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Topic: Fifteen (15) Open Positions | Open to Splits: jwallace@bearITstaff.com | Joseph Wallace, VP of Technology / Principal Engineer |: ong Windows 2000/2003/XP system administration skills; experience with Active Directory and security hardening of Windows systems • Additional experience with RedHat Linux EN4 & EN5 and/or Solaris 8 & 10 desired. • Knowledge of server virtualization technologies desired. • Knowledge of Centrify Direct Control or Vintela VAS, and VMware desired. • Knowledge of advanced application server configuration including performance tuning, clustering, etc. • Basic knowledge of relational databases desired (Sybase, MySQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL). • Basic knowledge of networking concepts and protocols (SNMP, TCP/IP, ftp, NFS/Samba, etc.) • Experience with Symantec/McAfee Antivirus Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2. Title: Software Integrator (Active TS/SCI Needed) Skills: SW integration, Systems Integration Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-time / Permanent Job Description: Experienced SW integration and test, ability to write and modify Unix scripts (Bourne, C, Korn, others) and Windows scripts; excellent troubleshooting skills; familiarity with Unix and Windows; additional familiarity and understanding of Web Services, Oracle, and Sybase a plus. Knowledge of the SIGINT domain and SIGINT COTS/GOTS is a plus (GALE, SOAP, CETS, NCCT, S3B, and ONEROOF). Responsibilities include the integration of software products and applications. Preparing COTS/GOTS packaging for builds, coordination of the builds with the partner and answering the partner's questions. This person must also provide build, integration and partner status to IPT leads as well as work with the other IPTs/Working Groups as necessary. This is a hands-on position with integration and lead responsibilities and also includes maintaining integration documentation. Compensation is commensurate with experience. Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3. Title: Database Engineer (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-Time / Permanent Position Description: The DCGS-A program is developing a Service Oriented Architecture bringing together over 15 Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server and MySQL databases running on Linux and Windows. DCGS-A needs talented, experienced database engineers who can take an idea, run with it, and see it all the way through to completion. Our database engineers support the following activities: • Support data integration efforts • Develop security hardening, auditing, and maintenance scripts • Analyze performance at the OS, database, and SQL level, including trace file analysis • Assist application developers with database problems • Upgrade and apply patches to databases • Minimum of 6 years of experience developing, administering and troubleshooting Oracle or MS SQL Server databases Minimum of 2 years of experience working with Oracle in a Linux or Unix environment, including shell scripting and analysis of CPU, memory, and disk bottlenecks. Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 4. Title: Software / Systems Integrator (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-Time / Permanent Position Description: • System administration knowledge of Unix, Linux and/or PC based platforms; knowledge of server virtualization technologies • Integration and Troubleshooting of COTS/GOTS packages and custom designed software on a variety of workstations, networks and communications equipment. Experience with the integration and troubleshooting of large-scale systems including: o Integration of J2EE/Web Services applications in the following web technologies: BEA Web Logic, WebSphere, JBoss, HTML, JSP, JavaScript, and Web services. o Troubleshooting applications involving a wide variety of programming & scripting languages (C, C++, Java, Perl, UNIX shell scripting and Visual Basic). o Integration of automated solutions for packaging and deploying software (InstallShield, Altiris, Wise, WLST, etc.). • Basic knowledge of relational databases desired (Oracle, Sybase, MySQL and/or Microsoft SQL). • Basic knowledge of networking concepts and protocols (SNMP, TCP/IP, ftp, NFS/Samba, etc.) • Knowledge of advanced application server configuration desirable, including performance tuning, clustering, etc. • Experience with collaboration tools (IBM Sametime, InfoWorkSpace, NetMeeting, Psi Jabber, Wildfire EIM server, Trillian IRC client, Outlook) • Attention to detail and excellent troubleshooting techniques • Ability to support short-term travel (1-2 weeks) is a plus (not necessarily a requirement). Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 5. Title: Software Security Engineer (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-Time / Permanent Position Description: The candidate will be responsible for: 1. Evaluating the system impact of all security related vulnerability analysis for the creation of Software Change Requests & Software Problem Reports (SCRs/SPRs) for all product lines across the Windows, Solaris, and Linux operating systems. 2. Ensuring the SCRs/SPRs are implemented as scheduled. 3. Ensuring applicable documentation is updated and/or applicable information is disseminated to the Information Assurance group. 4. Providing weekly status reports, as applicable, to various managers. Other responsibilities will include: • Maintain database of security assessment information (working with Information Assurance group) • Assist in identification of test bench needs to facilitate security development and verification • Assist in the mentoring of engineering personnel on security awareness in software design, implementation and testing Technologies involved (willingness to learn): • Networking and operating systems security (Windows 2003, XP, and Vista, Solaris 8 and 10, RHEL 4 and RHEL5, VMWare, Group Policies, Firewall/DMZ, Intrusion Detection Systems, JEDI, system auditing and collection tools (Event Tracker), anti-virus products, file integrity tools (tripwire/aide/WhatChanged), etc…) • Application Security (Java/J2EE, C++, .Net, Database, Web Services, etc…) • Scripting languages used for implementing security settings and tools: (Unix Shells, Perl, VBScript, etc…) • Security assessment tools (CIS, DISA Gold, Retina, SECSCAN, nmap, etc…) • Others (PKI, LDAP, DNS, Active Directory, Authentication & Authorization, Single Sign-on, Security Patch Management, etc…) Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 5. Title: Senior Technology Professionals (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-time / Permanent Job Description: We have a number of opportunities for senior technologists at one of our client sites in Baltimore, Maryland. We are looking for mature, seasoned, senior technology professionals who are able to work within a large, mature organization. Candidates must have software or systems engineering background, and be familiar with service oriented architecture (SOA) and/or large scale systems integration principles. The candidate must be familiar with working with developed software, and integrating commercial off-the-shelf software packages. Experience with traditional system / software development life cycles as well as Agile development methodologies is vital. Exposure to and understanding of all aspects or specific aspects of the development life cycle (e.g., engineering, design/development, test/integration) is important. Use of automated design, development, and test tools is also desired. The candidate must be able to work across all parts of the organization, develop a strategy and plan for the adoption and integration of the new test methodology, and coordinate the implementation with senior management and organizational leaders. Critical Skills: (Any or all) • Requirements Analysis and Design, data mapping, etc.; • Design Tools (e.g., Rational RSM, ALER, etc.); • DODAF Artifacts development; • Service Oriented Architecture and familiarity with Java implementations; • Familiarity with heterogeneous data environments, data adaptors, and working external content providers; • Architecture experience with distributed systems; • Java development experience; • Various Java Frameworks (e.g., J2EE, JBoss, etc.); • Web services, portals / portlets, SOA integration experience; • Automated test tool experience (planning and execution) at both the user keystroke and interface/WSDL levels; • Test execution; • Test script development; and • Systems / architecture design of large scale distributed systems. Specific Opportunities: • Integration & Test Lead • Software Development Lead • Software Architect • ILS Deputy / SI ILS Lead • Integration & Test Engineers • Systems Engineers • Proposal Team Support. • Technical Volume Team Support Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 6. Title: Senior System Architect/Engineer (Ability to obtain TS/SCI Clearance) Location: Conshohocken, PA (zip code 19428) Job Description: THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED. 6/29/09 Joseph Wallace We have an immediate need for a Senior System Architect/Engineer to work at our Conshohocken, PA customer facility. In this position, you will be responsible for providing system architecture and engineering support to the GCCS-I3 program, and directly to the GCCS-I3 Lead Engineer. Your duties will include researching current and future technologies to advise on GCCS-I3 future architecture decisions, and be able to brief government agencies (including DISA, DIA, JDISS) on technical aspects of GCCS-I3. Your duties will also include system architecture, design and development of prototypes, translation of functional requirements into technical requirements, peer reviews of design/code, and general assistance to developers with design, development, testing, delivery, and support. The following are the Basic Qualifications for this position: Candidates must be US Citizens who are eligible to obtain a Top Secret/SCI security clearance. A Bachelor Degree and a minimum of 8-11 years experience in design and architecture, as well as Java, JavaScript, JSP, XML/XSLT, JMS, J2EE, EJB, web service, and relational databases is required. Candidates must have extensive knowledge in software design and development concepts, practices, and procedures utilizing Java/Web/Web Service Technologies, and excellent personal interaction and communication skills. Semantic Web technologies (RDF/RDFS++/OWL-Lite), RESTful web services, and WebLogic is a plus. Experience with automated test frameworks and JUnit are also a plus. U.S. Citizenship is required. Clearance Level: Ability to obtain and retain a Top Secret/SCI security clearance. Travel Requirements: 25% of time, to locations such as Washington, DC, and San Diego Corporate benefits include medical and dental with minimal employee subsidies, 401k, AFLAC, 20 Paid Time Off days in addition to 10 holidays. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 7. Title: Software / Systems Architect (Active Secret Clearance Needed, TS/TSCI Desirable) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-time / Permanent Position Description: We have a number of opportunities for senior technologists at one of our client sites in Baltimore, Maryland. We are looking for mature, seasoned, senior technology professionals who are able to work within a large, dynamic organization. Candidates must have a software or systems engineering background, and be familiar with service oriented architecture (SOA) and/or large scale systems integration principles. The candidate must be familiar with working with developed software, and integrating commercial off-the-shelf software packages. Experience with traditional system / software development life cycles as well as Agile development methodologies is vital. Exposure to and understanding of all aspects or specific aspects of the development life cycle (e.g., engineering, design/development, test/integration) is important. Use of automated design, development, and test tools is also desired. The candidate must be able to work across all parts of the organization, develop a strategy and plan for the adoption and integration of the new technologies, processes, and tools, and coordinate the implementation with senior management and organizational leaders. Interested candidates MUST possess an active Secret clearance, TS/SCI desirable Critical Skills: (Any or all) • Requirements Analysis and Design, data mapping, etc. • Design Tools (e.g., Rational RSM, ALER, etc.) • DODAF Artifacts • Service Oriented Architecture and familiarity with Java implementations • Familiarity with heterogeneous data environments, data adaptors, and working with external content providers • Architecture experience with distributed systems • Java development experience • Various Java Frameworks (e.g., J2EE, JBoss, etc.) • Web services, portals / portlets, SOA integration experience • Systems architecture and design of large scale, distributed systems Corporate benefits include: 401K, Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution, AFLAC, 20 Paid Time Off Days in addition to 10 holidays. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 8. Debugger Developer Enhance, test and debug GDB-based debugger for an advanced, highly dense multi-core architecture. Qualifications • 1-3 years experience with GDB internals, especially with the server side of the GNU debugger • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • C/C++ and Linux/Unix experience • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 9. Cluster Management Software Developer Design, implement, test and debug a highly reliable, distributed system. Qualifications • 3-5 years experience developing applications with a background on system software and/or distributed systems • Familiarity with BSD sockets API or distributed systems • Proven experience designing scalable and reliable software, and with parallel file systems • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • C/C++ and Linux/Unix experience • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 10. Control and Monitoring Software Developer - Contractor Design and implement a comprehensive suite of control and analysis tools whose aim is to monitor and maintain the proper health of a large-scale computing system. Qualifications • Proven full software development life cycle experience • 3-5 years experience developing complete applications in C/C++ • Proven experience developing C/C++ database applications using a major DB API: MySQL, PostgreSQL, dBase, DB2, SQLite, eSQL, etc. • Proven experience developing GUI interfaces in C/C++ with a major GUI package: wxWidgets, Qt, GTK+, MFC, etc. • Proven experience writing applications from algorithms and/or numerical recipes • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 11. Software Technical Support Engineer In this position you will focus on diagnosing, reproducing and fixing software issues. Additionally, you will be responsible for developing tools as needed to improve software development process. Responsibilities You will: • Serve as the first level of customer interaction for software bugs • Create reproducible test cases, file bug reports, and initiate delivery of fixes • Design and develop software tools (applications and scripts) to improve software development process Qualifications • Background in programming using C/C++ programming languages • Background in script languages: BASH, Python, Perl, etc. • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 12. Software Integration Engineer In this position you will integrate system software with a unique large-scale supercomputer hardware at customer sites. This includes installing system software stack, being principal point of contact with the customer, assisting the customer with programming techniques, performance enhancements, problem identification and resolution. Qualifications • System software installation experience • Extensive experience with scripting languages • Background in programming using C/C++ programming languages • Understanding of very low-level interactions between hardware and software • 1-3 years of operating system or numerical analysis experience • Ability to respond to changing customer priorities • Experience maintaining clear and detailed logs of system status, errors and hardware/software changes • Ability to travel to customer sites • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 13. Software Testing Software Tester Design, implement and execute test plans for various components of system software. Qualifications • 1-3 years experience with white and/or gray box testing. Additional experience in other areas of software testing is considered a plus. • Proven experience understanding product requirements and functionality, in order to design appropriate test plans and test cases to verify features and functionalities • Proven experience reading, understanding and analyzing other developers' code (primarily C/C++) • Ability to identify bugs through systematic testing • Proven experience with scripting languages and other automation tools • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • C/C++ and Linux/Unix experience • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 14. System Administration Junior System Administrator Manage Linux, servers, multi-user compute notes, and Windows on personal workstations. Primary duties • Install and update hardware and software, perform routine maintenance • Evaluate, test and install hardware and software updates. Write or modify simple shell scripts. • Coordinate procedures with software engineers to minimize impact on their work environment. Maintain current knowledge of system administration best practices. Under supervision from Senior System Administrator, implement and maintain best practices in backup, user administration and security. • Monitor availability of external resource and act as first contact for outages. As time permits, assist Senior System Administrator in upgrading systems, system performance and procedures. • Other duties as assigned Required skills • 3-5 years experience in Linux/Windows administration, preferably on multi-user systems • 2-3 years experience with/knowledge of RPM-based package management • Bachelor's degree in Data Processing or equivalent, plus experience in a business/commercial environment • Background in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, preferably system administration • Familiarity with shell scripting and at least one other scripting language • Experience with installing and updating anti-virus software • Hardware knowledge sufficient to do first-level troubleshooting, installation of new devices, memory upgrades, etc. • Familiarity with networking hardware and terminology • Ability to work with end users of varying skill levels • Customer service skills • Organizational capability • Detail oriented and good at executing tasks on schedule despite distractions Desired skills • C, C++, and/or Python programming skills • Ability to create spec files and source rpms • Knowledge of additional Linux distributions • Experience providing reliable services to demanding clientele • Experience with imaging and image distribution • Database administration +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 15. Technical Writing Technical Writer - Contractor The primary deliverable for the position is technical manuals based on oral and written content from systems software engineers. The programming manuals will be used as the primary reference manual for our customers who are also very technical high-performance application programmers. These manuals are also intended to be used by the administrators of the system software, and therefore will also address ordinary day to day tasks and troubleshooting methods. Responsibilities In this position, you will be delivering a variety of documents such as application notes, user guides, and developer manuals ranging in size from 1-100+ pages. Your responsibilities will include but not be limited to: • Interacting with engineers, managers and teams working on advanced system software development under challenging release schedules • Responsible for the technical writing on a user-focused documentation of software products • Defining and applying required styles correctly and editing for clarity • Defining and following guidelines and formatting instructions • Participating in document reviews and inspections • Making revisions and edits as needed • Other related technical writing functions Qualifications • Demonstrable experience (+3 years) as a technical writer • Evidence of technical writing education credentials • Ability to write clearly and concisely, and create manuals from engineering specifications • Proficiency with computer and/or publishing tools • Be able to generate and modify text, tables and illustrations • Having experience with software end-users is a plus ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++…; Added by Joseph Wallace, VP of Technology at 1:20am on June 30, 2009

Topic: Recruitment 4.0: Crowdsourcing, Gamification, Recruitment as a Profit Center, … and the Death of Recruitment Agencies!: sting 3.0. But what direction are we heading in? Is it a coherent journey? Is there a clear destination/end goal? 4.0. What on earth could that include? How’s this? Recruitment transitions from being a “cost center” into a “profit center”’! The collapse and insolvency of many recruitment agencies. Job boards stuttering and collapsing … and repurposing themselves Companies hiring “through the sky” through external referrals and crowdsourcing Exclusive/VIP/premium paid in-community content and paid mobile apps Gamification shapes recruiting strategies and generates stickiness and virality Companies rated globally by crowd opinions Before anyone screams “unrealistic” or “utter fantasy” or cries B.S., let’s be clear that Recruitment 4.0 moves into the territory of vision. This is some years off. But by calculated hypotheses it is clear there will be a 4.0 and that it is a natural progression of 3.0 and builds sensibly on its foundations. Let’s recap the different versions of recruiting. Recruitment 1.0 encompasses traditional recruiting over a huge timeline, including good old-fashioned fax machines, print advertising, (post, spray ,and pray), and Rolodexes moving into traditional ATSs. Recruiters more focused on processes than end results. The basic any-bum-on-any-seat philosophy. Recruitment 2.0 saw the move onto online and using technology for recruitment purposes, including the advent of online job boards & online CV searches. While the technology moved forward, the traditional methodology of 1.0 was prevalent, including online post, spray, and pray candidate attraction (aka the recruitment lottery of let’s hope the right-ish person looks at the online advertisement, at the right time and feels willing to go to the effort to apply). Both Recruitment 1.0 and 2.0 were/are fundamentally focused on the active job seekers, (applying to vacancies, on agency books, and those watching job boards like a possessed predator). Recruitment 3.0 is a huge leap as it moves recruitment out of its comfort zone. The beating heart of 3.0 is the non-active/passive individual and a focus on “best talent” and building predictable talent pipelines. In addition, the philosophy of “everyone is a potential candidate so engage them” is central. 3.0 takes us into building engaged, two-way, free-conversation based, transparent communities. This is anchored by things like employment branding, marketing, and PR. 3.0 is not only concerned with building communities but mapping key competitors and seducing cream-of-the-crop talent with your brand and in-house opportunities. What is Recruitment 4.0? Recruitment 3.0 is all consumed and focused on building communities. 4.0 is all about the value of those communities, both real and perceived. Recruitment has traditionally been a cost center. It sucks money from the profit line like Count Dracula on a feeding frenzy in Transylvania, especially if agency fees are involved, coupled with advertising/job board fees etc. Add this up and it can be an overwhelming drain on resources. Remember that many of the Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies are addicted to agency hiring and mass job board advertising like an alcoholic drawn to drink. Why highlight the Fortune and FTSE companies? Primarily they should have the advantage and resources to wean off agency addiction, source passive candidates far more easily than small to medium companies, (but funnily enough it is the small- and medium-sized companies who are far more fleet of foot and innovative). Recruitment 4.0 sees recruiting move from being a cost center (a loss-making division) to being a profit center. Reflect on that statement. It’s huge and revolutionary. Recruitment being a profit center. “Impossible,” you cry. Perhaps not if you reflect and apply some visionary foresight. Recruitment 4.0 is some years off. But not as far as some may think. Consider the world we live in. Value is defined differently. Companies like Zynga, Facebook, and LinkedIn have massive valuations, well above their profitability margins. Their reach and potential reach and the size of their mass following — an engaged following. Our generation is living in the information age. The power lies in networks. Networks are data. Data is power. And data is money. We all want data. Especially recruiters and marketers/salespeople. So how does a community, (or let’s crudely call it data) = value = monetization = recruitment becoming a profit center? There are several facets to recruitment moving to a profit center. Reduction of recruiting costs to a minimum, (agency usage close to zero, less need for mass job board advertising, reduction in number of in-house recruiters employed). This depends on building and nurturing a “qualitative” community, a strong employment brand, vibrant social networks, mapped competitors, and putting in place a predictable talent pipeline for key hiring channels. The community itself evolves into a self-service community, where recruitment can be executed by crowdsourcing, and by hiring managers becoming more engaged into pipeline generation and hiring. Everyone can use LinkedIn. Why not hiring managers? Value in the community is identified by both internal and external advertisers/marketers that allows for revenue for recruitment. A sense of increased value is attached to belonging/being part of that community, hence VIP/exclusive areas/content that people are happy to pay for. Gamification principles create more engagement and sense of belonging and stickiness to sites, hence driving potential of more opportunities for monetization. Actual games/cartoons/content that people subscribe to have repeat value. Let’s look at some of those in a little more depth. Traditional advertising is failing. The days of successful, targeted TV and print advertising are long behind us. Ways to communicate, once limited and restricted, are now numerous and disperse. Looking at TV, the former medium of choice for mass communication, now diminished, as people are now hungry for choice and happily spread their viewing over a diverse and numerous multitude of TV channels. If an advertiser manages to define a great TV slot to advertise to reach their target audience they are thwarted by the fact that people can now record and Tivo, hence skipping ads. TV advertising then is a busted flush. Print advertising? Again, some national newspapers and magazines are spiraling downward from their heyday readerships. People tend toward reading the latest news online 24/7 or from niche web sites. They don’t want to wait the next day for old news. Print has had to be more salacious and do what it can to get the best scoops to get whatever sales possible. Online, people not only digest news, but have the benefit of posting comments and engaging in discussions. So traditional messaging vehicles are struggling. This coincides with a time when recruiter networks are expanding. Combine a recruitment database (with some companies having in excess of ½ million – million names), with social media networks, a targeted mass of names, email addresses, with perceived affinity to a business or product, and a growing realization awakens that this has a marketable value. A marketing department does not have this scale, (or quality), of information on its database. Recruiting does. Now the first step is for recruiting to cross charge its marketing division to advertise to its database and community. Why not? Many marketing departments don’t see or understand the value of recruiting databases. They’re a potential goldmine of information and data … and potential business opportunities. Taking this a step further, why not allow specific external companies the opportunity to advertise to your community? (Mindful of data protection and ensuring a community buys into contact by third-party advertisers). You remain in charge of the names and not divulging data, but certain advertising is safe to your community and could be revenue-generating for recruiting. As this thought sinks in, revenue potential opens up. The Death of Recruitment Agencies At the same time, savvy companies will be seeing their recruiting costs decreasing. As companies build their databases of talent, via sourcing, identification through LinkedIn, talent mapping, and coupled with their valued online communities, the need and reliance on recruiting agencies, both contingent and retained, will dramatically lessen. This will also coincide with less of a need for corporate in-house recruiters. Hiring managers are more than adept at searching on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is greatly expanding its offering and making recruiting easier for everyone. Initiatives like ‘Genome’ from LinkedIn will radically lesson the need for dedicated in-house recruiters in the future. Coupled with your community recruiting on your company’s behalf (crowdsourcing of talent), the need for recruiters will lessen and hence accelerate cost reduction. The very future of recruitment agencies depends on their ability to adapt to the new realities that companies are waking up to the need to break out of the active candidate pool and identify and attract passive candidates. If we take as an approximation that of the 100% of candidates qualified for your job, only 10% are active with agencies and job boards, then it’s the 90% who are more attractive to companies, and the agencies need to identify, attract, and present those candidates. Contingent recruitment agencies, especially the large ones, are in the business of competing to be the first to present the CV of that 10% active pool, all trying to Bolt out the blocks. Unless they start to adapt by attracting and mapping out the 90% non-active and building their own communities, their model will face extinction. Now is not the time to rush and buy shares in traditional contingent operators as a long-term investment. Even worse, the business model of traditional retained search and selection companies, as we reflect on it in this modern age, is founded on the delusions of lunacy. A client pays a 30% fee for first-year guaranteed compensation (or even just basic salary only), split into thirds, a third for commencement of the project and a third for presentation of a shortlist — the risk all loaded on the fee-paying client. Certainly, cost models will change toward loaded placement fees. The irony is that search firm marketing is based on its peerless reputation as the ultimate Rolodex of all the golden names in the industry. Their network is the goldmine that we are seduced to unlock. If their databases are that peerless and they have done hundreds of similar searches, why then does it take four to five weeks for a shortlist? Perhaps that question is not raised enough. The zealots will cry that the search agency is peerless in assessment and interviewing. But is that not we do in house? Why am I paying two-thirds of a fee without a placement? It’s even more laughable when the shortlist of contacts is most likely generated by a fresh graduate on $40,000 a year in the back room of the search agency, who then passes all their lead generation to the search consultant. Alternatively, a growing trend is using a new breed of company that is engaged in market mapping, talent pooling, and recruitment research solutions — hence providing a company with a mapped market of qualified talent, with contact details and candidate profiles that the recruiter then follows up on. Not every company can afford internal sourcers, and this is the next best thing, and significantly cheaper/more cost effective than a full search. However you cut it, the future is not bright for contingent and retained search and selection unless they adapt to changing new business realities. Not many currently have that foresight as they focus on short-termism. Hopefully agency CEOs have strong managers in their crow’s nest who are prepared to shout “iceberg ahead” before disaster strikes. Job Boards Faltering Coupled with the death/decline of agencies will be the faltering and restructuring of the large job boards. As companies build their own recruitment databases and even more importantly their own communities, they can use creative ways to sourcetalent. Communities themselves will evolve around certain disciplines/careers/industries and hence negate the use for paid job boards. Why pay for a large job board in the active pool when we can reach passive candidates in a free community? Job boards will have to look at community-building themselves and earn their revenue through product placement advertising rather than paid-for job advertisements. Companies have always embraced the concept of internal referrals. Why not the reverse? External referrals — even better through crowdsourcing using their communities. Naysayers will point to the rewards attributed to internal referrals, generally through monetary bonuses, and hence the difficulty of applying this externally as companies don’t want to pay for talent they would have got anyway. But recent times have showed the power of recognition and “public reward” through games like Foursquare. People love the status of being the Mayor of a local curry house. Why not take this principle into recruiting and reward referrals from crowdsourcing: Public recognition and rewards in the community, (badges, leaderboards), on a sliding scale to reach actualization of ”real” rewards, be it monetary bonus, vacation, or a PC or iPad? External Referrals through Crowdsourcing Recruitment can learn a lot from crowdsourcing. This term was arguably defined by Jeff Howe in the June 2006 issue of Wiredmagazine. Howe states: Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers. Howe further drives this home by stating that “it’s only crowdsourcing once a company takes that design, fabricates [it] in mass quantity and sell[s] it.” In laymen’s language, a company posts a problem online; a vast number of individuals offer their opinions and ideas as to how to solve it; the winning idea is rewarded in some form; and the end result is the company adopting the idea for its own benefit. Some great examples of the power of crowdsourcing exist on Wikipedia: (the following are all directly quoted from Wikipedia). In 2005, Amazon.com launched the Amazon Mechanical Turk, a platform on which crowdsourcing tasks called “HITs” (Human Intelligence Tasks”) can be created and publicized and people can execute the tasks and be paid for doing so. Dubbed “Artificial Intelligence,” it was named after The Turk, an 18th century chess-playing “machine.” Cisco Systems Inc. held an I-Prize contest in which teams using collaborative technologies created innovative business plans. The winners in 2008 were a three-person team, Anna Gossen from Munich, her husband Niels Gossen, and her brother, Sergey Bessonnitsyn, that created a business plan demonstrating how IP technology could be used to increase energy efficiency. More than 2,500 people from 104 countries entered the competition. The winning team won $250,000. The Democratic National Committee launched FlipperTV in November 2007 and McCainpedia in May 2008 to crowdsource video gathered by Democratic trackers and research compiled by DNC staff in the hands of the public to do with as they choose — whether for a blog post, to create a YouTube video, etc. Facebook has used crowdsourcing since 2008 to create different language versions of its site. The company claims this method offers the advantage of providing site versions that are more compatible with local cultures. General Electric organized a multimillion dollar challenge to find new, breakthrough ideas to create cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid technologies, and to accelerate the adoption of smart grid technologies. The winner will be announced on Nov. 16, 2020. The Vancouver Police Department has put up a website entitled Hockey Riot 2011, informing people about the VPD′s investigations into the 2011 Stanley Cup Riot. It also asks people to contribute any pictures or video that they may have taken during the riot, with the goal of identifying people who may have participated in the rioting. The site also reminds people to not use social media to take justice into their own hands, instead leaving it to the police. As of July 1, 2011, 101 arrests have been made. IBM collected more than 37,000 ideas for potential areas for innovation from brainstorming sessions with its customers, employees, and their family members in 2006. L’Oreal used viewer-created advertising messages of Current TV to pool new and fresh advertising ideas. Pepsi launched a marketing campaign in early 2007 which allowed consumers to design the look of a Pepsi can. The winners would receive a $10,000 prize, and their artwork would be featured on 500 million Pepsi cans around the United States. Unilever has recently decided to drop its ad agency of 16 years, Lowe, and has turned to the crowdsourcing platform IdeaBounty to find creative ideas for its next TV campaign. Unilever has worked with Lowe on the snack-food brand Peperami since 1993, but has decided to submit its brief out to the public, rather than a small team of creatives. Ironically, Wikipedia is itself a successful example of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing, as a concept, lends itself perfectly to recruiting. Posing the question to your community, “We are looking for a dynamic Product Manager, with x/y/z experience … any ideas/recommendations?” will soon become a normal sourcing/name generating activity for recruiters. The key is how to incentivize/inspire/motivate the crowd to do your recruiting. LinkedIn gets it. It’s already making headway toward this goal, aiding a company’s ability to use employee networks and matching up people who are connected to our employees who closely match our job specifications. But what about the wider crowd? That’s where attention will turn next. Premium Paid Content Recruitment 3.0 recognized that recruitment is fundamentally boring. People tend to only visit corporate careers pages when they are looking for work. There is no engaging “repeat visit” content that drags them back for more. Many companies are using social media as a replacement job board and listing jobs with hyperlinks back to the job site. It’s hardly the most engaging content. Recruitment 3.0 involves building “engaged” communities. The key is compelling, rich content, creating a destination that people want to go to on a frequent basis. That is not a list of jobs. Remember again that recruiting is not about “bums on seats”; it also encompasses nurturing a strong employment brand proposition, attracting and seducing those not familiar with your brand, and taking them on a journey to either apply to work for your company or be an active brand ambassador in your community. As communities build up in 3.0, underpinned by engaging content, and when those communities reach a critical mass, the next step is starting to grant VIP access and exclusive content to community members. If communities are engaged, they will be, by definition, happy to pay to be part of the VIP area, and we will see the monetization of these communities and a potential revenue stream for recruiters. Aggregating all your social media feeds — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube content, and your blog — is the first step. This could and should be aggregated both on your corporate careers site and your mobile phone app (for those who want to be part of the community on the move). A one-stop shop for people to engage and follow your company encourages repeat visitors. This content on the social media sites needs to feel personalized and humanized, giving exclusive access behind the scenes of your company and the individuals behind it. But what else? Understand the public pulse. There is no better place than the Apple Store. This shows what content keeps people coming back and is most popular to download. And guess what that is: News & Information (knowledge and exclusive access news) Games (fun games but also including quizzes) Comics & books (The appeal of an ongoing story that people want to follow) Photography/photos/videos (uploading and sharing) This content often focuses on getting people involved, something to do with your friends, and brings that “global community” together. Each of these is “sticky” and keeps people coming back. Why can’t recruiters use these same concepts as part of their community building but adapt them for their own companies? Recruitment Embraces Concepts of Gamification Gamification is the latest buzzword. What’s funny is that some well-known commentators are rushing to speak about this subject but end up mirroring granddad at the disco trying to throw “cool” shapes to the latest bangin’ tune but instead look rather doddery and completely out of touch. People love to be entertained. Gaming is huge. Not just “serious” video console games like the Call of Duty’s, FIFAs, and Battlefields, or the PC games like World of Warcraft, but the spread of casual gaming whether on Facebook or on mobile shows the power of people of all ages wanting interactive entertainment. Gaming educates us about the dynamics of engagement. (Some would take this further to addiction.) What a great game does is ingrain itself into the conscious and subconscious of the player. You think about it and love the roller coaster of emotions that the game takes you through. You may pull an all-nighter, or get up extra early to get in an hour or so before having to venture off to deal with humdrum reality. Escapism is the new drug of the austere Tens. But what else can we learn? Casual games are the key to the door of mass/mainstream and that elusive community engagement via compelling content that we all seek. Casual games are those that embrace all demographics, are simple, fun, accessible, and from which users get an instant form of gratification. This is different than “serious games” that are deeper experiences and are perhaps less accessible due to the time invested and the barrier of controllers/complexity of purpose. Farmville on Facebook is a classic example of community-building and demonstrates some key buttons in engagement theory (in a social context). Farmvile has been such a success for a number of reasons. First, it recognized the unbridled thrill of “gifting.” When you first visit your farm, you don’t go straight to it but to a page with a list of gifts. Many games ask you to spam mail your buddies to play the game. Farmville cleverly goes further by allowing you to send a gift of an animal or plant/crop to your friends. Of course, when we receive gifts, we also like to give them back, starting the spiral of interaction. Part of this psychology also encourages you to help your friends by reminding them to harvest their fields and to weed their farms. It’s very community-friendly stuff. These gifts also have a perceived value. The whole point of Farmville is to build a busy and profitable farm and maintain it. But to do this, you need to build and grow the farm, which is time-consuming and takes a while to buy plants, crops, and trees, etc. But luckily your saving grace is your friends as they help out by sending all these valuable items for your farm. Hence my farm looks better with more content so I will invite more of my friends to play, give them gifts, and expect/request gifts in return. It’s a clever use of personal psychology and satisfaction of wants. Farmville also gets that the game has to be accessible and simple. There are no extra levels; you just keep on growing the size and scope of your own farm. The only limitation is money. But having lots of friends gets around that. Now the clever part kicks in. The game keeps you coming back. Certain crops you plant require harvesting at certain times. Some crops will die if you don’t come back. Strawberries mean you come back every four hours. That locks in an engagement and repeat visit. “I must log back in at 2 p.m. or my crops will die!” Farmville also cleverly gets the whole concept of one-up-manship and competing to have the bigger farm, the more money, the latest gadgets 00 and that’s where monetization kicks in. Someone can pay to get ahead of their friends, and for many that is a key driver. “I must have the biggest farm and the latest items and be ahead of my mates!” Hence Farmville teaches us there are three things to making social games huge viral successes: getting users to invite their friends (virality); getting users to return frequently (stickiness); and people competing to win/be ahead of their friends (showing off). Interestingly, one of the first to understand these dynamics was the Hotel chain Marriott, which has released a Facebook game designed with the goal of introducing potential employees to life in the hospitality industry.MyMarriottHotel gives players the opportunity to “work” in various hotel roles, including hospitality manager. You can start by working in the hotel kitchens and gain points for excellent customer service and profitability. The game is geared to raising awareness among millennials to job opportunities around the world (cleverly available in five languages). Critically for recruiting, the MyMarriottHotel Facebook game includes at the top of the game a banner shouting “Do It For Real” that hyperlinks to Marriott’s jobs site. Marriott’s goal is to fill 50,000 positions at its hotels around the world, helped by this game raising awareness, (predominantly outside the U.S.). So what is gamification, and how can it be applied to recruiting? Gamification is using game mechanics/methodology to inspire engagement in activities that otherwise would be considered boring or routine. Recruitment certainly sits within that definition. Key concepts of gamification that recruiters can learn from when developing communities and building compelling, repeat visit content, include: The key word when engaging in social media and community-building is remembering the key element, often-forgotten, is social Keeping activities/content simple, fun, and interactive. When people read your blog/social media, is it light, carries pictures, short, informative, stimulating, or even entertaining to read? People want to know what other people are doing, especially their friends. Can people see what their friends have been doing? People love engagement and giving their opinion, be it by rate-this-page, commenting, oropinion polls. These are all interactive elements that engage. As people interact, degrees of personalization and humanization help, such as the uploading of avatars and/or people’s pictures. People prefer engaging with “perceptibly real” other people. Avatars aid that. Are you encouraging sharing content/activities with your community? Are people rewarded or recognized for sharing content? Inspiring members of your community’s “friends” to get involved and get their friends engaged, i.e. virality, sending community growth viral. “Gifting.” Can content be shared amongst friends/can someone get something in return? Keeps em coming back for more. Certain times of the day/week that the community has to be there. Prizes/giveaways ingrain this activity. Some companies do specific content “reveals” at certain times of the week. Live webcasts also encourage set-time attendance. Competition against friends/leader boards. It could be quiz-questions about your company, the most referrals of job seekers, or the most comments made in your blog/social community. Leader boards keep people coming back to chart their progress and see who is on top, and if they are ahead of their friends. “Easter Eggs” — those intentionally hidden features that people can’t find. Especially cool for college sections and can be used to encourage people to find about more about your company and unlock exclusive content. Enabling unique experiences/personalization. Can people create their own unique user account, personalize their landing pages, and personalize their experiences? Progress bars. People are addicted to completion, and progress bars are often used in online shopping as you are guided to place things in the shopping cart and progress to the checkout. Progress bars fit nicely with job application processes of a series of tasks that people will want to complete. “Completism” is a natural human psychological compulsion. User-generated content, and games like LittleBigPlanet have showed us that people love creating their own content and sharing that content with the community. Can your community do the same, involving uploads to your blog/corporate careers site? These concepts can all be applied to corporate career sites, which are purely a repository of information overload and fundamentally dull, and of course tomobile apps. People, bored sitting on the train, plane, and bus, want content to engage them. Some corporate sites already include games and other challenges — almost always in the Careers section — and some companies have added game elements to the recruitment process. Some are asking, “Is this expensive? How can a recruiting department make games? But at minimal cost there is a thriving development community and graduates studying at colleges who would love the opportunity and exposure that creating and publishing a game on a corporate site brings them. Development time on games for mobile is minimal but the key is fun (look at games like Doodle Jump and Flick Football, massively popular but simple to develop). Many recruiters are currently using Empire Avenue as a way of engaging with communities and making new contacts. Some are even using it as a sourcing tool to recruit from. For those who don’t know, Empire Avenue is fundamentally a stock market simulation social network game that encourages users to buy and sell shares of people and websites. Players have their own portfolio in a virtual economy and earn money, called Eaves, by investing in other people. This sees your own net worth rise by encouraging friends and community members to invest in you. What is cool is that when all accounts are linked together, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, and blogs, your net worth rises based on the content you either create or share. What’s cool about this approach is that it combines simplicity with what we do on the web every day: creating and sharing content. Interestingly, Empire Avenue mimics the other sites as it’s also a social network itself. It’s allows opportunities to connect and debate with others by finding affinity groups (“Communities”) within Empire Avenue. Clever engagement mechanisms at play. Concurrently, Google is also on the move with its Google News Badges. We all read the news, and applying the above theory — let’s call it gamification methodology — Google has created “Google Badges.” Google News users in the U.S. can earn different pins for reading the news, starting with bronze and moving up to Ultimate. There are more than 500 badges available to suit all types of interests, such as “stock market,” “Harry Potter,” and U.S. elections. These “Google Badges” follow closely on the heels of Google launching its own social network, Google+, and is increasingly trying to get people to share content via its network of services in a similar fashion to Facebook. This will sound very similar to users of Foursquare. Foursquare is a location-based social networking website based on mobile phones. Users “check-in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging, or a device-specific application, and select from a list of venues that the application locates nearby, e.g. restaurant, library, pub, house, etc. Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes “badges.” The first time a badge is unlocked on Foursquare, be it an easy achievement (like the “Superstar” badge for 50 check-ins), or one that comes as a surprise (“Douchebag Badge,” which is unlocked after checking into venues tagged with “douchebag,” or the “Don’t Stop Believing Badge,” awarded for checking in to three venues tagged “karaoke” in a month), the game keeps people engaged with rewards that makes members want to use the system even more and compete with friends. Especially those who live or work in close vicinity of each other as they compete to be the Mayor of a location. Why is gamification so important? Interestingly, to give more credence to this area, Gartner, in research published in April 2011 stated: By 2015, more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes. By 2014, a gamified service for consumer goods marketing and customer retention will become as important as Facebook, eBay, or Amazon, and more than 70 percent of Global 2000 organisations will have at least one gamified application. That’s a big statement. 70 percent of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application. Many commentators see that naturally fitting in the corporate careers site. Perhaps gamification will be taken more seriously among current recruitment leaders moving forward. Global Community Rating of Companies People trust each other and members of their community far more than they do advertising or company communications. Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers, talked about the impact of social media. One of his key points was that 78% of consumers trust each other more than they trust advertising — which is why they read blogs and go to chat rooms. There are many examples to back this up, particularly when we go on vacation. The holiday industry has had to get far more authentic and responsible in its communications. No more fantastic ratings of restaurant food when it is tripe; no more “the beach is in walkable distance” … but only for those who are happy to walk for two hours; and no more “great local entertainment” when it is two people playing spoons. Why is that? Many people now check out Trip Advisor and read how people have voted/rated their vacation/hotel en masse and then read through some of the commentary. Real. Authentic. Trustworthy. No hidden agendas, just shared experiences. Companies value their placing on “best companies to work for” and “great places to work” lists. And these are a mix of internal questionnaires of employees’ experience and then a specialist evaluation of policies and internal structures by a panel of experts. Glassdoor is the closest to a trip advisor for recruitment. Its bias is more U.S.-focused and needs to hit that critical mass to be held in the same esteem. As we head to 4.0, those principles behind Glassdoor will see job seekers trust the crowd, and companies will value that authenticity far more than traditional manufactured best-places-to-work lists. Size Doesn’t Matter Some reading this will rightly raise the question of whether this is all this scalable. Cynics will openly proclaim there will always be a need for local agencies to hire receptionists, builders, joiners, hairdressers, admin assistants, and hosts of other roles. Screams will be heard: Job boards will never die! This was all predicted 10 years back and it never happened! How can a small company generate its own community? Many criticisms/protection of vested interests will emerge in this debate. They’re fair points to discuss. Interestingly, when Hard Rock Café wanted to open a new venue in Florence, perhaps the initial reaction of many recruiters was to advise them to go to local “high street” agencies, or place an ad in the local press, even on a job board. The Hard Rock took a different approach and used Facebook to reach out and recruit. It built a community around the new venue opening. Hard Rock needed to hire 120 staff across eight categories from waiting staff, barmen/women, to accounting. It was inundated with responses and was able to interview 600 candidates for the roles and whittle down to the 120 needed for opening. Whatever the size of a company, all the concepts here are relevant. It may be that a company does not have the time to build its own community but will be able to access other communities and groups, be they local or discipline-specific, such as hairdressers, and crowdsource their vacancies. Technological, access to information, and communities know no boundaries. That’s the difference the past 10 years have made and why jobs boards and agencies have to adapt, or else. Conclusion Recruitment 4.0 is a long way off; yet, many of its concepts are resonating today and being built upon and planned. Some early adopters are even implementing some of the component parts. 4.0 is a natural progression from 3.0. It takes the community concept to the next level. While some will be initially shocked at the radicalism involved at suggestions of recruitment transitioning into a profit center, crowdsourcing talent, and entertaining/gamification, with a period of reflection it makes sense as a natural strap-on to 3.0 communities. Many of the recruitment leaders in place today are not ready for 3.0, let alone 4.0. They have been schooled in traditional recruiting techniques that will soon be outdated and detrimental to their business. Many more are worried about process than end results. Where does your leader stand? Imagine those recruiting leaders who can go to their CEO and demonstrate that they have been able to map out competitors, and identify and build relationships with cream-of-the-crop talent. Leaders who have helped shape and who have put in place engaged communities with positive two-way communication social media channels, thus enhancing employment brand attractiveness, (with a positive spinoff for the consumer/product/service brand), and have hence been able to slash expenditures on recruitment and are now coming up with proposals of how to turn recruitment into a profit center. Compare that to your current recruiting leader. Are they shaping your future in this direction? Who do you think your CEO would prefer as a recruiting leader? The one described above or your current one? There is plenty above to chew on and debate. Agree or disagree, what is certain is that exciting times lie ahead for recruitment. And before someone asks, will we see an article on Recruitment 5.0 anytime soon? Not from Autodesk. We’ve got to focus on delivering 3.0 and 4.0 with the great team at Autodesk. There’s lots to do and achieve. …; Added by Rajnish Sinha at 4:58am on November 1, 2011

Blog Post: Employer Branding: Everything you need to know: Employer branding has grown in significance due to changes in job seeker behavior, and increased competition in the war for talent. The …; Added by Phil Strazzulla at 9:45am on April 21, 2017

Blog Post: Best Applicant Tracking Systems in 2018: Last year, we wrote an article on the best applicant tracking systems for 2017. We received a lot of interest in the…; Added by Phil Strazzulla at 2:39pm on March 21, 2018

Topic: Recruiter's Delight: Meet Sheila Greco, Traditional Search Expertise with CEO of SGA: com Amsterdam, NY Featured Blog Posts by Sheila: * The Best Advice I Ever Got * Research & Recruiting - Lingo Simply Defined Today is a sourcer's delight. Sheila Greco has always practiced the "pass it forward" doctrine valued at "SixDegreesfromDave". From traditional search, competitive intelligence to research/name generation this petite, soft spoken personality is a well known brand in research product delivery and services to her clients. Sheila has established herself as an industry Thought Leader within the conference circuit as a presenter. Most recently, Sheila spoke at ONREC this past September in Chicago, “Best Practices Combining New Technology with Traditional Sourcing.” Today, Sheila walks us through the process of traditional search as a practitioner, and from the vantage point of her clients - with her recipe for successful value-ads in pursuing and utilizing research in the long term with all the ferver of an evangelist. About Sheila Greco With Sheila’s leadership responsibilities as President and Chief Executive Officer of Sheila Greco Associates, LLC and her active role in the overall growth and success of the company, she places her broad-based skills and experience at the disposal of clients, candidates, and colleagues alike. As an entrepreneur, she has gained extensive experience in human resources to include, research, recruiting, and competitive intelligence. As a strategic results oriented leader, Sheila has a proven track record of building long-term and solid relationships with clients and candidates. Prior to launching Sheila Greco Associates in 1989, Sheila spent several years with Goodrich & Sherwood, an executive search company in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut. She began her career as a research associate and quickly climbed through the ranks and ultimately became a Director of Executive Search specializing in consumer packaged goods marketing and sales. An alumna of Hartwick College, Sheila received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Marketing. She is a member of the National Association of Executive Females, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), SCIP (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals), Women in Technology International, and participated in many events sponsored by the New York State Olympics. Sheila is also currently Chairperson for the Amsterdam YMCA. Q & A with Sheila Greco, CEO at SGA Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Sheila Sheila: Family has always been #1 on my list. I have a son who I adore, a great husband and dog. Just like you Dave, I do a lot of traveling but I will share a secret with you, it is always scheduled in between my son’s games and school activities. He is 15 and I am proud to say I have only missed one baseball game. This is quite an accomplishment since he plays golf, baseball, and basketball. As I travel around the country each meeting that is set is scheduled around my son’s activities and games. Part of my mission in life is to NEVER miss my son's games and school activities. He too travels as he is part of a NIKE Basketball National AAU Team. This continues to be part of my life too. My philosophy is to work hard and play hard, something I live everyday! I am a very competitive person, I guess I passed this along to my son. I tell him and I tell all I come in contact with; when you step on the court, baseball field, spelling bee stage, lacrosse field (I played in College), tennis court (played in college) whatever, you need to have a winning attitude and give 110% or don't play at all. I also say you win some and lose some... and you tend to learn more from the losses that you experience. But I love to win!! Six Degrees: How did you get your start into the Recruiting World? Sheila: Networking, and being in the right place at the right time! Some would say I was lucky in how the opportunity came to me Dave. I started as a research associate with the Tidewater Group in Stamford, CT and my job was to identify names for recruiters to recruit. On my first day I was handed the Standard Directory of Advertisers, “The Red Book” and told to identify 500 marketing names from consumer packaged good companies and to do it quickly! Baptism by fire….I must say! I remember my boss telling me “here’s the telephone”, and the rest is history! When I started the Internet wasn’t even thought about. As the year went on, I became a sponge for knowledge, learned all about companies and how they are structured and loved it…obviously! Six Degrees: Baptism by fire? I recall you once told me, your Initial Thought – “Is this really a job?” You peaked my interest Sheila, tell us more about your initial perceptions as a researcher and overall practitioner. Sheila: “After the handshaking and signing of papers. I was told my role as a research associate in a nutshell was to obtain names. I was handed the standard directory of advertisers and told to identify 500 brand managers in one week from P&G, General Foods, Kraft, Colgate Palmolive, General Mills, Coke, Unilever, just to name a few. Why? Because Pepsi needs 10 brand managers yesterday. Catholic Guilt began to set in….so I went to my boss and said “Why are we doing this? Why are some people hesitant to give names? This is not rocket science! I am having some difficulties here.” She said, “I used to feel the same way, not anymore… Our job is simple, our clients ask us to offer an opportunity and these folks can either take advantage of it, refer someone or not!” Next without skipping a beat she said, “How many names did you get so far?” Six Degrees: What was your progression track as a practitioner to establishing your own research firm? I began my career as a financial analyst. I joined the wonderful world of executive recruiting where my real training began. I was recruited to a prominent executive search firm in New York City as a research associate. I joined Goodrich & Sherwood working in Greenwich, CT and New York City where I worked as a research associate for approximately 14 months. Soon thereafter I was tapped on the shoulder and told that I was ready for the next step and was promoted to a principal. This was my true entrée’ into recruiting. As a side bar, my first candidate ever was George Brandt, most of you know him. His company, PrimeGenesis is a company that specializes in Executive On-Boarding! Anyway, he was always one of my biggest advocates and I do thank him for that. Actually he is now on our company’s Advisory Board! In 1989, I followed my dream and started "Sheila Greco Associates" Today, I am still passionate about what I do. I continue to work hard and play hard. May I also add, that this wonderful Recruitingblogs.com community plays nicely into my personality…I like to listen, learn, respond, help and build relationships. Six Degrees: Tell us about your company, Sheila Greco Associates: Sheila: Since I founded Sheila Greco Associates LLC in 1989, SGA’s primary mission is to dramatically shorten the amount of time it takes clients to find the RIGHT executives. Since 1989, SGA has been a True Recruiting Solutions Company, specializing as a single source provider of online data, Custom Research, Recruiting Support, and candidate name generation to executive search and HR professionals. We offer Customized Research & Competitive Intelligence, (CCI), in which we partner closely with clients, helping them identify professionals to recruit, target their best sales prospects, understand industry trends, and find valuable intelligence on their competitors. We provide research and customized competitive intelligence to corporations and search firms alike. Our clients include professionals in recruiting, business development, sales, analysts, competitive intelligence, and corporate librarians. SGA is known for its signature delivery product, ExecutiveTracker, which houses the most comprehensive list of executives currently employed at major companies – both private and public – across all industries. SGA carefully researches and sources each passive candidate – from the C-level executives to the hard-to-find, mid-level decision makers. Users can view company name, location, job title and function and other information of passive candidates based on search criteria. Once they determine contacts that best fit the current open position, the recruiter can purchase the complete contact record, which includes name, phone number, email, reporting structure and a biography, if available. Six Degrees: I think it’s fair to say you have been an evangelist on behalf of the “Traditional Search” niche within the sourcing sphere of our staffing industry. You have been especially vocal about using ‘today’s research results’ for future search assignments. Can you elaborate? Sheila: As I became more experienced, I began to understand organization chart structures, titles, roles, responsibilities and how companies differ across industry segments. Too many recruiters solely use the Internet. I am not saying replace what may work for you, but consider adding traditional research to your recruiting strategy. By fully leveraging traditional research, the standard recruiting process evolves into a strategic resource to be used not only for the current search assignment, but for future assignments, benchmarking and competitive intelligence. Six Degrees: Walk us step by step through an effective “Traditional Search” process. Sheila: Say for example, you need to find out who the brand managers are. Here’s the telephone and the book which lists the names of the brands for each company. Think of it as a game. Set a target of 10 names per call and just keep asking till they won’t give you any more. If you can, find out who they report to and who reports to them. Six Degrees: In having reviewed your presentations in the past, I think you underscore an important criteria, “Titles can be deceiving, know the role – research it just as you would the pipeline throughout the process.” Can you elaborate for our readers? Sheila: Definitely, Titles can be deceiving, know the role. We recommend researching from the top level down. In general, Never stop asking questions and guiding the interviewee so the information needed is obtained. Don’t be afraid to ask questions regarding structure and team members. More specifically, however, consider that once traditional research and charts are completed, we recommend showing them to the client. Allow the client to provide feedback and offer comments which may include: “proceed, I know this person, don’t proceed, already interviewed, perfect.” As the candidates are presented, I’d recommend developing a summary of how they compare to one another - it assists the client with deciding when to interview and for which business group. Along with resumes, it’s ideal when you provide the client organization charts to show how each candidate compares to their own internal staff structure. By presenting the organization charts it enables you to intelligently discuss why these individuals were chosen. Again, always share your findings from start to finish! Six Degrees: Can you walk us through a case study where you employed traditional search strategies? Sheila: Our client asked us to recruit a Vice President of Merchandising. Following the steps using the tried and true traditional research methodology, a list of approximately 100 potential candidates to call was developed and five candidates were presented. The cost of research was 20 hours and recruiting approximately 35 hours. The result: we presented the client with an ultimate hire while saving the client money. We also had built a pipeline of candidates that were used for future searches. In addition we provided the client with an in-depth knowledge of the competitive landscape which could be used for future searches. Six Degrees: As a Pioneer in our industry, what advice would you like to share with those just joining or new to research and recruiting? Sheila: 1. You need to know that time is of the essence EVERY DAY. This is crucial. Every one wants everything yesterday. 2. Do not be afraid to ask questions. It is okay to say “help me”. Become aware of the tools the team uses and learn how to use them to their fullest. It is also a great idea to learn how and where to go get things yourself because you do learn more by “being in the trenches”. 3. Never stop learning! Be knowledgeable, as time goes on, be the expert and go-to person. Earn respect, do not expect it. Be thorough! Do not take shorts cuts because in the long run it will come back to haunt you! Take the time to do the upfront work. 4. Build relationships internally and externally! Two of my favorite sayings are “what you do today, will help you tomorrow” and “maybe not a candidate or client today, but maybe a candidate or client tomorrow.” I tell everyone on my team, engage, listen, and respond. Six Degrees: How do you see the staffing industry adjusting to keep costs down and broaden its value? Sheila: (1) We are seeing companies that are being strategic, proactive and methodical as it relates to hiring. The days of handing over 3-5 candidates for a specific rec and saying “here you go” are over. Many hiring managers want to be part of the process and want to be shown the research, the pipeline from the targeted companies, how the potential qualified candidates compare and contrast with to each other, their respective teams, and the available talent universe. Methodical, yes... but very smart. Companies are looking for ways to keep costs down while still recruiting top talent. By using this methodical approach the research can be used again and again thus creating value long term. 2. Building and keeping relationships: Company executives really want those long term partners who can help them. Hiring managers and recruiting professionals alike want a team approach and value the results that it produces. 3. Today, more so then in than in the past, successful recruiters are looked at as experts and partners. The respect has been earned and we are now invited to have a seat at the conference table! Hiring managers have learned to respect what it takes to find the candidates and we have conditioned them to listen to what we have to say. A great example is the fact that we have them understanding the value of tools that are now available, ATS, research and recruiting tools, and online communities. The executives are more on board with us! Great job guys and gals. 4. Lastly we are seeing many top companies across several industries going through the exercise of making sure their internal teams are staffed with the best in the industry. It is not surprising to have leaders take a peek at their competitors, their staff and compare it to their own. If necessary we are seeing them pluck the good ones from others. Six Degrees: What are the value-ads in pursuing and utilizing research in the long term? Sheila: Dave, time and again, it’s whether the client has the vision and tenaciousness to view the information as a resource that can also be shared with other business groups in the organization. Once they review how best to leverage the yield of valuable information they see how it applies not simply to just talent management, but also issues of diversity, future restructuring efforts, long term strategic hiring as well as other human resources strategies. I’m in the business of being a long-term partner, not a transactional partner – and I’ll do my best to work with my clients in finding multiple venues to pursue their objectives with all the value-adds that are implicit in the research process. Six Degrees: We always see you smiling, cheerful and happy. When you are not working, what are you doing? Sheila: I am always on the go ... I don't really know another way of life. I guess I am just like my mom and dad! They always told me if I am passionate about what I do for a living, then it won't be a job! So I guess that is true....after all these years, I remain passionate about what I do. I am a workaholic and a proud mother too. Six Degrees: Tell us something about you few know outside of the industry: Sheila: In the summer I spend my off time on the Lake (Lake George in upstate NY) with lots of family and friends. The more the merrier! I enjoy fast cars and boats, as well as fishing when I need some quiet time. I also love to volunteer and some day when I strike it rich, I want to be a philanthropist. Nothing makes me happier than to put a smile on someone’s face. RECOMMENDATIONS “Sheila is highly professional and persistent is obtaining the information she needs. At FIND/SVP, we hired Sheila to unearth information that we could not find through traditional channels, and she never disappointed us.” August 6, 2007 Ann Middleman, Director of Research Services, FIND/SVP “Sheila is whip-smart, focused on the needs of her clients, and a natural relationship builder who always delivers on her commitments.” July 23, 2007 Glenda Brown, Consultant/Director, Partnerships and Alliances, Association of Executive Seach Consultants “Sheila is extremely responsive, diligent and a great listener. Her focus is sharp and she's able to direct her team/resources at the right point. Her team will be an asset to any HR building effort, be it recruiting for a new operation or augmenting an existing staff.” June 26, 2006 Anindya Dixit, Exec. Vice President, MMatrix, Client” “I have known Sheila Greco for close to 10 years and have worked directly with her and her associates on several projects to include; traditional search, competitive intelligence and research/name generation. Her firm sets the standards for excellence in all of these catagories.I am delighted to be able to endorse her work.” May 27, 2005 J. James O'Malley, Sheila's client “I have engaged Sheila on a number of occasions, going all the way back to 1990. The work she has done across a broad array of subjects has always been of very high quality, on time and beyond expectations. She is a pleasure to work with.” February 19, 2007 Top qualities: Great Results, High Integrity, Creative Don Rosenkoetter, client “I've worked closely with Sheila for several years. She’s a successful entrepreneur who has built an outstanding organization and assembled a great team that provides the highest quality work to clients. The significant value she provides to clients is to quickly and accurately evaluate their needs, then very effectively partner with them to provide solutions that make their businesses better. Sheila's energy level is inspirational, and she’s one of the funniest people I've had the pleasure to meet. I highly endorse working with Sheila.” January 11, 2008 Peter Malamas, Sr. VP (Current), SGA ExecutiveTracker Researcher's Delight …; Added by Dave Mendoza at 2:03am on December 15, 2008

Topic: Meet Larry Gonzales, 20 Year Veteran "Blessed To Give Blessings": te Photography, Cooking, Good Wine, Reading Interests: College Football, Art (Impressionist, Old Masters, Roden's sculptures), World History Favorite Music: Everything from The Beatles to Hendrix to Opera to Lady Gaga Favorite TV Shows: CSI Miami, Csi Vegas, Leverage, Love Saving Grace!, Burn Notice, Damages, Discovery Channel, ESPN, Favorite Movies: Casablanca, All About Eve, Citizen Kane, Trading Places, Errol Flynn Movies, James Bond, The Princess Bride, Jason Bourne, Tombstone, Armageddon, Army Of Darkness Favorite Books: James Patterson, John Sanford, Of Mice And Men, Osterman Weekend, Dostyesky, Dante's Inferno, The Prince, The Art Of War Favorite Quotations: The Proverbs of Solomon: "The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all, is the person who argues with him", "Youth is wasted on the young", "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" • Office/Cell Number 408-838-0637 • Personal Email Larry Gonzales is actually a colleague I worked with when I consulted at Palm. Unfortunately, as a virtual sourcer I never had the honor of meeting Larry face-to-face, but his reputation then as it remains now was well established as a 20+ year veteran of the staffing industry. I was well informed of Larry's formidable resume - a man of all seasons: experienced in the design, implementation and administration of recruiting strategies, staffing planning, and process improvement programs. Larry has managed a recruiting departments, including budgeting, metrics reporting, and recruiting technology. He has a broad working knowledge of HR practices including compensation, performance management, diversity, branding, and employee retention. Larry is proficient in federal and state employment practice regulations, applying and interpreting employee-relations policies, Affirmative Action, Diversity Hiring, EEO-1, VISA Processing and employment law. His Specialties include the following: Mobile Device Engineers, Human Factor Design, Media Designers, Mobile TV, PC-TV, Embedded Software Engineers, Home Entertainment Solutions, RF Engineers, CDMA handset, Risk Management, Sarbanes Oxley Compliance, SAS70, Specialized areas of finance (AML, FAS109/123R, SOP97-2, and SEC Reporting), Sales/Business Development, and Product Marketing. Q&A with Larry Gonzales Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Larry: I am fortunate to be married to a beautiful and wonderful “Texas Girl”. My wife and I were born and raised in Texas and regardless of how long we live in California, we will always be Texans! Our fourteenth wedding anniversary is coming up next week and I thank God for blessing me with such a great partner in life. I have been involved in charitable fundraising since I was in Middle School. Although the charities and my levels of participation have varied over the years, I feel it is important to give back. My minister always reminds us that “We are blessed, so that we can be a blessing”. I am a cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with cancer in January 2003 and through the efforts of prayer, positive attitude, and the fantastic physicians at Stanford Medical, I have been cancer free since May of that same year. After my full recovery from chemo and radiation, I focused on supporting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through TNT. I decided to train and participate through Century Bike Rides. I hope to become a mentor next season and help train (mentally and physically) new participants to the program. I am an avid reader of fiction/mystery along with many business periodicals. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Larry: I have been in the staffing industry for over 20 years dating back to index cards, real cold calls, and ruses. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Larry: Like many of us, I never expected to go in to the recruiting. I had been working for AT&T, designing and selling telecom systems for the transportation industry. I primarily handled air transportation to include airports, airlines, and airline sales offices. I was referred to a “headhunter” that was looking for someone with my background. When the opportunity did not materialize, my recruiter asked me if I would be interested working for her company. I told her that I would rather be a “pimp, than a headhunter”. Famous last words! Needless to say, the reputation garnered by headhunters in those days was less than respectable. She nurtured the relationship and had me meet with the owner of the firm, which was based out of Atlanta. I also meet with all (12) of her colleagues in the Dallas Office. I found myself drawn to the group and to the challenge the job represented. About 90 days later I ended up working for her firm. Since then my experience has included agency, professional services, corporate, and RPO environments. I have held individual contributor, director, and managing partner roles. Regardless of title and responsibilities, I have always been a hands-on contributor. I am a person that gets easily bored, so the ever changing world of technology has been my salvation. To be successful you have to stay abreast of technology trends, understand the industry and known how it applies to business. This requires research and a certain amount of trial and error. Typically, experience helps you shorten your ramp up time to production. You have to continually learn to excel. One of the keys to my longevity is that I always try to specialize. I choose the hottest or up and coming technology and become a subject matter expert. Through the years, I have supported specific software and hardware technology. I get involved in SIGs, Alliance Groups, and conferences. I do not want or expect to be everything to everybody. A “Jack of all trades is a master of none”. However, my experience allows me to talk intelligently across many disciplines. I am equally adept at discussing the hardware design of mobile devices to financial audit and SOX compliance. Right now the mobile device industry is still very strong and within the Silicon Valley area you have a large mix of industry leaders and start-ups. Even with the high unemployment, almost all of my candidates have multiple offers. Find your niche and work it. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Larry: Moving to San Jose in January of 2000 and suffering through the highs and lows of the dotcom era probably affected my life the most. I relocated from Texas and had never really gone through a downturn in business. The economy in Dallas was very diverse and not dominated by any one industry. Even the oil and gas industry represented only about 10% of the total employment population. So when one industry stalled, you had others as backup. 2002 was a rough year. You saw many recruiters leaving the industry (for the mortgage broker industry!) and we see what inevitably happened to them. You also had a large group of recruiters that held on to the belief that they were actually worth the outrageous rates they were being paid before the bust. They would not even think about going to work for less than they were previously making. I find that arrogance is a very ugly trait. I think that it is a combination of at least 3 of the 7 Deadly Sins (Greed, Vanity, and Pride). I think most of us in the recruiting business learned or reinforced our idea of the value of humility. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Larry: I often recall the story about the headhunter that got me in to this business? Her name is Dee Jabaut and she exemplifies all that is good in our industry and in life. She is a valued and loyal friend and everything that I would hope to be in life. She is a consummate professional, wonderful parent, always gracious, diligent, charitable, and patient. Six Degrees: Tell us about your position, (responsibilities, size of your staffing organization) : Larry: I have spent the last three years primarily in an individual contributor role. My responsibilities have included project management, client manager relationship, sourcing, recruiting, and new business development. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Larry: Without firsthand experience, it would be hard to designate who has the best recruiting practices. If you look at the top 25 in Fortune’s Best Companies to “work for list”, I had heard horror stories about some of their staffing organizations. Regardless of the success of the company, I think that the overall candidate experience is vital to managing employee branding. Whether or not the candidate is hired, what they tell their circle of influence is ultimately important to the future of their recruiting. I think that this is even more magnified with the advent of applications such as Twitter and Facebook. I think that it would be a healthy, although not practical exercise, to make corporate recruiters interview externally at least twice a year. This would remind them how it feels to be on the other side of the equation. I also feel that the true measurement of recruiting comes 90-180 days after the hire. Measuring employee and manager satisfaction, employee performance, and attrition are key metrics. There are definitely some companies that stand above the rest, companies where employee and customer loyalty rank high. I admire companies like Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods, Frito Lay, Qualcomm, Ernst & Young, and Boston Consulting. (B) In what aspects are they superior? Larry: Branding, internal and external. Treatment of employees, quality products, and customer satisfaction. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Larry: More tech firms innovate in Silicon Valley but sell overseas! Companies that focus on mass market (China, India, Africa, and South America) are finding greater success. “In down economic times, every company should be thinking: Do I have my balance right? Instead of spending so much money on marketing in some of these depressed markets, some of that should be diverted to parts of the world that are not as negatively impacted.” These markets have typically been ignored. Successful examples are companies like Telegent Systems, Ruckus Wireless, UTStarcom, and Legend Silicon. Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: Larry: Outside of local SIGs and affiliations with IEEE (The Consumer Electronics Society and The Antenna and Propagation Society), I have been regretfully reticent. I have been focused on international recruiting to include EMEA, Africa, India, APAC, and South America. I do plan on attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year. Six Degrees: Can you detail how the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Larry: I am fortunate that my current client has not been greatly affected by the global economic downturn. We have been actively hiring for the last 14 months and have aggressive hiring goals throughout 2010. 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. Larry: Over the last three years I have intentionally built out my Linkedin network by industry segment, targeted companies, and international exposure. That foresight has allowed me to actively search for my current needs. It is an evolutionary process or one might say intelligent design! It is better to be in a revolutionary rather than reactionary mode. 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? Larry: Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Most people are willing to help you achieve your goal if you ask politely. Aristotle stated that “man is a political animal, meaning an animal with an innate propensity to develop complex communities”. By nature we want to help people, preferably if that help doesn’t require a great exertion of time and energy. Using Linkedin as an example, if you use the route of requesting an introduction in order to present an opportunity, most people will forward that introduction when approached professionally. Granted, the degree of assistance increases with the proximity to the person we are helping. Of course for expediency, you should simply try calling your intended candidate. People are also more willing to help if you are offering value to their cooperation. Whether that is an offer to help a friend, an offer to help them in the future, a monetary offer, or sometimes a simple thank you. Remember not to be demanding or too persistent. I prefer the term, gently persistent while trying to achieve a goal. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Larry: Ideally I would like to secure an opportunity as a staffing director/manager. The best position I have ever had was managing and mentoring a staffing organization. I like being responsible for the overall talent acquisition process. There is a great deal of satisfaction growing your own company. That is the one element missing from project based staffing. I need to find a start-up or small company willing to give me the opportunity to run their staffing organization. Either that or a regional staffing management position for a large international corporation. Recommendations For Larry “Larry is an excellent and very professional recruiter. He is very dedicated, hard working, committed, and driven to results. I’ve had the chance to work with him at Palm as a technical recruiter for my system electrical engineering design team. He was very thorough in his search for potential candidates and has successfully provided quality candidates. He is excellent in identifying good candidates and recognizing their talents and the fit in my team. He is very proactive and follows up with the candidate regarding interview schedule, information about the position, feedback, and negotiating offers. He also is very good in communicating with me regarding progress and updates. He is definitely a pleasure to work with and an asset to a company!” November 11, 2008 Bernadette Lozano, Hardware Development Manager, Palm “I worked with Larry in two different ways. First of all, he was instrumental in getting me hired to my current position at Palm. Larry was in Palm's HR/staffing department but it almost seemed like he was my own recruiter. He always kept his promises, followed up on time, and worked hard to meet or exceed my requests. Even after I accepted the offer, Larry followed up with me and wanted to know if there was anything he could do. This has definitely been my best recruiting experience so far. Secondly, Larry also helped me find candidates for an open position at Palm. I have been very pleased in his abilities to provide me with candidates that matched the job description.” August 25, 2008 Thorsten W. Hertel, Sr. Antenna Design Engineer, Palm “I am appreciative to Larry's consistent and thorough search for candidates during this critical time for our project to find qualified candidates. Larry did an excellent job following up with the candidates to arrange for interviews, giving feedback and negotiating offers. Worked closely with us and he is proactive in returning e-mails and phone calls.” July 13, 2007. Top qualities: Expert, On Time, High Integrity Sameer Haddad, Sr Staffing Consultant, Spansion “I had the opportunity of working with Larry at Spansion, a leading supplier in flash memory. Larry is a seasoned recruiting professional who brought leadership and stability to Spansion’s recruiting team. As a senior technical recruiter Larry’s focus was in the device space, which is a very difficult area to recruit for in the semiconductor industry. Larry established solid relationships with hiring managers, was a valued business partner and was able to consistently met expectations. Larry was definitely a team player and a pleasure to work with.” October 30, 2007 Wayne Widdig, HR Manager, Spansion “Larry supported our Connected home and mobile device business at Motorola. In a short period of time, Larry was instrumental in making several critical hires on a high profile project. I found Larry to be a strong E2E staffing professional. Moreover, the clients (hiring managers) found him to be a valuable asset, identifying highly qualified candidates for hire.” October 23, 2007. Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, On Time Nick Mailey, Staffing Manager, Motorola “Motorola hired Larry through his company i-Hire to do some recruiting for us in the N. CA and S. CA areas. I found Larry to be very professional, have good technical knowledge and deliver great customer service in a timely manner. I would work with Larry anytime.” July 22, 2007. Top qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity Lynda Harris “Larry is excellent to work with and is results oriented. He is very responsive and professional and knows his business.” July 13, 2007. Top qualities: Personable, Expert, Creative Leo Barnes, Staffing/Business Development Manager. RemX IT “Larry and I worked together to staff one of my projects. I found him to be a joy to work with under demanding deadlines in a high pressure environment.” December 28, 2006. Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity Scott Wright - hired Larry more than once “Larry is a professional in the true sense of the word. He has an uncanny ability to communicate and understand conceputal issues at all levels. Larry gives 110% to ensure the project you are assigned is satisfactory. It has been a pleasure working with Larry and I will be glad to do so in the future.” August 2, 2006 Manoj Goyal, Independent Consultant, Squar Milner Reehl Williamson, LLP “I relied on Larry to staff two critical roles in my company's Marketing organization. Through Larry's diligent search capabilities, his attention to my specific criteria, and his follow-up throughout the negotiation process, I recruited two "anchor" members of our current team. They significantly deepened my team's bench, and both exhibit the capability to advance to higher leadership roles.” January 9, 2006 Kristin Jordahl Hansen “I have had the pleasure of working with Larry over the past year. He is not only well polished but also has a high level of integrity. Larry has proven to be a very effective recruiter and account manager and thus is within the top 2% of producers at our company.” April 13, 2005 Chris Stewart, Account Manager, RemX IT Staffing “I was first introduced to Larry when his company brought a recruiting plan to my organization to help us source hard-to-find technical jobs and fill positions that had been vacated due to the dot-com frenzy. Larry led the effort as project manager and offered workable solutions that allowed us to surpass our hiring goals. Larry gets results because he is a professional recruiter who knows technology and offers exceptional customer service.” October 2, 2007. Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Good Value Brenda K. Brown, MS “As a manager and leader, Larry is someone who is committed to developing your skills and knowledge. He's the type of leader that likes and wants to help you out as much as he can. He's a great listener and is very empathic. I know that he has grown a lot of valuable relationships because of these characteristics. As a Sr. Level recruiter, Larry is the best I know. He's a great networker, aggressive, and is very creative in finding the right candidates.” October 1, 2007 Racquel Cariaso, CIR, Recruiter, eJobs “Larry is always focused on the task, ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done. He's an exceptional leader, as well as a committed team player.” June 22, 2007 Garry King, several, Ejobs…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 11:31pm on August 9, 2009

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Topic: Transcript - Talent Talk Cafe: Week of Nov 17th - Lance Haun on Background Checks: es. Here's an overview of his topic follwoed by the Chat transcript. "How Invasive is Your Background Check Process?" With the Obama administration opening up application for appointed positions, they have also opened up one of the most invasive application processes in history. 63 questions that delve into the contents of your online activity, financial information and even contents of personal diaries. How appropriate is this for this particular situation and how much should you be going into? You can also find Lance online Here and connect with him on Twitter as @thalance! 12:00pm Lance Haun we'll go ahead and get started 12:00pm Tina Huckabay at show or online Maren? 12:01pm Maureen Sharib Hi - good crowd Lance! 12:01pm Lance Haun So today I wanted to talk about background checks 12:01pm Lance Haun Thanks Maureen for coming!@ 12:01pm Lance Haun and how I wanted to start talking about it is something from the news 12:02pm Lance Haun basically, the incoming presidential administration has released its application for appointed positions and it is a 63 page monstrosity 12:02pm Lance Haun 63 question 12:02pm Lance Haun not pages 12:02pm Maureen Sharib Yup 12:02pm Lance Haun but it is still huge 12:02pm Maureen Sharib Read it- could any of us get away w/ that?? 12:03pm Maureen Sharib Some of those questions? 12:03pm Lance Haun well, has everyone read some of the questions? 12:03pm Maureen Sharib Yup. 12:03pm Maureen Sharib allof them with great interest 12:03pm Lance Haun Here is one that might be of particular interest: Writings: Please list and, if readily available, provide a copy of each book, article column or publication (including but not limited to any posts or comments on blogs or other websites) you have authored, individually or with others. Please list all aliases or "handles" you have used to communicate on the Internet. 12:04pm Maureen Sharib LOL 12:04pm Maureen Sharib TMTM 12:04pm Maureen Sharib (Too Many To Mention) 12:04pm Lance Haun as a blogger, I have written hundreds of pages and I am sure you have to Maureen 12:04pm Lance Haun over the course of how many years? 12:04pm Julia Stone but under how many handles lance? 12:04pm Lance Haun so far, only one Julia :)12:05pmMaureen Sharib It'slaughable and if you forghet tolist something? I 'magine all hell will break loose... 12:05pm Julia Stone so it is an easy question to answer, right? 12:05pm Lance Haun well, collecting all of my work might be a bit more difficult 12:05pm Lance Haun as well as getting it to them in some readable form 12:05pm Lance Haun that's hundreds of pages of text for a single question 12:06pm Maureen Sharib Please list any (yadda yadda) your OR YOUR SPOUSE... 12:06pm Maureen Sharib ...there's a bugaboo. 12:07pm Maureen Sharib you OR YOUR SPOUSE 12:07pm Lance Haun the question that I posed on my blog on crimcheck is who is checking all of these things? what kind of staff would you need to even vet this many applicants with this many questions? 12:07pm Maureen Sharib Is that s'posed to be for a package deal? 2for1? 12:08pm Maureen Sharib Buy 1 Get 1 free... 12:08pm Lance Haun it is if your name is Clinton, right Maureen? 12:08pm Maureen Sharib Spose. 12:08pm Lance Haun they are vetting Bill Clintons connections right now 12:08pm Maureen Sharib Thats'what Bill offered way back when 12:08pm Julia Stone it was my understanding they are doing it to make sure they are sticking to their lobbying rules. 12:08pm Maureen Sharib He knows a deal when he sees one. 12:09pm Lance Haun certainly Julia! Obviously there needs to be vetting 12:09pm Lance Haun I think we all expect that from the President 12:09pm Recruiting Animal Same old faces 12:09pm Julia Stone and not to put a damper on the conversation, but haven't like 150,000 already completed the application process? Sounds like they have their hands full already 12:09pm Julia Stone you talking to me RA or the conversation? hello 12:09pm Lance Haun Hi Animal 12:09pm Maureen Sharib Have any members of your family...been arrested... 12:10pm Recruiting Animal talkin' to you. who said i was talking to you. hi hr guy. 12:10pm Recruiting Animal is there a class or something here today? 12:10pm Lance Haun schooling people on background checks 12:10pm Lance Haun a subject you should be familiar with 12:10pm Recruiting Animal k. i'll shut up. didn't know i was late 12:10pm Recruiting Animal (no maureen, never been arrested) 12:10pm Lance Haun Julia, you bring upo a good point 12:10pm Julia Stone thought it was a conversation, didn't realize you were schooling us Lance, I will shut up too 12:11pm Lance Haun no, that was a joke 12:11pm Recruiting Animal no julia you talk you know something 12:11pm Lance Haun if they have so many applicants, than who cares what questions they ask? 12:12pm Julia Stone I think that we are talking about a procedure that only affects a small % of high ranking officials. If you have gotten to that point in your career & haven't watched your online presence, time to retire anyway 12:13pm Lance Haun My understanding is that this application covers the 7,000 appointments Obama will have to make 12:13pm Lance Haun that's high and low it seems like 12:13pm Julia Stone no 3000 of those will be covered from my understanding 12:13pm Julia Stone Those under consideration for high-ranking positions must answer a seven-page questionnaire with 63 questions about their personal and professional lives. Applicants will have to provide significant details about their jobs and those of their spouses, their financial status and personal associations. 12:14pm Shannon Myers I know it's excessive but it can also be used as a deterent for people who really should not be applying. 12:14pm Julia Stone sorry, wrong cut & paste...Political experts say about 3,000 of the jobs will be awarded by Obama and his transition team to those who helped with the campaign or are well-known for their work in specific fields appropriate to the positions. 12:14pm Lance Haun Hi Shannon 12:14pm Shannon Myers Hi Lance 12:14pm Lance Haun good point, it can deter bad people from applying 12:15pm Julia Stone it can deter everyone from applying, right lance? except for the 144,000 who applied in the first 5 days 12:15pm Lance Haun In some cases, I think it can deter the types of people you want to bring into the administration 12:16pm Lance Haun quantity is great 12:16pm Maureen Sharib Names, addresses and phone #s of cohabitants? 12:16pm Julia Stone agreed. but if I got a call from Obama or Emmanuel explaining that this was a pain in the arse but I needed to complete it to be their secretary of superheros (or whatever) I would do it. These are high ranking positions. 12:16pm Lance Haun but if you need the best middle east analyst, do you know that they are willing to go through this process 12:17pm Maureen Sharib IMAGINE if members of our community asked some of these questions... 12:17pm Lance Haun Well, I don't know what HR positions they have available but if they called me and said we have this Deputy position available, maybe I am more willing to go through it than for a lower ranking position 12:18pm Julia Stone maureen, with all due respect, we are not running the country 12:18pm Lance Haun I worry about applying the same standards to secretary of state as we do to a policy advier 12:18pm Lance Haun adviser 12:18pm Lance Haun and it seems like policy wonks are covered under this application as well 12:19pm Lance Haun is that just a me concern? 12:20pm Paul DeBettignies We could all volunteer for a week to help do the background checks and not make a dent in them 12:21pm Lance Haun Hi Paul 12:21pm Paul DeBettignies (word) 12:21pm Lance Haun I guess that's my second question, what are the logistics to checking all of this information for 3000 people? 12:21pm Lance Haun well, 3000 positions 12:21pm Lance Haun probably will be doing more checks then that 12:22pm Paul DeBettignies that is the one that has me curious 12:22pm Julia Stone If it were me, I would want the info on file, not to check it but to have it on record 12:22pm Maureen Sharib Julia - do we have two standards here? 12:22pm Lance Haun me too Paul 12:22pm Lance Haun so is it just so they can reference it later Julia? 12:22pm Julia Stone you mean one for applying for a position to run the country and one to volunteer to run a group on RBC? yes 12:23pm Julia Stone Either to reference it later or to have a good NLP to sort through for potential conflicts of interest (lobbying types) 12:24pm Chalapathi hi everybody 12:24pm Lance Haun hi! 12:24pm Lance Haun okay Julia, I can see that 12:24pm Chalapathi i need sugestions in regards with DAYAK 12:25pm Lance Haun do you believe in the deterent value or do you think it isn't effective since 150k people managed to do it just fine? 12:25pm Chalapathi i have just signed in this portal and not yet started using this as my phone lines are out of order so i have not used this 12:26pm Chalapathi OHHHHHHHHHHHH 12:27pm Maureen Sharib No I mean for one applying for a job in govt and one applying for a job in industry. 12:27pm Chalapathi my email id is vtslchalapathi@yahoo.com 12:27pm Maureen Sharib Not sure where the applying to run a group here on RBC comes into this... 12:28pm Shannon Myers It still doesn't mean they are qualified, that they filled them out completely, just applied. 12:28pm Lance Haun Maureen, I think there are going to be double standards though 12:28pm Maureen Sharib Oh? 12:28pm Maureen Sharib I see. 12:29pm Lance Haun I mentioned this elsewhere but I worked for a company that did credit checks on janitors 12:29pm Maureen Sharib What's good for the gander in this country is not good for the geese. 12:29pm Lance Haun that didn't make much sense to me 12:29pm Maureen Sharib the janitor check or the goose remark? 12:30pm Lance Haun the janitor check 12:30pm Lance Haun I love goose though 12:30pm Lance Haun with a niceorange glaze that is 12:30pm Maureen Sharib Do you or any members of your family own a gun? COME ON! 12:31pm Lance Haun How about this one? Please furnish copies of all resumes and biographical statements issued by you or any other entity at your discretion or with your consent within the past 10 years. 12:31pm Maureen Sharib Please describe your overall health and any medical treatments you are receiving. 12:31pm Lance Haun wouldn't it be interesting to see how people have revamped their resume over the course of time? 12:32pm Julia Stone I am never happy when I walk out of an interview knowing the dosage of anti depressants they are on 12:32pm Maureen Sharib Pl include info abt any members of your family that might later be uh,,,errr....embarrassing to the President-Elect.n 12:32pm Lance Haun haha 12:33pm Lance Haun I don't want to know anybody's medical history :)12:33pmLance Haun not even my own 12:33pm Julia Stone me either, but a good recruiter often finds out more than they mean to 12:33pm Maureen Sharib I mean, come on, how many of these questions would be ILLEGAL to ask in an interview??? 12:33pm Julia Stone guess the supreme court will decide, lol 12:34pm Lance Haun well, it is interesting because the executive branch would be the one to enforce those rules...on itself 12:34pm Lance Haun I am guessing they let it go 12:34pm Maureen Sharib There is an intrinsic problem here - and nobody's really talking about it! 12:34pm Julia Stone In madison, they issued a local law which says that you cannot check peoples backgrounds further back than 3 years, unless it is superceeded by state or feds 12:35pm Lance Haun yeah, that's not uncommon these days either. Many states have limitations now and municipalities are cutting down as well. 12:35pm Julia Stone Last year I had my 1 and only case of something coming up on a background check in 12 years, it turned out to be nothing either 12:35pm Paul DeBettignies Seems to me anyone who could fill this out and be accepted would not be someone I want in there 12:36pm Lance Haun I think why this has become newsworthy is because of the level of disparity between what can be researched and done in the private sector and what can be done with White House positions. 12:36pm Julia Stone you are making an assumption that they have specific answers in mind to the questions though, Paul 12:37pm Maureen Sharib Insolvent in the past? Bankrupt? 12:37pm Lance Haun I don't have an issue with people getting extra scrutiny but I think the level this takes it to is really incredibly 12:37pm Lance Haun I am trying to think of the right adjective 12:37pm Lance Haun maybe just incredible 12:37pm Julia Stone I think that it is smart. if they don't want to be bogged down by news stories which take away from running the country. 12:37pm Lance Haun because there is a lot more information than there was 8 years ago 12:38pm Lance Haun now entire collections have been moved from offline to online 12:39pm Lance Haun and researching and accessibility is incredible 12:39pm Julia Stone maureen, have you finished your application yet? which position did you say you were applying to? 12:39pm Paul DeBettignies Let me try this again, anyone who can supply all this information, who can "pass" these steps, has had a career in D.C. Not sure how much "change" that is 12:39pm Lance Haun Paul, do you think that's the point though? 12:39pm Paul DeBettignies I don't know 12:39pm Lance Haun They want people who are used to being this exposed in the administration 12:40pm Lance Haun because that's what life is like there? 12:40pm Maureen Sharib Julia LOL 12:40pm Maureen Sharib No I'm workin' thru it - I'm struggling though... 12:40pm Paul DeBettignies See, I get the need to be transparent when applying and their need to do the background stuff. 12:41pm Paul DeBettignies But it seems the only ones able to jump the hurdle will be the ones alreay there 12:41pm Maureen Sharib When it's all over I'm gonna file a lawsuit...;) Unfair something-or-other. It'll make me rich beyond belief. ;)12:41pmPaul DeBettignies class action 12:41pm Paul DeBettignies we will all be rich 12:41pm Lance Haun well you better start applying Paul 12:41pm Paul DeBettignies or in this case lipstick on a ... 12:41pm Julia Stone sourcing czar? czar is a popular term this year, car czar, healthcare czar, etc 12:42pm Paul DeBettignies I doubt I could find all the stuff they want 12:42pm Maureen Sharib After all, this is easier'n working for a living...;)12:42pmMaureen Sharib I thought of it first. ;)12:42pmLance Haun I do think we need to change all of our secretaries to czars 12:42pm Lance Haun I think that is a more attractive position 12:43pm Lance Haun and secretary is so out moded 12:43pm Julia Stone madam czar, you have the stage? 12:43pm Lance Haun and I don't think assistant of state would work 12:44pm Maureen Sharib Admin Asst of State 12:44pm Maureen Sharib is the new title these days. 12:44pm Paul DeBettignies I have always been annoyed with the Under Secretary title. 12:44pm Maureen Sharib And for goodness sakes don't abbreviate it. 12:44pm Paul DeBettignies Who TF thought it was a good idea 12:45pm Lance Haun so I haven't seen any statement from the transition team about their application process but do you think they could have improved the process at all? 12:45pm Lance Haun or do you think it isn't a problem? 12:45pm Lance Haun or that it was done perhaps on purpose to limit the types of people applying? 12:45pm Maureen Sharib OFCCP suggests that it is best practice to only ask a question to ascertain Veteran's Preference status. Further, the OFCCP explained that it is "best practice" not to ask about type of discharge in the interview process as it can lead to equal opportunity type issues. 12:46pm Julia Stone I think it is much like many HR policies. They are designed with one purpose and end up with unintended side effects. In this case, they want to stick to their guns about lobbyist rules, but the side effect is turning people like all of us off 12:47pm Lance Haun Great point Julia 12:47pm Maureen Sharib http://www.dol.gov/esa/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/emprfaqs.htm#Q34 12:47pm Maureen Sharib But Julia, WHAT DO THEY CARE? 12:47pm Lance Haun so maybe, in the end, they don't change a thing but they understand that to an outsider like us, it doesn't make sense 12:48pm Lance Haun so turning to your own background check process 12:48pm Lance Haun I think we need to be thoughtful too as to what questions we are asking or hoops we make people jump through 12:49pm Lance Haun and even if we do leave them in place, we need to understand we may lose people or possibly dissatisfy others with the experience 12:49pm Maureen Sharib Exactly. Because Big Brother does it doesn't make it okay for us to do it. 12:49pm Julia Stone 2 issues with background checks. I don't make the rules since I am an agency recruiter. 1 is setting expectations, the other is limiting the hoops. 12:50pm Lance Haun True Maureen, that's the case for many many things though :)12:50pmLance Haun so set the expectations that "this is what you will be going through" 12:50pm Julia Stone for example, my husband took a contract w/ an insurance agency. Before the process was done they had run 2 background checks and made him take 3 drug tests (all negative, just beauracracy) 12:51pm Lance Haun ouch 12:51pm Lance Haun that's a rocky start to a relationship too 12:51pm Julia Stone I think 1/2 of all probelms can be solved by setting expectations 12:52pm Lance Haun right, but you still might not be happy even if you know you have to do three drug tests 12:52pm Lance Haun but at least you'll be informed 12:52pm Maureen Sharib "...that's the case for many many things..." THAT is the problem Lance. 12:52pm Julia Stone don't you think? 12:53pm Lance Haun I do agree, it can certainly smooth over even a rough pre-screening 12:53pm Julia Stone now that I know I won't even get pretzels on most flights, I pack food. I am no longer the crazed woman on the 3rd aisle 12:54pm Lance Haun good point...but when you do get food on an airplane, it is a pleasant surprise 12:54pm Lance Haun so couldn't the private sector use this to their advantage? 12:54pm Julia Stone most of the time people just want someone to tell them, "yes this is a ridicolous process. thank god the rest of the company isn't run by HR!" 12:55pm Lance Haun nothing is as bad as the government's background check! 12:55pm Maureen Sharib So when the govt DOES THE RIGHT THING it's a pleasant surprise? 12:55pm Lance Haun would you disagree Maureen? 12:55pm Lance Haun I mean, unfrotunatley I think that's what many have come to expect 12:55pm Maureen Sharib There's way too much at stake, IMO, for surprises. 12:56pm Maureen Sharib How could the private sector use this to advantage? Interesting question Lance. 12:56pm Rayanne wow, sorry I missed this one. Great chat here guys, from what I have read thus far 12:56pm Julia Stone lively discussion for sure, hi Rayanne! 12:56pm Lance Haun Hi Rayanne 12:56pm Rayanne Hi there... 12:56pm Maureen Sharib I wouldbe remiss not to say Hi Rayanne! 12:56pm Maureen Sharib ') 12:57pm Rayanne Hi EVERYONE! 12:57pm Lance Haun Maureen, I think the private sector could say "Hey, we don't put you through fire to work for us. Don't let insane processes get you down" 12:57pm Lance Haun haha 12:57pm Lance Haun anyway, we are running out of time and I can't believe it 12:58pm Maureen Sharib Interesting. So the 63 Questions works as an example -see how BAD we could be? 12:58pm Lance Haun anybody have anything else to add? 12:58pm Julia Stone like a 64th question, lol 12:58pm Maureen Sharib LOL 12:59pm Julia Stone does your dog own a gun? 12:59pm Maureen Sharib "If you know what's good for you work for Industry and be thankful they'll have you!" 12:59pm Maureen Sharib What abt your girlfriend -does she? 12:59pm Maureen Sharib And her child - what abt him? 12:59pm Julia Stone um, not that I have anything against that, but I don't have a girlfriend 12:59pm Lance Haun oh 12:59pm Lance Haun but what about your dog? 12:59pm Maureen Sharib His girlfriend? 1:00pm Maureen Sharib And her offspring? 1:00pm Julia Stone I once had a gay dog, but that was a long time ago & no guns Do I get the job? 1:00pm Lance Haun sure 1:00pm Maureen Sharib You qualify for sure! 1:00pm Lance Haun alright everyone thanks for the chat 1:00pm Lance Haun Maureen and Julia keeping it lively 1:00pm Julia Stone thanks Lance, nice job 1:01pm Lance Haun Paul even said a few things 1:01pm Lance Haun and Shannon 1:01pm Lance Haun can't forget her too 1:01pm Julia Stone paul had a long weekend, slower than usual 1:01pm Lance Haun I heard he signed up a boatload of recruiters for his event 1:02pm Rayanne I will definitely catch it next time!!!…; Added by Susan Burns at 10:45am on November 21, 2008