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Why I’m Super Fired Up About recruitDC

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by Chris Comrie
Hey I’m Chris Comrie- manager of the Recruiting Leaders Community. I love what I do.

We built the community from scratch to over 3,000 people basically overnight. Since then I’ve been asked by recruiting and search agencies, tech companies, and small businesses build their own communities through social media and digital marketing.
Seriously, I love what I do. Just watch the video to the right to see what I mean!
I’m super fired up to be sharing with you the things I’ve learned along the way in my talk at 1 pm on Thursday May 24 called How to Build Community to Get Candidates, Clients, Dates and Fame.
It’s an awesome talk for anyone in their career from entry level sourcer or corporate recruiter to veteran 20+ years agency owner or consultant.
We’ll talk about how to be selfish because I think it’s a good thing!
This isn’t some BS motivational talk- (you will get fired up too 🙂 and you’ll walk away with the KNOWLEDGE, TOOLS, and CONFIDENCE to immediately implement these branding and social media strategies into your company and into your employability (if you’re an employee.)
P.S. I’m challenging you to the “5 Friend Challenge!” People are the most important part of any conference so I’m challenging you to make 5 friends while you’re there. One from each category below:

  1. Someone ahead of you in your career
  2. Someone behind you in your career
  3. Someone in the same place as you in your career
  4. Someone that does something completely different than you
  5. And someone that is just a really fun, nice, cool person that you really hit it off with!

Tag them and me (linkedin.com/in/comriechris) on LinkedIn and say which role they fill!
If you haven’t picked up your tickets to recruitDC yet, you can do so here! Can’t wait to see you in DC! 
Chris manages Recruiting Leaders, the fastest growing high quality community of recruiters on Facebook. He uses his experience to mentor and consult recruiters on how to scale and automate their business and reach so they can earn more revenue while freeing up time. His writing and videos on how to leverage the power of community in a saturated recruiting market gets over 50,000 impressions per month. He is a LinkedIn and Facebook Influencer and enjoys giving back by teaching webinars and speaking at conferences about the power of community and how others can scale their audience too.

May the SOURCE be with you! – A Beginners Guide to Sourcing on Social Media:

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by Jeremy Bonewitz

Are you new to recruiting/sourcing? Have you reached a dead-end in your searching repertoire? Are you ready to use the SOURCE?! 

Sourcing can be intimidating for those new to recruiting and talent acquisition field.  However, I hope to relieve your stress by showing you some of the sourcing techniques that I have learned and used over the past few years to help find potential candidates more efficiently.  Having taken a variety of sourcing classes and webinars I hope to be able to teach those new to the industry a better and more efficient way of sourcing candidates on social media!

This Back to Basics seminar will provide you with the tools & resources to learn and embrace social media in your weekly sourcing and recruiting efforts. We will cover everything from sourcing and recruiting on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter along with other profile sites such as Zoominfo, Slideshare and others that you can use in your daily sourcing routine to help you find those hidden candidates.   Finally, we will cover resources that can help you learn about new tools, sourcing and recruiting techniques: LinkedInTalent Blog, ERE Media.com, and SocialTalent.

Ready to take your sourcing to a new level?  Then join me on Thu, May 24, 2018 at the Spring 2018 recruitDC Conference in VA and use your new knowledge to beat your competition! Get your tickets today!

Jeremy Bonewitz has been recruiting for over nine years both on the third-party side and corporate side. For the last seven years he has been a corporate recruiter in the engineering, environmental, and construction fields. He is currently a global talent consultant at Stantec in its Laurel, Maryland, office.

My recruitDC Story

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by Jo Weech

 

I will never forget my first ever recruitDC. It was Spring of 2014. I have not missed one since!

“Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be?”

The first I heard about this event was from a job seeker I was helping through a career transition group. Since I was new to cleared recruiting, I knew I had to check it out. I didn’t really know anyone except for recruitDC board member Mike Bruni, who I had met through Project S.A.V.E. Little did I know that Mike would become a most trusted advisor and friend. His wealth of knowledge and insight exceeds his youth and tan! By the end of that event, I had met many, many industry greats who are my friends to this very day.

Here are a few of those stories:

Always, there are choices for workshops, and I really, really needed Derek Zeller’s information on OFCCP compliance, which was in the “other” room. I reached out to him afterward, he sent me his slide deck, and then agreed to meet me for lunch to discuss. At the time, I had no idea that it would be the first of countless meals shared, from Arlington to Portland. (You can move away, but I will hunt you down and I will find you, and I will sup with you!)

Ben Gotkin agreed to meet with me so that I could pick his brain about employee referrals. This led to enrolling in a Recruiting Toolbox training, hosted by Pete Radloff at ComScore, as well as a conversation about legitimizing our profession. I then became the first paid charter member of the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals (ATAP), of which Ben is the Executive Director. The most highly regarded Carmen Hudson conducted sessions in this training, and I learned Boolean for the first time! Little did I know just how deeply and vastly Carmen’s expertise and friendship would guide me through many, many dilemmas. Of my many mentors, I hold Carmen in the highest esteem.

Neal Anders and I both connected with Matt Duren, who successfully recruited him to work at Tenable. I formed a professional alliance with Neal and have hosted him at a recruiter breakfast, and have enjoyed sharing stories and referrals with him since. All because I asked him to lunch after meeting him at the happy hour after recruitDC.

Many, many professional and personal friendships have been formed through recruitDC events. I remember seeing the infamous Gerry Crispin hat in the revolving door of my hotel during one event. I ran to track him down but missed him on the elevator. I had attended his session at SHRM Talent in Nashville, and couldn’t believe he was here at recruitDC! As history now has borne out, he has become my trusted mentor, adviser, and it is an honor to call him my friend.

Nando Rodriquez was frequently featured on my friend Celinda Appleby’s FB page. I was like a schoolgirl when I spotted him at the Spring 2015 event. Ran over to him practically asking for his autograph! He took a selfie with me, as we were both sporting ‘dos that were “on fleek” as he called it. That same day, I met J. T. O’Donnell, who I feature when I speak at events for job seekers, which has been over 60 times in the last two years. She has the best, most trusted advice for those in transition, and those of us who are on one side of the table should invest our intel to help candidates be the best they can be when auditioning for roles.

I met Moe Hutt somewhere along the way, and she enlisted my help on a committee for recruitDC. I became enamored of her organizational skills and am proud to call her my friend. She brings the “professional” to her role on the board, and I have enjoyed being the recipient of many of her event optimizations.

Christopher Kurtz did his first ever speaking engagement at recruitDC, and he and I forged a friendship that will stand the tests of time, as we support one another’s speaking engagements around the country.

Do not even know what to say about Audra Knight. (Holding back tears as I type.) Met her through Matt Duren, recruitDC board member, and the rest, they say, is history. Which includes planes, trains, and automobiles. She is the quintessential go-to person with questions about recruitment marketing. After her session at recruitDC, I went home and implemented nearly every suggestion from her presso. My personal brand was born!

John Nixon is the quiet one who likes to stay out of the limelight, but I want to give honor to whom honor is due. John provides financial support of this amazing conference year after year through his company ClearedJobs.net. If you have ever put the recruitDC lanyard around your neck, you will have seen that name. Do yourself a favor and find him at the next event to thank him. Don’t tell him I sent you. I don’t want to be in the doghouse for that!

Kathleen Smith has leveraged her knowledge of events, social media marketing, and branding to lead the board of recruitDC as its Director. These events have hundreds upon hundreds of meetings behind them, as you can only imagine! This takes a lot of stamina and endurance. She does all this with a bit of pizzazz. (Look for her shoes at the next event!)

So many people to honor. So little space. Many heartfelt thanks to Mike Bruni, John Nixon, Kathleen Smith, Lars Schmidt, Ben Gotkin, Doug Munro, Michael Heller, Jay Perreault, Tiffany Balve, Kara Yarnot, Moe Hutt, Matt Duren, Suzie Greco, Pete Radloff, Elizabeth Guevara, Lee Wanless, Brenden Bo Wright, Tony Palma, Carrie Oliver, Denise Slaysman, Bob Wheeler, Shannon Smedstad, Danielle Boykin, Brigit Freedman, Amy Rau, Mark Horning, Conor Nicholson and countless other local DMVers who I have enjoyed getting to know and getting to work alongside of in this, our most proud profession. Contrary to the Google search of “Recruiters are…” well, we are the few, the proud, the tireless, and the dedicated. I am honored to share my craft with y’all!

All this to say that you could just come and be a butt in a seat in the sessions, or, you could network the heck out of it and cultivate lifelong friendships with your peers and colleagues. I am pretty emotional trying to recount these stories, because the investment of just one day can change up your entire career. I speak from experience. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Come talk to me at the next event – better yet, come see my presentation Talent Sleuthing in the Intel Community. We could have a lifelong friendship ahead in our future!

It’s not too late to have create your own recruitDC story! Tickets are still available and you can get them here! 

Jo Weech loves to assist everyone from hiring managers to recruiters to job seekers. Speaking engagements include job fairs, career transition groups, and national HR and Recruiting conferences such as HIREconf, Social Recruiting Strategies Conference, Talent Success, ERE Recruiting, and will take the main stage at RECFEST18 in London. Jo was awarded the 2016 HRLA Leadership Excellence award, and the 2017 Gary Cluff Award for Recruitng Excellence. Jo was named by RecruitingDaily as one of 300+ Women In HR Technology to Follow and Support. In November 2017, Jo traveled to Japan in a US delegation of top HR and Talent Acquisition Professionals and will represent the US again this fall to Prague and Budapest. In December 2017, she won the award for Best Presentation in the Category of “HR is Awesome” for DisruptHR NYC. Additionally, Jo serves on two advisory groups for the National Initiative for Cyber Security Education and is an Adjunct Professor at Montgomery College in their CyberAdvantage Program.

SourceCon 2017: From a First-timer's Perspective

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By Tiffany Ballve

I don’t know why I waited ten years to finally attend the greatest sourcing conference of all time. I figured “go big or go home” and decided to attend Sourcecon’s 10th -anniversary conference this past week in Austin, TX with 800 of my closest friends.  The lessons and gems I took away from only 3 days of sessions will last me a long time to come.  Everything from deep web sourcing techniques to good ole’ phone sourcing (taking it back to our roots).  I listened to the likes of sourcing greats like Steve Levy and Stacey Zapar as well as some newbies (Maisha Cannon and Sarah Goldberg) hitting the stage that could’ve fooled me that it was their first time up there.

The annual hackathon was a blast last a few hours into Tuesday night crowning a new Hackathon winner with his magical unicorn hat.  This was sourcing games on crack with lots of fun and tomfoolery to be had including many hard core sourcers wearing Anonymous masks.  Throughout the conference we had a special guest (Batman) join us with riddles that we answered on our phones to vie for the last coveted seat as a Grandmaster Sourcer finalist.  Luckily I would soon find out that the last seat was mine!!

Alongside the breakout sessions and keynotes, Sourcecon had an Innovation Lab with up and coming tech as well as some proven platforms such as Paired Sourcing, Crowded, and Sourcing Academy. I got to play around with some really cool tools that I look forward to using such as SeekOut, Data Miner, and Hiretual. The regulars were there as well drumming up lots of interest (Indeed, Dice, Jobvite, Entelo, and Hiring Solved). Even iRevu made the trek all the way from DC.

Above all the amazing sessions and sourcing golden nuggets were the friendships to be made and networking around the clock.  Whether it be finally meeting most of the greats in person or catching up with old friends over espresso at 12am, it was hands down the best conference experience I’ve had to date.  It definitely didn’t disappoint and I can’t wait to attend many more in the future.

NOTE: Our keynote presenters at recruitDC’s Fall 2017 event will share their thoughts about recruiting’s newest technologies as well the criteria for assessing them for your company.  We will also feature our first Innovation Lab to allow you to see some of those tools in action!

Welcome Back To recruitDC, Matt Charney!

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We’re excited to welcome Matt Charney back to recruitDC this May, and he has pulled together a great closing keynote, with some great information to share with attendees. Always one to look past what’s shiny on the surface, and well-known for calling things “as they are”, Matt will bring a fresh perspective to some important topics in the Talent Acquisition space. This presentation will take a look at some of the biggest trends and emerging technologies impacting recruiting and hiring today. It’s a must-attend whether you are running a desk, or managing a division of recruiters.

From NGOs to Fortune 500 companies to Mom and Pop shops, we will look across markets, industries and specialties to identify what talent leaders can do today to compete – and win – the top talent of tomorrow. Matt will discuss the real issues that really matter to real recruiters, and focus on identifying what’s really new and what’s really next. He’s going to encourage ditching the buzzwords and fluff for a data driven look into the changing world of work – and what that means for the work of HR and recruiting.

Here’s what you can expect to take away from Matt’s session:

  • How to follow the trail of venture capital and influx of cash to determine which startups are being built to last, which categories of technology and tools are the hottest segments of the talent business, and how recruiters can stay ahead by staying on top of the bigger business picture without a whole lot of work (or any special knowledge).

  • What the future of work looks like after on boarding, and how the blended workforce and gig economy models, coupled with a rise in knowledge work, globalization and remote workers, are already shaping the way companies hire, and what the upending of the traditional social contract means for traditional recruiting and Human Relations. 

  • How to build a business case for talent acquisition to get the resources required to recruit the talent you need, and how to work with internal stakeholders and employees to tie talent acquisition efforts directly to bottom line results. We’ll talk about how to make friends, influence hiring managers and finally make your people the greatest asset in the business – only with the P/L to prove it.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Still need tickets?

Buy them here before they sell out!

Thank You, recruitDC

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By Pete Radloff

I’ve been very lucky in my career. Luck played a part in how I even got into recruiting. It played a part in my having some of the best mentors and teachers that you could ask for over the course of a career. Because of my appreciation for all of this luck, I’ve always wanted to pay it forward, to use a phrase. Turns out, I wouldn’t have to wait long.

In 2010, I attended the first ever recruitDC, at Wooly Mammoth Theatre in D.C.. I lucky enough be asked to be on a panel about sourcing tools and techniques with some people that I greatly admired. And while I knew a good number of the attendees, I met so many people there, that it was hard to keep track of everyone. I would later find out through various conversations with people, some years later, that they had also been in attendance. It was a whirlwind event, but one that I took away a great deal from.

I walked out of the first recruitDC conference feeling as though I had just been handed the keys to the kingdom. I had innumerable new tricks to apply to my sourcing and recruiting, and new (to me) tools to test out. I was in a bit of recruiting-geek heaven, and to borrow a phrase from my friend Stacy, “I knew I had found my people”. I knew that for as long as there were more of these, I’d be one of the first to buy tickets. After all, as much as I wanted to attend national conferences, there was never a budget for that. And up until now, I hadn’t seen anything with that depth of content at an event at a local level. Hooked.

I was invited to join the Board of Directors for recruitDC in 2011. I immediately jumped at the opportunity to help shape and grow an organization I was very fond of. Heck, I’d get to work with Bob Corlett again. That in and of itself was enough to make me say yes. It turns out, that I got so much more out of it than I had ever expected. To be honest, I’ve been on the Board for longer than I’ve been at any job. and in that time, we’ve accomplished a lot.  

Fast forward to now, my last event as a Board member of recruitDC. I’m not one for sappy good-byes, but I cannot stress enough how thankful I am for the opportunity to have been on this great ride. I’m proud to call each of the board members – past, present & newly elected – a good friend. I’m emboldened by the mix of new and familiar faces at each and every conference. I’ve always believed that a connected community is a strong community, and the recruiting & sourcing community in DC is one of the strongest that I know of. 

May 25th is just around the corner. And, in a bittersweet way, I’m really looking forward to this event. The sessions are filled with great information and we’ve pulled together a strong mix of talent from the D.C. area and the country.

To those who haven’t yet come to recruitDC, or are on the fence:

Find a reason to come to the conference. It is worth the investment of time to grow and expand your network – just ask anyone who has come to a recruitDC event before. Don’t expect one day to solve all your recruiting & problems, but rather let it add to the body of knowledge that goes with you wherever you go. And no matter what happens professionally, your community is still there. And the reqs on your desk? They will still be there tomorrow too, but maybe you’ll have some better tools and tactics to fill them with. 

I hope to see you there on May 25th, and hope that your experience with recruitDC is as meaningful to you as it is to me.  And that is due to the community. 

So…thanks recruitDC. 

P.S.  – Click to buy tickets

 

 

 

Source Houston – Texas Takes Over

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Ed Note:
At recruitDC, we want to actively support our sister organizations across the country, whose aim is to bring great training and content to recruiters in their local area. With the advent of ATAP, a national movement is underway, but the local organizations are the lifeblood of the grassroots movement. 

Today, we wanted to share some info on Source Houston, which is taking place next week, on April 20th. To purchase your tickets, visit their Eventbrite site

Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, and there or over 2.1M people in Houston proper with another 4M people in the surrounding suburbs.  Almost 30,000 people here in Houston say they are in the business of hiring people. I bet there are exceedingly intelligent recruiters here in Houston that push the limits of what can be done every day. I’d also put money on the table that some recruiters that want to learn more about our industry, network with like minded people, grow in their careers and take it to the next level.  Dollars to donuts that both of those types of recruiters would love the opportunity to share and learn in a welcoming place. This is why WE created Source Houston and that includes you (even if you’re not in Houston).

The beginning…

Source Houston came together with like minded recruiters and sourcers here in Houston. We all came from different industries, but were facing similar problems in identifying and hiring talent. So we problem solved. We started collaborating over google hangouts for brainstorming and bouncing strategies off each other, and soon working lunches and meetups ensued. We were having fun too! Working together with others who shared our interests (and struggles) made us better collectively, and we fostered great friendships in the process. Together we discovered a wealth of information, ideas, and techniques that benefited everyone in so many ways. As the old saying goes, rising tides raise all ships!   

The knowledge is here…

As this is being written, a recruiter or sourcer is playing lights out at their desk, crushing goals every day. There is a leader in talent acquisition making innovative changes and streamlining their processes. We want to hear from them and share that knowledge because it only makes us better. Our industry is evolving rapidly, and while the fundamentals remain true, tons of new recruiting and HR tech is introduced almost daily. We have professionals that have taken the stage at national recruiting conferences to share their expertise right here in Houston. Alaina Rivas, Monali Parmar, and Natalie Dunphy to name a few. But what about the recruiters and sourcers in the trenches, getting things done on the daily? What knowledge can they bring to the table? That know-how and best practices are right here in our back yard. Our goal is to leverage the expertise here in Houston in the areas of sourcing, recruiting, talent acquisition, and social media to attract talent to our organizations. So let’s build and share together..

Accessibility

Not everyone can take half a week off of work or have the budget  to attend some of our favorite recruiting conferences like SourceCon, Talent42, or ERE. Not many companies have a training and development plan for their TA teams. That is why it’s important to invest in your own development and collaborate  with other recruiters locally. Own and hone your craft. There are some outstanding knowledge based sharing events all over the country, but rarely do they come to Houston. We aim to change that. Our conferences, meetups, and workshops are all designed to maximize the time spent there. No travel means less time away from the desk, families, and more importantly, we keep things simple and fun. We are holding out next conference at a brewery… enough said.

#RealTalk

We all have networks when it comes to our daily roles. I noticed that I am networked “well” in Houston, but, I haven’t spoken to many of them for over a year. Some of the greatest business relationships come from the cultivated acquaintances. Having a robust network of industry colleagues and leaders is another great way to find your next role or opportunity. Plain and simple; a networked recruiter is a good recruiter. We invite you to join our community. Take place in the conversation, share what you know, learn something new, and have some fun doing it!. We also stay connected through social media for continuous learning far after our conferences have ended.

Recruit Like You Mean It…

Our motto is recruit like you mean it. Collaborating with your local peers could bring you the game changer you’ve been looking for your day to day or your career. Inversely, you could end up providing that to someone. Recruiting is more than just LinkedIn and an ATS. It’s about relationships, leveraging the right tools to make those relationships, and taking the candidate experience seriously. Are you willing to start your own community?

                   

About the Authors

Jason Vogel is a Sourcing Manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and a founding member of Source Houston. He is part of a national Sourcing Team whose focus is to identify, engage, and build a talent pipeline of passive candidates and convert them to active applicants for the firm to hire.  Jason has 20 years of recruiting experience as an agency and in-house corporate recruiter.

 

Arron Daniels, Recruiting Sourcer at H-E-B and Founder of Source Houston,(specializing in technical & non-technical recruitment, and everything in between – a true firefighter when it comes to recruitment!) Arron started his recruiting journey in the military – recruiting military & signal intelligence and transitioned out of the service into a Sourcer role during his agency days in Houston – You can catch Arron contributing to Workology, Recruiting Daily & SourceCon

 

Megan Calimbas is is a founding member of Source Houston and is currently a Sourcing Manager with PWC. She is a wellspring of knowledge in recruiting and she has led projects and teams for many high profile companies. Megan specializes in talent identification and has been in leadership roles developing sourcing teams as well as an individual contributor. You can find Megan contributing and speaking with ERE Media.

HR Tech Fest Coming to DC!

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Conferences are flocking to DC, it seems! We’ve got a special offer for our recruitDC community, courtesy of The Eventful Group. HR Tech Fest is coming to DC April 20 through the 22nd. As a member of the recruitDC community, they are offering a Buy One Get One ticket price with an additional $100 off the registration for our community. 

For Tickets: Visit the HR Tech Fest Registration Page, and enter code RecruitDC to claim the discount. 

They have a stellar lineup with Talent Acquisition leaders from all over the country, including:

Ambrosia Vertesi – VP, Talent, Hootsuite

William Tincup – Principal Analyst, KeyInterval Research

Bill Boorman – Managing Director Innovation & Technology, RecruitingDaily & #tru

 

Event and Ticket Information:

Technology continues to disrupt the way HR functions. No longer the cost center or the poor cousin; new disruptive technology, easy to adopt in bite size and cloud based chunks, has thrust HR into a leadership role demanding it to be a strategic partner within the organization. So the emphasis for HR to enhance performance, cut costs and find value adding tools has never been greater.

Enter HR Tech Fest. This global conference is expanding into North America this spring at The Renaissance Washington, D.C. Downtown Hotel, April 20-22. Join the best and brightest in HR and technology to discuss this exciting convergence of people, process and tech.

An event built by HR professionals and presented by that same community of practitioners, HR Tech Fest features presentations from leading companies including Twitter, Google, Hulu, Amazon, GoDaddy and more. Learn best practices on how they successfully moved HR into a strategic role and proven cost benefits to their C-level.

Get a sneak peek into the conference content by attending this complimentary webinar with renowned HR Tech guru and conference speaker, William Tincup. Learn some of the most critical trends in HR technology today, and hear how to better position yourself to make technology purchases, optimize your own technology and impact your business.

Register for HR Tech Fest by March 18 with promo code RecruitDC and save $100 off your BOGO.   

With HR Tech Fest in April and the recruitDC Conference in May, you’re spring learning is set to hyperdrive!

A Glut Of Recruiters Jobs In The DC Area?

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By Tracy Tran

This past January, I was laid off at my company and I immediately updated my resume and applied to numerous companies and staffing agencies (Spoiler Alert: I start my new job with the HR Source this week). I did get interviews, including several from staffing firms. Without asking, all the staffing firms told me there were tons of recruiting openings (mostly contract) that companies are looking. I asked them why there’s a demand of recruiters. None of the recruiters, from staffing firms, had an answer why there is high demand. So, the next best thing is I asked the recruitDC community about this and there were a few theories:

Theory #1: Not a lot of recruiters in the DC area

It is not the right answer, but it is not entirely far-fetched, either. In Northern Virginia, you have a wide array of government contractors; in Maryland, you have mostly biotech companies; and in D.C., you have everything you can imagine, but only a few slots to fill. However recently, the area has been diversifying (in different industries and sectors) to attract people from across the United States to come to D.C.

Theory #2: Executives don’t think recruiters are necessary, are the first to get laid off, and hire contract recruiters.

On one hand, I do think executives might have a point since some companies are automating their recruiting process and making most recruiters lazy instead of being proactive, which gives recruiting a bad name.

On the other hand, if you have a good recruiting department, why would you eliminate it? Good recruiters do the ground work of sourcing, contacting, and networking with potential candidates and forward the best candidates available to the hiring manager. Good recruiters do not rely too much on machines; they mostly rely on the art of recruiting.

Theory #3: Headcounts are growing for D.C. area companies.

This is the most likely theory as the D.C. area job growth outpaced the national job growth last year. You would think federal funding was a factor of the job growth in D.C.

Not true.

D.C. area companies have found new sources of revenue and with cheaper gas prices and other alternatives to take advantage; companies can expand and be aggressive in their hiring, which is great for recruiters here.

If you’re looking for recruiting opportunities in D.C. area, it is a great time to find one. Even if the company does not have any recruiting openings, they might create one, and luckily, that’s what happened to me.

Groups like We Recruit DC on Facebook have been filled with opportunities as of late, and it bodes well for recruiters.

What are you seeing in the DC area? 

Tracy is a Sourcer and Social Media Specialist for The HR SOURCE in Maryland.  He has been in recruiting for over twelve years sourcing, networking, interviewing, negotiating, and advising hiring managers on who to look for. His experience stretches sectors from nonprofits, consulting firm, government contracting, tech, media, and others from a variety of positions from executives, directors, interns, senior-level, mid-level, and entry-level positions. He has also dealt with job boards currently with NatsJobs, which is a unique and interactive job board during Washington Nationals games. Connect with Tracy on LinkedIn or Twitter.

To Find the Right Candidates, Take a Different Approach

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Thomas Handcock, Practice Leader, CEB

Most companies that are hiring for sales or customer service roles tend to do so at large volume, attracting thousands of applicants. Yet, despite the multitude of applicants, CEB data show that 72 percent are of average quality at best.

The reason why? Candidates today are far less picky in the early stages of a job search than they were in the past. A quarter of them apply, often online, to at least 10 companies, even applying for jobs they know they have little chance of getting.

At the same time, recruiters have limited time to reduce a long list of applicants to a select few to interview. So it’s no surprise that one in five new hires are regretted, or that 65 percent of hiring managers aren’t satisfied with the work of their recruiter.

The problem is clear. Despite the volume of applicants and the short deadlines, it’s still critically important that the right person is hired for these types of roles – especially as most of them involve direct contact with customers – and recruiters are struggling to deliver.

What should recruiters do?

75 percent of recruitment and HR teams think promoting their company as a “great place to work” will help solve this problem. However, the approach of mass “branding for appeal” only attracts more mediocre candidates. Those candidates only continue to slow down overworked recruitment teams and force them to dismiss more candidates.

Even more importantly, many candidates, and notably the ones companies really want to attract, don’t pay attention to this type of branding. This is because companies are not applicants’ only source of information when they are looking for jobs. In fact, 80 percent of the information that candidates learn about employers comes from sources outside a recruiting department’s control, for example, sites like Glassdoor. And there’s an easy answer as to why – nearly two-thirds of them say they are skeptical about what employers say about themselves, so they find the information they want to know elsewhere.

To win the war for talent, recruiters need to shift their strategy to help candidates decide whether the organization is the right fit for them and if they have the qualities the company is looking for. Rather than branding for appeal, they need to “brand for influence,” and be a consultative partner to candidates.

This shift to branding for influence yields much better results. In fact, this type of strategy results in a 54 percent increase in quality of applicant pools, five percent more high-performing new hires, and a 23 percent decrease in new hire turnover.

How can my organization brand for influence?

  1. Focus branding on critical talent: Instead of branding across a wide range of talent segments, focus your resources on the talent that you really need now and in the future. Make sure you understand what is important to these people and tailor messages accordingly.

  2. Challenge and tell, don’t sell: Think of yourself as a consultant to applicants. Challenge their ideas about your organization and the kind of role they think you offer. Offer realistic previews of the role and the firm’s culture to help them truly understand the culture and what it’s like to work for your organization.

  3. Build a network of brand influencers: Focus on improving the way you manage relationships with the people that influence candidates. These “brand ambassadors,” whether they’re from inside or outside of the company, can have a significant impact on the quality of the applicant pool.

When done properly, a branding for influence approach means better people are hired at lower cost. But not only that, the higher quality of hire that can be realized by this type of approach yields new hires that are higher performers and turn over at a lower rate. And these results don’t come at a high price tag – just about a three percent increase in employment branding costs. Even if your organization doesn’t have the funding to devote additional spend to branding for influence, adopting the strategies suggested above can still go a long way toward improving the quality of the applicant pool and, ultimately, the quality of hire – even in high-volume service roles.

Thomas Handcock is a Practice Leader in CEB’s HR practice. You can connect with him by visiting his LinkedIn profile

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