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Looking Back On Talent Connect 2014

November 4, 2014 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

By Danielle Boykin
I’m fresh off the plane from Talent Connect in San Francisco, and am trying to put into words how I feel about the overall experience.  Here are the highlights: San Francisco was beautiful, the Giants were going to the World Series, the weather was pleasant and the fog was minimal…what’s not to like?

Here’s my report card for the event:

Efficiency: B
The Moscone Center was amazing, but my initial encounter there was to walk into a line of 1000+ people waiting at registration on Day 1.  Wait, I’m confused…didn’t I register online already? Why am I waiting in line for registration?  It was simply for the swag bag and badge, but perhaps they could have allowed us to print our own badges prior, or had them at our hotels upon check-in, and then all the bags could have been distributed a whole lot quicker. The registration line made most of us late to our first learning session.

Speakers: B
In my first session, the speakers gave a captivating talk on how to make a mark with your personal brand on LinkedIn.  In less than 30 minutes I got plenty of takeaways on personalizing, customizing, and optimizing my profile…huge value add!

But not all of the sessions were as valuable, and that’s not just from my perspective. I heard many people commenting at the networking events and meals that they had a bad experience at one of the sessions.  I always asked, “Which one?”  I was anxious to see if they simply weren’t going to the same great sessions that I was going to, and that was often the case.  The consensus seemed to be that a lot of the presentations were very light in their content, often leaving us wanting more.  In the 60-minute “How to Influence Your Hiring Managers” presentation on Tuesday afternoon, the presenters said “thank you” and had clearly finished up what they had to share with us…in only 29 minutes!  So we headed to the snack tables and did some more networking.

Networking: A
The networking piece was probably what I found most valuable during my entire time atTalent Connect.  I recruit recruiters, so this was like being a kid in a candy store for me, 4000+ recruiting/marketing/branding professionals all in one place!  I met people from all over the country, so it wasn’t like everyone I met was a potential candidate—but they were a potential resource.

Breakfast on Tuesday morning proved the most interesting when I had a chance to sit with a “Talent Hacker” from Nebraska.  We had a great conversation; it was a collaborative, genuine exchange of best practices.  We recounted our recent successes and failures, explained different recruiting techniques, and shared what we think works, what doesn’t work, and how to keep moving forward.  That conversation, right there, was worth my time. That was worth the trip.

Overall
Talent Connect was a great experience.  Could the learning sessions have been better? Always, at every event, but that’s why it’s so critical to plan ahead.  I definitely recommend looking at the different learning tracks and reading what they are about, so you can determine which tracks/classes are going to be the most beneficial to you as a recruiter, a manager, or someone who is looking to bring back content to train a team of recruiters, as I am planning to do.  Two days of classes, networking, great conversations, not so great food, and the occasional adult beverage, and I think I got what I was looking for…personal development, professional development, and a chance to grow my network.  Thank you LinkedIn!  Looking forward to next year!

Danielle Boykin is a Corporate Recruiter at Celerity IT. You can connect with her on LinkedIn or find her on Twitter

Ed Note: This post was originally published here, and was republished with the author’s consent. 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Danielle Boykin, LinkedIn, networking, Recruiters, Talent Connect

How To Network Your Way Into Your Next Startup Job

October 2, 2014 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

By David Adelman
Landing a job isn’t easy. With unemployment stubbornly high and constant competition from overqualified candidates, overseas labor and overzealous robots, getting hired is getting harder.

I recently watched several friends go through the job hunt, and one thing became clear: The traditional method of applying for posted jobs won’t cut it anymore. Times are changing, and that means that job seekers must adapt as well. Now more than ever, it’s your network — not just your resume — that matters. Up to 80 percent of all jobs are “hidden.” They aren’t advertised, and those that are often get filled by candidates with an inside track.

Notice the word “work” in “network.” Your contacts won’t just hand you jobs. There’s effort involved. If you don’t ask, you’ll never receive. Put yourself out there and you’ll be shocked at how open your contacts are to lending a hand. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: David Adelman, Job Search, LinkedIn, networking, Social Media

recruitDC Poll: Should Recruiters Contact Candidates Via Their Work Email?

April 23, 2014 by recruitdc 6 Comments

There has been some discussion in the recruiting community over the last few months about the best way recruiters should reach out to candidates. You can read a sampling of the articles here.
With the wide array of tools like SellHack, LinkedIn, Entelo and TalentBin available to recruiters and sourcers today, we wanted to know what you think.  Do you take whatever info you can get and make your move from there, or do you work to dig for more personal contact info. With the price of some sites today, gathering whatever information that you can – at a low cost – can be an appealing option.

What are your thoughts on emailing candidates at their work email address? Feel free to leave us some comments on why you voted the way you did, and what other things have worked for you.  We’ll compile the results and have a follow-up post to share them, along with any interesting comments readers share!

[polldaddy poll=7987294]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: entelo, LinkedIn, Recruiters, recruiting, SellHack, Social Media, sourcers, sourcing, TalentBin

20 Years Recruiting In DC – What I've Learned From Some Amazing People

February 21, 2014 by recruitdc 8 Comments

By Ben Gotkin
20 years. 2 decades.  It feels like a long time to be doing anything, and it forces you to reflect on some things.   As I enter my 20th year in the recruiting profession, I think back to a few of those who I learned from and influenced me early in my career.  It’s been quite a journey, a journey that I wanted to share with you. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Ben Gotkin, Career Path, LinkedIn, recruitDC, recruiting, washington

Fast and Furious – Social Media Tools from recruitDC's Fall 2013 Event

December 17, 2013 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

Our Fast and Furious Social Media session at the Fall 2013 event was a huge success! But with 60 tips in 60 minutes, it was a lot to digest! Fear not, we’ve got you covered.  Below are all the tools that our Super Ladies of Social Media shared with the audience that you can use to augment your social media toolkit.

  • The main social media platforms that were weaved into the presentation were: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
  • For social media application management, take a look at: Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, BufferApp or SocialBro.
  • Also suggested is leveraging Tumblr for posts for a blog and Instagram
  • To stay current with key topics, take a look at Google Alerts to build content to share with your communities.
  • If you are sourcing for designers, you may want to look at Dribbble which is similar to Github.
  • To manage messages and follow hashtags in Instagram, check out http://statigr.am
  • Are you looking to do sourcing in Twitter? Try FollowerWonk.
  • If you are posting jobs on Instagram, take a look at InstaJob to jazz up your posts and track your engagement.
  • On Twitter, be sure to create Twitter Lists to help keep track of your community.
  • Hoover’s Mobile App!
  • Use Slideshare to repackage your content and you can embed your YouTube videos!
  • Fun and easy music videos with Animoto create an impact.
  • Videos for Instagram are made with Zoomforth.
  • Flixel creates a video ad.

Have fun and remember when creating social media profiles to use your name not your employer’s. If you use your employer’s name in the social media platform, they are the owner of the followers.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, recruitDC, Social Media, sourcing, Twitter

Tech Shoppers Beware: Don't Buy Candidates From This Guy!

December 12, 2013 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

By Susan Strayer LaMotte
I often talk with HR vendors, staffing agencies and RPOs about how to sell into HR and I’m continually amazed by the tactics people use. I’m not a career salesperson, but I have spent quite a bit of time in the buyer’s seat, and now that I run a consulting firm, new business is constantly on my mind.  So I understand quarterly goals, year-end stress and pressure to make numbers. But I’ll never understand why people think the mass contact strategy will work.

Sales = relationships. But some recruiters still don’t get it.

Earlier this year, I got this InMail on LinkedIn:

Subject: quick question…. I am a Tech recruiter from [company redacted]. I am representing an especially gifted Lead Software Engineer with a Master’s, who recently moved here from the Silicon Valley. He currently works for innovative media titan [company redacted] and previously led teams while at [company redacted] and [company redacted], respectively. He is more than proficient in several languages, but specializes in custom mobile, web, and software application development as well as Amazon Web Service and API management. His high quality code has scaled and supported over 600K in Daily Active Users in the past but his objective in his next role moving forward is to introduce and evangelize the process of continuous technological integration. He will prove an immediate and tangible asset to any Tech environment. If you are looking to do any hiring these days, let me know and I can send you his resume right away. I promise I will not waste your time.

But here’s the thing. You just did.

I’m not a recruiter. I don’t have any open tech positions. So the 30 seconds it took to read your InMail was a waste of my time.  And I certainly wouldn’t connect with you or recommend you to anyone (and I know many recruiters in the space) given your approach.

Now, I’m from Philadelphia. And I’m Italian. That means I’m brutally honest. I could have hit delete, but instead, I sent back the following response:

I appreciate you reaching out but mass messages don’t work. Here’s why: my company wouldn’t be hiring someone like this or any tech professionals quite frankly. You do yourself and the profession a disservice by recruiting this way.

And his response?

I disagree but thank you for your feedback Susan.

I’d love to know why he disagrees but I’m not wasting any more of my time. Whether you’re a recruiter, marketer, job seeker or you’re selling tech software, this approach is flat out wrong. 

As a candidate, I don’t want to be mass marketed. Do you?  

And as a recruiter, I don’t want my tech talent to come from a Costco-style approach. I want a boutique store that takes the time to cater to the right kind of shoppers–not one that’s selling Chico’s to 15-year old boys.

I did some research on the recruiter and the company. This recruiter is only a few years out of college and normally I wouldn’t fault someone who is still learning. But his terse response shows me he’s not looking to learn. And the firm he works for clearly isn’t coaching him. That firm has been around since 1999. So that means some people are buying (and teaching) what he’s selling.  If you’re shopping for tech talent, buyer beware.

Don’t buy what this guy, and many others like him are selling.

I won’t throw him or his firm under the bus here, but I will tell anyone who contacts me individually not to work with this firm. Ever.

The recruiter that doesn’t take the time to build meaningful and targeted relationships isn’t going to look out for you. It’s a sandwich board or apartment leasing sign-flipping strategy. And do you want to fill your skilled jobs this way?  I sure hope not.

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.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: agency, inMails, LinkedIn, Recruiters, recruiting, Susan LaMotte

Social Media for the Job Seeker

November 26, 2013 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

By Celinda Appleby
All this buzz about using social media for job seeking can be extremely daunting and even scary. Especially when you consider the original reason you joined most social sites… to connect with others outside of work.  Here are some simple tips to tackle social media for job hunting.

1)     Dynamic Profiles: Clean up the social profiles you will be using for job hunting. This means creating privacy settings and even deleting posts that you do not want your potential employer to see. Change all profile pictures to images of you in a professional light. Ensure all your profiles are aligned with the same name and images. If you are open to networking with recruiters, list your email address.

2)     Self-Promotion: Join or update your LinkedIn profile, which is considered the largest professional networking social site. Use this site to highlight your accomplishments vs. posting your standard resume. Add in your awards, videos and presentations. Create a dynamic and searchable headline; use this space to share your most marketable traits.

3)     Research: Use social media to research your target companies before you apply and/or interview. Check out their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages to learn more about the company culture. Head over to Glassdoor.com to read what employees are saying about the companies you want to work for.  Create Twitter lists that follow your target companies to see what they are talking about and sharing.

4)     Engage:  Use social media as a way to break into companies HR departments. Engage recruiters on these platforms by sharing information and posting comments that inspire people to take note.  Ask questions about company culture or just share how excited you are about things you have learned while researching.

There is no real science to using social media for job hunting, but it is important to always put your best foot forward and remember that everything on the internet is permanent. If you do not want your grandma or your future boss to see it, do not post it.  What is proven is that social media provides the job seeker with lots of information at their fingertips. No longer are the days that you go into interviews blind, since the information is available for you to learn all about culture, benefits and work/life balance. Embrace social media into your job search and use this as another tool to win over the hiring manager during your interview. Everyone loves an informed and educated job seeker. Plus you will feel at ease knowing that you did your homework!

Celinda Appleby  is the Global Staffing Digital Media Program Manager at HP. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: celinda appleby, Facebook, Job Search, LinkedIn, networking, Social Media, Twitter

Keep Calm and Carry On – Talent Pipelines & The Shutdown

October 15, 2013 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

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

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ATS, Kathleen Smith, LinkedIn, Shutdown, Talent Community

recruitDC MoCo Sourcing Roundtable Meetup Recap

October 2, 2013 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

In 2013, recruitDC responded to the demand from the local recruiting community to provide more learning and networking opportunities by producing a series of ‘Meetups’ at various locations throughout Maryland and Virginia. The Meetups so far have primarily been free, brief, less formal events where 30-40 recruiters could get together for free to learn from each other and some of the area’s top recruiting professionals. Tabletalk session
On Thursday, September 26th, Aronson/Champion Recruiting hosted the 4th recruitDC Meetup of 2013 at their office in Rockville, MD. Sourcing was the topic-du-jour, and we took a new fun and interactive approach for knowledge sharing and collaboration on a variety of sourcing topics. Each table had a different topic with a local ‘rockstar’ facilitator including: candidate engagement (Pete Radloff), phone sourcing (Conni LaDouceur), LinkedIn (Caitlin Banks), Boolean search (Kelly Dingee), tech communities (Matt Duren), other social channels (Holly Bienia), pipeline development (Derek Zeller), and sourcing strategy development (Ben Gotkin).

Participants had the opportunity to participate in two table discussions over the course of 90 minutes, the ‘buzz’ was so great that it probably could have gone on all day. Some of the key learnings from participants through the day included:

  • How to effectively conduct phone research and cold calls by being ready with your follow up questions and by using terms to make you sound credible
  • Avoid using closed questions on a cold call that might solicit a yes/no answer
  • Build a strong word-of-mouth brand through a great candidate experience and transparency
  • The benefits of using the LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar
  • Using Rapportive to confirm email addresses and make easy connections to candidates social profiles
  • Leveraging librarians at your local public library to help conduct research for you
  • Using a ‘tilde symbol’ or ‘~’ in a Boolean search on Google gives you synonyms for search terms
  • Google is best for xraying LinkedIn
  • How Github profiles can demonstrate a specific level of expertise
  • Using ‘whois’ when searching social or tech profiles
  • Using Twitter search to find candidates

The feedback for this event was so positive that we are likely to use this format again for future Meetup events, so stay tuned. Also stay tuned for information on our next Meetup event, likely to happen in DC in the near future.

Don’t forget to register for the Fall 2013 recruitDC event at the AFI in Silver Spring, MD. You can get your tickets here!

Filed Under: recruitDC Events, Uncategorized Tagged With: Github, LinkedIn, Meetup, MoCo, sourcing, Twitter, WhoIs

Talent42 – The Current & Future State of Sourcing

September 4, 2013 by recruitdc Leave a Comment

Ed. Note: We’ve asked our friend, Amy Ala permission to repost her review of the session by Glen Cathey at Talent42. It was originally posted on RecruitingBlogs.com

By Amy Ala

The most valuable commodity I know of is information, wouldn’t you agree?
-Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

The most over-used word in my house right now is “epic”. My boys (ages 16 and 7) say it about EVERYTHING. World of Warcraft is EPIC. That hamburger was EPIC. I just did an EPIC trick on my skateboard. NO. Glen Cathey’s keynote at Talent42 was EPIC.

I was surprised to hear that Glen has never been a dedicated sourcer. He’s always been a full life cycle recruiter. (LIKE ME!!) Not that Glen has ANY challenges in the credibility department, but I love that he’s played the entire game. He gets it.

Like his keynote title promised, Glen went on to break down the current and future state of sourcing.

Current State of Sourcing

  • Heavy focus on tips and tricks and hacks vs. methodologies
  • Many ATSs sill offer terrible search capability
  • Sentiment that LINKEDIN is “easy” and concern over heavy reliance
  • Sourcers seek answers rather than learning how and why
  • Few purpose-built sourcing tools (structured, deep human capital)
  • Search providers continue to “dumb down” search interfaces and functionality, promise to do the “thinking” for you
  • Candidate messaging not significantly different than 10 years ago

Disagree with any of this so far? Nope, me neither. I especially love what he said next – “Stop worrying about how many people are fishing in the Pacific – fish better and actually get some fish before moving to some obscure pond.”

We’re talking to you, LinkedIn is easy audience. Or any job board and social media snobs. The simple truth is that people, and by people I mean potential candidates, are everywhere. Maybe Facebook, maybe GitHub, and yes I’m sure there is some rock star developer living in a cave off the grid with ZERO online presence. Fine. But Glen’s point, or at least how I decided to interpret it, is a great one – stop worrying so damn much about “where” you’re finding candidates and just be better at talking to them.

So we can continue to spend lots of time scouring the deep bowels of the interwebs in search of the elusive purple squirrel that NO ONE ELSE CAN FIND, except there’s one small problem with the internet. A search engine can only give you what you asked for. It doesn’t “know” what you want or need and can’t determine relevance.

Ah, so that’s why my results are sometimes so full of garbage.

According to Glen, we must be able to control our searches. Boolean logic is the simplest way to write a query. (if you have not already, go to Glen’s website NOW with any Boolean questions.) The change we need to see in sourcing is not a better search engine, or longer more intricate strings. Nope, we need to focus on asking better questions. The more we know about our target candidates, the better we’ll be at finding and closing them –

Critical Candidate Variables

  • Skills/experience
  • Desired opportunity
  • Location
  • Availability
  • Remuneration
  • Diversity

We (should) know the unique combination of these variables needed to do the job. Now the problem with traditional postings is that we have no control over the skills/experience of who applies. The beauty of sourcing is that you control who you contact. Which is awesome.

Back to our big pond. Or our Pacific Ocean, if you will. A big chunk of the Talent42 audience uses LinkedIn Recruiter. Most of us don’t use LIR to its full capability. It’s headed towards full CRM – we should be creating tags, custom notes, tons of meta-data that we can create.

Then there’s the new Facebook graph search – cost a dollar to send a message. Unbelievable. It’s in beta right now, so could take time to sign up. Glen says it’s worth it and will give you other search options it thinks you might be interested in. I like options in my sourcing strategies… Glen went on to list a few more –

  • Dice open web search
  • Entelo – Entelo button
  • Talentbin – social aggregation and matching Chrome extension works in Linkedin Recruiter
  • Gild – algorithmic Sourcing/Recruiting

Future State of Sourcing

  • Heavy focus in sourcing methodologies and disciplined approach to the retrieval, analysis, and action upon human capital data
  • Manual mining disappears
  • More purpose-built sourcing tools (structured, deep human capital)
  • ATS leveraging best in class search/retrieval
  • Search providers “smart-up” search interfaces and functionality and involve/communicate with users
  • Human sourcers will not be replaced by matching algorithms
  • Sourcing (finally!) matches marketing in segmentation and messaging

Glen sums it up with this – “we’ve all got a lot of data. How well you use it is what matters.” He was also kind enough to share a quote I found very fitting –

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
– Max Plank

Amy Ala is a Seattle based recruiter with over 10 years of diverse industry experience. She’s recruited her way across the country living and working in Southern California, Arizona, and Michigan including a 6 week stay in Louisville, KY to open a new staffing office. After several years on the agency side, having specialized in everything from light industrial to executive finance search, she detoured into public service. Connect with her on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter, or send her an email at alarecruiter@gmail.com

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Amy Ala, BooleanBlackBelt, Conference, Glen Cathey, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Recruiter, sourcing, Talent42

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