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Entries Tagged with candidates
Monday August 16th, 2010
A couple of days ago we posted an article on how every candidate interaction is a marketing opportunity, and how important it is to take advantage of those opportunities, for a whole lot of reasons. Today, Kelly Blokdijk commented on the piece, citing this job ad she found online: HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER About the Job Human Resources Managers: MA/MS in Human Resources, Psychology or related field. Will oversee HR Dept. Job site: City, ST. Send cover ltr, resume & salary rqts/hist to: First Initial Last Name (no link or email)/ Company Name, Inc., Street Address, City, ST Zip Code. That was the entire ad!
Do you really think your ideal candidate is going to respond to that? I know the job market in the US is less competitive than the job market here in Canada right now, and I know that received wisdom says that there are lots and lots of really fantastically qualified people just desperate for jobs, but - really? Can you think of a single A-list HR manager with a graduate degree of any kind responding to this ad? Just for starters:
In other words, the only people this ad is going to attract are the unemployed and unemployable - the ones so desperate they've lost all their critical thinking skills and apply to anything. (If you've seen this ad in context, or have seen a similar one recently, let me know - I'm dying to get in touch with the person who posted this and ask them what their thought process was here. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's some kind of scam. But if it's not, wouldn't you love to know the rationale behind this?) Friday January 29th, 2010 It's hard to believe that it's been a YEAR since the last Egregiously Bad Candidates blog post (don't forget to check out the October 2008 post that started it all). I think it's probably because in the abysmal economy of 2009, being out of work and/or looking for a job wasn't actually all that funny - contrary to popular belief, 99% of recruiters really do care about their candidates, and it doesn't seem right to laugh at the very people who suffer the most (i.e. the Egregiously Bad Candidates who have a tough time finding a job in a strong economy fare even less well in a poor one). But now that the economy is (supposedly) on the upswing, and the turnover increase predicted by John Sullivan is starting to happen, I think our sense of humour is coming back. So here's EBC Part V.
Why am I calling it 'The "Whoops!" Edition'? Because deep down, we all know the truth: Sometimes even the best of us say something so unbelievably dumb/inappropriate/wrong that 5 years later, just thinking about it can cause our faces to redden with embarrassment. I know I'm an A-list candidate - doesn't mean I haven't said some D-list stuff in my time. And sometimes, the funniest EBC items aren't the big bold disasters (like the guy who offered a $1000 reward to anyone who found him a job). The ones that still have you shaking your head, 5 years later, are the WTF?! statements inserted into an otherwise apparently rational conversation, and you're left wondering: "Is this person really a nutjob, or was it just an unfortunate foot-in-mouth episode that can be put down to nerves?"
Real quotes from candidates (as heard by me in the past 12 months) (Guess which one was actually said by me, circa 1998!) "Before I apply for that job on your website, I need to know if it pays enough to cover my current debt load." "I had to wear my running clothes for this interview because I broke up with my girlfriend and she changed the locks and I can't get my suit." "Sorry I'm 40 minutes late. I went to your old office - I didn't know you'd moved in 2005. You should have told people." "Sure, I hit [my co-worker]. But you would have, too - everyone agreed she wasn't productive. The lawyers made them fire me, but I know they didn't want to, really." "I just really think I need to work in a Christian environment. Nothing against Kwaanzaa or whatever, but I don't think Muslims have the same work ethic." "Do you have a projector? You can't get the full effect just by looking at my resume on your computer screen." "Don't think I'm weird or anything, but I have my dead cat's ashes in my handbag. Now I can take her everywhere!" "I don't agree. I think it's absolutely appropriate to include, in my covering email, my stance against getting coffee for my manager. If you don't think getting coffee is degrading, you may not be the headhunter for me. I can take my assets elsewhere." [voicemail] "Um, I'm just calling back because I realized that in my previous automated phone screen process - that I just did 2 minutes ago - I didn't tell you what my name was. Ha! Ha! I promise I'm not normally that dumb. Hopefully you'll call me for an interview." "Really? I didn't realize you could actually have a career in headhunting. I mean, isn't it really just, like, talking to people all day long? I wish I could have an easy job like that." "Nah - let's just end the interview. The job sounds nice and all, but I don't want to work that hard." What's your best real-life candidate quote? The best part of the Egregiously Bad Candidates series is the comments! (Did you figure out which one was said by me?) Monday January 4th, 2010 So, a few weeks ago we launched a new video [embedded below - just scroll down]. 'Irreverent' videos like ours are old hat in the B2C marketplace, but relatively new for B2B/professional services, and there aren't yet a whole lot of established best practices in this area, especially around recruiting. With that in mind, here's some follow-up - if you've been thinking about doing a video in the coming months, you may find the following post helpful.
Ah, the feedback... To me, the most interesting part of making a video like this is hearing what people feel/think/say about it. For example: John Zappe loved the video. Eric Shannon, on the other hand, did not. John says it could be the "....most honest career video ever made" and that it "....[nails] recruiting." Eric, however, says that it has "...crappy message and positioning" and that it "Does more damage to the brand than the attention will benefit." I've done my share of tv commercials and videos over the past 15 years, so these two extremes aren't surprising to me - in fact, it's been my experience that the more polarizing a video is, the more effective it's likely to be, overall.
Don't confuse 'total audience' with 'target audience' Eric wasn't the only one who thought the video was entertaining but totally misguided. Since the video was completed, scarcely a day has gone by without me having some version of the following conversation: NON-MARKETING PERSON: "Sarah, I've got some feedback about the video. People don't understand it at all. They think it's funny and everything, but it's too confusing - they had no idea what the 60 hours thing was." ME: "Hhmmm...how many people have you shown it to?" NMP: "Well, 3. But two of them said it was confusing." ME: "Who were they? Clients? Candidates? HR people?" NMP: "Actually, it was my mother, and my aunt who lives in New Zealand. They're retired now but they were both teachers." ME: (sigh) NMP: "Well, don't you care?" ME: "Not really. They aren't the target - we wanted to reach recruiting decision-makers. As long as the video didn't engender your mother's undying revulsion, I'm not really concerned with whether she understood the message." NMP: (secretly thinking that I probably don't know as much about marketing as I think I do) "Harumph!"
We all feel like
marketing experts. Since most of us have absorbed hundreds of thousands of marketing messages in our lifetimes, and we've been absorbing them practically since birth, it's not surprising that most of us think that we have some level of marketing expertise. But when your doctor puts a cast on your broken arm, you don't say, "Well, that looks okay for a first draft - just let me run this by 10 people in the sales and supply chain department to get their insight, and then I'll let you know the revisions."
It's really all about the results. Ultimately, the goal of marketing is simple: To sell more stuff. It's not about whether people like the video; it's about whether it's effective. It's not about how many people see the video; it's about how many of those people then do something as a result of seeing it. So what have our stakeholders done as a result of this video?
WATCH THE VIDEO:
Monday November 30th, 2009 A BIT OF HOUSEKEEPING: A number of readers in the past couple of weeks have asked if they can reprint/reproduce these "Dear Sarah" pieces for use with their own candidates. The answer: Yes, absolutely - as long as they are properly credited, with a link to this blog and my email address (sarah@head2head.ca). Dropping me a line to let me know you're using it would be great, too - I appreciate a good ego-stroke as much as the next person. In the last "Dear Sarah" post, we talked about what happens when more than one recruiter submits your profile to a client, and how it can make everyone look bad. But does that mean you should never work with more than one recruiter? Well...no. But. Some recruiters will tell you that unless you (as a job-seeker) work exclusively with them, they won't represent you or present you to clients. Here's why: Good recruiters will tell you when they're submitting your profile to a client; the best recruiters will ask your permission in advance. But the not-so-great recruiters just submit lots of candidates to lots of clients and hope that something sticks. At the same time, many clients will engage several recruiting agencies to fill a given role, so they're getting candidates submitted to them from multiple sources. That means that your profile could currently be in front of a whole bunch of clients, and the new recruiter doesn't want to look like an idiot by submitting a profile of a candidate that their client saw 2 weeks ago from some other recruiter. Going to 8 zillion different recruiters increases the chance of your profile being submitted to a particular client, and after a while it's not just the recruiter who looks like an idiot: Once a client has been given your profile from 4+ different recruiters over a couple of months, they start to wonder just how desperate/unemployable you really are. However, putting all your eggs in one basket with one recruiter isn't wise, either, especially if you don't know how successful/connected that recruiter is in your field.
Some guidelines for working with more than one recruiter:
Sunday November 22nd, 2009 A BIT OF HOUSEKEEPING: A number of readers have asked if they can reprint/reproduce these "Dear Sarah" pieces for use with their own candidates. The answer: Yes, absolutely - as long as they are properly credited, with a link to this blog and my email address (sarah@head2head.ca). Dropping me a line to let me know you're using it would be great, too - I appreciate a good ego-stroke as much as the next person.
Note to recruiters (job-seekers, just scroll down to the next bolded heading!) This week, Jeff Lipschultz and I were guests on Daisy Wright's Blog Talk Radio show. At first I wondered how we'd fill in a whole hour, but I needn't have worried: As I said in the first "Dear Sarah" post, those of us who work in recruiting - and spend most of our time talking about, thinking about, and writing about recruiting - would do well to remember that for the average person, recruiting is something they only think about once every few years. Information that we think of as common knowledge - and therefore not worth even talking about - is definitely not common knowledge for the average person. (Speaking with Jeff after the show, we agreed the lack of recruiting knowledge is particularly evident in Gen Ys, even among the best-and-brightest. Given that Jeff's in Dallas and I'm in Toronto, I wonder how many A-listers North American recruiters are missing out on, simply because these candidates don't know how to get our attention.) If you're a job-seeker - or a recruiter/hiring manager who frequently interacts with candidates who are new to working with recruiters - you might want to send them a link to the podcast of the show.
HALF THE BATTLE IS LEARNING THE LINGOThe first question in the show was about the difference between a 'headhunter' and a 'recruiter' - and in fact it's a question I get probably once a week. Like any other profession, recruiting has its own lexicon that isn't necessarily well understood by the average job-seeker. So below, you'll find explanations for some of the most common recruiting terms. It's definitely not exhaustive, but it's a good start. (Remember: Being familiar with the terminology tells recruiters that you've done your homework and 'get it'.)
What's the difference between a 'recruiter' and a 'headhunter'? The short answer is: Nothing. The only reason anyone gets confused is that recruiters never use the word 'headhunter' to describe themselves, and among recruitment professionals it's considered a slightly derogatory term. (It's sort of how real estate peole always call themselves 'real estate salesperson' or 'realtor', but the rest of the world calls them 'real estate agents'.) However, while all headhunters are recruiters, not all recruiters are headhunters. 'Headhunter' is a term used to refer to agency recruiters, who typically work on commission or retained search on behalf of a client, and are the ones most likely to call you up at your current job to 'headhunt' you for another position. 'Recruiter', on the other hand, is used to describe anyone who recruits candidates. This includes headhunters, but also includes corporate recruiters who work within organizations, are less likely to 'headhunt' candidates, and who are more involved in recruitment strategy.
When do I go from being a 'job-seeker' to a 'candidate'? Recruiters use the term 'candidate' to refer to any person who may be a potential applicant, interviewee, or hire. Like 'headhunter', 'job-seeker' or 'job-hunter' aren't terms recruiters use very often. (Personally, I've always wondered why they don't use those terms, but so far no one's explained it to me.) Here are some of the most common ways in which you'll see yourself described as a candidate: Potential
candidate: For example, a job board may say it has "30,000 potential candidates" in accounting. What that means is there are 30,000 people registered in their database who have indicated 'accounting' as part of their skills/experience, and who may be interested in an accounting-related role. Passive
candidate: Among recruiters looking to fill intermediate and senior roles, passive candidates are considered the most valuable, because they tend to be high-performing achievers who are too busy making a contribution to, and moving up within, their current organization to become sufficiently dissatisfied to embark on an active job search. (When you hear recruiters talk about using social media for recruiting, it's usually about using social media to establish and maintain long-term relationships with passive candidates. A-list overachievers, especially at the Director-level and above, aren't likely to respond to some recruiter who calls them out of the blue to try to sell them on a new job; it may take months of 'wooing' the passive candidate to get them interested in considering a move.) Pre-screened
candidate: Depending on the role and number of applicants, there may be several stages to the screening process, including 'paper screen' (a review of all the resumes/applications, discarding any that are obviously unsuitable or incorrect); 'phone screen' (the recruiter makes a 5-minute phone call to the candidates who passed the paper screen, and again discards any who are obviously unsuitable); 'detailed phone screen' (a second phone call, longer and more detailed). At each screening stage, the candidate pool is whittled down. A pre-screened candidate refers to an applicant who has passed one or more screening stages. Submitted to
client: What that submission contains depends on the client: Some clients want to see a brief summary of 10+ different candidates; others want more detailed info on just the top 3 candidates. Depending on the relationship between the recruiter and his/her client, your name may be included with your profile, or it may be hidden. This is why recruiters always ask you if you're working with another recruiter, and, if so, to whom that recruiter has already submitted your profile. Employers often engage more than one recruiting agency to fill a given role; when two or more recruiters submit the profile of the same candidate, it makes everyone - including you - look bad. It can be even more sticky if the client ends up hiring you. Remember, recruiters get paid only when the employer makes a hire. If two or more recruiters submit you, either one of them goes unpaid, or they have to split the commission. Either way, the recruiters are going to be cheesed off, and won't be in a hurry to take your call the next time you're looking for a job.
Have a recruiting-related lexicon question? Send it to sarah@head2head.ca. Tuesday November 17th, 2009 Think this blog post is 100% wrong? If you're new to the job market - and even if you're not - your biggest source of confusion about recruiters (aka 'headhunters') is probably a simple one: Who the heck pays them? (Yes, if you're a recruiter here on ERE, you - presumably - know all about headhunters and how they get paid. But as I explained in the first "Dear Sarah" post, this series was created so that the next time you get a question from a non-recruiting friend or relation, you can just send them this link rather than having to spend too much time explaining.) First, a word on lexicon: Though you and your friends may talk about 'headhunters' - i.e. the people who call you and try to sell you on a Fabulous New Job Opportunity - that's not a word used by headhunters themselves. It's sort of like how real estate salespeople never call themselves real estate 'agents', even though the rest of the world does. There's a fair amount of recruiting-industry lexicon with which you may not be familiar, actually. The more you know about the lexicon, the more 'in the know' you'll seem to recruiters, so I've provided brief descriptions below. Anyway, it's the client - i.e. the company who makes the hire - who pays the recruiter, not the job-seeker. Here's how it (typically) works:
This is called contingency fee-based recruiting, because the fee is contingent upon a hire being made. (There are other recruiting models, and fees can vary - such as much lower fees for junior/high volume roles and higher fees for very senior/executive roles - but this is the basic contingency model and the one you're most likely to encounter if you're working with a recruiting agency.) Typically, recruiters are paid a base salary by the agency they work for, plus a commission based on the contingency fees they generate for the agency. So when you're hired through an agency, the recruiter you've been working with gets a piece of the 20% of your starting annual salary that the client pays to the agency. I know it sounds like a lot of money - if your starting salary is, say, $60k, then the client pays $12,000 for the privilege of hiring you - but keep in mind that a typical agency recruiter will interview 25+ candidates per week, but only a handful of them will ultimately be hired.
So how do I connect with a recruiter? Well, this is a big topic and one we'll revisit in future posts, but the first step is to do some research to find out which recruiting agencies specialize in your profession/field/industry. Though some larger recruiting agencies recruit for all positions, you'll do better if you hook up with a recruiting agency - or even a recruiter - which specializes in one or two fields/roles, such as IT positions, supply chain positions or clerical positions. However, just Googling may not be enough here. For example, if you look at the website of Canadian recruiting company Mandrake Management Consultants, you wouldn't know that they've long had a specialty in recruiting for advertising/marketing jobs - but they do. So your best bet is to ask around: Ask friends and colleagues which recruiting agencies they've worked with recently, and which ones specialized in your field. While you're at it, ask your friends/colleagues for the names (and contact info!) of the recruiter(s) they've worked with. There's nothing more pointless - and more guaranteed to generate rejection - than randomly calling recruitment agencies and asking to speak to 'anyone'. Recruiting agencies get hundreds, if not thousands, of unsolicited calls and emails every day - they're very good at screening. Getting the direct email/phone number of a specific person, and being able to reference someone they've successfully placed, will put you miles ahead. BONUS TIP: When you're asking your friends and colleagues for referrals to recruiters, don't specify that you want the names of recruiters they liked; ask for the names of the recruiters who seemed to have jobs. Because you don't have to like the recruiter, as long as they can actually connect you to great opportunities. Saturday November 14th, 2009 Think this blog post is 100% wrong? Because I've worked in the recruiting industry for a while now, but am not actually a recruiter myself, scarcely a week goes by that I don't get an email from someone - a friend-of-a-friend, a spouse-of-a-friend, a child-of-a-friend - telling me that they're having unsatisfactory interactions with recruiters, and asking what they should do about it. The fundamental problem, of course - outside of the current economy, which is making job hunting tougher for everyone - is simply that most job-seekers don't really understand the recruiting process. (I know I'm not alone here: If you've worked in recruiting or HR for more than 5 minutes, you get emails like this, too.) It doesn't mean the people sending the emails are dumb, either. (Ask 10 of your smartest friends - even ones who've been in the workforce for 10+ years - and I guarantee that at least 7 of them will have only the haziest notion of how 'headhunters' and contingency fees work.) They just need a little education on how to work with recruiters. But there are only so many hours in a day - who has time to conduct personalized Working With Recruiters 101 courses tutorials every time your father's best-friend-from-highschool's kid's cousin sends you a desperate email? (Actually, I shouldn't be so glib, because it's sometimes heartbreaking. In contrast to the infamous Egregiously Bad Candidates, I know many of these email writers are good people, and hard workers who bring valuable skills and experience to the table. And even the best of us start to get a little desperate round about Week 8 of a job search.)
Welcome to the 'Dear Sarah' series! ...in which we offer advice, tips and general how-to-ish-ness to job-seekers who want to have more satisfactory interactions with recruiters. So the next time you get a desperate email from a friend-of-a-friend, just send them here! (All the questions here are from actual emails I've received in the past 6 months.) FIRST QUESTION: I have been dealing with a couple of recruiters recently and I wanted your opinion. In one case, the interview went really well and I was told that I would hear back within 1 to 3 days. It was 4 weeks before I heard anything back and the recruiter said that they planned to make an offer, but were working out details. The last contact I had with him was in August and I interviewed in July. I've been calling once a month since then, but he's not taking my calls so I leave voicemails asking him to give me a call. Is it worth keeping up with that? Or is he not calling me back for a reason?" When interviews go well (and it must have, if the recruiter started to talk about offers) but then you don't hear anything, one of two things has happened:
This one sounds like a classic case of #1. In this economy, employers are wary of making new hires so they take ages to make decisions - and sometimes that decision is that they don't need to fill a role after all. It's entirely possible that the employer has kept the recruiter dangling since July, too. Yes, the recruiter should have followed up with you, even to tell you he hadn't heard anything. (But you can take some comfort in the fact that in another couple of years, when the talent crisis really heats up, recruiters who don't build long-term relationships with candidates are going to find they don't have any candidates!) In the meantime, don't waste any more time calling this recruiter. You can bet he'll find you pretty darn quick if/when the employer is ready to make an offer - and you can spend your time seeking out other opportunities.
Wednesday September 23rd, 2009 As you know, Mike Stearns, the MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com guy, sent me an email in response to my blog posts about him. He wasn't particularly happy about the posts, of course - he used words like "angry", "presumptuous", "outlandish and unfair" and capped it with the popular accusatory "people like you" statement. 48 hours later, the original MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com site turned into a blog, ostensibly so that Mike can capitalize on the traffic his site has generated to create a community of job-seekers. However, never one to run when he can walk, Mike hasn't yet actually populated the site with any content other than the introductory paragraph. The whole thing got me thinking. I initially followed Mike's story because I thought it was kind of interesting - sure, it was a gimmick, but in terms of personal branding, it was a good try. As time went on and Mike still didn't seem to have a job, I kind of felt sorry for him: It's gotta suck when you get all kinds of media attention but it doesn't actually deliver the results you want. But I'm not feeling so sorry for him any more. And I'm thinking that fellow ERE member Matt Cheek had it right when he wrote "Some people find ways to stay unemployed...." in response to my post. Do job-seekers like Mike really know how they're sabotaging themselves? Do they even realize they're doing it? I suppose the real answers to these questions are more the purview of my sister, the therapist, than me. For those chronic job-seekers disinclined to months of therapy, however, I offer the following helpful insights:
WHY YOU'RE STILL UNEMPLOYED
Here's another little thought to leave you with: Ever noticed that the people you'd most like to be friends with - i.e. the ones who aren't delusional, prone to blaming others, have a sense of humour about themselves, don't take everything so personally, and just have a good 'vibe' about them - are the ones least likely to be unemployed for any length of time? Just saying. Friday July 24th, 2009 From the candidate who said she was "...okay with homosexual people, as long as I don't have to work closely on a team with them..." to the recruiter who suggested a candidate wear a wig to the interview because the client company didn't like women with short hair, we've heard some interesting stories this month. Don't forget to tell us your story! We'll be publishing a selection of the best in early August. (Seriously, where else can you rant about that unbelievably bad candidate/recruiter/interview you'll never forget? Because you've told your friends the story 3 times already - you need a new audience.)
Monday October 13th, 2008 Recruiters get a bad rap - sometimes, candidate behaviour is just plain inexplicable For years, recruiting professionals have ranked somewhere between 'real estate agent' and 'travelling salesman' on the Unscrupulous Professions list. And there's no question that recruiters aren't always as assiduous in acknowledging or responding to candidate applications as they should be. But it's no wonder that recruiters often come off looking jaded or dismissive when it comes to candidates, because while the conversation above is unique in its specific punchline ("The IT guy who doesn't have a computer"), it's just one of the many, many examples of inexplicable candidate behaviour that most recruiters see every day.
As the Director of User Experience for a recruitment services company, I am often the recipient of out-of-the-blue phone calls from candidates ("To speak with someone in our marketing and communications department, please press 2043..."). Most of the time, I just roll my eyes a little: A-list candidates know that unless you have a specific contact name, it's best to make first contact with a recruiting company by email or applying online - so when I get a random phone call, it's generally safe to assume that the candidate on the other end is either a bit clueless or a little desperate. But it's easy enough to gently redirect these candidates to the website. But once in a while, I end up having a conversation which reveals just how useful the term 'WTF????!!' really is.
Unbelievable but true Friday afternoon, I picked up the phone and engaged in the following - slightly abridged, but otherwise verbatim - conversation: ME: "Sarah Welstead." MALE CANDIDATE, AGED 22-35: "Your office is open?" ME: "Yes, we're open today..." MC: "But you're closing at 2 o'clock?" ME: "Ummm...no. We're here til 5 today." MC: "So you're not closing? I can come there?" ME: "The office is open, but - I'm sorry, did you have an appointment with someone here?" MC: "I want a job. I'm going to bring my resume there now and talk to someone about getting a job." ME: (light dawning) "Oh, I see. Actually, we don't really take resumes in person like that. Have you visited our website? If you're interested in a specific position, or want to send us your resume, you can do that through the website." MC: "I need to talk to someone. I want to give you my resume." ME: (eyes now rolling quite a bit) "Yes, the best way to do that is online. Once we receive your resume or application, a recruiter will be in touch and you can make an appointment." [this back-and-forth continued for several minutes - he was determined to drop off his resume in person and was disinclined to believe me when I said it wasn't the best way to get our attention] MC: "But I need some advice." ME: "About looking for work? What kind of job are you interested in?" MC: "IT - information technology." ME: (trying to stay positive) "Great! We've got an IT recruiting division, so you should just check out the IT jobs we've got posted, and apply to whichever ones you're interested in. If you don't see anything that fits with your skills, you can email us your resume and we'll let you know when something comes up." MC: "But I don't have email." ME: "You don't have an email address?" MC: "I don't have a computer or internet." ME: [a few seconds of silence] "Um, you'd like to work in IT but you don't have a computer or access to the internet?" MC: "Yeah." ME: [speechless] I did finally succeed in giving him the email address of one of our IT recruiters (who, 30 minutes later, received a brief email from someone requesting a meeting and 'advice' - but no resume or an indication of the type of job or advice he was looking for). But two days later, I can't get the conversation out of my head. I can't stop thinking: "What the HECK was that guy thinking?" Why did he forego any semblance of a greeting or explanation ("Hi, my name is Bob and I'm looking for work in IT and would like to drop off my resume...")? Why did he persist in his resume drop-off plan after I'd told him that the best way to bring himself to our attention was to go online? And why did he tell the recruiting company that he wants a job in IT but doesn't have a computer or internet access?
So what's my point? As a marketing consultant with a specialty in recruitment marketing, it's my job to understand how people think and process information, so that I can develop effective messages (and media). So when I have an interaction like the one above, I end up asking myself: "Is this candidate just a clueless anomaly who I can safely ignore? Or has he got great skills but just doesn't realize that it's important to make a good first impression on recruiters, since they're the gatekeepers of so many jobs?" (Don't you wish that, when you encounter one of these Egregiously Bad Candidates, you could just ask them, straight out, how they thought that doing [insert inexplicable behaviour here] was going to bring them any closer to their dream job?)
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Paul has one simple goal: To help companies hire great people - and get the most out of every recruiting dollar they spend. That's why he's recognized as one of the best recruitment-industry thinkers in Canada.