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You are here: Home / Archives for Candidate Experience

3 Reasons Why the Power is in the Talent's Hands

May 6, 2015 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

By J.T. O’Donnell

Time-to-fill rates have reached a 13-year high, yet hiring managers still have the same expectations and wonder why talent isn’t rushing through the doors. The joys of recruiting, right? If you’re feeling like you’re being asked to find purple squirrels, you’re not alone. In fact, any savvy recruiter is probably experiencing this. Why? We’re facing a power shift in hiring. The new employment ecosystem now places the power firmly in the hands of talent, making the job for recruiters more challenging. Here’s the good news: there are many ways we can balance out this shift and reignite our love for recruiting. However, that starts by understanding the specific reasons why the power has shifted.

3 Reasons Why the Power is in the Talent’s Hands

The Hourglass Workforce

You’ve likely heard about the impending talent gap. Many Baby Boomers will be leaving the workforce with a narrow Generation X to fill their shoes. This means an equally large Millennial workforce will be faced with filling the open positions left in the Baby Boomer’s wake. The problem? With this turnover comes a gap in talent where there are fewer qualified, experienced professionals to hire. As open positions increase and sophisticated job seekers are able to become more selective than ever, it’s up to employers to win them over with their company culture.

Culture Over Compensation

Professionals in 2015 want, and expect, to be happy at work. In fact, 96% of participants in a recent poll stated that it’s more important to love their job than it is to be paid more. They no longer want to work for companies, and instead, expect to work with them. This means that talent is looking for businesses with which they’re aligned, showcased by the fact that nearly three quarters of professionals are seeking employers whose work environment fosters a strong team and personal development. Perks are great, competitive compensation is valued, and cool office spaces are enticing, but without a compelling culture and values, an employer will be overlooked.

Candidates Are Consumers

With the boom of the digital age, consumers are changing the ways they interact with brands and make buying decisions. With 81% of consumers researching products online before making a purchase, marketers have recognized the need to earn their attention and establish credibility to increase the chances of gaining loyal customers. It doesn’t take a marketing professional to recognize that the same people who research the products companies sell are also candidates researching potential employers. Mirroring the behavior of savvy consumers who learn everything they can about a brand, sophisticated job seekers are in control of finding employers with whom they want to engage.

You won’t see sophisticated job seekers looking first at job postings, but instead, will find them reading content, watching videos, and evaluating testimonies from existing employees. If an employer doesn’t drive consideration of their positions by connecting with target candidates, they will lose talent to someone who does. Now more than ever talent has control of the companies they interact with and will require more than an open position to be compelled to apply.

Do you want to restore control to recruiting?

Come learn how to regain a balance in power and have fun doing it! Join me at #RecruitDC and I’ll focus on what you can do to find the satisfaction and success you desire as a recruiter this year.

Jeanine Tanner “J.T.” O’Donnell is the Founder & CEO of CAREEREALISM and CareerHMO. O’Donnell is a career strategist who helps American workers of all ages find greater professional satisfaction. Unlike other advisers, O’Donnell works with both individual clients and corporations, giving her access to emerging workforce trends. In addition to helping professionals, O’Donnell is experienced in company storytelling and helps companies strategize ways to reveal their talent brand to obtain top talent. With 18+ years of experience, managing, training, and coaching people of all ages on a wide variety of career topics, O’Donnell is a Nationally Syndicated Career Advice Author in 130+ Newspapers. O’Donnell is also a LinkedIn Influencer with 950K+ Followers. Follow her @jtodonnell.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Experience, Hiring, J-T- O'Donnell, recruiting

Meet recruitDC Spring 2015 Keynote Speaker – Carmen Hudson

April 16, 2015 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

Closing Keynote Presentation – Carmen Hudson
Carmen Hudson

You Got This! Tools and Inspiration for the Modern Recruiter

Google the words “recruiters are”.  Go ahead. Did the autofill results shock you?  Probably not.  We’re not in the most celebrated profession. Ever the optimist, Carmen is convinced that recruiters can turn this around. We have an important job, and for many, our work is the difference between a thriving, successful company and a company in the grips of a deathly downward spiral.  Carmen will spend some time to convince you, cajole you, challenge you, celebrate you and catapult you toward recruiting excellence.  She’ll show you some tools that will help you be more productive, and some best practices and strategies that might make you reconsider how you recruit.

Carmen Hudson wears several hats.  She is currently Principal Consultant, Recruiting Toolbox, and co-founder of the first ever conference focused on tech recruiting, Talent42. Carmen draws from over 15 years of recruiting experience, with a strong focus on helping organizations attract, source and recruit top talent.

Strategic Sourcing Depth

Carmen’s expertise is in helping clients build the right sourcing and recruiting strategies, and implementing them in the real world of limited budgets, competing priorities, and highly competitive recruiting environments.  She consults and trains companies to help them leverage high ROI solutions for big sourcing, social media, and technology implementation initiatives. 

Carmen is a self-described “recruiting geek” who has spent years learning, creating, and sharing best practices around sourcing and talent acquisition.  She gets that technology – for all of its hype – is still a means to an end, not an end in itself.  Her corporate experience includes Yahoo!, where she was Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition.  At Yahoo!, she led the Strategic Sourcing team, revitalizing the employee referral program and Yahoo’s employer brand.  The team was awarded a coveted Yahoo! Superstar Award, an ERE Excellence award and various recruiting and advertising industry awards.  Prior to joining Yahoo!, she was manager, Global Strategic Sourcing for Starbucks Coffee Corporation, where she developed sourcing strategies and recommended resources and tactics to support U.S. retail management hiring. She has also held senior talent acquisition roles at Microsoft, Amazon.com and Capital One.

A Recognized Voice in the Recruitment Community

Carmen is a regular contributor to recruiting industry publications, including ERE Exchange and Recruiting Trends.  She is a frequent speaker at recruiting events, including ERE, SourceCon, the Social Recruiting Summit, LinkedIn Talent Connect and the Seattle Staffing Management Association. She is a Talent Board advisory board member, and has authored sections of the Candidate Experience Awards summary results. In 2012, Carmen and John Vlastelica launched Talent42, a groundbreaking conference that brought together leaders in engineering and technical recruiting. In 2009, she founded Tweetajob, the first social job distribution engine.

True to her passion, she blogs and tweets about the recruiting industry, social media, job search and recruiting technology.   Follow her on Twitter.

 

Filed Under: recruitDC Events, Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Experience, Career Path, Carmen Hudson, recruitDC, recruitDC event, recruiting, speakers

Meet recruitDC Spring 2015 Keynote Speaker – Nando Rodriguez

April 15, 2015 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

Lunchtime Keynote – Nando Rodriguez
Personal Branding: Connecting the Dots between Your Brand and Theirs

Nando Rodriguez

Nando Rodriguez will dive into keeping the authentic voice of the recruiter while in alignment with their company’s message in a fun and dynamic session.

Nando Rodriguez, Talent Brand Specialist + Ex Social Media Recruiter, often described as dynamic, creative and down right outspoken, is a veteran recruiter with over ten years experience in the fashion industry, the creative landscape with the last five years exclusively focused in the social media space.

His personal brand has landed him speaking engagements with LinkedIn Talent Connect, The School of Visual Arts, Brazen Careerist, and other globally recognized channels and he recently became a blogger for the Huffington Post on all topics employment branding and recruiting.

Nando was formally at Ogilvy & Mather infusing his creative work style into their talent brand but just recently made the move over to Horizon Media as their Head of Employment Branding & Candidate Experience where he’ll rock his style amplifying their employer brand through the use of digital and social platforms making Horizon Media “pop” among competitors as an employer of choice. He’s also the co-founder and co-creator of the #Brand2Land workshop at interviewingU.com.

Filed Under: recruitDC Events, Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Experience, Nando Rodriguez, recruitDC, recruitDC event, speakers

The Greener Grass

February 25, 2015 by recruitdc 2 Comments

By Lori Reed
For nearly half of my life, I have worked in recruiting and shown candidates the way to greener grass. Having just returned from the proverbial “other side of the fence”, I cannot resist the temptation to find the teaching moments for myself and my community of Recruiters.

Job searching and recruiting, two pillars of the hiring process, generally start with a practical approach. Candidates and companies alike begin the process by listing facts and figures. Recruiters often make use of Boolean logic and applicant tracking systems as a first run at matching the two. At a certain point, however, the emotional component of interviewing that too many of us rely on in the form of a “gut” feeling can taint the recruiting process. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Experience, employment branding, Interviewing, MBTI, recruiting

5 Reasons The Cover Letter Is NOT Dead

February 4, 2015 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

By Will Thomson
Truthfully, I am sick of hearing about it. I talk to recruiters all of the time and a large majority of them say, “I never read cover letters”. I have heard, “I just don’t have time”. Maybe I am old fashioned, but let me say this, I have found some pretty darn good candidates while reading through cover letters. Recently I read a cover letter for an out of state copyrighter.   No, we won’t relocate anyone for the role. He lives in Minnesota and the position is in Washington D.C.   I can tell you he is one of the top candidates for the role and without a cover letter, I would have passed on him in seconds.

I recently wrote a blog post called How to Impress A Recruiter. I talked about how a candidate blogged, tweeted, and reached out to me. He really separated himself from the pack. In today’s times, separating yourself is what it is all about. You need to differentiate yourself from the other candidates. If you don’t know this, let me tell you the cold hard facts about job openings. There are more candidates than roles available. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Experience, Hiring, recruiting, Will Thomson

Countdown To recruitDC: Mark Batenchuk On Candidate Engagement

December 10, 2014 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

Ed Note: The fall 2014 recruitDC event is just days away. The schedule is packed with great interactive content and I am honored to moderate the engaging talent panel. We’re sharing a final sneak peek with you, from Mark Batenchuk of Scope Group.
How do you define candidate engagement?

Successful candidate engagement is the epitome of effective recruiting. It is the art of combining skill, effort and time in order to attract and secure top talent. While candidate engagement is a relatively new buzz word in the industry, top performing recruiters have been experts in “practicing” candidate engagement for years.

Three key elements of candidate engagement include:

  1. Attraction – Woo talent and cut through the noise. Sell folks on the opportunity, organization, company culture, the staff—even a candidate’s potential future boss! It takes persistence and marketing savvy.
  2. Relationship building / Rapport – Quickly establish trust and find common ground.
  3. Feedback – Prompt feedback throughout the process is essential to continue building trust and respect – especially during long hiring timelines.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: recruitDC Events, Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Engagement, Candidate Experience, Hiring, Mark Batenchuk, recruitDC, Recruiters, recruiting

Countdown To recruitDC: Mike Bruni On Candidate Engagement

December 9, 2014 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

Ed Note: The fall 2014 recruitDC event is just days away. The schedule is packed with great interactive content and I am honored to moderate the engaging talent panel. We’re sharing a sneak peek with you, where each of the panelists will provide their perspective of candidate engagement.  We are going to continue the series with Mike Bruni of Leidos.
How do you define candidate engagement? Why this is so challenging?

In recruiting terms, candidate engagement is the connection between candidate and recruiter as well as the rapport built between the two. It is the most important aspect of recruitment. First impressions are important and this sets the tone for the entire process.  This also includes the approach taken by a recruiter to identify and connect with a candidate.

For recruiters, it’s quite challenging as you need to approach different candidates using different methods and communication styles.  Recruiters face generational differences, skill differences, branding issues, etc. when approaching candidates.  I would say that engaging candidates is challenging, fun, and elusive.  It’s all three wrapped together.  Engagement includes the hunt, connection, and the ability to convince  a candidate to express interest in a particular opportunity.  The rapport that you build with a candidates sets the stage for the entire experience. [Read more…]

Filed Under: recruitDC Events, Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Engagement, Candidate Experience, Mike Bruni, Recruiters, recruiting

Countdown To recruitDC: Looking At Candidate Engagement

December 8, 2014 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

Ed Note: The fall 2014 recruitDC event is just days away. The schedule is packed with great interactive content and I am honored to moderate the engaging talent panel. We’re sharing a sneak peek with you, where each of the panelists will provide their perspective of candidate engagement.  We are going to start the series with Will Thomson with Rosetta Stone.
Employee engagement is a topic that is frequently discussed in HR.  Employee engagement is the relationship between an organization and its employees. An “engaged employee” is one who without hesitation takes positive action to further the organization’s reputation and interests.  They believe in their organization and are not just in it for the paycheck.

What about candidate engagement? How would you define and differentiate the two? As a recruiter, I know that if you are going to have engaged employees, you have to hire the right people into the right roles within an organization.  Organizations want the best of the best, and in 2015 it will be a candidate’s market.  Recruiters now more than ever are going to have to keep candidates engaged and interested in the roles. [Read more…]

Filed Under: recruitDC Events, Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Engagement, Candidate Experience, recruitDC, recruiting, Will Thomson

We Do We Do It?

December 3, 2014 by recruitdc 2 Comments

By Doug Munro
Spoiler alert – you’ve read this piece before. It’s been written by many great recruiters, but frankly the story never gets old for me. I hope others feel the same way.

Most of us run a constant risk of becoming bitter and jaded. More than likely all of us have slipped away to the dark side at least a time or two. We spend a great deal of time haggling with unreasonable hiring managers, unrealistic candidates, and disconnected executives. We chase purple squirrels, negotiate with intransient accountants masquerading as software developers, and try to live up to arbitrary numbers in a metrics-driven profession. It’s easy to question why we keep showing up day after day to subject ourselves to the abuse. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Experience, Doug Munro, Hiring, recruiting

5 Things Recruiters Don't Normally Share With Job Seekers

November 10, 2014 by recruitdc 4 Comments

By Susan LaMotte
As a talent strategy consultant and career coach, I tell clients all the time: “I get the other side of the equation.” Companies like that I coach job seekers, and job seekers like that I consult with talent acquisition teams at companies. 

Having a foot in both worlds means I don’t forget what it’s like on both sides of the aisle. It’s like recruiting bipartisanship. But every once in awhile, I take sides. And job seekers, this is for you.

There are a million nuances to being a recruiter — like many jobs, to an outsider it may seem straightforward. But there are multiple stakeholders, laws and budgets vying for attention that make it really difficult sometimes. And the more you know and understand, the more effective you’ll be. Recruiters may not want you to know their secrets, but here are five tips to help you get both feet in the door and the attention of a recruiter. You’ll thank me now. They’ll thank me later.

1. An important part of a recruiter’s job is inside sales.

Like any job, recruiters are measured, evaluated and lauded (or not) based on how well they perform. But it’s often with strange (to you) metrics like time to fill, or percentage of job postings (called requisitions) that have closed. More rarely are they measured on quality of hire (i.e., how well you’re performing a year after you’re hired). This means recruiters are biased towards selling candidates to the hiring manager. Hard. They want that job to close fast. So make it easy on them to sell you.

Bottom line: Don’t assume they’ll figure out your skills are transferable. Apply for jobs where you’re clearly a fit and supplement any networking, cover letters and phone screens with clear examples they can turn around and use. One time a candidate had a unique technical skill so he called to explain it and tell me why it mattered in our business. I loved that.

2. Weird behavior makes recruiters nervous.

Being on the phone all day can make a recruiter crazy. That means in between interviews, sourcing calls and offer deliveries, they’re sharing tales of insanity — odd calls, strange answers to interview questions and tales of incredulity (such as: “Why did this guy apply to three different jobs? Does he not know I can see all of them?”) There’s nothing wrong with getting a recruiter’s attention, but if you cross a line, they’re just going to ignore you. It’s just like dating. Say “I love you” too soon, call too many times in a row or try too hard and you’re out.

Bottom line: Make an effort to get noticed but don’t border on pathetic. Follow up and check on your candidacy but don’t call every day or start sending LinkedIn invitations to the entire team. If it feels strange, don’t do it. Making the recruiter nervous is a reason for them to focus on someone else. I once had a candidate email me every day. Stalker — you’re out.

3. Sometimes it’s a crapshoot.

A recruiter typically has a collection of requisitions she is responsible for. In most companies, it’s usually an unmanageable number (at least to the recruiter). So in the morning, she may come in and open her ATS (applicant tracking system) and start looking at what resumes came in for what position (requisition) overnight. She’s human, so while scanning resumes, she might be distracted by her boss popping by, a tweet or a phone call. That means some resumes get the six-second glance, some get 30. There’s no guarantee of fairness — it’s absolutely impossible. And if she already has enough candidates interviewing, she might barely glance, if at all, at new resumes.

Bottom line: Sometimes it’s a crapshoot. You might feel like you’re a perfect fit for the job, but the timing of when you apply or simply how busy the recruiter is that day could determine your fate. That’s where networking comes in. Never apply for a job cold. Make a connection in the organization first that can check up on your candidacy with the recruiter. Depending on where she is in the process you might not get a fair shake, but at least you’ll be in the know. As a recruiter, I could ignore resumes in my ATS queue but I couldn’t ignore a colleague at my door asking about a referral.

4. They influence but rarely, if ever, decide…

A hiring decision usually comes from the hiring manager. It may even have to be approved by his boss. The recruiter doesn’t decide. She will contribute to the discussion and provide opinions on interactions with candidates. She’ll provide context like salary ranges or market analyses, but she won’t decide.

Bottom line: Don’t rely on the recruiter throughout the entire process. Figure out who else is important in the decision-making process and build relationships. Send follow-up emails that show you did your research and take them up on the offer to ask additional questions. Just don’t go overboard. Weird behavior makes hiring managers nervous too. (See #2).

5. …but they have a tremendous amount of insider information.

Recruiters know what the hiring managers are like, what matters most to them and what interview strategies succeed. So don’t ignore them. It’s really important to have the recruiter on your side. You want to make their job easier and set them up for success. In turn, the recruiter can share that valuable insider information if you just ask: “As I prepare for the interview later this week, any suggestions you have on what matters to the hiring manager are greatly appreciated — I really value your advice.” The worst they can say is no.

Bottom line: A strong relationship with the recruiter is part of the equation. Recognize that she’s busy and may have a million priorities (while the job you want is your only one right now). Respect her time and help her help you. In return, she may be able to help you prepare, understand and strengthen your candidacy over others who don’t even bother to ask or care. As a recruiter I often felt under-appreciated. Thanks from a candidate and recognition that I played an important role in the process went a long way.

Susan Strayer LaMotte is the founder of exaqueo. She helps startup and high-growth companies develop cultures, build employer brands, and create talent strategies to help scale and grow businesses. Follow her @SusanLaMotte.

Ed Note: This post was originally posted on Startup Collective and was republished with the author’s consent.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Candidate Experience, Hiring, Recruiters, recruiting, Susan LaMotte

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