Author: The Organic Recruiter

ARE YOU EVER TOO OLD FOR AN INTERNSHIP?

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Diversity, Hiring, Interviewing, Military, Uncategorized

In the new film “The Intern,” Robert De Niro goes back to the first rung on the ladder to re-energize his career. But what’s great for the movies isn’t always the best move in real life.

by Vicki Salemi, Monster career expert | September 25, 2015

Albeit, this article only mentions the military once, I find this to be a very appropriate way to step back into civilian life for our Veterans.  I met with a very dynamic recruitment manager this week who works for a recognizable social media company who expressed his thirst for great veterans as they have a fellowship (6 months to a year) where the candidates work in different departments based on their MOS (military occupational specialty) or interest with the hopes of bringing them on at the end of the fellowship.

It’s really hard to hire military these days because it is intimidating for the recruiter and hiring manager to understand how they fit based on their profile.  With a little discipline and change of mindset, you can hire the best talent from a great pool of candidates transitioning out.  ~ The Organic Recruiter

Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro share the big screen in The Intern, out today. In this role-reversal comedy, Hathaway’s character, Jules Ostin, runs an online fashion website, while De Niro’s character, a 70-something widower, re-enters the workforce as her intern after he realizes retirement isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

When we think of interns we typically think of college students or recent college grads—ready to roll up their sleeves and learn the ropes.

But older interns are trending, at least in Hollywood. A Tina Fey comedy recently picked up by NBC is a similar play on the theme: An overly involved mom from New Jersey gets an internship at her daughter’s workplace, a cable news network. And in the 2013 movie, The Internship, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn played down-on-their-luck career salesmen starting over as interns at Google, where all of their peers are 30 years their junior.

Suffice to say, that the silver screen doesn’t always accurately portray life off screen. So, in reality, would taking an internship have been the right move for the late-career De Niro?

You’re never too old

I believe that there are some instances that pursuing an internship mid-career can make sense. In particular, if you’re looking to start a new career, rebooting an old one (like De Niro’s retired Whittaker or a stay-at-home mom re-entering the workforce) or returning to civilian life after the military an internship is OK.

And in fact, in such cases, an internship can help you open the door to reposition your future.

But you’ll face hurdles

Although you’re never too old for an internship, you’ll have to overcome the stigma of hiring managers to get one. Recruiters are often looking for fresh young talent that they can mold into tomorrow’s leaders—while paying them little to nothing.

That may be the biggest challenge. Once you’ve hit mid-career, your financial obligations have likely blossomed, and many people don’t have the resources to quit their jobs to work for free.

So you might consider the alternatives

Remember that an internship is not  your only option as you re-route your career goals. For instance, you can temp. This way, the company can try you on for size while you get a hang of the industry and company culture and take home a paycheck.

Another option: part-time employment in the field, if you can find a department that is expanding or going through a busy season. This route works well when there’s at least one key transferable skill that’s integral to the job. Try to connect the dots from your former role to your aspirational one. By being strategic about where you apply, working to prove yourself once you’re brought on and continuing to network internally you’ll hopefully be able to make your mark as their next best hire.

Finally, you might consider volunteering on the side of your day job with a relevant non-profit that would help you build the skills you need to make a shift. That way you can keep the paycheck coming while you’re getting the experience you need.

And if you do go the intern route…

Be sure to set your tasks and goals for a fixed period of time. Going into an unpaid internship with an indefinite, unlimited timeframe is not ideal if you’re older. Don’t forget: You’re arriving on Day 1 with a plethora of skills and years of experience, just not within that particular industry.

Act like De Niro’s Whittaker and recognize that you’re likely the low person on the totem pole, having to pay your dues all over again as you learn new skills. Be clear with new colleagues and indicate that you’re not above doing anything assigned to you.

People may feel guilty giving you “busy” or “trivial” work since you’re older, so you should specifically mention you’re there to work on whatever they need accomplished. It’s likely you’ll get higher-level responsibilities quickly.

Impress with your work, and that will help you gain valuable contacts.

Who knows, you may find yourself informally mentoring your younger peers—maybe even your boss—which is a tremendous path toward a fulfilling new job or career

Vet Employment: Supporting The Spouse/Family

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Latest News and Articles, Military, Monster

I can never claim to know what it is like to be a military spouse, nor veteran. However I can tell you what amazing people they are. Our military selflessly serve you to protect the flag, our country and our freedom.

I am bias as my #1 hero for 30 years is Master Sergeant (Ret.), Robert F. McClintock. My brother served 28 years in the US Army, first 10 jumping into hostel areas around the world in the 82nd Airborne. Thank you Robert, I love you.

The other heroes who don’t always get the recognition are the spouse who hold down the household, children, finances and help their spouses transition out as well as give them a place they call home to release from their daily grind. When you and I go home after 8+ hours (5 days a week), our troops never get to shut off (they work 24/7 for far less money). Now the spouses are their saving grace and keep them grounded.

Thank you Liz for the article, your service and keeping the home fort ready for your husband. He is a lucky man to have you. And thank you Christy for being there for my brother and all the other spouses giving a pillow to your troops at home. ~ The Organic Recruiter

Vet Employment: Supporting The Spouse/Family

by Liz McLean, Strategic Head of HR & Operations | May 31, 2016

Supporting military spouses/family in their careers—directly shows your support & respect for the service member.

I will be the first to admit that I had a difficult time becoming a “spouse” after leaving the military. I struggled with the fact I had to use my husband’s social security number versus my own and suddenly I wasn’t “expected” to have a career…but instead, needed to ensure I supported my husband’s military lifestyle. Over time however, my appreciation for the role of a military spouse has grown, and my respect for organizations that strive to support the military families has increased ten-fold. Being a spouse is no easy task: a life of uncertainty and unknown…deserves respect.

As this Memorial Day weekend rolled around, I found myself feeling emotion not just as a combat veteran who had dealt with trauma and sadness, but also as a spouse who truly appreciated and understood what it meant as a family member that kept the support going on the home front.

For Example:

  • While in the service, my husband and I spent years apart at a given time—high fiving during deployments, or living a part due to training. Being “independently married” is not easy on a relationship.
  • Over the past few years by husband has been gone 280+ days out of the year flying his aircraft and I was home alone tending to life, work, my father with cancer, my physical and mental health and making sure our home was a well-oiled machine.
  • I was never able to make plans and was having to always “be strong” no matter the situation; I learned what it meant for me to be there for spouses who were also new to the “lifestyle.”
  • At times I had to turn my heart “off” in order to focus on the regime….or I just wouldn’t have been able to function alone. Separation means you miss each other’s triumphs, failures, sadness and experiences. It can foster bitterness, resentment and manifest itself in negative ways if not calibrated.  Military marriages require EXTRA work.

This Memorial Day my husband (who pins on Air Force Major today) and I sat at Laguna Beach in CA being grateful for one another and discussing that no matter how difficult our journey has been, we are thankful.  As I reflected on the importance of being a family support for my husband, I felt proud as a nation in what we are doing to support both the service member and the family in employment.

A few reasons I am personally grateful for my career as a spouse:

  1. I have a career orchestrating national Veteran employment from a virtual position—with travel. I speak to companies specifically on this topic. If you want to show your support for the military spouse, don’t create roles FOR the spouse, but instead ensure you have opportunities that allow flexibility and/or remote offerings. I feel fortunate that I have run veteran programs since my exit of the service from remote setting and it has yet to play into the stagnation of my career. Military spouses cannot relocate due their spouse’s assignments, which often times put them at a disadvantage.  Fortunately, most individuals running vet programs are virtual these days…as veteran employment is a national issue
  2. Being a part of an organization (Military.com/Monster) whose mantra is “family first.” Military life is unpredictable and being a part of a company that supports the unknowns of the military is priceless. It is a culture that is not replaceable.  It is not because the spouse “deserves special treatment,” but there are periods in a military spouse’s life that have extenuating circumstances a civilian will likely never encounter. It is simply being understanding of what pops up in the day to day and not making the spouse feel as though it is assign of weakness to have these intricacies. I see improvements daily in veteran hiring with orgs that emphasize this.
  3. Being in organizations that recognize military spouses as individuals, not only as the support structure. I take pride in being an individual, who ALSO has the dynamic of being a military spouse. I find it imperative that corporations show that they recognize that individual talents, intellects and skill-sets that spouses bring to the table, not only talents as supporting cast. Just like you cannot fit every military member exiting into the same type of position into your org, you cannot have cookie cutter positions for family members. A truly robust spouse program reaches spouses with their job openings and considers the individual talents.

I salute companies striving to make a difference to not only calibrate their needs for service members, but for those who take the opportunity to create a Veteran Friendly Culture by showing support to those spouses who also wish to have a career.

Connect with Liz McLean

New LinkedIn Recruiter – Is It Worth The Big Bucks?

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Hiring, Latest News and Articles, Monster, Tools

Without sounding like I am speaking ill of my competition, I want to preface this that I use LinkedIn everyday and I admit I pay $25 a month because I am grandfathered in on the top level-account for dirt cheap so it makes for a great business expense.

This all being said, I agree a ton with the article below as I find hundreds of prospects a week without paying much (my $25 for LinkedIn gives me merely a few contacts), but remember Linkedin is a brag sheet and does not give you the whole story of the candidate / prospect you are looking for.  Also, it takes a ton of work to validate the information.  Coupled with LinkedIn, I use a ton of Chrome extensions as well as Monster (I work here), TalentBin (phenomenal tool, owned by Monster) and gosh darn it, awesome boolean skills.

To the writer’s point, here is a google string I used to use for Java Developers in LA.  And if that isn’t enough, here is one using a backdoor to LinkedIn, albeit gives me 3,800 to my google 223. Now you do your own math of efficiency for time to fill and cost of a recruiter.  Do you want to wait for 3,800 potential developers to open your inmail when it takes upwards of 50 days to get them to respond and half of them go into their social box if they have gmail.

Even if I didn’t work for Monster, I would still say TalentBin, pound for pound is the best choice if you were to pay for anything.  it gives you access to over 400M profiles and 70% of them have either personal emails and phone numbers or both as well as all their social footprints and why they are perfect for your job.

~The Organic Recruiter

By  | SourceCon

It’s safe to say that while some recruiters would argue LinkedIn Recruiter is worth big bucks, there are many others who would say that LinkedIn Recruiter is not worth the time of day as most of the data can be found by anyone for free online these days. So why pay the big bucks?

There was an ambivalence within me when I attended a LinkedIn event two weeks ago where they showcased their next generation LinkedIn Recruiter product. I wasn’t sure if the product was as good as they say and I wanted to find out what all the hype was. By the end of the product demo, I must say I was not convinced.

So according to the LinkedIn, the new product is much simpler, faster, and more intuitive to use. LinkedIn Recruiter essentially is an advanced search engine that finds profiles using parameters such as job titles, skills, and company names. It will show you other terms you can add to your search and provide you a list of potential profiles, helping you quickly review the matches for your open job.

If you have a potential employee in mind (assuming they are on LinkedIn) simply enter their name and LinkedIn Recruiter will guide you in building your search. For example, if you were to search for Java Developers, LinkedIn Recruiter will automatically generate a list based on top skills, companies, location and more. If you can’t find who you’re looking for, you can narrow the search by adding sections based on elements within the profile (e.g. school, current company, years of experience, etc.).

I guess many of you reading this are thinking – If the next generation of LinkedIn Recruiter is so intuitive and is able to do all these by itself, then it must be pretty cool and really is worth the big bucks!

However, it’s not all conquering as they make us recruiters believe.

The Challenge

As a recruiter, you must have realized by now that candidates are an innovative bunch and they express themselves in many different ways on LinkedIn. Have a read of this blog I had written and you will know what I mean.

Think of all the available LinkedIn data produced by these candidates as the haystack, keeping in mind LinkedIn today has 450 million profiles globally, and all the targeted profiles in your search as the needles. The haystack is getting bigger by the minute, therefore, the needles are getting buried deeper and deeper. Even now, some of these needles are making themselves “ghosts” so you and I can’t find them, hence, your targeted profiles are becoming harder to spot by the minute.

Even if you had gone through the haystack, how can you be sure that have you found all the needles? With all the variation in the data, are you certain you haven’t missed any potential needles (or profiles) during your search?

Can you rely on LinkedIn Recruiter to do this for you? I don’t think so, well not to the level you need.

Let’s forget about LinkedIn Recruiter for a moment.

Remember that the process of candidate searching is all about data retrieval and pattern recognition.

It’s a systematic approach to:

  1. Gather your requirements (what you need to search for)
  2. Run your search
  3. Review your results
  4. Identify the patterns and false positives (e.g. exclude terms you don’t want)
  5. Modify and re-run your search
  6. Continue the above 5 steps until you get it right and are confident you haven’t missed anything

It’s about the Execution

You can have the fastest car in the race, but if you don’t have the skill to steer it around the track without crashing, then having the best car is not a guarantee you will always win the race.

Now apply this analogy onto LinkedIn Recruiter. Sourcing is more about how you execute your search by following an iterative/systemic approach rather than just keying parameters into a search field. I know that practicing iterative/systemic approach in my search whether using LinkedIn Recruiters or my free LinkedIn account will enable me to uncover the profiles most can’t.

For me, I will always trust my search capability and don’t see the need to pay LinkedIn the big bucks, even if they have a much simpler, faster, and more intuitive search function. It’s free all the way for me.

What about you?

This post originally appeared on the ATC Blog.

Hackers selling 117 million LinkedIn passwords

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Latest News and Articles

Hackers selling 117 million LinkedIn passwords

LinkedIn was hacked four years ago, and what initially seemed to be a theft of 6.5 million passwords has actually turned out to be a breach of 117 million passwords.

On Wednesday, the professional social network company acknowledged that a massive batch of login credentials is being sold on the black market by hackers.

The worst part about it is that, because people tend to reuse their passwords, hackers are more likely to gain access to 117 million people’s email and bank accounts.

The advice for everyone who uses LinkedIn (LNKD, Tech30) at this point is: Change your password and add something called two-factor authentication, which requires a text message every time you sign in from a new computer.

linkedin password sale

This episode drudges up some embarrassing history for LinkedIn.

Because of the company’s old security policy, these passwords are easy for hackers to crack in a matter of days.

Companies typically protect customer passwords by encrypting them. But at the time of the2012 data breach, LinkedIn hadn’t added a pivotal layer of security that makes the jumbled text harder to decode.

Put on the defensive, LinkedIn is now scrambling to try to stop people from sharing the stolen goods online — often an impractical task. The company is also invalidating all customer passwords that haven’t been updated since they were stolen.

LinkedIn said it’s reaching out to individual members affected by the breach. This particular hack affects a quarter of the company’s 433 million members.

Now, computer security experts are wondering why it took so long for LinkedIn to figure out what happened to their own company computers — or acknowledge it publicly.

“If LinkedIn is only now discovering the scale of data that was exfiltrated from their systems, what went wrong with the forensic analysis that should have discovered this?” said Brad Taylor, CEO of cybersecurity firm Proficio.

Hackers are selling the stolen LinkedIn database on a black market online called “The Real Deal,” according to tech news site Motherboard.

For its part, LinkedIn offered the same, go-to statement used by every company after a data breach.

“We take the safety and security of our members’ accounts seriously,” wrote Cory Scott, the company’s chief information security officer.

CNNMoney (New York)First published May 19, 2016: 9:23 AM ET

How to actually get an email response from your chronically inundated colleagues

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Uncategorized

Are your emails being ignored? A new study reveals what you can do to help prompt a reply.

By Catherine Conlan, Monster contributor | May 11, 2016
Are you including your opinion or perspective on something that pertains to your client?  How clear is your message and want during your emails?  My opinion on your emails today are cut them in half and give them no other option to listen.  Be brief, be bright, be gone!
~ The Organic Recruiter

In 2015, the number of emails sent and received totaled somewhere north of 205 billion—per day. The odds of getting anybody’s attention in that communication whirlwind are, well, challenging. But there are a few ways of improving the likelihood that someone will hit “reply.”

Email productivity company Boomerang recently released a study that analyzed data from 5.3 million emails to find out what was most likely to garner a response.

If it feels like your emails are seemingly sailing off into the ether, use these insights from the study and experts to increase your chances of getting a response.

Get to the point

Part of the reason your recipient hasn’t answered your email could be that they’re buried under a (virtual) pile of messages. Making your email short and to the point can help them focus on a response. “People are busy and should be able to scan it, figure out what you need and deliver solid answers,” Duncan says. If it needs to be a little longer, break up paragraphs and use bullet points to make it easier to scan. Overall, the study found that emails containing 75 to 100 words were most likely to receive a response.

Example: Focus on the action your email is intended to inspire: “Thanks for putting the report together—there’s a lot of great material here. I have two suggestions to make it stronger. Can we meet on Thursday?”

Keep the language simple

The study found that emails written at a third-grade reading level had a 53% response rate, compared to a 39% for emails written at a college reading level. This doesn’t mean you should write with the proficiency of a 9 year old; instead, it’s a reminder that it’s best to steer clear of flowery and unnecessary language. Avoid fussy formatting, too. “The clearer you are with spacing, bulleted text, bold deadlines and simple verbiage, the easier you’ll be understood,” says Peggy Duncan, a personal productivity expert in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Example: Instead of, “The verbiage of your previous correspondence was rife with grammatical inaccuracies; please amend and script another response,” try, “There were a lot of grammar errors in your last email. Please make corrections and send it back to me.”

Strike a positive tone

Apathy will get you nowhere. Emails that were slightly to moderately positive or negative received 10–15% more responses than neutral emails. That said, a toxic email full of negative vibes was least likely to get a response.

Since it can be difficult to tell in an email when your tone tips the scale into point-of-no-reply negativity, err on the side of caution by staying positive. A good way to check how your email sounds is to read it out loud, says Dianna Booher, a communications expert and founder of the Colleyville, Texas-based Booher Research Institute, and whose latest book, What MORE Can I Say? Why Communication Fails and What to Do About It, looks at ways to communicate effectively. “Your ear will tell you when your words sound stiff, awkward or cold,” she says.

Example: Instead of, “Thanks for writing this report. I have some comments for you,” write, “Your report was terrific. I have some suggestions to help you get the recognition you deserve on this.”

Condense your subject lines

The Boomerang study says subject lines of three or four words inspired the most (46%) responses.

Additionally, Duncan suggests making the subject line specific to the message. “If you’re going to discuss unrelated topics, put them in separate messages.”

Booher goes one step further, recommending that you request the desired action in the subject line. People often sort and file emails by their priority, and making them wade through details to find the action line wastes time.

Example: Instead of, “Please look over these April results and get back to me with your thoughts,” write, “April results; please advise by Friday.”

Ask questions

One of the best ways to get a response is to ask a question. The Boomerang survey found that asking one to three questions was most effective. “Be very clear about the result you are expecting,” Duncan says. “What exactly do you need [the reader] to do? And when do you need [a response]?” Including that information makes it more likely you’ll get a response.

Example: “We need to look at some ways to make sure this rollout is a success; when can you meet to talk about it? Let’s address messaging and timing; is there anything else you want to cover?”

Voice an opinion

Including opinions and personal perspectives is a great way to get others to chime in—they’ll either want to agree or tell you you’re wrong. “If you’re providing a list of possible dates for an event, go further and propose which is the best one,” says Alex Moore, CEO of Boomerang. “Likewise, if you’re comparing vendors, make a clear recommendation. Don’t shy away from giving your two cents.”

Example: “Our options for the meeting room include 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. I suggest we aim for 1, so we can wrap up earlier. Any objections?”

http://bit.ly/bebriefemails