Wake up Corporate America! IT college students don’t give a rat’s patootie about your company unless you’re Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Oracle. So stop sending your wind-tunnel-tested-hairdo-fast-talking-gum-chewing agency recruiters…OR the overweight 30ish working-mom-corporate-recruiter-I-need-a-microwave-to-nuke-my-leftovers…OR Wendel the dorky-recruiting-manager-acid-jeans-running-shoes-wearing-a-braided-belt to college campuses. Stop it. It ain’t working. You want to hire IT college grads, you send your recent college grad hires to do the job. Yeah, you know. The ones that aren’t jaded yet from working 60 hours a week.
You can’t send your recent college hires to do some recruiting at the upcoming campus career fair? No worries….
Here is how to recruit IT College Grads.
Have a strong (or optimized) social media presence. They expect companies to have social media sites because that is where they, learn, hear, watch and even talk to potential employers online through Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Google+ and all the others you never have signed up for. If your company doesn’t have a Facebook fan page these days, don’t even bother showing up at the career fair because you’re going to look like a major Dussledorf.
Ditch the fancy booth, videos, and flyers and WALK around to MEET the students. You know, RECRUIT them with your mouth and not some lame ass logo behind you in poster board.
Don’t try to shovel a bunch of marketing crap with worthless cards, flyers, and hand sanitizer. Instead, raffle away an iPad for those that “like” your Facebook fan page.
Don’t steer them to “apply online”. This is a major cop out. Instead give them your email address. Do it! They are not going to SPAM you.
Don’t try to “close” them with an offer that day. That’s like-so-creepy-icky to them. And it is creepy. It’s desperation. I’ve heard of some companies make verbal offers after meeting 20 minutes with a student. Weirdos.
Look Sparky, Recruiting IT college kids these days is harder than you think. Hauling in boxes of squeeze balls and that flimsy booth is not going to get you the IT college rock stars. Make them come to you, stand in your line and to talk to you instead of waiting to get rid of them so you can go eat lunch.
Here are some Laptops that I recommend for contract recruiters or independent recruiters.
Dell XPS 15z - Solid laptop with an 2.7GHz i7 chip and 750GB hard drive. Also, will run a battery for over 5 hours and weighs about 5.6 pounds
Acer Aspire TimelineX 583OTG - 2.3GHz i5-2410M. 640GB hard drive. The battery lasts for over 8 hours, but it weighs almost 7 lbs.
Samsung Series 9 - is ultralight with an i5 processor, but you will need an external hard drive because it has a 128GB solid state hard drive
Apple Macbook Air - Apple’s i5 core processor with slim body and ultralight makes this a good choice for the recruiter on the go. Again, you will want to buy an extra hard drive if unless you really into the Cloud and know how to manage uploading files to the cloud.
I really like the i7 Intel processors as they have a lot power and are great for recruiters that need to incorporate videos in their presentations. The prices seem to have really come down lately for laptops including ones with the i7 chips. If you need to replace your loud, slow, dusty laptop this is a great time to get a good deal on these laptops.
Here is another tool for the geeky recruiter, but this tool is actually a Web Browser. Maxthon is a fast browser that has not ONE but TWO built in search engines called Webkit and Trident. The one thing that most recruiters and sourcers #fail to realize that a web browser (not just add-ons) is a useful tool in the recruiting toolbox. I actually use FireFox to do most of my sourcing, Chrome to cloak my web searches, IE on Applicant Tracking Systems, and Safari when I want a Flash free web browsing experience.
Now I have Maxthon to test out. It has an ad-blocker, a screenshot taker (really cool), and YouTube downloader. It is loaded with a lot of icons and does offer new ways to search candidates. Give it a try. It’s free.
BTW. I used this screenshot using my Maxthon browser. ***also, if you don’t want PC Doctor be sure to uncheck the box through the installation process.
Monster Worldwide has a lot changes to make, but some speculate the company could possibly be bought out. All of the buyout rumors is around the stock price and being booted from the S&P 500. (MWW). This is not surprising since they haven’t really done the right changes to survive surges towards Facebook.com, Linkedin.com and Indeed.com
Truthfully, Monster.com has become a great place for “get rich” scams and preying on the desperate unemployed folks. Monster can really right the ship though. It needs to do something quickly. Relying heavily on Recruiting budgets, job posting revenue and other advertisement generating revenue is going to dwindle down to a future of IOUs.
1) Open up. All resumes are viewable but hide the contact info for those that don’t pay.
2) Allow job seekers to network with other job seekers (for free of course)
3) Build a mobile App that allows job seekers to post updates (and meetups).
4) Make job postings A LOT more affordable (uh, duh…winning)
5) Drop 30 day job postings, down to one week. (Nobody applies to old jobs except your Mom)
6) Create a “Chat with me now” feature for job seekers. (take that LinkedIn!)
7) More corporate landing pages that feature their jobs, videos and pics. (In yo face, Facebook!)
8 ) Get rid of limited resumes views for Recruiters (Dudes, come on. really. really?)
9) Stop-Trying-to-be-an-Applicant-Tracking-System! (That’s so stoopid!)
10) Hire Recruiters to test new site upgrades and roll outs. (We’re not so stoopid)
I really don’t like to bash Monster, but for the price they charge for an account…well, it may NOT be worth it anymore.
So, here are some more suggestions for Monster.
Improve Quality of Resumes
All recruiters complain all the time about the lack of skilled talent found on Monster (the quality). It’s just not there like it was 10 years or even 4 years ago.Sorry. And, it’s just not there today even in this dismal job economy.
Don’t bet on Beknown (Facebook App)
Monster needs to stop trying to reinvent itself via BeKnown. People no longer use Apps the way they did when Facebook first started. Why? Facebook has made so many changes the focus is more on status updates NOT what Apps everyone is using. Facebook Apps are all but hidden, moved, shuffled and forgotten after being used once.
Limited Resume Views
PLEASE remove the resume view restrictions. Monster prevents recruiters from viewing more than 1000 resumes per month. The times have changed!!! One recruiter can glance at 1000 resume easily in a month. In fact, we look at about 100 resumes in a day!You boast having millions of resumes but you only allow a fraction of the resumes to be viewed!!!
GET RID OF….
Crack down on Third part agency resumes. Monster.com is choc-full-of-crappy third party resumes. Time to collect more data on who posts a resume and use a reliable verification process. Push those Rats out before they any more holes in tight recruiting budgets.
MORE GET RID OF
Bullshit job postings. You know the ones where companies want people to work for free and get a commission and become zillionaires in 3 months.
REALLY GET RID OF…
Expensive job posting packages. This is a no brainer. Reduce the price of job postings and you get MORE job postings. Think in terms like Craigslist pricing model for small businesses. For companies that have a national job search offer packages that will beat out Indeed.com pricing model.
AND FINALLY,
Stop spending money. Stop buying other job websites, stop buying Superbowl ads, and use your cash on improving job search functionality, and (not just improving cosmetics) so that it’s at least more Social Web like…Linkedin.com
I am not a fan of Facebook Timeline. I got a chance to tinker with the Timeline preview today and realized that my Apps, and my Fan Page is gone. Timeline makes it extremely difficult to showcase your Fan Page and Apps.
If Fan Pages are invisible or removed from the new Facebook update (Timeline), a lot of people will stop using Facebook on a regular basis. Some people have tied a lot of their social media budgets into Fan Pages. Right now, my Facebook Fan Page does not show up in my Timeline nor do the posts.
The Facebook Apps is another one. I recently began using BranchOut. This App has been disabled in Timeline. I can’t see any of my connections. I was using BranchOut for recruiting and finding talent on Facebook. In fact, I can’t find any of the Apps that I have anymore.
I hope they fix some things in Timeline. This version of Facebook is probably the worst. It’s no longer Friend friendly.I’m going to publish my Timeline just yet, even though I don’t have a choice after next week.
Recruiters, forget that pathetic coffee in the break room. It’s time to get pumped up and train with masters over at SourceCon. Picture SourceCon 2012 like a packet of Energy Powder. Oh yeah. Just pour some of this into your water bottle every morning. Don’t be alarmed if some powder floats up enveloping you in a cloud of recruiting goodness.
As you take a swig, recruiting minerals blast through your bloodstream. Bam! You just got 15% of your recommended daily intake of Jim Stroud. Bam, 14% of your Glen Cathey! And, a whopping quarter of your Ryan Leary, Shally Steckerl and Eric Jaquith
Chug it all down, slam the bottle into the nearby recycling bin and crack your knuckles Kung Fu style, mister. You’re going to find all those nerdy-ass developers today. And, never mind those puny co-workers behind you. You know why? They don’t anything about SourceCon. But you? You do. And you guzzled 16 times the amount of recruiting information the experts recommend.
You are now a pumped up super recruiter. Tweet those super advanced boolean search strings, solve those SourceCon challenges and hack your way into every corporate phone directory.
If someone hands you a TPS reports, you’ll zap him with your laser beam eyes.
Someone needs you attend a career fair, you’ll freeze them with your icy breath.
Try reaching out to your hiring managers just using your telepathic powers. Did you hear that? You totally got all the feedback from that elusive hiring manager.
You are now a Super Recruiter. Good morning America! Let’s recruit!
It’s December. It’s chilly. It’s shopping. It’s parties and bad Christmas sweaters. And it’s usually when job seekers have the time to update their resume and start job searching. Every Recruiter spends less than 20 seconds looking at a resume. They scan resumes for keywords, education, location and current employer. A lot of job seekers have been looking for months. Their problem? Not many jobs, hiring freeze, location and most importantly their resume.
I’m a Recruiter. I’ve read like a million resumes. So, here are some things to NOT put on your resume.
Objective - This is usually at the top of every resume. And, yes we know your objective is to find a job. If you have 1 year of work experience, replace Objective with a Summary. I’d keep your summary brief. Just a paragraph that briefly explains your current expertise.
Referring to yourself in third person - Yeah, it’s kind of creepy as in you’re a loner that talks to yourself. When I get resumes written in third person, I avoid calling them because they live in their parents basement, drink gallons of diet soda and buy comic books stored in vacuum sealed bags.
College Education at the bottom of the resume - I know. I know. You graduated College in 1972 so you don’t want to be overlooked because your an old fart…so you put the year you graduated at the very bottom of the resume. Truth is you’re an old fart. Putting at the bottom doesn’t fool anyone unless you’re an old fart recruiter. Hey, look. I used to advise older candidates to put their Education at the bottom. But, please put your Education at the top of the resume. Recruiters need to know if you have a degree and won’t scan 8 pages to see if you have one. Make it easy for recruiters to find it….you old fart!
Generic cover letters - Some jobseekers reuse the same cover letter over and over. Um folks, this is half-ass-laziness. Another thing, some doofuses will embed the cover letter at top of the resume. This is a huge no no. In fact, don’t even write a cover letter unless you are going to take the time write a unique cover letter for each job. More importantly don’t be a Doofus. Doofuses eat chili from a can and reuse the same cover letter from 2002. Also, never ever put cover letters in your resume…that’s like crumbling saltine crackers on top canned chili…it still sucks.
Reason why you left the company - For some odd reason, jobseekers feel the need to explain why they left each employer in the resume. No need to do this. Recruiters are going to ask this question anyways. They want to hear why a jobseeker is looking. Plus, good agency Recruiters will always make up solid excuses for job hoppers. So, why go through hassels of explaining slacker behavior when most recruiters will be willing to do this for free!
I’d like to hear from you. What are your thoughts? Any suggestions on what should not be on a resume?
Recruiters, have you ever Googled your job postings and surprised to find them on “other” job boards? You would think this is great marketing for your jobs, but it’s not. In fact, your job posting has been hijacked.
Hijacking jobs is another form of job scraping. Categorically Indeed.com and Simplyhired.com are job scrapers. They capitalized off it when they had access to Monster.com job feeds. Now, hundred copycats have mastered job scraping but have taken it to another level that I call job hijacking.
SOME Job scraping is unethical and nefarious business.They trick recruiters into thinking they have tons of job postings when really majority of them are scraped. They dupe recruiters to sign up for a monthly access fee to “millions of resumes”
Plus, the jobseekers are victims too because they’re just targets for resume writing service fees. These job hijacking websites ensnare their victims and trick them to upload their resume using YOUR job posting. Most job scrapers NEVER send you the resume and only SOME will redirect back to your company AFTER the jobseeker is suckered into creating a “profile”.
I am huge FAN of Job2Web. I think they offer a great service, product and a must need for any recruiter. Unfortunately, I’m not a fan of some these job scraping websites that have access to the Jobs2Web job feeds. So if you use this service, then beware of companies that will use your jobs to load up their database with resumes.
To get job seekers to apply to your job and NOT the job hijackers:
Put your COMPANY NAME is big bold letters at top of every job description
At top of your job posting put the following: APPLY DIRECTLY TO (Your Company Name)
Also at top of job posting put the Job Req or ID number
Right BEFORE Job Description: Put your CONTACT info and/or JOB URL.
AND, If you are using Jobs2web, review the companies that get the Jobs2web job feed. If those companies take jobseeker info before redirecting them to your site, ask Jobs2web to remove them.
You have spent tons of cash on job posting services, but often the actual job is buried deep behind all the job scrappers using YOUR job as means to load up their resume database. It’s time to fight back. Make it easy for candidates to identify your company and your jobs on these sites. Hopefully you will get the resume and not some…um… sly “job fox” of a job scraper.
Warren Buffett goes into the Tech business with $10.7 billion and it’s all for IBM. The same company that used to make typewriters and personal computers. Today IBM is a consulting company with THOUSANDS of patents. So what does the latest Buffeyt move have to do with recruiting. It’s simple. IBM is a global IT solution provider. They are in the people business. They have huge government contracts where all the IT professional work is handled by IBM. So, in other words, they are hiring and that is good news for IT recruiters.
As of this writing, IBM is trading at $187 per share. A little over-priced? Maybe but I don’t think so. In the past, Warren Buffett never had much interest in Technology companies because he didn’t understand the business. But not anymore it seems. And, my take is this; If Buffett’s company has been secretly buying IBM shares for last 6 months, then it means this company will be strong over a long period. And, Buffett has confidence in the IT sector. So, there you go. Looking to make a change into another area of recruiting? What more proof do you need?
I’m in the South. It’s November. It’s SEC College Football and obnoxious alumni or fans are wearing tacky pants, dipping snuff, and drinking PBR. Speaking of alumni, a lot of companies should hire former employees because it’s a lot easier to get them up to speed even.
Here is my advice for all the companies that have unfilled jobs due to lack of skilled candidates. REHIRE FORMER EMPLOYEES (yeah, I’m shouting). Why go through all the resumes, agency fees, and long-drawn-out interview process???
Yeah, recruiters are all up in their LinkedIn alumni networks like it’s nobody’s bidness and annoying the hell-out-of-everyone with lame a$$ job links. That is….most Recruiters using Linkedin Alumni Groups, use it to post jobs.
Here’s a suggestion: Build your OWN alumni community. Create a professional online alumni network website that has message boards, blogs, profiles and job postings. For starters, check out Conenza. They specialize in building online alumni networks. And, companies can use their current LinkedIn alumni group to promote their official alumni website.
However, IF building an alumni network is not an option. Therefore, LinkedIn and Facebook are great networking sites to target former employees. Recruiting former employees should be a no-brainer but convincing them to come back and work is another thing…
Here are some employment numbers from Manpower Group
52% of U.S. companies report difficulty filling jobs
47% of employers blame candidates lack of hard job skills or technical skills
35% of companies cite candidate lack of experience
25% of companies blame lack of business knowledge or formal qualifications
For most IT Recruiters, these numbers are not surprising. It’s been a difficult year to find qualified Information Technology candidates much less interested in leaving their current employer.
A lot of experts are screaming for more training programs and I’ve personally have recruited some IT professionals to join technology boot camps. Boot camps might be a quick solution for those entry level IT positions. However, most of the blame for not filling open positions falls on Recruiting and HR.
I’ve said this for years about IT staffing. Most companies fail to plan appropriately for staffing changes. Why? Hiring managers typically have budgets. When a project doesn’t go as planned, they often push back on hiring additional resources. And recruiters are often “waiting” for hiring to pick up again. And as ALWAYS, recruiters are scrambling to build the pipelines once the hiring demand returns.
The simplest solution for up and down recruiting cycles is a pipeline strategy that changes only slightly….
I’ll explain some ways that recruiters can build better candidate pipelines…in my next blog…
Recruiters read about recruiting tools and websites all the time. Recruiting websites, niche boards, tools, tools and more tools have been tweeted or talked about in every recruiting webinar or conference. Enough sourcing tool presentation slide-shows have been created to cross the globe a bagrillion times. MOST of these websites and tools are forgotten and gone.
So…
I’ve got a list of websites that were once hot tools for Sourcers a few years ago. Today they sit like abandoned homes in a crushed housing market. I have each site below classified as FORGOTTEN or GONE.
The Ultimates - A website that recruiters used for names, emails, and cell phone research. Today it’s a crappy landing page that taps into large expensive people databases like the Intellinus database. In fact, they changed the name to The New Ultimates. Sorry, but if you’re a recruiter time to remove this site from your bookmarks. FORGOTTEN.
PageBites What happened? Nobody really knows. They sold the web domain to another site called Imo.Im??? Hey, but they are hiring!! That’s all it says on the website today, Imo.im is hiring. Nice…. PageBites used to be a place where you could link your resume to their site and then run searches on the site to find people. Today it is GONE.
Naymz.com or is it Visible.me? No, wait it’s Naymz again. Yeah, they changed their Naymz a lot and now they suck. They are now a “personal brand management company”. Yep, time to remove them from your list of recruiting tools. FORGOTTEN.
Jobster.com was all like the recruiting rage for about 2 weeks. The domain was bought and sold many times. It’s now part of the Zapoint website that specializes in (drumroll)…..Career Management Technology!…(crickets chirping). Although Jobster is still around (yeah right) they charge a monthly subscription for Pre-Sourced resumes (yeah, right) and I’m sure if they had anyone applying to the jobs (yeah, right) the team of crack-pot Sourcers (yeah, right) are providing tons of “pre-sourced” resumes (yeah, right). This site is both FORGOTTEN and GONE.
And finally..
JobFox, okay I admit. I am not a fan, and never was fan of JobFox. Why? JobFox engages in job scrapping and (in my opinion) uses nefarious ways to dupe job seekers to apply online as a way of loading up their database. They have gone through several Marketing Executives and no wonder… JobFox has gone from “job to candidate” matching service (it sucked) AND then switched to a “candidate to jobs” matching service (still sucks) during the bad job economy. And, now they are a career networking service. JobFox is not completely FORGOTTEN. However, they remain and every Recruiter that I know complains about their pushy used car salesmen tactics. Today JobFox reputation is more of a scam. Any Jobseeker that pays for JobFox services, their money is GONE and all likelihood their resume is FORGOTTEN.
If you have any recruiting tools or websites that are now forgotten or gone, let us know.
A lot recruiting and sourcing geeks are shaking their fists in anger at Google…because they terminated the + operator. The + operator eliminates similar search result. So by using the + (no space) before a word brings up the exact term. So it seems (to me) that it’s logical to end the + operator. In fact, double quotes does the same as + in Boolean searches except you can enter more words in a string just using + sign.
Most recruiters probably don’t care about the + Operator. Others (especially the real nerdy ones) will have to scour through tons of RSS feeds and automated search tools to adjust their Boolean search strings now (I’m shaking my fist in anger at you Google). Some recruiters will adjust their training seminars and materials (They are shaking their fists in anger at Google) but at least give them some new “discovery” material to dole out.
So what does this mean? Don’t know. Not sure if I care. But, I got a hunch that + operator was killed to that it could be used for Google+ or Google Plus. Happy headhunting and remember to change your Google Boolean search strings.
If you’re job description sucks, you’re job advertisement sucks too. Meredith Soleau blog post, Your Help Wanted Advertisement Sucks, is spot on. I love it. But one problem. Corporate recruiters might not have control over where, how and what job descriptions get posted. Bigger the company, more layers in HR and more red tape. Otherwise, this is very true about most job descriptions because lame ones rarely attract candidates. Read my post about The Best Job Description and Why You Need Them.
Joe Shaheen says The Freelance Economy Will Mean New Recruiting Practices. He says that contractors will make up 35% of the workforce in a decade. Not sure where got those numbers or if it’s legit. He also thinks the companies will need to step up efforts on creating employer brand that attracts contractors. Joe might be on to something but I don’t see it happening in 2012. However, I think companies in 2012 will reduce independent contractors and temporary workers. As the economy heads south, tax laws, health care, and more offshore jobs, it does seem like that companies would opt for independent contractors. In my experience, it’s been the contractor who is “cut and out on the street looking for work. Plus, companies go on the “Rock Star” candidate search band wagon. They become picky. Often putting the rock star candidates through grueling interview process. Meanwhile, freelancers or contractors will scramble for perm jobs and wait out the rough economy. The Freelance Economy will have some changes in 2012, like lower rates. Maybe in a decade, companies will change how they attract temporary workers…but not right now or next year.
A few months ago Netflix was on top of the world until it announced a 60% price increase. Customers were outraged and dropped the service. The price hike announcement was viewed as GREEDY because it was days after Blockbuster announced massive store closings.
My bold prediction: Netflix will blaze through cash as they buy a lot of companies but ultimately crash, and lose out to new technology, and competition that have better pricing and services.
We have too many staffing companies in the US. Large, small, and one-man staffing companies are everywhere. Some agencies are extremely expensive. But one thing is for sure, the large agency fees for perm placement usually stay the same AFTER a down economy
The staffing fees changed some over the years for both contingency and contractors. But the problem RIGHT now is that pricing model is not going to work in this economy. Sorry. It’s just not. I’ve been doing recruiting for a long time and I know where agencies are heading…
My bold prediction: Offshore recruiters will partner with lone recruiters and small staffing companies to undercut well established staffing companies. THEN, bigger staffing companies will blaze through a lot of cash as they buy all these small businesses, but they WON’T change their pricing structure.
Here is my advice: Now is the time to DROP your prices or “reverse” them. I don’t have an MBA, I’ve never owned a staffing company, but my gut feeling is that technology, trends, and this economy will force staffing companies to change their pricing models or become a memory of what they once were.
There was a time when companies didn’t have OFCCP…is it um.. OFFCCP..or is it OF-PEE-PEE… I can’t remember but you didn’t have that and Applicant Tracking Systems. Today, Corporate Recruiters have to go through all 9 plains of Hell just to get permission to start meeting about working on a job. Recruiters you know how it is. First, it has to be in the budget, then HR needs to need approve it (even though it’s already approved 10 times already). Next, it has to be posted internally for a week. After internals are screened (of course none are fit and they’re already pissed), the job has to be “edited” for external postings. And, then finally! The job gets posted. Yeah!…and, what happens next? A whole lotta nothing.
Corporate Recruiters dare not work on a single req unless it’s been “green lighted” with all the necessary forms and approvals, which usually takes more than a couple of days. But, the truth is, a lot of people are not applying to jobs. It takes to much time to register for each company website that wants a username and a password. How many freakin passwords do you already have?? Seriously. Plus, people are turned off when they have to “apply online” because they never hear back except for the occasional auto generated email about their resume.
Recruiters: Why do we always hear, “this job should be easy to fill, there are tons of people looking right now.” Then you find yourself reminding them how hard it was to fill the same exact position before. Of course, they have a blank face and don’t recall how tough it was to find a Hyperion (Oracle) Technical Project Manager that knows Java programming and also has a PMP willing to work for about $10k less than the salary market value.
But here is the here the deal, Sparky. You need to post these jobs. You need to get them out there and make world aware that you are hiring and you need skilled workers. However, you should spend MORE time searching for candidates than just pushing jobs out into the internets. Here are a combo of things to do on Day 1 of your actual candidate search:
LinkedIn Groups - post your job to ALL of your Linkedin Groups. Nowadays all LinkedIn Groups have opted for public viewing.
Automate your searches on Indeed. It’s free. It’s awesome. And, they email you new results every day. Oh yeah, word!
Set up RSS feeds for your Bing searches (I like Bing these days since it’s easier to set up RSS feeds)
Check out Facebook Groups and Fan Pages. A lot of groups allow you to post once you’re a member.
Post jobs on Facebook using MarketPlace. Just don’t over do it, your friends and family will dump you faster than an early morning deuce.
Create a Google Landing Page for your company and the job links to your landing page. This will give your job postings more visibility on Google!
Post your job on eBay for free. eBay job postings get aggregated by Indeed and SimplyHired.com
Post your job to Craigslist on the free cities that are close to major markets, but use the actual city name in the job title.
Where are the peeps? They are hunkered down in their holes right now, waiting and hoping that the economy turns for the better. Then like the ground hog, they will pop up and not be frighted by their own shadow. But until then, you got to keep the pipelines coming and it’s going to be a lot more work despite a slower job market.
Quick! What is the most important recruiting tool you use? The one you need everyday. Is it LinkedIn, Outlook, or the internet? Nah, no way. It’s the phone. Do all the sourcing you want, but if you don’t pick up the phone you’re not recruiting. Period. End of story. Today most recruiters don’t want to hear about phone sourcing or anything with the phone. In fact, a lot of recruiters really think they can just do it all on laptop, social media and emails. That’s not really recruiting.
When I was doing a lot of snow skiing, a friend of mine used to say “if your’re not falling down or wiping out, then you’re not trying.” He was right. And, if you’re not picking up the phone, you’re not trying anymore. You gotta pick up that phone. In fact, you should be calling candidates to the point where you are pestering them. So here is a great little video clip to get you in the mood. It’s from one of my favorite bands Pomplamoose (remixed Stop Calling by Lady GaGa)
Indeed.com is poised to crush the expensive large job and resume databases of the world. Not only crush them, but grind them down to a fine dust. Right now! Go to Indeed.com and click on the resume search link. Type in your search keywords and the State, City. And, Boom! You get resumes. To contact them, you have to create an account. You can even download PDF files of resumes sans contact info.
It might be…It could be…It’s very likely that big paid job boards are going to feel this one and here is why.
The worlds largest job posting site used to be Monster.com, but Indeed.com blew past them a couple of years ago. And now, Indeed.com will zoom past everyone with their FREE (my favorite word right now) resume database. This is a serious game changer for Recruiters. And, great news for job seekers that want a LOT of recruiters calling them for job opportunities.
And be sure, to click the link of your resume search to notify you of new resumes!! A freakin’ new resume alert! Ha! This is really good. Enjoy it while it lasts!!
What would recruiting be without the big job websites (Monster, Careerbuilder and Dice)? Unlike the new Gen recruiters today, a lot of old school recruiters (pesky franchise staffing agencies, and ”post and prey” corporate recruiters) are still sucking on the massive job board teat. But it seems to me the job search websites are for contractors. Back in the day, every recruiter USED to post TONS of jobs on the big job search websites. We are coming off some good years that left us relatively spoiled too. Throw in a couple of recessions, social media, networking and the smart phone, recruiters are all over the map and basically stalking candidates all over the internet. If you’re one of those recruiters that struggle with all the newfangled sourcing techniques, then you really need to check out SourceCon to get more info on where to stalk find top talent.
Here are some things to do now:
Hooray for niche job boards! (okay, not so much). But the fact is, Sparky, tons of them are popping up everywhere. Their free or cheap and you gotta like that in today’s penny pinching HR budgets. For example like WorkforceHRJobs.com - A career website for HR professionals. If you want a good list, then check out Top 100 job search websites.
Don’t roll your eyes when I say this, but Facebook will be a treasure trove for finding new talent. My gut feeling tells me Colleges and Universities will embrace the world of Facebook Apps. Um, yeah, like..so if you’re in college then you’re going to be AppY when you see your school roll out their careers, internship and alumni apps. iPlus, these college apps (the real kicker) will motivate kids to join, follow, and like company Facebook pages. I am 100% sure your company has a Facebook page with a nice clean interface with all the internships and jobs, right…right?
Everyone has a smart phone, even Grandma is ditching the flip phone she got 11 years ago. And, everyone is downloading Apps they think they need. So, if you’re a smart recruiter, then you know having access to someone’s cell phone is thousand times better than a lame email address. A lot of job apps are out there but if you really want to get best knowledge around mobile recruiting, then get thyself to mRecruitingCamp. It’s the first Recruiting Conference for mobile technology.
Recruiting departments are looking to trim costs will certainly start with expensive job websites. It’s time branch out (no pun intended) and try something new. Look, I don’t have anything against the big job websites, I still need them. But the truth is a lot of hires (better ones too) come from referrals, Linkedin, boolean searches, and investing in talent communities. Plus, more companies are really selective and picky these days. Finding skilled talent it tough, but finding the best skilled talent is really really tough.
Most iPhones automatically enable GPS and Geotagging photos feature. Suzie, an IT professional, has been snapping Geotagged photos with her iPhone. She didn’t even know it! Then Suzie attended a conference, took some pictures and uploaded them to Facebook and other websites. Within days, recruiters were circling her her online albums collecting valuable sourcing information. And now hordes of recruiters have called her AND her co-workers. More than half the company staff was scooped away in recruiting frenzy. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
That scenario happens ALL the time.
I’m an IT recruiter and I love when big conferences come around each year because I will be all over Flickr like a kid in a toy store. It’s real simple. You don’t even need a Flickr account to view uploaded pictures. Just pick any conference in your vertical. For me, it’s Microsoft conferences. So for this little demonstration, I will choose Tech Ed since it’s an annual Microsoft conference.
Again, real simple string…try this one on Google.
site:flickr.com “Tech Ed” The search will return a LOT Tech Ed Conference photos.
Most important is that a Flickr account is needed to upload photos to be shared. In the upper right hand corner is the User Name of the Flickr account. Sometimes the User Name is also the email address for Yahoo account. Thanks Yahoo!!
I like to look at a Flickr profiles and match the names on Linkedin.com to get a better snap shot of their skills.
