Sendouts Recruiting Software Blog

Things To Do Before You Hit Send

Today's recruiter relies heavily on email to extend their reach and daily productivity. The problem is today's business owner, hiring manager or candidate receives a ton of emails making it increasingly difficult to get your email message across. Below I've put together a few tips to help you BEFORE you hit send and let your message fly.

1. Subject Line - Your subject line should be short, non-spammy (no using the words free, help, percent off or reminder) and to the point and relevant to your audience. For example, if you were pitching a job-order for an electrical engineer to a candidate list of electrical engineers then you wouldn't say Here is a new restaurant job for you, you would want to say something like New Electrical Engineering Position or Electrical Engineer Needed. You want your matches to open the email because it means something to them.


2. Content - Just as your subject line gets your prospect to open the email, your content needs to drive your prospect to an action. That action could be to schedule a meeting, download a whitepaper or to announce a special offer. Also, get to the point - remember your who, what, when, where and how and make sure to keep your content readable and digestible to your audience.


3. Creative - If you're going to use HTML in your emails, then make sure you do it right. Use the right mix of content (words) and creative (images) to make your email both attractive and functional. Use an attractive, branded header and footer and keep your emails under 630px to ensure it will display properly in most email programs. Oh, and test test test test before a large (or small) send. Use a few different email services like gmail, hotmail, yahoo and make sure to test it on email clients like Outlook 2003 and 2007. If this is over your head, you can also download tested templates that work in any email program. Just replace your content and images and voila!

Emails are an important business tool for recruiters. By mastering good pre-email send habits you'll increase your email's effectiveness once it's sent.

Finding The Time To Find Time

For recruiters, nailing down time management is a key factor in milking the most out of   your days.  When interviews, emails, tasks and meetings start to pile up the results can be disastrous for your bottom-line.  Having the most robust, fancy-pants ATS won't mean squat if you can't nail down your own time management.  So, I've found and put together a few quick tips to help master your time and make more placements.  

1. Prioritize - Take the non-revenue producing tasks and put them in the corner...for now.  Focus on what will increase your odds of earning and let the smaller, less critical things slide.  Don't start on less important things until you've ran through your high priority/high return activities.
2. Chunk - No I'm not talking about the Goonies character, I'm talking about chunking out time to focus.  For example, 8-9am may be social media time, 9-12 you're prospecting or speaking with current clients, 1-3pm reaching out to candidates and 4-5 you're answering non-essential emails you've received throughout the day.  Whatever you do all day, chunk it out into digestible pieces so it's easier to work through.
3. Own Your Time - You may have the best time management skills in the country, but if you're dealing with people that drag their feet or are non-responsive it won't matter.  Manage other people's time by setting firm dates for meetings or getting candidates to accept offers within a certain time frame.  Bill Radin shares these tips in this short video.
4. Say No - So your buddy in the office wants to show you the newest youtube sensation while someone else want's to vent about the jerk that cut her off this morning.  Say no.  Get in your zone, walk away, say you're busy closing deals and you'll watch the youtube vid on your yacht in the Hamptons this summer.  Get focused and stay in your zone and don't let anyone take you out of it.

Be the owner of your time management and reap the rewards, you'll be glad you did.

5 Business Development Tips For Recruiters

A few months ago Sendouts produced a whitepaper called "Time to Shine: 5 Tips for Business Development During the Economic Recovery".  Well, we received an incredible response from this paper mainly (in my opinion) because recruiting is and always will be a sales position.  Regardless of the economy, recruiters are always in a state of developing sustainable business.  

Below is a snapshot of the tips outlined in the whitepaper.  To download your copy you can, click here.

1. Differentiate Yourself - What is the clear statement that makes you unique.  In a crowded niche or market cementing existing relationships, prove your value and focus on intangibles that can set you apart.
2. Identify Your Target Market and Create a Plan for Reaching It - It sounds basic but many recruiters don't keep up with the market or markets that they are trying to reach.  When identifying a target market you should understand who your best clients are and keep in touch frequently.  Establishing a marketing rhythm can help you stay in front of mind.
3. Expand Your Existing Relationships - You've already done the hard work of winning a new client.  Now nurture your relationships and expand your offerings to maximize the potential business and build deeper relationships with the client.
4. Boost Your Online Marketing Presence - Getting online and making yourself known and more importantly found is detrimental to your success.  Mastering your presence online is imperative in todays on-demand climate.  Some things to consider are optimizing your website for SEO, provide value with thought leadership and leverage free social media channels like twitter, facebook and linkedin.
5. Take a Consultative Approach - Position yourself as a trusted adviser with clients and passive candidates by identifying client/candidate pains and discussing how you have solved a similar problem. This approach allows you to showcase your recruiting knowledge, industry expertise and problem-solving ability.

Again, for the full whitepaper and a deeper dive into the tips I've shared above, please click here.  

10 SEO Tips For Recruiters

For a small business, SEO can seem like a task not worth tackling.  In reality it is one of the most important things you can do to increase your visibility in an ever-crowding marketplace.  Below I have compiled 10 tips taken from my own experiences and from various industry blogs and articles.

1. Title Tag
Near the very top of a web site’s source code you’ll find various meta tags — the standard ones being the Title, Description and Keyword tags. The title tag is technically not a meta tag, though it is commonly associated with them. The title tag plays such a large role in the indexing of your web site, that it is considered the most important of the three. A page title is the first thing a search engine will look at when determining just what the particular page is about. It is also the first thing potential visitors will see when looking at your search engine listing. It’s important to include a keyword or two in the title tag — but don’t go overboard – you don’t want to do what’s known as “keyword stuffing” which does nothing but make your web site look like spam. Most people will include either the company name, or title of the particular page here, as well.
2. Meta Tags
There are two primary meta tags in terms of SEO — the description and the keyword tag. It’s debatable whether the search engines use the description tag as far as ranking your results. However it is one of the more important tags because it is listed in your search result — it is what users read when your link comes up and what makes them decide whether or not to click on your link. Be sure to include a few relevant keywords in this tag, but don’t stuff it with keywords either. The description tag should read like a sentence — not a keyword list. Due to “keyword stuffing” many search engines now completely disregard the keyword tag. It is no longer nearly as important as it was years ago, however it doesn’t hurt to include them in your source code. When creating your keyword list, you’ll want to think of the specific terms people will type in when searching for a site like yours. Just don’t go overboard — too many duplicates are not a good thing (as in “web designer” “web designers” “custom web designer” “html web designer” “your state here web designer” – you get the idea). Those are all basically the same, so pick one or two variations at the most and move onto the next keyword.
3. Proper Use of Heading Tags
This is a very important element to consider when writing out your site copy. Use of heading tags helps users, web browsers and search engines alike know where the major key points of your copy are. Your main page title should use the <h1> tag — this shows what your page is about. Use of additional tags, such as <h2> and <h3> are equally important by helping to break down your copy. For one, you’ll see a visual break in the text. But as far as the search engines are concerned, it will automatically know what your topics are on a page. The various heading tags give a priority to the content and help index your site properly.
4. Alt Attributes on Images
Putting alt attributes on your images actually serves two purposes. In terms of SEO, putting a brief yet descriptive alt attribute along with your image, places additional relevant text to your source code that the search engines can see when indexing your site. The more relevant text on your page the better chance you have of achieving higher search engine rankings. In addition, including image alt attributes help the visually impaired who access web sites using a screen reader. They can’t see the image, but with a descriptive alt attribute, they will be able to know what your image is.
5. Title Attributes on Links
Including title attributes on links is another important step that any good web site will have. That’s the little “tool tip” that pops up when you place your mouse over a link. These are especially important for image links, but equally useful for text links. As a note, you should use descriptive text for your links. “Click here” doesn’t really tell a person – or more importantly, the search engines — what the link is. At the very least put a title tag that will explain that “Click Here” really means “Web Design Portfolio” for example. Better yet – make the main link text something like “View my web design portfolio” — this will give some value to the link showing that the resulting page is relevant to searches for portfolio’s.
6. XML Sitemap
Some sitemaps are html based and made for easy user navigation, however, there’s another version — XML sitemaps — that are used by the search engines in order to index through your site, as well. This list of ALL pages / posts / etc. of your site also includes information such as the date the page was last modified, as well as a priority number of what you feel the most important pages of your sites are. All elements that help the search engines properly find and link to all content of your site.
7. Relevant Content
Having content relevant to your main page or site topic is perhaps the most important SEO aspect of a page. You can put all the keywords you want in the meta tags and alt image tags, etc — but if the actual readable text on the page is not relevant to the target keywords, it ends up basically being a futile attempt. While it is important to include as many keywords in your page copy as possible, it is equally as important for it to read well and make sense. I’m sure we’ve all seen keyword stuffed pages written by SEO companies that honestly don’t make much sense from the reader’s point of view. When creating your site copy, just write naturally, explaining whatever information you’re discussing. The key is to make it relevant, and to have it make sense to the reader. Even if you trick the search engines into thinking your page is great — when a potential customer arrives at the site and can’t make heads or tails of your information and it just feels spammy to them — you can bet they’ll be clicking on the next web site within a matter of seconds.
8. Link Building
We’ve probably all heard of Google Page Rank — it seems to be every web site owner’s dream to have as high a page rank as possible. While the algorithm for determining page rank encompasses many elements, and is constantly changing, one item is the number of links pointing to your web site. Now, you’ll want to steer clear of link farms and other spammy attempts at getting links to your site. However there are many reputable and niche directory sites that you can use to submit your web site, or specific blog articles to. With genuine content — especially if you have a blog — you’ll be able to generate links with other web sites and blogs, as well. It’s somewhat of a give and take, in that if you link out to other sites, you’ll find sites linking back to you — and hopefully see your page rank going up, as well!
9. Social Media
Although technically not SEO, Social Media is such a growing factor in getting your web site noticed, that it’s an important element to include in your plan. Social media ranges from social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn — to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon and many more. There is a lot of relationship building involved, but as you build your own networks and build quality content on your web site or blog, you’ll see traffic to your web site increasing, as well. As with any relationship, it is a give and take. Don’t just expect to join a site like Twitter for the pure sake of pushing your content. That just won’t fly — your true intentions will stick out like a sore thumb and do nothing but turn people off. Even if you are on the site purely for networking reasons, the key is to make friends. Help out members of your network if they ask for a “retweet” or Digg, give helpful advice if asked, etc. You’ll see the same in return. If you write a great post and have built meaningful relationships with peers in your niche, you’ll often find that friends will submit your posts and give you votes on the social bookmarking sites. The more votes you receive, the more likely your post is to be noticed by others and shared around, often resulting in additional link backs from other blogs, etc.
10. A Few SEO Don’ts — Flash and Splash
Along with any list of Do’s come the Don’ts. As far as SEO is concerned, two of these items are splash pages (often consisting of a flash animation) and all flash web sites. Yes, flash is pretty! Full flash web sites can actually be amazing to look at — their own bit of interactive artwork. But unfortunately the search engines don’t get along well with Flash. Although there is talk of possible advancement in this area, for the most part the search engines cannot read Flash. All that great content that you wrote for your site will not be seen by the search engines if it’s embedded into a Flash web site. As far as the search engines are concerned, your all flash web site might as well be invisible. And if the search engines can’t see your site content, a good chunk of potential customers will miss out on what you have to offer, too. Equally as “pointless” are splash pages. Once very popular, the splash page should no longer be an important feature of any site. While splash pages used to serve as an introduction into a web site (often with a flash animation), it is no longer seen as helpful, and often times might actually annoy visitors. For one — it’s an extra click to get into your content. Worse is when you don’t give a “skip intro” option or set of links into your main site content — because you’re essentially forcing your visitors to sit through the full animation. If you’re lucky, this will only annoy them… if not — they’ll just leave without giving your main web site a shot. And without an html link pointing into your site, the search engines have no way to continue either (unless you made use of a sitemap.xml file — but still…) A good alternative to both issues is to make use of a flash header. There’s no problem to include a flash animation at the top of your main site, or as a feature within the content area, etc. Because this is an addition to your web site, as opposed to a full separate element.

Positive; The Word Of The Week

It is vital that recruiters are efficiently using every minute of their jam packed work week that starts Monday morning and lasts until Friday afternoon. Are your recruiter's first 60 minutes of their week being effectively utilized and setting the tone for a positive and successful week?

David Szary from Ere.net wrote a phenomenal article about efficiently and successfully running your weekly recruiting meeting titled "Logic Prevails At Well Structured Weekly Meetings." It lays out exactly how to run and what to cover in your weekly meeting. It helps you to ensure that everyone's time is optimized and they leave the meeting ready to have an extraordinary week. You will notice as you read through his agenda that almost all of it is focused on highlighting the positive while still discussing any issues. His recommended meeting agenda follows.

Trouble at the Office – Generational Tension; Work/Life Balance and BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek gets high marks for its special report on Trouble at the Office.  Aside from HR and operations effectiveness group heads, recruiters and staffing companies should take note of lessons learned about generational tension and the work/life balance. 

The incredible insight garnered on Gen X and Y are detailed meticulously throughout the special report.  And, it’s directly from surveys and in-depth interviews from the proverbial horse’s mouth, so to speak.  Gen Xers are unhappy at work, so what can recruiters do to help?  Just read What’s Eating Gen X.

Any staffing firm working with long-term temp assignments or any recruiter dealing with “I’m an actor, but still need to pay the bills” candidates should read Tips from a Bitter Temp, an enlightening and hilarious look at how to survive a bureaucracy.

And any firm looking to grow, should look at Ram Charan’s thoughts on getting around roadblocks to build business in his Stop Whining and Start Thinking article.  Mr. Charan outlines five simple steps on how to help cut through the red tape:  “Spring Cleaning”, Streamline, Coach or Remove Indecisive Managers, Make Information Transparent and (last, but most importantly) Celebrate Success.

And there are a multitude of articles about the generational differences, wants, needs and how to communicate to each group.  Starting with A Boomer’s Guide to Communicating with Gen X and Y to Don’t Treat Them Like Baby boomers to how Unilever is trying to painfully bridge the tech divide in Go Ahead, Use Facebook.

Can Your Clients Admit Weakness?

Simply put, a recruiters' goal is to find top talent to fill positions for their clients and make a fee.  But what happens when a client can't admit they have a need or worse yet, don't know they have a need. After reading an article on Business Week about a company called Bonobos, I realized how the mentality of some CEOs needs to change in order to propel their businesses forward.  In the Business Week article, Andy Dunn details his company's rapid growth and success followed by declining profit margins and workforce shortages.  Dunn came to the realization that in order to grow his business he needed to step back and let the "plumbers do the plumbing".  He did this by hiring a recruiter to find the missing pieces to his business and ultimately grow.  

By helping a client or prospect identify what they don't know, you can create an opportunity to not only make a placement but to also transform your client's business by finding the right talent to fill the void.  Asking your prospects or clients "what are you not good at" may ruffle some feathers, but keep in mind you're doing this to help them and ultimately help the business.

The $50,000 Recruiting Makeover

Not so long ago we sat down to discuss the current economic climate, the recruiting industry and how we can launch a "stimulus" of our own (though on a much smaller scale) for the recruiting world.  It's a tried and true concept - bring industry leaders together, donate services or products and give them away...very simple. 

The "Recruiting Makeover" was born, then launched and features the recruiting industry's most innovative and dynamic companies all working to help one recruiting firm overcome obstacles and provide them with a fresh start consisting of tools, training and advice. 

This years sponsors are Sendouts, Careerbuilder, Broadlook, Buzz Recruiter, Good as Gold Training, SGA Executive Tracker and TFI Resources.  All the sponsors have donated services and time to help the winner achieve their goals and dominate their desk.

To learn more or register for the "Recruiting Makeover" visit www.recruitingmakeover.com.

Branding: Hi, Who Are You Again?

Branding is a word that is bandied around these days like Web 2.0, social media, etc. People are constantly using the word to say “oh, that’s branding” or “we need branding” or “that’s great branding,” but do they know what branding really is or what it means?

A brand is an image or idea (or collection of images or ideas) representing verbal attributes to a name, logo, tagline or design. A brand captures and conveys the core essence of a company. Two quick examples: McDonald’s brings up the image of “the golden arches” and you immediately think Hamburger. Disney brings up the image of either a castle in the sky or a mouse profile, but they immediately evoke images of happy children or memories of childhood. 

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with recruiting. The simple fact of the matter is that branding helps attract talent and clients. Branding creates an image for companies that are grounded in belief, rather than facts and creates the first link to a loyal customer. An extremely successful recruiting firm who understands and wields branding like a master swordsman is Korn/Ferry. I bet you when Korn/Ferry picks up the phone and calls candidates, they may not know the recruiter, but they know the company. Even passive candidates will take the call to see what the recruiter has to say. And, better yet, the candidate will most likely open up their network and make recommendations.

Two other reasons for branding your recruiting firm:

-          Candidates will start looking for you! 

-          Companies will look to your expertise and, hopefully, sign on as clients.

Branding makes a big difference. It ain’t cheap, but it’s worth the bucks.

Sourcing, Sourcing, Sourcing

We wanted to post some of our favorite articles/resources on sourcing that may be useful. The world of sourcing constantly changes with new places to look popping up what seems like every day. Hope this helps!

Articles:

Seven Days Without Sourcing Makes One Weak

Recruiting Passive Candidates in Tough Economic Times

Reaching passive candidates – the key to a high quality, diverse candidate pool

Passive Candidate Recruiting: Evolving With a Changing Workforce

Resources:

http://www.sourcingcorner.com/

http://www.therecruiterslounge.com