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This isn't a pleasant topic and not one that I would normally write about... However, after all of well-deserved outrage from the "unemployed need not apply" sentiment, I think certain people may still need to be reminded of who these people are and why they deserve better.

The gut-wrenching question in the subject-line above was asked by one long term job seeker of another during a conversation at a networking event I recently attended.

Lately, I've met at least a few 99-ers - which in my state, California, refers to those that have exhausted all of their unemployment extensions through the current maximum of 99 weeks. These are not people standing around begging on freeway off-ramps so they can buy booze and drugs.

They are upstanding contributing members of society who up until recently were steadily and productively employed in their professions. All of them are well-educated, well-spoken, intelligent and competent people who have been doing the best they can to survive the emotional upheaval caused by job loss and long term unemployment.

The real people* I'm about to describe range in age from mid-forties to approaching sixty. They all hold at least a bachelors' degree and some even have advanced degrees. *(names have been changed)

Donna: Un/underemployed for approximately 1.5 years. With dwindling funds, she was forced to put her home up for rent and move in with her mother several months ago. She has been consistently pursuing professional development training to keep up with the latest trends and technology in her field and has done some volunteer and consulting jobs. For a short period of time, she had a direct-hire position, but that company ended up cutting back, so she once again finds herself looking for steady work.

Peter: Originally unemployed in 2008. He obtained a job in 2009 but it only lasted six months due to lack of business. Agonizing daily and feeling the financial pinch, he wonders how he will support his family once his savings is completely gone. He shares custody of two children ages 10 and 12. Even though it pains him to think about it, he has broadened his search to other areas where he would no longer be able to regularly take part in raising his kids.

Dave: Just about to the end of his 99 weeks with no active prospects on the horizon. He's doing the best he can to stay positive and proactive. The cost of living in this area far exceeds the maximum unemployment payment of $450.00 per week, so this is a person who is highly motivated to regain an appropriate wage in exchange for their expertise and abilities. He too has a family and now has to juggle everyone's transportation needs with only one remaining vehicle between four drivers.

Ray: Already passed the 99 weeks mark. Obviously overwhelmed with despair, humiliation and utter emptiness. He struggles to process how his frame of mind has continued to spiral downward after repeated rejections and fewer calls as time goes on. From his facial expressions, body language and tone of voice there is nothing but pain and depression showing through. He is the one not sure where he will sleep at night...

As I meet new people, it isn't always evident what they are going through. But it always crosses my mind that the feelings and thoughts that those above have shared with me are far more common that we may like to admit.

If you or anyone you know is in a position to take part in hiring decisions, please keep these people in mind. They are your neighbors, your children's friends parents, fellow community members and they have the same passions, drive and interests that all of us have regardless of their current employment status.

By now, practically all of us have been directly or indirectly impacted by the economic downturn to some extent. Unfortunately, there are many more examples of similar stories of people hurting. All they need is to be given a chance to perform how they always have...

 

 

 

Wow - what a ride.  My first 30 days at PepsiCo have been the busiest and most travel-heavy 30 days I've experienced in a long time.  I've worked directly with a workforce more diverse in their ideas, backgrounds, and cultures than I've ever met collectively within any single organization.  I've pitched new ideas that, as I write this, are already in production.  I've bounced crazy thoughts to teams that have increased the crazy (and awesome) factor exponentially - and were as excited as I was to play with the possibilities.  And while I realize I'm still in the honeymoon phase of my new employment - all this has come at the low, low cost of looking like a gushing fanboy for a calendar month.

(This is where we collectively laugh, people.)

If you've been following me on Twitter you know that I launched my first 30 days at PepsiCo with the #Onboarding hashtag.  Dear friend, Jessica Lee, was intrigued enough to write a quick article on FoT that blew through what I was doing and offered up some great feedback.  The truth is, I've seen a few posts and comments around the #Onboarding approach that have sparked some new ideas around how 'new hires' may be able to help push the word out.  After all, I've certainly been sharing what's been going on with me while here.  But in the event you've missed it - here's a quick summary of what my first month has entailed...

My first few days in the Plano, TX office were filled with questions about the facility itself, my workspace, benefit enrollment and when the heck I'd get a chance to check out the frisbee golf course or take advantage of the on-site gym.  It wasn't very long however, until my new laptop arrived - already full of amazing "welcome" messages and meeting invitations from peers, colleauges and leadership.  Amongst those were a few travel requests to head out to various cities to meet other members of my new teams - to include New York City and Minneapolis, most recently.

With just two weeks under my belt I was already neck deep in conversations around the creation and deployment of a new employment brand, some aggressive digitial marketing opportunities and helping to tackle a few challenges that some of our recruiting teams had been experiencing.  At the end of my second week I felt comfortable pushing and receiving new ideas and strategies to members of recruiting, technology and marketing teams not just because everyone was so gracious in welcoming me - but rather because the teams were incredibly collaborative.  While the lines of accountability were clear - there were (are) transparent lines of ownership in the sense of "This is mine" vs. "This is ours."

My third week I found myself in New York at the Purchase headquarters for something called Ring of Honor.  In summary, this event recognized the amazing performance in front line sales at PepsiCo.  It kicked off with Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo CEO) standing at the end of a "red carpet" reception (to include marching band and cheerleaders!) to shake the hands of over 225 winners and their family members that came from over 45 different countries to be recognized and thanked for their dedication and performance.  Indra's excitement to meet each of these employees was visible - and her genuine interest in them both at the reception and throughout their activities resonated the same authenticity that comes across in her frequent internal letters and communications.

In summary - it's a win for this RecruiterGuy.  There's been no "bait and switch."  The same excitement that you see in a promotional video like the one above for the Pepsi Refresh project is what's felt in the offices I've visited and with the people I've met so far.  The incredible span of brands and products under the PepsiCo umbrella is astounding - and frankly will be one of the employment marketing challenges I face moving into 2011.  And I know it's early - but based on what I've seen so far, I've a hard time imagining how we won't knock each new project out of the park as we come together to see what's possible.

Originally posted on RecruiterGuy.net

A recent article from McKinsey Report discusses how most health systems lack a rigorous approach for matching clinician supply to the demand for various health services. As a result, patient care and clinician morale suffer-and costs cannot be controlled effectively. Essentially they discuss the need for better workforce planning:

"Few health care systems forecast their workforce demands accurately.
Predicting the number of doctors who will be needed in ten years' time isn't
enough; it's also necessary to figure out how many general practitioners,
specialists, nurses, and allied health professionals will be required. The
length of clinical training only compounds the problem." - McKinsey, Managing
The Clinical Workforce

We concur with McKinsey's recommendations and have added a few of our own from the work we do with our clients.

Our collective suggestions on creating proper workforce planning and staffing optimization structures include:

• Forecasting: Begin with accurate forecasting focused on demand of services by job clusters. What types of jobs does the system need -- now, next year, and the year after? What types of jobs will need to be refilled or created based on market needs and system growth plans? Work with finance to get accurate budget projections - this should be something you do every year at the beginning of your fiscal cycle and at least once during the fiscal year to track changes.
• Determine Baseline Demand: For each job category, determine your baseline demand. This would be a charting of hiring needs for at least the past year, ideally two years, by job family. Again this would involve working with finance to map the potential needs over time. You can also look at actual hires made month to month for the last year or two to get a sense of the fluctuations.
• Forecast Changes in Demand: Map potential changes in hiring demand based on various factors, including demographic changes, retiring workers, consumer expectations, medical innovations, policy shifts, or productivity improvements. Career progression and job movement internally are also factors.
• Scenario Analyses: Project various areas of impact to your model based on the aforementioned factors. Here you get to play with the "what if" scenarios - a spike in hiring in Q2, a dramatic slowdown in August, etc. The Scenario analysis will prepare you for these fluctuations and changes so you can be more proactive.

These are simple outlines of concepts, which of course have much more depth. In a future post or whitepaper we'll delve into workforce planning in more detail.

If you'd like to learn more about how we approach workforce planning and staffing optimization, and the benefits they could provide to your system contact me.

Originally posted on the SmashFly Recruitment Marketing Blog.

Here is our weekly feature in which we share the top articles we enjoyed from the past week about recruitment marketing. This week’s topics include setting social media rules, behind the scenes look at filling an entry level position, social media sales success stories, if ATS systems are a black hole for job seekers and how companies are using social media for employee referral programs.

Here are the articles that interested us this week (in no particular order), enjoy!:

 

Setting Social Boundaries by Jenn Francine (@JennFrancine)

A laundry list of personal social media rules to live by. I live by a few of these rules myself!

 

7 Phone Interviews, 7 Candidates by Alison Green (@AskAManager)

Great real world example of filling a entry level position and a manager’s insight into all the candidates.

 

How Sales People are Using Social Media For Real Results by Mashable (@Mashable)

Love this series that provides tremendous real world examples of how innovative companies are using social media to enhance their sales processes.

 

The Black Hole of Recruitment – The Applicant Tracking System by Becki Dunaway (@BeckiDunaway)

Are ATS’s a Black Hole for potential job seekers? A job seeking recruiter poses this question and calls for a little less ATS automation to help recruiters find great candidates. (If you want to see if your resume is being read by companies, tag it for free via JuicyTags.com!)

 

Employee Referral Programs Using More Social Media by Todd Raphael (@ToddRaphael)

Really interesting post on how companies and technology providers are looking to leverage social media to create referral program solutions.

 

Hope you enjoy the list. If you have any articles I should add to the list feel free to add them to the comments or send me an email at chris@smashfly.com.

 

 

About the Author: Chris is the Marketing Analyst for SmashFly Technologies. SmashFly is the provider of the first recruitment marketing platform called WildFire that enables companies and staffing firms to easily distribute and more importantly measure the performance of their recruiting efforts online.

The WildFire recruitment marketing platform offers every tool you need for your recruitment marketing needs all in one centralized solution including Real-Time Recruitment Metrics, Job Ad Distribution (job boards, social networks, SEM, email & SMS campaigns), Recruitment Opt-In Database, Recruitment CRM, Web Commercials / Micro-sites and Resume Sourcing services.

Before I give you my non-paid sales pitch about Linkedin and how to use Linkedin. Let me explain the background information needed to understand sites like Linkedin, Facebook & Twitter

First thing you want to know is that all social networking sites are part of the Web 2.0 evolution of online applications. Back in 2004 Tim O'Rielly of O'Reilly Media was credited with first using the term, "Web 2.0″.

This term was used to describe the evolution of traditional websites from one way communication to two way communication to all out user driven content and interaction.

The strange thing about the concept of Web 2.0 is that in 2004 Tim Berners-Lee who is the inventor of the World Wide Web, said the following:

 "I think Web 2.0 is, of course, a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along." (source: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int082206txt.html)

Fast forward to 2010, Mr. Berners-Lee now has a Linkedin profile: Click here to go to his Linkedin profile

Keep in mind, that Mr. Berners-Lee was trying to say that there is no difference between Web 1.0, 2.0 or even Web 1000.993 when we get there. To him it is all the same; a means for people to interact and connect.

Enter Linkedin. Socio-Professional Interactive Application Extraordinaire!

If you are a working professional, then you need to be on Linkedin. It is an incredible networking site and everyone that matters is on it. It is not a job site, although 80% of recruiters use it. And 90% of users are open to hearing about opportunities. Even still, it is not a job site. It is a social networking site for professionals.

The information you post on Linkedin can be used to find jobs, build relationships within your industry or just give people a place to find you on the web.

Check out this Linkedin demographic chart, it should give you an idea of what kind of people are on it:

Here are some key stats from this chart:

69% of Linkedin users earn $60k - to more than $100k

75% of Linkedin users hold a Bachelors degree or greater

68% of Linkedin users are 35 years old and older

What do these stats tell you? They tell me that the educated working professionals with money are on Linkedin exchange ideas and opportunities with one another.

Sounds like they kinds of people that I want to know and would like to introduce myself to. What you don't want to be is that person who gets on Linkedin after they have lost their job. It does not work like that.

You have to build some sort of network equity before it can be of any use to you. So get started now before something better comes along, then you will be even more behind the times.

Also, don't worry if you don't have a bunch of connections at first, that is not the point of being on Linkedin. You want to build as many quality connections as you can. These are connections are people of influence within your industry.

Keep in mind that it will take time to build up your professional contact list, but once you have done it; the value of it can not be quantified.

A perfect example of a well utilized Linkedin account is of Nayeem Chowdhury, North American Recruiting Manager for one of the worlds largest conglomerates.  Click here to check out his Linkedin profile

While you are on his profile go ahead and send him an invite. Go ahead and send me an invite to, I will gladly accept: My Linkedin Profile

You will notice that Mr. Chowdhury is connected to 2,800+ professionals. But they are not a random 2,800, they are all high value contacts within the Oil & Gas industry. Through these contacts, Mr. Chowdhury is able  to establish his presence in the Oil & Gas industry. He is also able to follow people around as they change jobs, move to different cities, etc...

Some of you are thinking, "my email does that." Sure, your email is a place for you to be contacted online, but no one is looking for your email address.  The people who have social profiles up are the ones who are being found online and get first dibs at the best opportunities.

Here is the bottom line, being on Linkedin will not break your career. But there are a lot of great connections and opportunities that you are missing out on. Since I have been on Linkedin, I have made numerous friends with quality backgrounds who I know will help me if I ever need the help and I will gladly help if they ever need it.

If want a great presence on Linkedin, but don't know how to achieve it. Then shoot me a message and I will gladly answer any of your questions. And if you come back to my blog in a couple of days, I will have posted a, "How to Use Social Media to find Jobs Video."

Till then, Make it Happen!

Visit: http://www.akajohsanders.com to see the rest of my blog posts and videos on jobs.

The next major leg of the groundbreaking Arbita Recruitment Genome Project is about Social Media. The Genome Project is a multi-year project by Arbita to map the building blocks of successful recruiting strategies. Participants who complete a survey get a complimentary advanced copy of results.

Take the Recruitment Genome Social Media Survey now!

This report is important to you because:

• Our industry has long needed a concerted, consensus-based approach to answer the question of what works and what is just hype. Through this report we intend to find some consensus around which technologies are appropriate based on real results, not just on speculation.
• The answer to "what works" in recruiting must come from a community not from one single person's biased voice. New ideas are great. Innovation is necessary. But so is testing and validation, and not just in one environment. If a solution works only in specific, rare or controlled situations then it is not a best practice.
• Our service economy has given way to a knowledge economy. Knowledge comes from people and that makes recruiters critical to an organizations survival but the recruiting industry has not yet dealt with this shift. The recruiters role will become increasingly valuable as job seekers become more sophisticated at finding connections and networking for their next job.
• Most survey respondents believe Internet recruiting is so key it must be kept in-house but half felt team is inadequately trained. Just going out and buying any training is not the solution. First we need to better understand the gaps shared across many organizations, then we can devise the best ways to fill those gaps.
• Companies' recruitment goals are not strategic when their staffing leaders highly value Internet recruiting, yet half feel sourcing skills are deficient and are not allowed to spend on developing recruiters' skillset. It is not a leader's job to know how best to do all the jobs but to make everyone's job better.

Take the Recruitment Genome Social Media Survey now!

Participating is easy. Simply complete a short survey (15 minutes or less) about your current and anticipated use of social networks for recruiting and business development in the coming year. As our thank you for participating, you will receive a complimentary copy of our final analysis, as well as updates along the way.

One of the most significant trends uncovered thus far by the Recruitment Genome Project was the overwhelming expectation by recruiters to increase their use of online social networks for recruiting and business development in 2010.

 

The project is now drilling down deeper to answer pertinent questions including:

• How are online social networks being used for recruiting and business development?
• Which social networks are the most useful?
• Do companies have effective strategies for using the major social networks, niche and regional networks and blogs?
• How will investment in social media for recruiting change?
• How will recruitment compliance and social media mix?

 

Take the Recruitment Genome Social Media Survey now!

A white paper of the project's first survey, "Act While Others Wait: Savvy Recruitment Marketing Strategies Now Ensure Success While Others Wait for Better Times," can be downloaded here. 

 

"Companies every day waste millions of dollars on recruitment initiatives because they haven't decoded the recruitment genome," says Don Ramer, Arbita founder and CEO.

 

"They engage in sourcing, job board advertising, employment branding campaigns and more activities with no firm understanding of which initiatives are successful and which are not."

 

It's not their fault; no one has tried to decode the recruitment genome in earnest - until now.

 

As with the Recruitment Genome Project's first trends report, the new research will be analyzed by the most accomplished industry experts. Analyst briefs, research reports and other materials will conform to the highest academic standards and focus on providing companies with pragmatic information to improve recruiting initiatives.

 

Remember, click here http://j.mp/9ZW433 to take the survey today!

It has happened to all of us. We are on a roll then out of no where we are asked a job interview question that we don't have an answer for. Until that point, you were answering all of the job interview questions like a pro.

But now, you are sitting there wondering what to say next. Each millisecond seems like an eternity as your interviewer stares at you waiting for your response.

Never again! In this article, I am going to answer the top job interview questions that are designed to stump you during an interview. If you really think about it, job interview questions are for your own good. All the interviewer is trying to do is make sure sure that you are a good fit for the job.

So assuming that you really are a good fit for the job, let's focus on the content and delivery of your responses!

Job Interview Question #1: Tell me about yourself.

This is not the time for you to talk about your favorite teacher in grade school. It is at this moment that you drop your "T-VIB" statement. Your T-VIB is your value proposition to your future employer. After all, T-VIB translates to The Value I Bring. Keep that in mind when composing your "about me" pitch. You want to ensure you highlight every relevant value that you bring to the table.

ex: "I am a person of strong character and work ethic. My focus is on productivity and innovation. Throughout my life I have been known as the person who gets things done. At my last job I was also known for my superior technical abilities. I have  a great family and a dog named Spike."

Notice that the way this job interview question is answered, it highlights your strengths and ends on a humble note.  This way you don't sound to full of yourself, but still very confident. Use this answer as your template in composing and structuring  your own T-VIB statement..

Job Interview Question #2: Why are you in the job market?

WARNING: This question is a set-up. The interviewer wants to see if you are going to bad mouth your current or previous employer or gripe about your old job. You want to stay away from any negative reasons why you are in the job market; even if your current or past job was worse than spending a week in the dessert without water!

No one wants to hire a person who gripes and complains. No matter where you work or where you are in life, there is always something to gripe about. Typically people don't care what you have to complain about anyway because everyone else has problems of their own. So keep the sad song to yourself and talk about how you are seeking personal and professional growth.

Job Interview Question #3: How much money do you want?

I think this is one of the most uncomfortable questions for most people. Money is such a sensitive issue during the interview that even the interviewer is asking you against his or her own natural instinct. So the best thing to do is deflect this question, especially if it is early in the interview process. The best way to deflect this question is to give a little that seems like a lot.

ex: Well sir/ma'am, my current salary is $X thousand and I receive 3 weeks vacation. Because I am still learning about this opportunity, it is hard for me to give you my true expectation. But I do know that your company has a good track record with compensating  its employees fairly. (Keep in mind, this answer only works in the early stages of the interview.)

To learn how to respond to this job interview question in the latter stage of the interview, watch this video I recording on this exact subject titled, "Unraveling the Mysteries Around Salary Negotiation".

 Job Interview Question#4: Any behavioral question.

A behavorial question is designed to pry into your psyche. The idea is to see if you will answer a question in a manner that will reveal a personality flaw. The problem is that we all have some sort of personality flaw, some of us contain it better than others. I personally can be particularly intense about subjects I am passionate about. That can sometimes come across as a bit much, especially in an interview setting. So I know to tone it down a bit.

Here is what an interview question looks like:

"Tell me about a time when you had a difficult problem to solve that involved you collaborating with a group of people to find a solution."

How you answer this job interview question or questions like it will make or break your interview. I am not telling you to lie, but I am telling you to use caution while talking about your past experiences. You can talk about a project that was challenging, but don't talk about how one of your co-workers got on your last nerve and you just about had it with them. In reality it is OK to not like someone, as long  as you don't cross any professional boundaries in your expression of your feelings. So there is no reason to share those details because after all, you finished the project, found a solution and dealt with the challenges.

Job Interview Question #bonus: This is a question that you will never hear, but I know it is inside the interviewers head. The silent question you have to answer in order to ace the job interview is, "does this person really want this job?"

The answer to this question is always delivered at the very end of the interview. This is called the, "Strong Close". If you don't close strong, then you can lose out to an equally decorated candidate who did close strong. Sometimes you can be the less of the two candidates, but get the nod because your closing was stronger! When you drop a strong close, you leave a lasting impression in your interviewers mind. That is the last thing they will remember of you. A strong handshake and a confident line that looks something like this:

 A Strong Close: Sir / Ma'am, I want to thank you for time and I want you to know that I am very interested in this opportunity. Especially now that I know more about it, I am confident that I can bring a lot of value to the table. If there is anything else  I can do today to help you decide, just let me know.

That is what you call a home run close. Now you can customize your strong close any way you want, as long as you use this above example as your guide.

I hope this article has helped answer some of your top job interview questions. If you have additional job interview questions that I have not covered, then check out my video on this very subject titled, "How to Ace Your Next Job Interview"

Or send me a note and I will gladly assist.

Newton Software's Head of Marketing and recruiting industry veteran, Joel Passen, shares his observations on what's hot in the recruiting industry now.

Here are the highlights. 

Size doesn't matter anymore.

Employment branding gets a little steak with that sizzle.

Job advertising is trying to leave Las Vegas.

Automation sees its shadow

and more...

Read the full post here:

 

 

JobDeck by the people that brought you Twitter

So by the people who brought you Twitter, we get JobDeck. A portal that brings all the jobs that are twittered about to one place. But how good is this product really? Well I used it several times to do searches and get an idea how to use it and how well it works. I found it did a decent job of sorting out all the tweets and only bringing the ones that appeared to be jobs matching my criteria to me. But to me it is like any SEO. The biggest difference is it only searches twitter and of course is limited by the tags and links utilized by the people tweeting the jobs. I still prefer LinkedIn when it comes to jobs and business, but this is not a bad tool, and like them all if used right can definitely be a help. Just remember to no rely on just one tool. The more the merrier.

Originally posted on the SmashFly Recruitment Marketing Blog.

One of my favorite articles last week was Omowale Casselle’s “I’m Not Ready to Apply For A Job Yet“. This article is a great piece on engaging with potential candidates and ways to educate them on the value you provide as an employer. But what really caught my eye in the blog article was the great real world example he included about how Sodexo offers an opportunity to candidates to connect with their company rather than just offering the opportunity to apply.

Here’s an excerpt from the article of what Sodexo does:

An example of a company that has integrated this functionality into their application process is Sodexo. When applying for a job, there are four different interest levels that prospective candidates can select: passive interest, just starting to look, actively looking, but employed, available immediately. During this brief establishment of interest, Sodexo wisely captures basic information including name, email address, and phone number. This enables the prospective candidate to communicate contact information and interest level without having to apply immediately unless they are ready. As a direct employer, this level of increased granularity is expected and provides a great example of how to capture candidate interest before forcing an application decision. Ideally, Sodexo is also segmenting the different interest levels to maintain communication with those who have expressed interested but are not yet ready to apply.

There are a few important things that I love about this example when it comes to building your Talent Network. Here they are:

1) Collecting contact information - Sodexo does a great job of collecting information from contacts on their career site. There is a great value in collecting this information and is something that all companies should do. There are great candidates that come to your career site every day that aren’t ready to apply to your jobs today but are great contacts to have for future job openings.

 

2) Segmentation and Targeted Messaging - I love the fact that Sodexo asks segmentation questions about a candidates level of interest in this process. Right away this tells them how they need to communicate with the different candidates coming in. Passive candidates need to be sold on the company, so any communication should focus on ‘why you should work at our company’ (benefits, work life balance, work environment, etc.). Actively looking candidates should not only be told about overall company highlights but the job specific details as well (as they are most likely to apply for the job.)

 

3) Open and Engaging - Sodexo not only does a wonderful job of not only segmenting different interest levels but does an even better job of making themselves available for engagement with prospective candidates. Through their collection of social media and forum outlets, they enable candidates to engage with their employer brand and make it easy to create meaningful relationships with these prospective candidates.

 

Sodexo does a great job of building their Talent Network. Through data collection, candidate segmentation, targeted messaging and easy employer brand engagement, they are able to interact with prospective candidates at every level of the candidate interest process.

Collect, Segment, Target, ENGAGE! That’s recruitment marketing done right!

 

About the Author: Chris is the Marketing Analyst for SmashFly Technologies. SmashFly is the provider of the first recruitment marketing platform called WildFire that enables companies and staffing firms to easily distribute and more importantly measure the performance of their recruiting efforts online.

The WildFire recruitment marketing platform offers every tool you need for your recruitment marketing needs all in one centralized solution including Real-Time Recruitment Metrics, Job Ad Distribution (job boards, social networks, SEM, email & SMS campaigns), Recruitment Opt-In Database, Recruitment CRM, Web Commercials / Micro-sites and Resume Sourcing services.

This is a re-post from our Blog at Recruitinglounge.com

We are doing our annual overhaul on Job Board Reviews and each year I am surprised over the amount of new sites added and sites that have fallen
off the map. Over the last 11 years, I have watched so many new job boards pop up. In fact, that is the reason I started JobBoardReviews.com to help job seekers and employers sift through all the sites out there.

In the recent years, there has been so many new job sites powered by the job search engines. This software allows job boards to be created in minutes full of content and most don't add any new value or experience to the user.

This year during our annual review there are more sites being deleted then added. Wow! The economy is even weeding out the job boards. Is this a sign of more to come, survival of the fittest, or just sign of the times with networking sites taking the lead....

I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on the last year in the world of Job Boards.

 

Do you use search engines to look for resumes on the Internet?   Do you use exclusions such as "-jobs"  or  "-submit"?

If you do. Stop it. Read on and I'll tell you why.

First a story about Easter hams.

To understand what I am going to say about searching for resumes, you will need to be in the right frame of mind. Here we go...

A little girl was closely watching her mother prepare the Easter Ham. She was five years old, a great age for asking questions about the world.  She watched her mother prepared the glaze, preheated the oven and brought out the large roasting pan.   In an automatic fashion, her mother took a large knife and sliced off 2 full inches of meat from each end of the ham.

The little girl,  Sarah, smiled as a question came to mind.

"Mommy, why do you cut the ends off the ham?"  she asked.

As if startled the mother replied, unconvincingly  "I don't know Sarah, my mom always did it.  Maybe it is so the glaze gets inside. "

Not being satisfied with the answer, Sarah tracked down Grandma.

"Grandma" She asked.  "I just saw mommy cut off the two ends of the Easter Ham.  She said that she learned it from you.  Why did you make the Easter Ham that way?"

Grandma answered.  "That is a good question, Sarah, but I learned it from my mom, your great grandma.  I always thought that it was so the Ham cooked faster."

Again, unsatisfied, Sarah tracked down, Great Grandma, the family Matriarch.

"Great grandma", She asked as she crawled up on her lap.  "Mommy cut the ends off the Easter Ham. She thought is was so the glaze flavor got into the ham.  She did this because Grandma did it.  Grandma thought it was so the Ham would cook faster.  Grandma learned it from you. "

With anticipation, Sarah asked her Great Grandma. "Grandma, why did you cut the ends off the Easter Ham?"

Grandma, wise as she was old, chuckled and answered.  "Sarah, when I married your great grandfather, the roasting pan we got for our wedding was too small for a Christmas Ham."

"We cut the ends off the Ham so it would fit in the pan".

Such is the progression of knowledge.  There is no fault when we inherit a practical idea that worked in the past, yet is anachronistic.  In the case of the Easter Ham, a practical, real world solution should have lived and died within a single generation, a single iteration.  However, it continued until one with a child's mind, a questioning mind, wanted to know why.  When she was not satisfied with the answer, went on a journey of discovery.

Looking at resume search with a "Beginners Mind"

In the past 2 year I've taken a bit of a journey in questioning how people use search engines to search the Internet.

Observation:  Top Internet searchers, myself included, had an innate set of beliefs that they held.  These observations eventually evolved into The 8 Laws of Internet Search,  which are a set of axioms for searching the Internet.

At this point I want to make a disclaimer:  I am really, really good at finding things on the Internet. This is not due to any formal training, nor did I have the advantage of a teacher or mentor.  I am self-taught.  I have literally been immersed in searching the Internet for the last 15 years.

Second disclaimer:  I do not include myself as one of the search-string guru's out there.  To be a search string guru, you need to be current, know the latest websites that are out there, as well as the latest capabilities of each of the search engines; you need to be immersed in the searching.  My immersion is in the underlying rules.

I recently had a conversation with a search string guru .  We agreed that the best analogy was that I design the aircraft and the search string gurus are the pilots.  Works for me.

So what about resumes and searching the Internet?

If I attempted to research the state of resume search, without a basis or set of axioms to work from, I would not have known where to start.  Fortunately, I decided to use the 8 Laws of Internet Search as a starting point. With a special emphasis on the first 3.

So the question I decided to ask myself is: How do the commonly taught practices of resume search stack up to the Laws of Internet Search?  This was a definable goal.   Caveat: My focus is "Open web" resume searches and not searches within a controlled environment like Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com.

The Law of Environment. Trainers do an excellent good job talking about the various search engines, their capabilities and limitations.

Industry score on the Law of Environment: A+

In taking The Law of Permutation into consideration, I found 2 areas that were very different.

1.  Boolean search methods

Sub-score:  B.   Trainers are clear on the concepts that you must search using multiple permutations such as "VP of Sales", "Vice President of Sales",  "VP Sales", etc.  However, the reality is that you may need 15-20 title combinations to reach all possible results.

2.  Semantic search methods

Sub-score: C.  A good deal of mis-information is being spread about semantic search.  Some of this stems from irresponsible vendors that are trying to make a buck.  It would not be a big deal,  if trainers actually tested, scientifically, what they started teaching.  The funny thing is that the value proposition is significant with semantic search.  Say what it can (and can not do) and those vendors will have happy customers with proper expectations.  I shouldn't be too harsh here, in the early days, I believed the software from Broadlook was meant for everyone.  It is not.  Setting clear expectations of technology capabilities is the mark of a mature vendor.

Semantic search is great when you have a type of resume that is well identified and the rules have been built.  However, throw it a niche area that has not been cataloged and it will fall flat.  Advice:  If you are looking for a commodity position like a .NET programmer, semantic search can work marvels.  If you are working in a niche area, pick a semantic search engine that can be trained by inputting sample resume data.  In the later case, you may have to do the leg work with good old Boolean search first.  Also, ask your semantic search vendor if they use exclusions when they mine search engines.  If they do, twist their arm until they stop.  It's an old Easter Ham.

Industry score on the Law of Permutation: C+

The Law of Completeness.    Widely taught methodologies, that have not been questioned in years (like the Easter Ham) are yielding approximately 65%.  If you get 65% on a math test, that is not a good grade.   The first example is not using the full available results from a search string query.  If a google search yields 380 results,  the Law of Completeness states that you must work with the entire set of results for maximum yield.

Completeness is not being reached. Why?  When trainers first started teaching how to use search engines (before google),  there were limitations in the technology.  Those limitations were:

(1) No high accuracy method to screen out page results that were NOT a resume.  Therefore search strings needed to be modified to exclude results that were not resumes.

(2) No method to extract all results from a search query.  Therefore search strings needed to be modified to reduce results to a manageable quantity

In both cases, the strategy worked, unfortunately there was a side effect:  Many good results were also thrown out.

Industry score on the Law of Completeness: D

Dropping the bomb on search string exclusions.

So where is the proof, where is the science?

First, I want to thank Cory Dickenson at Broadlook Technologies for leading the team of researchers on search string exclusion metrics.  Looking through tens of thousands of resumes, by hand, and then doing it two more times, is not a fun task.  The reality is that someone had to do it.  Hopefully when this study is reviewed both recruiters and technology vendors will have a better foundation in which to build upon.  I basically hate inefficiency.

Resume Exclusion Metrics (Broadlook project: FRET, Frikken Resume Exclusion Test)

The study was simple.  What was the effect of using exclusions on a resume search string?

The first thing we did for the study was to mine a bunch of social networks and sites that had advice on resume search strings.  We wanted examples, over the past 10 years, that experts were using.  From a few hundred examples, we made a list off all the popular resume search string exclusions that were being used (i.e. -job -job -you -your -submit).

Creating the resume data set

To set up the study, we created search strings for about job 50 positions.  The positions were a wide range: IT , biotechnology, health care, sales, business development, financial, etc.  Next for each search,  we made sure that the search string was specific enough so the results from the search engine was <1000. We did not use any exclusions.  Last step:  Hand verification of every single search engine result.  Each result was classified in one of 4 categories (1) Resume (2) Resume sample page  (3) resume book page (4) Junk: Not a resume.

At this point, we could bring automation into the equation.  Using Broadlook's Eclipse tool, we automated each of the 50 searches with one of the exclusion terms.  We then repeated the each of the 50 searches with each of the exclusion terms.  Since we already hand-identified which search engine result pages were resumes, we were able to calculate, for each search-exclusion combination, how many REAL resumes were skipped by using each exclusion term. When the searching was done, we had average percentages, across many industries and titles.  We know, with high precision, what percentage of resumes you will lose by using an exclusion term.

Why did I do this study?  Too much time on my hands?..no.  I was interested in making the best open web resume search tool possible.  To accomplish that goal, the tool needs to work within the framework of the Laws of Internet Search.  Specifically the first 3:  Environment, Permutation, Completeness.  The end result was Broadlook Diver 3.0.  The resume search part of the tool *automatically* screens out pages that are not resumes.  In addition, since it is an automation tool, it allows the user to work with complete results from a search engine.   While you can only get Diver from Broadlook, the Resume Exclusion Metrics are free to all.  Enjoy.

The Axioms of Internet Resume Search1.  Seek <1000 results per search.

You should conduct your search with enough specificity that the search engine reports that there are less than 1000 results.  If you are doing a search that yields many thousands, break up the search into a few separate searches

2.  Never use single-phrase exclusions

Otherwise you will miss a good percentage of resumes.  It is reasonable to use multi-word exclusions, as the level of ambiguity is low.

3.  Use multiple search engines.

There are varying reports of the cross over being as low as 20%.   (Happy to get comments from additional sources on this)

4.  Use automation to screen out non-resumes

Don't do it by hand and don't ignore the data below and use exclusions.  This is not 1998 anymore.  Let automation technology screen out Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS) that are not resumes. This includes sample resume pages, job pages, etc.

And now for the Exclusion metrics.

From pool of about 50 job descriptions,  100+ searches,  75,000 search engine results, 28200 resumes, hand verified.  The sort order is based on the worst offending term.  These exclusion terms were pulled from top experts answers on forums about resume search.  Remember the Easter Ham, it is not my intention to reduce the tremendous contribution of those people that freely answer questions (every day) about internet resume search.  It is my intention to give more data so that the entire industry has more facts in which to work with.

Exclusion       % REAL Resumes Missed-

-job                    49.78%

-jobs                  40.89%

-summary           37.33%

-intext:resumes   34.37%

-about                34.07%

-writing               32.74%

-your                  29.19%

-you                   27.41%

-example             25.78%

-required              25.19%

-require               23.70%

-free                   23.26%

-list                    19.11%

-"how to"            17.04%

-template            16.15%

-library               14.96%

-intitle:jobs         14.37%

-professor           13.48%

-intitle:job           13.19%

-inurl:aspx          12.74%

-send                 12.44%

-write                 11.56%

-inurl:php           11.41%

-requirement       10.22%

-apply                 9.78%

-intitle:apply        9.78%

-sample              9.78%

-intitle:sample      9.48%

-"resumeservice"  9.19%

-intitle:career       9.04%

-intitle:example    9.04%

-careers              8.89%

-submit              8.89%

-intitle:examples  8.59%

-intitle:write        8.59%

-intitle:how         8.44%

-intitle:submit     8.44%-

inurl:books         8.44%

-trainings           8.00%

-wizard              7.70%

-samples            7.41%

-inanchor:apply   6.67%

-opening              6.37%

-reply                  6.22%

-wanted               6.07%

-applicant            4.89%

-inanchor:sample 4.59%

-inanchor:submit  4.00%

-eoe                   3.70%

 

This resume research project yielded many other interesting facts, such as percentages of doc files vs. pdf, etc.  In the coming weeks, I will be publishing a white paper that breaks down the data in a bunch of categories... after I get back from DisneyWorld!

This week, we’re connecting with my friend Jeff Lem, CEO of qdata and President of Entrepreneurs’ Organization Toronto (EO/YPO).  Jeff is an incredible leader and technology visionary who is not afraid of growth.

Jeff’s company, qdata Inc., has grown to 40 employees and specializes in IT services and systems integration around bar coding, wireless and RFID technologies.

1)  What’s the best advice you’ve ever received regarding employee hiring?  Why was it the best?

• If you find somebody with talent make a seat for them.
• Hired our VP operations that way – we created a role for him.

2)  What’s the most effective job interview question you’ve ever used … and what was the outcome from using it?

• What do you know about us and why do you think you’re a good fit?
• Tells me if that person is really interested in the role, understands our business, and comes prepared.  And it shows what his expectations are from a culture viewpoint.

3)  When it comes to hiring, what is the best time/money-saving tip you know?  Can you quantify your savings?

• Get referrals from employees and create a bench of talent.
• Likely in the thousands saved in time and money (head hunter fees)

4)  What’s your best advice for avoiding a hiring mistake?  Why?

• Understand what skills are really needed for the job and search for it in their experience – have them tell stories.

5)  Where (from what source) do you tend to find your best job candidates?  Why is it the best source for you?

• From suppliers and employees.
• People know our industry and understand our business.

____________________________________________________________

Hiring a Customer Service Person?

How will you ensure you’re not making a costly hiring mistake?  Hiring the right Customer Service Person is critical to your success, but it can be difficult to do.  Learn how to find the right Customer Service Person for your success and how hiring them can be easy!

____________________________________________________________

 

Communicating to the current generation does create its own challenges. Advertisements surround them every day…everywhere. After creating the perfect Employer Branding Communication Plan, you have to get your message in front of your target audience. How do you ensure your message reaches your target audience?

Join us for a complimentary webinar on Tuesday, June 29th at 2:00pm EST to learn about our student publication, Jungle Campus, and how this media outlet can help you get the right message in front of the right audience. Jungle Campus accomplishes this by combining print distribution at 50 top undergraduate campuses with online distribution via the Jungle Campus e-zine.

Click here to view the most recent Jungle Campus e-zine: www.JungleCampus.com

The Jungle Campus editors work together with you to create the perfect message. How? - By asking the right questions. With the unique profile feature in Jungle Campus, instead of you telling the students why they should work for you, a young professional within your organization gets an opportunity to let the students know why they do work for you. Students appreciate the insider information that they receive in Jungle Campus.

Check out what students are saying about Jungle Campus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNFXCcv51cc

***

To learn more, register for our complimentary “Reaching your Target Audience” webinar today!

When: Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 from 2:00pm EST – 3:00pm EST

Click here to register: https://universumusa.ilinc.com/register/rxyvfct

***

 

On April 20,  I wrote about the surprising number of new job openings for auditors in Washington, DC in the week of April 11. So, was that a momentary surge in hiring or indicative of a longer term trend? Well, this trend appears to have legs. 

 

Last week, Washington DC attracted 12% of all new job openings for auditors; the number was 11% in the week of April 11. And, just as we found before, 80% of these openings were for government related jobs. 20% of the jobs we examined were at Sallie Mae and Fannie Mae; another 20% were related to banking. The other 40% were for audit-related work at unspecified federal agencies.

What I said in my previous post still holds. It gives me a good feeling that the federal government is watching how it spends our money. And that's as close to a political comment as this blog warrants.

(Reprinted from our blog at http://nimblecat.typepad.com/thecareerists. For more information on NimbleCat, see http://www.nimblecat.com/jobs).

In spring 2010, more than 600 HR professionals shared their views on the trends and challenges that will shape the future of employment background screening. The results are in and EmployeeScreenIQ has compiled them into a 14-page reportthat covers:

• Attitudes about emerging issues
• Changes in the importance of background screening
• Laws to protect job applicants
• Screening contract workers
• Attitudes of hiring managers and candidates

Respondents also share their insights and perspective about topical issues such as diploma mills, credit checks, employment history fraud, and more.

NOTE: For an engaging commentary on the survey findings, check out a new podcast interview with EmployeeScreenIQ’s Nick Fishman below.

http://blog.employeescreen.com/podcast-on-background-screening-survey-results/

 

You’ve tackled all the tough recruiting challenges and branded every communications initiative both inside and out: Employer branding, branded intranets, training portals, microsites, social network marketing -  you even have a smart-phone friendly career site.

And now, this summer, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water (ocean, pool, lake or other), I propose the super-branding challenger round –

HR Branding: The brand that is You and Your Department.

Here’s why it requires expert strokes—

You will be swimming in strong currents-  serving the needs of 3 masters, as an advocate to your employer,  employee/client and candidate.

Due diligence in brand crafting means creating dialogues- you will need to be open to honest feedback from executives, employees, line managers and other fish, both big and small.

Sustaining an authentic HR brand for the long haul might require making significant operational changes that pull you outside the safe waters in which you’ve been swimming.

Synchronization- make no mistake- this is a total team effort

If you’re still up for it, dive in.

Create an Internal HR Brand

The Rules

1. Lay the Groundwork

• Define objectives, communications channels and audience needs. This ocean is open to everyone, not  just recruiters.
  • How do your efforts seamlessly integrate with department efforts?

2. Ask (or have us ask) The Questions

• Who is HR?
• What Should Employees and Potential Employees “Feel” when they “See” HR?
• What Should Candidates “Feel” when they “See” HR?
  • Recruiters are the first point of contact with the brand and must exemplify the pillars that you create
  • How can HR best support their goals?

3. Point to an End Goal

• A brand is a promise- what’s yours? Whether you create an HR mission, vision or charter, you must embody that promise to each person with whom you come in contact

4. Engage Employees

• The more they become a part of the process, the greater their commitment to your efforts

The Prize

Review step 1- what are you looking to accomplish?

Perhaps you want to create a unifying purpose to your HR team at large- so you all think, feel and act as a brand. Or maybe instill a greater understanding within employees and executives of the important work you do.  Maybe you want candidates to have a branded experience from recruitment through engagement.

Whatever your goal, through the application of the same methodology employed by marketing professionals, your Human Resources Department will become the Brand of Choice for talented employees and potential employees looking to become big fish within your organization.

Forget James Taylor – I love traffic jam.

Don’t care what highway or parkway, and I’ll tell you why….

 

As a kid with a parent in the recruitment business, I learned at a young age that there were many non-conventional ways to get a feel for which way a job market, or economy for that matter is heading. Some people look at how full Trucks or Trains are, how many cardboard packing boxes are being sold, etc. We used to walk through Macy’s in New York, (the Flagship store on 6th & 7th avenues ) on the way to see the NY Rangers games. Ground floor at Macy’s – between Thanksgiving and Christmas was about as good an indicator of the economy, as you could get. If I wasn’t getting knocked to the ground by pint-sized New Yorker Grannies ready to commit misdemeanor crimes for the next bargain – then things were bad. This coming from someone who lived to experience New York’s bankruptcy first hand. Let me tell you – you could toss a football across the cosmetics department and not hit a soul in those days.

Anyhow, when things hit the fan a couple of years ago, a buddy of mine employed at a high level for a major automotive manufacturer give me the 1st anecdotal evidence on what was to become the most massive job carnage in our times.

“Hey Matt, have you noticed you little traffic there is on the commute home lately?” I hadn’t then – but started to. As the weeks turned into months, months to years, I actually began to miss my lunatic roadmates. Granted, they ALL drive too fast or too damn slow and at many times,  I HAD wished that they all go away. But when it actually happened…I wondered…was I responsible for their disappearance? Where was Rod Serling and the crazy spinning pyscho-hypnosis wheel?  (original Twilight Zone – look it up).

As luck would have it, maybe it’s the affordable price of gas – or at least in my neck of the woods, we seem to have a glimmer of light on the horizon – cause I can tell you first hand – TRAFFIC STINKS AGAIN.

Every one of my lost friends it seems has returned, back to cut me off,  jam the brakes in front of me, while simultaneously applying make-up at 75 (years or miles per hour….take your pick) and generally remind me that without jobs there’s no traffic, and without traffic there are no jobs.

So don’t be a hater, LOVE your traffic jams – because there are GDP points in every breaklight, every exhaust fume and every gesture casually exchanged between us as we journey to and from.

By iCIMS blogger, Karen Bucks

We all reiterate to ourselves the importance of optimizing our job efficiency; but it's always a lot easier said than done. Such a vague demand on ourselves often falls outside of our work comfort zone. Why is that? Well, usually, we all work the best we can; for if we did not already, we would know exactly what needed to be done to increase efficiency. As such, the idea of improving efficiency can be a bit intimidating and stress-inducing. I think the solution is basic and simple: build a streamlined strategy.

Lately, I have found myself drawn to this topic of strategy, specifically talent strategy. What does it mean and why do we care?? We all know that in order for a human resources department to be successful in their goals, a plan or strategy must be in place for them to succeed. For example, workforce and succession planning are necessary in human resources, but how well are we heading these strategies? Are we aligning our HR goals with the company's overall business goals? Are we truly being efficient? This is where we can improve.

A Bersin & Associates writer, points out in her blog post that employers may see a jump in employee turnover in the upcoming year due to the lack of effective talent strategy. Talent strategy is important especially as high performing employees have already begun to look elsewhere for positions. Talent Strategy is a necessitous factor in not only employee management and employee retention; but also in the recruitment process. iCIMS' blogger, Kaitlin Walsh also speaks upon the importance of strategy in her blog post on mapping out your University Recruitment Campaign. Rather than rehash any of their points, I would just like to stress them further.

Taking company goals and comparing them with HR goals is the first step in any strategic analysis; and ultimately, better efficiency.

As simple as this idea is, let's spell it out real quick. Here's an easy example.

• Business Goal: Going green; improving Corporate Social Responsibility
• HR Goal: Reducing paper volumes associate with job applications to encourage company's "going green" initiative and to simplify processes for HR staff
• Strategy: Eliminate the paper application and resume
• Action: Utilize an online resume tool to parse and store all resume information for your company and install onsite kiosks to eliminate the paper associated with "walk-in applicants"

It is as simple as applying this idea to all HR processes. It doesn't have to be a complicated process or a stress-inducing task. The principles are simple. And with today's technology; the implementation of a strategic plan can be even easier. More companies are leveraging applicant tracking systems or HRIS systems to streamline and develop their strategic plans; and thus, improve efficiency.

By creating a strategic HR plan, preparing for the future is easy. The world of recruiting will change as company goals change, as the talent pool fluctuates, as the type of talent differs, as employee drives alter; therefore, it is even more essential to develop your HR strategy now. Then, optimizing job efficiency won't sound so scary.

The annual SHRM Conference is just around the corner in beautiful San Diego California. This year, SHRM has one again done an outstanding job of creating relevant and interesting sessions for attendees. (For a complete list, please visit SHRM's website.)

In addition to the sessions, SHRM will feature an exhibit hall with 120,000 net square feet and more than 600 vendors! Find your way to booth #722 to witness the unveiling of myStaffingPro applicant tracking system's new user dashboard, and for your chance to win a netbook computer. For more information, visit http://mystaffingpro.com. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you in San Diego.