If you find yourself working internally in a recruiting function or even as a hiring manager, you may find a trend of hiring similar or identical roles year over year.

Once the initial hire has been made for these roles it may take less time to find candidates with a similar, closely aligned skill set. This is most likely for several reasons:

• The initial hire may have a network to reach out to and refer qualified applicants. If a referral is hired, they may have additional qualified referrals for the role, creating an domino-like effect.
• You have spent time understanding the marketplace and overall landscape of hiring for this role, therefore you know what to expect.
• You can refer back to a target company list, or other resources you have spent time putting together to aid in recruiting for the role.
• You recognize the necessary hard and soft skills it requires to be successful in the role and how to screen for them.

Another strategy that can be helpful when hiring for multiples of roles during the year is to build a pipeline of candidates.

Pros and Cons of Building a Passive Candidate Pipeline

Building a pipeline of candidates means you are reaching out to and networking with qualified candidates for a role that may not necessarily be open at the moment, but will be opened over the next several months. This way, when the position is ready to be recruited for, you have a list of candidates who are ready to interview, rather than starting from scratch.

Pro: Reducing Time to Hire

This can be a smart recruiting strategy to implement in order to build out your candidate options and cut down on time it takes to fill a position.

Con: Engaging Passive Candidates May Turn Them into Active Job Seekers

As Glen Cathey writes in a post for his blog, once you reach out to a passive, currently employed candidate, there’s always a risk that the gears may start turning and they may begin checking out other opportunities.

By speaking with you and learning about another exciting position, it is likely the candidate will begin contemplating what other interesting opportunities are out there waiting for them. Not only will they be more open to recruiters reaching out to them, they might even start to actively seek employment on their own by applying.

By the time the position opens up at your company, it’s possible this formerly “passive” candidate you thoughtfully engaged with and carefully placed into your pipeline will have accepted another position.

Staying Connected with Candidates and Keeping Your Pipeline Up to Date

To combat this, be mindful of this candidate behavior. Consistently check in with candidates in your pipeline to inquire about any other interview activity. You cannot prevent a candidate from seeking out other opportunities, of course, but it is best to be aware ahead of time when you’re about to lose a candidate in your pipeline so you can gather information on the details and make updates and fill his or her space, accordingly.

Do you think building a passive candidate pipeline is counterproductive? Or are there ways to maintain it more effectively?

Passive candidates are those that are currently working and not actively applying to job openings or seeking alternative employment.

When reaching out to passive candidates about a job opportunity through various channels, there are four things you need to keep in mind to tailor your message effectively.

4 Tips for Recruiting Passive Candidates

1) It’s Not About You

“Hi my name is Katy and I’m a recruiter…”

If you open your email to a passive candidate by spewing out info on a company or a job description, chances are the person won’t need to be told you’re a recruiter. Instead of introducing yourself and making the message about how YOU need to fill a position, start off by making it about the candidate from the get-go.

“I noticed your extensive experience working with Java and back-end technologies. I took time to review your portfolio as well, and was impressed with your recent projects.”

By opening with messaging about why you reached out to the candidate, he or she is more likely to stop, read your email, and get back to you. Make sure that your emails and other messaging are personalized and custom-created for each and every candidate.

2) It Is About Using “You”

You have to remember passive candidates are currently working, and it may be more challenging for them to picture themselves at a different company.

When describing the job in your message, instead of being abstract and explaining that, “This person will work with…” try using “You will be working with…”

By adding “You” to the message, candidates will be more apt to see themselves performing in that job function.

3) Close with Confidence

At this point you’ve explained why you reached out, you pitched the company, and you explained what the candidate could do and expect in this specific role. Now what?

Don’t end a great message with a passive, “perhaps we can talk sometime this week.” Try setting a specific time with something like, “Let’s talk briefly this week — how does Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning work for you?”

4) Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up

You’ve strategically pieced together a personalized, specific message to a candidate. You hit send and eagerly wait for the thankful response the candidate is bound to rush back to you with asap. Considering the perfect message you sent, how could they not?

Wake-up call: You need to follow up. Otherwise, the the time and energy you spent reaching out to the candidate will be a complete waste. I usually do a three-strike rule. After three messages sent to a candidate without any response, I can assume they are definitely not interested.

Bottom Line

Creating effective messaging for passive candidates may take a bit more time, but the thoughtfulness will most certainly pay off more than the typical “shotgun” approach. Try these methods to improve your success in recruiting passive candidates.

Have you had success recruiting passive candidates? What tips and tactics have you used?

Big Data, Big Data, Big Data. I’ve been hearing this buzz word a ton over the past year or so.

As it turns out, there’s plenty of substance behind the hype. In fact, it’s a real trend. With advancements in technology, we’ve created a lot of information (data) for ourselves. This has created a huge opportunity for companies to create solutions to manage this data.

The Potential Impact of Big Data in HR

Big Data analysis can be used to improve talent management, as well. Using this information, managers can make highly-informed decisions about their organization and workforce, targeting high-performing employees/teams, recognizing them for their accomplishments, and drilling down into what makes them successful to better understand — and help them and others repeat — their results.

The annual Global Assessment Trends Report, published by talent measurement solutions company SHL, digs into details on HR trends for 2013 and devotes its main section to exploring the challenges and opportunities of Big Data being utilized within HR. The authors explain that the ability to acquire and analyze increasing amounts of complex data offers HR managers the opportunity to better measure and understand their employees. This can lead to improving decision-making and performance.

The report indicates the focus of the trend is currently leaning more towards developing internal capabilities and current employees rather than utilizing Big Data to help with new talent acquisition. For example, I was happy to hear that, according to the report, a top priority for HR in 2013 is engaging the workforce (55%) and developing leaders (52%).

One Small Problem

However, as often seems to be the case with Big Data, organizations appear to be having difficulty determining the best ways to analyze their data. The report reveals one of the biggest challenges of managing talent data efficiently is a general lack of reliable and relevant systems and automation. Surveyed HR professionals are looking for changes in the quality and accessibility of their data, and believe current data is being underutilized.

The following table shows the complete findings from the survey:

Less than a quarter of respondents have a clear understanding of their workforce’s potential, although 73% do have a formal performance appraisal/management process in place.

Also, only 18% are satisfied with their HR systems/automation to manage talent data, although over half of respondents believe it is critical to have data on competency and skills integrated into their talent management system. Talk about a huge need that is going under-served.

What does this mean for HR? I predict over the next year we will find more useful ways to use this overload of data to HR’s advantage. I also think this is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to create a solution that addresses the gap in data management for HR professionals. Perhaps we will see a few new companies spring up dedicated to Big Data management for talent measurement.

What do you think? Will Big Data have a big impact on HR? Are there any products/solutions that are already focused on helping HR departments with talent data management?

Of course we all know LinkedIn is a recruiter’s best friend, but shame on me for not using Twitter to it’s full social recruiting potential sooner. It looks as though many of my recruiting counterparts have been overlooking the tool, as well.

Why Every Recruiter Should Be Using Twitter

After reading the 2012 Social Recruiting Activity Report from social recruiting company Bullhorn Reach, I learned that recruiters typically have a significantly low number of Twitter connections compared to LinkedIn or Facebook.

The report also explains that, “A Twitter follower is almost 3 times more likely to apply to a job posting than a LinkedIn connection.”

Say what? That’s huge! I need to up my Twitter followers and tweet out my job postings ASAP!

Also, let’s pause for a moment and remember:

• Cost of a LinkedIn Job Posting: $250.00+
• Cost of a Tweet about a Job Posting: FREE

Do you really need any more reasons to start utilizing Twitter for your social recruiting?

How to Build Your Twitter Following

First things first, increase your Twitter network. There is even a “Who to follow” section on your homepage to help you. You will find that as you grow your own network, others will begin following you as well.

People will also be more likely to follow you if you are active, so keep up the tweeting. They also don’t want to hear from you if you are only tweeting about job openings, so keep your account interesting by sharing tweets and relevant content from others.

Utilizing Twitter for Social Recruiting

Another way to leverage Twitter for recruiting purposes is simply to search for specific skills. This is especially helpful for technical/niche positions. Not only does Twitter’s search function pull hashtags, it also finds any profiles mentioning the keywords you’re searching for. This is an excellent method to source candidates where you can either send a personal message or find them on LinkedIn to send an Inmail.

I don’t consider myself a Twitter expert (yet), so I would like to include links to helpful articles that will further instruct on utilizing Twitter for recruiting purposes:

• How to Recruit & Source Candidates on Twitter by Jessica Miller-Merrell at Blogging4Jobs
• How to Use Twitter as a Recruiting Tool by Tiffany Black at Inc.com
• How to Recruit on Twitter with Hashtags by Jessica Miller-Merrell at SmartRecruiters

The landscape of recruiting is constantly changing; you need to be ahead of the game and up to date with the latest trends to find the best talent.

What do you think? Should more recruiters be using Twitter to boost their social recruiting or should we all stick to LinkedIn?

It is becoming increasingly obvious that growing technology companies are placing a high priority on hiring candidates that will mesh well with their corporate culture. What is really interesting, however, is that in some cases cultural fit is being considered even more important than experience or skills.

I recently came across management consultant Simon Sinek‘s TEDTalk, “First Why and Then Trust,” which provides an enlightening example that gets to the core of the thinking behind this type of hiring strategy.

During the presentation, Sinek poses a question to the audience. He provides them with an option of two very different types of babysitter, and asks them to decide which one they would rather have watch over their most prized possession — their children. Imagine you had to choose one of these babysitters to watch over your kids. Which would you trust more?

1. A 16-year-old with no babysitting experience, but who is part of your community, and therefore shares similar values and beliefs.
2. A 32-year-old with 10 years of experience but who is new to the community. You’re not sure of her values or beliefs and are unfamiliar with her overall background.

Nearly everyone chooses to go with the 16-year old with no experience. Why is that?

Sinek explains the experiment highlights our tendency to be more comfortable with people we consider to be “like us.” The 16-year old is a part of your community and she fits into what you believe in morally, therefore she is less threatening and easier to trust.

Which Is More Valuable in Your Workforce: Experience & Skill or Shared Vision & Passion?

With Sinek’s experiment in mind, it’s easy to see how someone who is under qualified might actually be considered better suited for a job based on “cultural fit”. I find that we are seeing this more and more in the startup world, where organizations have the advantage of creating their very own unique corporate culture. It seems that building a community and a vision garners more success for growing companies over hiring skilled employees who do not share that same vision.

Take Apple for example. Steve Jobs was known for not just being a skilled leader, but for filling his company with other people who shared his vision, and working to inspire them to be innovative and driven. In such cases, employees’ may not meet all the “necessary qualifications”, but their passion exceeds their hard skill set.

These are all important factors to consider when recruiting and hiring for your organization. Quality candidates may be lacking in skills but make up for it with their potential, passion, or shared values and belief in how they will be able to contribute to your company and be a part of its community.

I would certainly recommend everyone, especially those in leadership and management positions, taking 17 minutes out of your day to get some insight into how trust is created, and what that means for your company and hiring strategy.

Which do you think is the better basis for gaining an employer’s trust: skills and experience or cultural fit?

photo: hjl

It’s easy for a candidate to say, yes, of course they are open to relocating for the right opportunity. However, as a recruiter, you will find that you need to truly vet out how serious a candidate is about potentially moving across the country for a job. It’s a huge step, especially if there is family or home ownership weighing in on the decision-making.

Here are a few tips for making sure candidates are really ready for relocation:

Plant the Seed Early

In the first or second conversation with the candidate, dig into their thoughts about the specific area the company is located in. Just as you relay information on the job or company, have facts and information ready to about the city in which they would be moving to. This way, the candidate is actually visualizing the area and thinking about how they (and perhaps their family) could fit in.

Don’t Ignore Hesitation

Do you sense that the candidate isn’t being 100 percent straightforward and may just be saying what you want to hear? Better just ignore that and let all their concerns come out after they decline the offer, right? NO, of course not!

If you sense a candidate is hesistant about moving (that’s ok, who wouldn’t have certain questions/concerns?), ask if they’re sure, then stop talking and listen. A little awkward silence can actually be beneficial as you might find that prompts them to open up.

It’s better to find out sooner than later about any changed expectations. If they actually think they would require more of a raise due to cost of living, or they need some time to sell their house, take note and relay this information to the hiring manager. More often than not, certain accommodations can be made with reasonable notice.

Give Them Resources

There are many resources online that can help candidates think the tactical process of relocation through.

A website called www.homefair.com has tools such as a salary calculator that gauges changes in cost of living, and a school report on rankings of the local schools. They also have financial planning calculators that can help candidates determine ideal mortgage rates, and conduct a benefit analysis on renting vs. buying.

To give even more details, offer resources that are specific to the city or town the company is located in. Every area has their own tourism/travel website that will showcase all the interesting activities and benefits of the area.

Relocating means something different to different candidates.

Everyone has a different living situation, so it’s important to fulfill your role as a recruiter and give all the information necessary to help candidates understand or remove any impediments that may come up once an offer is extended.

Are your job descriptions overflowing with hyperbolic buzzwords? Learn how to reel in top talent by bringing them back to earth with practical, measurable requirements.

Like all good satire, I noticed more than a little truth in this recent article and video from the Onion, “Man Not Sure He’s Dynamic Enough to Work at Local Marketing Firm”.

Basically, the video is poking fun of some of the hyperbolic and buzzword-filled qualifications plaguing job descriptions these days. Here are a couple of examples:

“results-driven, high-energy ‘A’ player capable of providing cutting-edge insights”

or

“ability to work in fast-paced, deadline-oriented environment as a dynamic self-starter”

What do qualifications such as these really mean? How could a hiring manager possibly measure them?

Think of it this way: Candidate is to Resume as Company is to Job Description

What I’m trying to say is that creating quality, fluff and buzzword-free job descriptions is critical to attracting the best talent.

You might compare this to a job candidate’s resume — if it’s full of self-descriptors such as “high-energy,” “team-oriented,” or “dynamic,” it’s difficult to glean what exactly this person’s skills are.

3 Tips for Writing Practical Job Descriptions that are Actually Usable

In order to find the right candidate you are seeking, make sure the following three qualities accurately describe your company’s job descriptions and qualifications:

• Concise
• Straightforward
• Accurate

Here are three tips for accomplishing that:

1) Use Quantifiable Qualifications

It’s very easy for a candidate to claim they work well on a team or in a fast-paced environment. Go beyond that by digging into the measurable qualifications you desire in the ideal candidate. Perhaps it is working with a specific type of technology, or proven experience meeting/exceeding sales goals.

By adding quantifiable job qualifications, Not only will you be able to screen candidates more accurately, you will also be able entice candidates who are more qualified and ready to prove how they are right for the position by providing real proof.

2) List Key Objectives

Another suggestion for your job description is to add key objectives of the role. It’s nice to have specific qualifications and day-to-day job duties, but what is your company looking to get out of this position long term?

These objectives could include long-term goals such as a “20% increase in website traffic” for a Marketing Manager, or “creating a university relationship program” for a Recruiting Manager.

3) Get Crystal Clear

By posting specific rather than generic or vague job descriptions, you indicate that you know exactly what type of person your are looking to hire, and precisely how you want them to add value to your organization.

Do you agree many job descriptions suffer from hyperbolic jargon and buzzwords?

Perhaps there is a very specific, specialized skill set that a candidate must possess. Or maybe the skills aren’t that special, but the market is simply saturated with demand for this type of candidate, giving them the opportunity to choose any position they desire. Either way, if you have a position that needs to be filled and has been open for too long, you may need to re-assess the requirements.

This can be particularly true if it is a job opening that requires very specific skills or experience. Be sure to objectively review which qualifications are absolute must-haves. You may find that hiring a candidate who may be missing one skill or requirement can more than make up for it with an ambitious attitude and cultural fit. He or she may end up being an excellent hire, perhaps even more so than a candidate who holds each specific requirement.

As a hiring manager it is important to realistically note what you need this employee to do for you. It is possible that if one or more “nice to have” requirements are missing, you can teach and train this person to pick up the missing skill?

In Tech Recruiting, the Ideal Candidate May Not Exist

Especially when hiring for engineering or technical roles, you may find it extremely difficult to find a 100% qualified candidate. These types of positions are typically double whammies in that they require a specific skill and demand is incredibly high, allowing candidates to be extremely picky in changing companies. Many companies have run into this problem, but a few are actively formulating some very interesting and innovative solutions.

Why Chase After the Developer of Your Dreams When You Can Create Your Own?

For example, LivingSocial partnered with JumpstartLab in order to create Hungry Academy, a 5-month program to train engineers on a specific technology: Ruby on Rails. After three months of the academy, LivingSocial asks for an 18-month commitment to join their engineering team.

Genius!

I would advise tech companies to take a page out of LivingSocial’s book and think of other creative ways to add training to their talent acquisition strategy. Creating your own academy may be a bit extreme, but perhaps you could start by having more lenient requirements and assigning junior employees a senior-level mentor. Or maybe your company could implement a training/ramp up period for new employees. The potential is endless, and certainly worth thinking about. After all, demand for top tech talent isn’t dying down any time soon, and those unanswered postings and empty positions certainly aren’t doing you any good.

What tech recruiting tips do you have for hiring and/or developing high-demand tech talent? Do you think establishing a training program is an effective solution?

I am beginning to find that candidates are also becoming accustomed to speaking with a recruiter as a first point of contact, rather than the hiring manager. But as their awareness grows that they are “only speaking with a recruiter,” I find that their casualness increases and their professionalism decreases, as well.

In this post, I want to express the importance of taking a phone interview with a recruiter seriously. I have recently had experiences speaking to candidates who are unprofessional, or even rude during our initial conversation. I do not quite understand this, but I do have a feeling if the first call was directly with the hiring manager these candidates would be acting entirely different.

So why is it that some candidates feel as though the initial phone interview with a recruiter does not have to be as serious as with a manager? One reason could be candidates’ experiences speaking with many agency recruiters.

Not All Recruiters Are Calling for a Quick Chat

Of course, every agency is different. At the risk of generalizing, however, I have typically found that agencies encourage recruiters to “pound the phones” and speak with as many candidates as possible throughout the day. It’s possible that one of the consequences is a lack of professionalism on the recruiter’s end. Perhaps candidates are mirroring this behavior and believe any interview with a recruiter is essentially a“quick chat” lacking structure or even respect.

When speaking with corporate recruiters, I want to encourage candidates to remember they are making a lasting first impression. It is highly important to be as timely, respectful, and prepared with a recruiter as it is with a direct hiring manager.

Please don’t forget that a recruiter is empowered to decline an individual’s candidacy based on that first call. You want to be sure to give a great first impression to be considered for the job.

Interviewing Tips to Take into Your Next Call with a Recruiter

• Be Prepared: Do your homework and be familiar not only with the company and what they do, but also the role and its qualifications. Be ready to explain how your skills and qualifications match the job opening.
• Be Punctual: If a call is scheduled for a specific time, give yourself a few minutes to find a quiet space to answer the call. Things out of your control are bound to come up, and if so, alert your recruiter asap to reschedule.
• Always Be Professional: Keep your reputation in mind. Even if the position is not a great fit, or the company is not what you’re looking for, end the call on a positive note. If you are interested in the role, follow up with a quick thank you within the next day.
• Ask Questions: An interview ideally will go both ways. This is a great opportunity to ask questions about the company culture or the reason why the position is available.

By following these tips you will make a positive impact on the recruiter and begin to build a fruitful relationship. This will benefit you for landing a job interview, or for assistance in potential future opportunities.

I hear this pain point over and over again — growing technology companies need, need, need software engineers.

Why so desperate? Lack of technical talent can develop into a huge impediment, hindering a company’s potential success or growth, and unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough great engineering talent to go around. It’s a major imbalance of supply and demand, and since we’re talking about a highly specialized skill set that requires targeted training/education and work experience, there is no quick and easy solution.

Some companies are so focused on developing a reliable pipeline of these types of candidates that they have gone so far as to hire specific technical recruiters in-house.

How can you recruit these engineers who are so sought after? Here are five options to start with right away.

Job Boards

I’m only listing this option in order to say no to it. Honestly, I would be moderately wary of considering a software engineer who has applied via a job board. The good ones are being actively hunted down and poached left and right. They don’t need job boards and they know it.

My point is, do not depend on a job board to fill this type of position. You need to think outside of the box

LinkedIn

This is a good start. However, be aware that some really fantastic engineering talent may not be active on Linkedin at all. These types of candidates are inundated constantly by recruiters (sorry!), therefore they might not even create a Linkedin profile in order to avoid the cluttered inbox.

The best way to use Linkedin when searching for software engineers is to join relevant groups, such as “Boston Javascript Developers” or “Storage Architects”. You can identify top talent by checking out the discussions or searching through the members. Fair warning, though, you might be surprised to find that a large portion of the members are actually recruiters.

Meetup

If you’re not familiar with Meetup, you may want to check out their website. This is basically a site that organizes groups of people to engage in their interests by – you guessed it – meeting up with other people who share the same interest.

So what interests do great software engineers have? Software development! There are likely lots of Meetup groups local to the area you are searching in that will have Meetups on learning more about a specific technology.

You can use Meetup to simply find members of a certain group to message, or you could go the extra mile by actually attending the Meetups and introducing yourself in person. I recently spoke to a recruiter who actually organizes Meetups for local software engineers to attend and network, and I think that’s a great idea.

Referrals

I highly recommend developing a referral program to find top engineering talent. The best engineer working at your company is likely to know other great software engineers. Hand out something like a $2-5K bonus, and in no time you will find talent rolling in — and you’ll save yourself potential agency recruiter fees and time in the process.

Networking

This goes hand-in-hand with a referral program, but when it comes to any hard-to-fill position, networking is key. Talk to lots of people and get a buzz going around. Understand the effective value proposition that would convince an engineer to work at your company. Perhaps it’s a specific, exciting type of technology, or maybe it’s the ability to head up a new deployment that no one has rolled out before. These candidates have opportunities proposed to them on the hour, so realize what sets your opportunity apart and evangelize it.

These are my top tips for recruiting software engineers. I’m sure there are other strategies companies use to attract top technical talent.

What else would you add to this list?

Why Recruiters Love to Aggressively Go After Passive Candidates

What do I mean by a “passive candidate”? A candidate that is perceived to be “passive” is currently employed and therefore has the luxury of being picky and at times indifferent about about pursuing any new potential job opportunities. However, it should never be assumed that just because a candidate is employed he or she is not actively looking for other jobs.

A dilemma I am faced with is determining what makes a passive candidate so much more appealing than someone who is unemployed. Most of us have been unemployed at some point — I know I have. Did that mean I was not as viable a candidate as someone who was happily working? The truth is many recruiters and hiring managers probably thought so.

First of all, I think one of the reasons companies lean toward pursuing passive candidates is that they get excited about the prospect of seeming more appealing than another organization. They are interested in finding someone who is already successful in their role, and like the idea of convincing them to be just as successful at a “better” company.

Also, if you’re passionate about your company, of course you want to brag about how great it is and poach the best possible people to bring them on board. One potential drawback to passive candidates, however, is that having jumped ship once, they may be likely to do so again. They might always be looking for the next best thing, and could possibly leave for another, more lucrative role if another recruiter comes knocking.

Considering Candidates Who Are Currently Unemployed

When it comes to candidates who are not working, there is usually a slew of vetting questions you’ll want to start out with. Ex:

• Why did you leave your last job or why did it not work out?
• How has the interview process been going for you? (in other words, why have you not found another job yet?)

There definitely can be some red flags for candidates who have been very actively seeking employment for several months, yet have not been offered a job. On the other hand, I admire candidates with great experience who have decided to utilize their time off to find a very specific role, which they know will make them happy. In this case, these candidates can be just as picky as passive candidates.

There is also the case of the bad economy, although I have seen a surge of hiring over the past year or more. There is a fine line between using the economy’s state as an explanation and as an excuse for not having a job.

In either case, there are excellent and poor candidates who are currently passive and the same is true for those who are currently unemployed.

While I do tend to see a bias against candidates who haven’t been full-time employed over the former few months I think the best policy is to keep an open mind. If you come across a candidate with a large gap from their most recent job to present, but that candidate meets all of the qualifications, figure out the circumstances of their unemployment and go from there.

My policy is to screen candidates in, rather than screen them out. You never really know the situation unless you have a conversation first.

Have you found your best hires have been passive candidates? What’s your take on hiring candidates with employment gaps?

This leads me to question the credibility of endorsements on LinkedIn, and why they have been implemented.

Is There Any Real Value to LinkedIn Endorsements?

I understand that most likely LinkedIn wants their users to interact more often with each other, however I’m not quite sure this feature is adding any value to the platform as a professional networking site.

As a recruiter, I am likely on LinkedIn 100% more often than the average person. I’m logged on during my entire work day. I tend to notice any changes and activity with LinkedIn and quickly assess whether it will improve my experience using the site or not.

One particular aspect of LinkedIn that I highly regard and respect are the recommendations. If someone has taken the time, energy, and thought into writing a recommendation on LinkedIn, they must truly commend the person they wrote about. I value recommendations, and I’ll generally view candidates with exceptional recommendations as ahead of the pack.

What I dislike about the new endorsements feature on LinkedIn is that it seems to be taking away from people writing recommendations.

Rather than writing a thoughtful piece, a person can instead easily click on a skill and “endorse” someone. It should not be that easy to truly endorse someone for their skills and knowledge. It takes about two seconds, and there is zero factor of credibility behind endorsing someone.

I have also noticed connections on LinkedIn will endorse me for a particular skill, only to request me to endorse them back.

In no way, shape, or form does LinkedIn regulate the way people are endorsing each other. I could VERY easily list a skill such as “neuroscience” and ask a few friends (or strangers!) to endorse me for it. Before you know it, I’m a surgeon slash recruiter extraordinaire (sounds like grounds for a reality TV show!)

I very much like using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool and I would hate to see the credibility of the site decrease.

Overall, I would like to see LinkedIn get rid of this fluff-filled feature. If they keep it, I highly encourage individuals to endorse people for skills they genuinely know those people are able to perform.

What do you think? Do you like the endorsements feature on LinkedIn or do you think it’s a waste?

There are several reasons why keeping a candidate in process too long is a bad idea:

More Opportunity to Over-think Things

This is especially true of passive candidates who are currently employed. Maybe the role seemed new and exciting when they first interviewed, but as time goes on, the initial luster wears off. After weeks — perhaps even months — of not having in-person contact with hiring managers, those candidates may decide they want to stick with what is comfortable rather than trying something new.

Top Candidates Don’t Stay Available

A great candidate who is actively looking is certainly not going to be on the market for very long. Even if the opportunity at your company is perfect for them, without “closing the deal” you always run the risk of them being scooped up.

No Progress is Often Perceived as Disinterest

Another reason candidates may remove themselves from consideration for a role is because they might start to believe your company is actually not very interested in them. This is more likely if a second or third interview has not been scheduled and a candidate is seeking feedback.

If they reach out to the recruiter regarding next steps and do not receive any relevant information, it’s certainly possible they will lose enthusiasm. It can be a downer trying to figure out whether you have a chance at an opportunity, and eventually a candidate will just move on.

So, how can you avoid these types of situations?

Set Expectations from the Start

First off, if you know from the start the interview process will be lengthy it is important to let candidates know and set that expectation from the very first phone call.

Ideally, your company should try to make the interview process as quick and painless as possible. This can be difficult based on each interviewer’s schedule, but if it’s an important role and filling it is a high priority you should carve out time to meet with someone and move the process along.

Not only does a quick and organized interview process provide an excellent candidate experience, but you will also get the candidate hired, onboarded, and working more quickly. He or she will be able to move into the role you need sooner and take on responsibilities that need to be taken care of.

Consolidate Multiple Interviews As Much As Possible

If there are multiple people or teams a candidate needs to meet with in order to be hired, you might consider scheduling a longer interview that includes multiple stakeholders to avoid return trips. Some companies have an “interview day” where they invite a candidate in for several hours or even an entire day in order to speed up the process.

Overall, in hiring situations it is best to have a sense of urgency when it comes to interviewing. Clearly, it is important to vet out candidates to find the most qualified person for the position. However, by dragging out interviews you risk losing a great candidate.

Have you been subjected to a very long interview process? How did you handle it?

As a hiring manager, how will you speed up your interview process?

Once a candidate has been qualified by your internal recruiter and is progressing through the interview process, you must ensure that your recruiting process is standardized. Doing so will allow you to make a fair comparison of candidates while also complying with discrimination employment laws.

3 Steps to a Standardized Interview Process

1) Determine Who the Interviewers Will Be

Make sure the same group of individuals is involved throughout the process and interviews all candidates for a specific role/group.

2) Develop a List of Interview Questions

It’s a fair assumption that different interviewers will be asking different questions. Instead of heading into the interview without an agenda, develop a set of standardized questions delegated to each interviewer. This way, the same questions will be asked of each candidate, therefore making a fair comparison between candidates.

Recruiting Tip: Be sure to integrate behavioral interviewing questions into each interview.

These types of questions are designed to dive into how a candidate would or has behaved in specific situations. Behavioral interview questions dig beneath the surface in order to discover the true aptitude of the candidate. Including these questions can certainly benefit the interview process.

3) Take Notes and Record Reactions to the Interviews Immediately

During the interview, be sure to take thorough notes. Afterwards, compile these notes along with your overall impression into a document that can be potentially shared with others on your team. It is important to take notes quickly after the interview has commenced in order to record the most accurate depiction of the interview.

Once each interviewer has spoken with the candidate and has covered their section of questions, you can compare and contrast notes, impressions and feedback in a compliant, fair manner.

Benefits of a Standardized Interview Process: Don’t Get Caught Without One!

Without standardization in your interview process you risk the chance of not clearly understanding the quality of a candidate, but also of potentially missing out on an excellent candidate by not asking the right questions, or comparing them unfairly against others.

What tips do you have to help recruiters and hiring managers improve and standardize their interview process?

We all know cultural fit is an important factor when hiring for your startup or expansion-stage company. Being a fit culturally is important for hiring or joining any organization. Watch this short video to learn more about how to determine cultural fit during the interview process.

Since it’s clear we need to screen candidates not only for their valued skills, but their cultural fit within the company, I think it’s important to determine exactly what “culture fit” means.

When hiring managers or recruiters discuss a candidate fitting into the culture, they are specifically referring to corporate culture. According to dictionary.com, corporate culture is defined as the philosophy, values, behavior, dress codes, etc., that together constitute the unique style and policies of a company.

For example, perhaps employees at your company typically work early mornings but leave right around 5pm. Maybe many of them have a unique drive that can’t quite be explained and are constantly challenging each other. Individuals who are being interviewed and would rather not work in this type of environment, regardless of the job, most likely will not be happy.

It is important to note that cultural fit is not how people like to spend their free time, what types of movies they enjoy, or which genre of music they prefer. After coming across this article for Recruiter.com, it seems like the author is confusing a candidate’s post work activities with how they would fit in with a company’s corporate culture.

When screening candidates for cultural fit, you shouldn’t determine a candidate is wrong for a company simply because they don’t own golf clubs, or aren’t interested in various other recreational activities.

The article does make a good point that personal preferences should not cloud the interview/screening process. At the end of the day, your company needs someone who will fit well on the team based on his or her qualifications, and who will be able to do the job while appreciating and enjoying the company.

It’s a new year and I’ve been reading a lot of articles recently on how to work on those resolutions we have all been thinking about. It’s a fresh start to work on yourself not only personally but also professionally.

Being the beginning of the year, and the start of a new quarter, you should focus on tangible improvements you can make to take control of your career. In this post I have compiled several tips from other articles and personal experience to set career building resolutions and reach your goals for 2013.

1) Get SMART

First off, in order to meet your goals you must set a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely (SMART) bar for yourself. Whether you want to be promoted by year’s end, wrap up a seemingly never-ending project or dedicate time to learning something new – you must create a goal, or resolution, you can work at daily. I find it helpful to write what you wish to accomplish somewhere visible as a daily reminder.

2) Get Feedback

Another tip to get you started is to ask for feedback. In past positions I have found many co-workers often believe they are doing the best job possible, yet they’re constantly complaining they haven’t been promoted. I’m sure if they asked their fellow employees, or more importantly – their boss, they might be offered a different perspective.

I can’t express how important it is to gain insight and feedback from not only your superiors but also your peers. Your bosses want to see you do well and everything they express is only to help you improve yourself. Peers can give an interesting perspective, as well, and may have advice that can make you better at your job.

3) Get Over Your Complaints

On that note, don’t complain about your job at work! This may seem like a given, but I have certainly come across co-workers openly venting on the clock. Not only can it make the person you are complaining to feel extremely awkward, if your boss hears you being so negative you could risk losing your job, or at the very least risk losing their respect.

4) Get Fit!

To increase overall productivity and happiness, take care of your body. Honestly, this is incredibly important in reaching your career goals. If your mind is groggy and overtired, it is impossible to perform your best work. Try to get enough sleep at night, eat well, and exercise. You will immediately find yourself in a better spot not only professionally, but personally as well.

5) Get Serious About Your Future — It Starts Now

Think long-term and focus on your overall career goals. Spend 10-15 minutes per day thinking about how your short-term goals will help you to achieve those long-term goals. Use this time to truly motivate and encourage yourself to keep moving forward to accomplish what you desire from work. At the end of the day, develop tasks that you need to complete the next day. This way you can come into work refreshed and ready to start off immediately.

It’s obviously a time to develop new goals and resolutions. What are your career building resolutions? How will you make sure to meet them for the New Year?

It is extremely important to set expectations with your hiring managers from the very start. Typically these managers are extremely busy (if there is an open job chances are they’re probably picking up even more slack), and you have to remember that hiring/interviewing is actually not a hiring manager’s primary role, as it is for a recruiter.

By taking the time to explain the hiring process, establish clear expectations, and schedule regular meetings you will be able to set the requirements you expect and need from the hiring manager from the get-go.

Here are three recruiting tips and best practices to utilize while working with hiring managers:

Set Expectations During the Kickoff Meeting

• Take advantage of your face time with the hiring manager during this meeting to nail down your process and establish what you need from him or her and when you’ll need it by.
• Agree on your timeline for feedback. A good expectation is to receive feedback within 48 hours of submitting a candidates.
• Explain why feedback is critically important to the search. A recruiter needs feedback not only to provide updates to submitted candidates, but also to use as a benchmark to source the correct profile.

Schedule a Weekly Meeting

• As previously mentioned, hiring managers are extremely busy with their own tasks and responsibilities. Make it easier to receive feedback (and to build a good rapport) by scheduling a weekly meeting or call. This is an excellent opportunity for both parties to check in on the progress of the search, discuss any potential impediments, and exchange feedback
• Make sure to hold hiring managers to this standard. Obviously, rescheduling here and there is perfectly acceptable, but consistent no-shows are not. Be clear that if there is not a solid feedback loop you will pause on the search until hearing back from them.
• A best practice when dealing with an unresponsive hiring manager is to follow up once with email and then proceed to call directly and leave a voicemail. If you still don’t hear back you may need to escalate the issue either to your Director or whomever the hiring manager reports to.

Weekly Update Emails

• Update emails are another opportunity to touch base with not only the direct hiring manager, but all stakeholders in the search who may not be involved with day-to-day communication.
• Choose a day (Friday usually is a good option) to send a high-level overview of the search’s progress and the candidates in process. When sending information to hiring managers, it is normally a best practice to over-communicate. If the search is not going as planned you can highlight impediments and a strategy for the following week. This way all stakeholders are on the same page and there are no question marks.

There will certainly be times when even after setting expectations, scheduling update meetings, and sending weekly update emails you will find a hiring manager to be unresponsive. If receiving feedback is becoming a serious impediment with the search you may need to meet with a superior and evaluate whether it makes sense to continue working on the search. However, by following these best practices, you will hopefully be able to establish a feedback loop that is consistent and productive.

So, I searched around the Internet to find out more. Surprisingly, there are very few resources on the topic. However, I was able to gather the following:

Recruiting dates back to Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The first known “employee referral” program was founded by the one and only Julius Caesar. He offered up to one-third of a soldier’s annual salary for referrals into the military.

In today’s world, the military still has a strong recruiting program.

In the United States, for instance, recruiting shifted from strictly military to staffing around the 1940s. During World War II, employment agencies began springing up to support job candidates that were ineligible to fight in the war. These agencies were focused on the candidates, placing them into companies that were low on employees due to their work force being drafted to fight the war.

Once the war was over, droves of skilled soldiers returned home looking for work. Recruiting exploded, as recruiters worked with companies to place the surplus of qualified job candidates. Not surprisingly, large companies began outsourcing their staffing altogether.

Fast-forward to the 1990s and the infamous dot-com boom. Around this time, web-based technology companies exploded, and the need for technically skilled workers increased alongside the demand from these newly formed companies. Finding the right technical workers became a challenge and an impediment. Technical staffing boutiques started forming quickly to cash in on the opportunity to recruit these types of technical candidates.

Of course, the recruiting industry took a hard hit during the recent economic turndown. However, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States-based staffing companies have added more than 786,000 jobs to their payrolls since that downturn began.

So, it looks like Julius Caesar had a good idea after all.

I wonder what his army would have looked like if he was able to outsource his recruiting efforts to an agency at a 20 percent fee, or had an internal recruiter keeping a constant pipeline of soldiers on hand?

More accurately, recruiting these days seems a lot like online dating. After all, recruiting is performed mainly through online resources like LinkedIn. You check out a profile, maybe a person’s picture, and assess or judge how the candidate writes about him or herself. Does it make sense? Are there spelling errors? Could they be a good match? How would they fit in? I wonder what they’re like in-person? Are they the same as they portray themselves?

Hmmm, this sounds awfully familiar to me. Ever heard of Match.com, okcupid (personal fave), or eHarmony? Online dating is becoming increasingly popular, and so is sourcing and hiring candidates online from Linkedin.

Let’s explore the similarities a little further.

Online Presence vs. Reality:

It’s the worst to realize that the person you’ve been speaking with over the internet is not quite what they portrayed themselves to be. For example:

Online Dating: “Oh, wow, so it’s clearly been a few years since you played all those sports you talked to me about. Oh, I see, you’re not employed right now. Layoffs, sure, ok. Ah, your roommate is your ex. Totally understandable. Excellent.”

Recruiting: “Oh, I see, you’re not employed right now. Layoffs, sure, OK, just one layoff. Oh, you worked next to the marketing team, but you really only managed your own Facebook account? You actually don’t know about marketing?”

It’s easy to look like a big shot online, but when you meet with someone in-person it can be fairly clear that they were stretching the truth. Usually, this is obvious right away. However, sometimes it takes a few interviews to really set in.

Interviews:

Interviews are typically pretty revealing, too. And they might remind you of some pretty awful dates that a matchmaking service has set you up on. For example:

Online Dating: OK, so maybe someone made a great first impression, but maybe they are just a really good liar? Most good friends would highly recommend not accepting a first date at face value. Take it with a grain of salt. Does that make me cynical? Perhaps. Realistic? Yes. Take as many dates as you need to figure out if they’re worth committing to.

Recruiting: Would you marry someone after the first date? I hope not! I don’t recommend hiring someone after the first interview, either. It takes time to really vet a candidate and dig into their past and personality.

References:

Whether it’s recruiting or dating, you can’t always believe what you hear. Candidates — whether for a job or a relationship — and their friends will likely tell you what you want to hear. So, the quality of your references and your ability to put their advice into context is critical. For example:

Online Dating: You meet someone’s friends and they gush: “Oh wow, he/she like REALLY likes you. And you are so cute together!” Or, maybe you happen to work with someone that knows your potential boyfriend. “Oh, you’re going out with Brad? That’s nice. Did he get a divorce yet?” The importance of references is actually true for any dating, not just online. And while you can’t always believe what you hear, it can give you some insight.

Recruiting: You can assume that references directly from the candidate are going to be outstanding. But it’s the backdoor references that will really give you the answers you might be looking for.

Hiring/Firing:

OK, so you’ve vetted your relationship or job candidates, and you’re ready to date or hire them (hopefully not both). Or maybe you’ve already hired or begun dating them, and it’s not working out. How are dating and recruiting similar when it comes to hiring and firing?

Online Dating: You did your “interviews,” checked references, and he or she is still calling or texting. It might be time to take that plunge into exclusivity. Hey, worst case, they are not as they appear and you break up. Happens all of the time!

Recruiting: Backdoor references are a check, skills align, salary is within range. Congrats you’ve got an offer to extend! Hey, worst case, they are not as they appear and they get fired. Happens all of the time!

Anyone else agree with me here? There seem to be so many nuances between recruiting and dating that I can’t even list them all in one post!

The truth is, those job descriptions aren’t really descriptive at all. And if you’re writing job descriptions like that, you’re simply misusing what should be a recruiter’s secret weapon for attracting top talent.

Great job descriptions include specific responsibilities, requirements, and objectives, and they will gain attention from more candidates.

Unfortunately, actually writing those descriptions is not as straightforward as it often seems.

Need help taking advantage of your secret weapon? Here are some tips for writing better job descriptions that catch the attention of A-level candidates:

Title

The first thing a candidate will read on the job description is the title. A job title should be appealing and descriptive. However, there is a fine line between making the job title sound attractive and over-exaggerating its seniority. If a job opening is for a senior level role, be sure to include words like “senior,” “manager,” or “director.” If the position is more junior or entry level, you can add “associate” or “specialist.”

Company Information

This is your chance to dive into what makes your company so great and different. Include any selling points that truly set your company apart. This can include the rate your company is growing, any awards or press clippings, cutting edge technology you may be creating or using, or even things like office location or perks. Don’t be shy.

Job Responsibilities

Be specific! In an earlier post, one of my colleagues discussed the significance of creating specific job descriptions rather than broad ones. A broad description of responsibilities may dissuade qualified candidates from applying since they do not understand what the role requires. Include day-to-day tasks as well as long-term strategic objectives. Try not to include obvious or mundane tasks if they are not important or do not highlight the importance of the role.

Qualifications

Try not to go overboard here. This is where you list the necessary minimum qualifications of the position. Too many qualifications might shrink the candidate pool, while too few qualifications can open the door to unqualified candidates that think they fit the job profile.

A best practice to keep in mind when you begin creating job descriptions is to save all descriptions in a shared drive.

This way your talent team can build a library of job descriptions to pull from to use for similar positions. Perhaps a little tweaking will be necessary, but this will cut down on time when new positions open up.

Providing a great, detailed job description can set you apart from other companies. Candidates will realize exactly what the job entails and also appreciate the fact that your company has put time and effort into creating a descriptive, non-generic job description.

A highly important detail of the recruiting process is finding the most qualified candidates. However, even if you find this needle in the haystack, how can you guarantee they will be interested in the position or company you are pitching?

This is where recruiting messaging is most important. By messaging, I am referring to the content of the email/inmail you are sending to candidates in order to grab their attention and move forward with next steps.

There are different ways to tailor a message to candidates, and it can depend on the company or the type of position you are recruiting for. I have also found there is a fine line between withholding information (in order to prompt the candidate to ask for more info) and offering too much information, resulting in a message that’s too long and wordy.

The most important pieces of information to include are:

Selling points on the company

• Has your company grown 50% over the last year?
• Have they won awards from the industry or been named a best place to work?

Appealing details on the position

• Is it a brand new role where the growing potential is boundless?
• Would the candidate be working with an exciting new type of technology?
• Would he or she have direct reports?

These are highly important to highlight in the message. My ultimate goal is to make the position and company sound so appealing that even candidates who are not actively looking for a new job comment on how great the position sounds and share it with their network.

Another best practice is to personalize the message. The last thing you want is for the candidate to think you are using a template and blasting it out to anyone in the area who meets the minimum qualifications.

Take the time to review a candidate’s Linkedin profile and pinpoint what exactly would make them a great candidate. It doesn’t hurt to make the candidate feel special, but it’s also ideal to point out why you think they would be a fit.

There are a variety of ways to incorporate these three important pieces into your messaging. Tinkering with messaging and testing different methods while recruiting for a specific role will help to continuously improve.

What else would you want to include when messaging a candidate for a position? How do you leverage the information you have to attract candidates and set up phone interviews?

In order to understand the difference between agency recruiters and internal recruiters, please visit a past post of mine: The Difference Between Agency Recruiting and Corporate Recruiting: A Quick Guide.

One instance when it could make sense to hire an agency is for temporary positions. Lots of agencies specialize in temporary placements within specific departments, such as IT, administration, marketing, etc.

If there is an emergency situation where your company finds itself losing an important member of a team, hiring a temp worker until you find the right full-time fit can also be beneficial.

For example, say your Director of Marketing recently accepted another job and can only give a few days of notice before leaving; it might be necessary to get someone into that position as soon as possible before you find a long-term replacement. In this instance a staffing agency can most likely get a qualified candidate to you within a week while the talent team focuses on finding a permanent candidate for the position.

So, what are the benefits of temporary workers?

In the previous example, there is clearly an immediate need for someone to be in that position at all times. It is also quite possible that a candidate starting out as a temp can eventually be hired as the permanent placement.

A temporary worker also is specialized in their expertise, therefore requiring a very limited ramp-up period to perform the job well.

Since the employee is temporary and has been placed externally, the staffing agency fulfills all duties surrounding benefits and payroll, as well as potential background checks or drug screenings.

Although using a temp agency is an external endeavor, there will be resources required internally in order to manage the process, as well. Before candidates from an agency are passed along to the hiring manager for consideration, a recruiter should perform a preliminary phone screen. This ensures not only that the process is compliant across the board, but also that submitted candidates meet the requirements of the position before facing the hiring manager.

A staffing agency can be beneficial under the right circumstances. However, it is important to use your judgment regarding whether the position is imperative enough to hire an agency for a temporary replacement, or whether it could be a job better suited for the talent team, assuming they are not at their capacity.

To ensure candidates are going through the best experience possible, follow these four suggestions:

Respect the Candidate’s Time

Be flexible and considerate. Your “typical” hours may be 9am – 5pm, but if a candidate can only speak early in the morning or after work, either arrive a little early, stay late, or try to catch them on a lunch break.

A lot of great candidates are currently employed and are not exceptionally available throughout the day. In addition, make sure you schedule phone interviews. Even if a candidate actively applied, schedule at least one day out in order to give him or her time to prepare and conduct any necessary research to interview properly.

Lay Out the Next Steps

Make sure candidates are aware of:

• The typical length of the process and the length of interviews (ex: some hiring managers may prefer one full day interview and that is important to note from the start)
• The stages of the interview process (ex: phone interview, in-person interview, final interview)
• Who they will be speaking with during each stage

By setting these expectations, candidates won’t be left in the dark about their status. It will also save time on both ends if they don’t feel the need to constantly check in about next steps. Another recent OpenView blog goes into more detail on how to create a positive experience once candidates are invited in for an interview.

Receive Critical Feedback and Relay the Information

As my colleague Carlie recently blogged about, establishing a feedback loop from the get-go with hiring managers is critical.

In addition to enhancing your sourcing efforts, prompt feedback from hiring managers allows you to alert candidates who are waiting to hear back about their status sooner. It’s not the best experience if after a first interview it takes a month to find out they have not been considered, or even are wanted in for another round. Think about it – a candidate is typically excited at the prospect of a new job opportunity, but if she takes the time and effort to interview and then…..radio silence? It’s not a good look.

Of course, even the most consistent feedback loop will have its flaws. The best way to handle lack of hiring manager feedback (on the candidate side), is to keep candidates “warm”. Check in and let them know they are still being considered, but that you are still waiting on official feedback from the hiring manager. You can also use this as an opportunity to gauge the candidate’s interest level and keep them excited about the job opportunity.

Provide Timely Rejections

On that same note, it is critical to let all candidates you have been in contact with know once a job has been filled or they are no longer being considered for it. The best way to go about rejections is to create a template. It is nice to make rejections personalized, but there are certain compliance issues you do not want to cross the line on. For example, it is actually illegal to tell a candidate he or she has too much experience, or that the hiring manager decided to go with a candidate who lives closer.

Usually the best way to avoid any red tape is to thank the candidate for his time and interest, and explain that the hiring manager decided to move forward with a candidate whom they believed best qualified for the job. If he probes, it’s okay to let him know you actually do not have any details or further information, but will certainly keep him in mind for any future job openings.

By following these guidelines, a candidate will likely only have good things to say about your company even if he or she didn’t get the job. And at the end of the day, that’s the overall goal — to create a positive experience that will then create an overall positive view of your company.

Determining your recruiter’s capacity

This can tend to be an open-ended question, since a recruiter’s capacity can vary based on:

• The types of jobs he or she is recruiting for — ex: entry-level (high volume) vs. senior-level.
• Whether the opening is posted and receiving inbound resumes vs. all outbound sourcing, which is more time consuming
• Overall resources available to recruit with.

That being said, if a recruiter is working 40 hours per week, an average capacity would be about 4-5 different searches. This way, around 6-8 hours per week are delegated to each search for sourcing, screening, scheduling, coordinating, and rejecting candidates. At first this may seem like a lot, but for some searches it can take an hour to source about 3 great candidates.

Preferably, of these 4-5 positions a recruiter is working on, one or two are nearing the closing stage. This way, if an emergency search pops up (say your VP of Sales suddenly takes off), a recruiter will have the capacity to take on that search without going over his or her capacity. If a recruiter is working on 4-5 new searches, however, it may be very difficult to make time for another new search – even if it is an emergency. Most likely, one of the searches would have to be put on hold.

Keys to Managing and Prioritizing Searches

Typically, your recruiters will find that much of their time on each search is front-loaded. Ideally, they will be able to allocate more time to newer searches to account for early ramp-up periods, when they’re developing their understanding of the profile, networking, and performing a lot of outbound sourcing and resume screening. Normally, after the first week or two, a search will move more smoothly once a pipeline of candidates has been created.

On the other hand, older searches should have less time designated to them. After a few weeks, you can assume the pipeline has grown and sourcing time has decreased. Most duties will include scheduling/coordinating interviews and conducting phone screens along with some sourcing to keep the pipeline of candidates growing.

Another factor to consider is the impact of the position. Referring back to my previous example, if your VP of Sales just quit it is safe to assume the search for a replacement will take higher priority over a business development rep position that has been open for a few weeks. Search priority is relative — you must use your best judgment to determine which hires are most impactful, and therefore higher priority.

One tip to help your recruiters improve their productivity is to work with them to create a “model day”. Ask them to utilize their calendars to block of time to work on specific searches, during which they should try not to check email or get pulled into other non-related work. This is also an excellent method to track the number of hours your recruiting team is spending on each search.

Practice makes perfect, and the more time you spend on creating a model day, prioritizing searches, and handling capacity in the right way, the more efficient and productive you’ll be at hiring more and more amazing employees for your growing company.

First of all – what is Scrum? (Hint: It’s not just what’s pictured above)

Scrum is a project management system typically used for software developers as a framework to manage their projects. The great thing about Scrum is that it can be used for a variety of different projects within different departments.

On a talent team, where each member is working on a variety of different searches, it is imperative to implement some form of project management. I highly recommend using Scrum as a system to check in daily on each recruiter’s projects, pinpoint any impediments/issues, and work together to be a more efficient team.

So, how exactly will Scrum work for your talent team?

For starters, you’ll want to establish a consistent procedure. Kick off each morning with a daily Scrum team meeting. Plan a time when Scrum will be conducted, and hold each teammate accountable to come to the meeting fully prepared.

During Scrum, each teammate will discuss which projects he or she worked on the day before, how much time was spent on each search, and how much time he or she plans to spend on each search that day. By tracking hours spent on each search, you will be able to recognize potential patterns and hold ups/impediments. This provides the perfect opportunity to work with the talent team to understanding why any particular search is taking more time than planned, or less time than planned. If a search is going quickly, the recruiter can share what went well and how to be more efficient when taking on similar searches in the future. If a search is taking much longer than expected, your team can work on understanding the impediments, solving them, and offering any advice that will help with the search.

Each week, recruiters should develop a SMART goal for themselves regarding each search. For example, a SMART goal may be to “source 30 qualified candidates and submit two candidates to the hiring manager”. It can also involve things like gathering feedback from the hiring manager, or coordinating final round interviews. The purpose of creating these goals is for each recruiter to push him or herself throughout the week in a realistic way. If it takes less time to achieve a SMART goal, the extra hours can be allotted to another search that is taking more time. On the other hand, if SMART goals aren’t being met, the team can collaborate in determining how to best meet these goals, and also determine if there are any impediments.

Another goal of Scrum is to prioritize your work. By prioritizing your work and your time, your talent team should be more effective and efficient. Ideally, newer searches will have more time spent on them, as it takes hours to source new candidates and ramp up on a search. Older searches should have less time spent on them, as candidates have already been sourced and would ideally be going in for interviews.

At the end of the week, Scrum teams retrospect. In your weekly retrospective, your team will discuss how the week went, overall — what went well, what went wrong, and how the team can improve.

Using Scrum is an excellent method to track time spent on searches, check in with teammates, constantly improve as a team, and address impediments. It is important to note that Scrum is a team effort, and each member of the team is expected to participate just as much as his or her manager or whoever is running the meeting. Scrum is more about instigating open group discussion and efforts to improve as a team, rather than a manager or director checking in on each recruiter. Talent teams who implement Scrum in the appropriate manner will certainly run more efficiently and produce better results.

When it comes to expansion-stage and startup recruiting, it’s important to take the right approach by mapping out a process when a new position opens up. By creating a guideline for launching a new search you will be able to set expectations with your company’s recruiter and hiring manager. To do that, however, you need to gather all of the necessary information and requirements in order to launch the search right away.

So, what steps need to be followed to recruit a new opening?

One key to startup recruiting success is to coordinate a kickoff meeting. A kickoff meeting provides face time with the hiring manager, and crreates the opportunity to build a relationship. In this meeting several things should be addressed, such as:

• Understanding of the role from the hiring manager’s point of view. What is the “typical day in the life” for this new hire?
• Determine a job posting strategy. Are there specific Linkedin Groups or websites that would make sense to post the job and network in?
• Gather intel from the hiring manager. Which companies would be best to target for this type of hire?
• Establish the right job title. What title will attract the best candidates?
• Determine a competitive and fair compensation range. What will be appealing to top candidates and what can the company afford?
• Explain your recruiting process to set expectations. When will you expect feedback from the Hiring Manager once a candidate has been sent? When will you send updates about the progress of the search? Also be sure to explain how many candidates they can expect to review weekly.

It’s also important to agree upon best interview process. A typical interview process would be:

• Phone screen with recruiter
• Phone interview with Hiring Manager
• First round in-person interview
• Final round in-person interview

Once you have gathered all of the necessary information from the Kickoff Meeting, you can compile this into a work plan, which outlines details each week on what will be worked on. My teammate Carlie recently wrote a blog post that outlined steps on how to create a great work plan in six key phases:

Phase 1: Planning

Determine who the decision makers are and work with hiring managers to define the job profile, budget, interview process, and projected timeline. Create a targeted job description based on essential functions and qualifications for position.

Phase 2: Sourcing

First, reach out to internal networks. Second, create a target list of companies to recruit from. Third, start outreach to candidates from these companies to entice and gain referrals. Keep in mind that you should be adding to your target list as your come across new companies and candidates.

Phase 3: Screening

These are the initial calls and phone interviews made to candidates. The goal here is to explain the company, culture, and position in detail and to get a better understanding of each candidate’s experience to determine if he or she aligns with the target profile and company culture. If it’s a potential fit, move the candidate forward in the interview process.

Phase 4: Interviewing

Follow the interview process determined in the planning stage, during which the team meets with the candidate to better assess the candidate.

Phase 5: Feedback

Regroup internally to discuss specific feedback/concerns from the interviews and decide on next steps. If a candidate will not be moved forward in the process, be sure to follow up.

Phase 6: Offer

Create the offer package and offer strategy, then extend the offer.

An example of a piece of a Work Plan would look something like this:

Once a kickoff meeting and work plan have been completed, you should e-mail the work plan to all stakeholders involved in the search. After you receive the necessary approval you are ready to launch a new search with all stakeholders understanding their ownership and responsibility in the project. Ultimately, that will make expansion-stage and startup recruiting a much more effective and efficient process.

To her credit, Carlie makes a compelling argument against that suggestion. In her post, she explains that hiring decisions are — and should be — based primarily on fundamental qualities that make a great employee, rather than superficial ones that simply make someone nicer to look at.

And while I agree with Carlie, I have to be honest. Fair or not, I believe that highly attractive people tend to be more successful. And, whether we want to admit it or not, those people’s physical appearance, without question, tends to play in their favor when hiring decisions are being made. That’s not to say that unqualified blondies should all of a sudden be given promotions all over town. But I do believe there is a positive correlation between looks and overall success.

Let me explain.

First, I think human biology and nature come into play. We’re programmed to be attracted to, well, attractive things, right? So does our innate psyche makes us want to work with pretty people? Call me shallow, but I think it probably does. Now, I don’t think it’s fair to say that beautiful people are automatically successful (because that’s just not true), but it’s not unreasonable to suggest that they are exposed to more opportunities because of their beauty, which inevitably opens more doors and raises their likelihood of success.

Some of the aforementioned articles, including the Inc.com one, attempt to explore the true definition of “attractiveness” beyond physical looks. For example, attractiveness might be impacted by things like charisma, confidence, and leadership. In other words, someone that demands respect and has a contagious personality might be considered attractive, even if they aren’t what most people would consider stereotypically beautiful. I absolutely agree with that sentiment. I think we’re all naturally attracted to people that embody certain traits.

As for how that all ties back to hiring decisions, part of Inc.’s article on this topic included an example of interviewers forgetting about candidates that had some fairly obvious physical disparities (i.e., visible scars, birthmarks, etc.). By contrast, someone that possessed natural beauty and the traits of attractiveness listed above tend to really stick out in interviewers’ minds. After all, when a potential candidate’s main objective is to get an interviewer to like him or her, being nice to look at can’t hurt. And neither can exuding confidence or appearing strong-willed.

All of that being said, there is no way a hiring manager would say something like this: “Yes, let’s hire or promote him or her, because that person is smoking hot!” Although, if I’m being honest, I’ve heard statements that are pretty close to that before. Rather, what typically happens is that someone who is perceived as attractive could possibly make a deeper impression than their average-looking counterparts. I find this to be especially true in frequent customer/client facing roles like sales or account management.

So, does being a neck-breaker automatically make you a winner in the workplace? Nah, probably not automatically, but I bet it does put you ahead of the curve. Is that fair? Probably not. But as most of us have learned, life isn’t always fair.

Click here to read Carlie Smith’s counterpoint to this post. 

In my previous posts I discussed the steps expansion-stage companies need to take to build and add structure to a new recruiting team. But what about HR?

Recruiters are primarily focused on helping your organization grow with top talent. A recruiter’s job function includes sourcing candidates, interviewing, and helping hiring managers acquire the best employees. HR and recruiting are definitely related, but more like cousins rather than siblings.

How do you know when it’s time to add HR to your company? First, it’s important to understand what HR actually does.

Human Resource’s main functions include:

• Hiring (aka all of the paperwork involved in hiring, not the recruiting)
• Promotions
• Salary Determination
• Performance appraisal review and processing
• Personnel Data Entry and Records Maintenance
• Policy Development
• Visas
• Benefits
• Workers Compensation
• New Hire Orientation

Basically, HR is there behind the scenes to do all of the work to make sure benefits are processed and employees are happy and continuing to develop.

So, when is it time to create your own HR department? It depends, of course. Basically when you begin to see that your current employees do not have the time or knowledge to continue picking up some of the above listed responsibilities.

Of course, some HR functions can be held by a recruiter or manager, such as salary determination or promotions. But when these responsibilities become an impediment to your own job, or to other employees’ jobs then it’s time to hire a full-time HR person. As your company grows and scales, HR will be especially critical to address any employee issues and coordinate benefits information. Having great HR personnel will ensure that your employees are satisfied and always improving.

It is also important to keep in mind that there are many laws and compliance regulations around the workplace. These worries will be taken care of in the form of an HR professional who can make sure your company isn’t breaking any restrictions, and that business is (hopefully!) flowing smoothly with no bumps.

Are you operating a startup or expansion-stage company? What are your thoughts on adding HR to your organization? Have you recently acquired an HR professional? How is it working out?

First, you need organization: I highly recommend purchasing an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) in order to organize all the candidates, resumes, applications, and job postings you’ll be working with. An ATS can also deliver data-driven reports so you can see exactly how the recruiting team is performing. At OpenView Labs, the recruiting team uses Linkedin Recruiter. Other popular ATS’s include TalentBin, and Taleo.

Next, you need to develop a process: When it comes to recruiting, processes are basically repeatable steps to ensure that each recruiter is being compliant and working in an expected, efficient manner. Specific processes will also create expectations for hiring managers, such as number of candidates they can expect to see weekly or amount of time to hire for a role.

An example of a (very high-level) recruiting process for your team would be something like:

• Set up a “kickoff” call with the hiring manager to gather details around the role, set expectations, and determine a fair compensation plan
• Deliver at least X amount of candidate profiles weekly
• Write a summary of each candidate including skills, pros/cons, salary, and overall thoughts to send to hiring manager along with a candidate’s resume
• Agree to receive hiring manager feedback within 48 hours
• Set up a weekly call with the hiring manager to review the progress of the search

This should be a repeatable process that every recruiter can use for each search.

Lastly, to make sure your recruiting team is a humming engine of productivity, set metrics. Anyone with experience can do their job, and most likely do it well, but setting (fair) metrics will push recruiters even more. A set of reasonable metrics for your recruiting team will create a standardized expectation that every team member is reaching.

Metrics can vary depending on the types of positions that are being recruiter for, as well as other factors.

Here is an example of metrics for a typical recruiter (this could be for each role, or overall):

• Source a minimum of 30 candidates weekly
• Phone screen a minimum of 8 candidates weekly
• Send 3 qualified candidates to the hiring manager weekly

If you’re just starting your recruiting team, it may take some trial and error here. Once you determine proper and reasonable metrics for your recruiting team, everything will fall into place. Of course, it always takes time for a team to ramp up and find their rhythm – it’s okay to give some leeway at first.

Overall, you will find that the metrics and processes of the team go hand in hand with finding newly hired employees happily walking through the door.

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But, how do you implement recruiting into your organization, really? Hire just any internal recruiter and let them run with everything? In this two part series I will give my recommendations on hiring the right recruiters and implementing the right recruiting strategy and structure that will give them the edge to succeed.

As you build a recruiting team into your company, it is important to recognize both the long-term and short-term goals you are looking to achieve from them. First, are you in need of an HR function, or will it be individuals 100% designated to recruiting talent to your company?

If it is solely recruiting you’re looking for, you need to start analyzing how much you expect your company to grow — aka how many recruiters will you need? Will they have enough workload? Are the hires you are looking to make typically difficult to find? Do the searches usually require a lot of time? Or are you anticipating a higher volume of searches for positions that are easier to fill? These are all important factors that will go into the decision-making strategy of your new recruiting team.

After you’ve determined the hiring function your organization is trying to achieve you can start building out your team. It is important that your new recruiters have a direct manager to report to. Even better, hire an experienced recruiter or HR person to head the team.

Especially at a growing company, I would recommend hiring recruiters that have at least 2-3 years of experience. It is also important to note that every recruiter has a different background. If it is mainly IT folks you need to hire, you may want to look into hiring a technical recruiter. If you are in need of hiring strong salespeople, there are sales recruiters. However, a great recruiter should really be able to recruit for any type of position, whether they have had experience with it or not.

So, how many recruiters do you need?

As mentioned, it really depends on your long-term hiring goals. If you’ve never had an internal recruiter on board before I would recommend hiring one recruiter, making sure they have a direct manager. Otherwise, it would be ideal to hire a more senior recruiter/manager, as well, to focus on big picture items that junior recruiters may not have experience with.

If most of your hiring has been through internal referrals or within your network and you’re hitting a wall when it comes to finding new talent, I guarantee you will be AMAZED with the output of an internal recruiting team. Corporate recruiters are seriously a bargain. Not only will they find the right talent for the right job openings, but great recruiters are also getting YOUR company’s name into the community. Recruiting can create more brand awareness and advertise how great your company is to work for.

Now that you’re sold on having a recruiting team to generate talent and create a buzz around working for you, the next critical step is to make sure you have the right recruiting strategy and structure in place. As with any role, it’s imperative to have certain metrics/goals in place to shoot for and measure for success. In my next post I will discuss in more detail how to organize your recruiting team.

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The more hectic our world gets, the more valuable people’s time is – especially at an expansion-stage company. I’ve been shocked lately by the number of hiring managers informing me that they never received a thank you email/note/call after interviewing a candidate for a role.

Let me make this crystal clear, when you are interviewing for a job, regardless of whether the job description was written practically for you, regardless of whether you are not going to be a fit, regardless of everything – you should always thank someone for their time.

No, I’m not talking about at the end of the call or in-person interview when you say “thanks!” I am talking about taking five minutes (or less!) out of your day to send a thank you follow up email to your interviewer. In my opinion, sending a thank you note is not a differentiator, but it’s the norm – at least it should be.

A hiring manager can and absolutely will pass on your candidacy due to a lack of a thank you note. I’m actually more interested in figuring out why some candidates don’t take the time to send one. I have been a recruiter for my entire professional career and this act comes to me as second nature – but isn’t it something we all learned in childhood?

For a great thank you note, recap the interview. Explain what you like best about the position and provide some specific reasons why you find yourself to be a good fit for the role. However, don’t go overboard! Even if you’ve finished up the best possible interview, never assume you’ve got it in the bag.

Not only is it common courtesy, sending a thank you note is the perfect way to follow up with your interview and gain insight into the interviewer’s feedback and the next steps.

Would you consider a candidate who did not follow up with a thanks? As a candidate have you missed this crucial step in the hiring process — what happened?

I can see the pros and cons of hiring someone remotely. Some positions definitely require someone to be on site every day – but it seems like a lot of positions don’t necessarily require that. Take recruiting for instance – theoretically, this type of work could easily be performed from home, and I am sure there are plenty of recruiters that work remotely.

So, should expansion-stage technology companies be open to hiring remote employees? Possibly. It depends on the role.

Here is some food for thought:

Pro: Finding awesome talent that may not be local. There are talented candidates everywhere. If the hire is critical, the search has been lengthy, and the skill set is special you may want to consider it.

Con: Level of accountability. Can you be certain this person is doing what they should be doing all day long? Nope. However, the output will eventually speak for itself. Typically, a person who has been in the same role and worked remotely before will work out best.

Pro: Reduced costs. Does your company offer food, drinks, equipment, and/or child care? You could save a lot of $$ letting an employee work from home using their laptop.

Con: Getting in touch. It’s not so easy to run over to someone’s desk and ask a quick question when they….aren’t there.

Overall, I definitely think remote employees can work out well and be an asset if the person has the right qualities. But before hiring someone out of your area code I would make sure they:

• Are dependable and not flaky. This person should build trust and prove they are dependable no matter what.
• Stay connected. Since you can’t stop by their cube it’s a must that they are almost always close to email or their cell, and can respond quickly. Set up regular communication times and expectations.
• Are irreplaceable. What’s really the point of having just an average to below-average employee who doesn’t come into the office?
• Are extremely proactive. There is obviously no one in the flesh telling this employee what to do or how to do it. It must be his or her responsibility to get things accomplished and reach out for help if needed.

Would you hire a remote employee who is the exact talent you’re looking for? I say yes!

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The first step to overcoming a slump is to acknowledge it, and also recognize that it’s normal and happens to everyone. Next, and most importantly, you must realize that the only person with the power to change your attitude and feelings is yourself.

So, how do you climb out of that rut, increase your positivity at work, and stay on a motivated, productive track? I was recently discussing this topic with a very insightful and smart friend of mine. He explained to me that once you start letting negative thoughts get into your head, they can become consuming and lead you into a downward spiral. However, if you focus on the best possible outcome and picture yourself doing well, that spiral will turn around and bring you up.

Here are some tips for snapping out of it, staying focused, and maintaining both productivity and positivity at work:

• Don’t let the negative thoughts in. I understand, it’s harder than it sounds. However, the more anxious or worried you become, the more mental energy you are spending on something negative rather than focusing on the positives. If you have a stressful job which piles on the pressure and you just can’t help but worry about it – that’s okay, but use certain strategies to manage this.
• Impose a negativity time limit: It’s fine if you need to worry about something, but it should not be on your mind all day or for very long at all. Set aside 15 minutes per day to let yourself worry. But don’t just leave it at that. Figure out what the true issue is you are feeling anxious about and what the worst possible outcome could be (when you really think about it, chances are it probably isn’t that bad). Distinguish what is getting in your way of solving the issue causing the stress. Once the 15 minutes is up, that’s it! You’re back to happy thoughts.
• Anticipate positive outcomes: You will be much more inclined to see them happen. Remember psych 101? Don’t forget about the self-fulfilling prophecy – if you picture yourself failing you likely will, but if you picture yourself succeeding, you will get there.
• Get the rest of your life together: If everything else in your life is balanced it will become so much easier to keep a positive attitude about work. In my first sales job out of college, my boss was constantly telling me, “You can only control the controllables,” and that is true for everything. There are plenty of aspects of life that are out of your control, but once you take ownership over the pieces you are able to control you will feel much more grounded and fulfilled. Make time for things that will make you feel good, whether that is spending time with family, hitting the gym, or reading something interesting.
• Sleep: Get some sleep! You will always feel better with a good night’s sleep!

Aren’t you feeling more positive already?? Keep it up and you will reap thebenefits of having an upbeat attitude.

You know what really grinds my gears? When individuals spend more time and energy complaining about workplace issues than focusing on fixing the problem at hand. I can certainly understand a vent session, but when complaining becomes an impediment to your own work and/or attitude, it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

I read an article recently by Minda Zetlin at Inc.com titled “Listening to Complainers Is Bad for Your Brain” that explains how listening to too much complaining is actually bad for your brain! It states “being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb.” I’m not sure how scientific the definition of “dumb” is, but wow! Listening to complainers too much actually affects your brain negatively.

The article goes on to explain how to deal with someone who is complaining to you, i.e. go to your happy place, smile/nod, but don’t listen, walk away, etc, etc. These are all valid tactics if you’re trying to avoid the true issue, which in my opinion is the complainer! Do you really want an employee in your office who is making people DUMBER by complaining all the time? On top of bringing morale down and creating a negative atmosphere?

I’d argue the issue (the complainer) needs to be addressed head on, and the problem should be nipped in the bud. As I mentioned, we all need a little venting here and there to keep our sanity, but when the words out of someone’s mouth are more negative than positive there is a real problem.

So how best to deal with a constant complainer? For starters, there’s actually a chance the person doesn’t realize how negative they are being. If you feel comfortable enough, I would suggest simply telling the person they are pushing out negative vibes and stress that it’s not very productive. Okay, so that’s easier said than done. Another option is to ask the complainer how they want to fix and solve the workplace issue at hand so that it ends or doesn’t happen again. Instead of bitching and moaning together, work with the complainer to pinpoint the root of the problem. Where is the issue coming from? How can we fix this right now, and how can we avoid a similar problem moving forward? In fact, it can be a learning experience for both parties and a valuable lesson in how to solve problems rather than watching them grow and complaining about them.

I think you know who you are, complainers. There is a quite a difference between addressing a concern and asking for help and being a negative — and unproductive — protestor. So next time you are looking to vent, determine whether you are looking for help or just being an outlet. Would you rather be productive, or negative? If you’re on the other side of the rant, try to bring the true issue into focus. Perhaps your outsider perspective will be the most insightful.

Here are seven hireable skills you can learn from waiting tables that translate to the corporate world:

1. Customer Service: An obvious one, but as a server your income literally depends on this. The better your customer service, the more ca$h monies in your pocket. Over time the skill builds from just a courteous smile and nod to remembering names, backgrounds, how someone likes their food, and mastering small talk – basically, getting people to like you. Always a good thing to know.

2. Prioritization: This is so critical in every day life. As a waitress I learned to (quickly!) figure out which task needed to be addressed first before I moved on to the next, and then keep track of it in my head. “Table 3 ordered first, but Table 5 needs apps, so let me get Table 8 drinks, order the apps, then order Table 3’s dinner in five minutes.”

3. Multitasking: I can’t tell you how many times I was filling someone’s coffee cup with one hand while pouring soup with the other while yelling at the chef to get my food ready. Multitasking is something many can benefit from to improve their job performance.

4. Understanding and Dealing with High-Pressure Situations: Servers are literally running around in the back trying to get everything out on time. Okay, I get it, if someone doesn’t get their food on time or their dessert is late it’s not the end of the world. However, you FEEL like it is, and it’s much like pushing for a deadline at work while your boss is freaking out.

5. Time Management: This goes hand in hand with prioritization. While serving, there is virtually NO one asking you what your plan is. How have you scheduled out your day? What will you be working on first? You are a one (wo)man island and you need to figure that out on your own.

6. Attention to Detail: Especially in fine dining, I can’t even begin to get into the little nuances of the silverware, the stemware, the salt and pepper shakers. As a server it’s the little details are what make people think you’re great, so you learn to pay close attention to customers and their requests.

7. Office Politics: Are you a gossiper or do you ignore it? This definitely happens an incredible amount in the food industry. I learned early on that it’s best to just stay out of it! Instead of wondering why someone got those sweet Friday and Saturday dinner shifts for “no reason,” focus on yourself and you will succeed far more than those concerned about everyone else.

Have you worked in the food industry in the past? What have you learned from your time serving food that benefits you in your current occupation?

Recruiting will never be a precise science. No matter how many data points, statistics, or how much experience a recruiter may have, you can never guarantee a “perfect” hire – a hire who will live up to set expectations, exceed goals, and stay loyal for years to come. Sometimes the best hires are those with the highest potential – candidates who might not have every requirement but who will work hard and diligently on improving themselves. Over the years they progress, change, and work to be the best. It’s possible that such a candidate may not jump out at you as a super star player at first, but in the end they turn out to be one.

Take Tom Brady – Patriots quarterback, winner of three Super Bowls and two Super Bowl MVP awards. Brady was picked in round six of the seven round NFL Draft – the 199^th player selected. Why was he so overlooked? Maybe it was because he was a backup at Michigan and teams were focused only on drafting starters. But he has clearly proven himself.

Drafting the right players ultimately comes down to assessing much more than just technical abilities. Otherwise, every first round pick would be a total stud. I think hiring managers can learn a lesson from this mentality. The right recruiting strategy will help companies focus on not just the candidates who look great on paper, but the ones they sense have potential and the ability to become starters given the right environment.

Without the proper offensive line, Brady may not have been such a success. So, think about your employees, overall – are you developing a cohesive strategic team? Can your workers can play off each other’s strengths and help each other’s weak areas? Make sure to look beyond the hard stats to gauge a candidate’s fit into your company. After all, you’re not just hiring one individual — you’re hiring an additional person onto an existing team where they will be working with other unique players.

So, is your company headed to the Super Bowl or what? Unfortunately (maybe fortunately, for some), it’s a bit more difficult for a company to change its lineup than it is in Fantasy Football. Take that into consideration next time you’re interviewing or extending an offer. Will comparing hiring to drafting your fantasy team give you insight into your recruiting strategy?

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As important as it is to analyze each candidate’s personality and demeanor when you’re interviewing, are you being consistent with your interview questions? For any position you are hiring for, from VP of Sales to a Lead Generation Specialist, it’s important to decide beforehand the most important questions to ask each and every candidate. This way, you can assess the candidate’s skills that will have the most impact and be most essential for the role.

Several times I have asked a hiring manager for detailed feedback on how and interview with a candidate went, only to hear:

“They’re great! Let’s move forward”

“Okay, excellent – what did you learn about them?”

“Really friendly! We have a similar background, and, oh, we both had Joe Smith as a manager back at…blablabla”

Okay, that’s great. But it doesn’t sound like much information was gained during the interview process. As a manager, you want to hire someone who will be able to get the job done, not just be pleasant. It’s also not fair or compliant to ask different questions to different candidates — then they are not equally compared to one another. How do we solve this?

Before the interview process begins, get together with the key stakeholders and decide which aspects are most important to the role. What are the values or skills that are key to the job? They can include anything: agility, a strong network, focus, teamwork, sense of urgency, ability to maneuver through Excel, etc, etc.

Once this has been determined, create a set of behavioral interview questions that are related to the most important pieces of the job.

Looking for someone who can take responsibility for their work? You could ask something along the lines of:

“Tell me about a time when you missed a deadline. What happened? How did you handle it, and what would you do differently next time?”

Is teamwork important? Ask something like:

“Tell me about a time when working together with others was more beneficial than working alone.”

Make sure to take note of the candidate’s answers and review them after the interview. Once their physical presence has been taken out of the equation, how good are their responses to your questions? With each interview it will become more and more clear which candidate sticks out and will do a great job in the position.

Have you ever made a hire based on someone’s personality without digging deep enough into their skills? What was the outcome? Do you think using a set of behavioral interview questions will be beneficial to your interview process?

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Slaughter’s article basically outlines the serious challenges of being a high profile woman in power while balancing a family. For me, Slaughter’s commentary was a harsh reminder that once a woman has children that maternal need doesn’t disappear as your children grow older. In fact, it can even become stronger. Quite honestly, as a young professional, having babies is not on my immediate radar, but I always figured maternity leave was enough. Apparently not.

There is clearly a lot of controversy regarding Mayer’s newfound title at Yahoo. The public is uneasy if she will be able to perform a stellar job of turning Yahoo around or if she’ll end up an utter failure. But wait a second, now she’s pregnant too?

From what I’ve read on Mayer so far, regardless of whether she’s being donned “Google’s ‘Golden Girl’” or just a serious workaholic with a potential attitude problem/tyrannical management style, I wonder how the pressure of being a new mom will affect her work. Not only does she have the pressure of the media and the public on her shoulders, soon she will have a baby who needs her too!

According to this article concerning Mayer’s pregnancy, she plans to take a few weeks long maternity leave AND work throughout it. A few weeks? “A few” equals three in my book, and WORK the whole time? Am I the only one being skeptical here? It’s also her first child. As much as I would like for Mayer to be a successful woman in a top job while also balancing a family and baby who depends on her, there are several factors making me shake my head in disbelief. Seriously, more power to her — this will be no easy task, one that many can’t possibly even imagine.

Of course as a working woman, I am thrilled that the corporate world is embracing an intelligent, powerful woman to take over an important job while her pregnancy is a non-issue. It’s a true step forward. But after reading Slaughter’s article, I’m not sure Mayer will in fact be able to “have it all,” and it’s possible we will see her step down as CEO in order to spend time with her new family.

On the other hand, I’m sure if it were the opposite situation, and Mayer was disqualified from the job based on possible commitment issues regarding her new pregnancy, there would be absolute chaos. I’m very interested in how things will turn out and I think everyone is paying close attention at this point.

So what goes into hiring? Mainly it’s a process of screening, scrutiny, and references.

First off is the Search: The recruiter(s) working on the role will map out companies to target candidates from. Once a target list has been compiled of companies of the same size, scale, and industry as the company they are recruiting for, they will use various methods to contact candidates from the target list. The job may or may not be posted to online job boards and if so, inbound resumes will be considered as well.

Secondly is Screening: Once an ideal candidate has been contacted and displays interest in the job at hand, the screening process begins. Typically, screening will start with a 15-30 minute phone call with a recruiter or other HR professional. Soft skills are assessed just as much as hard skills during this time. What is the candidate’s phone presence like? Is he polite? How are her emails? Can he answer questions clearly and concisely without too much rambling? Is she able to explain why she left previous positions? Would he fit well into the culture at this company?

After the initial screening phase, usually a follow-up phone screen is set up with the hiring manger of the role. During this screen, technical and role-specific skill sets will be more actively assessed. The hiring manager will also be sure to feel out whether this candidate would mesh well with the team. After all, culture is highly important to the success of a start up or expansion-stage company.

Next is the Interview: This is pretty straightforward. The hiring manager has spoken with his superiors and is ready to give the candidate a true shot at getting hired. At this point the candidate is on a good track, and as long as she is true to how she described herself in the screening sessions and shows a positive attitude and energy, she will most likely be asked for a final interview.

Depending on the type of position, the hiring process typically follows a 8:4:1 ratio:

# of candidates screened / # of candidates interviewed / # of candidates hired/an offer extended to

This is great to keep in mind as both the candidate and the hiring manager. After taking a look at eight candidates the recruiter has sent you decide to invite four in to interview – and you’re on the right track!

A decision has been made! But first – References: Sure, reaching out to the references the candidate provided is all great and well, but will that truly provide accurate insight a candidate’s past? I have found that back-door references are very much the norm for hiring into expansion-stage companies. The management team typically has a lot of connections; they can and will reach out to someone in their network who has worked at the same company as the candidate to get the full scoop. It’s not meant be sneaky; it’s to protect the sanctity of the hires for their company.

Last, but not least is the Offer: All of the information initially disclosed from the candidate regarding his or her compensation is taken into consideration. An offer from an expansion-stage company is normally extremely fair and competitive. I have recruited for a Fortune 50 company in the past and based upon several factors, the compensation package was at about the bare minimum they could possibly afford. From my experience working with OpenView’s portfolio of expansion-stage technology companies, that is not the case at all! This hammers home the point that companies in this stage are truly looking for top talent in order to increase their value as a company, and will pay to do so.

Have you interviewed or worked for an expansion-stage company? What opinions would you offer to improve the hiring process?

Performing the bare minimum on the candidate side as a recruiter is certainly not promoting the right candidate experience. I believe at times recruiters are becoming too concerned with the client/company side of their job, and are not focusing as much as they should on candidate expectations.

Even if by the end of a phone call with a candidate both sides have determined that the job at hand is not a great fit, you still want that candidate happy. Why? Because as a recruiter, you are the face of the company. Your contact with candidates may very well be their first (and possibly only) interaction with the company you represent. You want the candidate walking away from that call thinking maybe I’m not the best fit for that particular job, but I’d still like to work for them someday. Let me tell ALL of my friends how cool they are! A positive experience is not only restricted to the 15-30 minute intro phone call – it includes before and after the phone call.

Here are four points to follow to ensure your candidate is having a positive experience after they have expressed interest in the role you are recruiting for.

1.   Be the one to schedule: Be proactive here. Don’t assume that since you received a resume or an interested response to your email that the candidate should pick things up and run with them and offer a time to speak. Ask the candidate what time would work best for him or her, and adjust your schedule as best you can. This is your job! Make it easy and clear. Set expectations from the start as to how long the call will most likely be so the candidate can adjust his or her schedule, as well.

2.    Don’t jump off the phone: “Oh you don’t have your Bachelors degree? Goodbye!” That is not professional! Engage in conversation even if from the get-go you realize it’s not going to work. Why? Because otherwise you are being rude. I am not suggesting to give the candidate false hope, but it’s extremely obvious if you end the call immediately after they say something “wrong”.

3.    Pay Attention: Even if it’s your tenth call of the day, this could be the person to fill the job. Don’t let her get a bad impression by distracting yourself answering emails or checking your Facebook page. Pretend that each call is your first of the day – the candidate deserves it! She has probably been preparing and thinking about your phone call all day, so give her the respect she deserves by delivering your utmost attention.

4.    Follow-up: “I’ll get back to you by end of the week!” If you end your calls this way, you better stick to your word! Even if you haven’t heard feedback from the hiring manager, at least update the candidate with that information. Otherwise, you are making it seem like this candidate does not matter at all, and proving negative recruiter stereotypes true. Don’t have enough time? If a candidate isn’t a fit by the end of the call, explain it right then so you don’t have to follow up. Does the hiring manager take forever to respond? Take the time to explain that in your first call, as well. Don’t set up false expectations and then not follow through. It looks SO bad – not only for yourself, but for the company you represent.

Overall, it’s important to remember that no matter how good or bad candidates may be, you should ensure them an excellent experience. Not only will they think highly of you and be more likely to refer a friend, but you are promoting the company you represent in the most positive way.

To me, a limp grip is unacceptable. Why don’t they teach handshaking in high school? They should! After shaking with the world’s most awful handshaker the other day, it got me thinking: Do people know when they are bad at it? Are they scared? Do they not care? It’s difficult for me to respect the dead-fish-grip girl.

A brief history lesson: Handshaking can be traced back as far as the Ancient Greeks. The handshake is thought by some to have originated as a symbol and gesture of peace since the hands hold no weapons.

Nowadays, of course, handshakes are primarily used for meeting, greeting, offering congratulations, expressing gratitude, or completing an agreement.

The Proper Way to Shake:

1. Make Eye Contact: You shouldn’t be looking at the floor when you’re shaking someone’s hand. Use this step to set up for the handshake. Introduce yourself, say the person’s name to get his or her attention, etc.
2. Extend: It takes two to shake, that’s how the saying goes, right? Reach your hand out and wait for the other person to reciprocate. You go 90%, they go 10% (please get the reference). Regardless, you don’t want to force the handshake.
3. Grip: Oh, here goes my rant! I don’t care if you are a woman, man, child, boss, subordinate, student, teacher, small, or large — grip the other person’s hand! Avoid a vice-like intimidating over the top grip, but worse than that is a loose flabby awkward hand. You want me to shake that? Because I don’t want to.
4. Release: No one likes a pumper. Two to three “pumps” is the norm — more than that is too much! I go with just the one, I smile, make eye contact, and then I RELEASE and leave a great (normal) impression.

If you’re not sure if you are doing all of these things when handshaking, then you’re probably not! Practice! Ask your friends to critique you until you are comfortable with it. Handshaking has been and will be a part of the business world, so the better you are and the more you know your proper handshake etiquette, the more it will help your rep.

To most, LinkedIn is a supplement to a resume, which is rarely used for anything other than updating your profile. I’m not sure if the general public is aware but for recruiters, LinkedIn is EXPENSIVE. Why is it so pricey? It’s over $1,000 for access to 10 inmails (messages to people outside of your network). The packages for searching access are over $100/month, and the search function isn’t even that good! Nevertheless, we are forced to fork over the cash (or credit card info), in order to recruit candidates who haven’t applied. If Linkedin had any competition I’m sure their prices would drop. As it is, though, that is a lot of pure profit LinkedIn is making off of recruiters who are trying to do their job well.

This brings me to my next point – the search function on LinkedIn is pretty bad. First of all, even after paying the additional membership fees each month, you are still not granted access to all of LinkedIn. The search is limited to individuals in your network. In addition, once you have your search results, it’s very difficult to navigate through them to connect or message others. After you send a message or connection request you are required to click the “back” button in your browser, which usually messes things up and is just plain annoying.

Why am I always getting error or maintenance messages? At least once a day, my work is interrupted through LinkedIn’s, “Sorry, searching is unavailable at this time, try again later,” or “ We are going through some maintenance, please be patient.” Look, I know websites are constantly changing and updating, but every day? I pay money to use this thing. Let me use it.

Lastly, I think it’s absurd that I am occasionally blocked from connecting with people. If you send too many connection requests, and members reply with “I don’t know this person” you can be kicked off for a bit. I understand the point, but LinkedIn makes SO much profit off of recruiters, can’t you give us a break? I know these people don’t know me! I’m trying to get to know them, and offer them a job opportunity. It’s nothing malicious; please stop kicking me off. I think it would be wise of LinkedIn to add another option of “recruiter” when sending a connection request in order to avoid any confusion or mishaps.

I have a very love/hate relationship with LinkedIn. There are certainly things they could improve upon! I really hope a competitor rises in the near future who challenges LinkedIn on their site performance and pricing in order to improve the recruiting experience.

It’s interesting to me, because it seems like Facebook has been getting a lot of mixed messages recently about being used in a professional setting. When news hit that employers were asking candidates for their Facebook passwords there was an extreme amount of backlash advising everyone to keep their personal lives (Facebook) and professional lives (LinkedIn) separate. Many argued that Facebook should never be included in the job process, whatsoever, and that employees should keep their personal pages completely private.

I have, however, noticed BranchOut’s presence quite a bit more on Facebook — this may be due to the fact I have a lot of recruiter friends. BranchOut is an application that sits on top of Facebook’s interface — it keeps users’ personal info private while providing employer information recruiters can find. Is anyone who’s not either a recruiter or a 2012 college grad using BranchOut? Does it really work? On its website, BranchOut boasts that its app operates the largest job board on Facebook with over 3 million jobs and more than 20,000 internships. But is that really saying much? A more appropriate number to look into would be the number of people who have actually been hired through BranchOut. I’m assuming it is considerably low. It’s a nice idea in theory; I just truly don’t see people buying into it, especially when they can easily connect with you on LinkedIn.

When it comes to recruiting, LinkedIn is going to win out every time versus Facebook.

Linkedin was literally built to be a professional networking site, and to connect with people you’re not necessarily friends with, or know personally. Facebook is not a professional site, and that’s okay! I think recruiters need to stop forcing Facebook to be something it’s not. I’m not saying it’s impossible to source and hire from Facebook — I’m sure it’s happened – but that’s the exception, not the rule. A lot of people don’t even list their work on Facebook, since it’s not a requirement on the site.

Although I think there are quite a few things that LinkedIn could improve upon, when it comes to recruiting, I must say that it is the go-to site. It’s the perfect avenue (right now) to display your career information and practically invite recruiters or employers to view your information and reach out. Linkedin also doesn’t have any serious competition right now. While it might be a natural reaction to compare the site to the gorilla social network that is Facebook, at the end of the day they both exhibit extremely different uses.

I do wish there was a serious competitor for LinkedIn, however. Then the site might face some pressure to improve and cut down costs for recruiters! My next post will go over the cons of LinkedIn recruiting — aspects I hope the site will change once it faces competition and realize it’s not perfect.

I understand — it’s tough to stay focused with beautiful weather and a yearning to be untethered from your desk. However, the more focused and productive you become, I guarantee the more you will enjoy your spare time after work and on weekends — also, your boss is way more apt approve your Fourth of July time off! Here are a few tips to keep you on your A game, and to help you steer clear of daydreaming about the beach…for too long.

Prioritize & List

Figure out what exactly you need to do each day. What is the most important thing that needs attention? The second? The third? Etc. etc. Instead of just mulling these things over in your brain write it down. Having a visual absolutely helps. Create a list of what you’re going to work on every day — it will feel amazing crossing things off.

Time Management

After you’ve figured out WHAT you need to work on, decide how much time each task will take. Rather than moving full speed ahead with no regard to how much time you have or will spend — deadline yourself. Assign hours to each task you will be working on daily. Once the hours are up, move on! Pat yourself on the back for sticking to the plan and crunching in as much focused work as you could during the allotted time. Staying organized is key.

Avoid Distractions

Obviously! But it’s also important to take a break here and there. Along with your other tasks, assign some time to take a breather. It’s different for everyone but it’s unreasonable to believe you can go full steam for 8-10 hours a day, every day, forever! It’s not going to happen. Take a walk, grab a coffee, sign onto gchat/facebook/rue la la for a few minutes. Get your fix, then LOG OUT, exit the shopping screen, put your away message up and get back to work.

Reward Yourself

Leave work at work. If you have honestly been as productive and focused as possible then there is no need to think about work after hours. Leave the stress there, and reward yourself by taking time for yourself. If you think about work all of the time, you will begin to feel burned out, and that will never lead to focused productivity. Enjoy your weekends to the fullest and by the time Monday rolls around you will be refreshed and ready for the work week. I guarantee the more time you spend focusing on work and being productive the more you will be able to truly enjoy weekends, happy hours, and the like.

Stay Alert

It’s going to be really hard to stay focused if you feel like taking a nap all day long. If you’re committed to staying focused at work, make sure you’re getting a good night’s sleep. If caffeine helps you to stay alert, go for the coffee — but not too much because you will crash in the afternoon. Also drinking lots of water will help you to feel energized. If you feel yourself slumping in your chair, fix your posture and sit up straight. Exercise also increases your energy so try taking a brisk afternoon walk to keep lively.

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Phone interviews can be a bit less stressful than an in-person interview, but in a sense they’re perhaps even more important. Since you’re not meeting in person, you truly need to sound confident and shine through the phone in order to make a great impression and get invited in for the next round of interviewing.

It feels like I have done thousands of phone interviews, the vast majority as the interviewer. I certainly have had my share of some freaky calls – candidates interviewing from the bathroom, candidates driving and getting into an accident while on the phone with me, candidates insisting that they only make $3,000 a year at their full time job, candidates at their cubicle whispering so quietly that I can’t hear them…Okay so you get the point; add the above-mentioned examples to your “do not” list. As for the do’s here are a few suggestions:

Prep

One of the most important things that goes into a phone interview is preparation. Not only should you research the company, you should also research the interviewer, and don’t forget to plan ahead in order to find/secure an appropriate space to take the interview.

• Know the company! If you’re going into an interview without a clue of what the company represents and are expecting the hiring manager/recruiter to explain it to you, there’s a good chance you will be nixed immediately. Such a lack of simple preparation will almost be an insult to someone who works for the company. Take the time and understand the company, go to their website, read their mission statement/values/about us page, etc.
• Get a feel for the job. It’s SO EASY to research a job, or even find examples of typical questions that might be asked during an interview for a particular type of job. Spend some actual time — not just a few minutes — understanding the job duties and expectations. This way, you can highlight your relevant experience during the phone interview so you come across as an excellent fit. Glassdoor.com usually has some great info for jobs and interview questions.
• Choose an appropriate setting to take the interview. You know you have a phone interview coming up and that it will probably take 30-45 minutes, so you can just take the call during your normal day-to-day activities, right? NO! Are you kidding me? I have a really hard time understanding how this mistake even happens. Find a quiet spot! Repeat: a quiet spot — one where you can’t be distracted, and where you can have your resume and any other research in front of you.
• Good places are: Your car in PARK, your bedroom, a booked conference room, a quiet spot outside not too close to the road.
• Unacceptable areas: the bathroom, the street, the grocery store, while you are babysitting, around your barking dog, riding your horse (yes, I’ve interviewed someone who was riding their horse).

Understand Your Resume

It’s your resume so you better know and understand everything that is on there. It’s fair game for an interviewer to ask a question about any job or duty listed. Make sure you haven’t added anything that you can’t speak confidently about. Also, be ready to explain an appropriate reason for why you left your last 2-3 jobs. “My boss was a jerk” is NOT going to cut it! Even if that’s the truth, it’s extremely unprofessional to blame leaving a job on anybody else. “Layoffs” is only valid if it’s true. That information can be found, and you don’t want to be caught in a lie. Maybe your last boss was a jerk, but there must have been other reasons, as well. Acceptable explanations include:

• There wasn’t enough opportunity at the company. I hit my ceiling, and I went on to a larger organization.
• The company didn’t represent my values, so I decided to search elsewhere.
• I have a background in XYZ and my skills weren’t being utilized.
• The job description for what I accepted is not what my job turned out to be.
• There is too much down time, I need to stay busy. I’ve asked for more work, but they haven’t accommodated my requests.
• There has been a lot of transition and I feel the company is unstable.

In no way am I suggesting you lie. I’m just asking you to think of a professional, valid answer for when an employer asks why you left your last few jobs. They will most likely ask for details so just be prepared with professional responses and you’ll be all set.

Why Are You a Good Fit?

I GUARANTEE this question will come up. Be ready for it! Once you’ve conducted research on the company and the role, create some bullet points as to why you would make such a great fit. Be sure they are valid points, that they make sense, and aren’t too self promoting.

Smile and Dial

My old boss used to tell me this all the time. She said that people you’re speaking with can hear you smiling through the phone! You know what? It’s true. Have a positive attitude, be confident and personable. Of course the employer wants to make sure you are a good fit skills-wise, but they also want someone they’re happy to work with everyday! Don’t be afraid to show off your personality in a professional manner. I love candidates who make me laugh in a phone interview, it leaves a really good impression on me. Try to connect on a personal level to set yourself apart from the competition.

Any Questions?

This might just be the most important point of the phone interview. The interviewer IS going to ask if you have any questions at the end of the phone interview. SHAME on you if you say no! You just dug yourself a grave. ASK QUESTIONS. Have a prepared list of questions to ask. Even if during the phone interview a lot of them are answered – say that! “Wow Mr. Hiring Manager, I had a full set of questions listed to ask you and you answered all of them during the interview! I do have one more, though, I’m curious, how do you like working for XYZ company?” Seriously, ask something, anything that is relevant, of course. If you don’t your seemingly perfect phone interview is the down the drain.

Phone interviews are important, because they lead the way to being invited in to the office to meet in person. I can’t stress how important it is to prepare, and to know what to expect during the interview. If you’re really on the job hunt, take phone interviews even if you’re not necessarily that interested in the job. You can always use the practice! The more phone interviews you have, the better you will become at them.

This is my wake up call for the graduates who are commiserating with their friends and explaining to their parents why they need to live at home for an extra year or so because it’s just a “tough job market these days.” Guess what? It’s not that hard to find a decent job. The job market is picking up, so stop complaining!

Nothing grinds my gears more than people whining over something that can be addressed and proactively worked on. Instead of dismissing the idea of getting a good job after graduation, recent grads should follow these four tips and attempt to provide an example of what is possible — instead of focusing on excuses and complaining about what’s not — by snagging a respectable job and living the dream.

First, Be Proactive

Please don’t expect an employer to come knocking at your door to offer you a job, because that’s not going to happen — nor has it ever happened in the past. If you haven’t already (and shame on you if you haven’t!), put together an up-to-date, proofread resume. Try out some nice looking templates, and make it look clean.  After this task is complete, start doing some research. The worst way to apply to jobs is to create a blanket application/resume/cover letter and mass-apply to every job in the area. It’s very clear when this has been done, and your application will be tossed immediately.

Be Selective

The more you narrow down your search to jobs that truly meet your background, or to jobs that are actively accepting recent college grads — like this job! (shameless plug) — the better chance you have of being considered. Also, since you are looking at a smaller amount of jobs, you can tailor your resume and cover letter to the company and requirements. By applying to fewer, but more realistic jobs, you’re actually increasing your odds of getting hired.

Don’t be afraid to Network

Seriously, people love helping other people out, especially if they love their company. Do not be afraid to talk to everyone you can about potential job opportunities. Even if it might seem awkward to reach out to your old professor, or even a past high school classmate, just do it! What’s the worst that could happen? They say no, I don’t want to help you (doubtful), or they simply don’t respond? Who cares? That would put you in the same spot, and best case they get you in touch with a hiring manager!

Make sure to Follow up

Okay, so you’ve applied to a job you can’t believe you’re such a perfect fit for, but you haven’t heard back. Time to move on? Not quite yet. Research (Google) an HR contact and follow up on your application. It’s very possible, especially with entry-level jobs, that your application has become lost in the shuffle. Even if the role you applied for has been filled, the company may admire your perseverance and try to find another fit for you. It’s a shame to spend so much time carefully applying to specific jobs, only to decide you’re not going to bother following up on them.

Disclaimer: Don’t become a pest! As important as it is to follow up, there is a point where it becomes annoying to the company and they will become turned off. Once is enough, twice at the very maximum.

You’re already a step ahead of the game with your college degree. I’m becoming extremely adverse to the idea of college grads who are so very disappointed to be thrown into the “real world,” and who think their lives are over. Getting a sweet job is way better than college, and you will actually have money to spend on things that are fun. Stop crying and get to it!

Pace Yourself

Remember when I said it’s like a college party, but it’s actually not? That’s right, it’s NOT a party. Don’t get drunk! Adult beverages are amazing at clearing any tension in the air, but the only thing more tense than a room full of strangers chatting is the drunk belligerent person loudly talking up the bartender or starting a hot-dog eating contest. Don’t be that guy. Sip slowly!

Be Good at Being Awkward

I just love being awkward. Trust me, these networking events are going to be awkward, but that’s okay! Just go with it, this is expected. Put yourself in a situation you wouldn’t normally be in by starting a conversation with a stranger. Ask lots of questions and smile and nod as much as you can. If you’re solo, target someone else that is standing.

End the Conversation Gracefully

It’s always great to get into a conversation, but there is a point when it’s clearly forced. At that point, end with a good note. Explain that it was “great chatting! I’m glad I was able to learn more about your work. I’m going to say hi to a few other people, hope to see you around!” Or if all else fails, “Great talk! I’m going to grab another drink!”

Be Confident

Do you have an elevator pitch? Maybe it’s time to create one. Make sure you understand the purpose and main goal of you attending the event. Is it to simply meet others? Are you looking for advice regarding your career from experience professionals? Either way, just be yourself and have conversations that make sense to achieve what you are trying to get out of the event. Understand that everyone is there for a reason and it’s important to speak with confidence to make a great impression!

Hopefully this will help if you’re thinking about attending an event but aren’t sure of what to expect. Overall, networking events should be fun! They should also be productive so it’s good to utilize them to their fullest potential. Anyone else have tips that can help?

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Within the first week or so, you believe you have a solid handle on the search and are excited to get the best candidates into process. Next thing you know, an angry email from your hiring manager shows up in your inbox; or worse, in your boss’s. But you thought you were doing a great job! What went wrong here?

Clearly in an instance like this there was some miscommunication between the recruiter and the hiring manager. When beginning a new recruiting initiative, it is extremely important to set the appropriate guidelines and expectations. There has been more than one occasion in which I received a message from an unhappy hiring manager asking why the position hadn’t been filled, or why no interviews had taken place yet. In hindsight, I don’t blame them at all, and from my past experiences I have learned how to avoid these miscommunications in the future. After all, recruiting is not a hiring manager’s job, but it is your job as a recruiter to explain the process in full clarity.

The best way to begin delivering the right expectations is to set up an introductory call. Every organization has a different name for this, whether it be a “kickoff call,” “intake session,” “intro call” – what you call it really doesn’t matter, as long as it happens.

In this conversation, be sure to discuss the overall mission and strategy for the job search. This is your opportunity to develop upon your partnership — yes, partnership. It is equally as important to receive timely feedback from the hiring manager as it is for you to do your part by sending quality candidates to them. It takes an agreed upon partnership for a recruiting initiative to run smoothly and efficiently. In order to better establish that partnership, here are some processes that should be touched on during this call:

• Sourcing: Explain your process for sourcing and which tools you utilize. Ask the hiring manager if they have had certain luck hiring candidates with a specific skill or from a specific school/company so that you can target them, specifically.
• Screening: Discuss what you want the recruiter’s phone screen to consist of. They will probably want to know the candidate’s salary, reason for leaving, and why they are interested in the role. Are there any other questions they want to include to narrow the candidate pool down?
• Submitting: Would the hiring manager like to receive candidate info as phone screens are being performed? Maybe they would prefer a lump of candidates once per week, instead? Would they like a full summary? Or just the resume and some notes? Figure out what is best for the hiring manager.
• Interviewing: What happens after a candidate is submitted? Will the hiring manager take care of everything afterwards? Would they prefer the recruiter to schedule the next steps? How many interviews will be performed until a final decision is made? Will they be willing to hire the first quality candidate that makes it to final rounds, or are two candidates required to compare and contrast?
• Feedback: Set a timeline for feedback. I usually shoot for 48 hours after a candidate is submitted for a yay or nay. You can also set up a weekly call to gain specific feedback regarding what the hiring manager liked and didn’t like about the candidates submitted. Make sure they agree to the timeline, so they can hold themselves accountable for getting this feedback to you.
• Follow-up: Maybe every candidate you reached out to works at their dream job. What if your front-runner who was a shoo-in drops out before you can submit them? Make sure to follow up with the hiring manager at least weekly to explain the situation. I think most professionals understand that $h*t happens. But hiring managers will get annoyed or upset if they’re not being kept in the loop. Don’t hold off on sending the hiring manager an update because you assume you’ll be able to submit a candidate “soon.” It may take longer than you think and while you’re waiting you’ll be leaving the hiring manager in the dark. Let the hiring manager know on the introductory call that you will let them know the overall status, whether there are candidates in process or not!

Filling a job sounds simple in theory, but once put into motion it can become extremely difficult. As a recruiter, you can’t assume that hiring managers know how long it takes to find a candidate, set up a phone interview, or fill a position. If your expectations are aligned, and agreed upon, the hiring manager will respect your honesty and work, so long as you stick with your side of the bargain. And you can always fall back on these agreements if the hiring manager is being unresponsive or expecting too much from you.

I also suggest tracking not only which candidates you reach out to, but which percentages respond, don’t respond, or aren’t interested in speaking about the opportunity. Of those who aren’t interested, report on the reasons why they aren’t. Use this information to track trends and share these with the hiring manager. Maybe a majority of candidates aren’t interested because it’s a lateral move for them, or maybe the salary isn’t enough to consider it. Once you have this information you can work together with the hiring manager to seek a different type of candidate or increase the salary range.

It’s all about communication! With the right communication, your hiring managers will enjoy working with you, have reasonable expectations, and respect you as a recruiter.

Editor’s note: For more tips on improving your recruiting strategy (and helping your company grow) sign up for the OpenView newsletter.

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It’s always important to get the basics from a candidate when interviewing or recruiting them for a job. Day-to-day activities, reasons for wanting to change jobs, and current compensation are almost always discussed in an introductory call. This is really the skeleton of interviewing. The purpose of these simple questions is to determine if it makes sense to move forward and have the candidate interview with the hiring manager.

As a candidate moves further along in the process, interview questions should become more in-depth. Surface questions that are easily answered should not be the only questions asked in order to gauge quality. It is important to really dig in to someone’s thought processes. It can be too easy to memorize your “biggest weakness” or “five year plan.” The best behavioral interview questions take your candidate a bit off guard — in a good sense — enabling you to see their thoughts in action.

Behavioral interview questions focus on past experiences, behaviors, critical thinking skills, and abilities in order to assess how a candidate reacts in certain situations. I personally like these types of questions because not only are you getting past examples of candidate behavior, you’re putting them on the spot as well. It’s an excellent tool to determine a candidate’s capacity, especially in roles such as sales, where quick thinking and wit are crucial.

The ideal questions can really range, but are always open-ended. You can usually begin with “Tell me about a time when…” and insert what you feel is relevant. Some examples are:

• Tell me about a time when you worked together with members of a team and the result was more productive than working alone.
• Describe an instance when you were unable to make a deadline. What would you do differently in the future? (Everyone has missed a deadline at some point! If a candidate claims they have never missed a deadline, you might want to remove them from consideration. The ideal candidate would admit their mistake and explain how they learned from it.)

You can also assess ethics:

• Tell me about a time when you had to make an ethical decision at work. What happened, and what was the result?

In these examples, you should be assessing the candidate’s response. Ideally, it will be concise without too much rambling, yet also not too short of an answer. The best responses will incorporate the three aspects of PAR:

• P: Problem – How the issue originated. How did they assess that it was a problem?
• A: Action – What steps did they take in order to address said problem. How did they contribute to the solution?
• R: Result – What impact did they make? What was the end result of their actions?

If they don’t immediately hit on these, however, don’t be afraid to push them along a bit in their answer taking care not to sound too invasive. Try phrases like:

• “That’s interesting tell me more…”
• “That sounds tough, how did you manage to solve that?”
• “What was the final result from your hard work?”

Use these additional questions in order to retain a well-rounded response from a candidate. However, if they are still unable to really grasp what you’re asking, it might make sense to not move forward with the candidate.

Using these guidelines on behavioral interviewing will bring you closer to finding that ideal candidate! What are your suggestions for important behavioral questions to ask in an interview?

To get more great tips on improving your recruiting and interviewing process (and helping your company grow), sign up for the OpenView newsletter.

The days of scouring through Monster are ancient history. Most recruiters these days find the idea of using traditional job boards laughable, and can you even remember when jobs were posted in the NEWSPAPER? I can’t.

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Whether you want to believe it or not, social media is changing the landscape of recruiting. This is important for recruiters, companies, and candidates, alike, to understand and embrace. I can personally attest to this fact because I myself was recruited into my current job via Linkedin.

When I first started recruiting several years ago, I wasn’t convinced that people actually were getting hired off of any social network. In college, a marketing professor forced us to create a Linkedin account as part of a homework assignment. I obliged for the homework points, never realizing what a crucial role it would play in my professional career and development.

Obviously, as a recruiter, a lot more of my time is dedicated to sourcing for candidates through a variety of different methods – but as a candidate it just as important to realize the vast potential of keeping your social media accounts up to date.

According to this infographic, in 2012, companies are expected to use social media to recruit for over 80% of job openings. The top sites that recruiters use to find candidates are Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook. However, it seems as though Pinterest is becoming a contender as well.

The main reason recruiters are relying on social media to attract talent is to hone in on candidates who have not applied to specific openings. It is also a great way to save money (most of these sites on the recruiting side are free, as opposed to job boards which can be pricey), and increase a company’s brand recognition. It can show that a company is innovative and able to keep up with current trends.

As a candidate, I can’t stress how important it is to create a Linkedin account if you haven’t already. These days it’s not enough to just create an account; take a few minutes daily to check your messages, and update your profile, as necessary. Add a picture, it helps attract recruiters!

If your HR department is relying on the corporate website and waiting for resumes to slowly drip in, it’s time to improve the recruiting strategy. I have hired several excellent candidates off of Linkedin and was able to land a great job myself! At this point, it’s not just a fad or random idea to use social media as a recruiting tool; it’s a fact that usage of these sites is increasing every year – don’t miss out!

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