Have you seen the film  A Bugs Life?  If you have you’ll remember the scene where the two bugs are flying perilously close to one of those blue light thingys that emit a fatal electric shock if an insect flies into it:

“Don’t go into the light!”

“I can’t help it.  Its beautiful”

*Zzzzzap*

That’s me…

Not all recruiters or recruitment agencies are vultures...or vampires for that matter.  When they cold call--they simply want to help in the recruitment challenges an employer faces.

If they appear to be stalking you as a candidate, or as an employer rep--they are simply trying to get access to interested parties, preferably decision makers--and they are 100% dedicated to a mutual benefit.

Yes, there are some bad apples; some…

A major concern facing companies in Africa is a shortage of qualified and skilled talent to fill job vacancies in the organisation. Companies have no choice but to recruit for these jobs overseas. Many African countries make it very difficult for individuals to get work permits, saying that these jobs should be filled by locals. Is this argument valid? What are the impacts on the companies and the country?

Politicians, when defending restrictive employment visa regimes usually argue…

Linkedin cheats etc

LinkedIn has become huge, and using it for sourcing has become even bigger. But of course sourcing within LinkedIn has limitations. Below are some tips, tricks, cheats that may help. Most are nothing more than utilizing the things you learned in my previous postings. But here they are more specialized.

So domain and site searches in search engines

site:linkedin.com add…

Back when I started in the recruiting industry, (I can hear you now: “Yeah, yeah. Uphill both ways, against the wind and in 6 feet of snow, you old fart!”) we did not have all the tools we do today. Now, don’t get me wrong - I love our tools. It has made our recruiting efforts much easier however; the only “tool” that has not changed and WILL always remain the most important is our ability to communicate!…

Pay it Forward is an expression that most of us know because of the Kevin Spacey movie that came out about 10 years ago.  The movie was based on a book by Catherine Ryan Hyde, and the expression itself may have originated close to 100 years ago.   Now there is a pay it forward foundation, and a “movement.”

The concept is easy:  When you are the beneficiary of a good…

Here is our weekly feature in which we share the top articles we enjoyed from the past week about recruitment marketing, social recruiting and anything else in the recruiting space. This week we’ll be talking about Employee Referral Programs, myths about social media, the Wow Factor, 5 mistakes made on Twitter, Failure that instructs and how to be more creative.

Here are the articles our that interested us this week (in…

Last week, we blogged about the increasing importance that telecommuting plays in the decision-making process of job selection for top IT talent. We know telecommuting is becoming a requirement for many IT job seekers here in Atlanta. This is evident based not only on our experience working with IT job seekers, but in…

Unstoppable - its a mojo.  It's a lifestyle.  It's a commitment.

Everywhere I go, I keep hearing of folks who are wallowing in the mire of an economic malaise that gets their hopes up, and hits their resolve.  There is an incredible song by the Rascal Flatts which highlights why being Unstoppable is so key.  I have posted it as an update to my LinkedIn Profile....please view:

 …

Fortunately I don’t get these very often… I’m one of a handful of recruiters and rather new to my company, so the vultures haven’t caught up with me yet.  However – earlier this week I had FOUR horrible voicemails in a row, from FOUR awful sales people.  Three agencies and a job board.  It went a little something like this –

“Hi Amy, this is (first name only) with (unintelligible company name).  I’m calling today to introduce you to my company.  We are the…

http://jobadviceblog.com/2011/08/when-will-your-career-end/

Google+, to be sure, has some serious work to do. Facebook has around 700 million users and LinkedIn has around 120 million. Both companies are mobile-savvy and respond quickly to the needs of their users. Both also have a lot of top-notch minds working for them and…

A simple question that is not so easily answered!  However, if you can answer this question and focus your recruitment marketing efforts on the channels and places on the web that bring in your best candidates, your recruiting organization can yield great success.  The thing is there is no secret formula for what channels will work best for a specific organization as every recruiting strategy will have…

We all read a ton of articles about how to recruit people, where to find people blah blah blah.  Right?  I mean, it’s almost like information overload with regard to how to find great candidates.  One thing I’m finding though, with all this talk of how to find people.....I’d like to focus on how NOT to recruit someone.  Why?  Well, l’m noticing all these great recruiting tools have made recruiters lazy.  Rather than picking up the phone…

Recently, I wrote about the scourge of lateness that plagues business these days, and I gave meeting start-times as an example of the disrespect many people show their colleagues. That blog post created a storm of comment, and some of the discussion centered on meetings themselves, and what a waste of time they can be.

And in…

Everyone says recruiting is changing. The evidence is overwhelming that we are on the cusp of a seismic shift in the way our industry needs to work. It is all changing. Client expectations, candidate behavior, social media, technology.

But how do we sort out the reality from the hype? And what should the ordinary recruiter do to prepare for the future?

Well, a great place to start is to make sure you understand what is different about the way our clients are thinking…

I find what we, collectively, do to be amazing.  We headhunters are the envoys of employment, the captains of commerce, the of potentates of potential!!  We help our clients accomplish their challenging goals by finding and securing for them the talent they need to succeed.

It really is a beautiful thing, man.

I've been feeling especially reflective because I am heading into my 5th year of being in business for myself. I've been a recruiter for wow, 17 years, I can…

This post originally appeared at www.sendouts.com.

Is your company taking advantage of its internship program?  As a recruiting and staffing professional, are you targeting…