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Blog Post: The Game Changers: When Authenticity Goes Wrong in Recruitment Marketing: Authenticity is a word that is probably said too often in the marketing world.…; Added by Cullen Robertson at 3:54pm on March 9, 2017

Blog Post: 10 Predictions for Recruitment & Staffing in 2012: Social Recruiting finally went mainstream in 2011 with corporate and agency recruiters embracing LinkedIn and internet sourcing as a required skill for the modern recruiter, shifting away…; Added by Johnny Campbell at 5:19am on January 4, 2012

Blog Post: Living and Working in Glasgow in 2019: 1. Introduction

You most likely know…; Added by Richard England at 4:58am on June 20, 2019

Blog Post: The 31 flavors of recruiting - you're one of these: So, I posted this originally back in 2009 on my bloodspot blog "The Recruiter Chronicles" Updated it again a bit essentially the same. The reason I posted this was to help non recruiters…; Added by Joshua Lee at 7:47pm on May 31, 2012

Topic: Meet Chris Hoyt, 'Gadget Addict' & Dabbler; Associate Director of Talent Attraction at AT&T: itter link • facebook link • Chris Hoyt's "Recruiter Guy" Blog • Favorite Things: UFC, Music, Fitness, blogging, and French Bulldogs • Email Chris Chris Hoyt is one of RecruitingBlogs.com greatest cheerleaders, however in his day-to-day corporate leadership role, he will tell you he likes to 'dabble' in social media. He is being modest. He isn't merely discussing the social media as a phenomenon, but as someone who is leading its full scale integration within a corporate workforce strategy. At AT&T, Chris and his online personae, "RecruiterGuy" are pushing the boundaries of each aspect of the full-cycle model with a matured sourcing model that likewise integrates search engine marketing and optimization to his candidate development arsenal. He is one of a handful in corporate America who can speak with authority on the topic but here at the RBC Community he has always been that 'one in a million' who lives and breathes passing it forward and beyond for a profession he is passionate about. On a personal level, he is passionate about a great many things, be it his 'dabbling' or his earnest advocacy for charitable causes such as "Bowl for Kids' Sake Event." AT&T managed to raise more than $30,000 to sponsor kids taking part in the Big Brother Big Sister program. In just under two weeks almost $1,600 was raised through using social networks and blog driven communications. Introducing a Social X evangelist and self proclaimed "Gadget Addict" - someone we can all learn from and with ... our Community's friend and evangelist, Chris Hoyt. (Visualize a Kermit the Frog intro clap with Muppet Show Theme Song!) Q&A with Chris Hoyt, aka: RecruiterGuy Six Degrees: As the Associate Director of Talent Attraction at AT&T and a certified HR Professional, Chris I understand you have over a decade of recruiting and training & development experience. You lead the AT&T Talent Attraction teams with a focused concentration on Interactive Recruiting, Candidate Experience, and regionally based strategies. You are recognized as an expert at external recruitment of Occupational and Corporate Management candidates; e-Recruiting; Candidate screening and interviewing; Salary negotiations; Longstanding SHRM Member; HRCI PHR (Professional in Human Resources) Certification; and HTML, ASP, FLASH, Web Development. A lot of "Wow Effect", Chris - but today, we want to learn about what makes this "RecruiterGuy" tick. Chris its time we at RBC learn about your home world. Chris: I’ve been married for almost 15 years. We met in Monterey, CA where she was on vacation with her mother and I happened to walk by a store where she was trying on shoes. I was immediately lost in her. I went into the store and struck up a conversation with that somehow resulted in my helping her shop for shoes for over an hour. When she finally asked me where the cashwrap was I had to confess to her that I didn’t work in the store but was in reality just wanting to take her to dinner. (I still feel like the sales person owes me some major commission!) We were married 7 months later at Lover’s Point just blocks from where we met and now have two beautiful daughters ages 8 and 11. I'd be lying if I didn't say that much of my spare time during the week is spent trying to keep up with the latest trends and technologies that touch our industry. Outside of trying to keep my finger on the pulse of our craft I'd have to say that I enjoy golfing, flying, river rafting - almost anything that is outdoors. At least once a year my family takes a vacation where we try and embark on some sort of outdoor adventure. These are typically wonderful times together but rarely go as planned. Our previous trip to Lake Tahoe was when the fires forced an evacuation of the camp grounds the day we arrived. We ended up spending a week on Pismo beach riding four wheelers instead. Even our last vacation as a family might have been hard for some to deal with as we were rained on nearly the entire week. Problem for us? Not at all... we had a terrific time. Honestly I think we'd be surprised if a single outing went according to plan... Surprised and maybe even a bit bored! Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Chris: I’ve been doing recruiting or sales and recruitment training since 1994. It wasn’t really something that I’d planned on doing but was something that I found I was really passionate about and as a result of that passion, pretty good at what I was doing. Of course I think that's the way things are for most people... if you're really passionate about what you're doing, and hungry to always improve it - how can you go wrong? Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Chris: It's funny... I've never met a recruiter that said they knew from a young age they wanted to be a recruiter. It just doesn't happen that way. While at the time it seemed unconnected, I look back now and every career step to this date just makes sense. It started when I got out of the Army. I’m a veteran of the US Army – B Co. Rangers, 5/21 7th Infantry. My duty station was Fort Ord, CA and when my enlistment ended I had decided that I wanted to stay in California. I started school right away and took the first job offered to me – which was at a leather coat store. Within my first 7 months I’d sold over $1m in leather jackets and apparel so they quickly moved me into management – There's a Peter Principal joke in here somewhere. I’ve always enjoyed networking (translation: gift of gab) and it wasn’t long before the stores I was responsible for were staffed with the strongest sales persons and managers in the district. I soon found myself traveling from market to market to train recruiting and sales teams which later transitioned into self employment, speaking/training jobs and full-time contract recruiting. While I was a contract recruiter with a passion for process improvement it was obvious to me at that point that I wanted nothing more than to try and change the way most corporate or HR departments looked at the recruiting craft. One job led to another and I was recruited to AT&T in 2000 to be a contract recruiter responsible for North Texas. After 7 fun and challenging years I'd worked my way from being responsible for Northern Texas to leading the strategic and tactical recruiting teams across the country. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Chris: My embracing the Internet. I’ve always been a huge fan of networking and making real life connections. But when I really started to use the Internet for sourcing in 1999 it was a breakthrough for me. It was when I managed to gain two hires from digging through a company’s round robin call list discovered Online that I got REALLY excited about how the Internet could be used to change what I was doing. The idea then was the same as it is for me today - the Internet continues to be a powerful tool that can be used to create introductions that otherwise might not occur. Of course the real connection and relationship is up to the recruiter to forge - a high speed modem doesn't build a relationship. It's always really interesting to me how many recruiters or staffing people often miss that part of the puzzle and lately tend to treat the Internet and technology as though they are a complete solution. Being connected to the web doesn't mean you're connecting to your potential candidates. Anyhow... I’ve been pushing as hard as I can in a direction that leverages technology and online initiatives for recruitment and hiring ever since. Six Degrees: Tell us about your role and the staffing organization you oversee. Chris: I’m the Associate Director of Talent Attraction at AT&T. I lead both strategic and interactive recruiting teams and sourcers and have responsibility for our Interactive Recruiting Strategies (SEO, SEM, Social, etc.) various Recruitment Marketing initiatives, our new award winning Career Portal (www.att.jobs), and Job Board strategies. My teams are responsible for the sourcing and attraction of any job seekers for non-contracted external hiring efforts. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Chris: There are some really good ones out there.... but two that come to mind I guess would be Best Buy and Microsoft... I'm a fan of the Best Buy career site because I love the way they’ve embraced social media as a tool for recruitment with video, social bookmarking, and how it seems to be a pretty accurate reflection of their corporate culture. Of course if I'm not mistaken the career section of their site is driven by the Jobs2Web engine. So what I really love is the almost seamless integration of the SEO initiative into their brand. I'm big on SEO/SEM initiatives and think many employers are still too slow to embrace these powerful strategies. I'm still a huge fan of Microsoft's "The Changing Face" site (http://www.youatmicrosoft.com/) and it's because I think it's the absolute best job I've seen of pushing employee testimonials to active and passive job seekers. Microsoft is always a fun employer to watch when it comes to recruitment marketing online but I just feel they nailed it with the YouAtMicrosoft.com site - from the site navigation to the talking Polaroids to the direct contact forms... just awesome - top notch and something to keep in mind when reworking an employment site for sure. "AT&T 'Day In The Life' of a Corporate Call Center employee. Jobs video production by: www.maddash.net " Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Chris: I feel that I'm in a place right now that has taken some hard work and dedication to achieve and where it's sometimes overwhelming to take a step back and really take in the scope it's impact. Leading recruiting teams at a FORTUNE 9 employer is as challenging as it is rewarding - and I'm thankful every day that I'm here and able to make a difference. But I'd be a liar if I told you that I'm not always working towards a next step... taking recruiting and employer brand to the next level is my primary focus here of late. I know when people ask this question they often expect to hear a job title or scope of responsibility as the definitive career goal response. I don't think I've ever thought of my career planning in that way - for me it's been about setting an impact goal or evolutionary change to a process as a way to measure effort and success. In this case, I like to think I'm working towards the evolution of how large companies view the recruiting craft and the incredible impact that employment brand can have on various business initiatives outside of just talent attraction. “HOW DOES CHRIS DO IT?” Six Degrees: How many applicants at your present employer do you estimate are hired from your corporate website as compared to how many are hired through referrals? Chris: Employee referrals continue to be my favorite hiring source. We've seen our employee referrals account for nearly 90% of our hiring in some markets while on a national recruitment level see still impressive numbers of applicants within the 40% range. To be clear however - the real win with employee referrals for any company isn't typically just the volume received. If you ask various companies that have successful employee referral programs or processes in place why they love the programs, I think you'll get solid answers tied to reduced cost per hire and an awareness about the job or corporate culture that most referrals have BEFORE they even come in to apply. Even during times when we weren't offering any rewards to our employee body for submitting referrals we continued to see incredible numbers of referrals in locations we were hiring. When you love where you work and you believe in your company's goals and vision I think you want to share that - and I think our continued success with our various referral channels proves just that. Six Degrees: What is the source of your "LOWEST COST OF HIRES" - (least amount of invested resources for the easiest hires, regardless of quality) at your present employer? Chris: Employee referrals are always an awesome source for any recruiting initiatives to compete with. I'd have to tell you though that outside of employee referrals any company would be hard pressed to prove to me that they aren't showing an amazing amount of reduced cost per applicant through Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization efforts - if done well, of course. While we continue to see trends that show job seekers starting their job searches in search engines and social or professional networks it only makes sense to move initiatives in the right direction. Smart recruiting is like playing hockey in that your goal is to skate where the puck is going as opposed to it's current location. Wayne Gretzky was the person that originally said that about hockey, by the way. As a hockey fan I just love to fit it in whenever I can. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Chris: Our recruiters and sourcers are always on the lookout for new and innovative sourcing and recruitment strategies and tools. Various webinars are attended and as a rule each recruiter typically attends job board and applicant tracking software training courses as refreshers almost quarterly. I think that many of our teams take full advantage of blogs and newsletters from respected sources in our industry to try and stay on top of their game. Of course any chance to attend conferences with classes or sessions hosted by people like Susan Burns of Talent Synchronicity, Michael Marlatt for innovative recruiting trends, or Craig Silverman are always a bonus. It's great when a recruiter comes back from a session or webinar that really carried a powerful lesson or message and see how they share it with their teams. Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment activities; do they translate effectively within all of the different countries where you recruit? Chris: There's a basic answer to this that might be what most would be looking for as a response... Just naming our Applicant Tracking System and any applications we use to aid in search, right? It's no secret that by visiting the AT&T career portal you'll see that we've quite a few of our jobs posted in Taleo. It's also no mystery if you're a reader of my blog or have followed me on Twitter for any amount of time that I'm a fan of AIRS Sourcepoint for some of our sourcing initiatives. These are great... and yes, they're software tools - but they're really not where the true power strokes come from for some of our more impressive recruitment and sourcing. Want to know what the big hitters in our arsenal are? I'll tell you - and you might be surprised. The Yahoo! and Google search engines are powerful when we're rolling up our sleeves and sourcing tough titles. Mobile marketing initiatives like the AT&T Talent Network and our mobile shortcodes are showing really impressive results across the board. But when it comes to asking me what tools we use that really make a difference and if they're making a difference for recruiting regardless of where or who we're searching for... I'd say it's our use of our recruiter's professional networks hands down. We know that relationships and trust are the power behind any good network and we leverage that knowledge daily. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Chris: My first filing technology was Franklin... A huge Franklin organizer with a smaller one to accompany me when I was "mobile" recruiting. Of course back then "mobile" recruiting was recruiting on the road or simply from office to office. From that I advanced to using a word processor and email - and upon the discovery of how to use email folders online I've been in love with the "cloud" based file folders ever since. The strongest tools I had in my toolkit when starting was a handshake, a business card, and the ability or willingness to listen to people in order to find out exactly what they were really looking for or where they might be a great fit elsewhere. When the internet really started to become part of my everyday recruiting activity it was Snap (will anyone remember that?) Webcrawler and Yahoo! although I'll admit that while I knew these would be huge in our industry I wasn't really sure how at first. Of course initially the content just wasn't there to source from like it is today. Six Degrees: How do you personally expect to facilitate change within our industry, and/or at your place of work? If you started that process, outline the problem, your solutions, and the vision. Chris:I'm not sure that I expect to individually change our industry at all. I feel like I'm more interested in helping truly engaged recruiters and sourcers to simply think bigger about what we do and the tools we use to get our jobs done. If I can think of a way that a tool like customizable search engines or simple newsreaders can be used to make recruiters more efficient or mobile or collaborative - and share that - I know that it will be expanded upon. There are so many really smart people doing what we do that if given a solid idea or direction we can hope they'll run with it and as a result advance our industry. We see things advance from a good idea into a great practice for many. I think the biggest challenge is encouraging recruiters to find their 'voice' and share those thoughts and steps forward. I get 3-4 emails for every comment found on my blogs. It's fascinating to me how many great ideas or insightful items of feedback I receive that just don't get pushed to me publicly but instead come in via direct email. Think of your favorite social network and how many members it has versus how many truly contribute to the open content found there. Imagine how much faster our passions would develop - how much more efficient we might be - if just 20% more of each network's population chimed in and publicly contributed. Six Degrees: What are some of the frustrating aspects/obstacles to your day to day as a staffing professional and in general? Chris: The most frustrating thing I've ever run into within our industry is when a person or group of people has the unwillingness to think bigger. I want to be clear that I don't fault anyone that truly doesn't have it in them to try and think or operate outside of the box. What challenges me is when I meet a recruiter or manager that could do so much more or collaborate so much more effectively if they'd allow themselves to let go of that old "if it ain't broke" mentality. If we all thought that way nothing would ever change or advance and I'd still be lugging around a giant binder to scribble down names of people I meet. I'd probably venture to say that unwillingness to change or the lack of passion to drive change are probably the most common themes of strategic and/or tactical mishaps involving HR and Staffing organizations everywhere. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? Chris: When I run into people that are as passionate about our craft as I am. I'm inspired when I meet people that aren't so hung up on finding new technology as much as taking advantage of existing technology in different ways. It's not often that you run into an Amitai Givertz who can see what today's tools mean for tomorrow's recruiters - and facilitate that in a way that almost anyone can follow. Seeing someone like Jason Davis create a powerhouse social network as large as recruitingblogs.com because he saw a need and ran with it... These are the things that inspire me to keep thinking and moving forward. We need more of these guys - not just more of the great thinkers but the great do'ers. Six Degrees: Anything you want to plug? Chris: I suppose I'd plug the new AT&T Talent Network (http://att.jobs/talent.aspx) where people that sign up receive mobile and email updates about employment news and opportunities with AT&T as well as monthly prizes like Guitar Hero, a Flip Video Camera and mobile devices. VERY cool new program that's in it's second month. I'd also love if people would stop in at my personal blog, RecruiterGuy.net, and take part in the conversations or just connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn. I love feedback on everything we do and never turn down the chance to connect with someone whenever possible. Six Degrees: How Are You Going To Change The Recruitment Industry? Chris: With the help of everyone else... and one idea at a time. "Dennis Smith from www.wirelessjobs.com stops in on RecruiterGuy for a quick chat about RecruitingBlogs.com."…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 12:12am on March 23, 2009

Topic: Meet Ronnie Bratcher, Recruiter by Day, Inhaling Cycling Enthusiasm Throughout: management within the recruiting lifecycle. With 13 years of Executive Management/Human Resources experience and 10 years of recruiting experience with the primary focus being Information Technology, he has established creative strategies within the recruiting life cycle highly adaptable to any business vertical. His experience in management brings value into the recruiting process by creating sourcing methodologies, candidate and client relationships and hands on experience of understanding business processes. Ronnie’s career has spanned over 25 years starting in the retail industry with Target for 14 years. Wanting to move a different direction in his life, he accidentally stumbled into the Recruiting profession. Starting in 1999, Ronnie spent six years working in the contingency area with companies such as Synerfac, Kforce, MDI Group, Davis-Paul Company and B2B Workforce. This built a solid foundation to transition into contract recruiting in 2006 supporting corporate recruiting initiatives. He has completed projects with Celerant Consulting, Microsoft and other short term initiatives. Currently serves on the Board of the Technology Association of Georgia Recruiting Society and is a member of SHRM-Atlanta. Ronnie resides in Cumming, GA and is currently available for recruiting projects. Q&A with Ronnie Bratcher Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Ronnie. Ronnie: I am the Father of a beautiful 6 year old daughter who is a true blessing in my life. It’s a miracle she is here today and I am mentoring her to have strong will and meet every challenge in her life, ok, I am not that militarized, but I do want to instill a strong value in her life. We have an awesome time together and I treasure every moment I have with her. We also have a pet cat named Keiko who is just plain crazy, I will leave it at that!! Well, I am freakishly obsessed with cycling, no not motorcycles, but bicycles! Most people are fans of a sport they follow, which I am as well, but I actively participate in cycling. I am a competitive cyclist racing for a team here in Atlanta with full sponsorship. www.aaronscycling.com I am also on the Management team with the team and help decide on the direction we take to make a positive impact with our sponsors and team mates. In 2008, I competed in 51 races and competed at the US National Cyclocross Championships in December. I did not win the stars and stripes jersey, but it was a great experience! I own 11 bikes, 8 sets of wheels and massive amounts of cycling equipment in which all of this could pay someone’s mortgage! I am like the Jay Leno of bikes, I love collecting them! Just come check out my garage! Ok, enough about bikes, I also like being a mechanic. I cannot take my vehicles to a shop, I have to do it myself. Yes, I know that is strange, but too many bad experiences with others working on my cars. I also love tools, I admire what they can do and cannot. Sears and Craftsman are my friends! I cannot stand being inside, I always need to be outside. So I love camping, hiking, hanging out in my garage and I love to cook as well! Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Ronnie: I have been in the recruiting space for 10 years now. In 1999, I started with a small engineering staffing firm and moved on to work for a few contingency firms such as Kforce, MDI Group and B2B Workforce. At B2B Workforce I worked in the RPO Division. We worked with companies such as Accenture, Oracle, SAP, BearIngPoint and FYI Visual. In 2006 I decided to become a consultant and started contracting. I have worked as a Contract Recruiter with organizations such as Celerant Consulting and Microsoft and smaller projects as well. I have always been focused on the Information Technology sector and have recruited at all levels up to the CxO level. I really enjoy working with Professional Services organizations. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Ronnie: This is a great story, in my previous career, I worked for Target as a Project Manager and Store Manager for 15 years. One of the projects I had was recruiting at Colleges. So after leaving Target, I really never knew how to find a job. So after about 6mths of a non-planned vacation, I got serious in my job search and started putting my resume out there, on-line boards and such. Well, I get a call and the person says “I saw the word recruiting on your resume, how would you like to be a recruiter?” Whoa, I said, I am really looking for a management position since I ran a $30mil store and managed 300+ people. But I was intrigued and went to meet the guy. I took the position and a $100K pay cut and got started. The lesson I learned is to read peoples resume and not to recruit by keywords. Take time to learn about who and what you are seeking and target that audience and be quality driven. This is my biggest pet peeve in this business, take the time to learn about someone before dialing. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Ronnie: I think working in the contingency space has had the most impact. It has enabled me to observe and see some of the greatest processes happen in recruiting and also has showed me the ugly side. So in turn it has been the ingredients I have put in my cupboard and use in my recruiting process. I love the hunt, the hard to find creature, the challenge drives me and when I can connect with the prize and deliver the meal to my client, nothing feels better. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Ronnie: There are so many people that I admire in the recruiting industry. I have so many mentors and friends that there is no way that I possibly could list them. I will have to say that Eric Jaquith has stood by my side since 2000 and continues to a major mentor and friend. Shally Steckerl has always inspired me to always think outside the box. Kevin Walters for showing me what dedication to what you do will pay dividends. You know, there are just way to many peers that keep me motivated to keep my blade sharp in the recruiting process. I meet these people every day and hope to continue to build a strong network of friends and peers. Six Degrees: Tell us about your most recent gig: Ronnie: Currently I am in between assignments and currently available, but recently I just finished a short term project hiring a Web Developer for a local company here in Atlanta. Recently I just completed a project at Microsoft working for the Enterprise Services division aka Consulting Services. This is the group who are the experts in design, consulting, implementation and support to other companies deploying Microsoft products. Very smart people! I supported the entire United States with an average of 60 openings and at one time had up to 80 openings. Quite busy! I was responsible for the entire recruiting lifecycle up to the offer. We had a 98% closure rate, so the delivery was on target. I feel I was very successful in helping Microsoft on their ROI and was able to hire 56 people which included 14 Architects which is very rarely sought after externally. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Ronnie: Everything from a technology perspective is affecting the way we do business currently. This has always been the case but presently the Web 2.0 movement has accelerated everything. A great example is Twitter currently, it is changing everyday. New applications that interface with it and how we can use it to identify and recruit talent. I feel as a recruiter you must stay on top of the latest idea and get involved and see what impact it is going to have from a recruiting perspective. Sure, you always need to know the basics and always practice, but I hear or talk to my peers who have no clue or just laugh at the idea of sourcing through these tools. They do not want to take the extra time to learn or try. I say boo hoo them. Six Degrees: What industry events have you been participated in? Ronnie: I have for the past year been on the board of the Technology Association of Georgia Recruiting Society. My responsibility is to recruit speakers to speak at our monthly event and introduce them to the attendees. I have only one publication in which I wrote an article on “The Power of Networking for Yourself” for the SourceCon Newsletter. I attended SourceCon 2008 and just returned from ERE Expo in San Diego. I have always wanted to go to ERE Expo and finally made the investment. Both of these events were incredible experiences for me. I am planning on attending the Social Recruiting Summit and want to attend a Kennedy conference soon as well. I am also a member of SHRM-Atlanta as well. Six Degrees: How the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Has it effected your job or that of your fellow team members within the organization - to what extent? Ronnie: My recruiting focus is in the information technology sector within the professional services. I have seen where organizations have cut back taking on smaller projects and focusing only on the larger, long term initiatives. This has cut back on adding consultants for future projects and hence the need not to have a recruiter. So in turn from a personal experience, since I started in the industry, this is the first time I have been in between projects this long. The experience of not having a project is weird, since I have constantly been working since I started in this business. The positive is I have been able to wrap up some personal business initiatives and now I am ready to start fresh on my next project. My fellow peers within the contract recruiting world have experienced some of the same perils, some have landed some nice projects and some have not. My gut feeling is the market is turning back to a positive and organizations are looking at their hiring projections and the contract recruiting service model will be back in business before the year end. Six Degrees: Aside from simply the generic term “Networking” what specific efforts have you made on your own behalf, or on behalf of colleagues to broaden your opportunities. Are there specific groups, both online and in-person that have proved .fruitful in extending your personal brand and job seeking prospects? Ronnie: Wow, seems like I am always Networking in one way or another. To broaden myself I have been really focused on the online initiative. As mentioned before, the Web 2.0 explosion is providing many ways to market and brand yourself. My approach has been to take it slow and incorporate here and there some dabble online. Your asking, what do you mean? Well, take for example Twitter, some peers take an aggressive approach and tweet and re-tweet everything in sight. That is just not my style. I feel like sometimes I get information overload from some of my peers. I try to focus on real time events and anything I might find of value to post. I am really excited to use these tools on my next project as they have continue to grow each month. I am also having fun with these, for example Facebook- it has been a blast to connect with everyone from high school, former bosses, fellow recruiters and of course my cycling family. I am also continuing my efforts in person with my association with SHRM and the Technology Association of GA Recruiting Society. People are aware of my abilities within these organizations so the referral process is in full swing and always will be. I also have been helping my peers on LinkedIn by reviewing their marketing initiatives and passing along their requests and referring them where I can. Also, some informal meetings with my fellow peers here in the ATL to keep the feelers out there and talk shop in a informal setting. My personal belief is the best recruiters are always showing some presence online or in person. I love talking to a 9-5 recruiter and asking them what they are doing in their recruiting initiatives and I am always amazed that they take no initiative in driving a plan to go around the typical recruiting process. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Ronnie: My career goal is to continue to consult to organizations and provide them with quality driven recruiting processes in which will result in lowering their hiring cost. I need to continue to build my brand by consistent networking, always being exploratory in recruiting trends and maybe contribute more to our field by eventually conducting formal training or maybe be a speaker. “HOW DOES RONNIE DO IT?” Six Degrees: How many applicants at your present employer do you estimate are hired from your corporate website as compared to how many are hired through referrals? Ronnie: I will just stick with Microsoft, just speaking about the specific area I supported. We had huge amounts of applicants through the Corporate website. We utilized OFCCP procedures to manage the process. I would say 15% of the hires were referrals and 20% were through the website. Since I supported some really difficult to find technologies, I utilized other means for the rest of the hires. Six Degrees: What is the source of the "Most Hires" collected from at your present employer? Ronnie: I used many different types of sources to connect with candidates at Microsoft. I utilized Social Media tools, forums, Boolean operaters on several different engines, articles and blogs. Every search was different and presented a unique challenge. Six Degrees: What is the source of your "LOWEST COST OF HIRES" - (least amount of invested resources for the easiest hires, regardless of quality) at your present employer? Ronnie: The referral program at Microsoft was excellent. Employees out in the field were very good about identifying talent and luring them towards Microsoft. Some of the openings were very niche and with the help of a solid referral program, we were able to fill some very hard to find openings with the referral system. I think investing or empowering your people to help build the team will always drive the cost of hiring down. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Ronnie: At Microsoft, I was responsible for finding SR Consultants/ Architects and above in the following technologies: Technologies recruited for: MOSS (Microsoft SharePoint Server), EPM (Project Server 2003/2007), SMS/SCCM/SCOM/MOM, C#, VB.NET, .NET Framework 3.0, .NET Compact Framework, Web Services, XML, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Windows Forms, Visual Studio.NET, SQL Server, BizTalk Server, Host Integration Server, Project Server, Internet Information Services (IIS) Server, Windows 2000/2003 Server, SOA, WCF, WF, Microsoft Dynamics, ITIL/MOF, Security, ALM (Application Life Cycle Management Architects), Virtualization, Notes Compete and UC Voice- MCS/LCS. I have experience in other technologies as well, name it, I probably have recruited and hired for it! Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Ronnie: In Atlanta specifically, we have a strong network of recruiters who always get together be it a dinner, happy hour or a scheduled recruiting meeting. Everyone in our market is willing to share their knowledge and I feel this is some of the best training I have received. We have the Technology Association of Georgia Recruiting Society which serves as a training tool. Then on the national level you have conferences and the many webinars that are provided by a number of trainers. I have taken advantage of them all! Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment? Ronnie: I have used several homegrown and off the shelf ATS systems. I usually use what the client currently has. Of course all the online tools that a true recruiter uses, too many to mention here. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Ronnie: The Fax machine! Seriously, we would fax resumes to the client and receive contracts through fax. I also loved the hard copies of resumes that were stored in the back room in alphabetical order by skill set. Talk about productivity! Six Degrees: How did your expectations of being a recruiter compare to the actual, first time you got on the phone or in the cubicle? In your opinion, how do people's assumptions about our vocation differ from reality? Ronnie: I really did not know what to expect as a recruiter when I first started. While I was with Target, I was always recruiting but never realized it. Then when I started full time and finally got over the fear of the phone, things started rolling. Then it snowballed into what I have built into my tool belt as of today. I think people assume we have an easy job. They think we just get resumes out of thin air and poof, the magic happens. What they do not see is what we balance in a 24hr period. They do not see the value and detail we put into the recruiting process. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Ronnie: This is a good one, when I first started I took job orders over the phone from our clients. One day a client called and asked if we recruit Perl Developers. Of course I said yes, but I never heard of that. So, I asked him how do you spell “Perl” as I was thinking “Pearl”. The next thing I heard over the phone was click!! He freaking hung up on me. So the lesson I learned is to do research, learn what the client does, what technologies and can you truly help that customer out. Be honest, be truthful, do not set some expectation that you can recruit donkey’s that can say their ABC’s! Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? Ronnie: Back in 2002 I developed a simple tool to keep organized with my search and recruiting efforts and I use that model even today. I developed a spreadsheet in Excel and modify it for each client. Yea, Yea, I know you can do this with application tracking systems that are currently out there, but when the manager calls me for some type of status, this dashboard is right there in my face, ready to go. It’s a simple tool, but works for me and I have shared with others who go ah ha! I will use that! The other proud thing I can say is I drive quality submittals. I am very passionate about working with a candidate from end to end, I will stay with them until acceptance or denial. I am able to develop relationships and deliver what I promise to the candidate. I become their partner and able to not come across as some salesperson on the phone, even though that’s what we do right? Six Degrees: What are some of the frustrating aspects/obstacles to your day to day as a staffing professional and in general? Ronnie: What frustrates me more than anything is when I meet a peer who just does not get it. What I mean by that is they do not take the time to invest in their training, are not willing to go outside the box, not willing to network etc. You have to do more than just log into some paid online job board and ATS to be in this business. You have to build a quality process for your client or company. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? Ronnie: What inspires me the most and continues to keep me in this profession is the sense when I am able to connect the candidate to the company and the match works for both parties. I have helped in someone’s career, like an agent, looking out for what is best for both ends. I feel everyone has a right to employment if they choose and I want to be that facilitator within that process. Six Degrees: What one thing do you ideally hope to accomplish in 2009? Ronnie: I want to accomplish building my brand nationally and really get across to the community the value I can bring to an organization or project. I would like to continue be in a Contract Recruiter who will help solve a staffing issue with a great return on their investment. On a personal side, continue to race my bike and be an awesome father to my child. Six Degrees: Anything you want to plug? Ronnie: Sure, me! Call or e-mail me to learn more about me. Let me know how I can help your organization. I love the recruiting process and delivering results. Six Degrees: How Are You Going To Change The Recruitment Industry? Ronnie: Oh, I not going to be able to change the industry by myself. But we as an industry can continue to share ideas, assist each other in hard times, share information that can benefit us all. I think that is how we can change. We also need to show hiring managers the value we bring to the team. It’s just not about going on a job board and give me 100 resumes to look at. It’s about delivering quality by taking the time to research, question and source and recruit the targeted audience. Value and integrity will always win over quantity!…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 10:13pm on May 3, 2009

Blog Post: Plagiarism online tools to detect plagiarized papers and essays

Plagiarism has become such a common problem…

Added by Tobias Casey at 10:41am on March 18, 2016

Blog Post: Recruitment Content Directory: How 106 Pieces of Content Lead to 3,000,000+ Views: Recruiting is acquiring talent for your interests. IMHO I built one of the better blogs about recruiting, the …; Added by David Smooke at 1:41pm on January 30, 2015

Topic: Meet Mark Berger, Sourcing Guru, Adjunct Faculty at JobMachine: Invite Mark! An $800 fee in 1979 bought a lifetime of confidence to share with others .... Meet our friend and fellow RecruitingBlogs.com enthusiast, Mark E. Berger. Since 1979 he has been a driving force within the staffing community and his accomplishments have been widely recognized. "Mark has been one of my longest standing heroes and influencers in the business of sourcing. His quiet and humble demeanor exudes an unmatched confidence, while at the same time makes him extremely approachable. From when we first virtually “met” before the turn of the millennium, I have remained a loyal and devoted fan of his work. I can offer no stronger endorsement than the fact that I trust him completely and strive to find more ways in which we can do business together regularly.” December 31, 2007" Shally Steckerl, Chief CyberSleuth & Founder, JobMachine, Inc, (JobMachine.net) I should preface my featured article by letting our audience know that Mark and I are fellow travelers within the sourcing community and that we share mutual admiration of our colleagues Shally Steckerl and Glenn Gutmacher. That said, Mark established himself long ago and independently with his SwatRecriting Techniques - so good that it caught the eye of JobMachine and has since joined us as an Adjunct Faculty member since September 2008. In his role as Adjunct Faculty, Mark conducts online workshops for Swat Recruiting and JobMachine customers, covering many of the topics in the JobMachine curriculum. His specialties inclued demonstrating how to maximize searches on Google, Windows Live and LinkedIn, advanced techniques for finding resumes online, and specialized search engine syntax such as the site: command, intitle: and inurl:. Mark has been in recruiting and staffing since 1979. He is currently the proprietor of Swat Recruiting (www.swatrecruiting.com), a firm supporting the technology needs of the recruiting and staffing industry. He has been heavily involved in Internet recruiting ever since there was such a thing and has become an expert on recruiting and sourcing products and services available to the recruiting industry. Mark started utilizing the Internet for candidate sourcing back in the early 1990s by first running classified ads on the text versions or AOL and Compuserve. Then he was an early user of some of the very first online resume databases including Career Mosaic, Headhunter.net, and Online Career Center. In the latter part of the 90s Mark learned advanced techniques to source passive candidates from the Internet using the search engines, primarily utilizing Alta Vista and Northern Lights in the beginning and is now an advanced user of today's popular search engines including Google, Live, and Yahoo. Mark also has a high level of expertise in recruiter databases (ATS’s), including how these products add to the bottom line. Mark has authored the Internet Recruiting column appearing monthly in The Fordyce Letter since 1998 and is a frequent contributor to other recruiting industry publications. He is also an often requested speaker at many local, regional, and national recruiting industry events. Mark is also on the board of directors for the Mid-America Association of Personnel Services Q&A with Mark Berger Six Degrees: Tell us about your home world Mark. Mark: To date, my personal life has been fairly private. I am a simple man with simple needs and tastes that leads a fairly uncomplicated yet enjoyable life. I am lucky to have a great job that I love, get to travel fairly regularly, a wonderful family including three great school-aged kids that I am very close with. In whatever free time I do have I enjoy going to yard sales and estate sales, usually on the weekends. You just never know what treasure you will stumble on next. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Mark: I started in the early days of IT recruiting, 9/17/79. Back then it was nothing more than recruiting COBOL and Assembler programmers on IBM, Honeywell, Univac, and Burroughs “mainframes”. There was a little Fortran on DEC/PDP’s as well. How things have changed… I was at it pretty much full time for many years, close to 28 or so, until I went into recruiter technology training full time back in 2006. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Mark: I wish my story could be more dramatic but back in the late 1970s nobody even knew what a “recruiter” was. Most of the time people thought I worked for the military. I remember being doing some shopping one day and bumped into a friend I had worked with in a prior job. He just happened to mention I should come and interview with his boss, who was looking to hire a couple of people. I agreed and although I had no idea what I was walking into nor the impact it would have on the rest of my life, I was offered and accepted the job. After my initial 60 minute training session my boss had me make out a bunch of index cards (pre-computer/pre-database) with all the company names I could find, then started to call those companies to solicit job orders. I made my first placement in my third week…and the rest is history. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Mark: Probably that first placement, back in 1979. In this new job of mine, not knowing what I was doing, I did wonder if I was cut out for the task. That first placement, I think for an $800 fee, gave me the confidence I needed to go forward and turn this job into the career that it has been for me. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Mark: In my early days, I never had a mentor. I was always jealous of those recruiters who worked for the very few other recruiting companies at the time that actually had big billers on staff to learn from. The company I worked for didn’t really have anyone like that. I always used to tell people back then that the reason I knew what to do at any given time was because I had done it wrong in the past and was able to learn from my mistakes. Later in my career, I’d have to say Paul Hawkinson, long-time editor and publisher of the venerable Fordyce Letter, nurtured my early role as his Internet Recruiting columnist, starting in 1998. His early vision that an Internet column in his newsletter is only one indication of his broadminded outlook on this industry. These days, if I had to pick a mentor it would be Shally, whom I have known for many, many years. Before his name because a household word in our industry. I saw his JobMachine grow from a small, part-time endeavor to become a national influence in the recruitment/sourcing industry. Every time I listen to him speak, I learn something new. Six Degrees: Tell us about your staffing industry contributions, Mark: Mark: Currently, I am owner of Swat Recruiting (www.swatrecruiting.com). I actually started Swat many years ago but never really had the time to do what I wanted to do with it. In late 2005 I made the decision to change the focus of my career from placements to training, and have never been happier. Although I do miss the placements from time to time, I feel very fulfilled and actually love my job now. Swat is involved in all types of recruiter technology. Anything computer, Internet, software related. We try and assist recruiting organizations integrate technology into their work environment. There are so many choices out there it is overwhelming for some. Swat Recruiting offers many training sessions, mainly on sourcing passive candidates on the Internet, and most have been very well received by the recruiting community. We also work on marketing plans from time to time with recruiting industry vendors, and have a small ATS consulting practice. Six Degrees: What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Mark: Well…I don’t know about companies, but I do have a few “heroes” I suppose. A couple I already mentioned. Paul Hawkinson, who just received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the most recent NAPS conference, has always been someone I have looked up to, and I am very privileged to have been able to get to know him in my ten-year association with him prior to his retirement. Shally Steckerl is another already mentioned. This man is a true visionary in our chosen field and one that is well-respected throughout. It is my honor and pleasure to be as closely associated with him as I am. Donato Diorio is another. This man is a tireless supporter of our industry, and now only develops some of the finest recruitment software via his Broadlook company, he is also very knowledgeable about the inner workings of our industry. I have had the pleasure of knowing him since the early days of Broadlook. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Mark: Lucky for me…the prevailing industry trend is locating passive candidate resources on the Internet, my specialty. As far as this aspect of the recruiting industry has come, I feel like in many ways we are still in its infancy. I think over the next few years networking for candidates will become more and more an accepted way to get those elusive A+ candidates as the pricey resume databases will become less influential. Six Degrees: I know you have been active on the speaking circuit over the years, Mark can you elaborate on where our colleagues can have an opportunity to see you in action? Mark: One thing I really enjoy about my career as an industry trainer is that I do get to travel from time to time for public speaking engagements. I have been to Fordyce Forum, the National Association of Personnel Services national conference, MRI, Top Echelon, and IPA regionals. I have also had the pleasure of working with these groups and others including Kennedy Information, NPA, ASA, and many state and local recruiter associations to get the word out about this technology. For many years I have been a Certified Personnel Consultant (CPC) and a Certified Internet Recruiter (CIR). I am also very proud to say I am not an Adjunct Faculty member at JobMachine.net and will be participating on a regular basis in the Webinar Series and be a regular blog contributor. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Mark: My career goals are simple. Not only to learn as much as I can about recruiter technology…to stay abreast of everything new and exciting, but to be able to teach what I learn to others, so they can make effective use of these new trends to make more hires or placements. PART II: “HOW DOES MARK DO IT?” Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment activities & do they translate effectively within all of the different countries where you recruit? Mark: In my role as the Internet Recruiting columnist for the Fordyce Letter and industry technology trainer I maintain relations with surely the vast majority of the recruiting industry vendors, ATS, Data/Resume Capture, Contact Databases, etc. People often ask me for my recommendations or favorites, and although I do have them I always encourage people to make their selection based on their own needs, not what I happen to like. Six Degrees: What tools did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Mark: When I first started in the business back in 1979, we used index cards to sort our companies/clients and hard copy resumes for our candidates. This was way before computers, much less the Internet. This was even before fax machines as we had to make copies of resumes and actually mail them (yes, USPS…with a stamp) to our clients. We had file drawers with folders and tabs for different programming languages and/or job titles and/or hardware. Our job was made much more difficult by the fact that if a person had more than one skill, you either had to make a duplicate copy of his resume and file it in a second folder, or, more often forget that he or she was there. We had to rely a lot more on our memories that we do today. Those were the reasons I was a very early proponent of automation/computerization in the recruiting office in the 1980s, as soon as the PC came onto the market. Then in the early nineties, we tried running classified ads for programmers on the text versions of America Online and Compuserve. Snagged a few here and there. The middle nineties brought the early iterations of resume databases including Headhunter.net, Career Mosaic, Online Career Center, etc. All those have since been gobbled up by today’s big services. Then, in the latter part of the nineties, the term “passive candidate” was first coined, and we learned how to use Internet search engines, back then mainly AltaVista and NorthernLights, to search for resumes. Since then it has been a learning process and then a teaching process the last few years. Six Degrees: How do you personally expect to facilitate change within our industry, and/or at your place of work? If you started that process, outline the problem, your solutions, and the vision. Mark: The problem, if there is one, depends on the audience. If you talk about HR, this is a group of people not typically trained in sales. You can teach them all about sourcing techniques but once they have sourced a few candidates, they may be unsure as to how to make the connection, how to lure that resource into the fold. The solution here is to give that audience a simple, yet reliable way to make contact and get their foot in the door. Most big companies have this problem licked by dedicating teams of people, however, many smaller and medium sized organizations do not have the financial resources or manpower to do this. They have to be more creative. If you look at the third-party group, the problem differs a bit. This is a group that is typically highly skilled in sales, however, lack the patience and/or inclination to follow a thorough sourcing process. This needs to be taken into account when presenting to this group. They need some very easy ways to perform this task. Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? Mark: Probably preaching a process-oriented approach to sourcing. Technique is one thing. You can get techniques from the Google help pages, but it is only when those techniques are integrated with a comprehensive, multi-pronged approach can one expect to say they have done a thorough job of sourcing their next applicant. So many I talk to run one string in one search engine, grab a few resources and call it a day. Little do they know how much they are leaving on the table for those more thorough competitors. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? Mark: One thing that helps is to try hard not to become frustrated. What goes up goes down but conversely, what goes down goes up. There are always good times and bad times in any business. Ride the wave either way it goes and be in it for the long haul. Six Degrees: What one thing do you ideally hope to accomplish in 2009? Mark: Next year, one of my professional goals is for my training to become more appealing to an international audience. I have had a couple classes to Australians, Asians, and the English. I want to do more of that. I also want to expand my training to include more of the network available to recruiters. There are so many now it is hard for one to know the good from the great. Six Degrees: Anything you want to plug? Mark: Check the JobMachine.net calendar regularly for my webinars. Better yet, sign up to be on the mailing list so you won’t miss the announcements. Six Degrees: How Are You Going To Change The Recruitment Industry? Mark: Simple…learn more…teach more. Listen to Mark in action this Thursday: Free Webinar, Register HERE for "Turbocharged Passive Candidate Sourcing: Best of Telephone, Google & Online Database Research Techniques" with Co-Presenter, Sheila Greco RECOMMENDATIONS “I highly recommend anyone to work with Mark. I've trained with him a couple times. He had a wonderful rapport with trainees at all levels. He is always very responsive to questions, feedback, or simple explanations to my issues. His ability to connect with superiors, clients, vendors, and subordinates is what sets Mark apart from other trainers; he had the balance of truly listening and then approaching issues with candid yet insightful knowledge. Mark has excellent written and verbal communication skills, is extremely organized, reliable and a whiz with any sourcing technology. I have emailed him questions and despite her busy schedule he gets back to me immediately and always with a very positive attitude. I recommend Mark without reservation."” May 27, 2008 Teresa Bustamante PHR, CPC, Research Analyst, Avery Dennison “Mark's down-to-earth writing and seminar teaching style is easy to follow and his strategies are simple to execute. Mark really cares about helping his colleagues and client/students become more efficient and more effective recruiters.” November 25, 2008 Top qualities: Expert, Good Value, High Integrity Ronald Siegel “I had the good fortune of attending Mark's Linked-In webinar. Up until this point, I hadn't done much with Linked-In. However, Mark taught many options one could investigate to help in sourcing passive candidates. While I'm just starting out using Linked-In, I'm hopeful that it will be a big help in my building a solid network & provide another alternative to traditional sourcing.” November 3, 2008 Michael Klass, Search Consultant, Joan Leslie Search Group was with another company when working with Mark E. at Swat Recruiting “I have taken 2 courses from Mark and look forward to taking more. He knows his stuff and is a great teacher.” October 30, 2008 Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Good Value Bill Zajac PE hired Mark E. as a Business Consultant in 2008, and hired Mark E. more than once “Mark is truly an expert in the area of recruiting technology analysis. He breaks down the process to even the most minute detail, and is quick to understand the impact technology has on the recruiting process. While I may not always agree with what Mark has to say, I certainly respect his viewpoint, and it makes for great conversation. Thanks for your commitment to our industry, Mark.” August 19, 2008 Mike Tischer, Channel Manager and Sr. Sales Representative, Broadlook Technologies was with another company when working with Mark E. at Swat Recruiting “I have worked with Mark on a number of Kennedy Information sponsored seminars. He is a joy to work with because he is a true professional who updates his content on a regular basis and has a great ability to reach his audience. Post report analysis prove that he is popular talent. I look forward to working with Mark in the future.” August 15, 2008 Hillary Kyle Holian, Associate Producer, Kennedy Information, Career Management Alliance, IOMA “I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Mark Berger for several years. Mr. Berger is a top notch recruiter and an expert in the application of technology to the recruitment process. He provides a much needed resource to the staffing and recruiting industries through his training programs and leadership. Mark is also a tireless supporter and board member of the Mid America Association of Personnel and Staffing Services. His input and insights have had a tremendous impact on both that organization but also on the many members of that organization.” June 18, 2008 Roger Aistrup, General Manager, Allan James Associates LLC “I've taken 2 classes from Mark and find his work to be very meaningful and thorough on the subject. He not only has a pleasant manner, you can tell he enjoys what he does. He is extremely knowledgeable and detailed in his presentations and materials. I highly recommend his classes!” March 21, 2008.. Top qualities: Expert, Good Value, Creative Marney Reed “WAPS invited Mark Berger to speak to our local membership on February 20th 2008. Mark came prepared to engage our membership on finding passive candidates on the internet. WAPS emphatically endorses Mark Berger for any seminars or webinars in your area. Mark knows his subject very well and the content of his presentations enabled our members to take several ideas and suggestions back to our desk. Mark is very patient and was willing to answer any question our membership had. Also, Mark is very much open to continue answering questions if our members are struggling with one of his techniques. WAPS is happy to endorse Mark Berger for your passive candidate recruiting needs on the internet. February 21, 2008, Terry Rohde, CPC, Engineering Recruiter, DES LLC “From Day 1, Mark has demonstrated his tremendous knowledge of the universe in which he works --- the recruiting and sourcing world. His experience and keen assessment capabilities make him one of the best sources for guidance, especially when it comes to the myriad of tools and methods available on the market today. He is a true professional, and a pleasure to work with!” February 11, 2008 Anne Scofield, Vice President, Business Development, SGA “Mark E. Berger has a very influential and charismatic personality and his online seminars have been a great help for me to do things better that I do every day. I am very impressed with his abilities and grasp of the subject within his domain and I would strongly recommend Mark E. Berger to everyone.” January 11, 2008 Asif Akhtar Nizami, Technical Recruiter, FSD Solutions “Mark has written several articles on my blog (jimstroud.com) and worked with me on multiple projects. I respect his expertise in online recruiting and appreciate the value he brings to the industry.” January 11, 2008 Top qualities: Personable, Expert, Good Value Jim Stroud is a Social Media Development Manager “I have had the pleasure of working with Mark on numerous occasions. He has a comprehensive understanding of the keys to successful recruiting. Mark's clients clearly benefit from his experience and knowledge of the recruiting industry. I enjoy working with the clients he refers because they are focused, informed, and have a clear understanding of why technology is critical to their success.” November 13, 2007 Tammy Wirths, Account Executive, Sendouts was with another company when working with Mark E. at Swat Recruiting “I was introduced to Mark through a management seminar that our owner went to. He showed us all ways to gain access to information that is otherwise not for public eyes-- invaluable in our business! I think it is wonderful that he shares his technical knowledge with those of us who are less savvy in those areas.” November 13, 2007 Denise Gabbard, Search Consultant, GRN Brookpark was with another company when working with Mark E. at Swat Recruiting “In the volatile recruiting software industry, many customers are confused by all the choices & need help to assess their requirements and understand vendor options in a crowded market. I refer people who need assistance to Mark with confidence that he can provide unbiased, professional, and valuable guidance throughout the software evaluation process.” September 21, 2007 Sylvia Dahlby, Chief Executive Instigator, SmartSearch Online “Mark is a consumate professional who is a very knowledgable recruiter, honest and forthright. Then as an owner of Berger-Nowlin, you were fair to all that worked for you, supported and tried to assist the team in anyway you could. It is a natural progression that Mark is in recruiter training. All new and struggling recruiters would only benefit and improve their success by working with Mark.” June 11, 2008 Kevin Fox, Site/Project Manager, Unisys / Berger Nowlin, Inc. “Mark is a kind, capable and caring business owner and manager. I worked directly for Mark and have always respected him and his many abilities. Mark's AIRS knowledge and certification gave him some skills very few recruiters or business owners have. He has always been willing to mentor/train others to be more productive and to lead by example. I would gladly work for Mark again in the future.” March 5, 2008 Jane Bullington, recruiter, berger nowlin “I have known Mark for pretty close to thirty years . Mark has truly made the leap from running a desk to running a company and finally to becoming the "go to guy" for the latest web techniques. The many years Mark has spent on the desk has given him a keen insight as to what recruiters are looking for in tools to make their job mre efficient. I look forward to reading Mark's comments and opinions in the Fordyce Letter as I know they are always right on and I highly recommend attending one of Marks webinars or in person sessions .” November 2, 2008 Ron Sunshine, Owner, ron sunshine associates…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 1:10am on December 8, 2008

Topic: The Story That Needs to be Told - Part IV: e office. The company brought in two of the national training team members to work with her. One stayed a week the other was on assignment for several months. She ran the training classes with his assistance and was told that she was doing a great job. There was only one little glitch, a rep visited a winery brought back a case of wine and brought her a bottle. She thanked him told him she could not accept gifts and returned the wine. Later that day it was back in her office. She went immediately to her boss and told her he had given it to her, she had returned it , he had put it back in her office so would the boss like to have it or should she take it back to him and insist that he take it back. Her boss told her it was ok to keep it but to just be careful but it wasn’t a big deal since he was not on her team and he had given several other people in the office a bottle also. Of course 10 days later she was called in and told that it had been reported that she had accepted gifts from reps. My candidate reminded her boss that she had asked her about it previously but the bottle of wine was still in her office and the boss was welcome to it or she would now give it back. No not necessary, the boss had forgotten but now did remember so forget it. My candidate was contacted about three jobs that were being posted that would enable her to live in this area but work in another division reporting to another supervisor. She was thrilled as both would be a promotion and a raise and allow her to report to supervisors that she had worked with in the past that she liked. She applied and was told that it would be six weeks to two months before interviews would be held but received calls from the other supervisors encouraging her about the jobs she was applying for being a good fit for her. For her to be able to move into another position with the company her boss is required to release her and does have the ability even she is offered another position to say that she is not releasable due to business needs. My candidate was concerned so thinking that things had gone better for several months she went to her boss and told her that she was applying for the other jobs, she had enjoyed working for her, had learned a lot (no kidding) but wanted to advance with the company and needed as a single parent to make more money and be in a situation where she could take her kids to school and day care at a normal time instead of before 7:30 in the morning to be sure that she was in the office by 8:00 and be able to pick them up herself rather than have someone else have to pick them up as she did not get off until 6:00 with the after school program and day care closing at 6:00. Her boss told her that she understood but she did not want her to leave. She was irreplaceable, the boss was going to retire in a couple of years and she was grooming my candidate for her job. She would change her hours so she could come in at 8:15 and leave at 5:45 if my candidate were willing to work an extra Saturday a month. My candidate said she would appreciate that and would work the extra Saturday but she wanted to move up with the company, did not want the boss’s job and wanted to get out of the office environment that was not a fit for her as she did not feel and never felt that she fit with the management style and environment there. My candidate did not believe it was right to retaliate against people who filed a complaint. Her boss said, “I have told you we don’t retaliate if any of them file a complaint against us, it’s not legal but ,what we do is “work them out of the business , we just observe every move that they make until we have enough to work them out.” My candidate said , “yes I know and I don’t think that’s right, people make mistakes I feel like that is what has happened to me in the past and I don’t want any more of it. “Things have gotten better but I have always felt like you were going to fire me for something and I don’t want to live that way. You micro manage me, you undermine me, you tell me to fire a rep for attendance then after I do you bring them back and tell them that you saved their job so I have a problem with a rep. You make me uncomfortable talking about your sex life and talking about who is having an affair and I don’t think I can work for you.” At this point the boss started crying and sobbing and apologizing. She went on to say that “she was not a weak manager, she was not a weak manager she was just emotional and if my candidate would just reach over and rub her arm when she stared acting that way she would get control of herself. My candidate feeling that things were getting too bizarre and as she put it, “my stomach turned at the thought of having to rub her arm to calm her down.” , brought the meeting to a close by saying that she wanted to move forward with the other jobs and she hoped that the boss would not stand in her way. The boss dried her sloppy tears and said she would not stand in her way. A few days later the boss came in and asked my candidate to go for a drink with her after work. Not knowing what this was about as it had never happened and not wanting to go to a bar with the woman after the arm rubbing comments she said she would but had dinner plans with family so would only be able to stay a short time. They met at a bar. The boss told her that she needed her to stay as she was handling several vital parts of the business. She would change my candidate's hours, she would be flexible with her where her kids were concerned as she was the only single parent in the management group, she would give her more vacation, she was going to get an allocation for all manager raises and she would give her the full amount that she got for all the managers if she would not move forward with other jobs. My candidate told her she appreciated the offer but as she had discussed with her .she wanted to move into a different area of the company and she felt that if she got all of the raise allocation for all of the managers it would make the situation with her peers worse than it already was because she was not considered part of the group as it was. since her boss had taken responsibilities away from one or two of the other managers and given them to my candidate. A move that had not made my candidate a favorite with two of the other managers. My candidate made a hasty retreat from the bar and hoped that this would be the end of it. All was quiet for a week or two. On a Friday evening at a few minutes before 5:00 without any warning my candidate received in her interoffice email containing a boarding pass and reservations for a company trip to Columbia, South America to be part of a training team who would be onsite in Columbia for two weeks. She freaked, the national trainer she had been working with still on site. She went running to him and asked if he had requested her as part of the training team. He indicated he did not know anything about it but he was scheduled to go to Columbia so not to worry about it. He would be there he spoke Spanish and the training would be held in a hotel. She explained to him that she had two small children in school and no one available to keep them for an extended period of time. It was also a dangerous country and she would terrified to go there and was not going to go. On Monday she went to her boss, told her she had received the boarding pass and reservation. The boss looked at her and said, “Yes”. My candidate told her that she was not going to go to Columbia, she had no child care available for that kind of trip and further was terrified of going to a country that the State Department discouraged as a place for Americans to travel. She would quit before she would go. She asked the boss if she would go. The boss said no she would not. My candidate said she was not going so if she needed to clean out her desk she would do it. The boss said she would see what she could do. It went away, nothing more said. My candidate thought it was strange that her boss seemed to know about it and had not said anything to her before she received a boarding pass and confirmed reservation. Just strange. Two weeks later on May 4th my candidate checked the company site for the jobs she had applied for. She had three interview requests for the jobs and was very excited that finally she would at least have the opportunity to move on. Before she could send the acceptance her boss came in her office and said, “you need to come to the conference room, EEO in Houston wants a phone conference”. Thinking it probably had something to do with the refusal to go to Columbia off she went to talk with EEO. The EEO rep started the conversation by telling her that EEO needed to be sure that my candidate was not recording the conversation and did not have a cell phone with her or any note taking material. Then told her that they were investigating her entire management career. When my candidate asked why she was told that the EEO rep had been advised of a number of things and had never seen anything like this and that her boss had asked that her applications for other jobs be suspended until the investigation had been completed. Here is the list. EEO had been advised the following –My candidate's responses are in ( ) She had assisted male reps more than she assisted female reps. (Yes and had corrected) She had brought a fart machine to the office. (No she did not, one of her reps did, she told him it was funny but to take it home) She had used the children of reps to take care of her children. (No she had been asked about it because her boss was confused due to a same name of reps daughter and it had been clarified) She had lied to her boss about being late to work. (No her boss had changed her hours, it was on the schedule, when she came in one day another manager had asked her if she was five minutes late. She had popped off and said, nope 10 minutes early) She had accepted gifts from reps. (No, she had gone to her boss about the wine and her boss told her not to worry about it but the bottle of wine was still in her office.) EEO had received pictures from the wife or girlfriend of a male rep that the wife or girlfriend said were sent to her husband by my candidate. Several were full nudes both front and back one reflecting a tatoo and two were pictures of her with two little boys and in a car with her sunglasses on. (Holy God, she had received an hysterical call from this woman accusing her of having an affair with her husband. She had only seen the kid outside of work once, he was drunk and had come to their table. She and her date had left the place and gone someplace else. The wife had accused her of sending pictures to him. she had not but when asked what her email address was she had told the wife so if they had any nude pictures they were not of her , she did not have a tattoo. The guy had been called in and asked if he were having an affair with her. Had come and apologized to her about his wife calling both my candidate and the boss and additionally the wife had later called and apologized. But if there were pictures she wanted to see what they were because somebody was guilty of cyber harassment as the other two pictures where the ones that had been on her facebook page that had been up for a total of three weeks only in Dec. of 2009.) She had interfered with an investigation and had received a COBC violation. (The now infamous Christmas Play Caper. She told eeo that she had the meeting with the boss’s boss over that whole silly mess and when she received her evaluation there was no COBC violation. She was informed that in fact it was in her file and should have been on her evaluation.) She had made comments of a sexual nature regarding pop rocks. (Her team was to dress up like Halloween candy, they asked about lollipops. She had said , “no then the other teams will just say that we suck so pick something else” One of the reps had said what about poprocks. She had responded , “whatever that might be cute”. She didn’t know how that could be considered making a comment of sexual nature about Poprocks. EEO declined to explain to her the sexual nature of poprocks and I didn’t think I would go there either.) She had been losing weight in order to start a relationship. (She had been losing weight because she had gained back up to 190’s her doctor had put her on medication for high blood pressure and told her to get the weight off.) She had assisted a lesbian rep an inordinate amount of time to try and start a relationship with her. (No she wasn’t a lesbian anymore that she was a femme fatal having an affair with every male in the office. The woman was struggling and needed more help than some of the others.) She was a know it all. (She was the Subject matter expert on fiber for the office so if that made her a know it all so be it.) She had assisted a rep with filling out FLMA documents for claims he was filing after he had gone out. ( No, He was on her team, had back problems that required a sit down/stand up desk. He had asked to move it because he didn’t like the location. She had asked her boss if it could be moved. The boss had said, hell no ,it’s too expensive to move he can stay where he is. The guy had come to her asking what he needed to do to go out on FMLA. She had referred him to HR. He had filled out his own forms, she was his supervisor so had reviewed them signed them and he went out in Jan. She had not spoken to him since.) She was having lunches in her office with a trainer from the national group. (yes, she had two working lunches with the national trainer who was on site in her office. He was assisting her with training sessions so had gone out himself picked up lunch on two occasions and brought it back to the office so they could discuss any problems the reps were having with the way the training was being presented.) In a state of total shock my candidate went back to her office after this lovely encounter of the third kind. Before she could do anything but sit in a daze her boss walked in and said , “You are being put on paid administrative leave until EEO completes their investigation. I will need your badge and key card and I will walk you out.” My candidate asked if she could get her personal things ie; bills that needed to be paid in the next few days. She was told that her boss would see if she could get those things for her but my candidate would not be allowed to remove anything from her office and would need to leave NOW. It was just before noon. As she was walked out of the office in front of 170 people her boss marched behind her swinging my candidate's badge in a circle like she was a stripper, to make sure that everyone in the office saw that she was being walked out. When she was called by her boss later in the afternoon to find out when the boss could get some other pass key that she had at home she again asked if she could get her personal things. The boss said, “this is just administrative leave you don’t need to get all of them I will bring your bills to you.” On May 7th my candidate filed an ethics complaint through the company for sexual harassment, hostile work environment, bullying, retaliation and related the series of events to another company EEO representative. On May 9th my candidate filed a police report against the wife or girlfriend of the male employee for cyber harassment and sent a copy of the case number to EEO and a request for copies of the pictures they had, the dates they were sent who they were sent to and the headers of the emails from all correspondence relating to the pictures. She felt the woman was nuts and could be a danger to she or her children as she had no idea what the current status of their problems were and had not heard anything from the woman since early in 2010.On May 17th she was returning home in the middle of the afternoon and caught her boss driving slowly past her house. She lives on a dead end street with a cul de sac where the boss turned around and drove slowly by her home on her way out of the subdivision. Nobody can figure that one out. On May 18th my candidate was contacted by her boss to come back to work to discuss the results of the investigation. At that time she was told that she was being terminated for. 1. Releasing Proprietary Company information without a business need. 2. Creating a hostile work environment 3. Interfering with an Investigation. 4. Violating the code of business conduct in terms of honesty and integrity. When she asked for details as to what information , how she created a hostile work environment and what misconduct she was being accused of ,she was told that her boss would not discuss it but would send her a letter. She was asked to sign a document saying that she would not use her knowledge gained while employed at any other communications company and she would not take any legal action against the company. She refused to sign it. She asked if she could remove her personal things from her office. The boss followed her. My candidate smiled ,said hello to everyone who was calling out hello’s. Packed up her things in several boxes asked her boss to take an inventory and asked where her personal notebook and the copies of her personnel reviews were as they had been in her office. The boss denied any knowledge of either. My candidate looked at the woman and told her she was taking this to a higher level at which point the boss started crying and quit digging through things but did want to be sure that the highlighter my candidate was removing did not belong to the company. My candidate held her head up , walked out smiling at everyone told them she would miss them and good luck. As she reached the middle of the office people stood up and clapped for her. Some were crying. Two walked in and quit and walked out behind her. Five more have gone out on stress and two have quit since then. The next morning the boss received flowers with a card that said. “Congratulations, you finally got her, you must be proud”. A few days later she received a letter in a hand written envelope. It was from her boss stating that she had been terminated for: 1. Misconduct in the office/misconduct off the job 2. Creating a hostile work environment. 3. Helping male reps more than she helped female reps. 4. Interfering with an investigation. My candidate filed for unemployment. TWC requested information twice from the company as to the reason for termination. The company provided a copy of the employee handbook, a statement that an investigation had been done, she had exhibited a pattern of dishonesty, created a hostile work environment, helped male reps more than female reps and had interfered with an investigation. No details yet as to how she managed to do all that or what she did proximate to termination or what triggering event occurred that resulted in her termination. Her unemployment has been granted and made retroactive to the date that she was put on leave. She is now waiting to see if the company will appeal the granting of her unemployment with some kind of detail as to what she was found guilty of that triggered her termination. Her family has stepped up with financial assistance. She will not be able to move forward with the purchase of her home and will have to move within a month. She has enrolled in school to finish her degree. She has updated her resume and is moving forward looking for a new job. She is in fact brokenhearted at losing the opportunity to stay with the company in another position after spending all of her adult life fighting this mess to try and be a success as most of the people who worked for her and those she interacted with throughout the company felt she was. She has learned a lot. Not the least of which is to file an ethics complaint at the first sign of something like what she has been through with , in my opinion, a sick and toxic personality. As a recruiter of many moons experience I know that all I have heard is her side of the story and there are normally two sides to every story. I have done some fact finding with other employees without her knowledge. What she tells me appears to be backed up over and over by the people who have worked with her . Realizing that this is hearsay I share it with you as I feel this is a story that should be told. Oh, and she received a call two days ago in regard to the ethics complaints she filed. They left her a message that they were closing the complaint due to not being able to find enough evidence to substantiate her complaints. What a surprise. It is after all an employment at will state.…; Added by Sandra McCartt at 7:39pm on June 11, 2011