferences, etc.) knock their referrals out late in the funnel. Equally de-motivating for both groups is never finding out what happened to their referral, or worse, having a referral ignored.
Get Specific: If you tell someone to think of the best baseball team of all time, there are a million follow up questions. A lot of what-if scenarios. But if we make it more specific, for example – who is the greatest baseball player of all time: Jackie Robinson or Babe Ruth, you can answer that question. You can because it’s specific. Because it triggers a flashback to muscle memory, not a vague question where you are trying to pick one decision point from a wide array of ideas and concepts your brain is processing. The same goes for referring a colleague. If I ask if you know any engineers, a few may come to mind. But if I ask who was the best engineer at Care.com, perhaps a more specific name comes to mind. You need software that suggests, not one that just hosts that infrastructure. Better yet, tap into employees’ digital memory – aka, their social connections and email address books – to help them recall the best talent they know.
Share, No Shit: The way you recommend people matters, too. Your software must embed social networks. That feels like common sense in a world where you’re more likely to first post on Facebook instead of calling your own mother but we all know common sense isn’t so common.
Amazon Level Easy: It has to be as easy as an Amazon purchase to contact those friends, too. It’s because we’re spoon feeding them the ideas they need to be effective and make the next choice. Going to employees with specific people from their network and messaging content already written for them about specific jobs to send to those people can boost participation in programs from roughly 30% to 80% and the number of quality (meaning right fit for opening positions) referrals per employee by 100 – 500%. (Pro tip – don’t forget about networks like FB, Github for engineers, Twitter for marketers, etc as these represent strong connections that employees are likely to have influence over) Having a good tracking and recognition mechanism ensures participation continues over time too.

Tag, you’re it.

Katrina Kibben is the Managing Editor for RecruitingDaily. Follow her on Twitter @KatrinaKibben or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Check Your Head: 5 Simple Steps To Stop Sucking At Sourcing.

Sourcing is one of those skill sets that you continue to use even after you leave recruiting—and just as relevant if your new job, like mine, involves generating marketing-qualified leads. I’ve used dozens of Chrome extensions, CRM and ATS plug-ins, and I’ve experimented with pretty much every social network or search engine over the past decade or so.

At the end of the day, all I really know is that things might have drastically changed online, but the same basic best practices for finding just the right candidate just in time (or anytime) remain the same as when I first started out in recruiting.

You don’t need to Ask Jeeves to know how important developing, executing or optimizing these 5 candidate sourcing commandments are for your recruiting success—consider them your greatest asset for finding the “greatest asset” at every company.

Sure Shot: 5 Simple Steps For Supercharging Your Sourcing Strategy.

Just please never actually say that cliché in any conversation with a candidate or in any recruiting collateral, online or off—the “greatest asset” metaphor is more hackneyed and inane than a poorly researched, highly speculative Top 10 post about talent attraction best practices.

Please enjoy.

1. Root Down: Look Long Term.

No matter what position you happen to be sourcing for, if you only look at each candidates’ resume or social profile in the context of an active search, then you’re forced to, more or less, reinvent the wheel with each req.

If you only look for specific matches for narrowly defined position descriptions, then there’s no point in building a pipeline, period—when you live for today, post and pray is always okay.

It’s no secret that recruiters rely on LinkedIn (maybe even a little too much) because it makes sourcing pretty much idiot-proof by providing a single, ostensibly reliable source for candidate information and communication. Although 92% of employers report to recruiting on LinkedIn, that same convenience comes at the cost of diminishing returns and recruiting ROI.

Recruiters need to realize that LinkedIn is just a candidate database, the same as any job board, talent community, CRM or applicant tracking system—and every database a recruiter has access to can be, more or less, leveraged like LinkedIn.

Every interaction you have with a candidate, irrespective of where you sourced them, is the door to an entire network of second and third degree connections—which is why even if a candidate isn’t right for right now, they not only might be for another role someday soon, but know somebody who’s a better fit for your open opportunities.

2. Check Your Head: Be Selective With Submissions.

Recruiters tend to think that taking the time to direct source, screen and soft sell a qualified, interested candidate who isn’t knocked out because of comp should automatically be submitted for consideration.

Once we establish a candidate meets a certain baseline, the standard process is to send their resume or social profile to the hiring manager for consideration.

But even if you can quickly figure out the perfect fit, here’s a crazy thought: Don’t ever send in the first 2-3 qualified candidates you source or screen when starting a new search. Seriously. Hold your hiring horses, already.

The reason why you shouldn’t just pull the trigger on submitting a matching candidate too quickly is that finding qualified candidates quickly isn’t the goal. It’s our jobs to source and recruit the best candidates, even if that takes longer than simply submitting the first few fits you find.

Statistically speaking, there’s no chance in hell the first two or three people you find also happen to be the best possible candidates available; the math here should be fairly obvious, big data be damned.

With 5 finalists on the average slate, you should look at sourcing and screening at least two or three times that magic number before stack ranking and submitting the top candidates to your hiring manager.

Ten or 15 qualified candidates might sound like a lot for many reqs reliant on direct sourcing, but the thing is, you’re not looking for just talent, but top talent, too, which is why recruiters should submit no more than half of all your qualified candidates (hence the minimum 10 choices for every slate of finalists).

Top talent doesn’t live in the bottom 50%, and that’s the bottom line.

3. Hello Nasty: Never Settle On A Single Source Or Search.

No matter how good you are at building Boolean Strings or how many Twitter followers or Facebook fans you might have, no matter if you’re recruiting for the same role you’ve already filled a hundred times or starting out on your first ever search, it’s impossible that you’ll be able to completely exhaust the possibility of uncovering more qualified candidates in any searchable database, search engine or social network. Seriously.

Even if you had found every single needle in the haystack, how could you know that a better potential hire might not be setting up his LinkedIn profile or reading your company’s Glassdoor reviews at this exact moment? Unlikely, sure, but not impossible. This is why it’s imperative to understand that sourcing never stops, and our jobs aren’t over when we get close to an offer or onboard a candidate.

If you think you’ve exhausted all the talent pools, social networks and search strings out there that could potentially lead to new hires, well then, think again.

4. Ill Communication: Give the Benefit of the Doubt.

The candidates you’re sourcing and engaging likely aren’t professional writers or content marketing or branding experts, which is why you should always give a poorly written resume or social profile the benefit of the doubt. Your goal is to make them stick to their day jobs anyhow, so their copywriting skills are likely largely irrelevant when it comes to anything related to your recruiting initiatives.

Whether you’re recruiting registered nurses or certified public accountants, network administrators or project managers, a senior leader or a recent grad, the one thing that no recruiter ever looks for, ironically, is a professional resume writer or personal branding consultant.

Sure, there are a lot of them out there, but you’re recruiting for highly skilled, hard-to-fill, mission-critical roles, so who cares whether their objective statement is succinct enough or not? Why would you ever knock out a potential rock star for something as subjective as having too many pages on their resume? Seriously.

Just like you should never judge a book by its cover, you should never judge a candidate based on their resume, search results or social profiles alone. Give them the benefit of the doubt and if everything else looks like it matches up, then give them a call, too.

5. The Mix Up: Look Before You Leap.

In recruiting, we too often mistake inaction for inactivity, but when it comes to sourcing, there’s an appreciable difference.

That’s why instead of just jumping into a search headfirst with nothing more than a spec and some search strings, taking a step back and actually creating a scalable, sustainable sourcing strategy is almost always a good idea (and almost always ends up saving time and effort in the end).

Hard to fathom, but you don’t have to do anything but be thoughtful to be doing your job—and if you’re building a pipeline without having a plan, then you’re really just doing the direct sourcing equivalent of posting and praying… submitting $h!t to see what sticks is the oldest game in the recruiting book.

But even though you can polish a turd, you can’t make it shine—and you can’t shine in sourcing without some sort of formal strategy informing your efforts. The more time you spend on the front end of the search and the more detailed your sourcing plan, the more relevant your search results are going to be and the more productive you’ll be when sourcing and screening a potential slate of submissions.

With a plan, you’ll find more candidates more quickly while costing less money and taking less time to fill open jobs. Which is kind of the point of recruiting, really.

Matt Charney is the Executive Editor of Recruiting Daily. Follow him on Twitter @MattCharney or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Verensics Brings ‘Minority Report’ to Hiring

It’s been over a decade since director Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” hit theaters. In case you missed it, or forget, the movie stars Tom Cruise and foretells a future where law enforcement arrests people before a crime is even committed.

It’s a work of science fiction, but many aspects of the film are eerily coming to fruition. Advertising, for example, is gradually getting into Minority Report territory in how personalized its becoming. And as life imitates art sometimes, it makes perfect sense that employment should enter the realm of predicting the future.

And that’s just what Verensics hopes to do.

Launched in January 2016, the Atlanta-based startup helps employers predict certain personality traits that may eventually put the company at risk. Unlike traditional background checks, which reveal what someone has done, Verensics will alert companies to what someone might do. Potential offenses they test for include identifying threats ranging from cyber security to bribery to violence.

“There was a gang that was infiltrating a particular company,” said CEO Russ Law. “They were recruiting members who had clean backgrounds and getting them hired. These criminals cleared the background check, but they likely wouldn’t have passed our test.”

Verensics is powered by Integrity Meter, an Israeli-based company whose integrity tests were developed by a team of polygraph, investigation and face-to-face interrogation experts with years of HR management experience. Verensics is the exclusive provider in the U.S.

Tests can be performed either pre- or post-employment. They last roughly 15 minutes in length, which seems like a short amount of time to label someone a risk for a crime that hasn’t even been committed yet, but who am I to doubt a bunch of interrogation experts?

A tremendous advantage solutions like Verensics enjoy is that they are not under the same legal scrutiny that a background check company would be. Screening providers like HireRight and Sterling Talent Solutions have to adhere to regulations passed down from the feds in order to do business. Not hiring someone because of something they might do seems ripe for a lawsuit.

Pricing breaks down in two formats. First, employers can buy tests individually for a price of $30-per-test. Second, tests can be bought in bulk for custom pricing, decreasing in cost as more are purchased.

Verensics has not received any outside funding. Competitors include Hire Success and Wonderlic.

About the Author

We Are All Recruiters Thanks to Indeed Crowd

The history of vendors providing a way to commercialize and mainstream paid referrals isn’t pretty. Organizations who serve as middlemen and pay everyday people who refer their contacts who then got hired have come and gone over the years. The ones left are mainly on the ATS end, empowering employees internally.

Companies like H3 (yes, before the car), refer.com, Jobster, Zubka, YorZ and KarmaOne have come and gone. I was actually someone who got paid for a referral via H3. The idea makes perfect sense: Empower an army of people to pimp out your jobs and reward them with cash when a hire occurs.

Why? The reasons are many. Timing. Human nature. It’s complicated.

Hans Gieskes, founder of the aforementioned H3, offers the following: “You can take a horse to the water, but you cannot make him/her drink. Only 4 percent of people are actual ‘connectors, perhaps proven by fact that fewer than 4 percent of LinkedIn’s members are in ‘500+’ category.

“No wonder that in traditional ERP programs only a fraction of employees actually take part and score (multiple) rewards. It’s great that hundreds of millions of people have a LinkedIn or Facebook account, but 96 percent of them will never become successful networkers regardless. So all these referral recruiting solutions are wasted on the majority of employees/people.”

Enter Indeed Crowd

Indeed Crowd helps employers fill positions by offering rewards to people who share jobs with their network. When users submit a new candidate for a job, the candidate is contacted by Indeed and screened for fit. If the candidate agrees, their resume will be sent to the Employer. If hired, Indeed pays a referral fee.

When a candidate is hired, users click a Claim button from their account to begin the payment process. Indeed requests details on the hire, and your payment and tax information. Payments may take up to two weeks for payment processor to issue funds.

Unlike other services, Indeed Crowd doesn’t require a 90 day period before making payouts. However, if a candidate has already applied, or has been referred by someone else on Indeed Crowd, then referrers are not eligible for a reward.

Bypassing the 90 day period might mean payouts are less than they would otherwise be. Whereas H3 used to pay out $5,000 and above on most done deals, payouts on Indeed Crowd hover around the $2,000 mark.

As of this writing, there are 314 jobs posted on the beta service. Jobs cover a wide variety of categories throughout most of the United States. Texas has the most openings at 48.

Pricing for employers isn’t publicly available, but the breakdown is likely a split between what goes to Indeed and what goes to a referrer. Additionally, the low job count likely reveals the number of companies who can post opportunities is limited as Indeed works through any kinks that come up in the beta period.

Will this time be different for the referral software business? If anyone is going to get it right, history says Indeed has a puncher’s chance against history.

Guesses offered a prediction back in 2010, “Innovation is all about trying to find solutions for problems, and once we realize that the problem is not how to enable all employees to become productive referral recruiters, but how to increase the recruiting yield from the true connectors we have among our employees, somebody will crack this quest for the silver bullet and create great ROI for his/her investors.”

About the Author

Smart Enough To Make These Millions: Equal Pay Act

Who runs the world? Girls, if you ask Beyonce. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always translate to the workplace. Statistically, women are underrepresented in almost every leadership team in every industry. The facts and statistics are committed to most of our memories now: women make 76 cents to the dollar a man makes. The anomalies of female leadership and discrepancies in pay fill headlines and advice columns with directions on “how to take a stand” and “how to demand equality.”

In all fairness – latching on to these sound bites is a bit of a misnomer. To the average person, that ratio of 76 cents for the dollar gives a false impression that any woman working is at risk of being underpaid by 24 cents an hour than a man in the same position, which isn’t true. It’s a reflection of the median women and men who work 35 hours a week at any job. That’s it. It doesn’t compare those with equal work, equal training, equal education or equal tenure.

Now, if you’re hoping I’ll say next that women do get paid just as much as men, don’t hold your breathe. Bias most definitely exists and shattering the glass ceiling and restructuring boards is going to take time. Even with a female president, it will likely take legal action to get any movement out of companies who are completely comfortable with the status quo.

The Laws Of The Land: Massachusetts’ Act to Establish Pay Equity

A new law in Massachusetts is helping us move in the right direction. If you recruit in the northeast, or anywhere in the US – you’ve seen the headlines like, “Massachusetts Joins State-Led Efforts On Equal Pay For Women” and “Illegal in Massachusetts: Asking Your Salary in a Job Interview.” For recruiters, I’m sure that raised some eyebrows and interest. What do you mean I can’t ask about salary? What do you mean “same pay”? The shock and awe is because let’s face it, that’s one of the biggest levers for some. More money, more power.

In a move designed to promote gender equality in pay, Massachusetts has become the first state in the country to prohibit employers and recruiters from inquiring about job applicants’ salary and wage history. This prohibition is set forth in Massachusetts’ Act to Establish Pay Equity (the “Pay Equity Act”), which was signed into law on August 1, 2016 by Governor Charlie Baker. In addition to the prohibition on inquiring about salary and wage history, the Pay Equity Act includes several other substantive and procedural changes to Massachusetts’ existing statutory prohibition on discrimination in wages based on gender.

As its central tenet, the Pay Equity Act prohibits employers from paying any employee a wage (including benefits) less than the wage paid to an employee of a different gender for comparable work. Emphasis on comparable. While the existing statute also used an equivalent of “comparable work,” the term had been interpreted narrowly by the Courts. The Pay Equity Act supersedes that interpretation by broadly defining “comparable work” to mean work that is “substantially similar in that it requires substantially similar skill, effort and responsibility and is performed under similar working conditions.” Variations in wages are allowed only if they are based on, in general: (i) seniority; (ii) a merit system; (iii) production; (iv) geography; (v) education, training, or experience; or (vi) travel.

The Pay Equity Act also prohibits employers from screening job applicants based on their wage histories or, as stated above, requiring job applicants to disclose their wage history as a condition of being considered for the position. Employers may seek the wage history of applicants from the applicant’s former employers, if the employer has made an offer of employment, including starting compensation, and the applicant has signed a written authorization permitting such inquiry.

Employers are also prohibited by the Pay Equity Act from (i) barring employees from disclosing or discussing their, or any other employees’, wages; or (ii) retaliating against any employee for opposing any practice made illegal by the Pay Equity Act, for participating in any proceeding under the Act, and/or inquiring or discussing their, or any other employees’, wages.

You A Bad Girl: Damages For Defiance

Procedurally, the Pay Equity Act makes it easier for applicants and employees to bring claims against the employer. Unlike other claims of discrimination or claims for violations of the Wage Act, claims for violations of the Pay Equity Act do not need to be first brought to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) or the Attorney General, respectively. In addition, the statute of limitations has been expanded from 300 days to three years. Claims under the Act may be filed by individuals, as a class of plaintiffs, or by the Commonwealth’s Attorney General.

Damages for violations of the Pay Equity Act can be quite high. Specifically, an employer found to have violated the Act will be held liable for the unpaid wages, liquidated damages, and the plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees and costs.

Employers should be aware that the Pay Equity Act strongly incentivizes employers to conduct self-evaluations of their pay practices and take steps toward remedying pay inequalities. If employers conduct a self-evaluation within three years prior to the initiation of a suit, they may use that fact as an affirmative defense. Therefore, employers should consider conducting a self-evaluation before the Act goes into effect in 2018 and then again at least every three years thereafter.

What To Do

There are several steps employers would be well advised to take to ensure compliance with the Act. Specifically, employers should:

Revise applications to eliminate any questions related to salary history;
Train those involved in the hiring process (and instruct third party recruiters) to not ask questions about applicants’ salary history;
If planning to seek wage history from a former employer, draft written authorizations for the prospective employee to sign;
Review handbooks and/or policies to ensure compliance;
Post the required notices. You know the posters.

The Massachusetts Attorney General will draft regulations interpreting the law, as well as the required notices and model self-evaluation forms. Employers should keep the AG’s actions on their radar to ensure that they are ahead of the game and not vulnerable to a claim once the law takes effect.

About The Author

Amanda Marie Baer is an associate in the firm’s Labor, Employment and Employee Benefits Group and Litigation Group. Amanda focuses her practice on representing employers in federal and state courts and before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, defending against claims concerning discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, accommodations, and wage and hour laws. Amanda also has experience in conducting workplace investigations into allegations of discrimination or harassment, enforcing and defending employment, noncompetition/nonsolicitation, and severance agreements and representing businesses in contractual, fraud, and general business litigation matters.

A magna cum laude graduate from Georgetown University Law Center, Amanda was named to the Order of the Coif.

Amanda is a member of the bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

Amanda was named a Massachusetts “Rising Star” by Boston magazine and Law & Politics in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Jaw-Dropping: ZipRecruiter’s Price Hike

They have to pay for all those TV and radio spots somehow.

ZipRecruiter, founded in 2010, is probably now best known for allowing employers to post jobs across 100+ jobs sites from their Zip account, as well as managing candidates coming in from that bevy of job site distribution.

Starting Sept. 1, customers may have to add “price increaser” to that list. Originally reported by AIM Group, ZipRecruiter recently sent a letter from CEO Ian Siegel to customers that outlined a price increase of up to 600 percent.

“In order to continue this investment in innovation, ZipRecruiter will be raising prices for the first time,” Siegel wrote. “We’re looking forward to delivering plenty of new features and enhancements throughout 2016 as we continue to be your trusted partner in hiring.”

Six times the value though?

ZipRecruiter pricing isn’t easily available, and I’m sure pricing is custom in many cases. However, a package of 10 “slots,” or listings, used to cost $50-per-month by news accounts and online resources will soon be $249. This represents a 500 percent increase. A package of 50 job slots, which is reported to be “about $200,” is now going to be $1,200, a 600 percent bump.

Scott Garner, spokesman for ZipRecruiter, told AIM Group, “It’s never an easy decision to raise prices, which is why we stuck with our original pricing structure for the first six years of the business. In that time we have built a service that has helped over 1 million businesses with their hiring, and assisted millions of people in finding a job.”

“We’re proud that ZipRecruiter offers the best dollar-for-dollar value in the industry. Every job posted to our site is distributed to hundreds of leading job boards and millions of quality candidates, all at a price point that’s extremely competitive with other hiring services.”

In fairness, when ZipRecruiter launched, the job distribution portfolio only covered 15 job sites. This compared to the 100+ today. They’ve also added sponsored listings to Facebook, Google and Bing to their offering. And there’s a mobile presence, where there was none before.

In an age where the value of job postings, and the vendors that provide them, are in decline, it’s refreshing to see someone increase prices in this manner. They’re not a monopoly, however, so it’ll be interesting to see if current customers vote with their wallets and go elsewhere or stick with ZipRecruiter.

About the Author

No Strings Attached: How Structured Hiring Will Keep Your Team In Sync.

Music has always played one of the most formative elements of our own personal stories. There are certain songs, or artists, or albums that inevitably transport us back immediately to a certain time or specific memory in our lives the moment we hear them.

And if you came of age in the early 2000s (and whether or not you’d ever admit it), there’s a pretty good chance that the soundtrack of your life includes at least a couple of songs from that omnipresent staple of popular culture: the boy band.

U Drive Me Crazy: The Making of the Boy Band.

The Eighties gave us punk and power ballads; the Nineties gave us grunge rock and gangster rap; and the 2000s, well, gave us N’Sync, the Backstreet Boys, OTown and myriad other acts that involved pretty much the same proven pop formula. Their fashion sense? Questionable. Their dance moves? Laughable.

Their music? Well…let’s just say that as much as we loved to hate on them, the music was always secondary to the well-oiled machine in which everyone had a clear role. There was always the bad boy, the prankster, the nice guy, and even, in one case, the aspiring astronaut.

But no matter which persona you related to, no matter whether you were more of a JT than a Justin fan, it was when those individual members came together to perform that the magic really happened. And it was a beautiful thing to behold.

I know you’re wondering what any of this has to do with recruiting. Turns out, quite a bit. You see, in the business of talent acquisition, we all should take a page from the boy band playbook. No, you don’t need to date Britney Spears or sport a Canadian Tuxedo. But when we look at structured hiring, where every hiring team stakeholder has a clear role and purpose to play, the parallels should be pretty obvious.

In structured hiring, like boy bands, the approach ensures that everyone on your team is working as efficiently as possible, constantly aware of what everyone else is doing, and embraces open communication and collaboration. Structured hiring makes sure the recruiting process remains, you know…in sync.

Everyone in the interview process should understand why a hire is being made and how to assess candidates in a standardized, straightforward and meaningful manner. This means that when it finally comes time to make a decision on moving forward, deciding which candidate would be the best addition to your team becomes a whole lot easier.

If you’re ready to say bye, bye, bye (sorry, couldn’t resist) to hiring mistakes, let’s explore what, exactly, structured hiring really looks like in a bit more detail.

It’s Gonna Be Me: Creating Better Partnerships with Everyone.

Structured hiring is all about partnerships. At the beginning of the process, recruiters partner with hiring managers to understand exactly why this hire is being made. What are the business objectives for the role? What will this person need to accomplish during the first 90 days on the job? Which skills and traits are necessary to be a rockstar (or at least a pop star) in the role?

Recruiters and hiring managers will work together to answer all these questions which will then inform the rest of the hiring process. Besides promoting better recruiter/hiring manager partnerships, structured hiring gives every single interviewer a better framework for how to conduct interviews.

Whether it’s the recruiter conducting the initial phone screen, the hiring manager assessing the candidate’s skills, or a potential teammate determining whether this person would complement the existing team, each person steps into the interview knowing exactly which questions they’ll be asking and which qualities they should be looking for.

Bringin’ Da Noise: Putting Together a Game Plan.

Once you’ve determined what you’re looking for, you can put together your interview game plan. Decide which skills and attributes you’ll test for at each stage and assemble your interview dream team. Decide who would be best suited to assess candidates on specific skills. And think about personality, too. Who do you think will best represent your company and get candidates excited about working there?

When coming up with your interview structure, it’s usually better to start with the absolute deal-breakers early on, so by the time people reach the on-site interview stage, you’ve already determined they have all the essential requirements and can perform the job. You can then make the most of the on-site interviews by really getting to know the candidate’s personality, understanding what motivates them, and making the case for why they should join your team.

We’ve already covered the fact that structured hiring lets interviewers know which questions to ask and which qualities to screen for, and another benefit is creating a centralized location where they can record all their feedback. This (mostly) eliminates the pain of trying to chase down interviewers and gather feedback from disperse locations.

Digital Get Down: Using Data to Make Decisions.

When you create a clear, easy-to-follow process and collect feedback at every stage, you’ll begin to gather data that provides insight into what’s happening in your hiring process. Are some interviewers stricter than others? How many applicants are coming in for on-site interviews every week? What percentage of offers made are accepted by applicants?

You can then use the data you gather to make adjustments to your interview questions, stages, assessments, or anything else that needs to be tweaked. Structured hiring revolves around timing and teamwork: It’s a well-choreographed routine. Not only does this look better (and create a better candidate experience), but it also leads to making better hiring decisions.

This I promise you.

Want to learn more about what structured hiring can do for your organization (with slightly fewer *NSYNC references)?

Download Matt Charney’s eBook, Structured Hiring: The Advantage of the New People Team.

Editor’s Note: Seriously, check it out. It’s got a whole lot of useful information in there and stuff real recruiters can really use. For real.
About the Author: Melissa Suzuno is Content Marketing Manager at Greenhouse, where she gets to share her love of the written word and endorse the use of the Oxford comma on a daily basis.

Before joining Greenhouse, Melissa built out the content marketing programs at Parklet (an onboarding and employee experience solution) and AfterCollege (a job search resource for recent grads), so she’s made it a bit of a habit to help people get excited about and invested in their work.

Find Melissa on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Do This If You Really Want to Call Yourself ‘Veteran Friendly’

Organizations near and far are proclaiming themselves to be “veteran friendly.” Vendors, publications, and lobby groups have even gotten into the picture to help with said proclamation.

Unfortunately, in the organizational quest to become “veteran friendly,” companies have long forgotten one major component on this quest – the friendly part.

Before we rush headlong into this topic, let’s back up for a minute. Ask yourself a serious question about your everyday candidate process and its friendliness: “Would you label your website and application process ‘candidate friendly?'”

Cue the crickets.

Earlier this month, I asked the same question to a room full of Fortune 500 companies and they were quick to grimace and shake their heads. The same response followed when I asked if their ATS was also known as “the black hole.” No one in the room was ready to raise their hand and grab the Candidate Friendly Award.

Is veteran recruiting different?

So what’s different for veterans moving through your process? Is the experience different? No, not really. When you get past shaking hands at a job fair or answering questions on a veteran hotline, which makes us all feel warm and fuzzy, you still have the same experience. It’s just front-loaded with a smile.

The “black hole” swallows military veterans up and your smile and promise of being friendly is seen as just another corporate ruse. The candidate experience is part of the reason a RallyPoint poll on veteran friendliness found 42 percent of veterans and transitioning military believe, “Companies are not really hiring veterans, they are just trying to make themselves look good.”

Don’t forget, you set the tone on this one. You claimed to be “veteran friendly” and you failed on your promise, even if you did it with a handshake and a smile. “But Chad,” you say. “what about the awards? We have won awards. Look at the bounty of awards.”

After that, I hear too frequently, “But my company has an award, made a list, or added a badge to our website about veteran or military something.” That’s nice, but was it awarded to you by a vendor, publication, or lobby group who needs your dollars for their organization to remain sustainable?

(Insert Jeopardy theme music here.)

Do you believe those groups truly represent the feelings of the veteran community? It’s like asking, “Do you feel your elected officials are truly advocating for your best interest?” Most companies I have worked with over the last 2 years, many of which have awards, don’t even achieve the basic veteran hiring benchmark set by the federal government in 2014.

Companies have leaned too heavily on the warm and fuzzy. Play some Lee Greenwood and wave the Stars and Stripes instead of actually hiring veterans.

On the quest to win that next award we have forgotten who matters.

Who should crown your organization “veteran friendly”? Who has the right? Here’s a simple answer: How about the actual veterans working for you? What’s more, consider polling the veterans within your organization.

Remember this is not about handshakes at job fairs, putting American flags on our website, offering a military discount, or saying “welcome home.” Those are all nice things, but success is about a sustainable strategy which continues to drive veteran hiring outcomes.

I have worked with hundreds of companies over the years, and very few actually understand the veteran community’s need to be approached and integrated into an organization in a way which recognizes their differences and value. Vets live a different culture altogether, speak a different language, have different levels of education, different work ethics, training, and don’t fall in line with society’s norms.

Not all of you reading this article are subject to the warm and fuzzy, because you are best-in-breed. Best-in-breed companies:

Embrace commonalities and don’t focus on the differences, creating excuses not to hire candidates
Understand, in order to innovate, you need diversity of people, background, education, and thought. You need performers and individuals who will be loyal to your cause.
Adapt and serve an underserved and incredibly educated and productive population in military vets.

I know and understand companies are really trying (or believe they are). but we have to challenge ourselves and look past our walls and what vendors are telling us. To be embraced by the veteran community is to be “veteran friendly.”

To be veteran friendly, you must go beyond charity, beyond Stars and Stripes on your website and marketing material. Your organization must understand and embrace just how veteran hiring positively impacts production numbers, retention numbers, and most importantly your bottom line.

Anything else is an effort, granted, but comes off fake.

About The Author

Chad Sowash has 20 years of military experience, including combat, training soldiers as infantry drill sergeant, several military leadership schools, and more than 15 years in leadership positions where he led, managed and motivated groups ranging from five to more than 200 individuals.

Chad draws upon extensive recruitment industry expertise. He worked for Online Career Center, Monster.com, and spent ten years with DirectEmployers Association, where he served as both vice president of Membership and Business Development. He was spoken to Congress on behalf of veterans and hiring companies.

Most recently, Chad served as chief experience officer for RecruitMilitary, director of veteran recruiting for Randstad Sourceright and continues his endeavors as partner with Catch 22 Consulting.

The Good Wife’s Guide: Straight Talk About Shit Advice.

There is so much dumb on the internet. I see it when my husband falls into these YouTube holes – you know one the one video after another of frat boy antics and beer drinking advice or cats terrified of cucumbers. It’s mostly harmless I suppose, so sometimes I watch and laugh along with him. Dumb, but relatively benign.

He’s not the only one. Every day, Americans watch 8,061 years of video content on YouTube. That’s not educational content. That’s cat videos, pranks and grotesque jackass style videos they can’t show on TV. I guess some recruiting webinars, too. But the reality is that there’s just a lot of stupid shit that’s being streamed, posted and promoted.

Then there is shit like this. I was absolutely gob smacked the first time I read the article. I read it a few more times, my horror growing with every pass. I fired off a couple of pissy comments on the original thread.

I stewed some more. Then I calmly told myself I don’t give a shit because this guy is ONE GUY who only knows whatever exists in his little world. After all, who am I to tell him that whatever his experience has taught him isn’t accurate? Clearly he has looked at women with large engagement rings and considered them high maintenance. And obviously he’s worked with hags who judge other women based on the size of their bling. So rock on, dude. Rock YOUR shitty experience.

Oh Dear! Bullshit And Bias

Then I got pissed. Because I realized that people are reading this bullshit and taking it to heart. Candidates who go on a handful of interviews in their entire careers are looking for our help and we are doing them a disservice. Freaking them out, even. By laying down these busted “pearls of wisdom” disguised as fact we are doing a massive disservice to the job seeker community.

Now don’t misunderstand me – I write my fair share of advice and I try to come from a place of “this is what I’ve experienced” or “that is how this situation played out”. I’m smart enough to realize that my experience is a drop in the bucket and would hope that job seekers will consider any advice I give thoughtfully and with a big old grain of salt.

Everyone’s situation is different, and I get that. But there are some standards we owe it to all of us to maintain. I can think of nothing the author would have to gain here other than to try to prop up some overinflated sense of authority he may have as an “executive recruiter”. So by taking his personal views and limited experience and turning into the 10 commandments of interviewing, he’s doing us all a huge disservice.

A Wife’s Work: Bling Bias

Now maybe you’re thinking I’m overreacting a bit. After all, if this guy has experienced this kind of shit-tastic behavior in potential employers, he may be right to sound the alarm. But instead of checking the business and their archaic notions, he challenges the holder of the ring. In the author’s own words:

“When a man sees that ring he immediately assumes you are high maintenance. When the woman at the office who has the largest diamond on her finger, sees that ring, she will realize that if you are hired she will fall to second place and will, therefore, not like you. Lose the ring!”

After I made a few “whose is bigger” jokes, my blood was boiling. If that doesn’t do it for you, how about this – also, in the author’s own words:

“So lose the rock! And, if you don’t have one, but got engaged by signing a pre-nup, find a way to let male interviewers know that. They’ll respect you. (Women may as well, but I’m not certain that this is the case.)”

Wait what the actual %^&$. So if my ring is too big, I risk being viewed negatively? But if I (for whatever reasons which are none of your business) decide to sign a pre-nup I need to work that into the conversation so the fellas know?

Oh I see. Maybe I need someone to mansplain that one to me. The men on my interview loop won’t respect me because of my skills and abilities in regard to the actual job for which I am interviewing, but my savvy lady brain agreeing to sign a pre-nup? That’s guaranteed to get me some high fives!

Rules of Engagement: Advice For Candidates

I know without a doubt I will never change this author’s opinion. I am not that naïve. He has doubled and tripled down on his flawed perspective multiple times since the original post hit, even going so far as to educate us on how to craft a “viral post”. If I think I’m going to sway this cat, I’m wasting my time. The people I really do want to reach though, are the candidates and recruiters who maybe just aren’t sure.

Candidates, PLEASE understand that our advice is framed by our own experiences and opinions. We may be helpful sometimes – more often than not, I hope. But if our advice insults you or just plain feels wrong – don’t take it. And recruiters – take your role as advisor seriously, I beg of you. You owe it to your candidates, your clients, and yes, your profession to call out bias in action.

If you see hiring managers treating people in the way this author has described, for the love of all that is holy please do NOT encourage candidates to “play along to get along”. That is the worst possible advice you could give. What you can and should do is very firmly let your clients know that such ridiculous bias in the hiring process is just flat out wrong. Remember – sometimes good consulting looks like bad customer service.

If a hiring manager wants to make a no hire decision based on something as ludicrous as the size of someone’s engagement ring – CALL THEM ON IT. Ask the question – what EXACTLY does this have to do with this person’s ability to do the job? Can we talk about how this makes our company look? Does this behavior create an environment where people are rewarded based on their contributions and abilities, not their bling? Ask tough questions even when it hurts. You will be a better recruiter for it.

Author’s Note (and challenge to Bruce Hurwitz:I would gladly welcome an opportunity to publicly discuss / debate this very important topic with Bruce or anyone who takes his side. Bring it.

About the Author

Amy Miller is a staffing consultant & talent sourcer for Microsoft, where she supports the hardware division as a member of Microsoft’s in-house talent acquisition team.

Amy has over a decade of recruiting experience, starting her career in agency recruiting running a desk for companies like Spherion, Act One and the Lucas Group before making the move in-house, where she has held strategic talent roles for the State of Washington’s WorkSource employment program and Zones, an IT product and services hub.

Amy is also a featured blogger on RecruitingBlogs.com and is a member of RecruitingBlogs’ Editorial Advisory Board. Follow Amy on Twitter @AlaRecruiter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Gotta Get ‘Em Integrated: Why Integrations Matter for Recruiting and Hiring

Watch as an all-star panel of Matt Charney, William Tincup and Bill Boorman break down the what and how of integrations for your HR technology solutions.

Gotta Get ‘Em Integrated: Why Integrations Matter for Recruiting and Hiring

When it comes to shaping perceptions of your recruiting and HR function to drive budget and purchasing decisions, integrations play a crucial role. They’re the magic behind the scenes. They deliver accurate reporting. They deliver better hires and even that elusive “seat at the table.”

In this panel sponsored by Rolepoint, we are joined by some of the industry’s most prominent experts for a rare behind-the-scenes look at how integrations really work. Also what you should look for in the companies that provide it.

These panelists will show you:

1. The Landscape: What is middleware, anyway, and why is it important? We will take a look at the current state & technology landscape. This helps to understand the role it plays in your department and dispel common myths and misconceptions.

2. The Business: Get an understanding of the different integrations available and why it’s so important for collecting recruiting data and setting benchmarks. We’ll also touch on best practices for selecting and utilizing these services.

3. The Future: We’ll discuss some of the most prevalent talent acquisition tools and technologies (think: mobile, social, big data) to look at which tools and data will most impact the way companies recruit and retain talent tomorrow – and what organizations need to be doing now to create a competitive advantage in the evolving world of work.

Uber For Outplacement: The Gig Economy and The Death of HR.

There’s a running narrative among recruiting and HR people in which the concept of the “gig economy” is held as a sort of utopian progression of work.

In theory, the ‘gig economy’ means that workers choose when (and if) to work, function as their own boss and build their own business without the previously necessary barriers to entry, like capital or a criminal background check.

If it weren’t such a big business, it would almost appear to be the ultimate realization of the Marxist-Socialist ideal of working for the collective good, and sharing in the spoils.

Uber Alles: Class Warfare and Contingency Labor.

Of course, the disparity between Travis Kalanick, the Founder & CEO of Uber, whose net worth is estimated as a cool $6.2 billion (that’s “billion,” with a “B”), and his contractors couldn’t be more stark.

Although the fact that the investors who made this a ‘unicorn’ worth more than the GDP of some sovereign states can probably claim, as “partners” in some of the world’s largest VC funds, to be operating in the gig economy themselves, although this is obviously a bullshit argument (but one I’ve heard bros without souls actually use).

While the company claims that its drivers make an average of $25 an hour, or a median of 90k a year, public data suggests drivers in Dallas, (my home market), my home market, make a whopping $11 an hour EBIDA.

This means, of course, is once the costs of fuel, insurance, taxes, registration and the myriad other costs assumed by the “contractor” are factored out of their hourly earnings. Many Uber drivers take advantage of a company gas card program to refuel at the start of each shift, meaning that before their gig even starts, they’re in the hole for around $30, or close to three hours worth of work of putting the “free” back in “freelancer.”

This is reminiscent of the tenant farmer system (or sharecropper, to be a little more blunt), and exacerbates and entrenches classism through indentured servitude sold as self reliance.

It’s great that all you need to start making money on your free time is a newer model car, but if you’ve got a bus pass and a minimum wage job, even participating in the “gig economy” is an unobtainable goal.

Of course, if they got there, they wouldn’t be making a whole hell of a lot more than they do now, albeit without having to front a multinational corporation worth billions of dollars gas money so that they have the right to work.

Meet The New Middle Class: The Gig Economy At Work.

The fact is, the “gig economy” does nothing to increase opportunity or class mobility or any of the Horatio Alger fairy tales so breathlessly reported by the business press and blogosphere.

If you’re one of the millions of Americans without an insured, reliable car, you’re pretty much SOL. If you’re wealthy, you not only own a car (or 3), but you’re certainly not moonlighting as a cabbie for a few bucks an hour.

I am aware the gig economy extends way past taxi sharing services, but take any other startup – from Shyp to Hired.com – operating in the “gig economy,” and you’ll see they share a striking similarity beyond simply their somewhat nefarious business models.

Each requires enough resources (like a reliable high speed internet connection, reliable access to a working phone, and the ability to support yourself by more or less working on spec) where the poor, mostly, cannot participate in these platforms.

And, again, those in the upper rungs of the socioeconomic food chain are unlikely (and unmotivated) to use their spare time building a supplemental income stream. In every case, the face of the “gig economy,” the new economy, if you ask the workforce pundits and the talent prognosticators out there, looks decidedly blue collar. The only difference now is we’re not operating the assembly line. We’re the product rolling through.

Today, the new taxi driver is generally well educated, white, and male, at least compared to their cabbie counterparts; over 40% report to being white, non-Hispanic (versus 26% of taxi drivers), and half (49.2%) are under the age of 40, versus 28.4% of cab drivers.

Most tellingly, 37% of Uber drivers, according to a study from Princeton professor Allan Krueger, had a college degree – and of these, 10.9% have postgraduate degrees (versus 3.9% of taxi drivers). That means there’s a 1 in 10 chance that your Uber driver has a Master’s Degree or PhD. That’s about the same percentage as if you were living in Berkeley (11%) or Cambridge, Mass (13%), by the way. All of this suggests something that for some reason no one seems to be talking about.

The “gig economy” isn’t new. It’s just the new blue collar job.

We can bemoan the death of industry and of the middle worker, but the fact of the matter is, they haven’t necessarily disappeared. They just work for themselves now, as “independent contractors,” living paycheck to paycheck and somehow, never getting ahead while the company whose base is built on their margins continues to offer cutthroat rates, at the expense of their drivers.

This is the new middle class.

And, from the looks of it, a pretty scary future. For all of us, frankly. Forget robots, forget immigrants and trade agreements. Forget globalization, nationalization, any of the stuff we blame for killing off “good jobs.”

Those aren’t what finally puts the nail in the coffin of the social contract – it’s our consumerism and complicity with a business model that’s actually engineered to eliminate the need for HR and recruiting in the first place.

In fact, that’s pretty much the entire point of the gig economy – it’s basically like MSP, the app, and that’s a pretty scary thought. The fact that RPOs and job boards are starting to consolidate should probably scare the shit out of you, frankly, our industry is next.

Matt Charney is the Executive Editor for Recruiting Daily. Follow him on Twitter @MattCharney or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Monster Strikes Back at Disgruntled Investor

The monstrous melodrama continues.

Let’s catch up. A couple weeks ago, Monster announced they were being acquired by Randstad Holdings. Last week, Monster’s biggest investor said, “not so fast,” believing the acquiree could get more from the acquirer.

Today, Monster laid some smack down on the whiny investor by issuing an open letter to investors, saying the content of MediaNews Group’s (“MNG”) discontent was “incorrect and unsupportable.”

MNG has never discussed, or attempted to discuss, the issues raised in their letter with Monster’s management or Board. On the contrary, and in a reckless way, MNG is attempting to defeat a transaction that would provide all of you with immediate and certain cash value of $3.40 per share, representing a 22.7% premium to Monster’s closing stock price on August 8, 2016, the last trading day prior to the announcement, and a 29.4% premium over the 90-day average stock price.

Talk about poking the monster. Trumpasaurus is grumpy.

The letter goes on to describe how MNG’s letter of recommendations to turnaround the company has already been exhausted. For example, Monster’s letter says “MNG calls for draconian expense cuts, ignoring that more than $100 million of annual operating expenses have already been cut over the past several years.”

One interesting sidenote, Monster highlights the fact that the competitive landscape is toughening: “competition is intensifying from companies that are owned by substantially larger and better capitalized parents that can afford to compete aggressively on product pricing in pursuit of market share.”

This statement seems to be a direct shot at LinkedIn and Microsoft, its new owner. If so, it looks like Monster expects LinkedIn to embark on some serious undercutting to stick it to the rest of the market. Indeed and CareerBuilder should be listening to that intently.

The letter’s final strike comes in the form of quoting a Wall Street post-announcement report from Avondale Partners. On August 22, the report said, “We contend that termination of the Randstad offer would be disastrous for MWW shareholders.”

Stay tuned for more drama. Monster will be explaining in greater detail in their filing why they’re selling and how Monster’s competitive position in the current environment will require continued investment. Ultimately, Monster leans heavily on the fact that they believe they will likely be operating in a low growth environment with substantial margin pressure for a number of years.

To hear Monster admit their future as a standalone company was bleak and that this reality made a sale to a bigger fish necessary before they really bottomed is pretty jaw dropping. To hear speculation that LinkedIn intends to use their really big stick to beat-up the competition in the years to come is equally jaw dropping.

Attempts to get a comment from my MNG representative have so far gone unanswered. However, I expect we’ll get a public rebuttal from them soon. There’s too much money at stake for them to go quietly.

About the Author

My Name Is Not… Candidate

My first name is not passive; it’s not Talent. My Mom never gave birth to a child named Candidate; my Dad never told his friends, “This is my son, Human Capital.”

My Name Is…

My name is Monica, and I am frightened. I am a single mother trying to raise a family and protect them. I am diligent, trustworthy, and I will make a company better. My name is Monica, and all I ask is a chance, an opportunity to at least talk with you for just a moment, all I want is an opportunity to prove myself. My name is Monica, I don’t want a handout. I want to work to provide for my family, feed my children, and pay my rent. Please take a chance on me, I promise you will not be disappointed Please? My name is Monica, and I am scared. Why?

My Name Is…

My name is Emory, and I am angry. After working for the same damn company for 36 years and consistently receiving great reviews and raises, all of a sudden my job gets outsourced to some third world country and I’m not even given a chance to interview for another internal job? What we’re going in a different direction is the BS line the consultant tried to feed me; HR didn’t even have the guts to tell me this to my face. What am I supposed to do now? Drive for Uber? How am I going to pay for my kids’ college tuitions? Who’s going to hire someone who isn’t an anointed Millennial with skills that are “up to date”? Hell, when did using a smartphone app become more important than being able to build a smartphone? What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they know that they’re destroying our country? Why I wasn’t even asked to stay? Why?

My Name Is…

My name is Carl, and I am tired. I am over 40 in Silicon Valley and I am sick of hearing that I am not a culture fit for your company. I am over qualified for the position. Since when did actually having the skills to do what is required to get that project done be a bad thing? Why are all the startups ignoring me, blatantly telling me that I am too old? I have shaved off my beard, dyed my hair, I’ve been there and done that and got the requisite t-shirt. Why do you have a team trying to accomplish a project I could do alone and before the deadline? The reason you are going under is that you are hiring friends and pretty people instead of those who know how to get the job done. You choose to fail without me instead of succeeding with me. Why?

My Name Is…

My name is Samantha, and I am so confused. Everything I’ve always wanted to achieve I have. While I was in school, I took some of the hardest courses. I volunteered in my community. I tutored high school girls. I have a high GPA. And all I can get is a job as a Receptionist while living with three other girls in Brooklyn? Look, I know we’ve been called the entitled generation but when did wanting to make a difference in the world come to mean entitled to a job that has nothing to do with your major and falling further and further behind on your bills? Why don’t you just ask me to help you and your company to be better? You’re not that much older than me yet you already know that I won’t be able to do the job? Why are you so afraid to take a chance on me? Why?

My Name Is…

My name is Hector and I am lost in understanding. At eighteen, I joined the US Marines because I could not afford college and I wanted to serve my country and I am proud that I did. I fought in two wars. I took a bullet for this Nation only to come home to nothing. To be forgotten. I am told that I could pose a possible disturbance due to PTSD, which I don’t have. I can not get a position anywhere, not even Walmart as a stocker. I carried out logistical missions, drove million dollar machinery and led men into battle when I had to. Yet here I am, one month away from being homeless because I cannot afford rent. My savings are almost gone, and all I find is stone hearted people that callously never return my calls or emails after they first talk to me. Why?

Our Names Are…

Our names are Derek and Steve, and we don’t know what to say to these people. They are people you know – those resumes you’re holding. Not sure when we forgot that but we’re still left speechless by the outcome. These resumes aren’t the whole story for people who have names and lives – stories to tell and experiences that could change your company.

Many years ago, we began our journey into this profession and have helped so many people get something better. There have been struggles, sure, many whom we could not help or those we didn’t want to due to arrogance. Yet what is worse is the lack of support we receive from the bulk of those in our recruiting community.

Far too many recruiters don’t practice the listening skills they’re seeking and make too many assumptions regarding what they believe you want to do, what they believe will make you happy. Far too many recruiters – seasoned and non-seasoned alike – believe they have ESP and are experienced psychotherapists. Damned what you say during a screen or an interview, they’ve already made up their feeble minds.

Too many recruiters practice the “fake it until you make it” training model, and actually believe they’re skilled enough to assess people’s functional and technical skills. Many won’t even admit they don’t know what they don’t know.

Feedback. None. They will even tell boldface lies to your face.

Lying, faking, and silence might be major pillars of a tawdry drama–romance–crime novel but in our profession, these three elements lead to only one thing:

Hate.

About The Authors

In a collaborative co-writing effort, Steve Levy + Derek Zeller took turns writing paragraphs to develop this article and concept. If you want to learn more about either of these authors, google them. That’s your job after all.

Mya A.I. Has Eyes on ‘Fully Automated Recruitment’

“Your recruiting A.I.”

If you visit Mya’s website, it’s hard to ignore what’s obviously going to be an overused buzzword in just about every industry under the sun, if it already isn’t. “A.I.,” or artificial intelligence, promises to put the bots in control of everything from commerce to our personal lives.

Mya Recruiting Chatbot — Example of “chat” with candidate.

In Mya’s case, however, it’s less Johnny Five and more chatbot. Basically, Mya is a software that lets recruiters “chat” with a prospect, while not physically being on the other end of the conversation.

“A recruiter will never again have to answer the same question twice,” FirstJob’s CEO and cofounder Eyal Grayevsky explains in a recent interview.

Facebook made a big splash recently by opening up its Messenger app to third parties. Users can opt in to receiving local weather alerts, for example. Alternatively, those traveling may ask “What’s the temperature in Cleveland?” and receive an answer in real time as if they were actually “chatting” with the service.

In Mya’s case, however, questions will revolve around employment. “When are you looking to fill this position?,” “Where do I go for my interview?,” and “What kind of benefits do you offer?” are examples of commonly asked questions a candidate might ask. Answers will be auto-populated, so employers don’t have to waste as much time revisiting past inquiries. If a questions comes up that’s not recognized, it goes to a human being to be answered and then stored in Mya’s knowledge base.

The company says Mya will automate up to 75 percent of the “qualifying and engagement process.” Grayevsky, however, goes further than that by saying, “Right now our goal was to create a fully-automated recruitment assistant. A recruiter must stay involved. Our long-term vision is to develop Mya into a fully automated recruiter.”

So, maybe one day robots will hire and fire other robots to work at totally virtual locations while us humans stay plugged into our virtual reality devices eating entire meals in pill form. Maybe that doesn’t sound so appealing, but the reality that bots are doing more and more manual tasks is impossible to ignore and will have serious impact on society.

Mya can pre-screen candidates, answer frequently asked questions (FAQs), update users on the application process and alert everyone when a job has been filled. Grayevsky says the process should help eliminate the black hole effect so many job seekers discover after applying to a job.

Mya integrates with most popular applicant tracking solutions. After an application is submitted, Mya introduces herself and begins a conversation with the candidate. The data and insights captured from that conversation are delivered to your ATS.

Popular chat options such as SMS, Facebook Messenger, Skype, email, and even Mya’s own proprietary tool are available. Customers select which one they prefer, or candidates can choose. The company says Mya is fully customizable.

Mya is a product of San Francisco-based FirstJob, a solution that promises to match recent college graduates with entry-level jobs and internship opportunities through their existing social networks. They raised $3 million in a November 2012 seed round and were created in 2011. Pricing for Mya is custom and based on the number of candidates your company processes each month.

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