Archive

Archive for January, 2010

Week in Review

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Five Ways to Improve New Market Entry Recruiting: We’ve discussed the difficulties that corporate recruiters – and businesses in general – face when entering new markets. In addition to coping with the unknown from a product, sales and marketing perspective, you need to figure out quickly whether there is sufficient local talent to support your company’s business objectives. A great product, sound marketing plan and sufficient demand are meaningless if you don’t have people on the ground to pull it all together.

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Solved: The Problem of Candidate Ownership: Corporate recruiters, staffing firms and other advisors have long struggled over the issue of resume “ownership.” On her blog at ERE, Joanne Gehas raises this issue again, and it’s a thorny one, which will only get worse. The road to this conflict not only results in an increased time to hire, it can come with a direct hard-dollar expense – you may wind up paying for candidates you already have.

Read the article >>

The New Corporate Recruiting Badge of Honor: Results: For decades, corporate recruiters have seen full lifecycle management as a point of pride. The top performers, according to conventional thinking, carry the process from open req to greeting the employee on his first day of work. They take care of every detail in between, as well, such as sourcing candidates, formatting resumes and sifting through hundreds or even thousands of responses. The minutiae receive equal weight with crafting accurate position descriptions, understanding hiring manager requirements, developing and implementing a sourcing strategy and determining which candidates are worth meeting in person.

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Five Ways to Improve New Market Entry Recruiting

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

babyboomerWe’ve discussed the difficulties that corporate recruiters – and businesses in general – face when entering new markets. In addition to coping with the unknown from a product, sales and marketing perspective, you need to figure out quickly whether there is sufficient local talent to support your company’s business objectives. A great product, sound marketing plan and sufficient demand are meaningless if you don’t have people on the ground to pull it all together.

Here are five ways to take the guesswork out of new market entry recruiting, reducing risk and maximizing your company’s investment in local talent.

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The New Corporate Recruiting Badge of Honor: Results

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

2pplmeetingresultsFor decades, corporate recruiters have seen full lifecycle management as a point of pride. The top performers, according to conventional thinking, carry the process from open req to greeting the employee on his first day of work. They take care of every detail in between, as well, such as sourcing candidates, formatting resumes and sifting through hundreds or even thousands of responses. The minutiae receive equal weight with crafting accurate position descriptions, understanding hiring manager requirements, developing and implementing a sourcing strategy and determining which candidates are worth meeting in person.

Across our profession, our priorities are skewed. We celebrate process over skill, and results suffer. In any other career, our performance … how we approach our jobs … would be questioned. Think about it:

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Recruiting in a World of Specialists

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

meeting2Specialization creates a challenge for corporate recruiters. The unique capabilities that are needed for certain positions means that we have to de-emphasize many of the characteristics in candidates that were once considered assets. We can’t rely on a smart, resourceful candidate who has an uncanny ability to learn to prove to a hiring manager that he can fill in any gaps in his capabilities by learning on the job for the first few weeks. Exact fits are more important than ever. Unfortunately, when these candidates are in demand – as they are in the clean technology industry, for example – it can be difficult to find a ready substitute. The corporate recruiter with access to the best talent pool will win every time.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that corporate recruiters shouldn’t consider how intelligent, quick-thinking or savvy a candidate is. These characteristics will remain important in the professional workforce. But, they can’t cover part of the price of admission to the hiring process for a candidate. Rather, they only become relevant when a candidate meets the specific requirements defined for a position. Skills and experience are the first hurdle to be cleared, and hiring managers just can’t allow corporate recruiters the elbow room they once enjoyed.

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Solved: The Problem of Candidate Ownership

Monday, January 11th, 2010

resumereviewCorporate recruiters, staffing firms and other advisors have long struggled over the issue of resume “ownership.” On her blog at ERE, Joanne Gehas raises this issue again, and it’s a thorny one, which will only get worse. The road to this conflict not only results in an increased time to hire, it can come with a direct hard-dollar expense – you may wind up paying for candidates you already have.

The situation is pretty straightforward. You post a job on one of the major sites, such as Monster or CareerBuilder, and a candidate applies for it. Now, you have the resume. But, because you had to review 1,000 of them (or more), it didn’t catch your attention. Maybe it wasn’t formatted in a way that’s easy to read, or it was sent through the job sites default format, and you prefer an attachment as a Word doc.

This can happen when you post positions on your company’s website, too, especially if you work for a major firm (e.g., a Fortune 500) or in a concentrated industry. Job-seekers are becoming more creative – and diligent – which is leading them to apply for as many jobs through as many avenues as possible.

After not having found what you wanted via the job sites or your own, you then turn to an external recruiter … who sends you one of the many, many resumes you may have already received! But, because it was part of a small, targeted batch sent by this recruiter, it caught your attention.

Until you realize that you already had the resume. Oops!

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Week in Review

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Resume Formatting: Is It Blocking Your Next Great Hire?: Form really does win over function, sometimes. Many managers actually make “hiring decisions” based on how a resume looks. A motivated account executive, leading R&D thinker or savvy marketing professional could slip through your fingers because of the spacing, font or shape of the bullet points.

Read the article >>

Five Ways to Make Your Corporate Recruiting Department More Relevant: Don’t wait for your company to recognize the value that a savvy, action-oriented corporate recruiting department delivers. A combination of competing business issues – from sales to operations – will always gain priority, and many executives tend to have a narrow view of what a corporate recruiting department does. To communicate the value of the service you provide to your company, you need to become a vocal advocate … always demonstrating your impact.

Read the article >>

Five Ways to Supercharge Your Corporate Recruiting Career: Last week, we discussed five ways you can supercharge your corporate recruiting practices. These measures will help you increase the profile of the service you provide to your hiring managers and heighten your contribution to the company’s strategic objectives. One of the tips was to maintain a feedback loop with your hiring managers. Your professional development is an important part of the ongoing value you provide to the company.

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New Product Launch: The Ultimate Corporate Recruiting Challenge

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

futureVenturing into the new product or service space can cause profound changes in a company. The company needs to do market research, understand the potential, run the numbers and structure the organization to accommodate the new business unit. And, of course, it will need to find the people who will develop, market and sell the product. Corporate recruiters have the opportunity to define the new business unit – even the product itself – based on its role in the candidate sourcing and hiring process. The resumes you send along to hiring managers, and the advice you provide throughout the hiring process, are fundamental to the company’s success in launching a new product.

So, you want to make sure you understand the talent market fully. This is another opportunity make decisions based on what you know – not what you think!

Most corporate recruiting departments tend to be lean, with the recruiters focused on activities that lead to near-term execution. There is neither the time nor the breadth of resources to conduct the vast amounts of research into the talent market that are applied to product market research. For most corporate recruiting departments, attempting to be this thorough would result effectively in paralysis. But, you can’t move blindly into new territory, or the hiring decisions will lead to suboptimal results.

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Five Ways to Make Your Corporate Recruiting Department More Relevant

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

briefcaseDon’t wait for your company to recognize the value that a savvy, action-oriented corporate recruiting department delivers. A combination of competing business issues – from sales to operations – will always gain priority, and many executives tend to have a narrow view of what a corporate recruiting department does. To communicate the value of the service you provide to your company, you need to become a vocal advocate … always demonstrating your impact.

Fundamental to your success will be in choosing what to communicate. Most of the services provided by corporate recruiters simply will not resonate with senior executives. Push the fact that you’ve managed the entire recruiting cycle when attracting key talent, and you’ll be met only by deaf ears. Show that you’ve snatched a major player from the competition, however, and you’ll more likely find a receptive audience.

For many of us, this is a new step. We’ve always sought to show our contributions, but we haven’t always chosen the right victories to promote. Below are five ways you can increase the visibility – and the relevance – of your corporate recruiting department.

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Five Ways to Supercharge Your Corporate Recruiting Career

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

briefcaseLast week, we discussed five ways you can supercharge your corporate recruiting practices. These measures will help you increase the profile of the service you provide to your hiring managers and heighten your contribution to the company’s strategic objectives. One of the tips was to maintain a feedback loop with your hiring managers. Your professional development is an important part of the ongoing value you provide to the company.

At the same time, the corporate recruiting field is changing. What was once valued, such as managing the full recruiting lifecycle, is giving way to a bias toward results. Long seen as a support function, an increasingly competitive business environment has forced executives to look for value in every business unit … including HR and especially corporate recruiting. This starts with identifying which activities deserve the attention of talented corporate recruiting professionals, and which can be delegated to services, such as KGTiger’s BYTE, that specialize in high-volume, lower-impact tasks.

So, how do you forge a new role, maximizing your contributions and talent, in a competitive environment affected by changing expectations? See below for five tips to help you get started.

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Resume Formatting: Is It Blocking Your Next Great Hire?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

resumereviewForm really does win over function, sometimes. Many managers actually make “hiring decisions” based on how a resume looks. A motivated account executive, leading R&D thinker or savvy marketing professional could slip through your fingers because of the spacing, font or shape of the bullet points.

An applicant who hasn’t mastered the advanced features of Microsoft Word is at a serious disadvantage. Similarly, there is a wealth of advice and opinion out there in the popular press (just Google “resume”!) about how much and what kind of information should be included in a resume. The best qualified candidate may not be the best resume writer. The result of this, and a host of other flaws in contemporary wisdom, is that you could miss an excellent candidate.

Some recruiters try to fill the gap by reformatting resumes themselves, a laudable goal that comes at a profound price. This low-level task takes the recruiter away from high-value activities, especially in a fast-paced recruiting environment.

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