Bearing Fruit Consulting

Easter Heathman dies at age 90 - Saw Knute Rockne plane crash

As many of you know, I am a huge Notre Dame Football fan.  In fact, I am a fan of anything and everything Notre Dame related.  Because of this I had to share with our readers that a member of the Fighting Irish family has died.  James Easter Heathman, who as a teenager was one of the first to get to the site of the plane crash that killed legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, died on Tuesday at the age of 90.  Heathman had been taking people, mostly Irish fans, faithful and alumni, to the site of the crash for the last 20 years.  Dennis Brown, a spokesman for Notre Dame, said:

Easter was a wonderful man whose lifelong dedication to honoring the memory of Knute Rockne will forever be appreciated by Notre Dame...

Thanks Easter Heathman for all you did for the Notre Dame family and for helping us all to Wake Up The Echoes!

Go Irish!

Do Passive Candidates Make Better Employees?

That is the interesting question being raised over on LinkedIn.  There are some really interesting responses by some very solid recruiting professionals who are weighing in with their thoughts.  I even took a few minutes recently to add my thoughts. 

Is Facebook For More Than Just Hooking Up?

Bill Martineau of Martineau Recruiting Technology asks if Facebook really produces real world results for recruiters or is it a waste of time. 

Like Bill, I have been incredibly skeptical about the value of Facebook in recruiting.  I have been so skeptical that it wasn't until just a couple days ago that I joined Facebook to find out for myself what value it might add to our work at Bearing Fruit Consulting.  For me, the jury is still out but I promise to update my thoughts as I learn and experience more. 

A few quick observations so far.  While it is seemingly true that I gain valuable insights about a persons background through the site it also appears there is a lot of information I don't need to know from the perspective of recruiting and consulting.  Again, I am a newbie and I will hold my thoughts and observations until I become better equipped and better networked to comment fully.  In the meantime please check out Bill's comments and feel free to add me as a friend on Facebook if you wish.   

The Recruiting Animal On Gen Y, Boomers and Business Reality

The Recruiting Animal tells it like it is about Gen Y pushing out the Boomers.  Here is the money quote:

Young people can take over in a consumer-oriented business like music in which the performers and the market are dominated by young people.

They can even have an effect on an election in which anyone over 18 is allowed to pick the CEO. But, in business and the professions, they can only shove people aside if they have more know-how than anyone else. That can happen in two ways.

First when the individual, not the generation, is especially talented. Second, when what happened yesterday doesn't count. And how often is that the case?

Wow is that ever on the money.  Fundamentally it comes down to performance and real world results of talented people.  Regardless of age, demographic, gender, race or generational affiliation it boils down to who delivers and get results. 

It is meritocracy at its finest. 

So what is the talent acquisition lesson here? 

Talent Acquisition, emphasis on talent, must be about finding, attracting, hiring and keeping the best performers.  Your organizations talent acquisition strategy and tactics must be geared and pointed in this direction.  Focus on talent!  Not more applicants or candidates but more talent.  If your process, selection tools, job descriptions, bureaucracy, HR, lawyers etc are getting in the way of that simple goal then you have a big problem.     

Stood Up At The Offer Table

I really enjoy reading Hiring Revolution and I particularly love reading Amy Hoover.  Though I have no personal knowledge of her work and performance, her writing is indicative of a true recruiting professional who has withered many a change in market conditions, trendy recruiting technologies, fly by night tactics and the roller coaster rides with candidates and clients that are inherent in the recruiting business.  Additionally, her writings are sharp and edgy and it is clear she works in the marketing and advertising space. 

Amy's latest offering, I Wonder if He's Going to Show..., uses the analogy of getting stood up on a date to make an excellent point about employers who make promises they can't, don't or won't keep during the offer stage. 

After reading her thoughts, I was left thinking about how important it is for a recruiter to maintain candidate and client control during the recruitment process.  The issue Amy discusses can often be avoided by clearly stating expectations with candidates and clients at the outset and then carefully pulling and pushing both parties through the process.  This level of recruiting skill is an art form really and only great recruiter training (not sourcing training) can help companies solve for this. 

Keep reading Amy's stuff.  There are incredible nuggets everywhere in her writings. 

Social Media Strategy From John Jantsch

Over on Duct Tape Marketing John Jantsch delivers a brief but incredible post on developing your social media strategy.  Here is the money quote:

You can’t approach new media with old thinking. Taking full advantage of social media requires understanding and adopting a specific social media strategy.

The comments in response to his thoughts are robust and equally as interesting.  Do yourself a favor and take 10 minutes to check it out.  It will be well worth your time. 

Consider how his message might change your thinking about recruitment advertising and connecting with the best talent in your industry or career discipline space. 

Monday Morning Quick Hits

Every Monday morning I thought I would post a few links to some of the more interesting things I read over the weekend or first thing Monday morning.  Well, at least interesting to me and I hope you will agree.  My intent in sharing these is not to comment at length but to bring your attention to some interesting items that, in my opinion, resonate and have congruence with recruiting, talent management and leadership.

• Jason Goldberg, former Chief Jobster, hits on the hot topic of buying your presence online or growing it organically.  I have lots of thoughts on this topic but I will hold off on getting detailed until later.  His blog Social Median is smart and should be on your short list of those you read regularly.
• My good friend Dennis Smith (excellent recruiting leader and all around good guy) shares a conversation he had with Jason Davis, (great recruiter and recruiting blogosphere leader) in which he explains the sourcing and recruiting advantages of blogging.  Dennis claims he won't stop blogging - a good thing for us all.
• Great real life lessons in sourcing from people who don't source for a living.  Read this carefully and apply some the creativity and thinking to your next search.
• Collegerecruiter.com has 14 Ways to Get More Candidates To Apply.  Here you will find some great suggestions for how to structure your online application and a few other ideas.  The only question left unanswered here is how do you get the more of the RIGHT candidates to apply?
• Finally, Seth Godin got my attention again.  This time with a post called Who Are These People?  Of course he speaks from a social media and marketing perspective but again the cross over to talent acquisition and talent relationship management is obvious and significant.  Is it better to attract hordes of people to your jobs or just the right people?  As Seth says:

Doesn't it make more sense to incrementally earn the attention of a smaller, less glitzy but far more valuable group of people who actually engage with you? And the best part is, your odds of success are a lot better.

Extrapolating this concept the question becomes; Is it better to practice candidate relationships management or talent relationship management?  Is there a difference?  CRM is pointless in recruiting.  You can't possibly have relationships with every candidate.  To get the maximum ROI for your time and effort you should only have relationships with talent in your industry or career discipline.  Develop, manage and grow relationships with great talent and you will find the very best for your current and future openings.   

What They Want Not What You Need - Recruiting Passive Talent

I have mentioned Seth Godin many times in presentations, training and past writings. His book Purple Cow cemented many of my long held beliefs about relationships and viral recruiting but also shook me to the core of my recruiting being, causing me to aggressively challenge many of my long held beliefs about recruiting. 

Today I was reading through some of Seth's recent blog posts and this one, discussing the paradox between frequency of message vs. relevance / personalization / transparency of message, resonated with me.  As always I like to give you, in my humble opinion, the money quote:

So this is the dilemma. If the most powerful asset online is permission, the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to the people who want to get them... and the most powerful tool of advertising is repetition and frequency, which the majority of prospects cringe at (but which works) what to do?

I think there are two strategies that are shaping up online.

The first: burn your permission. Every time you have something to sell, either buy enough ads on popular sites to achieve frequency, or just burn out your core base by repeating your message over and over again. At least you'll make enough money to be able to rebuild your audience later.

The second: go easy on the frequency and embrace your audience. Give them what they want (interesting, new stuff) instead of what you need (frequency). Play for the long run.

The relevance of this paradox to recruiting, recruiting calls and leveraging the best talent out of their current situation is significant. 

Getting Around The Gatekeeper - The Grizzled Veteran Technique

Part 1 : Part 2

Yesterday, we talked about the basics of getting around the gatekeeper.  Today we want to give you a technique to help you get around the most saavy and experienced gatekeeper - the wiley, battle tested grizzled veteran of gatekeepring.  Even if you use the script interrupt technique we discussed yesterday, sometimes getting through can be very difficult, especially when dealing with a great gatekeeper (who, by the way, you should recruit).

The conversation with this person often goes more like what follows, though please note that I am using a number of interactions I have had over the years with gatekeepers to create a general response here. Most keepers will use nicer terminology than this, but the substance of the message is legitimately the same.

Getting Around The Gatekeeper - Tactical Recruiting

Part 1 : Part 2

Recruiters, for as long as recruiting has been around, have had to contend with gatekeepers.  How they tactically execute getting around or through the gatekeeper is often a source of heated discussion and debate in the sourcing and recruiting community.  What should you say to get around the gatekeeper without being deceitful? How much information should you reveal to the gatekeeper? How should you introduce yourself to the passive candidate when you call? What is ethical in sourcing and what isn't?

I want to focus on two very important aspects of great recruiting: how to get around a gatekeeper without rusing and, once you get to the prospect or candidate, how you define the purpose of your call and then execute the art of recruiting (blog post to come).

This will be about tactics; a practical teaching session that shares and provides some details from one of the many recruiter training modules Bearing Fruit Consulting provides to our clients.  These are things a recruiter can execute immediately. During my 12 or so years of recruiting and recruiting leadership I have learned a variety of tactics from some of the best-known names in the recruiting industry. Names like Sullivan, Radin, Leffkowitz, Adler, etc., read like a who's who of recruiting consultants and teachers who have shaped my execution, teaching, and leading in the recruiting industry and subsequently shaped the recruiting strategy, tactics and training programs we deliver to our clients.   

The tactics and techniques I teach to my teams and clients are the result of 14 years of recruiting experience getting real world measurable results and what the aforementioned recruiting industry thought leaders have taught me and many others.  Much of what I executed successfully as a recruiter, and now teach as a leader, was learned from Peter Leffkowitz in my early days of staffing and executive search. Those of you who have attended any of his seminars or training will recognize much in this article.