Sendouts Recruiting Software Blog

Attracting Talent

At our recent user’s conference – Sendouts Learn & Earn User Conference 2008 – I was able to get into some great in-depth conversation about what, if anything, concerns were on the minds of recruiting and staffing firms. One of the top concerns (aside the economy) is attracting talent to their firm and, ultimately, to their client. 

1-      I spend the first 10 minutes on the phone telling the prospective candidate who I am and what my company does before I am able to get to the open job. Then, I spend another 10 minutes explaining who my client is and what they do (when it’s not a brand name). Solution: Branding is important. I bet you Korn-Ferry rarely (if ever) has to explain who they are to a candidate.

2-      Pricing pressures. While companies want the best talent, they are not always willing to pay for it. This means that they get “B” players and not the “A” players, who can command a salary 20% higher than what my client is being offered. Solution: Play up the benefits and company culture.  Salary, though important, is not usually the first priority. Gen X is seeking career advancement and a good work-life balance. Gen Y is looking for company culture and an organization that meshes with their life style. 

3-      The best talent seems to come from my network of highly skilled, but passive candidates.  However, passive candidates are reluctant to open up their network. Solution: Be patient. You have to continue making a connection with your own network and reach out periodically (and not just when you need another candidate). “Reward” the person who refers a superb “A” player by sending a box of chocolates, a Starbucks gift certificate or taking them out to coffee. If the referral is placed, then take the referee out to a nice lunch or dinner. This will ensure that more candidates come your way.

Recruiting Ostrich Disorder

I liked this article so much I wanted to share – puts a funny spin on the “dark side” of recruiting! I liked the visual as well – very fitting!

Enjoy.

Time Management Tips for Recruiters

I just got off the phone with a recruiter – Todd (last name withheld) – that specializes in the healthcare industry – anywhere from research scientists to physicians to positions in big pharma companies.  A 30-something, web-savvy Big Biller who admits to having ADD (not really, but he definitely has a hard time focusing), Todd loves juggling a multitude of projects, but admits that he could be a bit more focused at any given time. Like many, Todd is easily distracted by that email or IM popping up, a ringing phone or his partner sticking her head in to ask a question.  So, I shared with him my time management tips:   

1-      Daily “to do” list: Simple, but highly effective and not used enough

2-      Block out time and do anything else, but a single task: Too often, we start a project and then jump to react to something else. The initial project gets pushed to the wayside and doesn’t pop up again until the deadline is upon you or you are reminded by someone of that task. Block out time to start and complete a task. I’ve heard from many recruiters that their days are scheduled as such (to be most effective):

ü      2 blocks of time in 15-minute increments to manage online social networks throughout the day

ü      90 minutes of sourcing (if you don’t have an internal or external resource already)

ü      3 blocks of time in 20-minute increments to manage email

ü      2-3 hours for client and candidate facing time (either on the phone or in-person)

ü      1 hour for new business development

And, I can’t resist, but if you have a great applicant tracking system (ATS), you don’t have to worry about re-typing data, manually importing email correspondence or any of those pesky administrative tasks. That should all be automated in some way to save you time.

3-      Outsourcing your sourcing.  If you haven’t done so already, hire someone to do your sourcing for you!  As a recruiter, your time is best spent making placements by vetting candidates, business development and client relations. You shouldn’t be working on hours of hunting and finding candidate info. If you’re reluctant to hire someone, there are many other resources out there that can be helpful.

4-      Don’t let interruptions be the norm. The biggest time killer is when you veer off track from your current activity. It’s easy to do. You’re pulling together a candidate profile for an open job and your phone rings. You pick it up. About 10 minutes later, you’ve started to work on the action items from your phone call and the candidate profile remains open on your desktop. By the time you get back to the candidate profile, you’ve completely lost your initial train of thought and you spend another 10 minutes getting back into the groove. Don’t let those interruptions be the norm. When you actually block out time, just focus on the activity at hand. Unless a real emergency comes up, keep that focus. You can always return a call after the task has been completed.

Managing Your Time Will Help You Source and Social Media Strategies

Emails, Tweets, IMs, LinkedIn, Facebook….when does the madness end? Though sourcing is not limited to social networks, it seems to have become a large part of a recruiter’s day. We talk to a lot of recruiting and staffing rainmakers who seem to have mastered the art of balancing their day. On the other hand, for every single recruiter-turned-social-maven, we hear another 6 recruiters sound bewildered and frustrated about managing their sourcing strategies. Here are some simple, but effective strategies that can help you through your day and the social media maze:

-          Find a social aggregator tool – such as FriendFeed (my personal favorite) – that allows you to manage many of your social networking tools. There are so many aggregators today that are easy to find and use. Read 20 Ways to Aggregate Your Social Networking Profiles to see what other tools can effectively help manage your social media mix.

-          Outsourcing your sourcing. If you haven’t done so already, hire someone to do your sourcing for you!  As a recruiter, your time is best spent making placements by vetting candidates, business development and client relations. You shouldn’t be working on hours of hunting and finding candidate info. If you’re reluctant to hire someone, there are many other resources out there that can be helpful.

-          Be selective. You don’t have to be on ALL the social networks. LinkedIn is a good place to start.  After that, I would look to your vertical industry to see if there are any social networks that could be useful. 

-          Make sure you have a good applicant tracking system to capture all the info. I promise, I’m not selling here, but any good recruiter must have a system that can easily track all connections and communications. An ATS should be making your life EASIER, not creating more work!

-          Instant Messaging is popular, but can quickly become a disruptor. Do yourself a favor and only turn on your IM at select times during the day and only if you’re using IM for work. If you find that 90% of IMs are your friends seeing “how you’re doing”, turn it off during work hours. This will make you about 40% more efficient. If you need IM for work, then use an IM aggregator, such as Trillian. (Note: The same applies to Twitter).   

Make the Connection Now

This week’s U.S. financial crisis is a pivotal moment for the world economy.  Screaming headlines stating that this is the biggest U.S. economic disaster since 1930s are peppering our nation’s business press. There is no doubt that the northeast financial industry is imploding and thousands will be out of a job.  The question is whether the crisis can be contained. 

Recruiters should sit up and take notice. There will be a flood of talent seeking help in the short-term.  Many will even be those elusive passive candidates seeking a new position. Though there will be a tight market on open positions for a while, this is the time to connect with candidates now as a building block for future recruitment activities. 

Branding, retention falls short for Staffing Firms

Later this month, CareerBuilder will release results of a survey they put together on staffing industry client and job candidates. They have released some bits of information that we found pretty interesting…

Branding – staffing firms are continuing to fall short when it comes to brand awareness. Only two firms were able to achieve awareness among the survey participants.

45% of respondents have changed or seriously considered changing their staffing firm in the last 12 months – that’s a pretty high number. Along with brand awareness, client retention seems to be an area that needs some attention.

The study also looks at job candidates experiences with staffing firms – including a consensus from candidates that staffing firms need to focus on responsiveness to emails and phone calls in order to improve the experience and make it easier for candidates to work with them. Only 5% of candidates said they work with staffing firms.

We recommend our staffing clients to pick up a copy of the complete survey when it comes out – the insights could be useful for building your business and becoming more aware of your clients.

Healthcare and IT – we need you!

Month after month, the amount of job orders in our system paint a picture of what the job market is really like. Of late, there has been one distinct pattern – the combination of open healthcare and IT jobs equal to more than half of any other current open jobs. We have also seen a flood of specialty recruiters come on the scene in the last year specific to these industries.

Healthcare and IT candidates are sitting pretty with employers bending over backwards to sweet talk them into coming on board.  If you take a look around at your local hospital’s job board, for example, you’ll likely see a hefty referral bonus and sign on bonus offered for technicians and nurses.

Another interesting observation – the entertainment industry, which is certainly the most interesting and coveted, had only 7 open jobs in our system (we picked a random month to look at this) out of almost 80,000 open jobs. Not the industry to be in! It seems as though people are either staying put or the industry itself is suffering!

Learn And Earn 08: Day 1

Day one of the Sendouts User Conference went terrific. We started things off with a hilarious "Friends" vid (which will be up soon) and a keynote speech from Barb Bruno. Our client base has been great and has brought excellent questions and feedback to the team. I'll also be on Twitter throughout the day giving real time updates.

Phone Sourcing – a dying tactic?

Online sourcing, as we have stated several times, is the “wave of the future” and offers recruiters access to active and passive candidate data using simple searches and networking techniques. The question is...is phone sourcing out with the old in with the new?

Online information is somewhat reliable and certainly faster than calling multiple places in a day, sitting on hold and possibly getting the information you need. BUT, employees move around so quickly, not to mention mergers and acquisitions resulting in fast changes within organizations. At times, the only way to get real-time information on your target job-seeker is to pick up the phone and start digging.

While, new techniques for sourcing are certainly easy to use, invariably it should be combined with traditional sourcing techniques.  Just an example, phone sourcing will never really disappear (at least not in our lifetime!). There are recruiters out there who aren’t quite Internet 2.0-savvy yet and still rely on the phone for much of their business!  But that’s changing everyday and in every way.

Top Picks for Online Sourcing

We get asked frequently about online sourcing and what are the best sites for sourcing so wanted to pass along some of our picks:

LinkedIn - With 20 million members and growing, LinkedIn is the online coffeehouse for busy professionals.

NAYMZE  - Naymz might not have the star power of LinkedIn just yet, but it is quickly gaining worldwide popularity, as professionals are empowered to manage their online reputations.

HooversConnect – offspring of Hoover’s powerful website that offers company and employee information

XING: business social networking

Here’s an additional tip:  For a bit of added flavor, use social networking Web sites after you’ve sourced business networking sites.  Search social networks like MySpace (www.MySpace.com) or Facebook (www.Facebook.com) to gain some “real” insight on a candidate.