I've been thinking about one of my posts of old regarding how recruiters who ask you want kind of animal you'd like to return to life as rival the IQ of a prairie dog . . .

And today, I've determined the answer:

Wowee the Chimpanzee

In reading a report from Aberdeen Research on “Customer 2.0: The Business Implications of Social Media”, I learned that of their data set, Best-in-Class organizations demonstrated the following:



a. 100% improved year-over-year performance in Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI). The avg increase was an aggregate 11% ROMI.

b. 82% improved year-over-year performance in customer retention. The avg increase was an… Continue

The new McKinsey Quarterly came out today, and thus, it is a good day. Of particular interest is the article titled, "Making Talent A Strategic Priority", by Guthridge, Komm, and Lawson. For those of you who, much like me, have trouble digesting 3,000 any later than 2 hours post-coffee (or Green Tea for the caffeniatically-challenged), I'm going to translate and focus on those elements to… Continue

This was inspired by the Talent Talk Cafe today when the notion of change was discussed. Here is the negative response visual:

And the positive response visual:

Can you dictate which curve you're more likely to encounter? Sure, you can . . . but some things are out of your control. Come on' - what do you think, the world is black-and-white? :)



-… Continue

I have a client whose relo program and coinciding early onboarding process is an absolute comedy of errors. When I try to let them know, I get the age old reponse that "this is how we've always done things around here."



The more I speak about how important the candidate experience is, the more defensive some get. "We've done it this way thousands of times." Yet the same company has trouble retaining > 24 months . . . .



. . . Meaning they come back a lot, which is the… Continue

If you've sat through a Philosophy course or are just interested in the differing schools of thought, let me toss out a few tidbits and how they shape our view of recruiting:

That's Marcus Aurelius above. If you don't have his post-humous compilation, "Meditations", I'd recommend it in small doses. [Note: Sorry… Continue

I met with an interesting candidate yesterday - let's call him an Alpha Baffoon. When sitting down for lunch, he threw his folder on the table from 3 ft out, making a loud "thud" . . . which was an instant red flag. At a later point, he berated a waitress because his food wasn't "up to par." The other interesting form of body language was him stretching in such a way as to claustrophobically impend on surrounding patrons . . . and it was obvious he enjoyed barreling through the crowds like a… Continue

Over my gin & java this morning, I've been reflecting on a comment from a VP of Staffing from a huge, publicly traded staffing-firm this last week. In a nutshell, his comment was, to a degree, a defense of the major job boards. He referred to what he believed to be an "even" distribution of talent on job boards (i.e. Monster, CareerBuilder, etc.) Now, forgive me for being a little of a math-head, so I'm going to try to keep this short & simple (as I don't have too much time and there's… Continue

I was thinking that perhaps asking anyone here who reads my sporadic posts may be off-topic, but then, it's a social network . . . so why not. :)



Every once in a while, we have a chance to take part in something much bigger than ourselves. Here's that chance.



4690 U.S. military members have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you can run 1-mile to commemorate our Fallen. Here are some details - I… Continue

I understand this may be an unusual post, so bear with me for a moment. I've recruited a great deal of 'Elizabeth'-named candidates. Most reply with 'Liz' after establishing some dialogue and a relationship. You know what I mean -- after a couple conversations, people let down the whole-name barrier and let the gate down slightly. For example, my friends call me Josh, but my whole name is Joshua (which is what I use on my email signature.)



However, today, I had a candidate reply back… Continue

A friend of mine passed this on the other day, and although I don't have much use for poets personally, this isn't bad. It reminds me of the life a true Headhunter (an entrepreneurial one) lives as you walk in many different circles:



If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or… Continue