Invested, innovative, brilliant: Improving the recruiting experience

Second annual Social Media for Recruiting Survey

Mon, 26 Jul 2010, 23:38:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

We've just launched our second annual Social Media for Recruiting survey!

It'll only take 4 minutes, and you could win a $50 VISA gift card (more importantly, it's the only comprehensive survey of social media for recruiting use in Canada - and we all need those statistics!).

Just click here to get started!

Struggling to create a personal brand? Think of yourself as a chocolate bar.

Mon, 19 Jul 2010, 14:39:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Want to build a big personal brand or just raise your profile among recruiters in your field? Start by taking a lesson from candy bar brands.

Four basic ingredients.
Almost infinite positioning.

No industry has done a better job of branding a commoditized product than what the North American confectionery industry has done with chocolate bars (or 'candy bar', if you're in certain parts of the USA).

Fundamentally, 99.9% chocolate bars are exactly the same: 50g of the same four basic ingredients (chocolate, sugar, caramel and peanuts), combined in different ways.

And yet somehow we know that

OHenry's are for when you're really hungry
KitKats are for when you just want a break
MARS bars are a good sporty snack
Smarties provide hours of amusement
Hershey bars are somehow as patriotic as a bottle of Coke (for Americans, anyway)

It's time to start thinking of yourself as a chocolate bar

These days, anyone who takes their career seriously and is even moderately ambitious knows they need to have some kind of personal brand, even if it's just something they use to position themselves in the job market or workforce.

So what's stopping them?

Most of the time, it's that they don't really believe they're all that different or special than everyone else.

"I mean, I'm good at my job and I know I've learned a lot over the years, but I'm not exactly a visionary," they say. "There are lots of other people doing what I do, and I'm not kidding myself that I'm some kind of genius. So what would my brand be about?"

While that thought is admirable - the people most likely to think they're geniuses (and aren't shy about it) are the ones least likely to be geniuses - it misses the point.

Branding is all about turning a commodity product into a special, premium or beloved one.

Sure, there may be 6 billion people on the planet, and quite a number of them may be smarter, harder-working, or just plain better-looking than you are. That doesn't mean you can't stand out from the crowd.

It's just a matter of positioning your professional equivalent of 50g of chocolate, peanuts, sugar and caramel in a way that makes people think: "Whenever I need to solve a [insert business challenge here], I always think of [insert your name here] because s/he is an expert on [insert solution to previous business challenge here]."

For example: "Whenever I need to find top talent in the oil and gas industry, I call Bob Smith because he knows the oil and gas talent marketplace better than anyone else."

It's all about how you combine your 50g of basic ingredients

Whenever I'm looking for insights into interviewing, resume writing, or long-term career management for recruiting professionals, Maureen Carroll is the first person I call.

Is she the only person in North America who knows this stuff? No. Heck, Googling 'resume expert toronto' gets 2.8 million search returns alone.

But that doesn't mean Maureen doesn't have a terrific USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

Her recruiting knowledge and experience is her 50g of basic ingredients - in other words, she's not unique. But her USP lies in the fact that she's the only recruiting professional I know who not only enjoys doing media interviews, but is great at doing them. She can churn out the kind of pithy soundbites mainstream media producers love, with less than 10 minutes lead time.

In other words, she's taken her 50g worth of basic ingredients and combined/packaged them in a unique way. More importantly, that combination is one that solves a business challenge: "Whenever the media calls me looking for a resume/interviewing expert, I think of Maureen because she not only knows her stuff but comes across really well on radio and on-camera."

You do have a great USP.
You just don't know what it is (yet).

Here's the thing: If you really are (a) good at what you do; (b) trying to be a little bit smarter today than you were yesterday; (c) looking to be better than just 'average'; and (d) genuinely passionate about your career and your profession, chances are you're already combining your 50g of basic ingredients in some kind of unique way - you just don't realize it.

So ask 5 colleagues for their input:

Ask your boss why s/he hired you. What made you stand out from the other applicants?
Ask your co-workers what they think you're particularly good at
Ask subordinates/direct reports what they've learned from working for you

...and prepare to be surprised by the answers.

Once you know whether you're a moment of bliss or a nice light snack, coming up with your personal brand 'angle' will suddenly get a lot easier. Really.

Getting candidates who don't reflect your brand? Ask these 5 questions.

Sun, 18 Jul 2010, 17:50:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

You may be getting lots of candidates - from your recruiting agency, recruiting team, or company website - who look great on paper, but if they just aren't a good fit for your company, you're not attracting the right people.

A hamster may fit in the shoes of the previous person in the role, but ultimately he's not going to be able to walk in them very effectively.

Anyone who's worked in recruiting for more than 5 minutes is familiar with the problem: The client - internal or external - gives you a set of criteria for a role (skills, experience, education, etc.); you find candidates who fit the criteria to a tee and send them on interviews, only to have them rejected one after the other.

You ask the client for feedback, and all they can say is "He wasn't a good fit."

After Rejected Candidate #10, you try to pin the client down, but the client's still talking vaguely about 'fit'.

RECRUITER: "But, Ms Client, he had all the criteria you asked for, and I know he presents well in interviews. So can you give me some more specific feedback?"

CLIENT: "I just think we're kind of a dynamic environment here, and he seemed too conservative or something."

RECRUITER: (sigh)

Clients understand about brand personality and how it's expressed through employees.
They just don't always know how to articulate it to recruiters.

Recently, American Apparel generated a lot of negative buzz in the blogosphere when their recruiting and hiring practices were made public. Former employees say that American Apparel only recruits/hires good-looking people, even if they're incompetent; American Apparel says they hire people with a good fashion 'style', and that it's perfectly reasonable to want employees in a retail clothing chain to reflect the spirit of the brand.

Both groups have a point: No one should be rejected out-of-hand simply because they don't conform to some perceived stereotype of 'beauty'; at the same time, we all know that employees are the most effective marketing tools organizations have - so they need to reflect the brand just as consistently and positively as other marketing efforts.

But 95% of clients aren't marketing professionals themselves, so they don't always know how to articulate feedback beyond talking about "fit".

And of course most employers are petrified that if they talk about a candidate's appearance or personality or style, it'll come across as discrimination and they'll be in big trouble. But saying "Our brand is all about being unobtrusive, serious and discreet; an employee with a green mohawk doesn't reflect our corporate values" is the same as "Our brand is all about being unobtrusive, serious and discreet, which is why we require all our client-facing staff to wear suits and ties at all times."

5 questions to help you identify the candidates with the 'fit' the client is looking for

Asking these 5 questions before the sourcing starts will help reduce the amount of candidates rejected on the basis of 'fit'.

In terms of your organization's personality, would you say you're more like Google or more like a big bank?
You've given me the required skillls, experience and education for this role. What about personality and temperament? Do you need someone who thrives on change, deadlines and adrenaline, or someone more slow-and-steady?
If you could choose 3 words to describe the ideal candidate, what would they be? How do these relate to the company's overall brand and positioning?
What kind of personal 'style' seems to be most successful in your office? Quiet and reserved, or outgoing and effusive?
Do new employees get training/guidelines about 'living the brand'? Can I see a copy of these?

These questions not only ensure the client rejects fewer candidates on 'fit' - they'll generate better feedback when they do.

The beach vs the GDP: Climate and workforce productivity

Sun, 11 Jul 2010, 14:51:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

WORKIDEX (noun; fr. 'humidex'): How much work you aren't getting done because it's too bloody hot

Now that we're into the second week of this brutal heatwave in Toronto, I often find myself wondering: How the heck does anyone in Florida, Louisiana or even South Carolina ever get any work done, especially in the summers? Or maybe it'd be more accurate to ask: "How the heck does anyone without air conditioning get any work done in these places?"

Turns out someone has done a little research on the connection between temperature and productivity. A recent study by Alan Hedge, a human ergonomics researcher at Cornell University, says that once the office temperature dips below 23 degrees Celsius, productivity declines.

Unfortunately, this seems to be another one of those pseudo-scientific 'studies' which end up 'revealing' what we knew already: When workers are comfortable (not too hot, not too cold), they stay at their desks longer, take fewer breaks and are more focused on their work and are therefore, unsurprisingly, more productive.

But this doesn't really address my question, which was more about the effects of weather/climate on the productivity of workers overall.

Do workers in 'extreme' climates work less (and less productively) than workers in more temperate climates?

Now, I'm no statistician, but looking at the productivity indices across 50 countries, here's what I see: The majority of the top-performing countries are 'cold' ones (Iceland, Poland, Finland, etc.); the majority of the less productive countries are 'warm', I'd-like-to-vacation-there ones (Italy, Portugal, Spain).

['Productivity' here is defined as GDP per hours worked.]

Looks like the hot countries work a little less, too.

Hours worked per person per week (average):

Iceland 35
Poland 38
Finland 33

Italy 35
Portugal 34
Spain 31

AVERAGES:
Hot countries 33.33
Cold countries 35.33

My admittedly unscientific conclusion?

You now have the data you need to ensure you get more vacation time this summer: "The thing is, Mr Manager, studies have shown that when it's hot like this, my individual contribution to GDP plummets, and that's not good for the business - or the country! So it's better if I take 2 or 3 weeks off now, and just make up the time in January/February when I can be more productive."

Strange but true: Stories from the recruiting front lines

Fri, 02 Jul 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

The front lines in the war for talent can be as strange as they are rewarding. Get a couple of recruiters together, and the stories - hilarious, heartwarming or horrific - will flow like water.

Our favourite stories – the best stories – and the times that we learned the most are almost invariably the same ones. Just as in any campaign, some of the best recruitment battles are won by situations that force us to think creatively, improvise, and handle sudden changes in tactics -- not to mention take a tough hit or two.

We've seen it all: Attempts to stand out that work a little too well (like the fellow who put his picture and phone number on a billboard by the side of the Gardiner Expressway); ultra-creative applications (like the fellow whose resume was set up as a newspaper article, complete with headlines like "Man spends $210,000 on post-secondary education"); and thank-you-for-the-interview notes spelled out in icing on giant chocolate-chip cookies.

Or great-sounding candidates who show up in biking shorts and Birkenstocks, accompanied by their spouse or mom along for support.

Inappropriate hobbies and interests listed (a href=" http://community.ere.net/groups/strange-but-true-recruiting-horror-stories-and-les/discussions/18307/">really, we don't need to know!).

There are even people like that candidate who decided that he’d had it with being interviewed – and now he was going to control the conversation.

And that's just scratching the surface. Have a great recruiting story? We’re sharing some of our favourites – funny, horrible, triumphant and touching – in our Great Recruiting Stories series on the Head2Head blog throughout July, and would love to hear from you.

All stories will be attributed to their respective authors, complete with links to your site or blog (unless, of course, you’d like to remain anonymous). Post your stories in the comments - and come back to read them on Friday afternoon while you're waiting to leave work early!

Until next month, happy recruiting!

Interview 101 for Supply Chain Professionals

Thu, 01 Jul 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

What supply chain professionals need to know

There's nothing like a new job opportunity to help us take a step up the professional ladder, to give us the chance to acquire new knowledge, or even to reinvigorate our promise and potential.

Whether you're actively looking for a new position, or just 'staying open' to possibilities, here are some important interview guidelines that all Supply Chain professionals should keep in mind:

1. Interviews are your opportunity to sell yourself

In the same way you would communicate with a new client for your company, you communicate with a potential new employer…only the product and the service is you!

2. Create and practice your 'elevator speech' whenever you can
Great salespeople have an 'elevator pitch' prepared at all times. When you're job hunting, you need to have one for yourself, too. That two-sentence script about who you are and what you do shows immediate confidence, competence, and knowledge.

3. Research the company and the interviewer as much as you can before you meet anyone
Web sites, company brochures and, most importantly, professional reputations will tell you how a company works, their position in the industry, and whether it’s a place you want to work.

4. Have a good understanding of your value in the marketplace.
While you’re conducting research online, make use of salary calculators and surveys in your region and industry so that you know how much to ask for. Asking for too much or too little will just make you look deluded or easy to take advantage of.

5. Remember, it’s all about details
Be prepared to talk about the tools and methodologies you use in your day-to-day activities. This is where you will be able to show how your experience and expertise are put to good use in the job…wherever you may work.

6. Don’t be afraid to show your personality
It's easier to build rapport with the interviewer - and to come across as personable and a good team player - if you're genuinely friendly. Revealing your personality in the interview stages will also ensure that when you're offered a job, it'll be the right cultural fit.

7. Know your resume inside and out
Be able to talk to the metrics with confidence, as well as accounting for any gaps or areas that could cause concern.

8. Come prepared with metrics
All organizations are looking for people who have made a demonstrable, measurable difference. In supply chain, this is particularly important, because employers are looking for people who'll help them reduce costs, increase the bottom line, improve efficiencies, etc. Part of the reason you got the interview in the first place is because you included metrics on your resume; make sure you have additional details to talk about in your interview.

Why isn't there more hard data about social media for recruiting?

Sun, 27 Jun 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

From 'anecdotal' to 'fact-based'

The biggest challenge social media for recruiting (and leveraging employees' social media channels for recruiting) is simply lack of hard data.

Sure, everyone's got an anecdote or two ("I found Bob on LinkedIn last year, and he's turned out to be our best new hire in ages!"), and we've got lots of information on the demographics of social media.

But when it comes to drawing a straight line from 'time spent on social media for recruiting' to 'quantitative results' (time-to-hire, cost per hire, quality of hire, web traffic, application volume, etc.)...well, the data just isn't out there.

This is for two reasons:

The mainstreaming of social media is relatively recent
Most organizations have only been using social media for recruiting in any systematic way for the past couple of years. The job market has changed so much during that time that it's been difficult to establish benchmarks.

The results haven't been as spectacular as the evangelists said they'd be
For the past 3 years, social media for recruiting early adopters have been saying that social media would 'transform' the recruiting function. And it is, and it will - just not, perhaps, quite as quickly and dramatically as we thought.

(It's sort of like mobile software applications: In 2001, early-adopter types were saying that mobile applications would transform communications in the next 2 years; the transformation did indeed happen - it just took 7 years instead of 2.)

Until the results look better, no one wants to say too much, lest their organization gets the wrong idea and pulls the plug on social media for recruiting initiatives before they've had a chance to succeed.

Send me your social media for recruiting results.
We'll give you a great case study.

I'm pretty sure some of you have some metrics around social media for recruiting in your organization (or for you personally as a recruiter).

By themselves, they may not be too dramatic. If I combine them with others' metrics in a blog post, however, they'll at least start to create a picture of the real results of social media for recruiting.

Which may prove handy, the next time you walk into a boardroom and have to sell a comprehensive social-media-for-recruiting strategy to the larger organization.

Egregiously Bad Candidates V!: Bad Cover Letters

Fri, 18 Jun 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Another in our series of blog posts designed to help you (recruiters and hiring managers) help candidates. You don't have time to give every candidate an 'Applying For Jobs 101' tutorial - just send them this link!

It's been a while since the last installment of Egregiously Bad Candidates, but the past week or two has seen a sharp increase in the number of unsolicited emails from job-seekers who don't know the cardinal rule of applying for jobs: Imagine you're reading this letter/resume for the very first time. Does it really communicate what you want it to?

Sometimes when you close a door, you should close the window, too

We've all been there: You're unemployed/about to be unemployed, the job market is depressed, and you're starting to panic. You're at the point where you're ready to take 'anything' as long as the salary meets your basic living expenses, and you're worried that if your resume and cover letter are too specific, you'll lose out on other opportunities.

But it doesn't really work that way.

PROTIP: If no one in the office can figure out what it is you do, it's unlikely we can help you find somewhere to do it

Today's gem:

TO: info@head2head
FROM: [name redacted]

Hello,

For the past 17 years, I have enjoyed working in the financial and education industries servicing various other industries while gaining valuable experience and knowledge in such areas as P&L management, product development, sales and marketing, strategic planning/execution, product pricing, team building and negotiation amongst external clients and internal departments....As an impact player who has had a history of success at every level, I look forward to working with you and your staff in finding my next success story....

OBJECTIVE: Senior management position - Plan, organize, and direct through a management team business development/operation activities and initiatives utilizing my executive management experiences with developed abilities in team leadership, strategic visioning and P&L management. This will contribute to enhancing profitable sales volume through process and performance improvements while maintaining customer satisfaction.

Salary Expectation: $110k - $170k plus incentives depending upon the overall package and level of challenge.

Um...but what is it you do, exactly?

The more vague you are about your skills, experience and desired job, the more difficult it is for a recruiter or potential employer to understand just how you'd fit into the organization and how you'd contribute to overall business goals.

A $60,000 salary range just makes you look desperate

You (the job-seeker) may think that using a range like this will make you look senior ("By saying $170k at the top end they'll know I'm a senior executive!"), flexible ("There are more jobs at the $110k level so I don't want to lose out on those opportunities!") and not entirely motivated by money ("A big range shows that I will consider the right opportunities, not just big paycheques!").

Not so much.

What the recruiter sees in a range like that is someone who (a) doesn't really know the marketplace for their skills/experience; (b) probably doesn't have a realistic grasp of their value in the market; and (c) is so desperate for work that they'll basically take anything.

1 interview for the perfect job is more effective than 25 discarded applications

Job-hunting really isn't a numbers game, especially at the senior levels.

Spending 4 hours refining your resume and cover letter for one specific job (for which you know you'd be a perfect fit) will always generate better results than spending 16 hours sending generic resumes and cover letters to hundreds of jobs for which you aren't really a good fit.

And here's another thing to consider: Applying to hundreds of jobs per day without getting a single response is more demoralizing than only applying to one or two jobs per day!

Just how bad is your recruitment brand? Ask IT contractors.

Tue, 15 Jun 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Contract IT professionals are mobile, connected, and cynical - and they don't mince words. Asking them about how your recruitment brand is perceived could be the first step towards attracting better candidates across the organization.

(I don't think I get this, either. But I'm pretty sure there's an A-list programmer out there who thinks this is hilarious.)

Today I was talking to a senior Java/PHP developer who's in town for the weekend but who lives and works in St Louis, Missouri.

'Missouri' isn't the first place that comes to mind when I think of 'great career opportunities', so we got to talking about the major employers in the area, career paths, etc.

Turns out that St Louis has more businesses than you might think, and is home to some great brand names, including Anheuser-Busch (now owned by InBev, the same group that owns Labatt). Quite a few companies - like Wells Fargo, AT&T, DaimlerChrysler, Monsanto - have midwestern or divisional headquarters in the area, and it's the world headquarters of the Energizer battery brand.

"Wow," I said to the IT contractor. "So you have lots of options if you want a new job, then."

"Well....," he responded, "I don't think I'd work for [insert name of one of the companies above] or [ditto], and apparently [ditto] is a terrible place to work, especially for IT."

"Oh, I didn't know you'd worked at all those places," I said.

"I haven't. Actually, I haven't even interviewed at any of them. I've just heard they're terrible."

"In what ways?"

[ruefully] "You know, now that you ask me, I don't really know. I've heard that a couple of them pay pretty badly, but the truth is that I've never really investigated it. It's just sort of the word on the street."

How many passive candidates are you losing -
without even knowing it?

Now, my IT contractor friend isn't actively looking for a new job. But contractors - especially IT contractors, who often work on projects which have a specific beginning and end - in general tend to be more or less permanently in the job market.

In other words, they're the 'passive candidates' that recruiters like best: The ones who are hard-working, always employed, and willing to consider a new opportunity if the right one comes along.

However, like most A-list IT contractors, my friend gets called by recruiters all the time - scarcely a week goes by in which he doesn't get a voicemail or email from a recruiter, telling him about 'a fabulous opportunity at [some place or other]'.

The problem? As soon as he hears (or even just assumes, given the 'teaser info' in the recruiter's message) that the opportunity is in one of the organizations about which he's heard negative things, he doesn't even bother responding to the message, let alone get to the interview stage.

IT contractors talk to other IT contractors - a LOT

In many organizations, the computer geniuses - the guys actually building the back-end technologies that let the rest of us get on with our jobs - tend to be departments of one or two, or sort of separate from the rest of the organization.

Like scientists, they tend to share information with other people doing similar work in other organizations, because their loyalty is often to the work itself (i.e. solving a difficult problem) rather than to the organization they're doing it for.

So IT contractors - especially the good ones - tend to be involved in online communities and forums where they can interact with other people who actually know the difference between ASP and PHP.

It's in the process of these interactions that they end up sharing a lot of info - sometimes unwittingly - about the organizations they're working for.

All it takes is one guy in one forum ranting for one month about how he's going insane because the project manager at his company doesn't know the difference between a socket and a plug-in, or about the jerky recruiter who lied about the pay rate - and suddenly the 'word on the street' is that Acme Inc. is a terrible place to work.

These contractors have more power than you think

You may be tempted to think that it doesn't really matter what IT contractors think about your recruiting brand - heck, those guys only hang out with each other anyway, right?

But...these guys are also all over the internet and social media - it's what they do for a living. So it's entirely possible that candidates for other roles who are Googling your company prior to applying or accepting an interview, will come across these forum posts (and blogs, and statuses, and websites).

Conversely, IT guys who like where they work and are passionate about it are more likely to talk about that online, too.

A better recruiting brand may start with a conversation with your IT contractors

If your organization has a well-known, relatively strong consumer brand, but you're having trouble attracting great people, it's probably time to talk to the IT department, particularly your IT contractors. They may just have a better, objective grasp on how you're perceived in the marketplace than you think - and they probably won't mince words when they tell you about it.

Put your napkin on your lap - and other ways to ace the interview

Thu, 10 Jun 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Being a good dinner-party guest teaches you everything you need to know about being an A-list candidate.

(There are times when the 18th century got it right.)

It's inevitable. If you're in the job market, sooner or later someone's going to ask you: "So, where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10?"

Since the truth ("Well, if there's any justice, 10 years from now I'll be lying on a beach drinking mai-tais after having either won the lottery or sold my internet business for billions. Until then, this job will be fine.") is unlikely to appeal to interviewers, it's important to have a creative answer pre-prepared.

Mine?

"My goal over the next 5-10 years is to continue to be a good dinner-party guest."

Dinner party guest vs job-seeker:
The required skills are virtually the same

Let's face it: Having a required degree or experience only accounts for about 10% of successful job-hunting. The remaining 90% is all about presentation, communication and good manners - the same skills required to be a good dinner party guest.

Here's how:

Knowing the sort of people who host dinner parties.
In order to get invited to dinner parties, you have to know people who have dinner parties. Especially people who have dining rooms, decent china, and a wide circle of friends. In the job-hunting world, knowing people who are smart and successful enough to know the difference between a butter knife and a fish fork translates into a valuable network. And we all know how important networking is to finding a job.
Building relationships.
It's not enough to know people who host dinner parties; they have to like you enough to invite you to their house for dinner. In other words, building relationships with people is crucial to job-hunting success.

Knowing when to show up.
A good dinner party guest never shows up awkwardly early or inconveniently late. Similarly, the desirable candidate never arrives so early as to look desperate, nor so late as to create a bad impression. (And good dinner party guests, like good candidates, always phone to alert the host of any unforeseen delays.)

Knowing when to leave.
A good dinner party guest never outstays his/her welcome. The attractive potential employee realizes when s/he has answered all the questions, says what s/he's come to say, and runs the risk of scuppering his chances by taking up any more of the interviewer's valuable time or blurting out something stupid.

A good rule of thumb for both dinner party guests and job-seekers: It's always best to leave when everyone's still glad you came!

Knowing what to wear.
A Mexican feast at Bob and Jane's? Dark-wash jeans and a clean shirt are perfect. A catered 7-course dinner at Estelle and Louis'? Black tie, of course. The welcome dinner party guest just wants to fit in, look good, and avoid causing any embarrassment to the host or other guests. (It goes without saying that all his clothes are good quality, clean, and in good taste.)

All of this holds true for the job-seeker as well: Dress appropriately for the interview, and if in doubt, ask in advance.

Knowing when to say no.
Even the best dinner party guest occasionally declines an invitation for one reason or another; so it is for job-seekers. Sometimes, you'll be invited to a dinner - or job -that just isn't the right fit. It's okay to acknowledge this and move on.

Knowing what to bring.
Whether it's a six-pack of Mexican beer for Bob and Jane or a bottle of 15-year-old tawny port for Estelle and Louis, the good dinner party guest doesn't show up empty-handed. Likewise, the A-list job-seeker also comes prepared with thoughtful answers, contact info for references, and having done some research on the organization for which s/he is interviewing.

Having good manners.
Remember, 'good manners' aren't about following an arbitrary set of ridiculous rules. Good manners are designed to help everyone feel comfortable and reduce distractions in social situations.

At dinner parties, this may mean avoiding chewing with your mouth open; in interviews, this may mean turning off your phone. Either way, it's less about knowing the difference between a butter knife and a fish fork, and more about making sure that the interaction is a positive one.

Knowing when to speak (and speaking intelligently on a wide range of topics).
A good rule of thumb for both dinner parties and interviews: If you can't think of anything intelligent to say, don't say anything at all.

Not everything you say, at a dinner party or to a potential employer, has to be unremittingly positive. In fact, some of the most desirable dinner party guests are the ones who can tantalize and scandalize with a well-placed morsel of malicious gossip.

(As a job-seeker, however, 'malicious gossip' should be replaced with 'evidence of critical thinking'.)

In both cases, a touch of polymathism never goes amiss: Demonstrating your knowledge of, and interest in, current events, pop culture, history, politics, literature and even sports is the best way to make someone think, "S/he's so interesting/smart/funny/up-to-date/connected - we've got to have him/her back!"

Knowing when to listen.
As Dale Carnegie can tell you, the best way to make other people like you is to listen to them talk about themselves.

Dinner party guests who listen attentively to their host and fellow guests are guaranteed to get good post-party reviews; job-seekers who listen attentively to the interviewer - whether the interviewer is talking about the company or just about the bad day they've been having - are guaranteed to leave the interviewer with the kind of good impression that makes the difference between getting a callback or never hearing from them again.

Knowing when to use flattery and sincerity.
Nobody likes a kiss-up; on the other hand, very few people want to hear the truth about themselves all the time.

The good dinner party guest is free with compliments when it comes to the hostess and food, but stops short of ingratiation and doesn't attempt to make every other guest his/her new best friend.

Similarly, interviewers appreciate (and expect) enthusiastic statements about the job and the company, but don't respond well to blatant insincerity: The guy who says that he's wanted to work for Acme Inc. since he was 5 years old, even though Acme has only been in business for 10 years, just looks like (a) a guy who'll say anything to get a job, regardless of truthiness and (b) a guy who hasn't done his pre-interview research.

It's all about being a person that other people want to spend time with

Consider: Everyone needs to eat dinner, and almost everyone needs to work.

So why is it that some people stay home, eating alone every night, while others have invitations to dinner coming out their ears? And why do some people leap from fantastic job to fantastic job, while others are un- or under-employed?

The answer is simple: Good dinner party guests, like good candidates, are the sort of people that other people want to spend time with. In other words, it's all about ensuring that the answer to questions like "Would I want to spend 5 hours at a party with this person?" and "Would I want to spend 8 hours a day working with this person?" is a resounding "Yes!"

More top 10s: Top 10 HR-related recruiting trends of the past 10 years

Wed, 02 Jun 2010, 01:08:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

As part of Head2Head's ongoing celebration of our 10th anniversary, another top 10 list: Top HR-related recruiting trends of the past 10 years.

Top 10 Recruiting-related HR Trends of the Past 10 Years

As part of our month-long celebrations, our newsletters this month have a 'Top 10' theme. This week, the top 10 recruiting-related HR trends we've seen in the past 10 years.

Embracing change. With the economy, technology, and the internet moving faster than ever, HR is more responsive and nimble than 10 years ago. It's an exciting time to be in HR!
Increased use of contract resources. Part of being 'nimble' means having a flexible workforce, and the past 10 years have seen organizations respond by making greater use of contract staff.
Hiring manager SLAs. Recruiting's become more complex in the past 10 years; Service Level Agreements between recruiting and hiring managers have become more important to ensuring success.
Social media. Social media continues to become a crucial factor in the way organizations communicate with employees - and the way employees communicate with them.
Privacy. Thanks to #3, one of the biggest developments in HR in the past 10 years is privacy of information, whether of candidates or employees. And we'll see it continue to be a big issue in the next 5+ years.
Personal branding. The personal brands of organizational leaders have become more important to HR and recruiting; the personal brands of employees and candidates have become more important to the organization.
HR is more strategic. In an increasingly competitive talent market, HR is becoming more strategic across recruiting, retention and employee engagement.
More metrics. In the past 10 years, HR has done a better job of analyzing recruiting metrics. Determining the sources of the best candidates and long-term performers is just one way metrics contribute to business success.
Employee engagement. As Gen Ys - and their commitment to a more positive work/life balance - take a larger role in the workforce, employee engagement has become more important. Expect to see this increase in the next 5+ years
Diversity. As the workforce - and most organizations' client bases - become increasingly diverse (especially in major population centers), diversity has become even more important for HR and recruiting.

Employees using social media at work? Great! Your recruiting team just got a lot bigger.

Tue, 01 Jun 2010, 08:40:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Your employees are all over social media. Why not use them to source candidates?

(I didn't create this starfish, and I don't know who did. But it's kind of neat, and reminds me that there are way more social media sites than most of us realize.)

In the past 12-24 months, most organizations have overcome their initial fears about social media: 99% of marketing departments are using social media to communicate with stakeholders, and 90% of recruiters say that social media is an important part of their recruiting toolkit.

However, the use of social media at work - i.e. employees visiting their personal Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/etc. pages while they're at work - remains a challenge.

Blocking social media sites is irrelevant since almost everyone has a web-enabled phone; setting down overly-specific social media policies can backfire because they set up the possibility of 'loopholes'. (HR and legal professionals will tell you that sometimes, having a vague 'use good judgment' policy is ultimately more defensible - because it allows for more scope - than a 25-page, detailed social media policy.)

In other words: Eliminating social media at work is impossible. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

At least half your employees are using social media on a daily basis.

As of March 2010, there are more than 10 million - almost one-third of the population - Facebook users in Canada, and LinkedIn adds 75,000+ new Canadian members every month. Combine that with Twitter, YouTube and other more specialized social media sites, and it's hard to find a Canadian under 70 who doesn't have a social media account of one kind or another.

In other words: If your organization has, say, 500 employees, you can safely assume that at least 250 of them are using Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter at least once a day.

If you can't beat 'em, leverage 'em!

Recruiters say that the #1 source of A-list candidates are referrals from current and former employees, and the best way to build a strong employment/recruitment brand is by word-of-mouth.

Why not harness your employees' social media channels for recruiting?

Status updates alone will make a big difference

Harnessing your employees' social media presence doesn't mean they have to set up company-specific social media accounts (Sodexo, for example, got a lot of buzz in 2009 because they had so many employees twittering under the Sodexo name).

All you really need are status updates:

100 employees

100 Facebook friends each (average)

1 company-related status update per week

10,000 more sets of eyeballs per week than you're getting now.

Make it easy for them

Let's face it: Asking employees outside the recruiting department to think up, and remember to post, a company/recruiting-related status update on a regular basis is going to be one of those tasks that fall into the "Oh, sorry, I kept meaning to do that but I never got around to it" category.

So make it easy for them: Once a week, send out one or two pre-written status updates that they can just copy and paste.

Examples

"We're looking for Senior Developers for the Toronto office. Email bob@acmeinc.ca for more info."

"Just hired 12 new technicians in Vancouver! Looking for 4 more - www.acmeinc.ca/jobs"

"We just won gold at the Best Company Ever contest! www.bestcompanywinners.ca"

"We're sending a team to the Walk for Cancer in Edmonton this weekend - want to join us? www.acmeinc.ca/cancerwalk"

"We were in the news again because our office has just gone totally green: www.newspaperarticle.ca"

Results will happen faster than you think

Status updates sound like such a small thing, but the results can be dramatic, and they happen fast. They're particularly effective when you're doing high-volume, tight-timeline recruiting (i.e. you need 42 technicians by next week).

But don't take my word for it: Do a test.

Next Monday, send employees a pre-written status update advertising a particular opportunity with a specific link to the job on your web page. Then monitor the traffic to that page over the following 48 hours.

That 25-50% spike in traffic you're seeing? That's your recruitment brand equity going up!

Head2Head is 10 years old! Top 10 recruiting trends of the past 10 years.

Mon, 31 May 2010, 01:06:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

This month, we're celebrating our 10th anniversary!

It seems like yesterday - though it was really 10 years ago, in May 2000 - that we launched Head2Head with a simple idea: Recruiting recruiters.

We've come a long way since then: from '2 guys in a basement', we now have 30+ employees, 100+ consultants on-site with clients, offices in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, and a network of more than 3500 recruiting professionals. And we offer a wide range of recruiting solutions and services (though we still place more recruiters, with more clients, than anyone else in Canada).

We'd like to thank everyone who's been a part of our success in the past 10 years: Clients, consultants, and especially our Head2Head brand champions - you know who you are. We couldn't have done it without you.

Top 10 Recruiting Trends of the Past 10 Years

As part of our month-long celebrations, newsletters this month have a 'Top 10' theme. This week, the top 10 recruiting trends we've seen in the past 10 years.

Increased use of contract recruiters. When we first started Head2Head, this was a new-and-relatively-rare method of increasing recruiting capacity and capability; now it's an important part of an overall recruiting strategy.
Social media and data mining. Social media has changed the face of recruiting in the past 3 years, but the internet in general - and search strings - has transformed the way we find and connect to candidates.
Sourcing specialists. Thanks to #2, we're now seeing a new specialization within recruiting: the sourcer, whose job it is to scour the internet for great candidates - who are then approached by a recruiter.
Proactive vs reactive recruiting. 10 years ago, most organizations waited until they had a role to fill, and then went looking for candidates. Today, the relationship-building starts long before an opportunity arises.
Talent pooling. With an increasingly competitive talent market, more organizations are taking the time to create talent pools of potential candidates, so they're ready when they need them.
Increased employment branding. Today, more organizations recognize that in order to attract A-list candidates, their recruitment and employment brands have to be as appealing as their consumer brands.
Candidate experience. The past 5 years, especially, have seen an increased awareness that when word-of-mouth is so important, delivering great experiences to all candidates is crucial to keeping the talent pipeline full.
Getting back on campus. With fewer new grads entering the workforce than retiring out of it, campus recruiting is a lot more important than it used to be.
Increased knowledge of the labour market. With vast differences across geographical areas, industries, and even roles, it's become more important than ever to have a good understanding of the current labour market.
Great (careers) websites. A-list candidates do more research than ever before applying to a job or accepting an interview. An appealing, up-to-date website - with a great 'careers' section - is crucial to attracting them.

7 Tips for making the switch from 'agency' to 'corporate' recruiting

Sun, 23 May 2010, 11:39:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Another fantastic guest blog by Maureen Carroll, Manager of Recruiting at Head2Head!

Since Head2Head places more recruiters, with more organizations, than anyone else in Canada, we're often asked for advice on how to move from agency (i.e. full desk, contingency-fee) recruiting to corporate (i.e. working in-house for a client as an employee or on contract) recruiting. This week, Maureen - who's been recruiting recruiters for almost 10 years now - offers her insights about how to make the switch.

So you want to be a corporate recruiter...

Anyone who's ever worked in a recruiting agency will tell you that agency recruiting can be exciting, action-packed, lucrative - and a whole lot of fun. But it's also unpredictable, highly sales-oriented, and transactional. So we hear from a lot of agency recruiters who are thinking about making a move 'client-side', where they'll get more experience with long-term strategic recruiting programs.

However, recruiters who have spent several years working in an agency environment may find it difficult to make the move to corporate - they may find themselves perceived as fast-talking 'salesmen' who are more focused on putting 'bums in seats' rather than building strategic recruiting solutions.

How can you overcome the stereotypes and demonstrate you'd make a great corporate recruiter?

These 7 tips will go a long way towards impressing a potential employer that you're ready to make the move to corporate recruiting:

Think - and speak! - like a corporate recruiter
Corporate recruiting has a different lexicon than agency recruiting, and using the right terminology demonstrates that you know the difference. For example, don't talk about 'fills' or 'fill rates' - those aren't internal terms. Instead, talk about 'hires'. This indicates you know that corporate recruiting is less about meeting numbers and more about getting the right people.
Be focused
Most organizations with strong recruiting functions - i.e. the kinds of organizations you'd most like to work as a corporate recruiter - are looking for recruiting specialists in specific areas most relevant to their business. You'll have better success if you position yourself as an expert in one or two key areas. (This is where a little research can go a long way: If you can speak to the organization's most pressing recruitment challenges, you're sending a message that you understand how recruiting can deliver against the organization's business goals.)
Demonstrate you can work with internal clients
A big factor in the success of any corporate recruiter is how well they work with 'internal clients'. In other words, how well they work with managers from other departments when they engage the recruitment department to fill a role.

As an agency recruiter, it's important to have ready examples of working directly with line managers - especially managers outside of HR. Evidence that you can successfully build long-term relationships with a variety of stakeholders, even if they know little or nothing about recruiting, is a good way to demonstrate you can make the transition from agency to corporate recruiting.
Gain experience with full-lifecycle recruiting
Most corporate recruiting is full-lifecycle, from identifying and articulating the opportunity, through to sourcing, making the offer, doing the paperwork, and even onboarding.

While you're working in an agency environment, try to work on a project that will allow you to manage full-lifecycle recruiting - including the administration!
Build relationships with candidates
For 99% of organizations, building positive, long-term relationships with candidates is one of their Top 3 priorities. And let's face it: One of the reasons agency recruiters get a bad rep is the perception that agency recruiters only call candidates when they need them, don't follow up, and don't respond to applications.

So you need to highlight your commitment to building candidate relationships. Talk about candidates with whom you've kept in touch over time, before and after you've placed them; speak to the fact that your network thrives on the referrals you get as a result of long-term relationship-building; indicate that you've participated in industry events; point out your participation in relevant LinkedIn groups, etc.

(One good example we heard recently from an agency recruiter in an interview for a corporate recruiting position: "Since 2007, I have used autoresponder emails for my job postings, to ensure that every candidate who applies receives an immediate acknowledgment. Every time I send a candidate to an interview, I call them to follow up within 24 hours. I call or email every active candidate in my network at least once a month, and call or email the inactive ones at least once every 6 months."
Then she produced the Excel spreadsheet to prove it!

And yes - she got the job.)
Get some training in Behavioural Interviewing
Being able to accurately, reliably assess candidates is crucial for corporate recruiters, so being able to demonstrate you understand and have experience with behavioural interviewing is one of the most important factors in making the switch from agency.

Having some formal training in BBI is best, but if that's not possible, there are plenty of online resources to consult, and you could start using BBI techniques in your current interviews. That demonstrates you know how important BBI is in a corporate recruiting setting.
Don't dwell on your sales skills
As a full-desk agency recruiter, great sales skills are a big advantage. In a corporate recruiting setting, they'll only make you look like the fast-talking, annoying Ari Gold type who confirms all their worst fears about agency recruiters.

Go ahead and speak to your ability to deliver results - but focus on the results most relevant to organizations: Improving quality of hire, reducing time-to-hire, and making recruiting budgets work more efficiently.

Are you your workplace?

Sun, 23 May 2010, 00:41:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Seth Godin caught my attention with a post on how one's workplace affects behavior and personality:

Your boss and your job determine not only what you do all day, but what you learn and who you interact with. Where you work is what you market. Work in a high stress place and you're likely to become a highly stressed person, and your interactions will display that. Work for a narcissist and you'll develop into someone who's good at shining a light on someone else, not into someone who can lead. Work for someone who plays the fads and you'll discover that instead of building a steadily improving brand, you're jumping from one thing to another, enduring layoffs in-between gold rushes. Work for a bully and be prepared to be bullied.

Having survived a bad job or two myself, I know just what he means. (There's a reason I know why I need to avoid certain work environments: past positions can be excellent aversion therapy.)

Recruiters and hiring managers often speak of finding a candidate with the right "fit" for the role and company. Yet how many candidates seriously examine whether a given position will be good for them not only in terms of career advancement and personal goals, but their stress levels, personal interactions, and overall happiness? It can be hard think of such long-term things -- especially when in need of a job. But such considerations can make the difference between landing a job you survive and a job you love.

The ROI of business cards for EVERYONE in your organization

Tue, 18 May 2010, 00:32:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

If you're not giving all your employees - even the junior ones - their own business cards, you're missing out on a huge marketing opportunity.

This week I was speaking to the executive team of a smallish-but-growing company (50+ employees) in the professional services industry about their onboarding efforts.

Like many entrepreneurial companies of their size, they're a very lean organization and don't have big budgets for office supplies, printing, promotional items, etc. One of their 'money-saving' policies is that junior employees do not receive business cards unless their role requires them to frequently interact with third parties (i.e. if they're in sales or recruiting). In some roles - such as in the accounting department - even manager-level employees don't receive cards.

"They're not meeting people," the execs told me. "We'll spend all that money on business cards and they won't get used. We can't afford to throw money around like that."

If an employee isn't worth a $50 investment, you probably shouldn't have hired them in the first place

Guess what? Once you've had a designer or print shop set up your first business card, changing the name/contact info takes about 5 minutes.

And digital printing has come a long way in the past few years: You can order beautiful, 4-colour business cards online for less than $50, including shipping.

By not getting cards for new employees, the message you're really sending is: "We don't think you're worth $50." It's hard for a new hire to feel passionate and invested in your organization if the relationship starts off with that kind of subtext.

Every business card is a viral marketing opportunity

By now, most of us know that word-of-mouth is the #1 factor in business success.

Ensuring that all employees - from the rah-rah sales team to the quietly productive finance department - are brand champions who speak often and enthusiastically about their workplace is especially important for smaller organizations with limited marketing budgets.

Giving them business cards is a great way to do that, especially for new, junior-level employees: Remember getting your first business cards and how excited you were? Remember how you were so proud of your new job - and your new cards - that you handed them out to everyone you knew? And how your parents put them up on their fridge?

Suddenly, that $50 investment has bought you 25 buzz-building conversations, with 25 people who probably wouldn't otherwise know much about your company.

(Plenty of advertisers are prepared to pay as much as $50 or $100 to trigger a single one-on-one word of mouth opportunity between friends/family colleagues. So a cost of $2/conversation is an exceptional value.)

Not just for juniors or new hires, either

I don't care how senior you are or how long you've been with a company: Everyone gets a kick out of arriving in the morning to find a brand-new box of business cards, with their very own name on them, waiting on their desk. It's like getting a hockey jersey or varsity jacket: It makes you feel like you're a valuable member of the team.

The more you feel like part of the team, the more invested you are in the organization; the more invested you are, the more likely you are to talk about the organization to everyone you know.

Make it part of your onboarding process

Everyone has a network; not everyone is a natural networker. Everyone engages in word-of-mouth; not everyone realizes that they're engaging in 'viral marketing' when they tell their sister they love the new Gain laundry detergent.

That doesn't mean they can't use business cards as a marketing or recruiting tool - you just have to give them some tips as to how.

You're already giving new employees various materials and documents as part of their onboarding sessions; it's easy to add a paragraph or two about business cards and how you'd like employees to use them.

Make it fun - not forced

You'll have better success getting people to use their cards as marketing tools if you make it a fun, team-spirit-type game rather than another 'mandatory duty' to add to their list.

Provide a 'cheat sheet' with every box of cards, with a tongue-in-cheek headline like "Go ahead, talk about us behind our backs!" and an overview of your buzz-building philosophy ("We love working here, and know you will, too - so of course you'll want to tell everyone you know about all the great stuff you're doing!").

Then add some specific examples of good business card-sharing opportunities:

When you're out for dinner with friends and they ask about your new job
When your family asks for your new work contact details
Whenever anyone asks for your email address
Whenever you meet someone who you think might be a good potential employee
When you're dropping off your drycleaning, prescriptions, etc. - any time you need to give someone your name and contact info
When there's a fishbowl saying "Enter your business card for a chance to win a free dinner" beside the counter (just make sure the logo is clearly visible!)
When you participate in training courses or other professional events
When you meet with suppliers or potential suppliers

Turn it into a contest

Why not run a contest to see who can come up with the most creative opportunities to share their business cards? It's a good opportunity to educate your employees about why they're important, and it facilitates even more conversations!

HEAD2HEAD IN PERSON: IPM Conference, May 12 2010

Thu, 22 Apr 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

"Recruiting Smarter - and More Creatively"

Paul Dodd and Sarah Welstead are featured speakers at the Institute of Professional Management's annual full-day conference in Toronto on May 12, 2010.

Now that the economy is picking up and organizations are hiring again, employers are faced with two challenges: how to make their recruiting budget work harder - while still getting the best people. With many industries continuing to experience talent shortages, how can organizations attract and secure A-list candidates without breaking the bank? Discover new alternatives to traditional recruiting methods for small, mid-size and large organizations.

Gain new insights about building referral programs that work. Learn how to better leverage your organization and make everyone a recruiter. Review the best ways to use social media for recruiting. Discuss how to “insource” your recruiting function.

Participants will take away five vital strategies which they can implement immediately to help their organization win the war for top talent.

To learn more about the conference, and how to register, click here.

In a recovering economy, RPO matters more than ever

Tue, 20 Apr 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

At the best of times - i.e. 2 years ago, when we were all obsessed with 'the talent crisis' - RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) has been one of those topics that seems to engender more discussion than actual action: there are hundreds of articles, blog posts, white papers and god knows what else out there about RPO, but actual examples of fully outsourced recruiting solutions were rare.

Now that the economy is picking up, organizations are beginning to increase hiring volume again - but cautiously.

This is a great time to take another look at RPO.

SIDEBAR: Part of the reason that 'RPO' stayed more of a 'buzzword' than 'something everyone is doing' is that the early definition of RPO - outsourcing an organization's entire recruitment function to a third party - was just too darn big, especially for Canadian organizations. That kind of full-scale RPO really only makes sense for large organizations who are making hundreds or thousands of hires every year, and for whom the potential savings run into 6 or 7 figures. Only in those situations is it worth the huge enterprise-wide changes involved in full RPO.

However, in the past year or so, we've seen a real change in how people are talking about 'RPO'. According to Aberdeen Group, which has just released a comprehensive study, "...73% of organizations viewed RPO as a selective model...." in which they outsource parts of the recruitment lifecycle, not the whole thing.

(At Head2Head, we call this RPO LITE: All the benefits of RPO, but without the headache of a stem-to-stern enterprise transition or commitment.)

This 'RPO Lite' model is relevant now for 2 reasons:

It delivers against the bottom line. In the Aberdeen Group study, respondents reported an average savings on cost-per-hire of 48%. At Head2Head, we've seen a typical savings of about 35% when organizations outsource key parts of their recruitment function.
When you're hiring fewer people, every one of them has to be a keeper. In a good economy, an organization can carry some 'deadwood' employees; in a bad economy, there's no room for dud employees, and even the A-listers have to try a little harder. So when an organization does make a hire, quality is even more important. RPO solutions tend to involve better metrics around quality of hire, quality of sources, retention rate and other indicators of long-term recruitment success. Which contributes to #1, above.

I know, I know - everyone blathers on about 'outsourcing' but doesn't actually get specific about how it could help you, and help your organization today.

Well, here's something: yesterday I spoke with a client (a mid-sized financial services firm, which is feeling the pinch as much as anyone) who said that outsourcing their research/talent mapping portion of the recruitment lifecycle saved them $14,000 in January - which meant they didn't have to lay off one of their employees.

These small things can make a big difference.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: If you're a smaller organization, or only need to make one or two hires, you might want to check out our 60 HOURS SOLUTION. Think of it as a 'recruiter by the hour': You pay only for the recruiting time you use, which makes it less than half the cost of traditional contingency-fee-based recruiting.

5 Creative Sourcing Tactics for $500 or Less

Sat, 17 Apr 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Remember when having a job to fill meant spending $500 to post it on a job board somewhere?

Well, these days, $500 (or less) can buy you a lot of sourcing - and without having to wade through the masses of unsuitable candidates that job boards can deliver. Here are 5 you may not have thought of.

1. Hire a student for a week's worth of talent pooling

We may roll our eyes at the internet savvy of today's youth, but let's face it: Give an 18-year-old a set of parameters, and in a week they can probably assemble a list of 100 great candidates - including contact information - that meet your criteria.

2. Offer rewards for referrals from employees

Recruiters know that employee referrals are one of the top sources of A-list candidates. So send an email to your co-workers offering Starbucks gift cards for referrals ("5 great names for $10" is a good way to generate higher volume; "$250 if we hire the person you referred this month" is a good way to get more specialized referrals).

3. Do a 1-day status update blitz

If you're chronically short of candidates for a particular role, take advantage of your employees' LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter status updates to do a one-day blitz asking for candidates. Send everyone an email with a pre-written status update and a link to (a really well-written) job post and ask them to post it on a specific day. (You might want to try this in conjunction with #2.)

4. Post an announcement to your company website's NEWS section

Tap into all the passive candidates visiting your corporate website - the ones who never actually click on the 'CAREERS' tab - by posting a news item about how you're looking for great candidates for specific positions. You never know whose eye(s) it might catch - and who they may tell about it.

5. Get your marketing department to rewrite one of your job postings - and make it funny!

Don't be afraid of offbeat/hilarious job ads - they'll increase your response rate by as much as 250%. A line like "We're looking for a salesperson with the tenacity of Jason Bourne looking for his true identity..." will not only attract better candidates, but it'll get forwarded/retweeted/noticed - and that's good for your employment brand.

Also interesting: Recruiters tell their own 'true tales' of creative sourcing.

If you're so concerned about 'quality of hire', how come you're ignoring your employment brand?

Tue, 30 Mar 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

You can't attract the best and brightest if people would be embarrassed to tell their friends they work at your organization.

If you live in Toronto - or even in southern Ontario - you probably know that the TTC (the Toronto Transit Commission, Toronto's public transit authority) has had a lot of bad press lately: Whether it's residents launching class-action lawsuits, riders posting photos of TTC workers sleeping on the job, TTC workers driving drunk, crashing vehicles, or just a good old-fashioned sex scandal, sometimes it feels like the TTC is just one long Saturday Night Live sketch, not a huge, serious operation with an annual budget of $1.2 billion.

The result? Sooner or later, every Torontonian turns to their spouse/friend/colleague/random strangers on the subway and says: "What the heck is going on over there? Why don't they get rid of these idiots and hire some people with actual business skills? I feel like a half-witted 12-year-old could run the TTC better than whoever's doing it right now."

Because we all know that sometimes, hiring just one person in a key position can transform a whole organization.

If people hate your brand, it doesn't matter what your comp package looks like - they still won't apply to your jobs

Here's the thing: If you examined the compensation plans for junior/intermediate TTC employees, you'd probably find that the combination of mandated vacation time, sick leave, personal days, pension plans, health benefits, education reimbursement and basically 100% total job security means that working for the TTC (especially over 5 years or more) is way more lucrative - and offers a better work/life balance - than working at, say, Google.

However, ask people to complete the phrase "Oh, I've always wanted to work at...", and exactly none of them will say "...the TTC." (Whereas I'm pretty sure that a random sample of any demographic population would see 25% of respondents saying "...Google.")

The result? Even if the TTC did decide to get rid of some underperformers at the management level, it's unlikely they'd be able to attract enough A-list overachievers to replace them.

Better employment branding =
Better candidates =
Better hires.

So how come 95% of companies don't even think about employment branding, let alone make it a priority?

Don't get me wrong - I'm just using the TTC as a particularly egregious example here, but they are definitely not unique.

Think of all the companies you've worked with/for in the past 5 years. How many of them have an employment branding strategy? How many of them are even thinking about it, outside of the recruiting department? How many of them say that "improving quality of hire" is one of their top priorities - but don't have a strategy specifically to attract A-listers?

1? 2? I'll bet you didn't need more than one hand to count them up, did you?

So why is employment branding such a low priority, even within companies who know the value of branding and spend a lot of time and money building their consumer brand?

Well, as I've said before, I think we're in the midst of a huge paradigm shift, and organizations just haven't caught up yet.

Most people in management roles (i.e. the 35+ crowd who came of age in the early 1990s, when jobs were scarce and job-seekers were plentiful), who are, after all, the ones most in a position to drive employment branding initiatives, still think that if you post a job ad, you'll get lots and lots of great applicants from which you can take your pick.

However, with the economy recovering, and StatsCan saying that by 2015 there'll be more jobs than job-seekers to fill them, maybe employment branding will finally get the attention it deserves.

I have a tattoo of the Head2Head logo. Am I a brand champion - or just nuts?

Wed, 24 Mar 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

So I noticed John Zappe's article about the guy who has the company logo tattooed on his arm. Apparently John was unable to speak to the Rackspace guy who has the tattoo, so I thought I'd respond.

Because I have the Head2Head logo tattooed on my back.

(No, there isn't a photo. But visit the Head2Head website - see that orange head in the logo? That's my tattoo.)

So what happened?

A couple of years ago, we held a networking event at a downtown club called the Tattoo Rock Parlour. As the name suggests, it's a club with a tattoo parlour attached.

As it happened, Nike had hosted an event there the night before, and had offered free tattoos to anyone who wanted the swoosh permanently attached to their body. When Paul - Paul Dodd, president of Head2Head - heard this, he offered to pay for Head2Head tattoos.

An hour later - and yes, I was sober - I had the orange head on my back and was calling my poor husband, who just sighed and said "Why am I not surprised?"

(I wasn't the only one, by the way - one of our senior salespeople, Jesse Ryan, also got a H2H head, on his foot.)

I've never really thought of myself as a tattoo person - in fact, the H2H one is the first and only tattoo I've ever had. So how do I feel about it now?

Absolutely no regrets.

I've been involved with Head2Head practically since the beginning - I think I first started working with them in 2002, and became the Director of User Experience (that's Marketing Director, for those of us disenchanted with fancy titles) in 2005. Building the Head2Head brand has been a big part of my life for a long time, and I'm proud of what we've accomplished.

Sure, in my cynical moments I think, "I'll never get H2H off my back..." (see the clever pun there?) but it's definitely a more meaningful tattoo (to me, at least) than some random Chinese character or a star or sun or whatever.

I do get a kick out of the reactions of new employees when I'm doing orientation and show them the tattoo. I think they wonder what kind of brand cult they've just joined, but there's also something kind of inspirational in knowing that more than one person who works at this company you've just joined loves it enough to make the relationship permanent.

I also happen to think that work is only enjoyable when you really commit to it - even if I left Head2Head tomorrow, I'd never regret the tattoo, because it'll always represent a body of work that I'm proud of, and a time in my life that I was part of a great team. I don't see a cluster of logo tattoos blossoming across my back as I move through the rest of my career - but I hope I always feel as invested in the companies I work for.

WEBINAR: To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Twitter 101 for Recruiting

Fri, 12 Mar 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Still on the fence about whether to use Twitter? Wondering how it could work for your recruiting challenges in your organization?

Join Head2Head for a free webinar!
THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010
12-1pm MDT

CLICK HERE to register.

Topics include:

Twitter 101: From setting up an account to growing your list of followers, we'll show you how to get started
Real-world Twitter recruiting success stories
How social media can play an active role in your recruitment process

What participants said about our last Twitter webinar:

"Thank you for bringing Twitter to my attention. It's more powerful than I thought and I will start tweeting!"

"Well researched and presented - thank you"

"Refreshing format, not too long, straight to the point"

"This session answered so many of our questions about Twitter - I finally feel like I 'get it'!"

After registering, you'll receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

Where to find diversity candidates? 44% of Canadian orgs don't know where to start.

Sat, 06 Mar 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

So today, Talent Oyster - North America's first job board in 11 languages simultaneously - reported the results of their first 'diversity recruiting' survey.

The bad news? 44% said that their biggest challenge in diversity recruiting is that they simply don't know where to look. If they needed, say, 10 Arabic-speaking mining engineers for a project in northern Alberta that's starting in 3 weeks, they wouldn't know how to target and reach the Arabic-speaking community - at least not at short notice.

The good news? 71% of Canadian recruiting/HR professionals said their organizations would be increasing diversity hiring initiatives in 2010. More than 40% said that diversity recruiting/hiring was one of their organization's top priorities for this year.

The really good news? Statistics Canada predicts that by 2031, at least one in four Canadians will have been born outside Canada - the term 'visible minority' may become obsolete in the new mainstream.

I think this is great: Maybe, 5 or 10 or 20 years from now, the term 'diversity candidates' will also be obsolete, and we can just talk about 'candidates', regardless of their country of origin, language, or faith.

The 8 questions that cost you the job

Tue, 16 Feb 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

(Are you a recruiter/hiring manager who often has to follow up with candidates, post-interview? Bookmark this link - you may find it handy to send to unsuccessful candidates.)

If you're like me, scarcely a week goes by without receiving an email or phone call from a job-seeker saying something along the lines of, "I've been looking for a job for months, and I keep getting interviews but I don't get the job. I have no idea why - the recruiters and hiring managers never give me any feedback."

Whether a recruiter/hiring manager should provide detailed feedback, and whether that feedback would ever actually change a candidate's behaviour is something we've talked about before.

Some recruiters/hiring managers think that they have a responsibility to provide feedback; others not so much.

So I asked one of the best recruiters I know, Maureen Carroll, for her expert opinion.

"Of course recruiters should provide feedback to candidates who have gone through a first interview and haven't been selected," she says. "It's just part of delivering a good candidate experience."

But when candidates - especially those who have been in the workforce for more than a couple of years - make common interview mistakes, it's not surprising that the recruiter/hiring manager doesn't want to spend a whole lot of time providing feedback.

"Googling 'job interview tips' delivers 39 million search returns, and most of them contain the same basic guidelines," remarks Maureen. "So when candidates demonstrate they don't even know these basics, they're really saying that they don't care enough to learn about them - so the recruiter thinks it may be fruitless to say anything."

So what interview gaffes do candidates make? "Eight basic questions cause 90% of first-interview disasters," she says. "Avoid asking them, and you'll probably cut your job-hunt time by 50%."

8 QUESTIONS THAT'LL COST YOU THE JOB
Ask these questions in the first interview, and you're unlikely to get a second.

"Before we go any further, I need to know: How much does this position pay? Because there's no point in this interview if you're not going to pay me enough."
"How much vacation is there?"
"How many sick days and lieu time days can I use/accumulate in a year?"
"I need to leave by 3:30pm every day to pick up my kid/go to counselling/walk my dog. Is that a problem?"
"When do the benefits start? I need my prescriptions refilled."
"How much can I work from home? Will you be giving me a good laptop to use from home?"
"Can you hang on a minute? My cell's ringing and I really have to take this call - my sister had her court case today."
"How much do you monitor emails and internet use? What about outside of work hours?"

(As always, I'm interested to hear your interview disaster stories in the comments!)

Bringing dogs to work: cool, fun -- or just really freaking annoying?

Sat, 13 Feb 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

As many of you know, I have recently become a dog person.

This is our cocker spaniel, Lady. (This photo - and quite a number of other really fantastic shots - was taken by a friend of ours named Lee Harkness, whose Flickr account is full of great pictures.)

I've never had a dog before, and we've only had Lady for a year, so I'm still in the 'gushing' stage. I'll bore you with anecdotes about Lady's adventures at the park, her relationships with other dogs, my disapproval of other dog parents - all I have to say is that it's a good thing I'm already married, because if I wasn't I'd be in danger of turning into one of those 'Lowered Expectations' women whose dog is their whole life.

I love to take Lady with me everywhere - I take her when I run errands or do grocery shopping, we take the subway all over town, we walk in the Toronto underground system (like other big cities, Toronto has a huge underground network connecting train/subway stations, stores and office buildings), and it's not unusual for her to sit at my feet in an office-building food court while I eat lunch.

(No one seems bothered by this - Lady's well-behaved, well-groomed, and ever since celebrities started bringing their dogs along in little Louis Vuitton handbags, the rules about having dogs indoors seem a little fuzzier than they used to.)

So of course it's natural for me to want to bring Lady to the office, and I do. (I'm not the only one: both of the co-founders of Head2Head have dogs that visit the office, and a couple of employees also have little dogs who they bring in from time to time.)

Even before I became a dog person, I thought that the idea of dogs in the office was cool - that as long as the dogs were well-behaved and calm, there was no downside to having them in the office, and that it clearly communicated 'coolness' to visitors.

I mean, whenever anyone talks about how great it'd be to work at, say, Google, they always mention the "You can bring your dog to work!" factor (usually right after the "Free snacks!" perq).

As it turns out, however, not everyone agrees with me on this.

There are a couple of people at Head2Head, for example, who are really quite frightened of dogs. Sure, they acknowledge that it's not an entirely rational fear (it's usually related to a bad experience in childhood), but, like a fear of heights, it's not necessarily something they can control. So knowing there's a dog around means they can't concentrate on their work.

And as a couple of commenters noted in response to the dog question in one of my January blogs, if you've got clients or candidates visiting the office, and they're afraid of dogs, you run the risk of losing business as a result of a dog running around.

Here's what I'm wondering, however: Some of your clients will really love the fact that you allow dogs in the office, because to them it's an indicator that you're edgy, modern, friendly, etc. (again, it's that 'shades of Google' halo). Will the incremental business you gain from that brand image more than offset the business you might lose because a client/potential client is put off by dogs?

I have a feeling the answer is 'yes'.

RECRUITING: Saving the world, one hire at a time

Mon, 08 Feb 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

When was the last time you got a call like this:

"Oh, I'm so excited! We need to hire a new Manager of Widgets for our Mississauga office and I can't wait to interview candidates! This is a great opportunity to transform the organization!"

Pretty sure the answer is a big fat 'never'.

Whether you're an agency recruiter with external clients, a corporate recruiter with internal clients, or a hiring manager doing double-duty as a recruiter, the calls usually sound more like this:

"Well, I just found out that our Manager of Widgets is leaving at the end of next week. We're kind of screwed because we've got our new Widgeteroo launch next month and I know the comp plan is $10k below market. Can you dig up some candidates by tomorrow?"

Recruiting as opportunity - not headache

We all know that putting the right person in the right position at the right time can transform a company. Heck, just one great hire, even in a large company, can deliver dramatic, demonstrable results which are clearly reflected on the bottom line.

You know that feeling you get after you've just bought the computer of your dreams? You can't wait to get home and set it up, because you're thinking of all the great stuff you're going to do now that you've got the right capacity and capability.

That's how we should feel about recruiting. That every 'vacancy' is an opportunity to inject the right capacity and capability into an organization - which in turn will help the organization do 'great stuff'.

Don't let the 'process' obscure the 'opportunity'

I know, I know - recruiting would be a lot more fun if it wasn't for those pesky people running around all the time.

'People' tend to beget 'process', and before you know it you're selecting a recruitment supplier based solely on whether their account managers drive you nuts or not.

In other B2B professional services, companies sell their wares on a positive "Look what you'll be able to do if you engage our services...", end-result-oriented basis. In recruiting, it's more of a negative, process-driven sell: "Look at the hassles you won't have any more," and "Look at the money you'll save."

Hey, we're changing lives over here!

The right hire can transform an organization. The right job can transform an individual's whole life. Thinking about it that way might just make your next recruiting call start with "Oh, I'm so excited!"

Will a 6-month resume gap ruin your career?

Sat, 06 Feb 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

The other day, Melanie Benwell of Poly Placements tweeted:

What do you think of candidates who take 6-12 months off to travel or re-energize before starting their job search? Does it question drive?

and

1 or 2 months I can understand but anything over 6 months I see as a red flag = lack of focus/drive etc.

I was surprised by Mel's take on work gaps, and since I know her to be a successful, experienced recruiter, it got me thinking.

Are resume gaps a red flag?

A couple of years ago I read an article which said that one of the ways in which Gen Ys will transform the workforce is that over their working lifetimes, they'll take on average 6-12 months off every 7 years. (Of course I can't find this article now, but here's an interesting one about the 7-year sabbatical cycle.)

In other words, I've always thought that, as long as you had a good explanation for the gap, there was nothing wrong with having a 6-12 month gap in your resume -I mean, what employer wouldn't want to hire someone who said they took 6 months to work in an elephant sanctuary in Kenya or finish their novel or go to cooking school?

(I myself have an almost 12-month gap circa 1996-97 - I got engaged to this guy from the States, so I moved to Philadelphia for a year, during which time my visa status precluded me from working.)

According to the New York Times, sabbaticals are more popular than you think, especially in an economic downturn: With companies looking for ways to reduce their full-time salary obligations without losing their best and brightest employees, sabbaticals are a great way to hang on to talent while improving the bottom line.

But I think what Mel was getting at was: If you say you took/are taking 6 months off to 'recharge your batteries', does it make you look like a milquetoast who can't handle the pressure?

As always, your two cents are invited...

Egregiously Bad Candidates V: The

Fri, 29 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

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?)

Your 2 cents invited: 6 burning questions of 2010

Sat, 16 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

The truth is out there...

Social media devotees - especially the Twitterverse - are always extolling the information-gathering benefits of a networked lifestyle. "It's fantastic," they say. "You can post a question about anything, and within minutes you'll have all kinds of answers, insight, research, etc."

"Ha!", I say to that.

Everyone's so busy using social media to build their personal brand in 140-character installments that they don't have time to stop and send a 140-word email to some random Twitter follower that they've never met. Heck, it's hard enough to get people to click on a one-question poll.

The people who do have the time (i.e. the ones who are using social media primarily as a sales tool) usually have an agenda (i.e. they want to sell you something). Don't believe me? Try tweeting something about Applicant Tracking Systems, and within 12 hours you'll suddenly get 20+ new followers - all of whom are ATS vendors.

[Of course, sometimes the answer is that no one actually knows the answer. Even Slate.com's 'Explainer' column - which has a whole lot more readers than I'll ever have - is left with unanswered questions.]

But I have faith in the Head2Head community!
I invite you to share your genius regarding the 6 questions I've been thinking about most often in the past 2 weeks:

Are video resumes the next big thing, or just hype?
Will video-based screening become commonplace in the next 2-5 years?
When it comes to selling B2B professional services at a price point of $1000 and up, do clients ever make a purchasing decision as a result of the website? Or are websites just brochureware for credibility?
Are e-newsletters dead?
If the online version of the content is password protected or otherwise non-searchable online, is there really much point in trying to get media coverage in national newspapers any more?
What do clients really think when they visit your office and see that people have brought their dogs to work?

Feel free, by the way, to post any of your own burning questions in the comments.

Remember when you told me that a BA in English qualified me only for a life on the breadlines?

Wed, 13 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Maybe I didn't 'waste' my university degree, after all.

Graduating from university in 1991 was tough: Interest rates were high, property values were low, and the recession just kept dragging on and on and on.

Graduating in 1991 with an English degree from a university primarily known for its business school was even worse, because not only were your parents questioning the value of a flaky English lit degree, most of your friends were, too. After all, most of them had only endured the 4-year BBA program because of the promise of a lucrative job at the end of it.

"It's not about learning and enjoying it, Sarah," they'd lecture. "University is about getting a piece of paper so you can get a job. Three years from now when I'm making $100k and you're still trying to find a job, you'll regret you wasted your degree on reading books. Everyone knows that English grads have no marketable skills and never make any money."

But then came the gaping maw of the internet...

...and its relentless demand for 'content'.

If there's one thing a BA in English teaches you, it's how to churn out 2500 words of clean copy a day on any subject, without wasting valuable time on actual 'research', because it's now 12 midnight, the library's closed, and you have to write a 10-page paper on "Dualism in The Faeirie Queen as it relates to the tree motif" by noon.

Turns out, this skill is very marketable, after all. And guess what? Good, consistently productive writers are harder to find than you think.

The moral of our story?

Twenty years ago, most of us didn't realize the internet was coming down the pike in such a big way, and how it would revolutionize the way we communicate. Ten years ago, most of us didn't realize that social media would revolutionize the way we gather and disseminate information.

So the next time someone tries to tell you you're making a "huge mistake" with your career, and that you'll regret it ten years from now, you may want to just smile politely - and totally ignore them.

Subterranean HR Blues: Do you love it? Or not so much?

Thu, 07 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

So iFractal has just released a new video:

I totally give them credit for creativity, because I know how hard it is to get something like this past the naysayers. (And having lived in Philadelphia, I can attest to how paralyzingly conservative that city can be. Have I told you about the time I lost a job because my hair was too short? It was 3 inches long. I was told it was 'too cosmopolitan' for Philly.)

But...is it me or is Bob Dylan kind of redolent of long-haired baby-boomers smoking doobs in the back room? And is this the kind of image we want to associate with HR, already struggling for seriosity?

Ignoring Feedback: In marketing, not all opinions are equal

Mon, 04 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

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.
We're not.

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?

Several past clients called to re-engage us, citing the video as a positive reminder of how much they like working with us
Several potential clients requested meetings with us, because they wanted to hear more about our alternatives to contingency recruiting
Increased web traffic by about 20%
Increased average PPV (pages per visit) by about 33%
About 25 of our 'brand champions' reported referring us to a boss, friend or colleague ("I sent Bob at Acme Ltd. the link to the video and told him he should call you guys in the new year.")

So far, our ROI on this video (measured solely on short-term revenue) is so high that it almost seems fake - in excess of 500% - and we expect to see more in 2010. And that's the most important feedback the marketplace can give you.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

You're aiding economic recovery just by reading this!

Thu, 31 Dec 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

So it's the last day of 2009 and, like most people, I'm spending the day reflecting on the year that's passed and the year to come.

I think 2009 was pretty much the 13th floor of our lives: Sure, we all know it's there, but the elevator buttons skip from 12 to 14, as though not labelling the 13th floor will somehow keep us safe from the bad luck it supposedly brings.

However, I have to say I was surprised by our collective resiliency this year. The media in the first few months of 2009 was a non-stop deluge of economic disaster stories.

But there's only so much of that doom and gloom a body can stand, and by August it felt like, as a society, we put our collective foot down and said, "Enough with this paralyzing economic stasis! Let's start moving forward again!"

In other words, barely a year after the Bear Stearns collapse that started it all, we were able to pick ourselves up, shake off the dust, and get back on the road, as it were. Maybe we're not yet running down the road, but we're definitely striding briskly, and possibly whistling.

But I found myself wondering..

The 2008/09 recession was more sudden, dramatic, and global than any other economic downturn since the Great Depression. So how come we seem to be recovering - in spirit, if not yet in actual dollars - so much faster?

(Remember the real estate tumble in the late 1980s? Not only did house prices take ages to recover, but everyone was just so depressed for so long. If I had a nickel for every time one of my friends, family or university profs told me that graduating in 1991 with a BA in English Lit basically qualified me for a life on the breadlines, I'd have been able to bail out Bear Stearns myself. Now that 'content is king', however, us English grads are looking remarkably prescientient.)

Social media: The #1 factor in the optimism that leads to economic recovery

Back in May, I wrote that social media was saving the economy, and I still think it's true.

Our connections to people far outside our previously circumscribed little worlds have given us all more of a sense of 'team spirit'. Personal economic disasters - losing a job, losing retirement investments, etc. - can be alienating and isolating. But these days, instead of holing up at home, quietly falling off the grid into an alcoholic slough of despond, we're taking to blogs, vlogs, status updates, discussion groups - and finding that not only are we not alone in our own circumstances, but there are plenty of people in far worse circumstances, so maybe we should stop moaning about how we can't afford that 52" flatscreen any more.

(All of this also puts me in mind of the whitepaper we published this year on grassroots corporate philanthropy and its effect on the bottom line, actually.)

Anyhow, I guess that's my Big Deep Thought for 2010: Spending so much time connecting with people via social media isn't 'wasting time' - it's these connections, which are driving the optimism that, ultimately, drives economies.

Are you diversity-aware? Use this checklist to find out!

Mon, 21 Dec 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

I don't know about you, but this time of year always gets me thinking about diversity-related issues - it's important to remember that not everyone is taking 'Christmas' holidays.

We all know we need to be more aware of diversity-related issues. But are we really doing anything about it?

This self-test will help you determine whether your organization is really doing all it can to support/improve diversity in your organization.

Has your organization:

Sought out more information to enhance awareness and understanding of racism by talking with others, reading or listening?
Examined your attitudes and behaviours as they contribute to or combat racism, ageism, sexism, or other forms of discrimination?
Re-evaluated your use of terms or phrases to see whether they may be perceived as degrading, hurtful, or in poor taste?
Suggested or initiated workshops or discussions with friends, colleagues, social clubs or religious groups about cultural diversity?
Openly disagreed with a racist comment, action or joke?
Talked with co-workers about the racial/cultural climate in your organization?
Made a commitment to learn more about a culture different from your own, through reading, study and listening?
Initiated or participated in at least one multicultural celebration or observation in your workplace?
Taken a positive action to include/reflect a minority culture in a work-related function?

I know, sometimes all this 'diversity' stuff can seem onerous, but think about it this way: The more you know about other cultures' celebrations, the more you can incorporate them into yours! (I myself like the Moon Festival and Chinese New Year - the food alone is worth it!)

IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING TIMESHEET DEADLINES

Tue, 15 Dec 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

In order to ensure timely payment throughout the holiday season – please note the following timesheet deadlines.

For the pay period December 6 to 19, 2009, your pay will be deposited Thursday December 31, 2009. Timesheets must therefore be submitted no later than 5pm, Thursday, December 17, 2009. LATE SUBMISSIONS will be paid in the following run on Jan. 15th, 2010.

Please refer to the schedule for the remainder of the year on our microsite: Head2Head Contractors

Should you have any questions please email timesheets@head2head.ca

"Dear Sarah IV: Can I work with more than one recruiter at a time?"

Mon, 30 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

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:

Be honest and up-front. If you're already working with a couple of recruiters, let the new recruiter know. If you know you've been submitted to an opportunity, tell them about it.
Depending on your career stage and profession, you probably shouldn't work with more than 5 recruiters at a time. (If you're quite junior and trying to get a foot in the door, it's probably okay to talk to a whole bunch of recruiters; if you're more senior and working in a field where 'word gets around', you probably shouldn't work with more than 2 or 3 recruiters at a time.)
A recruiter who refuses to work with you because you've spoken to another recruiter either thinks you're not a particularly good candidate ("I can't trust this person to tell me about the other positions s/he has been submitted to") or doesn't do his/her homework ("I just submit all my candidates to all kinds of clients - I can't be bothered to call you to double-check to see if you've already been submitted").

Either way, s/he probably isn't the best recruiter for you, anyway, so don't feel too badly about walking away.

(NB: There are exceptions to this, especially in industries in which the talent pool is very small and where there may be only a handful of qualified candidates for a given role. In these situations it's appropriate to work with a single recruiter.)
Try to build long-term relationships with a couple of recruiters who specialize in recruiting people in your field. A recruiter who's known you for 5+ years is more likely to 'sell you' into a potential employer than someone you just met yesterday.

Again, if you're a junior just into your first or second job, it's worthwhile to make the rounds of lots of recruiters - it'll help you get a feel for what's out there, who has the best opportunities, and who might be a great long-term contact. As you become more senior, you'll be able to leverage these long-term relationships to make your job search much easier - and more painless.

The View From Here: Recruiting in Canada (excerpt from CRL Journal)

Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

While the Canadian economy has suffered less than that of the US in the past 18 months (and the recession was declared 'officially' over by June), almost 85% of Canadian organizations report they froze or reduced hiring plans throughout most of late 2008 and the first 9 months of 2009.

The result, for corporate recruiting professionals, was that after more than 2 years of steady increases (5-20% in 2007; 5-15% in 2008), recruiting salaries remained largely unchanged in 2009.

Average salaries for corporate recruiting professionals working in industries hardest hit by the recession, such as manufacturing and consumer goods, have declined by 2-5%, while salaries for those working in more 'recession-proof' industries, such as energy and utilities and healthcare, have seen similarly modest increases of 2-6%.

The biggest surprise? Recruiters working in the retail/leisure industry saw their average salaries increase by 5% - the top of the range, and equal to salary increases for healthcare recruiters. Canadian retailers had a better Q4 2008 than anticipated, so they maintained hiring levels well into 2009. But the economic uncertainty drove them to become increasingly strategic about their recruiting efforts, which meant they were prepared to pay a premium for recruiting professionals with specific retail experience.

For more on the Canadian recruiting industry - and how recruiting salaries have changed in the past year - read more in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, out now.

And look for Head2Head's 2010 Recruiting Salary Report, released in late December, with full details on recruiting salaries for all recruiting roles, across all industry groups, in Canada!

"Dear Sarah III: What's the difference between a 'headhunter' and a 'recruiter'?" Recruiting lexicon tips for job-seekers.

Sun, 22 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

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 LINGO

The 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:
This is any person who is part of the talent pool for a given role and/or meets the parameters (of skills/experience/geographical location/education, etc.) for that role, whether or not they are interested in or have applied to particular job.

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:
'Passive candidates' are people who aren't actively looking for a new job, but who may be interested in making a move if the right opportunity came along.

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:
The process of going from "5000 applications" to "a short-list of the top candidates" as the 'screening process'.

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:
Once the screening process is complete, the recruiter will submit a shortlist of the top candidates to the client (i.e. the potential employer) so that they can select the ones they'd like to interview.

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.

Head2Head on the radio: Tips for job-seekers about working with recruiters

Wed, 18 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

The more you know about working with recruiters, the more successful your job search will be.

Today, Sarah Welstead, the Director, User Experience at Head2Head was a panelist on Career Coach Daisy Wright's radio show for jobseekers.

We answered questions from real job-seekers about how to get the most out of working with recruiters.

Click here to listen to the show!

"Dear Sarah: Who pays recruiters and how do I get one?"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Think this blog post is 100% wrong?
Tell me why on the "I totally disagree with Sarah" page.

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:

The client decides they need to fill a position (also called a 'role')
They send their requirements (also called a 'job requisition' or 'job req') to a recruiting agency. In most cases, the client will send their job reqs to more than one agency at a time
The job requisition will be assigned to one or more recruiters, who will then look through their database, make calls to their network of contacts, and/or search online to find potential candidates. It's at this stage that they might call or email you to see if you're (a) interested and/or (b) meet the skills/experience parameters of the position
If they think you're a good potential candidate, the recruiter may arrange to interview you
If the interview with the recruiter goes well, s/he will send your profile (which could include your resume, a summary of your strengths/weaknesses, and recommendations) to the client
The client is likely receiving profiles of potential candidates from several other recruiting agencies at the same time
The client reviews your information. If they think you might be a good fit, they tell the recruiter to schedule an interview with you
When the client makes a hire, they pay the recruiting agency a fee. This fee is typically 16-20% of the new hire's annual salary
The client pays the fee only to the recruiting agency who sent the successful candidate (i.e. the one who got hired). The other recruiting agencies receive nothing.

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.

"Dear Sarah: Recruiters are driving me nuts. What should I do?"

Sat, 14 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Think this blog post is 100% wrong?
Tell me why on the "I totally disagree with Sarah" page.

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:
"Dear Sarah:

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:

The employer changed their mind/plan/requirements and didn't hire anyone in the end
The job was filled by a candidate from another recruiting agency, and the recruiter doesn't want to tell you that

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.

Head2Head Partners With Talent Oyster!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

As the talent crisis heats up again, tapping into diverse talent pools is crucial to winning the war for top talent. This is particularly true for Canada, which has one of the most diverse populations in the world.

Thanks to "Talent Oyster", tapping into these candidates just got a lot easier.

Talent Oyster is the first job board + online community to be launched simultaneously in 10 languages (including Arabic, Punjabi, Mandarin and Tagalog). It helps diverse Canadians connect with potential employers and resources in their communities, and connects employers with the skills, knowledge and experience this group represents.

So we're very excited to announce that Head2Head is partnering with Talent Oyster to deliver recruiting solutions designed to help organizations improve their diversity recruiting programs.

Talent Oyster doesn't officially launch until later this year, but in the meantime check out the "Early Adopters Program"!

(For more information about how Head2Head and Talent Oyster can help your organization improve your diversity recruiting programs, call Kim Benedict, Director Sales and Operations, at 416.440.2057.)

So you want to switch from 'agency' to 'corporate' recruiting? 7 tips to make it easier.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Another fantastic guest blog by Maureen Carroll, Manager of Recruiting at Head2Head!

So you want to be a corporate recruiter...

How can you overcome the stereotypes and demonstrate you'd make a great corporate recruiter?

These 7 tips will go a long way towards impressing a potential employer that you're ready to make the move to corporate recruiting:

Think - and speak! - like a corporate recruiter
Corporate recruiting has a different lexicon than agency recruiting, and using the right terminology demonstrates that you know the difference. For example, don't talk about 'fills' or 'fill rates' - those aren't internal terms. Instead, talk about 'hires'. This indicates you know that corporate recruiting is less about meeting numbers and more about getting the right people.
Be focused
Most organizations with strong recruiting functions - i.e. the kinds of organizations you'd most like to work as a corporate recruiter - are looking for recruiting specialists in specific areas most relevant to their business. You'll have better success if you position yourself as an expert in one or two key areas. (This is where a little research can go a long way: If you can speak to the organization's most pressing recruitment challenges, you're sending a message that you understand how recruiting can deliver against the organization's business goals.)
Demonstrate you can work with internal clients
A big factor in the success of any corporate recruiter is how well they work with 'internal clients'. In other words, how well they work with managers from other departments when they engage the recruitment department to fill a role.

As an agency recruiter, it's important to have ready examples of working directly with line managers - especially managers outside of HR. Evidence that you can successfully build long-term relationships with a variety of stakeholders, even if they know little or nothing about recruiting, is a good way to demonstrate you can make the transition from agency to corporate recruiting.
Gain experience with full-lifecycle recruiting
Most corporate recruiting is full-lifecycle, from identifying and articulating the opportunity, through to sourcing, making the offer, doing the paperwork, and even onboarding.

While you're working in an agency environment, try to work on a project that will allow you to manage full-lifecycle recruiting - including the administration!
Build relationships with candidates
For 99% of organizations, building positive, long-term relationships with candidates is one of their Top 3 priorities. And let's face it: One of the reasons agency recruiters get a bad rep is the perception that agency recruiters only call candidates when they need them, don't follow up, and don't respond to applications.

So you need to highlight your commitment to building candidate relationships. Talk about candidates with whom you've kept in touch over time, before and after you've placed them; speak to the fact that your network thrives on the referrals you get as a result of long-term relationship-building; indicate that you've participated in industry events; point out your participation in relevant LinkedIn groups, etc.

(One good example we heard recently from an agency recruiter in an interview for a corporate recruiting position: "Since 2007, I have used autoresponder emails for my job postings, to ensure that every candidate who applies receives an immediate acknowledgment. Every time I send a candidate to an interview, I call them to follow up within 24 hours. I call or email every active candidate in my network at least once a month, and call or email the inactive ones at least once every 6 months."
Then she produced the Excel spreadsheet to prove it!

And yes - she got the job.)
Get some training in Behavioural Interviewing
Being able to accurately, reliably assess candidates is crucial for corporate recruiters, so being able to demonstrate you understand and have experience with behavioural interviewing is one of the most important factors in making the switch from agency.

Having some formal training in BBI is best, but if that's not possible, there are plenty of online resources to consult, and you could start using BBI techniques in your current interviews. That demonstrates you know how important BBI is in a corporate recruiting setting.
Don't dwell on your sales skills
As a full-desk agency recruiter, great sales skills are a big advantage. In a corporate recruiting setting, they'll only make you look like the fast-talking, annoying Ari Gold type who confirms all their worst fears about agency recruiters.

Go ahead and speak to your ability to deliver results - but focus on the results most relevant to organizations: Improving quality of hire, reducing time-to-hire, and making recruiting budgets work more efficiently.

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE, Part 3: How bad writing can damage bigger brands, too

Mon, 26 Oct 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

In this Era of Social Media, the written word is more important than ever.

Part 3 of our 2-part series. Click here to read Part I.

PART III: I don't care how cool/sexy/big your corporate brand is. Bad writing will cost you the candidate.

It's not just personal brands that suffer when bad writing happens - bigger brands have just as much (and maybe more) to lose.

One of the questions I'm often asked, even among senior recruiters and HR-types who've been in the business for 10+ years is: "I'm a corporate recruiter working for a well-known organization. Why do I need to worry about my writing? I mean, it's not like I need a personal brand..."

First: Yes, you do need a personal brand.

Second: Bad writing gets in the way of making your point. More importantly, it can damage your corporate brand (one of the reasons I started writing this blog post in the first place was because I read an ERE blog post that was virtually incomprehensible and went away thinking "Did that person really mean to say that diversity in the workplace was a bad idea? Because that's what it sounded like. They work for Acme Inc. - does this mean that Acme Inc. also believes diversity is a bad idea? Yikes!") - and that can cost you the client or the candidate.

Buying decisions in the recruiting world are made on the basis of personal relationships

Ultimately, people don't make buying decisions - or employment decisions - based on corporate brands.

A candidate may apply to your company or a hiring manager may take your call because they recognize your brand and assume you have some credibility (the 'halo effect'). But when it comes time to sign an offer letter, refer you to a friend or colleague, or make a good impression on their first day, the #1 factor is their relationship with you, personally.

Between 'first contact' and 'the close', there can easily be 10 or 20 emails between you and the client. And now that all of us are 'building long-term relationships with passive candidates' all over the place, you may exchange 50 emails with a candidate over the course of a year or two.

After 4 or 5 emails that reveal you don't know the difference between 'they're', 'their' and 'there', the person on the other end is going to ask themselves if you're really as plugged-in and successful as you're telling them you are, and your company's great corporate brand won't count for a hill of beens.

In a talent crisis, writing can make or break your success rate

Ask any recruiter and they'll tell you: Recession or no recession, the talent crisis is in full swing in a whole lot of industries.

So let's say you're the Director of Recruiting at a company with $100 million in annual revenue, and you're looking to fill a Senior VP Supply Chain role in Calgary. The talent pool is super-small and your comp package is fairly average, but you've got a great corporate brand so you usually don't have too much trouble getting senior-level candidates to take your call.

You speak to a potential candidate by phone once or twice, and s/he seems interested. Then you send them an email to follow up: "Great talkng 2 you to-day. Cant wait to learn more about yr accommplishments & it's oblivious your time at Acme inc makes you a great fit for this roll."

Here's what the candidate who just read your email starts thinking:

(a) "The writer is either dumb or lazy. Either one is bad."

(b) "How on earth did that writer get to be a director ofanything at that company?"

(c) "I guess other people in that company are dumb or lazy, too, because they're allowing this half-wit to keep his/her job."

(d) "When that company tries to tell me they're 'thought leaders', I'm going to take it with a grain of salt."

(e) "Everyone says that company is so 'cool', but I don't care how awesome they are - if I have to work with idiots my life will be miserable."

(f) "Huh! Maybe these guys aren't as successful as their advertising tries to make them sound. Because they're obviously not hiring the best and brightest."

And kapoot! - you've lost the candidate.

This is followed by

(g) "Holy crap! This is the WORST email I've ever seen in my life! I've got to forward it to 32 of my friends - they'll never BELIEVE it!"

And kapoot! - your corporate brand just lost a little equity, and now 32 people know that your organization isn't as smart as your marketing materials would have people believe.

HOW TO ACE THE INTERVIEW: Guest blog

Fri, 16 Oct 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: As you know, from time to time we spotlight guest bloggers. This week we're featuring a team of 3 new Head2Head-ites:

Emma Scott, Senior Client Relationship Manager

Matt Moloney, Senior Client Relationship Manager, IT

Sachin Sama, Business Development Specialist

As recent interviewees themselves, Emma, Matt and Sachin have some helpful words of advice for candidates. I know ERE isn't really for candidates, but you'd be surprised how many of them hang out here looking for tips...

ACING THE INTERVIEW:
Interviewing tips by Emma Scott, Matt Moloney and Sachin Sama

As newbies here at Head2Head, one of the things we found ourselves discussing was the fact that no matter how old - or how successful - you get, you can still remember that cringe-inducing interview for which you didn't properly prepare, had the wrong information, went off into a digression about model airplanes that left the interviewers goggle-eyed looking at their watches...

But it doesn't have to happen to you!

Following, some tips to ensure you ace the interview:

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH: We've put this in all caps because it's the most important thing you can do to ensure you have a great interview. Make sure you know as much as possible about the company, the individuals you'll be meeting with, the type of role you're interviewing for. The internet is your best friend here, of course, but it never hurts to ask around, too. You never know who you know who might know not-so-public info.

Try to find out who you'll be meeting with, their titles, and how they would interact with you in the role if you were to get the job. This isn't always possible, especially if you're interviewing for junior roles, but there's nothing wrong with calling the recruiter or hiring manager back to 'double-confirm' names. Then let your fingers do the walking right on over to Google, LinkedIn and Twitter to see what you can glean about them. Remember, everyone likes to be flattered: It never hurts to be able to mention a blog or article they wrote, a funny tweet they twittered...and it shows you're a keener.

Bring a copy of your CV - and, ideally, copies for yourself (to refer to) and for the people interviewing you.

Ensure you know your resume inside-out - if you look like you've forgotten bits, or can't account for gaps ("I went to Europe for 6 months, I took some time off to go to school..."), you run the risk of looking like you're not being truthful - which is an interview-killer.

Dress one level up. In other words: Dress for what you want to be, not for what you are. Even in this age of flip-flops, it's always better to be overdressed than underdressed.

When you're asked for real-life examples from previous positions, remember to include your whole career. Many people, when asked for examples of projects, situations, challenges, etc., focus on their current or immediately previous position. If you accomplished something great 2 positions ago, include it! (It's always a good idea to think of these success stories in advance, by the way, so they're top-of-mind in the interview.)

Make sure you understand the question - and the competency they're looking for. The questions you're being asked are designed to elicit information about your competencies, so take a moment to figure out what they're trying to get at - and how you can best answer it.

Use the STAR formula to answer questions concisely and completely. STAR = Situation, Task, Action, Result. The biggest mistake interviewees make? They talk about a situation and what they did - but forget to talk about the result they achieved. It's the most crucial part of the STAR formula - especially in this market when everyone is looking for people who are going to deliver real results to their organization - but the one most often left out. (Wouldn't hurt to practice your STAR stories with a friend before the interview, either!)

Make a list of the questions you want to ask - if you've done your research, you should have a number of questions about the organization and/or the role. Write the questions down - you probably don't want to pull out a sweaty piece of notepaper in your interview, of course, but writing them down will help you remember them when you're 'in the room'. Keep in mind: We've seen people turned down for roles simply because they had no questions for the interviewers. The reason? "How can they make day-to-day decisions without asking for more information?"

Be positive! Even if you hated your last job/boss/everything about every day at work, don't talk about it. How you handled your last position, good or bad, and how you speak about it now gives the interviewer insight into how you will speak about him/her and their organization when you leave. (This is a big one in fields like IT where the turnover rates are 2.5 years - or less - per role.)

Know your audience. Using jargon or acronyms when you're talking to the HR gatekeeper isn't going to make you look like you're an expert - it's just going to make you look like you can't communicate appropriately. The person you'll report to, heads of departments and business stakeholders will all expect a slightly different vocabulary; using it will demonstrate you can communicate across the organization.

At the end of the interview, make sure you ask when you can expect to hear from them and/or what the next stage will be. This will allow you to gauge interest and timelines - and without it, you won't be able to judge how to approach other opportunities.

The employment market - at least in Canada - is getting a little better, but organizations are still looking for individuals who will hit the ground running and deliver results. And you'd be surprised: A great interview can ensure that, when you're hired, you enjoy a fantastic honeymoon period, too...

HR Business Partner, Dartmouth

Thu, 15 Oct 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

We're looking for an HR Business Partner for a client in Dartmouth (near Halifax), Nova Scotia. Know someone, or are interested yourself? Email Maureen Carroll at maureen@head2head.ca.

Remember, referring someone could earn you a $250 VISA gift card!

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE, Part 2: Can bad writing ruin your personal brand?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

In this Era of Social Media, the written word is more important than ever.

Part II of our 2-part series. Click here to read Part I.

PART II: Social media, personal branding, and yes people really do notice

For all the Chicken Littles who lament that our kids are being made stupid by the internet, the truth is that the average person today is reading and writing a whole lot more than ever before, both online and off.

Thanks to Oprah, we're reading more books; thanks to email, we're writing more letters; thanks to social media, we're reading and writing more words - blogs, status updates, online comments, forum discussions, text messages, chat rooms, MMPORGs - than we ever have.

Has text messaging and microblogging had an effect on language? Sure - 20 years ago no one had heard of the term 'LOL'. Have some of those effects become a little annoying? Sure - see 'LOL'. Is there a whole lexicon being used by the younger generation ("Plz fone me l8r 2 C if we R goin 2nite") that is both annoying and incomprehensible to those of us over 35? Sure - but they said the same thing about the Beat Generation 50 years ago; now we think Jack Kerouac was some kind of visionary who transformed the modern novel.

There isn't some Platonic 'ideal English language' sitting out there in stasis. Language evolves, and the 'correct' usage isn't about 'what we used to do when I was in school' but 'what the majority of users agree is most effective in communicating what they want to communicate.'

However.

The question is: Does this mean you can continue to spell 'commitment' with three Ts, use 'discreet' when you mean 'discrete', and be oblivious to the difference between 'renumeration' and 'remuneration'?

(Or, to put it another way: Would you pay money to send your kid to a Montessori school that had this many spelling mistakes on the homepage alone?)

YOU'RE DOING A LOT MORE WRITING THAN YOU THINK

We're all creating more content than ever: Technorati's 2008 State of the Blogosphere report says that there are more than 900,000 new blog posts created every 24 hours http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/ . That's almost a million blog posts every single day.

You may not realize it, but even if you're not blogging, you're still doing more writing than you did 5 years ago: You're sending emails instead of having meetings; you're texting your friends instead of phoning them; and you're updating your Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter status instead of going to networking events.

What's more, you're reaching more eyeballs every time you do: Emails get forwarded; texting is faster than phoning so you keep in touch with more people.

Your status updates alone are probably delivering 2000 'impressions' (as they say in media planning and buying) per day (assuming you have 200 Facebook friends, 300 LinkedIn contacts, and a modest 500 Twitter followers, and that you update your status twice a day, you're reaching 1000 eyeballs x 2 messages = 2000 impressions).

Do you still think no one will notice that you don't know when to use an apostrophe? More importantly, what happens to your personal brand when 1000 people are seeing your spelling and grammar mistakes every day?

CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY, BAD WRITING CREATES BAD EXPERIENCES

We know that people read differently online than offline - we're more likely to skim online text, and formatting (bolding, bullet points, whitespace, etc.) makes a huge difference in how well we can absorb what we're reading on a screen.

(My blogs, for example, aren't ideal - they're too long, the paragraphs contain too many sentences, and I don't use nearly enough headings. However, I try to make up for it withclever use of whitespace!)

Studies on reading for pleasure - known as 'ludic reading' (PDF) - have demonstrated that when we read well-written text, reading becomes like an "effortless trance": we read more slowly, skim less, and absorb more information.

When we encounter typos, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, awkward sentence construction or weird formatting, however, our minds are sort of 'jolted', impeding or interrupting the 'effortless trance'.

For the Group #1 people (the spelling and grammar fanatics like me), the 'jolt' registers consciously and we're aware of being annoyed by it. What's interesting is that the jolt is also registering with the Group #2 people (the 85% of the population who don't freak out over spelling mistakes) - subconsciously. They don't engage with the material, they do more skimming, and are more likely to abandon the article/piece before finishing it. Most importantly, they come away feeling that what they've read isn't credible and that it hasn't delivered a positive experience.

In other words, it all comes back to user experience!

So let us sum up with some handy equations:

Bad writing leads to

Lack of credibility + bad experiences = lack of brand equity

RESULT: You work harder for less revenue

Good writing leads to

Enhanced credibility + positive experiences = brand equity

RESULT: More revenue for less work

Want to learn more about how to write better? Start here.

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE, Part 1: Can bad writing ruin your personal brand?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

In this Era of Social Media, the written word is more important than ever.

Special two-part series!

PART I: On old English, etymology, and annoying co-workers

The world, it seems, is divided into two groups:

Those who think spelling (and grammar, and good sentence structure) counts and are a little fanatical about it
Those who think the people in Group #1 need to calm down, because it's not, like, life-threatening or anything

Anyone who's ever read one of my blog posts - or been the victim of one of my late-night Proustian emails - knows which group I belong to. I'm the annoying co-worker who gives you lectures on correct apostrophe use, criticizes your PowerPoint slides because you didn't use parallel sentence structure, and tries to impose an office-wide ban on Dan Brown novels on the basis that reading them will drive down the average IQ of our employees.

As I've gotten older - and, perhaps, more fatalistic - I've tried to curb my tendencies in this direction. As Stephen Fry points out in his excellent podcast, Language, no language is static: It's constantly evolving, and it's common usage, not rulebooks, which define meaning. The crochety old woman ranting about how 'prioritize' isn't a real word (because it didn't exist until c. 1978) isn't demonstrating superior intellect; she's only revealing herself to be hidebound, resistant to change, and ignorant of how language actually works.

[CLICK HERE for an interesting sidebar about the evolution of language among all creatures.]

[CLICK HERE for a sidebar on Old English proununciation and the move from an oral to written tradition.]

The 13th-century poem, 'Sumer is Acumen In', is a great example of how language changes dramatically over time. One of the first recorded poems in 'English', it looks almost like a foreign language to us now.

However, technologic advances - from the invention of the printing press to the rise of the internet - mean that more people are communicating more information across more channels than ever before. If we hope to be able to understand each other, some formal structure must be imposed.

Just as money only works if we all agree that this piece of paper represents X value, language only works if we all agree that X symbol or X combination of letters means the same thing to both of us.

THE SAME 5 WORDS CAN DELIVER 5 DIFFERENT MESSAGES
Take, for example, the following sentences. Same words; different punctuation - and the meaning changes dramatically:

(a) He eats, shoots and leaves.

(b) He eats shoots and leaves.

(d) He eats; shoots; leaves.

(e) Heats, shoots and leaves.

In (a), our subject ('he') performs 3 actions (eating, shooting, leaving).

In (b), our subject performs one action (eating) on two nouns (shoots and leaves).

In (c), our subject performs 2 actions (eating, shooting) in succession, then suddenly performs a third (leaving).

In (d), our subject performs 3 actions (eating, shooting, leaving) in succession, completing each one, then pausing before moving on to the next.

In (e), a minor typo causes us to lose our subject entirely while adding a new action (heating).

In other words: The placement of a single comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence. The use of more sophisticated punctuation - like semi-colons - delivers a more nuanced text. In an era where we're more often communicating in writing with people we'll never meet, both meaning and nuance are more important than ever.

And that's why spelling and grammar are important.

Click here to read Part 2, which demonstrates the link between bad writing, bad experiences - and bad branding.

WEBINAR: Twitter 101 for Recruiting

Fri, 02 Oct 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

COMPLIMENTARY WEBINAR!

Due to popular demand we're doing an encore webinar for Twitter 101: Does it work for recruiting?

Please join us for this complimentary webinar! Topics We Will Cover:

•Twitter 101 – From setting up an account to growing your network of followers
•Twitter recruiting success stories from the real world
•How social networking can play an active role in your recruitment process

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
Twitter 101.

Sales: The seamy underbelly of recruiting

Tue, 29 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

The recruitment lifecycle starts with sales.
So why aren't we talking about it?

Thanks to the mainstreaming of social media, any wingnut with an opinion and a keyboard can set themselves up as a recruiting guru these days. Google virtually any recruiting lifecycle stage or buzzword and you're guaranteed to turn up hundreds - if not thousands - of blogs, articles, templates, tweets, whitepapers, discussion groups and god knows what else by legions of recruiting 'experts' who've managed to convince everyone they're geniuses simply because they've consistently churned out 5000 words per week.

But there's a yawning gap in all this content, apparently concealed by a Somebody Else's Problem (SEP) field: Sales.

Go ahead, try Googling. Google "how to recruit candidates" - you'll get a million articles, tip lists, strategies, etc. Then try Googling "how to sell recruitment services". You'll notice there's a distinct lack of op-ed/advice pieces, and the only one even remotely interesting in the first few pages of search returns is 'How Not to Sell Recruitment Services', which is less than helpful.

But none of us (by 'us', I mean those of us who seem to have no shortage of opinions on every other aspect of the recruitment lifecycle, and the time to write about them) would be in a position to talk about recruiting as much as we do if we didn't first have a requisition to fill. After all, to get a requisition, you must first have a client - and that means that someone, somewhere, had to sell something.

So what's the problem? Why aren't we talking about recruiting sales?

Great salespeople hate writing
Show me a guy (and sales is male-dominated) who's a sales rockstar and I'll show you a guy whose idea of cruel and unusual punishment is having to write a 500-word blog post. Salespeople like to draw a straight line from 'action' to 'result', and the shorter that line, the better. The slow build of social media and the murky relationship between "X number of hours spent on the blog" to "$X in revenue" drives them nuts. So the people most qualified to talk about sales are too busy actually making sales to fart around in the blogosphere.

Great marketing people hate selling
Oh, don't deny it: We all know that good salespeople - in any industry - can and do make a whole lot more money than any salaried marketing or HR job. And agency recruiters can and do make a lot more money than corporate recruiters. So why do we stay in marketing, HR and/or corporate recruiting? Because at the end of the day, we all hate the hard sell - the cold calls, the rejection, the endless client visits - and

Social media is still in its 'early adopter' phase in terms of business use
For all the mainstream hype about it, social media for business is still very much undiscovered territory, and we're just beginning to establish some benchmarks and best practices around social media for recruiting. Most of the discussion is around 'theories' of social media.

The type of person most likely to be an avid user of social media for recruiting, therefore, is the type of person who is more interested in writing a whitepaper on, say, the role of grassroots corporate philanthropy on employee engagement than they are on coming up with "10 tips to make your sales team more effective".

HR-types are often reluctant to focus on 'filthy lucre'
While recruiting has a natural affinity with sales - they're both very results- and bottom-line focused - the truth is that HR types often know doodley-squat about sales, and could care less. So while you may see HR professionals talking/writing about some parts of the recruitment lifecycle, you won't see them focusing on the 'sales' aspect of it.

Talking about 'sales' seems too transactional
We're - those of us making the most noise about social media for recruiting - always droning on about how you have to build long-term, solution-oriented relationships with clients, and that it's not about 'selling' but about 'results', blah blah blah.

Writing blog posts or articles on highly tactical, transactional stuff like how to get a first meeting with a potential client or how to close a deal almost feels like a betrayal of that mantra - even though it's not.

WHY WE NEED TO START TALKING ABOUT SELLING RECRUITMENT SERVICES

The move to RPO - whether bundled or unbundled - is changing the way recruitment services are sold.

Organizations are learning that the traditional contingency-fee-based recruiting model just isn't going to cut it any more: It's too expensive in weak economies and too inefficient in strong ones.

The contingency model is fairly low-risk for clients (they don't pay til a hire is made), and lends itself well to commoditization (if your fees are 17% while your competitors' are 19%, you're halfway to making the sale), so recruiters haven't had to be particularly sophisticated in their sales strategies.

But asking an organization to turn over some or all of their recruiting process to a third party - and to commit to paying for that service regardless of the number of hires made - is a different kettle of fish altogether. That kind of selling requires the same long-term relationship-building that we so often talk about around candidates. It's important to remember that the C in 'CRM' stands for 'Client' as well as 'Candidate'.

Sure, candidate experience is still more talk than action. You don't change a decades-old paradigm overnight.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

So I was reading Sarah White's blog post about how the industry talks a lot about, but doesn't actually deliver, great candidate experiences.

And she's right: For all the hundreds (thousands?) of blogs, articles, whitepapers, media features and god knows what else about candidate experience in the past few years, the truth is that most organizations are still woefully inept when it comes to actually delivering anything approaching a 'great' candidate experience.

But I disagree with Sarah when she asserts that the industry doesn't really care about the candidate experience. I think the industry as a whole does care; it's just that you can't change a decades-old paradigm overnight.

Let's not forget that the whole concept of 'candidate experience' is a relatively recent one. It wasn't until 2000 that The Cluetrain Manifesto got everyone thinking of relationships with stakeholders as two-way dialogues and that the idea that User Experience should extend beyond website design really took hold.

When I first started focusing on recruitment marketing in late 2004, hardly anyone was talking about candidate experience (or employee experience, for that matter). Heck, most organizations were still struggling to come to terms with the ways in which the internet was changing the ways in which they were interacting with their customers, and even the term 'social networking' was just beginning to go mainstream.

What's more, the people in a position to transform their organizations - i.e. aged 35+ and in management roles - had just spent most of the past 15 years in a talent market where supply reliably exceeded demand (most of the 1990s sucked, employment-wise; the dot-com bubble years were nice but altogether too short; and by 2004 we were still a little gun-shy thanks to the spectacular dot-bomb flameout of 2001).

Fifteen years is a long time, so it's not surprising that many organizations simply got in the habit of thinking that job-seekers would always be supplicants at the altars of employers: There'd always be a plentiful supply of applicants, so why waste resources chasing them?

Of course, by 2005, we were starting to hear rumblings of an impending talent crisis thanks to a huge demographic shift (aging baby boomers + lower birthrates meant that more people would be leaving the workforce than were entering it). But by the time the talent crisis was really starting to make itself felt in early 2008, we were blindsided by the global financial crisis - and suddenly we were right back to having a surfeit of applicants.

[Yes, I know that some industries have continued to have a chronic talent shortage, recession or no recession. But I'm speaking in general terms here.]

Given that

It's been less than 10 years since the term (and notion of) 'candidate experience' has even been in use

Only 3-4 of those years have seen a talent market in which demand even begins to exceed supply

The economic environment of the past 12-18 months has generally obscured the talent shortage engendered by the demographic shift in first-world countries

For most of the past 60 years, our approach to employment has been about candidates saying "Please, Mr Organization, may I please have a job?" - not the other way around

- is it really any wonder that we're seeing more talk than action when it comes to candidate experience at an organizational level? Making a commitment to delivering great candidate experiences requires an enormous paradigm shift, a total change in our approach to the relationship between candidates and employers. That kind of change simply doesn't happen overnight.

I think the wide range of comments on Sarah's post tell their own tale, too: For every one of us who's passionat- nay, evangelical - about developing, delivering and measuring candidate experience (and I include myself - there's a reason the subtitle of this blog is 'Improving the recruiting experience'), there are others who remain unconvinced.

It's taken years for organizations to get their heads around the idea that successfully managing customer (brand) relationships and great customer experiences in a networked communication model (i.e. one-to-one communications vs the old, one-to-many model) requires an enterprise-wide shift in thinking.

We're just at the beginning of that shift in terms of candidate and employee experience. That's why so many discussions of candidate experience focus on specific tactical initiatives - writing better job posts, processes for following up with applicants - rather than enterprise-wide philosophies: We know that in order to get the rest of the organization on-side, we have to be able to point to short-term successes ("See? We put a little effort into writing our job postings and it reduced our time-to-hire by 50%! Imagine what we could do with an organizational commitment to delivering great candidate experiences at every touchpoint...").

It's not that the industry doesn't 'care' about candidate experience; it's just that the average person doesn't really know what it is yet. Don't forget: Those of us here on ERE - and Twitter, and LinkedIn, and social-media-for-recruiting in general - are the early adopters. Sure, we've been thinking about, talking about, and writing about candidate experience for a few years now, but we're not all that representative of the average person. It's just going to take the average person a little while to catch up.

How do I know? At Head2Head, I've held the title of 'Director, User Experience' since 2005. The first couple of years, the reaction to that title, even internally, was "Huh?" But it didn't take long for my co-workers to understand that organizationally, it meant we were committed to delivering "Positive and consistent experiences across all touchpoints, to all stakeholders, that meet or exceed expectations, 100% of the time".

Today, I hardly ever have to explain the concept to new employees or external recruiting professionals - they already get it, and they understand how it delivers value. Outside of recruiting, well, I still do a fair amount of evangelizing - but I rarely get the "Huh?" response any more. So while the industry may not be shifting as fast as we'd like it to, it is shifting.

I think we have to be careful not to confuse "lack of caring" with "lack of understanding". The former implies a disconnect, when in fact it's just a function of time and exposure.

Dear Candidate: This is why you didn't get the job

Wed, 23 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

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

You're a little delusional about the message you're sending
One of the most telling comments Mike made in his email to me was "You know nothing of how or why I came up with the idea and set up the site."

Um...what? Have you seen the homepage of your website? It says how and why you and your wife came up with the site. WHY: "This site was born out of frustration with the job market." HOW: "I decided to take matters into my own hands and help him stand out in a sea of unemployed."

This defensive disconnect is probably the #1 problem among chronically unsuccessful job-seekers, who seem to think that potential employers should be telepaths or transformational grammarians . You're right that recruiters and potential employers don't know you: At the initial contact stage, all they've got to go on are the messages you're sending them (resume, cover letter, website, whatever).

Which leads us to #2...

You're blaming the wrong people
If, say, Nike makes a tv commercial for running shoes that leaves me with the impression that their shoes are overpriced and unappealing, Nike doesn't blame me for not buying the shoes. They go back to the drawing board to try to come up with an ad that communicates their message (that their shoes are well-priced and appealing) more effectively.

If your resume - or website, for that matter - is giving your target audience (i.e. recruiters, employers) the wrong impression, stop blaming the target audience. Go change the message.

You're not being objective about yourself
Anyone who's ever said "But seriously, do I really look like that?" after seeing a particularly bad photo of themselves knows that achieving true objectivity about oneself is about as attainable as finding the magical ferry boat to Avalon.

But that's what friends are for: Get them to take a look at your resume, cover letter - even your interview outfit - and give you some honest feedback. Then, for good measure, ask someone who doesn't know you for their feedback, too. There's a reason that advertisers like Nike use focus groups to avoid issues like #2, above.

Sure, even constructive criticism can sting. But the soothing balm of employment is remarkably effective at taking away the pain.

BONUS TIP: If one person gives you 'negative' feedback that you don't agree with, you can probably ignore it as the ravings of a madman. If, on the other hand, 12 people say the same thing, you might want to at leastconsider revising your approach.

You're taking it too personally
One of the comments Mike made in his email was that I was being "outlandish and unfair" to "judge" him without "ever having met [me]."

Um...what? As a job-seeker, everything you put out there in the course of your job search - resume, email, voicemail, or, in Mike's case, a website - is an advertisement for you and your services. Employers and recruiters use these 'advertisements' to make judgements about who to contact for an interview. In fact, if they weren't using them to make judgements, there'd be no need for them - because everyone would get an interview.

BONUS TIP: You may be surprised to learn that recruiters and hiring managers are not, in fact, soulless evil automatons whose only goal is to make you feel like an unemployable halfwit. They're just busy.

Recruiters are better than dogs at reading non-verbal cues
Remember the candidate whose nail-biting made recruiters reluctant to present her to the client, even though she was smart, articulate, and well-qualified?

It's not just about the content of your resume or the actual words you say in an interview. Great recruiters have an almost uncanny ability to make accurate assessments based on little details that may not even occur to you: Phone the recruiter even though the job ad specifically says 'no phone calls'? You're demonstrating that you think rules don't apply to you or you can't follow directions. Screaming baby in the background while you're doing a pre-scheduled phone interview? You're demonstrating you're not all that interested in the job on offer - because if you were, you'd have found someone to look after the baby for an hour.

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.

We're looking for great HR professionals!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

If you're an HR professional, have we got a job for you!

Here are just some of the opportunities for HR specialists and generalists we're currently recruiting for:

HR Business Partners:
Education industry, downtown Toronto,up to $80k
Insurance industry, Waterloo, up to $80k

AVP Shared Service
Retail industry
Downtown Toronto
up to $150k

Director of HR
Healthcare business services industry
Niagara-on-the-Lake
up to $120k

Director of Disability and Wellness
Retail industry
Mississauga
up to $75k

Senior HR Consultant
Mechanical/electrical home services industry
Scarborough
up to $75k plus bonus

For more information or to apply for any of these positions, CLICK HERE.

SMARTREWARDS: Refer a friend and you could receive $250!

Know someone who'd be perfect for one of these positions? Refer them to us and you could receive a VISA gift card worth $250.

Learn more about the SmartRewards referral program.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Follow us on Twitter!

Sun, 20 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

If you're on Twitter, don't forget to follow us at @RecruitingH2H!

51 new sales jobs!

Sun, 20 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Head2Head has just partnered with Shred-It - the leading records management and document destruction firm - to fill more than 50 roles. To learn more and apply, CLICK HERE.

WEBINAR: Twitter 101

Fri, 18 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Twitter 101: To tweet or not to tweet? Does it work for recruiting?

FREE WEBINAR: If you've been wondering whether to join the Twitter-for-recruiting bandwagon, this is the webinar for you.

We'll review Twitter basics - how to set up an account, how to tweet, etc. - and real-world recruiting success stories.

Wednesday, September 23
12pm-1pm

To register, CLICK HERE. (Webinar is free but space is limited!)

Great networking lasts a lifetime. That's why Facebook is more important to your career than you think.

Fri, 18 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

In a lot of ways, you've been social networking since you were a kid. Facebook helps you leverage those relationships.

Social media has gone mainstream, and the 30+ demographic has stopped dismissing it as 'some fad for the kids' and are ready to start using social media tools a little more enthusiastically. But given that the average 30- or 40-something is in their peak work/family years, the last thing they need is to get sucked into a social media vortex.

Just because it's 'fun' doesn't mean it's not 'productive'

One of the questions I'm often asked is: "Why should I bother with Facebook? What's the point of reconnecting with people I knew in high school and haven't spoken to for years? I mean, it's not like LinkedIn, which can help me with my professional career - right?"

Wrong.

Facebook can be a lot of fun: Anyone who's joined Facebook can recall those first couple of weeks, when you reconnect with your best friend from high school or that guy you had a crush on during frosh week; share photos from summer camp circa 1982; come across a discussion group for some indie band you thought no one else knew about; or even just catch up with former colleagues to see what they're doing now.

The trouble is, for all of Richard Branson's protestations to the contrary, we're taught to think that if something is 'fun', it can't possibly be 'productive', work-wise.

Think again.

Still a 'sphere of influence' - just a different sphere

The #1 piece of advice we give to candidates first entering the workforce is "Network, network, network!" We tell kids who've just graduated to tell everyone they know - friends, family, casual acquaintances they've met at the gym - that they're job-hunting, because we know that ultimately it's a numbers game: The more people who know you're in the market for a new job, the more likely they are to think of you when they hear about a job opportunity.

But that's good advice for all of us at any age or career stage.

Your school friends have grown up into successful people - who'll make great business contacts!

Remember, people tend to move in peer groups: That means that if you're ambitious and successful now, the kids you hung with in high school or university, and the friends you made in your first career jobs in your early 20s, have probably gone on to be successful and ambitious, too. In other words, they're worth knowing for professional reasons.

That's why Facebook can be just as powerful a tool as LinkedIn when it comes to networking - it's all about the way you use it.

[PLEASE NOTE: While Facebook is a great networking tool for most professions, I'm focusing on the value for HR and recruiting professionals here, since if you're reading ERE, you probably work in HR/recruiting.]

Why you should be using Facebook
There are a whole lot of reasons why Facebook can be an excellent professional networking tool. Here are just some of them:

The 'fun' value will help you stay motivated

If I had a nickel for every time someone looked guilty and said to me "I know I should be updating my LinkedIn profie more often, but...", I would not need to write this blog, because I'd have been able to purchase a home on Mustique, where I would be right now, blissfully unconcerned with building my personal brand or improving my Google ranking.

About Facebook, on the other hand, people most often look guilty and say "I spent two hours on Facebook yesterday, just kicking around..."

If you're already on Facebook, it's way easy to use it for building your professional profile!
Facebook delivers better-quality relationships

Because Facebook facilitates conversations, it's easier to build deeper relationships with people than it is on 'business networking' sites like LinkedIn.

You may have a smaller network on Facebook - in fact, the BBC says that 150 is the ideal number of Facebook friends, though I think for recruiters the number is more like 200-250 - but because you're able to have more meaningful interactions, with more people, on a daily basis, those 200 contacts are likely to deliver more ROI in the long run than 1000+ LinkedIn connections.

Bonus tip: People are always more likely to trust someone they've known since Grade 8 than someone they've met at work, even if they haven't talked to them since high school. So rekindling an old relationship will always be easier than forging a new one.

At least 50% of your contacts aren't using LinkedIn
You know the kids who went to school with who have great careers - and therefore could be great professional contacts - but who have to keep a low profile or tend not to do a whole lot of networking? They're not on LinkedIn - they're on Facebook. If all you use is LinkedIn, you'll miss them.
Facebook is a better ice-breaker
Reach out to that guy from your Grade 10 class who you haven't seen in 15 years but is now the Senior VP of some Fortune 500 through LinkedIn, and he'll either not remember you or figure that you just want something.

Ping him through Facebook with a message like "Hey Bob, heard from Cindy you guys just had a baby - congratulations!", on the other hand, and you've just opened a non-sales-related dialogue - which is, as you know, a crucial building block of any great relationship.

Bonus tip: Facebook's model allows you to leverage your spouse's network, too, because you can see (even just from wall posts) what his/her network is up to.

Facebook helps you stay top-of-mind with the people who are most invested in you and your career

Friends and family are the ones most motivated to refer/recommend you. The News Feed - where your friends can see your status updates and other activities - ensures your friends are seeing your name regularly, which increases the chances they'll remember to recommend/refer you.

Well, this turned into a rather longer blog than I had expected - it's long even for me - but I found the more I thought about Facebook, the more I realized that it's been an excellent tool for me over the past couple of years.

Not only has it allowed me to reconnect and stay in more regular touch with friends, family and former co-workers, it's also had demonstrable ROI: It's helped me to build my personal brand; it's helped me to build the Head2Head and RetiredWorker brands; it's helped my friends and family understand more about what I do for a living (which has in turn helped them to recommend/refer me for business stuff); it's helped me learn a lot (from the links, notes and discussions of my friends); it's connected me with great candidates - and most importantly, I've had a lot of fun doing it.

Which begs the question: Can you afford not to be on Facebook?

Remember the MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com guy? He's still looking.

Fri, 11 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE September 12: I received an email last night from Mike Stearns regarding my blog posts about him and his site. Needless to say he wasn't best pleased with some of my comments. But as I've said before on several occasions, I think a more open dialogue between recruiters and candidates - with recruiters providing more constructive feedback - would deliver benefits to everyone involved. So I've invited Mike to post his comments here in response to my blog. I hope he does...

ORIGINAL POST:

Regular readers will recall my blog post of July 31 about Mike Stearns, the unemployed MBA grad who was having such a frustrating time with his job search that his wife launched a website called MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com. It was a creative idea and it generated quite a bit of media attention for Mike - but 5 months later he was still unemployed, which begged the question: Are stunts and gimmicks really, in the end, the best way to get a job?

Thanks to the paparazzi culture of the past 5 or 10 years, many of us think there's no such thing as bad PR: If you're getting on Oprah or a page in People, success (and money!) are sure to follow (heck, there are still plenty of people happy to pay Jon and/or Kate Gosselin $25k to show up at a launch party for some new product, even though every time either one of them open their mouths, they reveal themselves to be just as vapid, unkind, and greedy as any Hilton/Kardashian/Jenner in the market).

But when you're looking for a 'serious' job in a 'serious' industry - like Mike, who, with his MBA, probably hoped to get some kind of analyst position at a Big 5 consulting firm - telling Oprah's 11 million viewers that you were so desperate to find a job (and so incapable of finding it yourself) that your wife had to take matters into her own hands, isn't really going to get the attention of serious recruiters at serious companies. Every recruiter I talked to about MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com said, "There must be something wrong with him as a candidate. Otherwise he'd have found a job by now."

So what's wrong with Mike?

Well, here we are in mid-September, and according to Mike's blog (last updated August 19th), he's still unemployed. Only now he's talking about job boards and turning MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com into some kind of website for job-seekers, like a "...sweet spot in there between Craigslist and LinkedIn."

Except...

That blog post tells me everything I need to know about why Mike doesn't have a job yet: He acknowledges up-front that job boards don't work, yet he thinks he'd like to set one up; he recognizes that LinkedIn helps to connect you with people, but obviously hasn't used it to build a proper network, because if he had, he wouldn't still be submitting resumes "into the black hole of corporate HR". He'd be expanding his network (he only has 198 connections - I checked); participating in groups and discussions; and raising his profile so that "corporate HR" would find him, not the other way around.

It also tells me that he hasn't used the past 6+ months to build relationships with recruiters, because if he had, they'd have told him that the world needs another job board/social networking site like a hole in the head, and that it's virtually impossible to monetize a site like that within the first 5 years, even if it does take off.

For me, though, the most telling thing is how infrequently he's updating the site or posting blogs. If you were out of work, but had a website that was getting a fair amount of traction and which had given you the beginnings of a personal brand, wouldn't you be on there every single day, blogging about job-hunting, resume tips, resources for job-seekers, the employment market, and amusing anecdotes about your own job search and interview process? Wouldn't you add a 'comments' section to your blog so that you could engage in dialogue with other job-seekers or even potential employers who came to visit your site?

I don't know why I've got such a bee in my bonnet about this - I mean, did I really need to write two blog posts about this guy? Did you really need to read two blog posts about him?

I think it's bugging me because, as an entrepreneur (RetiredWorker.ca) and consultant, I know the value of national exposure on an Oprah-like scale - I know that it can transform your business and your life, if only you're able to grab the opportunity and run with it. So I guess it's hard for me to see someone receive the golden ticket, but then just sort of put it in his pocket and wander away....

5 Things You Don't Know About Gen Ys. But Should.

Fri, 04 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

First off, the usual writer's apology for a 2-week absence. Not a day goes by that I don't wish for a technological advance that would allow me to dictate blogs from my brain to my computer telepathically. This would make my shower time much more productive, since I currently waste that 7 minutes of my day singing old Mental as Anything songs (from the seminal Creatures of Leisure album, in case you're interested).

I'd probably blog more if I weren't so bloody verbose. Thank you, grade 9 typing!

Anyway.

The other week I was asked to take part in a focus group about a new website aimed at Gen Y-aged job-seekers. (About which I should probably not go into too much detail. They didn't make any of us sign an NDA or anything - though they probably should have - but I'll probably run into the organizers again one day and they won't thank me for giving away all their ideas. Anyway, it's not really important for the purposes of this blog.)

For part of the session, I was alone in a room with 8 or 10 Gen Yers. Some were in their last year of university; some were freshly graduated (a couple had both BAs and MBAs); some were a year or two out of school. All of them were the kind of Type A Overachievers who'd been in student government (probably in high school as well as university); written for the university paper; and started a website and/or a business during school.

(You know, the sort you either hate (because they're just so darn popular and overachieving) or kind of like (because they're The Leaders of Tomorrow and have gobs of charisma) or recognize and feel sympathetic towards (because you yourself were in student government and a frosh leader and worked on the paper and you know just how paper-thin the confidence can be). I'll let you guess where I sit on that continuum.)

I've participated in and facilitated a fair amount of focus groups in my time, and I'll say this about a roomful of Type-A Overachievers: They may drive the wallflowers nuts, but they're good at articulating their thoughts (and they have a lot to say, so you get a lot of their thoughts in an hour).

Like most people in recruitment marketing - and as a Douglas Coupland-raised Gen Xer - I've read a lot about Gen Ys in the past few years (and I've even written about their effect on corporate philanthropy), but this was the first time in a while that I'd seen a group of them up-close and personal, and listened to their answers about what it's like to be entering the workforce or taking the first tentative steps towards a career.

(Now, before you say anything, I'll admit: I know a roomful of overachievers with BAs and MBAs isn't a representative sample of the larger Gen Y workforce. But let's be honest for a second here: When most of us are thinking about/blogging about/talking about recruiting and retaining Gen Ys, aren't we mostly talking about how to get hold of exactly these candidates? The ones with post-secondary educations, who are most likely to be A-list employees in the long-term? And here in Canada, where more than 40% of Gen Ys engage in post-secondary education, it's not like university grads are an elite minority. Though to be honest when I looked up that stat, I was a little surprised - I was sure that the post-secondary education levels were significantly higher than 40%. Weren't you?)

THE SURPRISING THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT GEN Ys:

They are desperate for mentors
These are kids who were friends with their parents in ways that we (Gen X and older) never were. They're used to having an adult they like helping them navigate the world. But now that they're out of school and choosing careers - about which their parents may know nothing and therefore can't help - they're kind of lost for guidance. We aren't reaching out to them because they seem so confident that we think they don't need (or want) us. But they do.

They're scared to fail
These are kids whose every word, step, poop and dance recital was applauded, announced, videographed and trumpeted as the Second Coming. Now that they're adults, they're beginning to realize - and accept - that the world isn't going to congratulate them for successfully wearing matching socks. But they have so little experience of failure that they're scared to death of it.

The peer pressure is brutal
For those of us who graduated in, say, 1991 with an English degree, just getting a job was enough. The recession had been going on seemingly for ages, we were all working for peanuts at crap jobs, and we really only knew what our own circle of friends was doing, so peer pressure was minimal.

These kids have been hearing stories from older siblings about getting $80k-a-year jobs (which did exist a couple of years ago), the internet gives them access to a huge network of people at their lifestage (some of whom are still snagging great jobs or making huge salaries), and the media has filled their heads with stories of other 22-year-olds who invent some social networking site that they sell 3 years later for $1.9 billion. So when all they see in front of them is a $40k-a-year job as an Assistant-Something, they begin to think that they're the only one their age who's 'sucking'.

They don't realize that the marketplace has negative stereotypes about them
When I mentioned that recruiters and employers often think that Gen Ys have a sense of entitlement, don't work beyond 9-to-5, and come into a job expecting to be running the company within a year, there was shocked - and nervous - laughter around the table.

Not only do they not think of themselves this way, they were surprised to learn that potential employers might see them this way. They think of themselves as hard workers who are just waiting for the opportunity to prove themselves - in other words, they think of themselves the way every new-to-the-workforce generation has thought of themselves since the dawn of time.

In some ways, they're just as green as we ever were
We tend to believe that this internet generation is more savvy than we were - that they're entering the workforce with more knowledge and confidence or something. And sure, they have more access to information than we ever did: They can find and apply to more jobs (via the internet), they can better prepare for interviews by Googling a potential employer, and the internet is awash in resume templates.

But in some very basic ways, they're still as ignorant as we were: Remember when you didn't know how 'headhunters' worked, or who paid them? Remember when you didn't have a 'network'? Remember thinking, in the first year of your first job, that you hated it but now you were 'stuck' in this career forever? Gen Ys may have a superficial confidence and swagger, but it's often masking #2 and #3, above.

Which brings us right back to #1.

You know, I learned something else from the focus group: I learned I kinda liked these kids. (I'm also a bit shocked that I think of them as 'kids', because I clearly remember that at age 22 I totally thought I was a fully-formed adult. And now I can't believe my parents didn't laugh their heads off at some of my 20-something pronouncements about life.)

A couple of them approached me after the focus group to talk about their careers, and said they'd follow up by email or phone - and I hope they do, because I find myself much more interested in helping them start/advance their careers than I used to be.

New article on Examiner.com

Mon, 31 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Mirian Salpeter, of the Career Coach Examiner, cites Head2Head in her article, "How To Impress Recruiters".

Just for Head2Head family members...

Mon, 24 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Head2Head is offering great discounts on all kinds of activities, from Blue Jays' games to The Sound of Music. Click HERE for more info!

Speaking at PMAC conference, Sept 24

Mon, 24 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

John Clark, Supply Chain CRM here at Head2Head, has been asked to speak at PMAC in Kitchener, ON on September 24. He'll be talking about networking for Supply Chain Professionals. For more information, email john@head2head.ca.

Between responsive and repressive, there are...swear words at work

Mon, 17 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

[To the serious HR-types who will read this blog post and immediately become incensed at my lack of knowledge about anti-oppression legislation in the US: Before you comment, please remember that I am a recruitment marketing consultant whose job is about ensuring that the employment brand delivers positive experiences. So my perspective is about how this situation contributes to a positive work environment, not how it might get us into legal trouble.]

Every Friday, staffers at Head2Head take turns to do 'Friday Treat Day'. The tradition - started by President Paul Dodd back when H2H wasn't much more than "2 guys in a basement" and now in its 9th year - is that on Friday mornings, two H2H staffers bring breakfast for everyone in the office. This tends to get kind of competitive and fun.

Last week, my Friday breakfast partner and I decided to do a 'good breakfast/bad breakfast' gimmick: On the left side of the table were muesli, fruit and juice; on the right side were a variety of sugar cereals, danishes, and cookies.

The left side of the table had a photo of an angel, with the words 'Good Breakfast'; on the right was a photo of a 'sexy' angel, winking and flipping the bird, with the words 'Bad Breakfast'.

Everyone had a good laugh, and when the breakfast was over, the two angel pictures were tacked to the kitchen bulletin board, where we often put up newspaper articles, office notices, or thank you cards from candidates.

However.

This week, one of the members of the super-senior management team told me that there'd been a complaint (by a H2H staffer, whose name was not revealed to me) about the picture and that it was to be removed immediately.

It got me thinking.

On the one hand, I'm totally in agreement about removing it after a complaint. Our Employee Handbook and orientation guides clearly - and repeatedly - state that if an office behaviour is making you uncomfortable, you should tell your manager and that H2H is committed to being responsive to such concerns/complaints. So if the sign was offending someone, then by all means, let's take it down.

On the other hand, however, at what point do you say, "You know what? Our brand identity has always been a little irreverent; in fact our clients and consultants tend to be extra-loyal because we have a reputation for being fun, irreverent and not too corporate. It's deeply entrenched in our brand equity, and it would be detrimental to change it. And we go out of our way to let potential employees know this about us before they take a job with us, so it's not like you didn't know that we were like this before you decided to work here."

In other words: At what point do you draw the line? Heck, is there a point when you can ever say that? And at what point does catering to a single voice of complaint start to have a negative impact on brand equity?

In terms of marketing and brand loyalty, it's often better to have 3 people who are really passionate about your brand than 10 people who are apathetic about it. So in many ways I naturally prefer the 'bad angel' graphic - that kind of controversy is what generates passionate brand loyalists in the long-term, even if it alienates a few people in the short-term.

The other thing I'd like to know is by what, exactly, the complainant in this case was offended.

Was it the implied swear word? Because there's an awful lot of swearing that goes on around here every day. Do we need to address that?

Was it the implied blasphemy (i.e. angels shouldn't swear)? Well, first of all, flipping the bird isn't really blasphemy (it's not taking the Lord's name in vain) and second of all, not all of our employees are Christian.

Or was it something else about the picture entirely?

I dunno. I'm left in two minds about this. From an employee experience perspective, I guess I'm all in favour of taking something down if it's making someone uncomfortable. From a branding perspective, I know that if you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one - which doesn't sell widgets.

98% of your career problems can be solved by personal branding - even if you're just an 'employee'.

Wed, 12 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

[Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the bitter.]

The other day I overheard some grumbling between a couple of colleagues, aged 28-32 and with about 5 years' experience in their current profession. "It's not fair," one said. "Bob's only been here a year and he's already had a raise, a promotion, and even an award. And now he gets to head up his own project! I have more experience, have been here longer - and I definitely work harder."

To which the other replied: "I know! I don't see him working at his desk at 7pm every night, like I do, either. So why do they [meaning 'senior management'] give all the good stuff to Bob?"

Well, knowing Bob as I do, I know exactly why he's getting the gravy: He's built a great personal brand.

Personal brands: Not just for consultants and C-suites any more

A few years ago, the only people who really needed to build strong personal brands were consultant-types (who needed a personal brand in order to land the $150/hour gigs) or C-suite-level execs whose personal brands were closely linked to their company brands (like Richard Branson or Steve Jobs, for example).

But personal brands are becoming more important for everyone - even if you're never going to be an independent consultant, entrepreneur, or C-suite exec at a multi-national company. Here's why:

We're all on information overload, so we have to rely on specialists. Thanks to technology and the internet, we've all got huge amounts of information coming at us 24/7. We barely have enough time to stay on top of our own professions/jobs, let alone learn about others.

The result? In many cases, we just have to 'trust' that an employee we've hired to run our IT department, transform our supply chain function, or process invoices does, in fact, know their profession - because we're never going to have enough time to know their professional well enough to really judge their abilities.

That's where a personal brand comes in handy: Let's say you're one of two top candidates for an intermediate Procurement Manager position. Both of you have similar education, experience and skills, but the other guy's been writing a procurement blog for the past 2 years (and you haven't). Who's more likely to get hired? You guessed it: Mr Procurement Blog, who's demonstrated that he's passionate about procurement, wants to be a thought leader, and has the kind of stick-to-it-iveness that every employer wants.
We all change jobs more often, so we have less time to build relationships with co-workers.
In the days when people worked in the same department of the same company for years on end, your co-workers had plenty of time to get to know you and your skills, to know what you were good at and what they could rely on you to know/manage.

These days, we're all changing jobs much more frequently, and we're required to demonstrate that we're 'delivering value' right from Day 1. This means we have to hit the ground running with new colleagues, and no one's got a heck of a lot of time to get to know colleagues' skills and capabilities.

A personal brand can make a huge difference here: By making it clear that you're the 'expert' on topics X, Y and Z, you help your co-workers (and managers) make the most of your skills, experience and abilities right from the get-go.

Your colleagues benefit because they get a teammate who can quickly fill their gaps; your boss(es) benefit because you're more productive, sooner.
Keep yourself top-of-mind.
Whether you're a laundry detergent or a hiring manager in the pharma industry, the key to success is making sure that when people need X, they think of you first.

Let's say your organization has 10 intermediate Procurement Managers, but only one of them writes a recruiting blog, encourages everyone to sign up for the RSS feed or regularly tweets about a presentation he gave, a template he developed, etc. (in other words, all the stuff you do to build a personal brand).

Whose name is more likely to come up at a senior management meeting during which promotions or plum assignments are determined?
Google is the great arbiter.
Make no mistake: Recruiters, hiring managers, bosses, co-workers and even former co-workers often while away an idle hour Googling people they work with, have worked with, or are thinking of working with.

If Googling your name turns up evidence of a personal brand - like an article, blog, presentation, etc. - rather than just your Facebook page, you immediately have more credibility. Which means better projects in the short-term - and better prospects in the long-term.

So, what are you waiting for? Go start building your personal brand!

Head2Head in the Globe and Mail

Wed, 12 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Sarah Welstead, Director of User Experience at Head2Head is quoted in a story on social networking and recruiting in today's Globe and Mail.

Speaking to the issue of the increasing clutter in the social networking space Sarah says "It's hard to keep people interested all the time, especially if you don't have a fun consumer brand."

Full article (may require subscription) at All thumbs? Recruiters may want you

Recruiters are all over LinkedIn. How to ensure they find you first. (Part II)

Mon, 10 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

DON'T FORGET: This Thursday we're hosting another session of our ultra-popular 'Leverage LinkedIn as a Recruiter' webinar. The last two were completely booked well in advance, but we've made a few more spots available this time. It's totally free - just click here to register!

Guest blog by Kim Benedict, Director, Sales and Operations (and LinkedIn guru!) here at Head2Head

Editor’s note: Here at Head2Head, we’ve been using LinkedIn for recruiting for more than 5 years, and are now recognized as the Canadian experts in using LinkedIn for research, sourcing, and building long-term relationships with top talent. Kim’s guest blog below is the second in a 3-part series on how candidates can leverage LinkedIn most effectively.

(Are you a recruiter? We also host (free) webinars on using LinkedIn for recruiting. The next webinar is scheduled for August 13 – click here to register.)

So what can you do to ensure that recruiters not only find you on LinkedIn, but are interested enough to get in touch with you directly? Here are our 5 tips:

1. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete, up-to-date - and active

Your LinkedIn profile says more about you than your resume and can be easily updated. Ensure your work history covers at least the last 3 positions you’ve held (if applicable), and that your education section (including any recent certifications) is fully populated. Be specific about your projects and achievements in these positions.

And don't just 'set it and forget it'. Visit your LinkedIn profile at least twice a week (more if you're actively looking for a new job). Regularly updating your "What are you working on?" (aka 'status') statement, for example, tells recruiters your profile is active, current - and worth taking a look at.

2. Grow your network

On average, referrals and social networking account for 40% of a company’s source to hire (and this stat is increasing rapidly). Closing the gap on your six degrees of separation puts you closer to potential opportunities and increases your visibility during the search process. The more connections you have, the bigger your network, and the more likely it is that recruiters will find you. If you're actively looking for a new job, adding and updating connections should be a part of your daily routine. Even if you're not actively looking, building your network is a great investment in your career - you never know when a recruiter will come along with your dream job.

3. Make your profile attractive and appealing

Your LinkedIn profile is essentially an advertisement for you and your services. Like any advertisement, it's designed to get the audience (recruiters) interested enough to learn more about you, and to give them the information they need in an easy-to-understand way.

Tips to make your profile more appealing to recruiters (and to others who may be in position to recommend or refer you):

Ensure your spelling and grammar is flawless!
Take the time to write a compelling 'Summary' (get a friend to write one for you if you're not a wordsmith)
Add applications like 'Reading Lists' and update it regularly
Showcase presentations or articles you've authored by using Slideshare to post them to your profile
Make sure your status is open to receiving inmails and job enquiries – even though you may be happy in your current position – you never know when a once in a lifetime job may land on your doorstep
Get recommended and make recommendations

4. Join groups

Recruiters will often use alumni or join industry-, profession- and role-specific LinkedIn groups to tap into groups of candidates with specialized skills and experience. By joining groups appropriate for your career - and participating in the group discussions - you'll raise your profile. And recruiters will often broadcast a job opening only to group members, so joining the group means you'll hear about opportunities first.

5. Picture perfect

Like Facebook, Twitter, etc., LinkedIn is a social media tool. However, unlike many other social media tools, LinkedIn is primarily for professional networking. So your profile photo should reflect your "9-to-5" self. In other words, stick to a professional-looking headshot - LinkedIn isn't the place for family snapshots or cartoon character avatars.

The bottom line

LinkedIn has long been the leading social media tool for recruiters looking to connect with candidates. However, it's rapidly becoming the #1 resource - online or offline - recruiters go to when they're looking to fill a position. Which begs the question: If you aren't leveraging LinkedIn, will recruiters know you exist?

Next week: More on using LinkedIn for recruiting!

Recruiters are all over LinkedIn. How to ensure they find you first. (Part I)

Wed, 05 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Guest blog by Kim Benedict, Director, Sales and Operations (and LinkedIn guru!) here at Head2Head

Editor’s note: Here at Head2Head, we’ve been using LinkedIn for recruiting for more than 5 years, and are now recognized as the Canadian experts in using LinkedIn for research, sourcing, and building long-term relationships with top talent. Kim’s guest blog below is the first in a 3-part series on how candidates can leverage LinkedIn most effectively.

(Are you a recruiter? We also host (free) webinars on using LinkedIn for recruiting. The next webinar is scheduled for August 13 – click here to register.)

A new airport is opening in Dubai, and they’re looking to hire an HR professional with travel and training experience. It’s your dream job and you’d be perfect for it – but when their recruiter starts scouring LinkedIn for candidates, will they find you?

Recruiters are increasingly leveraging LinkedIn to connect to both passive and active candidates (in fact, our recent survey indicated that 70% of recruiters consider LinkedIn their #1 social media tool for finding top talent). Understanding how they’re are using it is the key to ensuring they find you first.

Top 5 ways recruiters use LinkedIn to connect to A-list talent:

REVERSE REFERENCE
Recruiters us LinkedIn’s Reverse Reference function to find people who have worked at a particular organization and/or on a specific initiative within that organization, such as and SAP implementation or HR transformation.

REFERRALS
LinkedIn allows you to use your connections to access a vast network of people. Recruiters leverage this by using their connections – and their connections’ connections – to find people who have the skill set and experience they’re looking for.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Currently LinkedIn has 43 million people in its network and is growing at a rate of 1 new member a second. Given the size of the talent pool recruiters with often look at your recommendations to assess and select A-list players.

GROUPS
Recruiters search industry specific groups as well as alumni associations on LinkedIn as part of their targeted selection process.

INMAILS
Recruiters use LinkedIn inmail campaigns and their status bars to broadcast opportunities.

Next week: 5 ways to ensure that recruiters find – and get excited about – your LinkedIn profile!

Stunts, Gimmicks, and Buzzing the Blogosphere: 5 months later, he's still unemployed

Fri, 31 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

LATE FEBRUARY, 2009: Mike Stearns, a 30-ish San Franciscan with a decent resume and MBA from Georgetown, has been unemployed for months. His wife - sensing his desperation and knowing, probably, that this kind of situation can wreak havoc on a marriage, takes a bold step and launches MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com.

The site is exactly what it sounds like: A 6-page website which includes Mike's resume, photos of him standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge (holding a sign saying "I need a job!", no less), a YouTube video, and more personal information about Mike than you ever wanted to know.

MARCH, 2009: The gimmick is irresistible to the media, who are by this point sick of writing human interest stories about people losing their jobs, and are turning their attention to slightly more hopeful stories.

The site takes on a life of its own and soon Mike and his wife are on Oprah. The website traffic spikes so dramatically that they put Google AdWords on it and Mike tries to keep up the momentum by writing regular blogs about his job search.

MAY, 2009: Only one blog post, but it's all about how Mike's getting lots of interviews, so it's fairly positive.

JUNE, 2009: Still no job, and with blog entry titles like 'Another week down', it's clear that poor Mike is discouraged, depressed, and having to put up a valiant fight to avoid sounding desperate.

JULY, 2009: Still unemployed, still in the interview process (and still getting enthused about 'in-person' interviews, which tells me he hasn't had a heck of a lot of applications go beyond the phone-screen stage) - and total silence since July 7.

(I'm pretty sure that this means he's still unemployed, because otherwise he'd announce it on the site, if only to attract media attention, because that would generate increased site traffic and more AdWords revenue for poor Mike and his wife.)

The whole thing is kind of heartbreaking, actually: You can't help feeling sorry for Mike and his wife.

But here's the thing: Feeling sorry for someone and wanting to hire them are pretty much mutually exclusive. A tragic story might get you a pity date or even pity sex - but it's not going to get you a six-figure salary at a Big 5 consulting firm (typically the employers of choice for MBAs from US tier-1 schools).

And while the website was kind of a neat gimmick at first, now it just makes you think: "This guy got huge media coverage - I mean, he got on Oprah for godssake - and he still hasn't landed a job in the past 5 months? There must be something wrong with him."

I think I know what it is, too: I'm 99% convinced that Mike is one of those stereotypical MBA types who're great at putting together 100-page PowerPoint decks complete with interactive diagrams but don't have an entrepreneurial bone on their bodies and think that getting an MBA from a good school was all the initiative they ever needed to take.

(I'm assuming here that it was in fact Mike's wife who set up the site, and that it wasn't just a ruse.)

Why am I so sure Mike's just a plodder?

Because he's totally wasted this huge (HUGE!) opportunity.

Instead of squandering all the site traffic on faux-interview vaporware statements like "I think the culmination of my education and experience has put me in a great position to succeed immediately..." and poorly-written, virtually contentless blog entries like "Fun 4th Vacation on the cheap!", Mike could have used his 15 minutes of fame to establish a value proposition, a brand positioning - and probably even some consulting work!

As it is, he leaves you with the impression that he's just another clueless MBA who wouldn't know an ROI if it dropped on his head like a Hefty bag full of soup - and that of the two of them, it's his wife who's most likely to deliver value to your organization, because she's the one with ideas, initiative and moxy.

Um...tell us again why you just spent 700 words on this topic, Sarah...

Tragically, I have no idea. I guess it's because in any given week, I see/hear from so many people who are out of work and doing what they think are all the right things in order to get a job, but just don't seem to be able to get past the preliminary interview stage. And I know how upsetting, stressful and demoralizing the process can be.

But I also know that 99.99% of the time, gimmicks not only don't work, but also end up backfiring - leaving the job-seeker bewildered and bitter.

So I guess all I really wanted to say is this: "If you're a job seeker, your #1 priority should be to build and maintain a personal brand. Potential employers need to know exactly what value you bring to the table - and they don't have time to read 5 pages of copy on a website. What effect(s) will the 'gimmick' you're considering have on your personal brand in the short- and long-term? And remember that when it comes to getting a job, not all PR is good PR."

Are You Your Workplace?

Wed, 29 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Seth Godin caught my attention this morning with a recent post on how one's workplace affects behavior and personality:

Your boss and your job determine not only what you do all day, but what you learn and who you interact with. Where you work is what you market. Work in a high stress place and you're likely to become a highly stressed person, and your interactions will display that. Work for a narcissist and you'll develop into someone who's good at shining a light on someone else, not into someone who can lead. Work for someone who plays the fads and you'll discover that instead of building a steadily improving brand, you're jumping from one thing to another, enduring layoffs in-between gold rushes. Work for a bully and be prepared to be bullied.

Having survived a bad job or two myself, I know just what he means. (There's a reason I know why I need to avoid certain work environments: past positions can be excellent aversion therapy.)

In poker, it's called a 'tell' (or, Don't Bite Your Nails In Interviews)

Mon, 27 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I happened to overhear a post-interview conversation among 3 recruiters (one senior, one very senior, and one intermediate).

The position for which they were interviewing was a fairly senior HR role. The client was looking for a fairly rare combination of specific education, skills and experience, so the likely source of a candidate who met all the requirements was an intermediate HR practioner who could 'rise up' to the role.

They'd finally found a candidate who they thought was a good fit: She had the education, the skills and experience; in person, she was smart, engaging, and gave a good interview.

So how come all 3 recruiters came out of their interviews with her feeling reluctant about sending her to the client as a part of the candidate shortlist?

Her fingernails were bitten down to the quick.

Not just short, once-in-a-while bitten nails, but the hacked-up stumps surrounded by picked and scabrous skin of the serious nail biter.

The candidate hadn't actually bitten her nails during the interview, but she hadn't been able to keep herself from absent-mindedly picking the skin around her nails.

Besides being a big heap of yuck for the people trapped in a small room with her for 75 minutes, it raised some serious questions: How would this candidate perform under stress? Was this an indication that she just couldn't handle it? Was it just a habit, indicative of nothing, really?

And the all-important: Would the client be grossed out by her hands?

In the end she was added as a distant #3 on a shortlist, of which the client picked candidate #2, so it never came to the crunch.

We've all got nervous habits - 'tells', as they say in poker. But if yours is fingernail-related, you might want to consider trading it in on something less evident, like, say, touching the burners on the stove 4 times before leaving the house.

REMINDER: Tell us your true recruiting tales

Fri, 24 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

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.)

Pepsi, Michael Jackson, and shocking footage: The direct result of bad HR

Thu, 16 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, the blogosphere was alive with the 'previously unreleased' footage of Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire during the shooting of that infamous Pepsi commercial in 1984.

Last night, the Twitterverse was alive with comments like "I can't believe CNN showed that publicly - how the heck did Pepsi let that happen?"

By this afternoon, Pepsi was doing some major damage control, releasing a statement saying, "We don't know how the footage became available. Twenty-five years later, we'd question why anyone would want to share such frightening images....We don't know what that footage is. It's 25 years ago. We don't know who owns it, so we have no recourse as far as I know."

Well, I can tell you one thing, Ms Pepsi Spokesperson: If you and your ad agency had a better employee retention and knowledge transfer strategy, you wouldn't be in this mess.

In 1984, no one was shooting behind-the-scenes videos on their cellphones. The only person in a position to get this shot (directly behind MJ as he starts his routine at the top of the stage under the marquee) was one of the professional camera people from the production house your ad agency hired to shoot this commercial.

This commercial was a big, big deal for Pepsi: They struck a record-breaking deal with the Jackson brothers (apparently they couldn't get Michael without buying all the others) whose $5 million pricetag set the stage for all the huge celebrity endorsements to follow.

Of course, Pepsi wasn't producing the commercial themselves; it was their ad agency, BBDO, who was responsible for the idea, producing the spot (using an outsourced production company), and managing the larger campaign.

Having worked in big ad agencies, I can tell you that a project of this magnitude - the whole thing had sparked a huge media frenzy even before MJ's hair caught on fire - would have been wrapped up tighter than a drum. Access to the shoot and post-production would have been restricted, and all the footage would have been logged and accounted for. Remember, this was shot on film - not just video - which is expensive to transfer.

For a whole lot of reasons, ad agencies archive all their old footage - not just the finished commercials, but the raw footage too. Many production houses have whole divisions dedicated to archiving footage, and they charge agencies (and other clients) an annual fee to storing this stuff in secure, climate-controlled environments.

This means that (a) all the MJ footage is living somewhere right now; and (b) someone at BBDO or Pepsi is getting an annual bill for storing it.

Which means that someone - and probably several someones - knew exactly where that footage has been all this time.

But the turnover at ad agencies is enormous: The philosophy has long been that there are zillions of people dying to work at places like BBDO, so they work employees to death, pay them peanuts, and don't do much to retain employees.

And it's the junior employees - the ones who keep track of all the boring admin details, like where footage is stored - who are most likely to leave with minimal notice and without ever meeting their replacement, so knowledge transfer is sketchy at best.

Which is how companies like Pepsi can get blindsided by leaked footage, and why they haven't got a clue where it came from or how to plug the leak.

Another great example of how investing in HR is a long-term play.

Summer Fun: True tales from the recruiting front lines

Tue, 07 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

There's nothing more stressful - and exciting, exhilarating and nerve-wracking - than looking for a new job. As recruiters and hiring managers, every day we're meeting candidates who know that their lives could change in the course of interviews with us.

Which is why it's not surprising that we tend to accumulate a rich archive of 'Strange but True' stories from the recruiting front lines. Some stories are horrific, some heartwarming - and many are just downright hilarious.

With the summer vacation season upon us, July's a great time to kick back, relax, and talk about recruiting. From the fellow who put his name and phone number on a billboard to the one who used racial slurs in his cover letter, to some of the most brilliant and creative resumes we've seen, we'll be sharing some of our favourite recruiting stories.

And we'd like to hear yours, too!

Got a great recruiting story? Post it as a comment below or send it to us at sarah@head2head.ca (let us know if you'd like to stay anonymous!).

Visual CV

Mon, 06 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Designer and illustrator Michael Anderson has posted a resume that provides key information about his job experience, education, primary skill sets, and areas of productivity -- all in graphic form.

Yes, we've seen a few of these before, but this one actually stood out as being a great example of his design skills. And the best part? While it certainly can't (or at least doesn't) replace or recreate the detail level of a properly written resume, this "infographic" CV is not only visually appealing but also clearly conveys the intended information. (I laughed when I saw the 2 AM drop in productivity coupled with the sharp spike in humor. It sounded all too familiar!)

Sure, it's hard to upload into an ATS and can't replace a properly written resume, but a "visual CV" is still a fun attention-grabber. It's good to see he's followed it up with a Word resume and a portfolio blog on his website.

Recessionary Fallout

Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

There was an interesting article recently in the Globe and Mail looking at some of the possible long-term effects of the current recession on employment, company cultures, job development and other areas. I found the changes for young workers (the oft-discussed Gen Y) particularly of note.

[M]any young people I talk to have significantly, and resentfully, lowered their expectations. They didn't imagine themselves in this situation in their wildest dreams.

Nor did many others. Generation Y will be most affected by the cutbacks, downsizings and marked change in organizational cultures over the past few months, but the recession will take its toll on every generation's attitudes and expectations. The question is how long-lasting the reverberations will be in reshaping the way people think, feel and act toward work and their careers.

Now Not to Recruit

Wed, 01 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

There was a great post on blog The Anti-Pimp recently, 7 Things Recruiters Do That Irritate Me. I had to laugh -- so many of the things listed are complaints that I've heard from quite a few candidates myself.

So I started speaking to contractors that I know to see what other things irritate and annoy them -- sometimes to the point of refusing to work with a particular recruiter or company. In this far-from-scientific survey, I've spoken to a few IT consultants (business analyst, systems analyst, technical writer, and a programmer), as well as a contract HR specialist, a recruiter, a travel nurse, and a proposal writer.

Perhaps the most common complaint (and I've experienced this one a time or two myself!) is recruiters not listening to what the candidate is telling them -- whether it's about what sort of position would be a good fit, salary and compensation, or just that they're unavailable to talk at the moment.

A technical writer complained: "I was recently in the check-out line at the grocery store when a recruiter I'd been speaking to called back with some feedback from a recent interview. ... Despite the fact that I told him that no, this wasn't a good time, and could we please speak a little later (like when I'm not bagging groceries!), this guy just kept right on talking."

In addition to the rudeness of such situations, many also commented to the effect that if they can't trust a recruiter to respect that they are unavailable at the moment -- whether it's due to an important meeting or a family dinner -- how can they be sure that they'll listen to anything else?

But the complaint that surprised me was the idea of recruiters attempting to build rapport by talking about how hard it is to be a recruiter right now. I spoke to a nurse who frequently works with agencies for travel nursing positions. One of her worst experiences, she said, was with a recruiter whose skills were apparently not quite up to the recent challenges posed by the economic slowdown:

"Literally, about the first five or ten minutes we were talking, it was all about how hard her life was these days. How she used to have dozens of open jobs on the go at any one time, and now she only had one or two at a time -- if she was lucky. Better yet," the candidate added, "this recruiter actually told me that these days the candidates she sent rarely got interviews."

Not exactly a confidence-booster. (Not to mention unprofessional.) It can be great to build a personal rapport with candidates -- but that doesn't mean that recruiters should vent to their candidates, whether about job orders or a client, no matter how frustrating things can get.

Another concurred. "I don't see why recruiters are asking me to sympathize with them. You don't have lots of orders? Honey, I'm the one looking for a job."

Great Resource for Recruiters

Tue, 23 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

I spent some time recently searching for new and interesting blogs (always keeping an eye out for recruiting/HR thought leadership!), and Glen Cathey's blog Boolean Black Belt stood out as a good resource for online recruitment and sourcing. He clearly breaks down specific techniques and search strategies, and has an easy to read style supported with graphs and graphics.

He recently put together a "best of" page with some of his top posts. Seems like an excellent starting place for up and coming recruiters, or those looking to polish or upgrade their e-recruitment skills.

Want media coverage in the Twitter Era? You only need to do 2 things.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

So this evening I saw a tweet from @mayhemstudios (a RT from @the_gman - good lord it's hard to keep track of these complicated crediting of information sources these days) referring us to an article on The New PR: How to write effective press releases in the age of Twitter.

Since I'm responsible for media for both Head2Head and Retired Worker - a quick Google of 'Sarah Welstead' will reveal just how shameless I've been in the past few years - I of course dashed right over to the article.

So if this tweeted-about article had some handy hints, then I was prepared to be all over it.

Well, the article was okay, I guess - though I personally haven't ever seen any real advantage to adding multimedia to a media release, and they didn't give any concrete examples - but I've been doing this a while now and I've come to the conclusion that there are only 2 factors which make any kind of real difference in how much media coverage you get.

Here they are:

A stunning factoid that maps into the current zeitgeist, used as your lead headline.
Use any number you like, but make sure it's dramatic, based on some kind of study, and correlates with the current mood of the media. The reason the Head2Head 2007 Salary Report got a lot of coverage was because we led with "Recruiting salaries up 20%" - which was a big enough number to catch the eye of editors, even if they knew nothing about recruiting.

If the headline of the 2008 report had been "Recruiting salaries down 15%", we would have had huge coverage (see below for the comparison between 2007 and 2008), because at the time, the media was actively looking for 'bad news' stories - the media was all about the doom and gloom of the recession. Unfortunately, even I can't spin that much.

Use a 'Tips for [whatever]' model - that also maps into the media zeitgeist.
In the absence of 'factoids' (though SurveyMonkey and a little judicious Twittering can get you whatever factoid you want in 24 hours), you can almost guarantee yourself some quick and dirty media coverage if you put together a list of 'handy tips' (5-7 tips is best) for something that has some mass appeal. Could be "Tips for older job-seekers", could be "Tips for recession-proofing your resume" - both of which map into current media trends - it doesn't really matter. They sound helpful - and unbiased - so editors think "Yay! That's 11 column inches I don't have to think about!" and copy and paste.

[Of course, it should go without saying that to be properly effective, a media release needs to be sent out across a paid newswire service - I use Canada Newswire - because for all that we're supposedly living in a social media world, most of the news channels we think of as mainstream (national newspapers, radio and television networks, etc.) are still accustomed to checking the wire services every morning, and tend to give more credence to information that comes across 'the wire' than information that turns up on a blog somewhere.]

But getting back to PR in the Era of Microblogging. How do my two tips (see? see how this works?) tie in?

Easy: A stunning factoid is easily tweeted ("84% of Canadian recruiters plan to hire in the next 6 months") and retweeted with a link. And a 'handy tips' article is one of those things with a life of its own - the December blog post about The Top 5 Job Search Tips From 2008 continues to be the #1 post on the Head2Head blog, even though it's not exactly Pulitzer-worthy journalism. (If you feel ambitious, Google 'Retired Worker job-seeker tips' and you'll see just how that kind of thing basically disseminates itself across the web, over a long period of time. But you may want to take my word for it.)

'The New PR' article recommends that you use all the online channels at your disposal, and they're right: once you've distributed a media release, you should make sure it's on your website, write a blog about it, Twitter about it, post it to your Facebook and LinkedIn pages, etc. - this is how your 'news' will have a longer shelf-life and contribute to your Google rankings.

Don't panic if you don't get the response you were hoping for right away. PR is always a crapshoot: Head2Head's 2007 Salary Report got a whole lot of media attention, but the 2008 Salary Report got a whole lot less. Why? Because, as I wrote in January, the 2008 report revealed good news (salaries were up 6-15%), and at the time, the media just wasn't interested.

At the same time, I can almost always get good media coverage for Retired Worker - there's always some radio station looking for a 3-minute soundbite on 'boomers' and 'the changing face of retirement'.

(If people knew just how much of their 'news' was being driven by people like me, writing media releases at midnight in their home office, they'd never believe anything they read ever again. And the Toronto Sun - among many other supposedly legitimate publications - basically just reprints media releases without any attempt to turn them into articles. But don't let me scare you.)

What do you do about candidates whose only flaw is bad personal hygiene?

Wed, 10 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

The other day I wrote another in our ongoing series of Egregiously Bad Candidates blog posts, where we - as recruiters - get to laugh about some of the more hilarious stories of candidates who just don't get it.

One of the comments on that post was about candidates who keep on applying for jobs at your company, even though they keep getting turned down. Specifically, why do these candidates keep applying, when it's 'obvious' you don't want them?

Except, I don't think it's always so obvious. (In fact, I've blogged about this before.) These poor candidates keep getting rejected, but without concrete - or constructive - feedback, they take our polite rejection ("It just isn't a fit right now, but we'll keep your resume on file...") at face value, and figure it's just a matter of time before it is a 'good fit'.

The one that makes me cringe most often is the candidate with bad personal hygiene. You know the one: he's (and, let's face it, it's almost always a 'he') got a decent resume and would even be a decent interview - if only you weren't gasping for air after 10 minutes in a closed room with him.

You know that all the guy needs is a bar of Irish Spring, a box of lemon-fresh Tide (because you just know that his whole wardrobe, and probably all his sheets, need a serious, um, freshening up), and a can of AXE deodorant spray, and he'd increase his chances of getting a job about 1000 percent.

So why don't you tell him?

I mean, I've had recruiters tell me what to wear to an interview ("It's a fairly formal office, so wear stockings"), how to do my hair ("You might want to consider dyeing your hair - I know they'll think that white-blond, super-short style is a little too fashion-forward"), and even advise me on shoe selection ("They have a dress code, so don't wear open-toed shoes, even if they're Christian Dior"). I don't take offense at this - both the recruiter and I have a vested interest in me putting my best foot forward, as it were. I've also declined interviews at companies which have draconian dress codes, such as the cosmetics firm which didn't allow women to wear pants of any kind, because I probably wouldn't have liked it there much anyway.

So why are we so reluctant to tell people that they need a shower?

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a legislative or regulatory prohibition on this in Canada - I don't think 'body odor' or 'personal hygiene' is protected under the Human Rights Code. And I know that some US states have odd rules, but I'm pretty sure that hygiene isn't one of them.

I keep thinking about what my mother - a high school teacher - used to say: "If I don't take these kids aside after class and talk to them about taking a shower every day and using deodorant, the other kids are going to make fun of them. Which is much worse than the momentary embarrassment s/he feels when I talk to them about it."

Some of these poor candidates are going to go on being unemployed for months. Surely we owe it to them to give them a heads' up?

Head2Head: recruiters and social media on Canada News Wire

Wed, 10 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Recruiters, 84% of which are planning to hire in the next 6 months, are using using social media to find top talent, says this newswire release.

"We knew that the Canadian recruiting market was picking up a little, but the response we had to our survey about social media and recruiting was frankly surprising," says Paul Dodd, President of Head2Head.

See the full story at Recruiters still on the hunt for top talent - and using social media to find it

Personal Branding: Is it all about you, or not?

Mon, 08 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

So tonight Dan Schawbel, self-proclaimed Personal Branding Guru (and maybe he is a guru - after all, he's got 23,000+ Twitter followers and I haven't even cracked 1,000 yet) tweeted about Katie Konrath's blog post, "Personal Branding: It's Not About You".

It caught my attention, because a while back I wrote "An Introduction to Personal Branding: It really is all about you."

Of course, those of us who are out here blogging and tweeting and social media-ing all the time know that a decent title can ensure even the most dreck-filled article or PowerPoint deck gets some attention, so both of our titles were tongue-in-cheek.

However, it got me thinking...

The thrust of Katie's piece was really that people need to see 'personal branding' for what it really is: A sales tool.

In sales, you don't just yammer away at the potential client endlessly. You ask them questions about their hot-button issues, the things that are keeping them up at night, how they measure success, etc., and then you show them how what you do will address these business issues.

The same, as Katie says, is true of personal branding: Instead of telling people all the great things you've done, are doing, and could do for them if only they'd pony up your hourly fee, you should identify your potential clients' business issues and then, clearly and concisely, demonstrate how you're going to deliver against that.

So far, so good: It's amazing how many personal-branding websites I've seen which have pages and pages of things like 'Awards I Won In 1996 When I Worked At Bombardier' and no pages like 'How working with me will deliver demonstrable results within 3 months.' Katie is absolutely right that personal branding needs to be built on what stakeholders need/want, not what we want to deliver to them

I've written an awful lot of blog posts in the past few years - upwards of 150, at least. My goal with blog posts has always been to add some original data, analysis or insight to the conversation. Because at the end of the day, isn't personal branding supposed to be about establishing a unique proposition, positioning, and personality?

In Dec 2008 I did a blog post with "7 Top Tips for Job-Seekers" - which in fact was just a refresh of a blog post I'd done in 2006 - and it continues to be the single most popular post in the whole blog, even though there are zillions of 'tips for job-seekers' blogs all over the internet already.

By contrast, in Apr 2009 I published a whitepaper about grassroots corporate philanthropy which was filled with original ideas and data - and hardly anyone was all that interested.

I spent 30 minutes on the blog post and it gets 1000+ visits a month; I spent more like 30 hours on the whitepaper and I've only had a couple of media interviews.

So what have we learned?

It's clear that my 'stakeholders' are more interested in job-seeking tips than the paradigm shift in workplace philanthropy.

If I did nothing but write blogs which were "7 Handy Tips for [something recruiting-related]", I'd get a whole lot more traffic to my blog(s). People love retweeting articles with titles like '5 Tips For Reducing Time-to-Hire' or 'Thinking about RPO? 6 things you need to know', they love referencing them in presentations or their own blogs, and the media loves that they can just copy and paste the stuff into their publication without having to waste any time on that pesky journalism or editing.

However.

In the long-term, where does that leave my personal brand?

I'd like to be able to say that in the long term, people who go the '7 Handy Tips' route end up with a weaker personal brand. (I'd like to be able to say that because I'd like to think that, in the long run, all these epic-length blog posts of mine are actually going to have been worth it.)

But all of us are so new to this hyper-networked world - heck, when I wrote my first big whitepaper in 2001, hardly anyone was talking about personal branding; today, there are, like, 8 million 'Personal Branding Architects' on Twitter alone - that I don't think any of us really know what the prognosis is, or whether the brand equity delivered by a whitepaper is actually higher quality than the brand equity delivered by a '7 Handy Tips' blog post.

(Oh great - another question to ponder all week.)

Social Media and Recruiting Facts, Canadian-style

Sun, 07 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

NOTE: If what you really want are just the stats about how Canadian recruiters are using social media, just scroll down - there's a handy bulleted list at the bottom.

While there are plenty of great things about living and working in Canada, there is one drawback: The companies large enough to have offices in both the US and Canada tend to have their research and marketing functions headquartered in the US.

This means that when they're determining budgets for market research, they often figure, "Oh, Canada is pretty much the 51st state anyway - we don't have to do separate research in the Canadian marketplace. We'll just extrapolate from the US data using the 10% rule of thumb."

I'll admit, while most Canadians are adamant in their position that Canada is very different from the US, we all know that there are plenty of similarities in the two markets, and using the old "10% rule" (i.e. if the US market for a given product is $100 million, it's generally safe to say that the Canadian market is $10 million) can often be reasonably accurate at a high level.

(Though it should be noted that Canadian consumers do have very different tastes and habits than US consumers in some ways. For example, Hershey's has long used a different chocolate formulation for Canadian tastebuds.)

However, between 9/11, the 8 years of Republican control, the Wall Street meltdown and the global growth in the internet and social media - not to mention Canada's social contract regarding things like gay marriage and healthcare - which are making the differences more apparent.

The internet and social media: Canadians tend to be early adopters

Canadians, while slower to catch on to online shopping circa 2000-2001, were faster to adopt high-speed internet, and we continue to have higher per-capita internet use rates (about 83% of Canadians vs 69% of Americans).

As a result, Canadians have been early adopters of social media tools: Toronto continues to be one of the most Facebooked cities in the world, and ranks #4 in the world for LinkedIn use.

Social media and Canadian recruiting

The upshot of this, of course, is that US statistics on the use of social media for recruiting aren't necessarily accurate for the Canadian market. For example, MySpace never really addressed the Canadian marketplace in terms of job postings, so it was never a popular recruiting/candidate relationship management tool for Canadian recruiters.

Last week, Head2Head hosted, in partnership with LinkedIn, a webinar about "Leveraging LinkedIn For Recruiters" (it was so popular, we've scheduled another session on June 17 - we'd love you to join us).

Since 95% of participants were Canadian recruiters and hiring managers, we decided to ask them about their use of social media for recruiting.

Here's what they said:

69% of CDN recruiters use LinkedIn for recruiting
44% use Facebook
9% use Twitter
6% use blogs
3% use YouTube
3% use Craigslist
0% use Tumblr or MySpace
Only 20% say social media delivers a clear ROI
77% say it’s improved their ability to connect to passive candidates
44% say it’s improved their quality of hire
36% say it’s reduced their time to hire
66% say no one oversees their social media stuff – it’s all rogue

So there you go: Your Canadian-source primary data for the day. Feel free to Twitter, write a blog post - whatever!

7 Great Ways to Ensure No Recruiter Ever Reads Your Resume

Tue, 02 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

I don't know what the heck's happened in the past couple of weeks, but the flow of Egregiously Bad Candidates has increased considerably.

The thing is, after I finish laughing at some of the emails we receive, I do feel kind of sorry for these dingbats, because they seem determined to ensure that no recruiter gets past the subject line of their email, let alone ever takes them seriously as a candidate.

So to these job-seekers, I offer the following: The 7 things most guaranteed to ensure a recruiter never looks at your resume, let alone calls you. Please, read this before you send out your next job-hunting-related email:

Send a blind email to a recruiting company that doesn't recruit for your profession.
Today I got a really well-written - if really, really long - cover letter from a guy who really wants a position as a senior chef in a 5-star hotel, preferably in Halifax.

Well...we don't recruit for the hospitality industry (a quick check of our job board would tell you we specialize in recruiting recruiters, and HR, Supply Chain and IT professionals), and while we are located in Canada, we don't have offices in Halifax.

So I know this guy just Googled 'recruiting companies' and sent emails to every company that turned up. Whatever.
CC a whole lot of people without hiding their names or email addresses.
You know the people who do this - the CC field is jam-packed with like 50 names and email addresses - would be the first to complain if you revealed their email address to a zillion other people. Not sure how un-email-literate you have to be to fail to use the BCC field, but you're clearly too email-illiterate for our clients.
Send your resume to 'info' @therecruitingcompany.com instead of to a real person or the 'proper' job application address.
At our office, I'm the person who receives all the emails that go to info@head2head.ca - in other words, I'm the one who gets basically all the junk mail. If you're sending an email to 'info' at our address, I know you haven't taken two seconds to visit our website, which brings us to...
Don't visit our website before you send your resume.
I don't get this one. Every single 'job search tips'-type list always says "Visit the company website before you send your application! You will learn valuable information which will will tell the recruiter/potential employer you care enough to do your homework!".

Is it that some candidates still feel that it's nothing but a numbers game - that if they just blast every recruiting company with random emails, they'll eventually hit employment gold?

Because nothing could be further from the truth.
Don't refer to what you do or what kind of job you're looking for in your cover email.
This week alone I've received 14 emails that consist of a resume attachment. No subject line, so 'Dear Ms Welstead', nothing to indicate what these emails are about. Guess what? If you're too busy to write one sentence about what kind of job you want, I'm too busy to open your attachment.
Include a sentence like "I've been looking for over 12 months but no one will hire me..." in your cover email.
Sure, I'm not going to delete your email quite as quickly as I do in #5, above, but here's what happens: I immediately think "What the heck is wrong with this person that no one wants to hire them?" - and then I delete the email, because I'm not putting Debbie Downer in front of our clients.
Attach your resume in WordPerfect.
I'm sure you can't believe this happens, but it does. More often than you think. Even if I can use my document converter to open your WordPerfect resume, all I'm thinking is: Are you making an anti-Microsoft statement, or are you telling me that your computer skills stopped circa that 486 you had in 1994? Either way, we've got a problem (not least because Microsoft is a client of ours - but then, you'd know that if you hadn't done #4, wouldn't you?).

Supply Chain Meets Talent Management

Wed, 27 May 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

An interesting article showed up on my radar recently: "Talent on Demand: Applying Supply Chain Management to People," which highlights some of the talent management ideas discussed in a new book by Peter Cappelli.

The attraction of his approach is clear: by applying the principles and rigour of supply chain management to human resources and recruiting, we can develop a more effective and responsive talent management strategy. To do so would clearly be a big shift in thinking in numerous areas -- the author questions everything from the value of the vaunted "big talent pipeline" to common hiring and skills development practices. And truly, what human resources professional doesn't bristle at the idea that people are to be thought of as a product, talent as inventory?

Yet there are clear correlations between common problems experienced in the manufacturing and hiring processes -- so why not see if there are similar connections to be drawn between solutions? This approach also seems to rest on a cornerstone of human resources thought: namely, that a company's talent management strategy, if properly managed, adds significant value to an organization's bottom line.

Is it possible to get the best of both worlds: employ a "supply chain"-style talent management strategy that delivers demonstrable value while simultaneously delivering an excellent candidate experience, supporting employees, and maintaining a workforce that is invested in and passionate about the organization? Just a little food for thought.

Guess what? Social networking is saving the economy.

Thu, 14 May 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

In the past couple of weeks, everyone I've talked to - both in recruiting and in other professions - agrees: the worst of the recession is behind us, and by Christmas we'll see some real recovery.

But it wasn't long ago that plenty of economists were saying that the recession may last until 2010.

So what gives?

Well, writing an article today - about how the recession is making us all more creative - I found myself comparing the current economy with being in London in WWII.

There's a reason there are so many romantic novels and movies made about London during the Blitz: what with everyone hanging blackout curtains, running for cover in the Underground, eking out their ration coupons and accepting women in the workforce, it forced everyone - regardless of class, wealth or education - to pull together as a team for a single cause.

And I can't help thinking that the same thing is happening now.

Thanks to social media - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, etc. - we all know that the current economic downturn is global. That girl from high school who moved to South Africa, that guy from your first job who's now in Spain, that guy who's travelling in South Asia - they're all talking (or Twittering or Facebooking or blogging) about how the recession is affecting them and the people around them.

This, in turn, is giving us a real sense of team spirit, with "Screw you, recession!" the rallying cry.

Since, as we know, the economy is driven by emotions (oh, people may think their economic decisions are rational, but they almost always aren't), this sense of team spirit is having a galvanizing effect. Social media - a network in which everyone has a voice, and each node on the network has increasing value - has given us the confidence that we can change the world.

So instead of simply enduring the recession, with a fatalistic sense that there's nothing much we, as individuals - or even as businesses - can do to make a difference, more and more people are simply deciding that they're not going to let the current economy hold them back.

Instead, they're starting interesting businesses, building their personal brand, or changing the way they live so that material things aren't the main focus.

The result?

The consequences of the global financial meltdown haven't been nearly as disastrous as they could have been.

Heck, that $7 billion fraud by that French trader alone was just a drop in the bucket in terms of how much money disappeared from the global economy overnight. In many ways, it's surprising we aren't all on the breadlines right now.

So what's different from previous recessions? Social media.

I like long walks on the beach ...

Wed, 13 May 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Job postings remind me a little of profiles on dating sites: sure, all the information's there, and there's something (or someone) real behind the façade, but read enough and they all seem the same. Responsibilities, experience required, skills desired, cut-and-paste company profile ... boring, generic -- and did I mention boring?

In a sea of "long walks on the beach" job postings, when a company does something a little different -- like show some real personality -- the opportunity seems to leap from the screen. A little over a year ago, we mentioned the success we had with a series of job postings that contained pop cultural references to everything from Red Bull to Jon Stewart. Of course, not every role or company will be best served by such references -- but wow, what a difference it can make if a job posting is written in a tone and style that truly reflects the organization's culture. (The potential candidates who are turned off by the tone? Probably wouldn't be a good fit anyway.)

Who do you think is doing something different or taking interesting risks in their recruitment strategies? What job postings have caught your attention in recent months?

Yes, Twitter is delivering results for us. Here's how.

Thu, 07 May 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Today I received an email from a guy who said he was doing an article on whether social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn deliver value in a business context, and if so, in what ways.

One of the perils of our networked world is that anyone can call themselves a 'reporter' and anyone with a blog can refer to their 'online publication' to give them credibility. And plenty of legit media channels have terrible websites, so an amateur-hour site doesn't necessarily mean the reporter isn't credible.

In other words: It's entirely possible that the email I received today was just a well-done generic broadcast email phishing expedition and next week I'll start receiving calls and emails from their hyper-aggressive sales team, trying to sell me A Social Media Solution Customized For Your Business.

However, as I've discussed before, I'm all about getting the Head2Head and Retired Worker brands in front of new audiences, whether it's an audience of 1 or 1 million. Even if this email was just a ruse, a response from me would put Head2Head in front of one set of eyeballs, at least.

My response ended up being a sort of 'case study' for B2B communications on Twitter. Since all of us are looking to answer the immortal question: "Is social media really good for business, or do we just tell ourselves that to justify all the time we spend farting around on it?", these insights into our Twitter experience may be helpful to you, too.

This is what I told this guy:

Does social networking deliver results?
Social networking only delivers results for business if you go into it with a clear idea of what you'd like to get out of it - but accepting that it's highly likely that you'll end up getting something completely different out of it.

For example, we started Twittering under the @RecruitingH2H name thinking that we'd use it to post 'hot jobs', and we'd get followed by job-seekers. So at first our tweets were just links to new job postings.

That was fine, but I realized that (a) no one wanted to follow me because the tweets seemed too boring; (b) as a small company, we didn't have 10+ new jobs to talk about every day (and you really do need to tweet 10+ times a day in order to build followers); (c) while I wanted job-seekers to follow ME, I didn't really want to follow THEM, because reading the tweets of unemployed people was neither interesting nor educational.

Head2Head's core competency is 'recruiting recruiters' (we place more contract recruiters, on- or off-site with clients, than anyone else in North America), so I decided it might make sense to build a network of recruiters, who tend to be early adopters of social media tools.

Being 'interesting' is more important than being 'relevant'
At the same time, I realized that the best way to build followers is to be interesting - which means including personal, funny and interesting tweets that have nothing whatsoever to do with 'business'. People whose tweets are 100% work-related, with no personal comments whatsoever, simply aren't popular, because the great thing about microblogging is feeling that there's a real person on the other end.

Delivering the authentic Head2Head brand experience
Anyone who's familiar with the Head2Head brand knows that it's not boring, corporate, or all business, all the time. In fact, the reason people like us is because we tend to be quirky, have a keen appreciation for an off-colour joke, and are quite happy to have a Friday-afternoon barbeque in the park behind our office.

Our Twitter posts needed to reflect that.

So I stopped posting so many job opps, started following other recruiters who looked interesting, tried to inject some humour into my tweets and profile (my Twitter bio includes "Fond of non-sequiturs. Newt fancier." - which makes it clear to potential followers that I'm not just some boring B2B person who wants to promote Head2Head 24 hours a day).

THE RESULTS
Our follower base is growing by about 25% per week
...and it's stable (it's my opinion that you get a more stable follower base if you make sure that the number of people you follow is always LESS than the number of people following you. Sure, if you follow 1500 people, a few hundred of them will follow you back - but when other people see that you're following 1823 people and only 432 are following you, they assume that you must be boring or desperate).

Our Twitter presence is already starting to build the Head2Head brand:
This week alone, Head2Head staffers have reported 10+ instances of meeting a new client or candidate and hearing, "I've been hearing about you and seeing you everywhere lately - I didn't realize you Head2Head was such a big player in the Canadian recruiting marketplace."

Twitter has driven a huge increase in our website traffic
Today, after only a couple of months of tweeting, Twitter is the #3 referrer (i.e. the link a visitor has clicked to get to the site), second only to our ATS and Google. Traffic directly to the blog has increased by more than 300% in the same time period - and we know those visitors are coming through social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Twitter increased responses to our recent online survey
- by more than 25% within 48 hours.

We're learning a whole lot
I'm now following 350+ recruiters and recruiting professionals, which means my Twitter feed is always jam-packed with interesting ideas, articles, links - it's an amazing resource. And it's not only me getting smarter: a lot of this knowledge is then disseminated within Head2Head.

Bottom line?
On the one hand, Twitter didn't really deliver against what I thought it would when I started.

But on the other hand, it's delivering a whole lot of benefits that I never anticipated.

Will we ever be able to draw a straight line from 'Twitter' to '$$'? Probably not. But the same is true for most marketing and advertising: It's virtually impossible to draw a straight line from, say, a billboard or tv commercial to specific revenue - but we all know that if you put up a bunch of billboards and run tv commercials, your sales will increase.

The only difference between billboards and Twitter? About $10,000.

Social Media: A Resource for the Unemployed

Wed, 06 May 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

It's news to no one that social media is changing the recruitment landscape: names like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have been on the lips of many top bloggers so often that they might as well be tattooed there.

But more is changing than just the ways we source and relate to candidates. A recent article in The Toronto Star begins, "The last time Canada went through a recession, there was no Facebook, no high-speed Internet access and no online chat rooms. Email was in its infancy. That meant public perceptions were shaped largely by economists, politicians and pollsters. The people who were hurting were seldom heard."

But social media is about so much more than being heard.

On Facebook, there's a group for pretty much anything you can name (within the boundaries of the terms of service, of course) -- and sure enough, there among the groups advocating taping bacon to cats and preparedness plans for the zombie apocalypse are everything from support and discussion groups for the unemployed, to industry- and role-specific groups where members may share information on how to find, apply for, and retain jobs.

On Twitter it's the same: in 140 characters or less, job seekers are not only commiserating, but sharing information and resources. New job sites. Open roles, companies who are hiring. Names and email addresses of people to contact.

These job seekers aren't just "being heard": they're being empowered.

A Little Interactivity Update

Mon, 27 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Based on the responses to our Global Workplace Quiz so far, it looks like our blog readers are a pretty knowledgeable bunch when it comes to world work culture. Have you tested yourself yet?

Over at this month's poll, thoughts about the current recession are pretty optimistic. Be sure to get your opinion in before the poll closes down on the last day of the month.

Don't Forget: The Queen and Uncle Sam, Still Want You

Mon, 27 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

"Be all that you can be..."

If you ever watched American cartoons as a child of the 80s and 90s, chances are you can sing the end of that jingle.

Around the world, military recruitment is still a heavily advertised art and those trends impact how our own brands of recruitment work in the private sector. It is interesting to see how these early ads, run through a relatively peaceful time in history, see a military career as a means of self-actualization and career development while, as global events put service personel in greater danger, the emphasis shifts away from the "job" aspect of military service (and makes it look more like a video game).

Take a look and tell me how you think these techniques have influenced your own brand of recruitment.

The demise of big job boards: Who gives a shift?

Thu, 23 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

If you work in recruiting and have been even semi-conscious in the past 12 months, you know that social networking + the recession = the demise of the big job boards (for real, this time).

And if you work in recruiting and have been even semi-conscious in the past month, you know that people with creative titles like 'Social Media Architect and Chief Disrupter' are predicting that pretty soon, everyone'll just find jobs through Twitter, but most people on Twitter spend a lot of time talking to other people on Twitter, so they tend to forget that the average person is still trying to figure out how to use Office 2008 and hasn't quite got around to running his/her whole life through Tweetdeck yet.

If you lived through the dot-com years (1999-2001 in particular) you know how foolish it is to jump on the "by next week, everyone will be doing everything differently and all the old channels will be obsolete" bandwagon. I can't even tell you how many PowerPoint decks I wrote in 2001 for clients who were investing millions of dollars in cell-phone advertising (you remember: how you were going to be walking by a Subway shop and your phone would magically text you with a 2-for-1 meatball sandwich deal? Rriiiggght.) and writing custom apps for Palm software.

In 2000, the Cluetrain Manifesto had everyone talking about how marketing had to be about 'conversations'. In a networked world, the 'one to many' model of communication from a brand to its customers was no longer relevant; to be successful, a brand had to deliver great experiences across all touchpoints and ensure that the communication was a dialogue, not a monologue.

Cut to 2009. The incipient talent crisis - caused, primarily, by the combination of fewer 20-somethings entering the job market just as lots of baby-boomers are leaving it - has been temporarily somewhat quelled by the recession, but the need for A-list, high-achieving employees is even greater now that so many organizations are having to do more work with less people.

So finally - almost 10 years after the revolution in marketing - recruiting is starting to talk about creating 'conversations' with candidates. Why? Because in this economy, A-listers - always a pretty passive bunch of candidates at the best of times - are even less likely to be haunting job boards or even interested in making a move. No one wants to be the 'last in' if it only means being the 'first out' in 6 months if the economy gets even worse.

All of which means that successfully recruiting these candidates requires long-term relationship building. Long-term relationships, whether with candidates or the hot single guy you met at your cousin's wedding last month, begin with conversations. And where the big job boards are doomed is that even when they offer channels for those conversations (like Monster.ca has done with the new forums) no one really wants to use them - if you have a job, you aren't going to be visiting Monster anyway; if you're out of work, why do you want to spend time networking with other unemployed people?

At the same time, of course, social media - Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook et al - isn't exactly efficient in terms of filling specific reqs. You can spend all day tinkering with your Facebook profile or collecting Twitter followers, but the whole thing is so random that it'd take months of social networking to put together anything like a proper candidate base.

So where does that leave us?

At the intersection of 'job board' and 'social media': Sites which combine the narrowcasting community-building stickiness of social media sites with the functionality of job boards.

BrazenCareerist is a perfect example of this new model: Designed as an online community focusing on Gen Y's work/life experience, it's got 'professional' content (they've got some good writers, like Penelope Trunk, who's also built a decent following on Twitter) 'user generated' content in the form of work-related blogs - and job postings that only cost $99.

Most important, it's already got a coolness factor - among 20-somethings - that big job boards like Monster just can't deliver.

What does this mean for recruiters? Embrace the fragmentation! The next 12-24 months will see job-seeking communities continue to fragment around roles, industries, and even age. The good news? By understanding your 'ideal candidate', and being able to pinpoint where s/he is (i.e. the online communities in which s/he participates and the on/offline media s/he consumes), ultimately you'll spend less time screening through dud candidates and more time securing the A-listers.

Envy, Not Greed, Drives Compensation

Wed, 22 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Organizations fail when pay incentives like bonuses, retention payments and performance-based salaries aren't managed properly. Caps and other controls, whether implemented by companies or governments, are part of that potential mismanagement.

At least, that's the argument put forward by Jackson Nickerson and Todd Zenger, both professors at the Olin Business School housed in Washington University, St. Louis.

You see, it isn't greed that rules the world of work. It's envy.

"Our argument is the fact that people envy you or make 'social comparisons' creates costs in organizations. A manager has a variety of ways to address those costs…one of which is we're going to go full steam ahead and create these incentives and live with the social comparisons, negative responses and demands for equal incentives. That is ultimately dysfunctional. Managers need to optimize these costs and their consequences."

According to the professors, incentives and competition in corporate culture are necessary, but too much or not enough can lead to losing control of compensation policies and employees who go elsewhere.

Nickerson's and Zenger's theory is that imposing caps on executive pay will have the same effect at banks.

"You're going to find people fleeing banks and joining small firms or starting their own firms," says Jackson Nickerson. "Understanding this basic business principle is important for government regulators and legislators who are structuring compensation for the banking industry or the auto industry or any other industry the government is getting its tentacles into. And our theory can help predict what's going to happen."

Job Applications by Video and Essay?

Tue, 21 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Can you imagine viewing a job application on video? Think of it as a talent showcase for potential hires. What about reading a personal essay, like on a college application? It may not be a bad idea.

Opportunity Knocks, a job search site for the non-profit sector, recently launched a contest urging job seeker's to submit a video of their talents or to write a 300-word essay about their most memorable job interview.

The videos posted as examples are certainly very memorable. Here's one:

EARTH DAY: What we're doing!

Mon, 20 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

This Wednesday, April 22 is Earth Day.

You know, it wasn't so long ago (1991, to be exact) that my rants on saving the environment got me branded a hippy freak who obviously didn't care enough about The Economy.

And yet here we are: Earth Day 2009, and everyone's pitching in. Sometimes it's hard being ahead of the curve. (And for what it's worth, I wasn't a hippy freak in 1991, and I'm not now. You won't see me plumping for scent-free offices or genderless washrooms. I am, however, fond of adequate clean drinking water for most, if not all, people.)

Here's what we'll be doing here at Head2Head - what will you be doing?

1. Wearing something green, brown or earth-inspired
Finally, an occasion to wear that unbleached hemp kimono I've had in my closet for ages.

2. Eating 'Litterless Lunches'
Luckily, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee comes in recyclable cans!

3. Drinking FREE COFFEE!
There's a Starbucks not 150 ft from our office, and they're giving away a free coffee to anyone who brings in a reusable travel mug (presumably not just Starbucks-branded ones, either) on Wednesday. In fact, every Starbucks in Canada will give you a free coffee on Earth Day if you bring in a mug.

4. Making reusable shopping bags available
We're putting a stash of reusable shopping bags in the kitchen by the fridge. So from now on, when you go to the store during work hours, you can take one of those - and forego a plastic bag!

5. Siccing the blue-bin police on our co-workers
You know, it's amazing the way an office full of people can guilt each other into doing good, like using their blue bins consistently.

6. Turning off the lights and rolling up the blinds
Wednesday's supposed to be reasonably sunny - so we're going to try to keep the lights off all day, and work by the cozy glow from our computers.

7. STOP PRINTING YOUR EMAILS!
Seriously. Do I have to say any more about this? Ugh.

8. Discarding old files/paper in the Shred-It bins.
No one needs those binders full of 2004's weekly meeting notes. We'll be putting them in the Shred-It bins so they'll get recycled. Which means more room in our filing cabinets for candy.

9. Leaving our cars at home.
Our office is about 300 ft from a TTC station. No one needs to drive.

10. Bringing in our plastic grocery bags for reuse/recycling. We'll collect them at the office and our Green Committee will take them to local grocery stores for reuse - instead of letting them accumulate in that weird drawer in the kitchen that no one ever opens.

So again I ask: What is your office doing for Earth Day?

Are you delivering a great CX (Candidate Experience)? - guest blog

Fri, 17 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

[Editor's note: Karina Sumner-Smith is a technical writer here at Head2Head. Oh sure, she SEEMS quiet, but she sits there in the corner just seething with opinions. Here, she expresses some.]

Would You Work for You?

Recruitment and human resource professionals place an emphasis on creating positive candidate experiences throughout the hiring process to create and maintain a positive employment brand. But candidates base their impressions on more than just what you do and say: the office environment itself can create a strong impression.

Pretend you’re coming in for your first interview, and follow the path that a candidate would take on his or her first visit to the company. As you walk around, ask yourself: based on what you see, what impression do you get of the work environment and company culture? Does your company seem like an interesting, welcoming place to spend five days a week – or more?

Areas to consider include:

· Other Employees. Most candidates see and interact with more than just their interviewer. What other employees would a candidate see or encounter on his or her visit? Do the visible staff members appear to be happy and absorbed in their work – or stressed and in a rush? How would you characterize most of the inter-employee interactions?

· Physical Surroundings. We become so used to our offices that we forget that unless we take the candidate on a tour, he or she will only be seeing a small fraction of the whole. Look at the areas where the candidate will wait on arrival, and the halls he or she will walk on the way to the interview room. What sort of impressions do you get of the office from looking at only those places?

· Comfort and Accessibility. Sit in the waiting area, and in the chair on the candidate’s side of the table. If you’re coming in for an interview, is there a place to put your coat or switch your winter boots for your “interview shoes”? Is there a visible washroom? And how accessible would these surroundings be for candidates with a physical disability?

· Noise Level. Most office noise becomes “white noise,” entirely ignored as part of your normal working environment – but what would a candidate hear? Ringing phones, laughter, computer noises, raised voices, and other noises can create a sub-conscious impression of an office environment. So too can silence.

Once you’ve identified areas where your company may be falling short, you can take steps to improve these aspects of the candidate’s experience. Even tiny details like opening the blinds or putting out a bowl of mints can help increase the positive overall impression created by your company throughout the interview process – and help attract and retain the interest of top candidates.

Corporate Philanthropy, employee experience, and the bottom line: New white paper now available!

Wed, 15 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Corporate philanthropy programs which involve high levels of employee participation: We all know they seem like a good idea, and HR specialists will tell you that they make a difference to the organization in all kinds of ways.

But do these 'grassroots' giving back programs in fact translate into improved business success?

In terms of HR and recruiting specifically, do these programs increase the level of 'employee engagement', resulting in easier recruiting, improved retention, and increased productivity?

The answer is yes.

In this document, Head2Head analyzes current research and our own data to better understand the role of grassroots giving back programs in overall business success – and how they affect the bottom line.

Click HERE to download the PDF.

(And then let us know what you think.)

Global Workplace Quiz

Tue, 14 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, I know the astounding level of interactivity you've found on our blog -- via our polls -- has impressed you to no end. Now, I am pleased to announce I have found a new toy to entertain both of my readers to no end. Quizzes!

To start things off, let's see what you know about the global workplace.

We know torture doesn't work. So why is it still okay to yell at junior employees?

Sat, 11 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

Reminiscing with a friend today, we got talking about the few years we'd worked together (we were both junior-but-rising-fast) as account execs in a big ad agency here in Toronto, 10+ years ago.

Big (by 'big' I mean agencies which have a fairly well-known name and offices in several countries) ad agencies breed a very specific kind of snobbery, which can essentially be summed up as: "Everyone knows that working in ad agencies is the coolest job in the world. Since I work in an ad agency and you don't, I'm cool and you aren't."

However, within ad agencies there's a whole nother kind of snobbery on the part of the 'creatives' (art directors, copywriters, creative directors, etc.) towards the 'suits' (the account execs, who manage the money and interact with the clients). This snobbery - which in fact verges on outright contempt - can essentially be summed up as: "Account execs are a dime a dozen - anyone can do that job. Creative genius, on the other hand, is a rare and beautiful treasure that must be honoured. After all, without us, this agency would be nothing."

(sigh)

Hey, I get it: the only way clients are going to fork out $100,000 for a print ad concept, or $1 million for a tv commercial, is if you venerate Creative and treat every precious morsel of ideas as The Second Coming. And it's virtually impossible to attach a dollar value to a great idea, because how do you measure 'thinking time'? A great idea might happen in 5 minutes but be the product of 5 weeks of thought - clients will only pay for the 5 weeks if they value the 'thinking time'.

One of the consequences of the contempt creative directors have for account execs is that it's not unusual for a junior account exec to be yelled at, made fun of, criticized or insulted by a creative type who is quite a bit senior to them (and who should therefore know better).

My friend and I talked about a number of times when senior creative directors had publicly humiliated us or driven us to tears (you know, those uncontrollable angry tears, even though you have vowed that, as a woman who wants to get ahead, you will NEVER cry at work).

When senior managers yell or otherwise humiliate someone who is their junior by many levels, isn't it sort of like hitting a dog or yelling at a child? The disparity in power levels is so great as to render it 'abusive'.

More importantly, HOW IS IT GOOD FOR THE BUSINESS?

For the creative directors who humiliated juniors like my friend and I (one even called me an asshole in front of the entire creative department), there were no consequences for their behaviour. Senior staff - including those who were senior to the creative directors - observed the scenes and said nothing, tacitly condoning the behaviour. In fact, many of them thought this was an effective people-management strategy.

If we've learned anything from stories about places like Gitmo, it's that torture doesn't work. If we've learned anything from The Dog Whisperer, it's that getting irrationally angry and taking it out on someone who has less power than you do will never deliver the results you want.

In other words, this type of behaviour not only doesn't increase productivity, but can actually decrease it in the long-term.

Last week I was speaking with a C-suite level senior exec whose management strategy is all about the 'stick' rather than the 'carrot'. In fact, he insisted that making a point of giving employees at least one positive compliment per week is excessive and results in poor performance.

"But," I said, "what about all the evidence to the contrary? There are all kinds of studies which show happy employees are more productive than scared ones."

"Tcha!" he scoffed. "Those touchy-feely HR people don't know what they're talking about! You gotta keep 'em hungry or they'll just take advantage of you and run the business into the ground!"

(Interestingly, this fellow has been in the recruiting business for 20+ years now - so he's even more aware of the notion that "People are your greatest asset" than most people.)

Anyway.

If you're still reading at this point - who the hell has time to read more than 140 characters in the new Twitterverse? - I'd be interested to know your thoughts. Because I still don't know why people who advocate for the 'stick' form of motivation think it works best, even though there's so much evidence that it simply doesn't.

Is this the end? A poll

Thu, 09 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

What do you think this recession means to the world economy as a whole? ( polls)

Trailer Parks are Practical

Mon, 06 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST 00:00:00 +0000

The Toronto Star called it the Saskaboom.

The Canadian paper recently profiled "one of many workers across the country, especially Ontario, looking to the good times in Saskatchewan, which counts natural resources among its blessings. Housing prices and wages are up and it has a budget surplus, while much of the world drowns in red ink."

Saskatchewan is one of Canada's prairie provinces. Until recently, it is has also been one of its least populated. Saskatchewan is responsible for much of the world's wheat production and also has large oil reserves that have, until now, been dwarfed by the development of Alberta's oil industry. With manufacturing suffering in the most populous province, Ontario, many professionals are pulling up sticks and heading out.

It's the newest frontier in the boom and bust cycle of prosperity. Canadian history is full of periods of success that end in one province and surface again in another province. Every area has its era and Saskatchewan's time has come.

Since the on-set of the industrial revolution, people have moved where there are jobs. Before the industrial revolution, they followed their food sources as the weather demanded. And yet, we crave stability. Gypsies and "tinkers" or travellers across Europe have always been looked down on. Closer to home, trailer park dwellers are referred to as "trailer trash."

If anything, new waves of migration in this economic climate, proves that those cultures and their flexibility were always on to something smart. If the economy is booming, housing prices are increasing and new arrivals might find out that an affordable place to live is difficult, if not impossible, to find.

It also shows that there is always room for growth for recruiters and other HR professionals to expand their services. From searching for workers for boom towns in bust towns, to providing re-location services for companies whose employees are on the move, there is always a new frontier.

image source

Invested, innovative, brilliant: Improving the recruiting experience

Second annual Social Media for Recruiting Survey

Struggling to create a personal brand? Think of yourself as a chocolate bar.

Getting candidates who don't reflect your brand? Ask these 5 questions.

The beach vs the GDP: Climate and workforce productivity

Strange but true: Stories from the recruiting front lines

Interview 101 for Supply Chain Professionals

What supply chain professionals need to know

Why isn't there more hard data about social media for recruiting?

Send me your social media for recruiting results.We'll give you a great case study.

Egregiously Bad Candidates V!: Bad Cover Letters

Just how bad is your recruitment brand? Ask IT contractors.

Put your napkin on your lap - and other ways to ace the interview

Dinner party guest vs job-seeker: The required skills are virtually the same

It's all about being a person that other people want to spend time with

More top 10s: Top 10 HR-related recruiting trends of the past 10 years

Employees using social media at work? Great! Your recruiting team just got a lot bigger.

Head2Head is 10 years old! Top 10 recruiting trends of the past 10 years.

7 Tips for making the switch from 'agency' to 'corporate' recruiting

Are you your workplace?

The ROI of business cards for EVERYONE in your organization

HEAD2HEAD IN PERSON: IPM Conference, May 12 2010

In a recovering economy, RPO matters more than ever

5 Creative Sourcing Tactics for $500 or Less

If you're so concerned about 'quality of hire', how come you're ignoring your employment brand?

I have a tattoo of the Head2Head logo. Am I a brand champion - or just nuts?

WEBINAR: To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Twitter 101 for Recruiting

Where to find diversity candidates? 44% of Canadian orgs don't know where to start.

The 8 questions that cost you the job

Bringing dogs to work: cool, fun -- or just really freaking annoying?

RECRUITING: Saving the world, one hire at a time

When was the last time you got a call like this:

Will a 6-month resume gap ruin your career?

Egregiously Bad Candidates V: The

Your 2 cents invited: 6 burning questions of 2010

Remember when you told me that a BA in English qualified me only for a life on the breadlines?

Subterranean HR Blues: Do you love it? Or not so much?

Ignoring Feedback: In marketing, not all opinions are equal

You're aiding economic recovery just by reading this!

But I found myself wondering..

Social media: The #1 factor in the optimism that leads to economic recovery

Are you diversity-aware? Use this checklist to find out!

IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING TIMESHEET DEADLINES

"Dear Sarah IV: Can I work with more than one recruiter at a time?"

The View From Here: Recruiting in Canada (excerpt from CRL Journal)

"Dear Sarah III: What's the difference between a 'headhunter' and a 'recruiter'?" Recruiting lexicon tips for job-seekers.

HALF THE BATTLE IS LEARNING THE LINGO

Head2Head on the radio: Tips for job-seekers about working with recruiters

"Dear Sarah: Who pays recruiters and how do I get one?"

"Dear Sarah: Recruiters are driving me nuts. What should I do?"

Head2Head Partners With Talent Oyster!

So you want to switch from 'agency' to 'corporate' recruiting? 7 tips to make it easier.

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE, Part 3: How bad writing can damage bigger brands, too

HOW TO ACE THE INTERVIEW: Guest blog

HR Business Partner, Dartmouth

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE, Part 2: Can bad writing ruin your personal brand?

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE, Part 1: Can bad writing ruin your personal brand?

WEBINAR: Twitter 101 for Recruiting

COMPLIMENTARY WEBINAR!

Sales: The seamy underbelly of recruiting

Sure, candidate experience is still more talk than action. You don't change a decades-old paradigm overnight.

Dear Candidate: This is why you didn't get the job

We're looking for great HR professionals!

SMARTREWARDS: Refer a friend and you could receive $250!

Follow us on Twitter!

51 new sales jobs!

WEBINAR: Twitter 101

Great networking lasts a lifetime. That's why Facebook is more important to your career than you think.

Remember the MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com guy? He's still looking.

5 Things You Don't Know About Gen Ys. But Should.

New article on Examiner.com

Just for Head2Head family members...

Speaking at PMAC conference, Sept 24

Between responsive and repressive, there are...swear words at work

98% of your career problems can be solved by personal branding - even if you're just an 'employee'.

Head2Head in the Globe and Mail

Recruiters are all over LinkedIn. How to ensure they find you first. (Part II)

Recruiters are all over LinkedIn. How to ensure they find you first. (Part I)

Stunts, Gimmicks, and Buzzing the Blogosphere: 5 months later, he's still unemployed

Are You Your Workplace?

Send me your social media for recruiting results.
We'll give you a great case study.

Dinner party guest vs job-seeker:
The required skills are virtually the same