Recruiting In 3D
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Just Do The Application. Please?

There are fewer things in this world that irritate me more than when someone can’t follow simple directions. For example, fill out the application (at the time after we’ve scheduled an interview of course – I wouldn’t want to enrage any of the candidate experience gods by asking for legal paperwork too early on when I should be offering a Frappa Mocha Someshit so that I can make them feel right at home.  (I kid, candidate experience is important. Just bear with me here.) Read More

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 Posted on February 26, 2014 by

 candidate relations, legal, Recruiting, Recruiting Life, References

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Is Recruiting A Result Of Darwinism Or Creationism?

I bet they blame this on Steve Jobs too.

In full disclosure, I’m a huge geek. In 99 out of 100 opportunities on any given night, I’ll watch anything that is on the NatGeo or History Channels before I watch any of that mindless drivel of reality TV. (the Real World still gets a lifetime free pass). And so I had the opportunity to get all freaky with my inner geek and watch the Bill Nye v. Ken Ham debate on the validity of both creationism and evolution. Which got me thinking…..could you have a similar argument for recruiting?

Al recruiters are most likely a product of evolution at heart. unless of course there is someone out there with the BS Bachelors Degree in Corporate Recruitment, who wants to step forward. (crickets………) Ok, great so knowing that, let’s continue. 

Baby I Was Born This Way

Uh, no you weren’t. You were in a really good job that required either A. Good sales and client development skills B. Good research and/or organizational skills, or C. a love for making money.  Nobody grows up wanting to be a recruiter. We happen to luck into to it, and for some of us (lucky ones) it becomes the found career path. We evolve from our former career self into a Recruitimus Onthphoneicus. For others, it becomes another gig they had once upon a career. And they will evolve into their next career move, maybe finding their path. Maybe not. Which brings me to my next point.

Survival Of The Fittest

Ok, so now you are a recruiter, and this is what you are going to do for a career (or to satisfy that bar tab that is inching closer to your 401k balance). You have two choices, adapt and evolve with your field and the new resources available to you, or to just continue doing what you’ve always done. Guess who eats and lives and thrives, and who eventually winds up as someone else’s doormat. Being afraid of changing technology and sticking to “what’s always worked” in the recruiting field is akin to feeding on prey that always come to you, and then wondering why you are starving when it goes extinct – because you haven’t learned to hunt and adapt to new methods of food gathering.  I’m not advocating adopting every garbage tool that someone is peddling. But you need to continually evolve beyond your comfort zone.

Beware Of Artificial Selection

It’s natural for companies to want to replicate the top performers. Those with the highest spreads at an agency, the lowest time to fill in-house roles, those who can close deals and build deep candidate relationships. But there’s danger in that. If you have an office full of recruiting robots, all programmed to function a certain way, guess what you lose? Creativity. So weeding out anyone that doesn’t fit the ONE mold, is a slippery slope.

It’s fine to have your structure and parameters in a recruiting organization. But keep in mind, good recruiters often tend to be tinkerers. Adjusting this or that, experimenting with a new method, keeping abreast on super cool industry websites is how they continually hone their craft. And thrive. And survive.

Maybe you just shouldn’t mess with the order of things. But, what do I know, I’m just a monkey who learned to talk and recruit people.

 

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 Posted on February 17, 2014 by

 Bizarre But True, Recruiting, Recruiting Life, Uncategorized

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A Recruiters Manifesto to Engineers

This post first appeared on recruitDC.org

Recruiters are frustrated. Especially those doing technical recruiting in hotbeds like San Francisco, New York and D.C. They can find the talent that they want out there, but they can’t get them to respond. And frankly, I get it. Engineers must feel like slabs of meat in a recruiter-filled nightclub, when it’s well after 2 AM. 

But that’s not you. You’re not that meathead who is just mass-spamming engineers about their “NEXT GREAT OPPORTUNITY! But to them, you might be. It’s hard to stand out and prove your not like all the rest. And I’ve always thought about just being brutally honest with engineers and seeing if we could go back to the good ol’ days when I had a career proposition for someone, and they were happy to hear from me. I suspect if that was ever sent, it might look something like this:

Dear <insert code for pre-populated NAME field here>,

I feel like I need to explain myself, so you can understand me a bit more. I think we’ve gotten away from the core of our   relationship, which is ultimately quite symbiotic, and I want us to fix that. And I think we can get through it without therapy. Just hear me out……

Why I Reach Out

I have to. This is my job.  I know that you’d rather just find me when you’re ready, but unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. I’m supposed to go out and find the best and most talented engineering minds so that they can join our team and help make us all more successful.  Chances are, if you are getting a message from me, it’s because I’ve researched you and have decided either you are exactly what I’m looking for, or you might be willing to network with me to point me in the right direction. 

I Don’t Code, But I Respect It

I could NEVER do what you do. It’s just not how my brain is wired. And frankly, I’m in awe of what you are able to create with your mind and some code. This is why I always make sure to take care of an engineering team when they helped me out.  I might have the right ideas, but they help bring the idea to life.

But I’m not going to have all the answers to your deep technical questions. I’ll tell you when I haven’t got a clue or I’m in way over my head. But my primary goal here is multi-faceted:

  • I want to assess if you share the mindset of our team.
  • I want to make sure you fit our culture. 
  • I’m assessing your commitment to best practices. 
  • I want to find out what YOU want in your next role. After all, I’ve got the job, but it’s your career. 

Help Me Help You

If there is a best way to communicate with you, let me know. If you are a Twitter-centric person, let’s do that. I’m flexible and can communicate with you on your terms. HipChat? G-Chat? I can work with all of that too. There are days I hate the phone too, trust me. And I want to work with you in the way that you work.

Stop Being Paranoid

Yes, I found your email. How?! Where?! Yeah, I know, you think I’m an intrusive stalker. But really, like you, I’m just doing the best I can at my job, and utilizing the tools available to me. So, yeah sometimes I need to get creative about where to search for contact information. Then again, with all the information the NSA could dig up on someone, what I’m doing is small potatoes.

I Can’t Speak For Everyone

Look, I can’t prevent companies from making bad hires, or thinking they can turn anyone who has ever talked to another human being into a recruiter. I’ll never be able to put a forcefield around you and insulate you from people robotically conversing with you as if they are running off of a checklist. I likely can’t force people to have a conversation like a human. But I promise that I’ll give you the opportunity to tell me everything you want me to know. And I’ll make sure you get the real deal from me. I’ll hold to the deadlines for updatesI give you, even if that update is that there is no update. That’s a pretty good foundation for our relationship, if you ask me. 

So what do you say? Can we start over? I think we still need each other, a little more than we both want to admit.

Let me know and I’ll call you. Or, you know, text you if that’s what you prefer.

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 Posted on January 14, 2014 by

 Can't Fix Stupid, Recruiting, Recruiting Life, The Hiring Process, Uncategorized

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Counteroffers – Come Together, Right Now…..

I had been thinking alot about how the job market has been rather competitive as of late, and started thinking about counteroffers, as I began to hear more about them. As I was perusing Twitter the other day, I found a gold nugget that brought me back a few years.  Seriously, what did we do before Twitter? I think we waited overnight for news and trends about our respective industries or something like that.

I happened to stumble on a great blog post from Kristina McDougall (I highly recommend the follow on Twitter), about how we’re starting to see the return of the counteroffers and “tire-kickers” in their full glory, a la the great tech boom of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. I suspect that it’s like the infamous killer animals, the Poison Dart Frog and the Box Jellyfish, where people tend to shiver when they hear about these. I digress…..I think Kristina did a great job of walking through the things you should talk to the “tire-kickers” about to vet them out, and do the heavy lifting early on to avoid being window shopped.

And in reality at the end of the day, I think counteroffers will only ebb and flow,  but never disappear. So what’s the fix? The burden of responsibility probably lies with both the recruiter and the candidate. But what can each side do to reduce the chances that a counteroffer will interfere with things?  For starters, both sides need to work together in a relationship-driven, and not a transaction-driven model.  Everyone will feel more engaged. With engagement comes trust.

Here are a few ideas:

Recruiters

  • Be upfront. Talk about the potential pain areas of the role or company, while still accentuating the positive aspects of the organization. Trying to sell everyone sunshine and butterflies only ends up making you look silly, and your candidates know it.
  • Discuss early on the potential that there could be a counteroffer, and discuss this with your candidate. Don’t dance around it. It is an uncomfortable situation, without a doubt. However, it’s not quite as uncomfortable as having to tell a manger or client that the candidate that was hired is suddenly not going to be there for Death By Powerpoint orientation.
  • Don’t badmouth the current company that the candidate works for. It’s cheap and doesn’t make you look any better.

Candidates:

  • Be upfront. Talk to me about why you are really looking. Tell me what you make, and what you want to make going forward.  The more I know about your motivations and what you are looking for, the more I can do in working with managers to get that for you. Skip this, and we’re all just gambling.
  • If you are unhappy now, it’s probably not just about money.  So, more money isn’t going to solve whatever is making want to leave there.
  • Know that if you accept a counteroffer, you are wielding irreparable damage on your relationship with this recruiter. The chances that they will work with you in the future are very slim. If it is a successful and well-networked recruiter, remember that word travels fast.
  • If you accept a counteroffer, know that it is something that will forever be linked with you at your company. Companies rarely give out unexpected sums of money under duress without it being followed by some type of angst.

At the end of the day, if both candidates and recruiters get on the same page with one another from the beginning, we will see fewer  “tire-kickers” and counteroffers accepted.

Feel free to comment on what other things each side can do to reduce the potential for an 11th hour fiasco.

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 Posted on November 17, 2011 by

 candidate relations, Closing the Deal, Job Hunting, Recruiting Life, The Hiring Process, Uncategorized

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Thanks, But No ^#$%&* Thanks!

When you are a recruiter, you get to see all sides of human nature, and all the accompanying emotions. When people get the job, there is elation. When they don’t dejection. You get to see kindness, competitiveness, nervousness and aloofness. While all these things are great and each have their own place, I feel the need to highlight my favorite….stupidity.

I devote a short bit of time (and catharsis) occasionally here at RI3D to the absurd, amazing and usually unbelievable snippets of things recruiters hear. As comedian Ron White says, “You Can’t Fix Stupid”.

Maybe we should have hired that guy after all?
Some of the things that fall into the YCFS category are the things that people write back after being rejected for a job. Look, I get it…..the job market is tough, and you’ve applied to 200 jobs (of which you are qualified for all of them, I know) and I’m just the next recruiter to stand in your way. But there is a graceful way to reply to a rejection, if you feel so compelled to respond to it. Below are two examples of how NOT to respond. Recruiters get hours of entertainment out of these. I hope you get a laugh or two.

  • “LOL I am more than qualified good luck to u”
  • F$ck off – Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I’d put each of these in context, but, well this is all they wrote. At least I don’t know which cell phone company the first person uses.

Yes friends, the old saying goes, “you can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose”. But, you can pick your choice of words.  Aside from the obvious lack of salutations that most professional e-mails tend to contain (what? I embraced my geekdom long ago) and the “sentences” written in “Textglish”, these are pretty funny. I mean, unless you are the angry person who wrote it.

So, if you need to respond, then do so with a little dignity and tact. And maybe one or two less F-bombs.

But then again, those are funny.

If you look close, you can see the Medulla Expletive

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 Posted on November 15, 2011 by

 Bizarre But True, Can't Fix Stupid, candidate relations, Recruiting, Recruiting Life, Uncategorized

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Recruiting In 3D

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