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What Lynda Means for the Future of LinkedIn

As anyone even tangentially involved in talent acquisition already knows, there’s perhaps no entity that we love to hate more than LinkedIn (even if we couldn’t live without it). For better or for worse, it’s become the standard go-to for talent sourcing, pipeline building, employer branding (or “talent branding” as anyone drinking the Kool-Aid they serve over at Talent Connect calls it for some weird reason), with 92% of recruiters reporting utilizing it as part of their search strategies in the past year.

That said, recent product releases such as Pulse, which has become a full-fledged publishing and content recommendation platform, and a heavy play to penetrate and push product to other functional areas like sales and marketing indicate show LinkedIn’s increasingly desperate attempts to move beyond recruiting, which its already more or less maxed out in terms of market share, and search for additional revenue streams and new features & functionalities that can drive upsells and renewals of current business while broadening its potential customer base.

What Lynda Means for the Future of LinkedInOfficial-company-logo-for-lynda.com_400x400px

That’s why it should have come as no surprise that yesterday, the Mountain View based entity announced it had spent $1.5 billion dollars in combined cash and stock for Lynda.com, an online learning company focused primarily on delivering on-demand video tutorials to teach software, business and creative skills. Founded in 1995, Lynda.com is a different type of acquisition from former plays like Bright and Identified, emerging players purchased primarily to build out the current LinkedIn product suite.

This acquisition of a mature company who has already raised an estimated $289 million in funding, seems to be an attempt, instead, for LinkedIn to finally shed its legacy “professional network” posturing and more or less make the move into becoming a full fledged HR service provider, moving past talent acquisition and into the L&D space.

This is a likely sign that the company will ultimately try to overhaul its offerings into an integrated talent management play designed to compete more with SAP, Oracle, Workday and Cornerstone OnDemand than its current competitors, primarily job boards and other talent network and sourcing point solutions. For the short term, the purchase of Lynda also provides a significant boost in available online content inventory for LinkedIn to drive traffic, increase ad costs and provide more real estate for selling their lucrative PPC packages.

The news of this acquisition should signal a wake up call to traditional HCM and enterprise HR technology vendors, given that they now have to compete against LinkedIn for an even bigger portion of their overall budget; LinkedIn, conversely, will now be able to offer CHROs and other HR leaders the chance to dedicate more money to an already extremely expensive solution now that it offers recruiting, recruitment marketing and professional development capabilities in one place, and can package those solutions within a single buy, a systems consolidation preferred by most enterprise employers.

While the official announcement revealed little about how Lynda and LinkedIn will ultimately integrate, with so much money invested in this acquisition, LinkedIn will likely get aggressive in rolling out this combined suite of services, particularly given the pressure shareholders are exerting on the company to finally move into the black and provide some return on the billions already reinvested in the company’s previous acquisitions and escalating R&D costs. One has to imagine that there’s a ton of attention being spent to things like UI, UX and, of course, pricing in order to complete this rollout.

In announcing the acquisition, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner stated that “LinkedIn’s fundamental value proposition has always been to connect people to opportunity.” Of course, largely, those people hold equity in the company and the opportunity involves increasing that stock price as well as their own personal net worth, but this lofty mission statement certainly sounds sexy.

And, frankly, while I applaud this sentiment and their ostensible efforts to use their platform and reach to provide education and skills training to their millions of members, I can only wonder how much, exactly, the opportunity cost will actually cost for those looking for the opportunity to better themselves.

Lynda, LinkedIn and the Opportunity Costs of Premium Products

linkedin-bad-and-unhappyLook, LinkedIn, if you really want to boost the global economy by shrinking the skills gap, as your PR and company copy suggest, then you’re going to have a hard time reconciling that altruistic mission with further charging for access to skills training on top of the LinkedIn Premium account fees they’re already paying.

This will not solve the skills gap problem, since those who can afford to shell out for this sort of solution aren’t likely the ones who most need access to the opportunity you’re trying to connect them with. This is a pure profit play, and shouldn’t be disguised as some sort of greater mission or vision – justifying that acquisition cost means that they’re going to have to make that money somewhere, and you can bet it’s going to be coming from the users looking for self-improvement.

Too bad they won’t offer basic finance or accounting course work from Lynda for free, because then most would realize they’re likely getting a raw deal on whatever LinkedIn ends up charging, particularly given the significant amount of free competitors out there, like Khan Academy, who, speaking of giving opportunity, are also non-profit organizations without the profit motives inherent to a public company like LI.

For anyone who might want to argue my point about LinkedIn and its questionable business tactics, I’d like to point out I’m perfectly aware that the “basic” LinkedIn account is free, but we all know that standard account functionality has become so limited that anyone serious about using this platform is almost forced to upgrade to a premium package.

The practice of giving end users just enough functionality to incentivize them to pay for more has been very successful for increasing LinkedIn’s cash flow, keeping shareholders happy and preventing their executive team from ever flying commercial or losing their yachts.

It’s this “freemium” bait and switch practice that leads me to wager that, soon, every LinkedIn user will have access to some sort of free and/or standard set of skills training courses, likely ones that are tailored suggestions based on end user profiles, for a limited amount of time – just long enough to complete the integration and get enough users to pony up for continued access of more than, let’s say, :30 minutes or one basic class a month – and those will likely be chosen with an eye to upsell users into a premium package.

No matter what I think, this announcement marks a significant change of direction for LinkedIn – and likely a smart business move to hedge their bets outside of talent acquisition and reliance on enterprise clients in order to go directly after the pocketbooks of LinkedIn users themselves. Time will tell whether or not it’s going to work, but one thing’s certain: it’s going to be fun to watch this all play out.

Perk Up: How To Make Employee Retention Pay Off

get-attachment.aspx_fullsizeThere are a bunch of sweeping stereotypes ascribed to Gen Y workers, and most of these generalities are generally completely false, which shouldn’t be a surprise. Workplace generational theory is more or less a myth which uses confirmation bias and pseudoscience to sell consulting services, and there’s little consistency in the many studies and surveys informing what amounts to institutionalized age discrimination.

That said, there is one truth that we hold self-evident about Gen Y workers that’s actually objective and irrefutable: compared to other cohorts, Gen Y employees are basically the migrant workers of the knowledge economy.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that the average tenure at a company today for all employees is about four and a half years, which means overall, workers are actually spending an average of one year longer in their jobs than they were 15 years ago.

This finding not only flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but suggests that the conversation about the “free agent” and contingency workforce of the future is largely a construct being driven by the emerging workforce rather than larger economic or labor market issues. Compared to all other cohorts, Gen Y has an average job tenure that clocks in at just under 3 years, the lowest duration of any age group at any time since the DoL started tracking this statistic.

This can be explained by a variety of factors; obviously, there’s increased competition for jobs at the entry level rungs of the corporate ladder, since unemployment for workers under 30 is approximately twice as high as 34-49 year olds, therefore creating a top and bottom heavy labor market whereby more opportunities exist for those Gen Y workers who actually have applicable professional experience.

Similarly, most entered the labor market during an economic downturn, meaning those who were able to find jobs likely did so out of situational necessity instead of long term career strategy, and are looking for the exits now that the market has shifted from talent surplus to demand.

But perhaps the most common reason, and one not often discussed, is the fact that Gen Y workers grew up in a post-pension era where the gold watch and retirement party effectively disappeared in favor of corporate restructuring, headcount reductions, offshoring and outsourcing.

For Gen Y, this Jack Welch era emphasis on profits over people were experienced first hand, as statistically speaking, most likely watched their parents, family friends and adult role models lose their jobs – and adjust their lifestyle – due to the dramatic shift in the employee-employer contract that happened to coincide with the two decades Gen Y workers came of age. Most grew up with no expectation of employer loyalty, and therefore, don’t think twice about reciprocating when the next best thing comes along, since there’s no guarantee of internal stability, growth or even security for the overwhelming majority of the workforce.

That said, for the few Gen Y workers willing to tough it out, the fact that many organizations are starting to put more focus and resources behind succession management and employee development than ever before should prove to be a boon, particularly as Boomer retirement rates accelerate and there’s more room at the top as the longest tenured executives and leaders exit the workforce.

I personally kind of regret hopping jobs around as much as I did, although most of the time, I didn’t have much say in the matter (I was recruiting during a recession), but the fact that job hopping is becoming so common doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best choice.

Here are a few more reasons why I think ignoring the norm and sticking it out with one employer promises to pay off.

Making Time by Taking Time

First_Sabbatical_ArtCompanies are really starting to become proactive about retention, which has led to many employers adopting highly creative, highly attractive incentives to workers as an enticement for proving their commitment. Take semiconductor chip manufacturer Intel, for example.

This Santa Clara based company recently initiated a program to reward its longest tenured employees by providing an eight week, fully paid sabbatical for all workers who have been with the organization for seven years. Which, as far as perks go, is a pretty sweet one – two paid months off to do whatever the hell you want.

This type of incentive has decreased turnover and increased internal mobility since its introduction, with employees now staying a median of 4.3 years, which is about twice as long as other tech companies’ average tenure (compare this to Google’s 1.1 years or Amazon’s 1.0 years, for example). This sabbatical program effectively encourages long-term commitments to Intel while also providing a salient selling point when recruiting top talent – which, given the fierce competition for tech talent in Silicon Valley, allows this relatively venerable firm to keep, compete for, and win against the likes of Google, Facebook and the myriad other firms vying for the same finite pool of programmers and developers.

If this sabbatical program isn’t motivation enough, this isn’t a one off – employees earn additional sabbaticals for every seven years of tenure, which the company reports employees have used to fund overseas travel experiences, family time and even, in one case, to finally publish a long dreamed about novel. This perk is well advertised as part of Intel’s talent attraction strategy, and sends a powerful message that Intel is a long term career destination, not just another tech job.

Other companies with similar sabbatical programs can be found across all industries, from eBay and MeetUp to Accenture and Deloitte; in fact, around 25% of Fortune’s Best Places to Work have some form of sabbatical in place, versus only 5% of employers overall. This makes a pretty strong argument that there’s a strong correlation between these sorts of incentives and a best-in-class culture, which, in terms of improved employee retention and satisfaction, suggest sabbaticals are one benefit every company needs to consider.

Paying It Forward

1395694411620-Hunger3Other companies choose shorter term incentives administered at a greater frequency as part of their retention and recruiting efforts, with similarly successful results. One great example of an employer using short term perks as a long term strategy is LifeLock, the identity theft protection company.

New hires are immediately given a membership in LifeLock, along with stock options and other equity based incentive plans. Beyond these perks, the company also sweetens the pot with things like paid volunteer time (employees are given a full 24 hours of PTO to volunteer every year) as well as a tuition assistance program.

Other companies offering paid time off for volunteering include Dow Corning, Patagonia and Time Warner, all of which also offer tuition assistance. According to Katherine Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, research suggests these programs increase employee loyalty and productivity when incorporated into a company’s employer value proposition (EVP).

“Their rate of turnover is lower, and they are more likely to stick with a company in down times, because the company is allowing them . . . to explore and express their personal values. With employees spending so much time at work these days, that’s an important opportunity. It’s proven to be even more important for the Millennial Generation.”

In order to determine if these short term perks are worth the long term commitment, candidates should weigh the costs of these benefits against how much their experience and expertise are worth on the market. For instance, if you’re already planning on pursuing another degree or spending a ton of unpaid time pursuing volunteer activities, these perks are a great inducement, but, as Smith points out, building some degree of flexibility into these programs is key to their success.

“If you’re seeking to attract talent, you focus on those issues that are most important to current and prospective employees,” she said, cautioning that it’s imperative companies incorporate their own unique culture into these sorts of plans instead of simply replicating what other employers are doing. “It is not one size fits all,” Smith said.

Friends with Benefits

1349444598696_1413163As companies continue to cut back on formerly standard benefits like group insurance coverage or health care subsidies, you don’t have to be creative about incentives in order to create a powerful competitive differentiation among other employers.

Those companies that offer insurance and health care coverage that beats market norms are increasingly seeing their average employee tenure increase, as workers realize the benefits of paid health insurance often outweigh the slight bump in salary of seeking a role in another organization who might not offer the same sort of comprehensive coverage.

One company that’s a perfect case study for this type of offering is sales and marketing software giant Infusionsoft, which pays 100% of employee medical and dental insurance premiums, as well as 100% of short-term and long term disability premiums. They also fully cover the costs of premiums for a $100,000 life insurance policy that the firm buys for all employees and their family members, which is an increasingly appealing incentive for sticking around long-term.

Other companies who pay 100% of employee health care costs include Boston Consulting Group, Zappos, Whole Foods and Microsoft, all perennial players on Fortune’s Best Places to Work List, proving that this is one benefit that’s also a proven best practice for talent acquisition and retention.

So, when your employees are deciding whether or not its worth remaining at the same company for the long haul, it’s important to consider how your benefits package stacks up and whether what you’re offering is going to be enough to convince employees to stick it out. These incentives, coupled with supportive leaders and co-workers and room for professional development and growth, are proven ways to fight the job hopping trend that never go out of style.

Kind of like talking about recruiting Gen Y workers.

X-Ray searches: How To Source Freelancers Around The World

A lot of X-Ray searches are stacked in favour of people looking for Permanent staff, rather than xray search visionprofessional contractors.

Here, we’ll show you some techniques to redress the balance. There are more and more freelancer sites popping up and they attract people from across the globe who can work remotely, or on site.

On these sites you’ll find a good mix of Contractors and Interims who can commit to long term projects, together with professionals looking for shorter term engagements.

Using the techniques we’re about to show you, you can quickly search across these sites to pick up candidates with all manner of skills.

The major freelancer sites where you’ll find candidates are:

  • People per Hour
  • Elance
  • Freelancer
  • oDesk

Unsurprisingly, we’ve built a tool that you can find here that allows you to search all of these sites, in one fell swoop, without adding the formatting. Just type in your keywords and locations, and you’re away.

But for those who like to know the method behind the madness, read on to see how to search a couple of them independently.

People per Hour

Our personal favourite and home to a myriad of freelancers across all manner of sectors, in all corners of the globe. We’ve found Developers, Designers, Accountants and more to take on contract work, always to a high standard.

To search specifically PPH profiles you’d enter:

site:peopleperhour.com/freelancer

Then just enter the keywords you’d be looking for, together with a location. Simple! Worth pointing out that this will return all results where that location is mentioned on their page – it doesn’t guarantee they live there.

So you’ll get some hit and miss results, but in amongst them will be plenty of suitable freelancers whose quality you can vet in an instant by checking their feedback percentage. You could even find ‘The Best Web Developer on Planet Earth”!

People Per Hour - Web Developer Example

As a rule, we don’t work with Freelancers who have a below 90% feedback rating, but that’s just our own personal decision. You’ll soon get a feel for how reliable the reviews are.

oDesk

oDesk is another similar site to People Per Hour where you can find freelancers.

For this one, the format to target users is as below:

site:odesk.com/o/profiles/users

And just as with People Per Hour, all you need to do is enter your keywords and location, and then you’ll have a list of freelancers to contact.

oDesk X-ray search

You can either sign up to the sites to message these candidates directly, or once you’ve found them, try searching their names and images across other sites for contact details.

Happy hunting!

About the author

stephen BeckittSteve spends his days trying to come up with new and innovative ways to find more talent in less time, as well as maximising results from traditional sources.

You can see more from Steve by following him on Twitter, connecting on LinkedIn and following on Google+.

 

 

Pounding the Pavement: Experiencing the Candidate Experience As A Recruiter

I have not been without a job since I was 16 years old. I have done more than my share of things for the paycheck, from bagging groceries to being a valet. It gave me such insight into the world of people who work in the service industry. This has affected not only how much I tip but how I treat the Starbucks Barista or the dude hauling my luggage at the airport.

I treat them with with respect and as individuals doing some really difficult jobs.

Working in the service industry has been some of the most difficult and worst paying work I have ever done. I am still grateful for the chance I got to do it, as it not only helped pay for my 1989 Toyota Camry but made me a better person.

It helped me to be in the shoes of the person in the drive-through when ordering some Wendy’s or the overloaded airline hostess struggling to make a bunch of cranky people happy.

Recruiting Soles: A Marathon, Not A Sprint.

funnymarathon_zpsd57bb00eMy current tenure is coming to an end in the next 2 weeks. 2 years helping grow a company, putting my blood and sweat into making a firm get the best talent. I helped to grow 3 new offices from scratch, I helped to make over 160 new hires in one year all while lowering cost per placement. I am very proud of all the work I did here, but, it’s over.

So, I am looking. I am looking very hard.

I don’t think I have looked for a job since early 2003. Everything I have had since then, with one exception, came from a connection. The exception is me looking for something outside the rubric of technical recruiting. That was a six month gig I found via LinkedIn working in the biopharma industry and, truth be told and I didn’t love it.

So, I picked up the phone and called someone who I knew would hire me in 30 seconds. 2 weeks later I had my tush ensconced in a new role.

As Bob Dylan sings, “You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

I started looking about a month ago. I am only 2 years in my current geographical location after a full move across the country. My network here isn’t as strong. It was still my first stop, though. It’s what I advise candidates when they ask me for advice, so how could I not do the same?

Then the word came down, it was time for me and the current company to smile and part ways. Still sucked, even though I knew. I like to go with preparing for the worst but still hoping for the best. Well, I had been sending 2 resumes a day and getting about 1 interview a week. I had only one phone screen make it to the in-person stage. I at least got a call back thanking me for coming in.

My advice to candidates who come to me is when you’re looking seriously, you need to treat it as a job. 10 resume sendouts a day, 5 to jobs posted and 5 to places you’d like to work. Make every resume fit the role and make the cover letters unique. They shouldn’t be a rehash of the job or your resume, but highlight points of both.

Even mention something to show you researched above and beyond the companies name and posted job. Well, I did that, too.

Running Down the Recruiting Dream

mileYet, here I am 2 weeks later, with maybe about 15 phone screens. Some were because someone I knew recommended me and some were from sendouts. I don’t feel close to anything. What I do feel is rather frightened. Like many Americans, I am paycheck to paycheck. We can make it go a bit longer but… the thought is painful and scary.

We’ve cut out all the extras until I find something. I know it will happen but I am filled with fear. I try and conquer it by sending out more resumes, calling connections even further removed and following up with places I have screened.

I am a glass half full kind of guy. Yes, sometimes the glass is half full of poison (no doubt a Jewish Mother thing) but I do try and see the positive. I have learned a very powerful lesson to further my skills (and karma) as a recruiter from this experience so far.

Like many recruiters, I have let many candidates slip into the ether. It is an untalked about part of our job and worse on the agency side than corporate, but we all do it. Something is more immediate on your desk. You know that person isn’t joining but the manager is breathing down your neck to fill the opening. You are working on a quota and you’re one deal away from making your bonus. You work on a draw or straight commission and every second not placing someone is you not paying rent.

I’ll call you a liar to your face if you tell me you’ve followed up with everyone who didn’t make it through.

I wish I understand earlier how much it hurts. I wish I understood earlier how lucky I have been not to have to go through this process. I thought I could handle rejection from how many of my candidates didn’t close the deal and make the placement. How many deals I lost to other recruiters and other agencies.

I have written about how recruiting is a business of failure.Well, looking for a new job has had even more rejections, more obstacles and more swear words thrown about than any deal I made as a headhunter.

When I land my next opportunity I am going to take this lesson in humility with me. Not to get frustrated with a candidate who submits themselves to every role on the website. Not to be irritated with someone who calls me every day, when I told them I’d call them with news. If someone emails me to ask why didn’t they get the job, I will try and help. I tried to do this as much as I could but I am very, very far from perfect.

I cannot promise to be perfect next time either because I won’t be but I am going to be much better than I have been for walking a mile in your shoes.

unnamed (5)About the Author: Jeff Newman has been a full life cycle recruiter for over 17 years. He has never limited myself to one industry or one skill set. His staffing philosophy is simple: Interview to hire as opposed to looking for reasons not to hire and to speak with each person instead of simply pushing paper.
He prides himself on always making sure that what he is offering a candidate is an opportunity and not just another job. He is always honest about the pluses and minuses and tries to not just be a recruiter but a career adviser. He is currently using his own advice to find a new opportunity.
Follow Jeff on Twitter @Apikoros18 or connect with him on LinkedIn.

TextRecruit Partners with iCIMS Expanding Recruiter-Candidate Texting into Core Talent Acquisition Technology Practices

Beware: This post is not for the old heads at heart. (at least if you have not evolved in text messaging in recruiting)

Here’s the pitch:

  1. 86% of Job seekers use their mobile device to search for a job
  2. 97% of all text messages are read with 90% of all text messages are read in less than 3 minutes
  3. 30% of all potential candidates will respond to a companies text message / reach out

Last year we shared TextRecruit as a new tool in our industry. You can see the full write up on RecruitingDaily here.

Why the update?

TextRecruit has announced a global strategic partnership and integration with iCIMS. TextRecruit allows customers to build text campaign plans through the mobile or browser based TextRecruit application. Recruiters have the ability to track all open, response, unsubscribe, and click-through rates. In addition, customers have the ability to push text notifications to candidates to confirm the completion of a job application, a scheduled interview, or a new hire’s start date.

Is this a game changer? It’s certainly a disruption that has and will continue to create questions in the how enterprise technology applications integrate with everyday user technology in recruitment.

TextRecruit was founded by Erik Kostelnik, a recruiting industry veteran who previously held executive roles with companies such as CareerBuilder and Identified, and John Danner, a technology industry and startup leader.  This Silicon Valley startup, which received its first round of seed funding in January 2014. The tool was designed as the first centralized texting platform built exclusively for the recruiting industry.

The business case – and market need – seems pretty obvious.  With over 90% of text messages read within 3 minutes of being sent, and 86% of job seekers reporting using mobile technologies in their job search, you can see how this capability can be very useful for staffing.

Here is a quick walk through of the real time TextRecruit application

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

 

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

Why You Should Stop Wasting Your Time With Social Recruiting

2980220819_a9a33b2dedThere’s nothing new – or even remotely interesting – about the concept of social recruiting, yet for some reason that doesn’t seem to stop this industry from discussing and dissecting this passe, seemingly passing fad incessantly. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ve been talking about social recruiting since 2007 – if not even earlier. If only MySpace or Google Wave had the same sort of sticking power.

The innovators, influencers and instigators in our industry largely continue to sell recruiters on social, despite a pretty broad body of evidence that shows that it’s less effective as a source of hire than, say, a career fair or display advertising.

But that doesn’t stop the cottage industry dedicated to social recruiting from trying to stay relevant enough to keep milking this cash cow for all it’s worth.

Of course, to provide fodder to try to keep this stale topic fresh, we constantly create content and presentations which continually perpetuate this asinine conversation. You know the kind of stuff I’m talking about: “top innovators to follow,” “biggest mistakes to avoid in social recruiting,” “10 Key Tips for Social Recruiting Success.” These cliche riddled check-lists are about as creative as most job descriptions, and just as compelling, too. Snooze. Alarm.

The topic of social recruiting, however, goes deeper than the seemingly simple definitions applied to this amorphous and ambiguous business construct.

Why Social Recruiting Is A Waste Of Time

f4970dd116c3ab262654e8ac74e7ea03Google will tell you social recruiting is defined as “recruiting candidates by using social platforms as talent databases or for advertising. Popular social media sites used for recruiting include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Viadeo, XING, Google+ and BranchOut.”

Well, if BranchOut represents a popular social recruiting site, than that’s probably a bad bellwether, considering how viable that turkey turned out to be (joining XING and Google+ in the dustbin of social media history).

But using the definition provided by Google – which is where most people trying to figure social recruiting out likely start, you can see that in short, social recruiting requires sticking up a bunch of career pages and employer brand based groups across all of these networks, planting a flag on any platform that supports posting and sharing content.

Every HR event, conference or webinar these days has some speaker telling you that you’re screwing your ability to attract top talent if you don’t have dedicated careers pages on social media; I’m sure you’ve heard from many marketing “gurus” and “social media experts” (hint: such a thing does not in fact exist) selling you their social snake oil. They make it sound so simple; all any employer has to do is build a branded page, throw up a few jobs and maybe a generic careers video or some employee pictures and boom and the candidates will come.

You’ve got a careers Twitter account, a jobs widget on Facebook and an RSS feed hooked up to your LinkedIn page? Boom! You’re officially a social recruiter, my friend. Throw in a cutesy picture of a company birthday celebration or bowling outing or some crappy copy about your mission, vision and values, and you’re almost ready to keynote one of these specious sessions on your own, since you’re a rockstar ninja guru or some shit like that.

But hold on a minute. If social media is really about relationships, and recruiting is all about hiring, how, exactly, is posting a bunch of feeds with nothing more than a job title, location and link in any way constitute “social recruiting?” This approach fails at building relationships, and is even less successful at attracting candidates and clicks. It’s understandable that open jobs would be the primary currency of social recruiting content, considering that these are your candidate calls to action and your raison d’etre for adopting social in the first place.

But it’s damn near impossible for social to actually facilitate any real recruiting outcomes or help with hiring when it’s so forced, mechanical and not nearly as interesting as almost all the other content on your average social site. Buzzfeed article, cute cat video or job description: which would you be the most likely to ignore? Your candidates feel the same way. I don’t know about you, but I’m on Facebook to see what my friends are up to and maybe find a few interesting or funny articles worth reading, not finding a job worth applying to.

Honestly, I think I speak for most candidates when I say that before I started working in this industry, it never even occurred to me to think about looking for a job on Facebook, much less finding or engaging a career specific social media page, unless I happened to come across it while researching roles at a company or I’m doing due diligence for a social media job. Other than that, I’ve got about as much use for these as that “poke” feature on Facebook. No one knows what the point of that is, either, but that doesn’t stop people from using it – similar, of course, to social recruiting.

This represents the fundamental problem right there – we create career pages and content and assume candidates will find it compelling enough (read: give two shits) to actually apply for one of those jobs you keep posting. You’d think the numbers would work out in favor of this at least having some efficacy. There are half a billion people on Facebook and 974 million active Twitter accounts, but what percentage of those people apply to your jobs? Let’s just say the odds are pretty piss poor.

When A Tweet Falls In A Forest…

3788507-0263382210-annoySo how are recruiters like you supposed to attract and engage candidates on social when there’s a .000000001% chance (and I’m being liberal with that estimate) that they’re actually going to reach the right person and convert that passive candidate into an active applicant.

I’m confident that the statistical likelihood that any “A” players or perfect candidates are fans of your Facebook careers page or follow your dedicated jobs related Twitter handle are even smaller.

Even if you’ve built yourself a pretty big ‘talent community’ (which these days is more or less a pay-for-play proposition), it’s unlikely that you’d consider anyone actively looking for a job there for an actual job at your company. After all, you continue ignoring these “active” candidates who are already applying for jobs at your company;  who needs another platform to brush off an unqualified candidate? That’s what ATS systems are for.

As a marketing professional, social recruiting represents a bit of a conundrum to me. Now, in theory, sure, every brand (employer, consumer or otherwise) should at least have a presence on social, or at least that’s what I learned from the “experts” and “thought leaders” at all those fancy social business conferences I’ve attended over the years. But to me, having social accounts simply so that you have social accounts seems kind of like the digital version of a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it. You’re investing time, but are candidates? And if candidates couldn’t care less about your social presence and continue ignoring your career pages, is it even worth it to keep dedicating resources to this dud?

I think not. I know I’m flying in the face of conventional wisdom and “branding best practices” (whatever the hell those are) on this one, but I really don’t think that recruiting and sourcing teams should have career or employer-brand specific social profiles and pages, particularly for those companies who are just now getting around to launching their social recruiting initiatives and are starting from square one with zero followers or fans.

If you survived this long without social recruiting, I promise you’ll still be OK, even if you’re one of the few remaining holdouts out there. Trust me, you’ll have the last laugh.

Follow me on this one.

How Glassdoor Finally Made Social Recruiting Make Sense

Last week, I started considering the idea of whether or not it makes sense for companies to have career-focused social profiles and pages thanks to an announcement from Glassdoor unveiling the launch of their latest product, Company Updates. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this feature basically is just what you’d expect from a product called Company Updates, allowing employers managing their Glassdoor pages to post status updates directly on their Glassdoor profile to add dynamic and deeper branding elements and real time responses to augment the static reviews, salary ranges and job descriptions already out there.

With 46% of candidates reporting in a recent survey that they were using a review site like Glassdoor to get the inside scoop before even applying for a job, I think that Glassdoor just might have uncovered the real way we should be defining social recruiting and assessing our social strategies for attracting and engaging potential candidates online.

In short, the integration of a status bar that’s seamlessly embedded directly into an employer’s Glassdoor profile is social recruiting that’s actually, truly social, since it allows employers to communicate with candidates without having to dedicate the time and effort to build up fans and followers on Facebook or Twitter. Plus, this functionality actually lets companies start a conversation in a place where actual candidates actually go during their job search. That metaphorical tree in the forest just got a little louder, y’all.

CU2

This potential game changer from Glassdoor seems, to this marketing professional at least, to make perfect sense – I mean, it only reasons that you’re better served posting status updates and content on places where candidates actually go instead of on some social network that forces you to pay to build an unqualified, untalented “talent community.”

The point of social recruiting is attracting those real, live people who could maybe be viable fits for your open roles and merit some sort of consideration or maybe even the occasional interview or offer. I know, sounds crazy, but these candidates aren’t spending their time trolling Twitter or scrolling through their Facebook news feed – and if they find your social careers page, they’re likely to ignore it. Of course, these candidates are most likely already on Glassdoor, and there’s some overwhelming evidence that’s one site with information and content compelling enough to capture their attention – and inform their decision on whether or not to actually apply to your company.

Candidates love leveraging Glassdoor because it’s a system of record that’s an open forum providing real feedback from real employees at real companies talking about their real career experiences and what it’s really like to work there. This is the stuff candidates connect to and care about, not some automated jobs feed that automatically posts openings to Twitter. Plus, the most serious candidates won’t connect with you on social anyway, since doing so opens the door to you having ammunition to use their personal information found on those sites against them.

Candidates are scared of what HR and recruiting might find on social, and few will actually proactively go out of their way to provide this sort of potentially self-incriminating information voluntarily. You’d have to be an idiot, right?

But What About Personal Branding?

Vaginal_bulb_syringeI realize that this opens another can of worms as it relates to the whole concept of “personal branding” for recruiters. If their organizations choose not to pursue an active employer brand strategy, isn’t it incumbent on recruiters to build out their own social profile and presence?

Well, I have to admit, I throw up a little in my mouth when I hear the phrase “personal branding,” since it’s one of the douchier concepts in a space full of douche bags, and my answer here, again, is an emphatic no.

The only exception would be for those recruiters subject matter expertise and experience actually doing the job they’re recruiting for, and will use social to legitimately connect with candidates and communicate candidly about the work they do and the employer they do it for.

But if you’re just another recruiter out there tweeting and posting just because it’s there, trust me: there are enough of those as it is, and being a subject matter expert in recruiting is a piss poor way to actually build a recruiting relationship. Plus, my guess is, you’re probably too busy to actually make this pay off enough to realize any modicum of recruiting ROI.

Do you realize how much sweat equity it takes to build up your personal brand to the point where it actually attracts people to you? I imagine the answer is a shit load, considering I’ve been doing this social media stuff for going on 7 years now, and it’s only been in the last year or so that people have proactively reached out to me (and I mostly blame that on Charney). Now, if you’re responsible for actively sourcing, recruiting and hiring people every day, there’s no way investing in building a personal brand is going to be worth the effort. You just don’t have the time – trust me, I sure as hell don’t and I’m a social media professional, for crying out loud.

How To Really Make Recruiting Social

social-network-prequelSo what does all this mean for HR vendors selling social recruiting solutions and the HR practitioners leveraging these tools and technologies as an integral part of their recruiting strategies?

Here’s an idea: maybe you should finally seek out ways to change the infrastructure of how you hire and start actually calling candidates and having personalized, individual interactions and 1:1 communications with the ones who you might actually hire someday?

This is where you should be focusing your engagement, not adding social media channels that make no sense other than maybe making you look kind of cool (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).

Instead of “joining the conversation” and adding some “share this” buttons to every damn job posting, how about starting a conversation and sharing those jobs with those applicants who are sitting in your ATS wondering why in the hell they never get a call back – if you have the time to build a careers related Facebook page or Twitter handle, you sure as hell have the time to start creating ways for candidates to talk to recruiters live – online or otherwise.

For example, let’s say I just applied to a job. I want this job, so there’s no way I’m going to use those sharing buttons and let my whole network in on the chance to beat me out for this thing. I also am currently employed, so I’m not going to broadcast that I’m looking in the most visible way possible – I know enough to know to keep this all on the DL. So why not remove those social integrations and sharing functionalities entirely and replace them with live chat capabilities or a call to action to set up a time to have a 1:1 conversation with someone who’s actually in HR and recruiting at your company?

Even if that’s a lower level associate, intern or even an office manager, they can probably answer most questions about what it’s like to work at a company and what to expect from the hiring process – which is WAY more social than, say, a row of buttons prompting them to tell the entire world that they’re looking for a new job. You want to make recruiting social, start by actually talking to top talent, first – I promise you’ll find it pays greater dividends than spending your time slaving away on Facebook, anyway.

katrinaAbout the Author: Katrina Kibben is the Director of Marketing for Recruiting Daily, and has served in marketing leadership roles at companies such as Monster Worldwide and Care.com, where she has helped both established and emerging brands develop and deliver world-class content and social media marketing, lead generation and development, marketing automation and online advertising.

An expert in marketing analytics and automation, Kibben is an accomplished writer and speaker whose work has been featured on sites like Monster.com, Brazen Careerist and About.com.  A graduate of Pennsylvania State University, Kibben is actively involved in many community and social causes – including rooting for her hometown Pittsburgh Steelers.

You can follow Katrina on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

 

How To Crush the Recruiting Competition (Without Compromising Your Integrity)

When I first became a recruiter, I approached this profession with a sense of excitement; it was a breath of fresh air after years spent slaving away in the financial services sector – which, during the downturn, was like the Icarus of industries, wings melting away in the heat of public animosity, private greed, endemic excess and humiliating hubris.

Like so many others in this space who had flown perhaps a little too close to the sun, I ended up paying the price for my complicity, spending two years trying – and failing – to set up my own financial education consulting firm, which, in retrospect, was not at all ironic given the Great Recession that had left me broke and essentially unemployed (er, self-employed) in the first place.

I had no where else to go – so, like most of us, ended up going to recruiting.

At the time, of course, while I had no experience or great desire to have a career in recruiting, it was a job, and a relief from the reality of the recessionary austerity forced unwillingly upon me, my bank account and my professional future. Sure, back when we had a bull market, I would have dismissed the idea that I’d ever be desperate enough to become a recruiter, of all things, but hell – at the time I ended up entering the recruiting industry, I was thrilled for even the opportunity to earn a draw on future commissions. Something is better than nothing, even if it’s something that’s seemingly superficially suspect.

Of course, once I started learning the tricks of the trade, I quickly realized that recruiting was one of the more rewarding professions out there, and the idea that I was helping connect good people with good jobs at good companies – particularly during such a bad market – made me feel, well, a little gushy inside.

Yeah, I know it sounds corny, but I finally felt like I was actually helping fix the unemployment crisis my past profession had more or less created – and actually helping people instead of simply increasing profits. And, feeling edified and altruistic in a job for the first time in a long time, it didn’t take much time for me to fall in love with recruiting.

Recruiting Reality: The Dirty Tricks of the Trade

top3reasonstosellyoursoulIt didn’t take long, of course, for the requisite honeymoon period to end and for the realities of recruiting to set in; it became clear after a few months of cold calling and candidate development that recruiting was just another sales job – granted, one peddling an incredible product and with incredible potential, but with the same sort of drawbacks inherent to any other profession where commission is the exclusive form of compensation.

From a company point of view, of course, this sort of employment arrangement makes sense; commissions represent a pure pay-for-performance model which entails almost no financial risk for the company, placing that liability exclusively on the shoulders of the commission-only staff dialing for the dollars they’d only get with a successful placement.

This model, so common in agency recruiting, creates the low barriers for entry endemic to this industry, a Darwinian revolving door where firms throw a ton of recruiters against the wall to find the few who might actually stick.

It’s pretty obvious that this sink or swim mentality, combined with the incentive structure inherent to sales, creates the sort of recruiters who operate without any sort of underlying ethics or professional values besides making as much money as possible from placements – the same kind of sketchy staffing practitioners who are often unfairly ascribed as representative of the recruiting industry writ large.

The fact is that these recruiters are often outliers, and most of us put a premium on people over placement fees, but these so-called “recruiters” are one of the primary reasons that our professional reputation ranks next to Comcast customer service and Vinnie’s Used Car Emporium in the court of public perception.

Of course, swimming with the sharks is nothing new to me; after all, I spent much of my career in finance, where I was surrounded by sleazy salespeople who would do or say anything to make a quick buck – it was this singular focus on personal profit, after all, that caused the entire industry to collapse and triggered my own existential journey into the business of talent. Finance, obviously, not only offers a cautionary example of the inevitable end result of laziness and largesse, but also taught me several lessons that I have put into use to differentiate myself as a third-party recruiter and succeed in staffing.

The key to setting yourself apart from the recruiting pack can be summed up in one word: Integrity.

5 Keys for Crushing The Recruiting Competition Without Compromising Integrity

integrityIt’s amazing how often this simple concept is overlooked, but operating with integrity is really the only thing you really need to succeed in becoming a top recruiter – and a top biller over the long term. While it’s not as expedient as cutting corners or churning and burning through candidates and clients for a one-off commission, I promise you’ll surpass most of the competition by avoiding shortcuts and questionable tactics and focusing on doing what’s right for your customers and clients.

Giving into these temptations can create more immediate gains and instant gratification, but with the rapidly diminishing rewards and professional reputation that are almost always the inevitable long term outcome of these recruiting worst practices.

I know, integrity is one of those things that’s easy to talk about, but way harder to operationalize. So I want to show, specifically, how I personally built and maintained my integrity as a recruiter, and what those of you who are just starting out in recruiting (or are trying to establish a long term career in this industry) can do to make integrity an integral part of your standard operating procedures and processes.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to climb up on my high horse and spend a few minutes showing you the high road to recruiting success. It might be the road less taken, but it’s ultimately the only path to sustainable staffing success.

1. Give Clients What They Want.

Hiring managers want one thing from recruiters: the best candidate in the fastest time. Simple enough, right? Yeah, if only it were that easy do deliver the goods (sigh). Sadly, when courting new clients or prospective customers, we’ve got to overcome not only the standard sales objections, but also, the pervasive skepticism and distrust so commonly ascribed to our entire industry seeded by so many bad apples.

The only way to change that reputation is by focusing on your own – and developing a track record of being honest, doing good work and always looking out for the best interests of your clients is imperative. If a company is willing to give you a shot, and you deliver as promised while doing so with integrity, chances are you’ll have a client for life.

Those employers who have likely had less than ideal experiences with other recruiters will quickly realize that you’re worth your weight in gold – or at least your associated placement fees.

2. Ruse At Your Own Risk.

In my first day on the job, I overheard a group of recruiters talking about that dirty little not-so-secret trick of submitting fake candidates or falsified credentials to open the door to securing a client relationship and landing a req. As a neophyte, I was strongly advised by my more experienced counterparts to turn to this tactic, who confidently assured me that this was only a way to get them to sign so that “you can work your tail off to find real candidates.”

In other words, fake candidates were the easiest way to convince a company you could find real ones, and that you’d have to be a sucker not to do this bait and switch as a part of business as usual.

I was excited to get this advice, not because I thought it was in any way a good idea, but because I instantly realized that this scheme was hand-delivering me a strategy to differentiate myself from other recruiting competition – if they were mostly liars, than it only made sense that telling the truth would be a boon for business over the long term (and the right thing to do, too). Even ignoring the inherent ethical failings to this scheme, this pathetic attempt to get a foot in the door isn’t scalable or sustainable; recruiting is a numbers game, and that means the odds are inevitable you’ll eventually get found out and burn a big old bridge!

As previously mentioned, this can be a easy short-term fix to get a placement or two, but when it comes to your career and your reputation, the only way to guarantee long term success is by focusing on long term outcomes. As recruiters, we’re supposed to know the secrets to managing a career, which is why when you sacrifice strategic vision for quick wins, you’re destined to lose every time.

3. If You Screw Up, Say So.

On a more practical level, I did run into a few scattered scenarios where a candidate did ultimately decline to advance in the process after their initial submission to a client but before the signing of an official agreement, which always made me cringe, but I was always able to quickly recover from this rough start by letting the client know right away and giving them an out – and by acting in good faith, none did.

Yeah, it sucks because more judgmental hiring managers (or clients who have been burned by recruiters before), might be more inclined to file you into the same shady folder of shady staffing pros as your unscrupulous, unethical counterparts, at least at first. The only way to get the benefit of the doubt is to remove all doubt – and the only way to do that is by being as upfront, honest and transparent as possible.

It nags at them a little, and when they give you a second chance to make a first impression, the only way to prove you’re competent is by delivering candidates as good or better as your initial submission, and to do so with the same integrity that saved the business to begin with. It’s not always easy, but it’s essential.

Over time, you’ll quickly see that the performance gap between you and the lying, get-rich-quick recruiters will widen into a chasm – and when your business is mostly direct referrals of new clients and filling reqs of repeat customers, it makes recruiting a whole hell of a lot easier.

4. Be True To Your Candidates

Much like hiring managers, candidates want one thing from recruiters, too: to get them a choice job at an employer of choice. That sounds simple, at least from afar, and our responsibilities to candidates seem superficially easy: share appropriate jobs, set up interviews where there’s interest, offer advice as needed, help them through offer negotiation and make sure onboarding goes as smoothly and as successfully as possible.

But apparently, we’re failing at even that basic formula, since so many professionals with placeable skills and experience look at recruiters with a mix of disdain and dread – and largely, see a necessary evil as much as a potentially powerful professional ally. I don’t need to talk too much about candidate experience for you to know that it’s not one that most top talent wants to have to go through voluntarily, particularly if they’re not actively looking at new opportunities.

Personally, I get a kick out of hearing feedback from candidates directly – just Google “recruiter” and you’ll get get infinite anecdotes that are almost universally laced with animosity and antipathy towards our profession. We’re seen as ambulance chasers and charlatans, which sucks if you’re actually one of the few who has a passion and pride for this profession.

Once again, combating this perception is more easily said than done, but again, ignoring shortcuts and embracing honesty as your only policy will pay amazing dividends down the road. Sometimes, this includes doing something that’s anathema to recruiters: knowing when to let a candidate when they shouldn’t take an offer or explore an opportunity, even if an employer is interested. The most obvious and prominent example of ignoring this advice is, of course, the famous fear tactic that almost every recruiter has at least tried in those situations where a counteroffer arises.

One of the first things almost everyone learns in their first few weeks on the job is that should this situation arise, to have a go to set of nice sounding statistics that, while perhaps true, are fundamentally flawed examples of the shortsightedness of correlation over causation: you know the one, that x% of candidates (depending on the source) who accept a counteroffer won’t be on the job 9 months later. That almost always scares a candidate enough to at least give them second thoughts about staying, and most have a bunch of similarly specious statistics up their sleeve to fully change those minds when needed.

I’ll admit, at first, I looked at this tactic as simply presenting the facts and doing my job of educating the candidate, but this seeming holy grail of offer negotiation doesn’t always take into account the underlying reasons for that person looking at another offer, and whether or not switching jobs is the right solution for career edification, advancement and job satisfaction. If the underlying causes aren’t addressed, chances are they won’t stick around long enough at their new role for you to collect your commission anyway – particularly since companies generally welcome back those candidates they care enough about losing to extend a counteroffer to in the first place.

Let’s face it – if you’re sourcing correctly, you’re likely surfacing candidates who are already being bombarded by recruiters – and are likely shell shocked from the experience. What can you offer that’s different? Not to beat a dead horse, but here’s where integrity again can quickly set you apart. Every recruiter has an opportunity, but you’ve got to know that it’s the right opportunity for the candidate – and make sure to honestly advise them when it’s not a good fit or a smart move, even if they’re exactly what your client is looking for in terms of background and skills.

Knowing what’s in it for them is a great way to break down the barrier of distrust and make sure that they’re considering an opportunity for the right reasons – reasons that should successfully preempt any counter offer more easily than even citing some spurious statistics.

Getting in the habit of being honest and being truthful with candidates might cost you a submission or two in the short term, but pay off richly in long term rewards. Today’s placement is tomorrow’s potential hiring manager, and a great candidate experience should directly result in them seeking out your services for future openings, internal referrals or introduction requests. Remember, what goes around comes around – especially when it comes to recruiting.

5. Be True To Yourself

This is the most important part, but if you choose to compromise your personal integrity or ethics to make a quick buck, the biggest disservice you’re doing is to yourself, and the harm you create by coming up with strategies to game the system are completely self-inflicted, since they’re a deliberate choice.

I understand that the nature of sales compensation and commission structures create a powerful incentive that can be hard to fight, but that easy money comes at a steep price that’s just not worth paying. After all, the best way to launch yourself past the competition relying on shortcuts and lazy recruiting tricks is to do good by your clients and candidates – and doing so with integrity.

I promise. And don’t worry, unlike most recruiters, you can trust me – just ask my clients and candidates.

bradAbout the Author: Brad Lazarus began his second career as a technical recruiter, eventually launching his own agency, Tomesei, which he led until effectively retiring in early 2015; he still occasionally accepts a project or two for a few of his favorite clients, as retirement hasn’t diminished his passion or love for the recruiting profession.

He continues to contribute to the staffing industry by consulting, training and writing on increasing recruiter competency, productivity and integrity while devoting much of his time to non-profit ventures. Brad has a new blog TheBradLazarus.com, where he shares recruiting advice, plus career & personal finance tips for Millennials.  For fun, he’s creator and editor of TelePlayTime.com.
Follow Brad on Twitter @Brad_Lazarus or connect with him on LinkedIn.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships, but Not You Rachel. You Need to Go Away.

When I was a district manager, I honestly believed I could develop anyone. I believe in people. I believe in potential, I believe in Harvey Dent. Wait, that last one was Batman. But I believe in the Dark Knight too. I remembered my overlooked peers from before my promotion, talented people, but they weren’t the golden boys or girls that my DM preferred for one reason or another.

One of the first promises I made to myself when I became a district manager was that I would not lie to my team, even if it meant telling people some harsh truths. It is a choice you make, you can be brutally honest but you can also be honest without being brutal. As a manager there are some employees who fall off the path and others who are pushed off. No one wanted to spend the time to develop these forsaken employees. At the time these workers were hired, they were hired because someone believed in them and thought they would be a good fit for the company.  I put a lot of myself into my team. I was slow to give up on people. I had the feeling someone believed in them when they were hired and now my job was to develop them.  I guess I thought I was the US Army Rangers of district managers following a motto of no man left behind. Maybe I had seen Black Hawk Down too many times.

It’s Not My Job

In my experience, few employees come in giving 100% off the bat. My job as a manager was to develop and squeeze every bit of what Rachel could do in a day, so that less of her work would end up on my responsibility plate. Rachel not being a great worker didn’t give me a pass from my supervisor to not have my duties complete. So it was in my best interest to develop and train Rachel and James to their full potential.

For the moment we’ll skip over the setting expectations and holding people accountable part and talk about motivation and inspiration. Now, my workforce was predominantly made up of teenagers, college students, and recent grads and trust me, if you can find a way to motivate and connect with the youth, you can do anything. You know that teenager  you can’t get to make his bed or put his dishes away? I had to motivate him to clean bathrooms, be friendly to ‘old people’ and stop flirting with every female in the mall – I sympathize.   Developing, coaching, and leading millennials and Generation Z feels a bit like second nature to me at this point.

3 Types of What Now?

As a manager and a district manager, I found that there were three types of workers who each needed to be motivated in different ways. I wouldn’t say I was inherently a better district manager than my peers but I could often get the desired results faster because I was quicker to adjust my tactics and move on from there.

Positive reinforcement workers to me were like flowers that needed to be watered. It’s not important how many times a day they needed to hear words of encouragement if I was doing Rachel’s job, it is about her. If she needs to hear it 20 times and it takes me an extra 10 minutes a day to encourage her to complete her tasks to my expectation, that’s a fair trade in my book. No one tells an orchid, “sorry guy you get the same amount of water as the cactus, no more, no less.”

The negative reinforcement workers weren’t necessarily bad people in my book, they just needed clear deadlines and explicit direction; if I gave them any wiggle room I could expect trouble. These workers tend to need a fire under their ass to get things done. The work could still be great, but you have to know what to expect from the outset. If it takes 2 hours to create a schedule for the following week, the negative reinforcement worker needs to hear, “Make your schedule from 1-3pm today. Email it to me when complete and I will send you any edits within the hour. Fix those and have it posted by 4pm today.” No wiggle room. No misunderstandings. Basically, a lot of micromanagement until you spend time developing them.

The third group is what I called the neutral proactive worker.   Even though I barely passed the cub scouts, I like to think of myself as a boy scout – do the right thing because that is what you are supposed to do. I always thought of myself as one of these workers. When I get an assignment, I complete it to the best of my abilities. These workers were like gems to me. Rare. Few and far between but they make your interactions with them enjoyable.

Square Peg Won’t Fit in the Round Hole? Grab a Hammer. 

Now part of your problem was learning to identify which worker you were dealing with because using the wrong techniques to motivate a worker leaves much to be desired.   Take all the structure a negative reinforcement worker needs and put it on a positive reinforcer and they’ll crumple like a deck of cards, where with encouragement these guys will voluntarily move mountains for you stone by stone. Flip the script by cheering on a negative reinforce and James is likely to kick his feet up all day and not get anything done until it’s absolutely necessary.  As for the proactive neutrals, you blow smoke up my ass saying lots of positive remarks, I’m likely to think you’re afraid to ask me what you really want which I find annoying and you can yell at me all day, it doesn’t really bother me but it’s also not the strongest motivator.

Now full potential can be tricky. As I said before I don’t believe that all workers inherently can or will give you 100%. That’s part of the reason that I liked to hire athletes or people who have had to work towards some big goal in their life because they know what it takes to compete and win. They understand how important giving every bit of effort can be.

If I had someone who at their best would only give me 50%, I would figure out which type of worker you were and motivate appropriately, but you had better believe that I documented each issue so when the time came, I could find someone better –  Mama Fogel didn’t raise a fool. I used that process to hone my teams and develop my bench. In my tenure as a DM, I was able to consistently promote more future leaders, including several up to my district manager level, than most of my peers.

Arrghh, This Isn’t Working

Now back to today. Coming out of the recession circa 2008 with development dollars being spread thin, a lot of companies chose to focus their spend almost exclusively on high potentials and leadership. Which can make sense in some situations, but that is not always the case. Picture being a pirate captain and spending all of your time developing your first mate at the expense of your crew. If your crew isn’t prepared or developed properly to do their job, you’re screwed. Even worse you could find yourself with a mutiny on your hands.

If we look into today’s workforce we see some warning signs we should be aware of. Glassdoor just released the results from their latest survey on Employment Confidence, and with that report comes some eye opening statistics:

  • Nearly 3 in 4 (73%) employees earning higher incomes ($100,000+) report receiving on-the-job training in the past 12 months when compared to employees who earn less:
  • 57 percent of employees who earn $75,000-99,999
  • 58 percent of employees who earn $50,000-74,999
  • 57 percent of employees who earn less than $50,000

The market is changing and with those changes comes evolving expectations from your candidates and employees. Again from Glassdoor’s research:

  • 45% expect a pay raise in next 12 months – highest level in six years
  • 48% are confident in their ability to find a new job in next 6 months – steady with last quarter’s six-year high
  • 47% believe their company’s business outlook will improve in next 6 months – up 4% from last quarter

To recap – it’s 2015 now and we have a lot of middle and lower tier employees not receiving development, everyone is expecting a raise this year and if they don’t get one, they’re going to peace out. And this shouldn’t come as a shocker but when they do leave, what do you think they will have to say about their experience? Whatever it is I promise you it will probably end up on your company’s Glassdoor page.

 

Not Another Mobile Recruiting Post.

If you want a business case or case use for the importance of mobile recruiting adoption and optimization, you don’t really have to look far. Hell, there’s a cottage industry of content marketing and conferences dedicated specifically to the whole “mobile” category – which is all kind of silly and specious.

Talking about the potential power of mobile seems a lot like talking about the wonders of air conditioning or indoor plumbing – sure, those kick butt, but they’re kind of just a part of every day life that it’s hard to imagine life without them.

Why Are We Still Talking About Mobile Recruiting?

An-80s-era-yuppy-with-one-of-the-first-cell-phonesWhile we may debate whether to go with an iPhone vs. Android (no one ever reps Windows phones, for some reason, not even Microsoft Employees), which emoticons to use or whether or not an app is worth the storage space, I know of no-one who’s such a Luddite they debate whether or not it’s worth investing in mobile.

 Unless you’re in a Millerite sect or are a card and tote bag carrying SHRM volunteer leader, there’s no way anyone’s so outdated they make mobile a talking point or trending topic – at least as an independent category.

Of course, unless you happen to work in corporate talent acquisition, in which case, the jury remains inexplicably out.

It should strike any observer as odd that for whatever reason, this 21st century mainstream medium would be such a contentious issue for employers, much less one that seems pretty low on the totem pole of platform priorities. It’s not nearly as important as, say, kind of hokey and extraneous features like “talent communities” or video interviewing or whatever the bell & whistle du jour happens to be that distracts us from the more pressing and persistent challenges to our recruiting capabilities.

 We’d rather endlessly discuss abstract theories instead of trying to agree on actionable takeaways, and far prefer looking at what’s new and what’s next to what’s needed now to fill the reqs you’ve already got.

 We like to talk about building pipelines and creating elaborate sourcing and candidate acquisition strategies, but for some reason don’t search our ATS to identify warm leads who are already aware of and interested in opportunities with your organization, preferring instead to continue cranking out cold calls.

 We want to create compelling career content, but prefer investing in polished, professionally produced videos and slick headshots of employees instead of focusing on writing better job descriptions instead. And while internal mobility and employee referrals make up a lion’s share of source of hire, we’d rather dedicate ourselves to “talent networks” or “career communities” instead.

 Recruiters love making their job harder than it has to be, and have a pretty established track record of ignoring the easy and obvious fixes. It’s not an easy job, by any means, making candidates with obscure or esoteric skill sets somehow materialize out of the ether to backfill that one of a kind hi-po who just got poached might be one of the most difficult asks you could ask any worker, anywhere. But there’s no point in making this whole thing more complex than it needs to be, no matter what the consultants and thought leaders may tell you.

 No where is this phenomenon more obvious than in mobile recruiting.

Mobile Recruiting Made Simple.

file-2494930627-300x250Over 80% of the Fortune 500 haven’t optimized their apply process for mobile despite the fact these companies spend literally billions of dollars trying to find the very same tech savvy, constantly connected digital natives who they’re missing out on by missing out on mobile.

92%, by contrast, report to recruiting on social media. The thing is, according to Comscore, around two thirds of all social media traffic occurs via mobile devices .

This means you can have the world’s most kick butt careers Twitter or employer branded Facebook page, but if your call to action can’t be acted upon due to device limitations, than you’re really just wasting everyone’s time.

Similarly, not being able to search for or apply for jobs while at work, which many passive candidates do as a practical matter to effectively bypass corporate firewalls, spying system admins and prying bosses, not only costs companies potentially amazing new hires, but also creates a pretty crappy candidate experience by forcing them to go to an actual computer to successfully apply – something that no one you’d actually want to hire probably’s willing to do.

Passive candidates have other stuff to do than jump through your hoops and barrels, so if you’re one of those employers who ignores actual applicants due to a bias against active candidates, well, goes to show you reap what you sow.

Plus, for many younger workers (and, disproportionately, diversity candidates, too), their phone is their exclusive access point to the internet, a trend that’s even more prevalent in the developing nations multinationals are increasingly targeting with their hiring, such as India, Brazil or Korea.

So, in fact, actively excluding mobile could even be interpreted as an employer’s breach of making a good faith effort. After all, implementing mobile doesn’t take all that much effort.

 Unlike, say, trying to change the minds of the entrenched employment establishment, but then again, their recruiting technology is largely still just the fax. And maybe Asking Jeeves every once in a while what the hell they should do with this crazy internet thing.

 In conclusion, mobile recruiting is really this simple:

People look for jobs online. People access online mostly through mobile. Therefore, people mostly look for jobs on mobile devices.

Of course, the preceding few hundred words were simply to add that layer of complexity requisite for any discussion about recruiting or talent attraction. You’re welcome.

If you’re tired of talking about mobile recruiting and want to start actually doing something about it, click here to check out SmartRecruiters and see why companies are getting going getting candidates on the go. Because turns out, mobile recruiting is kind of a no brainer.

Disclaimer: Recruiting Daily was compensated by SmartRecruiters for this post. But we obviously believe that mobile should be a part of every recruiting strategy, so in this case, the facts and opinions contained herein do, in fact, represent those of the publisher. Because we’re all about making applicant tracking systems suck less, too.

Life of the Third Party: Why I Left Corporate Recruiting for Contingency.

dark sideFor the last seven years now, I have enjoyed the comfortable, predictable and somewhat steady life of an in-house recruiter, which, let’s face it, has its advantages.

Reqs and candidates come to you, you actually get to interact with the hiring manager and internal stakeholders to inform and influence decisions, and you get a steady salary, benefits and all those other perks that come along with being a part of the corporate world.

It’s a pretty sweet gig (mostly), and while recruiting in-house can be challenging, but there are way worse things to have to try to sell than jobs – if you’ve ever tried to develop business as an agency recruiter, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Which is why the worst case scenario for any corporate talent acquisition practitioner is having to work with an agency recruiter to close the occasional hard-to-fill req. We largely see third parties as a necessary evil, and even when we call in the calvary, most in-house talent organizations still tend to view their contingency counterparts with disdain and distrust. Opening a search externally and choosing contingency recruiting is tacitly admitting defeat, and raising this requisition-related white flag is why many corporate recruiters see third party firms more as competitors than collaborators.

While, to the rest of the world, we’re all recruiters, but to those of us on the talent front lines, both sides cling to an ‘us vs. them’ mentality, a seemingly impenetrable wall between two very different (yet strangely similar) worlds of work. Which is why I never thought I’d see the day when I decided to switch teams and go back to the proverbial dark side of contingency recruiting, trading in a pretty cushy job for a life of cold calling and commissions.

Thing is, I’m confident that I just started the last job I’m ever going to have, and I get to work for the world’s best boss: me. Added bonus: no more having to dress up and drive into an office to sit behind a closed door sourcing and screening all day.

Most people wonder what the hell I’m thinking, and frankly, some days I do a little bit, too. Let’s just say I have a lengthy list of rationales and reasons for making this move, most of which I’m going to keep private, since they’re more personal than professional. Instead, I’d like to tell you a story I think every recruiter needs to hear – and hopefully illustrate why I did what I did – and why it’s not as crazy as it might sound on the surface.

Corporate Recruiting Can Suck Sometimes.

As I stated before, there are plenty of perks associated with working directly for an organization; besides knowing exactly what you’re going to make every month and having the piece of mind that you’ll be able to provide a decent lifestyle for your family, not to mention having benefits taken care of and taxes withheld by your employer.

You also have colleagues who inevitably become friends, and a brand that you’re not only representing, but that affiliation somehow seems to form some small part of your professional identity. I’ve been lucky enough to work for some of the world’s best organizations, and having a big name backing you makes your job a whole hell of a lot easier.

Even with all those factors working in favor of working in-house, I also found that there were a whole hell of a lot of downsides, too. First off, it didn’t matter if I was working on one open job or 40, I made the exact same amount of money, no matter what. Some weeks I could get away with clocking in for my 40 hours; others, though, it seemed like I slept in the office I was so busy, and there still weren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Since every company I recruited for was publically held, my professional existence was determined by quarterly financials more than my individual performance. That my job depended completely on my employer’s quarterly performance, with a loss potentially portending my losing my job, consistently kept me and most of my colleagues on edge. But that’s one of the professional hazards in this business – you can be the world’s best recruiter, but no company needs you if they’re not hiring or have headcounts frozen.

It’s nerve racking, really, like living on a recurring three month contract in perpetuity with no guarantee of renewal, even for the most exceptional performers. People might be employers’ biggest asset, but the people responsible for finding those people are too often treated like a dispensable liability instead.

It’s also tilting at windmills to try to keep every one of your many hiring managers happy; if you’re a recruiter who thinks that every hiring manager you’ve ever worked with loved you, think again – you’re either delusional or haven’t been doing this for long, but I’m going to call bullshit.

Most of the time, this comes down to nothing more than a lack of chemistry or collaboration between both parties and has little to do with performance – certain hiring managers just work better with certain recruiters.

Contingency Planning

3760-400-borderTruth is, there’s little you can do to fix this other than learn to live with it and do your job. While recruiters generally want other people to like and respect them, the truth is that sometimes, you’re going to run into someone who hates you no matter what you do, and that’s OK. If you don’t have thick skin, you’re in the wrong business, brother.

While working in-house, sometimes, escalations are inevitable – the bigger the company and the bigger your workload, the more difficult meeting even the most basic expectations can be. It’s hard to get ahead when you’re treading water trying not to drown in the deluge of paperwork, processes and procedures that so often preempt a busy recruiter’s ability to do anything but the bare minimum.

I know corporate recruiters want to be all things to all people – I certainly did, but realized that being everything to everybody gets you nowhere. It’s impossible.

Expectations are often unrealistic – hey, how hard is recruiting, really – which leaves us constantly overworked, overwhelmed and underappreciated. Every hiring manager and every candidate thinks that they’re the top priority, but the truth is, everything in recruiting is urgent, and it’s easy to lose focus when everyone demands your attention. This no-win recruiting reality pretty much sucks when it’s your reality. Really.

Man, that feels good to finally get off my chest.

Use the Force: 4 Reasons To Choose Contingency Recruiting Over Corporate

yoda_E_20100616114858So, now, I’ve set up my own shop, and feel like I’ve given my career a second chance. This past week alone, I closed a candidate for a client, and it gave me the kind of energy and enthusiasm for recruiting I haven’t felt for almost two decades. I’ve had thousands of offers accepted since I started out in 1995, but frankly, those felt like a professional responsibility rather than a personal accomplishment.

It felt like being reborn as a recruiter, and at that moment, I knew I had made the right choice. Here are four reasons why I left corporate and decided to go to the “dark side” of contingency recruiting.

1. I can focus on delivering real help to clients who really need it.

It’s infinitely rewarding to work with people who actually WANT and NEED your services. Sure, there are people who think that third party recruiters are a pain in the ass (hell, I was one of them not too long ago), but there’s a ton of value in partnering with external recruiters. We serve as intermediaries in the process, partnering with both sides to ensure constant communication and timely feedback, and are able to approach roles without bias to client or candidate, allowing us to focus on finding the best fit for both sides without having to sell or sugarcoat the opportunity.

Sure, there are a few corporate recruiters who do this, but they have so much on their plate quality often takes a back seat to speed, and have so much on their plates that they often don’t have the time to give every candidate the attention they want and deserve. Bad candidate experience is a necessity largely borne from expediency and external expectations, not hubris or malice.

But as a third party recruiter, candidates aren’t commodities – they’re my clients as much as employers, and it’s my job to make sure they’re happy, because they don’t HAVE to work with me. Nor do my hiring managers, who use me because they respect my recruiting efficacy and chose to trust their open opportunities to me.

It’s not like in corporate recruiting, where you’re automatically assigned a recruiter – in this case, you have to actually actively seek one out. This is a much healthier foundation for a working relationship – and successful recruiting outcomes.

2. Gambling Is Fun.

I love taking risks, and wouldn’t have bet the farm on going out on my own if I didn’t enjoy rolling the dice once in a while, even in a situation where I know the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor, since I’m confident in my recruiting acumen and abilities. Still, there’s no bigger rush than putting your cards on the table knowing that you could go bust, and the constant threat of failure is more exhilarating than frightening.

This year, I will do a number of contingent searches, and I know that these are really all or nothing propositions: if I don’t make a placement, I don’t make money. This, if anything, makes me want to work harder and recruit better than anyone else out there, since I have more to lose – and more invested – than anyone.

Everything is on the line, and I know that when I close a candidate, I’ve made a winning bet – and that’s the best feeling I’ve ever had in my professional career.

3. The chase becomes thrilling.

Wow. Turns out, agency recruiting is sales – no matter what anyone says. Not only that, it’s the hardest sales job conceivable. You don’t only have to find clients (and biz dev sucks), but you’ve got to convince them that, out of the hundreds of thousands of recruiters they could work with, they should work with you. That means being able to articulate your value proposition and what gives you a competitive advantage – a good job or a good company isn’t enough to open a req on this side of the aisle.

If you can get through to a hiring manager or recruiting stakeholder and actually successfully sell them on your services, then you’ve got to negotiate terms and conditions – contracts are no fun, and often are more archaic and unreadable than your average position description. But assuming you come to terms, then the hard part really starts: you’ve got to deliver candidates, and better ones than the company themselves is capable of finding, at that.

Once you find the right candidate, you’ve got to sell them not only on the role, but why they should work with you instead of just applying directly for the job or finding another recruiter to represent them, which means you’ve got to give them a great experience, no matter what, because if they’re not engaged and confident in you, then they don’t have to work with you. So it’s really all up to you, really.

Hiring takes a really long time, or at least longer than anyone involved probably would like, which means constant expectation setting, communications and leveling with both client and candidate, a delicate balancing act of keeping everyone happy while keeping the process moving.

Once that offer finally comes, the long and excruciating process still isn’t over – you’ve got to close them. This means working whatever magic it takes to get them to ignore the many offers and counter offers the most placeable candidates are almost always considering to choose your opportunity, and making sure that when they make that choice, they actually follow through and show up – and stick around for 90 days at that.

The process is painful, but the payout is worth it.

4. The Rewards Are Worth the Risk.

I get paid for finding and closing candidates. I love that. It’s a simple reward for a straightforward service – if I work my ass off to help your organization find the talent it needs to succeed, then I know any payment is easily worth the piece of mind it affords to my clients. This is why I don’t want to put a butt in a seat, I want to find key hires who will make a difference – not least because they are likely to give me business in the future, but also because it means that I’ve delivered as promised to both them and their new employer.

Having the right third party partner, I’ve found, is one of the biggest competitive advantages any employer has for catalyzing growth, finding the best talent on the market and having an objective expert committed to helping your organization succeed, which is mostly impossible without the right people. The best things in life aren’t free, but you get what you pay for – and I know if I can’t give my clients demonstrable recruiting ROI for that fee, then I have no reason being in business to begin with.

Speaking of selling: if you want to work with a third party recruiter who gets life on the inside, and can be on target every time, all the time, hit me up. Hey, now that I’m on the dark side, I’ve seen the light – and am loving every minute of it.

will_thomson-1-200x300About the Author: Will Thompson the Founder & President of Bulls Eye Recruiting a recruiting agency that focuses on recruiting sales, marketing and IT professionals for organization.

He has been in recruiting for 20 years and has worked for organizations such as Rosetta Stone, Dell, eBay, & Rainmaker Systems.

He can be reached at [email protected] or by following him on Twitter @WillRecruits.

 

“We’re Going To Compete With Intuit.” ZipRecruiter CEO Reveals Big Plans for Small Businesses

ZipHire-logo-rgb-2-colorMost recruiting tools and technologies on the market are designed with enterprise employers in mind, focusing an inordinate amount of their bandwidth and budget on landing big deals with big brands.

The increasingly lucrative market for HR technology has created cutthroat competition among established and emerging providers alike to land the largest organizations out there, with product roadmaps reflecting this almost singular focus on selling to and supporting enterprise employers.

This is largely a legacy issue caused by legacy systems, reflecting the high price point for entry, need for complex on-site implementations and custom configurations traditionally associated with ATS and HCM technologies.

Even as systems slowly shift from on-premise to SaaS solutions, driving down price and democratizing access to recruiting technology, most vendors marketing and product development efforts remain dedicated to rounding up the usual Fortune 500 suspects, effectively freezing out the smaller employers who, collectively, are responsible for a significant majority of hires made every year.

 Why Small Business Hiring Is A Big Deal

The mom and pop shops, SMBs and startups, those smaller employers that individually fill only a few roles a year, are in aggregate the recruiting rule, instead of the enterprise exceptions. Few organizations have dozens of highly specialized reqs requiring dedicated recruiters, direct sourcing efforts and sophisticated talent attraction strategies, no matter how misleading content marketing and slanted industry coverage might superficially seem.

In fact, so far in 2015, companies with under 500 employees accounted for a whopping 81% of all new private sector positions, according to ADP, compared to only 38% in 2010. Economists expect this post-recessionary SMB hiring boom to continue for the foreseeable future.

Optimism among startup and small business owners is at a five year high, and Bloomberg reports that approximately 76% of companies with less than 500 employees expect to add headcount this year, compared to only around 60% of companies with workforces of 500 or more (see chart):

750x-1

With relatively few recruiting technology vendors selling into the SMB or startup space, and even fewer offering true plug-and-play SaaS solutions or cost-effective talent attraction tools to level the playing field for small businesses competing with the same top candidates as enterprise employers.

This technology gap creates a significant handicap for small businesses, already at a disadvantage in terms of brand and budget compared to their bigger company counterparts, not to mention the relatively limited in-house recruiting expertise, strategic sophistication and employer brand awareness that give an obvious upper hand to enterprise employers.

ZipRecruiter, on the other hand, is one talent technology company that has successfully penetrated the small business and start-up segments. ZipRecruiter offers on-demand access to completely cloud based and mobile optimized recruitment marketing, applicant tracking and candidate sourcing capabilities designed with smaller employers in mind.

As Seen on TV: Behind the Scenes at ZipRecruiter

ZipRecruiter’s increasingly robust, cleanly designed and intuitive solutions have effectively leveled the talent acquisition playing field by offering enterprise grade solutions to small businesses without the enterprise level price tags, long term contracts or complex configurations their larger counterparts almost always require.

In order to effectively capture the SMB segment and grow market share and spend from smaller employers, ZipRecruiter has taken a very different approach from most vendors, eschewing trade shows, industry conferences and recruiter-focused content to go directly after the end user, most notably through their ubiquitous and aggressive TV ads and consumer print and digital campaigns that have helped the company grow into one of the 10 largest career sites in the world as of March 2015 – although the job distribution product touted in most of these marketing campaigns is, in fact, only one small fraction of ZipRecruiter’s full suite of offerings (and revenue streams).

Founded in 2010, ZipRecruiter’s market share has mirrored the larger market trend of an explosion in SMB and startup hiring. The closely held company, based in Santa Monica, took on its first ever external funding in August, raising a whopping $63 million through a massive Series A round which added much needed capital to expand and grow.

This added to the firepower of an already profitable business and formidable product offering from a company that’s putting up revenues in the “high tens of millions” annually and growing profit by 50% year over year while adding an estimated 30,000 users every month, according to TechCrunch.

ZipRecruiter CEO: New Product Signals Strategic Shift 

images (6)In an attempt to expand its reach and revenue potential beyond the narrow scope of sourcing, ZipRecruiter today announced ZipHire, a new onboarding offering that automates offer letters, employee agreements and other new hire paperwork without any of the actual paper.

According to the company’s press release, “ZipHire represents an exciting new direction in ZipRecruiter product development, and is the first of many planned products that will make the hiring process even easier, faster and more efficient.”

To better understand how the company is positioning itself on the market today, where it’s going tomorrow and what today’s announcement could potentially for a traditional talent technology industry seemingly ready for disruption, Recruiting Daily recently sat down with Ian Siegel, ZipRecruiter co-founder and CEO.

“We’ve traditionally really focused on sourcing, specifically, by offering things like job distribution, an ATS and a resume database that have really made us the best technology in the industry when it comes to aggregating jobs and candidates,” said Siegel, ZipRecruiter co-founder and CEO. “But now, we’re ready to move past sourcing and really expand what ZipRecruiter is able to offer.”

Siegel explained that prior to releasing ZipHire, the company asked its current clients and customers what they most wanted out of the product to ensure their product roadmap aligned with customer needs.

“Our customers overwhelmingly ranked onboarding #1 when we asked them what they wanted the most from our product. They wanted an onboarding solution, and they wanted it to be seamless and paperless,” Siegel reports.

“With ZipHire, we allow them to receive offer customized and fully branded offer letters on mobile devices, fill out and sign forms like I9 and W4, sign those by just using their finger like a pen right on their mobile devices, send it back immediately through that same mobile device and that’s it. They’re already onboarded.”

The Customer Is Always Right. Just Ask Them.

ZH_laptopSiegel reports that while ZipHire underscores the company’s continued commitment to increasing recruiter efficiency, it wasn’t necessarily an anticipated first step outside their core sourcing competencies.

“We were a little surprised, frankly, that onboarding came back tops when we asked our customers, since we figured that it’d probably be more in line with the stuff we were already doing, like candidate pipeline improvement, profile optimization, employer branding or something related to sourcing,” Siegel said.

“But these were low ranked in comparison to onboarding. So we developed an onboarding solution.”

Siegel says an overwhelmingly positive response from ZipHire’s beta customers, revealing that the reaction has been so positive that from now on, their entire road map and product strategy would follow a simple model: “just asking our customers what they want and doing what they tell us.”

When asked why it took almost five years and over sixty million in funding to figure out this seemingly fundamental lesson, Siegel responds that ZipRecruiter first had to build the critical mass required to “build the pipeline required to deliver on our promise of job distribution, since what we’ve really been selling is candidates, and our product was simply to provide those candidates to our customers.”

While many HR Technology companies talk about “consumerization,” ZipRecruiter is built more like an e-commerce site than even the sexiest recruiting software on the market, offering branded career sites, automated prescreening and assessment capabilities, analytics and mobile apply solutions to SMB customers.

This consumer grade solution truly evidences the precept that “everyone is a recruiter,” because it offers end users powerful recruiting technology without requiring recruiting experience or expertise.

The fact that major employers like Netflix, Marriott and Dell account for around one in five of ZipRecruiter’s business underscore the fact that ZipRecruiter compares favorably – and produce competitive recruiting results – with any enterprise talent technology.

“There’s a misconception in the market that we only service SMBs, but north of 20% of our customers are larger enterprises. We’ve got some of the most sophisticated job distribution solutions on the market, and we’re the best at figuring out the absolute best way to do every imaginable firm of candidate acquisition – or at least every one that most employers have ever attempted,” Siegel said.

“We’re perpetually optimizing our processes, and now that we’ve got sourcing down, this was a natural next step.”

ZipRecruiter Zips Beyond Recruiting: The Big Picture for Small Businesses

ZipHire_Employee_ProfileNow, ZipRecruiter has fired what seems to be an opening salvo in a battle to displace the traditional and established players in the talent management space, extending its capabilities past point of hire and developing solutions to eventually support the entire employee lifecycle. 

“We’re moving right down the pipeline. It all starts with a candidate, of course, but once you’ve got that, you need somewhere to put them, so we’ve offered our customers an ATS, and once a company actually selects an applicant, they needed some way to easily onboard them next,” Siegel explains.

“Now, we’re looking at what happens next – we want to get them into payroll, eventually work them into insurance, benefits selection, and build on our secret to success, which is our ability to take discreet solutions and bring them together in one solution.”

Siegel told RecruitingDaily that he expects the evolution of ZipRecruiter to only accelerate over the coming months as the company repositions its offerings to serve small businesses and startups well past the point of hire.

“We’re going to become more of a platform to solve all your HR needs, something no SMB suite does right now,” Siegel says.

“We’re going to be competing with Intuit in so many ways. If they don’t see us as a competitor now, give us a few months. We will have the most comprehensive small business software solutions available anywhere on the market – period.”

That sounds like a lofty promise, but based on their track record so far, if there’s any company capable of delivering on that goal, ZipRecruiter seems uniquely suited to the task – and causing further disintermediation in market desperately in need of disruption.

Mobilegeddon: Is Your Recruitment Agency Ready for April 21?

Mobilegeddon, the change of 2015. Changes planned for April 21 are going to have a significant impact on many recruitment firms. Mobilegeddon CommscoreCorporate recruiters aren’t agreeing to a universal flat fee or proposing all contractors be made permanent employees, instead it is something called mobilegeddon!

Mobilegeddon

Mobilegeddon is a Google Search Algorithm change that is predicted to have a dramatic impact on the visibility of websites from mobile devices. Sites that will be affected by this Google change are those that aren’t currently responsive / optimized for mobile.

So whilst websites will remain visible on desktops, those that Google doesn’t deem to be mobile friendly will be harder to find for mobile users. Five years ago this change wouldn’t have been significant, but in 2015 mobile users now make up a significant proportion of web traffic, even reported to have surpassed desktop by some sources.

I’m predicting the recruitment sector will be hit particularly hard by this change because the standard of agency websites is generally poor (my experience / opinion).

If you wish to know if your website is responsive, search for your site from Google on your mobile, it will say Mobile-friendly if it is. Also if you find yourself having to pinch the screen to read the text on your site, it is a good sign that it isn’t responsive.

Don’t Panic

The good news is that having regularly reviewed the website analytics of our clients, only around 30-40% of website traffic comes from Google or Bing, or maybe even Yahoo. The rest comes from job boards, paid marketing and social media (providing you have a good social strategy in place). In addition the upcoming Google changes will probably take some time to come into full effect. These points aside if your website isn’t responsive now would definitely be a good time to look at changing it!

Mobilegeddon Mobile Friendly

Great Recruitment Websites

If you are considering a new website for your agency, don’t fall into the trap of creating a site that will appear dated almost as soon as it is launched. Websites are now central to your brand’s marketing strategy and need to be built to allow your business to successfully leverage a wide range of tools.

For the last few weeks I’ve been looking both nationally and internationally for great (not just good) agency websites. The reality is that this has been surprisingly challenging, every time I think I’ve found one there are always a few things that are missing. Therefore here is our guide on what should be included on a great recruitment website (in order of priority):

  • Responsive / Mobile Optimised – Hopefully by now you get the importance of this point
  • Easily Searchable Jobs – After all this is why most users are visiting your site
  • A Clear Content Strategy – This is what makes your agency unique and should be aligned with your overall Digital Marketing Strategy
  • Regularly Updated Content – Website SEO is positively influenced by regular content updates, blogs give sites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links
  • Well Written Meta Tags & Page Titles – SEO basics that are often missed or not written specifically for the recruitment sector
  • Site Analytics – These are the background of all online marketing. Is your page registered with Google Analytics? Do you know how to access the data? Do you know what this data means? Are you tracking conversion rates?
  • User Experience – Candidates know they are in demand and therefore are unlikely to fill in four pages of forms to apply. Integrated social media apply buttons are a great solution, but also ensure the website is easily navigable.
  • Content Management System – A good CMS makes all the difference, allowing non-technical users to quickly upload blogs or make content changes.
  • Visible Contact Details – Avoid sending users to a contact page, make these details obvious, ideally with hyperlinks for mobile users
  • Social Integration – Your website should encourage users to engage with your brand and to visit from your social pages. Are users given reasons to join your social communities and are they actively encouraged to do so? Are your blogs RSS compatible?
  • Credible Recommendations – Show clients and candidates that others trust your brand
  • Bespoke Imagery – Obvious stock photography is rubbish! Spend a bit of cash on your own images or high quality stock.
  • Jobs Optimised For Sharing – If a user is on one of your jobs, can they quickly and easily share it on Twitter of Facebook? Do your jobs share to Facebook with images?
  • AdWords Integration – Is your site setup to re-target previous website visitors? In general only 10% of websiteusers convert, are you marketing your jobs to the other 90%? Watch out for a blog on how to do this over the next few weeks
  • Video – Video is quickly gaining momentum as one of the key online mediums. Most websites can host video, but ensure you first have a video marketing strategy?
  • Landing Pages – Modern recruitment websites need to have marketing functionality in-built. Landing pages are a crucial part of this process.
  • Content Marketing – Having valuable content available to attract visitors and capture their details helps to make business development and candidate acquisition easier
  • Database Integration – Applications should be loaded directly to the recruitment database and consultants should be able to post jobs to the website and third party job boards from one place.

Recruitment Website Examples

Here is a list of good recruitment websites that was put together in 2013 by EchoGravity, for me most of these sites fall short in key areas. Instead we would love to receive your submissions for a new list, the first one I’ll include is Spencer Ogden, a medium sized energy recruiter from the UK.

  1. Spencer Ogden
  2. ?

Concluding Thoughts

As an industry we appear to be coming around to the idea that a recruitment agency’s website should be at the centre of all marketing activities. Once a good website is in place it allows agencies to use social and digital marketing to build a strong online brand identity.

From experience I would suggest a good website should start at $10k and could go through to $30k+, depending on the required features and size of your organisation. A large chunk of this expenditure should be committed to early stage analysis and planning to ensure the site fits with your previously decided Digital Marketing Strategy.

About The Author

Chris Social ProminenceChris has worked in the recruitment industry for eight years, where he has been fortunate enough to spend considerable time getting to know the inner workings of three different recruitment sectors in both New Zealand and the United States.

Now running Prominence Chris and the team consult with recruitment agencies and employers on strategies that produce better access to talent. Services include social recruitment training, recruitment agency marketing, employment branding and job marketing conceptualisation and design.

Chris is an active speaker and has successfully delivered lecture and seminar based content across all areas of social recruitment. Chris also volunteers as a speaker at tertiary education facilities to provide real world advice to students and career counsellors on how best to utilise social media for job search purposes.

Chris can be found on Twitter @findsouth or as the main writer on the Prominence Blog

Social Recruiting: How Do You Connect with Your Candidates?

ProfitFull disclosure, I have been leveraging Glassdoor for social recruiting since shortly after their launch in 2008. I recall reading a reddit post regarding job search hacks around that time, and one of the redditors offered a quick how-to of the Glassdoor site. At the time, my primary interest was seeing what the interview process entailed, how long to expect it to last, and what salary range would be appropriate for someone with my skills and experience.

Just seven years later, with all the talk about Candidate Experience, Glassdoor’s employee sourced reviews are more relevant than ever. The candidates applying for your jobs, just like I was, are checking out your company and seeing what the they can find out on the down low before they apply or contact anyone from the company.

I was listening to William Tincup on a webinar the other day and he mentioned some advice he received from his uncle, “If you aren’t taking care of your wife, someone else will.” Moral of the story? Your company’s brand and reputation are the same thing.  If you haven’t taken ownership of your company’s Glassdoor account I suggest you do so immediately. It’s a channel of direct communication with your future employees, and if you aren’t the one controlling the message, someone else is.

New Release: Company Updates

Last week, Glassdoor debuted a new feature worth checking out called Company Updates. Jadea Abolahrari, manager of employment branding at Nestlé Purina Pet Care Company, was one of the beta testers for the feature. Abolahrari states, “Glassdoor Company Updates allow us to give an even deeper view into our company culture and personality. Even more, we’re able to easily customize our recruiting messages to accommodate the potential candidates who visit our Glassdoor page.”

TripAdvisor“Company Updates publish directly to a company’s Glassdoor overview page and are subsequently viewable on all tabs of the profile along a side panel. Within the Employer Center, companies can pin important posts to remain at the top of the feed and access free analytics to track impressions, engagement and followers acquired by each post. They can also monitor competitor performance, including which companies they are competing with for followers’ attention,” Glassdoor explains in their press release.

Every chance you have to communicate directly, and in your own voice, to your candidates is a win. Think about staying in a hotel you have never been to. I always check the TripAdvisor reviews. If the hotel has a poor reputation or hasn’t signed on to address any of the complaints, I take that as a sign of how they will treat me as a customer during my stay. I want a hotel that addresses concerns in a timely fashion and leaves customers satisfied, and that is for a room I may only spend one night in. You had better believe your candidates have the same expectation for a company they are looking to spend the next several years of their life in.

Recruiters are often tasked with social recruiting, building pipelines, talking about jobs, etc. While we wish candidates would come to our career sites to learn about our culture, in reality that is often not the case. With this tool, recruiters have a chance to be social in a space where your potential candidates actually already are, not robots retweeting your Twitter feed, or those 2 super engaged followers on Facebook who like every single thing you post but don’t have the skill set you are looking for.  Social Media Not SocialMy friend Katrina Kibben said to me earlier, “Social is about relationships, and recruiting is about hiring, but it is damn near impossible for social to be about hiring without it being mechanical, forced and interrupting a stream of information that has nothing to do with getting a job.” I see this tool as a 2 birds 1 stone function, a chance for both information and engagement.

How are you using Glassdoor or other recruiting tools to connect with you candidates?   What do you love or hate about connecting with your candidates.? What do you find most useful and what do you think isn’t worth the hype? Let me know with a comment below.

Daniel RoundAbout the Author: Daniel Fogel serves as the VP of Content and Community for Recruiting Daily, bringing 10+ years of experience in both the HR realm at large and talent acquisition specifically. Previously Director of Digital Content Strategy at HCI, Daniel builds communities and relationships organically through crafting thought-provoking content, networking constantly, and connecting people and groups to common purposes and goals. Don’t be surprised if you see emails from him looking to chat.

A well travelled and culturally savvy foodie, you’re likely to find him on his fourth coffee of the day discussing how candidate and employee engagement go hand in hand or why storytelling needs to be key in your employer branding.

Follow Dan on Twitter @daniel_trending or connect with him on LinkedIn.

 

Extracting Email Addresses from LinkedIn

Extracting email addresses from LinkedIn or any other site is a great trick to have up you sleeve. There are plenty of tools to help you accomplish this task but here are 2 tools that I find to be easy to use, accurate and stable.

The video below shows just one technique and tool. Below the video you’ll find links to 2 strong options to consider.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeSUY8QjHiM&list=UUaNLmHp2EjpxJ22sHFLMGTg” width=”500″ height=”300″]

2 Strong Email Extractors to consider:

The Email Extractor:

Email Extractor is a Powerful email extraction extension for your Chrome. Extension automatically fetches valid available email ids from the web page which further you can copy paste particular email ids you need or export all of them to a text file.

This plugin fetches email ids from the Source Code and has no relevance to what you see on the front, so for example, if you see 3 email ids on the website, plugin may fetch more if it finds hidden email ids in the source.

Features :

  • Extract Email Address from Web Pages Automatically
  • Extracts Emails on Ajax Pages as well, for example Google Search
  • Extracts Cloaked Emails
  • Filters for Duplicate Email ID, so you get only Unique ones
  • Local Storage
  • Export Option to export list of your extracted emails to a text file
  • Offline Support (Added as of v1.6 Beta) Needs permission – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf9Knllbcj0
  • Extract Emails from Local HTML Documents
  • Extract Emails from Text Files
  • Fast, Light(Only 51KB)
  • Stores all email ids in Storage (As of v3)
  • Export stored Emails (Clear stored emails on export is optional)

[button_link size=”medium” src=”https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/email-extractor/jdianbbpnakhcmfkcckaboohfgnngfcc?hl=en”]GET IT HERE[/button_link]

 

Zoho Contact Info Extractor:

Contact Details can be saved directly to Zoho CRM as a Lead or Contacts in just one click without even opening Zoho CRM in a separate tab.

This is how the extension works:

  • In Google Chrome, highlight any text be it email signature or the content in Contact Us page or the contact info in LinkedIn page,
  • Right click and “Add to Zoho CRM” from the contextual menu or you can directly click on “Zoho CRM” icon in the toolbar.
  • Information will be parsed automatically and will be shown in the popup menu in the extension. Verify the details and click on “Add to Leads/Contacts”. It will add those details in Zoho CRM.

Tip: You can also use “Drag and drop” option located near the textfields. This will reduce the pain of manually editing the fields.

This extension improves your productivity and vastly improve contact management.

NOTE : Please refresh the browser after installation in order to work.

[button_link size=”medium” src=”https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zoho-crm-contact-info-ext/ffedmmjmpbhlgfilhoojggkdlkchhjhn?hl=en”]GET IT HERE[/button_link]

 

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

None Shall Pass: The Quest for The Holy Grail Of Employee Retention

The workforce has had the advantage of being an employee’s market for a few years now, which often leaves employers scrambling to uncover what key factors will lead to retention. Pay? Recognition? Flexibility?

With plenty of competitive jobs out there for good talent, managers are scrambling to discover the key to retaining their top performers.

Economists are projecting another strong year for the American workforce, estimating that it will surpass the 15-year high we saw in 2014. This will continue to embolden employees to look for greener fields.

According to a survey from Saba Software, conducted by Harris Poll, more than half (56 percent) of U.S. employees are looking to leave their company this year, and a third (36 percent) are actively looking for a new job right now.

Look around you – if it’s not you searching for a job, the person on your left or right is searching, and might be close to getting it.

One key to retention that employers have likely not thought about, uncovered by our recent survey, is the importance of meaning to job seekers.

We’re not talking about “meaning” as in “why we painted our walls our company colors” but that deep feeling of “I know why I’m here every day and I make a difference.”

Employee Retention: Making Sense of the Search for Meaning

200_sMore than with any other generation, Millennials are looking for a sense of meaning in their job today. Nearly 40 percent have cited this as a key factor in job satisfaction.

Within this group, a whopping 45 percent are currently searching for a job. That’s right – half of those young, go-getters are going to get a new job really soon.

Most employees are looking for a sense of purpose in their job, and if they don’t feel like they are contributing in a meaningful way, they will move on.

But if organizations are willing to make some strategic changes, they can keep their best talent and ultimately impose a favorable impact on bottom lines.

While some businesses have focused on Millennials, it’s clear that smart companies need to double-down and invest in high potential employees at all levels. Unfortunately, organizations that don’t get in front of this now will be left talentless, further encouraging over-worked staff to walk out the door.

Across all levels (salary, geographical location, gender) respondents unanimously said that their current companies are not providing the growth opportunities that the staff desires. Additionally, under the same conditions, about 90 percent of the respondents said they want more freedom to drive their own career paths.

Employee Retention: 4 Tips and Tricks for Keeping Top Talent

passKeeping the people you want to help grow your organization and attracting people that will hit the ground running and support your culture is, I’d argue, the single most important differentiator for you in the workforce, and maybe, in your industry. Good people deliver good results.

Hold on to those good people, and you have the makings of a solid success story. Now, getting there is a bit like the proverbial ‘Holy Grail’ of employee relations and ultimately, employee retention.

Fortunately, there are some tried and true steps you can take that will support your efforts to develop and maintain a healthy, happy and productive workforce:

1. Develop a more welcoming culture.

Find out what drives your new starts to do a good job and then replicate it with each and every new employee. Implement solid orientation programs and be aggressive in ensuring those first steps are always maintained.

2. Enable personal growth.

If the majority of the workforce is like me, they’re looking to learn and build on their skills while they’re doing their “day job.” Proactively offer learning opportunities one or two steps above an employee’s current level – challenge them. Nothing is worse than a complacent employee (unless you count the one walking out the door for a better opportunity).

Employees want to take control of their own career path and take on assignments where they can leverage their own strengths, passion, and aspirations. In this market, organizations need to offer an easy-to-access technology platform to support peer-to-peer, video learning, mobile learning, virtual learning and on-the-job-training. This can also be a virtual location where employees can share knowledge with other colleagues in real time and collaborate with them on projects.

3. Allow employees to help drive company direction.

Encourage workforce engagement and you might be surprised at what they’ll come up with. You’ve no doubt heard about “drinking the Kool-Aid.” Well, not everyone is, and that’s a good thing. Proactively involve your employees at every level to have a stake in both their career and the direction of the company.

Smart companies are using – quite literally – intelligent talent management systems to gather data constantly – either from explicitly querying users or through tracking system usage. Organizations can then make proactive and personal recommendations to each employee at an individual level.

4. Create an environment of healthy relationships.

Oh sure, the office Gossip Guy is entertaining, but it breeds negativity and an overall fog over the day and throughout your workforce. Encourage positive conversations about company direction, creativity and strategy. Share those ideas and build on the great ones, too.

Again, some smart implementation of communications platforms would be tremendously beneficial. Personalization is only one of the things offered through technology; it can also be used to drive employees together, enable communication and encourage a friendly work environment.

I am empowered and energized when I feel like I’m a part of the future direction of my company and I know I’m not alone. Engage your workforce, truly integrate them into the DNA and thinking of the organization and you will immediately be the richest company on the block – in more ways than one.

 

About the Author: As Chief Marketing Officer at Saba Software, Emily He is responsible for the development and execution of the company’s go-to-market strategy as well as market awareness, demand generation, and field enablement programs on a global basis.

Her direct responsibilities include product marketing, public relations, analyst relations, web marketing, demand generation programs, customer marketing, and partner marketing. Emily brings 17 years of experience in customer relationship management, supply-chain management, and human capital management.

Prior to Saba, she held corporate marketing and product marketing leadership positions at a number of leading public companies such as AT&T, Oracle Corporation, and Siebel Systems, and E2open. She holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Follow Emily @EmilyHe1 or connect with her on LinkedIn.