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Blog Post: 5 Onboarding Tricks You Definitely Can't Skip: Added by Christine Marino at 9:26am on February 24, 2016

Blog Post: Job Fair: The Ultimate Guideline for Employers: Technological progression makes people argue that doing things online is better and job fairs should be no exception. Both recruiters and job seekers can join with a computer set at home, a…; Added by Rakuna at 10:28pm on April 7, 2021

Blog Post: Job Fair: The Ultimate Guideline for Employers: Technological progression makes people argue that doing things online is better and job fairs should be no exception. Both recruiters and job seekers can join with a computer set at home, a…; Added by Rakuna at 6:25am on April 25, 2022

Blog Post: Top 4 Virtual Event Platforms for Your Next Virtual Career Fair

For the event industry, especially career events,…

Added by Rakuna at 2:25am on January 26, 2021

Blog Post: Zoom Interview Tips for 2021: Zoom interviews might be here to stay. Or at least any video interview or remote interview session. Getting familiar with the tips that are required to nail a remote interview is critical in…; Added by Patrick Algrim at 9:35pm on November 30, 2020

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 Rakuna at 6:59am on July 13, 2021

Blog Post: Are Mo, Larry and Curly Doing The Hiring At Your Company?: Originally posted on http://blog.keenhire.com

I'm serious.

Let's get real, have you…; Added by Margaret Graziano at 12:33pm on May 13, 2010

Topic: Meet Jerry Albright, RBC Regular & Staffing Software Innovator: roup.com Jerry is one of those people you instantly like and feel a camaraderie much akin to someone who has sat on a lawn chair on your deck with a beer in hand for many a summer night. From a chat discussion to live at RecruitFest, RecruitingBlogs.com keeps bringing people from across the country and the world together, learning, singing and laughing. With Jerry we get all three. A practicing recruiter with a high grossing contracting firm who also happened to submit his talents on guitar with vocals for the RecruitingBlogs video contest and, not least, his ability to have us laughing throughout dinner in Toronto at Recruitfest on the first night at an RBC feast. Avid Outdoorsman, Familyman, Recruiter, contracting firm owner, singer, musician, and staffing software innovator, he still finds time each and every day to contribute at RecruitingBlogs be in a forum or a chatroom discussion. My friends, - we have ourselves a Renaissance man and a familiar face in Jerry Albright, a family member within a tight knit community. Meet my good friend, Jerry Albright ... Q&A with Jerry Albright, RBC Regular & Founder of Verbal Summary Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Jerry. Jerry: Nikole and I married in 1994 and have been enjoying our lives together for nearly 15 years! We have 3 children – boys Reagan (7) and Reed (5) and our little girl Hannah (3). Our home is in rural Northeast Indiana where we enjoy gardening, swimming in the pond on hot summer days and being actively involved with our kids! Nikole works at Oak Farm Montessori School where our children attend. In the summer we really love getting away in our camper. Venturing to new places and seeing how much the kids love exploring is a perfect way to get away from the desk. I’m an avid outdoorsman – so our family enjoys a varied menu depending on the season! Walleye, morel mushrooms, venison and pheasant are some of our favorite meals together. Six Degrees: How many years have you been a recruiter? Jerry: My recruiting career began in June of 1987. I remember seeing an ad in the Fort Wayne paper with the following headline: Human Resource Consultant. Are you enthusiastic? Motivated? Influential? It then listed the phone number to call. I was certainly motivated, as at that point in my life I hadn’t decided on a particular direction. Enthusiasm has also been a part of anything I do. So all I needed to learn was how to be influential which sounded great to me! I called the number and have stuck with it ever since! Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Jerry: I haven’t thought about that before…..It would most likely have to be the impact of my first few placements. The “big picture” of recruiting really sunk in. I remember feeling like I had really accomplished something. . I had been in sales roles before recruiting but something just felt completely different. I fell in love with it! Since then I have never taken any placement for granted. I can remember the names and companies of nearly everyone I have placed. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Jerry: I have been fortunate in my career to have several mentors – each of whom gave me invaluable insight into the fine art of staffing. Richard Pulse is the one who hired me and gave me my start in 1987. His training and guidance was fantastic. It’s really hard to quantify just how much impact he had on my career because if it weren’t for him I’m quite certain I would be doing something entirely different with my life. My other mentor in the recruiting world was Bruce A. Bone. He was the one who showed me the absolute necessity to personally visit each client your represent. That is one of the things that have stuck with me over the years. If you are going to invest your time and effort with someone (clients) – you simply MUST meet them and build that relationship in a way that only face to face meetings can do. Six Degrees: Tell us about your Day Job, Jerry: Jerry: I am the owner of Professional Search Group as well as Verbal Summary. Professional Search Group was founded in 1998. Since that time I have developed clients throughout the Midwest. We are a small group of independent recruiters working together to fill our client need within the I.T. and Engineering community. We have a focus in I.T. and Technology and also recruit within the Engineering world for several key clients. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Jerry: It would be foolish to not recognize the economic landscape we are all dealing with. It is refreshing for us all to be reminded of the true nature of our work and the focus and discipline success requires in the staffing world. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Jerry: Next for me is to continue developing the presence of Verbal Summary in the marketplace. Having been a successful recruiter for many years is allowing me to shift gears just a bit and follow an idea all the way through. 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? Jerry: I really can’t say enough about Verbal Summary. If you can just picture how many times each day recruiters make marketing call into every company in the marketplace. They have absolutely nothing NEW to present to the clients. Faster? I doubt it. Better? Really. Lower Fee? Please….. When all is said and done there is nothing new taking place for our clients. They are getting resumes in Word format the same way they always have. So it all gets down to providing a truly different (absolutely unique) service to them. Verbal Summary is a tool which allows you to add targeted audio right on top of the resume. So when your client reviews a candidate you have introduced they just click the play button and LISTEN to the candidate describe their particular background for that position. Clients love this. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Jerry: About the only tool we had was the telephone. What I learned during those days was the importance of listening. It seems that with the overload of internet tools we use now – there isn’t much “listening” going on. In fact there is more silence that anything. The process has shifted from “conversation” based recruiting to a more question/answer/email format. I don’t see as much investment in getting to know your clients and candidates as much as we use to. So the tool that has stuck with me is the good old telephone. (Rumor has it the phone is making a comeback!) 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? Jerry: Well – for me I had never heard of such a thing. It was all brand new for me and it felt quite natural. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Jerry: I’m all about learning from mistakes! Luckily I haven’t made too many big ones. After deciding to “do my own thing” in 1998 I did make the mistake of hiring people based on reasons other than what I knew from my previous 10 years in the business it takes to be a success. I made the mistake of assuming the people I hired had the same desire for success that I did. It cost my some real money and lost opportunities to figure that out! Six Degrees: How do you personally expect to facilitate change within our industry, and/or at your place of work? If you started that process, outline the problem, your solutions, and the vision. Jerry: It has been quite apparent to many of us “old school” recruiters that the general level of service provided my many agencies has become stagnant. Find a candidate. Send the resume. Start again. Our clients are getting resume after resume in the same boring fashion they have for years! I am personally committed to changing the way recruiters make presentations to their customers. As mentioned I have developed a tool for very easily combining audio with resumes. This tool is saving clients considerable time by being able to hear highlighted parts of their interview with the recruiter. The benefits of using it are endless. It is also used to capture your discussion with the client and add that to a written job requirement to be sent to your candidates. They love it. They get to hear the CLIENT describe the job – not just the recruiter’s interpretation. Candidates can very easily refer jobs to their associates just by forwarding the link you send. It’s amazing. Six Degrees: What are some of the frustrating aspects/obstacles to your day to day as a staffing professional and in general? Jerry: Clients now hide behind a wall of voicemail and email. It had been getting harder and harder to reach out to potential clients that had not worked with me before. Up until developing Verbal Summary I had nothing new to offer them. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? Jerry: What inspires me are the goals and dreams we have as a family. My lovely wife Nikole inspires me! My children inspire me! Recruiting has always been a gift I feel lucky to have received. I am inspired when I drive down the highway and see names of our clients on the trucks. It makes me feel in some small way a part of the big picture. There is not a single profession I can think of which offers such a balance between life and work. Recruiting for me is simply a way of life! The flexibility is something which few careers offer. I can take my work with me – leave it at the office – let it consume me for whatever time it may – or anywhere in between. The choice is up to me! Six Degrees: What one thing do you ideally hope to accomplish in 2009? Jerry: I will continue to get the word out on Verbal Summary while maintaining the level of placement activity I expect from myself. Should be a very busy year! Six Degrees: Anything you want to plug? Jerry: Everyone should really check out Verbal Summary. If you want to offer your clients something absolutely revolutionary…..this is it! It’s one of the few tools I have ever seen which actually give you something that will open client doors for you. It really does! Six Degrees: How Are You Going To Change The Recruitment Industry? Jerry: In a small (but growing) way I already have! Find more videos like this on RecruitingBlogs.com Six Degrees: Tell us about Your Company Jerry: Verbal Summary - www.verbalsummary.com - is the first of its kind. It’s a "Presentation Tool" designed for every desk in the staffing world. It allows the recruiter to easily combine audio with a resume for effective and powerful presentations to their clients. They simply record a conversation with their candidate creating an MP3 file. This audio is then easily uploaded along with the resume to the website. This profile is then turned into a friendly link for sending to their client. All activity taking place from that point forward is tracked instantaneously on their “dashboard”. You will now know immediately when your client has reviewed your presentation. That alone is worth the price! Take a look at this example candidate profile! http://www.verbalsummary.com/ViewCandidate.aspx?p1=23cfc27e-2654-46ad-a4ef-59abcbf732a2 Six Degrees: How was Your Company Founded? Jerry: Our industry has been fixated on candidate sourcing, social networking and storing candidate profiles. There has been very little (if any) thought put into how we’re presenting these individuals to our customer base. In searching for a way to make our candidates stand out from the crowd we found nothing available. I’m an old school recruiter. My success comes from having conversations – REAL conversations - with candidates and clients. Lately many of my clients have begun to rely more and more on email for communication. This frustrates me. After developing an excellent understanding of my candidate’s background and qualifications – I then have to throw it out the window and just send a plain old email with resume attached! I had to change that. Often times during the initial part of the process the client begins with a phone call to the candidate. This is usually a few days in the making and the end result is in essence covering the very same ground your client is paying you for! So this tool simply had to be built. I now take specific parts of my interview audio with the candidate and stick it right on top of the resume. There are hundreds of products to help us keep track of our candidates, but nothing to move them forward once a match has been identified. With that in mind we built the industry’s only tool geared toward our client’s first impression of the candidate that requires NOTHING NEW from the client or candidate. We have significantly changed the way our customers expect to be served by reconstructing the entire ‘resume sending’ process. We’re now introducing the “person” to our clients, not just their resume. Six Degrees: Where did you go and find investors? Jerry: This was done in-house. This project was done with a team of outside software developers. They helped me put my idea into a workable design and then took it from there. Being the first software product I had experienced it was a fascinating and rewarding process…..expensive…but rewarding! From the initial concept to product launch took just under 1 year. Six Degrees: Your Company’s Value Proposition Jerry: With a world gone crazy with all kinds of technology to find candidates – there is simply not a single, straight-forward tool to help you “brand” your “product” once you’ve identified a solid candidate for your client. I find it amazing just how much money is spent in the recruiting world just to make sure everyone has access to all the same resumes their competitors do – but nothing is being invested (yet) to set that resume apart from the crowd for your client. Using Verbal Summary is a way for you to CLEARLY provide an incrementally better service to your client. Without a doubt clients absolutely love the ability to LISTEN to the candidate speak directly about their experience for the job. All the client does is click the link you send. Your email is a sharply branded message sent from Verbal Summary. The customer just follows the link. No downloads, passwords or additional software is required on their end. Your client can review YOUR INTERVIEW AUDIO at any time that fits into their schedule. Six Degrees: What is the pricing structure for your services/products? Jerry: $50/month for the first account with discounts for additional users in the same company. Six Degrees: What is the future for Your Company? Jerry: The future is great! Being the first tool of its kind I have noticed it taking a bit for the idea to catch on with the recruiting public. Once a recruiter sits down and really looks at it the advantage in using it becomes absolutely clear. I know most recruiters think in terms of placements so I’ll put it this way – if you make just ONE additional placement in 30 years due to VS – then it has paid for itself! Why WOULDN’T someone use it?! Six Degrees: Do you blog? Jerry: I’m a recruiter – not a journalist or reporter - so I really haven’t felt the need to blog much. I’ve never thought the general public needed to know my every thought – but to each his own. I am a regular on RecruitingBlogs.com though. Sometimes I’ll put something together over there. I have had the pleasure of hosting Talent Talk Cafe several times and have really enjoyed it. It is a chat every Tuesday and Thursday at 3pm EST on the front page. I strongly believe every recruiter in the world should be a member there. Each day is a learning opportunity. The volume of information there is mind boggling! Six Degrees: Tell me something others may not know about you. Jerry: My home is heated by burning corn which heats water in a boiler. That water is then pumped through my homes original gas/forced air system. The fan blows across the radiator and sends the heat throughout the duct system. It’s very quiet.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 9:41pm on November 23, 2008

Blog Post: Vote Americans, Vote: Whether you believe Obama is prepared or not, history is being made. Whether you believe only McCain can protect our country, history is being made. Whether you believe our country needs to change,…; Added by Steve Levy at 8:38am on November 4, 2008

Topic: Meet Beth Havens, A Corporate Recruiter with a Physics Degree & Love Ancient Architecture: ue. Personal Causes: Saving Edith Wharton’s Home in the Hamptons, it’s a very unique bit of history Office/Cell Number: 805-212-0612 Personal Email: msbhavens1@yahoo.com *** Beth is Available for New Opportunities Beth Havens has been a Full Cycle Contract Technical Recruiter with more than 12 years exempt recruitment experience in high-volume, high profile technical and scientific fields. Beth takes pride in her expertise in areas such as risk reduction, ability to work independently or in teams, vendor negotiation, collecting and defining business requirements, executing strategic searches, workforce planning, strong flexibility to adjust to demanding environments with attention to details and deadlines. Q&A with Beth Havens Six Degrees: Tell us about your home world Beth Beth I am an empty nester with a busy year ahead of me! My youngest Daughter Graduates from the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, on the 9th of May. (Yes that is the week after the Kentucky Derby, for you horse racing fans out there) My Oldest Daughter is getting Married in August, and finishes her Masters at USC in December (her BA is from UCLA, she has a fine sense of humor) otherwise it is just me and the critters at home these days! Have Dog will travel! Hobbies! Oh my! Aside from the obvious hobbies of gardening and hiking, I am known to write poetry, I have a book on lulu dot com that I put together for the friends and family who complained, “Toads Pond”. I’m known to hang out with the Society for Creative Anachronism on occasion. I enjoy medieval engineering, heraldry, textile hobbies and other interesting tidbits to be found within that group. I love ancient architecture. I’m far more likely to be found in the museum or the garden than on the beach. I’m terribly unsocial in my private life for a recruiter. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Beth I started recruiting in 1995. My BS is in Physics and Computer Science and finding a job in that market was a bit tough, when I stumbled across a recruiter who thought I’d make a good recruiter. I think a good many recruiters stumbled into the industry via odd roads. I had the pleasure of working for an IT staffing company called XXCAL for a good many years before I went into contract recruiting. Since then I have been doing contract and freelance recruiting. Generally I get called for one of two things, either hard to find Scientific, Engineering, IT or Technical people, OR oddly enough, hard to work with hiring managers. I have worked with both very large companies like Citibank, and Sony electronics, and small companies(less than 100 employees), like Xencor. I find either can be great opportunities as long as there are interesting requirements to work on. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Beth Full Cycle Contract Technical Recruiter with more than 12 years exempt recruitment experience in high-volume, high profile technical and scientific fields. I am dedicated and work to give a high level of professionalism. My abilities include strong written and verbal communication, risk reduction, ability to work independently or in teams, vendor negotiation, collecting and defining business requirements, executing strategic searches, workforce planning, strong flexibility to adjust to demanding environments with attention to details and deadlines. Most recently, Beth serviced at Sony Electronics, Inc. through Integrity Placements, performing full cycle recruiting, mainly for ISSA, Legal, Marketing and Controller groups. Recruiting mainly SAP manufacturing and finance project lead and management for ISSA. Participating in research and development for a strong print ad campaign, as well as searching for and developing stronger presence in recruiting online in niche arena’s for specific job functions, mainly seeking Project experience for large ERP projects. Helped to re-create the in house staffing function at Sony. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Beth Transitioning from Agency Staffing to Contract Recruiting - it allowed me to really do the parts of recruiting I like best! Working directly with hiring managers to fill needs, and working on finding the candidates to fill those needs, while not having to do the part I dislike which is hunting for prospective opportunities. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Beth I have to say the person I learned the most about recruiting and business in general from, was Marv Hoffman. Marv not only provided a great deal of recruiting training, but encouraged his recruiting teams to participate in groups that they could learn more from. For instance while working with XXCAL I belonged to several users groups that were great souring pools. (NT users group and a VB Testing group for example) We attended recruiting conferences and Marv had his own training sessions as well. It would have been hard to spend any length of time in that group and NOT learn a great deal. Six Degrees: Tell us about your position, (responsibilities, size of your staffing organization) : Beth Currently I am doing freelance work, taking on requirements from staffing firms who need a bit of help, and doing splits while seeking that next contracting opportunity! Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Beth I am hoping the Trend in new Energy Development and Deployment will have a great boost in my future opportunities, as I’ve been keenly interested in alternate energy sources since I was a teen. Be it thermal heating systems, Wind turbines, solar (recently read a great white paper from MIT on some solar energy changes that would radically alter the amount of energy you are ABLE to use from solar cells) or even passive energy creation or conservation. (for instance if you don’t lose as much heat from a home, you don’t need to create as much, etc.) But then I’m always interested in engineering and architecture, so this shouldn’t’ be too big a shock for those who’ve been reading along. I am a geek by nature, and no! That is not a negative statement! Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: (Do you attend conferences? Which ones? List/detail speaking events, awards, publications, where you have you represented your company) Beth I have attended conferences in the past, SHRM, ERE and many conferences that were directly related to my recruiting needs, Like the Optical Electronic Industry conferences, or Computer conferences which were related to industries I was recruiting for. My personal favorite is the OPIE. I have to admit, I have a couple Schott glasses from the Schott glass company. That has to be one of the best give aways ever. 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) Beth My last contract ended at the end of January in 2008. I was very surprised that I didn’t have several opportunities in the wings when it ended, but still, I didn’t think I’d be working freelance as long as I have. I had remarked to some friends in 2007 that some banking transactions I’d had reason to observe worried me as to the state of several banks stability. I really hate to be right some days. It seems to me that the media began paying attention to the recession in Late 2008, but that the recession itself began early 2007. I began seeing a great deal more recruiters looking for work peaking in the winter months of 2008 and finally starting to subside in about March of this year. Of course in times like this, Good Sales Staff are worth their weight in gold, but they aren’t automatically created from thin air, so both staffing agencies and corporate business have found themselves going through sales staff and training at a rather intense rate (good training is far too under rated and under utilized in my opinion) while other business find themselves holding their collective breath, so to speak waiting to see what is happening on the world stage, or even failing in the interim. We will recover, economies do, sometimes more slowly than others, but we will recover. Now, where we will all be at the other end of that recovery, that is the question! I admit to having some Thoughts about the viability of changing direction, but to what purpose? Important questions these! I think one of the best indications that the bleeding of the economy is slowing down is that there are more advertisements for recruiters and a big slowdown in the number of NEWLY unemployed recruiters. If there are Jobs, there will be a need for recruiters, so it is, I think, the number one job listing to look for in a recovering economy. Interestingly there seem to be a great deal more ads for the east coast than west coast coming up on my searches. That too may be an indication of what we need to watch in the coming year. Are other economies recovering faster than the California economy? And which industries are recovering fastest. Which seem to be failing completely? I enjoy searching through this information on a regular basis lately. Also I would expect some staffing agencies to do really well when the economy begins to heal because when applicants are abundant, what manager wants to wade through hundreds of resumes to find a few gems? So the pick up in Agency hiring is to me another indication that the recession is beginning to ease just a bit. I am looking forward to a happier year! 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? Beth You know that is a great question! I have joined a few interesting groups in an effort to get more visibility. I joined the “Ruthie List” and “Carecruit” (California recruiting) groups. I also started receiving other industry communications that I thought might be useful for finding companies that might need my services. I found a few browsers that have been uniquely helpful. Indeed.com is a site that lets you see jobs on several boards and even private company sites at once. Which also just brings to light several possible companies that might be useful. 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? Be specific Beth I should advise against sharing too much personal information, there really is (and I believe, should be!) a difference between your personal and public life. Other than that, be interested in others as much as you are interested in promoting your own needs, because if you don’t listen to others, you will miss opportunities for yourself! (or maybe even an opportunity for a friend) Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Beth There are a couple things I’d like to do. One objective is to work with a small company helping build a solid team from the ground up. Possibly working that effort into an operations Lead position later on. Another thing that I’d be interested in doing is leading a recruiting team for a large company. Either objective is highly dependent upon opportunity. I have my eyes open for just such an occurrence! “HOW DOES BETH 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? Beth When corporate recruiting, it has been my experience that the overwhelming vast majority of the hiring was the result of sourcing efforts on my part, which included, corporate advertising, searching internal and external databases and networking. I found that a good candidate was just as likely to be found by anyone of these methods as the other, which is why I employ all these methods. . 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? Beth Without doubt the lowest cost per hire I have found has been with previously known candidates, or internal transfers. An internal transfer does not always mean another opening. One of the things smart companies do, is to review the personnel they have to let go from One team, for the likelihood they can fill openings in another group. The cost savings can be tremendous there. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Beth I generally focus on hard to find IT, Engineering or Scientific candidates, though I’ve been asked to fill legal openings as well. While at Sony my main focus was in hiring High level SAP management and design level candidates and Law candidates. While at Amgen it was chemists and other high level R&D scientists, at Citibank embedded Unix developers, and Oracle programmers. If it is a complex opportunity, I may be the recruiter you need. 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? Beth I have probably used just about every ATS system out there, at one time or another, having an ATS is invaluable, which one you have is certainly up to you or your company, my favorite is Bond. The one I’ve used most is Taleo. Secondly I think one should have access to posting on Some job boards, one doesn’t necessarily need every board out there, but one universal board, and a few niche boards that fit your company needs really do make networking easier. Not to mention advertise your company and give you more opportunities to network. And contact with niche groups that support whatever activity you most need in your hiring, be it MBA groups or some users group that services a particular type of prospective candidate, these can be invaluable. My brain, is also known to be a fairly useful tool, though I don’t claim to share all its contents. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Beth I came into recruiting when databases and search engines were already in use. And being a geek I really don’t think I would have gotten into it otherwise. If I file it, it isn’t likely to be seen again for years. I file things that Might be useful sometime, not things I use on a regular basis. That is why databases are so useful, its filing for things you plan on using regularly. I also think I drove my first bosses crazy because I hired more candidates on email than I ever called, and that drove the metrics crazy. But then a lot of the candidates I deal with don’t like(and occasionally don’t answer) the phone. 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? Beth I didn’t have any idea of what to expect when I first started recruiting, since it wasn’t anything I ever imagined I’d be doing! So no expectations to live up to or crush. I think the biggest assumption people have about recruiting is that it in any way is an HR function. Recruiting is a management function, and is diabolically opposed to HR. the sole function of HR is to protect a companies assets. This means if you have someone in HR doing your recruiting, they often will not show resumes to hiring managers that they think are a pain to HR. a recruiter puts the position and the hiring managers needs before HR preferences. Recruiting assumes the responsibilities of a hiring manager to detail, advertise and find suitable candidates for an opening. Some of the odd HR jobs recruiters take on in order to fulfill that duty, are for our own convenience, to get the job done. They aren’t a recruiting function per se’. The most foolish thing any business can do in my opinion, is to put recruiting under the auspices of HR. If they aren’t under their own separate heading altogether, then they should be under operations. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Beth I will have to hold a contest to see. Though possibly the one I thought the silliest was parking in boss’ favorite (though unmarked) parking place when I went for an interview. Six Degrees: How do you personally expect to facilitate change within our industry, and/or at your place of work? If you started that process, outline the problem, your solutions, and the vision. Beth I think that the best way to make any industry better is to do your best at what you do. Lead by example and change will occur naturally. Well it’s a theory anyway. Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? Beth The best recruiting practice is to stick to process. Six Degrees: What are some of the frustrating aspects/obstacles to your day to day as a staffing professional and in general? Beth I think the biggest obstacle to recruiting, are hiring managers whose personal hiring goals clash with their companies hiring goals. They most often take up the most time. This time waster is followed closely by un-necessary meetings. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? Beth I’m happiest when working on an interesting opportunity. Finding that one odd placement no one else can find. Six Degrees: What one thing do you ideally hope to accomplish in 2009? (OR) Six Degrees: What one thing do you find most ideal given the opportunity to develop/ implementing/ invent professionally that has yet to be done. Beth Actually I’d like to see an MRP (manufacturing resource planner) that is similar to a job board for investors and communities to use to help manufacturing stay strong. The idea being that resources, inventors and investors really need a place to network to make opportunity happen. The thought comes out of my recruiting experience. Six Degrees: Anything you want to plug? Beth Only the hole in the economic dyke…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 2:54am on May 18, 2009