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. 

Now, yes now is the time to get proactive for the upswing in the economy and the coming job market. As we headhunters know, companies are hiring again and new positions are being approved daily. And this is not just a US based movement but an international lift to the global World of Work.

Great news right? Yes, but with so many people either out a of job, in a temporary or “quick fix” job or looking to change jobs you better be ready for the competition! One of the best ways to get noticed quickly on the web in our current technological times is with an internet resume. What the heck is that?

An internet resume is quite simply a way for perspective employers and professional recruiters to find you quickly and easily on-line. More than just a LinkedIn or Twitter account, having a true-to-form resume existing on the internet, outside the mainstream jobs boards, can help you get noticed instantly and more efficiently. Without getting too technical or giving away all my trade secrets, it’s like typing in your name, experience and a company you have worked for and WHAM the internet delivers your resume right to my computer screen.

Some great examples of internet resume building and hosting resources are Google Resume, Visual CV, Resume-Builder and getmyonlinecv.com. For a little more time and investment into your future you can build your own custom site like my friend Scott Corwin has done. As I mentioned above, your internet resume should be outside a pay-to-play job board or niche network and more public so you can be found. Thus, Google, Yahoo, and personal URLs are great places to build, house and control your internet resume.

Need help developing that perfect resume, no problem as the internet has you covered. Many sites and services like CVTIPS and iProfile exist with ideas on formatting and keyword building to help make your internet resume even more attractive to current technology. Or, you can always visit us at The Career Store to receive expert advice from Linda Gutin and others on the team.

So get busy and get your resume online. How else am I supposed to find you for that next great career opportunity? Good luck. 

Chris

For questions or help on this and many other ideas on how to make your career search more effective visit The Career Store or contact The Wellington Group @ info@thewellington-group.com.

Social Media and the Corporate Impact Part II

Is social media killing your company’s productivity? Stop and think about what you don’t know before you give an immediate answer to what you do know. How many of the people in your organization have unlimited access to a computer or smart phone each day? Has your organization set-up up the internet to block out access to any and all social networking sites (there are dozens)? Can people tuck away in a corner and update their Facebook page or send a tweet?

Now answer the question. A common response I have received is of course “it depends.” If your staff or certain people on your staff are in positions where they need to be highly visible and connecting with new people each day then great, it’s good to have them utilizing the latest technology in order to do so. Providing they are not wasting time with personal updates and connections. If however, your staff or members of your company don’t need to be on-line connecting with others throughout the work day then yes, they may just be killing productivity with social networking.

I recently had to coach a friend and colleague through a job loss not because of economic issues, a layoff or even performance. No, he was let go from being on his personal internet pages too much during the day. This is someone who I know is a top performer in the recruiting field, but as such has some idle time and the resources in front of him to check his MySpace and send out a status update once a day which eventually turned into multiple times per day.

Why is social networking at work such an issue? Mainly as a result of lack of direction and policy by corporations and management. People in general like to communicate with friends, family, peers and yes strangers. Social networking has become the new water cooler for the work place and without guidelines by which people should work by, then how long of a water break do they need?

In short, does you company have a policy by which to operate from or at least guidelines in place to help managers with navigating this new but very sticky issue? If not, then it might be time to start the research on your own to ensure the right people are helping to brand and drive revenues with work-place social networking and you don’t have an entire staff on the web having fun or even venting some steam to others on-line.

Chris

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

Social Media and the Corporate Impact Part I 

To put this blog piece in context, Social Media for this blog is any third party on-line or internet based networking or people-connecting tool. Examples of such are Facebook, Eacademy, Plaxo, Myspace, U-tube and Twitter. What I am not referencing are internal corporate “wanna be” social networking tools, associations (most of which have gone “on-line” now to save on cost), static websites, email, instant messaging or even the ever prevalent texting.

Why did I highlight the difference? In the next couple of blogs I will be talking about the trends I have seen and researched and the data which exists about social media or social networking and its impact to the corporate environment. Those non-social media types are many times already present in the workplace as companies provide employees with limitless emailing, cell phones (or the policy that it’s ok to have it with you and work) and texting, instant messaging solutions, web-based company portals, on-line meeting programs, and on and on.

The goal of my blogging about this topic is not to create hype or fear about allowing such uses in the work place, but rather highlight the fact that the World of Work has changed. In just a few short years we have gone from telecom and land-lines ruling the communication method and business sectors to flat screen monitors with built in web-cams on employee desks and Blackberry’s in the hand of all those around the conference table.

I hope you enjoy these pieces and please do leave your thoughts and feedback on this topic as you never know who on the web might just like what you have to say!

Chris

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

OK I SAID! Now that I got that off my chest let me point you to the root of my angst. Recruiting, like any other profession, has it s own social media / networking sites where we all get to share insight, tips, tricks and yes even humor. One such site is ere.net. The post getting all the attention today was “Bullet Point to the Head” by Matt Charney.

Matt’s post was very well written and very much on target. Just look below the article at all the comments. Everything from “I can relate” to “no, that is not me.” In my years of living as a professional recruiter I have seen his comments in-action more times than not. Too much perceived work on a recruiter or even HR’s desk so they have to fly through resumes as fast as they can, learning tricks to skim and weed-out in what they feel is an expeditious manner. Why, because they are lazy.

Don’t believe me, ok. But here is a true fact. Most large HR groups, Staffing Firms and Professional Search Groups receive so much resume traffic they have to hire staff just to filter and scan or purchase software to totally remove the human component. I can remember weeks at Manpower where we might receive 5,000 applicants. In addition to this the recruiting publications are now telling HR and Talent Manager they NEED to automate. Check out the latest Talent Management article on “Make HR Happy.”

On top of this, many of today’s recruiting demographic has the technology / MTV curse of “if it’s not instant it’s not worth my time.” So, they expect every candidate to have a resume laid out in a similar fashion with all the goodies at scan level in 2.3 seconds. The trouble is that many professionals are great at their jobs but not with working on their resume (see my previous post on 8 Musts for an Effective Resume). Lazy recruiters are grab-and-go, great recruiters are diamond miners, polishing off the mud to find the sparkle below…many times at their own expense.

What is the solution? I think the bump we hit in the economy helped create some of the cure, causing recruiters and HR to transform their skills or try performing it from the unemployment line. The other solution, better management of both corporate and third-party recruitment practices. Accountability to the primary goal, recruitment and review with the intention of uncovering the best talent for the right job.

Chris

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

Leveraging the New Internet and Social Networking for your Career

It was not that long ago that the World Wide Web was only cool for chatting and checking out various static pages, job boards and some blogging for those looking to make a change in their careers. What happened? The WWW truly went worldwide and is now in the homes and on the laps of many of my beloved remote Alaskan family members. Now they can see the latest jobs we are working on, harass me real-time on Facebook, and even apply to my tweets on Twitter.

If you think your networking skills are a bit rusty, I am willing to bet that you may have very little or no internet social networking experience. Not to worry… you are not alone. Many of the clients I help are in the same spot: mid to late career professionals who have rarely had to present a resume, let alone now having to navigate the complexities of the latest in internet resources. The big question is, Where do I start?” Staying true to form, I will say “it depends.” It depends on: Where are the people in your industry hanging out, where is your personal network lingering these days on-line, who is hiring in your career niche and where are they putting their money and time on-line?

Before just jumping in and making real work of trying to be on every social networking site, job board and reading all the latest blogs, first sit down and try to answer the questions just asked above. Chances are good that you will find niche communities, groups and recruiters (internal and headhunters) on very specific sites or part of specific groups. In a short amount of time this can give you more exposure to a larger group of people than sprinkling yourself all over the web, taking hours at a time to monitor. Better yet, just start with your personal network and see where that takes you. People like to help other people and nowhere is this more evident than on the internet.

Here is another trick that a highly trained recruiter will be looking for…your resume or career highlights posted on various independent web pages, or key words from you on the profile(s) you do build on these sites. Take some time to build a thorough career profile on the sites you decide to be part of, as string searching the web will get traffic to your profile, thus putting your in-demand skills in front of the world.

For assistance with your Job Search or Resume from Chris Wellington and others on the staff visit
The Career Store or Get in Touch.