Bearing Fruit Consulting

Hanging Out With The Cool Kids at Fistful Of Talent

Just wanted to point you all in the direction of my latest post over on Fistful Of Talent.  The title of the post is Hanging With The Cool Kids In The Talent Pool and it appears today. 

I consider the whole posse over at FOT to be "cool kids" so I feel as though I am blessed to be in their company.  Seriously, there are some really smart, witty and innovative HR and recruiting practitioners in that group. 

I still can't figure out how I got into that group!

Omaha Stylee Did Not Think There Was One - Maren Hogan Over On FOT

Juiced the title a bit here with a lyric from 311.  Maren Hogan, from Omaha, Nebraska, shows us a little of her Omaha Stylee today over at FOT.  Her post, Like Paris Hilton, You've Got To Work It To Be A Good Recruiter... gets into some interesting ideas around what sourcing and recruiting really are as well as what the perception of those concepts might be. 

An interesting discussion is starting to unfold with her post as well.  Of course, never without an opinion, I jumped into the comments and discussion myself. 

Maren is an up and coming recruiting professional who has a pretty diverse background outside of recruiting.  She is fun to talk to and fun to read (her blog is Big O Recruiting)because she hasn't been in recruiting forever and thus has some unique perspectives.  Because of her minimal recruiting industry experience it is also fun to watch her learn and grow in this space right before our very eyes.

By the way, I found an old school skater video using 311's Omaha Stylee as the backdrop music.  It is pretty funny and if you want to check it out it can be found after the jump.    

Flirting, Social Networking and Passive Candidates

I came across a New York Times article from April 17th (yeah, I know I am tardy but I just found it) written by Marci Alboher.  I have not read anything by Marci prior to finding this article and after exploring her work in some detail I find her to be very impressive.  The article germaine (great work huh?) to this blog post is called The New Workplace Flirtation and the basic premise is that LinkedIn primarily, and other social media sources secondarily, have provided a an environment where people can be available for and search out new opportunities without setting off alarms within the company where they are currently employed. 

In fact, in some cases, their current employer actually encourages their participation in LinkedIn for legitimate networking and business purposes.  All the while the unanticipated side effect is that the person is now available for networking and approach for new opportunities.  Marci calls this a sort of online dating scenario and equates it to flirting.  I think this is spot on.

False Prophets and Recruiting Sheep

I tell you what 's wrong to me the industry's ability to manufacture stars.

They churn them out like Iwo Jima makes cars.

But the blame lies not with those suits for trying.

It's the sheep that keep on buying that soulless crap.

Whatever they put in front of ya.

The hysteria of America. - 311, Plain

I open this post with these lyrics from my favorite band 311 because in many ways I think  these lyrics, originally intended as an indictment of the music industry, are equally appropriate as an indictment of the recruiting industry.  Especially the corporate recruiting industry. 

I have attended a few recruiting conferences, seminars and demoed (is that a word?) several recruiting products online over the last several months and I am continuously struck by a lack of uniqueness, differentiation and useable information that actually produce real world results for the recruiter on the front lines.  I am equally disturbed by the intense reliance on technology, the monotonous beating of the ATS drums, the over emphasis of social networking as THE recruiting tool and the exorbitant amount of time we spend talking about sourcing.

All of the tired and worn out marketing, email spam blasts about these "solutions" and seemingly endless barrage of puffed upped promises that this tool or that technology will give you all you need to be a great recruiter.  The key to being a great recruiter is not found in all of these alleged solutions.  Nope, it is in hard work, building and maintaining relationships with strong talent and practicing the actual art and craft of recruiting.  Not just sourcing, not just client management and not business development - recruiting.  It is a lost art really.  Funny how the very behavior and activity that defines us, indeed names us as an industry, is some how lost isn't it?

Sadly, recruiters keep gravitating to these things.  In part out of ignorance of alternatives and in part because of the promises that are made.  They buy services and products they don't need and are increasingly disappointed in the mysterious lack of results they achieve.  I don't blame the vendors and the service providers really, though they do own some of the blame, rather I blame the recruiters themselves for continuing to pay for and give credibility to the presentation and not the substance.  Too much show and not enough go! 

Finding and Attracting Passive Talent

Those of you who read this blog regularly, heard me speak or read any of my article drivel know that I often talk about better ways to find and attract passive talent.  To quickly Gump down all of my thoughts on this topic into a sentence or two I believe that passive talent will not respond to any recruiter without a relationship, they won't engage with a recruiter unless they have a career wound (that can be remedied by the recruiter/new opportunity) or the opportunity is VASTLY superior to their current situation.  Additionally the passive and semi-passive talent pool are full of some the highest performing talent and getting them requires extraordinary effort and significant personal interaction.

So, when I came upon 5 Simple Ways to Recruit Passive Candidates with Your Career Site over on Job Search Marketing, I had to check it out.  After all, if there are ways to attract a talent pool that by definition is not looking for a new opportunity, spends no time looking for a new job (because they don't need one) and tell us in survey after survey that they don't look for opportunities using traditional means such as career sites and job boards then I need to know about it. 

While certainly a good piece on what should be on your career site in general there is nothing in this post that will specifically attract and find passive talent.  First of all, passive talent don't go to career websites.  EVER!

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. 

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.