Search Results - practice

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

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

Topic: Meet Geoff Webb, Hewitt Associates Sourcer & Toronto Community Activist: fferin Grove Park and volunteer within the parks and communities movements in Toronto. • Office/Cell Number (O) 416-530-4271 (C) 647-226-9322 • Email Geoff Webb has over 10 years of experience with Recruitment and Resource Management with some of the top consulting companies in Canada and the United States --- "Geoff is Canada's Most Connected Recruiter". In addition to his sourcing expertise, Geoff specialties include: Recruitment, Resource Management, Training and Coaching, Career Transition, Health Services and Privacy. Q&A with Geoff Webb Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Geoff: I live in Toronto with Michelle (we’ve been together now for over a decade), we have two daughters Inanna is six years old and Dara is two years old, we currently take care of three cats, a cockatoo (named Cookie) and a dog, wow, we really have too many pets. Not only am I a Master Sourcer, but I’ve been involved in Canadian politics for over 20 years, in that time I have worked for two Prime Ministers, one Premiere and a number of Members of Parliament. As well, I was once held by the Secret Service at the White House (it wasn’t my fault I swear). I was there on a school trip, a friend threatened to burn down the building, I got taken in for standing beside him (such an idiot). I am currently very involved with the Parks and Communities movement in Toronto, where we try to focus communities around urban park spaces. If you want to see a great model for an urban park check out www.dufferinpark.ca - we rock. When we’re not volunteering I like to spend time with my two little girls, we hang out a lot with friends in the parks, but also like to go rock climbing, we are all avid rock climbers (so if you know of any good rock, I’ll climb it). Currently my eldest daughter and myself are trying to figure out if it’s possible to build a zipline in our backyard Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Geoff: started out in recruiting at Parachute Community employment centre in 1989, so I have been in the staffing industry for wow, for 20 years now. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Geoff: Funny story actually. I didn’t want to be a recruiter. At first I went to theatre school and aspired to a career as a Stage Manager. I’ve always had an artistic side of me, however, after about three years of Theatre School I decided that I really couldn’t stand actors and that might get in the way of a career. So I went to work for my friend Tim McVegh who ran a community employment centre (Parachute, named after “What Color is your Parachute”). My job there was to assist underemployed youth in the Regent Park area of Toronto to get on-the-job skills training through a Government of Ontario program called Futures. That got me hooked so I worked my way through school and got my certification in Human Resource Management. When I did the course I thought that I wanted to be in Training and Development, but during my coop I ended up working for Canadian Tire as a Staffing Assistant. Now this is where it got really interesting, growing up my father was a professor of cognitive science at UofT and so we had a lot of computers around the house. I got the job at Canadian Tire because they were implementing a new ATS called Restrack Hire (which eventually became Taleo) and I understood both the HR world and the technology world, and Canadian Tire was the first company in Canada to implement the system. My role was to work as a Jr. BA on the implementation. Through that process I became very interested in Recruiting and started to assist on some of the Campus recruitment initiatives. And that’s how I got started in Recruiting. Since then I have mainly focused on Technology hiring because I have a love of Talent Acquisition and Technology. After Canadian Tire I worked briefly for a year with a Technology agency called Ian Martin IT, until the VP and a good buddy Craig told me that he didn’t “want to hold me back from something better” (no Craig Silverman it wasn’t you but I love that line). I then spent the next few years working for Computer Task Group on the IBM account as an RPO recruiter, this gave me the opportunity to manage recruiters as well as move my young family to Vancouver for a year…since then Vancouver has been our second home. It also gave me the opportunity to meet some really great American recruiters and learn the phrase “that dog won’t hunt”. After deciding to return to Toronto I worked for Xwave, Cognicase and then CGI (where I briefly delved into the world of Resource Management). After leaving CGI in 2002 I started to really become interested in the Candidate Generation or Sourcing side of the business. So I started my own company and with the help of my friends at Head2Head worked for companies such as T4G, Microsoft and Tucows (thanks guys). I then did a pure sourcing gig at Intuit for two years where I had the great pleasure of working with some of the best sourcers in North America under Traci Wicks (who btw rocks). I also got to attend the first Sourcecon and really started to delve into my community of peers. I am currently working with Hewitt Associates on the Central Sourcing team, again, I am very lucky to work with such a dedicated and smart bunch of folks under the inspired leadership of Chris Gould and Cynthia Wehrenberg. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Geoff: I can remember the day when the sourcing world really opened up for me, during my stint at Microsoft Canada I sourced and recruited for the Enterprise Services team. Let me say that it was a challenging assignment, as you had to find people that not only excelled technically but also were prepared to go on the road 80% of the time. We were using all the usual channels at the time, however, one day I was having lunch with a couple of the folks who were Technical Evangelists, and they were talking about the Microsoft Developer contests that were going on. It sounded both interesting and a lot of fun, so I inquired further about, well, what the heck they were. At the end of the conversation I was dumbfounded to find out that we already knew most of the best talent out there through the contests, but no one had thought to connect the contests to Talent Acquisition, and that’s when it struck me, everything can be about recruiting. You just need the proper recruiting ecosystem in your company. That’s when sourcing became really interesting for me, the more creative the approach the more exciting I get about it…and over the years I’ve done some crazy things, set up hotdog stands across the road from competitors, rode the elevators looking for contacts, crashed conferences to meet with developers. But I’d have to say that was a defining moment for me. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Geoff: you know I can’t say that I have any one mentor, however I have to give props to some folks for really opening my eyes to the sourcing world and community based recruiting. A big prop has to go out to my friend and mentor Traci Wicks at Intuit, Traci really taught me two valuable lessons 1.) that online communities are great but always need to be supported by direct human connection and 2.) your sourcing strategy no matter how complex should always answer the question “how am I going to move this person from a prospect to a hire”. I will forever carry those lessons with me. As well, Leslie O’Connor gave me the opportunity to connect with so many people that share a common passion for sourcing through the Sourcecon venue. I owe many of my relationships with my fellow sourcers to Leslie. Speaking of community builders I would be remiss in not giving a shout out to my fellow Torontonian Jason Davis, Recruitingblogs has been a great place not only to connect to the recruiting world but also to see how vibrant online communities can be created and maintained. Also huge shout out to all those sourcers and recruiters that I connect with regularly to share ideas…unfortunately to numerous to all name here. Six Degrees: Tell us about your position at Hewitt: Geoff: Currently I am a Sourcer on the Central Sourcing team at Hewitt Associates, I work on a team of seven sourcers under the direction of Cynthia Wehrenberg, besides my everyday sourcing duties of finding the best and brightest of the HRO world I also work on researching and evaluating new sourcing tools and technologies and then showcasing those technologies to the team. Further I am involved with the team building out the Hewitt social media strategy (with my good friend the brilliant Michael Marlatt), an opportunity that I am very excited about. I am extremely proud to be working on a sourcing team that has come so far so fast, in six months we’ve really become a force to be reckoned with in the Sourcing world, I would put us up against any sourcing team out there today, yeah, I mean you - bring it. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Geoff: Wow, so many, however, if I had to pick the top three I have always admired the work that Marvin Smith has been doing over at Microsoft, building Talent Communities that are true self sustaining and self propagating. I also really enjoy the work being done by Chris Hoyt and Amybeth Hale over at AT&T around the integration of their social recruiting elements, and last but not least I am a huge Josh Khan fan, he’s both a cool and very smart guy and understands that not every tool is made for every job. (B) In what aspects are they superior? Geoff: you know in all these cases including Hewitt, I am highlighting companies that are daring to be different, to push the boundaries of traditional Talent Acquisition, to really delve into social recruiting, daring to make mistakes and learn from them. I have a lot of respect for any company that puts themselves out there and is prepared to make some big OOPS. Another very important lesson that I learned at Intuit was if you aren’t making mistakes then you’re probably not innovating. In all my favorite companies I see a lot of innovation in our space. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Geoff: Hmmm, let ‘s see, Job Boards, yeah, they’re going to replace Third Party Recruiters…wait, wrong decade. No, seriously for me it’s got to be two things, 1.) the emergence of social media, and when I say that I don’t just mean Facebook, Linkined, Twitter, I am thinking beyond that with Diigo and Del.i.cious and other social bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon, I am talking about blogs, widgets, anything that can tell me more about you as a person other than your resume and can allow me to connect with you as a person more fully and 2.) (this is me Faith Popcorning a bit here), the fact that the future of Sourcing will be less about resumes and more about the content, I as a Sourcer I will be more interested in what you demonstrably know than what you have written on your resume. Six Degrees: Tell us about your broader involvement within the staffing industry: Geoff: Granted I haven’t been a huge conference attendee (probably that long trek across the border), however, I have religiously attended both Sourcecon conferences and have attended Recruitfest and RNG here in Toronto. I look forward to the day when Canada can say that we are in the Talent Acquisition conference game, I hope that day will come soon. Six Degrees: Can you detail how the recession has affected your particular industry niche? Geoff: I have been very lucky not to be a member of the unemployed up to this point during the recession. However, I know many of my fellow recruiters and sourcers that were downsized during the recession. To try to combat some of the effects of the recession in Toronto we started a monthly meetup of recruiters, hoping that the direct connections that we make will entice folks to help each other seek clients, new gigs, contracts, whatever they need. 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. Geoff: Well, let’s see, the last time I was looking for work I started a Facebook group and called it “Help Geoff Webb Find a Job” and invited all my “friends” to the group, I would then keep them updated about my job search status, I also run a number of social networks for Canadian Recruiters and have invited my Linkedin friends to a Ning group called “Friends of Geoff Webb Worldwide”. I help to run the Sourcecon Ning site and I am a regular contributor to Recruitingblogs.com. I also have one of the largest Facebook networks of recruiters on Facebook - all these media allow me to stay in touch with my community and share information with them. As I stated above I am also the organizer of the Toronto Recruiter Meetup and I am often called upon by community groups in Toronto to set up their online social media. I would start my own radio show, but Animal has that covered. 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? Geoff: Don’t ignore people, and be your authentic self. The best way to tick people off is ask them for something and then ignore them when they come calling to you. I try my best to answer every wall post, every Linkedin inquiry, every Tweet that I get, otherwise, I’m just another avatar out there. As well, do “pay it forward”, helping someone today can often become an opportunity of tomorrow. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Geoff: I’m torn there…on one hand I would like to be the Talent Community Manager, and work within social media to grow and enrich Talent Hubs or Communities by providing interesting and rich content but also introducing an element of the human touch, I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I’m learning. I could also see myself as the Product Manager for the next killer recruitment app out there, again, not there yet, but I’m learning. Industry Recommendations for Geoff Webb “Geoff and I worked together at Intuit, as Senior Recruiters, and then he moved into the Candidate Generation Team. He is passionate about building recruitment pipelines, creating sourcing strategies, training peers in technology tools that increase their ability to effectively use the newest and latest & greatest tools and, last but definitely not least creating new social networks. Geoff is an Excellent Sourcer, with many tools at his disposal and full of ideas, strategies and networks. He brings alot of tools and ideas to the Table and can help a Recruitment Team and the related Business Groups find a good solution to enable them to Hire the right people and talent!” October 17, 2007 Linda MacNeil, Senior Recruiter, Intuit Canada Inc. “Geoff strives to always look at new innovations in sourcing from a technology perspective. If there is something new out there he is the expert. Geoff also is a GREAT trainer and is committed to training new sourcers so they become successful! When brainstorming with Geoff there are no obstacles always solutions. Thank you Geoff for being such a committed innovator in sourcing.” August 13, 2007 Top qualities: Personable, Expert, Creative Traci (TWicks) Wicks “Geoff managed a heavy recruitment load, and was successful in establishing a user group for Java programmers. He always knows about the latest technology and sourcing strategies, effectively determines technical competence among candidates,, and managed the hiring relationships with ease. He is a pleasure to work with and is willing to share ideas and best practices.” September 10, 2007 Janette Richards, Recruitment Consultant, Intuit, Inc.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 8:03am on July 6, 2009

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

Blog Post: 2019 Talent Acquisition Year in Review

Episode 12

Guest Shannon Pritchett from…

Added by Jeff Weidner at 10:27am on December 30, 2019

Blog Post: How To Recruit On LinkedIn: Added by Ninh Tran at 3:52pm on May 23, 2016

Blog Post: The 5 Key Recruiting Metrics and How to Use Them: Measuring the success and improvement of your recruiting strategy is hard. Ultimately, what all HR managers and business leaders want to see are results. But how do you quantify success and…; Added by Phil Strazzulla at 4:16am on October 23, 2022

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