Glennlist

Let’s face it! Recruiters no longer network like they used. It’s all online these days. And it’s really pissing me off because I keep getting “ignored”. Folks, how can I stalk you if you want make any updates! Puh-lease, throw me a frickin bone here people. I want to network with you so I can offer you a better job. Is that too much to ask? And is it too much to ask for Sharks with Frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads??

Okay, look, I..we…uh.. recruiters just need to get over that not everyone in social media networks wants to have a recruiter following their every move. Fine! But, let me introduce to you (assuming you’re a recruiter) a potential recruiting tool that is an App. A delicious phone app that allows you to follow people in a local area and ask questions…drumroll…DRUMROLL! It’s called Local Mind (cymbals crashing).

Yeah, Local Mind! It’s a great App for that nerdy-techy-creepy-candidate-stalker type that is willing to follow anyone. But what I really really really like about this App is that it’s great for conferences.
Let’s say (evil laughing: bwahahahahaha) you’re at an Oracle conference. You’re not a DBA. You’ve never used Oracle, but you need to hire some top notch Oracle DBAs for your company. So, you attend an Oracle conference in your wind tunneled tested hair do, with an Armani suit, and loaded with business cards. You wait as attendees pour at the door handing cards out but they blow past you like a street beggar. Shot down, ready to go home, and no candidates you decide to fire up Local Mind.

BAM! You got attendees everywhere asking questions to find food, coffee, and DBA things. By the way, most DBAs eat fresh, so you can find a ton of them at Subway (hint hint, thank you very much). Local Mind is great because you can ask questions or answer them. So if bunch of geeky Oracle DBAs want to go the karaoke bar, you can help find them the best spot. And, get this, you can actually send them a text message if they accept your texts!! How awesome is that! Another cool thing, if people login using their Twitter or Facebook account, you get their profile pic. Now you know what they look like when you show up at the karaoke bar.

Have fun stalking your candidates and remember, If you’re online networking methods start to seem a little creepy then it probably is creepy. No need to be a pest.

A Recruiter’s expertise is judged by the number of Apps he uses to source and recruit.  Even if you know some advanced Boolean strings, you really need to have the right Apps in place. I’ve been using Google Apps and services for my iPad. Here is a must have App that bundles a lot of your Apps in one cool interface. It’s called G-Whizz!

I’m a guy. A dude. And, like most dudes we look at ourselves in the mirror and we think we’re Brad Pitt handsome, buff, and our mate is soooo lucky to have us. Heck, I think I’m like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. But, my wife says I’m more like the short red hairy dwarf character. “Gimli the dwarf I am not!” I exclaim from my comfy sofa with remote in hand. Okay, it’s true my recruiting brothers. Some of us are a little out of shape, BUT the same thing can be said about our recruiting knowledge.

We think  our sourcing department is in top notch recruiting shape. It looks fine! But, in reality it’s not. Our recruiting department is like a sad sack of an out of shape middle age balding fat guy reaching for another donut in the break room (nom nom nom nom). Sure we have some great memories of the good ole days (nom nom nom) but eventually recruiting will slow down (nom nom) and fall apart. Take a look around and see if you notice the following:

Do you have to BUY MORE job postings than ever before?

You have to MANY recruiters NOT recruiting?

Got a lot of jobs that are OLDER than 90 days?

Right now, I’m fortunate to work with some of the best recruiters and recruiting managers. I’m learning a lot from them. They also will invest in training and ensure that recruiters are equipped with the latest tools, technology and resources available.

I’m talking about training. You need a trainer. Time to get that recruiting department back into shape, Sparky!

Check out this website, called Recruitingtrends. This is a good place to get your recruiting efforts organized, strategic, and efficient again.  Some of the best of the best share their recruiting strategies. It’s time to whip your sourcing back into shape this spring. Go to recruitingtrends.com. It’s like boot camp without all the shouting and pulled muscles.

Does this look familiar? You know it does. Come on, admit it. How many times have you tried to pull this one off?

Linkedin has become the craptastic tool for all recruiters and they have done something that is so wrong, so baseless, so..so, backstabbing to every recruiter who has built Linkedin. Yes, it was recruiters who built this online network. It was recruiters who loaded up their entire contact database in hopes of sharing their contacts with other recruiters. And what do we get? What are we left with? A giant network that is painfully-frustratingly restrictive that now CHARGES us to network!  The decision to charge (upgrade) for 3rd level connections will come back to haunt Linkedin. Requiring recruiters to “upgrade” for $100 per month to make (and see full name) a connection to a 3rd level connection was the moment recruiters began looking elsewhere to find talent.

Never mind that they change the website too make it extremely difficult to actually network anymore. I can’t believe the stock price is high it is (or was).  Are they making any profit off this site yet? This practice of finding new ways to charge fees is worse than ATM fees or…or all those fees you get on your cell phone bill that jack up the price another 20 bucks. Come on Linkedin! Who do you think you are, Bank of America??

Recruiters, have they seen Google+ lately? I mean Google+ is like wide open without any restrictions. It’s like FREE. You like Free. They like free. Eveyone likes Free. We live in a free country…(singing)  Let freedom ring. Okay a bit corny there.

Google+ is doing it right. In fact, it’s become the newest place to network for recruiters. And you can bet your sweet arse that recruiters will build Google+ to be top dog of all social networking sites.  Did you know you can create a circle of contacts and share it with ANYONE and they can instantly add it to their circles?

If Linkedin keeps up with all those restrictive networking site changes by requiring everyone to upgrade to just network, then it will be gone in about 5 years. Trust me. It will. AOL wanted to charge everyone to just keep an email address, and now nobody uses it. They suck. They have to sale patents to keep the lights on.

I hope that Linkedin focuses on allowing people to network and stop..STOP frigging trying to find ways to charge for every little feature or force an upgrade BECAUSE I know that people will flock to a site that is free… like Google+

Linkedin, you better dance with the one brought you. Stop screwing up your website. Stop with all the latest force upgrades and STOP screwing over the recruiters that helped build you. Let us work.

BTW recruiters (or anyone reading this), please add me to your network. I promise to not DNK you. http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeglenn

I hate to admit this but (we) recruiters are just getting nerdier and nerdier as more recruiting tools are used to identify and track candidates. AND, we are becoming “stalkers” on networks like LinkedIn.  It’s scary too. Well, the latest nerdy-recruiting-stalker tool is Bump.  You’ve probably  been using this little phone App to exchange contact information. But did you know….did you really know what makes this App special? You can actually enter someone’s license plate into the Bump and if they have claimed their car’s license plate number you can actually send him/her a text!!!

It’s true. Download the Bump App for iPhone or Android. Once you registered you can enter someone’s license plate into the App and if they are registered you can send them a text or even a voice transcript text!

So, here is what you can really do. Let’s say you want to recruit from XYZ company, you  drive to their parking lot, and scan some of the license plates. If they are Bump users that claimed a license plate number, then you contact them. However, if you were really desperate to do something like this then you are probably more of a stalker than a recruiter.

Dear Monster

I read your blog posting, Open Letter to Recruiters – Your Stealth Candidates are Ready to Tango. You guys think “top performers” will be looking for work because the economy is getting better. I agree. But most recruiters say that Monster.com has “low hanging fruit” type resumes. That is your label and now your brand – a site for job hoppers, unemployed, visas, and third party jobseekers.

Here are some reasons why Monster.com needs to make changes so more recruiters and top performers will come back.

Most Companies (NOT staffing companies) typically take longer than 30 days to bring someone on board. Some companies take 45 days or even 60 days! ACTIVE jobseekers on Monster.com typically need a job NOW. So, they get snatched up on a contract before they can finish the interview process for most corporate full time jobs. THEREFORE, Monster is no longer the first choice for corporate recruiters.

SOLUTTION: Offer a different product for Corporate Recruiters wanting only direct responses from full time permanent jobseekers.

You can blame us recruiters for this next reason. Jobseekers despise most recruiters because the experiences they have had with posting their resumes on Monster! Yep, you see they rarely hear back from recruiters. They get frustrated with little or no feedback, and updates from impersonal robotics like recruiters. So, they rarely post a resume on Monster anymore.

SOLUTTION: Offer a different product for jobseekers wanting only to hear from corporate recruiters. Then have a “star” grading system for recruiters that reply, and give updates to jobseekers.

Monster.com is choc-ful-of of contractors and corp-to-corp folks. They need a job now.

SOLUTION: Offer a different product for contractors and staffing companies that need to hire them. Make it cheap for agencies to post for this type of jobseeker.

So, you are right. “Stealth” candidates will be ready to tango with recruiters as the job economy improves but hiring managers frown upon candidates sourced from Monster.com They don’t want candidates with 14 jobs in the past three years. And “top performers” don’t need to post their resume on Monster.com like they did in 1998. Instead everyone is using other social networks or recruiters they trust.

Dear Monster.com

Do you even remember Recruiters back in the 90’s. You know, the flashy fast talking Headhunters that used to wear suits, goopy hair products and drive to work in a BMW? And, once we they got to work we they would print thousands of Monster.com, Hotjobs.com, and Headhunter.net resumes and make tons of calls. It was the recruiters that put your ass on the digital map, not the job seekers. If it was not for recruiters and recruiting budgets, you would be like Craigslist or something.  Back in the 90’s America was working, hiring, and anyone with half a brain could get a job doing something they weren’t even qualified to do. But a lot has changed since then and mainly it boils down to money, bro. Recruiting budgets have been slashed.  But, more importantly, it comes down to ONE big FAT reason why you guys seem to suck lately. You’re boring. B-O-R-ING. Okay?

Look, you guys are getting beat up on Wall Street (here is the latest article). You’re getting slapped a little over at ERE.net (here is the article). AND, recruiters are always poor mouthing you on at HR conferences. Things can go downhill real quickly. You’re no longer the top dog. You’rea rock band that used to sell out concert arenas. You guys suck and suck because you’re boring.

Any recruiter that enjoys looking for resumes on Monster is probably a major Noob or just got released from jail and they happened to get a staffing job as part of their work release program. Searching, finding and looking on Monster.com for qualified candidates is EXTREMELY boring. But, we get around the major bore-fest searches by using automated tools like Infogist (which by the way you seem to limit the number of views).

Linkedin.com is not boring. People flock there everyday. It’s like a game. They want to find people and have connections. They like to update their profile picture with a photo that was taken 10 years ago. Plus, they get a bunch of other former co-workers to tell lies…um mean recommend them for work.

But not you guys. Only the desperate are updating their resume. Plus, you guys haven’t changed in 10 years other than some logos and cosmetics (go here for my rant on this).  And you now you’ve become boring. You need to be fun again. If you were an actual person, I recommend working out, getting out of the house, go on adventure, and even go for a total makeover or better yet, a Boob job! For crying out loud, there is nothing worse than being boring!! Just ask people that go on dates every weekend. The last thing want is a boring date. In fact, they probably prefer to be arrested for doing something crazy (like streaking in the quad) than just being boring. And you guys need to quit boring.

You guys can beat Linkedin, Indeed and Careerbuilder by not being boring and here are some ideas.

1. Start a rumor section…call it “Rumor Has It” with Adele  sponsoring it.
2. Have some funny training videos like “How to ride a Mechanical Bull” or “How NOT to ask a co-worker on date”
3. Have a section that pulls in fake Tweets about outlandish fake jobs that have links to funny (but fake) company sites
4. Have some video games that allows people to play retro games like Space Invaders or Donkey Kong (especially for recruiters)
5. Offer humor section where writers can write about funny things that pertain to interviews, working and job hunting
6. Give away FREE music files from rising artist that talk about work, jobs or in most cases not working
7. Give away FREE stuff all the time and not just cheap-o coffee mugs, I’m talking like iPads, laptops and even Boob jobs.
8. Create a mini series like the Office or Parks and Recreation and have it viewable only on Monster.com
9. Allow job seekers and option to launch their resume into space via weather balloon if they don’t get a response
10. Allow people to network and update their profiles like they do on all the other social networking sites.

So there you go Monster.com. Stop being so (yawn) rigid and dull. You are already heading in the right direction when you guys dumped that green turd like monster with the horn nose. Now it’s time to crank it up. Time to start being more like Casual Fridays and less Business Casual if you know what I mean. Give us Recruiters a reason to put you back in that top spot!

(Also disable the freaking pop-up ads for job postings…very bad)

The monthly unemployment rate means nothing to recruiters especially for Information Technology, and Engineering sectors because the methods used to collect the data is weak. Do you know how the unemployment data is collected? It’s actually based on a monthly survey. One week of every month, Census workers contact 60,000 households to see if they are working or sitting around waiting for work. I have a lot of questions around this, like who are the people selected? Are they calling programmers, database developers and chemical engineers? Or are they calling the same people each month? What states, cities and towns do they target? Do they hit every industry and sector? And why just 60,000? We have the internet, can’t we get more than 60,000 folks to contact?????

After the 60,000 survey they also do another separate survey of 160,000 businesses and government agencies. This survey collects data on number of employees, hours and earnings. But, why are government agencies are thrown in the unemployment rate with 160,000 businesses? Doesn’t all this data collection seem flawed, weak, and antiquated?

So…..

When IT recruiters catch heat for not being able to source and recruit talent in high unemployment periods, it’s because hiring managers see the unemployment rate and think it should be a cinch to find talent. What they don’t realize is the unemployment rate doesn’t apply to Information Technology and the Engineering fields where there is a shortage of qualified people.   IT has been an industry that relies heavily on skilled recruiters that have strong experience in finding talent, building relationship and hiring people. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to finding some software developers.

Why’s it so funny when men get hit in the scrotum by something? We laugh if a friend falls down the stairs too. You know it hurts like a mofo yet we laugh.  So, when I talk to my recruiter buddies and listen to them complain about their work load, it almost brings a smile to my face because I know I’m not the only one.

Here are two problems for two types of recruiters.

1)    Corporate Recruiter who’s in the weeds with 90+ day old job requisitions.
2)    Agency Recruiter snubbing other job reqs and working only the “sure” jobs that will get hires.

Over in the corporate recruiting world, your peers are being attacked by Godzilla (the hiring managers). They’re in a big panic and running for cover. In a sick way, you just watch them as laser beams shoot from Godzilla’s eyes zapping recruiters, but hey…you’re safely nestled in few easy peasy job reqs eating a hot fresh Subway sandwich and sipping on Coke Zero. AND, you know you’re all like, “Aww, I wish I could help, but I…ah, got eat this here sandwich and search for candidates on Facebook.”

Over on the Agency Recruiter world, you got some Noobs working all the crappy job reqs that are ridiculously hard to fill. Then, you got the “senior” recruiters that are all like fat-ass cats lying around waiting to hear back about their 3 interviews for the desktop support coordinate over at ACME co.

The fact is recruiters don’t work well together unless they have the right tools. It’s just facts recruiters. We’ve turned this profession into Production vs. Tools.

The more productive recruiters have better tools that pull candidates from job boards, like InfoGist. They have training from SourceCon and know how to find candidates using Boolean Search Logic and automating their search strings.

The “other” recruiters usually have an Applicant Tracking System and email. That’s it and they are struggling while you sip your Half-caf Double Tall Peppermint Mocha with Light Whip. These recruiters are stressed, tired and need your help because their only source of candidates are crappy referrals or desperate H1-b visa candidates applying online. They are the ones that get very little results. Tsk, tsk, we pity them.

Years ago, recruiters went away from “cold calling” into companies to using the Internet to find people. We need more tools to mine places like thesocialcv.com, Entlo.com, Gpeep.com and Findpeopleonplus.com. We also need to share more and help each other out. You got some tools? Let me know. Got a service, let us know. Put your comments below and help us out?

Never ever ask a candidate “Tell me about yourself”. It’s offensive, and it’s a fat-lazy-meaningless question. I read an article over on TheLadders.com written by an HR Executive. Let me start by saying this is a question that has been dead to me since the 90’s. The worn out interview question, “Tell me about yourself” is almost like asking someone if they surf the World Wide Web or referring to the Internet as Cyberspace. It’s old but unfortunately still used.

If you ask this question, puh-lease stop because you are making an ass out of yourself . In fact, please, PLEASE don’t tell me you ask this question if you directly recruited or cold called someone because it reeks of unprofessionalism. AND (if after you read this post), still insist on asking this lame interview question, then be sure to wear your beanie propeller cap because you’re a cyber-surfing dork.

In TheLadders.com article it goes on to say that the applicant comes across as not prepared for the interview or even unprepared for the job if they respond by saying “What do you want to know?” This is absolutely flawed thinking.

Let’s be real here for moment. All recruiters sigh and roll their eyes whenever a hiring manager wants to hire a “rock star” candidate. So, the recruiter goes through great lengths to find the perfect candidate, then qualifies them, and has them interested in the job. Once the candidate comes in for an interview, he/she might get asked, “Tell me about yourself?” And, it’s like smugly saying “I didn’t even bother reading your resume because my time is too….mmmmm precious.” Yeah, whatever.

I’m an IT recruiter. Do you know how hard it is to find a qualified Silverlight Developer with WPF and WCF experience??? So, if I directly recruit a Silverlight Developer out of a company, do you think my ice breaker question is “So, tell me about yourself?” Um, no it’s not. They will end the call and I’ll never get a second chance ever never evuh again.

If you had a chance to interview a true rock star would you open with the interview question, “Tell me about yourself?” What if you had a chance to interview a famous actor, athlete or even the POTUS, would you ask this ice breaker question?

Let me ask you this. What do you think of the person asking the interview question, “Tell me about yourself?”

I’m trying all kinds of things on Facebook nowadays and I’m trying to convert my Facebook to more recruiting centric rather than just my pals. But Facebook is soooo walled off you can’t find anyone unless they went to your school, or share common friends. Look, I’ve got cousins on Facebook that I couldn’t find searching their names but eventually found them through spouses of other cousins.

Searching for candidates is nearly a lost cause (if you have some tips, please let me know).

However….

The interesting thing on Facebook are Groups. I want to encourage all the recruiters out there to form Open Groups for the skills sets your hiring for. Send out links to your groups and be proactive in updating the group pages with content. As more people join Open Groups we could have more visible links, likes and even dreaded ads will be customized to our profile.

So if you recruit Web Developers, then join Open Web Developer Groups or create some Open Groups. I think this will help uncover people that share the same interest as you rather some dude you used to play beer pong with at the dorm.

Thoughts, suggestions, ideas, am I crazy (uh, yeah), comments? Lemme know.

Taleo, remember I told you a few months ago that you were lousy for recruiters especially when it came to searching candidates? Well, I just want to apologize for not emphasizing that enough.  For those that don’t know Taleo, it’s a popular recruiting applicant tracking system (aka ATS). It is also the most  outrageously expensive ATS.

Oracle, when I learned that you were buying Taleo for a whopping $1.9 bagillion dollars, I was all like Thank You God! Then grey clouds parted and a giant sun beam lit the land around me. But wait Oracle, I have to tell you something before you complete this buyout.  You need to build a NEW Taleo that is designed for Recruiters.

You see, Taleo was not designed for Recruiters. It was designed to please HR. And, corporate HR is more concerned with OFCCP and EEOC compliance. Plus they want to generate compliance reports. But the reports suck giant size balls (no other way to put it). HR seems to always bitch and moan they can’t pull the reports they want or they have to hire reports developers, which eats into the recruiting budget, which in return causes reduced recruiting staff (not making this up!) The reporting features in Taleo have been a major pain point for years. It needs fixing.

Most important, Oracle, is to build a new Taleo that has recruiters in mind. Recruiters need an applicant tracking system but they need to be able to SEARCH for candidates. You see this is what we do for a living. We search for candidates. Taleo has been the worst (I’m not kidding here)….. the worst for candidate searching.

You see, large companies (mostly your customers) tend to dump millions upon millions of resumes into Taleo and the recruiters can never ever never  find them unless they drink cups of Ginko-Biloba tea and have a photographic memory…and even then it’s still a crap shoot if the resume will be retrieved.

So, please, pretty please with freaking sugar on top, FIX the EFFING Advanced Search in Taleo!!!

Recruiters are always paranoid. We have to be. We are the first ones laid off when the company slows hiring. So let me ask all the recruiters out there? Are you paranoid? No wait, are you paranoid enough? You should be and you need to be. But, I’m not saying you need to be a worrywart. You just need to be paranoid enough to keep your job. The only one way that I know that you will make it  as a Recruiter, is to attend SourceCon. AND…All the best recruiters are paranoid! All the good sales recruiters are paranoid! So are the sourcers, researchers, account managers, and even the schedulers. They are paranoid enough to go to SourceCon to keep their recruiting skills, and sourcing knowledge up as well as the invaluable networking opportunities.

If you haven’t signed up for SourceCon in Atlanta and you are about to lose your job, or already have lost it, then run, don’t walk to SourceCon on February 9th.

I’ll be bouncing around with a video camera and capturing some of the event, speakers, attendees and any shenanigans that goes on during the SourceCon networking parties and SourceCon after-dark events.
See you there!

The nation trusted Goldman and look where that got us. Recruiters trusted LinkedIN and look where that is getting us….expensive upgrades and recruiters perpetually saying “hmph” with ever little change. As of right now, this very moment, LinkedIN has made a lot of changes so that you can’t really see the full name of 3rd degree connections UNLESS you pony up some more moolah.
And, over on Glen Cathey’s Boolean Black Belt, he shows some hacks to see the full name of 3rd level connections. And, I’m telling you that his methods of revealing the full name is a huge time suck. If you are a busy recruiter with 30 job reqs, you aint got time. Wanna get the name of the 3rd level connection without having to open 22 browser tabs and coding in PHP to see a full name, then here is what you do.

1. Click on the 3rd level connection (see example).
2. Remove everything after the 3rd level connection LinkedIN ID. Basically remove everything after the string of numbers including the “&authType=”Out_of_Network”….Everything after this too.
3. Hit enter on the URL again.
4. Click on his/her PDF file and bippty-boppty-boo! There is the full name.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

1. 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
2. Acer Aspire TimelineX 583OTG - 2.3GHz i5-2410M. 640GB hard drive. The battery lasts for over 8 hours, but it weighs almost 7 lbs.
3. 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
4. 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.

A while ago I posted my top 10 changes for major job boards and here they are again…

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.