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Email Finder: How To Source Anyone’s Work E-Mail For Free

emailfinderFinding and validating work e-mail addresses is a key step in any sourcing process, but even for the most experienced recruiters, it’s a task that’s often incredibly time-consuming and arduous, not to mention an inexact science at best.  That’s why I’m always on the look out for new tools and shortcuts to this part of the process a little less painful, and why I’ve spent the last several days playing with a new tool called EmailFinder.io.

EMailFinder.io, as its name implies, allows recruiters and sourcers to discover a candidate’s work e-mail simply by inputting their first and last name, as well as the domain name linked to their corporate website (and, consequently, their work e-mail).

While that core concept seems simple enough, there were some definite issues that emerged during my experimenting with this tool:

1. Sometimes, company e-mail address naming conventions require a middle initial; EMailFinder.io does not offer the ability to input this information nor provide any workaround for this relatively common issue.

2. In many cases, there are no standard naming conventions within a company’s e-mail matrix, or in some cases, there may be multiple ones, particularly at larger companies or those with multiple business units or brands.

3. The results returned by the tool aren’t actually verified.  Instead, they are returning, at best, an educated guess.  And since they charge by the search, if their information is wrong, that’s your problem – there are no guarantees the e-mail returned is really accurate (and no refunds, either).

4. As mentioned before, the revenue model for EMailFinder.io is by charging on a per search basis.  This costs between .80-$1.48 a search.  If you’re validating a lot of e-mail addresses, as most searches require, that’s going to add up fast.  Additionally, while the tool offers 5 free searches with every user sign up, it also requires a credit card to even take a test drive.  No, thank you.

Wildcard: How To Look Up Work E-Mails for Free

While this is just one example of many similar tools on the market, if you’re paying to do these kind of e-mail look-ups as a sourcer, you’re doing it wrong.  Here’s how to do it yourself for free:

First, check out EMails4Corporations.com, which is a free online database which houses thousands of company e-mail naming conventions, with its list constantly expanding – and almost always accurate.  Click here to check it out (and make sure to add a bookmark, too).

Alternatively, there are some other no cost tools out there, most of which were actually designed for building company org charts for competitive intelligence and targeted sourcing.  Many, however, list the e-mail addresses associated with these companies, allowing you to easily discover the corporation’s e-mail matrix.

Here are 4 worth checking out:

Cogmap 

CorporateContact.info

Implu

The Official Board

None of these tools is perfect, however, so if the company you’re looking for isn’t available via any of the above tools, don’t worry.  You can still find out a candidate’s work e-mail by using a pretty basic search string on any search engine.  Just put these strings into Google or Bing, add the associated company domain name, like EMC in the second example.

(contact OR email) “**@”

(contact OR email) “**@emc.com”

While these will return a number of results which might require scanning a few pages of results, you’ll eventually find what you’re looking for, as indicated in the search results below:

Untitled1

As you can see in the second result from the bottom, the email naming convention for EMC is [email protected].  In this particular example, it took me until the 4th page of search results to find the information I need; in most cases, you’ll see a company employee’s name and associated work e-mail without having to dig deeper than the first page of results.

When sourcing with these strings, it’s important to keep in mind that companies often maintain different e-mail naming conventions for employees in different markets, such as one matrix for American-based employees and a completely different one for those workers outside of the US.  It’s always a good idea to double check to make sure that you’re using the right one.

validationOnce you’ve discovered what looks like the e-mail naming convention you were looking for using one of the methods above, sourcers and recruiters must take one final step: validation testing.  Here are a couple of sites I’d recommend using to see whether the e-mail address you’ve sourced is actually valid:

 ValidateEMailAddress.Org 

 Cobisi

Check out the picture on the left to see what one of these tools looks like in action.  In this case, I used my personal e-mail and used the site to validate my address at all levels.

As you can see from the results it returned, it’s using multiple checkpoints to verify that, in fact, my e-mail address is valid.  And if you follow this process, you’ll be able to determine the same for candidate contacts before sending a message that’s just going to bounce back.

While this might seem kind of complicated and that following these steps looks like it takes a long time, the truth is that for almost every e-mail address you’re looking to find and validate, such as the EMC example listed above, you’ll be able to complete this process in under a minute.

That might be a little bit longer than some of the tools out there, such as EMailFinder.io, but using good old fashioned wildcard Boolean searches instead of one of these paid products is more accurate, and ultimately, free.  Which is a price point that makes it pretty easy to deliver a return on your sourcing investment – even if it might take a few extra seconds every search.  But most of the time, it’s actually faster than even the most advanced premium products designed to do the exact same thing.

Guest Post by Dean DaCosta

Evil Empire: LinkedIn Lawsuit Set Dangerous Double Standard

outSell Hack has one employee who spends most of his time working at a completely unrelated startup, has no budget and doesn’t even warrant a company profile on Crunchbase, since it’s got no budget, no capital backing and no plans for monetizing its services.

By contrast, LinkedIn is a blue chip, NASDAQ listed global corporation, with a valuation in the tens of billions of dollars, over 250 million active monthly users and around 5,000 employees.  But for some reason, Goliath wants to take David down.

This week, LinkedIn slapped Sell Hack with a cease and desist order as the “result of several violations,” but the most egregious, apparently, was the fact that Sell Hack threatened LinkedIn’s biggest asset – their user’s contact data.  It’s hard to sell InMails and premium membership when there’s an intermediary eliminating the middleman that is the LinkedIn platform.

While Sell Hack, ostensibly scared by an army of attorneys whose hourly rate is more than they’ve ever spent on building their product, has shut down (for now), but the fact of the matter is, the shaky legal precedents upon which the LinkedIn lawsuit accuses Sell Hack of violating were set by none other than LinkedIn themselves.

In fact, LinkedIn, which alerted users to the fact that Sell Hack was putting their personal data in jeopardy (despite the fact that it only utilized public information), actually inspired founder Ryan O’Donnell to develop his tool in the first place.

In a recent interview, O’Donnell told me that Sell Hack was designed simply to automate the e-mail validation process that he was formerly doing using a Gmail plug-in called Rapportive.

If you’re a hard core sourcer, you already know that within Rapportive, you can validate which e-mail permutation of a user is accurate simply by adding your guesses into the Gmail “To:” field.  The valid e-mails automatically populate with an associated Rapportive profile without any additional permissions or connections.

How do they get this data?  Pretty much the exact same way that Sell Hack does – through scraping and testing.  The only reason Sell Hack exists is exploiting that feature in Rapportive at scale simply takes too long.  Here’s where it gets interesting, though.

Guess who owns Rapportive?  The answer, of course, is LinkedIn, who acquired the company for an estimated $15 million in cash back in early 2012.  And since that time, they’ve done nothing to fix the exact same feature that they’re accusing Sell Hack of misappropriating and misallocating.

Despite marketing and PR messaging making this into a data and user privacy issue, the real issue that LinkedIn appears to have with Sell Hack is that it’s beating them at their own game.  An interesting note: while LinkedIn publically announced changes in the Terms of Service and Privacy policy for Pulse and Slideshare recently, two of their products acquired through similarly sized acquisitions, no such change was made to Rapportive, meaning whether or not Sell Hack sticks around, the issue that they’re purportedly fighting isn’t going to be solved any time in the near future.

Best In Class: What Makes A Great Recruiter?

great recruiterRecruiting has no barriers for entry, unlike almost any other profession, which at least requires a related degree.  Even in the absence of recruitment as an actual academic discipline, success in recruiting largely can’t be learned.

As so many employers know, teaching it through practical application only creates incremental improvements in recruiting efficacy, but almost never does a recruiter go from “good” to “great” broader than a very niche functional or industry expertise.

That’s because being a recruiter, ironic for a profession setting standards for hiring almost every other role, relies almost exclusively on the soft stuff that’s impossible to imagine even the best predictive analytics and behavioral assessment tools being able to recognize.

While these could measure, potentially, the correlation between personality and propensity, spotting potential star recruiters seems technologically impossible.

Matching and assessment data works for many jobs, like accounting or retail, but the profile for an “A’ player in talent acquisition just doesn’t compute.  That’s because, as the professional equivalent of a liberal arts major, recruiting relies on a few subjective causational characteristics to determine relative success.

If you’re wondering what makes a great recruiter – or if you’re working with one, here are 5 Cs to consider.

5cMaking the Grade: Top 5 Reasons Why Every Recruiter Should Be A “C” Player

1. Competent: This seems like an odd inclusion, but so many recruiters are so incompetent (present company obviously excluded) that simply being able to do the small stuff like cold call or perform an effective behavioral interview already put you way ahead of the professional curve.

2. Charisma: Whether or not you think recruiting is a sales job, the truth is that the most important element of recruiting is sales.  Only it’s not the jobs you’re selling that make a great recruiter.  It’s you.   A recruiter can connect with colleagues and candidates across all industries, levels and function, and it’s that human touch that both builds relationships and makes placements.

3. Curiosity: With a few rare exceptions, recruiters have no academic or practical experience in what they’re hiring for.  This likely explains their endemic failure at luring tech talent or the gobs of cash companies pay search firms who actually know the jobs beyond the job description.

But while most recruiters can pick up on the keywords and learn how to do a decent job faking it when engaging with hiring managers and candidates, the best recruiters tend to devote themselves to learning more than what’s required simply to qualify a candidate.  They research industry trends and thought leadership, know the competitive landscape and players, and are able to talk shop with the field.  The ability to come across as a colleague instead of a recruiter is a huge advantage when it comes to attracting and hiring hard to find or in-demand talent.

4. Compassion: The reason we talk so much about topics like “candidate experience” and “emotional intelligence” in recruiting is the almost total absence of empathy among talent professionals.  That’s only natural, considering talent acquisition and management best practices aim to turn people into a process.

We tend, more or less, to reduce our “greatest asset” to templates like resumes, form letters and standardized interpersonal interactions.  A great recruiter is constantly aware of the fact that they’re dealing not only with professional livelihoods, but people’s lives, hopes and emotions.

5. Credibility: Recruiters call jobs (even the crappy ones) “opportunities,” but that’s more than a cliché to candidates: they’re the promise of a more promising, prosperous existence.  Great recruiters have to understand the professional objectives and personal passions driving the candidates they’re working with so that they can not only put the right people in the right positions, but also be able to understand why someone might not be a fit.

Even if they’re perfect on paper, a good recruiter will make sure that the job is able to deliver as promised, and that the candidate will actually get what they want from making a move.  The very best recruiters don’t try to make a hire.  They try to find a match.

And that, in the end, is everything.

Top 5 Employer Branding Tips for Nonprofit Recruiting

non_profit_recruitingNonprofit organizations that want to recruit top employees must compete against top-notch, for-profit employers that have reputations for being some of the best places to work.

But with a carefully designed employer branding strategy, your nonprofit can also become an employer of choice — even if you don’t offer the same employment packages as your for-profit competition.

Here are five tips for utilizing an employer branding strategy to boost your nonprofit recruiting and retention efforts.

1. Understand your employer value proposition. Employer branding is all about what people feel and think about working for your organization, and many nonprofit organizations have long understood that they offer a unique workplace value to their employees. As a nonprofit, your organization is likely to have a higher purpose than simply making money — and if you communicate the impact potential candidates can have on the world by working with you, it is likely to resonate with those who will be best fits for your organization.

2. Embrace social media. If you don’t already, learn to use social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and so forth to communicate your organization’s mission, culture, and benefits.

“Whether you believe in [social media] or not, you have to be there, and you have to be consistently there,” said Jim Zaniello, president of Vetted Solutions, at a recent Bisnow-sponsored panel on Association and Non-Profit Human Capital Strategies. “Candidates have a choice as to where they go to work. They are looking at all types of social media.”

National Public Radio (NPR) has rebuilt its recruiting strategy with a focus on social media and in the process, has saved more than $100,000 per year in job ads and recruitment marketing, according to Lars Schmidt, senior director of talent acquisition and innovation.

3. Keep current employees happy. Not only are your current employees valuable to your organization, but they can also serve as ambassadors for your employment brand, sharing their positive experience with others who may be potential candidates for future positions. Keep these employees happy by creating generous benefits packages — your organization may not compete monetarily with for-profit companies, but you may be able to offer better work-life balance and unique opportunities for professional development, such as leadership training programs.

 

4. Conduct “stay” interviews. Forget the exit interview; conduct a similar interview with current staff members who (you hope) have no intention of leaving. In this formal discussion, ask current staffers what you can do to ensure that they will stay with your organization. Ask questions about organizational culture, communication, growth and recognition to gauge employees’ engagement and help you formulate policies and procedures that will best fit the needs of your employees.

 

5. Realize that one size doesn’t fit all. Just because a particular employer branding strategy works for another organization doesn’t mean that it will work for yours. “Employment branding doesn’t have to be built around a broad multi-channel social media approach,” NPR’s Schmidt says. Instead, it can be scaled to the size and needs of your particular organization. Rather than seeking to apply a cookie-cutter approach to your organization’s employer brand, determine the right approach for your needs. And be willing to experiment, changing things that aren’t working. The most important thing is that you choose a strategy that is streamlined with the culture of your organization.

From the Glassdoor Talent Solutions Blog

glassdoor logoAbout Glassdoor: Glassdoor is the world’s most transparent career community that is changing the way people find jobs, and companies recruit top talent. Glassdoor holds a growing database of 6 million company reviews, CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, office photos and more. Unlike other jobs sites, all of this information is entirely shared by those who know a company best — the employees.

For employers, Glassdoor offers effective recruiting and employer branding solutions via Glassdoor Talent Solutions. We help more than 1,500 employers promote their employer brand to candidates researching them and advertise their jobs to ideal candidates who may not be aware of them. What differentiates Glassdoor from other recruiting channels is the quality of job candidates we deliver and our influence on candidates’ decisions as they research jobs and companies.

SellHack: The Free Sourcing Tool That’s Got LinkedIn On the Defense

sellhack-200x200SellHack is one of those rare tools that actually delivers as promised, meets a real recruiting need and actually lives up to the hype – which isn’t easy to do, considering the amount of buzz and word of mouth that this emerging startup has built up in a relatively short amount of time.  What makes SellHack really unique, however, is the fact that unlike so many other point solutions, it wasn’t developed as a saleable product, but instead, to solve a real challenge at a real company.

“We just kind of stumbled upon SellHack,” said founder Ryan O’Donnell.  “I run a startup full time, and spend a lot of my day prospecting and selling on LinkedIn.  It started as an internal tool, but we soon shared it with some of our friends and some recruiters, and once they started using it and we started getting their feedback, we realized that we were onto something.”

SellHack’s internal case use performed so well, in fact, that it quickly became a powerful enough tool to take to market, even if it’s not yet being actually marketed – or monetized.  But if you’re in recruiting or sourcing, you’ll quickly discover that SellHack is one of the most invaluable tools today’s talent professional can have in their hiring arsenal.

O’Donnell, who also oversees video communication platform Sociagram, admits that Sellhack is “still in its infancy,” and he and his team are concentrating on “really trying to understand the shortcomings of LinkedIn and how our product could potentially address them.”

One of those shortcomings that led to the creation of SellHack, according to O’Donnell, was when prospecting on LinkedIn.  When searching and filtering for a specific title, industry and target companies, he realized that while he had no trouble finding these targeted prospects, engaging them was another matter.  “We’d try to figure out their e-mail address without being connected, which was really just maintaining a spreadsheet with all possible permutations of a corporate e-mail address and then manually testing those.”

At first, this involved opening a new message in GMail and using a workaround in Rapportive, a GMail plug in, to hover over each e-mail permutation to see if there was a valid profile attached.  SellHack, however, automates this process, running all possible permutations against publically available e-mail sources to see which e-mail address is actually valid.  Most importantly, SellHack integrates seamlessly with LinkedIn’s UI/UX, but is not reliant on their API.

LinkedIn & The End Of InMail

While LinkedIn recently sent SellHack a “cease and desist order,” the strongly worded language from LinkedIn seems to reflect that they have little recourse, instead encouraging users to disable it immediately and warning (ironically) about potential data violations, proving that LinkedIn is powerless when it comes to actually stopping usage of a tool that uses only public information and educated guessing without their proprietary developer code or API.  Given the abhorrent data privacy violations LinkedIn commits as a core component of its business model, this strategy strongly indicates that they likely have no recourse to SellHack – and see it as a significant competitive threat.

That’s because SellHack uses the profile’s name, company and corporate URL or associated domain to “make some assumptions” about potential e-mail addresses to run against their data sources and validate which, if any, e-mail is associated with that profile.  SellHack does not require any degree of connection with potential candidates to obtain their data, since it uses their public profiles instead of performing its permutation testing on the platform itself.

There are a few issues which, O’Donnell admits, still must be resolved to take SellHack to the next (monetizable) level, mainly the time it takes to generate and verify the accuracy of results, which is often still hit or miss when it comes to matching a profile to an active e-mail address.  SellHack is still in R&D to fix these and other issues, and given the platform is new, O’Donnell wants to focus on improving end user experience and product efficacy before looking at turning this into a paid product.

In its current state, however new it might be, SellHack is more effective than at least one entrenched product making big bucks in the recruitment market: LinkedIn InMail.  “SellHack is really no different than InMail, but by removing the LinkedIn platform entirely, you’re establishing 1:1 communication from inbox to inbox, not some mass marketing message or canned spam, which not only improves the open rate significantly, but also makes engaging prospects and candidates much easier than simply sending them an InMail,” O’Donnell said.

The company is currently exploring potential integrations and learning the HR technology landscape to figure out how to make a product that can both stand alone and integrate with any document or database that’s being used; they’re also working to add advanced search functionality and exploring features to offer “what end users really want,” with the goal of “building a complimentary technology around any recruiter’s workflow to make their process more efficient across all recruiting touch points,” O’Donnell said.

A significant part of this process involves soliciting and receiving feedback from recruiters and end users who have already adopted the product; SellHack reports listening actively to social channels like Twitter or unsolicited e-mails to measure recruiter sentiment and collect feedback that’s often built directly into the product.  “I hold no punches saying that it’s still in beta, but hopefully we’re building a product that helps enable smarter and more effective recruiting and hiring.”  

In other words, enjoy it now while the product is still free, and share your feedback directly with SellHack by e-mailing [email protected] or tweeting @SellHack, both of which are constantly monitored.  “We’re new to recruiting, and we’re voracious to learn as much as possible so we can make our product better,” O’Donnell said.  “We know what we don’t know, but we’re trying to quickly close the gap between a mature industry and our own expertise to build a more relevant solution for recruiting and sourcing.”

How SellHack Works

1. Visit SellHack.com and click the “Download Extension Button.”  The download will immediately start with the version designed for the browser you’re using to access the website:

sellhack home

2. Once installation is complete, visit LinkedIn.  You’ll see a new button on all profiles, allowing you to “Hack In.”  Simply click the button:

hackin3. SellHack will automatically search for the e-mail addresses associated with this profile as well as linked social profiles like CrunchBase, Google, Twitter & Facebook.

charney

It’s easy, it’s free, and best of all, it works.  See for yourself why SellHack’s only downside is that due to the unexpected demand and growth the product is already experiencing, it may be occasionally down due to maintenance to support its exponential growth and explosion in active users – all of whom have already discovered that while there are no silver bullets in sourcing, SellHack comes pretty close.

 

 

Think Recruiting Is Sales? Think Again.

sales_recruitingI often hear people likening recruiters to salespeople. As they see it, there are a lot of similarities between the two: the structure of their performance metrics is similar, basic workflows are similar, etc.

I’m sure recruiters and salespeople alike would argue there is far more that distinguishes each function – and I’m sure they would be right – but I’m commonly told the biggest difference is what they are selling: salespeople sell products and services, and recruiters sell job opportunities.

Makes sense, right?

Maybe ten years ago. Following a briefing with SAVO – a sales enablement solution provider – I realized sales technology has far outpaced talent acquisition technology. While recruiters are still wrapping their heads around social media and dabbling in candidate relationship management (CRM), sales technology has evolved to a new level of automation.

Full disclosure: I’m not well versed in sales tools and software. As such, I can’t say whether SAVO is at the forefront of innovation or is offering standard sales enablement technology. What I can say is that I spent the entire briefing oooing and aaahing over their product features and thinking, “Why don’t we have this in recruiting?”

For example, SAVO has built an engine that analyzes a lead, evaluates the interest and needs, and makes recommendations on next steps – including the best marketing collateral to share. Not only does this help salespeople make the best use of their time, but it also keeps leads warm so deals close faster.

If that doesn’t pique your interest, it’s because you’re not thinking big enough. Imagine an enterprise recruiting team responsible for hundreds of hires a year. How do they keep up with all of the candidates they have in the pipeline? What happens to those talented individuals who don’t end up getting hired? Think of all the missed opportunities that occur in a single hiring organization on an annual basis!

As many of you know, I’m of the opinion that the so-called “talent crisis” many employers are experiencing is the product of decades of reactionary recruiting tactics. We’ve spent too much time chasing bogus talent qualifiers like undergraduate degrees and harping on resume formatting, and have little to show for it.

I’ll openly admit that I used to be one of those people who believed recruiters and salespeople were very similar, but this briefing was a serious eye-opener. All I could think during the demo was, “If this engine existed in every applicant tracking system, constantly supporting recruiters and serving as a safety net for catching every candidate they touch, I have a feeling we’d hear a lot less about a shortage of talent.”

For all of those solution providers out there who are still dragging their feet in developing more robust CRM functionality, those who are putting all of their eggs in one basket like video or employee referrals – you may want to think again. Take a look at a few innovative sales tools, and you’ll see just how far we have to go before your product is truly “game-changing.”

Just a heads up, I don’t think it will be long before some of these sales solution providers wise up and see the opportunities to be had in the super hot HCM markets. In fact, I know it’s going to happen very soon. Are you ready?

See more at Brandon Hall

About the Author: 

Kyle Lagunas-9About the Author: As the Talent Acquisition Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, Kyle Lagunas heads up research in key practices in sourcing, assessing, hiring, and onboarding – as well recruitment marketing, candidate experience, and social recruiting.

Through primary research and deep analysis, he keeps today’s business leaders in touch with important conversations and emerging trends in the rapidly changing world of talent.

Kyle has spent the last several years offering a fresh take on the role of technology as part of an integrated talent strategy, and focuses on providing actionable insights to keep leading organizations a step ahead.

Previously the HR Analyst at Software Advice, he is regular contributor on SHRM’s We Know Next and TLNT, and his work has been featured in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, Information Weekly, and HRO Today.

Follow Kyle on Twitter @KyleLagunas or connect with him on LinkedIn.

What Does Candidate Experience Mean?

candidate-experience (1)Picture the scene. It is  another conference/seminar/round table/unconference where a bunch of recruiters are sat around debating the latest topics of the day. The subject of candidate experience comes up and generally everyone nods appreciably that this is an important topic.

But what do they really mean by this? We often talk about things amongst ourselves within the HR and recruiting community without always challenging the accepted definitions.

Candidate Experience is one of those. It is often featured as one of the top 1, 2 or 3 things on the agenda for recruiters.

But this leads to some questions.

1. What do they mean by candidate experience?

2. What are they going to do about it? (I’m talking actual, meaningful action here)

3. Are they prepared to  measure this and be judged by the results?

4. If it’s important to them, why?

5. If it’s important to them is it also important as a wider organizational issue?

6. If 5=Yes, then is this featured higher up on the executive agenda?

7.  Is 6=Yes, then is the recruiter going to be so vocal about point 3?

At its most basic level most recruiters want to ensure they have the processes in place to deliver a smooth experience to job applicants along with following the basic courtesy of actually responding and providing feedback. With our data at Mystery Applicant as well as other studies such as the Candidate Experience Awards, this is still the main issue for job applicants, whether it is receiving a response in a timely manner or at all.

In order to ensure delivery on the above you quite simply have to measure it. How else will you know? If you don’t ask you won’t know whether you are improving, staying the same or even getting worse.

To do this, the agenda has to be taken to a higher level within the organization to implement the appropriate measures and performance metrics.

What Is Candidate Experience? 3 Key Questions

So coming back to the main question. What do you mean by candidate experience? Or how should we define it? Let’s dissect it further.

1. Who is a candidate?

So is the candidate the  job applicant? Or is it someone who might be a passive candidate currently working for another employer who may not have considered changing jobs? And when does a candidate stop being a candidate?

2. What is the ‘experience’?

Is it the experience they have of all interactions with you as a company and as an employer? Surely these experiences have an influence on their motivations and affinity towards you as someone they would like to work for? Or is it more rudimentary than that – measuring the actual experience process during their job application process. Scheduling, interviews, feedback etc. All of which are vitally important to get right.

3. What are the parameters of the ‘candidate experience’?

Bringing these two things together, when do we  flick the off button on candidate experience and tick the ‘job done’ box? And this is where the agenda has to be driven at a level that encompasses more than just recruitment. Because it doesn’t stop there. As an employer it goes much further than that.

An article recently published by @Paulmaxin in Recruiter Magazine used research from the Boston Consulting Groupto illustrate the importance of HR as a key business influencer and not just a ‘recruiter order taker’.

One of the key points was the discussion around the practices within HR that influence economic performance of companies and three of the top six were: delivering on recruiting; onboarding of new hires and retention and improving employer branding.

The evidence showed that the impact of delivering on these could deliver as much as x3.5 greater revenue growth and x2.0 the profit margin of those companies least capable in these areas. The measurement and evaluation of candidate experience doesn’t stop the moment someone is offered a job. That experience is still being shaped through onboarding and post-hire and then judged on performance and retention.

Once a successful candidate joins an organization, those at the forefront of talent management will look to take the data from their candidate feedback stream (including opt outs and rejected) and look at the comparative throughput as the successful candidates go through onboarding and post-hire experiences. And it shouldn’t stop there. A candidate will become an employee and have a journey through that organization.

Their original perceptions, motivations, expectations and influences will have been formed  before they join, are stimulated and tested through selection whilst refined and shaped as an individual and employee. Ultimately, they may even leave and move on to another job and have already begun the process of being a candidate for another employer. Now we’re getting heavy.

If we are to take candidate experience seriously we should consider it within the wider context of talent management and support it with relevant talent analytics and performance targeting. Awards such as the Candidate Experience Awards and the new Candidate Engagement Award for the RADs are good where genuine achievement is recognised, but we also need to move beyond just being a tick box exercise or replicating a school sports day where everyone gets a prize just for taking part.

Hopefully this year we will see this important topic evolve with a more strategic look at its wider implications through the recruiting, hiring and post-hire effectiveness.

Next time you hear someone say candidate experience is important to them, it would be interesting to challenge them on exactly what they mean, how important it is to their organization and ultimately whether it is being measured and used as part of the performance management toolkit. If not, then is it really that important to them or their company after all?

Read More at WhateverYouThink

nick_priceAbout the Author: Nick Price is the founder of Mystery Applicant, an award winning and innovative tool that provides real time recruitment analytics from initial candidate experience to onboarding and the entire employee lifecycle.  Mystery Applicant works with leading employers across the globe providing tangible and actionable metrics with dashboard technology, creating game changing results in recruitment effectiveness.

Nick is an employer branding professional who has worked with companies such as TMP, ThirtyThree Ltd, NPR & Working Films on establishing tracking and benchmarking metrics that measure effectiveness of employer branding to demonstrate ROI, as well as delivering tangible and quantifiable metrics across the employee lifecycle.

Follow Nick on Twitter @NickPrice or connect with him on LinkedIn.

How LinkedIn Recruiters Use LinkedIn Recruiter

linkedin_recruiterHave you ever wondered how LinkedIn would use their own platform to recruit?

Have you ever thought “What LinkedIn feature do LinkedIn’s recruiters find the most useful?” Or “How would LinkedIn’s own recruiters use LinkedIn Recruiter to get a response from candidates?”

Well, Erin Osterhaus, HR analyst at Software Advice, recently sat down with one of LinkedIn’s senior product recruiters, Mark Alfaro, to learn how the site uses its own recruiting tool—LinkedIn Recruiter—to find great new hires.

Discover what she found out, in the interview below:

What are the benefits of recruiting on LinkedIn?

One key benefit LinkedIn offers over other recruiting methods, such as job boards, is its ability to help recruiters find and connect with passive candidates. Because LinkedIn users are able to indicate their industry in the header section of their profile, recruiters can create targeted searches to find candidates they may not have discovered through other means.

Additionally, LinkedIn Groups can be a great resource for recruiters. When you join groups, you gain access to LinkedIn users who may be outside of your network—and who you might not have seen otherwise. By casually interacting with members of industry groups, recruiters might find that elusive purple squirrel.

What do you consider to be the best way to search for candidates on LinkedIn?

It’s important, first of all, to have a clear understanding of what type of candidate you’re looking for to fill your open positions. One great way to do this, especially for newer recruiters, is to work backwards. Look at the profiles of past successful candidates. What keywords did they use? What titles did they hold at their previous positions? Create a list of key terms, and you’ll be able to intelligently narrow down your searches.

What are some under-utilized features of LinkedIn Recruiter?

Tagging on LinkedIn Recruiter

Projects are an extremely useful way to build a talent pipeline for current searches, and to pipeline passive candidates for ongoing or future needs. Using Projects, recruiters can save candidate profiles, searches and relevant job descriptions to get the most out of your talent pool.

Use the “Tags” feature when organizing candidates. Tagging talent with specific skills and/or attributes can help you when referencing them in the future. In addition to tagging your found candidates, LinkedIn Recruiter allows you to filter all members with your tags.

How can recruiters use LinkedIn Recruiter to get a response from candidates?

LinkedIn Share Button | LinkedIn Inshare

Reviewing the content users post on InShare (i.e. content shared within the LinkedIn network) is a great way to learn more about their professional interests, and can also serve to strike-up a conversation with promising prospects.

Most recruiters scan for specific skills when viewing a candidate’s profile, but taking the time to note which Influencers, companies and groups those candidates are following, is an additional way to vet potential hires.

What advice do you have for job seekers in terms of boosting their presence on LinkedIn?

All Star LinkedIn profile

Job seekers should know that HR professionals are using LinkedIn extensively. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile and you’re on the job hunt, get one. In addition to keeping your profile up-to-date, job seekers should also be sure to use LinkedIn’s social features. Join groups, follow Influencers, and post content relevant to your field in your own feed. This sort of activity helps recruiters know you mean business, and that you’re engaged and committed in your professional field.

Learn more about sourcing on LinkedIn on SocialTalent.

siofraAbout the Author: Siofra Pratt is a Digital Marketing Executive at Social Talent, which she originally joined as an intern in May 2013. In her current role, Siofra manages inbound marketing & content creation, social media management and advertising for Social Talent and is the voice of the Social Talent Blog.

A former banker, Siofra holds an honours degree in Commerce and an honours Masters in Creative Advertising.

Follow her on Twitter @sioffy or connect with her on LinkedIn.

 

Let’s Talk About Tech: A Conversation with Dice President Shravan Goli

RecruitingDaily interview with the Dice President, Shravan Goli.

dice_logoIf you’ve attended an HR conference, networking event or are even the most casual consumer of social media and online content related to tech hiring best practices, chances are you know all about Dice Open Web.

The company’s blitzkrieg branding efforts, carefully orchestrated industry outreach and highly targeted, recruiter-focused online and social marketing were backed by a budget that, on an annual basis, is likely close to the total capital of most competitors.  After all, there are an awful lot of job boards.

But the thing is, Dice isn’t just a job board – and not in the “professional network” marketing copy kind of way.  OK, well, Dice does have a job board – most prominently, its tech related hiring hub and resume database.

And Open Web extends this core utility and functionality similar to many point solutions not backed by the larger hiring platform offered by Dice (which also has niche boards for Oil & Gas, accounting & finance and similar specialty searches).

Dice also claims to really know tech talent, a claim that’s reinforced by its ownership of Slashdot, a geektopia of active posters talking about arcane programming languages and similar tech talk.  They also own SourceForge, one of the largest repositories of open source projects on the planet. Bolstering the company’s tech credentials is the man tasked with reinventing and reinvigorating the company’s product portfolio and offerings, Dice President Shravan Goli.

Goli joined the executive team at Dice in March 2013, having previously served as CEO of Dictionary.com, leading social media business for Slide and overseeing Yahoo!’s video services. With an established track record of success in his own technology career, Recruiting Daily recently spoke with Goli for an insider’s view on tech recruiting and hiring, what technology candidates really want and how his own experience is informing Dice’s roadmap, mission and vision.

2013-08-shravan-goli-happy-crop3As the president of a publicly traded technology company, what advice do you have for technology professionals looking to grow into executive or leadership roles?  In your experience, what qualities or characteristics are required for successfully leading tech talent and brands?

Shravan Goli, President – Dice: I started my career as a software developer and worked my way into a business management role. With technology driving growth at more companies every day, more technology professionals are getting the opportunity to take on leadership roles.

Certainly, making the transition from tech pro to executive can be helped by having an MBA (based on my personal experience) — bringing a level of business, analytical and communication skills that can help you rise faster in an organization.

However, an MBA is not the end all be all to getting into business management. Professionals with a blend of product and technology experience, and personal drive to learn new skills, often make the transition into management without missing a beat.

I recommend tech professionals develop their own roadmaps to obtaining industry, communications and analytical thinking skills. At Dice, we focus on partnering with technology professionals over the length of their career instead of just when they are looking for new positions.

Technology professionals should take this same approach to managing their own careers – take the long view. I have seen all types of roadmaps that lead to the requisite business skills. At the end of the day, the difference between pros that obtained the skills and those who fell a little short came down to passion and discipline. Tech pros have passion and discipline in abundance. I am confident that tech pros will take on leadership roles in every major industry and in companies of all sizes.

You joined Dice as President relatively recently after a long career in tech companies like Microsoft, IAC and Yahoo!.  How do you compare HR Technology versus consumer tech companies?  What are some of the lessons HR tech companies can learn or adopt from the larger technology sector?

Technology, at its core, is about improving customer experiences in a systematic way, whether that is in HR or media or any other industry. HR technology companies should keep focused on the customer experience. HR technology is complex and the entire value chain is fairly long. So we tend to find that the HR technology industry is more heterogeneous than some other industries. Some companies in the industry are taking advantage of today’s prevailing trends in Mobile, Big Data, Cloud & Social. Others are frankly lagging behind.

Most emerging and successful tech companies have figured this out and are already making significant investments in transforming their products and services based on these trends. This is true whether the target is a consumer or an enterprise (as consumerization of the enterprise has picked up steam).

You were involved in social media very early, overseeing social business at Slide & co-founding Corners.In.  How have you seen social media evolve over the last five years? What will social look like five years from now?

The idea of “social” existed for a long time – if you consider chat rooms and the communities of the 90s. They were ways to socialize with others on the internet. Over the past few years though, it has evolved from being purely an entertainment vehicle (i.e, profiles) to a true communication and engagement platform. This is true no matter what kind of social network you look at. It has emerged from being a possible fad to a viable model. Obviously, it’s hard to predict where this will go, but the trends around Mobile and Big Data are going to change the experience substantially over time (e.g. Whatsapp is a mobile only network).

The composition of the audience will evolve quite a bit as well; consider, the recent insights about Facebook having a tween problem with teens moving to SnapChat. It didn’t take long for [Facebook-owned] Instagram to launch competitor to Snapchat, Instagram Direct. I also think there will be a rise of “verticalized” networks (this has not been successful to date, but there are several that are starting to get good traction). This is also why we believe Dice Open Web, our tool that aggregates publicly available information from across social networks on technology professionals, is certainly relevant now, as well as in the future.

It’s obviously become much easier to find/source and engage passive tech candidates with new tools like Dice Open Web. In your opinion, what can recruiters do to better attract those candidates?  What (if anything) can’t technology do to help recruiters or employers hire tech talent?

One thing we’ve been talking about a lot lately is the candidate experience.  Candidates now are getting fed up with the “spray and pray” method where they’re essentially getting call after call, of which many are not even relevant.

In fact, we conducted a survey with our own tech audience and asked “What can tech recruiters do better?” The number one response was “…gain a better understanding of how my skills fit into the job opportunity being offered.”

So to answer your question, I think one critical thing that recruiters can do to better attract in-demand candidates is to personalize the experience, especially now that our technology is available making it easy to get a more complete view of the candidate and now the recruiter can be more relevant. Since these candidates are generally hiding from recruiters, they have to be smarter on how they approach them. Find common ground. It’s a bit like speed dating in a way.

Using your Open Web profile you can quickly learn about the candidate. What do they like to do in their spare time outside of work? What Meetup did they attend? Or, how should they connect with a tech candidate based on their “latest tweet” right on the Open Web profile. Now, you can immediately communicate in real time.

Think about it this way: There’s always a great story behind any meaningful connection. We’re arming recruiters with richer data to be able to create that meaningful connection.  But asking them about a job opportunity is absolutely not the right approach. Asking what they thought about something they just tweeted is going to get a quick response.

Technology can help recruiters, but it still comes down to the recruiter customizing the right pitch and doing what they can to understand the candidate to get the “conversation started.”

No matter how much technology matters, we can’t forget the importance of the human touch in the recruiting process.

What makes a company an “employer of choice” for tech talent?  What role does employer brand & company culture play in recruiting and retaining these skilled workers?

The very concept of “employer of choice” is a bit of a misnomer. The characteristics or soul of a company’s culture may be right choice for one person – a company offers work/life fit or they’re a flat organization – but for someone else that’s not the place they’ll find success no matter how much pizza the company provides. Also, for tech professionals it is important to understand the technology culture of the company.

We talk a lot about candidate experience.  What does that really mean, anyway, and why does it matter to tech talent? How can Dice help?

Candidates should feel like they’re getting presented with an opportunity, instead of getting sold on a job. I think it all comes back to putting a personal touch back into the process of recruiting. As far as the tech candidate goes, I think they more or less “speak a different language” than a lot of other fields.  It becomes pretty obvious to a tech candidate when you don’t know what you’re talking about.  So if there’s someone trying to sell them on a job that they can’t even articulate, it takes away from the experience.

68% of tech pros said they want Tech Recruiters to “gain a better understanding of how my skills fit into the job opportunity being offered.”  This is especially important because tech pros are a different breed and speak a different language.

Specifically, tech candidates want recruiters to:

– Get to know me (and my personality).
– Explain why I’m the “right candidate” for the role.
– Explain why the position would be better than my current situation.

Besides Open Web, what’s next for Dice?  What does success look like to you and how do you measure that success?

Fundamentally, our job is to move tech talent and tech-powered companies forward with insights, opportunities and connections. We believe we should be measured on:

1. Our success in educating and elevating the abilities of our respective audiences.

2. Leading the innovation in enabling the discovery and engagement with career and workforce opportunities for tech pros and companies, respectively.

3. Improving the lives of technology professionals and recruiters.

The combination of Dice data with millions of resumes over time and the publicly available social data from Open Web makes our product capabilities unique and unmatched compared to any other solution out there.

Also, since we have been at this longer than other companies with social recruiting tools, we have the benefit of innovating based on lengthy experiences with our customers and continue to evaluate how other new technologies can help us succeed in helping connect companies with tech talent.

Recruiting Millennials With Social Media

gen y social mediaThe first thing you should know about recruiting Generation Y? According to pioneering generational researchers William Strauss and Neil Howe, workers born between 1982-2000 actually prefer to be called Millennials. That nuance illustrates the essential element to recruiting and attracting the best Millennial talent — effective communications that speak to and understand their language and values.

Millennials and Social Media Use

While it’s no secret that communication is increasingly facilitated by social tools and technologies, social media is particularly relevant for Millennials. According to the Pew Internet Foundation’s 2013 Future of the Internet report, fully 75% of Millennials maintain an active presence on social media sites, compared to only 41% of the total online population; they are as likely to consume a daily blog as a daily newspaper.

The ubiquity of social media recruiting puts the onus on your staffing firm to deliver a clear, compelling message that speaks to this generation’s expectations about work and life, and how they should be combined.

These changing expectations present the staffing industry with a unique opportunity to fill the requisitions of today with the talent of tomorrow. Like any recruiting relationship, however, creating and executing a strategy involves an understanding of the mindset — and motivations — of the professionals you’re looking to place.

If those professionals are Millennials, that means rethinking, and reframing, many of the pervasive misperceptions about Generation Y.

The End of the Trophy Generation

While they’re commonly referred to as The Trophy Generation, the expectation of entitlement for many Millennials stopped at about the same time that they obtained their often inordinately expensive college degrees, entering one of the worst job markets on record.

Within the last five years, youth unemployment in the US reached 19.1%, the highest rate ever recorded since the statistic started being tracked in 1948; according to FinAid, the average student loan debt among students graduating with a four year degree currently sits at $23,186. These factors have forced a shift from career idealism to career pragmatism; for many Millennials, any job is a good job.

For staffing firms, recruiting Millennials means having a highly skilled, highly educated pool of available candidates who are likely to take assignments that more experienced workers might not accept, at salaries that are more competitive — and aligned — with current market conditions.

That’s not to say Gen Y candidates are easily exploited when recruiting Millennials; in fact, it’s key for staffing professionals to add value to the recruiting conversation. Doing so for emerging workers is easy: no matter what the outcome or staffing decision, provide them with feedback, coaching and a clear understanding of the hiring process. This will also help make them more informed job seekers — and better candidates.

The Social Media Connection

Social media marketing offers an efficient and effective way to stay connected with Gen Y candidates and track their career progression while keeping them on your radar, should the right opportunity arise.

Sharing job search tips and career content via Facebook or Twitter, whether original or repurposed, gives the candidate the incentive to stay active and engaged with your company brand. Consider providing content that’s worth sharing with their wider network of their friends, who are likely to also be Gen Y talent…and potential candidates.

The key for recruiters is to present opportunities as learning experiences and help Gen Y candidates understand how these roles can translate into a career — or at least, the next step on the ladder.

Focusing on the big picture is important, but the details are what really matters.  Showcase success stories through social networks featuring real Gen Y workers; create compelling evidence about what to expect — and how to exceed those expectations.

Blogs and short YouTube videos are great ways to extend your message and reach while targeting the mediums that Millennials use (and trust) most.

What’s Next in Employment Law

Download this webinar with Nicole Greenberg Strecker, Esq and Derek Zeller for an exclusive look at the employment law landscape of today and tomorrow.

What’s Next in Employment Law

In today’s constantly evolving world of work, it’s no secret that emerging technologies like social media is important.  They are also creating challenges when it comes to employment law and HR compliance.  Navigating legal issues and maintaining compliance isn’t easy. 

Download this webinar about a practicing attorney with a dual focus on sourcing and digital law. Antother is a Recruiter at Advanced Resources Technologies.   Derek is also a nationally noted expert on compliance who is specializing in recruiting for intelligence and security clearance roles.

This webinar covers:

  • There are current and upcoming  requirements ensuring every employer has the right people and processes to survive an audit.
  • Although focusing on existing case law and emerging landmark decisions is important -we’ll be looking at the established precedents for social and digital compliance.  Also looking at future decisions with the biggest impacts and implications on day-to-day talent acquisition & management.
  • Learn top trends, tips, tools and resources for employers to be ensuring compliance today. Tomorrow you will be ensuring piece of mind when it comes to compliance.

Learning what every HR and recruiting professionals need to know.  We will try to maximize your social and online presence while minimizing associated legal risks. 

Talent Pulse: HCI Reveals Top Concerns of HR Leaders

hciThe Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, HR data analytics and workplace agility top the list of concerns for HR leaders, according to a new report released today by the Human Capital Institute.

While the high level findings from their most recent Talent Pulse research should come as little surprise to HR & recruiting practitioners, the report reveals some interesting insights and actionable insight for solving some of today’s most persistent talent management challenges.

If compliance, big data or creating a scalable, sustainable workforce are keeping you up at night like so many HR leaders, here’s a closer look what the latest HCI data reveals about these top three human capital challenges and how to overcome these obstacles.

1.    Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA):

The fact that health care tops the list should come as little surprise, but what is surprising is the fact that, as it turns out, most HR leaders aren’t actually all that worried about PPACA Implementation.  Fully 50% of study participants report being prepared to “navigate the changing healthcare environment,” and only 15% of respondents report being concerned with compliance, cost or the ability to handle associated expenses.

Instead, the biggest concern for HR leaders seemed to be the fear of the unknown, with respondents either feeling it was too early to tell the overall impact that the PPACA will have on their organization or that they were unsure of its business and bottom line repercussions.  Many were also unsure whether the legislation was sustainable, with many questioning its long term impact in a changing legislative environment.

Since most organizations report already addressing PPACA issues in advance of the federally mandated deadlines, the study showed that focus has largely shifted from compliance to employee communication and education.  Additionally, the report showed many organizations seem to be dealing with healthcare legislation not by increasing internal capabilities, but instead shifting expertise from the HR department to external consultants.

2.    HR Analytics

While “Big Data” analytics are expected to generate $3.7 trillion (that’s trillion, with a T) for organizations and generate 4.4 million new jobs by 2015, the HCI Talent Pulse research showed that talent organizations are still unprepared or unequipped to deal with the upcoming data deluge.

While 54% of participants believe their HR metrics “measure key issues relevant to business,” only 23% report that they have the capability to connect those analytics across the entire employee lifecycle.  This disparity suggests a growing divide between HR and executive leadership, with only 34% reporting leaders are satisfied with their HR metrics, and fully 2/3 admitting that they share HR analytics with executives more than once a month.

Over half of HR leaders, however, are proactively working to bridge this gap, with “working with business leaders to determine which analytics are important to them,” “implementing a plan for snaring and reporting HR data with business leaders” and “investigating in more sophisticated HRIS technologies” revealed as the three most common strategies for dealing with big data through actionable analytics and reporting.

3.    Workplace Agility:

Complex reporting structures, unnecessary hierarchies and hierarchical processes and procedures are the most common barriers to workplace agility, and the HCI Talent Pulse report shows that the flatter an organization’s org chart, the more flexible and adaptable that business’ human capital will be to deal with the one constant in business: change.

The concern about lack of agility is underscored by the fact that 72% of participants feel that agility is valued at their organizations, and 65% report their senior leaders want a more agile HR function.  According to the report, enhancing agility often requires HR to reexamine entrenched processes and procedures, removing red tape while improving collaboration and communication.

Some of the most common strategies revealed in the HCI study include making performance feedback a continuous, rather than episodic, process; scaling recruiting to extend beyond the point of hire to include onboarding and beyond; and creating on-demand or dynamic learning & development options for employees to enhance or augment their existing skills.

For more information, download a copy of Talent Pulse by clicking here or checking out related podcasts featuring some of the key research contributors here.

TextRecruit: Mobile Recruiting Through SMS

text-recruitFor the past few weeks now, I have been testing out a new mobile recruiting tool called TextRecruit. I don’t say this about many tools and sourcing technologies, but I’ve fallen in love.

While I’ve been using texting as a method for contacting candidates for some time now, I can do it better, faster and track what I’m doing easier with TextRecruit.

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

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

It’s estimated that over 60% of recruiters are already texting candidates as part of their process, but in the absence of a dedicated tool, most are forced to use their personal accounts, a highly manual process that only allows texting one candidate at a time, with no real analytics or reporting capabilities.  TextRecruit, however, separates the personal and professional by providing an easy-to-use texting platform that allows employers to track SMS campaigns and their performance.

TextRecruit features a very user-friendly interface which gives recruiters visibility into which candidates they’ve texted, which have replied, and the relative performance of text messages. I’ve been a long time proponent for utilizing texting/SMS technologies as a core component of candidate engagement strategy.  Here, finally, is a tool that allows texting directly from your desktop or laptop, allows recruiters to automate and send bulk SMS, create campaigns, organize and segment text outreach and, most importantly, gain visibility and report on results like click through and conversion rates.

TextRecruit allows recruiters to stay compliant when executing SMS campaigns, avoiding messages being flagged for spam while maintaining the capabilities required to ensure recruitment-related texts remain legal.  TextRecruit offers several cost effective pricing plans designed to match the needs of almost every recruiting organization, from small staffing firms to enterprise employers.  Each plan comes with a specific number of credits, equivalent to the number of text messages a recruiter can send through TextRecruit within a defined time frame.   Only the initial contact message, however, counts against these credits; any follow up messages between recruiters and candidates do not count, meaning any successful candidate engagement on TextRecruit is essentially free.

While still early in its development, TextRecruit is an incredibly effective tool that’s only getting better.  The company is currently developing a mobile recruiting app which will be supported by all major mobile operating systems, as well as custom integrations with most applicant tracking, human capital management and CRM systems.

TextRecruit is a great tool for any recruiter to add to their arsenal; make sure to take this tool for a test drive, as they offer a 15 day free trial, which should be more than enough time for you to fall in love with this platform, like I did.  For more on TextRecruit, click here.

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

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

Connect with Dean at LinkedIn or follow @DeanDaCosta on Twitter.

SMS, Staffing & Simplicity: Meet TextRecruit

text-recruitFor the past few weeks now, I have been testing out a new mobile recruiting tool called TextRecruit. I don’t say this about many tools and sourcing technologies, but I’ve fallen in love. While I’ve been using texting as a method for contacting candidates for some time now, I can do it better, faster and track what I’m doing easier with TextRecruit.

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

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

It’s estimated that over 60% of recruiters are already texting candidates as part of their process, but in the absence of a dedicated tool, most are forced to use their personal accounts, a highly manual process that only allows texting one candidate at a time, with no real analytics or reporting capabilities.  TextRecruit, however, separates the personal and professional by providing an easy-to-use texting platform that allows employers to track SMS campaigns and their performance.

TextRecruit features a very user-friendly interface which gives recruiters visibility into which candidates they’ve texted, which have replied, and the relative performance of text messages. I’ve been a long time proponent for utilizing texting/SMS technologies as a core component of candidate engagement strategy.  Here, finally, is a tool that allows texting directly from your desktop or laptop, allows recruiters to automate and send bulk SMS, create campaigns, organize and segment text outreach and, most importantly, gain visibility and report on results like click through and conversion rates.

TextRecruit allows recruiters to stay compliant when executing SMS campaigns, avoiding messages being flagged for spam while maintaining the capabilities required to ensure recruitment-related texts remain legal.  TextRecruit offers several cost effective pricing plans designed to match the needs of almost every recruiting organization, from small staffing firms to enterprise employers.  Each plan comes with a specific number of credits, equivalent to the number of text messages a recruiter can send through TextRecruit within a defined time frame.   Only the initial contact message, however, counts against these credits; any follow up messages between recruiters and candidates do not count, meaning any successful candidate engagement on TextRecruit is essentially free.

While still early in its development, TextRecruit is an incredibly effective tool that’s only getting better.  The company is currently developing a mobile app which will be supported by all major mobile operating systems, as well as custom integrations with most applicant tracking, human capital management and CRM systems.

TextRecruit is a great tool for any recruiter to add to their arsenal; make sure to take this tool for a test drive, as they offer a 15 day free trial, which should be more than enough time for you to fall in love with this platform, like I did.  For more on TextRecruit, click here.

Guest Post by Dean DaCosta

Branding Is Not Recruiting

military-recruiting-hiringMILITARY FRIENDLY EMPLOYER!      WE LOVE VETS!

Those are both great slogans for a PR campaign or organizational branding efforts.

They are not, however, great for recruiting or hiring.  This is because slogans attract too wide of an audience.  Recruiting is not about connecting with a group of people, it’s about connecting to the (correct) individual members of the group.

It’s about quality, not quantity. The greater the quantity of applicants, the more an organization needs to find ways to maintain some degree of process efficiency, which inevitably leads to less personal contact between an organization and its applicants, and ultimately, a loss of trust in the system.

This is why many veterans are feeling betrayed by the system.  Organizations initiate a conversation with “we want you”, only to end the conversation with “you don’t meet our needs”.  It leaves them feeling like they’ve been involved in a bait and switch scheme.

To be fair, I really don’t believe private organizations are doing this on purpose. In fact, when I speak with recruiters many of their complaints are centered on the wasted time spent engaging unqualified applicants.  If organizations are truly committed to tapping into the veteran talent pool they should move past catchy slogans and begin targeting their recruitment at those who have the talents they need.

This starts with good job announcements that focus on the specific requirements and individual skill sets needed to.  Identifying these traits early when hiring veterans allows people to self-select out of the process, and by so doing, save everyone a lot of time and frustration.

The 3 Types of Veteran Talent

To truly attract military talent and succeed at hiring veterans, organizations must understand the various types of people who claim the title “veteran”.

1. One and Done / No College– These individuals did one enlistment (usually 4-6 years) and have chosen to get out. They are a terrific source for entry level positions despite the fact they do not have a college degree.  In fact, one of the best things a veteran friendly organization could do would be to recognize four or more years of military service as the equivalent to college degree in regards to job requirements.

This doesn’t mean an organization would or should hire someone based solely on their service any more than it means they presently hire people simply because they have a Bachelor’s Degree.

It would mean, however, that if a company was looking for someone that could handle basic tasks, with the aptitude to learn even more, was willing to work for an entry level salary, yet also had the potential to move up the ladder into leadership positions, then understand that you’ve just described a whole lot of young Non Commissioned Officers.

If, on the other hand, the current job description does not require a degree, then engaging this talent pool should be a no-brainer.  The hardest part about attracting this demographic is often based on a lack of understanding about the job. Explaining what the position is, does, and could lead to, should be part of the marketing.  A video vignette of a current employee talking about the position would go a long way.  If that video featured a veteran, even better.

hiring_veterans2. One and Done / With College– This group breaks down into a few subgroups, but essentially the value here is that these individuals have skills and certifications.  The drawback is that they may be older and farther along in life (family, standard of living, etc.) to take entry level work.

Officers come into the military with a degree and are put to work.  Organizations should view those that choose to remain in their career field as potential fits positions other than entry level. This is particularly true for those in fields like IT, Logistics, and Engineering.

Other vets may attain their degree after leaving the service (Thanks to the Post 9/11 GI Bill).  Again, there is great value here for organizations, especially when they find a veteran who is in school to validate her experiences with a degree. This is the opposite of the traditional model where people are certified before they are trained. This veteran new grad may not fit the “typical candidate profile”, but her odds of long term success are likely much greater than the “typical candidate”.  One great way to target these students is through student veteran organizations on campus, as many of them may be commuter students an less involved on the typical on campus activities.

It should be noted here that there are also many enlisted individuals that also have college degrees and /or advanced training.  They may have had a degree before enlisting or they may have taken advantage of educational benefits offered by the services to complete their degree while on active duty. Often times this will involve online education. One thing veteran friendly can do would be to recognize nontraditional education in the same way they recognize brick and mortar schools, especially when the degree is in the same field as the person’s relevant experience.

While traditional students seek a degree in hopes of gaining experience, many veterans pursue an education to validate the knowledge, skills, and abilities they already have.

The challenge for veterans is that the standard “new grad” job may not be sufficient to maintain the lifestyle they’ve grown accustom to. The military offers a steady pay check and great benefits, it is an attractive environment to start a family. These extra financial obligations can make it more difficult to transition for those without a solid transition plan. Overcoming this challenge is primarily the responsibility of the veteran, but one small thing a private organization can do is to clearly (and honestly) outline the possibility for future growth in their organization.  Applicants may be able to withstand a couple of years of financial struggle if there is a legitimate payoff in the long run for solid performance.

3. Careerist- These individuals often have the toughest time transitioning and are frequently frustrated by an organizations branding plan as a being military friendly.  Military careerist, officer and enlisted, will likely have a degree, many have secondary degrees.  They will also have decades of experience.

Finding the right person from this group typically involves similar methods used for lateral recruitment of passive candidates.  Unfortunately, unlike an employee-at-will, these individuals cannot give two weeks (or even 2 months) notice that they will be leaving their present organization. This is the reason standard recruitment methods used to attract higher level candidates become unworkable for finding veterans.

Retiring veterans make the decision to leave the service a year or more before they are actually available for hire.  This means months of not being considered a legitimate candidate because they can’t fill the current opening.

Once they get closer to separation, the race is on to find a job before the paychecks stop. Frustration levels get higher, because they likely have family and financial obligations but at this point there’s no going back.

The positions these individuals seek are not going to be found at the booth of a career fair, yet too often that’s where they end up, talking to a recruiter tasked with finding people to fill lower level positions.

If the clock strikes midnight and the veteran still hasn’t found suitable employment he will be forced into the pool of active job seekers where the focus becomes paying the bills, as opposed to career development. 

What transitioning careerists really need is a good network. This network should include people inside their industry, yet also outside of the military.  It must be built and maintained well before the process of separation. This enables them to perform a personal “skills gap analysis” early enough to take corrective action.

Helping to build these networks is another area in which an organization can distinguish itself as veteran friendly. Private employers who encourage their members to engage those still on active will not only help the veterans but it will also allow the company to scout the talent pool early and develop relationships with those they would most like to employ once the time comes.

This is not an inclusive list by any stretch of the imagination, many people will fall somewhere in between the categories outlined above. Regardless, a true military hiring program will focus on finding the right people for the jobs that an organization has available, not simply encouraging any and every veteran to visit their website or career fair booth.

The more private industry understands the nuances of the veteran, and the more veterans understand the nuances of the hiring process, the more efficient and less frustrating the hiring process will be for all parties involved.

Read more at Veteran’s Transition Diary

bob_wheelerAbout the Author:Bob Wheeler is currently on active duty where he recruits physicians for the US Navy.  He will be retiring from the service in June of 2014 and has been blogging about his transition process at http://veterantransitiondiary.wordpress.com/.

You can find Bob on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @sailordoc.