Bill martineau's Blog (74)

Be careful what you say.....and send a confirming email

Misinterpretation in communications is nothing new and lets be frank it will continue in perpetuity, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get better at avoiding it.

Recently I had an issue with a client company involving two hiring managers and the HR manager. They had two positions that my candidate might fit (both managers thought from my phone presentation that he may not be completely on target), and so I presented him to both managers, and of course, copied HR on…

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Added by bill martineau on November 15, 2007 at 2:42pm — No Comments

NAPS lessons on setting expectations

I was at NAPS (National Association of Personnel Services) in San Antonio this past week and had a great time. Of course, I went to see many speakers and left with many “walk away” ideas (those in which justify your attendance), but one of the best was from my waiter at Bohanan’s restaurant.

Sure we’ve all been to nice restaurants and received…

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Added by bill martineau on November 6, 2007 at 9:45am — No Comments

Internal Equity – The double edged sword

Once upon a time we lived in the wild west of salary negotiation where many companies had no real constraints placed upon what they could do for a potential employee, but about a decade ago most companies began to put in place internal equity processes so that they could control rising costs, leverage pay (get the most “bang for the buck”), and to insure that no discriminatory hiring practices were in place (nobody likes a lawsuit).

Now I agree that companies need to have these types…

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Added by bill martineau on October 31, 2007 at 4:08pm — No Comments

The art of conversation improves odds on the interview

If you’ve been on an interview (or a recruiter who sets them up daily) then you understand when an interview goes right. Your qualifications are on target, the conversation is effortless and it flows from beginning to end culminating in an offer that you accept. Now end the fuzzy dream sequence and instead see a qualified candidate completely capable of doing the job, excited and interested in the position and company, but the interviewers feels like they’re pulling teeth…

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Added by bill martineau on October 16, 2007 at 3:41pm — No Comments

What's up with Start dates?

As we all know the current market place is solidly candidate driven at this point (no matter if companies admit it or not), and as always happens when one party in a relationship (hiring company & future employee) has more market power they can choose to abuse that power like candidates did in the late 90’s and companies did from 2002-2004.

However, since then most HR departments have done two things that keep some of this from ratcheting upward including forcing…

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Added by bill martineau on October 11, 2007 at 11:59am — No Comments

Unemployed in great position for Job search

No being unemployed is not an ideal position from a financial (or mental health) perspective, but looking at this situation as an IT recruiter they have the best situation in which to view all of their options and make the best decision for their career. So the question that begs to be asked is why do so few take advantage of their situation?

Here recently I’ve dealt with a few individuals who have been caught up in the proverbial downsizing/outsourcing at their…

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Added by bill martineau on September 25, 2007 at 9:50am — No Comments

Rules for the unemployed job search

Yes, being unemployed creates a different set of rules in which you should manage your job search, and lets be clear it is the candidate who needs to take ownership and run the show. Steps include:

  • Assess and understand your skills in the market place and your flexibility (see blog: decision making 101)
  • Create your first draft of your resume
  • Call a…
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Added by bill martineau on September 20, 2007 at 12:05pm — No Comments

Youth not always an advantage

Most of us who have been around understand (and sometimes long for) the advantages of youth (especially as our society is obsessed with youth), but when it comes to career changes sometimes a little experience goes a long way.

Obviously my job as a recruiter is to educate and inform a candidate about the interview process and assist them in working through details about a job and anything impacted by a change in jobs. Of course working with candidates who have been…

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Added by bill martineau on September 18, 2007 at 11:34am — No Comments

Bad candidate clichés

In my twenty years of recruiting I’ve heard many clichés about the hiring process concerning candidates’ fears, but over that time most have either been dispelled or just fallen out of favor. However, two of the oldie but goodies were repeated to me the other day and I was simply amazed at the logic of the candidate.

The classics were “You have to get it (money) coming in or you’ll never get it” and “You can’t get a promotion for two years”. Now as we all know of…

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Added by bill martineau on September 13, 2007 at 10:07am — No Comments

Second Life....Get a life!

As a recruiter I’ve been hearing a lot about how big corporations and recruiters alike have begun setting up shop in Second Life trying to woo the supposed 9 million people who sometimes reside there to buy their products or even come to work for them. Of course, I’ve also heard the funny stories including the one about the guy (his avatar is a blond women) who inadvertently handed the interviewer a beer instead of his resume.

Of course that story might not be quite real, and because…

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Added by bill martineau on August 31, 2007 at 11:46am — 1 Comment

Why are my employees leaving?

This was an actual question that was posed to me by a hiring official who I’ve worked with at several companies, but in his most recent move he went to a company that I had never worked with to place candidates. Of course, there are a million reason why people quit jobs and move on down the road, but he hadn’t had these issues previously and unfortunately wasn’t sure why it was happening now.

He knew he had gone to work for a company that had (in business terms) been…

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Added by bill martineau on August 28, 2007 at 8:55am — No Comments

The 80% solution for those tough to fill openings

Attending my brother’s graduation from college some twenty years back has brought inspiration in what I do every day since. He was an industrial engineer and the speaker was talking about resolving problems (that’s what we do right!) and that an 80% solution today is better than a 100% solution that’s late, and being an IT recruiter many of my code delivering clients agree that putting in a system that handles most of the needs now is better than continuing to wait with no solution…

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Added by bill martineau on August 16, 2007 at 9:34am — No Comments

Teaching your client companies how to conduct a search

This isn’t about teaching your clients to do your job, because as we know few have the inclination to spend the amount of time, effort and money required in hiring, training, and managing the team of people to do the job. So understand that this is about helping your companies understand what we’ve been teaching our candidates since the 2001 downturn in the IT market, and that is how to conduct a job search.

We’ve all had candidates that were unemployed and they all…

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Added by bill martineau on August 14, 2007 at 9:08am — No Comments

Offboarding - the rules for professionally resigning from your company

In today’s market place where you may work remotely on a virtual team and your boss may be hundreds if not thousands of miles away people are struggling with just how to resign professionally. OK some aren’t, but they’re the ones who will type “I QUIT” on a piece of paper with a 72 font size and sign their name. So we won’t listen to them since we’re trying to not burn any bridges and we would prefer to have people say good things about us after we’re long gone.

The…

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Added by bill martineau on July 27, 2007 at 5:05pm — No Comments

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