Venture Capital in Australia: 10 Things Not to Do When Interviewing (and 4 Bonus...

Venture Capital in Australia: 10 Things Not to Do When Interviewing (and 4 Bonus...: A came across a great article on interviewing today!!! Boy, have I got a lot to learn!!!! by  Herb Greenberg and Patrick Sweeney   ...

Reviewing a LinkedIn premium product: Jobseeker Plus. Is it worth the money?

This week I am reviewing 'Jobseeker plus', a LinkedIn premium product.  I'm working with a real job seeker, new to the market and will be documenting our findings here in my blog during September

I'm hoping it will assist some of my candidates to make the decision whether to invest in a purchase of a LinkedIn product specifically for job seekers; as candidates and contractors more and more are recognising the need to stay relevant on a networking platform to assist them to find new and better opportunities.

If you would like to leave your comments or questions before 14th September 2012 I can further investigate and include in my findings

Thanks
Sarah

Where does it all go wrong when recruiting recruiters?

I've been helping a few recruitment friends look for work and develop in their roles.  Within a few weeks the information I gathered through each one lead me to the conviction in my belief that as an industry, we HR professionals really need to brush up on our own attraction strategies and employee value proposition.  It actually starts with the very first conversations - even before bringing someone in for an interview with your firm.

What's concerning to me before and during this exercise; is the more I interact with other recruiters, I find this industry is literally bursting with people who don't like people.  You would likely all agree there are recruiters around who are just in it for the money and have very low professional standards.  It's a cycle of bad managers shaping consultants and our industry.   I believe we can change the perception of our valuable work if we are willing to accept we need to alter our own recruitment process and appoint people who are in it for the long haul!

Here is what I found to be the main questions recruiters are asked again and again, often by the same people in varying ways from the initial to the final stages of their employment process

• How much do you bill? Or, how many roles do you fill each month?
• How do you deal with difficult clients?
• Tell me how you turned a bad situation into a good one?
• Describe yourself as a manager?
• What is your biggest achievement?

I'm not saying these questions are redundant - they are just easily anticipated and don't necessarily assist you to understand if this person wants a long term career from this amazing profession or just a job where they can earn lots of money...

If I was to employ a recruitment consultant for my team right now, here are the other aspects besides sales ability I would focus on uncovering:

• How much time do you invest in self education or learning more about recruitment?
• What companies do you admire most for how they treat their staff and why?
• Describe what makes you a 'people' person? How do you measure this?
• How do you ensure consistency in your billings / placements?
• What do you know about my business and do you have any observations you would like to mention?
• What would the support staff of your current company have to say about you? What processes do you have in place to ensure you collaborate successfully with them?

If I was to further define the process I would implement a very structured research project around the potential candidates I had in mind for the role. Of course many will say there just isn't enough time in the day and all this work could result in little gain (people ALWAYS say that about sourcing - my answer always is - skip the TV show tonight and put that Boolean search to work!)

On a side note:  I feel very blessed to have met the wonderful people I have in my recruitment career, there are professionals out there who are greatly successful, have long term careers and remain agile as recruiters, but they are different because they happen to remember this is a people business and they have a humility and understanding for talent that others may miss.

Venture Capital in Australia: Ten Reasons Winners Keep Winning, Aside from Skill...

Venture Capital in Australia: Ten Reasons Winners Keep Winning, Aside from Skill...: Ten Reasons Winners Keep Winning, Aside from Skill (Harvard Business Review) by Rosabeth Moss Kanter  |   7:00 AM August 1, 2012 Co...

Boolean strings and why they may not work magically for you

In the last 3 years I have become obsessively interested in social recruiting, and using social media for public relations, talent attraction and certainly passive talent sourcing.  I'm sure that any recruiter in Sydney by now has a 'cheat sheet' on their desk with a reliable and changeable search string right?  It's an unavoidable subject and I so love hearing from rookies to experienced high level professionals on how they were able to snag that deal from a search string...  in fact there have been so many conferences and training sessions offered on search strings and using the Internet for sourcing - and yet - the majority of recruitment consultants I talk to are not very enthusiastic about it!

Here are a few reasons why you may find it worked for you once or twice, but you don't put much stock in it now:

1.  Someone gave you a cheat sheet / quick guide to creating a search string.  You used it and for a while it probably worked well.  But then, LinkedIn changed something, and then google changed something and now all you get is a bunch of junk returns.  (the person in their wisdom probably called it a 'hack')

2.  You used a regular Boolean string with a blueprint of 1 or 2 job titles and the candidates you really want simply refused to just SEO their profiles correctly! @&^%

3.  You didn't use all the space in the search bar.  It got too difficult when you couldn't see the whole string right?  How were you supposed to know what you had typed?

4.  You don't record and track your efforts.  By the way how do you cope with coming up with a gem string that returned awesome results but then you forgot it?  I did that... once.

5.  You are a great sales person and you just don't have the time to chase rabbits down holes if it isn't apparent you can place those rabbits (this isn't a bad thing - but it's probably the main reason why you don't get excited by internet sourcing)

This is just my opinion, but the sourcing function is not something you can expect people to multi-task with.  It's great that every decent recruiter knows how to put a search string into a semblance of practice, but in order for your business to develop talent pipe-lining effectively to cope with this changing world of talent and work, you must develop someone with recruitment experience who has high attention to detail, and is obsessive about process and organisation.  The person you choose should show a pro-active interest in investigative techniques.  This is more than likely not the highest biller / best sales person in your team, although it could be - and you will need to change the remuneration structure for this person.  I have tried some really successful strategies on this but needed to think very creatively to get there

On a side note - this youtube link will take you to a thought provoking session from a TED talk a few years ago with Sir Ken Robinson.  It's awesome and a good investment of your time on the trip home from a dull day at work... not sure about you but as someone with no tertiary qualification YET I am working my way through the part-time open education system and it can be stifling - especially around all things Social Media! Anyway, as always I appreciate your thoughts...Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kills creativity?

Free technical CV template

One of the most frequent requests I get from contractors I manage, and candidates in all fields is:  "is my CV ok?"

Here is a blended template I have put together from my experience and talks with clients and candidates alike.  See how you go and let me know what you think!

Cheers

Technical format CV

List your strengths by placing emphasis on your skills, experience and abilities at the top, and following that a chronological list of experience, as in this sample CV.

Technical format resumes are best for candidates who have technical job roles, if you are changing careers / industries, candidates returning to the workforce or graduates with limited work experience.  

---

Name Lastname
Address:	Suburb State Postcode
Mobile phone:	Mobile Number

Email address:                               Personal email address

Job title sought

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam gravida felis in nibh porta scelerisque. Pellentesque eu ante a nibh vehicula scelerisque. Phasellus nec dolor sit amet turpis mattis lacinia

Skill

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam gravida felis in nibh porta scelerisque. Pellentesque eu ante a nibh vehicula scelerisque. Phasellus nec dolor sit amet turpis mattis lacinia.

Skill
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam gravida felis in nibh porta scelerisque. Pellentesque eu ante a nibh vehicula scelerisque. Phasellus nec dolor sit amet turpis mattis lacinia. Praesent tellus mi, dignissim quis euismod non, condimentum a libero. Phasellus mollis massa ac est fringilla iaculis. Integer a lorem a diam cursus imperdiet ut sit amet lorem..

Skill

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam gravida felis in nibh porta scelerisque. Pellentesque eu ante a nibh vehicula scelerisque.

Employment History

Date:	Month year - present
Company:	Company Name
Title:	Job Title
Duties / Details:	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam gravida felis in nibh porta scelerisque. Pellentesque eu ante a nibh vehicula scelerisque. Phasellus nec dolor sit amet turpis mattis lacinia. Praesent tellus mi, dignissim quis euismod non, condimentum a libero.
Date:	Month year – month year
Company:	Company Name
Title:	Job Title
Duties / Details:	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam gravida felis in nibh porta scelerisque. Pellentesque eu ante a nibh vehicula scelerisque. Phasellus nec dolor sit amet turpis mattis lacinia. Praesent tellus mi, dignissim quis euismod non, condimentum a libero.

Education

Institution, Qualification attained, year graduated

Referees

Available on request

---

Presentation do's and don'ts

Do:

·         Use a standard, easily read and professional font – use the same font throughout.

·         Proof-read spelling and grammar, use spellcheck and ask a friend to read through it 

·         Include links to your publicly available professional profiles such as Linkedin or Google+

Don't:

·         Use non-standard fonts or lines of italic / underlined or bold fonts.

·         Use pictures / photos or images.

·         Save and submit as PDF by default

What is Headhunting?

Have you often been told by recruitment consultants that they are 'headhunting' for a particular role?  In fact on Linkedin you will find that about 1 out of 2 recruiters will mention Headhunting on their profile... as a skill or something that they regularly do

The free online dictionary says:

1. The custom of cutting off and preserving the heads of enemies as trophies. ( As much as what I believe I would like to do this sometimes, I don't mean this one)

2. Slang The process of attempting to remove influence and power from enemies, especially political enemies. (Don't get too excited - this sounds more interesting than it is)

3. Informal

a. The business of recruiting personnel, especially executive personnel, as for a corporation. ( I mean this one - but only the middle part)

b. The act or an instance of such recruiting. (Nah that's not it either)

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/headhunting

When you're interviewing a candidate and you ask why they left their job in a previous employer; and you get this answer 'I was headhunted'.  Please let them know that unless they changed careers and went from CEO to software developer ( it is possible) this recruiting process did not happen to them.

Our job as recruiters is often partly an education role and many recruiters believe that headhunting is the process of identifying a candidate, and then approaching them.  This process is actually called sourcing (or, just doing our jobs right?)  There are many interchangeable synonyms used in the industry for sourcing, but headhunting is not one of them.

Headhunting is the process of gaining a recquisition from a client to identify, approach and negotiate exit contracts with C-level executives in order for them to join your client.  It's often a more complicated public relations nightmare than it sounds.  To be involved in even just one of these arrangements in your recruitment career will create utter admiration and respect for the professionals who undertake this as their main source of business.  It is a lengthy process that takes many months and is always an exclusively retained service by the client.

So whilst it's great to see that recruiters with less than 6 months experience in the industry know the following terminology like 'headhunting' 'extensive experience' and 'executive recruitment' they do not understand what these words really mean and are not furthering our cause to be regarded as professionals. 

Next time you hear this expression being used loosely, please take the young person by the ear and tell them how important it is in a people industry - to listen and act professionally

Thats my rant for the day - what's your view?

Where to start differential sourcing for top talent in 2012

Hi guys, welcome to 2012! Now back at the wheel I have a few observations about how candidate sourcing will be this year and a little more energy to express my thoughts.

I have heard it said that if 2011 was the year of social recruiting, then 2012 is the year of mobile recruiting. I do agree but to clarify - we will still be working in offices' recruiters! NOT at the beach contrary to what candidates may think! It would be great if there was a one-size-fits-all solution to our sourcing woes but good recruiting is still a mix of new and old technology, extrovert and introverted behaviour.  Candidates will be hanging out a little more in the online world and so it may be marginally easier to reach them or understand them, but essentially us resourcers are going to have to get quicker at how we approach these candidates online; and we will need to be more intelligent about it. 
Every recruitment firm has access to a LinkedIn account of sorts, as do corporate inhouse recruiters. LinkedIn is starting to feel like a bunfight - you know what I mean, approach a candidate just to find out they have been approached many many times and they are just about to sign their offer letter for a new role... 
It doesnt take much forethought, or even analytics to reach out and engage these passive candidates sitting there with all their employment history conveniently formatted into a CV style layout commonly accepted by managers everywhere as a great 'networking' tool.  (Seriously I would like see a statistic of how many people actually network on LinkedIn other than to find new jobs or further their job prospects through career recognition)

We know it.  They know it. They are there to be found!

So back to where to start sourcing for the best talent around? I think the key success factors are;

Do's

1. Use your area of interest, learn about it and contribute to specific communities - get this - without expecting anything back
2. Establish what online hangouts the candidates in your specialised area commonly use and join them.
3. Blog in your specialisation area (very few recruiters do this)
4. Have a message and stand for it(I only recruit for companies who care about ____?)
5. Fully invest in the sites and platforms you choose, invest in them everyday
6. Choose a site where you aim to only find candidates for pipeline roles NOT active roles.  This will push you to develop hot lists and farm passive talent pools so you will know long before other recruiters when these candidates are looking

Don'ts

1. Don't forget your brand and please don't ignore applicants to adverts
2. Don't rely on one site or a single medium to reach out to passive candidates
3. Don't do what everyone else is doing! Follow your own path
4. Don't think LinkedIn or Facebook are going anywhere.  They are still your best bets at finding candidates for active roles

This kind of sourcing and recruitment requires a long term outlook and high effort.  It pays off, not immediately in sales but it will in compliments.  You can develop yourself as a subject matter expert and build your profile in the industry.  Over time it will result in job satisfaction, commission satisfaction and your boss will love you.  Well, hopefully your boss will love you...

Blue skies!