Tag: people

Do You Know Why You Want It?

Posted on by The Organic Recruiter in Employment Value Proposition, Hiring, Latest News and Articles, Military, Millennials, Uncategorized

why-you-do-itAs we move into December and hear the pitter patter of feet running to make their wish lists, we too quietly ponder what we’d like for the holidays and in 2017. After all, haven’t we all been good girls and boys?

During a conversation with one of my best friends this last weekend we discussed the entertainment business he works in. Our conversation was about how the original ideas of some TV shows get lost because the executive producers start fighting over who has the best notes. By the time it gets to the editor, the initial idea of the show is lost.

No one says it better than Simon Sinek in his book “Start with Why”.

Without the Why you have lost your What. If the producers had stopped to remember why they were creating the show, they would not have lost the What. What was the purpose of the show and why? Could the show have been more successful if the judgement was not clouded by ego?

Every day we go after the shiny bullet or the cool new toy that everyone is talking about on Facebook or any other social media or blog. Whether it be the latest ATS such as Workday or Greenhouse to the ever changing LinkedIn. As a society we are always getting sold into the pretty tool because it helped solve someone else’s problem. The question is: will it solve your problem? Are you chasing your own solution or what someone has told you is your solution? Do you know what your Why is? Why are you doing whatever it is?

Companies boast being “military friendly”. Why does the company want to be military friendly and how has the company achieved it? Was the purpose to check a box or was it to reach out to veterans to offer thanks and help transition him/her back into a civilian job? I once sat at a bar with a recruiter and in conversation with a stranger, she learned he was a vet. She immediately reached out to give her business card and offered to help. She mentioned military.com and how it had helped many vets in her network find a position. In my opinion, that’s “military friendly”. Simply posting a position on a supposedly “military friendly” site does not equate to being military friendly. What site is that? How many veteran viewers does it link to? What efforts does that site do to reach out to veterans? What else is the company doing to reach out to the veterans?

What is your why? If you have a wish list, what is on it and why is it there?  Are you looking to appease shareholders? Is it to attract the right talent? Is it to do the right thing at the right time? Is it to increase your ROI of time, money or retention?

you-why“Start with Why” explains how to inspire with ideas rather than product. Simon Sinek goes on in his 2 of his 3 theories being:

  • The Golden Circle:
    • Sinek states, most people in a company know what they do; less people know how they do it; and hardly anyone knows why they do it
  • The Celery Test:
    • If you’re at a grocery store getting food for your health food business, could someone look at your groceries at the checkout line and immediately know what you’re all about?  If you’ve purchased soy milk, chocolate, pudding, and celery the answer is no.  If you’re just purchasing the soy milk and celery, then yes.
    • In business, if you’re not passing the celery test, if you can’t walk the walk after talking the talk, you’ve lost credibility and frankly damaged your integrity.

People buy Apple products because even before Tim Cook, Steve Jobs would only speak on the Why long before he showed you the what.

The founders of Southwest Airlines knew people would love to fly with them because they built their airline on the Why they wanted to fly, rather than just getting to their destination through crappy service.

What’s on your list this year? Why do you want it?

Let’s talk about your Why.

~The Organic Recruiter | Co-wrote with Candy Store

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

The 1%ers and Their Poetic Sourcing – My SourceCon 2016 Experience

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

 

hackathonOn a very poetic weekend for this Los Angelino as our greatest baseball announcer was sent off to retirement from 67 glorious years of telling stories like no one’s business; he is sent off with a walk-off home run.

This gives me joy as I am here to write about a bunch of other all-stars from the recruiting and sourcing world of which I work with daily. Last week I had the great fortune to go to SourceCon for my second time in as many years. I got there, not as a vendor, but as a user. You see, I spent nearly a decade as an IT recruiter in the staffing world and always* believe once a recruiter, always a recruiter (*if you stay up on your game). So my goal, when I left and started selling recruitment services was to always recruit and stay fresh on my game.

Being a rep that touts free recruiting tools and ideas to their clients seems counterproductive, however I feel it lends credibility and confidence in what I sell as well. So suggesting for the last 5 years to my clients they should attend SourceCon has been a no-brainer to me. Now having been the last 2 years, I can tell you these sourcers are the 1%ers in our industry.

The last 2 years have confirmed I am still on my game but what some of the things these guys and gals pull off is just amazing. I affectionately call these 1%ers the Ultimate Geek Squad. From tools to tricks to Chrome extensions, they have it all plugged in. Admittingly, they do say they use media, job ads and databases, just a lot smarter and don’t depend on the post and pray model of sitting around ands waiting for candidates to flow in as they want to beat you to the rock stars.

Kerri Mills from Indeed was one of my favorites (yes, I loved one of my competitors). Six Secrets to Sourcing Like a Grandmaster was well…masterful. Her ideas of hyper-personalization should be locked in your brain forever, even after (gawd-forbid) you leave recruitment. This idea is “stop templating your messages”. Find out more about your candidate and make them feel like they are the only one you want to hire EVER. She is not saying she does not use templates. You just don’t know it because she is a poet to what she knows about you.

So as I sit here and romanticize the similarities of the Ultimate Geek Squad and their correlations with the great athletes and play by play announcers (like I have been spoiled with like Chick Hearn and Vin Scully of the LA great), I want the world to know that recruiting isn’t, “where are my resumes” or “I pass” with no explanation. Rather, it is all about these ridiculously talented sourcers who find these amazing people and transform them into even better candidates. Like Kerri spoke of when she said, “oops, I got lazy and did not pick up the phone to her hiring manager to which he said I pass”. Then Kerri, who knew this candidate better than anyone, refused to lose this rock star and called the hiring manager and said, “no, you are not going to pass…you will interview him for the reasons of…”. The candidate turned into a hire because Kerri was the grandmaster that knew WHY her candidate was amazing.

Fast forward to the evening Hackathon (dang late after a long conference day) where the eager and the best of the best converge on a challenge to be the next Grandmaster by competing on a req challenge merely to get to the best 16 in the room and eventually the best of 2016. It was awesome to see all these brains get together to geek out to see the best chance to find best 6 candidates and their search strings first. From that point, the 16 are found and hardly anyone left in anticipation for who was to win.

My reason for this part is not who won but the fun of open-source recruiting and how passionate these competitors were. The fact that each person had so much love and so many people wanting to help, it brought back the feeling of love for the game and how fun it is to win as a team and willingness to receive input from others. Recruitment is a team sport and we forget that when our hiring managers are hounding us for “more resumes”. Remember, we at SourceCon are the 1%ers, not coordinators slinging resumes. We have passion for geeking out to find the best PERSON for the job, not as many resumes to get the hiring managers off our backs.

Day one is not over as I haven’t talked about the networking. LinkedIn in is the online professional network of choice, but meeting my sourcing heroes like Shannon Pritchett, Editor, SourceCon, ERE Media, Stacy Zaper, Netflix and Dean Da Costa, The Search Authority to name a short few was priceless. You can have 3,000 connections on LI but talking to these greats just makes it worth it.

As we go into day 2, my favorite speakers were Jenny DeVaughn, Senior Director, Internal Communications, ADP and Maisha Cannon, Global Talent Strategist, GitHub whose presentation on From E! To Google – Missteps, Metrics and Methods just had me at the edge of my seat.

First, let’s talk about Jenny and the idea of taking a chance.  Jenny’s story about ‘do what you want to do at whatever cost’ was hitting me right in the heart through her presentation of Learn From My Mistakes – Don’t Be a Basic ‘Brander’. Her story as a single mom and taking chance was exhilarating because no one with little support can take a plunge into independence. Yes she now works for a huge company, but the fact she tried her own thing was pure inspiration.

sourcecon-tweet

Lastly, there was Maisha who was truly a treat and so warm on stage talking about a common theme of being unique and personal. To borrow one of her acronyms of ADD, be authentic, different and delightful of which she was to an exponential degree.  Going back to one of my initial thoughts of people aren’t resumes, Maisha focuses on knowing these candidates and equally important, having the hiring managers on strategy sessions (you call them intakes) and making sure the hiring manager is engaged weekly. To quote her reply to my tweet from her, “Craig. If the HM [hiring manager] says 45M a week, it’s a good time to say…We have a problem.”

In closing, my take-away from SourceCon and the great athletes and sports announcers of old is let’s respect the people that have laid the foundation, work on making it greater through open-source and always remember, candidates aren’t resumes, it’s the story you learn about your candidate that is poetry to the candidate and hiring manager. Let’s follow the steps of the great Vin Scully after 67 years of poetry for the Dodgers and make all our players legendary.

vin-and-puig

Some Special connections I made and you should too:

~The Organic Recruiter