There is something in the recruitment air.  I’m not sure what it is but I’m getting an increased number of calls from agencies claiming to be “head hunting” me.

I talked to a job seeker the other day and asked her how her job search was going. She replied 'its tough out there' but who can blame her. The competition is stiff and job hunting aint what it used to be.

We started discussing my local job boards (which she uses) and someone in the group mentioned looking for jobs on Craigslist. "Ugh" she said, "there's a lot of crap on craigslist".  

CL seems to be attracting anything and…

New York City area employers posted almost 170,000 new online job ads jobs in April. Although a drop from March levels, metro NYC hiring demand up 79% over its 4-year low in December 2008.

New York City Metro Area Hiring Demand — 4 year:

Source:…

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 Google’s company culture, guaranteeing a job, the changing role of a recruiter, efficiency vs. effectiveness and training managers.

Here are the articles our that interested us this week (in no particular…

Last week was an exciting week in our industry.  LinkedIn now has a market cap of approximately 600 times its annual earnings. Expectations are lofty.  But, as I have said before, LinkedIn is not the only game in town.

The online recruitment paradigm has shifted and an organization should not put all of their eggs in…

Any recruiter who is assigned with the task of finding the right fit for a job opening has to essentially put on the shoes of a treasure hunter. Yes! Recruiting the best candidate for every single assignment is no cakewalk. When it comes to sourcing, Internet is the river of life for recruiters. And the list of avenues where they hunt is numerous. From Social…

In financial markets they talk about canny investors being “stock-pickers”, which refers to an ability to select ‘diamonds in the rough’; investments that will outperform over time.

Great recruiters are “talent-pickers”.

We would love to place every person who approaches us, or who we interview. But that is not going to happen.

In fact, spreading your talent activity too thin will dilute your ability to find people work. Candidate selection is key. Selecting the best…

If you did, I understand.  This season started very weak.  Lucky for all those who gave up on the show, I stuck with it.

I'm betting most of you felt like 'Dwight' in this photo after the first half of this season!

I've always enjoyed 'The Office' on NBC, because the…

It's the age old question all potential employers dread - how do you know you are hiring the best person for the job?

My apologies for no post last week. I have been very ill. But am back up, sort of, and running so here we go!!

Change can be good!!!!

Change, one of the scariest words in the English dictionary, also one of the most exciting, and perhaps one of the most important. Change means - to become different, or make something or somebody different. For us in staffing it means the ability to be flexible. This means just…

In our line of work, underemployed and unemployed friends and relatives seek out our advice.  Usually a resume rewrite, LinkedIn account, and updated resume on a job board will get them further in a hour than 6 months of blindly applying for jobs. For my two nephews, this helped them land in 3 weeks in a down market.  "Uncle Bert, people were calling me the next day." Way to go Patrick and Aaron!

I have a…

The end of another successful week, people placed, invoices paid, a bottle of champagne for top biller of the week, and all for doing a job I love !!

I had some real win, win, wins this week candidates that have really needed my help, clients with problems solved and a healthy income for me, I dont think any other job can tick so many boxes for a job well done.

Have a great weekend everybody back at the coalface Monday !!

So it seems that al-Qaeda is struggling to find a new leader.

It is apparent that all interviews have gone well, until the last minute when the candidate has asked

“So…how did this vacancy come about?”

Asking the right question at the right time is the difference between taking on a great vacancy and taking on a dog. A dog, will lead you all over the place, take you up the garden path and then leave an awful stench when it goes wrong.

We have all…

Here are some ideas that I have tried recently that have found the hard to find needle in a haystack - trust me they work the miracles when the chips are down and you need to find your rock star diamond hidden in the rough:

Candidate pipelining - build the network and they will come - on LinkedIn join user groups of which you can have 50 - create a compelling blog which lists your latest opportunities and post to the user groups every two weeks.  Soon compelling candidates…

You use your connections, recruiting software, and interview skills to land the perfect candidate. Then, a year or two later, he or she leaves, following another great opportunity. It’s a recurring nightmare (and occasional reality) for recruiting and staffing professionals everywhere.

What can be done about it? The short answer: pay attention to all top performers. The long answer involves five ways of encouraging that helps to keep great…

“People will hate you, rate you, break you, and shake you; How strong you stand is what makes you”- Judy Reynolds, Facebook 2011.

Interesting comment I received via Facebook the other night. And how timely and true it could really be. Everyone wants to be number #1, sometimes so much so, that they forget the things they felt were important at one time, or feel that success is the be all and end all. To me, this all comes down to merit, how much faith we place in ourselves; and how…

First, I would like to congratulate the employees and executives at LinkedIn.  What a tremendous day for your company.

The LinkedIn IPO has and will spark up the debate about an impeding Social Media Bubble.  But, if you are involved in the recruiting space in any way, you should be excited…