Featured Blog Posts – February 2010 Archive (69)

That noisy thing on your desk. It's the Phone.. Pick it up!

I read "Recruiter Daily" well, daily, always enjoying the gems Jo Knox brings us.

Today I say a post called

Poor response rates turning off top candidates

Robert Godden was responsible for the piece. I don't know Robert, but I'd like to thank him for… Continue

Added by Dan Nuroo on February 2, 2010 at 8:06pm — 11 Comments

Make sure you have a product before jumping on the ‘Personal Brand’ band wagon

“You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place.” – David Ogilvy

A lot has been said in the past few years about personal branding. A term introduced in the early 80´s by Al Ries and Jack Trout in their book: "Positioning: The Battle for your Mind". In chapter 23 Ries and Trout point that you can benefit by using positioning strategy to advance… Continue

Added by Jose J. Ruiz on February 2, 2010 at 6:00pm — No Comments

VMS Part II: Vendors - Are you a “limp noodle”?

Are you currently an IT staffing vendor working through a VMS? What kind of results do you get? Have you measured your return on time? Do you feel like you “sling resumes” up against the wall and see if they stick like your homemade spaghetti?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you’re probably following the VMS process as it was laid out by procurement. You’ve heard it all before right? “Don’t contact the managers directly”, “Only submit resumes through the VMS… Continue

Added by Kevin Womack on February 2, 2010 at 3:29pm — No Comments

Twitter: A Learning Tool? Whatever...

Learning with a Bird?

There are worlds of research related to how we learn. This research and opinion can even be broken down by groups, individuals and organizations to differences in culture, geographic location and how learning is facilitated. One technology that can help bring all these elusively segregated items together is cloud computing.… Continue

Added by Benjamin McCall on February 2, 2010 at 1:35pm — 3 Comments

The Best Format for Your Resume (Hint: It's Not .PDF)

So you want your resume to look pretty. Naturally. But is your pretty format preventing your resume from functioning as well as it should?

Did you know that many corporate and staffing agency ATS's (Applicant Tracking Systems) strip your resume of formatting when the information is imported into your profile? Or that when you forward your resume to a recruiter, they often have to copy and paste it into a new…

Continue

Added by Craig Fisher on February 2, 2010 at 12:30pm — 22 Comments

JobDeck and its implications for job boards

By now you’ve probably heard of JobDeck, a modified version of the popular Twitter search application, TweetDeck. A collaboration between TwitJobSearch and TweetDeck, JobDeck has a permanent, specialized search that focuses on jobs. These are sourced from the Twittersphere, based on employment-related keywords, plus additional content from LinkedIn.

Well, it’s gotten the New York Times… Continue

Added by Jeff Dickey-Chasins on February 2, 2010 at 9:00am — 2 Comments

Customer service in Recruitment. We need to put our money where our mouth is

For all my blog posts see 'The Savage Truth'

Read the websites of any ten random recruitment companies. From any country. In the ‘About Us’ or ‘Our Services’ section, you will almost certainly find glowing and poetic prose about ‘customer service’ and the ‘customer comes first’ and ‘exceptional standards of service delivery’ and many other cliche-ridden phrases. But these claims were not written without sincerity. The companies… Continue

Added by Greg Savage on February 2, 2010 at 3:52am — No Comments

What end of the talent pool are you in?

It is sink or swim out in the job market today. Whether laid-off or gainfully employed, I often ask my candidates about their key motivation during a job search – these are the top four answers:

1. A new career path

2. Better/Fair compensation

3. Reached a career plateau

4. Feel unappreciated

Another seemingly irrelevant question I ask is the following: What is the biggest misconception your peers have about you?

As a… Continue

Added by Amos on February 1, 2010 at 7:30pm — 5 Comments

Why Do They Always Get a Raise Right Before the Offer?

Why is it that candidates ALWAYS seem to get a review, raise, additional responsibilities right before your client is about to make them an offer?

Alright, it doesn’t ALWAYS happen. As recruiters we tend to exaggerate just a bit, but it happened this last week to not one, but to two recruiters I know and have great respect for, and it drives me mad when I hear this.

This should never happen.

We, as third party search professionals, shouldn’t let it… Continue

Added by Jeff Skrentny, CERS on February 1, 2010 at 3:15pm — 7 Comments