Below is a copy of a blog I wrote elsewhere, my blog is public and read by clients, candidates, friends and randoms from social media.  It was prompted by several people essentially calling into question what I do, I thought I'd recreate the blog here (as my first post!) to see other peoples thoughts on this.  Also as this blog was intended to be read by people not in the recruitment industry so I have in simplistic terms defined recruiter and headhunter within…

If those who penned the Bill of Rights could have seen into the future, the

right to healthcare would have been included. Unfortunately, healthcare wasn’t

an issue during that time. But it is now! It’s 2012, and the United States

Government has been methodically taking away many of its citizens’ access to

healthcare. Isn’t this an infringement upon our unalienable rights of…

Healthcare recruiters perform a very important service in healthcare and actually save costs in the long run. So why the snub? Hospitals look at recruiters as a necessary evil that they’d prefer to live without if at all possible. Again, why? It all boils down to the fact that if a company needs to hire a heathcare jobs recruiter it’s because they can’t find the right candidate for their open positionjob themselves. To some, it’s a mark of failure on their part, and the recruiter is a…

Talk about a catch-22! Let’s use Sally, the average Nurse Practitioner (although there’s nothing average about NPs), as an example. She has been a nurse for many years and has been working on her MSN for quite a while. The happy day arives when she has earned her MSN. She then sits for her national certification and passes. She is so thrilled now because she is officially a certified Family Nurse Practitioner!

Sally’s job search now begins. She applies for every Family Nurse…

By Carmen Lapham, Director of Recruiting and Operations, Q4B

Throughout my recruiting career I have had the pleasure of working with some pretty incredible people, people who have coached me, mentored me, managed me, held me accountable, people who have demonstrated by example how important it is to build strong relationships and how equally important it is to make a commitment and deliver on that commitment.

In my new role as Director of Recruiting and Operations I have an…

InMails are expensive but quite useful.  If you take your time to devise  compelling text for your inmail, you will reap the benefits.  While each person won't be a slam dunk for the position at hand, you will have impressed them with your style enough to rise above the recruiter fray.  

1. The Subject:

I often spend the most time on this part.  It should clearly convey the reason for the message.  It should be catchy but not salesy.  It should be complimentary…

Yesterday, for a presentation I was giving on HR.com on the Candidate Experience, I received a really interesting question from a attendee on Source of Influence:

How many touch-points do you need typically for a candidate to apply?

First, it’s a great question.  I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t have enough data to give a definitive answer today but we are striving to understand this…

In the current age, when we don’t know the answer to a question, we tend to turn to our good friend Google for the answer. In 2011 alone, Google performed a total of 1,722,071,000,000 searches – that’s an average of 4,717,000,000 searches per day! Needless to say, Google will be there to provide you with an answer to your question, but none of those 1,722,071,000,000 queries will tell you which candidate is the best fit for YOUR company. In fact, it might even provide an answer that is…

Facebook Likes and LinkedIn Followers are believed to be a 'vanity' metric. By this I mean that if you don't know who's following you then the content may be a hit and miss. What sorts of content can you post based on the results seen in your insights or follower statistics? Which of the two sites offer the best insights to help recruiters distinguish, and possibly recruit, the people that are following them?

Understand your followers by reading more…

Many studies have identified the power of saying ‘thank you.’  When you say ‘thank you’ your customers they spend more, they return less, they tell their friends about you and your service delivery.  In the workplace employee productivity increases when a sign of appreciation is shown such as ‘thank you.’  Likewise vendors go the extra mile, provide deeper discounts, extend credit, deliver on time and increase consideration.  This drives profit, margin and success.

If this is the case…

Employee referrals are arguably the most effective way for companies today to recruit.  Here are the stats:

I met Danny Cahill three years ago. He was in Palm Desert running a two day boot camp for seasoned recruiters. Danny was a much appreciated shock to the system in the midst of a burgeoning recession with no end in sight. For those of you not familiar with Danny Cahill, he is the leading coaching guru in the staffing world as well as the CEO for Hobson and Associates Executive Search.

Danny was all shock and awe with a whole lot of substance behind his methods. We had some…

Not long ago, after finishing up at a client meeting, I noticed the cafe downstairs. Rather, I noticed that all of the staff within this cramped stall looked quite similar.

They all had atypical multicoloured hair, tattoos, piercings, similar clothing and a very similar burst of energy when interacting with their customers. This vision prompted me to think that these pronounced similarities between the staff, although quite extreme, are quite a representative…

Using 5W&H is the key to everything

The 5W&H stands for; who, what, when, where, how and why. If we are doing things right these 6 words are always used, will always provide the information and answers we need and are the key to success.

For example doing research prior to sourcing. When doing this research you should, as a minimum be asking the following…

Here is my new dilemma so to speak.  I am helping a law firm locate a candidate in IP with an undergrad in chemical engineering.  The job order said 1 to 5 years.  I talk to a great candidate with the required under grad.  It would be a relocation for him but he seems interested.  I ask him what his salary range is.  After hanging up with him I call the client  and leave a message for the recruiting coordinator with my presentation and salary range.  I get an email back saying that range is…

Source: http://blog.gooodjob.com/2012/05/implementing-an-employer-branding-strategy-part-4-in-employer-branding-series/…

I just watched the HBO documentary Hard Times Lost on Long Island.  This was a 1-hour documentary profiling a few unemployed individuals living on Long Island and I highly recommend everyone watch it.  It should be required watching for anyone working in HR.  I watch movies to escape.  I want to watch movies so I don’t have to think about the real world, but…

With the Olympic Games fast approaching, athletes from across the world will all be vying to be the very best in their chosen sport and take home a gold medal. In events such as swimming and athletics it is usually only seconds that separate first and last and with competition so strong, a tiny mistake can often be the difference between winning gold or missing out on a…

I was conducting some research for a client and I found the following survey results on an the client's industry's trade publication:

SURVEY QUESTION: How do you recruit technicians?

• Newspaper advertising  17.65%  
• Technical or trade schools  23.53%  
• Employment office advertising  23.53%  
• Internal promotions  0%  
• Word of mouth  35.29%

It lingered with me for awhile after reading the results.…

I am seeing more articles on slowing of the Facebook hype, its a good sign because we can now focus on any real value for business. Spam or Fake profiles is a problem on Linkedin as well, you will notice a ton of people posting garbage.

Here is BBC article, quite interesting.

------------------------------------------------------------

A BBC investigation suggests companies are wasting large sums of money on…