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Have We Lost our Olympic Fever for Recruiting?

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By Kathleen Smith

The Olympics are over, (or did you even know there were on?) I remember growing up watching Nadia Comancei reach the perfect 10, Mark Spitz setting records for swimming and watching the swoosh of Dorothy Hamill’s hair. We looked to these idols, not only in sports, but in every day and every way because they were great professionals.

I work with recruiters every day, and each day, I learn that each recruiter has developed their career in a different way; either starting out as recruiters, sales people or human resources and then they “made it up” along the way. Some had mentors, some were just thrown into the deep end of the pool, others maybe they took a course or maybe they just had a natural talent for it and it just clicked like Michael Phelps.

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One Small Step…..

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By Kathleen Smith
It’s the New Year, and lots of resolutions have been already broken.  It’s the second full work week of the New Year, and you want to do more with less, update your recruiting style, or just be a bit more effective. There are lots of silver bullets being touted and buzzword bingo clouding up the recruiting blogsphere  to the point that it is easier to fall back into old habits. 

To me old school is best: Golden rule. No matter the technology you use, how you treat the candidate is going to reflect in your effectiveness.  My advice? Reexamine your resolutions, and just add one small thing that you can do to change your candidate relationship.

Big changes come from small steps; one small thing to do every day.  Big changes tend to lead to monumental disappointments, so start small.  What is the one thing you can do each day to treat those “people” in your pipeline just a bit better?   You’re not trying to launch a missile, just one new step like flossing your teeth. (My dentist dad would be proud).

Last year at one of the recruitDC networking events, Social Media in the Defense Contracting Space, Mike Bruni, Jay Perreault and Derek Zeller shared some key tips on social media in my community which were really about treating candidate conversations with respect and integrity.

Some tips were:

  1. Out of Office messages: I loved Jay’s tip to have an out of office every time he was out of the office, like at the end of the business day or the weekends,  with a link to hot jobs, or helpful job seeker articles.
  2.  Derek and Mike pounded the audience with “answer &*(*)(^ your emails! “ which happens to be a #1 complaint of job seekers. Yes we all get emails, in fact we all like complaining on how many thousands we get. Get organized, set up file folders for your emails. You know all those LinkedIn messages you get, set up an Outlook folder, create a rule and get them out of your inbox.
  3. Don’t hide behind your email and voicemail: this is a people business, talk to “people”!
  4. Don’t be lazy – sorry, but this is true – too many of us hide behind social media rather than get out in front of it and do true social media – actually talking to someone.

What more?

Create your brand which clearly outlines how candidates get in touch with you, and what you are recruiting for.  If you have a candidate who doesn’t meet your needs, give feedback, or a referral.  And if you are one of those recruiters who would like to hire more veterans, especially now that the tax credit has expired, definitely give feedback to your military candidates as to why they didn’t get the job or the interview.  Giving feedback to veterans is one small step that will have a big impact for our country and your pipeline. Why? In the military community, if someone doesn’t reach a goal, they are supported and trained again until they do.

But why in the world go to all of this trouble?  Well it pays off in leveraging your talent pipeline.

The statistics on treating candidates better show you how you can leverage that small step to have an impact on your overall recruiting. In an upcoming whitepaper from CareerXroads which will be found on the Candes website, shares responses from 46,000+ candidates about their experience when applying to one of 90 firms.

Of those candidates with a positive experience…
62.0% would be ‘extremely likely’ to re-apply in the future
61.5% would ‘actively encourage’ others to apply
82.3% would share their positive experience with their ‘inner circle”.
50.4% would share their positive experience publicly [online, blogs, etc.]

Of those candidates with a negative experience…
24.7% would ‘definitely not’ re-apply in the future.
27.0% would ‘actively discourage someone else from applying’.
65.0% would share their negative experience with their ‘inner circle’.
32.0% would share their negative experience publicly.

Or you can wait until Matt Charney’s petition to the Department of Labor to create and enforce candidate experience compliance guidelines.

 

Kathleen Smith is the Chief Marketing officer for ClearedJobs.net. You can connect with her on Twitter at @YesItsKathleen. Follow ClearedJobs.net at @ClearedJobsNet

Keep Calm and Carry On – Talent Pipelines & The Shutdown

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By Kathleen Smith
Be Calm and Carry on… Right!

Frustration, anxiety and uncertainty. Yes, we all have it! What to do next?

As recruiters in the federal government community, we are also confronted with a large community of job seekers who are flooding you with resumes and applications. When the ball gets rolling again, you will need to hire -and fast- qualified cleared talent.  What do you do while at a standstill?

Here are some recommendations on maintaining your employer brand and keeping your talent pipeline flowing while we wait out the shutdown:

  1. Communicate
  2. Evaluate
  3. Initiate

Communicate: Be sure to communicate with your talent community as to what you are doing with current applications and how you will be handling future applications.

  • If you are furloughed, be sure your  “out of office message” communicates what you are doing with current applications and your best advice for jobseekers applying for your current posted positions, such as customized, targeted applications rather than having applicants apply for every position.
  • Update your LinkedIn status update again with a clear message of how you are reviewing current and future applications.
  • Leverage your ATS – if you can, send out a message to your talent community via your ATS to share with your applicants the steps you are or will be taking to review submitted applications.

Evaluate: Be sure to keep an eye on your social media channels as frustrated job seekers may be trying to reach out to you for more information about submitted applications.

  • If you have social media channels, be sure you are monitoring them through free web applications such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, so you can see whenever someone makes a comment about your company.
  • We are also monitoring many of the social media channels within our community and will alert you if we see any comments that might need addressing. We have already done this for several of our customers.

Initiate: You can leverage current tools to make sure you have the shortest ramp up time possible once you are back to hiring.

  • Resume agents can help you keep track of resumes that are posted on your job boards.  Resume agents only take a few minutes to set up.
  • Job Descriptions are the first stop for many job seekers applying to your company, but if the formatting is off, there are misspellings or unclear descriptions; you may receive applications that do not meet your needs, or worse, you may not get any applications at all.

Finally, educate: if you have any tips you would like to share with the security cleared community on how to weather this storm, share them on your social media profiles.

Want to view the SlideShare presentation of this post? Click here

Kathleen Smith is the Chief Marketing officer for ClearedJobs.net. You can connect with her on Twitter at @YesItsKathleen. Follow ClearedJobs.net at @ClearedJobsNet

 

Fall 2013 RecruitDC Tickets Now Available!

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The recruitDC fall event is coming on November 14, 2013! Join us for a morning of information sharing, networking and learning with your DC area recruiting colleagues. We’ll be descending on the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD for our venue.
Visit the Eventbrite site to grab your tickets so you don’t miss out!

As always, a tremendous THANK YOU to all of our sponsors: Indeed, WANTED Analytics, Cleared Jobs.net and Brazen Careerist!

7:30am to 8:30am Registration and Networking

8:30am to 8:40am Welcome Remarks

8:40am to 9:45am – Keynote Presentation – Big Data is Interesting, but Little Data is Critical! Tom Becker, VP Recruiting, Manpower

The role and function of the talent acquisition leader is in significant transformation. CEOs and senior leaders are increasingly looking for the talent acquisition function to be more data driven and to better articulate their ROI. There seems to be a new set of skills which talent acquisition leaders much have to be successful. These skills are change management, process management and most important data management. This session will address how “little data” has big significance in how companies can transform data into insights to drive performance. Next generation companies are using talent data to predict hiring demand and focus their talent acquisition functions on key positions which constrain the organization. They are also using performance management technology to build sophisticated models to optimize their teams and to deliver real-time data to their key stakeholders!

9:45am to 10:15am Break

Breakout Sessions

10:15am to 11:15am
Call me, maybe: Mobile recruiting is here… now what?
There’s a lot of hype when it comes to mobile recruiting – but at many companies, it’s still a relatively new concept. You may feel pressure to begin scrambling to put the right tools in place but where should you start? And what are the watchout’s and gotcha’s? Through this panel, local recruiting leaders from Marriott International, GEICO, Amtrak and MITRE will share their insights on developing a mobile strategy and implementation tips… because they have actually lived through it.

Key takeaways will include:
– Key trends driving the need to develop a mobile recruiting strategy
– Mobile recruiting vendor landscape and considerations
– Implementation insights and advice

Moderator: Jessica Lee – Director, Digital Talent Strategy – Marriott International – Panelists: Kerry Noone, Employer Brand Manager, Amtrak; Shannon Smedstad HR Social Media & Employment Brand Leader, GEICO; Gary Cluff, Corporate Recruiting Manager, MITRE

OR

10:15am to 11:15am
Exerting Influence: How to Build Interest, Trust and Confidence in New Candidates, Ideas and Tactics
Recruiters and recruiting leaders are constantly working to build trust–with candidates, vendors and their own leaders. This trust is necessary to make the case for joining the organization, adopting innovations in the organization or convincing a hiring manager that a unique candidate is the best fit. During this panel, four leading recruiting professionals will talk about their successes in building trust to exert influence in the organization. They’ll share both internal and external examples of how to make the right case and what data, direction and emotion is needed to get that win. We often talk about the skills recruiters need to be successful but overlook the behaviors. If you want to take your recruiting organization forward and innovate with new candidates, ideas and tactics, you don’t want to miss this session.

Moderator: Susan LaMotte, Founder & Principal Consultant, exaqueo – Panelists: Bill Blackford, Recruiting Manager, Merlin International; MIke Bruni, Talent Acquisition Manager, SAIC/Leidos, National Security Sector; Luke Daniel Mann, Technical Recruiter, Northrop Grumman Information Systems; Lars Schmidt, NPR, Senior Director, Talent Acquisition & Innovation.

11:15am to 11:30am Break

11:30am to 12:30pm
Closing Session: Fast and Furious: 60 Social Media Tips in 60 Minutes!
In this lightening round session, local social media superstars share their quick tips on making social media more effective for recruiting, building brand and connecting. This is a great way to end the morning with 60 tips to walk out the door with to make difference in how you connect with your community.

Moderator: Kathleen Smith, ClearedJobs.Net; Panelists: Adelia Curtis, Living Social; Holly Biena, Capital One; Kerry Noone, Amtrak, Francesca Hawk, AIS and a few more rock stars for spotlight tips!
And more….Would you like to participate? Submit your social media tip during registration and maybe your tip will be picked!

Recruiters, Be All You Can Be

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By Kathleen Smith

At the Spring 2012 recruitDC event, I had the privilege to share with the recruiting community tips on how to incorporate veteran hiring into a recruiter’s mindset. The poignant beginning of this presentation was the opening by Colonel David Sutherland, former Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The local DC area recruiting community made me very proud when they gave Colonel Sutherland a standing ovation first when he came to the stage, and second when he finished. The second best moment was when all the recruiters in the room raised their hands and committed to hiring two veterans by the end of the summer.

Through my interviews with the panelists, we learned some key things that every recruiter and company can do to hire more veterans. One basic point of this is commitment. This is not a program you flip on with a switch or pay a subscription fee to. This is a commitment as a recruiter you need to make to go the extra step to train yourself, connect with the military in your community, and maintain these relationships throughout your career as a recruiter. What will you get in return for this investment of your time? A talent pipeline that is ready, trained, skilled and loyal. Did I also mention that military personnel get the job done, take initiative, have leadership skills and will do anything for you and your company – just like they have done in the military?

I have spoken with many military personnel and military spouses who actually feel that it is a detriment to their job search if they share that they are military. I am flabbergasted every time I hear this. There appears to be ignorance prevalent within the HR and recruiting community that military may mean something other than highly trained, skilled and dedicated professionals.

From working with many recruiters and companies, here is my drill down list on incorporating veteran hiring into your talent strategy:

  1. Be committed to the process: If it is just you or it is your entire company, be committed to the entire process from learning about military resumes to fully integrating your new employee into your company and community.
  2. Be willing to invest the “time”: This is not a software program that you upload or an app you download. This is a program you are going to have to work each day, from connecting with the veterans in your company and community to nurturing your military relationships, to coaching or mentoring your new employees. You need to be visible in the military community.
  3. Be resourceful: This is all about being a better recruiter. One of the panelists was adamant that he can’t stand people saying “I don’t have time” and I wholeheartedly agree with him. There are probably a few things you are doing right now that are not productive or ways that you are inefficient. Recognize that. Recruiting, like any business, is not about doing one or two tools well. It is about leveraging all the tools that work for you well plus a lot of good old common sense and connecting with people. If this doesn’t work for you, it might be time for a little refresher.

Some of the tactics to incorporate military hiring into your talent acquisition pipeline are:

Find the veterans in your company: After recruitDC, several recruiting managers went back to their companies and researched how many veterans worked for them. Many were shocked at how many veterans were already in their companies. What can these veterans who are already work for your company do for you?

  • Meet with them and ask them to educate you about military resumes, share what their military experience was like or maybe how their military experience has helped them in your company, and finally what kind of MOS you should be looking for to fill the key spots within your company. This is part of your commitment to being better educated about your new talent pool.
  • Ask them to participate in any of the military hiring events that you may attend. This will help build your brand and help educate you on the needs of the military community. Your internal veteran employees will become your ambassadors.
  • Ask them to be a buddy or mentor. This doesn’t have to be a formal program or it can be. The most important part is for your new employee to have someone they can talk to about the new culture you are bringing them in to.

Find the veterans in your community both online and offline

  • On your LinkedIn profile make sure that you are very open to hiring veterans but make this sincere, not just “will hire veterans”. I was particularly impressed with one of the panelist’s LinkedIn profile and how she laid it out that she was willing to help any and all military with their job search questions. She also shared that using Skype allowed her to chat with currently deployed military personnel which I thought was extremely resourceful.
  • There are close to 3,000 LinkedIn groups that have the keyword “military”. We are fortunate here in the Washington, DC, area to have several that are local groups as well. You can be a member AND participate: answer questions, provide advice or ask for referrals. Move beyond just blasting your job postings in the group. Really connect with folks.
  • There are several companies that provide military hiring events but you can also find these on the military bases, and they usually are free or relatively inexpensive. Just like any event you will need to focus on your brand and connecting with the community rather than only look for what you need right then and there.
  • One very largely overlooked community is military spouses. As one panelists said, the first person a veteran is going to ask for job search advice is their spouse. Many times the spouse will be doing the job research while the other spouse is deployed. There are several Military Spouse support programs and this is an extremely active social media community. You will find several groups on both Twitter and Facebook. In addition to the support, this is a great talent pool, as many military spouses are highly skilled and highly adaptable. Many speak other languages, and definitely know about multitasking, in addition to being detail oriented and able to get the job done.
  • There are transition programs in the military and career counselors that are to assist and support military personnel as they transition. Industry wide it is agreed these programs are inadequate. With very limited resources and staff, the transition programs do what they can and they are always looking for recruiters and companies to participate in their employer panels, hiring events and counseling. Call them up, connect with them and help. It will take time to build your relationships and you may have to go to them, but connecting in the military community is about face-to-face and showing that you are real.

Educate yourself on military lingo

  • As one of the panelists – a veteran – said: you need to meet the veteran half way and understand their resume. The first step is understanding lingo and you need a military skills translator for this. Here is one put together by the Department of Labor.
  • Take your most frequently recruited jobs and put them through a military skills resume translator so you can better understand what you need and how to find it on a military resume.
  • On the flip side, you might want to convert your job posting into a description that someone from the military may understand.
  • Realize that there are many skills and traits you want for your positions that you will not find on a military resume but they are there: accountability, leadership, initiative, management, detail orientation. Someone in the military would not think to put this on a resume. Why? It is expected in the military that everyone has these skills.

Create a military buddy system within your company

  • Make sure that your new employee has someone to call to ask questions. One statistic heard frequently is that 80% of transitioning military leave their first job out of the military within the first year. Part of this could be due to the candidate not asking enough questions to fully understand the culture and company that they are coming into, but it is also more than that. One panelist shared that it would have been helpful to better understand what “casual Friday” was all about when he started at his first company after being in the military for 20 plus years. In the military there is always someone watching your back. Our military need that in their new communities.

As was shared by one recruitDC colleague in his post “I Would Die For You,” Lars Schmidt rounded up some resources a recruiter can use to hire veterans. These are all good resources, but you first have to be a better recruiter.

After recruitDC, we had a chance to talk with Colonel Sutherland’s replacement as the Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colonel Henderson. One point was clear for him based on feedback from his troops. In the military if someone doesn’t reach their goal, they are given feedback and retrained. Job seekers aren’t given any feedback as to why they didn’t get the job. Even if you don’t launch a military hiring program, I would ask that if you are not going to hire someone in the military, please take the time to give them feedback on their application, resume, or interview. Yes there will be a series of “policies” that may possibly prevent you from doing this, but as a service to our military please provide suggestions and feedback on what they could do better in their job search. You may not be able to hire them, but you will have provided a great connection with your company, enhanced your employer/recruiter brand, and helped the community. You might even get a referral.

Kathleen Smith is the Chief Marketing officer for ClearedJobs.net. You can connect with her on Twitter at @YesItsKathleen. Follow ClearedJobs.net at @ClearedJobsNet

Follow Colonel David Sutherland on Twitter at @DSutherland_TSP or on LinkedIn

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