...from the trenches

Farewell Here...Greetings Over There

2008-04-16T09:14:00.002-05:00

For the trickle of visitors that still happen upon this blog from time-to-time, you have probably noticed that I haven't done anything here in the past three months. There are a few reasons for that, but the primary one is that I'm finding that the contributions I am making on RecrutingBlogs.com are reaching a larger audience and the Ning platform is offering a greater array of opportunities to connect and be heard.

If you have not been to RecruitingBlogs.com yet, or have and not signed up yet, I strongly encourage you to pay another visit, sign up, and enjoy the ever growing rich content of this site. Jason Davis (aka Slouch) has done a tremendous job in growing the membership to over 5700 in a relatively short period of time. If you are based in the DC area, be sure to join the DC Area Recruiters Group which is currently the largest regionally-based group on the site. Many other interest groups exist there as well.

I'll keep this site live for the time being. There's alot of good stuff here and I'm proud of the time and effort I put into it. But RecruitingBlogs and another soon-to-be-announced blogging venture make more sense for me to be involved with going forward.

Shameless Plug Time: Internet Innovations - Feb 6

2008-01-15T20:04:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's right, it's shameless plug time again. Your's truly will be participating on a panel with Gary Cluff and Bret Hollander to discuss what's new and cool in Internet Recruiting. Gary will be providing a view on what internet tools are popular with employers and candidates alike, Bret will share his wisdom the various internet sourcing tools available, and I will be discussing how to effectively utilize social networking tools in your recruiting strategy.

The February WTPF Internet Innovations event will take place on Wednesday, February 6 at The Tower Club in Tysons Corner, VA. WTPF members and non-members alike are encouraged to attend.

For more information, click here
To register online, click here

Nevermind

2008-01-13T11:05:00.000-05:00

Due to various circumstances, which were primarily out of my control, the CRM 4 Recruiting blog will not continue. Didn't last long, did it :-/

It's unfortunate, but I hold no grudges or ill will with anyone involved. Life is too short to be caught up in such things. I move forward and put these past few days behind me, and I hope others will as well.

As for this blog, I still think it needs an overhaul if nothing else. Stay tuned.

Hanging It Up For A While

2007-12-03T09:10:00.000-05:00

A year and a half ago, I decided to jump into the recruiting blogosphere and let my voice be heard. Since then, I've written over 130 posts, mostly on recruiting, but also some on my life and personal interests. As time has gone on though, I've found it more and more difficult to write about the original subject of this blog, recruiting. Being in the role that I am with my firm, it's been difficult to delve into much detail about my views on recruiting, as those views greatly reflect what we are actually doing here currently, and I'm not ready to show my cards to the competition just yet. Work has been busy, life has been busy, to the point that it's not that I can't write new posts here, more than anything, I just haven't been motivated enough.

After contemplating this for quite a while, and with a heavy heart, I've decided to stop posting on this blog for a while, if not for good. It's been a labor of love at times, and I'm proud of what I have done here. At the very least, I think that it's made me a better writer. I've received numerous compliments on this blog from friends and colleagues, and I am eternally grateful for that. Going forward, this blog will stay live indefinitely as I know that even when I don't post for a while, it still gets visitors, especially for some who appreciate the list of Recruiting Blogs.

I won't be disappearing either. I've been pretty active on Facebook lately, and plan on diverting my writing efforts more to comments on ERE, LinkedIn and other Recruiting Blogs, so you certainly haven't heard the last of me.

I've been blogging actually for more than just the past 18 months. Before I launched this blog, I wrote a music-related blog for about 15 months (a challenge to any researchers out there who might find it???). That said, this will be the first time in 2 1/2 years that I won't be blogging. I may just start things up here again someday, or maybe, go in a different direction. Regardless, thanks again for everyone who has paid a visit here, left a comment or two, especially those who encouraged and inspired me over the years. All the best!

R.I.M.S. - Part 4

2007-11-28T10:10:00.000-05:00

A long journey culminated yesterday in the launch of the final major feature of our new RIMS, Virtual Edge. A year ago this month, I started my new job, and in the first week became involved with the efforts to identify and implement a new RIMS for the firm. We made our selection in late Spring, and after a fast-tracked and tumultuous implementation, finally went live at the end of August. When we went live however, it was with several pieces still yet to be launched. I wanted to wait until the last of those pieces was in place before I put up this post.

The implementation process was indeed a challenge for a number of reasons. The ADP-Virtual Edge merger had resulted in a large number of simultaneous implementations, of which we were caught in the middle of. We had a hard deadline to get the RIMS in place before college recruiting season began for obvious reasons. When we went live, it was with the core VE Professional product, providing us with the core RIMS functionality. Although there were a few bumps early on, we were able to get the system operational and everyone trained relatively quickly, which offered a tremendous improvement in technology for us compared to where we were before.

There was still more work to be done however. At the end of September, we trained our recruiters on VE's CRM tool, Pilot, and launched this in early October. We are still in the early stages of using this new tool, but I am convinced that our recruiters will find this to be a valuable and powerful tool to help them better communicate and cultivate relationships with our prospects and candidates.

Also at the beginning of October, we rolled out the Employee Referral functionality through our Employee Referral Intranet Portal. We have had the intranet site up since May, but the process was still relatively manual. The launch of this feature enabled our employees to access our job postings internally and easily submit their referrals directly into the RIMS for the first time. With this feature employees can also provide us additional information about their referrals, and we also have automated email notifications set up to notify referring employees as to the status of their referrals. New referral features that will be made available with VEs next release will make this feature even more powerful. On the downside, employees are still slow to take advantage of this self-service functionality. This is a major process change however, and one that we will hopefully continue to convince our employees the value of in the coming weeks and months.

The final piece of the puzzle however was launched yesterday. Up until yesterday, the process for our employees to pursue internal job opportunities was a challenging and convoluted one to say the least. The simple fact was that we did not have the ability to post jobs internally across the organization through our intranet. Yesterday, we went live with our Internal Career Center, which offered a direct link into RIMS for our employees to explore and apply for internal job postings easier than ever before. We expect that over time, this will greatly improve internal mobility, therefore ultimately improving our employee's career growth initiatives and reducing turnover. We realize that there are some cultural barriers to cross here, but this new functionality alone will go a long way to get us where we need to be.

Whew! It was alot of work to get us to this point. The key factor that delayed the launch of the employee referral functionality and internal job postings was the challenges that came along with providing our employees Single Sign On (SSO) access. Once the issues related to this were resolved, and we were able to set up/revise our intranet sites, we were finally able to get these important pieces into place. My boss, my teammates, our intranet and corporate communications teams, and our outstanding IT Project Team are all responsible for moving us lightyears ahead of where we were just a few months ago. RIMS is not the silver bullet, but this tool will make our recruiters more effective and efficient in what they do and how they do it, and we will now be able to tap into talent pools that were previously underutilized.

There is still more work to do with reporting, furthering usage of Pilot and employee referral self-service, and improving the data integrity particularly related to Source. It is a huge relief today though to be where we are. Thanks again to everyone within the firm and at VE for their efforts, we are in a much better place today than before without question.

Intern Conference Video

2007-11-14T08:02:00.000-05:00

Check out this video of highlights from our Firm's Summer Intern Conference, held this year at the Q Center in St. Charles, IL. Kudos to my teammates for pulling off this great event!

Feet Back on the Ground

2007-11-13T09:20:00.000-05:00

Eeek! It's been way too long since I've posted here, since the end of the ERE Conference in fact. Sorry for the layoff, but as I thought it would be, it's been a very, busy, tiring and exciting fall. Where have I been? Well, here's a quick recap:

- CareerXroads Colloquium, Oct. 22-24: Mark, Gerry and the Recruiting team at JP Morgan Chase were very gracious hosts for the latest Colloquium event. One major rule at the Colloquium is that what is said there, stays there, so I can't go into detail here. Very interesting discussions however regarding how some companies are bringing executive search in-house. Outside of the Colloquium itself and making some new friends, a highlight was Gerry returning a favor providing a tour to a few of us of Hoboken, his alma mater, Stevens Institute, and mid-town Manhattan. The view of Manhattan from Stevens Institute in particular was absolutely spectacular. Thanks Gerry and Mark once again!

- Global MBA/Masters Career Conference, Nov. 1-3: My first trip to Orlando was to help out at a recruiting event that included about twenty companies and MBA/Masters international students from universities across the country. I met and engaged with a number of highly talented students, as well as career center professionals from TCU and Willamette College. This was the first job fair/interview event I had done in over a year, and to be honest, I at first felt a bit out of shape and practice. Once I got warmed up though, I felt back in my element, and overall had three productive days. Hopefully we'll get a few hires out of this effort. I was also able to gather some info for a return trip to Disney next Spring.

- NRT Team Meeting, Nov. 8-9: The fact that the team I am on is virtual means that we don't get to see each other as a group very often. So when we do get together, we tend to be pretty lively and get alot accomplished. We've come a long way since the start of this year, but the really good stuff is yet to come.

I'm home for a full week now after seven straight weeks of travel, conferences and meetings. Add to that the completion of the first draft of a 17-page internal whitepaper about Source-of-Hire, creating the business case for a sourcing function and alumni program, building a new intranet site for internal job postings, Halloween, my son's baseball games, football and basketball games, getting evaluated for laser eye surgery (I'm a candidate! Yea!), and not alot of sleep, I hope you can understand why my energy around blogging hasn't quite been there lately. I can tell though that there are still some visitors to the site though and I have alot more to blog about in the coming days/weeks. Check back again soon for new posts on our new office, our RIMS implementation and launch, more on the source-of-hire whitepaper, amongst other topics.

ERE Expo Fall 07 Recap - Day 2 & 3

2007-10-21T13:35:00.001-05:00

Holy cow, what a week! This was my fourth ERE Expo and I don't think that any of them went by as fast as this one did. What makes this even so great? The speakers and the sessions offer a good variety of strategic and tactical content, and I typically get a few nuggets of new knowledge there. But more than that, this event brings together the best-in-the-business time and time again. I learn just as much if not more in my networking at the Expo, get to meet alot of interesting people in the process. I had been looking forward to this for over a year, and now it's come and gone .

When I left you last, the events of Thursday evening were about to begin. We started with a CareerXroads dinner at one of DC's best restaurants, Cashions Eat Place in the nearby Adams Morgan neighborhood. It was a great meal with great company and conversation. Gerry and I had to cut out early though to get back to the hotel for the Charity Poker Tourney. I was fortunate enough to be sponsored by Diversity.com to play at the 'high-rollers' table. I didn't do so great there, but won a couple hands and had alot of fun. Big time congratulations to Jason "The Dynasty" Davis who won his third straight ERE Charity Poker Tournament. Also a big congratulations to the ERE Foundation, that came out big raising over $9K in donations. Job Target and ZoomInfo also deserve recognition for their sponsoring this event. It was a great time for a great cause.

Got home late again, slept fast again, and got back to the Expo Friday morning just-in-time to hear Dan Pink's keynote, which was fascinating and entertaining at the same time (especially with his 'startling factoids'. Dan amazed us with alot of relevant information, including his view that offshoring is overhyped short-term, underhyped long-term, and that routine work is destined to go away in this country the same way that manufacturing has. Gerry led a panel of MBA students/graduates next where they gave us their insight as to what they appreciate and look for in the recruiting process. It really all boiled down to the need for a personal touch in the process.

After lunch, my former boss, Gary Cluff, showed off the recruiting branding video game that he helped develop at MITRE called Job of Honor. I saw a brief demo of this a few months back, but this was the first time I saw the complete version. What MITRE has developed is truly innovative and should go a long way to help educate potential candidates as to what MITRE is all about. The game is available live on MITRE's website (see link above), I strongly suggest that you check it out.

Any regrets from this year's conference? Well I would of liked a little more time to interact with some of the vendors. As the conference went by, everything felt a bit rushed. I was able to reconnect with alot of old friends though and made few new ones as well. The networking gets better everytime. I also would of liked to take more pictures, but just got caught up what I was doing too much and missed alot of opportunities. The pictures I did get though are linked below.

Another great ERE Expo is done, and time to look forward to the next recruiting conference, which actually comes up this week with a trip to the CareerXroads Colloquium in Jersey City. More to come later this week on that event. Until then, just catching my breath, and getting ready for more learning, networking and fun!

ERE Expo - Fall 07

ERE Expo Fall 07 Recap - Day 1 & 2

2007-10-18T17:15:00.000-05:00

The week I've been looking forward to for over a year is finally here! I arrived at the Wardman Park mid-afternoon yesterday to get started on the heavy-duty networking that makes this conference great. Almost immediately, I was able to reconnect with Joel Cheesman, Jeremy Langhans, Mendoza, Ed Newman, Gerry a former colleague (Suzanne), and numerous others. Joel and I had a particularly useful conversation regarding SEO. Soon, the networking spilled out to the welcome reception hosted by The Ladders, which was very nice, but dinner was still necessary. So a group of us headed over to the Adams Morgan neighborhood for a very nice dinner at the rooftop restaurant, Perry's.

Got home late, slept fast, got up early, and headed back to the conference again this morning. Got to reconnect right away with my old team at MITRE, a nice start to the day. In regards to the Expo itself, I won't go into too much detail here regarding the sessions, you can get that at the ERE Expo Blog. I enjoyed most of the sessions I attended today though. Learned a few interesting things from Anne Ceruti from Disney, including their heavy Accounting recruiting efforts in Burbank. I knew that Jim Larranaga's session would be great as I've heard him speak before. He energized the room and was a hard act to follow.

I was off then to check on some email and to start work on this post, when I ran into Steve Levy, who I've exchanged communications with many times before, but was now meeting for the first time. Lunch soon followed in the the Exhibit Hall with Steve, Mendoza, and Steven Rothberg, another blogger who I was able to meet for the first time.

After lunch, sessions followed learning about the Dell Talent Acquisition Academy (very timely since we are planning our own recruiters conference coming soon), and about how American Express is building their talent pipelines. Most of this I am writing as I'm listening to Mark and Gerry wax poetic about everything from SLAs to data integrity, trends, recruiter requisition load, and more.

Soon we will be heading off to a great dinner, followed by the Charity Poker tourney. More on that tomorrow, and pictures will be up soon as well.

Welcome to DC ERE!

2007-10-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

I'm so excited! We are a week away from my favorite recruiting conference in my home town! I'd like to offer a heartfelt DC welcome to David Manaster, ERE and the hundreds of recruiting professionals and vendors attending this week's ERE Expo. This most certainly will be an exciting event, chock full of thought leaders, cool technology, energetic speakers, and more.

Hopefully you will get the opportunity to look around DC while you are here. Last year, I put together a local guide for those coming into town for the 2006 SHRM convention. Check it out for suggestions on museums, monuments, restaurants and more. Honestly though, this is the best time to be in DC. The summer months are hot, humid (actually, it still was up until earlier this week!) and mobbed with tourists. Complete with torrential downpours, the SHRM conference experienced all of that. Fall in DC is my favorite. The leaves are turning, the weather is cooler, and tourist season is over. A hotel room overlooking Rock Creek Park should offer a stunning view. The historic Wardman Park Marriott is also in a great part of town.

Looking for great restaurants? DC has one of the hottest restaurant scenes in the country right now. Adams Morgan is chock full of great ethnic restaurants and is only a short walk away. Cleveland Park is a long walk/short Metro ride away and offers a number of great restaurants including one my favorites, Palena. Others restaurants that I did not list last year include:

- 2 Amys (great pizza)

- Cafe Atlantico/Minibar (a culinary adventure)

- Citronelle and City Zen (got a REALLY big expense account?)

- Kinkead's (best Seafood in DC)

- Sushi-Ko (not a sushi fan myself, but this is supposed to be the best.

- Vidalia (DC is a southern town at heart you know...)

Looking to explore on foot? Within a short (or long) walk, you have the National Zoo (free of course), Rock Creek Park, and the National Cathedral. Or, take a short cab ride to Georgetown. Take the Metro to the Smithsonian Museums (BTW, the American History Museum is closed for renovations), The Mall and the Monuments. In fact, one Monument that I didn't mention last year was the FDR Memorial. This stunning Memorial is a short walk from The Mall by the Tidal Basin. I was back there for the first time in years and forgot how beautiful it was, unlike any other Monument in DC. Oh, and if you can, check out the Monuments at night, truly the best way to see them.

I love DC. My Grandfather, my Father and I were all born within it's city limits. I'm proud to call DC home with all it has to offer. So enjoy the ERE Expo for sure, but also be sure take some time while you are here to see what DC can offer you. I promise you, you won't be disappointed.

500!!!

2007-10-09T08:45:00.000-05:00

Over the course of this blog, I have documented the growth of my LinkedIn network. I've been an evangelist of LinkedIn with my employers and colleagues alike. The strategy for growing my network has been deliberate and targeted, to the point where I can say that I actually 'know' over 75% of my 1st degree connections. Even with this strategy, I've been able to grow my network at a relatively steady and brisk pace.

Back in July 2006, I made it to 100 connections (1 Million 3rd degree) and thought I was all that. In April of this year I grew my network substantially via MLPF. In May, I was at about 350 1st degree connections and was concerned about the integrity of social networks. Then, in July, I hit 400 (2.6M 3rd Degree).

Today, I hit what is essentially the landmark number for LinkedIn, 500 1st degree connections. Fittingly, my 500th connection is none other than Dave Copps, the pioneer who is revolutionizing semantic search for recruiting purposes, specifically the enhanced ability to easily source from what he terms the edge of the web, places like blogs and social networks. I'm a big fan of Dave's, so thank you Dave for accepting the invite and I hope we cross paths again soon, at ERE next week perhaps?

As for now, when you see me on LinkedIn, you will see that nice '500+' in my profile. And if we haven't connected on LinkedIn yet, and you see a mutual benefit to connect, send me an invite today. I've said it before and I'll say it again, LinkedIn is the greatest business networking tool around. And if diamonds are a girl's best friend, if dogs are man's best friend, then LinkedIn is most certainly a Recruiter's best friend!

Busy Day In The Big Apple

2007-10-04T21:40:00.000-05:00

Heading home on the train from NYC as I'm writing this post after a long, long day visiting our New York office, and attending the Select Minds CONNECT Conference. The day started with a productive strategy session with our local recruiters, and I think we came away with some ideas that should raise the bar and generate more candidate flow. After lunch, I headed a few blocks over to the Sofitel Hotel for the Conference.

I've been keeping my eye on Select Minds for a while as I like what they are doing in the alumni portal and corporate social networking space. There were several good presentations, including the always interesting and entertaining Mark & Gerry. Also got to meet our new sales rep and the charming CEO of Select Minds, Anne Berkowitch, in the process. It was nice to see Jennifer from Bearingpoint again too.

Much of what I heard confirmed things I already knew. But there were a few juicy nuggets that I was able to walk away with too. Will we go with Select Minds as a vendor? Hard to say right now as we are in the early stages. But the clear consensus from some of their key clients was that it would of been much more costly to build out similar functionality on their own. Up until last week, my scope in this space was solely focused on building an alumni program. But I'm becoming more convinced that an alumni program is just part of a larger corporate social networking strategy, one designed to more effectively leverage knowledge, relationships, career growth, retention efforts, and business development opportunities. Corporate Social Networking is anything but a fad IMO, it is becoming more and more of a component of overall business success.

Thanks again to Doug at Select Minds for convincing me to attend today, and thanks to the crew on Sixth Ave. for a productive morning and a nice lunch.

It's a Matter of Source

2007-10-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

I haven't written here in about a week because I've been working on something else that has taken up much of my time and effort. I believe that a fundamental shift is needed in our overall talent acquisition strategy. A shift that requires us to move away from reliance on traditional, 'reactive' recruiting sources and practices, and towards more 'proactive' sources and long-term strategies. The competition in our industry, and what the future holds, demands no less.

Over the next few weeks, I will be developing Source Utilization whitepaper for our Firm. This whitepaper will explore our past and current source utilization metrics and strategies, which will in the process make the case for a realignment of resources to better enable our firm to improve the quantity of quality candidate flow.

The biggest challenge in undertaking this effort is the data. Data integrity is critical, and for a variety of reasons, the data we have up to this point is not what I would consider to be highly reliable. Then there is the whole issue of how to gather this data in the first place. Mark and Gerry at CareerXroads make the valid argument that candidates often arrive at your doorstep via a variety of sources, not just one source, which is what most organizations (including ours) track. Or even worse, they don't know themselves the true source, or select the wrong source by error. For example, I saw a few examples just last week of college students who selected 'Employee Referral' as their source. Yes, they may of been 'referred' by an employee, but they will be involved in the college recruiting process, and therefore don't qualify as 'employee referrals'. Getting this right in the long run will require great diligence by our organization to identify the one, most relevant source for our candidates, especially our hires (even though the selection of one source may continue to be a flawed measure).

The data we have today though will have to be sufficient. Even it isn't highly accurate, it should be reflective enough to show where were we are now, and where we need to get to. Our management needs to be educated as to where our candidate flow comes from, the cost, quantity and quality related to those sources, and which sources moving forward will best support our talent acquisition needs.

I believe that the source utilization metric, as flawed as it may be, is the singular most critical metric needed to chart one's recruiting strategy. It's all about maximizing quality candidate flow in the most cost effective manner possible. Check back as I'll share what I can from this effort.

Also coming this month will be recaps of the Select Minds Conference next week in New York, ERE in DC in mid-October, the CareerXroads Colloquium the following week, the story of the launch of our new RIMS, and much more. October is going to be a VERY busy month...

I Made a Top-100 List

2007-09-24T10:22:00.000-05:00

Ran across this on MC Stroud's blog this weekend. According to Bootstrapper, this blog is among the Top-100 HR blogs, specifically among the top-15 in the 'Corporate' category. I'm assuming that this isn't rank-ordered, as there is no way that this blog would ever be ranked higher than the Mr. Stroud.

Not to sound ungrateful, but:
A) This is not a HR Blog
B) I've also always considered this to be a personal blog rather than a corporate one (so shouldn't I be in the 'Recruitment' category instead?), and
C) I've never been a fan of 'Top' lists like this.

When you see lists like this, they are often based upon numbers (therefore highly objective), or based upon opinion (therefore highly subjective). It's the latter that bother me. These lists are often entertainment-based (Top-100 Movies, Top-100 Swimsuit Models, Top-100 Hair Bands), and I am often left shaking my head, wondering, how did they come up with THAT!

The responsible party for this list must of read something on my blog at one time that they thought was interesting or useful, then formed an opinion somehow that this was a good Corporate HR Blog. But the author clearly states that the blogs that made the list "will provide you with the information and expertise you need to take on the legal, interpersonal, management and other challenges associated with human resources." This blog ain't that...

Nonetheless, this is a first for me, so for whatever reason this blog was included on the list, I do indeed thank you kindly for the recognition.

The Sourcing Savant

2007-09-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

All hail the SourceCon Grand Master Challenge Champion, Michael Notaro! Oh, and check out his blog too. Today, he shares with us the secrets of his success. Something to do with Google Coop and Radiohead. Brilliant!

SourceCon Wrapup

2007-09-14T08:45:00.000-05:00

When I left you last, the Grand Master Sourcing Challenge was in full swing. It was a great competition for those involved, but only one, the great Michael Nataro, would come out on top. Michael's only been a dedicated sourcer for a short time, but he certainly has a great future ahead of him. Congrats again to Michael.

A nice outdoor reception carried on to a Charity Poker Game that would last into the night. The game, which raised $1900 the Positive Outlook Foundation, was great fun, and all for a good cause. I played some great hands, but was knocked out by the eventual winner, Jeremy Langhans (who seems to win at just about everything BTW). It turned into a late night, but the continuous networking and collaborating made it all worthwhile.

A very groggy Thursday got off to a rousing start with a energetic and entertaining presentation by Danny Cahill. I had heard of Danny before, but had never heard him speak. If you ever get the chance, don't pass it up, he is fantastic. Why? More than being entertaining, he's real, he's honest, and in most cases, he's dead-on right. Treat your prospects and candidates right, with respect and honesty, and you can't lose.

The day continued with mind-blowing presentations by Shally and Eric Jaquith. I love listening to these guys as I always get some great takeaways. They are truly two of the best around.

Marc, Constance and Denny from ExecuQuest followed with The Anatomy of a Successful Sourcing Organization, once again a highly relevant, and very informative subject relating to my mission in attending SourceCon.

Amybeth Hale (congrats on her new role!) educated us next with what the value of a Researcher is. Amybeth has been leading the charge to gain more respect for this very valuable niche specialty, and once again did a fantastic job.

I only got to see about half of Dave Copps' presentation, as I had to head off to catch my flight home (which ended up being delayed 2 hours, grrr). Dave is attempting to change the world of online search, can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

In reflection, I'm amazed just how well this conference went. For a first-time conference, it went off for the most part without a hitch. I got what I hoped to get out of it, and more. Great content, great learning, great networking and collaboration. Big thanks to Leslie O'Connor for having the vision, energy and passion to see this through. I hope to make it again next year!

SourceCon Update - Day 1

2007-09-12T18:05:00.000-05:00

I'm reporting to you LIVE from SourceCon where the Grand Master Sourcing Challenge is about to get underway. MC Stroud is setting the stage for this event, with competitors Jeremy Langhans, Suzi Tonini and Michael Nataro getting ready to do battle. Lots of tension in the air as this exciting competition gets underway.

It's been a hectic past day here in Hot'lanta. I arrive midday yesterday and quickly met up with Russ Moon from Wachovia, who was very generous with his time and his tips. I spent the rest of the day and evening catching up with friends old (Gerry Crispin, Rob McI., Glen G., Shally, Dave M, Dave C. and more) and new (MC Stroud, Amy Beth, Jeremy, Tim and more). The evening ended over drinks and food with Gerry and Atlanta local, Eric Jaquith, who enlightened me with his new product offering and what makes Atlanta such a Recruiting powerhouse.

Today has been long, but chock full of great information from speakers including:

Stan Smith of Deloitte (Found his research very interesting, and scary for the professional services industry at the same time. Can't say I agreed with his conclusions however, i.e. I'm not a bridge. Those of you who heard his presentation know what I'm talking about).
Susan Burns (A wonderful overview of the most critical components to building out a talent acquisition strategy. Her focus on internal talent development and mobility was particularly good to hear)
Rob McIntosh of Deloitte (A treasure trove of information. He always leaves me with more questions than answers...)
Tracey Friend of The Right Thing (What you need to know when considering outsourcing sourcing functions, again leaving me with more questions than answers)
Glenn Gutmatcher of Microsoft (Blew the room away with tips and tools of how to do internet sourcing on a budge)
Krista Bradford of The Good Search (Enlightened the room with a number of out-of-the box approaches to name generation)

A lot to take in for sure, and even more to come tomorrow. As I've spoken with a number of my colleagues here, I realize more and more that I understand the pieces of the puzzle, I just need to figure out how they will fit together in our organization.

Big announcement here just now. MC Stroud is working the room, conducting interviews in the audience, and Shally lets us know that he has a new Sourcer (i.e. baby) on the way. Congrats to Shally on the great news!

The competition continues as we can see the action on the main screen. The competitors are hard at work figuring out this great challenge. Many in the audience are following along taking notes of the search strings that are being used.

We'll have another update tomorrow. Wish you were here. Signing off from SourceCon...

Last Time I Was In Atlanta...

2007-09-10T15:20:00.000-05:00

There is no greater experience as a sports fan than to witness in person YOUR team win it ALL. I was honored to have that experience on April 1, 2002 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

Will my experience in Atlanta this week be as great as my last time there? We'll have to wait and see. Do check back often this week as I'll be providing daily recaps from SourceCon.

Props from Copps

2007-09-06T21:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, a promotional email for the upcoming SourceCon conference was sent out, complete with an interview with one of the scheduled presenters, Dave Copps. I met Dave at the Virtual Edge Power Summit a few months back and was blown away by his ideas and work in Semantic Search. I'm thrilled to see that he'll be presenting at SourceCon next week, but am disappointed that I'll only be able to see a portion of his presentation, as I'll have to leave a bit early to catch a flight home.

In the interview with Dave, he was kind enough to mention me, although his quote was a bit inaccurate:

The first three things you should do are - network, network and network. Many answers are already out there right now and being talked about by your peers. If you haven’t already done so, set up a feed reader and subscribe to recruiting blogs - make sure you add Jimmy Smith and Ben Gotkin. Ben has even created a Ning social network of recruiting blogs at http://www.recruitingblogs.com/.

Of course, Jason Davis is the creator of Recruitingblogs.com, Dave might of meant that I had created a private subnetwork off of Recruitingblogs.com, which I have to admit, I haven't done much with lately. Again, thank you to Dave for the very, very kind words, but I also want to make sure the record is set straight too.

At any rate, if you are attending SourceCon next week, do be sure to seek out Dave and network with him too. I've seen what he is developing, and it will, IMO, revolutionize Internet sourcing as we know it.

SourceCon Questions

2007-09-04T20:24:00.000-05:00

A week to go until SourceCon, and already Sourcing is starting to consume my every thought (well, except for our launch of Virtual Edge, but more on that later). As I mentioned in my prior post, I have a singular mission and goal in attending this conference. So what do I need to come away with? It's not a definition of Sourcing, I believe that I have that already.

(My definition: The process of identifying and engaging talent that is not coming to us, and that we are not finding through traditional recruiting sources.)

No, what I need to learn includes the following:

- Where to begin? Most all of our recruiters want sourcing help, but we are not looking to drink-the-ocean here. How do we prioritize?

- Is a centralized or decentralized structure more appropriate in our situation?

- Inhouse? Outsourced? Offshored? A Matrix of some or all? I'm pretty sure that something will be in house, but what model will be most effective for us?

- Full-time? Part-time? Flexible-hours? Virtual employees/Telecommuters? Contractors? For those that we do 'hire', what works best? How many sourcers per recruiter?

- What costs are involved and how do we justify these costs?

- Should sourcers do both name and candidate generation? Can sourcers have equally good phone and online skills, or is better if they specialize in one? Does it matter?

- Sourcer Job Market. Am I too late into the game. Lots of opportunities out there right now for Sourcers, are there enough qualified Sourcers around? And going back to cost, what's the going rate for great sourcers.

- What tools do we need to provide them. We already will have an outstanding CRM tool (VE Pilot). Are there other essential tools they need (i.e. Broadlook, Infogist, etc.)

- How have others successfully built a business case for Sourcing in their organizations?

I'm just getting started with this list. If you will be at SourceCon next week and think you can help, I'd love connect with you. I'm sure I'll have more questions coming up too. This is a complex subject for sure, lots to learn, just a week away. Yea!

Sourcecon Or Bust!

2007-08-28T07:50:00.000-05:00

Two weeks from today, I'll be off to Hot'lanta to attend SourceCon. Now I've been to a number of HR & Recruiting conferences over the past several years, but this one will truly be unique, both in content, and what I hope to get out of it. As a bonus the timing of this conference could not be more perfect. I need to build a business case for a sourcing function, and two days of total immersion in Sourcing should do the trick.

Typically, when I attend these conference, I'm looking for best practices, for new tools and tricks of the trades, and new friends and colleagues. What's different this time? A singular goal. I need to walk away from Sourcecon with a better understanding of what a sourcing function could and should look like at our firm. What would the structure and scale be? How much of any of this would we outsource? How do I sell this to those who have no clue as to what Sourcing is? How much will this cost and how do I justify that?

Of course, it will be great to reconnect with a number of colleagues in the industry (Tracey Friend, Rob McIntosh, Shally, Mendoza, and Glenn Gutmacher, among others). I also very much look forward to meeting a couple of fellow bloggers (Jim Stroud, Amy Beth Hale) for the first time.

I know what Sourcing is, I know we need a sourcing function, I'm hopeful that I leave SourceCon with a better understanding of how to craft this critical need for our firm. If you read this post and will be attending SourceCon yourself, let me know. I look forward to seeing you there!

Jobster = Spamster?

2007-08-23T20:00:00.000-05:00

It pains me to write this today, but I'm compelled due to the numerous canned e-mails that I have received over the past few months from Jobster. Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I was an early adopter, I was on their short-lived Customer Advisory Board, I know Jason Goldberg and several other current and former Jobster employees and like them all. You also know that I've been perplexed by their actions over the past year, particularly around their shifting product line/strategy, not to mention the mass layoffs at the start of this year.

When changed employers, I wasn't a Jobster client any longer, and still do not believe that Jobster is the right tool for my company at this time. I've kept my Jobster profile up though and for a while would get periodic requests to join my network or to become a contact. That was all well and good and fit with their social networking model (and my interest in social networking). Lately though, I don't seem to get those any more. In fact, over the past 2-3 months, the only emails I have received from Jobster have either been invitations to participate in one of their webinars (I was getting an invitation a week, but chose not to participate, primarily due to schedule conflicts), or 'Notes' on my profile from Jason.

Now when I get one of these 'You have a Note' emails, I have to click on the link, login each time (it won't keep me logged in for some reason) to read it. Not sure why it just can't show me the 'Note' in the email, which would save alot of time and clicks. I've received four of these over the last 7 weeks. Each of these emails were blast marketing emails, nothing personal about it. Even though I've known Jason for 2 1/2 years now. Oh, and the 'Note' I received before the ones from Jason, was from 'Jessica' that was another blast marketing piece.

So I'm turning off the ability to leave Notes for me on Jobster. I'm a bit sad about that. I was really hot on Jobster there for a while, and to this day, still believe that their core product had potential. But times have changed, so has Jobster, so have I. No more 'Notes' from Jason Goldberg, of course unless he'd like to send me a personal email just to say hi.

It's Going To Be A Great Fall!

2007-08-22T20:55:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to get excited about what should be a busy and exciting Fall season. Fall is my favorite time of the year usually anyway. Football is gearing up, Baseball is winding down, and for a very brief time, Basketball and Hockey even overlap. The temperatures here get right around where I like it (60s and 70s), and the colorful foliage makes everything look nice.

In terms of Recruiting however, there's going to be alot going on over the next few months, including:
- Conferences: ERE Expo (see the shiny new badge over on the right sidebar!), SourceCon and a CareerXroads Colloquium event.
- RIMS: We are scheduled to launch Virtual Edge next week. The excitement and energy is building, we will all be in a learning mode this Fall, but the payoff for this investment should be huge.
- Surveys & Metrics: New surveys and new data from RIMS. Can't wait to sort it out and make sense of it all.
- New Business Cases: I'll be spending alot of time this Fall building business cases for a Sourcing Function and an Alumni Program.
- ERP: We'll be morphing our ERP Theme in a few weeks, can't wait to see the results.
- Travel: In addition to the conferences, I'll be paying our Recruiters in the field a visit on various trips around the country.

Of course I'll be writing about all of this, hopefully more often too. In the meantime be sure to click on the ERE Expo badge over there---> and sign up if you haven't done so already. See you there!

Training, Traveling and Beaching

2007-08-20T11:00:00.000-05:00

It’s been a pretty busy summer, one of the reasons why I haven’t been blogging so much lately. I also have to admit that the time I’ve been spending on social networks like Facebook, RecruitingBlogs.com and LinkedIn has taken away from time that I would of spent blogging. A busy summer is about to turn into a busy fall, but regardless, I hope to start writing again a bit more often.

The past two weeks in particular have been fun, busy, and tiring. The week before last we took our annual family vacation to Bethany Beach, DE. We’ve stayed at the Sea Colony resort there 3 out of the last 4 years, and have enjoyed it every time. The temperatures were hot, but a lot of time swimming in the ocean and the pool helped cool things off. Vacation memories faded fast however last week as I spent 3 days in training and 1 1/2 days traveling coast-to-coast.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, myself and 25 of my fellow Recruiters here at the firm went through Virtual Edge training at our training center in Tysons Corner, VA. This was the second of three training sessions that we are holding this month. Tuesday night I took 10 of my colleagues on a twilight tour of the DC Monuments. This is the second time I have done a tour like this over the past 15 months, and both times, my ‘customers’ loved it. Think there might be a business opportunity here for me, hmmm… Anyway, overall the reception of Virtual Edge has been greeted with enthusiasm and optimism. We are scheduled to go live late next week after a couple delays. I've been involved with this since my first day, so you can imagine my excitement to finally move forward with this.

As soon as I was done with training on Wednesday, I headed straight to the airport to fly cross-country to Irvine, CA to help deliver Competency Based Interview (CBI) training to 20 of our staff and management. It was a long way to go just for a day of training, but the trip was worth it as we had a class that was highly engaged and generally appreciative of what they were being taught.

I was able to spend my downtime in ‘The OC’ visiting Laguna Beach and Newport Beach. It was pretty sweet to touch both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the same week! Friday was spent flying home (don’t do red-eyes). The weekend was largely spent catching up on lost sleep. Fall is my favorite time of the year, and this should be an exciting one coming up. I've got three conferences on my calendar, plus more travel and new programs to develop. More to come!

Fast Bad Revisited

2007-08-01T16:00:00.000-05:00

I first heard the term "Fast Bad" several years ago during a local EMA event presentation by Michael McNeal, who at the time was running the world's most innovative recruiting organization at Cisco. I wrote about Michael's use of this term in a post titled "I Can't Recruit From My ATS!" last Fall.

There was a quote from yesterday's ERE Forum that I felt was highly relevant, but from a slightly different angle:

While presenting my ATS to a prospective customer, my #1 'favorite' question I've ever been asked by a recruiter is: 'Won't this software put me out of a job? 'My answer was: 'Only if you're a bad recruiter, because it will help you do more of the wrong things, faster. - Sylvia D.

Sometimes, it isn't the technology or the implementation that is the problem, often times the end-user can be equally to blame. I found this quote to be especially relevant as we start to finish up the implementation phase for our new ATS, and will be moving into Recruiter Training starting in two weeks.

I don't believe that we have 'bad recruiters', but to Sylvia's point, misuse of the system doesn't help matters, and can in some cases make things worse. We feel strongly that we selected the right system, the implementation phase is critical to our efforts moving forward, but the ultimate success will be directly correlated to how well our Recruiters adopt and use the system.

Starting next week, all of our Recruiters will be provided two days of intense training on how the system works and how to get the best out of it. I plan on following up with our Recruiters throughout the Fall to ensure they are maximizing the use of this system. We will offer follow-on training and best-practice sharing to ensure that everyone has access to the latest and most relevant information. At the end of the day, the last thing I want our Recruiters to be accused of is "doing more of the wrong things, faster". "Fast Bad" can be worse than "Slow Good" if you know what I mean.

Another Win For The Firm

2007-07-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Natalie Gublis who won her first ever LPGA event this past weekend at the Evian Masters in Evian-Les-Bains, France. My firm has put alot into golf sponsorships this year, and it's paying off big time, with Zach Johnson's Master's victory, with the PGA McGladrey Team Championship, and once again with Natalie's victory.

Any victory like this is huge for the firm, each one helping to raise our overall profile, even if just through a visible company logo on a shirt or hat (see the side of Natalie's). Natalie has been a great representative for our firm, so a big-time congratulations again on her first tour win!

SlouchCon!

2007-07-30T16:00:00.000-05:00

Mega-congratulations today to Jason Davis and ERE! ERE has brought on Jason to help build The Fordyce Letter. This connection seems so natural to me, especially since the only time I have ever seen Jason has been at ERE Expos! So move over Fordyce Forum and SourceCon, a SlouchCon/Charity Poker Tourney will be coming to your town soon! :-)

400 Connections

2007-07-19T12:29:00.000-05:00

Time goes on and my LinkedIn network continues to grow. I just hit 400 direct connections this week, adding one of the organizers of SourceCon (which I plan to attend), and who also happens to be local here in the DC area.

So as of today, in addition to my 400 direct connections, I have 77.7K 2nd Degree connections and 2.6M+ 3rd Degree connections. Although I have expanded the diversity of my network some through some recent proactive initiatives (see here and here), I clearly haven't done enough as my 3rd Degree connection numbers continue to grow slowly.

My motivations with LinkedIn continue to be primarily exploratory and collaborative in nature. But even more than that, I continue to preach the value of LinkedIn to our recruiters, attempting to educate them as to why they need to be power-users of this great social networking business tool.

In the past, I have discussed my feelings around the integrity of one's social network, and why Open Networking wasn't a strategy I subscribed to. With that in mind, I went ahead and analyzed my network to see who I really 'know', defining 'know' as someone who I had met in person, sent an e-mail to, spoken to on the phone, or had any relevant connection with prior to connecting with them on LinkedIn, and anyone who I have connected with outside of LinkedIn since we connected networks.. My analysis revealed that I 'knew' about 70% of my direct connections, not bad IMO. I'm still looking to connect with those who I 'know', but also those who feel there may be a mutually-beneficial reason for connection. If we haven't connected already, let's connect today!

The Other Side of a Bad Reference Check

2007-07-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

I think that most knowledgeable Recruiting and HR types would agree that reference checks are largely a useless waste of time, certainly not an activity that typically adds much value to the employment process. If a reference check is done right, it sometimes may shed some light as to how the potential employee may best be managed. On a very rare occasion, you may get a nugget or two that might make you reconsider hiring an applicant.

Part of the problem of course is how the reference checks are handled in the first place. If you are going to make the time and effort to check a reference, the most effective strategy IMO is to train the hiring manager on how to do it. Give them a list of questions and educate them on how to ask effective follow up questions. This allows the manager to probe and identify information that may provide additional insight into the type of employee the manager wants to hire.

Much too often though, reference checking is seen as an administrative task, relegated to the HR Administrator, who is given a list of questions, is not well trained on how to do the reference, especially when it comes to probing questions. In these situations, the Admin wouldn't typically know what to probe on even if they were properly trained. I've even witnessed reference checks being e-mailed. Oy! The further the reference check gets from a real conversation between the hiring manager and someone who managed the applicant previously, the less value there is. The reference check for most organizations is simply another box to check when moving through the employment process, adding unnecessary time and effort, slowing down offers from being delivered, thus ultimately frustrating the end 'customers' (i.e. the applicant and the hiring manager).

Today's Washington Post Magazine offers a funny (and sad) view into what it can be like being the unfortunate 'Reference', in this case when that reference check is being conducted by an embarrassingly foolish HR fool. Read and beware, cringing may occur! (Free registration may be required.)

15 Minutes With Mendoza

2007-06-27T14:22:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back, Dave Mendoza offered to profile me on his blog. He has done this with many others and I felt honored to be approached with the opportunity. It was an interesting experience though. I'm actually a pretty modest guy. I like to have some control over what I put out there about myself and who I 'connect' to. On the other hand though, it's all about building your own personal brand these days, and I'm all for that.

Mr. Mendoza was so kind as to put up my Profile yesterday and I thank him for that. BTW, if you aren't LinkedIn to Mr. Mendoza, you aren't LinkedIn, so be sure to join his network today!

Welcome to Referralpalooza!

2007-06-11T17:55:00.000-05:00

Last week, Dave Lefkow was kind enough to acknowledge my work on our firm's new internal employee referral blog on his blog. I got a few suggestions, including one from the Animal and from Craig Silverman.

After alot of thought, I decided to go with something a bit fun, and hopefully attention getting. Welcome to Referralpalooza! (screen shot below)

Yes, same ugly 'mug' there that's on my external blog, guess I need to line up a professional photo shoot to expand the portfolio (yeah, right). This was built on our Intranet Sharepoint platform, so we are a bit limited by it's functionality, but it is a functional blog nonetheless.

At any rate, I've done a few posts there now and am getting a little traffic so far. Blogging is still taking hold internally at my firm. Hopefully as the program continues to grow, the traffic on this blog will continue to grow as well. It's a great platform for providing tips, success stories, and highlights of referral-related events throughout the firm. I'd be curious to know if anyone else out there was doing internal blogging about recruiting. I'd love to have a chat with anyone who does.

It's a Blogaversary!

2007-06-07T09:30:00.000-05:00

Hard to believe, but it was a year ago today that I launched this blog. I had been interested in starting a recruiting blog for a while, ideally a corporate recruiting blog, but was unable to get one launched at the company I was with at the time. So for that reason, and because I was looking for a creative outlet, I launched ...from the trenches.

I admit that for the most part, this blog has been written for mostly selfish purposes. I like writing, and sometimes I think I actually come up with something interesting to share. According to the stats on my Site Meter, I've have on average about 15 unique visitors a day, although some are surely by accident (such as those who end up at my blog from their Google search on 'Trench Warfare'). I've had alot of very nice comments from those who have read my blog, and I truly appreciate all those who have spent the time to stop by and poke around.

It's been a crazy year this past year, probably more eventful than I could of ever imagined. For example, some advice for everyone, if it isn't absolutely necessary to buy/sell a house and change jobs at the same time, DON'T DO IT!!!

I've looked back over the past year, and from my 100+ posts, there have been a few highlights that I wanted to share here:
- Welcome to DC SHRMers! (my guide to DC for last year's SHRM Nat'l Convention. Worth another read for those of you coming here for ERE in the Fall!)
- B.S.T.A. (still think it's a good idea)
- The Story Behind The Story (my one shot at stardom on ERE, yet to be repeated)
- 100>1M and Growing (now at 345>2.3M)
- WTPF Talent ROAR Recap (recap of a great local HR conference)
- Saw It With My Own Two Eyes (seemed like a good idea at the time)
- A New Adventure (it's always hard to say goodbye)
- Ch-ch-ch-changes (as I said above DON'T DO IT! if you don't have to)
- The New Gig (it's been a great ride so far)
- Greatest Recruiting Experience Ever (it really was)
- Our First Recruiter's Conference (great collaborative event that ended with my worst travel experience. Was all worth it though)
- RIMS Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (RIMS! RIMS! RIMS!)
- worst.corporate.video.ever (might actually be a lowlight, depending how you look at it)
- ERE Expo Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Pictures (I love these conferences!)
- Virtual Edge Power Summit Recap (am I becoming a conference junkie?)

So what's ahead in year two? Hopefully a little less stress and more of good recruiting tales to tell. Thanks again to everyone for stopping by!

The Integrity of Social Networks

2007-05-30T20:50:00.000-05:00

There are two kinds of online Social Networkers these days, those that are Open Networkers, and those that are not. I must say that I fit in the camp of the latter. Back at the ERE Expo in San Diego, I had an interesting conversation with Microsoft sourcing guru, Glenn Gutmatcher. Glenn is an Open Networker on LinkedIn because as a sourcer, he wants access to as many people as possible. I had a very similar conversation with Scott Kahle last year. I am not a sourcer myself, so I don't have that same motivation. In fact, I'm not personally searching for any candidates myself these days in my pure Strategy role.

I've built my LinkedIn network up to 340+ 1st Degree connections through connecting with current/former coworkers, people I have met in person, via e-mail, or other medium, and others through relevant forums like MLPF and ERE where it is clear that the relation might be mutually beneficial. I have continued to build up my network for both my personal professional needs, as well as to benefit my fellow recruiters. IMO, the whole concept of LinkedIn is built on 'trusted' relationships. IMHO, the 'trusted relationship' concept gets diluted with the Open Networking philosophy.

A couple weeks back at the Virtual Edge Power Summit, Dave Copps from PureDiscovery talked about how networks are starting to become more niche in nature, that the quality and relevancy of the connection is becoming more important than the quality. That's what I like about RecruitingBlogs.com and it's subgroups (I even just formed a private group on NING thanks to Slouch's inspiration). That's what I like about the ERE Expo as compared to the SHRM National Conference as well. I feel I can really connect with people in these forums, people who I know and trust. I think that Dave Copps is right, quality of networks are going to take more precedence of quality of networks. The trick will be how to tap into those niche networks. It won't be as easy as it is on LinkedIn or in other large forums.

I guess it all boils down to preference and motivation though. I don't fault Open Networkers, but it's not for me personally. I'm excited to see what can happen in these smaller niche networks though. I believe that because the connections will be stronger, that the trust will be stronger, and therefore the collaboration and knowledge sharing will be richer.

Virtual Edge Power Summit Recap

2007-05-17T07:20:00.000-05:00

I'm home now from the ADP/Virtual Edge (VE) Power Summit, held at the beautiful Hyatt Coconut Point resort in SW Florida. It was an informative, fun 3 days here and now more than ever I’m looking forward to moving forward with our implementation. In addition to the resort being wonderful, the food was great, and the networking was even better. An unexpected surprise was seeing The CHAD, who was there to do a presentation about what to do post-AJB. Chad is a great guy and his presentation provided some very useful and timely information.

Other highlights included the opening session with Jerry Thurber, Anne Nimke and Sue Marks’ take on The 10 Demandments (chock full of examples of great candidate-friendly career websites), Nury Plumbley’s discussion on how she gave Agilent’s career web site an ‘extreme makeover’, Ed Newman’s Workforce Planning session, and finally a peek at Pure Discovery’s new Semantic Search capabilities.

I always enjoy listening to Ed, and today was no exception. He offered one bit of advise in particular that really resonated with me: Don’t measure metrics like cost-per-hire and time-to-fill, then attempt to reduce those numbers just for the sake of lowering costs or improving efficiencies. Accept that certain jobs may cost more, and take more time to fill than others. Use those metrics instead in your workforce planning and sourcing efforts, and as a result, take a more proactive stance in Recruiting. I knew this already, but Ed reinforced the point once again in a clear, effective manner (better than I just did here at least).

I made some new friends on this trip, and spent some quality time with a couple of my teammates as well. Kudos to VE for putting on a great show. I look forward to working with them closely in the coming months.

Milestone

2007-05-17T07:18:00.000-05:00

100th Post!!!

R.I.M.S. - Part 3

2007-05-14T00:42:00.000-05:00

Back in March, I wrote two posts (here and here) regarding the selection process of our new RIMS (Recruitment Information Management System). The balance of March and most of April was spent on final evaluations and due diligence after we narrowed our choices from the 4 vendors we saw demos from to our two finalists, Taleo and Virtual Edge (VE). I was an active participant in checking references on both systems, mostly provided by users in my network. Although both systems are outstanding, it was clear for several reasons that VE was a more appropriate tool for our current and future needs. I’d be happy to discuss our final selection reasoning offline with anyone who is interested.

There were two aspects of VE that truly stood out however, and in my mind were the clear differentiators. First, one of the comments that I heard over and over again while checking references was ‘single line of code’. It was very clear that implementations and upgrades have often been smooth and seamless for their clients because everyone is on the same version of the system. The second clear differentiator was VE Pilot. I have spoken and wrote many times over the past few years about the critical need for ATS Vendors to add CRM functionality to their systems. Up until now, those demands by not only myself, but many others, have fallen on deaf ears. VE has changed all of that however with the recent release of their CRM module, VE Pilot. From what I have seen, there is nothing else on the ATS market quite like it. We are very excited to learn more about what this tool will be able to do to enhance our candidate development and management efforts.

As I am composing this post, I’m heading down to the VE User Conference on the Gulf Coast of Florida for three days of training and networking. I look forward to seeing two of my teammates there, as well as friends with The Newman Group, and many others that I hope to learn from. More to come on this conference as I plan to provide updates here over the next couple of days.

Name Our Employee Referral Blog

2007-05-03T13:26:00.000-05:00

My current employer, much like my prior employer, is embracing internal blogging more and more as a channel to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing. Currently, I am working on building out an Intranet site for the launch of our new Employee Referral Program (ERP). So, when our Intranet Project Manager (TC) suggested that I include a blog on the site as an easy way to share information and gain feedback, I fully embraced the idea.

I plan on using the blog to share success stories, highlight critical positions that we need help filling, and providing tips to our employees on how important they are in our talent acquisition efforts and what they can do to help. This will be in addition to links to our current job openings, our locations (for those who don't know where all of our office are), links to related articles, and more.

I've been wanting to do a corporate recruiting blog since the beginning, so this is a good next step. Problem is though, what to name it. TC initially coined it "Referral Madness". Not bad, I've been toying with similar names like "Referral Mania!" and "Referralpalooza". I need something catchy and attention grabbing, yet something that will fit into a somewhat conservative professional services culture.

I put it to you then, the readers of this blog to offer some suggestions. I don't have any prizes to give away, but you will be contributing to a noble internal blogging effort, and hey, this should be fun if nothing else!

Recruitingblogs.com!!!

2007-05-02T20:55:00.000-05:00

Move over Recruiting.com, Jason Davis's (aka the Slouch) new recruiting blog project, Recruitingblogs.com is here! Although quite different from his original venture, this appears to be a cool new format to bring together the Recruiting Blogosphere. So check it out, and if you blog, sign up!

ERE Expo - The Pictures

2007-04-21T10:08:00.000-05:00

ERE Expo Spring 07

ERE Expo - Day 3

2007-04-20T06:45:00.000-05:00

Day 3 kicked off for me with an early workout, providing me much needed energy for the day. The conference continued with a presentation by Jeff Bonrey, CEO of Trovix. It's funny, at conferences like this, you often hear many conflicting messages as to what is most critical in the talent acquisition space. Some of the speakers are very strong and convincing, and sometimes, they are not. Mr. Bonrey has an interesting product, he told us to change, but didn't offer much new to think about. I also disagreed with him that recruiting is all about amassing resumes. It's about building and cultivating relationships. Arte Nathan emphasized that on Wednesday, and Michael McNeal emphasized that further with the presentation that followed.

Michael truly is one of the best in the business. I first heard Michael speak back in the late 90s when he was still with Cisco. He was funny, provocative, and incredibly innovative then. Little has changed over the years. Intuit is lucky to have him now. Michael's presentation focused on building out a strategy that focuses on the Employee Experience. Can't wait to go back to the details of his presentation, this was really good, relevant stuff for me and my firm. He said that he was instructed to get everyone motivated. Mission Accomplished!

After taking care of some business, I rejoined the conference for the afternoon sessions. The first session was with Kevin Wheeler, who asked if Social Networks were hype. Kevin's grasp of technology and it's effect on the emerging workforce is fantastic. Are Social Networks hyped? He argues that the hype is overinflated now, but many of these networks will endure and eventually become the norm of recruiting. It's all about building a Talent Community and Social Networks are the key.

Next came the Bloggers panel, a Q&A session with Jim Durbin, Joe Grimm, Heather Hamilton and Dennis Smith. I got a seat front and center to blog about the bloggers. Todd actually has a great synopsis of the session on the ERE Expo Blog, so no need to be repetitive here. Got some pictures though, which once again should be up by the weekend.

The show wrapped up with the always entertaining and insightful Dr. John Sullivan. Dr. John was controversial as usual (heard a few gasps from the recruiter next to me), but this talk was different. It was really a fantastic view into the do's and don't for building a Career Website today. Perfect timing for me as we are in the process of redesigning my firm's website right now.

And then, it was done. It went by way to fast, as most good things do. I did hook up with Jason Davis and Cheezhead for a great meal and even better discussion before calling it a night. Time to head home now. I'm tired, yet energized. Several of the sessions were excellent, made some great new connections, found some very relevant vendors at the Exhibit Hall, and as always, the networking was priceless. Kudos to ERE for another great show. And kudos to ERE for bringing the fall show to my home town, Washington DC. If I didn't see you here in San Diego this week, I hope to see you in DC in October!

ERE Expo - Day 2

2007-04-19T08:12:00.000-05:00

Started the day very early (which typically happens when I travel to the Left Coast). This was OK because I had a 7AM conference call anyway. After the call, I headed down to the conference where Jason Goldberg kicked things off once again, this time with his review of Web 2.0 and what it's implications are for recruiting, including a brief sales pitch on Jobster. Towards the end of the event, he invited Joel Cheeseman up for what was promoted as the "Main Event". Joel had some very direct, biting questions, and Jason was very smooth and 'political' with his responses. Turned out to be quite tame actually, no blood was spilled, and honestly, there were likely many in the room who probably didn't even know what the feud was about anyway.

After some helpful hints from the Conference Chairman, Jeremy Eskenazi, Arte Nathan took the stage and wowed the crowd with his energy, colorful humor and 'cut-through-the-BS' attitude. He was a true pleasure to listen to, and repeatedly made the point that what we do in recruiting is all about the people. IMO, I think he undervalues the importance of technology, especially as it relates to Gen X and Y, but his overall point of valuing personal relationships over technology was well made.

I was able to catch up a little work thanks the the free wifi access here, then headed off to the Exhibit Hall for lunch and to chat with some vendors. Dennis Smith and I then trolled the hall with an interest in chatting with a few specific vendors. Got to see the new premium product that The Ladders will be rolling out soon too. Looked very interesting. I plan to spend more time in the Exhibit Hall today.

The afternoon sessions were interesting, I took in the Google Staffing Analytics session (oh my, to have the resources they do to do what they do). They are truly making the selection process a science over there. Following the Google session, I took in some of Shally's International Sourcing training, then headed next door where I was to be a facilitator during the 'Speed Brainstorming' session on the topic of Direct Sourcing. We had a group of 11 recruiters, including Microsoft sourcing-guru, Glenn Gutmacher. We had a lively discussion around what sourcing was, what techniques we were using, what sourcing resources are available, and issues around connecting with sourced, passive candidates. Oh, and we will all be getting 'LinkedIn' with each other now too :-)

Had a great evening out with The Newman Group, who took a group of us to the Padres game. Huge thanks to Ed, Kelly and Elaine for a great night at a great ballpark. Finished the evening back at the hotel where I sat in at the ERE Charity Poker Tournament. A great time was had for a great cause. Pictures from the ball game and the Poker Tourney will be up by this weekend.

Time to get ready for the final day of the conference. Michael McNeal and John Sullivan presenting on the same day, should be fun!

ERE Expo - Day 1

2007-04-18T07:33:00.000-05:00

Finally escaped from the dreadful Mid-Atlantic 'spring' yesterday on my journey to the ERE Expo in sunny, but only slightly warmer, San Diego. This is the 3rd straight year I have made it out to this great conference, the best recruiting show around.

The flight out was relatively uneventful, oh, except for the fact that I was one swallow of my soda away from ending up in the hospital! About halfway through the flight out here, I was finishing up my soda, chewing some ice when I felt a small metal object in my mouth. Turned out to be a metal clip, the type used to fasten bags of ice! I took the clip in the cup back to the flight attendant. The one who served me the drink said "Sorry, but I wasn't the one who put the ice in the bin." Later, when he came through the aisle offering more water (which I refused), he said "You know, once I was eating fish and found a bone in my mouth, It's an imperfect world." The fact that someone made a mistake resulting in a metal object being in my drink wasn't what bothered me at this point. What did was the fact that rather than apologize and promise to be more careful in the future, he felt it more important to cover his backside. I thought Southwest was better than that, guess not :-(

Made to the hotel around 3PM and quickly found a number of friendly faces, including Gerry Crispin, Kevin Wheeler, Dennis Smith, and the ERE staff. The awards dinner was very nice, sat with Gerry, Jeff Hunter and the EA team, a couple recruiting leaders from Nationwide and others. It was good to hear from Gerry (an awards judge) about what set the winners apart from the rest.

This being my 3rd year attending this event, I am now running into people I know at every turn. After dinner, I quickly hooked up with Mendoza, Jason Davis and Heather Hamilton. The networking just keeps getting better and better. I have some nice pictures so far and hope to have them up by the weekend.

Today got off to an early start, and it's going to be a busy one. More on that tomorrow.

Sorrow for Hokie Nation

2007-04-17T07:59:00.000-05:00

I grew up in Virginia. I applied to Virginia Tech (but went to Univ. of Maryland). I spent alot of time in Blacksburg recruiting VT Engineering students from 1998-2000. I have numerous friends and colleagues who are VT Alumni. I have a connection to Virginia Tech, and today, my heart aches for Hokie Nation.

Virginia Tech is a beautiful school, nestled in a small town in the hills of Southwestern Virginia. It's the last place you would ever expect something like this to happen. But in this day and age, you just never know where something like this could happen, do you. A sad statement on our society today unfortunately.

Today, my only hope is that those connected to VT can heal from this senseless tragedy with time. A Terp's heart is heavy for the Hokie Nation today.

second.worst.corporate.video.ever?

2007-04-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

Riveting Rosie suggested that PWC had an even worse video? I had to see for myself, and this is what I found. Not quite as bad as E&Ys, but still, why???

Note: Haven't found any embarrasing videos from my firm yet. Hopefully we can learn some valuable lessons here and stick to our day jobs :-)

worst.corporate.video.ever

2007-04-11T20:35:00.000-05:00

Words can't describe how bad this is. Is it a recruitment video? A teambuilding video? Who cares? What were they thinking???

Tip to Kevin and Johnnie Moore for this :-)

A Few New Blog Links

2007-04-11T07:45:00.000-05:00

I'm adding a few new links in the Recruiting Blogs section thanks to a nice article in this weeks WSJ. Check 'em out!

Brazen Careerist
the CHAD
Kaleidoblog
Resume Hell

Name Recognition in a Green Jacket

2007-04-09T08:45:00.000-05:00

First of all, big time congrats to this year's Master's Champion, Zach Johnson. Zach just happens to be one of three Golf Pros sponsored by my firm. It was a thrill to see him hold on for such a career boosting victory, and an honor to see such a fine, modest competitor wear our firm's name on his vest throughout his march to victory (he was also kind enough to mention us along with his two other sponsors just before he received the Green Jacket).

I like golf. I played for a few years (not much since the kids came along though) and have an appreciation for the game. And I always try to watch at least some of each Major tournament. So one of the reason's why today was a thrill was to see one of 'our guys' win it. It was awesome to see our firm's name every time Zach was on camera. It was also nice to see the firm's name emblazed on his shirt on the front page of today's Washington Post!

Name recognition is a big concern for our firm, especially in Recruiting. We recognize that we are not a household name, surely not as well known in our industry as we would like, even though we are the fifth largest accounting, tax and business consulting firm in the country. It doesn't help when our Recruiters are making calls and our prospects say, "Sorry, never heard of you".

The firm has been around for 80 years, but most of our growth is recent. Name recognition will come, and our Golf Sponsorships should continue to make the necessary impact over time. Our name has never been in the public spotlight like it was yesterday though. The hope then is that anyone who was paying attention to The Masters saw and heard the name, and will put two-and-two together if they hear from a Recruiter of ours in the future. Name recognition opens doors, it gets people interested in us, and we need that to compete for great talent.

Are most of our prospects golf fans? Will the fact that Zach won translate directly into any hires for us? Hard to say. These sponsorships are designed more for attracting clients than candidates. But there is an impact from these sponsorships, and today's victory by Zach Johnson should continue to help grow our name with clients and candidates alike. Zach is such a great fit with our firm too. He's an up-and-comer from Iowa who no one saw coming. Our firm is also an up-and-comer from Iowa. Hopefully, the difference from now on will be that prospects now and in the future will see us coming.

No, I'm not a headhunter

2007-04-04T08:45:00.000-05:00

It seems that whenever I tell someone for the first time that I'm a recruiter, their response is typically, "So you only find people to work for your company then?" with a quizzical look on their face. It's as if the concept of 'Corporate Recruiting' is such a foreign one; that all recruiters are headhunters. Maybe part of it is that the firm I am currently with (and those that I have worked with prior) are not household names. If I had said, "I am a Recruiter at Microsoft", then maybe they would get it? For the Corporate Recruiters out there, have you ever run into this? And if so, why do you think that concept of being an internal, corporate recruiter is so misunderstood?

Nothing against headhunters, it's just not what I am. I take alot of pride in being a corporate recruiter and have always enjoyed working on the 'inside'. I tried the headhunter route very early in my career and it wasn't for me. I need to feel a part of something, something bigger than me. Even though I've changed employers about every three years or so, I've been fiercely loyal to those organizations (and still am in most cases), and often thought of myself as one of those organizations' biggest cheerleaders. It's not about putting people in jobs. It's about connecting great people with great opportunities in great organizations. It's about having a direct impact on the growth and future of an organization I am a part of. That's what I'm about. So why is it that there are some who apparently don't seem to understand that this role exists in corporate America today?

BTW, how do you like the new 'Snap' link preview I've added in. There are so many cool new blog widgets and tools out there, I just had to add this one.

The MLPF Experiment

2007-04-02T09:02:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan and avid user of LinkedIn. That said, I've been very deliberate in how I've been building up my network. For the most part, I've only been connecting with those who I have had some level of prior interaction with. I have also been strongly encouraging our recruiters to start using LinkedIn, and to connect with me to take advantage of my 1st & 2nd degree connections.

To keep my network growing, I have been committed to adding at least 5 new connections a week, but my ability to do that with those who I have had prior interactions with has become limited. My extended network, although at almost 2 million now, has also slowed in its growth. I have wanted to keep this growing, but how?

Several months ago I signed up with the MyLinkedinPowerForum (MLPF) to learn more about how to maximize my networking through this great tool. People use MLPF for a number of reasons, primarily to bounce ideas off each other or to identify specific opportunities to connect. The forum's moderator, Vincent Wright, does a great job of keeping this forum on track, and in addition, added in a formatted way for new members to introduce themselves. I was hesitant to do a 'Micro-Introduction' myself as I was not ready yet to expand my network beyond those I 'knew'. Yesterday however, I took the plunge.

As you can see from my intro, I have tried to keep the intent of my intro clear and direct. As a result, this morning I have been able to connect with a number of new LinkedIn members who I otherwise might not of connected with otherwise. The key for me is keeping the new connections relevant. I actually had to write back to a couple of those who wanted to connect to ask them how they felt the connection would be mutually-beneficial, as their message to me, and their profile, did not make that clear.

The power of LinkedIn IMO is it's ability to expand your network based on trusted 1st degree connections. This step moved me beyond my initial strategy, so it will be interesting to see what the end results of this action will be. Any way I can help facilitate connections, or connect with others who have mutual interests is a benefit. Have we linked yet? If not, and you feel we should, lets get LinkedIn today!

Expo Bloggin

2007-03-26T11:14:00.000-05:00

T-Minus 22 days until the next ER Expo. For the third straight year, I will be heading to San Diego for the best recruiting conference in the business. In 2005, I walked away with so many tactical ideas that I filled a whiteboard with them back in my office. Last year, the networking was sensational. This year, I'm hoping to see a good mix of recruiting knowledge acquisition and hard-core networking, and you can read about it both here and on the ER Expo Blog.

I was planning on blogging anyway, now I guess I'll 'cross-blog' between here and there. If you are planning on attending, please reach out so that we can meet-up. I have a list of several people I plan to reach out to myself to make sure we connect there. Can't wait to get to sunny SD. Hopefully I'll see you there. If not, hopefully I'll see you here :-)

NRT: March Madness Update - Ugh!

2007-03-20T00:15:00.000-05:00

Ugh, what an ugly weekend. My Terps lost to a more disciplined, sharpshooting Butler squad. Good luck to Butler in the Sweet 16, they exposed the Terps weaknesses well.

Oh well, 7 months until practice starts for the 2007-08 Maryland Men's basketball team. They will be a very young team next year, but I'm optimistic that there are some very solid pieces (Vasquez, Hayes, Boom & Gist) in place. Until then, Go Lady Terps who battle Ole Miss tonight in the Women's Tournament as they continue their quest to defend their National Title.

In terms of my tournament bracket, it's a disaster. I actually did well in the first round, picking 28 out of 32 winners. The 2nd round was another story though, picking only 7 of the 16 winners. To make matters worse, my son is whipping me, and is darn proud of it too! He got 27 out of 32 in the first round, and 13 out of 16 in the 2nd round. I've been doing these brackets for 20 years now, this was his very first one. Kudos to him for doing so well, if he would just stop rubbing-it-in now, I'd be feeling a bit better about it at this point.

All I'm looking forward to now is more good games. This is a great time of year for college basketball fanatics like me. So from here on, the more 'buzzer-beaters', the better. Oh, and another thing to look forward to, Opening Day is less than two weeks away. Sweet! (also, click here to see progress on the new Nationals stadium!)

R.I.M.S. Part 2

2007-03-16T09:55:00.000-05:00

I can't give enough kudos to our Project Team for the work that they have done so far in our selection process. The research and preparation to date has been outstanding. Numerous resources were used to do the initial research. Interestingly enough, in my initial discussions with the Team, they thought that a internally-hosted client-server solution (as opposed to an externally-hosted ASP solution) would be ideal. They soon discovered however that most vendors were trending more towards the ASP model, if they hadn't abandoned client-server models all together. Pre-demo research also included office visits where Team members were able to learn the 'As-Is' and the desired situations from the key stakeholders of this technology (i.e. our recruiters).

The research was completed, we were fortunate to have sufficient funds budgeted to consider top tier vendors, and four of the best were selected to present proof-of-concept demos last week. To prepare for the demos, the vendors were provided 8 carefully-crafted scenarios that best represented the use of this technology by recruiters, candidates and hiring managers. A note on the scenarios: As carefully crafted as the scenarios were, we still underestimated what this technology could accomplish for us in a couple areas. The vendors for the most part helped us understand how automating certain processes that have been manual or Microsoft Office driven would be to our advantage.

BTW, earlier this week, Sarah listed her ATS demo pet peeves, here's a couple more:
- When you are asked to skip the 'sales pitch', please comply. A couple of our vendors insisted on giving a brief pitch anyway, and all I could think of was, "When are we getting to the product!" It's nice that you are profitable, but honestly, I care more about the demo. We will be basing our selection on the quality of your product, not how happy Wall Street is with you.

- When you are given scenarios to follow, prepare in advance and make sure you hit each item. That is what we are basing our evaluation upon. A couple vendors did quite well with this last week, where as for others, it seemed like this was the first time they had seen these scenarios. Not good.

The evaluation team for the demos consisted of the main Project Team, two additional IT staff, and four Recruiters from the field. We all assembled at our HQ in Bloomington, MN for the demos last Thursday morning. Over two days, each vendor was given three hours to run through the scenarios (research had already been done on the vendors and the technology piece was handled separately with our relevant IT staff). As the scenarios were played out, the evaluation team used a simple scoring scale to evaluate each step in each scenario, and provide an overall score at the end of each scenario. At the end of each demo, we had time to complete our scoring and answer qualitative questions. And at the end of each day, we had time to discuss the demos as a group.

Although each vendor was able to demonstrate most of our scenarios in similar fashion, there were also some clear differentiators. One of the key differentiators (and a huge issue for me) was the recruiter dashboard interface. We need our recruiters to feel completely comfortable using any system we choose, so a user-friendly dashboard will be a major factor in how we make our selection.

At the end of the second day, as a group, we listed out the positive and negative features of each system. At that point, we were all pretty much fried after two full days of presentations, but we were able to share our opinions and set a path for moving forward. That path moving forward included follow up actions with the vendors this week. We are very close now to narrowing down to a short-list of two. More on that next week.

NRT - March Madness!!!

2007-03-16T09:20:00.000-05:00

One down, five to go...

R.I.M.S. Part 1

2007-03-12T09:40:00.000-05:00

RIMS - Recruitment Information Management System

Last August, I wrote here about the challenges most companies face with their recruitment systems. Most organizations do indeed have a love-hate relationship with these systems, and much is written about them, including blog posts last week by Sarah and Dave. The general recognition is that all of these systems have their warts, but if implemented correctly, they should serve as powerful tools in the war for talent.

In my post last Fall, I discussed how we at my prior employer used the term RIMS to describe these systems, rather than the traditional ATS acronym. Words (and acronyms for that matter) can be powerful when used in certain situations and certain contexts. When acronym-master Gary Cluff coined the term RIMS, he did it with the view that using technology to 'track applicants' was not enough anymore for top performing recruiting organizations. RIMS represents something bigger, broader, and more useful than ATS. RIMS was an acronym that I brought to my new job, and to my surprise, was adopted almost immediately. When I got to my new firm, an RFP was underway to select a new system. The timing was perfect, and Gary should be proud, his acronym is gaining traction, if one company at a time.

In my first week on the job, I was able to meet with the recruitment system Project Team, and due to my decade-long experience as a power use with three different RIMS, they appointed me to the Project Team as an "expert" resource. I couldn’t be happier with our progress so far. The project plan has been well thought out and crafted, deep research was done, and the right people were put on the team. Experience to RIMS was a first for the IT members of the team (including a Project Manager, Business Analyst, User Experience Specialist, and QA Specialist). Selection of the right enterprise technology takes heavy due diligence, and I have been consistently amazed by the detailed, focused nature of the effort to date. The hard work of our Project Team culminated last Thursday with demos from four well known, top-tier vendors.

Part 2 will explore our process and the demos.

Travel Grumblings

2007-03-07T13:10:00.000-05:00

I’ve probably done more business travel in the last four months in my new job than I have done in any job prior. For the most part, it’s been OK. Not too many delays, lots of friendly people, new places to visit, and good food (a little too much of that sometimes though unfortunately). It all was good until last Thursday.

By Thursday morning, we knew that our travel home from St. Charles, IL was going to be trouble. My colleagues from Minnesota and Iowa knew early on that they were going to be stuck there for another day. The rest of us were going to have to take our chances at O’Hare and Midway. The weather at both airports that afternoon wasn’t bad. It was a bit windy, but the weather there wasn’t the problem, the problem was the blizzard to the west and the nasty storms going through the east coast. Everything was delayed, and flights were being cancelled by the minute. I found out that my flight was cancelled sitting at the gate, not by a public announcement, but online, and then looking over to see that our flight wasn’t on the board anymore (Grumble #1).

So, after discovering that the last two flights back to DC were full, I made sure that I had a seat on a flight out the next morning and a hotel room for the night. Mission accomplished relatively quickly on both counts. One problem though became apparently quickly. I checked my bag, and wasn’t going to get it back (Grumble #2). OK, I understand that there are billions of bags moving through O’Hare at any one point in time, but I also know that I was not alone in my situation and needed by bag back that night for a change of clothes and for my personal items. No dice. There’s got to be easily track and recall bags on demand. If I could figure that out though, I’d be a rich man, right?

I get to the Hyatt Regency O’Hare soon after and discover at the front desk that there is no gift shop, nor any place to purchase anything that I might need for my stay overnight (Grumble #3). They had a toothbrush and shave kit for me, so that was something. But for a huge airport hotel, I expected more, and this one was apparently in a state of renovation and repair.

Seeing that it was still early, I headed to my room, then upstairs to the bar for a nightcap. Nice top-floor bar/restaurant with a view of O’Hare. One problem though, no TVs, so no games (Grumble #4). What bar (especially a hotel bar) doesn’t have TVs? If you are on your own, this hotel apparently would prefer for you to check in, go to your room, stay there, and leave. That was the sense I got anyway.

I did have some nice conversations with a few others at the bar in the same predicament as me. The most interesting one was with a flight attendant who was waiting for her Carry-Out meal. Flying as much as I have recently, I was curious what drew people into that profession. She said it was the travel first-and-foremost. Even though it took her away from her family, she had a lot of time at home as well. For some reason I thought there would be more to it than that, but then again, I was working off of a sample of one. Regardless, she had been in the industry for several years and truly appeared to enjoy it. You can tell the ones that do from the ones that don’t pretty easily.

As I type, I’m on a flight to Minnesota for a series of ATS demos tomorrow and Friday (more to come on this in my next post). I was originally scheduled to fly out tonight, but an Alberta Clipper heading to the Mid-Atlantic was going to cause problems with the timing of that flight. I wanted to move up to an earlier flight to get out ahead of the weather. I tried that through out corporate travel agency, but their arrangement with the airline required that they rebook both legs of the flight, creating the potential that I might lose my seat on the flight home (Grumble #5). It took two calls to the airline to get my flight changed, and as a result, I am up, up and away once again.

This will be my last multi-night trip until I head out to the ERExpo in San Diego next month (can’t wait!) Traveling this time of year sucks. Much of the reason why is in the hands of Mother Nature and out of my and the airlines’ control. I try not to let that bother me too much as a result. It’s those things that those in the travel industry do control however that cause me heartburn more often than not though. Thanks for hearing out my grumbles. Signing off from 35,000 feet…

Our First Recruiters Conference

2007-03-05T13:40:00.000-05:00

Good thing last week was a bit crazy, it pulled me a bit out of my writing rut. As I mentioned in my last post, my firm had our first corporate recruiters conference last week at the Q Center in St. Charles, IL. The Q Center was Andersen's training center, and today operates in a similar mode, open to any organization (although Accenture apparently uses it the most). The rooms were nice, the food was very good (and very abundant), and the networking was outstanding.

I got in Tuesday afternoon, which was the day of the conference devoted to campus recruiting. That evening, we had a nice reception where everyone who was there, and everyone who was just coming in for days 2 and 3, had the opportunity to connect. I had met most of our recruiters so far, but was also able to finally connect with the rest. But even more important, most of our recruiters were meeting there colleagues from across the firm for the first time. This was priceless as building a stronger collaborative culture is a major objective firm-wide.

As usual, I didn't sleep well, but got a nice workout that morning, which gave me the energy for what was going to be a busy day. We led off with a 'State of Recruiting' presentation by my boss, which was followed by presentations by our Director of Work-life (on how to best sell our work-life initiatives), by our Central Plains leader (on how they built out THE model recruiting structure in the firm), and by a Business Development leader who presented with me the parallels of the sales and the recruiting process.

Then it was my turn. I led off with an interactive presentation on networking, which included a another pitch regarding LinkedIn. We followed that with presenting the goals of our Employee Referral Project team, and breakouts with everyone to help us build more ideas and momentum around what we want to deliver in regards to a new program. We got alot of great ideas, but at the same time got a better appreciation for just how much work we have ahead of us. After some announcements and Q&A, we broke for the evening.

My mission Wednesday evening was to find a good spot at the Clubhouse to catch the Terps-Duke game. I went over a bit early, telling my colleagues that they could find me there if they wanted to join me. I found a nice seat in-front of the big-screen TV they had there, and over the next 15-20 minutes more and more people started to fill in around me, not my colleagues, but actually Accenture new-hires who where there for there induction training. And not just any new hires, but recent Maryland grads! Some of my colleagues stopped by eventually, but decided to more to a quieter spot. That was fine as my Terrapin brethren and I were able to fully enjoy another huge Terp victory (followed by a dominating season finally on Saturday which I was in attendance for. What a finish to the regular season, big hopes now for a successful post-season).

Thursday was devoted to a day of AIRS training. I had received AIRS training several years ago, and had picked up various AIRS fundamentals over the years. I wasn't sure how much I would learn myself, but I really did learn quite a bit. Only one other recruiter I knew of there had received AIRS training herself, so this was really new for just about everyone, and was very well received. Also, if I didn't make my point about LinkedIn the day before, our instructors did this day. A great finish to our conference, except we all knew that the weather across the country that day wasn't going to make travel home easy.

Some of us knew that they weren't going to make it out at all and stayed an extra night at the Q Center. I headed back to O'Hare, where I found out after a couple hours that my flight was cancelled and my only option was a hotel that night and a flight home the next morning. That didn't bother me too much, except that I had checked a bag, so no clothes, no toiletries. no dice. I got home OK on Friday and my back had beat me there. Most of my colleagues got home OK too, although much later than anticipated. The joys of business travel...

The Conference ends my induction into the firm. I've met everyone now and have communicated my vision and strategy. It's time to really get down to work now. Lots of great initiatives to get started on. I still need to figure out how to blog appropriately moving forward, but have a few thoughts in mind now. Oh, and thanks to Carl and Heather for the support. More to come...

Confession of a Corporate Recruiting Blogger - I'm In A Rut

2007-02-27T07:45:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what to write about anymore. I've had this blog up-and-running for several months now, and have enjoyed expressing myself, and hopefully enlightening and/or educating some people here. I've written alot about current trends, my job change, recruiting technology, job reqs, job boards, and of course, my beloved Terps. But now, I'm in a rut.

There is alot I've thought about writing about, but I get cold feet worrying about whether I'm tipping off our competition to our strategy or not. I worry about writing about my colleagues because I'm still relatively new here, and I'm not sure if they would appreciate that or now. Heck, I'm sitting at the airport writing this, ready to head off to a corporate recruiting conference outside of Chicago (delayed an hour, grrrr), and I thought about writing about that, but again, I'm cautious, maybe too cautious.

This is the tough thing about blogging, keeping it going, even when you have writer's block, are stuck in a rut, or are just too busy with work and other things to keep it up. Ah, I'm sure I'll figure it out at some point. Until then, off to Chicago where we are convening our firm's first ever recruiter's conference. We have three solid days planned, offering educational and collaborative opportunities galore. Maybe I'll write more about this event at the end of the week, maybe not. I've got to figure out that comfort-level first. Any tips on how to deal with this would be greatly appreciated of course.

NRT: Actually, Nothin' Fina' Than Beatin' Carolina!

2007-02-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

OK, a couple weeks ago, I wrote that there was nothing finer than beating Duke. But there really is nothing fina' than beatin' Carolina, as the Terps did tonight 89-87. And how sweet it was. Being down big early and then again midway through the second half, the revitalized Men's Terps basketball team continued it's great stretch run at the Comcast Center.

I was sweating this one out earlier today as we got a good 4-5 inches of snow dumped on us. I was determined not to miss this one though, so as soon as the snow let up, I shoveled out the driveway and hit the road to College Park.

At the game, my five year old son asked me, what was louder Cole Field House or Comcast Center? I've heard that question many times and overall, it's been hard to argue that Comcast was a louder arena. Tonight though, it was as loud as Cole ever was. I've disliked Duke basketball for the past 20 years or so, but I've really disliked UNC basketball for as long as I can remember. The Duke rivalry has been more intense over the past few years, but tonight's win was as big of a win that they have had at Comcast, and probably the biggest since winning the ACC Tourney in 2004.

The Terps are back baby. I, among many, was a doubter of this team a few weeks ago. They were 3-6 in the conference and another NIT tourney was looming. Tonight's win pretty much locks up a NCAA bid, their first in three years. Spurred by consistent, solid performances by DJ Strawberry, Greivis Vasquez and James Gist, the Terps are playing their best ball right now. Here's to hoping they can keep this going as they visit Cameron Indoor for the Duke rematch on Wednesday, and beyond deep into March.

FEAR THE TURTLE!!!

Lefkow has Landed...

2007-02-19T16:25:00.000-05:00

...at his new blog, http://directorofrecruiting.typepad.com/home/.

I've had the pleasure of speaking with Dave on a number of occasions and always found him to be engaging and enlightening. He has a new venture, a new blog, and new time with his loved ones. Jobster has lost some true gems with their recent shakeup. Those changes were probably best for most involved though, considering Jobster's new direction and the talent they had on hand. I do believe though that Jobster would of had a tough time getting to where they are without Dave. Can't wait to see what comes next...

ICEBOUND!

2007-02-14T08:10:00.000-05:00

The only thing worse than being snowbound is being icebound. I was up half the night listening to sleet pelting my bedroom window. Most everything is shut down here in the DC area today. No snowdays when you have a laptop though :-(

Oh well, lots to do today anyway. For one thing, I need to worry about two colleagues who came into town on Monday for a meeting yesterday. Their flights were cancelled last night and they are of course hoping to get out today. Our meeting yesterday was the first one for our Employee Referral Project Team. We kicked off the project yesterday by setting the stage for what we want to accomplish (to build a world-class ERP of course), and did some great brainstorming to generate some ideas as to what some of the components of our new program might be. We have alot of work ahead of us, but we have the right ideas, and the right motivation.

Also on my mind today is my trip to Chicago tomorrow morning. Hopefully the roads will get cleared out today and flight schedules will get back to normal by this evening. I certainly don't want to see my colleagues at the airport when I get there tomorrow AM. Of course waiting for me in the Windy City is 10 Degree temperatures. Ugh. I used to like winter, I used to like the snow. Not any more though.

So I have a day of digging out, phone conferences, and e-mails to deal with. For those of you who are snow or ice bound too, make the best of it. Oh, and Happy Valentines Day too!

NRT: Nothin' Finer Than Beating Duke

2007-02-11T21:45:00.000-05:00

It's been another incredibly frustrating basketball season for my Terps...

...but there's nothin' finer than beating Duke.

These Terps were supposed to be a better team this year, addition by subtraction, hasn't quite turned out that way...

...but there's nothin' finer than beating Duke.

The Terps could possibly miss the NCAA tournament for the third straight year...

...but there's nothin' finer than beating Duke.

Gone in 54 seconds, the collapse in the 2001 final four, numerous other times of being handed humiliating defeats...

...that's why there's nothin' finer than beating Duke.

Coach K, Duhon, Shelden, Dahntay, Dunleavy, Reddick, Wojciechowski, Paulus...

...that's why there's nothin' finer than beating Duke.

Just because we can and have been more successful than anyone else over the past decade...

...there's simply nothin' finer than beating Duke.

Go Terps! :-)

Jobster's Done It Again

2007-02-08T18:09:00.000-05:00

So, I'm visiting our New York office today, which is about a block east of Times Square->, I'm checking e-mail, and I run across this news release regarding Jobster. Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I've been a fan of their's since their launch, and have continuously been amazed by their ingenuity and vision. I'm not a current client however, so I've been a bit out of the loop lately. This move however does not surprise me at all. In fact, ever since they launched the social networking aspects of their site, I felt that this may be a direction that they were heading anyway. It makes sense. Anyone over the age of 45 probably looks at Jobster and likely doesn't know what to do with it. Tags? A picture? Faves & Fans? Video? Much better aligned to Gen X & Y than to the Boomers.

Once again I'm energized by the direction that Jobster is taking online recruiting. I wasn't sure if Jobster wasn't right for my firm before. But now that the focus is clearly on more the 'Digital Generation', it probably makes much more sense for our Campus Recruiting and junior-level talent hiring needs. Kudos to JGo for once again breaking new ground.

Thousands Lose Jobs :-)

2007-02-07T12:54:00.001-05:00

A little 'hump-day' humor for you. Gotta love The Onion.

Thousands Lose Jobs As Michigan Unemployment Offices Close

It's All About The Customer...

2007-02-02T14:30:00.000-05:00

...it really is. I'm sitting on the tarmac at DFW last night for three hours waiting for our plane to be de-iced. Three hours. Normally, people in a similar situation would be getting restless, frustrated, even angry. Not on this plane though. The pilot spoke up every 15 minutes providing an update. He apologized for the delay each time and emphasized that he was doing everything possible to get us off the ground safely. I've been in similar situations a couple times before (although not for as long), but in those situations, we were only given an update if there was something new to report. This pilot understood a key component of customer service, keep the lines of communication as open as possible, even if the communication itself isn't what the customer wanted to hear.

When I think of great customer service in the Airline industry, I have typically thought about Southwest, JetBlue, probably not American. But I've been flying American quite a bit lately, and I have to say, my experiences have generally been positive. Sitting on the tarmac for 3 hours last night isn't fun for anyone, but I was comforted by the fact that the pilot sympathized with us, and that the same time, he had protocol to follow and he wanted us to be safe. That's good enough for me, and apparently was for everyone else on that flight as well. I'm feeling good about my experience with American Airlines today, they have a satisfied customer for sure.

Customer/Candidate care is a BIG issue in Recruiting today as well. Take a look at articles on ERE this last week from Calicchio, Sullivan and Wheeler. Google receives heavy press regarding complaints about their Recruitment process, so what do they do, they go hire the candidate experience master. The focus of CareerXroads Fortune 500 Career Website Whitepaper is on the candidate experience. It is an issue that I plan to focus heavy attention upon within my organization as well.

My favorite new business book, Mavericks at Work, provides great insight into those highly successful organizations that create fanatical customers with outstanding customer service and a unique experience, companies including Southwest, Starbucks, Potbelly, Commerce Bank, Cranium, etc. Seth Godin makes the point time and time again in his recent book, 'Small is the New Big', that customer service is the most important, yet most undervalued, component to successful marketing.

An airline pilot made me feel good about sitting on the tarmac for three hours last night simply by sympathizing with me and assuring me that he was doing everything he could to rectify the situation. When was the last time told a candidate that they were not going to be considered further, yet still made them feel good about the outcome? No one likes to deliver 'bad news', but having the courage, resolve and discipline to do so can make all the difference in helping your customers/candidates walk away from the situation feeling OK, and potentially wanting to do business with you again and again and again.

Job Boards - Misconceptions and Realities: Part 3

2007-01-25T10:30:00.000-05:00

I've been quite delinquent in posting the third part of this series, so my apologies.

So why are so many Recruiters frustrated with the Job Boards? Part of the problem I believe is that recruiters in general have been conditioned by the Job Boards over these past several years to think that the more efficient that you make the job posting process, the better. Think about the job posting lifecycle in most organizations (particularly those whose ATSs are integrated with Job Boards):

Manager creates the Req > Manager sends the Req to HR to be posted > HR puts the Req into the ATS (if the Req wasn't created in the ATS in the first place) > The approved Req is posted to the company website and multiple job boards with the push of a button > HR/the Recruiter sits back and waits for the resumes to flow on in.

The process of creating and posting a job Req is primarily viewed as an administrative function with very few if any touch points by the Recruiter, and has been automated to the extent that the view is commonly, "Post it and they will come, and do it ASAP" (when the reality is more like "Post and Pray".

If Recruiters want to be more successful with their postings on the Job Boards, they need to take more ownership of the postings they put out there. They need to ensure that the posting delivers a clear and compelling message. They need to follow up quickly and directly (preferably a phone call rather than an email) with qualified candidates. They need to take a more strategic view of which job boards are right for what jobs, and only post jobs where most appropriate.

Efficiency is important in anyone's Recruiting process, but not when the efficiencies enable the recruiting function to overlook what the job posting says, where it is being posted, and how candidates are followed up with. My complaint with the major Job Boards is that they have always been focused on quantity, rather than quality, with moving faster rather than moving smarter. Let's face it, quantity and efficiency means more dollars for the Job Boards. It is up to us as Recruiters to take responsibility for the quality of the postings we place on the Job Boards, and the process we use to ensure that we are using the right Job Boards for the right Jobs, and that the best candidates are being followed up with in an effective manner.

One final note. I am a firm believer that technology is too often the scapegoat, when the real culprit is typically the use of technology. Too many recruiters see recruiting technology as 'plug and play', when the reality is that you will only get out of any resource a reflection of the effort that you put into it. The Job Boards set themselves up as the 'silver bullet' solution, and most everyone has been left disappointed as a result. The Job Boards can train Recruiters on how to post jobs and search resumes, but maybe they need to do a better job on training Recruiters how to be better Recruiters, in particular, how to more effectively engage candidates with their job postings and their follow-up.

That's enough preaching from me on this subject. I hope you have found some useful insight here and encourage you to comment of course (am I on target, or full of it?). Until then, happy posting!

Life, Work, The Terps and Golf

2007-01-16T21:50:00.000-05:00

I haven't done a post in a while (I do owe Part 3 of my thoughts on Job Boards still...), so I thought I would check in. It's been a very busy and draining start to the new year. My grandfather passed away a couple weeks back. His health had been in decline for the past two years. It was the first time I had lost someone so close, death certainly puts things into perspective. At the eulogy I delivered during the funeral service, I said that I thought he was a man that was larger than life and that he was in my eyes a great man. He was great not because of any personal or professional accomplishments, not for any material possessions he may of gained in his lifetime. He was great because the size of his heart, and the strength of his spirit. It was truly amazing looking at pictures of him and my grandmother over their 60+ years together. They were always smiling. Big, beautiful smiles. He will truly be missed.

The past several days have been very busy at work, catching up, some travel, some meetings, and continuing to set up our Experienced Recruiting strategy moving forward. I was in beautiful, warm South Florida at the end of last week to meet with the recruiters based out of our Ft. Lauderdale office. The past two days were spent with the recruiters based out of our Timonium and Bethesda, MD offices. As I have said before here, we have some great challenges ahead of us, but I continue to be encouraged by the desire of our recruiters to learn, grow, and work to build out a world-class recruiting function.

On a much lesser note, I'm mystified by this year's Maryland basketball team. Last week, I saw them be humiliated by an average Miami team. I think that both teams were there to play a basketball game, but it was hard to tell. It was one of the ugliest games I had ever witnessed. Then on Saturday, they come out with one of their best performances of the year, beating the previously undefeated Clemson Tigers. As I write this post this evening, I'm witnessing my Terps being beat up by UVA. They were down by 20, cut the lead to 3, now they are down by 15 again with 10 minutes left. Not looking good. Winning on the road on the ACC is tough, but I was hoping for a better effort tonight. This years Terps are very talented, but unfortunately, very inconsistent as well.

Oh, BTW, my firm is sponsoring a new PGA event this year. A big time branding opportunity for us. if you are a golfer with an established handicap, you must check this out!

Job Boards - Misconceptions and Realities: Part 2

2006-12-27T13:50:00.000-05:00

OK, so my view on Job Boards have changed lately. Why? Much of it has to do with how I view the workforce today. This past year, there has been much debate about 'Active' and 'Passive' job seekers. 'Active' job seekers are the only ones that spend time on the job boards and are generally low in quality. 'Passive' job seekers are the "holy grail" and must be found at all costs as the best talent is represented there. I don't buy that, too black-and-white to me.

Instead, I prefer the way that Lou Adler segments the workforce. According to Lou, the workforce is split into four categories: Active, Less Active, Semi-Passive, and Passive. Those in the Active category need a job, are on the job boards every day, have their resumes posted there, and although good candidates can be found here, the quality overall tends to be low. Active job seekers represent about 15% of the workforce (note: the numbers that Lou uses do vary depending on industry, market, etc. So for in the NYC Public Accounting market for example, the proportion of the Active market is probably more like 5%, less than 1% during the 'busy season'.

The next, and most relevant category is the Less Active category. These people have a job and actually might be content in that job. If they visit the job boards, they do so sporadically, probably when they have had a bad day at the office, or possibly when they feel they can do better in their career than they are currently. Less Active job seekers are looking for a Better job, and represent about 15% of the workforce (again, a variable number, when the Active percentage goes down, the Less Active percentage goes up). Less Active job seekers are less likely to have their resume posted anywhere (although it could be one of those 'confidential' ones you see out there). According to Lou, quality talent is well represented in this category.

The final two categories, Semi-Passive and Passive, account for the balance of the workforce. Those in the Semi-Passive category are unlikely to ever visit a job board, you need to find them, they are not looking for you. They will make a change for a Much Better opportunity, and it is this category I believe that most refer to as 'Passive' candidates. Those in the Passive category are not open to making a change at all.

Why is this important? When you get past the Active vs. Passive myth, and segment the workforce out further (Lou's segmentation is just one of several I have seen), the true value of the Job Boards comes into play. You see that as much as one-third of the workforce uses the Job Boards, and that there is actually alot of good talent represented there. That siad, what I have come to realize is just how important well written, compelling job postings are.

The resume databases on these job boards filled with Active job seekers don't add alot of value IMO as a source of quality candidates. Quality can be found there, but you have to sort through alot to get to who you really want, and even then you are competing against the rest of the world for that talent. As mentioned earlier, there are good Active job seekers that will apply for your jobs, the key is to maximize attracting the quality candidates while discouraging unqualified candidates from applying.

But the true value is in appealing to the Less Active category. This category is what makes using the Job Boards worthwhile. There is alot of great talent to attract, but you have to know how to attract that talent better than anyone else. This is where you, the recruiter, has the most impact. Less Active job seekers tend to be more discriminating in which opportunities they choose to consider. Your opportunities need to speak to their skills and interests, deliver a compelling message, and then engage them to want to be considered for those roles. This is where most recruiting organizations fall short.

The Job Boards are to blame for not delivering on their promise of 'better candidates faster'. When all is said and done though, you the recruiter has the most impact on your success with the Boards. More on this in my next post next week.

Until then, have a happy and safe New Year!!!

Job Boards - Misconceptions and Realities: Part 1

2006-12-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

A new year is upon us and I'm now two months into my new job. I'll be putting in a couple of days this week, organizing, reading, and thinking. One of the subjects I've been thinking alot about lately is Job Boards. I admit that I've been all over the map on this subject the past few years. 4-5 years ago, I was thriving on the big job boards as there were great candidates in my industry everywhere, applying daily for the jobs I had to fill. It wasn't a matter of finding great talent to apply, it was more of a challenge of trying to 'separate the wheat from the chaff'. I was 'Pro' Job Board all the way.

When I moved from Telecom back into the world of government contracting in 2003, my view on job boards quickly changed course. The job market in the gov't contracting sector was radically different, and job boards were not nearly as effective. I saw the same candidates on any of the major and/niche job boards day-after-day. I learned to rely on more on strategies to attract less-active/semi-passive candidates such as employee referral and other networking techniques. Job Boards still provided a trickle of quality candidates, but as a source the Boards were unreliable at best. I had gone from 'Pro' to 'Anti' very quickly.

As much as I was moving away from using Job Boards, I was still hearing the demand from colleagues for more access to more job boards, more resume databases, thinking that 'More' was the answer. The Job Boards had effectively sold 'More' as the answer to the Corporate Recruiting world over the past decade, and that is a promise that has largely gone unfulfilled. The Job Boards created a model where 'post it and they will come' was the mantra, whereas the reality is much more 'post and pray'. As I watched my colleagues continue to struggle with the Job Boards, my view of the Boards as a source continued to sour.

At my current employer, I am hearing a variety of views from those in our recruiting organization as to their opinions of the Job Boards, ranging from those who want more access to more Job Boards to those who have almost wrote them off completely. I am a centrist in my thinking, and believe that the answer to most questions typically lies somewhere between the extremes. The more that I have thought about the value of the Boards in today's recruiting environment, the more that my view of the Job Boards has begun to change, from that of having 'written them off', to gaining a better understanding their true value in the recruiting source spectrum.

Although Job Boards will likely never provide a sizable yield of quality candidates as a source, there are still good candidates to be found there. Overall, I have come to realize that it doesn't concern me as much where the candidate came from, whether they were 'active' or 'passive', I only care if they are a 'quality' candidate or not. Relying on the Job Boards as a key component to your recruiting strategy won't get you what you need, but dismissing them as a source does not help you either.

In my next post, we will explore some of the current misconceptions about job boards in greater detail, and in future posts, I plan to explore further how Job Boards can be a more effective part of your recruiting strategy.

NRT: Desperation Gift Guide

2006-12-17T13:10:00.000-05:00

A Non Recruiting Topic (NRT) for you this holiday season with a little holiday humor, via Dave Barry's Desperation Gift Guide. This ranks right up there with the HR.com video as one of the funniest things I have seen of late. My personal favorites include the 'Snow-thrower cab', the 'Toilet Monster', the 'Pee-pee teepee' and the 'Marie Antoinette Action Figure'. So, if anyone is still looking for a gift for me...or if anyone is expecting a gift from me for that matter ;-)

Happy holidays everyone!

First, Become a Tipping Point Maverick To Be Great In a Flat World

2006-12-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

I’ve been a big business-book reader of late, learning how to Break the Rules, then go from Good To Great, why the World Is Flat, and how Tipping Points create epidemics. Each of these books have been fascinating reads, and all have implications on talent acquisition. I was even inspired to write an article on ERE this summer while reading one of these books.

In my new role, I am consumed by the need for us to A) differentiate ourselves, and B) achieve greatness in our recruiting capabilities. Earlier this year at the ERExpo in San Diego, I saw Bill Taylor, founding editor of Fast Company Magazine, speak about what great organizations did to differentiate themselves from the competition and succeed in markets where everyone else was failing. Much of what he spoke about that morning has stuck with me, so much so that today I finally went out and bought his newest book, ‘Mavericks at Work’.

My new employer has significant competitive challenges when it comes to talent acquisition in our industry. To succeed, I need to know what our competition is doing, not to model and replicate, but to exceed and differentiate. It’s not going to be reasonable for us to build similar talent acquisition models to compete, so we need to find other ways.

Over lunch, I read the introduction to ‘Mavericks’ and a couple quotes hit me right away as being a dead-on match for how we need to think and operate moving forward, including:

“You can’t do big things as a competitor if you’re content with doing things
only a little better than the competition”

“The strong take from the weak”, according to Hall-of-Fame basketball coach Pete Carril, “but the smart take from the strong”.

We are just getting started here. To attract, engage and hire great talent in our industry, we need to find smart ways to do recruit much better than the competition with the resources we have available. The good news is that we have a great employment value proposition, we have clear differentiators, we are growth oriented, we are focused on being the best in our market-niche, and we are open-minded. So the proper mindset appears to be in place. I’m excited about where this might lead, so stay tuned for more on what will come from us as we build for the future. More on the book as well. Can't wait to read more!

Meeting People Is Easy

2006-12-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Starting my 5th week here at the new gig, and I'm meeting some great people every day. At the end of the day yesterday, I bumped into a fellow 'newby' (just starting her 3rd week) whose expertise is in CRM. We chatted for a few minutes, I mentioned Salesforce.com and she gave me an 'bleh' look. Not a fan obviously. We agreed that we had much to talk about in the future though.

We are starting an ATS RFP here, and I'm going to be looking into other recruiting technologies for the firm as well (this is not an invite for vendors to start spamming me, thank you). I think I know what CRM is from the sales perspective, but that is just based upon what I have read, primarily through recruiting-related articles. It will be interesting to get the perspective from someone who really understands how this software works and how it can and should be applied in a variety of situations. During our brief discussion, I mentioned how most ATSs have been lacking in their CRM capabilities, despite the outcry for this functionality from the recruiting world. I told her how this has limited recruiters abilities to communicate more effectively with candidates, to which she then added "prospects too". She gets it. I smiled.

As I explore sourcing-function options for the firm, CRM capability will be a key ingredient to our success. It's great that I made this internal connection and that someone outside of recruiting recognized that Candidates are Customers, and that CRM technology is critical to engaging both.

* BTW, this blog post title comes from a brilliant concert movie by Radiohead from 1998. Not as big of a Radiohead fan as I once was, but there's unreleased material ("Big Boots", "Follow Me Around", "Big Ideas") from that film that is some of my favorite work by them.

A Passion

2006-11-27T08:21:00.000-05:00

Recently, I have been approached by people who have seen my blog (or other references online), and they specifically observed that I had a 'passion' for recruiting. It's interesting that they have used that word, because it's one I've thought about alot lately. I've not only thought about my passion for my profession, but also about the implication of 'passion' in evaluating candidates. When doing so I want to see A) can they do the job (i.e. do they have the talent, the skills, knowledge, etc.) and B) do they want to do the job (i.e. are they motivated, are they passionate about what they do?)

When someone is passionate about something, that something is part of them. They are consumed by it. They want to constantly learn more about it and develop a high level of expertise about it. When people are passionate about something, their face develops a glow, they get emotional, they speak with more authority, but they want to hear and understand alternative views as well. This is why I believe that a key component to being successful at what one does is the fact that they are also passionate about what they do. Talent alone doesn't always cut it. Passion is the drive, the internal motivation, and often most undervalued factor in someone's ability to be successful. Passion without talent isn't enough either. But at the very least, passion identifies the motivation to improve, to learn, to grow.

I've been passionate about sports and music my entire life, but I've never had the talent to excel at either. In the course of my career however, I have found both a passion and talent for recruiting, especially as it relates collaboration, communication and creativity. I believe that my passion and talents in these areas have helped me get to where I am in my career today.

Mendoza is passionate about networking. Shally is passionate about sourcing, Jason D. is passionate about community-building and Jason G is passionate about changing the recruiting technology landscape (just a few samples from the recruiting blogosphere). What are you passionate about?

Goin' Mobile

2006-11-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

Seemed like an appropriate post title today as a Who song plays in the background, as well as from meeting a huge Who fan at the Pasedena Hilton bar on my most recent road trip.

I’m back from a west coast swing of our offices in Costa Mesa, Irvine, Pasadena and Phoenix. It was a LONG week, but I met a lot of great people, and I continue to be encouraged both by some of the good things we are doing already in our experienced recruiting efforts as well as the potential of what we can do better in the future. As I meet with our HR managers, recruiters and leaders in our Economic Units (EUs), some common themes are emerging. We have critical needs for improvements in employment branding, technology and sourcing. This is nothing unique to us of course, but it is a clear indicator that we have a lot to do to maximize our recruiting capabilities.

As I start to paint a picture of what issues and concerns exist in our EUs, I in-turn am telling the EUs that much of what needs to be done will not happen over night. I feel good though that I’ve been able to pass along a few nuggets so far which have been appreciated. In particular, I’m asking two questions (a heads-up for those of you EU recruiters I have yet to meet) - A) Do you read ERE? B) Are you LinkedIn? I turned on our Recruiting Manager in Phoenix to both yesterday.

In addition to learning a lot about the firm, I was able to listen to a couple Podcasts on the plane during this trip. Check out the Podcasts with Blog/Sourcing Divas Heather and Maureen.

I typically like to see a ‘sight’ or two when I’m on business travel, but haven’t had a chance to see much these past two weeks. This was the first time I had been in Pasadena or outside the airport in Phoenix, and both were beautiful (I love mountains!) I did get to see the Rose Bowl on the way from Pasadena to the Burbank airport though, and that was pretty sweet. I’ve now seen three of the meccas of college football (Rose Bowl, Notre Dame Stadium and Bryant-Denny Stadium (U. of Alabama)). I also got to fly JetBlue for the first time on this trip. VERY NICE! They actually make you feel like they want you there, and make it a fun, comfortable trip at that. If only all the airlines could take a hint from JetBlue and Southwest…

I get to settle down a bit now. Lots still to learn and some upcoming events to prepare for. BTW, I’m still considering changing the name of this blog, ‘from the trenches’ just doesn’t seem appropriate any more. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

NRT - Team of Destiny

2006-11-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

(Non-Recruiting Topic)
Team of Destiny. There's just no better way to describe this year's University of Maryland Football Team. Early this year, this team did not impress, they had trouble getting by weak opponents and then got thrashed by West Virginia on national TV. Their other loss, also earlier this year was another ugly one against Georgia Tech. They lost ugly, but they've won ugly too.

These past five weeks have been magical. Starting with an improbable comeback to beat UVA after being down 20-0, then holding on to beat a desperate NC State team, they needed a blocked field goal to survive Florida State, then a field goal with no time remaining to beat Clemson at Death Valley. Today's victory over Miami was more of the same. There were essentially 2 big offensive plays for the Terps, two late turnovers and two dropped passes by Miami. That's it. Miami dominated otherwise, but the Terps still held on to win 14-13.

Maryland's past five wins have been by a total of 13 points! A team that looked to be going nowhere two months ago is now a victory or two away from the ACC Championship game! This team wins by playing hard, not making big mistakes, and making big plays when they need to. The defense gives up huge yardage numbers and the offense disappears for long stretches during games, but they still find out a way to win.

This could be Ralph Friedgen's best coaching job yet, especially considering that he lost his offensive and defensive coordinators in the off-season, and he was coming off of two sub-par years. This team is an inspiration to Terrapin Nation. Go Terps and Fear The Turtle!

Celebration Time at Byrd Stadium - 11/11/06

The New Gig

2006-11-10T07:30:00.000-05:00

I just flew in from Minnesota and boy are my arms tired! Haha. But seriously folks, I just got back from a visit to my new employer's headquarters, based in Bloomington, MN. I don't think that four days have ever gone by faster. It was an absolute blur. It was all good though. Good people, an exciting company and lots of opportunities to do some great things. I was told several times that I joined the firm at the right time and that there was plenty of need for my services. There won't be many boring moments, that's for sure.

I got alot of questions about the blog. My new boss is a big supporter of it and said that he wants me to keep it going. He sent out a link to it with my 'new employee announcement.' The most common question was "How do you find time to do it?" Well, just like I'm doing it right now, at night for about 20-30 minutes. I'll write it then and post it in the morning. You of course have to have the interest and desire to keep this up though. I'm really thrilled about the potential here though. We'll see just where I can take this in the coming weeks and months.

Last night, I had the great opportunity to have a couple drinks with the MN Headhunter. We met at the hotel bar and shot the breeze about recruiting and college sports for a couple hours. We had a great time, and I'm glad that we were able to connect while I was in the Twin Cities. I really lucked out with the weather too. Sixties in November in Minnesota? It's like that all the time, right ;-)

I'm traveling again next week, but then that will cool off a bit until December. So far, this opportunity appears to be everything I expected it would be. The blogging will continue, I am still thinking about changing the name of the blog, and an exciting future with my new employer is just getting started.

Greatest Recruiting Experience Ever

2006-11-02T07:45:00.000-05:00

Now that I've left the world of tactical technical recruiting, I'm reminded of a truly unique experience, easily the greatest recruiting experience that I ever had. I wanted to tell this story here for a while now, this seemed to be an appropriate time to do it.

From 1992-1998, the Dept. of Defense sponsored overseas job fairs in Europe and the Far East, providing American companies the ability to directly recruit our servicemen and women as they were preparing to separate from the military. The company I was with at the time, Tracor (also known in the mid-late 90s as Vitro, Marconi & finally BAE Systems), was a long-time participant of these events, and the opportunity was provided to me in the spring of 1998 to fly half-way across the world to participate in this wonderful event. For employers, it was a no-brainier as DoD picked up the tab, and provided immediate, unequaled access to hundreds of highly-skilled, disciplined individuals. All we had to pay for was the airfare to and from the rendezvous point in Portland, OR. What we didn't know at the time however was this was going to be the last trip of its kind.

Two of us represented Tracor on this trip, Ron G. and myself. We made it out to Portland and quickly met up with those who we would be spending the next two weeks of our lives with. Larry Harris was our fearless leader (since DoD ended these events, he continued them as a private venture), and about 30+ companies/70+ recruiters were ready to go. The diversity of companies was vast, including government contractors (i.e. Tracor, BDM, Lockheed, etc.), large, well-known employers (i.e.Starbucks, Southwest, Cintas, MCI), security-related employers (i.e. Wackenhut, Washington State Police) and some smaller employers as well.

The trip essentially had three legs, which included two days of job fairs and a day for sight-seeing, and a half-day on each end for travel. The stops included Seoul, Korea; Okinawa, Japan; and Yokosuka, Japan. With 70+ Type-A personality Recruiters on a two week trip on the other side of the planet, you can probably understand that our motto for the trip was "Work Hard, Play Hard". To this day, I have wonderful memories of the trip including:

At Yongsan Army Base in Seoul, when the Lockheed recruiter who had a line across the gym for 8 hours straight when a couple busloads of aircraft techs came in from nearby Osan AFB. He got a certificate for his tireless-effort at the end of the day.
Meeting the 'grunts' just off of the DMZ at the Yongsan Job Fair. Hardcore.
Touring the amazing Korean War Memorial. Best museum I've ever been in.
Haggling for a golf glove in the Itaewon district of Seoul, not to mention the offers to sell me "genuine fake Rolex watch".
The Walker Hill Show in Seoul. The 'Las Vegas Style' show was no good, but the traditional Asian show was amazing.
Walking on an Okinawan beach.
The wonderful traditional reception we attended at the Camp Butler Officers Club in Okinawa.
Two incredibly busy (and hot) days at the Okinawa job fair.
Comedy and fun at the Kadena AB Officers Club.
Almost having to buy a round of drinks for everyone at the Yokosuka Officers Club after not removing my cap.
Touring a Spruance-Class Destroyer and seeing equipment that Tracor had developed installed on the ship.
A tour of Tokyo which included the Tokyo Tower, the Ginza District, and both Shinto and Buddhist temples.
Karaoke in downtown Yokosuka.
A visit to the 'Great Buddha' at Kamakura.
The 24 hours it took to get from the hotel in Yokosuka to home.
The three days of jet-lag that followed.

We had a great time, and made a huge impact as well. Ron and I brought back over 500 resumes and Tracor ended up hiring over 25 of those who we met on the trip. Although DoD discontinued the trips shortly after the one we participated in, it's wonderful that Larry Harris continues these trips 8 years later, providing our brave service men and women a great opportunity to meet employers face-to-face before they move on to the next career.

If anyone who reads this post was on a DoD-sponsored overseas job fair from 1992-98, I'd love to hear your stories and memories. If there is anyone who sees this who was on the '98 Far East trip, I'd love to reconnect with you. In the meantime, here's some old pictures from the trip that I was able to scan and share.

A Final Farewell

2006-11-01T09:05:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks, I have been discussing my thoughts and feelings around the transition that I am making in my career. Today, I'm leave a wonderful organization, a comfortable work environment, a great boss and a great team for an exciting new leadership opportunity with another great organization. I can't say enough though about my boss and mentor, Gary Cluff. As mentioned previously, Gary is the reason why I came here, and it's been worth every moment. Gary has helped prepare me for this next step in my career, and I am forever thankful.

Prior to the last Project SAVE meeting a couple weeks back, I had a flash of inspiration and penned an 'Ode to Gary':

After three great years with Gary, it's time to take my leave;
When I told Gary about this, he could hardly breathe!

But seriously, he has been gracious and he wished me well;
Which was great because he could of just told me to go to h___!

So, I've left him in a pickle, what is Gary to do?
At first he had one Recruiter job to fill, now he has two!

To work for Gary, only great Recruiters need apply;
If you are looking for a challenge, you will soon find out why.

Thank you Gary for everything as I say 'adieu';

And I promise not to be a stranger here, and to all of you.

That's it for now. My blogging may be a bit sporadic over the next few weeks as I get my bearings in my new job. I am working on at least one more post which I hope to have up in the next day or two. Exciting new challenges are ahead, can't wait to begin!

NRT - Terps - 27 FSU - 24

2006-10-30T21:26:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Recruiting Bloggers Jim Stroud and MN Headhunter, I'm going to take a brief break from the normal fare here and celebrate today with a NRT (Non-Recruiting Topic).

Last Saturday night, I froze, I lost my voice, and I watched my beloved Terps beat the Florida State Seminoles for only the 2nd time ever and become bowl eligible for the first time since 2003. How sweet it is...

The Block!

When Its Time To Go

2006-10-23T07:30:00.000-05:00

It's always an awkward situation when you are a corporate recruiter and leave one company for another. You've just hired someone, now you have to tell them that you are leaving? You build up a level of personal trust, that person trusted you that you were offering them a better situation. They trusted you enough to leave make a life-altering decision. Now this place isn't good enough for you to stay? I've changed jobs a couple times in my career now and have always found this situation to be awkward. This time around may be the most awkward at all however.

First of all, I really do think my employer is special. I'm not leaving because of the company, my boss, my job, my compensation, etc. I'm only leaving because I've been presented with an opportunity to move up into a strategic leadership role, an opportunity that would not have happened with my current employer for at least a few more years. Yes I'll be getting more in salary, yes my commute will be shorter (or non-existent when I telecommute), yes I'll get to travel a bit more (which is something that I've wanted as well). But it all boiled down to the opportunity to make an impact in a way that I can't do in my current role.

So that's what I'm communicating to people, my colleagues as well as those who I've recently helped to bring aboard. And unanimously they have told me that they understand, which helps, but it is still awkward. It probably relates to the fact that I feel that I have done some of my best tactical recruiting work over the past few months. I have put my networking skills and utilization of new recruiting tools to the test and it has paid off with hiring some great 'passive' candidates. One of those in particular was one that I will remember for a long time. The day after I gave my notice, she was still one of those who I wanted to tell personally. I felt I owed it to her. Around Noon that day, I get an e-mail from her saying "I hear you are leaving???" I dropped what I was doing and practically ran to her desk to talk to her about it. As with the others, she was very gracious. Turns out that things at her former employer were not going so well, so it was really a blessing that we offered her this opportunity.

It's a strange sensation for sure, but I'm thankful that I am surrounded by good, gracious people, who can see that although I am leaving, that it's for something bigger and better. They congratulate me and wish me well. I can't ask for much better than that :-)

"Backpocket" Recruiting

2006-10-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

"We don't have anything right for this candidate now, he's one for your 'backpocket' just in case you might have something more relevant for him in the future. "

This phrase, or something very similar, is said all the time in conversations between corporate recruiters and hiring managers after an initial interview with a good candidate who's not quite right for a particular job. But how often do corporate recruiters, or hiring managers for that matter, actually reach in to their 'backpocket' to pull back out that candidate for that more relevant opportunity that just became available? Probably not as often as we should in all likelihood. Most corporate recruiting operations are so reactive in nature that the default action that occurs when a hiring manager has a new need is to post a job and source new candidates. Unfortunately, most ATSs don't offer powerful enough CRM capabilities to better energize the 'backpocket' approach either. As corporate recruiters, we also deal so often with so many candidates, so many reqs, that all the good intentions of 'backpocket' recruiting can be easily lost.

But when 'backpocket' recruiting does work, it's a thing of beauty. My six favorite words from a hiring manager are "I have a candidate in mind". Now this doesn't always guarantee a quality hire (and you of course hope that cronyism isn't a factor). Very often however this is the result of a pre-existing relationship, such as an interview with a good candidate who wasn't hired initially, which enables a hiring manager to easily and efficiently consider someone who they already know about and feel will be a strong candidate for the role. It's even better when a recruiter knows the needs of the organization well enough that they have candidates ready to pull out of their 'backpocket' when that appropriate need becomes available. Corporate recruiters who are not overloaded and who focus on specific skill sets, industries, etc. are typically more effective with that approach.

Technology can make this even easier. Jobster's functionality can enable recruiters to both re-engage and invite 'backpocket' candidates to subscribe and be made aware of more relevant opportunities as they become available. I made another hire just last week re-engaging prior candidates from our ATS using Jobster's functionality. This candidate had interviewed with us earlier in the year with another part of the organization. While searching for candidates in our ATS that I wanted to invite to join our talent network, I ran across a candidate who was good, but just wasn't right for the particular job he initially interviewed for earlier this year. I sent him several jobs to review, one of which turned out to be ideally suited to his background and skills. He expressed interest immediately, we brought him in quickly for an interview, and he starts next month.

I start next month with my new employer because my boss-to-be put my resume in his 'backpocket'. He told me that he was going to do that when he let me know that I was not going to be considered further for the position that he initially interviewed me for. He might of had an idea as to what was going to become available in the foreseeable future. I didn't though, and was pleasantly surprised when I got that call from him asking me, "What's your current situation? Are you still interested in us? Yes? Good, I have something that's probably even bigger and better in mind for you this time." A fine example 'Backpocket' recruiting indeed.

So they got me and now I'm in 'short-timer' transition mode. More on that in my next post...

Modified 11:25AM 10/17/06

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2006-10-13T07:30:00.000-05:00

I've made quite a stir this week, both within my company and externally regarding my decision to move on to a new role. When I joined this company 3 years ago, I primarily did so to work for Gary Cluff, the ultimate corporate recruiting manager, a man that I have known and respected for several years. When I agreed to join his team, we both agreed that eventually my ambitions may outweigh my long-term prospects with this company. Within this last year, I began to get a serious itch to move into a recruiting leadership role. Unfortunately, there is only job one like that at my current employer, and Gary has it. He's not going anywhere for a few more years in all probability, nor should he. The only way I could move up in the near term was to move out.

I've received calls and e-mails about opportunities, I looked occasionally on the ERE and SHRM job boards, but it was always going to be only a truly exceptional opportunity that would take me away from a great employer, a great boss and a very comfortable situation. I narrowed my interest to three words: 'Recruiting', 'Leadership', and 'Maryland'. If I could find those three attributes with a compelling employer, that's what got my attention. I had an interview in the spring with a small non-profit, and even got an offer, but the opportunity just wasn't good enough to merit making a change.

Early in the summer I found a compelling opportunity on the SHRM Job Board. I sent in my resume and had a phone interview. The opportunity was for a Regional Recruiting Manager, based in Maryland, with a focus primarily be on college recruiting, and with an interesting, growing company in a very competitive industry. This opportunity met most of what I was looking for, but as it turned out, I didn't get the job. The Firm's Recruiting Leader said however that he would hold on to my resume just in case anything else should come up in the future. I can't say that I ever expected to hear back from him. But I did. More on that in my next post: "Backpocket" Recruiting

BTW - As if getting a new job this week wasn't enough, I also finally sold my house! We settled yesterday, over 5 months after it went on the market. The stress of changing jobs pales in comparison to the painful experience of selling this house. Getting a new job and selling a house in the same week, as you can see, I do not fear change...

A New Adventure

2006-10-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

It has been with mixed emotion today that I started to let people know that I am leaving my current employer for a new recruiting leadership opportunity with another company, starting in November. It was going to take something truly great to take me away from a company and boss that I have the ultimate respect for. A fantastic opportunity that would take me from co-workers and a work environment that I have grown to love. A logical next step in my career that's just not available with my current employer.

I was provided that opportunity with an offer last Friday. This new role is with a national, fast growing firm where I will have leadership responsibility for experienced recruiting strategy as it relates to issues such as branding, technology, process, vendor relations, metrics, etc. My current job is split pretty evenly between strategic and tactical recruiting. The new job is 100% strategic, which is something that I was truly looking for if I was going to make a career move. In addition, my commute will be cut in half, and I'll have telecommuting opportunities on top of that. So as tough as it was to leave a good and comfortable situation in my current job, this new opportunity was just too good to pass up.

Now that I'll be in a strategic leadership role, "...from the trenches" probably doesn't make much sense as a Blog name going forward. So I'll have to think about something more appropriate, any suggestions? Heck, if Heather could do it, so can I, and she'd be happier with out the 'War For Talent' reference anyway :) (Although I still believe there is a 'War For Talent')

The one downside to all of this is that I've just made my current boss's life much more difficult. We were already trying to hire a Senior Recruiter and a Sourcer, and now he has to replace me too. It's my mission to do what I can over the next three weeks to find my successor. I posted the job today over on ERE and we are both hitting our networks hard to find the next great Recruiter to work for this truly great and unique organization. The problem is that everyone we ask is looking to hire a Recruiter for their own team. It is truly a great time to be a Recruiter in the DC Area! So be sure to check out the job posting, and if you are interested, please let me know (local candidates preferred please).

Over the next three weeks, I'll talk a little more about this transition, how I was identified for this role, and what the future may hold for me, and this blog. Who knows, maybe I might be able to convince my new employer to start up a Corporate Recruiting Blog (or something Blog-like). I have a few good ideas around this already. The new adventure begins!

ADDENDUM TO THE DISCLAIMER: As with my current employer, I will not refer directly to my new employer by name on this blog.

New OFCCP Rules Explained

2006-10-05T20:20:00.000-05:00

The topic for the October WTPF Monthly Meeting held yesterday was New Rules: OFCCP's Revised Definition of an Applicant. Myself and approximately 6o others listened to Roger Ocampo of OFCCP's Division of Policy, Planning and Program Development as he explained to us in detail the purpose and philosophy behind the Internet Applicant Final Rule.

This has been a very hot topic here in DC with the large number of government contractors that have had to come into compliance with this new rule. Mr. Ocampo did a fine job in addressing the concerns of those in attendance, even if he didn't give the answer that they didn't want to hear. At the very least, he provided clarity on the issue, which is critical at this point as there has been a great deal of overreaction and undue concern over what the implications of this rule are.

Some of the key takeaways from this meeting for me included:

Consistency in process has been, and will continue to be, the most important factor in compliance.
Many companies don't realize how much technology, including what the job boards are doing to help already, can assist with the recordkeeping process.
This rule applies to positions posted on the internet, and the employer's consistency with applying this definition for all posted positions.
Basic qualifications for each posted position must be Non-comparative, Objective and Relevant. IMO, this is actually a good thing, for too long, too many job postings have been too vague in their requirements. Drawing a 'minimum-line' establishes consistency in selection criteria as well as screening and assessment practices.

Roger took much of his presentation from a broader presentation posted at the OFCCP website. He is also the author of the FAQ section on the website, which is full of valuable information. The final takeaway for all of us is that he (i.e. the OFCCP at large) wants to hear all of our questions and concerns. It's his job to find cases of discrimination, but the goal of this new regulation isn't to create new cases of discrimination, but to help employers create sensible, objective processes that will prevent future cases of discrimination. Does this rule cause new administrative headaches? Yes. Does this rule offer opportunities for companies to improve their processes, better define their requirements, and create a more consistent definition of an applicant? The answer to that is Yes as well.

Saw It With My Own Two Eyes

2006-10-03T20:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's Daily ERE Article by Dr. John pronounced Michael Lackaye, formerly of Quicken Loans (formerly? Mr. Homula is also formerly I assume, he seems to of fallen off the face of the earth!), the "World's Most Aggressive Recruiter". I won't make a judgment here of whether or not that is true (unlike Karen and Anthony with their comments on the articles, think they have an axe to grind or what?). I can say though that having spent time with both Michael's, I have alot of respect for their talent and their willingness to 'do what it takes' to find talent.

I had the fortune to actually witness "The Bank Caper" that Dr. John referred to first hand. I had just finished dinner with the Quicken Loans team, and was heading back to the hotel lobby when we noticed this sales conference and what the host company had done to identify their top performers. When we got to the lobby, we saw that the sales conference had adjourned to the hotel bar. I accompanied the Quicken Loans team to the bar for a nightcap, and watched them in action. It was like 'shooting fish in a barrel' for these guys. The salesmen at this conference weren't a target for any opportunities at my company, I was just along for the ride and got to witness first-hand some great Recruiters at work.

According to Dr. John, the networking continued past that evening, and the follow-up resulted in some great hires. Dr. John makes the very important point that those who were hired as a result of the actions by 'The Michaels' made the decision to join Quicken Loans by 'choosing what was best for themselves and their families.' The Quicken Loans team simply took advantage of a situation that was placed right in their lap. Was this necessarily 'aggressive'? I didn't think so, they didn't force anyone to talk to them, they certainly didn't force anyone to accept their offer of employment. They were simply good Recruiters who did their company a great service by taking advantage of an opportunity to hire top performers that were unwittingly showcased by a company that had no idea that there were 'sharks in the tank'.

Where in the world is Mike Homula anyway? Hope all is well with him, and I hope Michael Lackaye does well in his future endeavors as well.

Ben Gockin's 15 minutes...

2006-09-30T22:22:00.000-05:00

I'm at the Nationals game tonight with my son, watching batting practice, and here comes the Fox 5 reporter who wants to ask me about the pending departure of Hall-of-Fame Manager, Frank Robinson. I've been on TV a couple times before, but this was the first solo interview that got on the air. The Recruiting Animal must be working for Fox as they didn't get my name right, as you'll see. Pretty cool nonetheless.

Lou Holder Reports (I'm about half way into the report)

My Old School

2006-09-27T20:17:00.000-05:00

Late September is the peak of the college recruiting season, and today I took my annual trip back to my alma mater for their annual Career Fair. I've been to just about every Univ. of Maryland Fall Career Fair for the past decade, and you know what? Not much has changed over the years. The recently renovated Student Union has changed, but most of the same companies are there, most everyone still hands out their pens and frisbees, and the students shuffle through overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of it all.

I focused on College Recruiting exclusively in the late 90s when I was with Vitro>Tracor>Marconi>BAE Systems (same company, just three name changes in 3 1/2 years, talk about a branding nightmare!). That time gave me a deep appreciation for college recruiting as I made alot of friends, had alot of fun, and made alot of great hires. My recent employers have done much less college recruiting, and that's OK, it hasn't fit their talent acquisition needs as well. But still, when I can get back on to campus, especially one as beautiful and as filled with great memories as My Old School, I do so without hesitation.

We did well today as we met a number of students who had very relevant work experience and some even with security clearances. I'm hopeful that we will be able to hire at least a few of them. The competition is fierce once again though, and I'm not even as worried about the big government contractors that were in the room (i.e. Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, BAE, etc.). Government agencies such as CIA, NSA as well as the various Military Commands that were represented were clearly the most popular employers there today. Universities in the DC area are unique in that respect. I don't think you would see that in most other regions in the country. The federal government is such a major part of our daily lives here in this area (many of these students' parents or close family members likely work for the government), that working for the government is an appealing choice.

The predominance of government agencies and contractors at this event leaves the international student population a bit out in the cold though unfortunately. Citizenship requirements at these organizations make it very difficult for these students to find relevant opportunities, but as frustrating as this must be, the international students that I spoke to were understanding and resilient in their search for a great internship or full-time job.

It was another fun and productive day in College Park, MD today. I get back there often for football and basketball games. It's the recruiting activities there though that really get my blood pumping. FEAR THE TURTLE!!!

The door's open, come on in!

2006-09-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

I'm blogging today from the site of the Recruiting Open House that my employer is hosting today. We have a great conference center on our campus here in Northern Virginia, and have been hosting these events three times a year for the past three years. Because we've made these events truly 'Open', attendance has ranged from 130-230 attendees per event, and as a result have made anywhere from 12 to 24 hires per event. The hires we have yielded from these events have represented about 10% of our overall tech staff hiring efforts. Those are numbers that we are very pleased with considering the complexity of the jobs we need to fill.

I'm a big fan of these events for several reasons:

They connect hiring manager and candidates face-to-face. A resume doesn't always assist in making the connection, often the person accompanying the resume makes all the difference.
The participating organizations get to show off their work programs and speak with a number of potential candidates all at one time.
Candidates get to see our great campus as well as some of the work we are involved with.
Candidates know that they get to speak with someone, thus making this potentially a more appealing option than just submitting a resume online.
These are high-profile, highly advertised events, both internally and externally, thus continuously keeping our profile and our brand in front of employees and job seekers alike.

I've been asked before, "why have a truly open event rather than an invitational-style open house?" I believe that by keeping this event "Open", we have attracted candidates who may not of otherwise decided to attend. We often hear of candidates stop by because they saw the signs on the street, or a friend-of-a-friend told them about it. There is also very little initial risk to the candidate as far as being rejected up front. With an invitational-style Open House, you are either invited or rejected, with often more who are rejected than invited. We want our hiring managers to make a holistic judgment at these events, and as a result, we have actually hired candidates from these events whose resumes didn't make the cut when they simply applied on-line. Do we 'reject' candidates initially? Sure, if someone sends a resume in advance who is clearly not qualified for the types of positions we will be interviewing for, we'll let them know in advance so that they don't waste their valuable time by attending.

What makes a successful Open House?

Planning - When we started these events three years ago, we would start our planning 6-8 weeks in advance. Today, these events practically run themselves, so we allow about 4-6 weeks of lead-time to 1) properly prepare internal & external advertising, 2) accommodate organizational requests, 3) make arrangements with facilities, security, corp comms, and catering, and 4) begin advance sourcing efforts.

Commitment - We have been told by attendees that our events are very well organized and that our staff and managers are accommodating and knowledgeable. These events are not designed for Recruiting to 'puff out it's chest'. These events are held to make hires, period. We communicate heavily with our HR/Recruiting staff and their hiring managers in advance of these events and make sure they are ready to actively participate.

Advance Sourcing - Even though these events are 'open', we do invite candidates as well, including those from our ATS, and those that we source otherwise. We can often get candidates engaged faster by inviting them to one of these events than if they were to wait to be invited in to interview for specific positions.

Internal Promotion - We heavily promote these events internally, and as a result, about half of our hires from these events are employee referrals.

Venue - If you have the facilities at your location to do an Open House onsite, by all means do it. It certainly is cheaper for one thing, but as mentioned earlier, it provides an opportunity to show candidates where they are actually going to work.

The downside? Very little. 'Managed chaos' is a good description of the event. These events to take a fair amount of resources (time, people and money) to produce, but all-in-all its worth it. Job fairs don't work well for us, Invitationals 'screen-out' more than they 'screen-in', but our Open House events have consistently provided us with the right quantity and quality of candidates.

It's an hour until the doors open up, time to gear up for another big day!

WTPF Talent ROAR Recap

2006-09-22T10:29:00.000-05:00

A good time was had by all at yesterday's annual WTPF conference, this year aptly titled Talent ROAR (Recruitment, Orientation, Assimilation & Retention). Held at the beautiful Gannett/USA Today HQ building in McLean, VA, just under 200 attendees enjoyed a full day of networking and presentations by experts and corporate HR/Recruiting leaders alike. Here's a recap of the day:

7:15 - I arrive on a crisp, cool September morning ready to roll. Along with being a WTPF board member, I'm also on the event planning committee and am scheduled to co-present at one the breakout sessions as well. A busy day awaits as the adrenaline (and caffeine) is starting to kick in.

8:30 - The crowd has arrived and is enjoying the coffee, muffins and networking in the 'First Amendment Dining Room'. WTPF President, Kim Clark-Paktsys, kicks the day off and quickly turns the podium over to our keynote speaker, Lou Adler. I've seen Lou speak on a couple occasions before and have been impressed each time. What I like about Lou is that he lays out the business case of what's wrong with Corporate Recruiting, then challenges you with common sense. The audience is engaged throughout Lou's presentation, a great start to the day.

10:30 - The breakout sessions begin. Scott Kahle and I have the pleasure of following Lou with our presentation titled: Recruiting Technology 2.0 (the slides are available on Scott's Blog). We were a bit nervous about this at first, following up such an accomplished and esteemed speaker. But it actually worked out just fine. Lou made a number of points that we were able to relate back to. The presentation went well and we received some very kind feedback through the rest of the day.

Through the 2nd breakout session, I pop back and forth between the two presentations. I'm taking pictures throughout the event, the link to those will be found at the bottom of this post.

12:15 - Lunchtime, the Gannett/USA Today catering group puts together a nice spread (Tabuleh and Hummus Wraps, yummy!) as everyone heads back into the Dining Room for nourishment and networking.

1:30 - The 3rd breakout session begins and I spend most of my time attending the presentation by the Booz Allen immersion team of Raymond Houck and Nicola Klein. I worked with Nicola at my last employer (we actually co-taught the Structured Interviewing class there for a couple of years). Their presentation titled "Insights into a World-Class Immersion Program: Discover Booz Allen" is an excellent representation of what can be accomplished by a company that is devoted to starting their new employees off on the right foot. They have abandoned the 'death by PowerPoint' orientation method used my most companies, and have come up with a more engaging and relevant immersion program in it's place. Very impressive indeed.

I spend the 4th breakout session listening to a panel chaired by my boss, Gary Cluff, and including highly-regarded recruiting experts Kerri Koss-Morehart of Fannie Mae, Ed Newman of The Newman Group, and Hector Velez of HireStrategy. Titled "The Changing Landscape of Recruitment", the panel provided their valuable insights into what the future holds for the recruiting function. Some of the key takeaways included comments around how candidates are taking a more holistic view of the opportunities presented to them, how technology is evolving to include expand beyond the traditional ATS model to include more Talent Management and CRM capabilities, and how Outsourcing/RPO options are becoming more of an acceptable reality to organizations who are challenged by supply, demand, process and technology.

3:30 - A busy day closes with a highly engaging and fun presentation by Max Brown of 'The Carrot Culture'. Max's presentation focused on the power of employee recognition and how companies can become more successful by simply doing a better job of recognizing the accomplishments of their employees. This is the 2nd year we've had a 'Carrot Culture' speaker, and for good reason, they do a fantastic job of closing out the day on an entertaining and positive note.

5:00 - The event is over and a few of us retire to the McLean Hilton for celebratory cocktail. Pulling this off took the hard, devoted volunteer work of our planning committee, and seeing the event go as well as it did today made it all worthwhile. Now we just need to top it again next year!

Pictures from the day's events can be found HERE

The Comfort of Connecting: Part 2

2006-09-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

Recruiting through your network can be a funny thing. Recruiting tools like LinkedIn and Jobster have made 'Point-to-Multipoint" networking easier and more efficient than ever. When you have so many people to connect with literally at your fingertips, how do you decide who to contact regarding jobs are trying to fill?

Do you contact only those who are likely to be directly connected with the types of candidates you are looking for?
Do you blast out your message to those in your network who you know personally and think will be open to helping you?
Do you blast out your message to everyone in your network, whether you think they may be directly connected, or whether you personally know everyone in your network or not?

These tools make it as easy to build an immediate network of people you know personally as it is to add people into your network who you have never met or spoken with before in your life. This is an important point as recruiters who are using these tools have a variety of views on how to inform their network about jobs they are trying to fill. In particular, there are recruiters who look for maximum exposure, blasting out their job opportunities to their entire network. Their reasoning is that you just never know who is connected to who, and who might even be interested themselves.

I get a couple of these a week, which doesn't bother me too much. Dave Mendoza on the other hand, takes issue with this strategy. Dave argued on his blog yesterday that you should only send out jobs via LinkedIn to those who you think are directly connected to the types of candidates you are looking for. Now Dave is connected to thousands of people and probably gets flooded with these 'shotgun' blasts. Dave wants to help, but even he has limits. But again, you never know who knows who. Most of the people in my immediate network are Recruiters. If I got a LinkedIn or Jobster e-mail asking me if I knew any Petroleum Engineers, I probably couldn't help. But if you asked me if I knew any Operations Managers with a security clearance, guess what I do, and in fact I know of a great one who is available now. You just never know.

I prefer the targeted approach myself, approaching those who I think are most likely to have a direct connection to the candidates I am looking for. But recently, on a lark, I took the semi-'shotgun' approach. This summer, I had one of the toughest assignments I have faced in recent times, a high-profile position in our Executive office. After a couple months of searching and interviewing, no luck. I was desperate, so I sent out a Jobster campaign to 40 people in my immediate network, people who I have personal relationship with. I had no idea if any of these people were connected to the type of person I was looking for, but maybe they were, and it was worth taking that shot. Two days later, I see one my contacts who I sent this job to, and he said to me, "Ben, I have the perfect person for you." And you know what, he was right! She starts next Monday.

You just never know who is connected to who and who is looking when. I'll delve more into that and the comfort factor around that in my next installment in this series.

Recruiting.com Goes Bionic

2006-09-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

The new and improved Recruiting.com is up and running today. Jason Davis continues to build this site as the center of the Recruiting Blogosphere, and with this sharp, highly-interactive format, we will all be able to collaborate better than ever. Exciting stuff!

Remembering 9/11/01

2006-09-11T11:53:00.000-05:00

Five years ago this morning, after a rough night's sleep, I decided that I was going to do some work from home rather than go into the office. My first-born son who was 2 months old at the time had kept us up most of the night, so fighting traffic to get to my office in Northwest DC and putting in a full day just wasn't in the cards.

I'm watching the Today Show when Matt Lauer announces that the World Trade Center was on fire. It quickly became apparent that an airplane had crashed into one of the towers. A short time later, a second plane was shown live crashing into the other tower, and it started to become clear that this was no accident, we were under attack.

My wife and I are watching all of this live, cradling our baby, in complete shock watching these events unfurl. Moments later the Pentagon is struck, and this nightmare literally hits home. DC is ordered to evacuate and chaotic, yet rather calm exodus begins. We come to find out next that the fourth highjacked airliner, apparently on target for DC, crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

I live about 15 miles northwest of DC. Mid-morning while all this is happening, I hear the unmistakable roar of fighter jets. I run outside and see F-18s and helicopter 'gunboats' flying low overhead. Devastated by watching and experiencing all of this throughout that morning, I took a break from it all and took my son for a walk. The weather was beautiful that day, a sunny, warm early Autumn afternoon, now tarnished forever by this act of insanity.

Later that day, I see one of my neighbors who worked downtown and described his experience getting home. The Metro was jam packed as you can imagine, so he along with thousands of others walked 3-4 miles up Connecticut Avenue until they could find a subway station that they could get into. When I got back to work two days later, my coworkers described their 3-4 hour trek home that day.

Thinking back, I feel fortunate that I was home that day. Not because of the nightmarish exodus from the city, but more because I was able to be there for my family in one of our country's darkest moments. Today, I feel proud that I recruit for an organization committed to working in the Public Interest, one that works closely with our federal government sponsors to objectively support the design and implementation of systems that will help keep our country safe and secure. My current employer lost someone that day on one of the planes that hit the WTC. Today at 8:46AM, we all paused for a moment of silence in remembrance of all those who lost their lives on that fateful day. I hope you have found a way to remember that fateful day in your own way.

Jim, Yvonne, Dennis and Glenn also offer their thoughts on 9/11.

Nail The Interview - The Game

2006-09-07T14:36:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post is currently hosting a very cool game in advance of their bi-annual Mega-Jobs Employment section coming up this Sunday. Play Nail The Interview and find out not only if you can get the job, but also if you can get the highest salary. I got the job myself, but apparently could of done better on the salary negotiation. Experience a virtual phone screen and in-person interview, choose your resume as well as your wardrobe and accessories. A fun representation of the hiring process from the job seekers perspective. A big thumbs up!

Sourcing Specialist Wanted!

2006-09-05T13:51:00.000-05:00

Do you love the thrill of the hunt? Do you hear the Mission Impossible theme in your head when that new hard-to-fill job crosses your desk? Do you know anyone who shrieks with joy when you tell them that you need their help to find a left-handed, minority, female, rocket scientist with a super-high level security clearance, a PhD and 35 years experience? Do you believe that the Monster and Careerbuilder resume databases are the root of all evil? Are you creative? Are you innovative? Are you fearless? Do you live in the Washington, DC area?

You answered yes to the questions above, a great opportunity with a great organization can be found by clicking HERE

Another Shameless Plug For Talent ROAR

2006-08-31T09:30:00.000-05:00

So, what are you doing three weeks from today, on Thursday, September 21? Not sitting in another boring meeting I hope. What if I told you that for only $225 ($200 for WTPF members), you could spend a day at the beautiful Gannett HQ Building in Tysons Corner, where you can listen to and interact with Recruiting/HR experts (such as Lou Adler, Max Brown, Gary Cluff, Bob Corlett, Ed Newman, Hector Valez, Burgess Levin...) and be exposed to best practices from Booz Allen, IBM, Scitor and more! Not to mention you'll have the opportunity to see a presentation on the new generation of recruiting tools by Scott Kahle and myself. Just a couple hundred bucks?!?! What a bargain!

This is an opportunity not to be missed. Join Recruiting/HR professionals from across the National Capital Area at Talent ROAR, where in addition to listening to the experts, there will be networking opportunities galore, opportunities to interact with various HR/Recruiting vendors (including YRCI, JWT, SilkRoad, Market10, ERE Media, TMP, Virtual Edge and MetLife), and of course, you will get fed well too!

Don't wait any longer, register today!

DC Area Residents Have 2nd Longest Commute

2006-08-30T15:30:00.000-05:00

As discussed here a couple months back, the growth this region has experienced has pushed many people and jobs out to the fringes. Combined with a lack of necessary improvements in the infrastructure, the DC Region has maintained a reputation for having one fo the worst commutes in the country. Well, according to an article in today's Post, we officially have the 2nd worst commute in the country, 33 minutes on average each way in fact. That sounds about right as that is close to my average commute as well.

The long commutes combined with increased commuting costs make this a major issue for employers and job seekers alike. It will be interesting to watch this over the next couple of years as factors such as gas prices and housing costs fluctuate, and as major road construction projects including the Mixing Bowl and Wilson Bridge are completed.

The Comfort of Connecting: Part 1

2006-08-29T12:40:00.000-05:00

I consider myself a pretty good networker today, but that hasn't always been the case. Up until a few years back, I wasn't the type of person who could 'work a room'. I didn't always feel right approaching people I didn't know with a 'Cold' introduction. Simply put, at the time, I just wasn't comfortable with it. And I didn't have to in order to be a successful Corporate Recruiter. In the late 90s, I was doing mostly college recruiting, where engaging students, faculty and staff was easy. In the early part of this decade, I was with one of the last local telecom companies that was still expanding (at the same time most of the major telecoms were tanking). The toughest challenge was sorting through the hundreds of applicants to identify the best-of-the-best.

Essentially, I didn't have to reach out, the appropriate quantity and quality of candidates were coming to me! That changed however when I took my current job. When I joined my current employer, I learned quickly that the candidates we need are typically at a high level in skill, experience and credentials, and very short in supply. In order to be successful in this hiring environment, I had to step out of my comfort zone. Relying solely on job boards and resume databases wasn't going to cut it anymore. Technology has helped, LinkedIn for one is a fabulous tool for virtualizing one's immediate network, thus giving you access to a new, vast expanded network. But for the most part, it really just took a couple successes to build up my confidence and comfort-level in reaching out to my network and 'warm leads' when trying to identify candidates.

I'm starting a series here today related to the comfort issue when it comes to networking and connecting. Successful Referral Recruiting is predicated not only on the comfort and ability of the Recruiter to reach out and recruit via their network, but almost more importantly, on the comfort level of that Recruiter's immediate and extended network in providing the quality leads and referrals necessary to be successful.

In the meantime, I would like to invite my readers here to comment about how you initially 'stepped out of your skin' to become a more effective networker. I think we all can learn from each other's experiences, especially those who are still struggling with this issue.

"I can't recruit from my ATS!"

2006-08-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

At a local Recruiter networking meeting recently I heard an attendee state "I can't recruit from my ATS!" I've been thinking about that statement alot lately, and the more I think about it, and the more I talk to Recruiters in other organizations, it makes me understand just how pervasive this problem is. Over the past 9 years, I have used three different ATSs, including one that was homegrown, Peopleclick, and currently, Brassring. As much as I have thought that these ATSs could be better, I know it could be much worse. I've heard time and time again horror stories from other Recruiters who share the sentiments of the Recruiter at that networking meeting. Or even worse, I've heard from those who still have no ATS at all. GASP! The thought of no technology just sends shivers down my spine!

John Sullivan's article yesterday on ERE illustrates the shortcomings and lack of new innovation related to much of the technology available today. Check out the comments too, especially Tim Nelson's, great stuff!OK, so the technology is far from ideal right now. But are you maximizing the use of the technology you have available to you today? It is my strong belief that the technology available now can enable, empower and engage Recruiters to be more efficient and effective in their jobs. You should be able to easily move candidates through a work flow and share their resumes and relevant info with hiring decision makers. You should be able to find candidates in your database through targeted searches, and use the ATS to communicate and with those candidates. You should be able to establish re-engagement strategies with prior unsuccessful candidates, create communication strategies and develop relationships that will pay off in the future. You should be able to store information on candidates so you are able to know what is happening (or has happened) with a candidate and when. You should be able to produce powerful metrics on a variety of business-critical topics with just a few clicks. Often, it is not the technology, but the end-users that are the problem. For those who have the best intentions and wish to apply technology, if the proper resources are not applied, or implementations are not well thought out, disaster will strike. Several years back, I saw Michael McNeal speak, and he had a term for just that, "Fast Bad". As much as technology can empower and enable, it can also cripple. Having an ATS, and not being able to recruit from it is "Fast Bad", and that can result from a poor system, a poor implementation, or most often, a combination of both.
Over the past couple of years, we have begun to see a new wave of recruiting technologies emerge to challenge the job boards. We have yet to see many new truly innovative ATS solutions however. Maybe the first step is to stop thinking of these as "Applicant Tracking Systems", and start to think of them more as CRM-related systems, which is the direction we really need to start heading. Instead of ATS, what if the term for this technology was redefined using the acronym that Gary Cluff (my boss, mentor and master of new acronyms) coined: RIMS (Recruitment Information Management System). IMO, "ATS" represents transactional technology, RIMS on the other hand represents a multi-functional, interactive candidate management tool.

In summary, maximizing your effectiveness with today's recruiting technology is critical to any organization's talent acquisition success. The type of innovation that Dr. Sullivan suggests is tied to our demands on the vendor community to innovate and upgrade now. The question of course is who in the vendor community will take on such a risky (and costly) challenge? Whoever does and is successful will undoubtedly spark innovation (and hopefully consolidation) across the vendor community, which is something that we should all benefit from.

How Well Do You Know Your Talent Base?

2006-08-18T07:31:00.000-05:00

Kevin Wheeler's article on ERE this week inspired me to write a about my own views on hiring from within. Kevin is right in proposing that companies need to make more of an effort to develop their own and make internal movement easier, rather than look outside first when filling a hiring need.

Part of the problem is that companies too often take the same "post-and-pray" strategy to filling jobs internally as they do externally. Sure, in some cases, internal candidates are 'encouraged' to apply for certain jobs. But more often than not, if companies want to fill jobs internally, they take the passive approach and wait to see who is interested, rather than taking the more proactive approach of leveraging their talent in the roles and on the projects that they are best suited for and are most critical.

So in order to do this, you need to A) know what talent you have in-house, and B) have a culture where talent is 'owned' at the macro, rather than at the micro-level. I have been fortunate in my career to be at organizations that understood this and took proactive steps to leverage their talent more proactively.

Several years ago, I was with a company that had just been through a major merger, and one of the first things that the new organization wanted to do was to get a handle on was succession planning. We created management org charts across the organization and asked each part of the organization to populate the charts with the incumbents, those who could step into these roles next immediately, and those who were 2-5 years away from being ready. It was a shock to many how many 'succession holes' there were in these charts. The next step was to populate a searchable database with the internal resumes of those in management roles, those who were identified as 'successors' and those who were identified as high potentials (with minority/female hi-pots identified as well). The goal was to fill in those 'succession holes' first of all, but also to have an internal talent database to pull from when future management roles became available. Within a couple weeks of completing this project, a new senior management position opened up, and by going to this new database, we were able to identify a candidate in the organization who was ideal for the role. Had we not had this database, we could only hope that this person would of actually stepped forward to be considered, or we would have likely had to look outside

At my last employer, we took a similar talent inventory of the existing staff. The organization and the industry at large was undergoing massive change, and we knew that to support this change, we had to know what talent we had in-house and how to leverage it better. We even tied the skills and experiences of our staff to a competency model to hopefully make better matches between new opportunities and the staff we had. We found in a number of cases that we had employees who had talents, skills and experiences that could be applied across a number of different parts of the organization.

At my current employer, we do not have a formal talent inventory/database like the ones I most recently mentioned, but we don't really need one. It is part of the culture that people move around to support different projects, especially if their time isn't being 100% utilized. Employees are able to 'brand' themselves effectively enough internally that their expertize can be effectively tapped for support on relevant projects as they become available. An internal posting system also exists where short-term projects are advertised and employees who are looking to pick up extra work and/or make an additional contribution can make a match. This system was actually created and is managed by a line organization, not HR!

Yes, you should always try to look internally first, but in many organizations, that can be difficult to do and may even be discouraged. There are times when you have to look externally, especially when the company is moving into new markets and/or new product/service-lines. Most organizations (especially those that are large and segmented) however simply know what they have talent and skill-wise in-house. If they knew what they had, and could leverage that talent more effectively, they could fill jobs faster, at a lower cost and with a shorter learning-curve as a result. To accomplish this, organizations can only benefit themselves strategically when they A) invest in the development of their staff, B) have a strong grasp on what talent they currently have internally, and C) have a culture that encourages the type of internal movement that benefits the organization as a whole. BTW, Ed Newman wrote a related article on this subject on ERE in 2005 that's worth reading again.

College Networking Resource Group Meeting - 8/9/06

2006-08-10T11:35:00.000-05:00

The DC-Area based College Networking Resource Group (CNRG) held it's latest meeting yesterday at the Beers & Cutler office in McLean, VA. The CNRG was founded over a decade ago by Seth Feit, Gary Cluff, Al Jones, and others to share college recruiting best practices amongst top companies in the area. Much has changed in the past decade, Seth moved to Charlotte, Mark Clark took over, then he moved to Charlotte (something about the Queen City...), we went from boom times, to bust, and back to 'boom' again. Through it all, the CNRG has continued to meet three times a year and is lead today by Jim Donnelly of HPTI. I myself was a regular attendee through 2000 when I left BAE to go to Intelsat, where I did not do as much college recruiting. I first met Gary at the CNRG, and several years later, he ended up hiring me! The power of networking in action!

With my current employer, I'm doing some strategic work in college recruiting, as it has always remained a passion of mine. I made it back to my first CNRG meeting in a few years last August, and attended again yesterday. There were over 25 college recruiting professionals in attendance, representing such major local/national employers as Booz Allen, Freddie Mac, PA Consulting, Corporate Executive Board, Capital One, AOL, Kearney, HNS, CoStar, ICF, CGI, and the hosts Beers & Cutler and HPTI. These meetings have always followed a loose agenda with a very open sharing of ideas and best practices. Some highlights included:

Most recruiting organizations are still finding challenges in getting their managers to commit to building a bench, focus their efforts early in the season, and commit to hiring goals.
Hiring college students on F-1 visas is a major challenge for many.
Most companies are using alumni and returning interns for their on-campus recruiting efforts.
One company offered scholarship opportunities to entice students to return the following summer.
Several companies focused on providing Interns with offers before they head back for their Senior year.
The topic of decision dates was interesting. Employers were allowing 1-4 weeks for students to make decisions on offers. What was surprising was that some schools were now requiring a one month offer decision minimum, and others were not allowing companies to extend offers until after December 1.
Some companies were hosting College Days at their sites, ranging from half-day to multi-day events to include a social event/dinner and interviews.
One company was using Yahoo Groups to communicate with students.
AOL was the only company in attendance that was using blogs, MySpace and Facebook in their college recruiting efforts. I was a bit surprised that no one was even considering using these resources, nor taking advantage of other relevant technologies such as Podcasts.

Overall, not much has changed over the years. College recruiting efforts for most everyone in attendance will either remain steady, or grow. Competition is hot, maybe not as hot as the late '90s, but certainly hotter than earlier this decade. There was alot of energy in the room yesterday, alot of sharing, and alot of common issues and concerns. It's always been a great way to kick-off the college recruiting season, so everyone, on your mark, get set...

So, what are the real answers, Ben?

2006-08-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

"So, what are the real answers, Ben?" an anonymous commenter posted here recently. Good question. I certainly don't claim to have "the" real answers, anyone who does claim that is selling you something. There certainly alot of good ideas out there, unfortunately good ideas in our business don't always equate to implemented solutions.

At any rate, it got me thinking, what are some 'answers' to the challenges we face in talent acquisition here in the DC area? What if:

...in the best interest of the future of this region, an Outer Beltway were built, that would include the yet-to-be-built ICC, a northern Potomac River crossing (connecting Potomac, MD and Sterling, VA), the Fairfax County Pkwy, and a southern Potomac River crossing (connecting Ft. Belvoir and Indian Head)? I know that nobody wants this 'in their backyard', but these roads are badly needed to better connect those who live and work outside the Beltway, especially with the BRAC looming ahead.
...the government could once-and-for-all effectively streamline the security clearance process, thus drastically reducing the current backlog and allowing thousands of newly cleared workers to enter the industry?
...more employers offered their employees alternative work options, such as compressed workweeks, telecommuting, remote office space, etc.?
...developers built more mid-priced new homes close into the Beltway, instead of only building luxury $700K-$1M+ single family homes and townhouses?
...the government made it easier for foreign-national students who want to stay and contribute to the workforce once they graduate?
...organizations didn't make it so darn hard for candidates to navigate their employment process.
...organziations were more strategic in buidling pipelines of talent, not just by hiring more college students, but by reaching out to children at a younger age to educate them about careers, as well as taking a more proactive role in supporting the educational missions of our public schools.
...organizations presented their career opportunities more clearly, with more realistic requirements, and were able to more effectively withhold those biases that do not have a true bearing on performance?
...the workforce at large had a better understanding of how to present themselves to potential employers, whether they are active job seekers, or those who just want to be 'tapped-on-the-shoulder' regarding great opportunities?
...the recruiting profession had a higher profile in organizations across the board, leveraging it's expertise to drive process and help build organizations?

Most of these ideas reasonable, but a tall order, and often well out of the control of your everyday corporate recruiter. The issues we face in talent acquisition here are complex in nature and go well beyond just matching job seekers with new jobs. Variables such as traffic and housing prices have profound effects on talent acquisition efforts. Some of those issues that the recruiting profession can have impact on will only be addressed over time as our profession matures and takes on a greater role in building organizations.