Of course, other background checks may also be a judgment call.  When an employer or staffing group is recruiting candidates, minor criminal records may not necessarily mitigate a candidate's performance or his ability to behave himself on the job.  The previous criminal record, if not too overwhelming, may relate to youthful folly or love gone wrong.  It may relate to the one mistake he made in his life and has since cleaned up his act.  He is now the reputable citizen, has worked hard for…

First impressions are important when it comes to job seeking, and an email address can make quite a first impression. Often times, the email address is the first thing a hiring manager sees – before even seeing your name! Before you send out your next resume, consider what your email address alone might say about you. Do you “appear” professional?

As most job…

Every occupation has its thorns - as do most roses.  "The shade goes with the tree" so says the farmer. 

Recruiting is sales and sales make things happen.  If you like helping clients and candidates move on to greater results, you can love recruiting with all of its warts, frogs, and Cinderallas.

Howard Frankel

We all wish we’d worked for Facebook or Google or Intuit or HP before they went public.  We’d all be retired by now, or close, or funding our own new ventures.  But as some smart jerk says, hindsight is 20-20.  How can we identify start-ups that are taking off before they’re saturated with interested candidates and investors? I ask three big questions of any potential client before deciding to bring them on and inform my network about them.

1. What are you selling? …

Since today is February 14th, I decided to take a more lighthearted look at our exclusive network of employers and talent to see just how much "love" we really have for you. The findings were particularly rosy and sweet.

The MBA Focus network currently includes:

• 29 MBAs with the last name "Love"
• 106 MBAs with "love" in their name
• 51 MBA-required job postings that mention "love"
• 3 recruiters with the last name "Love"
• 360 MBAs with "rose"…

(This series focuses on the most common reasons we've heard for why recruiters don't want to offer contract staffing.  These reasons are based on common misconceptions about contract staffing and prevent recruiters from reaping the benefits of offering contractors to their clients.)

Reason #4: I don't have time to deal with the hassles of contract staffing

Many recruiters believe that having contractors is going to cost…

(This series focuses on the most common reasons we've heard for why recruiters don't want to offer contract staffing.  These reasons are based on common misconceptions about contract staffing and prevent recruiters from reaping the benefits of offering contractors to their clients.)

Reason #3: I don't want to learn a new process

One of the biggest misconceptions about contracting is that you have to learn a whole new…

The question of “what is appropriate to wear to an interview” is one asked by every type of job seeker (young and old) and it’s important to pay attention to detail.  Whether you’re interviewing at a CPA firm or an ad agency that wears jeans every day, it’s important to overdress for your main entrance. 

Let’s start at the top, shall we?

Hair

Women – If your hair is down, make sure it’s brushed,…

Time to reach into that special bag possessed by The Sourcers’ Apprentice, and again, lets start the first chorus of a song I know (yes, I do) we’ll be revisiting again (and again…) until everyone is properly and completely in tune. If you fill in the blanks above, astute people will know that the topic of the week is part 1 dedicated to L*nked*n (oh, its just too much fun writing it this way). “I” see the topic as one of those covered by many “Experts” but followed by few, as everyone has…

I am an inveterate networker. Amongst all the conversations I have, at least once a week, I'm asked by a job seeker (passive or active) how they can use Linkedin to be found by headhunters and take advantage of new career opportunities? So here's my top 10 tips on how you can be found:

1. Make sure your Linkedin profile is 100% complete. There are loads of websites you can google offering great advice on making your profile as strong as possible so I won't regurgitate too much…

I often consult with my clients and talent alike on this stuff to make sure that the relationships I create through my work are long and prosperous ones. So although originally written for candidates I thought this might be useful for people to share here too!…

When a trusted employee is promoted into management, generally what is their first task?   Replace themselves.  How do they interview candidates for their replacement?  Go to HR and ask for a list of acceptable questions to ask.  If they are lucky, HR has a list of “approved questions.”  Are the questions targeting the skills required to be successful in the position?  Generally not, they are simply acceptable interview questions.  Do those questions include, “If you were an animal, what…

"How To Find Passive Candidates Under The Radar" is the topic of this episode of The Jim Stroud Show. If you want to learn how to get more bang for your sourcing buck, be sure to tune in on this one! Also, Jim shares pictures and a few comments about his time at the SourceCon 2012 event in Atlanta, GA. Finally, are you single on Valentine's Day? If so, Jim Stroud has a tip for you. (smile)…

If you’re a follower of the NBA, live in New York or maybe just somebody who has a twitter account, you might have heard of a guy called …

In a day and age when the national unemployment rate still remains more than 8 percent, it is safe to say that it remains an employer’s market.

That being said, we know or should know what most employers are looking for when it comes to hiring new workers.

Among the things traditionally sought are:

• Dependability;

• Trustworthiness;

• Attention to detail;

• Ability and desire to pitch in where needed.

While those may be common sense things on…

When I ran a search firm the number one conversation around the watercooler was fees; clients trying to reduce them.  They'd site competition, the economy, whatever.  My response was always the same; NO, unless there was exclusivity, volume or some other circumstance that compensated the reduction. The principle is simple: the belief that the value received from my service is far greater than the fee itself.

It goes something like this: After having a 20 minute conversation with a…

It’s one thing to convince a new client to abandon the old way of engaging a recruiting firm and embrace the best way to conduct a search by retaining a true search professional, and it is still another thing to get them to dispense with the old mindset of “interviewing” the potential candidates that a well executed search yields. Their "default" tactic is to have the standard “behavior based” interview questions and ease into increasingly complex follow up questions to really vet the…

Hiring is hard because you don't do it so often. Yet the impact of a bad or a good hire can be either disastrous or miraculous.

Here's 5 of my favourites:

• Hiring Religion by Paul English
• • Paul is the co-founder of Kayak. This…

Agonizing over decisions and the strive for perfection are like a bicyclist attempting to compete in a NASCAR race. You must be nimble in your decision making, decisive in your choices, swift in your actions, and persistent as you follow through to completion. Anything less ensures that your more agile competitors will always have the upper hand, leaving you choking on their exhaust.

For those thinking that you have to get everything “right” or “perfect”, you must remember that those…

It’s an age old conflict that is as old as the recruitment industry itself. Like cats and dogs, chalk and cheese, Yin and Yang, there seems to be an unnecessary mistrust or dislike between both parties.

In the UK recruitment industry rookie recruiters are taught from day 1 to avoid HR like the plague as it wastes time and is unnecessary instead they are told to contact the line managers directly to sell in their “perfect candidate” or cold call.

It is all too…