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Get inside the minds of top recruiting leaders

Some of you may recall that I used to put out a quarterly newsletter, The Recruiting Toolbox. Well, I stopped over a year ago, and my efforts have morphed into this world of blogging.

I received a lot of great feedback when I'd interview top recruiting leaders. I'd get inside their heads and learn about their challenges, their priorities, their approaches, and their views on what makes recruiting teams work well. I talked to leaders from companies like Microsoft, T-Mobile, and Starbucks.

I'm about to start those interviews up again. And this time, I'd like to talk to leaders from big brand name companies, but also talk to people who "get it" from smaller and medium sized companies. Not all of us will - or even want to - work for the big brands. And the challenges of smaller companies may resonate with some of us more.

So, question: Who are some of the recruiting leaders you've worked for, know, or heard of that you think would make for an interesting interview?

I have an interview set up tomorrow with Andrew Carges, the VP WW Talent Acquisition from a medium sized company, Success Factors. Watch for the interview to show up here in the next week or so.

What do you want to know about IT/tech job seekers?

I'm about to start a project where I'll ask thousands of active IT/tech job seekers -most already working, for companies across the US - recruiting related questions via an online survey. I'll help craft the questions and interpret the answers in a way that helps folks like us, who recruit hard-to-find people.

I already have some survey questions in mind. But wanted to ask you...as a recruiting professional or hiring manager, what are 2-3 key questions you'd like IT people to answer to help you better recruit them to your company? What questions would help you prioritize your recruiting budget, help you tailor your recruiting sales pitch, help you change behaviors in your managers or interviewers, or help you adjust your recruiting process?

Let me know. I'm going to call tech recruiters and managers in my network to generate and validate questions. Would love to know your thoughts, too.

Thanks!

Are you going to the ERE conference this Spring?

I'll be speaking down at the big ERE conference in San Diego again this year. Let me know if you plan to attend. And if you haven't registered yet, but you plan to, email me. As a speaker, I'm given the opportunity to save my colleagues some money on registration.

March 31-April 2, 2008
San Diego

john [at] recruitingtoolbox [dot] com

Employee Referrals: Non-Money Rewards for Good Behavior

Recruiting Nirvana exists when everyone in your company - from admins to software engineers to VPs - acts like a recruiter. Generating referrals is one of the best ways non-recruiters help to recruit. Now, most of you probably have some sort of referral bonus. Good. But there's also some no-cost actions we can take to keep the referral pipeline flowing.

We need to take the lead to publicly recognize employees who make quality referrals that get hired. Find ways to reinforce employees who make time to help build the company.

1. Ideally, get each of your VPs a list of all of the referrals made each month by their employees, and shadow-write a “thank you” note that he or she can send out to the employee and the employee’s direct manager.
   
2. Or, when it’s performance review time, send a note to top-referring employees and their managers, recognizing the extra effort they put in over the past year to help recruit great people. Guess where these attaboys end up? Yep, right in the performance reviews.
   
3. Try establishing goals and publishing stats for referrals by departments, or even consider setting up a competition within or between departments, to raise the visibility of quality referrers and tap into people's natural competitive spirit.
   
4. When new employee announcements are sent out, be sure to note the source of hire if it's a referral. Remind people that good people don't grow on trees. Every one of us could - and should - be out there generating quality team members.
   

They key is to reward good behavior, publicly. Send a message that people who make time to refer quality employees are not only making money, but they’re doing their jobs and spending their time wisely.

What do you do to reinforce good referrers?