Category: Uncategorized

Time Management For Sourcers And Recruiters – Resume Reading

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Hiring, Interviewing, Monster, New Job, Uncategorized

I’ve written a few articles on the importance of knowing your candidate because unfortunately, your hiring managers consider these awesome people as a resume and not an actual person. And you as recruiter spend 6 seconds on a resume if the candidate is lucky. Why is that? Not enough time, patience or the formatting is bugging you? I don’t know your answer, but these are the top ones. Kevin wrote some great points in managing your time.

This article has some good tips to manage your time but time-management is the most important tool you can use. You are missing great people and without a semantic tool (like Monster has a number of them), you’ll need to rely on your boolean prowess and great ctrl+F. But remember, that doesn’t mean you know the person behind the not-so-pretty resume.

Please practice time-management and get to know the piece of paper.

~The Organic Recruiter

timem-700x467By  Sourcecon

We first started with Time Management for Sourcers and Recruiters – Schedule Building which, discussed how to plan your day to be effective and efficient. In this article, I will go through various techniques that will help you be even more effective and efficient for better time management that I am sure will increase productivity for you.

In our business one thing we must do is read a resume, in doing so we are expected to decipher the “code” embedded in the resume, compare work experience to the requirements from the hiring manager, and decide to or not to call/email the candidate. Then after we have all of our notes we need to make a decision if this is a viable candidate for the opening. This is a process that is repeated on every candidate we come across.

This is very time-consuming. Now that you have built your daily schedule and are staying on track with that schedule which you’re already seeing yourself being more effective and efficient, now we need to take it up a notch. Follow these proven steps in order to do just that.

First, after you craft that beautiful award winning Boolean string and enter it into whichever job board you prefer, you return a list of potential diamonds, and now the issue is to go through as many as candidates possible and build your list. The issue we all have is time, so why not use it to our advantage.  One thing we are all guilty of is getting sucked into the words on a resume or maybe the format is horrible and we’re just lost in translation. You need a two-minute sand timer.

When you pull up that list of potential diamonds and compile a bunch of resumes to filter, flip over the two-minute sand timer. You shouldn’t spend more than two minutes viewing a resume. Our attention on one aspect loses its ability to decipher new information after about two minutes and we need to take a minute to reset. With timing yourself you don’t get lost and develop the ability to say, yes this candidate looks great on paper, I still have a few questions regarding some of the experiences and technologies, or this candidate is not on the right track of what we are looking for.

As time goes on once you get the repetition down you will see yourself having time left out of the two minutes and becoming a resume reading legend.

Second, when you are getting ready to start using your timer and reading resumes, make sure you are prepared to understand the technology and what the surrounding words should be. Here are some red flags that will arise questions on candidate profiles:

  • Titles
    • A title is either what they want to be called or what they are given upon hire. This can be miss leading because each company may have a different ranking system however if you see someone progress from a help desk tech to a system engineer, to a desktop support tech, to a senior project manager, then there are some immediate red flags there.
  • Tenure
    • Look at the dates. Months and years are huge. If someone is only in one to two month positions for several years that raises a concern for a hiring manager that is looking for a stable candidate. If someone has gaps in the resume for more than six to nine months that is also concerning, but should be discussed with the candidate to dig deeper.
  • Description
    • This is where the research comes into play. If someone lists themselves as a project manager, they should be describing project manager work in that role.
  • Technologies
    • Candidates who put EVERY technology they have EVER worked with may just be looking for fluff. Tech is changing so fast that something they did in the 90s is irrelevant today!
  • Education
    • If your hiring manager requires a degree in a certain field of study views this first. Be sure it is listed and aligned with what you’re looking for.

Another cool trick is Ctrl + F (Find) which I’m surprised a lot of people are not using. Each opening role we have listed three to five skills that are MUST HAVES. A quick way to filter through other than the highlighted words on the resume from your Boolean string is to use Ctrl + F and pull up alternative spellings. You would be surprised what you may miss.

For example when candidates love abbreviations or alternative spellings so they are “hard to find:” Manager – Mgr or Mangr; SaS – S@S, $a$, or $@$; Citrix – Zen, ZenApp, ZenDesk, XApp, or XDesk etc. Now you may be thinking, well how many candidates actually do this? Who knows, but I have seen them and wouldn’t have found those candidates without doing just this. If you are searching for a hard to find skill set and need to take a different approach craft two Boolean strings, one narrow and one broad.  When you pull up the candidates that are found using the broad string, this is a tip that may work best with that.

If you are searching for a hard to find skill set and need to take a different approach craft two Boolean strings, one narrow and one broad. When you pull up the candidates that are found using the broad string, this is a tip that may work best with that.

I’m confident with this best practice you will see yourself being more successful with resume reading and utilizing the limited time you have to be more effective and efficient.

Why You and I Need One Another

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Big Data, Hiring, Latest News and Articles, New Job, Uncategorized

symbiotic

You buy, we sell. Does that mean we don’t need one another? Sure if we want to walk life to the next journey on our own. Vin Scully (Vincent Edward “Vin” Scully – sports broadcaster and Brooklyn/LA Dodgers MLB play-by-play baseball announcer) just retired after 67 years yesterday and was bitter sweet. A man needs to take his next steps sometime, even if it’s after an amazing run like his. Vin said over and over these last few weeks, “I have needed you more than you needed me”. This rings true to you and I as well.

Think about it. You have goals to hit and so do I. Tomorrow I will be on a plane to Chicago to share with the West and Great Lakes Regions on how my quarter went. I won’t get into my quarter but why I bring this up is because as much as you think we are trying to sell to you to get that fat check, I want you to sit back and think, “is he really trying to help me hit my goals like he says?”.

The answer is yes. A good majority of us are trying to get you to your goals as it will also help our goals. But your thoughts are, “why is he always calling me?”. To that, I answer because I am here to help and I monitor what your goals are (from what you told me…plus keeping a pulse on your industry) and where your stand today on those goals.

Relationships are defined as: the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected. While a symbiotic relationship occur when two organisms, individuals or groups of people work together by helping one another with the intent of getting help in return. Keep in mind, even when we are dressed like a shark, it doesn’t mean we are, we are just you to have our back as well.shark-symbiotic

Let me let you in on a little secret. We like to go to sleep with a clean conscious of knowing we gave you the best deal to get to your goals. We spend countless hours, days and months on your account to manage what we sold you. When we are calling you to share updates, insights, and possible twist-a-plots, it is so you hit your goals. By using me as a consultant to what is really going on out there, you get free advice and knowledge in case there are any curveballs you did not anticipate. There may be a time when I offer you something and it comes at a cost, but keep in mind it is to assist you in hitting your goals.

You may not realize, but I am aware you have KPIs like time to fill, cost per hire, and for the few lucky ones out there, you get bonused off those KPIs. I am here to help as a friend who understands symbiotic relationships. As we embark on the 4th quarter or what you affectionately call ‘budget season’, keep in mind when you ask for that discount, favor or freebie, just remember, the rhino and Vin, we all need each other. Let’s work together towards 2017.

~The Organic Recruiter

Gone in 6.0 Seconds

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Hiring, Interviewing, Latest News and Articles, New Job, Uncategorized

That’s how long it takes a recruiter to go to the next resume if they spent some time on yours.

According to most articles in the last 5+ years, recruiters spend no more than 6 seconds to disqualify you. So you better make an impact quick. Ladders wrote: Recruiters spend 80% of their six-second scan looking at these 4 areas:

  • Name
  • Current Position: Title, Company, and Dates of Employment
  • Previous Position: Title, Company, and Dates of Employment
  • Education

I am curious, I created a copy of my resume in the same 1 sheet format that is circulating with Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer. Hers is getting mixed reviews, mostly good, but from the traditional, old schoolers I am seeing they are not so excited about it. From the more progressive, creative recruiters it is getting much praise.

my-experience-2016 (b)How do you put detailed accomplishments; numbers; accolades; history; culture fit; education; philanthropy and other details into a 6 second read? I am not quite sure that can be done.

So what do you do to get the recruiter’s attention quick because they do not have time to go through your 4 page resume? Some would say call the recruiter but the recruiters will tell others how that annoys the heck out them. Others would say use your network. I recently sent an email out to 164 recruiters I know in my network asking for help for a friend. I received 4 responses back. These guys and gals are busy. Getting back to you on a hope, is not that easy. In my case it was 2.4% return.

It’s not they don’t want to speak with you. It’s more about having 30 jobs to work on, hiring managers saying where are my resumes while turning down the ones the recruiters spent hours interviewing, prepping and dissecting their skill-sets. As well as sourcing like crazy and spending 6 seconds on your resume. We cannot blame them for not getting back to everyone, although it would be nice. But the best way to get noticed is to be noticed.

How quickly do you get noticed in a crowd? If you are in an analogue world without a smart phone, I am sure you do not find your friends at a concert so easily. Same with your resume. The analogue, dot-matrix format your resume is in is quite frankly just that…out-dated.

Now I am not saying throw pictures of your family and pets on it, rather I am saying find a way to professionally get the recruiters to notice you. Once they call you, get them to know who you are and how you are perfect for that job as it is their job to sell you. Ask them what the manager is looking for that is not plainly written in the job description. Then have some backup ready to articulate that in 6 seconds so when the recruiter sells you, it pops out.

Getting the interview is the hardest part as it is like professional baseball. You have so many divisions, in our case levels of people to impress. But if you know where you are awesome and equally important, you explain in detail where you may have failed or lost an account / project, then you are ahead of the curve.

The challenge is to get noticed or you will be gone in 6.0 seconds.

~The Organic Recruiter

Understand Recruitment Cycles to Give Your Job Search an Edge

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Hiring, Interviewing, New Job, Uncategorized

What do 23, 21, 20 and 36 mean to you? Seasons come in all walks of life to include the right time to get serious about your job and when it just might be a little harder to be seen. Enjoy this read to find out more about what these numbers mean.

~The Organic Recruiter

by John Rossheim, Monster Senior Contributing Writer

When it comes to connecting with the right job opportunity, timing isn’t everything, but it’s certainly something. Tuning into industries’ and employers’ annual recruitment cycles just might give you a decisive edge.image

That’s the consensus of recruiters and employers with fingers on the pulse of seasonal variations in hiring. Here’s a quarter-by-quarter summary of how these hiring dynamics play out.

First Quarter: A New Year’s Wave of Hiring

Sometimes peaks of hiring correspond with workplace factors that are only loosely related, like when people take vacation. “Hiring seems to be done by consensus more than any other decision,” says Scott Testa, chief operating officer of Mindbridge Software in Norristown, Pennsylvania. “So most hiring decisions have to be made when people are in the office.”

Major hiring initiatives may follow close on the heels of the holidays and summer. “The big months for hiring are January and February, and late September and October,” says Testa. “Job seekers who make contact right at the start of these cycles have the best chance of being hired.”

Strong hiring periods like the first quarter, when demand for talent may outweigh the supply of qualified candidates, may be a good time to go for a job with more responsibility or higher pay. “If you’re currently employed and looking to improve your status, you’ll want to look during the peak hiring season,” says Glenn Smith, president of search firm Precise Strategies in O’Fallon, Illinois.

Second Quarter: Gearing Up for Summer

For those whose livelihood depends substantially on fair weather, spring is when hiring peaks. In the construction industry, hiring in April, May and June proceeds at double the pace of December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS).

Tourism and hospitality hiring is also very strong in the spring. And businesses looking to hire professional workers before fall often do so now, before key decision makers start rotating out for summer vacation.

Third Quarter: Recruiters Relax a Bit, and Vacation Plays a Role

Hiring slows down in July before picking up at the end of August. For those with nontraditional but impressive employment backgrounds, there’s an advantage to looking in relatively slow hiring months like July and December, says Smith.

For example, recruiters, less pressed for time than in peak months, may be willing to take a longer look at an experienced professional woman seeking to return to work after taking years off to care for children.

Fourth Quarter: A Rush, Then a Lull

The fourth quarter presents the most complex hiring dynamics of the year, with its mix of fall activity, holiday retail hiring, Thanksgiving-to-New Year’s slowdown, and end-of-year financial and budget maneuvering.

“Hiring managers and bank CEOs will typically try to reduce their operating profits by incurring search fees towards the end of each year, to avoid paying taxes,” says Josiah Whitman, an executive recruiter with Financial Placements of Lake Oswego, Oregon. His firm’s job orders are distributed this way: first quarter, 23 percent; second quarter, 21 percent; third quarter, 20 percent; fourth quarter, 36 percent.

Although December hiring is at low levels in many industries, recruiters are determined to fill the year’s remaining openings by December 31, and the supply of applicants dwindles as Christmas and the new year approach.

Major industries classified as information, financial services, and professional and business services, having hired heavily in the second quarter, see their lowest level of hiring in December, says JOLTS.

But December isn’t as slow as it used to be, say some observers. And applications tend to slow down during the holiday season more than openings do — tipping the balance in favor of those who do apply.

“It seems that business just keeps going through the holidays,” says John Challenger, CEO of outplacement and search firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago. “There doesn’t seem to be the kind of letup that there used to be.”

So playing the recruitment peaks doesn’t mean waiting out the rest of the year. “You need to be out there looking for opportunities, not finding excuses to avoid looking,” says Tom Johnston, CEO of SearchPath International in Cleveland.

Original Article

Why I travel …for work – Part I (why it is AWESOME!):

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in About, Latest News and Articles, Uncategorized

I like to travel:

Traveling is a great time to reflect on life.  Think about the things you love.  Think about the things that need to get done or what you might do different.  The hours on the plan or the train merely give you “you time”.  This is time you don’t always get.  Even if you are flying with friends, colleagues or family, it is still time not in your day to day.

The opportunity to see places that are not in my backyard are rewarding.  Especially if it is in a different region or country where people are different from what you are used to.  My belief is you can respect what you have and you can have a more succinct opinion of the world if you merely just get out of your comfort zone.

Caveat – nothing compares to vacation travel.

oh the places you'll go

My work requires it:

Traveling for work is often equally rewarding as you get to see your clients and peers in their element.  We often make opinions and thoughts based on our surroundings.  Getting to see how other people live and work gives you a perspective unlike no other because now you are getting the why.

Growing up, I was a “why kid”.  Now as an adult, I am a “why kid”.  Now in between, I was always the “why kid”.  That is why calculus fascinated me because it answered a lot of math “whys” for me.

Now getting out and seeing why my clients do what they do and why they do it, I get a chance to show them how to do it differently, hopefully better and why I believe it to be better.  Most of the time clients won’t give you that in person and if we concede to the phone, most of the time you have 50% of their attention if you are lucky.  That is not talking harsh about them, but a captive audience is just what it is, a captive audience.

When you are in person, you learn more, retain more and are willing to interact more.  By doing this with my clients, I am able to add an ROI that just won’t be attained because I tell you it will work.

Better to be in front of clients:

Clients are not just going to say, sure come waste my time.  Come on, everyone wants their time and if everyone got it, they would not do their job.  Therefore, be wasting your time and their time, thus making it more probable you will both be looking for another job for lack of doing your jobs.

However, if I spent $1,000 – $1M on a tool or service, I would want to know how it worked, why it works and how can I use it more efficiently.  Why should someone blindly buy something from me or anyone for that matter?

Meeting people in different places is a great change of scenery and more times than not, your client loves to show you their digs, their city and what they are proud of. Meeting your customers that you may have never met before and talked a million times with on the phone goes a long way and now I know what it feels like to work there and what the culture really is. I cannot give the “I know what it’s like there” conversation when I really don’t know what it’s like there.

Seeing the old crew:

Having the luxury to get to see old colleagues and friends in different cities of which I don’t often get to see is an added bonus.  We go through life with many experiences but when we move to our next venture we inevitably say, “see you soon” or “let’s get together soon”. How often does that really happen when you move on? Well, I will tell you, I keep in touch with old friends on Facebook and LinkedIn, but do I always get to see them? I get a better chance than most but not as frequently as I’d like. But I will still take those moments in a heartbeat.

Collaborate with peers I normally just talk to on the phone:

There is nothing like going into the war room with your peers and hashing strategy out in person.  We all know when we are on conference calls or webexes, we have 2 monitors, watching the iPad presentation and texting.  Not the most reliable way of getting the job done I assume.  In-person you get to read faces, tones and excitement levels. On the phone, well, you get …the phone.

You get your own driver or car:

Getting to be driven around by Uber or drive cars I normally would not have driven is a bit of a novelty.  It’s kind of cool not having to deal with the traffic, get on your computer and take calls.

And if I am driving, well I get to see what it’s like in a different car than I normally drive. It’s like I am working for consumer reports and I have the opportunity see what I would like or maybe don’t like.  Mostly, I get in the car and say, “what the heck…where is…?”

Finally, the other perks:

If you have kids, you know your bed is not your bed for many years, so when you have a soft bed with tons of pillows and white sheets that are yours only, your get a bit of serenity, albeit seeing your kids are the best thing in the world.

Being able to try different foods in different cities is almost like being on a mini-vacation. Now being someone who only eats poultry and fish, it makes a bit challenging in certain parts of the country. But that also makes it fun because of the conversations I have after I get the cocked back head as to say, “Huh! You don’t eat meat. You don’t know what you are missing.”. Uh, ya, I do and I love what I eat.

This brings me to dining with my clients.  That is always a treat because you get the person behind the partnership and you find just how pleasant these folks are when there is not the stress of contracts and renewals.  The conversations and real people they are just makes my job so wonderful. I am not trying to sell you over food and cocktails. I am trying to get to know the real you.  Don’t worry; I do not get too personal. We’re not there yet. But I do like to get to know the real you.

Airport lounges when available are the best way to have your private office and get stuff done with no interruptions.  These lounges, small, medium or large are just a treat. I save money for my company as the food is so inexpensive compared to the regular part of the airport. The noise levels are at an absolute minimum and your free upgrades are amazing.

I will leave you with this. Taking the train to a meeting is AWESOME! It is the best mobile office ever, albeit a bit shaky at times. 4 hours to San Diego (if I am lucky) in my car couldn’t be more stressful. But 3 hours by train watching the ocean half of the time while making calls and closing deals is priceless. ~The Organic Recruiter

Stay tuned for Why I travel – Part II (Why travel is a bummer)