Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Out-of-the-Box On-Line Recruiting

When most people think of recruiting on the web, they are talking about running ads on job boards. You know those dry job specification advertisements that demand 325 different skills and experiences and do nothing to describe the ojb or how wonderful the employer is to work for.

Yet the public statistics on the source of new hires is says that recruiting on job boards fills an extraordinarily small number of positions (I think the figures in these surveys are extremely low; after all, employment agencies are listed as a separate category and many of them find their candidates from job boards. Why shouldn't many of the jobs credited to agencies be attributed to job boards?)

Part of successful marketing in the employment field is creating an online persona for your firm--an online brand--that is attractive and makes the right people favorably disposed to joining your company before they walk in the door.

After all, when I say "Google," you have an impression and, statistically, speaking the impression is extremely favorable. When I say, "Ox and Ox" (a name I've made up; if there is a business by this name, I did not find it in the first few pages of Google searches), you have no impression or are somewhat quizzical.

For many of you, your recruiting brand is slightly above Ox and Ox.

Here are a few ideas to improve it dramatically--not instantly but over time.

Write your job ads with the employee in mind, too. Why should they join your company? What's in it for them? And don't write dry copy. Make it friendly and warm.

Develop short videos for YouTube and your company's website. There was quite a bit of buzz about some online ads that Sony Ericcson developed last year that highlighted their work space, information about their US headquarters environment and much more.

Develop an interesting looking career site presence for your website. Most are extremely boring. Take a look at some of the jobs developed on the site www.standoutjobs.com. The page is interesting and leaps out at you. I'm not endorsing the servie; just the look and organization of the pages. Which brings me to

Blogging about your company. Why aren't the top people in your firm taking two minutes with twitter and blogging bout your company. Why don;t you have the CFO, COO, CTO and Director of HR, Head of Engineering, blogging about working at your company? Which brings us to

Develop an online presence. Why aren't all them on Facebook, myspace, LinkedIn, Xing and others developing an online persona for your firm to attract talent.

Google for candidate leads. I developed Search4Candidates.com to simplify recruiting for passive job applicants. You enter a typical Google search into the search field and then narrow the search by clicking on LinkedIn or Xing or other services to turn up leads of passive candidates to recruit. The service is completely free.

Make finding the Career Page on your website easier. Too often, finding the career pages requires going down two or three levels on a drop down menu. It's stupid! Just put a button on your home page and every other page of your site that says, "We're hiring!" When they click it, the person is brought to the search page.

Use pop-unders like Internet marketers do. When people are about to leave your site, have a pop-under that says something like "Wait! before You Go! We're hiring! Want to search some our job listings?

There are a lot of things that you can do to incorporate online recruiting into your repertoire. Take the time and make the effort.


Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com
© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.getyourselfhiredNOW.com Register at the site and you will receive free copies of The International Job Board List and a Guide to Resume Writing.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

Plus

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Out-of-the-Box Conventional Recruiting

How do you find people to fill your requirements?

If you're like most firms, you list jobs in newspapers or on job boards, work with a few recruiters, have an employee referral program and maybe, just maybe, you have an in-house recruiting team who is aggressively trying to find people for you who are not looking for work.

Pretty standard stuff and has been used by firms since before I started in recruiting and that was 1972.

How many of you :

Create an alumni program to stay in contact with former employees and encourage them to return or offer referrals to you?

Use your data base of interviewed applicants for periodic direct emails to stay in contact and foster hiring (NOTE: Do not cheat recruiting firms that help fill that data base)?

Run contests that pose difficult questions and interview people who are successful answering it like Google does.

Establish recruiting programs for men and women who are leaving the armed forces?

Work to recruit spouses of military personnel?

Advertise at movie theaters during those times when we are waiting for the movie to start and have a captive audience?

Advertise or have a booth at trade shows or sports events encouraging people to apply to join your firm?

Advertise on mass transit (like the back or front of a bus that people who see for long periods)?

Have your company's business cards printed with a recruiting message on the back?

Recruit workers offshore (like in Canada or Mexico [taking advantage of NAFTA] or Puerto Rico) for US-based jobs?

Advertise on Spanish language tv, radio and print media

Use offshore recruiting resources to support your US recruiting efforts?

Provide small "giveaways" or premiums to people who interview with your firm?

Contact firms that are laying off people and setting up interview days?

Advertise your firm is hiring by printing bookmarks and donating them to libraries and universities?

Being creative involves thinking outside the box and frankly will become far more critical at the end of this recession when firms will want to attract superior talent and find it in far more limited supply than even now (More on that another time).

Start to put together a plan to leverage your company's brand in its industry with an eye toward recruiting.


Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2008 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a practicing psychotherapist and is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search job openings, use his free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe. to subscribe Jeff’s free job search ezines, Head Hunt Your Next Job and/or Natural Selection (his free recruiting ezine), or to find out about his VIP Personal Search Agent service, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff or locating consultants, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

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Saturday, November 03, 2007

Define Yourself or Have Others Define You

By the time a US President takes office, he or she will have spent more than two years campaigning, speaking to voters, answering questions (or avoiding answering questions), debated, advertised themselves in commercials and done a lot to create an image of who they are.

What is your firm and, by extension, you doing to create an image of your firm as an employer?

Is all your company doing running ads on job boards and telling people that yours is a growing company with a growth position that is visible and offering an incredibly dynamic and progressive work environment? That yours is one of the fastest growing companies in the world and has a high profile opportunity for career advancement requiring a candidate who is a high energy team player?

Have you discovered that the word progressive appears I more than 5000 job listings on Monster? Dynamic is also in more than 5000; Career advancement is, too, as is high energy. High profile is in more than 3000; visible in 3400+.

In contrast, the word "renegade" appears once. Maverick appears 95 times. Invisible appears 105 times including The Invisible Fence Company. Laid back appears 286 times.

Do you get my point?

Terms like this are ordinary and making you invisible and telling employees nothing.

It’s time to re-think your ad campaigns and really speak to people instead of copy and pasting job descriptions from requisitions and then adding these phrases to the ad and calling it marketing. Do you know how your firm is seen in the job market, both from a positive AND a negative standpoint? What is your employer brand and how can you improve it, especially as we enter what, I believe will be an extremely complicated part of the employment cycle.

It is tough enough that unemployment is so low, but the Baby Boomers will start retiring, the population cohort entering the job market is far smaller and will be less skilled (on average) and you will be asked to fill jobs only using trite words like these.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2007 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

Plus

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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Leadership Building As a Sales Tool

When we were all young, we were asked the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Whatever we answered, it helped to set goals in our mind that helped us move through our lives and careers. We may have adapted our thinking at different times, but we still set in our mind that there can be something better for us in the future.

For many, things change when they enter the workforce. Oh, I'm not speaking of the person from the top business school or the son or daughter of the tycoon. I'm speaking of the person who does a solid job.

Organizations seem to have the nasty habit of pigeonholing these people who do good work and having them continue to do the same job or a slightly different one until it is time to fire them in a cost cutting move or until they leave for the next company who gives them a modest flirtation.

You look at them like an old reliable partner or spouse. They will always be there for you until you don't want them any more.

And they need and want some romance, too.

Leadership training and development can take many forms.

It can take the form of the regular round table where everyone has the freedom to gripe and offer solutions. It can take the form of education, mobility programs and training.

It can take the form of using reviews to tell people the truth about how their performance has been instead of sanitizing it to justify a 3% raise.

Teaching people how to lead may involve creativity. After all, being accountable for one's actions is often used to be punitive rather than constructive in many corporations.

However, I was reminded of something by a friend I had lunch with this week of his experiences on the New Warrior Training Adventures I led for so many years. These weekend retreats are not promoted as business leadership courses; they are designed to help men look at the things in their life that work and don't work without their blackberries, cell phones and laptops.

Leadership involves integrity and being accountable for one's decisions. Becoming aware of the consequences of your decisions and actions and how they impact others. Showing care and compassion and treating them as core values i your organizations and helping people see the forest beyond simply trees.

Once many people are on board, they are asked to be nothing more than what they are on the day they hire you. Maybe you will expect them to make no mistakes ever. Maybe you will ask them to deliver more widgets to you.

But they will always be the third drone on the left in the 14th quad from the back for as long as they work for you.

They need and crave romance (hope) that there is more to working for you than that. I assure you that if you speak to people when you hire them about how you will help them learn and grow in ways that fulfill their dreams and desires, you will attract and retain the leaders you complain you aren't finding.

And this will become absolutely critical during the period when a generation of people referred to as the Baby Boomers start to retire and die.


Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
 Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2007 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com.

Explore some of The Big Game Hunter's products in "The Universe" series

Plus

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Friday, May 18, 2007

The Single Most Important Thing You Must Do During Every Interview

While evaluating a candidate for a client, I learned that the job applicant was also interviewing with two investment banks and was about to begin second rounds with those firms for positions that seemed very good but not as well-suited as my client's job was.

My person did well on his first round and was invited back for a second interview for a position and firm that he seems to like more than the others. That's good news for my client and good news for me.

Yet one thing about this is troubling me--my client has been focused exclusively on evaluating and assessing the candidate and taking almost zero time to do something that is absolutely critical to win the person if they want to hire them.

Want to know what it is?



Sell their company and the position to the job applicant.


Why should someone come to work with your firm?
How will this job fit their needs not just now but for years to come?
What do you like about working there?
What will they learn that can benefit them?
What career path exists? Does the firm even look at upward mobility?
What are bonuses like?
What are benefits like?
Why do you enjoy working there?


I'm not speaking about with the candidates you are interested in. I'm speaking about every single person.

You're saying, "I don't have time to do that."

Let me offer another way of looking at this.

Imagine that every person you interview is favorably disposed to working for your company so that when you make a job offer they are all leaning toward saying yes. Google has this advantage and so does Goldman Sachs. How can you create this for your firm?

The simple answer is to send people into the world with stars in their eyes excited about the possibility of working for your firm. Obviously, not everyone will be hired, nor is everyone qualified. But if you can get them to think, "WOW! I'd really like to work for them some day," they will chat up your firm now and for years to come.

When someone is interviewing at your firm years from now, they will speak favorably about it.

So take the time to speak about your firm and the opportunity and what's in it for the candidate to join . . . especially now while there are labor shortages that will make the market for talent competitive for years to come.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
thebiggamehunter@cisny.com

© 2007 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, Job Search Universe, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “Head Hunt Your Next Job, or his staffing ezine, “Natural Selection”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.jeffaltman.com. Job Search Universe is also available at www.jobsearchuniverse.com To add your firm’s career page to “The Universe” email the url to jobsearchuniverse@gmail.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at thebiggamehunter@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).

If you have a question that you would like me to answer pertaining to job hunting or hiring, email it to him at:
thebiggamehunter@gmail.com




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