Funny, 2 minute video: Recruiter, fill my req by New Year's!

Check out this fun, short video we made about the challenges of December recruiting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKFyDKv1ynU

Access important files on the go - from your phone? Yes!

You are mobile
If you're a busy recruiter, you're probably on the go. Interviews, hiring manager meetings, project meetings, and candidate meet-and-greets at coffee shops make up a good chunk of your week.

You need access to info
Compensation ranges, job specs, benefits info, org charts, latest press releases, and standard interview questions can come in handy. And, if you meet someone who's background is interesting, sending them an instant email with details on a job or your company (i.e. a quality pdf of a best-company-to-work-for article) would be cool, right?

There's a great way to access and share info on the go
I've been using dropbox, an online file storage, syncing, and sharing site, for over a year now, and I love it. You can securely access an entire folder (or folders - even your entire "My Documents" on your PC) right from your mobile phone (iPhone, Blackberry, Android).

How would you use it?
You can view and read that spreadsheet with your comp ranges, the benefits summary with detailed premium cost info, and more right on your phone. And - get this - you can email anyone a link to that file right from the app, even if it's a huge 20MB file! And, when you update that file back at your PC in the future (or add a new file to that same folder), it will automatically sync to your password-protected private folders, fully accessible from your phone.

Check it out
I don't get paid to promote dropbox (or any vendor/product), I just love their service. It's free for up to a 2gb account (2,000 MB is a lot, people!). You may want to check it out.

Here's the link to get an extra 250MB (on top of the free 2gb):
https://www.dropbox.com/

What does a good third party recruiter do to partner with corporate recruiters?

Jenifer Lambert - a Pinnacle Society recognized, top rated executive recruiter - recently interviewed me for her Recruiter Earth radio show. It was unscripted and live, and she asked some tough, frank questions about the keys to partnering with corporate HR.

I joked that I know that, for many third party recruiters, HR stands for "human roadblock". But I also shared some insights into what the best, most effective third party recruiter partners do - and should do - to work with (not against) their corporate partners in HR.

You can listen to the interview here:
http://recruiterearth.com/forum/topics/elevate-with-jenifer-lambert

I'd love your comments. What do you think is the key to a great partnership between corporate HR and search professionals?

Explore legal issues of using facebook/myspace and the web to recruit

Do you wonder whether it's legal to use information found on the web about a candidate to make a selection decision? I mean, the candidate or prospect put that picture of himself drinking for everyone to see, right? And his comments about his last employer and "hot co-worker" should be fair game for our use as HR/recruiters, right?

Join us next Wed, 9/16 in Seattle for a special lunch seminar which will explore the legal issues of using sites like Myspace and Facebook to screen candidates.

“Landmines, Pitfalls and Potential Law Suits – Understanding the Risks of Using Search Engines and Social Networking Sites to Screen Candidates.” Featuring Lester Rosen, Attorney at Law

Learn more and register at www.SMASeattle.org

Wednesday 9/16 Seattle 11am-1:30pm

Free Webinar August 19th - ERE presents "Help Me Help You" with John V

Help Me Help You
How to help your Hiring Managers Succeed

John Vlastelica will present a free 1 hour webinar based on his popular ERE 2009 San Diego Session focused on how corporate Recruiters can help their Hiring Managers succeed.

Learn more, and register for this free event, here:
http://www.ere.net/webinars/help-me-help-you.asp

Details:
August 19th, 11am PT, 2pm ET

Learn...

• The 4 things the most successful Hiring Managers have in common
• How to talk to Hiring Managers about their role in a way that positions you as a partner
• 20 specific, tactical best practices to help managers succeed throughout the key stages of the recruiting process

Hope to "see" you there!

External Recruiters: Get More Business

I was asked to share some insights into what third party recruiters can do to get more business in this economy. So, I thought back to my time in the trenches as a recruiting leader at Amazon during the last downturn, asked clients and colleagues (corporate recruiting leaders) about their current approach to leveraging agencies/search firms, and pulled in a friend and colleague who runs a staffing firm and trains external recruiters.

Jenifer Lambert and I wrote this paper to help third party recruiters gain insights into the corporate recruiting world and learn:

• How to demonstrate value and gain business in 2009
• How to uncover opportunties
• How to answer "Why should I pay a fee?" questions from clients

You can download part 1 of this short paper here:
http://www.recruitingtoolbox.com/resources/papers.htm

How are you leveraging third party search firms - if at all - in this economy?

Prepare for your Recruiter Interview

Do you have an upcoming interview for a new recruiting job?

Top 5 Things You Need to Do to Prepare

1 Know your results.
It shocks us how few recruiters know how many hires they made in the last month or the last year. Even fewer know how those numbers compared to other recruiters. As crazy as it sounds, simply knowing this information will put you light years ahead of most recruiter candidates. (p.s. Put this information on your resume, so that it's easy to recall during the interview)

2 Know where your hires came from.
Whether you use your company's ATS/Talent Management System, or a simple excel spreadsheet, you should track and pull source information on your hires before you interview. Most recruiters guess where their candidates came from during the interview, which doesn't build confidence in the interviewer that you know how you spend your time - or how you should spend your time - to find them great people. Obviously, most companies are listening for your ability to focus on the right, high ROI source for the job. Be prepared to walk through your strategy for sourcing common candidate types via the web, social networking tools, referrals, networking/cold calling, etc. Show how you keep agency fees low and leverage your toolbox to be uber productive.

3 Know your close rate.
It will impress most interviewers if you know what your offer:hire rate is, and how that compares to other recruiters in your company. All companies want to hire good closers. Great companies want to hire recruiters who know the levers that predict close rate. So, if you end up interviewing with a great company, know why your candidates declined and the steps you regularly take to pre-close candidates.

4 Know your business, and how it differs from theirs.
We have to practice what we preach. You should know your current/old company's people-competitors and products inside and out . You should also research the company you're interviewing with. Differentiate yourself by knowing more than just what products or services they offer. You should also...

• go on to their /jobs site and see what kind of people they hire
• read their latest press releases
• try out their product or service (when I first interviewed at Amazon.com in early 1998, I made sure I bought a book online before I went in to the interview, and I'm glad I did, as they asked me a lot of questions about the customer experience)
• talk to anyone you know who works there (leverage your linkedin network) to learn about their growth plans, recruiting culture, and recruiting pain.
• identify their people competitors (leverage linkedin to see where their current employees used to work, and where they went when they left this company)
• read any company or employee blogs you can find, and see if glassdoor.com has comments about what it's like to interview or work there
  

Interviewers are absolutely blown away when recruiter candidates ask smart questions about their business, or relay examples that seem incredibly relevant to their company. The best interviewers are trying to answer one core question while they're interviewing you: How likely could this recruiter repeat the success they had at company X here at my company? You must help them answer this question by highlighting how you've overcome challenges or met goals that are similar to what you'd find if you worked for this new company.

5 Prepare examples.
Don't wing it. Spend some time writing out a few examples of your accomplishments, and review them the night before the interview. Practice saying them out loud. Most companies will ask the "tell me about a time you had to..." questions as they try to gather evidence that you can source, assess, and close candidates, and appropriately account manage - and push back on - difficult hiring groups. Quality examples that highlight your strengths is what gets you hired.

Practice what we preach: Interviewing Recruiters

I've interviewed 100s of recruiters in my career, and taught a lot of recruiters and hiring managers how to interview and select great people. And, most of the time (smile), I practice what I preach.

If you're going to interview a recruiter soon, consider employing some of these situational or scenario-based techniques. I believe they help you predict on-the-job success, and they've served me really well over the years. Here's 3 examples:

1. Role play with the recruiter. "I'm the hiring manager, you're the recruiter that works with me. Imagine I just opened a new req - one you haven't worked on before. You schedule a meeting with me to understand my target candidate profile and set up our relationship. What do you do to prep for that meeting? What questions would you have for me during the meeting? Let's role play those questions - gather my hiring criteria/requirements right now. [Throw in a few unrealistic requests to see if the recruiter can appropriately push back.] What will you commit to at the end of this meeting? What are the next steps?"
2. Learn whether the recruiter knows the jobs and profiles they'll recruit for. Give the recruiter a req spec (detailed requirements list) and then give the recruiter 5-7 resumes to review against that req. Ask the recruiter to stack rank the resumes against the req, with the most promising candidate on top, least promising on bottom. Then have the recruiter walk you through their logic. "Why did you put this resume on top? What's on here that makes you think it's the best match? [Walk through the top 2-3 resumes.] What does [term from resume] mean? What do you look for - beyond key words - when evaluating a resume against a req like this? What are some general red flags you look for? What would be the specific red flags for this req? [Walk through the bottom 2-3 resumes.] What did you see on these resumes that made you rank them so low?"
   
3. If the recruiter you need to hire will need to build a plan/strategy, then why not ask them to build something for you during the interview? I've had great success giving a recruiter a scenario and asking them to build a strategy that supports a business request for more hires. "The VP you support has just met with you, and asked you to come up with a plan to hire 30 additional people onto her team in 3 months. She needs to see a plan from you by the end of the week. Let's role play - I'm the VP, you're the recruiter. What info do you need from me to build this plan? What's your plan to source, screen, select, and sell these candidates? What are the specific tactics you will employ to generate quality candidates? How many candidates do you think we'll need to interview to make 30 hires? How did you come up with that? Is it realistic to hit this goal? How do you know if it's realistic? Show me - on paper - how you'll present the elements of this plan to your VP so that you build confidence with her that you're an expert. What do you think she'll be most concerned about (risks) and what will you say/do to address those risks?" [You can continue on with this scenario for over 30 minutes by asking for more detail about sourcing strategy, interviewing process, metrics, communication plan, etc.]

These are just 3 examples. What techniques do you use - beyond traditional behavioral interview techniques - to predict on-the-job success for recruiters?