Recruiters Have Careers Too
You spend all day, every day helping others advance their career. Now’s the time to take care of yourself, as well.
How? Visit CareerFitness.com. Take the site’s free Career Fitness Evaluation and then sign up for its one-of-a-kind program for career success. You (and your career) deserve it!
Beware Madison Avenue Group Think
The advertising mavens of Madison Avenue carefully track the habits and preferences of Gen Y. They watch how that group reacts to new consumer products and which brands it considers hot. Historically, they have found that a population’s youngest generation acts like a canary in a mine; it reflects a change in the environment long before that change is apparent to the rest of us. So, peering over the shoulder of Gen Y helps the ad experts shape the marketing and sales campaigns they create for their clients.
What does that have to do with recruiting?
As reliable as this group think approach may be for identifying the potential popularity of a new PDA or the cachet of open-toed shoes, it’s totally worthless when it comes to figuring out how best to sell to “A” level performers. Convincing a person to open their wallet to buy this gadget or that fashion item is not the same as selling a talented worker on an organization’s value proposition as an employer.
Why is that so? Because consumers act like herd animals; they follow trends in their purchasing decisions. Not everyone, of course, fixates on the fads, but enough people do to form a very, very large target for advertising. Top performers, on the other hand, are a subset of the general population, and some would say that it’s a distressing small one. They are alike, but what they share is a commitment to individual improvement and advancement.
You may be able to make assumptions about buyers in general by watching young early adopters, but you can’t divine what will turn on top talent by watching a segment of the population defined by age. There are “A” level performers and “C” level performers in each generation of the workforce, and those groups-defined as they are by talent-are very different from one another. So, if you are trying to reach “A” level prospects, don’t follow the footsteps of Gen Y workers, follow those of “A” level performers.
How do you figure out where those footprints are leading?
First, stick your fingers in your ears.
Stop listening to the media and the pundocracy. Just because the blogosphere and the evening news are all atwitter with micro-blogging doesn’t mean it will connect you with the high performing talent you need. Just because our current conference presenters link recruiting success to social and professional networking sites doesn’t mean those sites will put you in touch with the high caliber prospects your organization wants to hire. In most cases, this commentary provides a lot of information about what the technology can do and precious little proof that it adds any real value to your job as a recruiter.
Second, pull your fingers out of your ears.
Listen to the subset of your very own workforce that can steer you in the right direction. Pull together a focus group of your organization’s “A” level talent in each of the career fields for which you recruit and ask them three questions:
This last question is, of course, flies in the face of our profession’s very own version of consumer-like herd behavior. Right now, recruiters are apoplectic with fascination over Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook. We have been convinced that these technologies are the wave of the future in recruiting because Gen Y (and a growing number of Gen X and Baby Boomers) have adopted them. And, they may turn out to be just that. But it won’t be because the early adopters (or the experts) say so. It will be because the “A” level talent in the workforce decides to use them.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Follow me on Twitter @PeterWeddle
P.S. Please tell your friends and colleagues about WEDDLE’s Newsletter. They’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness, and so will we.
Protect Yourself: Get Work Strong Today!
Protect Yourself: Get Work Strong Today!
This issue of WEDDLE’s newsletter is brought to you through the generous support of Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System, Peter Weddle’s new book on conditioning your career for sustainable success.
Designed specifically for the challenging workplace of the 21st Century:
Work Strong not only tells you what to do for career success, but when, where and how to do it.
In today’s world of work, you have only two choices: you can be the master of your career or you can be its victim. Get the tools you need to take charge of the one-third or more of your life you spend at work. Get Work Strong today! You’ll increase the paycheck and the satisfaction you bring home from work!
And, don’t forget about others. Get Work Strong for yourself and for your spouse, your sons or daughters and even for your mother and father. Everyone deserves to Work Strong.
To place your order, call WEDDLE’s at 317.598.9768 or click here. Don’t delay. Get Work Strong right away!
WEDDLE’s News You Can Use
Don’t Let the Recession Ruin Your Recruiting Skills
WEDDLE’s is pleased to announce the schedule for its 2009 Spring/Summer Training Series. These programs are audio-based. You get the PowerPoint slides for each program in advance, and on the day of the training, you simply call a toll-free number and have the presentation delivered right to you.
No less important, all of the programs are presented by WEDDLE’s Publisher, Peter Weddle, one of the most highly rated trainers in our industry. In addition, they draw on WEDDLE’s 12+ years of research into the Best Practices for sourcing and recruiting online.
The Spring/Summer 2009 series is listed below:
These are great learning opportunities presented by one of our industry’s most highly rated trainers. In addition, you can’t beat the price; it’s unbelievably inexpensive for individual training that is jam packed with both state-of-the-art techniques and recruiting wisdom.
Registrations are limited, so reserve your seats now. Call WEDDLE’s at 317.598.9768 today. Please note that sessions are not recorded and reservations are final and binding.
Even Super Search Strings Won’t Work With the Wrong Keywords
How can you tell search engines and computers what kind of candidate you’re looking for? Use Finding Needles in a Haystack. Just released by WEDDLE’s, it’s the first comprehensive listing of keywords for successfully searching resume databases online and off.
The book provides tens of thousands of search terms and phrases for the:
If you’re not getting the yield you need from job board resume databases, data mining or even your own resume management system, this is the reference book for you. In fact, sourcing guru Shally Steckerl described this book as “A rare and uniquely useful reference guide for recruiters!” It doesn’t get any better than that!
To order your copy, please call WEDDLE’s at 317.598.9768 or click here. Get Finding Needles in a Haystack today!
Our Featured Job Board
Site Spotlite … from the pages of WEDDLE’s 2009/10 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet.
There are 50,000 job boards now in operation in North America and an equal number operating elsewhere around the world. The key to recruiting top talent online, therefore, is knowing where to find and how to select the best sites for each of your requirements. WEDDLE’s 2009/10 Guide profiles The Top 100 employment sites on the Web today and provides The Best & the Rest, a listing of over 10,000 such sites worldwide. It’s all of the information you need to determine which job boards will deliver the optimum yield for you. For example:
Actuary.com
Post full time jobs: Yes
Post part time, contract or consulting jobs: Yes-All
Distribution of jobs: International
Fee to post a job: $201-250/posting
Posting period: 60 days
Can posting be linked to your site: Yes
Resume database: Yes
Number of resumes: 4,000
Source of resumes: Direct from individuals
Top occupations among visitors: Actuarial, Insurance, Mathematics, Statistics
Other services for employers: Discussion forum for networking, Assessment instruments, Automated resume agent, Banner advertising, Status Reports: postings
Member, International Association of Employment Web Sites: Yes
Protect Yourself: Get Work Strong Today!
This issue of WEDDLE’s newsletter is brought to you through the generous support of Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System, Peter Weddle’s new book on conditioning your career for sustainable success.
Designed specifically for the challenging workplace of the 21st Century:
Work Strong not only tells you what to do for career success, but when, where and how to do it.
In today’s world of work, you have only two choices: you can be the master of your career or you can be its victim. Get the tools you need to take charge of the one-third or more of your life you spend at work. Get Work Strong today! You’ll increase the paycheck and the satisfaction you bring home from work!
And, don’t forget about others. Get Work Strong for yourself and for your spouse, your sons or daughters and even for your mother and father. Everyone deserves to Work Strong.
To place your order, call WEDDLE’s at 317.598.9768 or click here. Don’t delay. Get Work Strong right away!