In his excellent recent article The Future of Recruiting: The More Things Change…, Glenn Cathey, aka BooleanBlackBlt wrote:
“The Information Era of recruiting enables recruiters with solid e-sourcing skills to no longer be limited solely to candidates with whom they have a pre-existing relationship. These recruiters can find and attract the best candidates, regardless of whether or not they have previously identified them.
I’ll let that sink in a bit. It’s deep.”
That is deep. This will have a profound impact on the work we do as third party recruiters from this point forward.
Or will it?
Some search professionals I know do this with every search they complete, and have for years. 40%+ of those I placed each of the last two years I recruited having no prior relationship with them before securing them for the job where I placed them. Isn’t this what many of us have done for the entirety of our search careers, we just did it with the phone? That’s right, the more things change the more we discover…
Still, ignore Social Media Recruiting, e-sourcing, at your own peril as a search practitioner or as an owner of a search organization. These tools mean recruiters can build networks faster and more rapidly than ever before to complete client searches. It is in a very real way an acknowledgment of what Joe Pelayo shared at the San Antonio NAPS Conference a couple years ago when asked to make a prediction about the future of our profession (I paraphrase as best as my memory can recall):
…within 5 years, we won’t need to have proprietary candidate databases for success as third party recruiters.
The room responded with the appropriate shock, disbelief and disdain. How could any search professional ever be successful without a proprietary candidate database? Not sure some of the sponsors of the conference, a number of database software providers, loved this notion either.
I don’t think either Joe or I ARE suggesting you shouldn’t have one. We are just pointing out that with the development of public “databases” like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Skype, to name just four, means candidates to complete a search CAN be found with more and more ease outside of just proprietary databases. Those who learn how to do this through Social Media Recruiting, e-sourcing, along with all the traditional methods, will be able to transform information into intelligence. Search professionals armed with this “intelligence” will be the search professionals that are in greatest demand.
All this leads me to a completely different tangent.
While we are all so busy developing these Social Media Recruiting and e-sourcing skills, which we need to develop, is anyone still working on the development of the skills necessary to sell and take client searches in a competitive manner?
For the first time since October of 2008, I have had so much new business called in that I had to turn some away (which I loath having to do). It is a great feeling to be so much in demand again. I hope this continues into the months and years ahead. As I was setting up appointments to meet these clients and take their searches, it occurred to me that if I was feeling a bit rusty doing this, so might others who don’t have the benefit of my 23 years of experience as a search, placement & staffing professional.
With that in mind I pulled out my Taking the Search Questions list to review it, and revise it, ahead of some of my coming client visits and taking the search calls, so I could do it right. My FREE Download for January for those who are reading this blog then was to is to share that PDF with you at:
This list is a template for what you “might” consider asking while you are taking a new search, especially with a new client prospect or dormant client. Of course it is unlikely that you could get all these questions asked in one call or one client visit, you will need to pick and choose what it is most important for you to know now. Others can be asked inside the search process as you need the information to complete the search. And, it is likely many of you would have the answers to at least some of these questions for current or recently past clients, especially for those questions in the last section of questions listed.
So don’t let the size of the list overwhelm. Rather, let it marinate itself into your process as it makes the most sense.
Think of these 71 Taking the Search Questions as a starting point to get back to the best practices that have built your desk or business. A reminder of what you need to know to complete a search with excellence. The answers you need so you can take those great candidates you find using Social Media Recruiting and e-sourcing techniques, and then sell them on your client’s great opportunity so you CAN close the deal.
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Do you use other questions we have missed? Please share them with a comment below, or an email to me at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com.
 Jeff Skrentny, CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued. Despite that start, Jeff has been an executive recruiter for 23 years, and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as being a business consultant and adviser for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running a busy IT search business in Chicago at his firm Jefferson Group Search.
Yesterday Bill Vick posted an article titled “Traditional RESUMES Are Worthless” on EmploymentDigest.net.
My first reaction to the title of the post was, well, I have heard this before, and despite trying to use resumes that were not “traditional” with my candidates and clients, the resistance to that change has and continues to be most surprising to me year after year. Hiring managers just won’t make the switch to resumes that are not traditional, at least not so much here in Midwest.
So, as a third party recruiter/search professional I began Bill’s article with a healthy bit of skepticism, open to see what he was going to share.
It only took a paragraph or two to understand the central point of Bill’s article, which was clearly written for candidates more than for those in our profession.
That said, truth is third party recruiters & search professionals use resumes for essentially the exact same reason candidates do, to arrange interviews between our candidates and our buyer prospects or clients. With that in mind, I think every recruiter or search professional should review Bill’s article to remember how they should be using resumes as they practice their craft, such gems as:
“…the only reason for a resume is to get an interview.”
“Most people only spend between 10 and 20 seconds on the first screen [page]“
“The fact is every resume is simply a marketing document…”
“Candidates resumes…often assume a one-size-fits-all.”
“For all those wondering, yes this means you may have more than one marketing document (resume).”
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After reading these reminders, most search and placement professionals are probably thinking to themselves, “Yep, know all this.” But why then do you make resume presentations that fail as marketing documents?
What do I mean specifically? I see very few recruiters and search professionals who make resume submissions to their buyers that:
- Have a cover page reminding the client why the candidate should be interviewed with a few succinct bullet points…it isn’t good enough to just write your thoughts in an email presentation as that often gets separated from the resume very quickly
- Make sure that candidates don’t have a “Objective” to open their resume, but instead have a “Career Summary” that sells specifically to the job at hand
- Make comments within the resume to highlight resume items that simply cannot be overlooked (we try to do this twice on screen/page one, and at least once on page two…we see few reasons why a resume should ever be longer)
- Include a checked reference or two, also with highlights of the critical points that someone making a decision needs to see
So truth is, despite my thinking that I still use “traditional” resumes in my process, I don’t.
I challenge my buyers with my perspective clearly highlighted as to why they should interview my candidates through the above techniques. They don’t always take to these practices immediately, but they eventually come to love them. Why wouldn’t they? I make it easy for them to see the what and why as to the relevance to my candidate’s relationship to the search they are trying to fill. It saves them time and actually preps them for interviews effectively with what I point out and highlight through the above.
If a resume’s goal is to get your candidate an interview, do you employ every tactic you have available to aggressively market your candidates to the buyers who are reviewing their resume to decide if they are going to interview your candidate or not?
If not, why not?
Your most important value to your candidates initially, is your skill to bring them to interviews with buyers who are interested and offer appropriate opportunity. I think too often we fail in that task because we fail to create compelling resume marketing documents for our clients to review, resumes that are intelligent and purposeful marketing documents that compel our clients and prospects to be highly motivated to interview, and THEN hire our candidates.
There is no rule that says you can’t add your thoughts and highlights right into a candidates resume. In fact the rule for great recruiters is that you can’t afford to send a resume out that doesn’t have these additions to ensure your candidate gets noticed, and gets that interview. Interviews are the only way we get hires.
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Bill’s article was a nice reminder that can be shared with your candidates so you can work with them to created a resume marketing document, or often set of documents, that will show your candidate just how valuable you are to their search, and make it clear to your buyers that when you present, you are not just passing on resumes with keywords that seem to match, but are carefully selecting candidates that will deliver value with the candidates you feel they should interview and then hire.
Jeff Skrentny, CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued. Despite that start, Jeff has been an executive recruiter for 23 years, and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as being a business consultant and adviser for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running a busy IT search business in Chicago at his firm Jefferson Group Search.
In reply to my post from last Friday, Jen Lambert as issued a reply (complete message here). In it she writes unequivocally:
“Let me be as clear as I possibly can:
- I have nothing but admiration and respect for Barbara Bruno. I consider her to be a luminary in our industry and I am grateful for her leadership and contributions to the recruiting profession.”
And:
“If you have ever been the fortunate recipient of Barb Bruno’s training, you know like I do, that none of those descriptors fit her or her work. There’s a reason Barb calls her newsletter “No B.S.”-she’s not a B.S. trainer. She’s the real deal! I look up to her and use her “No B.S.” standard as a measure against which I evaluate my own work.”
Fair enough.
As I said in my earlier post:
“I have met Jennifer, she seems like an intelligent, engaging, capable, successful and insightful practitioner of our craft. She is currently the Cahill ATD new trainer du jour, so clearly she must have some interesting thoughts to share, as Danny doesn’t let just anyone train his recruiters. So, yes, I am compelled by her message of enthusiasm and new thinking that makes up the second half of her personal message to her readers, which is compelling…”
She ends her reply message by quoting from Craig Silverman’s Facebook comment to this tread there by ending her message,
“Onward and upward.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Let’s keep it positive and focused on the ways we can raise our profession up with training and techniques that will make us all more successful. There is no need for, what more than just this observer, felt were negative jabs or ambiguous innuendo when the message that Jen has in her Recruiter Revival contains such enthusiasm and field tested techniques that will stand on their own.
Additionally, I w9uld like to apologize to Jen knowing now that she did not intend to “contemptuously mock” Barbara Bruno in any way. I am glad she has cleared that up for all of us who read what she wrote in her original promo in a manner entirely inconsistent with her intention. But our perceptions were an unfortunatel reality of that simply unnecessary intro to such a fantastic message about her upcoming webinar and it’s content. Another great lesson for us all on being careful with context and innuendo. For those of us who know and respect Barb, we couldn’t help but think of her in the context of that initial message.
Jen has 1100 signed up for her Recruiter Revival on the 14th, I hope she gets double or even triple that number to join her for the positive, intelligent, creative new ideas and perspective that Danny and NAPS believe she has to offer.
Sign up now before it is too late, and my best wishes to Jen for a fantastic webinar Thursday.
“Onward and upward” for a positive and successful 2010, and don’t forget to join Jen this Thursday.
Jenifer Lambert Responds 100111
Have you been reading the recent NAPS and According to Danny promo emails about Jen Lambert’s upcoming Recruiter Revival webinar?
Both have been using their eMarketing force to invite those in our profession to join Jen for her upcoming webinar, which frankly looks very interesting, but in the process seem to be openly endorsing Ms Lambert’s contemptuous mocking of Barb Bruno.
In Ms Lambert’s personal message to those of us who might consider attending her session, Ms Lambert enthusiastically writes:
“Have you been to a training recently and noticed, well, all the *B.S.* when it comes to selling from the desk and building a sustainable flow of revenue?” (should you want to see the complete text of her message, see the links below)
Clearly her emphasis on *B.S.* can only be an unambiguous jab at Barb Bruno’s No BS Newsletter. Is this the type of contemptuous innuendo we want from a new voice of “leadership” for our profession?
I think not.
And to see NAPS and Cahill’s ATD endorse this negativity and mocking innuendo of Barb’s work by distributing this message to their eMarketing networks, unedited, suggests to me at least tacit approval of this cheap shot at Bruno.
Lambert, Cahill, and most surprisingly, even NAPS may believe that Bruno’s newsletter and training is just *B.S.* and they are welcome to that opinion. But to so openly disrespect an award winning leader and volunteer from our profession who has given freely to the profession to move it forward to continually higher levels of ability and professional success as Barb has done for the whole of her career, seems imprudent and disrespectful.
I was shocked, and those of you who know me well know I haven’t always been the most tactful in my past. In fact, that I am even writing this censure is most amusing and highly ironic.
Barb Bruno needs no defense. She will likely turn the other cheek and continue to do what she has done for years, inspire and motivate those in our profession with what she has done and through what she trains. Do I agree with everything she trains? No. Can I say I have read or benefited from each of her Barb Bruno’s No BS Newsletter’s? No. But do I show my disagreement with what she trains or shares freely with open contempt just to “Ring the bell” to draw attention to myself? No. No need to. I highly respect her contribution to our profession, and think she has given more to it than any single other trainer/leader in our profession today. She has, and should continue to be, honored for that.
But I cannot say I have not made a similar rookie mistake as an overly enthusiastic new trainer for our profession. I have. It was a tough lesson to learn from. And as I recall, it was Danny and some NAPS leadership at that correctly reigned me in, and showed me that taking the high road was always the right way to market yourself. Have they decided to throw that advice out the window by allowing Ms Lambert to market herself so with such a cheap shot at Bruno?
Let’s hope not!
You would like to think in professional circles we don’t need to join the curb dwelling smack down culture that is so pervasive in our society today.
So should you join Ms Lambert for her session? I have met Jennifer, she seems like an intelligent, engaging, capable, successful and insightful practitioner of our craft. She is currently the Cahill ATD new trainer du jour, so clearly she must have some interesting thoughts to share, as Danny doesn’t let just anyone train his recruiters. So, yes, I am compelled by her message of enthusiasm and new thinking that makes up the second half of her personal message to her readers, which is compelling enough.
But I just don’t think her negative and contemptuous marketing are necessary. She can think what she wants. But the circle of those who are privileged enough to train our profession is small. There is not a lot of room to hide if she is going to go around and sell negatively against her training peers at every turn. And she doesn’t have to, as her message seems interesting without the distracting opening slurs with which she begins her marketing message. Not necessary to get our attention Jen. Ring our bells with your good training and useful techniques, don’t ring them with your negative opinions of a training leader and icon.
As for Cahill’s ATD & NAPS sending this announcement out without editing of Jennifer’s announcement, in the end that may be the most shameful mistake of all here. Cahill should know better. I can tell you from personal experience from a slight I made that was far more accidental and more ambiguous, that he does not respond well when this type of message was innocently leveled at him. How he could tacitly approve of this kind of message about another trainer who opened so many doors for him simply by the trails she blazed years ahead of him, I can’t say? Seems uncharacteristic.
And as for NAPS failing to edit Jen’s announcement. Maybe they thought it was funny. Maybe they just didn’t read it. Is this how they want “New” Trainers referring to their past Harold B Nelson award winners? I think we should expect more professionalism from our national professional association. I think they would agree with me, and hope this was just an oversight on their part. One I hope they won’t repeat.
Let’s stick to the high road, and stick together as a profession. We have enough outside forces working against us. No need to work against one another at this time of recovery. Most practitioners are interested in what many training voices have to say, not just one or two. It may not be quite as Bell ringing, or attention getting, to take the high road in our marketing, but is this negative type of marketing what professionals do? I think not.
Don’t you agree?
NAPS Lambert webinar announcement email 100106
ATD Lambert webinar announcement email 100107
In a Conference Board Report released today:
http://www.conference-board.org/utilities/pressPrinterFriendly.cfm?press_ID=3820, (also see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34691428/ns/business-careers/)
researchers have found that employee satisfaction is at the lowest point since they began measuring this in 1987.
Employee satisfaction in 1987 was 61%. In the most recent survey it was only 45%.
Surprisingly, the authors do NOT believe that this lowest ever employee satisfaction measure is just a function of the current American economic downturn. In fact, they think it is a sign of something far more insidious, especially as it will impact enterprise success and knowledge transfer from one generation to the next.
As a third-party recruiter, this is interesting for two reasons.
First, as in each of the last two recessions I worked through, this employee satisfaction was important for recruiting success once hiring began again in earnest as the economy recovered. Frankly, it made recruiting easier because so many currently employed professionals were fed up with their existing situation and were glad to at least hear about other opportunities they could investigate to find that elusive job satisfaction. Being there to help, made recruiting very easy if you had client searches that were indeed great opportunities.
Second, maybe more importantly for those of us who have long term client relationships, and a long term view toward our profession as third party search professionals, is our need to not just to provide the recruiting solutions that we do, but to begin looking for ways to offer retention services for those we place as well as those our placements will be working with.
Employee satisfaction and retention will be key in enterprise success, and as we hear about the dissatisfaction at least as much as any other group of service providers in the market right now, we are uniquely poised to offer retention services that could significantly impact enterprise success for our clients, making them considerably more competitive. Our clients will pay for that if we offer the professional service.
I will say it again, do you have your CERS credential (learn more at http://www.recruitinglife.com/EduCert/cers.cfm)?
But in the short term, as soon as hiring begins again in earnest, I predict we will have plenty of candidates to recruit, if recruiting is part of what you do (and I am surprise to learn almost weekly how many third party recruiters don’t actually ever recruit). Because, as a final quote in the summary of the Conference Board Report suggests employee turnover will be very high in the next year:
In fact, 22 percent of respondents said they don’t expect to be in their current job in a year. “This data throws up a big, red flag because the increasing dissatisfaction is not just a ‘survivor syndrome’ artifact of having co-workers and neighbors laid off in the recession.”
Cultivate those client relationships, seems to me that headhunting will be very good in 2010 for third party recruiters who are taking the time to cultivate the right relationships with clients and (all the above, apparently dissatisfied and soon to be job changing) candidates alike.
Let’s go Radical Recruit!!!
As always your insightful comments, observations or criticisms welcomed and encouraged.
Jeff Skrentny, CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued. Despite that start, Jeff has been an executive recruiter for 23 years, and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as being a business consultant and adviser for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running a busy IT search business in Chicago at his firm Jefferson Group Search.
Great question!
Simple answer, probably.
More complex answer, it depends. If your candidates are (IT, Sales & Marketing, PR, HR to name 4 types of candidates who are) then you better be.
Best long term answer, YES!
We will all be on it sooner or later. So, do you want to start now or later?
Or are you going to ignore this like you did email? You know who you are, though you won’t admit it now.
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If only someone would put out a simple, no nonsense guide, to help one decide how to approach/tackle this “Tweeting” stuff.
Done correctly, Twitter takes time, and can take TOO MUCH time very easily. But yes, it is a communication channel that can no longer really be ignored. It has become a communication channel where an investment of time and energy probably should be seriously considered.
Folks this isn’t a fad, it is the future.
I just found a great white paper that offers a candid and realistic road map to answer some of these questions (and doubts) from the good folks at Bullhorn. Think of it as a Twitter for Recruiters Dummies Guide. It is an exceptionally useful tutorial and guide to figuring Twitter out, with great links if you want to learn more and give it a try. For you skeptics, they also share three rather compelling reasons why you should seriously consider what Twitter can do for you as a search, staffing or recruiting professional, if you are still unsure.
You can check it out at (you may have to register as a Bullhorn Community Member first), or click on the document below and it will take you to an archived copy of the report.
http://www.bullhorn.com/research/Twitter_for_Recruiters.pdf
Is the ROI really there to make Twitter something every search and recruiting professional should be doing? I think the best answer to that can be found in a quote from the article itself:
“As one recruiter wrote recently in the Fordyce Report, ‘From a long-term perspective, I can’t think of another single service that can deliver this caliber of value.’“
Jeff Skrentny, CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued. Despite that start, Jeff has been an executive recruiter for 23 years, and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as being a business consultant and adviser for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running a busy IT search business in Chicago at his firm Jefferson Group Search.
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Jeff Skrentny, CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued. Despite that start, Jeff has been an executive recruiter for 23 years, and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as being a business consultant and adviser for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running a busy IT search business in Chicago at his firm Jefferson Group Search. 
