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Quickest Path to Yes…or even no

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Latest News and Articles

There is something special about being a trusted consultant to our clients. Often we hear, “I did not even know that was possible”. To that we grin and get more excited for a number of reasons. 2 that come to mind first are 1. We are getting closer to a yes and 2. We just got a chance to teach you something.

Every salesperson is looking to get a yes from their client as fast as possible. We are all on sales quotas and as much as we like what we do and love consulting you on the industry, we don’t work for free. That statement is not meant to be harsh, rather it’s to make clear we don’t make much off our base. We make the bulk of our money by making you happy.

There are a lot of egos that that lie in the DNA of successful salespeople. Not only for making the dollar but also making you the hero. So often we get a bad wrap for having our own agenda. We do have an agenda, but it is not malicious nor are we trying to gouge you. We are trying to get you to your goals though a straight line (quickest way from A to B) so you may achieve your goals as fast as possible.

So I ask, what is the quickest path to yes to you the buyer?

Far too often, we get:

  • “still working on it”
  • “no time to work on it”
  • “stuck in finance”
  • “my boss hasn’t gotten back to me”
  • or the dreaded – radio silence (black hole for job seekers)

We understand we are not your only job and you have a ton to do. We also realize decisions don’t always lie with you alone. I just ask, let us help you get to the yes decision quicker so we can all rest better and move on to the next stage of our relationship and quite frankly our day. I am quite sure you’d rather move on as well. Let’s just set timelines and next steps to have a roadmap to yes.

Think about yesterday when you went into your boss’ office to ask for a raise, PTO or an update on your ideas. It may have been the 3rd or 4th time you went into ask her. How did you feel each time when she said, “not now” or “it’s stuck in finance”? We understand that you are people first

Having this empathy for you, we don’t take it personal when you don’t have an answer or you may sound upset with us for asking for one. You and I both have someone to answer to, so we get it. Let us know how we can help.

Quick story – A friend of mine did everything he could to close a deal by the end of the quarter before it lapsed. He of course forecasted it and had quota on the deal. The client said, at every call and email as long as 45 days out from when the deal was to close, “we’re good, I just have to get it signed off”. She also claimed she was traveling and could not get to it until she returned. Of which my friend then received radio silence upon her return.

To wrap up this story up, remember she said she had to get it signed off? Well on the final day, my friend reached out to her boss who said, “I had no clue about this deal and never saw it”. To the dismay of my friend, it never closed.

Remember my friendly buyers, as much as we love and want a yes, we can take a no better than radio silence. We still expect to bring the deal in if we don’t get a no. If you know it is most likely a no, please don’t spare our feelings. We can take it, albeit hard on our quota.

I only ask the favor to please just coach us on why it is a no because maybe there is something we may have missed and by all means, there is a chance we can both leave with a smile…and quite possibly we may have a better alternative to what you thought we did not do.

~The Organic Recruiter

Managing the Black Hole in the Job Application Process

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Employment Value Proposition, Hiring, Interviewing, New Job
Margot Carmichael Lester, Monster Contributing Writer
As a job seeker, you have to act like a salesperson. As a salesperson myself, I am here to tell you it is extremely hard to get to a yes or a no. Usually it’s a “hold tight”, “no word yet”, radio silence, or “we’ll let you know when we need you”.
What’s it going to take to get to a yes or a no? First off, read the article below as it gives great advice to the job seeker. I would add to it that you need to know the company, the competition and you better than any other candidate. Do not pretend to be anyone else and be the best you you can be.
Recruiters, please share this article with friends, family, and anyone you know are looking for their next job. ~The Organic Recruiter
Managing the Black Hole in the Job Application Process

You’ve invested the time in completing the job application, polishing your resume and writing a compelling cover letter. Once you’ve submitted your materials, though, you enter the black hole — the space between applying for jobs and hearing back from potential employers. Managing this period of the job search process effectively is harder than ever in a tight economy.

“We’ve all been on the opposite side of the desk,” says Armen Arisian, HR manager at Nytef Group, a plastics manufacturing company in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Twisting in the wind is no fun.”

But don’t stress. Employ these strategies to survive the uncertainty without losing your sanity.

Be Real

It’s important to remember there are people on the other side of the black hole who are doing their best to fill the job in a timely manner, says Will Pallis, a lead recruiter for VistaPrint, an online supplier of graphics and printing based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Chances are good the hiring companies have been inundated with applications.

“While there are a lot of variables here, the most important factor is how much time the corporate recruiter or hiring manager has to sift through the resumes submitted for each job,” he explains. “Skilled corporate recruiters have the ability to review large quantities of resumes to determine if the applicant has the required skill sets and education required for a particular role. But if that recruiter has a large volume of active resumes, the amount of time to review them is obviously decreased.”

Be Reasonable

There’s nothing wrong with checking in on the status of your application, as long as your job-seeking behavior does not become desperate. Unfortunately, there’s no industry standard for how often to inquire. “Do not be a pest” says Jay Meschke, president of EFL Associates, a Leawood, Kansas, search firm. “It is fine to seek acknowledgement of application material after a week, but diplomacy is the watchword. A potential employer becomes wary of applicants who become ‘stalkers.’”

If you’ve got a real person to contact on the inside, ask about the ground rules or protocol up front. “Inquire about when you should expect to hear back, if you should proactively contact the gatekeeper and at what intervals, plus what forms of contact would be most appropriate, such as telephone calls, emails, etc.,” he says.

And if you don’t hear back at all? “After more than a couple [follow-ups], move on same as you would in any other potential relationship,” Arisian counsels. “They’re just not that into you.”

Be Positive

The biggest challenge may be managing your own emotions. “Learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” says Scott Silverman, executive director and founder of Second Chance, a nonprofit agency helping the homeless and chronically unemployed in San Diego. “The only thing you can control is your own attitude.”

To do that, Eric Frankel, a personal branding and job search expert in Westwood, New Jersey, suggests, “Transition yournegative, stressful feelings to positive, optimistic emotions by supplementing your job search tactics with positive activities — time with friends, family, exercise and casual strolls on the beach. A limited number of ‘vacation’ days are OK when unemployed.”

You also can busy yourself by continuing your job search.

Be Optimistic

Dealing with uncertainty is never easy, but it’s a fact of life. Use this time as an opportunity to focus on what can happen, not what isn’t happening.

“As with the universe, realize that thousands of black holes are present,” Meschke notes. “Each one is worth exploring. You never know when the black hole evolves into a worm hole that leads to the next job.”

For Job Seekers, the Black Hole Persists

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Employment Value Proposition, Hiring, Interviewing, New Job
By LAUREN WEBER

Why am I not getting calls back for my application? What’s the deal…am I not good enough? These are the thoughts of job applicants these days. They are being treated like a piece of paper and not an actual person.
People invest time in their career. Isn’t it fair to treat them like humans, not paper? Referring back to my Optimization page (Gail and Richie) depicts the life of a recruiter and how hiring managers think of applicants, “where’s my resumes?”. 
People, we need to open our eyes as this article shows, recruiters are acting as if these real people are merely a piece of paper and it is okay if we don’t call them back. I’m here to tell you, it is not. These people want to work for you and they should not have to put their lives on hold until (if ever) they hear from you. 
Thank you, Lauren, for this great article below. ~The Organic Recruiter
Most of today’s online job applications still enter a black hole.

Frank N. Stein had a stellar resume—he was an Ivy League graduate, with stints as a corporate recruiter at Johnson & Johnson and Russell Reynolds, and his CV was loaded with the keywords needed to float to the top of today’s automated job-applicant software.

He was also not a real person, a fact noted at the bottom of his one-page resume.

Even so, recruiters at only two of the 100 companies where he applied for jobs read far enough to discover that Stein was a fiction designed to “mystery shop” the job-seeker experience. The ruse was created by recruiting consulting firm CareerXroads, according to a report released Monday.

What does that tell Mark Mehler, a founder of CareerXroads?

“Recruiters read the first three paragraphs of a resume,” he said. “That’s all the job seeker is going to get.” And that only counts those whose resumes pass through the automated keyword screening that winnows a set of applications from hundreds to a few dozen.

Every year, Kendall Park, N.J.-based CareerXroads submits a fake resume through the career websites of the companies on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work Forlist, to assess the recruiting practices of some of the most well-respected employers in the country, including Google Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Deloitte LLP.

The results are generally dismal, as they were again this year. Job seekers’ main complaint—that they shoot their applications into a black hole—was confirmed.

Out of the 100 companies, 64 never sent Stein any notification that he was not being considered for the job for which he had applied. Months after submitting his resume, he “was left hanging in the breeze,” said Mehler. Overwhelmingly in job seeker surveys, candidates tell CareerXroads “they just want to know, ‘am I in or out?’ They don’t want to keep chasing and wondering.”

Six of the employers followed up with Stein wanting to schedule interviews, two uncovered the ruse, and 28 eventually notified him that the position had been filled, or at least that he wasn’t in the running.

Worst of all, 28 is the highest number of companies extending that courtesy in the twelve years CareerXroads has conducted the Mystery Job Seeker survey.

There’s no excuse for those oversights, Mehler said, given that those communications can be automated easily in today’s applicant tracking systems, the software that stores job applications.

Most systems have the capacity to do this, but major corporations don’t use those features because they’re scared that opening the lines of communication will lead to lawsuits, too many phone calls to recruiters, and too many questions they can’t answer, he said.

There were bits of good news from Frank N. Stein’s experience. Nearly all employers now send an email acknowledging receipt of a job application. In addition, career websites are easier to navigate than in previous years, and employers have gotten better at streamlining the application so that it takes less time to complete – in most cases, 10 minutes or less.

Another pleasant surprise, according to Mehler: Stein had been unemployed by choice for a year (he had rejected six job offers as poor fits for him, then took a 6-month sabbatical to bicycle across the country), and still received interest from six of the 98 employers who thought he was a real person. “That’s huge,” said Mehler. “It shows that if you write a good resume and have great experience behind you, you can still find a job.”

Lauren Weber

Reporter, The Wall Street Journal.
Lauren Weber writes about workplace issues and careers for the Wall Street Journal.

Love Your Job? How Does Your State Rank?

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Employment Value Proposition, Hiring, Latest News and Articles, US Employment Numbers

 

Love Job Pic

New Monster and Brandwatch study reveals the states where people love their jobs the most – and it’s not where you might think

Analysis of over 2 million tweets about job sentiment indicates significant shifts in where people love and hate their jobs in the U.S.

PR Newswire, Weston, Mass. – July 12, 2016
Monster (NYSE: MWW), a global leader in connecting people to jobs, and Brandwatch, the leading social intelligence company, today announced the results of their second annual Monster and Brandwatch Job Report, a social media study of job sentiment and corresponding interactive infographic on the insights. Revealing where people love and hate their jobs the most in the U.S., the study also analyzed exactly who, what, when, where and why people take to Twitter to discuss how they feel about their jobs, and how those findings differ from the 2015 report.

“Perception of professional happiness is continuously evolving, influenced by a variety of external and personal factors. These range from uncertainty driven by volatile financial markets and the US presidential election, to work environment and employee benefits,” said Matt Anchin, Senior Vice President, Global Communications and Content at Monster. “The latest data shows some drastic changes compared to last year’s report, indicating that people are potentially approaching their work lives differently. Additionally, whether you are a job seeker looking for a new opportunity with high happiness potential or are an employer trying to increase employee satisfaction, it seems that the adage ‘location, location, location’ may just be the most important thing to consider.”

Who’s Feeling the #JobLove?

Where do the lovers and haters live?

The most significant insight of the 2016 study is that overall US state population is now a key indicator of job satisfaction. In seven out of the 20 least-populous US states, as ranked by the US Census Bureau, people are tweeting about loving their job at a higher ratio to hating their job:

  • Idaho
  • Montana
  • North Dakota
  • Vermont
  • Utah
  • Maine
  • Alaska
  • Washington
  • Minnesota
  • Tennessee

At the same time, the top 10 states in which people on Twitter hate their job at a higher ratio than loving their job are consistent with last year’s results. All are exclusively in the Eastern half of the US, and eight of last year’s 10 lowest-ranked states made a showing again this year. Furthermore, three of the 10 most populous states in the country according to the US Census Bureau – Michigan, Ohio and Florida – appear on this list, suggesting that population size significantly impacts job hate in addition to job love:

  • Michigan
  • Virginia
  • West Virginia
  • New Jersey
  • Ohio
  • Maryland
  • Louisiana
  • Florida
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware

When are people loving and hating?

During this study, conducted April 2015-March 2016, Monster and Brandwatch also analyzed how social media job sentiment varied by specific months and days.

While July remains the most hated month of the year, October is now the most loved month, a change from last year’s top month for job love, November.

There has also been a shift in the days of the week that U.S. workers tweet most positively about work, with Thursday overtaking Friday as the day with the highest job love-to-hate ratio.

“With the ever increasing popularity of social media platforms, it’s becoming more and more common for people to publicly share their opinions about anything and everything – both personal and professional – at incredible scale. A collection of social media mentions is an extremely interesting dataset, because it gives you a rare opportunity to evaluate an audience’s natural and unfiltered opinions on a topic,” said Amy Barker, Head of Analytics at Brandwatch. “This study revealed that workplace social dynamics appear to also now play a greater role in job sentiment. Workers tended to refer to ‘people’ in conversations where both job love and job hate is expressed. This suggests that it’s not always about the work, the pay, or the office, but about who you spend every day with.”

Building on data and insights from the 2015 Monster and Brandwatch Job Report, Monster and Brandwatch used Brandwatch Analytics to analyze and compare more than 2 million English-language tweets across both reports, searching for conversations that included words and phrases indicating loving or hating their jobs. In-depth analysis within the study also utilized Monster data on the top skills and job titles in the US. For the full report, including details on the top jobs and job skills in each state, gender demographics of loving vs. hating US jobs, and why people hate their jobs, visit theMonster and Brandwatch Job Report.

About Monster Worldwide
Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW) is a global leader in connecting people to jobs, wherever they are. For more than 20 years, Monster has helped people improve their lives with better jobs, and employers find the best talent. Today, the company offers services in more than 40 countries, providing some of the broadest, most sophisticated job seeking, career management, recruitment and talent management capabilities. Monster continues its pioneering work of transforming the recruiting industry with advanced technology using intelligent digital, social and mobile solutions, including our flagship website monster.com® and a vast array of products and services. For more information visit www.monster.com/about.

About Brandwatch
Brandwatch is the world’s leading social intelligence company. Brandwatch Analytics and Vizia products fuel smarter decision making around the world.

The Brandwatch Analytics platform gathers millions of online conversations every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them, empowering the world’s most admired brands and agencies to make insightful, data-driven business decisions. Vizia distributes visually-engaging insights to the physical places where the action happens.

The Brandwatch platform is used by over 1,200 brands and agencies, including Cisco, Whirlpool, British Airways, Walmart, and Dell. Brandwatch continues on its impressive business trajectory, recently named a global leader in enterprise social listening platforms by the latest reports from several independent research firms. Increasing its worldwide presence, the company has offices around the world including Brighton, New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Singapore.

Brandwatch. Now You Know.

www.brandwatch.com | @Brandwatch | press office | contact

Contact
Monster
Kristen Andrews
978-461-8089
kristen.andrews@monster.com

Brandwatch
Dinah Alobeid
347-331-0131
dinah@brandwatch.com

For Oringinal article – Click Here

JOB OPENINGS AND LABOR TURNOVER – APRIL 2016

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Employment Retention, Latest News and Articles, US Employment Numbers

I found a report that I really like as it tells a truer story rather than how many jobs the US created of which whoever the president is, if it looks good they claim it to be their doing. If not good, it was the last president or the commercial sector is not doing their job. ~this is not a political rant, I promise.

Ratio:

Job Openings Hires Separations
5.8 million 5.1 million 5.0 million

As you look at these seemingly good numbers (hires are higher than separation), remember there were still 7.9 million in April.

The numbers are looking good once again.  However, please do your due diligence and know that these numbers don’t necessarily talk about the people that have taken themselves out of the workforce or are underemployed.*

Summary

The number of job openings was little changed at 5.8 million on the last business day of April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires edged down to 5.1 million while separations were little changed at 5.0 million. Within separations, the quits rate was 2.0 percent, and the layoffs and discharges rate was 1.1 percent. This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the nonfarm sector by industry and by four geographic regions.

Job Openings

Job openings were little changed at 5.8 million in April. The job openings rate was 3.9 percent. The number of job openings was little changed in April for total private and for government. Job openings increased in a number of industries, with the largest changes occurring in wholesale trade (+65,000), transportation, warehousing, and utilities (+58,000), durable goods manufacturing (+46,000), and real estate and rental and leasing (+41,000). Job openings decreased in professional and business services (-274,000). The number of job openings was little changed in all four regions.

Hires

The number of hires edged down to 5.1 million in April. The hires rate was 3.5 percent. The number of hires was little changed in April for total private and edged down for government (-31,000). Hires were little changed in all industries in April and decreased in the Midwest region.

Separations

Total separations includes quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations. Total separations is referred to as turnover. Quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee. Therefore, the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs. Layoffs and discharges are involuntary separations initiated by the employer. Other separations includes separations due to retirement, death, and disability, as well as transfers to other locations of the same firm.

There were 5.0 million total separations in April, little changed from March. The total separations rate in April was 3.5 percent. The number of total separations was little changed over the month for total private and for government. All industries experienced little change in total separations over the month. In the regions, the number of total separations declined in the Midwest.

The number of quits was little changed in April at 2.9 million. The quits rate was 2.0 percent. Over the month, the number of quits was little changed for total private and for government. Quits increased in arts, entertainment, and recreation (+15,000) but decreased in construction (-45,000) and mining and logging (-5,000). The number of quits decreased in the Northeast region.

There were 1.6 million layoffs and discharges in April, little changed from March. The layoffs and discharges rate was 1.1 percent. The number of layoffs and discharges was little changed over the month for total private and for government. In April, layoffs and discharges declined in professional and business services (-81,000). In the regions, layoffs and discharges decreased in the Midwest.

In April, other separations edged up for total nonfarm and for total private, and was little changed for government. The number of other separations rose in health care and social assistance (+20,000), accommodation and food services (+13,000), and information (+7,000). The number of other separations was little changed over the month in all four regions.

Net Change in Employment

Large numbers of hires and separations occur every month throughout the business cycle. Net employment change results from the relationship between hires and separations. When the number of hires exceeds the number of separations, employment rises, even if the hires level is steady or declining. Conversely, when the number of hires is less than the number of separations, employment declines, even if the hires level is steady or rising. Over the 12 months ending in April, hires totaled 62.4 million and separations totaled 59.7 million, yielding a net employment gain of 2.7 million. These totals include workers who may have been hired and separated more than once during the year.

For the full report: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm