Rumour has it, he’s looking for a new job.  Watch the monitors behind the analyst being interviewed.  Top left.

In response to this question on ERE: http://community.ere.net/blogs/joannegehas/2009/12/do-companies-own-candidates-who-post-their-resumes/.  For the record, I am a Corporate Recruitment Manager

In the ERE Question: Do Companies “own” candidates, Johanne Gehas asks - is it right that a company she recruits for, as a third party (headhunter), claims ownership over any of her candidates they subsequently find on Monster.com?

A few people have attempted to answer this question: some have taken the position that it’s fair, since they are paying Joanne for candidates that aren’t on job boards; another response seems to indicate that anyone who has  applied to that company’s ATS (applicant tracking system, usually the company.com/careers site), should not count.

I believe that any company who uses an Agency to search for prospects, should pay for any prospect who dosen’t apply to that precise open role, wthin reason.  Let’s be frank, what Corporate Recruiters pay Agency Recruiters for, is speed, and depth of pentration into talent pools they are not tapping - due to lack of time, resources, or skill.

If XYZ company has a bunch of ineffectual recruiting minions — who have time to check these databases – they probably should be recruiting these prospects BEFORE an agency is engaged.  In this situation, they are probably too unskilled, or suffering from poor leadership.   Only a pretty dishonest person steals from those they partner with.

If ”Recruiters” are not converting prospects to job applicants (candidates)  – they are not recruiting. Period.

I also take a semantic issue with this question.  Prospects are not job candidates, candidates apply to specific positions.  It’s the same problem with Social Media: someone is either a job candidate or not.  I have Google alerts primed for the first Recruiting Department who wants to pretend ”ownership” over Social Media contacts.  They are going to have a swell time explaning to a Jury why they didn’t discriminate against Johnny, smoking weed in his underwear.  And mark my words, I will write about it in this blog.

There are privacy laws for a reason, same thing with the notion of a “job candidate”.  Lot’s of pretty good reasons… not just for people who smoke weed in their underwear.

Let’s then tackle the ATS database aspect of this issue.  Most companies have privacy statements about how long, and for what purpose they save your personal information for.  Usually, the stated policy is 24 months.  What then about those situations where databases are not flushed for 5-10 years, which is probably the norm in the recruiting world?  Again poor leadership, and weak ethics, should the nature of the relationship, or boundry not be defined.

Folks, it comes down to this – if you want administrative minons to police a recruitment process, then good luck finding strong professionals (Agencies) who like to deal with honest partners.

If you can’t see this video, it’s probably because your company bans youtube

This is a darker view on HR and the reality of being a cost centre…

http://twitter.com/recruithard
I promise, I’ll make it interesting, I’ll keep posts about my “personality issues” to an absolute minimum.

So, a little about this blog.  I’m doing this because I believe that professional recruitment is better when people share experiences over the web.  Successful recruiting is a formula, but it is also an art that evolves over time.

“Insanity is doing something over again, and expecting different results” – Albert Einstein.

Nowhere does this hold truer, than within Recruitment.  As a Gen-X, who is also a freethinker, I think it’s of vital importance that New Media is not responded to, in boring old ways.

I have several biases that I will inflict on this social media world. If you you stick around, I will make it interesting.

Some of my content will deal with Recruitment fundamentals, others will deal with hardcore sourcing techniques. I may likewise veer into job searches as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

I was just doing some research for a senior investment job. It’s been a few years since I worked in this space, but I knew this information could be found online, as many of these professionals are regulated.

Manitoba earns my praise today, because it has not only a lists of employees from precise entities – but specific levels. And to boot, it’s updated daily. So as I uploaded this information in to an excel chart, and did a data->filter->sort, I must say, Thank you Manitoba…

The intake session is, without a doubt, the most important part of the entire recruitment process: it paves the road to either success or ruin.  To that point, no recruiter starts with failure in mind, yet too few can differentiate the mud from the road while their requisition veers into the weeds.

Any sales-related objective (ie. recruit) can be achieved by narrowing down the top three criteria of clients.  While this is the crux of the intake session — and while it takes the need from superhuman to ‘merely human’, it is not enough by itself.  By pre-closing the sale, and setting expectations, you can bid those forehead spots on your workstation desk adieu; and save those head-banging moves for when your at home, in your underwear, listening to Metallica.

In my mind, there are two types of Recruiters, who I call Order-takers and Bus drivers. Maybe it’s not the clearest comparison, but it means that some people let life happen to them while others take control.

An Order-taker, is someone who seeks out direction from the client.  They are a close relative of the ‘people-pleasing’ recruiters who think that hiring managers are their buddies.  By comparison, a Bus driver is someone who knows where they have to go, and how to steer the process to meet the needs of clients.

For Example
Order-taker: “so *you want* the role posted for 60 days, and you want to see everyone with a pulse… would you like some fries with that req?”
Bus Driver:  “*I recommend* that we post the role for only X amount of days and we employ X sourcing strategy… I will follow-up with you every X amount of days”

It’s all about respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T [cue the song, please…]

Respect to the Order-taker, is achieved by factors beyound their control — by working for the nicest client group, being tolerated when they don’t have candidates, or being valued for low-value administrative services.  The Order-taker is someone who wants to get somewhere, but they don’t know how. Respect for the Bus Driver, is a destination – by providing value-added advice, overcoming objections, negotiation, and charting a clear course of action: being in control.

There’s two dimensions of pre-closing – dealing with the candidate, and the hiring manager.

On the candidate side, it’s about defining the the value proposition of the role: in essence, it’s having enough information to sell to potential recruits.  This usually relates to potential career growth, salary, and working conditions. On the hiring manager side, it’s about negotiating your expectations of the hiring process, including how and when you will communicate. Likewise, it should relate to the types of candidates they will interview, and specifically who does what, by when.  SMART – specific, measurable… you get the picture.

One last Example
Order-taker: “So you want to pay Superman 10,000 per annum – he needs to have [20] different skills, and he needs to be a graduate of the Spandex University. He’s come to us for a paycut because we’re the best brand in Canada”
Bus Driver: “In my experience you can’t recruit Superman for 10,000 per annum, and I need to understand why would Superman would want to work in your department, if he already has [the three core skills] or has worked at this same level… I’ll still give you Superman, but he’ll cost you 20,000 — but If I likewise give you Batman, who has transferable skills at 10,000, and a college diploma, will you agree to interview him in X amount of time?

I’m going to leave you with some best practices for pre-closing the role.  In the meantime, drive that bus…

Best Practices – Pre-Closing that Req
1) Define the Employee Value Proposition – this is the reason that anyone wants to work for your organization.  It will relate to the following:
- Hours of work/work life balance, developmental opportunities, salary
- If this is not strong enough, speak up – why have previous employees joined the department?

- Value propositions that relate to ‘brand’ are unworkable in competitive job markets – don’t accept this; communicate that many of your candidates have standing job offers at competing organizations
2) Define Performance objectives – this is ‘how’ the employee will accomplish their role.  Who are their key stakeholders, what other departments will they work with? What are the core objectives in year one?
- This is very important when your dealing with transferable skill-sets

- This will open your eyes to inconsistencies in expectations – do they really need to have 5 years of experience in X, if 2 years of Y will suffice?
3) Always set a timeframe for next steps: who does what, by when
4) Negotiate – or agree to disagree, but always provide options

Sometimes when you’re hunting for a candidate or a lead, you’re faced with the challange of finding an email address.  The solution to this is fairly simple, to summarize:

• Locate the web address domain  of the company you are targeting
• Find any email address at this domain (target company) of choice
• Do so by the following in google: (email OR contact OR information OR inquiries) “@nameofthecompany.com”
• Another option is “email *.* nameofthecompany.com”