A Case for Annonymity - A Job Seeker’s Ally
Here we are in 2009 - still feeling the effects from 2008 in many ways. With so many of our citizens unemployed or in fear of joining their unemployed brethren I can only imagine the rush to post resumes on the plethora of job boards out there. Here’s a case NOT TO for all you would be job seekers or bet hedgers.
Now I know, you are told by everyone from your barber to your Father-in-law that if you are unemployed or about to be unemployed, you need to market yourself like Billy Mays (Oxyclean - classic pitch guy) markets miracle scratch removers. I agree that you need to network like crazy and make sure people you trust know you are in the market. HOWEVER, to post a resume on the Internet opens you to everything from spam to identity theft.
An article I read over the holiday points out that posting your resume on a typical job board can be at least annoying, at worst dangerous.
Be a lazy Google millionaire. Earn $64 an hour from home. Get 250 business cards free.
These are just some of the 80-plus junk e-mail messages, known as spam, that are pouring into John Gembecki’s inbox on a daily basis since he started looking for a job in July.
Gembecki is sure that every piece of spam is a result of the resumes he put on Monster.com and other employment sites because he created a Gmail account for his job search that he doesn’t use for anything else.
Leave it to spammers to take advantage of the underemployed but this is a true risk of posting resumes on any job board.
There are, however, alternatives which allow you to build a profile (not upload a resume - remember the “lazy google millionaire” - take the time and build a profile from scratch) and remain anonymous. You only get contacted for opportunities that you define and you never divuldge your identity until you are contacted by a company (yes, an actual company) who has something of interest to you. AllianceQ is built on one of these new technologies - QuietAgent.
Take the old addage in Recruiting that a job search is like dating. If you wanted a date would you post your phone number and address on the supermarket billboard? Nope, you’d probably go to eHarmony or Match.com and see what’s out there before you reveal yourself. Smart strategy in dating, smart strategy in job seeking.
Business Wisdom for the Recruiting Department
An article in today’s USA Today spoke to the lengths that retailers (specifically electronics companies) are going to to “keep customers”.
”now is when I most want to keep my customers, because it’s much harder to get new ones”.
Is anyone taking this stance for candidates? Probably not. It seems that in our world of too many job seekers for too few jobs, we are more than willing to treat our candidates as if they are in infinite supply.
But this is a dangerous mistake. The candidate who applies for a role at your company today may turn out to be a customer or even worse, someone you desperately need to hire in 2010. How you treat them today WILL dictate how the perceive your company in every interaction in the future.
I’m not advocating sending fruit baskets to everyone who takes the time to apply to one of your open positions (chances are they applied for the wrong job for a myriad of reasons) but at the very least, you need to close the “black hole” and communicate with everyone, both thanking them for applying AND letting them know the final disposition of their application.
You can do it, your ATS can automate it for you. You just have to realize that it’s not a burden to do it. It IS the right thing to do and it’s just common business sense.
Problem or Opportunity?
In an article from Monday by Dr. Sullivan titled;
Managing Recruiting During an Economic Downturn: The Top 10 Action Steps to Take
he also mentions “10 Recruiting Problems You Might Face During Tough Economic Times”. Problem #4 is of high interest to me.
An increased volume of traffic. Normally, all great recruiters focus on the employed candidate (the so-called passive candidates). However, layoffs and high unemployment may mean that some high-quality people are now available among the ranks of the unemployed. Unfortunately, if you actively recruit during tough times, the volume of mediocre but enthusiastic unemployed people who will apply for your jobs will also increase dramatically.
So I’m a glass half full guy and see this as an opportunity and not a problem. Increased flow of applicants during times of higher unemployment is one of the greatest opportunities a company has to cement its employment brand as positive. How you treat the “mediocre but enthusiastic” (really judgemental and subjective and NOT my words) applicant today dictates your success when the unemployment rate dives and we are back fighting for talent.
Here’s the logic. When you have 5 openings in marketing (as opposed to 55 during high growth boom days) it is very easy to classify really good candidates as “mediocre and enthusiastic” because it’s a sellers market and you and your hiring manager can be as picky as possible for these few hires. But when the market comes back and it is once again a buyer’s market (we all know it will happen) how you treated these candidates will come back to bite you. Remember, we are still in the age of Facebook, myspace, the vault etc. so if you fail to make a positive impression on the hoardes of people who need you today, you will find yourself wanting when you need them. And you will.
Here’s the action plan (so simple it’s crazy that it isn’t being done by most companies):
- Disposition everyone. No, not only in the ATS to cover your EEO butt but actually communicate with everyone who has applied to your company through the automated email process available in everyone’s ATS. Most companies don’t understand that not communicating with someone who has applied is NEVER an acceptable business rule.
- Talk to anyone who meets minimum qualifications. Really, you don’t have time? 5 openings in Marketing? What are you doing if you aren’t talking to candidates? Find the candidates who meet your needs today or who MAY meet your needs in future growth times and treat them like diamonds, not dirt.
- Give people reasons. Again, most ATS vendors allow you to add a reason; doesn’t meet minimum qualifications, wrong location, salary too high etc.. but recruiting departments turn off this functionality because they don’t want to “upset” a candidate (meaning they don’t want to have to defend their decision in the event a rejected candidate calls)
- Don’t trust me, trust your candidates. Again, you have time (I know you do) so hold an impromptu candidate focus group and find out what your candidates (selected and not selected) want from you. You’ll find they simply want communication and not to fall into the black hole that corporate recruiting departments create to protect themselves.
The true measure of your employment brand is how you treat the people you CAN’T hire, not how you treat the people you desperately need.
A Bear Necessity
The economy is in the tank, unemployment is rising and the financial services industry is in mid collapse.
Ahhh, it reminds me of 2001. You see, 7 short years ago I was a the heart of the last “collapse” - the dot.com industry was collapsing, 9/11 had rocked our economy and faith in all things good, the stock market was plunging and people were losing jobs at an alarming rate.
Like then, our situation today is simply a Bear necessity. When markets are oversold they correct themselves. An internet company with no revenues can not support a $300 per share stock price and no, people who make $40K a year can not afford a $500K home. No matter how we try to break the natural order of things, the world corrects itself.
But this is a recruiting blog, not an economics lesson so what does this bear necessity mean for YOU as a corporate Recruiter?
- You will see a lot of your friends get laid off. When I left a company in 2000 called CommerceOne (dot.com) we had 32 people in our department. 4 months later, there were 4.
- You will be asked to do more with less. Tight budgets mean a return to basics; headhunting, free recruitment solutions, networking etc. All the things great recruiters use when the paid subscriptions dry up.
- You will FINALLY have time to be a consultant. With less open positions, now is the time to get face to face with the executives in the company and teach them a few things about recruiting!! Don’t hide!
- New and improved technologies and strategies will emerge. Before the last collapse, we had no Linkedin, Facebook or YouTube so spend this time researching and experimenting with new techniques and technologies and be on the lookout for innovation.
To survive this bear market correction, be sure you are adding value to the process. Put yourself in the CEO’s shoes; If you are simply pushing paper to hiring managers and creating offer letters - are you worth keeping in this economy?
My 1.5 Sense continued…
I have a question.
At OnRec there were the usual suspects from the Recruiting Technology world; ATS vendors, Social Networking vendors, niche and other job boards and some “filters” and selection and assessment vendors. What there weren’t were a lot of Recruiting Leaders. Maybe with budget cuts and the economy, people are just not making investments in their recruiting technology this year. Which makes what I’m about to point out all the more unbelievable. (prepare for shameless plug)
AllianceQ is a strategy to solve recruiting problems. It is generated by and for Corporate America and is the only strategy of its kind in the market today. Oh, and it’s FREE!
Yet at OnRec for two days I watched the gurus of recruiting, the people whose job it is to review, assess and write about what’s new for Recruiting departments, walk right past our booth and not even acknowledge our presence. Interesting but not funny.
One prominent “thought leader” walked by our booth (a double size booth, bright, white and conspicuous as Charles Barkley in a yoga class) no less than 6 times in 2 days. Not a smile, not a question, no interest at all. I shook hands and said hello to another ”pundit” who failed to ask one question about what we are doing or how things are going. The only guru who took the time to check it out was Joel Cheesman putting him, once again, at the top of the list of thought leaders in my book. The guy is actually interested in solving recruiting problems!
I guess a few of these folks got burned by touting Itzbig as revolutionary and then watching it go belly up. They may be gun-shy about really looking into anything new and different for two reasons:
- They are vested in the paradigm of Internet recruiting (keyword matching, advertising “impressions” focused, fragmented model).
- Breaking the paradigm of Internet recruiting (i.e., creating a solution instead of another way to make money from the problem) threatens their businesses.
So here is the question I need help with:
IF the “internet recruiting” industry is 13 years old (1995ish - today) AND if the thought leaders who have been around for 1/2 that time or more are truly focused on solving problems THEN why are we still doing things the same way today that we were 10 years ago?
Hope to see you at ERE this month!
Frustrated Job Seekers
Completing the concept that a fragmented internet recruiting world is ruining online recruiting, here is an article that touches on the job seeker frustration. In it, Jennifer Hamm mentions some of the frustrations:
My 1.5 Sense
File under: The Truly Ridiculous:
At OnRec in Chicago last week, there was a panel discussion on the future of “big boards” which included 3 expert panelists; a rep from Careerbuilder, a rep from Hotjobs and the VP of sales from a company who hosts online advertising sites for everything from cars to jobs. Really? This is the perspective that OnRec feels is going to provide the “leading edge” information on the future of big boards? 2 votes for big boards ruling the world and one vote for localized, fragmented niche boards. Here’s Joel Cheeseman’s video exerpt. Listen and see if you hear what I did. Crickets.
Opening New Channels
As I read through the recruiting blogs and articles from the last couple days this morning, I saw a common theme that is running in the background of many of them;
Corporations need to open new channels to talent if they are to survive looming labor shortages
I’ve written about this before and believe that shifting the hiring paradigm from “resume/job description” matching to “competency/talent spotting” is crucial to the evolution of corporate recruiting. It is interesting that more people aren’t making this case prima facia in their articles but are touching on it. Let me explain.
Read more
Back to Cruel?
September 2 and many of us adults woke early, fearing the return to school. Old habits die hard. Kids are either excited or terrified but they are all on the bus this morning.
Summer is officially over and as many people push through the melancholy of hanging up their flip flops, some will be looking for new career opportunities. After the vacations are over, the beach house is empty and the neighborhood pool is closed for the season, life will become routine again and discontent will settle in.
People will look around and see that friends and rivals have been released in layoffs and wonder “will I be next?” and go in search of something new and different. They will determine what they want in a new role, new company, and new boss etc. and go in search of the promised land of a new job. They will polish their resumes (loading them with key words and a thousand “I was responsible for…” sentences) and begin the arduous task of applying for a job online.
How will you treat these new applicants this fall? Read more
Talent Spotting
I just read a great article by Steve Lowisz, President and CEO of Qualigence, Inc. about Recruiting Metrics and how the rules have changed for recruiters in today’s business environment (shifting demographics, workforce dynamics etc.)
I couldn’t agree more with Steve and believe the “new” metrics he suggests are fundamental to the success of any recruiting department. Shifting business environments necessitate change in the business units that support the business. Change is hard but imperative for corporate recruiting professionals.
I believe there is an even larger change that Corporate Recruiters and Hiring Managers need to make if business is to survive and thrive in the “new” labor landscape. This shift is around the ability to spot talent. Now many people are saying, “Hey, I’m a Recruiter, I get paid a lot of money to spot talent” but I’ll challenge that thinking.
For over a decade, Recruiting has increasingly relied on technology to do the “talent spotting” for them. Through key word matching, screening questions built into ATS systems and cumbersome interview processes, we (I count myself as one of the Recruiters in the room) narrow prospects to candidates and candidates to applicants and present and hire what we assume is the best person based on their talent. But are we actually evaluating talent or are we hiring the resume + best interview?
Talent is defined as:
-
a special natural ability or aptitude:
-
a capacity for achievement or success; ability:
When was the last time you spoke about a candidate in these terms? I find that most hiring managers are relatively poor judges of talent (as defined above) and rarely evaluate candidates based on their “special” natural ability or capacity for achievement /success. I’m not blaming them; they don’t get any training on how to do this. Recruiters and Hiring Managers have been conditioned to use the paradigm of job description/resume matching as first pass at spotting talent and then use interviews to narrow the field – an inexact science at best!
Let me give you an example of the “magic” that can happen when this paradigm is broken:
A Global Company I know lives and dies by its sales force as all companies do. This company’s hiring philosophy is based on the definition of TALENT referenced above and here’s the result; in 2006 their #1 sales person made $350K and won a new Maseratti! In 2004 this same person was a CHEF! By being skilled “talent spotters” (i.e., using the ability to identify talent and not just match key words on a resume) this organization has opened new channels to passive talent.
This is the future of recruiting in Corporate America – becoming highly skilled in finding and recognizing people with talent – remember: the brightest talent may not be the best resume writer or interviewer.
About the Author
I'm Phil Haynes, director of AllianceQ, seasoned recruiting professional and passionate advocate for change in recruitment.
More about me
About this blog
The purpose of this blog is to stimulate a dialogue that challenges long-held beliefs in Corporate Recruiting.
I, along with guests, will be discussing change and evolution in recruiting; two imperatives if the function is going to survive the coming "race to talent." Through inspection, dissection and robust dialog, it is our intent to explore and debate the evolution of recruitment in Corporate America.
