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Survival of the Fittest: The Evolution of Recruiting Technology

It’s no secret that the world of work has changed – but the fact of the matter is, recruitment, largely, remains stuck in stasis, with many employers failing to adopt the tools and technologies today that will be required to compete for – and win – top talent tomorrow.

While new systems and software can seem scary, the good news is that these tools can actually help handle some of the most manual and monotonous parts of the hiring process, like sifting through stacks of seemingly identical resumes and generic cover letters, freeing them so that they can focus on finding, engaging and attracting the best and the brightest candidates available.

As technology continues to advance and become even more omnipresent in our everyday lives, it’s up to recruiters to create scalable, sustainable strategies to reach today’s candidates in real time, all the time, no matter where in the world of work they happen to work. Because if you aren’t keeping pace, chances are, you’re already losing the competition for great candidates to those employers who aren’t stuck in the staffing stone age.

Modern Times: 5 Recruiting Technology Trends Every Employer Needs To Know

If you’re still relying on spreadsheets and a mostly manual hiring process that focuses on paperwork more than people, here are 5 hiring tools you can use to keep up with the times – and the competition.

1. Video Resumes

Employers aren’t the only ones trying to stand out from the increasingly cutthroat and competitive labor market; candidates increasingly are experimenting with new ways to get noticed beyond simply shooting resume after resume into an ATS and hoping to get a phone call.

Increasingly, this means reinventing the idea of a ‘resume’ altogether, and we’re not talking about switching to colored fonts, fancy card stock or unconventional formatting. We’re talking video.

The rise of video resumes might not be replacing the traditional paper based documents any time soon, but these do offer an ideal way to go beyond simply listing skills and experience to really showcase their soft skills and speak to culture fit, too. Many candidates, frustrated by the relative unresponsiveness of recruiters, often think that if only they could somehow get at least a look, they’d see what they’re really missing out on.

Well, now any candidate can get a look – and present themselves as more attractive potential hires by leveraging video to create a picture worth a thousand resumes. The good news for recruiters is that video resumes make assessing candidates easier for them, too – a rare example of a recruiting win-win.

2. Professional Networks

Yeah, social recruiting has become pretty passe by now, but professional networks have recently taken a center stage in today’s talent acquisition process. These networks, LinkedIn being the most prominent example, are currently the fastest growing global source of hire, increasing 73 percent over the past 4 years alone.

This speaks to their increasing efficacy and mainstream adoption as a core component of the modern job search for candidates and employers alike.

While the most prominent social platforms like Facebook and Twitter can help recruiters and employers learn more about a candidate’s personality, professionalism and presentation style, professional networks were created primarily to connect job seekers with recruiters, employers and third party agencies, and have features and functions designed to facilitate that end goal not found on more traditional social networks. These features include the ability to apply directly for jobs or share referrals to their onsite social connections. These platforms present a powerful way to target and engage top talent while building a magnetic employer brand (and pipeline) for future hiring needs.

If you’re not making the most out of professional networks, you’re missing out on one of today’s most valuable recruiting resources – so make sure that this is one tool that’s always part of your toolbox.

3. Video Interviews

Video interviewing has seen a dramatic rise in adoption by employers, and not just for those looking for remote workers or considering candidates in different markets or regions. Video interviewing now offers both the ability to have a two way conversation between employers and employees as well as the chance to have candidates respond to preset questions that allow recruiters and hiring managers to screen whenever or wherever they want.

This one way video interviewing capability, at least, gives recruiters the chance to improve efficiency and increase their chances that no great candidates slip through the cracks by providing a powerful new way to watch up to watch up to 10 video interviews in the time it takes to perform a single phone screen. When it comes to productivity hacks, this one’s a no brainer.

Whether conducting one way interviews at your convenience or utilize video for live interviews, this emerging medium can assist employers in assessing not only a candidate’s body language and nonverbal cues sent when responding to certain questions, but also their overall presentation style, presence and professionalism, too. No more unpleasant in-person interviewing surprises is one outcome every recruiter should be eager to start seeing.

Video helps ensure that what you see, at least during the screening and selection process, is truly what you get when a candidate shows up on site.

4. Mobile Recruiting

Many of us are so glued to our mobile devices that they’ve more or less morphed into extensions of our bodies, an appendage that’s omnipresent no matter where we are or what we’re doing. In fact, those “Gen Y” workers recruiters seem so concerned with – the 18-36 year old demographic – check their smart phones an average of 43 times per day. With so much time spent basking in the glow of our mobile screens, it’s crucial that employers make sure they’re able to reach candidates there, too, and not have hiring remain chained to a desktop.

Not only are more job seekers using mobile devices to search for or browse job postings and career content, but they’re also increasingly demanding the ability to apply for those jobs on the go, too. Given this trend, it’s important to optimize your online career sites and employer branding initiatives specifically for these devices, creating a seamless and painless user experience for mobile users. Adopting mobile recruiting not only creates convenience and conversions, but improves candidate experience, too.

If you’re still not sure whether or not your hiring process is built for mobile, try applying for one of your open positions on a mobile device – and if you can’t, it’s probably time to start looking at new systems and solutions, stat. Even if you can’t bring in a new platform, social networks like LinkedIn or Google Plus offer open APIs that allow for easy integration with existing ATS and HCM systems, creating an easy way to make job postings mobile optimized and more likely to get found by those passive candidates who might not even know they’re looking – yet.

5. Big Data and Analytics Solutions

Big data is making big waves, and big changes to the business of hiring and the recruiting industry in general. That’s because these concepts represent a powerful approach for adopting analytics to find better talent faster than ever before by provide insights and information to help recruiters recruit smarter.

Rather than spend your time manually reviewing a ton of resumes and dispositioning them one at a time, employers are increasingly adopting matching tools and technologies with specialized algorithms designed to search for and stack rank the most qualified candidates among the often hundreds of resumes flooding in for every open position. These programs leverage more than just resumes for generating results, though, and many incorporate a broad range of candidate related data, such as social profiles or automated assessment tools – to filter by skills and qualifications, too.

Big data allows recruiters to eliminate guess work and eliminate waste throughout the hiring process, from cutting down on paperwork to preempting poor hiring decisions by filtering out all but the most highly qualified candidates.

Sure, most of these sound like buzzwords, but that’s because they truly are a sign of the times – and if you’re stuck in the past, you’d better start adopting these technologies today, or lose out in the future war for tomorrow’s talent.

About the Author: Josh Tolan is the CEO of Spark Hire, a video interview solution used by more than 2,000 companies across the globe.

Learn more about how video has changed and connect with Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter.

What Your Employer Brand Really Says To Candidates

There are already thousands of talent acquisition technology startups focusing on reinventing, revolutionizing or reimagining recruiting, with hundreds of new platforms and providers appearing every year. Getting a full view of the market landscape for this dynamic, constantly evolving industry represents a daunting challenge, even for the most seasoned analysts and experts focusing solely on this space.

For the average recruiter or talent acquisition leader, it’s almost impossible to know what’s new and what’s next, given the fact that there’s always something new, and it’s hard to focus on the next when you’re forced to deal with the realities of obsolete software and legacy systems today.

Fortunately, Talent Tech Labs (TTL), a New York City incubator focused on talent acquisition technology, recently released a meaningful map of the market to create a useful taxonomy for figuring out what vendors are out there, what their product focuses on, who it’s designed to serve (e.g. candidate vs. employer) and how each stacks up to the competition across the full spectrum of hiring, from sourcing to onboarding and beyond.

This useful grid provides valuable visibility by enabling anyone to see the talent technology space in a single snapshot, and is constantly being tweaked and iterated to reflect the inevitable evolution of this ecosystem, with new entrants, shuttered shops and the inevitable M&A activity (not to mention updated product roadmaps and market positioning for existing players looking for new niches). I’ll be interested to see how this looks in future releases, but here’s what the TA food chain looks like today:

If you’re thinking that looks pretty crowded and complicated, imagine having to actually figure this out as an end user or stakeholder in the recruiting software or systems selection process.

Talent Trends: The Headlines Aren’t the Whole Story

Anchoring this snapshot of the ecosystem was Talent Tech Lab’s list of “must see” headlines in the HR Technology industry, which, as a pretty avid observer and curator of related content, I found to be both enjoyable and a good reality check and secondary source to make sure I hadn’t missed anything while keeping up to date in this fast moving industry.

Buried among these headlines, however, was one quote that seemed to particularly stand out after I finished reading the report:

“67% of Job seekers said they’d accept a lower salary if the company had exceptionally positive reviews online.”

Really? I’m not sure I buy this somewhat suspect statistic. I mean, sure, people may really love brands to the point of forming an emotional attachment to them, but most of the people I know and interact with daily would really rather get paid. Now I’m not saying that we wouldn’t necessarily rather get paid by the brands that we’re the most attracted or attached to, but if given a choice between brand and bank account, it kind of seems like a no brainer.

Sure, if you’re Rich Uncle Pennybags, have a trust fund or cashed in on an IPO or sold a startup, you might be able to have some flexibility to explore, say, that job with Upper Deck you always dreamed about since opening up that pack of cards in 1989, finding that coveted Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card, and making you the envy of all your friends for the summer. Theoretically, of course – although if you actually have that card, let’s talk.

Speaking of trades, sacrificing income for brand affiliation seems like a dud of a deal. According to Time, nearly half of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. The pressure of keeping food on the table, your kids in braces, and basic necessities suggests that for most of the candidates out there while the brand is a nice perk, maybe it’s not a necessity.

Unless, of course, it’s Google, Facebook or Twitter, but then again, each reports average worker salaries in the six figures, which figures – the best brands, ostensibly, can also afford to pay top dollar for top talent. Having to make a choice between the two seems a little silly, since if a brand has equity, then so too should the people behind it.

Too Big To Fail? Employer Branding Gone Bad

But even at those companies growing their P/L without skimping on salaries are struggling with attrition; in fact, losing key stakeholders actually makes having a household name somewhat of a liability.

For instance, when Tim in accounting turned in his two weeks, CNET probably didn’t cover the story – nor did it send any sort of message to the market about the viability of your business. Not so at the tech companies that seem to top every “Best Places To Work List” and B-School case study.

The reason these companies struggle with employee turnover – Google, the world’s most desirable employer, is also the company with the shortest average employee tenure, with the average employee departing after just around a year on the job, on average.

This is because, I suspect, the real reason people want to work for this and similarly big brands is that any cut in pay they take for a role is a calculated opportunity cost. People put in their time until it’s time to cash in.

Consider that saying “I worked for Twitter” is essentially sending the same message to prospective employers as “I work for Twitter,” at least from a branding standpoint, and the value of that experience (or perceived value, I suppose) won’t diminish even if it isn’t the most recent experience listed on one’s resume.

It’s the same phenomenon as going to an Ivy League school. Sure, it’s way more expensive than say, State U, and you can get the same degree with the same major at any other school, but it’s the name cache that counts. Going to a Harvard or Yale doesn’t only build brand cache, but also an enviable network that opens doors and opportunities. What a blue chip degree doesn’t do, though, is necessarily indicate the quality of work, culture fit, performance or development potential employers actually get when they buy into a brand.

The most successful Silicon Valley firms and the Ivy League grads they’re competing for, however, represent only a tiny slice of the overall talent acquisition picture – the New Yorker to the proverbial New York Post that comprises most of the workforce working at companies you probably haven’t heard of, but represent an overwhelming majority of the total employment picture.

If you’re recruiting for one of these less influential firms and don’t necessarily have a consumer brand strong enough to leverage as part of your talent attraction strategies, then obviously you’ve got to use a little more finesse and flexibility to effectively hire the workers your workforce needs. Nowhere is this more true than in tech.

Sure, everyone wants to work for Facebook or Apple, but what about another household name, Pop Secret? How do you go about getting a great coder to consider making the move to CPG? If you can win over the Java programmers you need to develop your Perfect Pop app over the other opportunities out there for top tech talent, you sir, have some serious recruiting mojo. Hell, closing a req without having a ton of qualified applicants lining up to apply based on brand recognition alone means you’re at least worthy of making it into one of those Bud Light Real Men of Genius commercials.

Candidate Experience & Employer Brand: Two Sides of the Same Coin

In a feature accompanying the Talent Tech Labs quarterly update, Gerry Crispin tells us employer branding is ultimately a numbers game.

“Responding to a comprehensive (Candidate Experience Awards) survey, 60% of the candidates, most of whom are never going to be hired, confirmed that they already knew about and believed they had a relationship with an employer before they even applied,” Crispin points out.

This surfaces a few critical issues that need to be addressed. The first is that if 60% of candidates truly have a preexisting relationship with the brand, than you probably have a pretty good brand, even if you don’t necessarily know it. Second, if you’re not actively managing your employer brand or if your reputation as an employer sucks, then you’re going to face an uphill battle.

No matter what your message is, you’re really only a Google search away from candidates seeing what people are really saying, and there’s almost no chance of successfully making a hire if your credibility as a recruiter or employer are in doubt.

Critical to protecting this brand, of course, is the candidate experience, which is why it’s so important to close the loop, provide feedback or at least acknowledge even the most unqualified applicants. For every hire we make, there are scores we have to turn away, but since data suggests that these rejected candidates are likely current or future customers, you better be damn sure you’re not turning away business, either.

Similarly, we know that statistically, people are more likely to share negative experiences over positive ones in public – which means that a bad experience from a candidate you don’t bother calling back is going to likely to get posted straight to Glassdoor for every other potential hire to see in perpetuity.

That’s why it’s really in every recruiters best interests to own experience from the outset, and ensure communications, even templated ones, are transparent and timely.

Candidate Experience: Why Word of Mouth Matters for Employer Brands

I used to explain to my team that hiring is mostly like turning down someone you’d never be in a relationship with in a million years when they ask you for a date – it’s painful, but you’ve got to do it as diplomatically as possible lest the inner crazy gets unleashed. If your candidate experience policy is more scorched earth than soft touch, then you’re likely the one who’s going to get burned.

Why not let a candidate know through direct, civil and firm feedback that they’re not a good fit instead of just ignoring them entirely? That at least sends a signal that someone’s actually acknowledging them and they’re not disappearing into the black hole, which, trust me, will instantly differentiate your employer brand from everyone else who just hopes these candidates go away on their own – and opens the door to referrals and relationships instead of burning bridges.

It’s called the Golden Rule for a reason – and guess what, a little empathy in recruiting goes a long ways – and there’s nothing bad about goodwill, no matter where it’s coming from.

I definitely think candidate experience is going to remain a critical area of focus for recruiters, no matter what the vendor ecosystem looks like – it transcends tools and technologies and is arguably more important to recruiting success. This is a good thing for everyone involved, because it forces transparency and engagement around employers, and helps us to be be more informed consumers of work, which is what we all are at the end of the day.

I think largely, employer brand efficacy won’t be determined by recruitment marketing or sexy career sites, but rather, by the aggregate experience of candidates and employees, who are increasingly sharing their stories and shining a light on those companies who until now could keep future candidates in the dark about this kind of stuff. But if your company is really a great place to work, then employer branding should take care of itself.

Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing out there, after all. Because we trust our colleagues, connections, friends and family – and, probably, even complete strangers on social – a hell of a lot more than we trust recruiters. Period.

About 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.

Dashboard Confessional: How To Lie With Social Recruiting Analytics

As someone who’s more or less grown up with the commoditization and corporate adoption of social media, and as someone who gets paid to do this stuff, I’ve seen a huge shift in the way analytics play a role in informing that particular marketing function.

In fact, because it’s more or less a fire hose of structured data tied up in a bow of integrated APIs, social media has become the canary in the coal mine when it comes to analytics—the earliest adopter of some of the most advanced approaches to collecting, interpreting and visualizing the billions of input points going on at any time in real time.

The ability to forecast the relative volume of search engine queries or the reach of a target professional demographic segment on social is how people get paid on the Internet, after all.

The cash cow of display ads, PPC, and behavioral targeting technologies rely on being able to accurately predict future values based on past performance in order to properly price the product, and pay-for-performance is predicated on predictive analytics.

This means that as someone who’s had to work hands on with social analytics tools for so many years, I feel that the target audience for the content said tools are measuring are finally coming around to where social business was at its inception.

Social Analytics: A Reach for Relevance

In these dark ages, of course, HR and recruiting was too busy disregarding or disparaging social media to deign to analyze whether or not those Luddite-like reactions were rooted in quantifiable reality. This was around the time that social platforms had to figure out how to actually monetize all that buzz, which meant that social adopted analytics as a core competency primarily was a means of self-preservation.

And it’s worked out really, really well from a marketing perspective—just like recruiting, marketing tends to be one of those existential disciplines where most people just kind of end up, stuck in a cost center and making it all up as they go along. Because as they figured out long ago, no one’s going to argue with numbers, even if they have no idea what those numbers mean.

The unspoken secret of social, of course, is that those numbers in fact mean absolutely nothing. But no one takes the time to ask the big questions about big data, and that’s in a function that finds measuring stuff like where traffic is coming from and how much it costs—fairly pedestrian, things recruiting largely still struggles with.

Dashboard Confessional: The Specious State of Social Statistics

As mentioned before, social media seems to be pretty far along the maturity model of big data adoption, and the tools competing for a piece of the pie for enterprise social spend have figured out what HR Technology vendors are just now realizing: a clean, sexy and sleek UX/UI is the ultimate competitive advantage.

Since every vendor is selling more or less the same features and functions, how something looks has become easier to differentiate than what something actually does.

Here’s (to the right) what one of my favorite tools, Sprout Social, looks like for measuring social media on @RecruitingBlogs, my primary business account.

There’s a ton of information there—this account is perfect on their influence scale, which, trust me, must be somehow skewed for that to happen; similarly, most of the content is scheduled, and if the limited engagement thatdoes go down is in the top 30% for social, it must be tumbling tumbleweeds across most feeds.

But neither of these numbers actually tells me anything. Nor does the number of posts that go up a day or overall account growth—there’s no inherent value in a Twitter follower, but that hasn’t stopped social professionals for stressing growth metrics like these that are in fact superficial and specious, statistically speaking.

So we pay real cash for mostly fake followers, and even those users who fit in the profile, apparently, aren’t likely to engage or even pay attention when looking at the aggregate. 60,000 followers seems like a lot, but that’s also relative, really.

Compared to a careers account, not bad. Compared to a Kardashian, flat out pathetic. This is why content may be king in marketing, but in analyzing the efficacy of those efforts, context reigns supreme.

Similarly, here’s the overview I see in my dashboard:

Look at that! 3.7 million impressions! 1,200 interactions! And that’s only in a week!

That looks really good, but is it? This nice data visualization glosses over the fact that these numbers aren’t actually benchmarked against any average, and the “trends” are exclusive to the data of your account, not any sort of aggregate. This makes this nothing but some pretty looking numbers that are pretty much worthless.

Oh yeah, and if you can figure out how much those 3.7 million impressions are worth, let me know, because I can’t seem to see any real value from the millions of impressions, and never have—at least as an independent instead of integrated inbound source.

Does Big Data Add Up for Social Recruiting?

Social, as an early adopter, might be further along in making metrics meaningful and moving analytics from the margins to the mainstream, but early adoption has a downside.

And that’s that it’s those who go first who have no best practices or lessons to learn from, and therefore, failure is inevitable.

But for recruiting, being behind means being able to see social as a cautionary tale for making too big a deal out of big data. Just like social media is constantly fighting to justify its existence on a P/L and has something of a professional inferiority complex, recruiting is rushing to embrace analytics primarily as a means to the end of being more integrated, and appreciated, business assets instead of back office liabilities.

We like easily digestible numbers, complex looking pie charts and bar graphs in bold colors, because they give us the artificial feeling that we’re doing well, because we have no context or preexisting benchmarks to measure ourselves on.

Self preservation is far easier when you’ve got statistics on your side, and the more self-evident data seems, the less likely it is to have any actual depth beyond some configurable charts and color themes. This means instead of trying to find out what’s informing these numbers, we’d rather use them to inform our future efforts, because, hey, that’s predictive analytics, after all, even if the raw data isn’t even that good to begin with.

This, of course, is an exercise in futility—but that’s never stopped anyone in recruiting, because if you actually looked at the realistic odds of filling a requisition, you’d probably realize how you’re already ahead of the curve when it comes to producing results.

Read more at the Data Driven Recruiter, powered by Jibe.

For more on how to put analytics to work at your work, make sure to check out the Data Driven Recruiter, presented by Jibe. Follow the Data Driven Recruiter on Twitter @RecruitDDR and use the hashtag#RecruitWithData to follow real really kick butt tips and tricks for becoming a real data driven recruiter in real time, all the time.

Bad Influence: Why Industry Lists Should Kick the Bucket.

If you’re one of those recruiters who’s at all in tune with the conversation happening in closed Facebook groups, niche industry forums or consume content and commentary in the weird little world that is the recruiting related blogosphere, you’ve probably noticed a new trend surfacing on social.

It’s a trend that’s trending towards resentment, a final public pushback on those lists that rank as the most obnoxious and omnipresent cornerstones of crappy corporate content. You know what I’m talking about – those completely arbitrary, completely asinine “must follow” or “top influencers” lists that are simply a ploy to get promotion from the Top 25, 5o, 100, whatever people who they’ve subjectively included without any real method to the madness.

The same names reappear again and again, of course – most of these lists are likely cut and paste jobs or else rely on the same free, yet faulty, analytics platforms to gauge “influence” based on such scientifically valid data as, you know, someone’s reach on Twitter or how often they post content, irrespective of quality or engagement.

This has been going on for quite some time, of course, but for some reason the recent release of Glassdoor’s 2015 HR & Recruiting Thought Leaders to Follow seemed to set off a very vocal backlash about the validity of these lists and whether or not these reflect actual industry influence or acumen or nothing more than vapid public popularity contests.

In fact, writing posts decrying lists have become almost as common as the worst practice they purport to target, and much smarter people than I, including Paul DeBettignes over at ERE and Red Branch Media’s Maren Hogan have already weighed in on this phenomena with poignant personal perspectives which preempt a lot of the points I hold to be self-evident about these lists.

Both have very strong points of view about the validity of these industry influencer lists, or the vacuous vacuum such content creates, but for me, the truth is, as both a real recruiter and a recruiting blogger (which seem to be the two competing camps at odds on this particular issue), I really have no idea what to think about these lists in the first place.

Bullet Point to the Head: Lies, Laziness and Lists

I guess I assumed, perhaps naively, that these lists were carefully curated by someone who closely followed the industry conversation and based their selections on either objective, standardized criteria or made a conscious effort to make suggestions for the people who they believe are actually worth listening to for their knowledge, insight or expertise.

But the more and more I see these posts pop up, the more I’m starting to surmise that it’s really just a ploy to get someone with a big social footprint to share proprietary content by appealing to their ego (never a bad idea for that set who cares about Klout), or else reward or induce someone for promoting their product publically.

At the very least, many of these are a thinly veiled attempt by the vendors who produce them to tie their brands to some of the more prominent (if not influential) personalities in our industry, an unendorsed endorsement that’s inevitably implied by this kind of content.

Now, I don’t want to take away anything from the companies taking the time to create these lists, nor the names they list, most often without the permission of the person in question. But I find it a little odd that most of the “best recruiter” or “top HR professional” posts almost always exclude anyone who actually does this stuff for a living – and many of those included on the list would themselves admit that they don’t meet any practical definition for defining themselves as practitioners.

But hey, the purpose of this post is not to belittle the people on these lists who do nothing more than provide grist for the content marketing mill. Nor am I intending to knock this genre as a whole, because hey, lists aren’t intrinsically extraneous. I like lists. I make lists. I live by lists. I have a grocery list, a laundry list, a to-do list. I even have a bucket list. The list goes on. But this isn’t what this is about.

Full disclosure: this one time, swear to God, I was on a list once. No, really, cross my heart. In fact, I was flattered and a big surprised when a friend, who was also included, gave me a shout out about the shout out. That list, which is prominent in my mind because, well, it’s the only one I’ve made was titled 10 Recruiters Who Should Be On Your Radar #SundayShoutOut, from the inimitable Bill Boorman. Considering the source, and the novelty, I’m not going to lie. I was honored to be on there.

In fact, I’m aware in hindsight that many of the people included on this list were recruited away to their current positions due in part to their inclusion in this one post, which is a pretty strong argument for the power (and validity) of these lists. And, come to think of it, I was on one that was way less prominent, but like most of these things, it’s really not even worth mentioning except to bring up that old Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to be a member in any club that would have me.

The Truth About Lists

So it goes – lists aren’t categorically incipient or idiotic, but the only ones that have any sort of actual value or meaning are the handful that are written with some thought beyond specious social media analytics or lining up the usual suspects. Which is why I wanted to try my hand at contributing to the cannon by creating a list of my own.

I know, you’re probably rolling your eyes. But here’s the thing. My methodology is pretty straight forward. This isn’t supposed to be a list of the people who are the most influential on social media or on the conference circuit or the industry bloggeratti, like most influencer lists.

Nope, this is as subjective and arbitrary as those are, I admit, but that’s the entire point: because these are the recruiters, marketers, bloggers, HR folks and everyone else killing it in their jobs and moving our profession forward that I personally know, and who personally influence me.

The ultimate measure of influence is whether or not someone can inspire real change, and each person on my list more than meets that litmus test, profoundly impacting my everyday approach as an everyday recruiter while informing my mindset and my personal goal to be the best recruiting professional possible. These are more than handles and avatars to me; these are people who inspire me with meaningful conversations, who challenge my assumptions and the industry status quo, and with whom I can either talk shop or simply shoot the shit. These are my influencers.

My friend and fellow RecruitDC colleague Lars Schmidt recently started a kind of cool movement called Random Tweets of Kindness (#RTOK), which turned into a worldwide trending topic and powerful affirmation of the power of a simple “thank you.” I think it’s something we don’t do enough in this world, frankly, which is why I wanted to create this list as a way of recognizing the real recruiting influencers for at least this one real recruiter.

A caveat – there are going to be some names on here that you probably recognize, the kind who pop up on plenty of lists, and are very well known in our industry – and in these cases, I’d argue rightfully so, because I’ve seen first hand that, if nothing else, they actually know their shit and are willing to share knowledge and spread the love.

Conversely, there are going to be some names on here that you’ve never heard of, because, well, frankly they’re not recruiters per say, but who still shape the world of recruiting and sourcing while making it a little less dull and at least a little interesting.

35 Recruiting Influencers Who Actually Influence Me

What’s interesting to note is that when I first started this list, I quickly brainstormed at least a hundred people I wanted to include but realized that it might be apropos to pare this down to a more manageable size – so I landed on 35 for a start.

I intend to add to this list in future incarnations, but for my debut edition, here are those 35 people who have helped me become a better professional, a better person, or at least, gave me some new insight or understanding, a fresh perspective or a renewed passion when it comes to recruiting. So to everyone on this list, I’d like to say, simply: thank you.

And for those of you who are going to hate because, well, it’s another one of those lists, if you disagree with me, well, go write up an influencer list of your own. This one’s all me. A quick note: these are in no particular order other than how I wrote them down originally. Just to clear that up.

Kathleen Smith (@YesItsKathleen): Kathleen is the person responsible (so blame her?) for getting me off teh sidelines and in the game with my first ever speaking appearance at RecruitDC. Kathleen gives more back to the community – and profession – than anyone I’ve ever met. She’s not only an inspiration, but she’s my fellow SciFi movie buddy. Live long and prosper, indeed.
Cathy Suzanne Anderson (@CathyMannis): Simply one of the smartest sourcers I know. Cathy knows her stuff and proves it every day building pipelines – and goodwill – as a senior sourcing specialist for Deloitte.
Michael Kelemen (@Animal): Say what you will about the infamous Animal, truth is the dude makes me laugh. His weekly radio show is hysterical – and informative – if sometimes maybe just a little awkward (in the best of ways). Michael challenges his guests, but fortunately, took it easy on me the time I sat squirming in his hot seat. Give him a listen – it’s (usually) worth it.
Jerry Albright (@Jerry_Albright): One of Animal’s co-conspirators, Jerry can be gruff and opinionated about recruitment, but that’s because he has a day job running a successful search firm. Jerry is probably the best third party recruiter I’ve ever been lucky enough to work with – and I’m lucky to get to learn from him every day. Dude plain gets it.
Shally Steckerl (@Shally): What can I say about Shally? He’s a mentor, trainer and most importantly, a friend. Shally literally wrote the book on sourcing, teaches talent at Temple University and runs the Sourcing Institute training program. He’s one of the originals in this industry, but always stays on the cutting edge.
Ben Gotkin (@BenGotkin): Another RecruitDC founder, Ben brings the awesome as a partner on the Recruiting Toolbox team. With his background recruiting for such companies as Marriott and McGladrey, he’s helping equip the next generation of recruiters today with the tips and tricks they need for tomorrow. Which is pretty cool.
Michael Heller (@Michael_Heller): Not only does Michael run a successful staffing consulting firm, but he’s also working to solve some of the industry’s most pressing problems as the brains behind iRevue, a killer app designed to help companies reduce turnover. Definitely a cool tool – unlike Michael, who’s just plain cool.
Pauline Rogers (@PaulineJRogers): From the first time we met in Sydney, I fell for Pauline’s infectious laugh and even more infectious enthusiasm for this business. She’s a brilliant hospitality recruiter at Little Black Book – and the person to look up if you ever need a job in Australia. Which I just might one of these days…
Sandra Thompson: Sandra is a firebrand of a lady and someone I both admire and respect – one of those head down practitioners whose honesty is a credit to the world of recruiting (even if she’s not a social media doyen). Next time I’m in Texas, I’m going out of my way to say howdy – and thank you.
Mike Wolford (@Mike1178): Mike is another one of those rare recruiters who obviously just gets it. Simply put, dude is a great sourcer who will constantly challenge you to think while also making you laugh. Want to know what’s new and what’s next in sourcing? Give him a shout (or read his book – definitely worth the time).
Ronnie Bratcher (@RonnieBratcher): When I think of “real” sourcers, I think of Ronnie, who is one of the first people I met in this industry, and whose kindness to others and passion for sourcing can be contagious. I really respect Ronnie, particularly the fact that he’s always willing to pay it forward and lend a helping hand.
Nicole Greenberg (@NGSEsq): Nicole might not be a recruiter, but she can build a Boolean string or perform pen testing with the best sourcers in the business. A licensed attorney, she knows the legal ins and outs of this industry, and her coverage of these cases proves she’s one of the best bloggers in the business.
Stacy Donovan Zapar (@StacyZapar): Most people know Stacy as the “Most Connected Woman on LinkedIn,” but I’ve been lucky enough to know her for years during my early days recruiting in San Diego, and has been a brilliant sourcer and recruiter for years before she became a social media superstar. This is one thought leader who lives up to the hype.
Bill Boorman (@BillBoorman): You probably know Bill, but if you’re in recruiting and the name doesn’t ring a bell, you should have your bell rung. Bill started this little thing called #Tru that has transformed into a global phenomenon. If you ever get the chance, take a day out to give #Tru a try, and you’ll likely never think the same about recruiting again. Bill is a brilliant connector of great minds and great topics, resulting in a great learning experience for everyone involved.
Gerry Crispin (@GerryCrispin): The “Godfather” of recruiting and the mastermind driving the concept of “candidate experience” into the mainstream recruiting conversation and consciousness, the man is not only a master of data, but he’s one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet. Gerry is one of those people who has been a mentor to many of us, and deserves even more credit than he gets for his contributions to this business.
Mark Tortorici (@MarkNexus): Mark could be one of the world’s best hackers had he chosen a different path, but as is, he brings technical acumen and expertise to the sourcing world as one of the best in the business. He’s a master at finding those unfindable candidates – and a great travel companion, as I learned during our recent recruiting road show in Australia.
John Vlastelica (@Vlastelica): John is one of the founders and organizers of the annual #Talent42 event in Seattle, which is quite simply one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to. If you’re a technical recruiter, than this event should be blocked off on your calendar every year. John has been in this business for a long time and
Carmen Hudson (@PeopleShark): Carmen is another of the brilliant minds behind #Talent42 and Recruiting Toolbox, and is one of the most talented and resourceful sourcing and recruiting experts out there. If this industry had a first lady, she’d make the short list.
Glen Cathey (@GlenCathey): Glen was one of the first influencers I encountered when I started learning sourcing. His Boolean Blackbelt blog is one of the most helpful resources for any hands-on sourcer or recruiter, with invaluable how-tos and insights on tools and techniques that will hook in anyone who reads his stuff. Trust me on this one – there’s a lot to learn, and Glen is one of the best teachers I know.
Mike Chuidian (@MikeChuidian): A fantastic sourcer and recruiter for Deloitte, he helps keep recruiting real – and he’s a damn good DJ who truly lives up to his reputation of being a “rad recruiter.” One of the original 3 Amigos.
Celinda Appleby (@CelindaAppleby): This girl. Talk about one of the brightest stars in social recruiting and employer branding, Celinda is now changing the game at Oracle, but has an amazing track record at building employer brands at some of the world’s biggest brands. The third Amigo, she’s also the queen of nametags, sharpies and smart conversations.
Pete Radloff (@PJRadloff): Pete is an amazing leader and recruiter who helps make the people he works with better. It’s rare to use the word ‘inspirational’ to talk about this industry, but Pete inspires everyone by being a great trainer and mentor to anyone lucky enough to work with him. He’s also a hell of a blogger, too.
Doug Munro (@DODRecruiterDC): You might not know the name, but that’s because he doesn’t like the spotlight. Which is silly, because it should always be on this quiet, humble and wickedly smart leader, mentor, friend and recruiting role model.
Casey Kugler (@CaseyHiresNola): What can I say about Casey? He’s done so much it’s hard to pin down the manifold ways he influences our industry. From starting and maintaining a great Facebook group for DC area recruiters to having to hire for some of the toughest to fill roles in New Orleans, one of the toughest markets out there, he never ceases to amaze me with his contributions to any conversation – recruiting or otherwise.
Will Thomson (@WillRecruits): If you haven’t read his stuff, you should – seriously, just go to the search bar up top and paste in his name. You’ll be glad you did. He’s one of the most capable international recruiters I know, and while I’ve never recruited for sales, I know that if ever I had to fill one of those reqs, I’m only one call away from the guy who knows everyone worth knowing across that entire function, pretty much.
Steve Levy (@LevyRecruits): Take one part New York street smarts with one part seasoned staffing pro and add a healthy side of snark, and you’ll start getting the picture of someone who’s been in this game as long as anyone and straight up kills it every day with his crazy smart content, awesome industry insights and an unparalleled passion for recruiting that shows up in everything he does. Just don’t let him know that I told you that despite the gruff facade, you’d be hard pressed to find someone more generous or giving.
Amy Ala (@AlaRecruiter): Not only is Amy one of the best closers I know, but she’s also got one of the biggest hearts in this business. She’s an outstanding blogger – and one of the few people I wish would actually write more – but hey, she has a pretty tough day job. I know, because she was the one who got me into Microsoft, and I’m forever grateful for her recommendation – and her friendship.
Pilar Hughes (@MaggieHews): Her smile can light up a room, which proves that nice people can finish first, as she’s one of the top recruiters in the DC area and truly one of the people blessed with that inherent gift at finding and connecting with top talent. She’s dynamite.
Jung Kim (@Azn_CyberSluth): He might not be the most experienced person on the list, but this crazy kid far outshines most of the most seasoned tech recruiters – because not only does he know recruiting, he can also speak geek as someone with a technical background who can write code as easily as career related copy. A true renaissance man, he also knows quite a thing or two about fine whiskey and bourbon, and is one of those people who loves life, and you can’t help but feel that vibe when interacting with him in person or on social.
Rob Dromgoole (@RHeadhunter): Think you have hard to fill roles? Rob has to find particle physicists for God’s sake, so if you need any highly specialized nuclear scientists in your next search, look no further. Despite his tough role running recruiting at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Rob keeps killing it – and inspiring anyone who thinks they’ve got it tough to suck it up and step up their game.
Teresa Bustamante (@MoxieSourcer): She’s too humble, in my opinion, so let me be the one to laud her for her knowledge of recruiting and ability to source purple squirrels for any position. She hates the spotlight, but shouldn’t stay in the shadows – she deserves a shout out for being one of the top recruiters out there.
Jeremy Roberts (@ImJeremyR): The lord of #SourceCon, Jeremy has a passion for this industry and a knowledge of the space that give him a unique ability to create killer content and control a pretty rowdy, extremely opinionated and often contentious community – and do so without pissing anyone off in the process, which is brilliant. He also puts on one hell of a conference.
Matt Charney (@MattCharney): Hey, he’s editing this, so I had to put him on there, after all. Plus, he hates being on these things so figured I had to bait one of the better bosses I’ve been lucky enough to work with.
You: To everyone who’s taken the time to read this – or really any of my rants – thank you. I know there’s a lot of stuff out there, and I’m humbled that you seem to like it when I commit some of my recruiting related ramblings to paper. You’ve got exceptional taste, too.

Last, but not least…

Carol Zeller (My Mom): OK, so maybe this is a little corny, but if we’re looking at who’s actually influenced me, the truth is that without her I would neither exist nor be the person I’ve turned out to be today without her. She lights up my life, and I can’t ever tell her how much I admire and respect her. Particularly for dealing with me all of these years. Mom, I love you.

So, there you go. As I said before, it’s a completely arbitrary list that isn’t even exclusively recruiters or sourcing practitioners, but these are the people who actually influenced me. I know all these people personally, and can personally attest to the fact that they’re not only smart, passionate and brilliant, but in some way moving our profession forward, too.

The fact is I truly believe that old aphorism that a stranger is a friend I haven’t met yet, so if I haven’t met you, hopefully someday you’ll see me at an event or conference, stop by, say hi (or just reach out to me online, if you’d like) and I can start being influenced by you, too.

Because this list, like all the others out there, can’t possibly do justice to everyone out there who deserves to be mentioned. But that shouldn’t stop us from recognizing the people in our personal and professional lives who truly lead our thoughts, influence our actions and make us better at what we do, day in and day out.

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

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

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

Glassdoor Recruiting Budget Revealed: How We Built Our 2014 Budget

Glassdoor Recruiting Plan Revealed

How much would you pay to see the Glassdoor 2014 internal budget recruiting plan? Try nothing.

Over the past year, Glassdoor needed to hire 200+ positions, build a world-class recruiting team, expand its recruiting channels and upgrade the candidate experience for mobile.

How we met the challenge—people to programs to systems—and what it cost may well inspire your own recruiting planning for 2015 and beyond. You don’t have to be a fortune 500 company to make great hires. Recruiting does not have to expensive. Consider all of the free tools that are already out there. Rather than stress money you should focus on strategy. While many recruiters think it’s expensive to fill a req, it’s not.

Especially relevant takeaways:

correlate recruiting budget to goals, strategies and tactics
scale recruiting operations, including applicant tracking, CRM and sourcing systems
make a business case for new tools to meet hiring objectives

No Further Questions: Interview Hacks for Hiring Success

At its core, recruiting is more or less an exercise in making a good first impression; from the 6-8 seconds the average recruiter (if such a thing exists) spends reviewing a resume to the reported 35 seconds job seekers spend, on average, reading an online job description, making an immediate impact is imperative for both employers and job seekers.

Even as applicants become actual candidates during the hiring process, next steps continue to emphasize the importance of making a good first impression.

Every recruiter can tell you that it takes about a minute to figure out whether or not a potential candidate is going to pass a pre-screen, with phone presence as much of a prerequisite to moving on as their actual answers.

No matter how impressive a resume might be, it doesn’t take long to figure out that a candidate has the communication acumen of your average Chia Pet, or just doesn’t seem to have the amorphous and intangible soft skills that serve as screening’s subtle subtext.

This requires candidates creating an immediate connection with the recruiter, presenting a professional, polished presence within a pretty tight time frame.

The few that succeed in getting past the gate-keeper and invited for in-person interviews, of course, must make meaningful first impressions to a whole new set of decision makers, who conversely have to make a decision on a potential co-worker based solely off a first encounter that’s rarely longer than an hour.

Face-to-Face Interviews: Putting Your Best Face Forward

There are a million potential minefields between an interview and an offer. From showing up late (all excuses aside) to an in-person, to not having a list of pertinent follow-up questions ready to go to not having done their due diligence on the company or job they’re there to talk about, there are manifold ways for first impressions to leave lingering doubts during the interview process.

The power of first impressions in interviews, however, aren’t limited to candidates; instead, since they’re normally one of the last steps in the hiring process, they also serve as the best opportunity for employers to put their best foot forward to top talent and effectively pre-close their first choices while meeting them in person.

For candidates, interviews are the first time they’ll probably see your physical workspace, interact with possible colleagues and coworkers or have meaningful interactions with a potential boss or organizational leader.

These initial interactions and the immediate impressions interviews inherently impart during an initial in person often serve as the ultimate arbiters of a candidate’s final decision whether or not to accept an extended offer.

That’s why it’s important for recruiters and employers to put their best foot forward the first time for face time with a potential new hire.

Your Greatest Strength: Top 3 Interview Hacks for Impressing Candidaets

Here are some interview hacks to make sure you’re making the most out of your last chance to make a first meaningful first impression when it comes to candidates:

Interview Hack #1: Reduce Clutter

If you’ve got an open headcount, chances are work is probably even more hectic than normal. But no matter how many projects and paperwork your team’s dealing with, it’s imperative to bring a little organization to the office and control – or at least curb – the chaos.

Make sure you give your employees plenty of heads up when you’re bringing in candidates for an interview, clearly communicating expectations on what they need to do to keep the place presentable – and providing the necessary resources like supply folders, storage bins and file cabinets to de-clutter desks and make workspaces work better.

Create a quick checklist to make sure that last minute cleanups and house keeping items can be addressed immediately before a candidate arrives. Almost every in-person involves some sort of workspace walk around or office tour, and it’s important for a candidate to come away feeling that your office environment comes across as calm, clean and organized.

Similarly, there’s no bigger turn off to a candidate than when they’re interviewing in a war zone piled high with mountains of paperwork, discarded coffee cups and piles of Post-Its.

Not only is this distracting, but can be a serious deterrent for many candidates, which is why it’s so important to remove debris – and distractions – continuously ensuring that interviewing spaces remain as pristine and professional as possible.

Interview Hack #2: Ditch the Dated Decor

The copy on your career site probably tries to come across as progressive and cutting edge, stressing intangibles like innovation and empowerment to potential candidates.

That’s why it’s imperative your office, which is the ultimate breeding ground for company culture, reinforces the values stated in your career copy and recruitment marketing collateral.

If you’re trying to recruit, say, top tech talent, and they walk into an antiquated office space with mainframes and dot matrix printers, chances are your first impressions will lead to a lot of second-guessing.

Similarly, if you’re competing for creative talent, only to have them show up in a high rise full of suits and secretaries stationed outside closed doors, than you’re probably going to be fighting an uphill battle if an offer is extended.

This is why your physical space must create a warm, welcoming and open environment for candidates that align with the employment brand that initially attracted them to the organization.

While it might seem like just window dressing, one of the easiest ways to breathe new life into a stale office environment is actually by letting the light shine in and ditching those dusty drapes and blinds in your waiting room.

Using natural light, and creating a waiting area whose color and style subtly reinforce your brand and culture can transform even the most generic of environments into something inviting and potentially even fun, with the right accouterments.

It’s no secret that it’s likely a successful candidate is going to be spending as much time at the office as they are at home, so it’s important to impart that feeling of being a place where work, like home, is a place where the heart is.

Think about the color of your walls and floor coverings – nothing will make someone want to run from a cube farm faster than buzzing fluorescents bouncing off stained shag carpets.

Adding a few flourishes like putting in plants, hanging some inviting artwork on the walls or allowing employees to personalize their workspaces to reflect their personalities are subtle ways to impart the feeling that when it comes to their career, potential candidates have finally found a place they can call home.

Which is what everyone wants out of work, really.

3. Interview Hack #3: It’s Never Too Early for Onboarding

It’s likely that at some point during an in-person interview, a candidate is going to get the chance to see where they’re actually going to be working, if they’re offered a position.

Whether that’s behind the counter of a retail store or the corner offices of the C-Suite, many candidates – and employers – put a significant premium on place as a driver for deciding whether or not to consider a career opportunity.

It’s always tempting to turn vacant office space into a spontaneous storage shed, but before piling up every square inch of space with clutter, remember that this is going to be the first time a candidate is going to see where they’re going to actually be working.

While employer brand initiatives like a careers site or culture-based collateral probably set expectations about what candidates can expect from the overall environment, but this first impression of a future work space is often the moment where career copy transforms into tangible reality. “This could be my desk.”

It’s a powerful moment, and one that’s easily ruined if that desk becomes the communal departmental dumping grounds. “…if only I could actually see it” just won’t cut it.

If you know where the successful candidate will actually be sitting, then the work area can actually be a powerful recruiting device by borrowing one of the oldest tricks in the realtor’s book: staging an open house.

Add the equipment that you’re ultimately going to issue to a new hire, from high tech stuff like the sleek new laptop, brand new tablet, oversized monitors or state of the art smart phone the company provides new workers to subtly underscore that you embrace technology, and you’re one employer for whom innovation is more than a buzzword.

Combine these high tech inducements with high touch elements like a blank nameplate, empty file cabinets and organizers and other personal items that look like all they’re missing is the candidate in question.

Nothing says, “we want you to work here” quite as powerfully as showing where, exactly, they’re going to work – and that everything’s going to be ready for them when they onboard so they can stop figuring out policies or procedures and start ramping up productivity.

Making First Impressions Count for Candidates

Interviewing is a two-way street, and serves as the first, and often final, chance for most employers and candidates to finally meet face to face.

That’s why first impressions are so important – and why the actual site of an offsite matters so much in talent attraction.

No employer should miss out on top talent by sending the silent, yet strong, message about your company and culture a crazy, chaotic or cluttered work environment covertly conveys.

If this is your greatest weakness, it’s unlikely you’ll get a second chance – or a second thought – from many candidates you’re considering. When preparing for interviews, it’s important for hiring managers and recruiters alike to remember that preparing the office is almost as essential to a successful interviewing outcome as preparing the actual questions themselves.

Everything I Learned About Recruiting, I Learned From Content Marketing

There’s a cottage industry out there of industry analysts, speakers, consultants and bloggers dedicated to the HR and recruiting industry, and the fact is, these “experts” must be seeing something I don’t see about the industry they’re covering.

The thing is, I don’t really understand how, exactly, so many people get so much mileage on talking about something as simple as selling jobs, which, of course, is still an over simplification, but seems to be what most of this stuff boils down to.

I mean, how hard is it to close someone on something that everyone needs?

Why is there such a focus on tools and technology instead of the fundamental stuff like getting better at building relationships and business alignment? How hard is really to find candidates in the age of social and search, really? How come recruiters spend so much time talking about really obvious stuff like “candidate experience” or “mobile recruiting?”

I would think not treating people like shit as a professional would just kind of be common sense, similar to the fact that, uh, yeah, people use their cell phones to access the internet and don’t think twice about it. Recruiters, on the other hand, obsess over this simple stuff. I can’t figure it out, but then again, here’s the thing.

I don’t know the space.

What Am I Missing?

If you’re a recruiter, you know how important relevant industry experience is – whether it’s your hiring manager bitching about how you don’t really “get” whatever vertical you happen to be working in, or a candidate calling you out during a screen on the fact that you clearly don’t know much about what they really do. And they have questions for someone who really needs to “get the industry” – whatever the hell that means.

And one of the biggest challenges is that when it comes to getting this industry, I just don’t see, I suppose, what there is to get. And have no idea where to even look to better “know the space” that I’ve been floating in for most of my career.

Now, when it comes to focusing on consumer marketing initiatives directed at selling child care to harried moms, I can safely assert that photos of cute puppies and babies are always a winner, and if you can combine the two, you’ll drive sign-ups.

Yeah, I know you’re thinking, no shit, Sherlock, but that’s kind of how most of us feel about, say, “big data.” Really, you can make better business decisions by using statistical instead of anecdotal evidence? Fire me up a white paper, stat.

I also know that if you’re working to translate what those users are saying to the developers running point on your product team, you’d be better off making some joke about an obscure programming language or inserting a Tolkien allusion or reference to your WoW guild.

These are industries I know, spaces I get – because ultimately, I’ve spent my career working in inbound marketing long before it became co-opted as a recruitment-related trending topic, and I know that it really all comes back to that basic precept: you’ve got to know who your audience is if you want to compellingly convince them to answer your call to action. People who have actually done a job or are a subject matter expert in a particular industry or specialized function, for instance, are likely to have better instincts about what people like them are interested in than anyone in marketing.

They know what’s going to add value, what they really like and what topics they just don’t give a crap about – and hopefully, that’s reflected in creating content that actually makes people care enough to click. This isn’t easy, but everyone thinks they can write copy or do social. Anyone can do this, or so most people who haven’t done this kind of work think.

Just because you’re a consumer doesn’t mean you know how to market to them; similarly, recruiters know that just because you’ve been involved in some aspect of the hiring process doesn’t mean you actually knows what goes on behind the curtain. Looks can be deceiving, which is why in this respect, I’ve always looked at recruiters as something like kindred spirits, and know better than to think I know the first thing about how hard making a hire must be. Thing is, I’d like to.

Who Are You People?

I’ve put in a fair share of my career now into the recruiting industry, but most of that tenure was spent working directly with the job seekers who serve as the primary consumers of the talent acquisition space, working in marketing roles for companies like VisualCV and Monster Worldwide. Which was great exposure, sure, but let’s face it, I didn’t learn a whole lot about recruiting talking to active job seekers, resume writers and career coaches.

So, suddenly, I find myself in this gig at Recruiting Daily, and I know it’s time I figured out what the hell it is you all really do, and what you’re really about.

Yeah, yeah. I know that’s a cliche – “what’s on your mind?” or “make your voice heard!” makes me sick, too. It’s classic marketing speak for, “I’m about to ask you to take a survey,” and it’s lame.

Almost as lame as the recruiters who send out a bunch of automated tweets and spammy templated e-mails telling you to “Apply today!” or “Join Our Talent Community!” or whatever it is lazy recruiters say when they’re choosing automation over personalization, and reach over relevance. These approaches never work in consumer marketing, either, by the way – just in case you’re still wasting your time on this shit.

And don’t be scared. I promise I’m not going to ask you to fill out some survey or download anything at the end of this article. Just so you know, because I know marketing spin, and I know cloying copy or overt hard selling is a turn off. I’ve worked in this space since before I even graduated college – like most of you fell into recruiting, I stumbled onto this strange line of work – and put in my time in my early career at the birthplace of cheezy content and crappy copywriting: an ad agency.

Since then, I’ve worked in-house as a marketer for the last six years, and for some reason, most of that time has been dedicated to marketing to the recruiting and staffing industries. Hey, it’s a pretty hot market for marketing. I’ve done my fair share of blog posts about talent trends, live tweeting from industry events and writing how tos for this audience, but the truth is, I’ve never actually sourced or recruited a candidate.

But because I know the buzzwords – and luckily, thanks to Charney, a pretty decent BS detector for figuring out what’s actually living up to the hype, and what’s kind of just hot air. But everything I’ve really learned about recruiting has come directly from content marketing – and because I don’t know any better when it comes to this business. I just know marketing.

And if you think the two worlds are just now colliding, bad news: marketing and recruiting met a long time ago. I know, I’ve been reading blogs like this one since 2009, and I’d argue one of the biggest consumers of recruiting related content out there who’s never actually filled a req before. See? I am not even sure what the hell that even means. All I know is, you don’t necessarily need to know the space before cranking out content about it.

I’d just like to maybe get to know what recruiters actually do when they’re not on social, a conference or any of the skewed view I get being a marketing professional on the outside, looking in, and wondering what the hell is actually going on.

5 Things Content Marketing Taught Me About Recruiting

I can confidently assert that anything I know about great recruiting, I’ve learned from great content marketing. Because that’s the only way to get information about an industry that’s as insular and purposefully enigmatic as this one.Here’s what I’ve learned so far (I think).

1. Tell A Great Story

Great recruiters tell a damn good story. Don’t believe me? Buy a ticket to this year’s HR Technology Conference. Hell, just show up at the Mandalay that week and stop by a bar in the lobby for a little bit.

You’ll be surrounded by the kind of people who love nothing better than telling a big fish story with someone else who does this stuff for a living – and you’ll see that, even though they’re not worth listening to half of the time, these guys know how to sell even the most extravagant or extraneous of anecdotes.

That it might not have ever happened, for some reason doesn’t stop anyone from selling it. And after a few drinks and a few hands, you’ll probably end up buying it – or at least, almost believing that same sad spiel, too.

That quality is something I see in common when I think about a great recruiter – it’s someone who can sell you on a dream, and make work come across as aspirational instead of apathetic. We spend, what, 25% of our lives at work every week, at least, and like half of our waking hours at the office, dedicated to doing our jobs.

That dedication gets called into question immediately when a recruiter calls – because that ask is asking someone to surrender the security of the known, even if it is mundane, to consider not only changing jobs, but also to risk doing so on some unknown entity that’s got to be worth altering their everyday lives to take a chance working for.

That’s a really hard job, and no small task, but the best recruiters can tell a story – whether it’s on the phone or in a job description – that paints that picture convincingly enough to get a passive candidate to consider making a move. Because when you’re more or less selling a dream, stories are more or less the only thing you’ve got.

2. Looks Matter.

No, I’m not talking about physical appearance; I’m talking about employer branding, that most trendy of trending topics. But easy as it seems to dismiss this as a marketer or recruiter – after all, it should be about the ends, not the means – the fact is that reputation matters, and recruiters aren’t the only ones running background checks and running references during hte hiring process any more. Candidates want more than a job – they want a career destination. And, increasingly, the difference between recruiting success and failure really comes down to reputation.

Recruiters are catching on – and know that if their Glassdoor scores suck or if candidates or employees are sharing bad experiences with your employer brand on social, than their job is only going to get harder, and that there’s no escaping the fact that no matter how good a closer a recruiter might be, they can’t recruit a candidate who won’t even call them back because of an employer’s crappy reputation.

3. Test Everything. Then Test It Again.

Just like great marketing, which involves continuous iteration – A/B testing being a good example – in order to drive results, great recruiters are always looking for new things to try, test and break. That’s where the best sourcing hacks and direct sourced hires always come from, after all – you’ll never beat the competition by recruiting the same way they do.

Recruiters obviously don’t go as crazy as marketers into the minutiae, probably because they’re working with much more limited systems and process flexibility, but knowing which of two job titles is going to generate the most qualified click throughs or which social networks or job boards you should be spending your time and budget on is something that great recruiters intrinsically understand.

They know how to personalize their style, alter course or adopt new strategies based on real time results, and are always willing to try something new, but know when it’s time to stop doing something that’s not working, too. They know there’s always something to learn, because this is one thing you can never really know everything about, since everything’s always changing so fast. In recruiting and marketing alike.

4. Content Is King

Yeah, I know. Another marketing cliche. Sorry, guys, but I warned you. Look, great recruiters don’t have to be great writers, and they most certainly don’t have to be awesome bloggers, but the thing is, no matter how they’re communicating – whether that’s through Instagram or InMail – has to be content people are actually going to care enough to spend time on.

The best content works on every channel, and you can repurpose accordingly to get the most mileage out of stuff like job descriptions or employee videos without having to constantly create a ton of new content or reinvent the wheel every time you open a search.

Now, you know what content doesn’t work in recruiting? Those assholes whose entire “social media strategy” is auto tweeting a job title and location through some feed, like that needle in a haystack candidate is somehow going to see that and think, yes. This is where I want to build my career.

Seriously, don’t be that guy. It’s like that guy who drinks half a beer and starts yelling about how wasted he is. It’s annoying, and the few people who pay you any attention hate you for it.

5. If the Idea Is Good, You Don’t Have To Be First.

Recruiters tend to be a bit, uh, competitive, so I know this sounds strange to a ton of you: being second sometimes, though, is OK. Seriously. I learned this lesson from one of the best marketing minds I’ve ever worked with in my career, who taught me early on that the best strategy for adopting new technology was to sit back and watch everyone else swing for the fences, first. Don’t do something because it’s new.

Do things because you know it worked.

Remember back in the day when everyone was first on Twitter and there were all those cautionary tales of people and brands just screwing themselves for not really realizing how this network worked? People who meant well, but still got either shit canned or created a PR nightmare because they very publically discovered they were not, in fact, doing it right.

While it’s always a good idea to take a chance, it’s also OK to sit back and watch before jumping in headfirst. Always make sure you have a business case, just in case. Great recruiters, like great marketers, know this, and know that the next or newest thing isn’t always the best thing for them.

Whether it’s a new SaaS solution or social recruiting tool, you’ve got to treat tech with a little skepticism, even if that means ignoring the proverbial wisdom of crowds (which is rarely conventional when recruiters are involved). I see this all the time on our Secret Sourcing Group on Facebook – yeah, it’s a secret, but if you’re still reading this, you really deserve to join (click here). If you think a new tool is worth checking out, just ask one of these many groups of your peers – they’ll set you straight. Which is pretty cool,.

And it’s in that spirit I’ve seen where recruiters seem willing to help each other out by openly providing their own perspectives, advice and experience with each other, I want to ask if I got any of this stuff right. Are any of the five points I’ve identified on point? Or was all this time I spent learning about recruiting by reading and writing about it a total waste of time?

Bigger than that, here’s my question: What do I not know about recruiting and sourcing that I should know? I want that “gets the industry” stamp of approval from you guys – our community – who’s actually out there recruiting every day. After all, I’m just a marketer.

But I’m really trying to learn.

Admit It. Your Recruiting Process Is Biased.

There’s nothing our society loves more than sweeping stereotypes and convenient categories by which we can define and slap a label on the people we meet; we put great faith in the infallibility of our own superficial perspectives and anecdotal observations.

An entrenched mindset is nearly an impossible thing to change, particularly since we always think we’re right. Even when we’re dead wrong.

About 30 years ago, John Hughes defined a generation’s worth of archetypes through the lead characters in The Breakfast Club, and with it, reduced every high schooler everywhere to one of five types.

Whether you were a jock, a nerd, a cheerleader or the bad girl, these characters were easy to relate to because, well, we all identified with one of these imposed identities.

It’s more or less the basis of the humanities of humanity, with the concept of categorization infiltrating everything from Antigone to to Gone Girl. Our stereotypes have such power because in our society, they’re self-perpetuating and consistently reinforced by both our individual identities and the culture that colors our collective worldview.

The fact of the matter is, we intuitively realize that this is wrong, and recognize the fundamental fallacy in this unscientific method to interpersonal relationships. But we do it anyway – we just can’t help ourselves. We find solace in the simplicity of simplification, put simply, and this, of course, leads to simple minds.

Come to think of it, this might actually partially explain the HR industry’s illogical obsession with generational theory. Or at least, generating a ton of content around the concept of age discrimination as a best practice. Hint: it’s not.

Of course, that’s just one example of a more pervasive and pressing problem. While many of us are reluctant to admit or acknowledge it, every step of your hiring process is inherently subjective and informed by personal biases, however uninformed these biases may be.

They say ‘there’s never a second chance to make a first impression,’ but much of that impression has been impressed on recruiters and employers before they ever come into contact with candidates. This is why we tend to base hiring decisions on gut instinct and snap judgements, and when necessary, add enough insignificant data or irrelevant details to justify what’s often a completely arbitrary decision.

Hell, we might talk a lot about “predictive analytics” or “data driven recruiting” these days, but the fact is that we’ve always used factors like academic pedigree, prior experience working for a blue chip brand or big company, personality testing and physical diversity as a means for predicting which applicant is worth spending more than the six seconds or so it takes to scan their resume.

Getting an offer means, ultimately, most closely fitting the profile of someone who’s successfully sat in that seat at some point, which is why as much as we talk about diversity, we mostly end up hiring people like us.

Confirming Confirmation Bias

Yeah, I know. There are a ton of statistics you could trot out around the consequences and costs associated with a bad hire. That’s all well and good, but what we still seem unable (or unwilling) to capture is the opportunity costs we ring up by missing out on good hires because we went with our gut feelings, which is a fancy way of saying “deeply ingrained myths mostly founded on misinformation and misperception.”

This bias extends past EEOC self-reporting data, candidate demographics or even what we conventionally consider “diverse” candidates.

That’s why I wanted to explore the concept of bias through an example that we don’t normally think of, but affects up to one half of the workforce population: introverts.

I know it sounds weird, but introverts offer the perfect case study in confirmation bias. Bear with me. Now, full disclosure: according to the MBTI (which I don’t much trust, and neither should you) I fall somewhere in the middle of the extraversion range, but closer to the introvert side of the spectrum.

So, I get that it’s not always easy for the introverts among us, and figured since this is a group that tends not to speak for themselves, I’d go ahead and give a shot at relating the plight of this often slighted category of coworker, client, candidate and colleague.

Being an introvert sucks, sometimes, particularly given the preponderance of preposterous myths and assumptions that imply that the introverted among us are:

Anti-Social
Shy
Friendless and Alone
Socially Awkward
Followers, Not Leaders
Uncomfortable or Unwilling to Be A “Team Player”
Prefer Isolation to Being in Public
Avoid presenting or performing like the plague

Now, some clarification. These cliches simply aren’t valid for most introverts, and applying them to everyone who doesn’t feel the need to dominate a meeting or conversation would be a gross oversimplification of about half of everyone you’ve ever worked with, statistically speaking. Fact is, introverts aren’t sociopathic loners or misanthropes; nor are we hermits who go out of our way to avoid interacting with others.

The only real difference or distinction that’s universally applicable to introverts is that they simply socialize in a different way than extroverts. Introversion shouldn’t be synonymous with shyness. Many introverts are awesome on teams, successful on projects and don’t necessarily fear public speaking, or the general public, for that matter.

The main difference between introverts and extraverts is how they acquire and use their energy.

These are generalizations, of course, but psychology tells us that most extraverts are inherently energized or intrinsically motivated by interpersonal activities and interactions. They tend to think out loud, vocalizing ideas and thoughts as they process them; extraverts commonly report to being antsy or easily bored when they’re alone or aren’t actively engaging with others.

Conversely, introverts, as you can probably guess, draw energy from down time, and are perfectly comfortable flying solo instead of always being social. Introverts tend to be a little more self-reflexive (according to the psychologists who study this stuff) and prefer to think through things in their own head before ever expressing them out loud.

Introverts who are forced to spend time in overly stimulating or socially demanding situations may become easily drained and even more withdrawn; it’s a vicious cycle, really.

Your Greatest Weakness: Introversion And Interviewing

All of this means, of course, that for introverts, there’s no experience more unnatural or unnerving than interviewing. Hell, even the most gregarious and outgoing of extraverts can feel a little uncomfortable or awkward when interviewing for a job.

Their propensity for interacting with others out loud and the energy and enthusiasm these interactions inherently espouse aren’t always a good thing – in fact, often these can actually work against a candidate, particularly if they’re just a little too chatty about themselves or gung-ho about a gig.

You know the type. Dude – seriously, shut up already.

This isn’t a problem most introverts face; rather, their discomfort with interviews generally comes from the energy that they drain from the inherent introspection required to talk about oneself and one’s accomplishments ad nauseum, particularly when we’re averse to this attention, as a rule.

This discomfort with job interviews ranges from barely perceptible to extreme and panic inducing depending, largely, on the dynamics of the meeting. For introverts, being reserved and cautious with hiring managers and a little more guarded when answering questions often comes across as confident and thoughtful, which are good assets for any candidate.

But these same characteristics can also come across as cold, dull or dry, too – and those are attributes no one wants a hiring manager ascribing to them. This means a constant balancing act of being on, but not too on to turn any interviewer off. Which isn’t always easy, no matter what side of the table you happen to sit.

Interviews and Introversion: Fit Happens

Over the course of my career, I’ve spent a ton of time as both a candidate and as a hiring manager, so I’ve seen both perspectives, and try to account for individual styles on an individual basis when I’m interviewing. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when there is one, and try to create an interviewing atmosphere that’s more or less equitable (and comfortable) for introverts and extroverts alike.

If I get that sense that someone’s holding out relevant information – or if they’re eager to share everything irrespective of relevance – I know enough to know to adapt my approach on the spot and try to give the candidate enough flexibility to feel free enough to interview in their own way instead of having to conform to mine.

Forget context for a second, the entire concept of “fit” is a nebulous one at best, so I strive for objectivity and empathy regardless of personality or personal style throughout my recruiting process.

When you’re flexible, fit happens.

An Introvert’s Guide To Interviewing.

Now, when I’m on the other side of the desk, I’m acutely aware as someone who’s the subject of said interview, my introversion impacts everything. I view interviews as a business professional to business professional conversation. So if the other party behaves in any way that doesn’t convey a similar mindset, I know I won’t have much of a chance to move forward beyond that step.

Direct questions in reference to my qualifications, experience, knowledge, etc., in relation to the position being discussed are far more meaningful than open-ended (tell me about yourself) or generic (seemingly check-the-box behavioral) questions.

While my interpersonal relationship skills, perceptiveness and EQ/EI are quite effective, I’m not a mind-reader or circus monkey and don’t appreciate having to navigate mind-games, hoop-jumping and trap/trick questions for the power-tripping interviewer’s entertainment value.

I’d rather just get to the point of what really matters so I can have an an opportunity to share how I would address specific business challenges. Having to reminisce about ancient career history, toot my own horn, pat myself on the back and otherwise attempt to make what I do/did to earn a paycheck sound exceptionally glamorous and impressive is one of the most agonizing parts of interviewing.

Between having a kick-ass work-ethic, extraordinarily high (self) performance standards and basic common sense, I struggle to find anything useful to say about strengths, weaknesses, major accomplishments, epic failures and so on…

How To Eliminate Bias From Your Recruiting Process

My interpretation of all of that is based on my own perspective that many of those types of questions are non-value-adding time-wasters; just like the other person is filtering through his/her own viewpoints that he/she is gathering essential insight (AKA: stuff my spidey-senses or favorite thought-leader tells me is important) by posing those inquiries.

The problem is, neither side has the benefit of “context” in terms of how that information is being delivered or received.

Even if I did excavate some examples, my nonchalant (BFD attitude) intense modesty and humilty or aversion to coming across as an uber-douchy bragasaurus blowhard forces me to downplay stuff that I should be boasting about and embellishing as if I’m on the brink of discovering a cancer cure or running for office.

Bottom line: since I know my own experiences reveal vulnerabilities derived from my “personality” proclivities, I try to maintain awareness of how these biases translate across the employment spectrum. Just like I don’t wish to spontaneously demonstrate interview performance perfection in lieu of real-world, on-the-job performance, I don’t expect that of anyone I evaluate as a job applicant.

If you’re really looking for top talent in your recruiting process instead of just a talking head, you’ve got to get rid of your Breakfast Club mentality and realize that we’re a little more complex than high school cliches or cyphers.

It’s time to grow up and realize that diversity is an intellectual capital issue, not a human capital issue, and all you get out of looking for form over function and content over context is a workforce full of extraverts – and no one wants to sit through those meetings. Trust me on this one.

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

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

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

Pretty Little Liars: What Transparency Really Means To SHRM.

For going on two decades now, I’ve been a proud, card carrying member of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). On top of diligently paying my dues every year, reading my monthly issue of HR Magazine cover to cover and making room on my calendar for the annual SHRM National Conference, I’ve gotten involved as an active volunteer leader, to boot.

Once upon a time, I served an executive role as my local SHRM chapter president – geaux Baton Rouge! – and have served in various roles on the Louisiana State council for going on over a decade, these days. On top of all that, I’ve put in my time at the SHRM Leadership Conference on a national level, spending several years not exactly guzzling the Kool Aid, but, I’ll admit, at least sipping a pretty healthy serving. Or two.

So, after all of these years being involved at all levels with the organization, I’d like to state that I still sincerely believe that SHRM fulfills a necessary role in providing a professional organization capable of supporting a pretty diffuse group of professionals who happen to get grouped under the umbrella of ‘HR.’ From benefits administration specialists to organizational psychologists to the ubiquitous HR generalists of the world, SHRM somehow manages to provide structure and cohesion to a vast and varied constituency.

The problem with this approach, of course, is that in trying to be everything to everybody, nobody really wins, because at the end of the day, the profession still hasn’t advanced past the same discussion as when I first got involved with SHRM, which is a pretty long time for any problem to persist.

That, of course, is how to get even more CHROs and senior HR leaders engaged with the organization. The focus became on growing new membership instead of better enabling existing members, with an obvious emphasis on taking over HR organization from the top of the org chart down.

Hey, SHRM, guess what? It ain’t gonna happen.

Not now, and probably never, the way things are going. Which is too bad, really – because when you’re all things to all people, it impacts everyone in the human resource profession. My profession.

And I think it’s finally time to sound an alarm that’s at least loud enough to serve as some sort of wake up call.

Hey, a gal can try, can’t she?

SHRM Disconnect: Echo Chambers and the Sound of Silence

In my estimation and experience, the members who get the most mileage out of their SHRM membership – and the biggest bang for their buck – seem to constitute the solid base upon which its membership ranks are built – your average generalist or business partner at a small or medium sized business.

The kind of multi-faceted professional responsible for overseeing every element of HR in their companies, running the gamut from OSHA compliance to hiring and payroll are the ones who need access to the resources SHRM makes available to its members, who really just need the basics to get by.

This means for the low, low annual cost of only $190 US dollars, you too can pull generic, fill in the blank policies and formulaic forms from their firewalled website and download presentation templates on topics ranging from Job Description Training for Supervisors to the equally sexy How Performance Appraisal Programs Work (how could Jane the HR Manager resist, right?). First timers get a tote bag, too. Pretty sweet, right?

They also get access to the endlessly entertaining HR Talk Bulletin Board, which is like a Usenet group only for little old HR ladies. This being HR, naturally, this conversation and content is gated, and mostly consists of kvetching from the SPHRs out there for whom these archaic forums are somehow the closest to social media they’ll ever get.

Well, that is besides SHRM’s very own social network, SHRM Connect, which is such a ghost town that you can practically see the tumbleweeds tumbling by – of course, a social network for just for HR managers is obviously dead in the water before it even launches. Hey, we’re here for CPEs, not community, after all.

The value proposition inherent to actually delivering ROI on member dues continues to be predicated on the assumption, most likely an accurate one, that the vast majority of HR professionals have no idea how to use a computer, much less get the most out of tools like search engines and social media. SHRM has traditionally taken an insular, rather than integrated approach, to the function, completely oblivious to the fact that people are using stuff like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to engage in conversations about, you know, “work” stuff.

Now, it’s interesting to note that, for example, to participate on SHRM Connect, that silent “social” network, members must manually create a profile and are forced to disclose their real names and identities, while over on the knitting circle that is the HR Talk Bulletin Board, any old Betty out there can post anonymously. And, as you can imagine, most do, since HR managers aren’t generally the biggest advocates for transparency out there.

This is a group that almost unilaterally places a premium on maintaining silent control over employees instead of going out and actually engaging with them, one that prefers to stay shuttered in a silo than in touch with their actual employees, and one that prefers the HR back office to the business front lines.

Which is to say, the kind of person who ends up logging in with their SHRM member ID number and posting on a private bulletin board about such intriguing topics as Denying PTO For Bad Weather or How Organized Are Your Personnel Files?

The kind of Lane Bryant blazer wearing, Dooney and Bourke carrying, cat and certification obsessed HR pro who just can’t get enough pastries, policies or participating in endlessly fascinating discussions such as Which Candidate Would You Hire? or Drug Test – Synthetic Urine?

The Divine Secrets of the SHRM Sisterhood

These SHRM members mostly stay hidden behind such creative screen names as Anonymous, Anon, HR in IL, Anonymonk, Just Me, Anon2, and “Gotta Be Anon This Time,” to cite just a few members busy “talking” in these conversational threads.

In fact, so many people posting on these forums choose to post as “Anon” that people end up replying with shit like, “I agree with Anon 9:57 AM.”

In fact, I wasted a full 30 minutes of my life flipping through multiple topics and threads on the HR Talks boards recently, and in that entire time I was able to find exactly four – yes, four – individuals who actually responded with their real identities and full names.

Score another point for transparency.

One of the other things that I found amusing is that, in the aforementioned “Which Candidate Would You Hire?” thread, the person who initially posted it (“GoHR,” ironically enough) teed off the discussion by cutting and pasting a couple bland descriptions of two finalists for a General Manager position and posing the post’s titular question.

Of course, this seemingly innocuous topic – and kind of lame attempt at crowdsourcing – kicked off quite the fracas among all those anonymous HR gals out there. That’s because there’s nothing these ladies like more than helping to make arbitrary decisions without any sort of context and share these unfounded opinions without having any responsibility for actual outcomes. It’s kind of a prerequisite for the profession, after all.

Now, I’m sure that when “GoHR” goes into meet with her CEO and share her final selection decision, he should obviously have complete faith in her judgement and ability, since nothing inspires confidence in your competence quite like making hiring recommendations based off the input of a bunch of frowzy HR ladies chiming in on a SHRM message board and choosing the crowd favorite. Note: #2 was the frontrunner among the crowd of commenters, possibly due to the “vibrant personality” described in the initial post.

Secrets, Lies and SHRM.

Reading through this discussion, I was a bit disgusted, a bit amused and not the least bit surprised by any of this shit.

Deep in the bowels and annals (see what I did there) of SHRM’s somewhat sordid history there have been a decided and deliberate aversion to any form of transparency whatsoever. All of those things we think about when we think of what being “transparent” actually entails, things like openness, accountability and communication, don’t even register as blips on the SHRM radar screen.

For those of you who pay attention to these sorts of things, you might remember back in 2010, after years of informal but concerted behind-the-scenes efforts by a number of members, that the group SHRM Members for Transparency (SMFT) finally surfaced to air its concerns with the greater public.

Here are some of the select grievances from the long laundry list compiled by SMFT when they first formed five years ago:

SHRM CEO Henry “Hank” Jackson, the organization’s head honcho, was promoted into the top spot from his former role as a CFO, and his background is exclusively in finance, and has never actually worked in HR.
Less than 40% of the members of SHRM’s board held any sort of HR certification, education or relevant degree. This, of course, includes such things as the SPHR, PHR and GPHR designations SHRM recognized prior to its acrimonious uncoupling with HRCI last year.
Board Member Compensation continued to rise, without any independent checks or balances in place to oversee or control the board’s expenditures. These annual increases, of course, were voted on exclusively by the board members themselves and not by an independent committee as is common in most organizations, public and private.
Board Member Benefits weren’t limited to pay, but extended to a full range of perks such as unrestricted first class air travel, lest this austere body be forced the indignity of having to fly coach.

And so on and so forth, with a list of allegations that would be enough to get most DC based political entities charged under RICO. I was optimistic that amidst all the brouhaha that ensued among SHRM members, it would also provide an invaluable opportunity to educate them on the professional organization responsible for overseeing their profession. I was a SHRM volunteer leader at the time, and this landed me on their mailing list.

Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but I really enjoyed their regular missives, which teetered dangerously close to the kind of conspiracy theories normally reserved for presidential assassinations and cryptozoology, but were still a hell of a lot more interesting than, say, Who Would You Hire? Call me crazy, and maybe I should have my tinfoil hat ready to go, but one thing was obvious: SMFT had some solid information and facts backing them up.

Like anyone advocating for change, though, inevitably this group of would-be revolutionaries ended up pissing off quite a fair share of SHRM membership. At the time, I heard many a die hard SHRM dogmatist, including my own chapter president and State Council Director, hear these accusations and ask, “Why Are They Attacking SHRM?”

As for me, I suggested that the State Council on which I was serving share this information with chapter presidents and encourage them to pass it along to the members of their chapters so that they could at least maybe read and decide for themselves, know what I mean? Not surprisingly, this idea was immediately shot down.

The general response to this suggestion: “We’ll just keep it a secret among us girls in house here.” Another secret for the anonymous members of the SHRM sisterhood, as usual. In fact, this unilateral ability to hide or suppress pertinent information should probably be shortlisted among the newly defined HR competencies in the SHRM certification model.

Hell, it would fit in perfectly with competencies like “Relationship Management” (behaviors include treating all stakeholders with respect and dignity as well as demonstrating approachability and openness) or “Communications” (which means demonstrating a commitment to delivering proactive communications and critical information to all necessary stakeholders, according to the definitions laid out by SHRM itself).

Or maybe not. Nah; forget I even brought it up.

Money Makes the World of Work Go Round.

These issues only recently popped up on my personal radar when the surviving members of the SMFT group published their analysis of SHRM’s annual IRS Form 990 Submission. Check out the full version embedded above or click here for the complete document.

The stated goal of publishing this report is to “assist SHRM members in understanding this important IRS required report on SHRM practices and financial status.”

In that same spirit, then, here some of the stats about SHRM:

CEO Jackson received an 18.6% pay raise in 2013, the most recent year reported, over 2012, increasing his total annual package, including deferred compensation, to a whopping $1.53 million dollars.
SHRM had 409 employees in 2013, an increase of 29 (7.6%) over its 2012 workforce.
Revenues Increased by $10.32 Million in 2013, a 9.9% increase over 2012.
Expenses Increased by $6.44 Million, or 6.2% year-over-year growth.
Member Paid $43.2 Million in 2013 Dues, which accounted for fully 46.3% of SHRM’s total revenue.
The Annual Conference Raked in $26.9 Million in revenue, or 28.6% of the organization’s annual total.

That’s some serious money we’re talking about. The kind that you’d think that the average member should at least be aware of or have visibility into prior to chipping in their share of the $43 million in dues they spent over a single calendar year. But I can guarantee you that not only does the average SHRM member have absolutely no clue (and probably, no interest) in any of this, but neither do most of the Chapter Presidents and State Council Leaders, either.

These financial statements from SHRM never seem to make it out to members, particularly since the last thing volunteer leaders want to do is rock the boat or the status quo. So, they stay silent.

Perhaps it’s that SHRM wants to keep this information hidden from not only their most ardent supporters, but also their most loyal advocates and die hard foot soldiers. It’s not easy for a Chapter President, after all, to justify the latest increase in dues to their members who are already stretched thin, or confidently assert that the high registration fees for Annual Conference attendance is worth the price of admission when it’s public knowledge that SHRM raked in total “revenue less expenses” – the cash in their coffers – was almost $5 million in 2013 alone.

“Do as we say, not as we do” seems to be the prevailing spirit within SHRM, at really every level of the organization.

What’s Good For the Goose…

I know that running a SHRM chapter looks glamorous, nothing but a string of public accolades and social soirees filled with endless glasses of chardonnay, but the fact is, it’s really a shitload of hard work. SHRM requires all affiliated chapters and state councils complete a SHAPE report (that’s SHRM Affiliate Program for Excellence) at the end of every year.

This report requires these affiliates to attest to a number of statements, including providing “year end financial results” for the prior 12 month period. This, according to the SHAPE workbook includes reporting total chapter income, total chapter expense, net profit/loss and total chapter assets as of December 31 of the year covered by each respective report.

In a nifty little box marked as a “GREATIDEA!” in SHRM parlance, chapter leaders are admonished that they must “Publish a financial statement for your membership. Operate in a transparent fashion. Remember, your members are looking for a return on their investment in the chapter as well.”

Damn right, SHRM. Operating in a transparent fashion and ROI is exactly what your members want from you, too. That’s no GREATIDEA!, of course. It’s just common sense.

Robin Schooling is on a mission to make organizations better by making HR better. With 20+ years of senior HR leadership experience in a variety of industries, she consults with organizations, advises HR teams, speaks to HR and business audiences and writes for a variety of sites and publications.

Schooling has been an active and involved SHRM volunteer leader, holds a few of those HR certifications herself, and at one point in time even received an award as “HR Professional of the Year.” She has been known to search out the perfect French 75 and is a fervent and unapologetic fan of the New Orleans Saints, even if they did trade Jimmy Graham.

For more for Robin, check out her blog, follow her on Twitter @RobinSchooling or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Resume Analytics and Data Scrapping Tools: This is Recruiting

RightView

Understanding your resume analytics, allows you to understand your immediate reach within your database. RightView is a data visualization tool for recruiters that has the power to integrate into any ATS via an API. RightView helps recruiters understand the talent and resumes within their database.

The process is very simple:

Enter your topic or search, including industry, titles, company names, skill sets etc.
You are presented with a visualization or grouping of search results with readable labels to help identify the right talent.

Check out this real time demo I’ve recorded below

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yjAoivKaec” width=”500″ height=”300″]

Scrape.it

How much time do you spend copy & pasting data from websites to Excel? Part of a sourcer’s routine is just that. Find the data, extract the data. It’s amazing how many sourcer’s in our industry do not have access to or invest in tools to make their lives easier.

Scrape.it allows you to scrape data from both public and private sites that require a log in. Of course you’ll need to be logged in to achieve a private web-scrape but it’s achievable.

Is this safe? How can I ensure sites will not block me?

Scrape.it uses what is referred to as a rotating IP. This prevents websites from throttling or banning the usage of their site.

This is a paid Chrome extension that is very good at what it does.

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUbYz-Hsa7A&feature=youtu.be” width=”500″ height=”300″]

About 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.

How To Fit Culture Fit Into Your Recruiting Process

One of the most important but intangible factors in recruiting and hiring job candidates is the often-misunderstood concept of “cultural fit.”

Simply put: you want to make sure you get the right person for the right job, and you also want to make sure that the new hire fits in with the overall surroundings, mission, values and personality of the hiring company.

Credentials, experience and skills are all very important – but even the most talented people can struggle or fail if they’re not quite the right fit for the culture of your company.

Company culture is a complex concept that is hard to quantify, but generally speaking, “culture” can be defined as the shared set of values and assumptions about proper behavior and demeanor.

Company culture helps set the tone for how employees are expected to work and how they’re trained to collaborate, communicate and do things “the right way” as defined by the leadership.

How To Build A Successful Company Culture

There are many different ways to build a successful company culture. Even within the technology industry (where I work), there is a wide diversity of company cultures. Some companies are more conservative and buttoned-down, full of people working quietly at their desks; some companies pride themselves on being creative, lively work environments where employees have a lot of flexibility and freedom over how they work. Some companies have a highly entrepreneurial culture where every employee is encouraged to continually reinvent their own job description and spearhead their own favorite projects; other companies are more hierarchical with clearer delineations of responsibility and power. Some companies prize independent work and function almost more like a collection of independent contractors than a single entity; other companies have a deeply ingrained culture of teamwork and camaraderie where no one is allowed to eat lunch alone at their desks.

Putting an employee into the wrong cultural fit – even if that new hire seems like a really promising candidate with great credentials and experience – can be a disappointing missed opportunity; and worse, it can also damage your overall organization. If a new hire doesn’t work out, not only does your company lose out on the potential revenue and new growth that you had hoped that the new hire would deliver, but you also run the risk of undermining morale for the rest of your employees. If a new person just doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the company culture, it can cause confusion, communication failures, and lower productivity for the rest of the team.

Perhaps most importantly in tech startups, where employees often are expected to work incredibly hard with a shared sense of mission and identity, determining cultural fit also involves such questions as how people like to spend their leisure time. Employers aren’t just hiring for technical skills, they’re hiring for personality, social skills, and potential to be friends.

9 Culture Fit Questions Every Recruiter Should Ask

A study of hiring practices at professional services firms published in the December 2012 American Sociological Review found that “employers hire in a manner more closely resembling the choice of friends or romantic partners than how one might expect employers to select new workers.”

If you’re trying to assess culture fit and find the candidates who will be most likely to fit in socially and succeed at building relationships within the company, there are several key questions to ask:

What excites you about the mission of our company? The best candidates won’t just be interested in the compensation or the job title or the perks; they will know and understand your company’s unique mission and will have ideas to share about what appeals to them about your company’s approach to the industry.

How would you describe your work style? Does the candidate like to start early, stay late, or both? Do they like to collaborate and have a regular buzz of activity around them, or do they prefer more solitary work with a lot of autonomy? Does the candidate like to work remotely via mobile devices, or do they enjoy the consistency of being in-person at the office – or both? Make sure your candidate’s expectations are in line with the way things are done at your company.

Who are your favorite co-workers at your current job, and what do you like about them? Get a sense for how the candidate builds relationships. Of course it’s great to hire competitive, high-achieving people, but ideally you also want people to understand that the real competition is outside the company – you want to build a cohesive team where people enjoy spending time together and can draw upon each other’s ideas and personal strengths.

Who was the best boss or mentor that you ever had, and why? Get a sense for the candidate’s learning style and “big lessons” that they’ve learned in their career. Hopefully they’ll show an appreciation for the knowledge they’ve gained from the more experienced leaders and managers who have mentored them along the way.

What would you like to do more of everyday at work? (See if the candidate is feeling underutilized or if they have some unfulfilled ambitions at their present job – maybe they’re not being allowed to do what they do best, and that’s part of the reason why they’re looking for a new position. Maybe you can help them realize more of their potential.)

What’s your definition of a “good” day at work? Ask the candidate to elaborate on what makes them feel productive and successful. This question also helps you find out how the candidate likes to structure their day and how they measure their own performance.

Where you do like to go on vacation? It helps to learn more about the candidate’s personal interests outside of work – but without asking illegal/discriminatory “personal” questions, of course. You might find out that the candidate loves biking, or hiking, or scuba diving – this is a way to find common interests between the candidate and the rest of the team.

What makes you uncomfortable? In addition to learning more about the positive aspects of the candidate’s work style, it’s also good to get the candidate to open up about what takes them out of their comfort zone. For example, if the candidate says that he/she is uncomfortable with confrontation, and your company is known for its boisterous debates and loud personalities, then this might be a bad cultural fit.

If you could choose one actor to play you in a movie, who would it be? This question tests the candidate’s imagination and helps you learn more about the candidate’s self-perception. And it’s another way to see if the candidate has interests in common with the rest of their future colleagues.

Cultural fit is hard to define, and sometimes you know it when you see it. But hiring the right people is more than a matter of evaluating skills and experience; it’s about figuring out who will be most likely to get along well and make friends with their colleagues, who will be the kind of person that you want to hang out with and go out for dinner with and stay up late with during hectic times at the office, and who you feel comfortable with in building rapport and sharing a sense of mutual understanding and ease of collaboration.

Cultural fit is not just about making a good hire – it’s about building a strong team for the long-term.

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

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

Follow Carolyn Betts on Twitter @BettsCEO her on LinkedIn.

Best Recognize: How To Fight Flight and Retain Top Talent

Ask pretty much any CEO these days, and they’ll tell you that the old cliche that “employees are every company’s biggest asset” rings true – in fact, manifold surveys support the fact that recruiting and retaining the right talent lead the lengthy list of what keeps organizational leaders up at night.

That’s because the bottom line is that, as expensive as recruiting can be, closing the knowledge and capability gaps created when an experienced worker leaves an employer can be much more costly, particularly involving roles requiring a significant investment in learning & development or those most tightly integrated into existing business processes and procedures.

The most likely flight risks – which is to say, those “A” players we conveniently refer to as top talent, are also the most likely to have been the beneficiary of these sorts of investments, both direct and indirect.

Blocking the Exits

That’s why as more and more of these high performers rush en masse to the greener pastures of other opportunities, it’s important for employers to look at recruiting as a continual process within an organization instead of simply an entrance point and build a culture of retention that’s going to keep the best and the brightest from switching sides.

This requires focusing on a few simple, but often overlooked, retention drivers that should be a part of any company’s culture and talent management strategy for ensuring today’s top performers will stick around tomorrow.

1. Salary

As much as we’d like to discount the importance of compensation as a driver for considering career opportunities, the simple fact is that money is the top motivator for changing jobs.

The best performers share the common characteristics of being loyal to both the bigger business as well as the colleagues and clients who depend on them, but many also realize that sometimes, the opportunity cost of not taking a better paying opportunity just isn’t worth it.

This needs to be tempered with good business sense. Obviously you’re likely to have issues like internal compression or pay grades come up when reevaluating internal salaries, but the fact is that the costs of finding the experience and expertise required to replace departing employees often far outweighs a small hike in pay, spot bonuses or similar rewards.

Consider the fact that this information is easily obtainable online by any one of your workers, and this transparency means that while you should never pay more than you can reasonably afford, not giving the best performers at least what the market says they’re worth is sending an implicit message, however erroneous, that they’re not really valued.

This creates disgruntled, disengaged employees – adding to the already steep costs of voluntary turnover. And if you’re thinking about waiting until there’s an actual offer on the table to negotiate a counter offer, think again. If you haven’t adjusted salary rates for a while or have no performance related incentives in place, now’s the time to put fiduciary fixes in place to keep your workers working for you instead of the competition.

2. Flexible Work Arrangements

It’s called work for a reason, and that’s because, let’s face it, it’s often stressful – and balancing work demands with family life can be incredibly daunting. If you’re requiring long hours at the office in addition to being constantly connected and on call, then something’s got to give – and most often, the first thing to go is quality, with harried workers doing so much that they inevitably can’t do anything as well as anyone would like.

This is OK for a while, but if you’re seeing this pattern play out as a performance issue, consider implementing a flexible work schedule, which resolves many issues and will almost always lead to better productivity and engagement – two top retention drivers.

Let’s face it, it’s 2015 – and no matter how cool your office is, there’s largely no need for many of the people there to even bother coming in to begin with. Technology makes work a thing you do, not a place you go, and that work is more likely to get done when it’s done on someone’s own time (and terms).

Even if your workplace or the role requires being physically present, consider alternative arrangements like split shifts, customizable hours or anything that builds balance and prevents burnout.

3. Career Development

If your employees are feeling stuck in a rut or stagnated, or that there’s really nothing more your organization can offer them in terms of advancement opportunities or professional development, then you’ve more or less become resigned to the inevitability of their resignation. And who can blame them?

Everyone wants to grow and achieve their goals – which is why you’ve got to make sure your company is a career destination that can’t be replaced by simply finding another job. Most employees report they’d rather progress their careers within their current organization than look outside it, if given a choice. It’s up to you to make that choice an option – which isn’t hard.

Start by setting achievable goals and incentivizing workers when they meet these milestones. This will keep your employees motivated, accountable for personal performance and most importantly, provide the carrot they need to stick it out. If you haven’t already done so, define career paths and what’s needed to advance within a company and make this a part of your professional development plan.

Clearly and consistently communicate with employees and make sure they know you’re watching – the best ones will rise to the occasion, and those that don’t, you most likely don’t want around to begin with.

4. Benefits

We tend to think of benefits as stuff like group health insurance or 401(k) matches, but the truth is that there’s more to rewards and recognition than simply the standard plans every employer offers – and if you can incentivize employees with benefits no other competitor is offering, you obviously create a competitive advantage for everyone involved.

These can include things like subsidized child care, tuition reimbursement or paying fees for professional organizations, for example – the more you can offer, the less likely an employee is to find something similar during their search. The best benefits packages are those with the highest degrees of customization, so even if you’re not planning on adding to your budget, at least give employees choice when it comes to allocating their benefits dollars – and make the choices that are going to make their life a little easier without you having to break the bank.

Ultimately, more people are looking for jobs, and after years of recession-related austerity and being forced to do more with less, more candidates are looking not only at opportunities with the best packages or the biggest brands, but also, those with the most balance. This, of course, creates increased employee satisfaction, engagement and ultimately, productivity.

And that’s really the bottom line at any business.

About the Author: Steve Brown is a regular contributor and author on a variety of business related topics. His work can be seen on many high traffic, high visibility sites such as PeopleInsight, a UK based consulting firm providing employee engagement and staff survey expertise across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

How Employee Satisfaction Impacts Stock Performance.

Walking through the campuses of today’s Silicon Valley tech giants, it’s no surprise most employees are satisfied. Colorful workspaces, flexible schedules, dog-friendly offices, casual dress codes, free meals, commuter shuttles and more make for a dreamy work environment compared to the staid workplaces of America’s past.

But are these efforts to boost employee satisfaction really worth it?

If you ask an economist, they might shrug. Good company culture certainly makes employees more productive and engaged. But the workplace policies that drive employee satisfaction aren’t free—they are costly investments like any other.

At the end of the day, the question is whether the gains of a healthy workplace culture outweigh the costs.

Are efforts to improve worker satisfaction really worth the money?

Employee Engagement by the Numbers

One way to answer that question is to compare financial performance of companies with satisfied—and less satisfied—employees.

The idea is simple: If policies that boost worker satisfaction are lousy investments, it should eventually show up in companies’ bottom lines. We should be looking for a correlation between stock returns and employee satisfaction, which is precisely the subject of our most recent Glassdoor Research report “Does Company Culture Pay Off?”.

In the chart below, we look at stock returns for three portfolios of companies with very high employee satisfaction – winners of Glassdoor’s “Best Places to Work” award. With each portfolio, we imagined we had $1,000 to invest in each, and we compare their stock performance to the overall market since 2009, the first year the awards were issued.

The black line shows what a $1,000 investment in the S&P 500 back in 2009 would’ve grown to today. The three colored lines show what similar investments in “happy employee” companies would’ve grown to. As is clear in the chart, an investment in Glassdoor’s “Best Places to Work” companies would’ve grown to between $2,797 and $3,470, far outpacing the $2,210 for the overall market.

This is no surprise. Great companies are highly profitable, often attracting top talent and keeping them with employee-friendly policies. But does the opposite hold as well? Are companies with the unhappiest employees also poor financial performers?

Surprisingly, the answer appears to be “yes.” We examined a portfolio of 30 companies with the lowest employee satisfaction as well, and found that they significantly under-performed the stock market since 2009.

Dollars and Sense: Company Culture and The Bottom Line

Ours isn’t the first study to find a correlation between healthy workplace culture and stock returns. A 2011 study by a University of Pennsylvania researcher found companies on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” list far outperformed the overall market in recent years.

Without a careful experimental design, it’s hard to pin down exact causes behind this correlation. One possibility is that fast-growing companies are flush with cash and have an easy time attracting and keeping happy employees. Perhaps unprofitable companies are quick to cut workplace amenities, plummeting employee morale. Or maybe fostering a satisfied workforce per se leads to higher productivity and profits.

Regardless of causes, the lessons are clear. Employee satisfaction is a strong predictor of long-term company performance. That fact alone should raise eyebrows both for investors and CEOs looking for an edge in today’s marketplace.

Read more at the Glassdoor for Employers blog.

Recruiting Technology: The First 100 Days

It’s only been about 100 days or so, give or take, that I made my inadvertent foray into the world of recruitment. Not that there’s really any sort of defined or deliberate path for ending up in this industry – it’s one of those things that you just kind of fall into, and that’s exactly what happened to me right around Thanksgiving this year.

I was hanging out Gangplank, my preferred coworking space (that’s a fancy way of saying ‘offices for people without traditional jobs’), writing a paper on Rick Astley for a client – and I was obviously on a roll, considering the subject. But for some reason, on that fateful day, I made what seemed at the time to be one of those arbitrary decisions we make dozens of times a day. I parked up next to one of the regulars, my friend Michael. I knew he did something involving real estate rankings and SaaS, but more importantly, I was trying to get to know the other habituates of my newly discovered coworking space.

Nobody Knows Your Name

The first few times I showed up, I got a sense that it was like some startup or SMB version of Cheers, only no one knew my name – at least not yet, anyway – and I was determined to fix that. Not because I have some sort of huge ego or that need for recognition and adoration that’s apparently endemic to myself and every other Gen Y worker out there, but because I really like to get to know new people, hear their stories and, hopefully, learn a little from them in the process.

That day, I got more than I bargained for when I chose that spot to set up shop that particular Tuesday afternoon, because one of those people I didn’t yet know happened to be sitting directly across from me at the table. I had no idea who he was, but made a note that I should introduce myself after my Astley-themed opus was finished.

As I put a few final flourishes on my first draft, Michael leaned over my shoulder and stared at my screen. “Wait a second,” he asked incredulously, “You just wrote an 8 page paper on Rick Rolling?” And I had to come clean on why my publically pronounced professional programming aspirations were being prioritized after the dude who’s biggest claim to fame is likely inspiring the most incipient (and influential) meme in history.

Never Gonna Give You Up

In other words, I was wrong when I thought I was never, ever gonna give that up.

So, I did what anyone in a similar situation would do: I came clean. I told him about my most recent scheme: posing a full-stack developer on oDesk for two bucks an hour in the hopes of building up expertise, exposure, a decent code base and all that other stuff that keeps people without experience from getting the experience they need to get experience in the first place. In other words, I was your typical neophyte trying to parlay a high touch approach to a career in high tech. Or at least, a decent developer gig.

After I finished explaining the story, I looked away from Mike to see the stranger seated across from me and the acute, immediate sense that he had not only heard every word I said, but either thought I was batshit crazy or some sort of evil genius, judging from the expression on his face. Whatever the case, he seemed intrigued and asked if I wouldn’t mind passing him my [Rick] rolling paper his way. And then, he started peppering me with questions.

At first, he seemed kind of amused by the whole thing, and I filled him in on where I went to school, what I studied and how, exactly, I ended up as a freelance writer. The name, rank and serial number of networking, so to speak. Then he introduced himself after a few minutes of seeming small talk as Shon Burton, the CEO of a company called HiringSolved.

I thought nothing of it at first, since, honestly, I’d never heard of the company, and in the world of startups, the CEO title has less cache considering that it’s the default for anyone who happens to have a business plan on power point, a registered URL and a VistaPrint account. He was wondering what happened to my aspirations of becoming a web programmer.

But then I found out a little bit more about what HiringSolved was all about and who Shon really was (getting both the first person and Google version – the truth usually falling somewhere in between the two). The more I learned, the more suspicious I became of his line of questioning, since, well, I realized he probably wasn’t just being polite or trying to make conversation just for the hell of it.

Dude Wanted Something

Just as I started to think I might be able to figure out the end game, he changed the rules and asked me out to dinner. His MO instantly became less relevant when there was free food hanging in the balance – hey, I am a web developer fresh out of school, after all. So I instantly took him up on the offer.

As we were walking next door to the Perch, one of Chandler’s most ubiquitous watering holes, Shon turns to me and informs me, in the most matter of fact way possible, “this is a job interview, by the way.” Great, I thought as I walked into the restaurant with him. No pressure or anything. But somehow, when I walked back out after what turned into a really interesting conversation, I did so with an offer in hand to become HiringSolved’s newest intern.

The terms were, suffice to say, malleable. I believe Shon’s exact words were, “so, your going rate is just two dollars an hour, right?” I let it slide, because that’s something you can always work out after the fact. The only mutual understanding that really matters, and the only one we came to that first night, was the same simple one that’s core to pretty much every recruiting process on the planet: what the expectations associated with the position really were. In this case, it was a minimum of one blog post a week.

What I did the rest of my time would remain more or less at my discretion. I informed him, in no uncertain terms, that all I really wanted was to become awesome at web development (or at least, an effective hacker). That was really my only objective – and one that was totally non-negotiable. Not that it’s a whole lot to ask, but if you’re not playing career decisions with a mentality of ‘better safe than sorry,’ sorry seems like a really risky proposition.

That’s a lot of context and backstory, but I wanted to kind of set the scene for my first steps into the recruiting industry. It’s proof that you kind of never know when opportunities cross your path, and you might never know what, exactly, you missed out on if you’re not lucky or savvy enough to spot them.

Co-working Opportunity Model

Gangplank is a very unique kind of space. Yeah, yeah, plenty of spaces operate under the co-working model, and have become as trendy as adding bacon to baked goods or blogging about big data, proliferating over the past few years as more and more workers become entrepreneurs, free agents or just are lucky enough to work in jobs that are completely location agnostic. As many of these co-working models as have popped up over the years, though, most of them charge money in order to enter an environment that can best be described as overly sterile, places where office politics still happen even though the whole point is that there is no office in the first place.

But at Gangplank, no one is really “in charge,” in the traditional sense, which is awesome, because that means you don’t really need anyone’s permission to do anything. But when you put the prisoners in charge of the asylum, as it were, it puts a pretty significant premium on personal reputation. If enough people think your reputation sucks, then you’ll likely be “managed out,” even in the absence of actual managers. It’s open to everyone since it’s owned by the city of Chandler (think public library), but to stay, you’ve really got to have something to offer. Once I found this part office, part Nerf arena, part think tank and part support group, I knew that while I had the option to work from home, there was no point in me even considering doing so. I’d found my place, and it was awesome.

But since work isn’t a place you go, as they say, it’s a thing you do, I still had to learn how to do what I had to do to get my one expected outcome at HiringSolved done. Turns out, figuring out what content is going to work with this recruiting and sourcing crowd can be tough, particularly when you come in cold. I’m not going to lie: getting to know my audience and the kinds of posts that made sense was a way harder code to crack than any I’d encountered as a developer.

Be A Pirate

So, I went straight to Shon for some advice. I figured if I was going to write about the company, I’d try to figure out the kind of company we actually were. When posed this basic question, Sean pointed to the pirate flag hanging prominently in the center of HiringSolved’s open offices. “That,” he proclaimed, “That is who we are.”

And even though we were in the middle of Arizona, it was like at that moment I could suddenly smell the salty ocean breeze wafting in as a series of images ran through my head, a mental montage of colorful squawking parrots, cerulean waves stretching from horizon to horizon, and guys with patches and peg legs singing sea shanties. Cool, so your company’s target market, apparently, sunk with the Spanish Armada. This did not seem to be good news for long term growth.

But then I started thinking about what pirates actually stood for – besides loving the booty, of course. Freedom to steer their own course. Freedom to think for themselves while still being accountable to their mateys, with everyone getting an equal share of whatever loot the expedition happened to haul in. Pirates were risk takers (hence the peg legs and patches). They were free thinkers. They risked peril as a part of their profession. And critical moments always seemed to involve a Gangplank.

Doing instead of saying. Participating instead of observing. Friendships over formality. Boldness over bureaucracy. That’s our manifesto, after all. Thing is, it’s not always easy fitting in with pirates at first. And during my tentative try-out at HiringSolved, I faced a very nebulous future. I knew I was constantly being tested – and that I could be the man overboard the minute I failed, which seemed the most likely outcome, given the odds of completing the tasks I was assigned.

For example, just as an experiment, I was given one week to build, by myself, a Chrome extension that effectively synched with social sites. This, my friends, is no easy task – and not normally one that would be given to an intern in the first place, even if on a lark. My end product kind of worked, but it didn’t work as well as I would have planned.

But I tried, and in that effort alone, learned I still have a whole lot to learn. I’ve also learned how lucky I am to receive encouragement to learn how to code even though most of my official responsibilities fall within the marketing function. If I want to learn, contribute and write code, I’m encouraged to do so. No one ever stops me and points out I’m in marketing. They just let me play, learn and grow my professional skill set without a ton of policies or procedures.

I’m going to tip my hat here and say that age wise, at least, I’m a little late to the party, at least compared to a lot of my professional peers. Starting to learn programming at 27 is, understandably, met with almost universal skepticism. Kids start coding in their cribs now, and I was crazy enough to try to learn it only after I learned how much I loved it. So I face an uphill battle in terms of both learning curve AND perception. But no one’s gotten anywhere caring much about either.

A lot of would be good career Samaritans have tried to point me towards a more conventional path, and to follow the traditional route instead of one that, instinctually, makes little sense – at least logically, no one really understands why you’d choose something that’s edifying over something that’s easy, something that’s stimulating over something that’s stable.

These friendly words of warning intensify whenever I complain about any problem I have along the way, even from my Dad. And he’s repeatedly told me he supports me no matter what. He’s been good to his word, but I still have a ways to go before he fully buys in to my vision of doing what I love for a living, even if it’s a lot of work to get into this line of work. After all, even at 27, I still have decades left to figure all this out. Tech always changes, and I’m sure I will along with it, but as long as the goal never does, I’m convinced that I’m going to be OK.

Editor’s Note: Christopher brings the perspective of someone who’s just starting out in this industry and can offer an alternative point of view as a relatively objective observer to the recruiting technology and high tech industries. This post is not intended to promote HiringSolved, but instead, to share the kind of perspective we don’t get to hear enough in this little echo chamber. He’s also a hell of a writer, so I wanted to proffer an appropriate introduction to kick off his contributions. Which, so far, have been pretty impressive. – M.C.

About the Author: Christopher Murray is a growth hacker at HiringSolved. He’s also a Gangplank Chandler community member and volunteer where he supplies a weekly newsletter and blog. When he started with HiringSolved in November 2014, his knowledge of sourcing, HR, and Recruiting were at first based on frantic Google searches and blog skimming. However, he has since been able to immerse himself in the knowledge of the space and continues to gain insights to help him form opinions. Christopher has a strong background in freelance writing, hacking, and marketing. His duties at HiringSolved include site content growth, writing patents & press releases, conducting email blasts, and charting their marketing trajectory in the new media landscape.

Inbound Marketing for Recruiting: Making Candidates Care Enough To Click

It’s estimated there are approximately 28,000 companies competing in the HR Technology space, and some mornings, opening my inbox feels a little like I’m being bombarded by every single one of them simultaneously.

You know the feeling – those mornings when you seem to be taking a page from Pandora, unleashing all the evils of the world simply by opening up your inbox.

Every single one of these manifold messages want me to do something, and most of the time, this consists of doing a demo or setting up a time to speak to some sales guy (as if). The calls to action, mostly, are nothing but noise, and the din can be deafening. Recruiters, you know what I’m talking about.

Of course, then you go to a search engine or social network, and you’re served up display ads from the exact same vendors you were shirking touting the exact same call to action you ignored in the first place.

It’s been said that “the best minds of our generation are being wasted thinking of new and different ways to get people to click on links,” and there’s some truth to that. Thing is, we go into our inboxes and open our web browsers expecting to ignore many of the marketing messages that come our way. The fact is most marketing messages are just not all that good.

It doesn’t have to be this way, by the way.

Why Candidates Aren’t Clicking: A Recruiting Call To Action

Now, take a moment and think about the messages and outreach that you look forward to actually opening when it arrives in your inbox, and the company or provider responsible for creating these anomalies of actually compelling content.

Why do you listen to them and how did you find them in the first place?

In most nearly every imaginable case, it’s because you they add value, and in doing so, have instilled at least the tiniest bit of trust in the fact that they actually know their stuff.

They are writing about topics you care about, always teaching you something new and demonstrate subject matter expertise time and time again. They’ve become a resource to you and have been able to cut through the noise because of it.

Now, imagine how candidates, passive or active, must feel when looking for their next opportunity online. It looks very similar. They keep seeing the same crappy job descriptions or career related copy over and over.

Whether that’s the AdWords served up in the results of the 85% of job searches that start with a search engine, or an automated job alert feed of irrelevant results sent straight to their inbox, candidates won’t respond to any call to action if it’s not compelling enough to do so in the first place.

And the few that do click through – and go through the gauntlet of your draconian application process – probably never heard back from a recruiter, but likely still get served the same targeted ads and segmented e-mails that just pour salt on the wound of a crappy candidate experience.

House of Pain: The Jump Around Adding Value

No wonder 19% of job seekers said they’d rather wait at the DMV than apply to a job. After all, candidates face the same deluge of marketing messages in their inboxes every single day, and do what they’ve been trained to do as consumers – ignore all but the best and most relevant of results.

And chances are, your recruitment marketing messaging is falling on deaf ears, contributing to the noise instead of cutting through it.

The goal of all of these recruiting efforts, presumably, is to build and accelerate a pipeline of qualified candidates and nurture them from passive leads to actual applicants to ultimately new hires.

But no matter how big your database might be, no matter how many followers or friends you’ve acquired on social media, no matter how many candidates have opted into employer related e-mails, if you’re not adding value to the candidate through their journey, it doesn’t matter what medium you are using because your message sucks.

If you want to get results from any of these marketing initiatives, you’ve got to reciprocate with more than a periodic e-mail that’s nothing more than a list of job titles or automated tweets sent directly from your ATS to your careers account. You need to provide a message that matters and adds value to the candidates you are trying to attract.

Meet Inbound Marketing.

I’ve got a news flash for you – the old school online recruiting that’s becoming more or less omnipotent is creating a ton of candidate fatigue, resulting in diminishing returns and recruiting related ROI.

If the message you’re sending can’t make a candidate care enough to click, then you’re wasting everyone’s time – and likely burning a ton of brand-related good will in the process, particularly passive candidates, which surveys show is about 85% of today’s workforce.

No matter how active a job seeker’s particular level of interest might be, the bottom line is that there are some proven tactics to make sure that those candidates are being attracted, instead of repelled, by your online recruiting and employer branding initiatives.

These tested, targeted techniques guarantee when choosing what to click, the candidates you’d choose for jobs choose to click through – and apply – to yours. This isn’t a tough concept, but let’s review this again. Marketing works when content adds value – it fails when all you’ve got is another ask. You might as well be a Nigerian prince for the kind of results taking without giving is going to generate. That’s where inbound comes in.

Recruiters, meet inbound marketing.

Put simply, “inbound marketing” is creating compelling online content for the purposes of attracting qualified leads to a product or service. If you’ve ever filled out a form on the web, downloaded a white paper or registered for a webinar – you’ve experienced inbound marketing in action.

Same goes for if you’ve applied for a job or subscribed to a talent network, community or simply a job alert list. Or read a blog post like this one, for that matter. If you’re reading this, you’ve got proof that inbound marketing works.

3 Reasons Recruiters Should Care About Inbound Marketing

If you invest in inbound marketing instead of blindly serving up irrelevant and impersonal crappy career copy, you’ll soon see the recruiting ROI.

Here are 3 reasons inbound marketing works for recruiting – and why every organization should at least be considering investing in this critical core competency to stay a step ahead of the competition – and top of mind with top talent, too.

1. The Consumer/Candidate Connection: The fact is, the consumer and candidate experience are almost completely congruent, with a slightly differentiated call to action. That’s why treating candidates as consumers of career related content is so important, strategically speaking.

Making sure your message gets heard means standing out from the competition – and the noise – which means adding value instead of simply advertising open jobs. Top talent might not even know they’re looking for jobs yet, which is why it’s up to your content to convince them.

Never hard sell – there’s no bigger turn off than looking desperate, which is probably what how your recruitment marketing is coming across in a market where you need them worse than they need you.

2. Process Alignment: Inbound marketing’s process almost perfectly aligns with the hiring process pretty much every recruiting organization out there already has in place.

From sourcing to candidate development to extending an offer, inbound marketing actually augments and extends your existing recruiting related processes and initiatives rather than replacing or replicating them. This means that inbound marketing is easy to implement and tie into every stage of the hiring cycle – and continuously drive meaningful results by continuously delivering meaningful content specifically targeted to their stage in the process.

Of course, in recruiting, the process doesn’t stop with an accepted offer, and inbound marketing extends to increased referrals, employee engagement, improved onboarding and ultimately, better retention (commonly called ‘renewals’ in the marketing world).

3. Work Smarter, Not Harder: It’s becoming increasingly important for recruiters to adopt analytics, and inbound marketing’s emphasis on constant measurement and optimization can provide employers with meaningful metrics on the data that matters most in terms of candidate attraction and conversion.

From improving cost per hire and time to fill by improving incoming applicant flow and response rates to recruitment marketing initiatives that you’ve already got in place, inbound marketing turns the data you’re already generating into the insights required for actionable analytics. The cool thing is, not only does inbound marketing work, but it very explicitly has the numbers to back it up, too.

I know a lot of you out there are thinking this is just another BS buzzword or another trending topic that doesn’t translate to the trenches, and I feel you.

But you’ve got to trust me when I tell you that inbound marketing matters – and it’s something that every recruiter really needs to know if they want to stay top of mind in the minds of top talent.

The Recruiter’s Guide To Inbound Marketing

To learn what recruiters actually need to know to actually use inbound marketing, make sure to check out my new e-book, “The Recruiter’s Guide to Inbound Marketing.”

Because, obviously, I just can’t sum it all up in a single blog post – which is why this all inclusive guide to inbound just for recruiters is definitely worth a read.

Unlike, say, your current recruiting or careers related content.

Click here and get your free copy sent straight to your inbox. It doesn’t suck – and will actually give you the tools and tips every talent pro needs to know to transform inbound marketing theory into real recruiting best practices. Promise.

Editor’s Note: Recruiting Daily was compensated for this post. We have to say that, but it’s just part of a bigger campaign with our partners at Smashfly around the intersection of recruiting and marketing.

We appreciate their support – and the always awesome content they’re curating & creating on recruitment marketing over at the Smashfly Blog.