Q&A: Where should recruiters look for candidates?

On July 22, 2009

A recruiter from a consulting firm asks whether I really shun job boards, and where to find good candidates really fast…

Question
I caught you on NPR last week and thought you were a breath of fresh air! I am in the process of letting our CareerBuilder job posting account loose. First, because it costs a lot and secondly, because you are absolutely right, most of the jobs we post are bogus after the first 24 hours. Okay, I promise I’m getting to my question…

Are you saying don’t use any job boards? And if so, what’s the best way to find talent FAST if you don’t have someone in your database or pipeline when a requirement comes in? Especially when in some cases you have a little as fifteen minutes to get to that great candidate before a flurry of other firms do. I’m avidly learning LinkedIn but that seems to be better for making client connections than ones with candidates.

Nick’s Reply
Thanks for the kind words.

I don’t think your clients pay you to race your competition. They pay you to find the best people. What you’re doing is competing with other recruiters for a limited pool of people whose resumes are on job boards.

Anyone whose resume is on a job board is already “used up” and picked over. Your odds of closing a deal are way diminshed even before you contact them… so that 15 minutes doesn’t matter much. It’s already too late.

Where are the people who are not on the boards? They’re among your network. I just don’t see the point of pulling some resume off a board and sending it to a client who probably already has it from some other firm or agency… It’s a waste of time. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather poll my contacts and scratch my head… and go look where the competition doesn’t.

Why the focus on finding people in data bases? Try investing half that time in meeting new people in the industry you recruit from. When you call those people later on about an assignment you’re working on, they won’t be on the other line with your competitors…

I know it’s a hard business. But step back and ask yourself, what are you doing? And, what should you be doing? Do you have a line in the data base pool, waiting for a nibble? Or do you have good relationships with great people in the community you recruit from — who can reliably refer you to the people your clients need?

My compliments on cutting CareerBuilder loose. Invest the money instead in taking a shining light in your industry to lunch!

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How to work with headhunters… and save ten bucks

On June 29, 2009

In my last post I asked whether you’ve ever squeezed more out of a headhunter… Did you ever successfully negotiate a higher job offer via a headhunter?

How to Work with Headhunters

Now I’m going to do something I’ve never done before on this blog, on my web site, or in the Ask The Headhunter newsletter… I’m going to plug a new Ask The Headhunter product… and save you ten bucks because you read about it here first. I’ll give you a discount code in a minute… worth $10 off.

Everything on all the Ask The Headhunter “channels” has always been free (for over 12 years) — articles, blog posts, tweets, tips, newsletters. (Ah, no sweat — you’re welcome. Thank you for helping me keep it interesting!) I hope it’s kept you ahead of your competition. But it’s also kept me limited to short pieces.

So I decided to break the word-count meter and actually pack all I could into one big topic: How to Work with Headhunters… and how to make headhunters work for you.

I’ve been working on this on and off for the past year. 130 pages might officially make it a book, but I call it a guide because it’s crammed with (subtitle please…) 62 myth-busting answers for fearless job hunters. (That’s you. Thanks for submitting all those in-your-face questions all these years and sometimes keeping me up at night.)

I filled it with almost everything I know about how you can work with, deal with and profit from headhunters. (I say almost because I’m sure that if you read it, you’ll come back here with questions that will make me realize there’s always something more I can teach you… So we’ll be covering more.) I also expose all those unsavory characters who call themselves headhunters but waste your time and make you feel worse than the HR machine does when it chews you up and spits you out… When you’re done reading, you’ll never waste a minute with them again.

What about how to squeeze a headhunter for a higher job offer? It’s in there. No one else has ever told you how to do it quite like this before… How to really qualify a headhunter? It’s in there. What kind of resume is best at making you the headhunter’s #1 candidate? It’s in there. A crib sheet? It’s in there. I had a blast writing every page.

Instant gratification? It’s in there — this is a PDF and you can download it instantly. But don’t expect some cheesy Word document. The design is lean and clean — more editors and experts combed over it than publishers ever assign to their authors. (I know because a big-time publisher put out my first book. This PDF looks better and packs more value!)

You can learn more about it and decide whether it’s for you by clicking the book cover above: Features, benefits, sample pages, the table of contents and so on.

About the ten bucks: If you’ve been following Ask The Headhunter all these years, you can get the edge first and get it for $10 less than the rest of the world by using this discount code when you order (I’ll leave the code active for a reasonable period of time).

Click here, then type in this discount code: tenoffblog

About those 62 questions I answer in the guide: I’m ready to answer more once you use those up.

 

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Where are the headhunters?

On June 1, 2009

Someone is stealing all the headhunters… or so it seems to an Ask The Headhunter reader:

Are there still headhunters out there? People paid by companies to find good candidates? I thought they were extinct. They all seem to have moved on to doing “outplacement” services. The only headhunters I hear from are the fee-for-service types! They want me to pay them. Are there any headhunters left in this economy, who actually place people with their clients?

Funny, I look around and I suddenly realize that lots of “headhunters” have indeed turned into outplacement consultants, selling services to job hunters — and to employers who are downsizing. Do you get calls from real headhunters any more? Or are they all selling something else nowadays?

Where are the headhunters?

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Wanted: Big small candidate

On May 22, 2009

What really goes on in the room where job ads are written?

I saw a listing for a security specialist the other day. It listed a  bunch of high-level requirements and looked interesting, though I noticed they also said “heavy attention to detail.” Is that a  realistic expectation for someone who has a more strategic thinking mind?  Can you “pay close attention to detail” and “see the big  picture” on a regular basis? Don’t people tend to have a pull toward one or another?

Maybe I am just a slacker, but as I go on in my career, I am agreeing more and more with the “Strengths” movement that I should focus on my strengths and spend a lot less time wrestling with my weaknesses. While some attention to detail is clearly necessary in any job, I am not convinced that I will ever be as detail focused as someone who thrives on that.

Do you have thoughts on this? Am I wacko or are the job listings?

It’s called the “kitchen sink” approach to job ads. They are usually written by personnel jockeys after they “review” a manager’s requirements and “add” their “insights” about the company’s needs. They throw in everything they think the company “wants.” Big small candidates are perfect because they satisfy two important company goals (in many companies).

Ever go to an interview and realize that the job you read about in the ad has little to do with what the manager wants to talk about?

Bingo. You’re not applying for a job. You’re applying for an ad. Problem is, managers are trying to fill a job. And personnel deparments don’t hire security specialists. They only hire other personnel jockeys. Ooops.

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Sorting resumes: A strategic hiring error all the time

On April 11, 2009

Auren Hoffman has reinvented headhunting and escaped from Armchair Recruiting: Hiring what comes along. This is a genuine compliment, not a backhanded one. I’m tickled that someone else is writing about this.

In Why hiring is paradoxically harder in a downturn, Hoffman realizes that when more people are looking for jobs, employers get more garbage resumes because many more “C” people are job hunting than “A” people. (A people are the best, C the worst, B in between.)

This explosion of job hunters skews the outcome of any recruiting effort that relies on resumes — employers wind up wasting precious resources looking for the same needle in a far bigger haystack.

And this explains why headhunters charge $30,000 to fill a $100,000 position, while a job posting costs virtually nothing. The real cost of “recruiting” (it isn’t recruiting!) via ads and resumes arises on the back end — the overhead involved in dealing with all those resumes. Headhunters cost more by themselves, but they bring you only a small number of highly-qualified candidates. In Hoffman’s terms, “less noise.”

How is that so? Headhunters go find who they need. They don’t sit around waiting for who comes along after requesting resumes — and today who comes along is millions of C people.

Nice work, Auren, for figuring it out and explaining it. I hope more people get it. And I hope it’s clear that while the economic downturn has put a sharp point on the hiring-by-resume problem, it’s a strategic hiring error all the time, even in boom times.

More about this in 7 Mistakes Internal Recruiters Make and Ten Stupid Hiring Mistakes.

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Droolers, Charles Manson and A. Harrison Barnes

On April 7, 2009

Man, I couldn’t have written it better myself. I’ve been watching a family of “job” sites that’s akin to a pack of electronic junkyard dogs trying to bite people. I’m not even gonna give you the link. The flagship site is called Hound.com. Don’t waste your time visiting it. Trust me: You don’t want those doggie cookies on your computer.

Steve Gosset over at RealityBitesBack soundly thrashes PC Magazine for promoting A. Harrison Barnes and his pack of rabid job sites including (again, no links because I don’t want you getting infected) a bunch of sites ending in “…Crossing.”

Kudos to Steve for spraying A. Harrison Barnes (Gimme a break! Does he belong to the Yacht Club?) and his dog team with poo-poo water. (You’ll have to read Steve’s post to see where Chas Manson and droolers fit in…)

I guess Marc Cenedella over at TheLadders has an apt competitor now. Throw ’em both over the clothesline before they spawn more puppies.

Update Dec. 17, 2009: Toby Dayton draws the clothesline tight…

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The real reason employers want your salary history: Hiring is a crapshoot

On March 23, 2009

We’ve talked salary history to death. I dunno — it still astonishes me that HR demands it. Not one compelling reason has been offered to justify why HR must have it. On the other hand, we’ve heard from enough job hunters who routinely decline to disclose their salary, and life still goes on. The Job Police don’t show up at anyone’s home with warrants for old pay stubs. Lots more folks are aware that they can say NO. (I’ll offer this caution again: Withholding salary history could cost you an interview or a job. Judge for yourself before you act. Saying NO ain’t for everybody.)

Which brings us to a bigger matter. The real reason employers want your salary history.

Now, I don’t accuse employers of conspiring to defraud job applicants of decent job offers.  (Though, I do think some companies — including the one represented by the HR manager we all heard from — are indeed defrauding applicants.) I think the problem is far bigger. In most cases, I think companies demand salary information because they don’t know how to run their business for profit.

When they’re trying to fill a position — and put a value on a job applicant — I believe employers just plain don’t know how the job contributes to profit. They have no idea how to judge your ability to do the job or how the work will contribute to profit. In other words, they have no idea what you are worth. The job is just a line in a budget, and the number is right around what it was last year.

So for most employers, hiring is a crapshoot. They don’t know how one additional employee hired today will affect profits. Think about that.

When was the last time an employer showed you a business plan for the job in question — with a number in it that shows what you’re expected to bring to the bottom line?

I contend that this is the problem. Employers want your salary history because they need to start somewhere. If they knew how the job in question contributed to profit, and if they could figure out how you will contribute to that profit, well, then the entire hiring process changes. We want only people who will boost our profits significantly. In fact, we’ll pay based on how much extra profit we think you will bring to the bottom line. So here’s the business plan, here’s what this job brings to our bottom line. Show us what you think you can do — that’s what we really care about. That’s what we base offers on.

I contend that the only way a company can rationally determine a job offer is to first put together a business plan for every position the company fills. Then it must measure an applicant against that plan. Otherwise, hiring is a crapshoot. In fact, hiring is a crapshoot and employers want your salary history because they don’t know the value of the job in question. They have no idea how much profit it can produce. So they’re flat on their asses, using what your last employer paid you, to predict their own future.

That’s a woo-hoo! big problem.

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Salary history: Will HR put up or shut up?

On March 12, 2009

In recent postings (How to make more money, Why you should tell me your salary) we’ve discussed whether job applicants should disclose their salary history to an employer. This topic has taken wing elsewhere: On BNet (Should Jobhunters reveal salary requirements?), on PunkRockHR (Candidates, Salary, and Disclosure) and on Job Hacking (What happens when you don’t pay attention to statistics?).

Job hunters seem to clearly recognize why it’s not a good idea to disclose, even if some feel pressured to do so. (Hey, I don’t knock anyone who desperately needs a job and decides to disclose. But I think that’s a short-term fix and later the tire is gonna blow on you big-time…)

Some in HR offer all kinds of reasons to support their position that applicants should — or must — disclose salary history or forfeit their chance at a job. I find none of them compelling.

But I don’t think HR managers are dopes or even disingenuous. I think they’re brainwashed and can’t see past their own bureaucracy. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to turn the tables and help HR solve the problem without waiting for candidates to cough up their salary info. That way these employers won’t have to pass up good candidates.

So here’s my suggestion and my simple business logic. HR contends it’s legitimate to ask for an individual’s salary history and that the information is a crucial component when assessing a candidate. HR contends salary information should be shared in the context of a job application and interview to enable both parties to determine whether further discussion is realistic, and to ensure that if discussions lead to an offer, acceptance of the offer is a realistic possibility. HR contends that salary history helps an employer judge a candidate.

So here’s what HR should do. Following the same logic and rationale, at the point where HR would ask for the candidate’s salary history, HR should instead share: Read more →

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Why you should tell me your salary

On March 9, 2009

In How to make more money we’re discussing why a job hunter should decline to state salary history. People who stand firm and say NO to the demand for salary info argue it’s the only position to take. HR folks and some headhunters argue that if an employer requires your salary info, you’re dead meat if you decline. They claim it’s not smart to say NO.

Let’s change the question from, Should you disclose your salary history? to Why should you disclose it?

So here’s the challenge to employers (and HR) and to headhunters: What can you tell the candidate to convince her that it’s to her advantage to tell you her salary? How will disclosure clearly benefit her? I’d like to see some solid reasons why it’s to the candidate’s advantage. (“Because if you don’t tell us, we won’t consider you,” is not an answer.)

I think there are some valid reasons to disclose to a headhunter, but no good reasons at all to disclose to an employer.

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An open letter to recruiters who use TheLadders: Stop complaining

On February 6, 2009

My posting about TheLadders has more comments on it than any blog entry I’ve ever written (including while I was blogging for InfoWorld). What’s interesting is that no one defends TheLadders. Even people with embarrassing stories about wasting their money and getting burned came forward to share their pain and anger.

Then a recruiter posted a comment about how she has found some good candidates on TheLadders. I’m posting my reply here because, well, it’s my blog and I can post where I want ;-). Sorry for pulling rank and bumping up my comment…

Check Audrey Chernoff’s post in the comments section. I don’t know Audrey, but she sounds like a nice, responsible recruiter who tries to do the job right and with integrity. But she blames job hunters for diluting the quality of responses she gets from her Ladders job postings. Give me a break. The problem is bigger. Read more →

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