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6 Video Marketing Tools To Bring Your Recruitment Marketing into 2015

Video marketing and talent attraction have joined in a marriage that has allowed brands to reach once uninterested “passive leads”. Rather than bore you with the top 50 video marketing stats andvideo-marketing 30 reasons why you need to use video today, I’ll share the 6 most credible channels for video marketing (in app form) that recruiters can and should be exploring to attract and convert new leads.

Videohance

Videohance is and IOS video editor that lets you work your magic with basic through novice editing capabilities. Shoot your recruitment video off the cuff, and add basic effects or go further and adjust the white balance, lighting, exposures and so on. This is a real time editor so you have the ability to editor and watch your video in real time. 

Video marketing just got simple

[vimeo url=”https://vimeo.com/94453066″ width=”500″ height=”300″]

8mm

8mm is an app for the Android lovers. There have been a couple of changes to the app with the recent lollipop updates to Android, but nonetheless this is still a great app to consider. Add a 60’s twist or a cinematic vibe to your video. Also available for iphone and ipad

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g2tneRETug” width=”500″ height=”300″]

iMovie

The iMovie app is another popular video tool to use on the go. Similar to it’s big sister (the desktop version) you have the ability to add various effects, audio, text and of course those funy special effects. For recruitment we’d recommend holding on the elongated nostrils special effect.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZKjsF_bzKs” width=”500″ height=”300″]

Hyperlapse

“Dude, seriously? How professional is that?” I say, “Dude, who wants to watch a 30 minute office tour with boring interviews that are scripted and rehearsed?” Take Hyperlapse for a spin. Film a brief intro describing your opportunity and introducing yourself, then it’s off to the races with a hyperlpased office tour. This is video marketing to a whole new level.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R947JG-IWo” width=”500″ height=”300″]

Flipagram

This is a great app to use in an effort to combine those great images you’ve take at company picnics but have zero clue as to what to do with them. Think beyond Pinterest and get with the cool kids. Use Flipagram to create a story of images. Take control of your Facebook and Instagram pages. Get conversions and interested people clicking.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXvJfXe3hw” width=”500″ height=”300″]

Stop Motion

We’ve all seen these out there. Stop Motion videos quickly became the hippest viral videos on Facebook 2 years ago. How do you use stop motion video for recruitment? Simple, grab a conference room, some people and some items that describe your workplace or the job that you are promoting. Stop Motion away. Look at the demo below. It’s not a job related video but use your imagination.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zClsxhSKdEs” width=”500″ height=”300″]

Traffic, Transparency & Talent Technology: The Future of Online Recruiting

mr.t-sylvester-stallone-rocky-3-1982-movie-photo-GCInnovation and competition have always gone hand in hand, and the recruiting technology industry has historically been no exception to this rule.

One has to look no further than only a few years back to see evidence of a trend that, like most history, seems to be repeating itself, as “job boards” rebrand, retool and reinvent their positioning – forgetting that other maxim that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Which might explain why we still suck at candidate experience.

But let’s take the wayback machine to a simpler time: the early 2000s. And during the dot com days, when job boards were still in their infancy, online recruitment was more or less dominated by three major players. Two are still around, and the past competition between these two players can only be seen, like most retrospectively applied analysis, as prologue to the next great battle for the hearts and minds of those on the frontlines of the proverbial war for talent.

The Battle of the Boards.

In 2004, Monster (8.6%), CareerBuilder (8.1%) and HotJobs (6.1%) were responsible for approximately 22% of all external hires, according to that year’s Career XRoads Source of Hire Report. The overall share of hires attributed to job boards hasn’t changed significantly in the intervening decade, according to the 2014 report, slipping to 15.4% of all external hires.

Sure, this is a slight slip but still, as sources go, nothing to sneeze at, statistically speaking, unlike social, which was not measured as an independent source of hire in 2004 but had still only managed to eke out around 3% of external hires (likely an overinflated number) a full decade later.

The real story, however, lies not in these specific sources of hire and the fragmentation of the job board category into hundreds of niche, emerging and established competitors, but rather, what a trend towards consolidation through aggregation means for the future of online recruiting and job search.

Because even though the big boards managed to survive social, search and mobile more or less unscathed – in fact, one could argue this segment has done a better job keeping pace with consumer trends and customer demand than any other category within HR Technology – the industry is on the verge of being disrupted by its own business model and revenue generation strategies.

That’s because while Monster and CareerBuilder were busy fighting it out for supremacy, paying literally hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire traffic, users and relative market share from each other (and, increasingly, the Death Star that is LinkedIn), they overlooked the far bigger threat to their continued survival – a threat created by a business model they, themselves, created.

Human Resources Trafficking.

In fact, Monster’s “acquisition” of HotJobs from Yahoo! in 2010 for a cool $225 million was really just what amounted to a three year lease of Yahoo! career related traffic, with the core HotJobs brand and platform quickly sunsetted after the close of the acquisition. Consider this sum today is about half of Monster Worldwide’s overall overall market cap, meaning this was one epic failure, but a pretty good cautionary tale of how not to effectively scale or build a long term strategy that’s any longer than a single SEC filing period.

glassdoortrafficThat’s because the business model that precipitated this poorly conceived and even more poorly executed acquisition is one that’s predicated almost entirely on traffic. Monster’s Career Ad Network, which serves up retargeted career content across a multitude of sites using beaconing and behavioral targeting, is a significant source of their revenue, as is CareerBuilder, which spends millions of dollars a year on SEO and SEM for its job listings in an attempt to drive enough qualified applicants to justify the premium recruiters pay for what is, essentially, a proprietary third party resume database and publishing platform.

In this game, Glassdoor has actually emerged as the winner, with growth far outpacing other online recruitment marketing destinations in North America as of April 2015 (see above), although overall volume still lags well behind LinkedIn and Indeed (although it has in fact beat CareerBuilder’s combined traffic for the last three months, a trend that’s likely to hold). It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how this happened.

Notice how CareerBuilder’s recruitment marketing solutions categorization pretty much mirrors the structured data required to initiate a targeted AdWord campaign, right down to its predefined industry segmentation and localization options. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out how money gets made on the margins of giant PPC buys given the volume discount spending such profligate sums on advertising inevitably leads to – a good business model that’s pretty much a bait and switch.

Which is why LinkedIn, with a similar model predicated on ad sales around career content and paid search licenses, was never a true threat, since the only difference between LinkedIn and traditional job boards lay not in its revenue models, but in brand marketing.

Call it a “professional network,” and instead of the few hundred bucks a job post goes on a board even when buying ala carte, and suddenly you can get away with charging inordinate amounts of cash for a LinkedIn Recruiter seat license – one customer cited a $2 million price tag as an extreme example for enterprise access the Mountain View based evil empire has gotten away with charging major enterprise customers in the past.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version reported that LinkedIn was charging up to $2 million per seat license, which the company denies; LinkedIn has acknowledged, however, that this pricing is consistent with “the total contract value” for an enterprise customer. In other words, there are companies investing millions of dollars on a single source of hire annually through LinkedIn spend. 

This is, naturally, negotiable, as the same head of global talent acquisition, who asked to be quoted off the record, revealed that same license went down in cost from $2 million a head to $200k simply when she recently switched companies, and with it, account reps and contract terms. This lack of consistent pricing reeks of desperation to get clients to sign on the dotted line, as well as a complete and utter ignorance over what, if anything, their product is actually worth.

This is because LinkedIn would really you rather not ask any pesky ROI questions, which, to Monster and CareerBuilder’s credit, they do a much better job providing to customers – which explains why honesty isn’t always the best policy, since their objective reporting has likely cost them business since LinkedIn has created its own “professional network” playing field instead of competing head to head with cheaper, more effective competitors.

d69559205bfdb2382d371aeef9c408d0
Go shortie.

At least you know what you’re getting and what you’re paying for with a job board contract, and these companies tend to honor contracts or at least don’t silently and suddenly sunset access to previously free feature sets whenever they have to report earnings or growth metrics to the market. But with LinkedIn, it’s that same hubris and willingness to bite the hand that feeds it that has turned recruiters sour on their “talent solutions” and hesitant to renew and pay an exorbitant fee for a license with a mixed track record of delivering consistent ROI.

With growth plateaued, and the license for their enterprise recruiter product (and cash cow) is pretty much maxed out as far as short term gains likely go – the reason investors are taking a similarly negative outlook as talent acquisition pros, but for a much more obvious reason: since they monetize like a job board, they’ve got to compete like a job board, which means heavy investments into paid display ads and AdWord targeting (not to mention costs incurred in the pricey organic arms race for broadtail career related keyword supremacy).

LinkedIn, Monster and CareerBuilder have all tried to fight the job board label, and in doing so, have rightly realized that owning search is the only way to truly own online recruiting.

Get Down With PPC. Yeah, You Know Me.

The traditional job boards, in their evolution, have obviously tacitly acknowledged the value in driving traffic and making margins off of more or less becoming intermediaries between job seeker and employer, becoming a source of hire and thus delivering for any traffic that ends up finding them, first. This means winning the best rank on the same search results on the same search engine that 85% of all career related online activity begins.

It’s that prevailing consumer trend that’s not only trickled down to every recruiting technology roadmap, but one that’s changed the competitive landscape from the traditional job board model to one heavily skewed towards two emerging platforms who realized the value of deduplication and aggregation early on.

2014-Recruiting-Spend

These early adopters realized they could beat job boards at their own game, scraping and throwing up a gate over the content that was formerly prime real estate for recruitment marketing, inserting themselves as indispensable and integral components of the modern recruiting landscape.

These two companies, each with slightly different models for monetizing search but still capitalizing off their smart traffic and user acquisition strategies, are firmly squaring up for a showdown that should make even Monster vs. CareerBuilder look pretty tame by comparison. The repercussions – and outcome – of this two horse race, meanwhile, look to have significant repercussions for the short and long term future of recruiting and job search – and the allocation of the billions of dollars employers of spend invest annually in these talent acquisition solutions.

Indeed vs. Glassdoor: The Gloves Come Off.

After attending the Indeed Interactive user conference last week in Austin, where this often enigmatic closely held company unveiled its product portfolio and strategic direction, I can safely say that the war for talent (technology) has come down to a battle royale between Indeed and Glassdoor. And I couldn’t be more excited.

Sorry, LinkedIn. “Professional networks” are passé these days. And Monster and CareerBuilder have recently announced they’re moving from distributing content to scraping it and moving towards the same pay for performance model as Glassdoor and Indeed have always had in place, but both far lag the market leaders in their attempt to become “aggregators” themselves, a tacit acknowledgement that their days with their current business model are likely numbered.

While all try to figure out what to do – LinkedIn looks like it’s trying to become some sort of crappy content marketing platform while it figures out what to do with the firehose of misappropriated PID that represents its only real asset, while Monster has doubled down on semantic and federated search (a smart play) through its 6Sense and TalentBin products, both of which are among the most sophisticated on the market.

CareerBuilder, meanwhile, looks to be making a play for the ATS and CRM space with its CareerBuilder 1 platform, aggressive integration roadmap and heavy investment in continuing to build the industry’s best looking and most user friendly recruitment analytics platform, making the move to being data and source agnostic in a seriously smart shift in overall strategy.

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This is because the market for recruitment advertising has already shifted to Indeed and Glassdoor, largely due to the fact that both are producing better results at a far cheaper cost per hire than any alternative source save referrals and internal mobility.

Of course, the future direction of both platforms is predicated on more or less productizing both sources at scale – hence the emphasis on company reviews, employee ratings and selling employers control of their own branded pages as a primary revenue source.

These have become extremely valuable real estate on both platforms, with traffic and consumer adoption rates so high that Indeed and Glassdoor are able to price employers’ ability to control their own branded presence on these sites at a steep premium.

It’s a direct cost that’s still a comparative bargain and far more effective than LinkedIn or niche online communities like Dice while driving far more traffic to employers’ paid job listings as the job boards they’re paying to post on in the first place.

Job Boards Aren’t Dead. Just Different.

The major distinction that I see between the two companies after the Indeed Interactive event is where each falls in the recruiting funnel – Indeed generally coming at the onset of a search to find out who’s hiring, and Glassdoor generally being leveraged a little later to find out more information about the companies that they’ve previously identified via Indeed.

Indeed, however, seems to be making a huge play for Glassdoor, rolling out new offerings aimed at “increasing transparency” that, in transparency, are obviously gunning for the one company that it accurately perceives as a potential competitor.

This included announcing such products as employer branded microsites, premium placement for onsite listings and an increased emphasis on user reviews. The third seems the most obvious play in Glassdoor’s backyard, but the thing is, Indeed has always offered a company review feature – just for some reason, it’s never been able to overcome Glassdoor’s momentum in gaining the critical mass requisite to make these reviews effective.

2015-05-27_07-09-16They’re actually not late players to this game, although it’s interesting to see them retrench on a product that’s been there since well before Indeed was acquired by Recruit, a Japanese online recruiting firm so dominant on its home turf that it spawned a corruption scandal that toppled a Prime Minister and his entire government in the ensuing.

That’s the kind of evil power LinkedIn can only dream of – and also the source of the deep pockets that are able to keep pace with Glassdoor, a darling of the VC scene who recently raised a whopping $70 million in extra funds from Google Capital, among other partners, in January. This pushed their overall funding to $160 million, or about half as much as a job board used to cost to acquire third party traffic only a few short years ago.

With this valuation, were an IPO imminent, it would likely spell the reevaluation, readjustment and collapse of LinkedIn and all other publically traded companies in the recruiting advertising space (this does exempt CareerBuilder, which has always been a privately held and closely funded joint venture).

As is, it means they’ve got a boat load of cash and a pretty good strategic partner for dominating search and owning the source of hire competition – one that, coincidentally, Indeed won for the first time in 2014, but Glassdoor seems uniquely positioned to challenge and ultimately close what’s become a fairly growing source of hire gap created by Indeed’s hockey stick user growth metrics.

Indeed, conversely, seemed at its #IndeedInteractive user event to be using a well worn page straight from Glasssdoor’s playbook, positioning its offerings as a truly “transparent” and “authentic” source for job information and postings while somewhat deftly disguising the fact that it, like Glassdoor, makes most of its money off of the decidedly unsexy, but decidedly profitable, business of premium placements and sponsored posts.

But it’s kind of fun to see Indeed company reviews on Glassdoor – and Glassdoor employee reviews on Indeed – to see just how “transparency” truly operates in the war for billions in online recruiting spend, particularly when both companies are hiring tech talent as fast as they can to keep up with their extreme growth without being penalized for any associated growing pains when it comes to their onsite employer brand. Hey, as they say, shit talks, money walks, and you’d be smart backing either of these two talent technology plays for the foreseeable future.

The collision, of course, comes at the center of the ven diagram between both business models: employer branding. Surprise, recruiting and marketing coming together is creating friction and disruption within traditional talent acquisition models.

All I can say is, game on.

Editor’s Note: While many of the companies specifically mentioned in this post are Recruiting Daily clients, this post is intended as independent analysis and solely reflects the views of the author, who was not compensated for this post. This means, of course, that this should not be considered “analysis,” as HR technology analyst firms only create content clients pay for, and this sucker cranked out commentary gratis.

Furthermore, the author makes no claims whatsoever of any accuracy or punditry herein, except for the fact that LinkedIn is, in fact, the devil. 

Return To Sender: Why Candidates Keep Ignoring Your Recruiting Emails.

Do_This-Return-to-SenderWith the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated sourcing systems and solutions available to recruiters today, finding top talent today is easier than ever before,  meaning that simply finding the right candidates is no longer the real recruiting challenge.

Instead, the hard part for most employers today is breaking through the recruiting noise so endemic to stuff like search and social and creating a compelling enough message to break through and make sure that your talent acquisition call to action actually gets answered.

That’s why, when it comes to communicating with talent today, personalization still beats automation for turning passive prospects into active candidates – and no matter how high tech recruitment has become, high touch remains so critical for determining hiring success.

Perhaps two of the most common – yet, perhaps often the most overlooked – components of creating killer personal online messages are recruiting emails and InMails. While these mediums are decidedly less sexy than, say, “social recruiting,” both remain imperative parts of any company’s talent acquisition strategy.

5 Steps to Improving the Response Rates of Recruiting Emails

Nigerian-Prince-ee88ad3Emails and InMails are deceptively simple, and while they might be easy to send, they’re both incredibly difficult forms of communication to master.

This is why so many recruiters end up just sending generic, boilerplate templates that sound similar enough to everyone else out there that no candidate is really going to notice or care enough to click through.

For top talent today, who are constantly getting inundated with recruiting related requests, sending just another depersonalized message pretty much preempts any hope you have of actually receiving a personal response. And this, for recruiters, anyway, is pretty much the entire point.

If your recruiting communications aren’t getting heard, here are five tangible tips for making sure your recruiting emails and InMails deliver improve individual response rates, create meaningful candidate engagement opportunities and produce recruiting real results when it comes to finding, attracting and engaging top talent more effectively – and efficiently – than ever before.

1. Write Remarkable Subject Lines.

The subject line – the first thing the sender sees – is the single greatest factor determining whether or not you’ve got a shot at having your message actually get heard by top talent. The quality of your employer brand greatly impacts recruitment efficacy, but even with a great brand, the devil is in the details.

This means getting past spam folders and skeptical candidates means you need to send emails from someone with a real name, like [email protected] as opposed to say, [email protected], or, even worse, [email protected].

Second, your subject line should be a relevant and remarkable enough teaser to entice a candidate into reading more – don’t be afraid to be creative or even edgy in experimenting to find the voice, tone and style that are going to be the most successful for your employer brand.

Constantly A/B test to optimize, monitor and measure things like click through and bounce rates, and make sure you start with the subject lines before worrying about the rest of your recruiting emails – after all, that’s what your candidates do. Now, I could go on and on about subject lines, but that’s only the first step into a much broader candidate email and InMail engagement strategy for recruiting success.

But, before we go onto Step #2, check out the embed below for 100 super awesome subject line examples you can really use on your real recruiting emails to give you some ideas, stop sucking and create some killer recruiting communications that will generate responses instead of the status quo sounds of silence.

You’re welcome.

2. It’s Not About You… At Least at First.

Open your message by offering value to the recipient, instead of talking about yourself. For example, if you’re messaging engineers, open with something like, “Software is eating the world, and engineers like yourself will determine how great our next meal tastes…”

You can probably come up with a better opening, but the point is: give value first (it can be entertainment value or professional value), then talk about your opportunity.

When you begin pitching your opportunity, remember that it is about selling yourself, your company, your department, and your specific opportunity.

3. Be Different.

different-funny-ironic-laugh-unique-Favim.com-262410Sure, if you represent a top employer brand or one of those companies perpetually named as “One of the Best Places to Work,” a candidate might be receptive to your message simply because of name recognition, but just because your consumer brand is a household name doesn’t mean you should rest on your recruiting laurels.

And if you don’t work for the handful of companies with that sort of cache, you likely don’t have any laurels to rest on in the first place. But even if you don’t have the luxury of being a known entity, you still have the luxury of being able to control your messaging, mix up your outreach and monitor your recruiting results in real time.

Remember, recruiting emails and InMails are incredibly crowded channels, and if your outreach sounds the same as everyone else’s, it’s going to yield the same shoddy results, too. Every employer needs to focus on what they do different, and really scrutinize what makes your company unique, particularly when it comes to mission, vision and values.

The thing that, by default, makes you more than just corporate career copy or some generic recruitment marketing messaging is pretty obvious: every company’s competitive differentiator is the people who work there. That’s why these voices – and information around these differentiators – need to be featured as prominently as possible. Because you’re not going to look different to candidates if you can’t show them exactly how you’re different.

If you want to be heard, you’ve got to make sure you’re not getting drowned out by the din.

4. Build Content Around A Specific Call To Action.

Never forget that the sole reason these messages exist is so that hopefully, relevant talent will ultimately feel compelled enough to engage with you and your employer brand. This means the first step in breakthrough candidate communications means figuring out what the purpose behind pressing send is by determining what your call to action should be – in other words, what you hope candidates will do when they reply or follow up on an email or InMail.

This call to action (or CTA) should be clearly stated, include all the relevant details the candidate needs to take appropriate action, and provide enough information for a candidate to know what, exactly, you want them to do – if there’s any doubt, chances are that CTA will fall on deaf ears.

It’s often tempting to clutter a message with unnecessary links to stuff like employer-based social profiles or proprietary talent networks communities, but it’s important to offer no other links in any email or InMail communication than the one where you want them to go after reading your message. Keep it simple, stupid.

Note: the only exception to this rule is YouTube, since YouTube videos are playable directly within GMail (by far the most popular email provider in North America), which means that I generally recommend hiding a video link directly in the footer of an email to take advantage of this integration while ensuring the recipient is unlikely to actually click through to the video and away from your intended CTA.

This same mindset of creating spokes around one central hub should be a mindset that’s replicated throughout your recruitment marketing efforts. Your job ads, career sites or social media channels should emphasize engaging, easily consumable content, such as real employer videos and pictures, which reinforce your recruiting call to action while driving candidates from across platforms and channels to a single, central destination, like an ATS or CRM, where they can ultimately be converted from passive candidates into warm recruiting leads.

5. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Picture Worth A Thousand 1000 Words Linchi Kwok BlogIf you’re hiring for a role at a multinational enterprise employer with tens of thousands of staff and dozens of business units, there’s no such thing as a single employer brand or unified company culture – which is why describing these concepts in vague, overarching terms fails to achieve its goal of helping candidates imagine what actually working somewhere would really be like.

Targeted talent pages, or career microsites specific to job function, level, location or business unit, can be an ideal way to provide targeted and the right mix of messaging, compelling careers content and the employer brand related information to the right candidate that’s specific to the right team, role, region or department where they would be working.

The fundamental job of every recruiter – and every recruitment marketer – is to successfully build connections and develop meaningful relationships with candidates while introducing them to the culture, company and career opportunities you’re recruiting for.

This is why, while growing companies need to communicate with candidates in a way that’s both scalable and sustainable, when it comes to recruiting emails and InMails, there’s no such thing as a one size fits all approach. Every step along the way should provide candidates with new information or create potential engagement opportunities, no matter what part of the recruitment funnel they happen to be in – every stage has a huge impact when it comes to yielding the best candidates and the best results.

From writing the subject line for your recruiting emails to crafting compelling careers copy for marketing your employer brand so that the call to action in them actually gets heard, take pride in your talent communications – and remember that for them to deliver real results, real candidates have to really care enough to take the time to read and respond to them, too.

chris murphyAbout the Author: Chris Murphy is the CEO of Zoomforth, a recruitment marketing solution that helps organizations easily send messages with multimedia. Prior to co-founding Zoomforth, Chris began his career working in international development for public sector firm USAID as well in the private sector for investment advisory group Total Impact Advisors, as well as the nonprofit sector as Director of Business Development for NPO ThinkImpact.

A native of Denver, Chris is a graduate of Georgetown University and currently lives in the San Francisco area, where he is an avid, if not adept, salsa dancer, small forward and cook.

Click here to learn more about Chris, or follow him on Twitter @YoChrisMurphy or connect with him on LinkedIn.

How To Make Sure You Know Exactly Who You’re Hiring.

inconceivableAs the ousted former CEO of Yahoo!, the disgraced Dean at MIT , the publically shamed past President of IBM or the would-be head football coach at Notre Dame can tell you, lying on your resume never really pays off in the long run.

That these extremely public, extremely prestigious posts were each obtained by candidates later found to be lying on their resumes suggest, it’s a problem that’s a pervasive and increasingly prevalent problem for employers everywhere.

Even though background and reference checks have emerged as more or less an inevitable component of almost every employer’s pre-screening process, a surprising percentage of candidates are willing to risk getting caught in exchange for the rewards of getting an offer.

According to a recent Harris Poll survey on behalf of CareerBuilder, in fact, fully 58% of hiring managers reported to having previously discovering a candidate misrepresenting, hyperbolizing or downright lying on their resumes during the hiring process.

This epidemic seems endemic across functions, with financial services (73%) hospitality (71%), tech (63%) and healthcare (63%) ranking among the industries most likely to have encountered someone lying on their resume. The recruiters responding to the survey indicated the most common resume lies included embellishing skill set (57%), embellishing previous responsibilities (55%) and falsifying dates of prior employment (42%).

While these white lies are most common recruiting red flags most often raised by candidates lying on their resumes, some go so far as to throw some blatantly fake – but kind of funny – fabrications into the mix. Take the guy who claimed his prior experience was serving as the Prime Minister for a completely fictional country. Or the candidate who felt lucky that no one would Google him to find out that he was not in fact, an Olympic Gold medalist in rollerblading (which, coincidentally, is also not really an Olympic sport).

Even these tall tales can’t stretch the truth that background screening service EmployeeScreenIQ found in a recent survey that an overwhelming majority of employers are more likely to hire a candidate whose background check reveals a criminal record than one whose background check raises resume red flags. In fact, 55% of recruiters responding to the survey they’d still consider a candidate with a prior conviction, compared with only 10% who report they’d give the similar benefit of the doubt to someone who they discovered had intentionally lied on their resume.

This offense, it seems, is the one crime that’s simply unforgivable, at least as far as recruiters and employers are concerned.

5 Ways To Make Sure You Know Who You’re Hiring

01874778Of course, these numbers don’t speak to the candidates who successfully slip through the screening safeguards in place during the pre-employment process designed to preempt these practices; in fact, NBC News recently estimated that over 250,000 professionals are found out and fired for resume lies by their current employers well after onboarding.

The high costs of a bad hire can be steep, with the pricetag for backfilling a bad hire estimated to cost employers an average of $50,000 for exempt workers, according to recent BLS data.

No recruiter can risk paying the heavy price tag associated with failing to find out a resume-related fabrication or falsehood before it’s too late; while lying, cheating and stretching the truth might be pretty much inescapable parts of pretty much every recruiting process, getting burned by resume lies shouldn’t have to be.

Here are 5 things every good recruiter should do make sure they know exactly who they’re hiring:

1. Go Beyond the Background Check.

bggcheckSure, chances are good you’re already running at least a basic background check, which still serve as valuable tools for researching candidates’ criminal records, credit histories or previous employment history.  There are, however, many things that the majority of background checks fail to flag, such inflated claims of their current salary, true skill set or personality alignment with company culture.

This is why it’s essential to utilize other reliable pre-employment screening tools and techniques in combination with basic background checks.

Leveraging proven pre-screen methodologies like mandatory skills testing or even basic behavioral or personality assessments can offer a much more balanced and clear representation of who a candidate really is and whether or not they’re able to deliver as promised than a simple background check and basic reference process.

Even though the most rudimentary background check will likely uncover a relatively minor arrest from 20 years ago on a prospective new hire’s record, using this tool in tandem with another testing methodology can be critical in offering employers the information and insights they need to determine whether or not a respective red flag might be worth overlooking or if they’re indicative of bigger issues that might make them unemployable. After all, when you’re judging the content of someone’s character, context counts.

2. Ask References The Right Questions.

quickquestionYeah, reference checking can be a major pain in the process ass – sure, anyone can come up with a few names and numbers of people willing to put in a good word, whether or not they actually deserve it. Likewise, any employer can contact a listed reference, ask a few asinine and practically pointless (but polite) questions and do nothing more than that requisite box before extending an offer.

But doing more than just finding out if a candidate didn’t totally suck to work with or whether or not their resume accurately reflects the responsibilities listed for a previous role can offer employers a broader picture of a potential hire, and a much more accurate predictor of whether or not a candidate will deliver as promised and that their experience or expertise actually align with your open position.

Rather than ask a few standard yes/no or close-ended questions, consider leaving some room for references to speak freely and openly about their previous experience with a potential hire – it’s imperative to let them guide the conversation and listen closely enough to follow up appropriately with enough questions to make sure that you understand not only if a candidate meets the requirements of your open position, but also the intangibles no job description or resume could capture, like culture fit or career aspirations.

These soft skills are every bit as imperative when determining whether or not it’s worth moving ahead with making an offer, and reference checking represents an ideal opportunity to do the due diligence worth doing to make the right decision and preempt bad hires before they happen.

3. Stop Going Through the Motions.

idiotPeople who lie on their resumes or during the interviewing process generally know that they’re taking a risk by misrepresenting themselves to a potential employer, and as a result, are likely well prepared with their own scripted responses for the most commonplace and cliche questions (like “what is your greatest strength?” or “why do you think you’d be a good fit for the position?”); instead requiring specific examples from their previous work experiences (“tell me about a time when…”) or similar behavioral based questions that require candidates to prove they actually know how to do a job, not just how to answer a question about how to do a job.

Every good recruiter knows there’s a huge difference – and that asking pointed questions is a far better way to poke holes in past experiences or perceived expertise than simply sticking to the same old script that everyone expects when going through the interview process.

Of course, for this to work, you’ve got to know more about the job than just what’s on the description – recruiters aren’t the only ones who can convincingly sting together keywords and fake their way through a role they don’t really understand.

The base assumption that recruiters don’t really know the roles they’re recruiting for is one of the primary reasons so many candidates risk resumes lies – because you don’t know what you don’t know, you know.

4. Trust, But Verify.

stupid-bestThe easiest way to preempt making a bad hire is by requiring candidates to perform a small task or simple project as part of the recruiting process; many companies make this a mandatory step for every job seeker. Many expect even the best candidates to be willing to do this sort of extra work for free as a means of proving not only their skills, but also their motivation and whether or not they really want the job.

This is, in theory, a good idea, but make sure that if you require candidates to do extra work and do not plan on providing any sort of additional compensation for adding this additional step (and often, a ton of time) to the hiring process, make sure that you’ll not only gain insight into the employee’s work, but that they’ll have a chance to preview the kinds of assignments and projects the successful candidate can expect on the job.

Be aware that the more involved or intense these assignments are, however, the more likely candidates will be to drop out or decline to move ahead in the process, so it’s always a good idea to make sure to compensate candidates for work related tasks or projects at comparable to what you’d pay any other freelancer.

That way, not only are you able to get real examples of real work from real candidates, but by really paying them for the extra sweat equity, you’re going to see whether or not a candidate’s resume is really representative of their expertise or experience – and know that you’re going to get what you pay for before actually making an offer.

5. Never Stop Recruiting.

optimal-web-blog-side-hustlingThe easiest way to know who you’re hiring, of course, is to know who you’re hiring – this is why employee referrals are such an effective source of hire, and why it’s imperative for every recruiter to focus less on filling reqs and more on developing lasting relationships, driving referrals and building a pipeline of prospects, instead.

When you know a potential hire before ever seeing their resume, chances are you’ll know what they’re about – and know that when the time comes to convert connections into candidates, you know what you’re getting when you successfully transform passive prospects into actual active applicants.

If you don’t know exactly who  you’re hiring, chances are you’re not hiring the right person in the first place – no matter what their resume says.

And that’s one mistake that no recruiter or employer can afford to make. No lie.

Hiring Tech Talent Is Easy…Right?

Hiring Tech Talent Is Easy…Right?

Sourcing shallow or competitive talent pools?  It doesn’t get much more competitive than tech talent at the moment.  What can you start doing today to set yourself apart from the competition?  I’m glad you asked. Hiring the best out there isn’t easy.  It actually is not even possible.  No such thing as a perfect candidate.  But you can try for the best fit.  That’s your job right?  Are you looking in the right places?  You wouldn’t consider someone that had no knowledge of tech for that position right?

While some recruiters just want to fill the req, some want to do it correctly.  While it’s about filling a position, it’s also about filling said position with the right candidate.  Therefore we have devised a webinar just for you.

Join our friend Steve Levy, an engineer who crossed over into the dark side of recruiting. He has 26 years recruiting in tech sectors and is a recognized SME in sourcing, engaging, and recruiting people.
  1. The problems recruiters have with sourcing, engaging, and recruiting people for technical roles
  2. The technical mind around work and careers
  3. Specific ways to source, engage, and recruit these people
  4. Better ways to assess the skills of these purple squirrels.
All questions will be welcomed with the usual Levy insight.  Don’t forget to check out the upcoming webinars as well.

 

Recruiting Tools Review : Socedo

Socedo LogoI didn’t think it was possible to get emotionally attached to recruiting tools. I am not embarrassed to admit that I have fallen in love. The object of my affection? Socedo. (Rhymes with Tuxedo)

Headquarters:            Seatle, WA, United States

What it does:             Socedo is a social selling tool that helps sales professionals automate the process of discovering leads and build relationships on Twitter. -Vendor Description

Sizzle:   

  • A/B Message Testing
  • Exportation of Leads Generated
  • Reporting Capability
  • Dashboard Functionality

Drizzle:

  • It is a little expensive.
  • More leads than I could manage due to manual approval. (I know, my first world problems)
  • No ability to chop leads by Company Size or Revenue totals

As the “Retweet Queen of the Recruitosphere and HR,” (Thanks @Animal!) it is obvious that I am a Twitter girl. Retweeting the right stuff from the right people however, actually takes work! I use social media management tools to assist me in making the best retweets choices. That is why I began the trial of Socedo. It was selfish; I was not expecting Socedo to be a useful recruiting tool. Socedo was built to help people generate sales leads. The more I used it, however, the more I realized the potential for using it to source key candidates.

Socedo Prospect Search CriteriaIn general, all twitter management tools work the same way. You plug in a few keywords, maybe include a twitter handle or two and from there get loads of links to names and bios. Where do you go from there? Do you have a process for qualifying these leads? This is where most twitter management tools fall short.

Socedo understands that, “…having accurate and detailed keywords to direct your search can make all the difference in finding the most relevant and promising prospects Twitter and LinkedIn have to offer.”

They do this by encouraging users to:

  • Include # and @ in your Conversational Keywords
  • Consider switching the criteria catagoriesg from “may” to “must”
  • Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant leads

If you like them, you can “approve” this tool to favorite their next post followed up with a personalized direct message. For example, “[FirstName], we have similar interests, would you be open for a call about x?” Then, follow them on twitter and better still, make a LinkedIn connection request and send an INMail for a greater chance for getting a deeper connection.

I asked Kurt Lohmann, Socedo’s Customer Experience Manager, what the biggest challenge people had with their Socedo Blog How to Maximize Your Results with Socedo Managed Servicessoftware. He replied, “Clients find that they do not have the time to approve the leads.” Good problem to have right!?! They came up with a solution. “Socedo offers a Managed Services solution for the day-to-day approvals and unfollows on your account. Let us manage the routine activities of your social media lead generation, so you can focus on targeting the most relevant prospects and engaging with the highest quality leads.” I like to call the “forget you” feature of heir Managed Services. If a person you approve does not follow you in two days, you unfollow them. Brilliant. Take that you unfollower – I didn’t want you anyway. No retweets for you.

Here was my ROI from using actively for four days:

  • 154 leads followed me
  • 33 leads responded to my direct message
  • 26 leads clicked on one of my links
  • 213 total engagements were driven between me and new leads

You can try them for free for trying them out when you click here. Tell them Jackye sent ya! Try it and then tell me what you think by commenting below.

Socedo CEO PS: Aseem Badshah is kinda cute. That doesn’t have anything to do with how functional the product is, but it doesn’t hurt, right?!?!

 

 

 

 

Jackye Clayton Contributing Editor Recruiting ToolsAbout the Author: Jackye Clayton is recognized as a people expert who puts the Human in Human Resources. An international trainer, she has travelled worldwide sharing her unique gifts in sourcing, recruiting and coaching. She offers various dynamic presentations on numerous topics related to leadership development, inclusionary culture development, team building and more.Her in-depth experience in working with top Fortune and Inc 500 clients and their employees has allowed her to create customized programs to coach, train and recruit top talent and inspire others to greatness.

Follow Jackye on Twitter @JackyeClayton or connect with her on LinkedIn.

 

Life of the Third Party: The Business Case for Recruiting Firms.

piggybankCompanies are often reluctant to hire outside recruiting help when they have in-house HR resources or dedicated in-house recruiting teams, especially when a company is in a growth stage and cash is tight.

But if your company is trying to quickly scale up your revenue-producing talent, the many rewards of hiring outside recruiting firms make the decision a no-brainer.

The truth is, there are a lot of costs involved with not hiring the right people at the right time. Instead of focusing on the cost of hiring a recruiting firm, give some thought to what it’s costing your company to not have the right employees on board.

Time is money, and every month that goes by without hiring the right talent is costing your company in ways that you might not expect.

3 Reasons Using A Recruiting Firm Pays For Itself

MjAxMi1lMDkwYzJlMWFkYTgxYmY4Here are a few specific examples of why it doesn’t actually cost you money to hire a recruiting firm – it pays for itself, and then some:

1. Good Hires Make Money. Every employee at your company needs to deliver a return on the investment in hiring them, and this is especially evident with revenue-producing positions like sales and marketing.

When your company has reached the point where you know you need to hire in order to capitalize on growth opportunities, it’s worth your effort and investment to get as many of the right people on board as quickly as possible.

By not hiring, you effectively are missing out on opportunities – there is an opportunity cost to leaving those positions vacant for every additional month that they could have been filled with people working and making revenue for the company.

2. Recruiting Firms Help Hire More Efficiently. Why do people hire recruiting firms? There are lots of reasons – recruiting firms often have access to a better network or a proprietary database of candidates than the company can access via in-house resources alone.

Recruiting firms often bring a consultative approach where they create a comprehensive hiring strategy and offer additional bandwidth to help companies scale up their staff in periods of high growth; and recruiting firms often excel at finding talent for specific niches and high-value positions where it’s of mission-critical importance to hire the right people for the right jobs.

Simply put: recruiting firms can help your company hire the right people faster and more efficiently than you probably could handle on your own.

When you need an “all hands on deck” approach to a big hiring challenge, recruiting firms offer extra hands (and extra brainpower) to create solutions.

3. The Benefits of Hiring a Recruiting Firm Are Much Greater Than the Costs. Just like any other business expenditure, if you’re considering hiring a recruiting firm, you want to know that you’re getting a positive return on investment.

A sample ROI calculation illustrates some of the key principles of why it’s worth hiring a recruiting firm, especially for revenue-producing positions like sales and business development – and how the real ROI of recruiting firms lies in an incredibly important, but often overlooked competitive differentiator: hiring time advantage.

Hiring Time Advantage: The Real ROI of Recruiting Firms

Need_for_Speed_movieHiring a recruiting firm gives you what we call a “Hiring Time Advantage”: the number of weeks that the recruiting firm can source a new hire faster than an internal hiring process could have accomplished.

This Hiring Time Advantage produces Incremental Revenue – the additional money that your company makes by getting the new hire onboard sooner (thanks to the recruiting firm’s quick work).

As long as your new employees are generating revenue and earning their keep (by making more money than their salary and benefits cost), you are almost guaranteed to make a positive ROI by hiring a recruiting firm.

For example: let’s assume that your company wants to hire a top-performing sales person with a monthly quota of $100,000 and an average monthly salary of $10,000. If you can hire that sales person 2 weeks faster with a recruiting firm than you would have on your own, and assuming 4.3 weeks per month, that means your hire is on board 46.5% of a month sooner than would have happened if you had hired via internal resources alone.

The Incremental Revenue from this hire equals the Hiring Time Advantage (46.5% of a month) x Monthly Quota ($100,000 per month) = $46,511.

The Incremental Cost of having that salesperson on board sooner equals the Hiring Time Advantage (46.5% of a month) x Monthly Salary ($10,000) = $4,651. Subtract the Incremental Cost ($4,651) from the Incremental Revenue ($46,511) and you get your Incremental Net Profit from hiring this sales person faster: $41,860 (before placement fee).

This is only one example; some hires happen faster than others, and when companies are scaling up quickly, the Incremental Net Profit can be substantial when hiring multiple people. But when you consider how much your company stands to gain by hiring a recruiting firm – even for hiring a single employee – it’s clear that the ROI is quite compelling.

The opportunity costs of a slow hiring process are potentially huge, but often overlooked. A good recruiting firm will work with your company to understand your unique culture and develop a solid strategy to hire the right people for the right jobs – faster and more efficiently than you could have managed to do on your own.

Especially when you are hiring top, in-demand talent, it’s critical to get the right people on board as quickly as possible so that they can immediately go to work producing revenue and creating opportunities for your company.

2015-03-17_09-08-53About the Author: Carolyn Betts is the Founder & CEO of Betts Recruiting, a global recruiting firm. Carolyn is a sixth generation Bay Area native and is actively involved in the community, serving as a board member of the UCSF Partners in Care, an officer of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals, and a member of Young Presidents Organization.

Betts Recruiting focuses on fast growing, innovative tech companies to build out revenue generating talent roles to include sales, marketing and customer success at all levels. Betts has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women-Owned Businesses, and was named one of the Best Places to Work and Fastest Growing Companies in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times.  Betts Recruiting has office locations in San Francisco, New York, Austin, and Dublin, Ireland.

Follow Carolyn Betts on Twitter @BettsRecruiting or connect with her on LinkedIn.

 

Candidate Experience: Recruiters, Stop Making Excuses.

2015-05-20_08-16-53I was recently speaking with a friend who happened to be looking for work as an HR practitioner, too. And as you can imagine, our shared experiences slid quickly from swapping war stories to lamenting how friggin’ frustrating the entire job search process is.

If you’ve ever looked for one, you know what I’m talking about – even if, as is the case at most companies, that harrowing experience is easily forgotten by most HR pros before the ink on the offer letter is even dry.

Still, even though we all know the inhumane hoops and asinine barrels employers ask job seekers to navigate every day, it’s always good to find someone who’s sympathetic enough to understand the overwhelming aggravation underscoring the shared war stories – and battle scars – incurred during a prolonged search.

The biggest source of that aggregation, turns out, is the rejection that’s inexorably intertwined with the hiring process today. I mean, rejections suck – and there’s nothing more dispiriting than finding yourself more or less discarded. But as much as we can all agree how painful rejections of any kind are, when it comes to the job search, they suck for more than just the most obvious or universal reasons.

Nope. This is a whole other level of rejection. It’s the fact that, in those rare instances where a recruiter actually does bother letting you know, you know, thanks but no thanks, their feedback seems flimsy, to say the least; their rationale, if there is any, always seems dubious at best, duplicitous at worst. And when you’re looking for a job, it’s almost always the worst.

Of course, I do have to give even those bearers of bad news a bit of professional respect – they, at least, had the cajones to call and let me know I was no longer under consideration, which is actually better than being left hanging. There’s something redeeming about closure, even when it’s for an opening that seemed like the perfect fit or to be told that hiring manager you really connected with chose to work with someone else, instead.

No news is the worst kind of news, and sometimes, the silence can be deafening, particularly when it drags on interminably, day after day.

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate.

failure_to_communicate_memeCall me silly, or maybe naive, but in my opinion, the entire point of recruiting, the one critical job function that’s basically the reason recruiters are around, is so they can communicate with candidates – you know, that most basic and most ignored of core competencies.

Sure, we can talk about engagement all day, but recruiters largely chose to find any and all possible excuses to providing any candidate, no matter how qualified, any modicum of feedback once they were no longer part of the hiring process long before social media, CRM or whatever trending topic we’re talking about this week even existed. Please.

Engagement isn’t a technology feature, it’s a mindset, and it’s one recruiters have ignored to the point where common courtesy, that “thanks but no thanks,” is unilaterally unwelcome by most talent organizations.

Obviously, when you’re a candidate, not hearing back from recruiters is pretty much the worst. But as inured as most job seekers soon become to the crappy experience they’re subjected to by every employer out there, the thing is, this shouldn’t be the rule, or even the exception. Candidates simply shouldn’t have to encounter this sort of treatment, much less accept it as just another part of looking for a job. Screw that.

See, the thing about being a candidate who also happens to work in HR or recruiting, like me and my friend, is that we’re far too familiar with the unfortunate state of candidate experience today, and consequently, have lowered our expectations so much that we take it for granted that every interaction, every conversation, every e-mail exchange or meeting with a potential employer is likely to be the last contact we’ll ever have with them. I know it sounds terribly cynical to expect absolutely nothing absolutely all of the time, but it sure beats holding onto false hope.

Which is what you force candidates to do when you won’t even give them the courtesy of giving them some closure after they’re no longer being considered for an opportunity. It’s emotional abuse, and it’s eminently preventable.

Say What?

Ron-BurgundyApplicant Tracking Systems generally bear the brunt of most of the blame for the whole black hole phenomenon, but the real credit belongs to those conflict-averse recruiters who find even the thought of following through on some sort of feedback to be not only inconvenient, but inconceivable.

That said, there are a few recruiters out there who, for some sadistic reason, actually relish the chance to reject candidates, and love nothing more than killing dreams and letting those who make it through even the most perfunctory parts of the process exactly why they were never in a million years going to get an offer.

These recruiters prove that sometimes, in fact, no news is better than bad news, particularly when the reasons for rejection sting so much worse than the simple sound of silence.

Within my own job searches, I’ve encountered more than a few of these face-palm inducing, contradictory, confusing and conniving snake oil salesmen whose “feedback” creates a far worse experience than the norm of not hearing anything at all.

For example, on several occasions, I interviewed for a sudden spurt of similar opportunities sprouting up during a relatively short time span, all variations on the same professional theme. As similar as the positions were, and, consequently, my overall viability and qualifications as a candidate, the feedback I heard couldn’t have been more disparate or disconcerting.

They were iterations of the following cliched themes, but they prove that some recruiters really should be on the other side of the damn desk:

“Well, you see, based on such and such subjective criteria that’s never before been mentioned by the job description or during the prescreening process, you seem to be overqualified for this role.” 

This one I got mostly for jobs I actually proactively pursued, applied and interviewed knowing I’d at least have the proficiency required to be an above average performer, which is all you can really hope for from a new hire.

But turns out, not many hiring managers feel that way – particularly since I found myself in the unfortunate position of being one of those “active” candidates whose willingness to start sooner, come aboard for less compensation and actually be a win-win situation means that, of course, we’re obviously terrible hiring decisions.

“It looks like you’ve got a really diverse work background, but unfortunately, we’re really looking for a candidate with a little bit more experience in something that’s completely unrelated to the actual job.”

This one came mostly for jobs where I clearly met – or, in most cases, far exceeded – the minimum stated qualifications for the position and was, without exception, never even given the benefit of the doubt or the opportunity to discuss that particular requirement or part of my background before being summarily dismissed. Which, really, is more about an unqualified recruiter than an unqualified candidate. But there are too many of those to hope to make a dent in this particular problem.

“After very careful consideration, we’ve decided to move forward with someone with more skills doing something that we never once mentioned or emphasized we gave one single shit about before needing some reason to say no to you.”

Yeah, I get it. I’m not stupid – although I can’t say the same for you.

“Well, it looks like this position is probably going to be a little too much of a stretch from where you’re currently at right now in terms of comp and career level.”

I get it. Because I’m actually open on pay, and there’s a pretty huge fluctuation in level, title and pay for other jobs in this category, you’re not willing to at least try to see if I’m willing to make these decisions on my own. Nope, not when a recruiter who doesn’t know me can do such a more effective job managing my career trajectory.

“Why it appears you have several years of related experience, we’re really looking for someone whose experience is a little more recent.”

So lady, you know what you’re doing, but if you’re not doing it right now, there’s a good chance that you’re going to unlearn all those years of experience after those few short months of inactivity in which you’ve lost even the most remote semblance of relevance.

“You’ve got a very broad skill set, but we’re really not looking for a generalist, since this role specializes specifically in some niche role that you not only know, but kind of like doing.”

I get it, being capable of doing more than a narrowly defined role within an organization and a broad enough skill set to grow and develop within the company is probably a negative. You won’t last long enough for that to matter once you find out what working here’s really like, anyway.

…and my favorite…

“We see you really have a very specialized background, which is great, but we really need someone who’s going to come in and be more of a generalist.”

Wait, what? See above for why I have a hard time believing any of this bullshit you’re spooning to me.

Now, some of those ståtements actually came at the onset of the process, often as early as when a recruiter had just looked at my resume or came across my profile online. Others were provided to me only at the very end of a grueling selection process where I was consistently told I was the top candidate, only to ultimately not be the one to whom they opted to extend an offer at the end of it all.

Either way, keeping in mind that I don’t just apply for every job I see out there, or even ones for which I’m qualified, but instead, am selective enough to only go after the ones I really think are a good fit for both me and the employer alike.

I don’t take applying lightly, but when I do, the superficiality, subjectivity and senselessness of screening and the subsequent subjective feedback I have to endure make feedback an acutely painful experience in a process that has enough of those to go around.

Being Subjected to So Much Subjectivity.

We all know that almost every hiring decision, and every point in the process leading up to it, are based almost entirely in bias, speculative interpretations of spurious superficiality and spectacular subjectivity. It’s just human nature to judge and scrutinize real or perceived flaws without taking a step back and looking at any information beyond the bare minimum needed to make a decision.

Those six seconds scanning a document. Those 15-20 minute perfunctory phone screens. Those half hour in persons that we spend in each others’ presence, most of it asking each other questions neither really care about the answer to, or dropping in a few soft sells in case what comes next works out, but never really doing anything other than confirming the biases that already existed the moment we stepped into the interview.

Screwed in sixty seconds.

Questionable Questions: Shooting the Recruiting Messenger 

i_love_the_way_you_lie_by_decisiontaken-d32r701If you’re a recruiter, let’s go through the above “feedback” for a second, if you don’t mind. Now, let’s go ahead and say you really believe that an applicant or candidate is so overqualified that it would somehow preempt them from successfully meeting performance expectations, why the hell would you even bother interviewing him or her in the first place?

Seems like a huge waste of time for both of you.

And what if the applicant doesn’t have the must-have experience that you can’t live without, why in the world are you not even bringing this up to the candidates or giving them the chance to clarify whether or not you’re not knocking them out on a bad (or misinformed) guess based entirely on gut instinct that’s almost always instinctually wrong.

If a certain skill set or specific experience is truly mandatory, and no other possible combination of expertise or background knowledge or even training would ever enable a candidate to do a job successfully, then why weren’t you able to come to that conclusion only after wasting so much of my time? You should have spotted this on my resume, had you bothered to look.

If an applicant has current or previous applicable work experience, job title, level or compensation be damned, any new opportunity is entirely that – and should be looked at in a different context, since there’s a reason that person applied to begin with. If they earned less or more, if they worked as a Director instead of a Manager, or were a VP instead of an SVP, how the hell does that impact their ability to do the job you’re looking to fill?

Finally, if an applicant or candidate has too much or too little of any capability, categorically speaking, what I call the Goldilocks approach to recruiting, why are you not giving them the chance to address these perceived gaps and at least the opportunity to set the record straight and clarify how and why they’d be able to meet performance expectations?

It makes no sense, but then again, not a whole lot about recruiting really does.

Appetite for Rejection.

1346156013251_9407780For those of you keeping score at home, I know what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong. So let me take a minute just to reiterate that this post isn’t driven by being bitter or pissed off at the constant recruiter rejection.

The real issue is how legitimate the reason for that rejection really is, and whether or not recruiters are missing out on the “top talent” they purport to be looking for by ignoring what recruiting is all about. And that’s matching the right person with the right opportunity, sure, but you can’t find the right person if you don’t even look for the right things.

I get that there can only be one hire for every opening, but if (and when) you evaluate the critical factor of fit, try to screen candidates for “culture,” or any tangentially related recruitment trending topic, what you get is an exercise in affirmation bias. Every candidate gets filtered through personal perceptions and individual experiences from every person responsible for evaluating their candidacy.

In doing so, these decision makers almost always make those decisions on unfounded assumptions, unconscious (or unstated) biases and more or less looking for a reason to rationalize a “no” instead of looking for a reason not to say “yes” to an obviously well qualified, interested and available candidate.

The problem is, there’s often little rationale when you realize that you couldn’t catch what should be fairly obvious red flags before the candidate invested so much time and effort into exploring a fit that wasn’t there to begin with.

Declare and Decline.

daa38ed2e0ddc2e6a24a1a250a97033b236b783c1ee710e778758e2be23a52c8Look, justify it however you need so that you can sleep soundly at night, but you and I both know if you’re a recruiter, giving no feedback whatsoever is unacceptable. But you should also know that if you’re going to give candidates the feedback they deserve, you should also realize they deserve more than a vague response or obvious put off.

Instead, you need to accept that giving candidates logical, substantive and meaningful feedback is part of your job. If you can’t make an offer, you can at least offer value.

But at least realize that having to turn down candidates is an inevitability – and most candidates accept this reality, but they don’t have to accept that reality means rejection comes without any real rationale, rhyme or reason.

They deserve better, so they can do better – and ultimately, the job search might not suck so bad if we realize that we’re all going after the same end goal, and if we just treat each other with professional respect and a modicum of courtesy, candidate experience should solve itself. It really all comes down to empathy.

So ask yourself how you would feel when you never heard back from a company you were in process with, and realize that you aren’t too busy to do this. Trust me.

Handling rejection isn’t a part of a recruiter’s job. It is your job.

talenttalks

About the Author: Leveraging her unique perspective as a progressive thinker with a well-rounded background from diverse corporate settings, Kelly Blokdijk advises members of the business community on targeted human resource, recruiting and organization development initiatives to enhance talent management, talent acquisition, corporate communications and employee engagement programs.

Kelly is an active HR and recruiting industry blogger and regular contributor on RecruitingBlogs.com. She also candidly shares opinions, observations and ideas as a member of RecruitingBlogs’ Editorial Advisory Board.

Follow Kelly on Twitter @TalentTalks or connect with her on LinkedIn.

 

Datananas: Create Targeted Lists of Prospects From Social Networks

What is and why use Datananas

Datananas allows you to create targeted lists of prospects from online communities and social / professional networks. Datananas presents a streamlined lead aggregation process allowing you to identify your target leads on your social or professional network and verify each email in real time. List building consumes a significant part of a recruiters (and sales person) day. Having a tool that is fast and accurate in email verification can mean a serious time savings and of course direct contact to your lead.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DGs-GqfoO8&feature=youtu.be” width=”500″ height=”300″]

List Flexibility

Datananas allows you a to export your lists to your CRM. Currently the extension works with Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Close.io, AgileCRM and Pipedrive. Flexibility is key to power of the extension. With an open API (for paying customers) you can easily connect your CRM to the extension creating a seamless flow of information.

export_crm

Don’t have an ATS? Grab yourself a Zapier account and create Zaps to your favorite solutions or simply use an old school excel sheet.

Key Features:

  1. Extract leads and contact information from user groups and online communities
  2. Target and scrape companies by size, location, revenue, positions
  3. Receive verified (in some cases) best guessed emails of your leads in real time
  4. Full export capabilities to your CRM direct, via excel spreadsheets or using a Zap

 

dean_dacostaAbout the Author: Dean Da Costa is a highly experienced and decorated recruiter, sourcer and manager with deep skills and experience in HR, project management, training & process improvement.

Dean is best known for his work in the highly specialized secured clearance and mobile arenas, where he has been a top performing recruiter and sourcer.  Dean’s keen insight and creation of innovative tools and processes for enhancing and changing staffing has established Dean as one of the top authorities in sourcing and recruiting.

Connect with Dean at LinkedIn or follow @DeanDaCosta on Twitter

 

Can You Pay My Bills? Software Review: Big Biller

picture of Big BillersWhat is Big Biller

Founded in 1988, Big Biller is a straight to the point recruiting ATS. If Big Biller could speak, it would say,” um, hey you wanna ATS? Wanna CRM? I gotta ATS for yous.” (Seriously, it would.)

I start judging software from its cover. I want software to look and feel fun so that I am happy when posting jobs. I am a cheer/pageant mom who eats glitter for breakfast and I like the lipstick on the recruiting software pig.

As I started using and testing Big Biller, I started feeling dumb. It just looked scary. Everyday, I am on recruiting ATS software demos. I test recruiting tools constantly. Yes if you were wondering, when I do a software review, I really do use and test the product before writing a review. When testing Big Biller, I felt like I was missing something. And I was.

Headquarters: Canton, Ohio, United States

What it Does:

“Simply put, Big Biller is a powerful recruiting software package that helps recruiters manage the relationships they have with their candidates and clients, all with one purpose and focus on making more placements.”

Pricing: 

Big Biller starts at $60 per month per user and each additional user that you add to the system will cost $20 per month.

 Sizzle: 

  • A live person for software support chat
  • Email Parser Function
  • Customizable resume parsing list
  • Intuitive Pipeline feature
  • Easy to use Search Engine
  • Regular Software Training

Drizzle:

  • It isn’t pretty (There – I said it)
  • The calendar does not integrate with your Outlook or Google (or ANY external calendar for that matter)
  • No built in job site creation
  • No built in social media posting capability
  • Not available as a client server software
  • No support for open API or Google Apps

 It is obvious that this tool was built so that recruiters get their butt in the seat and recruit. Period. Robotic like. It is one Internet of things (IoT) application away from having human recruiters become obsolete.

When first looking at the recruiter interface, it looks kind of intimidating. There are all of these boxes to fill out. While most are optional there are so many things you have to customize on your own, it feels exhausting.. I tried to post with an empty job description. I was alerted via pop up that I needed to have a job description so I put in HH and boom – it recognized it as a job description. Thankfully, you can parse easily and still copy paste. But looked like those ATS systems that were built on an Excel platform pulling data from an Access database. Kind of how Salesforce.com looked back in the day.

https://youtu.be/1MfguQrTTJ4

It was weird – on one respect it seemed like it was too cumbersome to use. Then it seemed like it was too easy to use. I should say too easy to make a mistake. There were not enough controls to prevent someone from posting a bad description and quite frankly, I want an ATS that intuitively knows the steps to creating a job order and can help me do this well.

So here is where I get lost. Based on reviews I have read by other thought leaders, everyone LOVES Big Biller. I am talking a minimum of 4.5 out of 5 stars. The only complaints seemed to come from those trying to use this tool for internal recruiting or customer that aren’t by definition billing big anyway. And they shouldn’t like it; it was not built for them.

Am I the only one who expects to have the social media job promotion, a company page and a code to embed the jobs I post on my own website. Truth be told – I have written articles about how recruiters should spend more time recruiting than becoming a web developer and having to figure out the HTML code for hot pink. However, I would rather them do that than to wait for some external web developer to give me what I need.Big Biller Logo Top Echelon

The reason I felt kind of dumb is because I have embraced the dumbing down of software. I want to point and click. I want things to automatically and intuitively do things. I want built in templates and social media interfaces.

If these tools are built in, I don’t worry about it. If not, now I have to think about what pictures to use and fonts and the like. That will cause a headache. I am not a lazy recruiter. I just want an easy peasy lemon squeezy way to post and promote jobs so that I can get to the business of recruiting.

Big Biller DOES have a good email-marketing capability that will allow you to send out mass emails to potential candidates. Thing is, candidates HATE being mass emailed! Since you have to give people you mass email the ability to opt-out of mass emails, you will potentially lose some quality candidates. If the best candidates opt-out, your candidate pipeline is dead.

Here is the deal. What Big Biller does well, and has done well for a number of years is create an efficient candidate database. The database is easy to search. With the addition of the pipeline feature; you can easily see where both candidates and recruiters are in the recruiting process.

Old School BuildingSo Who Would Use this Tool?

Old school recruiters who have yet to embrace todays very social and very referral based recruiting who have used this for so long, they can not bear to lose the candidates from their database; candidates they probably got from HotJobs.com.

 

 

Jackye Clayton Contributing Editor Recruiting ToolsAbout the Author: Jackye Clayton is recognized as a people expert who puts the Human in Human Resources. An international trainer, she has travelled worldwide sharing her unique gifts in sourcing, recruiting and coaching. She offers various dynamic presentations on numerous topics related to leadership development, inclusionary culture development, team building and more.Her in-depth experience in working with top Fortune and Inc 500 clients and their employees has allowed her to create customized programs to coach, train and recruit top talent and inspire others to greatness.

Follow Jackye on Twitter @JackyeClayton or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Once In A (Recruiting) Lifetime: This is 40.

rundmcAs I sit here, dedicating a few of my first full 24 hours as a 40 year old to this post, I realize that I’d spent the last four days figuring out what the hell, exactly, I wanted to write.

After all, as you know, our editor is something of a stickler for meaty editorial content (to say the least), and has an expectation for quality that can sometimes be hard to meet – particularly when you have something to say, but you just aren’t quite sure how to say it.

Because frankly, hitting 40 is kind of heavy, at least judging from the past few hours of introspection, soul searching and second guessing.

It’s not so much that, statistically speaking, my life is half over (give or take a few years and a lot of luck), or because I’m having some sort of existential mid-life crisis. Seriously. I’m sure that, were things a little different, I’d be out there test driving sports cars, signing up for skydiving lessons or whatever the hell it is men of my age generally do when they hit the big 4-0.

But as much fun as that stuff sounds, the thing is, personally and professionally, as I turn 40, I’m truly in a good place. I know how lucky I am to be fulfilled in both fronts, and even though I’m now in the next decade, I know, somehow, the best is yet to come.

But the thing about these big birthdays is that there’s something about them that invites introspection, and I’ve been taking the last few days to look back on my career, what I’ve achieved, and what advice I’d give my younger self if I had a Delorean, some weapons grade plutonium and a Flux Capacitor.

Now, that advice wouldn’t include old guy adages like, “nothing good happens after 2 AM,” or “Costa Rica is a bad place to make bad decisions,” but the thing is, that shit is still awesome. It just sucks more when you have to snap back to reality when you realize you just can’t rage the way you used to – although that shouldn’t stop you from trying, because friends and fun are what makes being an adult suck just a little less.

Things Just Ain’t the Same for Gangstas.

dreBut what I really want to write about are the lessons I’ve learned over my years spent in the recruiting trenches; the last few days have provided an awesome opportunity to look back at my own experience, but also to realize that, while my career path might have been somewhat meandering, and incredibly unique to my own personal journey, many of the most important takeaways I’ve learned along the way are pretty much applicable to anyone in this crazy recruiting industry of ours.

So if you’re already riding the recruiting roller coaster, then buckle in, because we’re all on the same ride, and for me, it’s been an exhilarating one that’s been, if nothing else, incredibly rewarding.

And the good news for recruiters in this business is that most of us who have put the most of ourselves into doing the best we can to ensure we do right by our clients and candidates feel an obligation to see that hard work drive forward a mentality that says, more or less, you’ve got to help the next generation of recruiters if you want any of this – or your legacy – to live on.

I think of that phrase a lot, believe it or not, and whenever I do my interior monologue starts sounding a lot like Steve Levy, because it’s definitely a value (and maxim) he openly advocates, and leads by example. But not all of us can channel our inner Levy, and most probably have no desire to do so – but whatever works with you, remember that what we do today forms our legacy for tomorrow.

So, back to my big dilemma. Here I sit, realizing yeah, this is 40, and that means that somehow I’ve been in recruiting for over 15 years, which sounds simultaneously insane and impossible to me, but that’s what happens with time – you never realize how quickly it goes until it’s gone.

And 15 years in, I know now that my self-perception is the one thing any recruiter – myself included – can control. It’s easy to kowtow to the opinions and desires of other people, but at the end of the day, you only have yourself – no matter how people your job touches each and every day.

The Come Up.

tumblr_m9bv0h82fM1refayoo1_500For the first few years of my career, though – OK, let’s say the first five to seven years out, which is a lifetime in a recruiting career, really, I had one singular mission, one raison d’etre which trumped all others. Simply, I was going to rule the world of recruiting.

Titles meant a lot to me, even though the prestige of a Manager or Director title somehow seemed worth the trade off for the fact I didn’t even own the title to my own car.

I was getting paid, of course, and paid well, but hell – like many of you, I got hooked early on the endless supply of seemingly exorbitant commissions a good recruiter can pull down working for a third party agency.

Those fees are like a drug, and I’ll blame the staffing universe for being the enabler in my original goal of making enough to make it rain. Anyone who tells me that there’s nothing addicting about the high stakes, high reward world of agency work has either never actually spent any time in third party recruitment, or else is nodding out from the smack.

For me, though, good as the cash was, the prestige was even better; I got off on being known, and “building my empire,” whatever the hell that actually means – I never even knew what that was, but I knew it sounded bad ass, and made me feel like I was actually in control instead of being an intermediary in soft handing candidates, on one hand, and taking care of business on the other – and conducting that business with clients in that unrelenting, Type A, entitled way that is a rookie mistake for so many recruiters out there.

The Player’s Ball: Raising A Recruiting Chalice.

56095738_15d318e0141Experience teaches you, however, that those recruiters with that same heavy handed approach are a dime a dozen – it’s when you actually care about your craft enough to continually refine it, and admit to not knowing what you don’t know, that you inevitably stand out and, as the cliche goes, do well by doing right by everyone involved in every hiring process you ever touch.

And so far, I think I’m doing pretty well, but even after 15 years, I know I’ve still got a lot to learn about recruiting – and always will, if I’m doing it right.

I really care about becoming the best recruiter I can be, and continually focusing on professional development and personal improvement, because I’ll be the first to admit, I’m kind of obsessed with recruiting.

Not to sound like a nerd or anything, but this is genuinely my calling – and I know that this, for whatever reason, is what I was destined to be doing for a living. First off, there’s the fact that I get to talk to people all day, which, as an extrovert, is kind of my thing. Second, recruiting is a dish best served organized, and I’m about as anal about organization as anyone I know. Finally, I’m hypercompetitive – every fiber of my core needs some carrot to stay motivated.

Whether that’s a new project to work on, a new tool to tinker with or a new position to close, I relish knowing that every req is a race to find a better candidate faster than anyone else out there. I mean, I love recruiting metrics – how else would you keep score and know how much ass you’re kicking without analytics backing you up? As an aside, this need to win, win, win no matter what probably also explains my aversion to the ‘sport’ of jogging. WTF? Who are you keeping score against?

When people say, “it’s about competing with yourself,” I always think that phrase is intrinsically a load of bullshit, because if you’re competing at the highest level, you’ve got nothing left to prove to yourself. But there are always other people who just might be better than you – which is why, 15 years in, winning still hasn’t gotten old. Unlike me, of course.

5 Lessons Learned From A Life In Recruiting

kanyeSo, looking back at a career that’s a decade and a half in seems like a daunting task – at least, it did at first glance. But what I found is that the cool thing about experience is that it also leads to having at least a little advice worth imparting to my counterparts and colleagues out there.

Maybe you’re a rookie recruiter just starting to hit your stride, and realize that this random gig is going to become your career (and are excited about it).  Maybe you’ve got more experience than me, which is great, because you can feel for what I’m going through at this point in my professional development as I round the 15 year mark and my 40th birthday.

All I know for sure is that these little tips have made a big difference – and gotten me through both the good days and the ones that you need three shots of whisky just to make it through. Hell, we’ve all had them.

1. Find a Mentor.

1016639-dr-dre-eminem-grammy-2011-show-617-409Every time I meet a new recruiter or someone figuring out their way in the industry, I’m drawn like a moth to a flame. I can’t help it. I love seeing someone have that “a-ha” moment, where all the darkness illuminates right in front of them.

I could not possibly have been any luckier the way I came into the industry, getting hired by someone who was willing to take a chance on me. That same person became my career mentor, and I soaked in everything he was saying.

And while he showed me the proverbial nuts and bolts of recruiting and staffing, he did something that was even more valuable: he provided an open forum for debate.

We could go back and forth around the merits of doing something this way or that, but every option was on the table as long as you could back it up with why and where the value was. In full disclosure, he dressed me down a few times when it was warranted, thankfully. After all I was a 25-year-old kid who was completely winging my ass off in this new career I fell into.

Get out and find a mentor. I got lucky and happened into one, but I’d encourage you to step up and ask someone if they can mentor you. It says a great deal about your character when you seek out advice and the input of colleagues.

It’s a fortunate thing to have someone who, while you might not work with them every day 5 years from now, will provide you with unbiased insight and viewpoints, and will be your sensei for making the tough calls in your career. Hands down, this is the single best thing I’ve ever done in my career. I thank him as often as I can, even though we might only see each other 1-2 times a year.

2. Success > Failure.

tumblr_ngosw6GyNh1tmh7cto1_1280It’s easy as a recruiter to get downright belligerent when you don’t lock up the “sure thing” candidate you had locked in on. And so it is again with the next one, and so forth, until you are at the bar on Friday at 3pm sucking down Alabama Slammers to forget the pain. But those positions still need to be filled on Monday anyway.

Instead, I encourage you to focus on the careers you helped launch or blossom because of your ability to spot and secure the match. Why?

Because the good hires and the ongoing benefits those provide last a lot longer than the sting of someone who turned you down because there was a foosball table in the office at the other company.

The people you hire and build strong relationships with will be your referral chain for years to come, and the success they have in their career will cause you to smile just a little, I promise.

We just lost someone after 8 years whom I/we had taken a big leap of faith on hiring out of school. She’s off to do some amazing work out west, and I couldn’t be happier for her. Sure, it creates more work for me, but I like to think I had a big hand in jumpstarting her career. And I doubled down anyway, since I hired her brother too. But those situations will always win out over the ones that don’t end with the miracle hire.

I’m not saying don’t learn from your mistakes, but I am saying “don’t fester” on the crap. Sometimes it’s healing enough to relish in the fact that today you didn’t have to use your AK. (And people say rap doesn’t promote good messages?)

3. Shut Up And Listen

maxresdefault (5)This piece of advice is probably just as simple as it sounds.

Stop your ranting and complaining, your nay saying and tune out your general hater-at-large persona. Listen to what others are saying.

Whether that’s in a meeting in a boardroom or when you have a candidate on the phone, just…shut…up and listen to what’s being said. So much of what is said that matters doesn’t come from your own mouth.

This is blasphemy to most recruiters, I know, but y’all best recognize that your candidates will appreciate someone listening to their story, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to realize how many of the answers to your questions (and concerns) come to light when you are actively engaged in listening.

You hear me?

4. Learn Your Craft & Get Involved

biggie-studio-thumbDon’t be afraid of technology. Embrace the technology available to you, and be open to new ways of finding out how to kick ass on your next req. The balance here is being able to call bullshit on the noise and know what shiny new tool is fluff to be filtered out.

Find what works for you and ride those out, but always assume at least one of your tools will be obsolete in the next 1-2 years, and keep assessing what’s out there so you can stay ahead.

While you are at it, get out of your office. Get involved in Meetups, local recruiting organizations and also do some general networking with people that make sense for you.

The rapport you build with your peers, fellow recruiters and the talent you are seeking is by being present. The vast majority of recruiters aren’t doing that, and that’s the differentiator for you.

You get to know people on a personal level and thereby reduce the “transactional” feel of your interactions. What’s even better is that you build trust. Unless of course you are just some type of troll or a general jerk, then just stay home and surf Monster, since it’s almost over for your kind anyway. Better stop posting and start praying. For real.

5. Find A Balance

Most of us come into this profession young, spunky, equipped with ample energy to focus entirely on work. Which makes you look like a human dynamo…until you inevitably burnout.

All the late nights, the endless weekends in the office, the Red Bull and the extra strength mocha-frappa-whatever adds up to…another fresh set of jobs to fill and people to find on Monday.

When/if you get married and have kids, you’ll be forced to put things into perspective. How great would it be if you can do that before the universe forces your hand?

Don’t be the recruiter who is always “on”. Step out of the suit every now and again. Find a purpose or motivation for yourself outside of the office. Maybe that’s yoga, photography, sports, or something else important, like family. Recruiting like any profession you love will always be there, and it an fills an important niche in your life. But this road ends, and when it does, you need to have other things you can love just as hard.

But what do I know? I’m just a 40-year-old guy showing his age. Fortunately, I grew up in an age of music where you were guaranteed to have a song that spoke to your life at that very moment.

This time is no exception, thanks to 3 guys from Brooklyn (R.I.P. MCA)…

“Well everybody rapping like it’s a commercial
Actin’ like life is a big commercial
So this is what I’ve got to say to you all
Be true to yourself and you will never fall.”

– Beastie Boys, Pass The Mic

Word. Now, that’s old school. And, I’m quickly discovering for myself, there’s nothing wrong with that.

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Born Into This: Recruiting Isn’t Always What You Think.

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”

― Charles Bukowski

charles-bukowski-800Like so many other recruiters, I started out my career in talent acquisition working a desk at an agency. While I’m probably a little biased, I’ll be frank: personally, I believe that paying your dues matters in recruiting, and there’s no better place for anyone to start than sitting in a bullpen, dialing for dollars.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m unlikely to ever go back to third party recruitment, which, while great experience, isn’t always necessary a great experience.

Agency recruiting is one of the most challenging and often least rewarding jobs out there, a constant struggle that tears at your soul, scars your psyche and, ultimately, leaves you with a thicker skin and a new appreciation for how lucky you are to have a job, and what a pain in the ass finding one actually is. I won’t deny the fact that, if you’re not careful, agency recruiting can suck the life out of you.

There’s no work-life balance in the everyday grind of agency life, from the compulsive inbox checking every few minutes to see if that candidate ever got back to you, or needing to keep your cell phone tethered to  you at all times in the off chance a potential candidate or client happens to return your calls. You constantly have to keep everyone happy enough to make that next deal, close that next candidate, get shit done. In staffing, Make It Happen is more than a mantra – it’s a maxim that determines whether or not you’re going to have any modicum of success whatsoever.

The mentality of agency recruiting, of course, is something of a logical contradiction: you sacrifice your personal life so that you can make enough money to actually enjoy life, even though no matter how many placements you make, almost every agency recruiter remains mostly miserable, at least from my own observations. YOLO, you know – you only live once. Bullshit.

When you’re a recruiter, every failure is like dying some small death, and every new requisition is like getting a new life – and the chance to save someone else’s in the process. If that sounds a bit naive, or idealistic, let me explain where I’m coming from. I want to tell you a story. It’s not a great one – but it’s my story, and, I think, one that many of you can likely relate to, too.

Once Upon A Time…

71h0V356yTL._SX355_When I first got into recruiting, it was with a boutique agency – only a few recruiters and a handful of clients – from an operation out of Tempe, Arizona.

Like most first time recruiters, I had no real clue what I was signing up for – I just happened to be down on my luck and down to the last few bucks in my pocket, which meant that no matter what work I could find, I had to make it work – that is, if I wanted to continue to eat and be able to have a roof over my head.

Or, more importantly, somewhere with central AC, which, if you’re in Phoenix, pretty much lies at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy.

I had never recruited before and didn’t really know what it entailed when I reported to work for my first day on the job, but I knew that with my work ethic and drive (it’s easy to stay motivated when you’re one missed paycheck away from insolvency), I could make it work. Hell, I had to.

Which is why, when my buddy brought me on board and gave me my first opportunity – he sold me to his bosses as a great “people person,” (whatever the hell that means) – I knew that somehow, I had to make that fairly blatant myth into my new reality. I am many things, but people person hadn’t, to that point, been high on my list of personal attributes.

Not only that, but I was supposed to recruit IT people, and my only experience with computers had been occasionally using a word processor; at the time, I was only slightly aware of how e-mail even worked, much less how to use it as a core career competency. But, I’d bullshitted myself into getting the gig by using a bunch of fancy words and, channeling Glengarry Glenn Ross, went on in the interview about how I wasn’t only great at sales, but I was an f-ing closer (and then took a sip of coffee for effect). In retrospect, I’m pretty sure I got the role because I cost next to nothing – in the economics of agency recruiting, cheap is always an asset.

They showed me to my desk, which had nothing more than an old desktop and a battered phone, and handed me a piece of paper that would be the job description to my first ever requisition. Sink or swim, you know? I didn’t get any real training or anything, and if I was going to learn, I was going to learn the hard way.

I have to admit to being the slightest bit discouraged when I read the JD and thought that someone had either misspelled or completely made up the word telephony, which wasn’t great, considering this was part of the title for the position I was searching for. I knew off the bat that this wasn’t going to be as easy as I had thought when my friend talked me into taking the interview.

After about two weeks on the job, I had received a little bit of “training,” which was really more or less a crash course in what the agency did and what the expectations for recruiters was if they wanted to keep their desk, along with a few tips and tricks that were supposed to prepare me for success.

I was told, for example, that all candidates lie; that I had to ‘control the candidate‘ if I wanted to close them, that I was the person who was responsible for the search, and the boss of the candidates – who needed me more than I needed them. This, of course, is bullshit, but I didn’t know it at the time.

I was also shown how to do a few basic searches on Monster, and within the agency’s own database, which makes those ATS and HCM systems everyone bitches about today look like cutting edge technology, at least by comparison. Of course, it wasn’t only the system that confused me, it was the suggested search terms I was inputting: meaningless acronyms like DBA, SA or whatever IT BS was on the JD. I admit, a few weeks into my nascent recruiting career, I was ready to call it quits; I was terrified.

But, I was also a college dropout who was more or less out of options. So, I sucked it up, swallowed my pride, collected my salary and did what I had to do to survive my 9-5 (which, I quickly learned, was anything but). Agency recruiting was what I had to do, and I did it as well as I possibly could – after all, I had no other options but to roll up my sleeves and try to get the placements that would get me paid. At least enough so I could move on and do something I actually enjoyed, once I had built up a little safety net and could afford to stop recruiting once and for all.

Which brings me to Johnny. His name and details have been changed to protect the innocent – although, since I’m the guilty one, it’s really just because I want him to be blissfully ignorant of what happened that first search I ever worked, all those years ago.

Here’s Johnny!

horror_2382351bJohnny was one of those candidates you can see a little of yourself in, only as much as we had in common, Johnny was a whole hell of a lot smarter than me. He was, like me, young and struggling to get by, but when it came to computers, the dude knew his stuff better than almost anyone.

Like me, he had decided that college was probably not for him, and higher education was so far removed from reality that I might as well signed a lifetime contract to join the Sea Org and sail off into the Scientology sunset.

Johnny, after all, was a geek in a time where the only programming education a developer could get was either through books or hands on application, if you could even get access to the computers and programs you needed, being somewhat more sparse in those days. The top computer science programs at the top universities cost way too much, and while you might walk away knowing how to program some punch cards, you got back very little from that big ticket institutional investment.

So, Johnny was like most programmers at the time – an autodidactic professional whose learning was limited to the manuals and instruction materials he voraciously consumed. He learned well, because tell you this: Johnny was one kick ass programmer. Kid was good.

But, as I looked at his resume that first time, I had no idea who the hell he was, just that there were a ton of keywords on there they told me to look for, so I picked up the phone and gave him a call (told you this was a while ago). I did as I was told, and stayed on script during that first interaction, but at some point, realized that I liked improv a whole hell of a lot more than acting – particularly when the screenwriting was so shitty.

So, we chatted about stuff far beyond the confines of the script I was told to stick to – about why he was looking for a job, what he wanted in a career, what salary he was looking for, sure, but more importantly, what was actually going on in his life. He opened up to me, which few candidates do – I’m assuming it’s because, then as now, I was willing to actually listen.

And what I heard was that his lack of degree, his relative inexperience and extremely advanced programming skill set (he was far more creative than almost any coder in those days) had kept him from being considered for pretty much every job he really wanted, which is why he had been relegated to roles that were far beneath his abilities, and, as he knew, what he was really worth on the market. I listened to him over those first few calls, and when I listened to what was going on with him – his pain points, as we call them – I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of sympathy for those pain points, because I knew them well. Hell, I was living it, after all.

Of course, the good news for Johnny was that he was the perfect fit for a company that was looking for someone just like him. They would prefer the candidate had a degree, but didn’t have the cash for someone with both the education and experience to come in at the price tag they were willing to pony up. You know, champagne tastes on a Bud Lite budget – a phenomenon that any agency recruiter, I’m sure, is all too familiar with.

The owner of my agency had warned me, when he gave me the requisition, that this position had been open for months now, and they’d had no success or even progress in the intervening weeks. He didn’t expect me to do any better, or even make a placement; instead, it was the type of character building exercise designed to help the untested recruiter “cut his teeth,” which is agency-speak for new hire hazing. And, after a few days, I realized that this baptism by fire was less a character builder and more of a chance to see how I’d respond to inevitable failure.

To make the search sound a little more palatable, I was told that in this case, they’d actually give me the commission without the normal 90 day wait, since the odds were so daunting they were willing to pay me up-front as soon as the offer letter got signed. Which, likely, it never would.

But still – to a hungry new recruiter, that was all the incentive I really needed to accept this daunting challenge.

Off To the Recruiting Races.

9ec62a28cbf0fa8a2df047a582a8ee35.500x399x1My first call on this search wasn’t to a candidate – it was to the hiring manager at the client company. I asked if he could spare 20 minutes of his time to look through the requirements, and whether or not he’d be willing to put aside the degree requirements and how he might be able to verify the candidate knew the role’s technical requirements simply by asking the right questions during the screening process.

He agreed – after all, it wasn’t going to hurt. I think he agreed mostly because I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that this was my first shot as a recruiter, and it would really help me out if he let me widen the funnel a little so I could not come out of the gates looking like a failure.

Sure, kid, he said, and I think I remember hearing him chuckle when he set down the phone. But I was off to the recruiting races.

At this point, I had only had a few conversations with Johnny, but I remembered him and that he might be a fit for the position since I had gotten the education requirement waived, I needed the placement and payday so I could eat, and more or less begged the hiring manager to give Johnny a shot at an interview – to which, after reviewing his resume, he begrudgingly agreed. And, what do you know? Johnny went in and absolutely killed it.

The whole team fell in love with him, and the feedback I got was that they were overwhelmingly impressed not only with his demeanor, but also his technical acumen and programming chops. Which, to this day, is a pretty killer (and rare) combo when recruiting tech talent. Johnny, in interviewing, even solved an issue that had befuddled the company’s own team for days – pretty good proof of concept that he was the right fit for the role. So much so, in fact, he had hardly finished interviewing when the hiring manager called me to tell me that he wanted to extend an offer and onboard Johnny as soon as possible.

I was, of course, elated. I could taste that steak dinner and stuffed baked potato I was going to have for the first time in months as part of my celebratory feast once I got my first big paycheck – and in thinking of myself and my needs first, committed a rookie recruiting mistake. This dude was my golden ticket, and I wanted to cash it in, badly.

Johnny Come Lately.

Ok-now-i-get-itI called the candidate up immediately after hanging up with the hiring manager to convey the great news – he was in, he was going to get an offer that would bump up his comp by a full 10k, and they wanted him there as soon as he possibly could.

I finished what I thought was great news, and waited for a similarly excited response from him, only to be greeted by some sort of sonorous silence on the other end of the line.

I mean, nothing. I thought, for a few minutes, I had dropped the call or lost the signal, or something.

Then, it happened. I heard it. Johnny was actually crying. I could hear sobbing, choking, him trying to speak but unable to say anything other than some muffled tears on the other end. I didn’t know what the hell to make of this, since I expected a response that would be something like the scream of a first round NFL draft pick who gets his ticket out of the green room punched, but silence, then tears? That I wasn’t expecting.

I mean, at this point, Johnny and I had formed something of a relationship, and as someone with some experience in bad breakups, assumed this was the prelude to him, like all my failed relationships, starting to navigate our unbreakable bond right into the rocks. I could sense that steak being sent to another table, and trading in that potato for some instant Ore-Ida, if I could afford it once I’d gotten over another bad break up that would leave me close to punery.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, I heard a shout ring out, one that was practically shaking with emotion, and then, like some victorious warrior, he finally spoke (screamed, more accurately): DUDE, I FREAKING LOVE YOU!

This, normally, would have concerned me in any other situation, but given the circumstances, I found myself equally overwhelmed. I realized, in that moment, I had changed a life. It sunk in fast, that not only did I win, but he did, too. I had never thought of Johnny, really, as anything more than the paycheck that I could finally cash out so I could walk out of recruiting and into a career I actually cared about. But once I had found that gold buried under the X on the treasure map I had been chasing, I realized where the true gold really was in recruiting.

This single moment defined me, and, largely, my life ever since – both as a recruiter, and as a person. This was the only time I ever asked a candidate, once he accepted his offer, if he wanted to join me for that steak dinner to celebrate. After all we both deserved it. He said yes, and guess what? Two guys who a few days before were worried about making ends meet ended up arguing over who was picking up the check. Seeing as how he had just scored a pretty high paying gig, I let him pay. Good times.

Recruiting Reality Check.

tumblr_lwi5u8APOZ1qjrs8mo1_400On the whole, as recruiters, we make good money. In fact, it’s a motivation for most of us, but the thing is, recruiting is so much more than dollars and cents. We have the ability to change lives, and are one of the few professions with the ability to influence others so profoundly.

I often speak to this when I present about recruiting; after all, I think it’s important to focus on the truths that define what we do instead of simply spewing off metrics from a PowerPoint, like so many presenters out there on the conference circuit.

So here it is: remember that time in your life when you looked for a job (we all had to do it at least once). Was that fun for you? How was working with the recruiter? Did the process fulfill your expectations? Was the position you accepted the one that was actually advertised? See what I’m doing here?

Studies show that the three biggest life stressors for anyone are getting married, buying a house, and looking for a job. And we’re all arbiters of the third, which is a responsibility none of us should ever take lightly. Sure, some people are out there with cushy roles looking for even more money or an even fancier title, but most candidates we talk to? They’re just looking for work. They need help, and we need to give it to them.

Do yourself a favor, and stop worrying about money. That will come, if you’re a halfway decent recruiter, but it will come because you weren’t afraid to be a champion to those good candidates who need some good to come in their life. If you don’t have anything for them, fine – but just keep a folder of the ones in your industry worth keeping in touch with, and do it.

Few recruiters do this, and trust me, these good faith efforts will soon be noticed – and rewarded – simply because no reward is expected other than your intrinsic understanding that helping out candidates in need is the right thing to do.

The Moral of the Story.

and_they_lived_happily_ever_after_2__1I know not a lot of you out there will listen to what I’m saying since it’s not a ‘how to’ on making a placement, but if you do make any sort of change, then I’m paying it forward, which is my whole M.O. as a recruiter, and has been since that first offer I made to Johnny all those years ago.

You know the old Groucho Marx joke about the guy who goes to see a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy – he thinks he’s a chicken!” And the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but hell, I need the eggs.”

I guess that pretty much sums up how I feel about recruiting. Candidates and hiring managers are, as a rule, irrational, crazy and absurd, but we keep going through it, because, well, most of us need the eggs.

This is a symbiotic relationship, of course – candidates, hiring managers and recruiters all need each other, period. My whole career has been all about balancing and reconciling two often disparate sets of needs, and when it works, bringing together the right candidate with the right company.

And when it works, there’s no better feeling in the world. I’ve experienced this enough times to confidently say, after a career in recruiting, that I’ve had a pretty great professional life doing this – it’s what I love, and it’s what drives me to keep coming back even after all these years.

I admit I’m no Top Recruiter or any of that bullshit we’re starting to layer on in our industry. I’m just a guy who’s still trying to make it in this world – and earn myself an occasional steak dinner in the process.

We all have stories. This one was mine. But I’d like to hear yours, too. Because as much abuse as we take as recruiters, all of us have reasons for sticking around and sticking it out. And it’s when we remember why we do this that filling reqs, and fulfilling our passion for recruiting, becomes less about calling for hires and more about a higher calling. Which is all any of us can hope for, really.

Derek ZellerAbout the Author: Derek Zeller draws from over 16 years in the recruiting industry. The last 11 years he has been involved with federal government recruiting specializing within the cleared Intel space under OFCCP compliance. Currently, he is a Senior Sourcing Recruiter at Microsoft via Search Wizards.

He has experience with both third party agency and in-house recruiting for multiple disciplines and technologies. Using out-of-the-box tactics and strategies to identify and engage talent, he has had significant experience in building referral and social media programs, the implementation of Applicant Tracking Systems, technology evaluation, and the development of sourcing, employment branding, military and college recruiting strategies.

You can read his thoughts on RecruitingDaily.com or Recruitingblogs.com or his own site Derdiver.com.  Derek currently lives in the DC area.

 

Freebie Friday Software Review : Qandidate

Still using spreadsheets and email systems to track candidates? Really?!?!  Allow me to introduce you to Qandidate.

 

Tool:                           Qandidate (Beta)Qandidate Webshop Features

Headquarters:        Westblaak 175 Rotterdam, Netherlands

What it does:          Qandidate.com is the new and free recruitment system for those companies looking to improve and maximize their recruitment efforts and activities. Designed for in-house recruiters, Qandidate.com is a entry level ATS for those who are still using old school spreadsheets or email as a candidate repository.

The Sizzle:              Qandidate.com offers an easy full-lifecycle recruiting process. All for free. Parent company VONQ allows for a “Webshop.” The Webshop engine searches the Internet for the best “bang for your buck” and claims to create a social media campaign that will give you the best prices for the most traffic. And again – It’s Free!!!

 

58011059The Drizzle:              Missing elements current recruiters have gotten used to for example:

  • No way to upload resumes
  • No Parsing Capabilities
  • No way to Export Data
  • No Workflow
  • Cultural / Language barriers US audience would have to get used to

Rating:                      (2/5)

 

I am quite skeptical about free recruiting platforms. But, when I saw on the Qandidate.com website, it says, “Free Forever”, I had to check it out. Another reason I wanted to look at it was because one of the funding partners is a respected name in recruiting, Randstad. And the girly side of me liked the color of the website and the cute “mascot.”

Logo Randstad PHOTO KOEN SUYKLinda Galipeau, Executive Board member at Randstad, was quoted as saying, “With this investment we are able to anticipate on two emerging trends in the recruitment marketing space. On the one hand we see that large companies show a stronger demand for more sophisticated recruitment marketing campaigns and techniques to find and attract the best talent, while on the other hand we see the demand from SMEs for a free recruitment functionality with an intelligent in-system media webshop to create and activate their online recruitment campaigns.”

Here is my software review.

Qandidate.com reminds me of the fisrt generation of applicant tracking systems. “Back in the day,” if you were not able to fork over 10K for a recruiting system, there were no alternatives. I feel like Qandidate.com is a good first start, but these days’ recruiters need so much more information and mobility. Taken directly from their website, “Qandidate.com is the free recruitment system created by recruiters for recruiters. Clear overviews, easy to use and without features you wouldn’t use anyway.”

This product will work for non-recruiters challenged with filling open positions. For senior recruiters you will find that they took out too many features. I don’t know what features they do not think I use, (see my article “The Applicant Tracking System Isn’t the Problem. Recruiters Are.) We do use those features! We do report on progress. We do need to track where a candidate is in the workflow process.

Qandidate.com can provide:

  • Current Open Positions List
  • Details Job Opening Information
  • Application Form

This product may work for a HR generalist who only has 5 openings per year or a company owner just looking for a fast and dirty way to post open positions. While t I can’t do is  recommend Qandidate for a full blown recruiting team.  There are just too many features missing that have become key to corporate recruiting.  But I don’t think they want to be the solution for a full-blown recruiting team.

The good news is that it is free and in beta. Developers are working quite hard in building out this product so this is not the final. Another cool thing is that they are getting insight from recruiters to see what changes they may need to add.  I will keep you updated as Qandidate has more releases!

I would love to tell you about the Webshop feature and campaigns it creates but I could never get it to work on Chrome.  I guess you get what you pay for. (sigh)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swi2ndP09us

Jackye Clayton Contributing Editor Recruiting ToolsAbout the Author: Jackye Clayton is recognized as a people expert who puts the Human in Human Resources. An international trainer, she has travelled worldwide sharing her unique gifts in sourcing, recruiting and coaching. She offers various dynamic presentations on numerous topics related to leadership development, inclusionary culture development, team building and more.Her in-depth experience in working with top Fortune and Inc 500 clients and their employees has allowed her to create customized programs to coach, train and recruit top talent and inspire others to greatness.

Follow Jackye on Twitter @JackyeClayton or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Shark Tank Meets HR Tech: Testing the Recruiting Waters at iTalent.

italentLast week I attended the 2015 HRO Today Forum in the heart of historic Philadelphia, PA – birthplace of the American Revolution, cheese steaks and obnoxious sports fans – and came away from a pretty jammed packed itinerary full of meetings, presentations and conversations with quite a few ideas, observations and insights in mind (such as the repercussions of the growing contingent workforce).
But I’m going to start off where the actual HRO Today Forum agenda ended: with the 2015 North America iTalent competition recognizing innovative talent-focused technologies.

Sink or Swim: Shark Tank Meets HR Tech

The iTalent competition followed a familiar format that’s becoming increasingly prevalent, following in the footsteps of TechCrunch Disrupt’s startup competition, the “demo day” that inevitably comes at the end of every technology accelerator process and TV’s Shark Tank (or Dragon’s Den, for my Canadian friends), to name just a few examples among the infinite other iterations out there.

You know the type: presenters representing each of the technologies selected as finalists were given a tight time frame to pitch a product to a judging panel comprised of a cross section of industry experts. For iTalent, the six vendors selected for the finals in Philly were given a scant seven minutes each to present the company, product and market positioning to the judges, who, along with an interactive vote from the audience, chose a winner by allocating shares based on which finalist they would be the most likely to actually invest in.

In the case of this panel, which included Bill Filip, Managing Director and Founder of private equity firm Delancey Street Partners, Bill Boorman, who advises VC-backed HR Tech accelerator Talent Tech Labs and Mir Ali, VP of Global Technology Solutions for FutureStep, a Korn/Ferry Company, this investment scenario wasn’t entirely theoretical.

Similarly, the audience, which consisted primarily of CHROs at some of the world’s biggest brands and the senior leaders of some of the world’s biggest HR outsourcing firms, reflected the cross-section of decision makers ultimately responsible for buying and implementing the kinds of talent technologies featured among the iTalent finalists.

The idea is that while everyone regularly sees dozens of product demonstrations from a litany of potential platform providers and software startups focused on talent technology, and spend an inordinate amount of time listening to various vendors pitch companies on why they should use their product, iTalent an opportunity for the HR and recruiting leaders attending the HRO Today Forum to hear these same vendors present on bigger business issues.

By focusing on why each respective vendor felt their technology would create both disruption and a viable, successful business and walking through such issues as revenue generation models, market positioning, competitive landscape and industry trends, to name a few recurring talking points, the end users and buyers in the room heard a completely different pitch – and perspective – than the type tailored to decision makers during the typical purchasing process.

On The Clock: How iTalent Reflected Trends in Talent Acquisition

2015-05-15_05-40-01The competition’s master of ceremonies was Matt Charney, partner and Executive Editor for the Recruiting Daily properties (like the one you’re reading now).

During the competition, Charney likened the iTalent competition to attempting to recreate the pitch that vendors typically give when trying to raise institutional investments or present to potential venture capitalists.

While the format of iTalent indeed emulated competitions normally associated with start-ups, this was clearly not a start-up competition, but rather, a way for some of the usual suspects in the space to highlight new product innovation.

Other than one finalist founded in 2014, the other vendors presenting were all established players who have been at it for a while, and have already raised millions of dollars and have already built the associated revenue streams required to help those investors realize the requisite ROI, albeit to varying degrees of success.

The only rule for entrants was that they couldn’t be publically traded and were still taking on external investments, and it was telling that the finalists was made up of many bigger players who technically met this criteria, but who have been in the space for long enough that this purported showcase for what’s new and what’s next in talent technology was ultimately rounding up the usual suspects, as it were.

The slate of iTalent finalists in the competition did, however, reflect several of the most prominent trends we’re seeing within the talent acquisition segment of the HR Technology industry: employer branding, recruitment marketing, recruiting analytics and “big data” plays, usability enhancements for consumer grade experiences, and integrations (or full product builds) with the Salesforce.com platform.

Breaking Down iTalent: 6 Talent Technologies Worth Watching

The finalists picked to present in this fourth iteration of the annual North America iTalent competition were:

Here are my quick thoughts on each of these vendors and my overall iTalent impressions.

Editor’s Note: I have added my own thoughts on each of the finalists, but wanted to feature the analysis George originally published on #HRWins since it’s far better and more informed than mine – not to mention he did a better job covering this than I ever could, as you can see. Dude knows his stuff, but wanted to let you know why the occasional, obnoxious italics are there. – MC

1. Universum Global (2015 iTalent Winner)

2seRJypz_400x400This year’s winner was Universum Global, who showcased their new Iris product, which is set for a general release after a fairly lengthy time spent in beta. Universum, of course, is the antithesis of a startup, having an established global business surveying students and new graduates about their job and career preferences since 1988.

That’s 27 years, which is pretty much an epoch in HR Tech terms. But with that history, they have also collected more data on student preferences and employer brands than anyone else I’m aware of.

Universum has built a successful employer branding and consulting practice based on this deep research, but Iris marks their first foray from services into a pure product play.

Iris is a stand alone SaaS solution to track candidate behavior and employer brand engagement for each respective customer, who will purchase access to the platform on a subscription basis. It’s more or less a social listening and monitoring tool that has been specifically tailored for the HR and Talent industries.

Matt Charney: I like this product because it’s marketing software in HR Tech clothing. For companies spending so much time and effort on social recruiting, online engagement and building their employer brand, it’s a way to actually monitor, measure and optimize that investment.

But unlike more sophisticated consumer marketing platforms with similar functionality, it’s really intuitive, clean and user friendly – and when you’re talking about HR and social, idiot proof is everything. I think that this sort of tool is long overdue and that it won shows me that there’s a clear market need, too. I actually joined Universum’s advisory board for this product after the competition concluded, so I can confidently assert the best is yet to come. 

2. Greenhouse (2015 iTalent Competition Runner Up – Audience Award Winner)

greenhouselogoGreenhouse is a rapidly growing applicant tracking system that launched in 2012 with a promise to help companies find a better way to hire.

With an intuitive and consumerized interface, focus on leveraging collaboration and predictive analytics throughout its feature set and growing point solution integrations, Greenhouse has created an ATS whose candidate screening and selection process is driven by data – and leads hiring teams to better hiring decisions.

Greenhouse has achieved very rapid growth since emerging onto the scene as a new HR technology vendor, and their client list speaks to the fact that “high growth” is a defining characteristic for both the company and its customers.

Now, “high growth” is a buzzword that the market likes to throw around as a euphemism for emerging companies in the SMB segment (small to medium sized businesses) that normally have fewer than 5,000 employees, but with Greenhouse, it’s more than just a market definition, but rather, a way of thinking.

Having raised more than $25 million in venture capital since launching in 2012, Greenhouse is no stranger to the VC pitch. During the Q&A session with the judges after his presentation, Greenhouse CEO Daniel Chiat emphasized going “upstream” with larger customers and the associated challenges of scaling the product interface to reflect the growing demand for adding more features, and changing needs of customers whose growth is every bit as impressive as Greenhouse’s.

Responding to a question from judge Elaine Orler, Chiat mentioned that Greenhouse will have to balance the promise of simplicity and speed made to existing customers that tend to be more driven by compliance and scale in larger companies. For companies that have tried this balancing act before Greenhouse, their execution was lacking, to say the least.

MC: I think the last thing the world needs is another ATS, but while I know how much recruiters love to hate these systems, almost everyone I’ve ever spoken with who actually uses or is considering switching to Greenhouse has nothing but stellar things to say about their experience.

I myself do a lot of candidate experience audits, and every time I’ve applied to jobs at organizations using Greenhouse (think: every hot brand in Silicon Valley), it’s so easy by comparison to traditional systems it’s night and day, really.

Taleo, Brassring, Kenexa, or any of the “recruiting” modules that are as crappy as the “integrated talent management systems” they’re tacked onto (looking at you, Workday and Cornerstone) should really be worried, because I’m pretty sure the knocks on the entire ATS category the traditional vendors created are selling points for Greenhouse and the other emerging players in this market.

That it won the audience vote indicates, to me, that they’ll have no problem selling into enterprise employers. Now, keeping them happy and renewing is another story, but their code base and feature set seem agile enough to scale and push updates quickly enough to meet the demands of the market.

2. SkillSurvey (Second Runner Up)

SkillSurvey-LogoSkillSurvey offers a cloud based suite of products designed to deliver data driven insights directly into the hiring process by injecting automation and science into the reference check process.

By administering reference checking much earlier in the hiring process than traditional providers, SkillSurvey is able to provide new insights and predictive analytics to help inform critical hiring decisions, while simultaneously generating a much more targeted pool of potential hires that’s already undergone pretty sophisticated algorithmic due diligence – meaning that it extends the utility of candidate pools by promising (and delivering) quality.

SkillSurvey launched in 2001, and have been aggressively extending their products in new directions ever since, particularly when it comes to developing the necessary capabilities to support high growth vertical markets like tech, healthcare and finance.

SkillSurvey’s presentation, delivered by Rob Bennett, was both crisp and on point. They have clearly been studying up on recruiters, recruiting organizations and the talent acquisition market, a deep understanding that was deeply obvious even during such a short presentation. Their product offerings are very interesting, and should prove useful for both direct employers and staffing firms alike.

MC: What I like about SkillSurvey is the fact that it’s basically helping get hiring manager buy-in by only presenting candidates that have enough predictive analytics and hard science backing up their candidacy to be way more compelling than the gut feeling that is the only thing most recruiters have to go off of.

I think reference checks are pretty worthless to do anything but limit liability, but this has the potential to actually make them more useful in hiring decisions instead of only checking a box after that decision has been made. Will be keeping my eyes on a company I had been ignoring because, well, reference checks are about as exciting as watching paint dry or sitting through a general session at a state SHRM conference. But this is interesting.

4. Jibe

logoJibe presented their newest positioning of their growing suite of products, which in its current form, is now a “candidate experience platform,” apparently. While the tag line is new, I couldn’t tell from the presentation, by CMO Ivan Casanova, if there were any actual new features supporting this direction.

Candidate experience is definitely a hot button issue in the world of recruiting, and one of the most discussed topics at every HRO Today Forum session I attended. Just look at any recruiting content or social stream and you’ll see they’re constantly abuzz about this talent trend. The success and visibility of the Candidate Experience Awards underscores this.

Jibe’s product suite include such features and functions as talent networks, an employee referral solution, automated job posting and distribution, recruiting analytics and, in a nod to their original product positioning, a mobile job apply tool.

Prior to the iTalent presentation, I’d noticed Jibe’s recent focus on the concept of “data driven recruiting,” but it wasn’t clear to me whether the new candidate experience positioning reflects another product pivot or a forthcoming shift in product focus.

Jibe presented their differentiating feature, or “secret sauce,” as they referred to it, as their ability to integrate directly with applicant tracking systems and improve the candidate experience by providing an additional front end layer for candidates to overcome many of the experience issues endemic to the back end of most ATS solutions.

MC: I’ve been helping Jibe with their Data Driven Recruiter campaign, so in the disclosure that they’re a customer, I think that they were really ahead of their time with mobile – and now that it’s that time, they need to stop repositioning what’s a really solid technology and focus more on their core competencies, which are all related to integrating with crappy systems to overcome their capability gaps.

The inability to apply for jobs on mobile devices or even see a mobile optimized career site is what’s causing most of the major issues making candidate experience a major issue, so wish they’d focus on doing what they do best and not commoditizing a category that their product has been working to solve for years, now.

5. Clinch

7nR0ylRu_400x400Clinch touted themselves as the “Hubspot for Recruiting,” and what they presented was a content marketing system and e-mail engine to drive the kind of candidate nurturing campaigns and targeted engagement that makes the comparison seem fairly obvious and potentially apropos.

I’m just not clear whether the analogy to Hubspot ends there, or extends to the kind of focus Hubspot has had on educating the B2B and B2C marketing communities inside and outside their interface on content marketing.

Also, it was not clear from the presentation from Shane Gray whether or not Clinch extends into CRM as Hubspot does with their sales platform.

Clinch was founded in 2014, is headquartered in Ireland, and seemed like an interesting new offer amidst the flurry of recruitment marketing tools and platforms we’ve seen get traction over the last few years.

MC: I hope they drop the Hubspot comparison, because I’m guessing from what little I’ve seen from Clinch that it’s both cheaper and easier to use than Hubspot, which is more or less proof that marketing can make your product seem way better than it is (which is why LinkedIn is a professional network, you know).

I first met the Clinch team at SXSWi, and know from that random encounter that if they keep paying attention to the consumer marketing solutions and bring back the cutting edge to an industry still talking about stuff like “the Cloud” or “mobile,” they’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of the hundreds of other players who show up at the HR Technology Conference and ignore the fact that this industry is the Flintstones while the rest of tech is the Jetsons.

One more note: the fact that they’re out of Dublin gives them a huge edge, since they’re down the street from the EMEA headquarters of every big Silicon Valley company (Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc.) but without the echo chamber of BS and insular thinking that’s as endemic to Sand Hill Road as it is to the HR Tech exhibition floor.

6. Talent Objects by Lumesse

kHo9XZoZLumesse presented the Talent Objects suite of products, a SaaS solution built on the Salesforce.com platform. The Talent Objects modules consist of Recruiting, Performance Management, Rewards, Succession Planning and Learning. This presentation, however, focused only on the recruiting capabilities of the product.

Alan Johnson, the head of marketing for Talent Objects, reinforced this suite of products was directly targeting the Salesforce.com customer base, leveraging their existing investment in the platform to extend the software’s capabilities into HR and recruiting.

The decision to develop on the Salesforce Platform is a strategic move with an interesting upside for the HR customer. I’ve written a lot about Salesforce and their moves in the HR Technology market; click here for my most recent thoughts on the implications of Salesforce in HR Tech.

MC: I want to like this product, and it’s really awesome compared to what’s on the market today, but the thing is, companies like Cornerstone OnDemand and Oracle HCM have already had a robust partnership within the Salesforce marketplace for years, and generated a significant portion of their revenue from under the table channel sales that rewards The Force with cash in exchange for winging them customers.

I can’t say that Lumesse, a fairly blase, traditional integrated HCM player, is doing anything other than actually putting all their cards into one integration and channel partner that’s not even close to the best tech in the CRM market.

But if you love your on-premise HCM so much you can’t get enough crappy tier-one ERPs, by all means, live the dream. Because if Salesforce thought that it could make a viable, stand-alone talent acquisition product that was worth building a business around, they wouldn’t be doing these kinds of partnerships, so something tells me that this exists because Salesforce didn’t want to waste time or resources on adding these capabilities in-house instead.

Click here for more from Larocque, Inc. and the #HRWins blog. To learn more about how you can get your product featured in the #HRWins, get in touch here.

bxw profile photo2About the Author: George LaRocque is recognized as one of the top global influencers in the area of B2B HR and workforce technology.  He has amassed more than 20 years in the field as a Recruiter, Talent Management professional, HR practitioner, HR Technology executive, analyst and consultant.

George is available as an advisor for those firms who understand that marketing and sales success requires a deep knowledge of the HR Buyer and substantial go-to-market experience with HR tech products and services.  George is the founder and conference chair of InfluenceHR. A marketing symposium for B2B HR technology vendors committed to a better understanding of their customer.

As Principal Analyst and Director of Go To Market Services for The Starr Conspiracy Intelligence Unit, he is focused on the HR Technology space and involved in some of the most comprehensive and current research on trends impacting HR and HR Technology.

For more from George, visit www.larocqueinc.com, follow him @GLarocque or connect with him on LinkedIn.

5 Steps to Selecting the Right Job Board

5 Steps to Selecting the Right Job Board

 Too many unqualified job applicants. Poor candidate pipeline. High cost-per-hire. Lack of employer brand awareness.  All of these are issue that recruiters and the like face daily.  We aren’t hanging paper tabs up and asking people to take a piece and call the number, right?  While some might find this amusing others don’t.

Sound familiar? Sixty-eight percent recruiters say they are dissatisfied with the  boards they are currently using to post open jobs and recruit talent to their organizations, based on a recent Glassdoor survey.

If this describes your talent acquisition temperament, it may be time for a change! Join Glassdoor and Recruiting Blogs for our upcoming live session “5 Steps to Selecting the Right Job Board,” where we’ll explore how to:

  • Define criticalboards needs vs. “nice-to-haves” using declarative statements
  • Create a vendor scorecard to help refine your  board choices
  • Research solutions by sourcing trials, freemium offers and case studies
  • Gather competitive intel and ROI metrics to justify your choices
  • Select the right  board then measure and track results
We’ll also examine the candidate engagement benefits of modern vs. traditional job boards and how they can help reduce both cost-per-hire and time-to-hire.