In a recent Harvard Business Review blog I came across this quote attributed to Steve Jobs (this has been paraphrased for the ERE audience): Screw the channel. Manage the present for optimum performance. Reinvent the future. The equivalent for recruiting goes something like this: Screw sourcing. Maximize quality of hire. Become a great recruiter. The point: hiring great talent is not about great sourcing;... (more...)

Let’s get real here. Anyone who thinks LinkedIn is in the doghouse when it comes to recruiting the best talent isn’t a real recruiter, or they don’t know the difference between active and passive candidates, or they think sourcing is recruiting. So I’m going to use this article (and this webcast) to set the record straight. First, let me first define a real recruiter: They have excellent relations... (more...)

As Malcolm Gladwell points out is his bestseller The Tipping Point, little things can make a big difference. The same is true when it comes to finding, recruiting, and hiring passive candidates. One big thing recruiters can do is tame their hiring manager clients. Taming your hiring managers is an essential first step if you want to recruit passive candidates. As was pointed out in a major study we... (more...)

I’m just a recruiter, not some Ph.D., OD guru, or stat-type, but over the years I’ve developed a theory about interviewing that seems to work 84.27% of time. Using it for the past 25 years, more than 84.27% percent of my candidates have been called back for second round interviews. Ninety percent of these pass whatever “questionnaire” is thrown at them ranging from the Gallup intense and expensive... (more...)

In a recent ERE article I made the contention that if you wanted to convert a corporate recruiting department into a competitive internal executive search group, you had to first develop the hiring process recruiters would use, before you hired the recruiters. This is primarily attributed to the fact that the external executive search business model and most of the processes they use are fundamentally... (more...)

Most candidates — even high-level executives — need to be prepped before the interview. The reason for this is obvious: they all think they’re great interviewees. Most aren’t. Making matters worse, the hiring managers they’ll be meeting think they’re endowed with some special instinct that allows them to accurately assess candidate competency. Most aren’t. Since I don’t like to present... (more...)

Most candidates — even high-level executives — need to be prepped before the interview. The reason for this is obvious: they all think they’re great interviewees. Most aren’t. Making matters worse, the hiring managers they’ll be meeting think they’re endowed with some special instinct that allows them to accurately assess candidate competency. Most aren’t. Since I don’t like... (more...)

If job descriptions aren’t illegal, they should be. Let’s hold a mock trial. You’re one of the jurors. We don’t need unanimity here, a mere super majority will do. Here’s a link to the public survey so you can be involved and register your verdict, and see the results. But before you vote, you must hear all of the evidence. Let me first state my rather obvious bias and claims in my opening... (more...)

Without question, having a large LinkedIn network is a competitive advantage for any recruiter working on hard-to-fill positions and hard-to-find candidates. This advantage is lessened dramatically with LinkedIn Recruiter, since it includes complete visibility to the 70mm+ people in their network. Since this full-visibility product is off-limits to TPRs, it levels the playing field somewhat for corporate... (more...)

Something is fundamentally wrong with the hiring process used by most companies in the U.S. We tend to hire too many people who are willing to take a job until something better comes along. Companies don’t implement this “holding pattern” concept intentionally, but at the core level the hiring process most companies use involves matching people who have the requisite skills and are looking, with... (more...)