“ABC Recruiters company has just added Dr. James E Worthing Jr. as Managing Director of the company’s X niche recruitment focus…Dr Worthing has spent the last 35 years of his career in senior management with a number of well-known companies…”

Being so involved in all aspects of the recruitment or executive search business, I see headlines, email blasts (spam), self made PR pieces, tweets, etc all with a very similar theme. Someone with a great career in another industry making the jump now into recruiting based solely on the credentials they have on their own resume. I am not saying this is good or bad as I myself have focused 7-8 years of education on the FDA regulated product development niche. What I will attempt to do in this blog segment is help educate you the consumer (hiring company or job seeker) on what to look for when you see this information or someone selling their past career and not their current results.

Let’s start with the obvious. How can someone who knows NOTHING about the recruiting, executive search, or the staffing industry all the sudden be an ideal “Managing Partner, Principal, or General Manager of XYZ division?” That is like saying, “we have a new Partner in our law firm with a chemicals background, he never went to law school but he has managed a chemicals plant.” What? Can this new figure-head, who has never gone through the training nor put in the time to become a professional recruiter, suddenly lead a team of people through a true talent search process?

At this point I am going to get, “Chris, they have been a senior manager before and have hired people.” That is great, it means they have been handed pre-screened resumes or the application of someone who works in another area of the company and went through a predetermined interview process, WITH ALL THE RESOURCES OR WORK DONE FOR THEM. What they lack is the 2-6 months of training before being put on your most critical staff need or taking and helping to structure your resume and bio to represent you at their client. You see, just being a manager and having to hire in the past does not anoint them as a true, professional headhunter. It goes to the old belief that if we hire a PhD in Chemistry every Chemical Company will want to work with us, ignoring the fact that we may not have a database, network nor the experience as a firm in that niche.

I have had a lot of experience in my career dealing with this very same challenge in adding staff or growing a company. Do you hire experienced recruiters to meet either your internal needs or as headhunters to meet the need of your clients? Or, do you hire someone from their industry and hope they can pick-up the recruitment piece? 9 out of 10 times the second scenario does not work out in the long run. Short term it seems great. They have a lot of connections, make a number of calls, etc, etc, etc. But, that call list grows short very quickly, more so when the past companies they have worked for are large fortune or global in nature. Take IBM for instance. Hiring an ex-IBM executive was a major trend a number of years ago with both the Manpower’s and Korn Ferry’s of the industry. The trend we thought, was if the individual has been there in the past they can call back in and WHAM we have business or we’ll have an immediate candidate base. Well, that was not the case. People, more so Sr Management, worked in very specific groups, had limited networks and employee access, and did not want to start at the bottom and work their way back into a new career (which is truly what this situation is). The same goes for ex/current legislators, judges and even HR Directors.

Here are a few questions to ask when a firm is trying to sell you on the non-recruiting credentials of this new figure-head:

1. What training have you had on the latest recruiting technologies and techniques
2. What is your firms on-boarding and training program
3. How many similar clients and staff searches do you have under your belt
4. Name some of the tools and resources you might use to fill our need
5. Do you have an HR or Recruiting Certification (to ensure they don’t get you into a hot mess by asking illegal questions on your behalf)
6. Who is on your team doing the actual research, sourcing and headhunting work
7. What is your recruitment process

At the end of the day, the headhunter or recruitment firm is representing you, your company or your brand. Be cautious on who you select with this invaluable possession – for it is not enough to have the working knowledge of your industry – the person or firm must also have the training, technology and recruitment process expertise to make them a true extension of your recruitment resources.

Chris

^{To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.}

Careful where you put your resume or enter your email address as it just might be a recruiting firm in disguise!

I received an email last week from a LinkedIn connection that read, “Come check out this exciting new website for medical professionals only…,” Well, you know me I had to check it out, just might be a great place to network with some of the people we are seeking for current or future job openings. Also, it seemed a bit “fishy” as the person sending this through LinkedIn is also an owner of a staffing company. So I bounced the link to my third monitor and started to peel back the layers of this so called networking site for “medical professionals only.”

What I found is an all too common scenario in the world of internet smoke and mirrors, a recruiter or recruitment firm trying to build their candidate pipeline and/or client leads through a misleading website. Yes, some recruitment firms are creating a false identity to attract in more traffic to their niche(s). A few have even gone as far as to post corporate client jobs or import them off the web to look like real networking posts. The truth is they are paid to do so or they literally take the Indeed.com model and apply it to their recruitment firm so their traffic is increased. All in an effort to get you to their site!

Some prime examples of these boards are Openreq! (the Recruiting and HR industry’s “job-board” but try to put a job on there for a staffing client if you are in the same niche as the creator/staffing company owner), LinkedIn spin-offs (abuse of the LinkedIn system and a nuisance to many professional users), Jobs 2.0, Blue Steps (candidate capture portal for AESC company Members = Recruiters), Beaker (no not another Biospace but recruiters working on commission trying to fill jobs), Med Careers Village (a recruitment company founder and firm),  and on and on.

Now I don’t have an issue with recruitment firms creating “fish nets” or niche capture job boards, what chafes me is the sneaky and questionable way they are going about this fishing. I have seen and given feedback to many that are using not just the internet but social media sites and user groups to help build their brand awareness in a very professional and productive manner. I applauded these people and hold many in high regard for their approach. My issue lies with false promotion / advertising and abuse of the general public who put their careers and livelihood in the hands of recruiters (one of them is me) each day.

Now since “no one is managing the internet,” as Jill on the TWG team often says, it’s up to the global user community to share with each other these questionable intensions. After all, you might just be looking for a group of “medical professionals only,” and not for your information to be logged and captured by a recruiter in disguise. So be aware the next time you are invited to a niche internet community for behind the flashy webpage may not be other niche professional, instead recruiters who want you or your information.

Chris

To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com. 

Recruiting and Technology: Session 2

As I tour the country and work with various recruiters and professional headhunters I can’t help but to chuckle at the complaints the modern recruiter (corporate, executive search, staffing and basement dwellers) all seem to have. My internet is too slow, CareerBuilder is down again, my wireless mouse is not working, and on and on. It was not that long ago when we had to fax or hand deliver resumes and you were lucky to get a company email to contact some hiring manager or job seeker.

Now, I have a flat screen TV in my office and can’t live without all the small technology toys to include the so aptly named crackberry! Well most of it I can live without and probably become an even more productive recruiter and member of society, except my multiple monitors! I remember the first time I heard about running dual monitors for recruiting. I had seen the concept for call centers and IT developers but never thought it would apply to me. I was wrong.

I was attending a Top Echelon conference and one of the main presenters was hosting a training session. He had two screens being projected and showed how to run their ATS tool on one screen and look at a candidate or job order on another. What? Yeah I said that and laughed it off but Tiffany who was with me said, “Pretty cool.” Ok, so maybe there was something we were missing here. So, we asked what does it take to set up dual monitors in our office.

The set up was very easy, and after a few years now I have assisted numerous recruiters and companies, with various laptop or desk top hardware configurations, transition into the multiple monitor mode. If you are paying attention I said multiple monitors as I have found out with my laptop and docking station that I can have three monitors, and have since found a great USB product that will allow me to run up to five (yes, not enough desk space).

So why multiple monitors? As I learned at that conference; efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. I am sure there are a number of other gains like cost savings on printing, speed to market, enhanced phone time, etc. But it is great to have the resume of the person you are talking with on one screen, your ATS on another and the job order or client website on the third. Not to mention, but hey I am the boss, facebook or Yahoo IM running to see who I might ping during the day.

All told, running a dual or multiple monitor configuration is not that big of an investment, even for an entire team of recruiters and researchers. The enhancements you gain far outweigh the time and cost to set this technology up. Plus, you seem smarter to the person on the other end of the phone when you can Google a word or phrase they mention and say, “oh yeah here is what you are talking about!”

To engage The Recruiting Guy to train or consult with your staff visit our services page or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.

I seem to be a magnet for publishers, direct mailing companies, aspiring writers and all in between…to include my neighbor’s mail at times! The flip side to this is that I AM a knowledge pack-rat. I have books upon books, magazines that have come and gone, brochures, conference binders, clipped WSJ articles and entire newspapers all which had some nugget of information or learning moments I could put into practice. So it’s no surprise to visit the mail box at 12:16 each day to find a new magazine.

This week I received a recruiting / staffing magazine, Employment Marketplace. Now forgive me as I may have received these in the past, but I had idle time on the exercise bike to flip through this 24 page (cover to cover) magazine and read each article. What follows are my thoughts on the magazine and some of the writers, one of which I think very highly of for many years now.

Apparently Employment Marketplace has been around for 26 years as their website quotes. The publication I received was Vol. 27 Issue 111, for what that might mean. To me it’s like a check number. “Mr. Wellington, what check number would you like to start with…2009?” Not being facetious but it’s very colorful, lots of pictures, MANY advertisements and oh-so very Thin. I think most of the publication is vendors, advertisers or people trying to sell their works through snippets or rushed articles.

It’s understandable in tough times to adjust and modify to survive, but most companies that survive make this morph with more service than pay, not true in this case. While I like some of Steve Finkel’s work, the Manager’s Corner piece was a tough read. What was the point, I never got there? Temp Track was even less understandable, although I did highlight a couple pieces in the last two paragraphs. Frank Risalvato’s sales call advice is sure to get you fired in reputable company.

It’s obvious this magazine is funded by NAPS and vendors for they had Frank Burtnett write a piece on NAPS National Conference. I have known Frank for years, think very highly of him, and assisted or initiated his support in dozens of people becoming NAPS certified at conferences or even in my offices. That said, he is the fly-in fly-out consultant there for certification and rarely seen during the remaining hours of any conference? I would like to see more on how to achieve and maintain certification and why that sets you apart as a true Professional from him. 

My favorite piece by far was Tuning out the Noise by Neil McNulty. I have no idea who Neil is but I will be watching for more of his work. This article was only one page but very precise and on message. So much so that I sent a copy to each member of my team, some of my peers and a couple clients for the accountability he wrote about transcends the recruitment industry.

It’s too bad the entire page of pictures on the NCASP and SCAPS annual conference were taken at the cocktail party or lunch verse the actual learning sessions as it would have been great to see the 3 people attending from The Wellington Group on the page verses the NCASP board.

In short, was worth the time to review and read verses my current book or CD. I did pick up a couple of pieces of information to use and put to memory. Will not be paying the $148 for the annual subscription to get a 24 page, self-indulged magazine 4 times and some on-line info.

As a professional headhunter paid to uncover names and talent my final question is…how did they get my current address?

Chris

Follow The Recruiting Guy on Twitter…@therecruitinguy.com

To hire The Recruiting Guy as a speaker or trainer visit The Recruiting Guy or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com. 

*Employment Marketplace and EMinfo can be found at www.eminfo.com.