I am seeing a lot of articles and blogs written about the "interview game", interviewings being like playing poker or how to's about "Playing the Interview Game". 

A game normally connotes a "winner and a loser".  Any interview should be a business meeting between two professionals where both make every effort to provide concise, clear information to the other person involved in the meeting in order that both parties have as much information about the other as possible.  If…

[Note: This was written as we are getting pelted with snow and freezing rain for the past two days in Boston]

As a kid, I loved snow days.  It was a free day to play outside with friends and just simply not doing anything productive.  It was just pure fun.  The problem was that instead of doing homework with some free moments during the day, I would always wait till the last minute and have a race to the finish to get it completed.

As an adult, I see…

Sure, there are some experts out there who will tell you that you can always hire A-Players, but I'm not one of them.  Considering 54% of all hires are mis-hires (according to a 2000 Fortune…

Since President Obama took office, there has been a marked shift in how immigration enforcement is handled. Where immigration raids aimed at capturing illegal immigrants were more common during the Bush administration, now U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is relying on I-9 inspections to find and fine employers who do not follow immigration laws.  As a result, employers are becoming more educated about the inspection process and fines that could be assessed.

As a…

Bzzzzzzz.  Bzzzzzz.  That's the sound of a busy bee.  Click, send, click, send, click, send, new string, new search, click, send, click, send, all while rocking out to some good country music.  Now that is the fun of being a busy sourcing bee.  These days my desk is full from 1 side to the other with Job Descriptions galore, and highlighter gone haywire on every keyword, and key point in my VMS client's good and bad written JD's. 

Ahh, the Job Description - welcome to…

Interviewing - the Texas Holdem of Staffing

When is staffing like Poker? The answer is when you are interviewing. In poker, and especially Texas holdem, you are always looking, and listening for insights into other players hands. These are called tells. Sometimes they come as non-verbal communications, a twitch, or a blink of the eyes. Other times it comes as nervous talk, sometimes you are talking to them asking them questions,…

There is an ongoing wail from the HR profession. We have heard the clichés and platitudes ad nauseum. “HR needs a seat at the table”, “HR is the key to the future” etc, yet nothing ever changes. Ever.

Why is this? Well, it’s simple. The vast majority of HR roles in companies have developed informally over many years. They have…

The current “war” in the web space is presenting new challenges to existing players like Google. Especially with sudden surge of social media, few people doubt how Google will cope-up against Facebook / Twitter. Little we understand that both these channels play with “information” and do very little to innovate with it.

QWiki has been recently released in TechCrunch. It is an excellent and smart example of information is more powerful and impactful…

I'm in a budget crunch environment at work - yes, I recruit/source for the federal government. Needless to say, money that we would ordinarily use for tools is being soaked up to pad our offer/promotion funding - (signing bonus, relocation, ect). 

So what I need... I'm decent with boolean searches without any tools. But I do need a simple, SIMPLE CRM/database that is compliant. I'm losing track of all of the incoming resumes and materials. We have Sharepoint, but I'm not sure…

It is becoming increasingly important in today’s economy that every company needs to try and do more with less.  And in no place is it more present than in the recruiting sector.  Recruiting organizations consistently are asked to do more with their ever decreasing set of resources.

But not all’s lost as recruiting organizations are consistently finding ways to improve their processes and cut the fat of their overall…

Take a quick look at part of the post from…

Back in the dark ages, when the Job Board Doctor was first learning the mysteries of sales and marketing, he was told that he should “sell benefits, not features.”

Fast forward, umm…many years. I’m still telling clients (and myself) to focus on the benefits, not the features. You think I would’ve learned by now!

It’s a tough lesson to learn. For one thing, it’s a lot easier to list the new, snazzy, ‘gee whiz’ features that your job board has:…

Everybody wants them. Every business leader, talent manager and HR executive tries to recruit and hire them. They are the “A” players, the best of the best, the folks who make your company, your department, your division successful and profitable. They are the reason that your shareholders love you. They can save your job.

But what is an “A” player? Most would answer that an “A” player is the best of the best, the cream of the crop, at the top of their game, pretty much an…

Answer me this folks, would you respond to the following personal ad?

“I’m a person. I am looking for a person. This person should be a person and fun. I am fun.”

If you answered yes, then I feel bad for you. There is nothing either informative or enticing about this. The only people who would respond to it are desperate or just as lame. Well,…

I must say I get more phone calls from professional IT staff looking for new opportunities this year than we did last.  I was asked by one why we do not call every single person that applies back.  I thought about it a moment and actually believe that it would be a huge difference between us and other companies if we simply called each and every applicant.  But the time involved with the amount of applicants would pull key staff away from tasks that are essential to the operations.  I looked…