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Getting through the Dog Days of Summer . . . HAVE SOME FUN!

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

In my 17 years as a recruitment coach/mentor, I have found that the beginning of August usually brings with it a common case of “Recruiter’s Rut.”   Many of us drag ourselves into work on Monday after a long weekend of fun in the sun wishing we were still outside playing!  We wake up realizing that the summer is almost over after it just began!  We start to wonder “Where has it gone?” 

In addition, the reality starts to set in that the year is 60% complete and . . . there is still a lot to accomplish!

It is at this point you can wallow in self pity or . . . inject some fun and passion back into your recruitment day!

I first wrote about “Recruiter’s Rut” back in 2002!  I have personally seen this infectious ‘disease’ rip through entire recruitment departments with ease.  The best cure is to gather your peers and develop a strategy to fight it.

Some ideas?

Well, since at the end of the day, each and every recruiter is measured on their ability to identify and recruit top talent for their organization . . .  fun contests centered around generating quality candidate flow is always a great cure!

Recently, our sister organization implemented a contest for August that might help you to steer clear of ‘Recruiter’s Rut’.

  • They are holding three sourcing call blitz sessions each day (from 7:30 to 8:30, 11-12, and 4-5).  These times were carefully selected as times that they had the best opportunity of getting someone live on the phone.
  • These are ‘optional’ sessions for all recruiters recognizing there are other activities that might prohibit you from attending all of them.
  • For each session, they are tracking:
    • Number of dials
    • Number of appointments set
    • Number of “live” conversations   
  • Points are awarded as follows:
    • 10 points: For attending a call blitz session  
    • 25 points: For a candidate submitted to hiring manager from the call blitz
    • 50 points: For a Hiring Manager Interview
    • 75 points: For an offer
    • 100 pints: For a hire

In just the first week, we have seen more productivity, a spike in activity and . . . a little mojo back into the day.

Another fun contest you might deploy is the Recruiter Decathlon .

Even the most motivated, passionate recruiters I know (including me) sometimes need some assistance getting through the dog days of summer.  If you feel Recruiter’s Rut settling in with you and/or your team . . . inject some fun back into the day!

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Sourcing, Talent Aquisition, Time Management, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Linked in — Networking Best Practices?!

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

I had a great discussion with our team of recruiters regarding contacting potential candidates and/or networking using LinkedIn (LI). I thought I would share some ideas/tips I found very interesting!

The spirit of the conversation centered around the best ways to connect with folks you find within LinkedIn.

This led to the three most common ways to directly contact folks in LinkedIn and the “pro’s & con’s” of each method:

  1. Send Inmail – While Inmail is great, it is a paid for service and can become expensive. So if you want to use it, it will cost some extra $ during the year.
  2. Sending an Invitation to “link in” – LI only wants  you to send an invitation to someone that you have a relationship with (past/present) and/or through an introduction with someone in your network.  Of course while this can still work, it limits the number of people you could directly link in with outside of your network and without an intro.  In addition, most of the recruiters on our team found introductions to be less effective and . . . less timely.  While it might be a LI “no-no”, most of the recruiters said that they regularly send invitations as – “someone that they have done business with” – with great success and WITHOUT getting sent to the LinkedIn police :)
  3. Join a group and send a group member a message – Joining a group is great and will allow you to directly contact folks within that group.  Of course best practices say that if you join the group solely to post jobs you are recruiting for (asking for something) WITHOUT providing information of value (making a deposit if you will) . . . you might get banned from the group or at a minimum, find that folks tune you out.

The fourth method that many subscribed to is finding someone in LI and then looking them up on other sites (Jigsaw, White Pages, etc.) and contacting them directly (via phone/email).  The logic behind this tactic is two-fold:

  1. Many people don’t check LI all the time and/or don’t have LI emails sent to their personal email address so response time can be slow.
  2. So many recruiters are becoming LI recruiters that people are getting saturated with Inmail, Invitations and group messages. So to “separate” themselves from the other recruiters, they are going back to traditional means of connection.
  3. Linkedin can be very helpful; however, if the person you’re trying to find has left their company and you’re not able to find a home phone number.

Some other great points made during our conversation that I thought I would share:

  1. If someone is a power networker in LI (300+++) connections, you can almost guarantee they will respond. Those that have only a few connections probably don’t check as much and . . . they use traditional means to connect.
  2. LI provides such a wonderful amount of information to “personalize” your message so take advantage of it. Use the information on the potential candidate’s profile to make a connection, and quantify why connecting with you will benefit them and others in their network. If you send the canned LI message or a watered down version – - don’t expect great response rates or worse – - some unhappy peeps!

LinkedIn did not exist 5 years ago. It quickly has become an excellent recruitment tool.  But as things change, you need to constantly be watching how others are using this tool and make sure you’re contributing to the conversation.

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Social Media, Sourcing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Time to Fill – Are You Managing A Key Metric You Are Measured On?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

We are excited that we had over 50 participants in our inaugural Healthcare Recruitment Benchmark Study .  We had the pleasure of presenting our initial findings at the National Association of Healthcare Recruiters Annual Image Conference in Las Vegas last week.  The conference, as always, was Five Star!  And we were overwhelmed (and humbled) with the interest in our Lean, JIT recruitment principles and our actual study.

One metrics that surprised us (especially in our flat economy) was the percentage of positions that had been open over 60 days. 

While the overall average Time to Fill (TTF) was trending around 46 days (which is good compared to years past and benchmark data from sources like Saratoga.org), 38% of the participants current open positions were trending over 60 days.

Further analysis provided some conclusions:

  1. Recruitment teams are pretty good at filling what we call Business as Usual Req’s (BAUs) with internal or active candidates that apply to postings, especially since most are rewarded (and measured) on how many positions they fill.  While we didn’t track this particular data element/segment in the study, our qualitative analysis indicates that the average TTF for these positions is 20-30 days.  
  2. Most organizations continue to struggle with filling difficult/critical to fill positions (CTF).  These positions are still trending at 60, 90 days + TTF.

So while on the surface, most organizations feel pretty good about their overall TTF metric, under the surface managers are still concerned about their recruitment teams’ ability to fill CTF positions. Even more important, the inability to fill these positions JIT is often costing organizations millions of dollars (Cost of Vacancy).   

We believe the three primary reasons that 38% of the positions are trending over 60 days are as follows:

  1. Not managing/monitoring your over sixty days report:  It is very easy for a recruiter carrying 25, 30, 50 req’s to forget what their top priorities are, which positions have been open over 60 days, etc.  It you do not stay on top of your openings (and if managers aren’t pounding down your door, positions can creep past this milestone very fast.
  2. Recruiters either don’t have the time to source for quality candidates or . . . are NOT carving out time.
  3. Recruiters don’t have the skills/competencies (or both) to find high quality talent for their CTF positions.

Some solutions to reducing the percentage of positions trending over 60 days old:

  1. On a weekly basis, have a team meeting to specifically discuss positions trending over 60 days.  Position on hold? Close it.  Candidates to disposition and get over to manager? Do it. One of our clients has recently implemented a Monday morning “huddle” to specifically discuss positions trending over 60 days.  By making it a priority, they have cut these down from 25% to 13%!  
  2. The “time” issue is a little more problematic.  It takes relatively no time to “source/pre-qualify” an active, internal or referral candidate.  Literally, this process is a few minutes. On the other hand, it might take hours to source and pre-qualify one passive/top talent candidate.  Most organizations do not factor this when developing recruitment resource plans!  They don’t dissect which positions are BAU’s, which are CTF and . . . how much sourcing time needs to be dedicated to filling these positions.  With our staffing optimization model, we take that into consideration when identifying the number of resources needed to manage the corresponding hiring needs.  You should investigate this when developing your resource plans.  
  3. The 3rd reason is probably the easiest to fix.  Assuming the recruiter has the competencies of an ‘Elite’ recruiter , they probably can be taught the skills to source top talent.  At the very least, you could assign sourcing activities to those in your organization that enjoy and are good at sourcing or outsource part of the sourcing activities, such as name generation to allow your recruiters more time to cultivate relationships (and ultimately recruit) passive candidates.

If your organization measures you on TTF, I would ensure that you are deploying best practices to manage it!

Any questions, please contact me!

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Relationship Recruiter | No Comments »

LinkedIn + Persistence + Phone + Respect = Success – Don’t stop until they say, “NO!” – A TRUE STORY

Friday, June 18th, 2010

My colleague (Kristine) recently received an executive level, ‘niche skill-set’ search opportunity from one of her clients/hiring managers.  As many savvy recruiters do these days, she developed a targeted sourcing strategy and:

  • Identified all competitor companies and companies that employed people with the skill set she was looking for.
  • Then defined all the different titles that this person would/could be called within these target companies.
  • She then started to seek potential candidates and individuals she could network with in this market (the client didn’t want to relo if possible) via LinkedIn. 

Armed with this intel (and a compelling Value Proposition Statement/Attention Grabber) about this opportunity, she made contact (via Inmail or directly via business/personal email) with all the potential applicants/networking professionals. 

While this is a very common practice among thousands of recruiters, her subsequent actions are often not.

  1. She sent two to three electronic messages out to each and every candidate.  While her response rate was good, she didn’t receive feedback from many and most importantly . . . she did not connect with the A+ talent her client demanded and deserves.
  2. She didn’t give up. While most recruiters would give up on these “prospects” in search of others, she identified phone contact information (this is part of her normal process) for all candidates that had not yet responded to her Inmails/emails and started an out bound telemarketing campaign. 

Covering all bases and having resilience:

She caught one individual around 7:30 am (knowing she was a manager, she called before meetings started – - usually around 8).  Her brief discussion that morning led to a subsequent discussion that led to . . . . an interview, offer and hire for a critical to fill position with interface with the COO, CMO and CEO of a Fortune 500 company!

One day after the candidate (now new hire) accepted the offer, she sent the most wonderful email to Kristine.

“Kristine, I can’t thank you enough for being persistent and making contact with me.  Honestly, while I was intrigued by your emails, I probably wouldn’t have called you back simply because I get so busy during the day with work, life events, etc..  Your persistence has allowed me to find an unbelievable opportunity for me and my family.  I am grateful for your efforts!”

WOW! 

Morale of Story:

  • Don’t assume that no response means they don’t want to talk, won’t help you network, etc.  Remember they are as busy as you! (Are there calls or emails that you have NOT responded to because they are not urgent or of top priority?)
  • Emails, texting, social media tools, etc are awesome and a quick way to reach out to a targeted group of people quickly.  But don’t fall into the trap of ONLY communicating via this method!  A targeted sourcing strategy including emails, texts, and PHONE CALLS is the key to successfully recruiting passive candidates.
  • Your compelling message, your tonality when calling, and the time you actually call are . . . all key ingredients to successfully engaging top talent.
  • Don’t stop until they say – “No, not interested and . . . can’t help with networking” (objection handling on this topic is for another day!)

While I am sure all of you have heard this before and/or follow a similar strategy as a matter of practice . . . I thought this was a wonderful story to share to ensure you are practicing it NOW!

In this age of electronic communication, I think it is easy for even the savviest recruiters to fall into the trap of “email & pray” on occasion! :)

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Relationship Recruiter, Sourcing | No Comments »

‘Elite’ Recruiter Assessment Results!

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Thanks to all those folks that participated in our ‘Elite’ Recruiter self assessment!  We have just reached the 1500 participants mark! 

For those of you who have not participated, please do so.

For those that have participated, you can check out the results to date.

After reviewing the results, one skill/attribute score that caught my eye was:  

  • Acts as a trusted advisor to a candidate and articulates the career opportunity with your organization when negotiating salary offers.
    • To date, folks have rated themselves a 2.97 (out of 5). 

Over the years, I have written many blog posts on this topic including:

Don’t forget the reason we talked in the first place

What every recruiter can learn from spaghetti sauce

I know you were not looking, but you listened

52 reasons why someone should join your organization

So as you connect with candidates this week, I want you to reflect and make sure you are able to identify 2-4 non-monetary “motives” for which a candidate would leave their current position. 

If you haven’t had this conversation with them, there is a high probability that if/when you make an offer they will do one of the following:

  1. Take a competing offer from a firm that does know their motives and can articulate how their company can meet them.
  2. Stay where they are. Since it is easier to stay put than venture to new, unknown challenges.
  3. Walk away simply because you don’t have enough “ammo” to “close the deal”.
  4. Lure you into negotiating ‘monetary’ motives like salary, bonuses, vacation, etc.  All the things you DON’T want to negotiate!

Remember, once you decide you like a candidate, it’s your job to help them understand how this move will benefit their career long term based on what they’ve told you about their career goals and aspirations. Not only do candidates have to sell themselves on the idea that your job could be a good move for their career; they also have to “sell” it to family and friends. The more you can do to help the candidate see how this position fits in with their career aspirations, the easier it becomes for the candidate to do the same.

Some food for thought after a long memorial day weekend!

I hope you have a perfect day!   

___________________________________________________________________

In a recent post, “You know you are an Elite Recruiter if . . . .”, we shared some attributes we believe Elite recruiters possess.  We thought we would share other folks thoughts on this topic! If you have others – - please share

  • Your clients take you with them from company to company when they advance their own careers! – Patti Yaritz
  • You know that you are an elite recruiter if former candidates/new hires seek out your advice unsolicited and without your follow-up. Some of the most rewarding pat-on-the-back compliments I have ever received have come from new hires contacting me after I have left a company. – Thomas Bolt
  • You are included on emails from the SVP of HR to members of the internal recruiting team with comments like…”Team, let’s make this happen”. – Sandra McCartt   
  • An elite recruiter is willing to share his/her knowledge with junior recruiters and is willing to mentor them to success. – Chuck Clevenger
  • An Elite recruiter gives back to the community by volunteering to freely help people in their job searches. An elite recruiter is known for his/her pro bono work.  – Chuck Clevenger
  • An elite recruiter has the ability to advise and influence HR and Hiring Managers in regards to job specifications and compensation based on their knowledge of the local/national marketplace and talent pool – Dan Helpka
  • Candidates you once turned down, turn up 1 & 2 years later, successfully compete for jobs they now can do having gained the knowledge, skills and experience you advised them to get. – Gerry Crispin
  • More students are graduating from local high schools inspired by your efforts and more of them are looking to aspire to a college degree. – Gerry Crispin
  • More college students are inspired to major in areas that will drive company performance, innovation and collaborative culture. – Gerry Crispin
  • Company alumns send you leads of high performing prospects who they believe will benefit your firm and grow in the bargain. – Gerry Crispin
  • You are a local pro-bono pay-it-forward support of time and advice to One-Stop employment centers, community organizations offering employment counseling and resource limited health care organizations is lifting the brand image of your entire community and increasingly attracting candidates who previously wouldn’t relocate. – Gerry Crispin
  • You are dedicated to assuring that their quality referrals and hires include diversity. You don’t have to be told by hiring management, “We want to see some diverse candidates in the mix.” You bring it and wow even those hiring teams who didn’t expect, didn’t want it, and didn’t ask for it. – Valentino Martinez
  • You help build an elite TEAM! – Julie Rehbein
  • The C-level in your company gives you a call when it wants to add “impact level” talent and believes you can find it. – Mat Apodaca

Posted in David, David Szary, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Measuring Your Employer Brand

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

I can only go a few days without having an insatiable craving for Starbucks or Caribou Coffee.  Sure I can make coffee at home, but it’s just never seems as good.  In addition, there’s the great atmosphere when I enter the coffee shop. The wonderful, helpful staff that remembers my name when they greet me. 

And to top it all off – - for only four dollars – - I walk away with beautiful drink in a cup with cool logo and colors!  

Okay I may be taking that a little too far, but as a consumer I have that passionate and long standing relationship with these brands.  These consumer brands conjure up indelible images that resonate and remain with me.  These are brands I will consistently use and recommend to others based on my experience and the feelings I get from patronizing their organizations.

So how do you define an employer brand?

Quality candidates – - whether they say so or not – - are looking for the same experience with an organization’s employer brand as a consumer would.  The messages, images, and feelings presented shape the candidate experience they will receive. The “feeling” they get as they move through the recruitment process will not only be pivotal in their employment decision but in their recommendation of your organization to others!

Simply put, an employer brand is a long-standing relationship cycle of experiences between the employee and employer. 

Your employer brand should resonate like a consumer brand with a distinct difference in the messaging.  The messaging should be tailored to the future employee, and should be understood by all stakeholders – both current or future employees, and even customers.  Having an effective employment brand means providing an enticing proposition for one to seek the opportunities at an organization.  It begins at the sourcing stage and carries through the entire life cycle of the recruiting process, and continues throughout an employee’s tenure with the organization.

While most employers understand the value of an effective employer brand, they struggle with how to measure its’ effectiveness to ensure that their branding efforts are achieving the necessary ROI. 

Some brief questions to ponder for next week’s post:

  • How do you measure your Employer Brand?
  • How do you know if you have an effective Employer Brand? 
  • Do you have a gauge on how your sources tie into your employer brand?
  • How are you measuring your customers’ recruiting experience?
  • Do you have a sense of why people join, stay, or leave your company?

In my next post we’ll begin to discuss these questions in more detail.  Also look for us at ERE San Diego where we’ll be talking about this during our session.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, Elite Recruiters, Employer Brand, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Talent Aquisition | No Comments »

Candidate Care in a Down Economy

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Last year we hosted a webinar on the “Changing Role of the Recruiter”.  We posted some of the highlights of the discussion on our site.  

Looking back, many of the “predictions” we shared have proven to be true! Unfortunately, one in particular doesn’t seem to be losing momentum and continues to affect millions of people and thousands of organizations.

Prediction:  “With requisition loads down, recruiters will be asked to do “more with less” while the number of applicants per position will increase dramatically.”

In the midst of collecting data from numerous organizations for our benchmark study, it is still not uncommon to find applicant-to-hire ratios of 40, 50, and even 100 to 1! With economists predicting a slow “job recovery”, we probably won’t see this trend decrease over the next 12-18 months.

We usually equate high applicant-to-hire ratios with “wasted time” spent weeding through and screening out unqualified candidates.  After all, one of the “Seven Deadly Sins of waste in Recruiting” is Overproduction.

Unfortunately, the flip side to this coin presents another challenging dilemma – developing and deploying an excellent Candidate Experience. 

A few weeks ago I spoke to an audience of unemployed executives in Charlotte.  Their number one gripe about us as recruiters?

“They never follow up. I don’t know where I stand in the process, or how long it will take.”

Of course this isn’t the first time I have heard this and I am sure it’s not the first time you have either. 

The obvious reasons we should provide an excellent candidate experience have been well documented:

  • The negative impact a poor candidate experience has on your organization’s brand can be harmful. Every candidate who does not receive feedback or a “red carpet” experience can create a viral impact of a negative perception of your organization.  With social media and the advent of sites like JobVent, Glassdoor and Vault, candidates have a greater lens of choice in their employers.  
  • For B-to-C organizations, these companies can choose where they shop, where they do their banking, what healthcare facility or restaurant they visit, etc.  The revenue loss associated with a poor candidate experience can be catastrophic.

If those two reasons are not compelling enough to stress the importance of an excellent candidate experience, let’s look at a few others:

  • Every “unqualified candidate” is someone’s brother, mother, close friend or relative.  I am sure we all know of loved ones close to us that are out of work (heck, it might be you).  You know the stress and anxiety it can bring.  If you think of each and every candidate as your brother, mother, close friend or relative, I think it provides a different perspective to the importance of an excellent experience.
  • These “unqualified” candidates for this position might be “qualified candidates” for future positions.  A bad experience today will impact their interest later.
  • “Unqualified, active candidates” talk to “highly qualified passive candidates”.  If you believe the old adage – “Poor customer experience is shared with 8 people, a positive one with 2” – - a poor candidate experience might ruin your chance to engage top talent for your critical to fill positions in the future!

I know that developing strategies to provide an excellent candidate experience is easier said than done, especially with limited time, budgets, etc.

Some easy, quick, cost effective ideas to improve the candidate experience even just 10% are as follows:

  • Have a “follow up” policy.  Whether it’s automated through your ATS or a generic email, thank candidates for applying and tell them the next steps in the process.
  • Post a guideline of your staffing process on your career site.  This can be general in nature and give the approximate timing of each step in the process, but it will at least give candidates an idea of what the steps are and what will happen next.
  • Audit your candidate experience.  They are your primary customers, so allow them to have a voice in shaping the experience of others.  You will thank them for it! 

If you’d like to see some examples of The Candidate Audit or other examples, contact me at bsavoy@leanhumancapital.com

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Time Management, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Are you recruiting ‘Passive’ Candidates as if they were ‘Active’?

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

I had a recent conversation with a very frustrated hiring executive: The conversation resurfaced some ‘best practices’ around recruiting quality talent.

He was frustrated with the current recruitment efforts on critical to fill positions in his department. While they had gone through great lengths to deploy a sourcing strategy to drive quality, passive talent into the recruitment process, the vast majority of candidates they were interested in were “bailing” out of the process.

Pondering the situation, I asked a few simple questions to try and identify the root cause of the defects (for those that sat in on our 7-Deadly Sins webinar – - you know what I am talking about :o )).

  1. How are you engaging candidates into the process?
  2. How quickly are you engaging candidates into the process?
  3. Who are they meeting with on their first visit?
  4. Where are they meeting?  
  5. Does the candidate fully understand the next steps after their first meeting?

 The answers I received from the recruiter/hiring manager might not surprise you:

  1. “Well we have them go through the normal process.  If they are interested, we ask them to go online to register in our system”.
  2. “Once they hit the system, the recruiter is calling them within 24 hours – - hopefully – - to do a pre-screen with them.”
  3. “We like to have them come into the office and meet with the recruiter first – - then meet with the hiring manager.  Ideally, we like to get a slate of candidates to come in and interview all the same day/afternoon.  It is much more convenient for the hiring managers.”
  4. “Ideally – the office. It makes it easier for us.”
  5. “We let them know that we are interviewing several candidates and will have feedback within 3-5 business days.”

I think you know were I am going with this!

So after listening to his answers, I reflected and responded:

“So your managers are requesting the recruitment team to find the highest quality (often passive) talent possible but . . . you want the passive candidates to engage on your TERMS?

  • Fill out paperwork before I will talk to you
  • Come to my office
  • Sit in lobby with other candidates
  • Wait for a response

I don’t know about you folks, but if the University of Alabama used these technique to ‘recruit’ the most talented football players – - I bet they would not have won the national title last year!

While I don’t want to make light of this situation, I find this dilemma within hundreds of companies throughout the country.  Simply put:

They are trying to recruit quality, ‘Passive’ candidates with their ‘Active’ candidate process.

Organizations that excel in recruiting top talent, take a holistically different approach to the passive candidate recruitment efforts.

Some Best Practices

1.     How are you engaging candidates into the process?

Once the recruiter makes contact with a top prospect and does a preliminary pre-qualification (hopefully on the same call), they immediately seek to set up a “cup of coffee” meeting with a dynamic hiring manager.  No initial paper work. We can take care of that later. No resume? No problem, lets just meet and have an exploratory conversation.

2.     How quickly are you engaging candidates into the process?

Immediately (as outlined above)! I have worked with hiring managers that literally say – - if you get a top notch person on the phone, I will meet anywhere, anytime.

3.     Who are they meeting with on their first visit?

While I am not saying they shouldn’t meet with a recruiter on the first visit, the quicker you get them connected with a dynamic hiring manager the better.  From experience, it is much easier to engage a talented professional to have a “confidential, exploratory discussion over a cup of coffee” if for nothing else – - to network VERSUS – getting them to come for an interview with a recruiter!  

4.     Where are they meeting?

When you are not looking for a job, the last thing you would want is people to THINK you are looking.  Coming to a competitors office for a visit – - in this day and age of LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. – - is very risky at best.  And to ask them to sit in the lobby with other “candidates” is disrespectful in my book.

5. Does the candidate fully understand the next steps after the first meeting?

If you meet someone and like them, you should recruit that person. What is wrong with showing your excitement for taking the next steps – ask them their availability to meet with a key executive – - BEFORE you leave that first meeting?  I am not implying an offer? I am just showing sincere excitement about moving forward and keeping the positive momentum during our courtship!

These are simple best practices I have seen successfully deployed by organizations that don’t fall into the trap of trying to recruit quality, ‘Passive’ candidates with their ‘Active’ candidate process.

If you find yourself in this dilemma, please share this with your hiring managers :o )

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Candidate types, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Sourcing, Talent Aquisition, Time Management, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Spend less time searching for resumes and more time searching for people with intelligence!

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

OK - You have a critical, difficult-to-fill position and you have performed all the ’normal sourcing tactics’ to fill it.

  • Posted on your website and a large job board or two
  • Networked with key employees
  • Surfed the Internet for candidates
  • Checked out LinkedIn

And unfortunately, you still don’t have any interested, qualified candidates.

Does this sound familiar? What do you do next?

For many, the next step is the ‘wait, hope & pray’ tactic.  You wait, hope and pray that some qualified candidates fall in your lap :) . 

For others, that have the time and expertise, you dive into deep Internet mining tactics (Boolean/semantic search) scouring remote databases/information for the elusive, ‘passive’ candidate. 

From my experience, very few recruiters immerse themselves in identifying people that will KNOW the people you are looking to find and talk too!  

This fundamental shift in thinking is so simple but very powerful. If implemented, this technique will transform the way you source candidates forever!   

Instead of asking the questions:  

  • Where can I find qualified professionals?
  • Where should I look for them?
  • What search techniques should I use to find quality talent?

Ask:

  • Who would know the person I am looking for?
  • Who can I talk to within a particular company (that has the talent I am looking for) that would know the person I am looking for?

For many creative sourcers, as part of the search strategy, they try to identify key words to source such as:

  • Competitor companies
  • Similar job titles
  • Key tools/technology the qualified candidate uses to perform their job

Now drive laterally through these questions with: 

  •  Who works with/for the person you are looking for? What is their job title?

And your search becomes more three dimensional.

Now drive straight down the middle with the question:

  • Who has recently left that company that knows the person I am looking for in that company?

And you can strike oil!

Let me explain.

The first question – - Who works with/for the person you are looking for? – - will exponentially increase the # of people you can talk to to locate the person you are looking for (you know – - the whole 7-degrees of separation thing).

The second question – - Who has recently left that company that knows the person I am looking for in that company? – - will connect you with folks that have left an organization and probably do not have a vested interest in withholding sensitive, confidential intelligence. Heck – if they were let go, they are even more willing to assist in providing information that might help you and . . . unfortunately . . . ‘hurt’ their former employer. 

Another important point here is the person’s level.  While first instinct may be to go “to the top” and call the SVP or VP (like in a traditional sales approach), you may have non-compete issues that cause the contact to be reticent to provide the information you need.  Don’t avoid this level, but be mindful of it. You may have greater success with peers and/or individuals that worked for the person you are seeking to identify.    

Some examples to illustrate this concept:

  • Searching for accountants — talk to actively looking controllers
  • Searching for .com developers — talk to actively looking SQL – DBA’s
  • Searching for OR nurses — talk to actively looking anesthesiologist.
  • Searching for Market Research professionals — talk to the Account Manager at the research firm.

Note – I referenced ‘actively looking’ in each of these examples. Probably the best person you can ‘network’ with is an active candidate that has recently left an organization. 

Not only will they know the person you are looking for, but they often will provide un-sanitized information about the people you want to connect with. Add in other thought provoking questions to your conversation like – - Who were the top performers? – - Who worked best under pressure? – - and you might gain valuable insight to pinpoint your search.  

A simple, straight forward approach to contacting them: 

John:

 I wanted to reach out. I saw you online and saw you worked for _________.  I  was hoping I could network with you and see if you could help me - and potentially one of your peers - out.  

I have a great opportunity for the right person…. I am seeking ___________________________. I thought you might know the ________ folks at __________ that might be interested in this opportunity? 

Were there some folks that you thought were really good that I should connect with?

Anyone that was not very happy I should connect with?

Any advice you would give me to help me with this search? It is a great opportunity for someone! 

________________________________________________________________

Then when closing, I would always recommend asking them how you can assist them in their job search: 

I really appreciate all your help. As mentioned, I found your information online.  

 How can I help you? – - what are you looking for?  

What have you done so far to find a new opportunity?: 

Have you tried www.indeed.com and/or http://www.simplyhired.com/   

I will keep my eyes/ears open…, etc . 

 

The key to your success in engaging individuals is your sincere interest in helping connect individuals to excellent opportunities!  

Too often I think we spend too much time searching for resumes versus people with intelligence that can help us with our search.  We wrote a similar post on this subject that you might want to check out – The Indirect Networking Call.

Happy Hunting :)

Posted in Bradley Savoy, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Relationship Recruiter, Sourcing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Seven Deadly Sins of Waste: #2 – Waiting

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

By Bradley Savoy

So I’ve just screened an exceptional applicant, and the next step in my process is to forward information to the hiring manager for approval to schedule an interview.  I send the information along….and now I’m in the middle of the next sin of waste – waiting…..

If you think about your current staffing process, and you had analytics on it, you’d find that in many cases an inordinate amount of time is spent waiting.  There are multiple reasons for this: delays based on decisions needed, peoples’ schedules (vacations, meetings, etc.), and various other factors that come into play.

Back when candidates held the power and the war for talent was in full swing; waiting on a decision for the next phase of the hiring process was a death knell.  Back in my management consulting days I remember losing candidates to competitors if we couldn’t make a hiring decision in 24 hours because by the time we got to them they already had offers from our competitors in hand.  Those days may be long gone in most cases, but they still exist for critical talent.  For many healthcare organizations RN’s and PT’s are still critical positions to fill, and recruiting departments don’t want to wait days for approval from a hiring manager to move forward with the hiring process.

In our Proof of Concept we look at our clients’ staffing process flow, as well as the efficiency and time spent during the various stages of the process.  We often find that a simple lean solution in reducing waste is to reduce the amount of time spent waiting on decisions from the various stakeholders of the process.  A hiring manager may expect candidates faster than you can deliver them, and you may expect to receive feedback on candidates faster than the hiring manager can respond. 

One way we address this is through establishing better relationships with hiring managers, as well as managing expectations on both sides.  See our previous posts on being a Strategic Business Partner and establishing a Service Level Agreement.  These will give you some simple tips and techniques to address this area of waste in your staffing process.  And of course you can register to attend our webinar next week where we’ll discuss this, as well as other facets of the 7 Sins of Waste in Recruiting.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, David, David Szary, Deadly Sins of Waste in Recruiting, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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