Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog

A timely Recruiting.com post talks about the Electronic Recruiting Exchange’s planned editorial diversion: Inside Recruiting. As it happens, I spoke to ERE’s Todd Raphael (the editor) just yesterday about my desire to write for him. Todd politely declined my offer based on his assertion that I am a “vendor” and therefore may be either content-compromised, self-serving or both. Todd very kindly sent me the guidelines for submitting articles anyway, but I suspect only because he was uncomfortable saying: “You’re annoying me, go away.” If that’s the case, Todd, I apologize.

This is what Todd did tell me. He plans to take the editorial focus for ERE in a new direction and wants articles to be written by “actual real life recruiting practitioners.” Fair enough. Todd graciously said he would like to possibly reference me in the Inside Recruiting sidebar page: Tips of the Trade. Odd place to put a “vendor”, don’t you think?

Todd said he liked my Indeed.com post, and that was the type of original work he was looking for, provided I gave it to him first. I'm not sure why I would want to do that. Anyway, I hope Inside Recruiting generates tons of new advertising dollars for ERE and more page views too. But not for me, Todd – thank you.

This is what Todd and I could agree on:

1. ERE – like many others in recruitment publishing – is suffering from the malaise brought on by content regurgitation. It doesn’t take article upon article upon article to differentiate between the thousand ways to skin a cat and the single most effective way to actually do it. There’s only one best way to do anything. That includes recruiting. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. And Five and Six. And parts Seven and Eight.

2. Todd needs fresh, original, so-that’s-how-Valero-does-it content. That’s what the readership wants. That’s what the readership must have. It’s the only way. Leading edge but not edgy. Case study but not case-in-point.

3. ERE readers are “suspicious” of “vendors” peddling their wares under a thin guise of subject matter expertise. Well, pardon me. I have never once considered buying anything from Lou Adler, but I’m sure I speak for around 65,000 other readers when I say we would miss his regular contributions and insight. And so would ERE’s advertisers. Trust me, I know – oops, that’s vendor-speak creeping in! I guess Todd was right after all.

4. As a percentage of the total recruiting workforce, ERE only reaches a tiny fraction of the people who need their content the most. That’s the real shame. I can tell you, most of the recruiters I talk to don’t have a clue that ERE even exists, let alone what it promotes. Instead of trying to reinvent ERE, it might better serve the profession if the franchise expanded its readership beyond the clique it seems so preoccupied with cultivating.

I will continue to read ERE every day. Why? Because I love it. For years it has been an invaluable resource and continues to be an inspiration for me and those I work with. I share ERE with as many people as I can, and so should you. Truthfully, (aagh – vendor-speak again!) my only criticism is that the pages take longer to load than it takes a good recruiter to find a job. And as far as rehashing the content, some things are worth repeating over and over and over again, especially when they’re right on – and as long as cats have nine lives.
 
So if you’re a recruiting practitioner with a big-name company – or even a lesser-known entity, but with a couple of good tricks up your sleeve – and you don’t mind divulging your competitive advantage to those scrambling for the same talent you just recruited, give Todd a call. He’ll put you on the front page.

I live in Jupiter, Florida. It is a beautiful place to live. I don’t remember which esteemed organization voted my home town one of the top ten places in America to live in but, I for one, think they got it right.

But there’s another side to the story. You see, Palm Beach County has its challenges as far as work is concerned. Our primary industries are service-oriented, and we have near full employment. Unemployment runs at 2.7%. Employers who need talent to drive and grow their businesses must have a solid strategy for sourcing passive candidates and had better have an understanding of why and how to manage private talent pools if they are to compete for the fewer and fewer number of available candidates. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of local employers do.

Read the rest here »

As a child, I remember being amused for hours by the fish in Mrs. Frostick’s pond. I can’t recall what species they were, but I do recall that when I dropped a small blob of bread in the water the fish would all make a mad dash to the surface and frantically splash around. The writhing would subside until another blob of bread was dropped in and the wriggling and splashing would resume. What fun!

I want to thank Dave Lefkow for reconnecting me to this wonderful childhood memory. In his article Why They Hate Recruiting he references a piece published last year in Fast Company. The work was entitled: Why We Hate HR, and at the time it generated its own feeding frenzy of comments and debate. The blob of bread Dave dropped in the pond has again provoked the same frantic reaction. And it is as amusing as it was the first time round.

Please don’t get me wrong. Of course we should be debating issues relating to HR, recruiting, strategy, C-level engagement, strategic direction, the whole megillah. But we should also be conscious of what’s really going on here – here in the pond.

As I reflect on my childhood experience, I wonder whether feeding Mrs. Frostick’s fish was the real attraction for me, or the realization that I – Son of Man – had the power to turn this splish-splashing on and off at will. I conclude it must have been the latter. It didn’t take me long to realize that a glob of spit would have the same effect as a blob of bread. The fish never had a clue.

As a whiz-kid salesman, I was as good as they got. My prospects simply loved me. I would sweet-talk their receptionists and sugarcoat my proposals. I would travel to meet them and wine them and dine them and they would all – and I mean every one of them – tell me what a swell guy I was. I was a hotshot whiz-kid and they were all – and I mean every single one – hot to trot.

Odd, then, that after a huge investment of my time and my money and my emotional capital these same “It’s-a-done-deal-call-me-Monday” prospects would suddenly go into hiding. They wouldn’t return my countless phone calls or my “RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Our lunch last February” emails. They would even ignore my eventual pleading for the professional courtesy of telling me I was a sorry schmuck and the deal was dead.  As if I really needed telling.

This same scenario plays out every day in recruiting too. It could be your own attempt to nail a client or get a hiring manager to respond. And don’t for a minute think that candidates don’t sometimes feel this way and for good reason.

There are three things I suggest you start doing if you find this is happening to you:

1. The easiest and most important thing of all: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Need I say more?

2. Establish a firm and clear agreement as to what is going to happen next and when it’s going to happen. You need to agree in your “up-front contract” what those things not happening really means, and what is going to happen if the contract is broken.

3. Have respect. Respect yourself, respect your professional standing, and respect the contract. If the contract is broken, you’re moving on. You’ll find that you will get more accomplished this way. You’ll also be shown the respect you deserve – without having to beg for it.

I believe that we are so quick to accept wishy-washy commitments or deny the obvious blow-off because we are so emotionally vested in the game that we tend to forget this is business. Recruiting, like sales, is no place to get your emotional needs met. Stop it.

Indeed.com is really in the advertising game. And they play it well. Part of their strategy is to drive traffic from as many places as possible and one way to do this is to have their search engine available in as many places as possible. Anyone who has a mind to, and a smidgeon of technical know-how, can add Indeed.com’s Job Search to their site. For Indeed.com at least, it's mission accomplished.

Bearing in mind that Indeed.com is for job seekers to use, and provides no service for employers, here’s the alternate use for you:

1. On your careers page/job profiles make a bold statement like: "If you think you can find a better job than this one, try it" and invite them to search thousands of jobs from thousands of job boards – and your competition too – with just a click. That should say something about your confidence as an employer, don't you think?

2. Take the candidate to a really simple registration page. Name, number, and email should be enough. Invite them to bookmark the page and to come back as often as they like for their job search. With their email address, market to them as you please.

3. Once they’ve registered, another you-branded page explains that you understand that, just as you are very selective about who you want to talk to, they – your candidate – should be equally selective about who they consider applying to. A little bit of fear and doubt might give them pause to think twice and click back. Otherwise, let them enter their search criteria and say, "Goodbye".

A few words of caution:

1. Don’t do this unless you are feeding your jobs to Indeed.com. You want your postings to show up and, hopefully, stand out. Getting your postings up is simple enough and you should probably be doing it anyway. You can learn how on Indeed.com.

2. You will be told by some purist that this is a crazy, half-baked idea! Mumble something about this actually being a branding/retention play and quote the old Chinese proverb: "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was. We do not possess anything in this world, least of all other people. We only imagine that we do. Our friends, our lovers, our spouses, our children [even our candidates and employees] are not ours; they belong only to themselves." Smile sheepishly.

3. This strategy assumes a) you have your employment brand under control; b) a half-way decent employment site that candidates would be inclined to bookmark; and c) you believe that you can compete head-on and win.

With these minor things under your belt, if you have the guts to try this, let me know how it turns out.

You know, some things were just meant to be re-applied. After a power lunch, business cards can substitute very well for dental floss. Adam’s Executive Recruiters Almanac and companion titles make exceptionally good bookends. And of course, a pile of resumes can be turned over to provide endless sheets of scratch-paper.

So what uses does Indeed.com have for recruiters other than to generate more scratch-paper?

The other day I had a client in who was about to post her job on every board you can name in a last-ditch effort to find a supply chain manager in Florida. Her next move would be to call a search firm. I took her through this drill. If you are ever faced with the same dilemma, I suggest you do the same.

1. Go to Indeed.com and search for the position you’re thinking of posting. In this instance, supply chain manager generated 14,928 returns. We agreed that it made no sense for her to spend a ton of money to become posting 14,929.

2. Look at who is posting what and where. It won’t take you long to figure out what companies employ the talent you are looking for.

3. Make a short list of the companies that you want to target as possible sources for candidates.

4. Start recruiting.

Sure, it would be nice if you could post your position and sit back as the supply chain managers magically appeared on your doorstep. But, 14925 makes a better Fantasy Five play than a posting placement. And the odds of getting something back may be better.

Alternate Uses for Indeed.com: Part Two

The easiest way to reach me is via email: Amitai*no-spam*@blogversity.com.