Minimum wage hikes are all the rage these days. My own adopted hometown of Seattle recently approved $15 / hr minimum wage. Not be outdone, the CEO of…

Man did this ever ruffle feathers… a small company in San Diego is hiring not ONE but TWO awesome developers. Instead of bothering with a laundry list of must haves and educational requirements, they dropped an F-bomb laden missive on Craigslist targeted at a certain kind of developer. You know, the kind that has a sense of…

I’m going to confess something, and it’s very VERY hard for me to admit to. Some of you are going to be surprised… but here goes.…

Get a room full of recruiters and inevitably the subject of “passive versus active candidates” will come up. Active candidates are the ones who apply – the ones pursuing open roles by completing online applications and such. Passive, on the other hand, are talented folks who would NEVER consider a role if not for some savvy recruiter presenting…

I shared two very different articles on Facebook this week. One was about a female engineer at…

By now you’ve heard the news… Super Bowl 49 has come to an end. My beloved Hawks fell to the Patriots because of a crap call in the last 50 seconds of the game. The Patriots. This arm chair quarterback doesn’t know why we just…

Oh RBC how I've missed you... my divorce fueled hiatus has come to an end and in the immortal words of Elton John, the bitch is back.

So much has happened since we last chatted... one thing that hasn't changed? My love/hate relationship with my profession. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE MY JOB. I have the best boss, awesome co-workers, terrific clients, and I'm well…

A recent RBC article shined a light on the concern many recruiters have about connecting with other recruiters on LinkedIn. I was perplexed as I’ve always considered public profiles (on LinkedIn or elsewhere) to be, well, public and therefore easy to find. The article said “I consider the people who I…

This is the hardest blog post I’ve ever written. Some will say it’s too personal, and they’re probably right. My regular readers know this blog is a diary of sorts, I generally write about whatever is top of mind and damn the consequences. Others may feel sorry for me. A few might even understand, having gone…

I’ve always thought of my profession as sales. Always. I started recruiting in the early days of the internet, where training was basically “wanna buy a chicken? No? How about a duck?” until I got my hands on some Danny Cahill Placement 2000 VHS tapes.Ahhh then I was in the money. So when an article over on…

Bullhorn done did it again. Today, the staffing software giant released its fourth annual Recruiting Trends Report.

In December 2013, Bullhorn polled 1,337 agency professionals to get a sense not only of 2013 but also what to expect in the future.

As a…

S eriously. Just stop. STAHP. You’re embarrassing yourself and the community at large. If I see one more ridiculous, self-serving post about the “recruitment agency of the future!” and how y’all are going to CHANGE EVERYTHING I will probably just burst into tears out of pure frustration. You. Are. Full. Of. Crap. Recruiting, recruitment, whatever the hell you call it is a…

I love football. I mean I LOVE football. And not in that silly girly way, like I just watch it because I don’t want to be a football widow, or I want to impress my boyfriend or something. No. I LOVE FOOTBALL. There is something very hot about watching a bunch of big tough guys chasing each other around trying to rip each other’s heads off. I know, I probably could benefit…

Hey you guys, LinkedIn is DEAD. All the cool kids are recruiting on Facebook and you better have yourself some Pinterest sourcing sessions. I’m serious. So serious, in fact, I Binged “Social Recruiting” (well what did you expect) and got over 42 million results, most of which were a horrifying mix of conferences and poorly written blogs by people who couldn’t make a…

Why did you ask?

My husband has a love / hate relationship with my career choice. Always has. I’ve been a recruiter longer than I’ve been Mrs. Ala, so this is not new to him. In fact, at one point early in our relationship I was THE go to recruiter in his field. People would slip him resumes on job sites and ask for my phone number after meetings. It’s not easy being married to me, and that was before all this social recruiting / LinkedIn / Facebook / blogging stardom. Poor Mr.…

I just might be the least athletic person I know. I am surrounded by sports. My nephews and their wives do cross-fit competitions. My husband (in his youth) took part in body building competitions. My niece grew up on the soccer field and my boys have always played baseball with a little soccer and football thrown in as we wait for spring training. That leaves me and my two…

The only thing cooler than having a conference in your home city is to have it hosted by your employer. I was lucky enough to snag a seat to the hottest sourcing conference around and the first time ever in Seattle. My day started out like any other, except instead of heading to my office I got to join 400+ recruiters and sourcers from across the country at The Mixer. Need a haircut? New…

I have a confession to make. I’m a total dork in my everyday life. I know it’s hard to believe – I’ve been called a social butterfly and have at least once been the life of a party. For more than 10 years I’ve gotten a thrill out of calling up total strangers and convincing them to completely change where and what they spend the majority of their waking hours doing. I get a…

Social Media is the NEXT BIG THING in recruiting. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who sells social media services…

We had a real treat on the Recruiting Animal Show this week. The guest was Jason Ginsberg of Brandemix. Animal started the show by questioning the guest’s previous claim that LinkedIn…

I really, REALLY hate the internet right now. I had just finished reading the latest in a string of bad advice articles (from “experts”, on LinkedIn of course) and my mother pointed out a RIDICULOUSLY inappropriate and unfunny Facebook status on my 16 year old son’s wall. (Yes, he had been hacked by one of his idiot friends. Yes, 16 year old boys have warped ideas about what’s funny. But it’s on the bleeping INTERNET, where your grandmother and just maybe future bosses can read it for God’s…