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Blog Post: Top 4 Virtual Event Platforms for Your Next Virtual Career Fair: For the event industry, especially career events, 2020 has not been a kind year. Instead of a catastrophic regression, however, the industry has found a new way to…; Added by Ngan Pham at 6:59am on July 13, 2021

Blog Post: Organizational Culture: what is it & how to build one [2022]: We could not stress enough the value of a strong organizational culture, especially in the current…; Added by Phil Strazzulla at 11:38pm on November 6, 2022

Topic: Meet Craig Campbell, Principal at Talentwoo, Veteran Strategic Sourcing Manager & Industry Speaker: raig Campbell. It is a pleasure to feature today someone with as varied contributions and personal appeal as Craig. He has been a talent acquisition leader with 15 years of experience creating strategic talent programs including, but not limited to sourcing, recruitment marketing, college, diversity and workforce analytics. Craig attributes his success to having worked with world class companies such as Manpower International, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Starbucks Coffee Company and most recently MGMMIRAGE. These experiences have afforded Craig a depth and breadth of recruiting insight and best practices across these various industries. If you ask Craig the secret of his success, he will tell you he owes it to his years having an opportunity to showcase effective internal consulting skills, a strong bias for innovation and an ability to connect the dots between business strategy and talent strategy. Jason and I first met Craig in Las Vegas at the Recruiting Roadshow and he has been a ceaseless advocate for our efforts towards building community. I am a fan and a friend, and I see Craig going places as far as his imagination allow him, and I see no limits to that end - only fresh beginnings. Q&A with: Craig Campbell Six Degrees: Tell us about your home world, Craig. Craig: I have a smart, hot girlfriend and I’m the father of beautiful 11-year-old daughter. As of late, I’m really upgrading my daddy skills because my daughter is now a pre-teen and has started wearing a training bra - HELP! I love to devour good books that are mostly non-fiction. A few of the more recent I’ve read are “A Sense of Urgency by John p. Kotter; a re-read of “The DIP” by Seth Godin, “CrowdSourcing” by Jeff Howe and I’m bouncing around the chapters of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. My favorite book is called A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from inner City to The Ivy League by Ron Suskind. I’m a sports fan, but not avid because I prefer playing vs. watching. I played college basketball, which deeply influenced my sense of team, my desire to win and some of my approach to recruiting. I’ve dabbled in martial arts over the years, Tae Kwon Jo, Jujitsu and even tried mixed martial arts some years back. I decided to quit the MMA that after a co-worker upon seeing a few bruises on me, came into my office one day and said to me “I know the first rule is that there isn’t one, but are you in a fight club?” I thought it was pretty funny, but a couple of months later I experienced what they call a rear naked choke and didn’t sleep that night because I thought my throat would swell and cut off my breathing. To be clear, I wasn’t naked when this happened, it’s just non technical name for it...lol. Anyway, after that, lets just say I sought out other hobbies and decided to watch UFC from the sofa. I’m a “geek” and would consider myself a very early adopter of new hardware and software technology of all kinds and In case you were wondering, I’m a Mac with PC roots from my days at Microsoft. I love metaphors and my favorite one right now is one that I read in a guest blog post on cheezehead. Paraphrasing: You have to ask yourself - are your recruiting solutions painkillers or vitamins. I might extend that and add placebos. I’m a fan of painkillers Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Craig: I’ve been in recruiting for about 15 years and done everything from professional, college, diversity, workforce analytics and branding. I got started by being a recruiting champion when I was working in the insurance industry. It wasn’t my fulltime job, but when they would invite my out to the events, the engagement, the process and end game came very naturally to me and shortly thereafter, I started to explore this profession called with recruiting, which I didn’t really know existed. The most exposure I had to recruitment was my experience of being recruited for sports in high school, which did and still does influence my recruitment style today. One of the cool things about my summary of experience is that I’ve been able to scale across different industries and functions from temp to perm, software engineers to ecommerce to retail and most recently hotel casinos. I’m primarily a recruiting programs guy, eg. Sourcing, employee referral, college diversity, etc. and my best work zone is start-up, turnaround or growth challenges vs. maintenance. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Craig: I think the event that had the most impact on my recruiting career was while I was at Microsoft during the dotcom era. It was fierce direct competition and I loved it. I was a senior member of the college recruiting team and we were as many as 500+ college candidates a year and it seemed as if there was a new start-up attacking our talent pool every week. These were the days when college students were getting huge cash signing bonuses, BMW leases and other crazy tactics to close the best and brightest. The bottom line is that it was such a sweet intersection of systematic logic; creativity, candidate experience and the tenacity to win that sealed my love for the game of recruiting. What I’m proud of in that experience, is that so many of the individuals that my teammates and I hired during that time went on to become high performing leaders in the organization. • I would also reference MGMMIRAGE. First and foremost it’s Vegas baby! It was very unique set of challenges that mostly revolved around solving for • the sweet spot of high touch and high volume • how to differentiate your employer value proposition in an extremely hyper competitive market in one geographic location • managing hiring manager complacency around attracting the hourly job seeker • External factors of housing foreclosures • Successfully developing and managing the employer value proposition against the perception of the lifestyle of Vegas These were really juicy, highly engaged challenges that many times were a moving target and I think will continue to be a moving target. It gave me the opportunity to dig deep into these challenges end to end at the property level and collective as an organization. The internal consulting and change management skills were truly battle tested. I think Las Vegas has a ton of runway for recruiting solutions. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Craig: I give extra props to the recruiting philosophy and talent mindset at Microsoft during my time there. However, I attribute my overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities to the collective recruiting community more so than any one individual. In addition I tend to be influenced by the parallels of many non-recruiting professions. The just in time (JIT) product delivery models of Dell and Wal-Mart, the brands of Nike and Apple, the customer service/experience delivered by Starbucks and Nordstrom’s, the Porters 5 Forces for strategy and the recruiting prowess and discipline of schools like USC, North Carolina and Duke Six Degrees: Tell us about your daily duties Craig: I’ve typically managed small SWAT teams and my primary responsibilities have been focused on the following areas: Strategy: Utilizing the best workforce analysis to customize and prioritize talent needs Identify the most compelling and relevant employer brand messages leverage technology to build recruiting capacity. Sourcing: (professional, college, diversity) Make it my business to know where candidates live, work, and play and I take us there: physically and virtually . Develop and tap into deep and complex social networks Recruitment Marketing: Build talent channels in the same way the business builds supply chains.Translate the voice of your brand to help candidates understand why they should work for you. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Craig: As of late, I’ve been following and really like the execution of Sodexo. Their presence and execution of recruiting in the social media space has been impressive. They are also doing a great job at segmenting and customizing content for their respective talent pools such as military, diversity, college and alumni. The most impressive thing about there ability to launch, execute and leverage these tools is that it requires end to end support and buy in when not everyone “gets it.” Having spent most of my career in big corporations, its not always easy to get these types of strategies and tactics off the ground in the early adoption stage. Shout out to Arie Ball and the Sodexo talent acquisition team. I would also call out EA and how they’ve led the way in how they leverage a CRM approach vs. core ATS, In addition to that, I like the way in which they use events to transfer the virtual relationships into in person engagements. Shout out to Cindy Nicola and Sean Rehder of Talent Logistics on that work. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Craig: As fundamental an effective as it has been for many companies, Employee referrals will continue to have an impact on my work and the industry. Generally, I don’t believe it’s been optimized. Although recently there are some yet to be proven tools on the market that leverage social networking platforms like facebook, linkedin, etc…I think there is huge runway in the employee referral channel. Six Degrees: List/detail speaking events, awards, publications, where you have you represented your company: Craig: I have spoken at ERE, NACE and Diversity Best Practices, but no awards to mention. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Craig: My next career goal is to build and lead a start-up or turnaround recruiting function that literally leverages the best practices of business strategy, technology, marketing and customer service instead of an aspiration. I the main things that I need is an organization and team with a strong sense of urgency, an entrepreneurial spirit, reasonable resources and the right capabilities appropriately aligned and lastly trust and autonomy. Game on… Recommendations for Craig “Craig is a true professional in Human Resources. He is an excellent strategist who thinks outside of the box to develop creative initiatives and processes. Craig has an unique understanding of the importance of "branding" within Human Resources and business in general. His valuable experience and thinking is emphasized with his ability to quickly develop credibility through executive presence and influence skills. I would sieze the opportunity to work with Craig again in the future. He will be an asset to any organization that thinks strategically about Human Resources.” December 15, 2008 Michelle (Bray) DiTondo, VP Human Resources, MGMMIRAGE-New York-New York “I had the pleasure of getting to know Craig through my teams support of his initiatives - looking back, we learned something new (and important) in every interaction. He has the ability to take very complicated, large scale situations and quickly identify the most critical, though often subtle, details. Then, after creating and analyzing multiple potential solutions, effectively communicates to any level of audience which is the best and why. Craig is strong from strategy to execution, and from C-level to individual contributor. If you're building a team, make sure you have Craig on yours!” October 25, 2008 Mike Inman, Corporate Strategic Sourcing, MGM MIRAGE “I have working with Craig on several recruiting events, diversity events as well as business planning. In each case, Craig has demonstrated great passion with the ability to generate good ideas. He was very thorough in his work and laid out plans that allowed the group to move forward in a positive direction.” October 7, 2008 Cordell Jones, Lead Program Manager - Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft “Craig has been a huge asset to our company both from a leadership standpoint as well as supporting our talent initiatives. Craig has brought business intelligence and insights which have been "game changers" for our business. I hope to have the opportunity to continue to work with Craig in the future.” July 3, 2008 Mark Avery, Director Strategic Sourcing, MGMMIRAGE “Craig is someone who creates a vision, explains the vision, and then delivers the vision. Coming from an exceptional background of work experience, Craig continues to push and to lead his employers in the "talent economy" in new and innovative ways.” June 16, 2008 Sean Rehder, Talent Management Consultant and Developer, MGM MIRAGE “Craig brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. Over the years he has provided me with great advise and support. He is well connected in the recruiting industry and is always willing to share his knowledge with others. I would welcome the opportunity to work with him. Cody” May 25, 2008 Cody Horton, SPHR, Talent Acquisition Manager, Dell “Without a doubt, Craig gets "it". He truly understands how recruiting impacts business not just from a hiring perspective but from a "bottom-line" perspective. He is extremely creative when it comes to the business of recruiting and sourcing strategies. I am looking forward to working with Craig again in the future.” May 22, 2008 Shea Putnam, Partner and Branch Manager, Coolhires “Craig is a polished, confident staffing professional with a plethora of knowledge in all areas of the staffing industry. He is able to use his marketing and strategic thinking along with creativity to bring new meaning to outdated programs and processes. His ability to look at the staffing industry out of the box, from a consumer level rather than an employee level, enables him to create innovative programs that are far reaching within an organization. He is a charismatic and engaging speaker who is able to deliver high level information in corporate vernacular or “see spot run” fashion. He has been an enlightening person to work with.” May 21, 2008 Lauren Burke Bennett, Consultant, MGM MIRAGE “Craig, has been an valuable resource to me. He offers wise counsel and is a big thinker who has helped me identify actionable solutions to staffing challenges (ATS, employee referral program, sourcing strategies, etc.) Craig's quickly understands complex problems and offers thoughtful, clear and insightful solutions. Whenever, I have an idea I want to brainstorm and/or challenge, Craig is the first person I call.” May 21, 2008 Jojuane Porter, Manager, Recruitment Process, Tools and Metrics, Kohl's Department Stores “Craig is a dynamic professional that has a tenacity to uncover every stone until he locates the ideal result. He possesses the incredible ability to multi task, think out of the box, leverage hard to find resources, and initiate projects with long term benefits to both stakeholders and sponsors within the organization. Moreover, Craig continually brings concepts and ideas that are generations ahead of current corporate models, including time, cost and quality value propositions. Craig offers a relentless approach to extraordinary achievement. I believe that he is a valuable contributor to the MGM MIRAGE enterprise.” May 20, 2008 Lance Greeninger, Div. Corporate Recruiting & Human Resource Initiatives, MGM MIRAGE “Craig has the ability to not only create a vision, but to see that vision through right down to the tactical level and foresee any operational impact the vision may have on different verticals within the organization. Knowing this, Craig will reach out to these stakeholders and involve them at the beginning stages in order to achieve the critical buy-in to foster the success of the vision/project. Bottom line, Craig brings vision, foresight and attention to detail to MGM MIRAGE.” May 20, 2008 Andrew Heckert, Manager, Strategic Sourcing, MGM MIRAGE “Craig is a talented,creative, and smart staffing professional. He has the ability to access situations quickly and put together programs and solutions that not only work well, but can scale and be reproduced. He's responsive, proactive and a great person to work with. I'd work with Craig again and I highly recommend him.” May 20, 2008 Jerry Montgomery, Recruiter, Amazon.com…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 1:36am on February 9, 2009

Topic: Meet Mark Rinovato, Broadcom's Corporate Staffing Pioneer of Sourcing, SEO, and Employee Branding - Goes Solo: 8-0133 • Mobile: (949) 395-9593 • Email Ever live "down the street from someone" and only years later, thousands of miles away reintroduced yourself and communicated and learned what an exceptional innovator you missed a coffee or a lunch with when you had the opportunity? Of course you have; these are digital times, but alas, the virtual handshake allows us to recover bona fides. In this instance, a staffing manager who was an early disruptor within corporate walls was only a few miles away when I lived in Irvine before I escaped to the Rocky Mountains. Today, I give thanks to RecruitingBlogs Monday Member Showcase series for the opportunity to share a discovery of a true industry innovator, Mark Rinovato. This week, I am honored to feature his extraordinary legacy of achievements during his tenure at Broadcom; mainstreaming sourcing efforts, in addition to introducing SEO and employee branding as a vital strategic staffing component. Mark served as Manager, Strategic Sourcing at Broadcom, he oversaw a budget of $1.5M where he initiated the creation of the strategic sourcing function and managed a team of eight Sourcing Specialists dedicated to passive candidate identification and pipeline generation through sourcing channels. He created the company’s first Employment Brand that is now used in all career-related advertising and communications in order to convey the true company culture. Mark implemented Search Engine Optimization technology for the career site that resulted in Broadcom’s open requisitions landing on the first page of Google search results. His efforts translated into the Successful development of identifying over 5000 qualified engineers to the database within six months. As Manager of Global Staffing at Broadcom, he managed a budget of $3.5M and directed a global team of 28 including recruiters, sourcing specialists and coordinators in support of the Broadcom’s recruiting strategy and execution worldwide. He created Broadcom’s Employee Referral Program that produced a third of all company hires. His staffing organization grew Broadcom from 2,500 employees in 2004 to over 7,000 employees in 2008. In all, Mark’s efforts averaged over 1400 hires per year for four years, - exclusive of acquisitions. Recently, Mark has initiated his own contingency search firm, “EMR Search Partners” which provides talent acquisition solutions to the high technology industry. EMR provides search services on a retained, contingency and contract basis. He has diversified his clientele with start-up venture funded firms as well as large established companies. Q&A with Mark Rinovato Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Mark My wife, Edie, and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in Februrary on the island of Bora Bora, Tahiti. It was spectacular. We met in Los Angeles, where I was starting out my recruiting career with an employment agency on Wilshire Blvd. She was working for a restaurant located in the same building. We know we made a great team. My wife is Hungarian born and actually escaped from communist Hungary in the 70’s with her mother and eventually made their way to Los Angeles. That’s an entire novel in itself! As it turned out, we started our own restaurant in Los Angeles, a Hungarian/Continental restaurant, and it was quite successful. I found myself recruiting by day and helping with the restaurant at night. I would not recommend this. We sold it 4yrs later, but the marriage is still going strong. Six Degrees: What's a day in the life for you Mark? Mark My main hobbies are golf, music and movies. I don’t have enough time to play a lot of golf, but I get out when I can. I’ve been to many PGA Tour golf tournaments, including the US Open at Torrey Pines in 08. It was a spectacular event. Having been in the restaurant business, my wife and I also share a love of gourmet cooking and wine, and we love to entertain friends. We also love to watch classic movies. As far as music, my tastes are pretty eclectic, and include folk, rock, jazz (especially latin jazz) and classical. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Mark: I’ve been in the staffing industry for over 30 years, so I’ve seen a lot of changes, especially with the technology. When I started in the industry the most innovative technology was the phone system. Come to think of it, we may be coming full circle with smartphones and the mobile internet. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Mark I was asked by a friend in Los Angeles, who had just been hired by an employment agency there, to talk with this agency about getting into the business. This was a small firm just starting up, and I was about the 6th employee. I ended up being with that agency for 7 years going from a Recruiter to Management, and we grew from one small agency to 5 agencies with 20 employees each. The success I experienced there was very exciting, especially for a young man in his early 20’s, and really set the tone for my career in this business. I was hooked. I still am. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Mark That’s a tough question. There have been so many important events. But I would have to say that starting my own agency was the most important. There is something about going out on your own, with no support other then your belief in your own abilities, that really defines who you are. It requires you to be creative and do more with less, but it also gives you the freedom to do all of the things that you could not do working for others. As an example, the first firm that I worked for was slow to adopt the PC, networking and recruiting software that was then coming available, pushing it off into the future because of the expense. When I started my own business I immediately bought a software package designed for search firms and automated my business. It happened to be on the Mac as that was the only GUI available and I couldn’t deal with DOS. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Mark Actually, there were two individuals that I would say I modeled my career after. The first was the owner of the first agency that I joined and was with for 7yrs. I saw how he ran his business and how successful he was, and that inspired me to learn recruiting and start my own business. The second was a corporate staffing manager with a Fortune 100 corporation who helped me transition into corporate recruiting. He gave me an opportunity and opened up that side of the business for me. Six Degrees: Tell us about your last position, (responsibilities, size of your staffing organization) : Mark I spent the last 8yrs at Broadcom Corporation, a $4.5 billion communications semiconductor company. I started out as a contract recruiter, and eventually progressed to Manager of Global Staffing and then Manager, Strategic Sourcing. The teams that I hired and managed were instrumental in growing the company from 2400 employees to just over 7500 employees in 4yrs. Most of these hires were highly skilled engineers, hardware and software. The staffing department had 25 recruiters and sourcers at one time, and we were an excellent team, but recent budget cuts have eliminated most of them. It’s the worst time I have ever seen in our industry. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Mark The talent groups that we focused on at Broadcom were primarily design engineers with either IC design, systems design or embedded software design expertise. Within these groups is quite a bit of specialization, as the company has over 22 different product lines. But those are the basic talent hubs, and they were all supported by my teams. We also recruited for other support functions, such as finance, IT, HR, etc. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Mark We had access to a lot of good training. The three primary training courses for staffing were: The Adler Group – full cycle recruiting, including interview and assessment. JobMachine – Sourcing AIRS Xtreme - Sourcing All of these vendors did an excellent job of coming on site and conducting professional training sessions that had a great deal of benefit to my 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? Mark The main tool was the ATS system, from VirtualEdge, and that system was implemented worldwide. We used all the typical job boards. Job boards were a tool worldwide as well, but only Monster worked reasonably well overseas. Most countries and regions have there own local boards that do better then Monster, CareerBuilder, Hotjobs and Dice. Of course, everyone had a LinkedIn Recruiter account, which is quite effective everywhere. Other sourcing tools included ZoomInfo, Broadlook Diver and Profiler, InfoGist, TalentHook, and others. We also used Search Engine Optimization and built an SEO site with TalentHubs. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Mark Microsoft is a name that keeps popping up on everyone’s top ten list. Also, I hear a lot of good things about Ernst and Young. We had a Broadcom employee leave to go to work in E&Y’s college program as a recruiter and described the experience in glowing terms. A lot of industry leaders in sourcing seem to have come from Microsoft. Six Degrees: (B) In what aspects are they superior? Mark Most companies with superior recruiting functions have the support and commitment of top executives who understand the importance of recruiting to the company’s success. This translates into budgets that allow staffing leadership to hire the best recruiters and sourcers, and implement the best tools and methodologies. The best recruiting departments have a strong strategic approach to staffing, along with a superior process. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Mark Most of the big mistakes I have made were the result of lack of communication. Nothing leads to disaster like making decisions in a vacuum. Probably the best example of this happened when I became enamored with Web 2.0 job boards and thought that I needed to add one to my company’s toolbox. I did my due diligence, checked out all the top contenders and made my selection. I even had a small team of 2 recruiters who also participated in the demo’s, and they were also positive, so I was comfortable with my final decision. I was so sure that this was a great product that I failed to involve the larger team of recruiters and sourcers who would be using the product on a day to day basis. It turned out that, even after extensive training, they were not getting the results from this new product, and simply stopped using it. I had wasted tens of thousands of dollars of the company’s money and valuable training and recruiter time. The result was no results, and no ROI. No matter how cool a technology seems, you need to make sure that it can produce the desired results and that you have buy in from the majority of users before going with it. 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 Obviously, the financial meltdown and deep recession has had a strong impact on the recruiting industry. No matter what part of the business you work in, you have probably negatively impacted by this downturn. Corporate recruiting budgets have been sharply curtailed. Many friends of mine on the agency side, both retained and contingency, have painted a very bleak picture of the current market. While this too shall pass, I think the severity of it will make companies hesitant about committing to hiring fulltime employees and push them towards more outsourcing and contract labor. The cost of healthcare is also a factor that will encourage this trend as well. Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: Mark The most interesting groups that I have been involved with recently are CSLE (Corporate Sourcing Leadership Exchange) and OCTane, which is a local business group here in Orange County, CA. CSLE is focused on sharing information and stimulating ideas about Sourcing as a center of excellence in corporate environments. It is always enlightening to hear what other top corporate staffing teams are doing internally, especially with regards to sourcing. OCTane is a group dedicated to the branding of Orange County, CA as a destination for high technology and medical technology firms and talent. Sahali Six Degrees: Can you detail how the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Has it effected your job or that of your fellow team members within the organization - If so, to what extent? (If you have been laid off, tell us about the experience, when it happened) Mark Well, it has affected me quite dramatically. The entire strategic sourcing function was eliminated, along with my position as manager of that team. Many recruiters were also let go, as were other departments in HR. So the recession has had a very negative impact on me, and many of my colleagues. I’ve been through a number of these recessions, and they are always bad news for the recruiting industry, but we always bounce back. 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? Mark We have some local groups here in Orange County that have been a big help so far. There is a group called HR Connections, which is sponsored by LHH, that brings together local HR talent at monthly meetings. We share job leads and job hunting advice. Also, InContact HR puts together great networking events for HR professionals nationwide. I’ve also joined a few promising groups on LinkedIn such as Corporate Recruiters, Personal Branding Network and Cybersleuths. I’m looking forward to getting more involved in networking and branding through these and other groups. Six Degrees: Given your own Trial and Error experiences as a Networker, what advice do you have for your peers on what NOT to do? Mark My advice would be to pick and choose carefully the networks you decide to become a part of, and then really participate as much as possible. You have to give something in order to get results. Not contributing to the networks is a mistake that I have made in the past, mainly because I’ve been too busy, but also because I was did not incorporate it into my daily routine. I plan to change that. LinkedIn has been my main professional network so far. I have used Facebook primarily for personal contacts. And of course Twitter looks to be a great tool that I’m just getting started with. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Mark I did a lot of soul searching over the past couple of months as to which direction to go in. I initially thought about going for another Manager or Director of Staffing role in a corporate environment. But I have decided to start my own search and consulting business instead, and I’m in the middle of launching this new enterprise. It may seem an odd time to be launching a business of any kind, let alone a recruiting business, but recessions are often the best times to start a new business. We’ve hit bottom, and nothing but growth lies ahead. I’m looking forward to the challenge. Happy Holidays, from SixDegreesfromDave.com…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 4:25pm on November 29, 2009

Topic: Meet Marie Journey, Sourcing Enthusiast - "Listening Within A Constant Sea of Voices & Heard": esentation of a company. A Sourcer knows OFCCP inside and out. A Sourcer uses the finest tools at hand to create a talent pool. There are endless other examples of value that a Sourcer brings. We organize and use data to build relationships." "Easy, you just help other people ... When people are needing food and mortgage money, there were no splits, no markers, and no thanks needed. Most never knew my hand was there at all. How did this help me? It didn’t in terms of money or recognition. It was priceless in terms of ability to break every previous personal production record, stretch my network a thousand-fold, and be in finest form for my next role." • RecruitingBlogs Profile Marie Journey • Sourcing Extraordinaire & Sweet Tea Enthusiast • Location: Navarre, FL • Linkedin • Facebook • Twitter • Website • Company • Community Volunteering: Volunteer at the local elementary school and helping women out of abusive situations. • Personal Causes: Working with children that are wired differently, helping families of deployed military, and being there for women in need. • Office: 678.779.6619 • Personal Email Our mutual friend, Steve Rath, was kind enough to introduce me to Marie Journey and the more I inquired - the more I learned how many fellow travelers we have in our lives. Marie and I share the same ecosystem of sourcers to social networking enthusiasts and a passion for passing it forward. She is a rock star with10+ years recruiting experience, and contributed to talent development in five languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Japanese) in both Corporate as well as Agency Environments; working with one of the largest for profit organizations, Microsoft, as well as one of the largest non-profit organizations in the world, AIESEC. She has presented at Recruitfest 2009, been on on Jim Stroud’s Recruiters Lounge, and among fellow gurus as an attendee at each of the last two Sourcecon conferences. Marie is also one of the pioneers in video SEO for high demand reqs; she was able to get 1st Page Google, 1st Rank for key skill set within 48 hrs of launching the following video: http://budurl.com/hogandev Q & A with Marie Journey Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. MARIE: My world comprises of people I love that live with me, next to me, and all around the world. My feet are in Paradise AKA Navarre, FL. As far as family goes, if you can order sweet tea, it is likely one of my blood kin from my mother’s side is nearby. You’d have to travel the seas to encounter rest. A sweet, chocolate eyed, mad scientist in the making that holds both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Albert Einstein close to his heart calls me Momma. His name is Julian age 7 and he is a miracle child many times over. A wild burst of energy, that flies across any ground and launches into my arms is Ian, age 6. Then there is Miss Kayla who will change the world for the better with her passion for science, animals, and justice that is age 10. Jared’s silence speaks loudly in the near constant sea of voices; he can sum up a person and motivators within seconds, age 8. Simply put, single mom of 1 and official back-up Daddy to 3 more when their father is deployed. MARIE: All the children gather one evening every other week for a sit down meal and the Extreme Play Date begins: we build robots, conduct science experiments, fiercely debate merits of Pokemon, and dance to hundreds of random questions. In the rare moments of me time, I devour a book a day. When stress weighs too heavy or I need a bigger dose of escape, it is power tool time. Have a flare for blades and dying to get my hands on a 26 inch Katana to continue Japanese sword fighting lesions. Painting abstracts along with photography feeds the creative side. Checking out new apps is another favorite. Love all types of tools for creating be it an iPhone, Dremel, brush, or camcorder. The future holds - a nonprofit called the League of Competent Woman that attracts strong ladies looking to make a positive change by promoting and protecting both women and children through changing/enforcing laws, providing an extensive network of resources, and mentoring. Until my house remodel is complete and the greyhound rescue dog of my dreams comes home to us, my only pet is my laptop, Vixen. She is smoking hot and holds her own. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? MARIE: I started 10+ years ago during my time at AIESEC, which was one of the largest non-profit orgs in the world second only to the Red Cross at the time. With AIESEC, there was International recruiting, business development, marketing, and a mission to better the world. After AIESEC, I went on to be an international logistic consultant designing automotive factories in cool places like Brazil and Germany. 100% international travel, worked on multi-national project teams, learned a great deal about other cultures and business practices. Had fun reworking highly complex systems with thousands of variables, designing with AutoCAD in five languages, being humbled by the brilliance of great minds, and even got to dance with the Portelas @ Carnival in Rio. Why go back to recruiting? When I returned to the United States for love, I had the opportunity to choose a different career path. Decided to return to recruiting and found that the career break helped me immensely by gaining skills sets that are often needed and hard to gather on the typical recruiting career path. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? MARIE: For years, I have been absolutely relentless in the pursuit of sourcing/recruitment training. I have taken One on one training with National Sourcing Expert, Shally Steckerl. I could list out a couple of hundred, but generically –Taken massive training on OFCCP and even designed training manuals. Did every available session on Diversity and wrote several more training sessions. Any ATS used, I worked to become a super user at warp speed. Went outside of traditional recruiting/sourcing and took training on tech/marketing/system optimizations and courses that involved the current niche or sector of talent. Training is essential to know the law, the space, the MVPs, how to connect, how to present, and then how to close in shortest time possible. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? MARIE: The moment of silence from Shally, when he decided if I was serious or not and how to respond to my request for what I would like for him to teach me. Okay, he probably had the mute on and was laughing his back-side off, but he proceeded to first drill me on what I knew, tell me what I needed to learn, and ticked off points to help make it happen. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? MARIE: To survive your first week in recruiting you had better have a strong mentor or an example of a person that has it figured out. There are hundreds that have knowingly or unknowingly helped along the way. For recruiting/sourcing successes you can bank that one or more of the following were a factor (listed in alpha order by first name): 1. Barbara Marks – watched her flawlessly perform recruiting miracles and hiring manager interfacing magic for years. Generous of heart and would stop my desk for her anytime. 2. Burt Black – taught me tech recruiting, a multi-million dollar producer for over ten years, and has been a true friend to me for over 15 years. 3. Chandra Bodapati @ Egrabber - creates the tools that make me drool on myself. 4. Chris Havrilla – queen of empowerment, legend in the field, and always one of the 1st gen adopters of doable/usable tech. 5. Dave Copps – had me at AI app. 6. Eric Jaquith – listening to him is pure beneficial bliss to any recruiter or sourcer. If you need to “Miracle Grow” your system, he is the man with the plan. 7. Geoff Webb – geek that gets social networking, sourcing, and keeps the space lively. We are in the middle of a friendly yet fierce challenge: http://bit.ly/geekchallenge 8. Jeffrey Rosado, at Pensacolaco Computers – he opened the door and let me out of the box. Smartest guy in tech I’ve ever met, taught me how to get 1st page/top rank in Google (SEO Amazing Man), created Vixen (My smokin’ hot, voice activated laptop), and fully stocks my software addiction with professional grade product! 9. Jim Stroud – his reach is so vast in terms of training, involvement, and accomplishments; I am one of hordes that owe him credit. 10. Kay Kelison – brilliant social networking and researching talent and flat out one of my favorite people for talking shop with, future trends, or just about anything. 11. Marjorie Mancini of CVTracer – created an ATS that actually does what you need in recruiting with the fewest clicks possible. She has also been a light of inspiration. One woman that has done so much in this field! 12. Rob McIntosh – if you are in Sourcing you owe this man thanks. 13. Rodney Walden – Showed me stuff on InfoGist I didn’t know was possible, got me on to LinkedIN years ago, and always makes me laugh. 14. Shally Steckerl – gave the advice I needed to hear at just the right time. 15. Sharon Meyers – awes me with her sourcing talent in both the national and international space. This lady has to use a fire hose for her talent pipe. 16. Steve Rath – put together one of my favorite recruiting teams, forerunner in Sourcing 2.0, pays it forward, and I’ve had the pleasure of watching him be stellar in the industry for years. Any mistakes made along the way have been 100% my own doing! Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? MARIE: Any shop that Rob McIntosh or Chris Havrilla is running. (B) In what aspects are they superior? MARIE: Rob can whip out Excel spreadsheets, PPT presentations, and flowchart his superior methods. Love the quantifying of what most would consider intangibles. Chris Havrilla is the finest cherry picker of talent and can create magic with her managing style and in depth understanding of how to be effective in not only today’s market, but tomorrow’s as well. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? MARIE: As tech improves and people like Dave & Chandra come up with these groundbreaking, time saving sourcing tools…why do companies need “Sourcers”? A Sourcer brings much more than the ability to rattle off a complex Boolean string, a database of names, or niche product knowledge – A Sourcer is often the front line and first representation of a company. A Sourcer knows OFCCP inside and out. A Sourcer uses the finest tools at hand to create a talent pool. There are endless other examples of value that a Sourcer brings. We organize and use data to build relationships. Bring on the best Tech! Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: MARIE: Attended both SourceCons and was asked to speak at RecruitFest! 2009. Six Degrees: Can you detail how the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Has it effected your job or that of your fellow team members within the organization? MARIE: When Microsoft has massive layoffs you know it is going to be a rough road. As a MS Prospecting Consultant via SearchWizards, I got the call right in time for Christmas of 2008 that the whole team was toasted effective December 30th. What was the experience like for a single mom, in Tech Recruiting, that has always worked? Well, having twins without an epidural in the Amazon would have been less painful and shocking. Like childbirth, I’m glad it is over, joyous at the bright future ahead, and will not be sending pictures/videos/or play by plays of the process. 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? MARIE: Easy, you just help other people. I answered that question, “If you had to do your job for free would you do it?” Yes, I sure would and did within the week of being laid off. I went from recruiting on behalf of Microsoft to pipelining any viable jobs that were open. It was fast and furious work and mostly done in stealth mode. When people are needing food and mortgage money, there were no splits, no markers, and no thanks needed. Most never knew my hand was there at all. How did this help me? It didn’t in terms of money or recognition. It was priceless in terms of ability to break every previous personal production record, stretch my network a thousand-fold, and be in finest form for my next role. Six Degrees: Given your own Trial and Error experiences as a Networker, what advice do you have for your peers on what NOT to do? MARIE: Never take complete credit for any success if there is the slightest possibility that you can share the credit with somebody else. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? MARIE: Take a high need skill set, create a video campaign, work with corporate Marketing, and then track results for both recruiting and sales. For example, if you Google: “Hogan developers” job The 1st Page and 1st Rank has been one of my videos from launch weeks ago until the moment of writing this. Jim Stroud was the first to introduce me to the idea of using video to reach candidates and Jeff@pensacolacomputers.com has been teaching me the SEO and backend side of ranking. Really wanted to work the SEO angle without any corporate branding or specific job to see what would happen in terms of rank as a control. Now the next goal is to add the corporate branding along with buy in and marketing resources in order to incorporate a much broader social networking strategy and own the space. Recruiting wins low cost renewable pipeline with shorter fills and less production loss. Marketing wins name recognition and increased revenue. All I need is company that likes the notion of prime market position Using Your Geek Card Lately? This profile is one in a series titled Monday Member Showcase. It was originally published on RecruitingBlogs.com, a recruiting and HR community, where I am a featured contributor. To read the whole series please click here.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 8:24pm on December 6, 2009

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Topic: Meet Jeff Newman, Empathetic Eccentricity: Passion in Recruitment, Punjabi Cooking To History of Baltic Republics: thenticity. My friends, rarely has someone been so transparent in his quirks, been so effusive in his passion in our trade, and so in love with candy, wife and gaming ... but within it all ... a love for his fellow man. He identified the 9/11 perspective, one I share ... a crisis which taught lessons. We found the inner core of what drives this business for not only successful people but also successful human beings. Jeff is one of those successful 'human beings' because he has been shaped, by circumstance, to view his own personal mortality. Even so ... its also part of who Jeff truly is as a person to pull himself forward, look his client in the eyes, and be driven to know what he can do for his fellow man. He is the embodiment of the reality our friend Steve Levy often speaks of ... the People skills 1.0 few people pay mind to, preferring a run from basics and onwards to all things 2.0 We know that without people skills 1.0 we have fads and gimmickry. In Jeff, we have someone who can count 1.0, 2.0 and so forth and having lived them before they were terms. A 'people' person in a people 'industry' - imagine that. Jeff reflects the conscience of Industry Leader, Don Ramer and his themes of bringing empathy, transparency and love to our passion for humanity and I am esteemed to have observed this in his own words. We have authenticity as a driving force in a veteran recruiter like Jeff, not for love of dollar alone, but for love of looking in his reflection and valuing what he represents. It matters to Jeff, it matters to me and it should matter to all of us. It isn't a value that is fait accompli in this industry regretfully. I see talent in Jeff, his colleagues at the office do as well. but today my friends, it is important all of you see it as well which is why I take great pleasure in introducing a valued contributor to our community today. Meet Our friend .... Jeff Newman. Jeff Newman, Senior Technical Recruiter at Genesis10 • RecruitingBlogs Profile • Linkedin Profile • Office Email and Personal Email • Office Number: 212.688.5522 ext. 20 Q&A with Jeff Newman Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Jeff: One of my strongest recruiting traits is that I really am not much of a game player. I am the same guy at home, as I am talking with a candidate, talking with a peer or making friends with someone in Human Resources. My essence, the core of Jeff Newman, is to take everything with a smile, good and bad, and remember that this too will pass. I do this at the office, at home and occasionally at the Gym (to know me is to hug me). I am married 11 years as of January 18th. The key to my marriage is communication, being friends first, and nodding, leaning forward, and looking right in her eyes while saying “I agree”. It is kind of cool that that works in Sales relationships too, eh? Senda is my wife’s name and she is an MSW/CSW who specializes in HIV/AIDS. She works as a Senior Social Worker for St. Mary's in Harlem http://www.stmarysharlem.com/jsp/. I figure that her good work might make up for some of the things I've done while, what’s the word the hardcore ethicists use now, “rusing”? When I started, we called it Pirating...kinda like the folks in Somalia but without the heavy weaponry. Most important in my home life is the fact that Senda knows that recruiting often has lot more failure then success. We get hung up on more then we get to hear “AWESOME, I have been WAITING for someone to call me at work who I never heard of!” I had a boss once say to me that this is a Business of Failure. What do you call a baseball player who only succeeds three times out of ten? Very rich. The trick is to try and take that home as little as possible. At least in NYC, non-corporate side recruiters (especially in IT) are looked at better than muggers but still worse than building contractors, in terms of social status. You can't behave like that or you will start to believe you are that. Most of all, you cannot take the fact that out of 75 calls you made that day, 70 amounted to nothing. You take home the 5 that were successful and leave the negative ones in the office. I also am the pet human of 2 of the coolest cats in the world. Cleo has had Senda and I for 11 years, she is all black and she has had us since she was still taking milk in the bottle. She likes to lie in our bed and she sleeps with us every night. Goofy, our tabby, is about 2 years old and he is chock full of energy. Senda taught him how to play fetch with toy mice and he can do this for hours on end. He and Cleo are not the best of friends, however. Six Degrees: Tell us about the after-hours version of Jeff Newman Jeff: As anyone who has spent more then 10 minutes with me will tell you, I am quite unusual. If I was richer, they’d call me eccentric and I’d be on the front page of the NY Post. I feel that you can never have enough knowledge, learn enough things, and or try enough new things. I try to keep my span of knowledge broad, even if just to use as tidbits when forming a relationship. I genuinely am interested in everything from Punjabi cooking to the history of the Baltic republics. One thing unusual in our house is that we don't own a television. We watch DVDs through the PC and all the major networks post their shows through their websites so we don't miss much. At then end of the day, I think we only watch Lost, Fringe and 30 Rock, anyway. We watched the Presidential Debates streamed live through MSNBC.com and Meet the Press on the treadmill at the Gym. With the rest of the time, we talk, we read and we go out with friends. We'll play board or card games together and PC Games alone. My wife is an Everquest addict, she has been playing since 1999. In fact, I'll often call her by her EQ name. I'll pick up a new PC game every so often, from Spore (which stunk) to anything by Paradox Entertainment. Senda and I are also big Science Fiction fans, especially with Star Wars, but not limited to that. We go to I-Con every year and other Sci-Fi conventions when they hit NYC. As a Technical Recruiter, I have often made great connections through this world. Between us, I'd still be involved even if I was hunting for Admins. If that wasn't enough, I am also a StumbleUpon fan. If you are unfamiliar with that, check out the site. Make sure you have a good block of free time and don't say I didn't warn you. One more thing that I think really is important to understanding me is that I have Multiple Sclerosis. Go figure: I survived 9/11 yet was diagnosed shortly thereafter with MS. Nothing gives you greater focus and better understanding of whom you are that having a challenge of that nature. I usually don't mention it, or make a big deal about it but in terms of recruiting it has been very helpful. I can empathize and understand much better the unique challenges that everyone faces, even if I have never walked in those shoes. And it really does make for great stories. Every candidate has different and unique needs and helping them get through often means the difference between a placement and a turn down. Six Degrees: How many years as a recruiter? Jeff: I have been an Staffing Firm side recruiter for 10+ years. I have always done technical/IT staffing, through the good and bad times. I have never hesitated to place a different skill set if that was what the client wanted from me however. In recruiting you can specialize but you should never limit yourself. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Jeff: Ahh, I wish I could say I was embarrassed to admit it, but, another thing that people who know me will tell you is that Newman doesn't really get embarrassed much. I graduated Columbia University http://www.columbia.edu/ in May 1998. I was married for 6 months and had spent the majority of my college career enjoying myself as opposed to studying. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up but I knew I needed a job. I sent out 200 plus resumes. A Technical Recruiting firm, Recruit Dynamics, had called me in because I had JAVA on my resume. I had JAVA there, because I was pumping that resume as much as I could, and once I had read a book on JAVA. They had a 6 month contract in Rochester, Minnesota for an entry level programmer. I replied that I really wasn't a developer I had applied for the recruiter role. You know, the one with no experience needed. The lady who brought me in came out and said the boss would meet with me, but not until lunch. It was about 8:30 AM at the time... I said no worries and was it OK if I waited here. I waited 6+ hours, to finally interview with the President of the firm. After an hour or so, he said, “Jeff, you know nothing about recruiting, in fact you know nothing about business. I do like the persistence of someone who will wait hours for an interview. Let's try it for 30 days and see what happens.” The irony is what kept me in the office wasn't truly persistence. It was the air-conditioning, free coffee and a bunch of magazines. I had no money and no place else I had to be. That's why I stuck around. 10 years later. I think it was a good decision. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Jeff: For me, it was the Death of COBOL following Y2k. For the year leading up to Y2K, COBOL developers were naming their rates. People who had taken a class in COBOL in 1978 and had been driving a cab ever since, were getting high paying contracting gigs. Everyone needed COBOL/MAINFRAME experts, they were paying for them through the nose and you couldn't find one not booked up to save your life. It was fun, the money was great, and I was very busy. Then came January 1st, 2000. The world didn't end, the machines stayed A-OK and I had to fire 50+ contractors. Developers, who a year ago wouldn't take your calls, were calling everyday. There was nothing we could do to help any of them. This taught me two very important lessons. First, it said don't focus your recruiting in one area or skill set. Diversity is the spice of life and to spread out as much as possible. The second thing it taught me was to keep your skills cutting edge or you could wake up one day and find yourself as obsolete as a Blacksmith after the invention of the personal automobile. A close runner up is the .Com bubble. The lesson I learned there was do not take commission payments in stock. Speaking of which, if anyone is interested in shares of Flooz, I have PLENTY! Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Jeff: I cannot name one specific person who I model myself on, but I have taken many different pieces from people over the years. The Big Boss at APS-Botal was a guy name Steve Sayetta. He had arranged for me to attend an 8 hour NYATS seminar. I complained as it was really focused on Admin recruiters and I only did IT. He said, “Newman, if you learn one thing, it will have been worth the time you spend.” I really believe that and have applied it to my recruiting career. I have worked with some amazing people over the years. TK Sheridan, Tom Sheridan and Paul Sheridan at E-Claro taught me the basics of the industry, from how to calculate a bill rate to the best way to close off a call without hurting someone’s feelings. Peter Elia, from APS-BOTAL (now Infinity Staffing), got me to better appreciate the importance of details. Peter is also one of the best relationship managers out there. He was also the best boss I ever had, because he had served “in the trenches” and knew what it was all about. Darren Greif, the IT Staffing Director from the Bachrach Group, is the best closer you have ever seen. He could see all the problems in a deal that would need to be gotten over before anyone else. As a manager, his policy of helping you to do better without interfering with what was working was amazing. Lately, I have been introduced and begun working with Steve Levy. I had read his blog, seen his comments on recruitingblogs.com, his blog and ERE and then I got to meet him in person. At first I was a bit star struck. But then I got to work with him and I thought, “And I got all veklempt of this?” Kids may admire and want to emulate sports heroes and guitar wizards, but since I started reading their works, for me it has been guys like Glenn Gutmacher, Shally Steckerl and Steve. What I have learned from him has just been fantastic. I try to learn as much from everyone I work with as I can get. Your talents can only get better through knowledge and practice. [I had other things to say about Steve but he knows where I live and work] Six Degrees: Tell us about your day in the life at the office Jeff: Well, right now I am with Genesis10. Genesis10 is one of the largest privately held business and IT staffing firms in the nation. The company was started in 1999, and has grown, on average, at a rate of 44%. One of the main reasons I chose to join Genesis10 is founder/CEO Harley Lippman. His bio really impressed me. Every company is a sailing ship and much can be told about how it will travel if you know her captain. Personally, I am a senior recruiter on a team dedicated to supporting one client in midtown NYC. The client has an awe inspiring need for excellent developers, especially in C++/UNIX. The process is one of the most difficult hurdles I have ever seen candidates need to get through, including two technical screens, a code review and then a final interview. It does ensure that our client is only getting the crème de le crème of the industry. This was the first time in about 6 years that I have ever been just recruiting, as opposed to a full desk. It is also the first time since the start of my career that I have been just supporting one client. With Genesis10's depth of resources and it's commitment to providing the best people, both technically and personality wise, I feel very comfortable in this role. It was an adjustment for a bit however. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Jeff: I am mainly acquainted with the firms in NYC. Our business, especially in IT, all seems to be 6 degrees of one another. I have heard buzz about many of the firms in our sphere, good and bad. Recruiters and sales people tend to gossip. Based on my second sentence in this paragraph, I will go with discretion being the better part of valor. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Jeff: The way you can wake up and have the market give you a surprise, I'd be uncomfortable guessing anything at this point. I don't just think our industry will change, I think the United States is changing. I couldn't even hazard a guess as to where we will be in a year. To quote myself from above, all you can do is “take everything with a smile, good and bad, and remember that this too will pass.” Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Jeff: While at the Bachrach Group I helped to train a number of Junior recruiters. This was one of the most satisfying experiences of my career. It was a talent I didn't know I had and I really enjoyed it. At some point, I'd really like to be able to that again. Past that, I'd like to retire at 50 but if you look at my 401k.... To get there, you just need to work hard and get lucky.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 12:34am on January 19, 2009

Topic: Meet Andrew Heywood, Global Recruiter Veteran from Google, Apple, Adobe - Dog's Best Friend: dogs. * Email Andrew Directly Andrew Heywood is a veteran recruiter/sourcer with corporate staffing experience at Google, Apple, and Adobe. Andrew has developed extensive International staffing experience including Japan, Korea, India, China, Zurich, London and Australia markets. In addition, Andrew has project management, and sales expertise both in domestic and international markets. He has lived and worked in Japan for 4.5 years and gained additional international travel experience in Germany, Singapore, Philippines, Canada, and Mexico. Andrew is multi-lingual, speaking Japanese (JLPT3) and Cantonese (basic) in addition to his native English. Andrew's specific areas of expertise include: Diversity Recruiting Best Practices, Google ATS, HRIS, Hire.com, Filefinder, Offer Work-flow (Google specific), Internet Sourcing Training, Boolean Searches, LinkedIn, Conferences, Corporate Directories, Alumni directories, Associations, proprietary database, job boards, networking, and cold calls. Q&A with Andrew Heywood Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Andrew: I am currently single living in Northern California with my two wonderful dogs Kiseki and Surf. They are both 4.5 years old and I adopted them from the rescue organization Norsled (http://www.norsled.org/available.html). My family (father, mother, sister, brother) all live in California and I spend time with them when I can. I am an active person who loves the outdoors and is involved with various sport activities (triathlons, hiking, yoga, badminton). I use to be a Collegiate Division I, Cross Country runner and still love to run to this day. When I am not playing a sport, I love to keep up with my Japanese and volunteer my time with the dog rescue group Norsled. I spent over 4 years living/working in Japan prior to moving back to California (Jan 2005). I have then caught the travel bug and love to explore new parts of the world when time allows. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Andrew: I have been recruiting for over 7 years. I spent my first 3 years working for a recruiting agency in the heart of Tokyo Japan, then following working in house for Google, Apple, and Adobe once I moved back to the United States. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Andrew: Prior to recruiting, I had just graduated from college and spent one year as an inside sales representative for MA Laboratories in San Jose California. I then moved to Japan to teach English in the country side for a year adventure before I settle down with my career. Little did I know that coming to a country on the other side of the world would open up a new career that I am very passionate about today. I had just completed my English teaching contract with the JET Program and moved back to California two months before September 11 2001. The job market had crumbled and there were no jobs in sight. I attended an alumni networking event for the JET Program (the program I taught English for in Japan) and there was a recruiting agency there trying to find young talent to go back to Tokyo and train to become a Head Hunter/Recruitment Consultant. I had no idea of what being a Head Hunter/Recruitment Consultant was all about, however I decided to take a chance and move back to Japan. The company Access Technology Japan (ATJ), really taught me the hard nose basics of sourcing and recruiting great talent. I was recruiting sales, marketing, IT professionals and developers. This was not only my first time in this profession, however I was recruiting Japanese nationals into foreign companies in Japan (which add another level to the learning curve). At the same time, I was also developing my Japanese language skills. I have never work so hard in my life however at the same time enjoying every minute of it. There was no such thing as a 40 hour week, I would call it more of a 60 - 80 hour week including working Saturdays. The colleagues who worked with me in the office were from all parts of the world (Japan, Canada, USA, Australia, Romania, China, Taiwan, New Zealand, etc) which made the experience even more exciting. If I look back at the various challenges learning recruiting in that market, I realize how much I learned as a 23 year old getting into the business. After ATJ, I decided to move back to California and begin my career in recruiting in the states. I ironically had more experience working in a foreign country than I did my own. When I moved back to California in January 2005, Google had just begun its growth frenzy and I had heard great things about working there. I applied and my good friend who was working in the AdSense department referred me to the staffing department. I landed a contract role where I was able to contribute to many of the emerging technical offices (China, Japan, India, Zurich, and Australia). I focused on technical positions from individual contributor to higher management. I spent a total time of 3.7 years at Google (2 years contract and 1.7 years as a permanent employee) focusing on a variety of technical roles not just for over seas offices but the Mountain View Head Quarters and YouTube San Bruno office. I also had the pleasure of working for Apple Computer and Adobe Systems during the time I was a contract recruiter. I am currently starting to work on a free-lance basis venturing into a new chapter of my recruiting career. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Andrew: Without a doubt it would be during my first recruiting job at ATJ in Japan because it gave me the opportunity to feel the sense how much you are impacting a persons life and career. I learned so much during these years that I am using these basics to this day. A specific example of this is my experience working with a Japanese Sales Manager candidate. Although he did not accept the role I was recruiting him for due to his family situation, he told me I was one of the best recruiters he has ever worked with. It was the first deal I lost, but realized the relationship and trust I built with this person lasts a lifetime. We still keep in contact to this day and he has referred many people to me. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Andrew: I have learned so much from many people I have worked with in Japan, Google, Apple and Adobe. It is hard for me to point out one particular person as I have had the honor of working with some top notch recruiters and people. From each experience, I take aspects I lack and try to grow from there. Six Degrees: Tell us about your most recent gigs. Andrew: My most recent position was recruiting technical roles for the YouTube San Bruno offices. I was located on site in San Bruno California. Google in general has a staffing organization consisting of hundreds of recruiters, although my group consisted of 5 recruiters at YouTube. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Andrew: I also had great experiences working for Apple Computer and Adobe Systems in their staffing organizations. Although each different in their own respect, they each have top notch teams and candidate process management. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Andrew: I feel the current state of the economy is definitely impacting the recruiting industry as a whole as many companies are freezing head count and laying off employees. “HOW DOES ANDREW 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? Andrew: At Google, they would receive thousands of resumes a day. however not all the hires came from general applications. More came from sourcing, various events and referrals. Google takes recruiting very seriously and will use these methods to find the best talent. Six Degrees: What is the source of the "Most Hires" collected from at your present employer? (In terms of Quantity #) Andrew: The source of most hires would have to be through proactive sourcing and employee Referrals. 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? Andrew: The source of lowest cost of hire would be through general application. Google has created a great environment in which top talent proactively apply. It is truly amazing the talent that works at the company. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Andrew: Through out the last 4 years I have focused on various software engineering professionals (back and front end software engineers, web developers, flash developers, product management, and system operations,). Also I have a niche for hard to find roles specifically language specific for instance korean and Japanese speaking engineers. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Andrew: I feel very lucky to have worked for some great corporations here in the Silicon Valley who make a great investment in the training of their staffing professionals. I have been able to take advantage of online, seminar, and video conference training. I always strive to continue and develop my skills. 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? Andrew: In house ATS and the internet (Blogs, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, boolean searches, job boards, patent searches, alumni groups etc.) Some of the tools we use here in the U.S. do not translate to finding great talent directly as with other parts of the world. For example with a more private sensitive country like Japan, it is harder to do a Linkedin search to source good talent. Many people are very reluctant to put their information on the web. It is more about the referral process and face to face interaction which takes more time. Although the up and coming engineering talent often will have their own blogs or web site. They are more keen to engage in this but one will have to be able to at times understand Japanese as it may not be in English. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Andrew: When I first started recruiting, I used a Japanese phone book and in house database at the agency I worked for in Japan. The first three months I worked at the company, I was cold calling (cold calling was still going on strong in that market at the time) 8 hours a day then spending the rest of my day meeting candidates at coffee shops and at the office. The tools were very limited and I also attended many conferences to meet candidates and various hang out locations. Since in Japanese culture many people go out to drink after work with co-workers, I often would go to a local bar or club to meet potential candidates. In fact, some of the people I met at these local hang outs I placed into different companies. 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? Andrew: The only expectation of being a recruiter was from my sister who first started in the business when I was in college. However at the time I didn't pay attention to her line of work and just remember her always doing research for her company. I didn't find it exciting at the time and before joining the agency in Japan and was a little hesitate but had no other job option. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Andrew: My biggest mistake when I first began recruiting was my pre-qualifying skills. It was so tough in the Japanese market to bring someone in from a cold call that I remember often times not doing a good job pre-qualifying. I learned right away how to be smarter with my efforts versus working harder. Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? Andrew: One of my strengths is my customer service and relationship building skills. I believe one of the best practices I tried to leave with each opportunity is treating each candidate as if they are the only person I am dealing with. I have been commented on this often and have conducted many informal training on my style. Although very busy I always try to make each person feel specifically special trying to at least leave them with the good image of the company even if they didn't get the job. Recommendations For Andrew Heywood “I have known Andrew for many years. He takes great pride in matching people with the right job and takes a personal interest in their continued success and career development. I have seen many people walk up and thank Andrew for helping them years earlier.” March 18, 2009 Paul Peissner, Alliance Manager - Business Development Specialist, BMC Software “Andrew has contributed enormously for building the engineering team for Google. He has realized great trust among line managers as a Recruiter who can actually deliver. Andrew has a very challenging assignment to hire world's top notch engineers with Japanese language qualification. Regardless of the challenge, with the three years that Andrew has worked for Google, Andrew has achieved to build a great engineering team in which the team he built is making enormous contribution to the core product development. Andrew is greatly experienced Recruiter where he can manage the entire recruiting life cycle. He has great sustainability in the way he manages candidate and client relation. He also has great interpersonal skills in the way he knows how to gain and maintain trust with candidates. I have worked very closely with Andrew at Google for two years and I highly recommend him as professional recruiter.” September 2, 2008 Tim Hayashi, Recruiter at Google Inc. “Andrew is such a pleasure to work with. He is a sincere, genuine, hard worker who will go above and beyond what the job entails. I enjoyed working with Andrew on my team. He's one of the most polite people I have ever met and has a kind, gentle heart. Andrew is a superstar performer and I'm glad that we were able to work together.” February 11, 2008 Gina Pak (gpak@longview-inc.com), Recruiter/Coordinator, Google “It was great working with Andrew. He always has a positive attitude and develops a great rapport with his work colleagues. Andrews works hard to get things done in time. I highly recommend him to anyone!” February 11, 2008 Dennis Ho, Recruiter at Google “Andrew is an excellent recruiter who knows how to close the deal. He finds the candidate, gets them through the process, and gets them to accept the offer in an efficient and timely manner. He understands the importance of making the sale.” February 11, 2008 Christopher Cheung, Internet Sourcer, GOOGLE “Andrew is an amazing recruiter. He is soft spoken but articulate. I’ve worked with Andrew at Google in different groups but we often worked together to source/recruit Japanese professionals for both Mountain View and Tokyo Google offices. Andrew gave me some great tips and resources on finding Japanese candidates. We often shared ideas and brainstormed on ways to find the Japanese Google talent. He is very smart, resourceful, responsive and friendly. I had a great time working with him and he is one of the successful recruiters that I know of at Google. You can never go wrong hiring Andrew!” February 10, 2008 Ritu Singh, Partner Solutions Organization Sourcer, Google “Andrew is a friendly and passionate recruiter. He speaks Japanese and has good skill to recruit software engineers internationally. He works hard to hire good software engineers in Japan as well as those in U.S. who would like to work for products targeted at Japanese market.” February 9, 2008 Junji Takagi, Software Engineer, Google “Andrew is hiring lots of Japanese software engineers in US and in Japan. He works with a certain amount of teamwork and helps me often.” January 31, 2008 Jun Inada, Engineering Recruiter in Tokyo, Google Japan…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 2:51am on March 30, 2009