Recruiting Animal

Jacob Madsen, Recruiter

On November 4, 2015, Jacob Sten Madsen was the guest on The Recruiting Animal Show.

We spent half of The Recruiting Animal Show talking about how to turn down a candidate who has lost out on a job with compassion.

The featured guest, Jacob Madsen was joined in the discussion by Amy Miller and Michael Cox. Amy had just written a long article about it.

Here is a bit of that article (edited):

"Often, candidate reactions are irrational. When a candidate is told that he's not getting an offer it can feel like his career is OVER because he's come to see it in the context of that dream job or dream company. The recruiter can see that this isn’t true but, in the moment, for the candidate, losing out on a dream job can feel like a nightmare."

Unfortunately, we had sound problems. Jacob was calling from England and soon after he signed on his connection started creating echoes whenever anyone else spoke. As a result, half the show had to be deleted.

Jerry was hunting in South Dakota. Maureen Sharib rode shotgun in his stead.

NOTE: To copy a file right click on the player, then click on Copy Link Location.

Due to a flaw in Chrome, it sometimes cuts out of audio files before they are finished. All you can do then is download the clip or switch to another browser

Animal - Essential Traits of a Recruiter 3:30 min

Maureen Sharib - Praying For Jobs - 1:25 min

Jacob Madsen - Washing Dishes During Interview

Madsen, Miller, Cox - Turning off a Losing Candidate - 20 min

Madsen, Miller - Compassionate Recruiting - 1:45 min

Jacob Madsen - How I Reject a Candidate - 2:15 min

Mike Cox - How I Reject Candidates 1:15 min

Cox, Miller - When Rejected Candidates Get Upset - 3 min

Madsen, Miller - Recruiters Don't Give Much Feedback 2:45 min

Amy Miller - How I Reject Candidates 1:30 min

Madsen, Miller - Rejection Role Play 3 min

Full Show - Jacob Madsen 15 11 04 - 30 min

Turning Down a Losing Candidate

On November 4, 2015 we spent half of The Recruiting Animal Show talking about how to turn down a candidate who has lost out on a job with compassion.

The featured guest, Jacob Madsen was joined in the discussion by Amy Miller and Michael Cox. Amy had just written a long article about it.

Here is a bit of that article (edited):

"Often, candidate reactions are irrational. When a candidate is told that he's not getting an offer it can feel like his career is OVER because he's come to see it in the context of that dream job or dream company. The recruiter can see that this isn’t true but, in the moment, for the candidate, losing out on a dream job can feel like a nightmare."

Madsen, Miller, Cox - Turning off a Losing Candidate - 20 min

Madsen, Miller - Compassionate Recruiting - 1:45 min

Long-Term Recruiting Conversations

Source: Rachel Saunders interviewed by J.T. O'Donnell (edited)

To get the best people, a recruiter has to start lots of dialogs and earn the trust and respect of the talent she wants to hire.

The process can take months but ensures the candidate takes the new job with enthusiasm.

There was a software developer we were very interested in.

One of our recruiters is a nerd who reads blogs that discuss the cutting-edge projects being worked on at various companies. He saw that this programmer was involved in a technology we were using and contacted to her to hear what she thought of the technology and learn more about her projects.

She wasn’t considering a move but the recruiter stayed in touch with her by email for two months, exchanging articles and insights.

Eventually, he invited her to tour our facilities to see what we were working on.

Several months later, she called him and said it was time for her to find a new role because she wanted to work on projects she cared about and had recalled the ones she saw during the tour.

She was hired shortly after. It’s that kind of nurturing that helps us find and hire the top talent with the best superpowers.

https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2015/04/personalized-outreach-yahoos-secret-to-talent-acquisition-success

Matt Charney, The King of Content Marketing

On August 5, 2015, Matt Charney was the guest on The Recruiting Animal Show.

It got off to a bad start. I was ready to call in on Skype when I discovered that BlogTalkRadio doesn't offer a direct connection via Skype anymore. You have to use their DirectConnect service.

It hadn't been that good in the past but maybe it improved so I was ready to use it but the site told me that I should switch to Firefox or Chrome if I wanted a good sound.

Now, I use the Pale Moon browser which is Firefox tweaked for Windows but I thought that maybe it wouldn't be recognized as Firefox so I opened a new browser and logged in there without logging out on Pale Moon.

Unfortunately, DirectConnect wouldn't let me in. It kept processing me and processing me until I gave up and tried to call in to the host phone number using Skype. But I kept getting a busy signal.

I was a bit frantic by then because BlogTalkRadio was telling me that the show had already started so I called in on the phone but maybe it hadn't started. I don't know. Anyway, I didn't have time to review my intro before the show started so it might seem a bit stilted. It's about building rapport with candidates and clients based on this article by Scott Morefield in StaffingTalk.

That's not the end the technical problems, of course. Matt Charney apparently tried to connect via Skype as well and when he couldn't he decided to call in on his mobile phone and his sound was really, really bad. I wasn't the only one complaining this time; others did too so you know it was true. I had to go over the recording after the show and amplify every single thing he said. The sound's not great but at least, now, you can hear him. Jim Durbin had a bad connection, too, so I amplified everything he said, as well.

Enough, you're saying; why do I have to hear about this stuff? Well, let me tell you, when you can't hear what the other guy is saying it affects the conversation. Even if you can kind of hear him, your mind is focused on making out what he says instead of being free to think about what he's saying.

Now, to the subject. I planned the show around Matt's ebook about content marketing. It's a free 35 page pdf and I thought it was pretty good. One of our longest conversations was about sending candidates content at every stage of the hiring process. I thought from what he said in the book that there was more to it than there is.

The thing I found most interesting was Matt's announcement that Glassdoor is spending millions on Google keywords. He also told us about a new job description tool called Textio.com.

Matt referred people to Hubspot's resource library to get information about Inbound Marketing. He said that the process has already been perfected and adapts perfectly to the ongoing supply of information to candidates during the hiring process. Matty also wrote a little ebook on Inbound Marketing himself.

I saw after the show that Derek Zeller had been complaining throughout that I would not unmute him but, in fact, I opened every line that called in and, somehow, Jim Durbin, Alejandro Guzman Acha, Michael Cox and Alan Fluhrer managed to get through. I think Derek was just eager to plug his masterpiece posting which Matty referred to. You can find it here. 

With all of those things going wrong, the show was a bit of a mess. Plus, Matt hinted that I waste a lot of time with my monologue and the singing and banter at the start of the show. So, I've solved that problem. I managed to extract a fair number of clips from the wreck and you can access each one individually here.

Animal Intro - Building Rapport - 3:30 min

Animal expresses concern - 10 sec

Matt Charney - Recruiters Are Dumb - 40 sec

Animal complains about sound - 6 sec

Matt Charney - The Source of My Snark - 1 min

Matt Charney - What is Content Marketing - 1:45 min

Matt Charney - The Power of Content Marketing - 1 min

Matt Charney - Do people hate you - 1 min

Matt Charney - Boolean Strings - 1 min

Matt Charney - Numbered List Blog Titles - 20 sec

Jim Durbin - Numbered List Blog Titles - 45 sec

Matt Charney - High Quality Content - 1:45 min

Matt Charney - Deliver Content Throughout The Hiring Process - 7:30 min

Matt Charney - Best Conference Tweeter - 30 sec

Matt Charney - Textio - 1:25 min

Matt Charney - Using Fear as a Hook - 45 sec

Matt Charney - Getting Referrals - 4:30 min

Matt Charney - Candidate Satisfaction vs Experience - 1 min

Matt Charney - Video - 1:45 min

Matt Charney and Animal Tussle - 25 sec

Matt Charney - Job Tweets - 30 sec

Matt Charney - Automated Tweets - 15 sec

Matt Charney - Linkedin Pulse - 1:45 min

Matt Charney - Job Descriptions - 2:20 min

Matt Charney - Glassdoor - 1:25 min

Matt Charney - Full Show - 60 min

 

 

 

 

 

Corporate Recruiting Should Be More Like Marketing

From: Daniel Chait (edited)

When you look at people in marketing, you see that they experiment.

They buy a bunch adwords. They bid on them down to the penny.  They track results and double down on the ones that are working.

You A/B test your headlines. You get hubspot to test your landing pages and see which ones convert.

You experiment and then the things that work you do more of.

But when is the last time you heard of someone A/B testing a campaign for a job ad? Or measuring their agencies or their referral programs?

We want to bring more of that automated marketing mentality to recruiting.

 

 

A Software Solution For A Bad Hiring Process

Daniel Chait told Jeremy Roberts that most companies do a poor job at hiring.

Proven best practices have existed for decades. There are hundreds of books, newsletters and articles that explain them. But most companies don't follow them.

Chait's partner, Jon Stross, told William Tincup that there might be good recruiters inside a company but that makes no difference.

The bad habits are so entrenched that they can't get the staff they are working with to do the right things.

People come into interviews clueless and do such a lousy job at screening that good candidates wouldn't want to work there even if they got a offer.

Then they don't report their post-interview opinions promptly.

To solve this problem, Chait and Stross, who have a lot of experience in hiring, created an ATS that is more than an ATS.

It spoon-feeds managers with all the info they need to do the right thing all the way through the hiring process.

And, if the people who need help resist it, the software compares their results to people who are doing things right.

This public exposure will be a lever that frustrated corporate recruiters can use to launch a revolution in hiring in backward companies

Hiring is handled so poorly in most companies that it doesn't take much to stand out. "If you move candidates through the process quickly and give them a good idea why they'd want to work with you, you are differentiating yourself," Stross claims.

Jeremy
http://www.sourcecon.com/…/startup-spotlight-a-conversatio…/

William
http://t.co/PcoYr99BUd

ROB MCINTOSH ON SOCIAL RECRUITING

Source: http://tinyurl.com/kmag5op (edited)

Rob McIntosh, SVP Global Talent Acquisition at Avanade, has invested heavily in building large talent communities.

Robbie says it's easy to find talent now with all the info online.

So it's more important for recruiters to develop "proactive and sustainable relationships with talent" (barf words) instead of finding people.

I measure a recruiter's performance on her ability to build talent communities -- says this cosmopolitan transplant who refuses to get rid of his (now phony) Australian accent.

......................................

A SMART RECRUITER HAS TO BE ABLE TO:

1. target the right people

2. create the right content.

3. Send them the right number of communications

......................................
Here's how he puts it exactly.

"Effective use of content and quality and frequency of communications with targeted, highly passive talent over time will be a key measure of recruiters’ ability to nurture talent community relationships in advance of future hiring demand".

(After reading this "sentence" I'm almost ashamed to say that I consider him a friend but I guess that's why he's an SVP and I'm not).

The old stuff still counts says Robbie but now "talent relationship management" via Social Tools "will win the recruiting game.”

......................................

MESSAGING HAS TO BE:

1. directed to a very specific group of people (targeted)

2. permission-based (requested with an unsubscribe option)

3. the content can't be general. It has to be "segmented", meaning relevant to them alone.

......................................

In 2012, half of Avanade’s North American hires came from relationships with passive candidates established six months earlier.

Lots of people were hired from his talent community says Robbie and some relationships were started a year or more before the hire.

You have to have a long term relationship to get people to listen to you, he says.

And measuring the strength of your relationship with candidates in your talent community is very important.

Why Employee Referral Programs Fail

From: Jason Webster

Employees may not have good content to share about your jobs. I've sat with several companies in San Francisco that use Jobvite's Publisher program. I am hearing that it is a struggle to get employees to promote it on their social profiles. It is a struggle in the order of employees only using it an average of 10% of the time based on what I am hearing.

Why is it that you cannot get people to use it? Look at your Linkedin news feed, and click on a shared job through Jobvite, Bullhorn, or the like. You will most likely see an uninspiring paragraph about the job that was written 6 months ago. Now ask yourself, how often would I be hitting my entire Linkedin or Facebook friend list with a message like that? Not often.

My point is that content matters. Give your team something fun and inspiring to share. Give them something that people will actually "like" on Facebook, and shows off the job. Include pictures, sound, videos, or anything that will visualize what it is like to work at a company.

Companies and their recruiters are using all types of tools to connect with candidates and show off a cool careers page. Many are then falling well short of asking employees to share relevant and engaging content with their networks. Change the status quo, syntax-laden job share and you will begin to delight candidates and inspire sharing!

 

 

Social Media Flipped Recruiting On Its Head

Source: The comment section of SocialHire.com

A conversation between The Recruiting Animal and Tony Restell

ANIMAL:

If you have a job the candidate wants she still has to please you. What's changed?

TONY:

In the old days, most candidates had no scope to interact with a recruiter or the employer prior to applying for a job.

Today, interactions via social networking have opened the door for candidates to have insights into companies - and to have formed opinions based on discussions with employees and recruiters - before a job has even been advertised or a call put into a candidate by a recruiter.

The candidate has always had to please the recruiter, as you state. But today the recruiter / employer must also make far more effort to please the candidate.

ANIMAL:

You said: The candidate has to please the recruiter. But you're also saying that the employer now has to please the candidate -- whereas they didn't before. And I don't understand that.

TONY:

Well in the old world a candidate would see a job advertised on a company website (or a job board). They would probably not have interaction with that company before submitting an application - and those candidates who did call up wanting to talk to someone at the company would usually be greeted with a flat "everything has to go through our careers site, please apply online".

If they didn't like the way they were treated or the lack of personal engagement there wasn't much they could do about it other than choose not to apply.

Recruiters held all the cards - they had the jobs the candidates wanted, so the candidates had to dance to the recruiters' tune.

Fast forward to today. A candidate seeing a job listing can ask questions of employees who aren't even involved in the hiring process.

They can publicly send messages off to the recruiters - and the responses they receive back influence not just the perceptions of that one candidate, but of every candidate who sees them (or subsequently comes across them when doing an online search).

They can ask questions in discussion groups and there will now be an expectation that recruiters will make an effort to respond to these.

So yes, the employer has to go to greater lengths now to win candidates over - but the flip side of this is that there's now a window of opportunity for companies to be the best at doing this and so win over candidates who in the old days might not have been persuaded to apply by the job advert alone.

ANIMAL:

Well, was that title just for effect? "Social media has flipped recruiting on its head and handed the power to candidates."

It doesn't sound like it. Yes, they can get more information about the company and this might allow them to put one firm at the top of their preferred lists and others at the bottom.

But unless they are extraordinary or hard to find, they still have to please the recruiter and hiring manager. The same as before.  You're over-stating your case by a mile.

Let me add something as well. Vault.com has always been known for offering the inside dope on what it is like to work for a particular company.

Glassdoor has tried to do the same thing. In theory it sounds good but I don't know how useful they are at this point because I rarely, if ever, see stories from people who have used it.

The same is true about approaching strangers for insider information via Linkedin. You'll hear the odd anecdote but I haven't seen a vast array of blog postings or articles giving us the blow by blow as to how this is being done by thousands and millions of people.

Do people inside a company want to offer information to a stranger? I would be wary.

TONY:

Well my comments should probably be caveated by saying that I work in markets where candidates are typically in short supply and where the right candidates tend to attract multiple offers.

So any companies falling short in terms of candidate experience and engagement could face big hiring challenges.

It's also my experience that candidates tend to have a strong desire to join only a handful of companies in any one industry - ie that's the extent of their knowledge about who they aspire to joining.

When they decide to change jobs, they'll often cast the net wider. All the other companies not on the "most desirable employers" list have everything to play for - and so differences in how candidates are treated can have a potentially significant impact.

The reality is that we will probably only know whether the above is overstating things or not when the hiring market has picked up further. All the while the economy is stuttering, candidates in the majority of industries can't be too picky.

But as talent shortages become more and more of a widespread issue, differences in how candidates are treated - and in perceptions of how candidates are being treated and engaged with - could have a big impact. In this respect there has been a significant power shift in the recruiting industry IMHO

ANIMAL:

Okay, so in theory: Social media gives the candidates more info about the market. That forces companies to offer at least as much as their competitors to get the people they want.  And that changes everything.

TONY:

That's a nice summary. I'd just add that what candidates are getting is not just more info about the market - but first hand insights from interacting with a company and its staff... and at present there's a gulf forming between companies who are getting these touchpoints right and those who are yet to get fully on board with social engagement.

A Talent-On-Demand Program

1. Companies should use internal development programs to produce most of the talent they need.

2. Forecasts of talent needs may be inflated. So don't spend tons of money putting all candidates through a massive management training program. Use narrowly focused trainings for relevant groups of employees.

3. Get more return on your training by sharing the cost with employees.

4. Give the people you train a reason to stay with the firm.

Source: Harvard Business Online