[Part 1]

Twas the Night before Christmas

And Santa was worried

All his reindeer were AWOL

Except for ‘ol Murray

“What shall I do?”

“Children are excited”

“There can’t be a morning”

“With trees looking blighted!”

Peering over at Murray

Who was reading the news

Said Santa, “Hey buddy…”

“…help me or else we’re all screwed.”

Murray yawned and he stretched

And scratched at his arse

Spoke with deep voice,

“The market for…

According to LinkedIn, there are:

347,000,000+ Registered Members

111,000,000+ in the United States

28,000,000+ in India

20,000,000+ in Brazil

17,000,000+ in the UK

…and among all these “registered members” there are 8 “real” people who go by the name Beavis Butthead.

Heh-heh, heh-heh.

Many of the…

Hard to believe but I wrote this 6 years ago - just when the bad-recruiter-behavior was beginning to really fester online (not that it wasn't around before but as social was taking off, it just seemed to start getting worse.

Considering the recent activity in the "We Really Need To Stop The Flow of Crappy Recruiting" movement, I'm reposting this moldy-oldie…

Sounds as if another ubiquitous #CultureChat has taken place at SXSW replete with recycled lines about what culture is to the experts. Could they all be wrong?

While it's…

Since there are so many ways that as recruiters we're not getting an appropriate bang-for-the-buck from our LinkedIn investments (and more importantly, in any way aligned to the heights of their marketing bluster), I'm going to focus this week on the many ways that we are spammed via the LinkedIn messaging systems.

So to my frenemies in Trust & Safety, this blog's…

I'm going to continue the LinkedIn Lovefest from last week by detailing here the fake connection requests I receive for the week as well as the subsequent research I conduct to determine how deep the cancerous root is growing. Your comments are always appreciated.

~Steve

FRIDAY

(2:22 AM ET) This profile of …

As part of my never-ending battle with fake LinkedIn profiles, I noticed that during the overnight, "Eng.Yusif Ibrahim" reached out to connect. Fabulous.

According to his profile, Mr. Ibrahim is "Retired" and in Libya, having worked in "Government Administration."

Since this profile smelled like a pile of rotting fish, I image searched this fellow; nothing of note came up on the first page,…

Do you think that Genentech is aware that someone with a fake LinkedIn profile pic is "working" for them in Sales? Same here - but since I recently tweeted this out, perhaps they WILL know and reach out to their LinkedIn rep and ask the tough questions about fake profiles.

So over lunch, I looked over BRENDA Donna's profile (yes, the first name is capitalized on "her"…

CEOs at these companies sent me connection requests today. Smelling a rat, I simply checked out the company's employee profiles on LinkedIn and discovered multiple CEOs on staff. Wow - that's some retained search bill!

Emailmarketingservices4u.com has 5 6 CEOs; click here to find out why.

Dear…

From The American President:

People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.  ~Lewis Rothschild

Lewis, we’ve had presidents who…

There's a neat little discussion over on Quora about whether the recruiting profession is ripe for disruption. One of my favorite people - period - Glenn Gutmacher weighed in with a great comment about recruiting technology and you really should click over and read it.…

[this is the actual message I sent to LinkedIn when reporting this profile this morning]

More, more, more. Every day dear LinkedIn, come a new batch of fake profiles, fake profiles attached to “companies” (like GreyCampus). Why? Likely culling our private information and selling it to other marketers.

Your response? Crickets.

If you need…

[Before or after you read this missive, be sure to read Derek Zeller's "You're Not Really A Recruiter"]

Can you articulate what makes you a recruiter, let alone a great one? Can you describe to your loved ones exactly what makes you a recruiter?

Great, you…

‘Twas the night before Christmas and somewhere online

A recruiter was puzzling over which webpage to mine

With visions of revenues and managers content

This recruiter was no ordinary Clark Kent

Dark horn-rimmed glasses covered his eyes

He was better than any of the CIA’s spies

His fingers were dancing on his silent keyboard

Looking for…

As a Boomer I shouldn’t admit this, but I like reading The Daily Muse and the Savvy Intern. While this admission is likely to cause of few of my more opinionated folks to publicly guffaw, no worries…

[thnks to Scott Adams for being so astute about HR issues & for the use of his intellectual property]

My thesis is that most have no idea what is meant by employee engagement:

That employee engagement isn’t something that company leaders can inspire just by being leaders.

That engagement is not an HR initiative…

There’s simply no science that a career and job search expert can refer to that can be used to guarantee that a recruiter will call you once your cover letter (if you’ve actually sent one) and résumé hits their Inbox. Even a spot-on performance match can’t get past the dumbass biases – or just plain dumbassability – that many recruiters and hiring managers carry with them to the office each day.

Where do people get their job search advice from? Do they even ask these experts…

Peter Clayton recently posted "The Job Interview..." where he discussed the ubiquitous Candidate Experience. After a few decades of recruiting, I know that the CE is a by-product of both sides of the fence. The Good, the Bad, and the really freakin' Ugly.

Perhaps using humor is a better strategy for teaching the Do's and Don'ts of interviewing. Do any of…

No one really checks the Internet for my past stuff

But that was five years ago – I’m a different person now…

I really can't improve upon the work of the author who put this together - which one is your…