The Recruiting Animal

Idiot Says No Halloween

It's another example of US terror. Here

Animal Show Wed NOON Eastern Time

Guests:

Noon: Geoff Webb, contract recruiter,
tells us about his job hunt

12:30: The Telephone Sourcing Show,
Call in with your sourcing questions
Featuring Maureen Sharib & Pam Simon

Call in & Listening info here

John Sullivan on Google

A great interview by RecruitingFly (animalized).

Sully: If you're targeting the average person, the average stories excite them but innovators or top performers already have a job and are being treated very well so it takes something startling to excite them.

Holding a contest or putting a billboard on the side of the road or using video games is powerful virally. Word spreads through the blogs that something is happening at that company and that gives you the opportunity to sell your jobs.

Google is the poster child of innovative recruiting. They are amazing. No one has every been like them. In their SEC filing to the government it says that the primary thing that will keep them growing is the recruiting and development and retention of their employees. They have said, in a legal document, we know what makes us good.

And they're right down the road from Yahoo which is a wonderful company but one is kicking butt and one is struggling because of their approach to recruiting.

Their training isn't very good and their development programs are miniscule. They hire people who think outside the box who are totally excited and then they say "Let's not screw it up."

There is no place that gives you so much creative freedom and resources. Every other place tells you what to do every minute of every hour. Every other place takes months to make decisions. At Google it's "I have an idea, let's go with it. Let's not have 42 committees. Let's make a decision in five days. "

Chris: Do other companies say "Yeah but we don't have Google money to do that."

Sully: Google started with $500 dollars. It's a dull product, an online Yellow Pages. But they have excited people. And they have turned it into a recruiting machine.

I would urge people to copy them and they don't keep what they do a secret. You can find it online.

Chris: I've always felt that recruiting is all about marketing and that HR should hire more marketing people than recruiting people.

Sully: I'm not going to hire anybody with an HR background. Sales is what this is all about. You are telling people to change their lives. To leave a perfectly good company and go to another one. And branding is critical. Google has a number one product band and I would argue the number one employment brand, as well. I don't know where they get their recruiters but they understand the talent pipeline and sales and marketing and brandiing.

Don't Ask Inappropriate Questions

Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes was, apparently, informed in advance that Nick Sarkozy, the president of France, would not answer questions about his personal life but she felt compelled to ask persistent questions all the same. The result: Sarko shook her hand, patted her on the shoulder and walked out.

Common Interview Questions

Here's a list via Lifehack.org

How To Archive Email Automatically

Set up your email to forward every email you send or receive to a Gmail account.

You do it in Outlook Express by creating a rule. Tools > Message Rules > Mail. If I could do it, it's easy. Or just press Help > Index and enter "rules".

Problem: All of your junk mail, and I have plenty, also gets forwarded.

Solution: Chuck sez: don't worry about your junk email going to Gmail since you'll be accessing the stuff you need using Gmail's search function which will wade through it quickly.

From: I Hate Your Job. Here's another from The Chuckster with a gimmick that makes it hilarious.

Craig Silverman On Networking Events

I like to go alone.

Animal: Now, Craig, imagine that you're by yourself at a networking event where you don't know anybody at all. What do you do?

Craig Silverman: I love going places where I don't know anybody. I moved three times in the second grade so I had to learn how to make friends. What most people do at networking events is they walk in and approach people and start going on and on about themselves and their business.

What I try to do in a situation in which I don't know anybody is get to know people. So, I'll go in and ask a lot of questions. And I'll listen and if there's a group of people talking about a conference that they went to, I'll ask them how did they like the conference. Who did they see there who was a great speaker. What do they feel they brought home from the conference. Would they go to the conference again. What did they think of the city that it was in. What activities did they do.

I'm genuinely interested. I'm kind of an archeologist at heart. I like to uncover information and learn from it.

Animal: But, Craig, a successful conversation is not a one-way street. That's more like an interrogation.

Sales-people Have A Conflict Orientation

Super-Salesman Silverman Speaks.

Animal: Now, Craig, yesterday when we were having our chummy conversation, you said, that when you teach adults you try to get them to remember what it was like to be a kid because kids refuse to take no for an answer.

What you're saying is that a real salesperson has a conflict-oriented view of the world. And I want you to know that I agree. After all, isn't one of the most profound maxims in selling: "The sale begins when the customer says no."?

That speaks volumes about what the sales person is thinking. She goes to work in the morning looking for a fight. Not a mean fight. But, all the same she's ready to rumble. Isn't that true, Craig?

Craig Silverman: Yeah, we could hire the Girl Scouts if we were just going to make calls and everybody is goes, "Yeah, send me three" and there's no sales talk involved. Good salespeople have to meet "No's" and objections and see them as potential buying signals and get excited by the thrill of the hunt.

Animal: The hunt. They go out to fight with people. They are different than the average guy. Isn't that true?

Craig: It really is. Top sales people are often the number one earning people in the company and it's because that job is really hard.

So what happens is, Animal, people want to be in a high earning sales role but the truth is that getting into the heat of the battle for most people is a nauseating experience. I have seen people get physically ill from getting into a sales chair and trying to either cold call or convince somebody to do something. So, it does take a special breed and part of that is baked into you. It's in the genes.

Mr Workfarce's Halloween

Don't mess with the creepy guy.

Worst Halloween Houses in the Neighborhood…

The House with the note that says “Please Take One”
Maybe half dozen eggs pelted across their bay window will teach them a lesson.

The House With Foreigners
who don’t quite get it and hand out full sized Snickers and Hershey bars. These people were a godsend.

Note: Workfarce's own haunted site is not for the delicate and faint of heart. Don't go there if you have a condition.

Cute Little Search Cloud

Here's a search cloud that highlights terms related to the one you choose.