Search Results - close friend

Blog Post: The definitive guide to job interviews in the financial sector: 1. Introduction

Our…; Added by Richard England at 4:03am on January 7, 2019

Topic: Meet Erica Jayne Walsh, Former Sparky the Christmas Reindeer & Dedicated Geese Seducer: oor, New York, NY 10017 http://www.bountyjobs.com Linkedin Profile RecruitingBlogs.com Profile Personal Email Specialties: Negotiation, Strategic Sourcing, Marketing, Public Relations, Metrics/ SLAs, Website Optimization, & Branding I had the unique pleasure of meeting Erica Jayne Walsh at ONREC this past September. She catches your eye for many reasons, some by the merits of mother nature and others ... the more lasting impressions ... for reasons of a personality you can't help forget. She is a force of nature; charming, a pervasive wit and when you think she couldn't do more to compel you to send her a follow-up email - she impresses you with substantive intellect and a thorough understanding of business models within our industry. She may be young but not impressionable - she leaves you with impressions and all of them remarkable. I could make it all sound so simple, however, and simply tell you that of all my meals at ONREC, I recall most fondly sharing a deep dish pizza in Chicago with my new friend, Erica Jayne. Q&A with Erica Jayne Walsh Erica Jayne: My home life is interesting; I am a single twenty-something living in Midtown Manhattan. I bet that everyone is immediately thinking “Sex & the City” and though I do enjoy the shopping, restaurants, and nightlife lately my home life has been lacking because I am always working… so the TV show “The Apprentice” is far more relatable. To best answer this question and avoid seemly like a totally dull human, it probably makes sense to divide my life into two phases … “The Pre-BountyJobs Era” and “The BountyJobs Era”. Up until 6 months ago, I was living in downtown Indianapolis, working as a Sourcing Associate (paper-pusher, strategist, and spend analyst) for Eli Lilly and Company in the Procurement function. I had a robust life that would be much more interesting to your readers than my current home life… I raced sailboats competitively at the Indianapolis Sailing Club, was a Naturalist & Conservationist at the Indianapolis Zoo, a Mascot (Walrus, Reindeer, Rhinoceros, and Meerkat) at collegiate sporting events, parades, and around the zoo campus. [I wasn’t the best mascot… on one horrific day in December while dressed as Sparky the Reindeer (Rudolph is trademarked) I broke the two cardinal rules of mascoting. I not only spoke in costume but also was tackled by a 3 year old girl with pigtails and my reindeer head fell off… ruining the illusion of Christmas for hundreds of Indianapolis children forever]. I owned a beautiful condo on a lake and harassed the neighbors by attracting geese with food only to then sick my West Highlight White terrier, Lexi or “The Lexinator”, on the geese and the rest of the neighborhood. Aside from Lexi, sailing, and volunteering the other joy of my life was pro-bono business consulting. I have always been quite passionate about entrepreneurship, while in college I was president of the Society of Entrepreneurs and didn’t want to betray my fellow classmates by wasting away in the Corporate World, so I started and ran my own consulting practice and spent my evenings and weekends working with retailers, restaurants, and technology companies in the Indianapolis area. THE BOUNTYJOBS ERA In April of this year, I underwent a major life change and dropped everything for the opportunity a lifetime. When I say everything, I mean everything… I am no longer the proud owner of a beautiful condo on the lake, but instead squeeze myself into a 250 sq. ft. apartment in Manhattan that costs three times my mortgage. [The view from my apartment is spectacular; you actually can see “everything” going on in the apartments in the building just behind me. Actually, if you are willing to risk the guillotine of a window and stick your head out 5 inches, you can see the Empire State Building.] Lexi has moved to Ohio to spend quality time with my Mom and her dog “Belle”… and I am no longer sailing, volunteering, or working on my Masters. Instead, I have opted to work 16 hours a day, every day of the week. Now before you think I am crazy or start to feel sorry for the lack of luster in this era of my life… I’d like to mention that right now… I am living my ultimate dream. Actually, if we could decrease my city apartment rent by about 50% I’d be living the ultimate dream… right now we should stick with “dream” for the sake of realism. Six Degrees: Any other interests/ hobbies or surprising facts? Erica Jayne: Aside from everything I’ve already mentioned… my biggest interest is learning. I love finding out that I am an idiot… my grandpa always use to say “the more we learn, the more we learn we don’t know”. I wish I could specialize in everything, speak every language, relate to every culture, design buildings, engineer cities… essentially I want to be superwoman… but who doesn’t? The thing that would probably most surprise all of your readers is that I am a high-school dropout. I dropped out of an esteemed college prep school after 10th grade to pursue my career as an international fashion model. I moved on my own at 16 to Barcelona Spain to work the fashion circuit. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, September 11th occurred causing my mother to rethink the independent teenager strategy and pull me back home. The NY fashion industry took a major hit, causing the other US fashion markets to become flooded with top NYC models… eliminating my chances of breaking in. I worked for 2 years making minimum wage, doing strange jobs (gift basket arranger, greenhouse foliage caretaker, freelance event planner, hostess/ waitress, and freelance photographer). I spent most of my time during those two years helping better fashion models launch their careers, working with reporters in the Detroit area to identify modeling scams, and trying to convince whatever business owner currently suffering through my employment that there was a better way to run their business. By the time I turned 18, I realized that I would never make a difference if I wasn’t taken seriously, so I got my GED… applied to college… got in… attended… and graduated 3 years later Summa Cum Laude, with a BS in Business Administration. Six Degrees: How’d you end up at BountyJobs? Erica Jayne: While I was working in Indianapolis for Lilly, I became increasingly frustrated. Prior to joining, I had no idea that big business was so inefficient… for example, it took Lilly 3 years to move forward on a project that was projected to save the company 30 million dollars with almost no risk. One of my responsibilities at Lilly was to work with the Recruitment component to determine better ways to do business. This included a variety of projects such as redesigning how we orchestrated background checks, on-boarding a new recruitment advertising firm, organizing and resourcing our temporary labor division, streamlining contingency search vendors, forming strategic partnerships with executive search consultants, and outsourcing parts of the sourcing function. Just to give you a sample, one of my projects was to eliminate the number of search firms under contract from a number in the hundreds to a number in the low teens. This project seemed impossible. We had little record of who had made placements, where the relationships stood, how these firms came to be under contract, what functional roles they supported and who really was valuable. It seemed that each internal recruiter operated in their own silo, and this applied just to the corporate recruiters sitting together on one floor within our corporate headquarters… completing disregarding the chaos at the Lilly subsidiaries and international entities. We became so frustrated with the lack of organization within our internal recruitment arm that we decided to outsource a part of the function to an RPO. Then one day, I got a call from Jeremy Lappin, the CEO of BountyJobs to discuss a standard search firm contract that had been given to his firm when they called into pitch Lilly the BountyJobs solution. After going bountyjobs.com, I realized that BountyJobs was not a search firm and in fact eliminated all of the contingency search problems and inefficiencies that I had just spent two years complaining about and suffering through. BountyJobs had been in business less than 16 months when I first was exposed to it, was doubling every quarter and already had 20% of the Fortune 500 as clients. Jeremy then explained to me his plan to create a global solution that every recruiter (internal and third-party) used everyday. Then I pretty much begged and harassed Jeremy for weeks until he agreed to be my mentor by bringing me onboard and teaching my how to launch and run a company. Six Degrees: Tell us about BountyJobs? Erica Jayne: As a company, BountyJobs is refreshing… we are energized, agile, and always customer focused. Our product has been designed to help an old industry (contingency search) take advantage of the scale and reach of the internet and the efficiencies that technology provides. I joined the team long after the rocket was designed and launched, but the founders and core team realized that having each internal recruiter operate in isolation and without a strong technology system prevented companies from analyzing performance, sharing knowledge, and continuously improving. The team also realized that organizations were forced to limit the search firms they worked with because of the administrative hassles of on-boarding and managing the firms. When you think of global companies like Lilly, it is a little ridiculous to think that one RPO firm or 30 search firms can fill thousands of jobs all over the world in every specialty (Sales Reps from Anchorage to Dubai, PhD Research Scientists, Regulatory Advisors) … but when you have tens of thousands of professional search firms and headhunters that cover ever region of the globe and every specialty… the likelihood of filling the job dramatically increases. So BountyJobs took the concept of a marketplace and applied it to a technological platform that streamlines all of the inefficiencies, eliminates administrative burdens, and enables employers to take control of the search process and stay in control with real time information and detailed reporting. I’ll spare your readers the pitch, but if they are interesting in learning more they should check out our website (www.bountyjobs.com) and request a live demo… and we’ll walk them through it in about 5 minutes… it is really intuitive and there isn’t any cost to use the technology. Six Degrees: What do you do for BountyJobs? Erica Jayne: Jeremy has been kind enough to let me dabble in a bit everything. My two main focuses are marketing and business development. On the marketing side, I do brand management and positioning, develop and orchestra events, manage PR, build sales collateral, develop & execute the marketing plan, and form partnerships with industry thought leaders. Then on the biz dev side I analyze data to drive business development decisions and I work to close deals with other providers. This past week, my main focus has been on overhauling the front pages of the BountyJobs website, which we hope to be launching before the months end. Also, I should have another surprise for you in early Q1 of 2009. Six Degrees: What most excites you about working for BountyJobs? Erica Jayne: I love seeing the fills come through… we are doing thousands of fills in 2008. This is exciting, because each time I see another fill I realize… a candidate just found a way to improve their life, a headhunter just made money, and an employer just found the talent that is going to help their company achieve its objectives. It is really fun to be a part of something that is a win for everyone. I especially love seeing BountyJobs grow so quickly and knowing that I am a part of that growth. This week we just moved into a new office that is more than 5x our previous space… based on the constant stream of positive feedback and the rate at which we are growing domestically and internationally… I would be shocked if Jeremy’s projection [‘Every recruiter using BountyJobs every day’] didn’t come true. Six Degrees: How does BountyJobs fit into your life plan? Erica Jayne: Through this on-going experience, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I know who I am as a person and as a professional. Ultimately, I have the confidence and the where with all to know that I can provide BountyJobs with the right strategic insight, pursue an MBA at a top school, launch my own company, and ultimately build the life and world that I dream of. Everyone always asks entrepreneurs and people involved in entrepreneurial enterprises about their exit strategy. Honestly, when you are growing fast, living your dream, traveling the world, and making friends with amazing people… an exit strategy is the last thing on the mind. Six Degrees: Any final comments? Erica Jayne: Thanks so much for letting me be a part of sixdegreesfromdave. As I indicated I love learning from people and forming partnerships. If anyone wants to chat more with me about entrepreneurship, life, and/or workaholism, please reach out to me… I’d be glad to help however I can.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 1:20am on November 10, 2008

Blog Post: What It Takes To Succeed - The Recruiter's Perspective.: It was 8 years ago in July 2008, where I found myself reflective, hopeful,…; Added by Mike Rasmussen at 1:37am on May 18, 2016

Topic: Meet Australia's Greg Savage, Aquent's International CEO – Europe and Asia Pacific: eries please click here. "The movement of marketing and advertising to digital and interactive platforms will drive the demand for staff in this sector ... Job boards will become less effective and social media will increasingly play a role, although that is to be fully worked out yet. We believe specialization and depth of knowledge will be a key differentiator in the recruitment market and we are building our business accordingly." • RecruitingBlogs Profile • Linkedin • Twitter • Company Website • Personal Blog • Personal Causes: The LBW Trust – fostering education for underprivileged young people in Zimbabwe and South Africa. • Office: +612 413838823 • Personal Email As Aquent's International CEO – Europe and Asia Pacific, Greg Savage contributes total strategic, marketing, financial and operational responsibility for all Aquent Business outside North America. Currently comprises 23 offices in 13 Countries in Europe and Asia Pacific. Greg has been involved with the premier recruitment Industry body in Australia — the RCSA. Greg has spoken at industry conferences all over the world including at least 20 RCSA conferences in addition to NAPS in the US and ACCESS in Canada Q&A with Greg Savage Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. I was born in Cape Town, South Africa and immigrated to Australia 30 years ago. I live on the North Shore of Sydney with my wife Bronwyn and three children Hannah (19), Nic (12) and Chris (9). I have traveled all over the world with my job, but that does not dampen my enthusiasm for recreational travel with my family. We like to take the road less traveled and often backpack or use local transport to get a real feel for a place. That does not stop us staying at the odd five-star resort when we can afford it, but highlights in recent years include traveling by train through eastern Europe, overland through Vietnam, by mini-van through Borneo to meet the Oran Utangs,, Japan via bullet train, across Jordan and Israel with just my 12 year old Nic, and only recently by truck through Zambia, Botswana and Namibia. I find it a total release from work stress, it brings our family close together and certainly my kids have a perspective on the world not found amongst many of their friends – in a good way We are a sporty family with my wife playing competition level tennis and my boys playing rugby, cricket and tennis. A highlight recently was the selection of my youngest son Chris in the Representative Under 10 cricket team for our district. Great celebrations. I can envisage him playing for Australia already… Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Greg: I am a recruiting tragic. I got my very first job out of University with a Search and Selection firm, starting in January 1980, so I guess I am closing in on 30 years. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Greg: Digital/Interactive designers and technicians, Marketing specialists, especially online, and Print creatives Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Greg: I fell into recruitment after finishing a degree in Psychology. In those days people talked about a career in “personnel management” (HR was not yet born as a title) and I went to a recruitment business to see if they could find me a job. The manager there said no client would hire someone with zero experience, but he was happy to give me a go! I worked in Executive Selection for Sales, Marketing, Finance and General Management jobs for three years. We sold search and retainers and what they called in those days “Advertised Selection” where we advertised in the press at clients’ expense. It was a great grounding and I learned how to sell value and process over price, an invaluable skill. I also learned to bluff because I was 22 when I started and most of my clients were in their 40’s. So were all my colleagues by the way. But at 25 I decided to travel in a Kombi van across Europe for six months with a friend. It was real odyssey and we visited 30 countries and travelled 25,000 miles. When the money ran out, I got a job placing accountants in Central London — Oxford Circus to be exact. It was a rough and tumble, highly competitive world, where speed was king and only the very strongest survived. I learned so much about urgency and fast matching and resilience and fast negotiation. I was then made manager of a permanent team of eight recruiters running the London West End business, which was my first supervisory role. Staying with the same company (now called Hays) I came back to Australia to run the Sydney office and was made a director of the company at age 27. IN 1987, when Hays bought our company, I left and with two others started my own business, Recruitment Solutions. We built this finance and accounting recruitment business to sales of $60 Million and offices all over Australia, finally listing the business via an IPO on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1997. I am still very proud of that business and its standards and efficiency and a testament to its quality was that dozens of our staff from those days now own and run their own successful businesses. That’s got to be a good thing right? In 2001, I joined Aquent, the world’s largest marketing and design staffing company as Asia Pacific CEO. In 2005, I was promoted to International CEO, which includes all Aquent businesses outside North America. This covers 20 plus offices in 14 countries. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Greg: When Hays, the UK conglomerate bought my employer, Accountancy Placements, in the mid 80’s it sparked off a chain of events that changed everything for me. The senior management team could not see ourselves as part of the new regime and we left and started our own company in 1987. This business eventually grew to one of the biggest in the country. As an owner everything changed including responsibility, risk, and financial security. Being a Director of a public company after we listed Recruitment Solutions in 1997 was not so cool. Answering to shareholders, beholden to share price and non-executive directors, meant I only stayed the minimum time in the business after the IPO. This freed me up to join Aquent two years alter which took my career in a fresh, new and International direction Six Degrees: Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Greg: Sadly no, not one person. Certainly I have learned from many along the way and continue to do so. I often call on industry colleagues for advice and aspire to the strengths of people I know, but I have no one mentor to turn to, nor can I identify one or more people to whom I “owe it all”. I miss that fact actually. Six Degrees: Tell us about your position at Aquent: Greg: Aquent is the only global marketing and design staffing company. We are privately held so releasing numbers is not appropriate but we were recently nominated as the 85th biggest staffing company in the world and the largest Creative recruiter in the US. (Staffing Industry Analysts). My role is to manage the operations outside the US. This is a challenge because we are in 14 countries in Europe and APAC crossing many times zones, languages and cultural nuances. I currently manage through my team, 25 offices including 5 in Australia, 5 in Japan, 4 in greater China and 5 in Europe. Our big focus is in creative and digital contractors as well as marketing staffing. We have a strong perm business to complement the staffing operations. Staff numbers in my region peaked at 450 last year, although it’ss less than that now. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Greg: The movement of marketing and advertising to digital and interactive platforms will drive the demand for staff in this sector. Aquent is perfectly positioned to take the lion’s share of this market, as we have “owned” creative print staffing for more than 20 years. I also see a significant opportunity in contract staffing in the marketing arena as more companies get to understand the benefits of using a flexible model in this sector. Other changes that will impact our industry is a far more fragmented talent acquisition landscape. Job boards will become less effective and social media will increasingly play a role, although that is to be fully worked out yet. We believe specialization and depth of knowledge will be a key differentiator in the recruitment market and we are building our business accordingly. Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: Greg: I have a long history of involvement with the peak recruitment Industry body in Australia — the RCSA. In fact I was Vice president of the RCSA for many years and sat on both the Ethics and membership committee. I was made a Life Member of the RCSA several years ago in recognition of services to the industry. I have spoken at countless industry conferences all over the world including at least 20 RCSA conferences but also NAPS in the US and ACCESS in Canada in addition to My current RCSA speaking tour. I have also spoken at several NPA conferences (some of my speaking engagements can be seen here) Six Degrees: Can you detail how the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Greg: The recession has had an impact on business in every country I am responsible for. Being in marketing, we may have been particularly hard hit. Permanent demand fell off markedly and temp has been affected too, but less so. We have taken the usual steps to reduce our cost base, but more importantly we are using this time to refine our processes, redesign our website, improve the customer experience and re define our strategic imperatives. As painful as the downturn has been, I am convinced we will emerge stronger than ever in the recovery. Recessions are a wonderful cleansing opportunity and the challenge is to be courageous and be prepared to innovate and refresh. Aquent cows can be lined up and slaughtered. Aquent is doing that now and its very cool. 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? Greg: Speaking at conferences has raised my profile significantly. As a result I am often asked for input from the recruitment press in Australia and elsewhere. My blog gregsavage.com.au has a high hit rate and this allows me a platform for opinions. I am recent to Twitter with only 400 followers, but I find it very powerful for driving people to my blog and my company website and also for announcing vacancies in my own business. As at least 80% of my followers are in marketing or recruitment, it’s a powerful audience. LinkedIn works for me too, but I have not been strong on actively seeking connections. People find me however and the network I have is very nicely defined within my area of interest. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t -- and how did that convert itself into a valuable learning experience? Greg: Oh dear. Many and varied. Probably the one that stands out most was when, in the hurly-burly world of placing accountants in the 80’s, when speed was more important than quality, I sent the resume of a young accountant TO HER OWN EMPLOYER. It was embarrassing and damaging and it shook me very much indeed. I have paid attention to detail on stuff I sent out ever since. I also once asked a client on what I thought was our first meeting whether he knew much about (my company). He replied that I had placed him in a job several years before. Embarrassment plus! In management, I have tried many things that have not worked but I firmly believe in still trying lots of stuff. Innovation and change is critical. 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? Greg: I am not a networking expert, but online I would advise people not mix their personal with their business networking. I have a face book account but I have no clients or colleagues as friends. I actually have friends and family as friends! This allows me to share personal stuff with the right people and not bore them with business matters. Linked in and twitter however is for networking and I think it important to keep them very targeted. Don’t chase connections or followers for numbers sake. Make sure you connect with people you want to do business with (or who are key influencers) or who can help you access people you want to business with. Don’t be frivolous in the social media conversations, don’t spam. Remember manners and politeness. Give as much as you take. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? Greg: I want to lead Aquent to preeminence in marketing and design staffing across every market in the world where talent and clients need our service, and where we can sustain a highly profitable business. I want to lead a company that is innovative and dexterous, and where people are changed for the better by working here. I have no desire to take on more responsibility because what I have on is enough to stretch the most capable of individuals and certainly enough to stretch me, every day.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 11:49pm on November 1, 2009

Blog Post: The Journey East: How A Major Career Choice Helped me Better Understand Candidate Experience.: I stood proudly looking down from Ensign Peak in Salt Lake City, UT, on August 11, 2012. One could not help but see that a view from where famous Pioneer Leaders of the LDS faith nearly 165 years…; Added by Mike Rasmussen at 11:45pm on September 6, 2012

Blog Post: Hiring at Tiqets — How to build the team behind the fastest-growing Dutch startup: Added by Hagi Trinh at 11:10am on July 26, 2016

Blog Post: 35 Team Building Activities for Work (2022 Edition)

Companies actively endeavor to create a sense of teamwork amongst employees by connecting them to each other. With good reason.

‍…

Added by Phil Strazzulla at 5:06pm on October 8, 2022

Blog Post: 35 Team Building Activities for Work (2022 Edition)

Companies actively endeavor to create a sense of teamwork amongst employees by connecting them to each other. With good reason.

‍…

Added by Phil Strazzulla at 6:30am on October 25, 2022

Blog Post: An interview with VisualCV.com: I don't know how many of you have had a look at VisualCV.com yet? In a word: cute. Great idea, great networking capability, great future. We're all…; Added by Paul Harrison at 7:05am on August 18, 2008

Blog Post: 2022 HR Trends and Predictions from the Internet - Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, HR Tech, Remote Work: As we embark on another year, we are optimistic on the technological developments and improvements on existing processes in the HR domain. Here in this article, we take a look at all the trends…; Added by Phil Strazzulla at 4:23am on November 1, 2022