How Social Recruiting Should Be Done [Jennifer McClure Interview]

How Social Recruiting Should Be Done [Jennifer McClure Interview] Its Friday and that means its video day here on Undercover Recruiter! We recently had a chat with Jennifer McClure, who is the President Chief Talent Strategist at Unbridled Talent, LLC. On top of that shes a very nice lady that is happy to share her nuggets of wisdom. In the video below, Jorgen Sundberg of Link Humans finds out how companies are using social media for recruiting, and how recruiters themselves are figuring out social media.  Have a closer look at the interview and watch Jennifer McClure talk about: The trends she is seeing in Social Recruiting right now, and in 2-3 years time What General Mills, Deluxe Corporation Sodexo are doing that we can learn Her recommended first steps with Social Media Recruitment in a company The common pitfalls to avoid Her top 3 tips for using Social Media to attract top talent Connect with Jennifer on the Unbridled Talent website, or directly on Twitter: @JenniferMcClure! Hope you found this helpful! Do you agree with Jennifers ideas? Wed love to hear your ideas, feel free to comment below.

5 Unconventional Job Search Hacks That Will Land You Your Dream Job

5 Unconventional Job Search Hacks That Will Land You Your Dream Job Are you sick and tired of your draggy job search process? You did everything you read online. The right resume format, the right pitch, and even the right template to put in your cover letter.  But all you get are crickets. All you want is a job to get back into action. Is that too much to ask? Nothing you tried seems to work. It is just so frustrating! The Conventional Job Search Approach We were told of a linear path to find a job.  You browse through the classifieds or job boards, identify the jobs you want and send your resume in together with your cover letter. For some of you, you might go the extra mile and customize your resume and cover letter.  You might have even have your resume analyzed to make sure the right keywords are present.  But still, nobody is giving you a phone call. And there is nothing coming into your inbox either. Life is getting greyer by the minute. Unconventional Job Search Hacks The conventional approach is going the way of the fax machine (anyone still remembers that?) To gain an edge over the rest of your competition in the job market, you need a different strategy.  One that puts you in the lead at every opportunity, even before they get  advertised to the public. I put together a list of 5 job search hacks which would give you some ideas on where to start. 1. Monitor Movements Employment opportunities  could come about when there are vacancies.  And there are ways you could track vacancies way before it becomes job advertisements.  For instance, you could monitor websites that keep  track of new appointments and departures. The people who are appointed into these new roles surely have to vacate their current or previous one to make it happen. You could track down who these companies are and reach out to them to put in your candidature even if it isnt apparent on their career page. 2.  Make Friends With the Receptionist In my previous business running a recruitment agency, our best allies within our clients and target companies are the receptionist.  They are the eyes and ears of every organization because they are at the forefront of all such actions.  Because of that, they tend to catch wind of many things before they  go public. It could be seeing a sudden wave of meetings by senior management (an indication of something major going to happen), or constant discreet out-of-office movements by certain individuals (they could be going to interview someone or they are going to be interviewed) Regardless, the intel they share will be useful in how and when you approach your target employers with your pitch. 3. Attend Trade Fairs I always tell my clients that trade fairs are better than career fairs. You have almost the entire industry congregating together in a single premise. Thats unlike a typical career fair, where you have every industry under the sun.  And most participants at trade fairs would probably be in roles senior enough to carry out hiring manager duties back in office.  So you can go straight to the source instead of getting your resumes buried under a heap with the rest. To find out when they are happening, you could check out the events schedule with convention and exhibition centers. 4. Buy Coffee Another trick I highly recommend, especially for job seekers who are unsure of their direction, is to speak with people who are currently in your target role. So if you would like to get into Cyber Security, you should speak with as many Cyber Security Specialists as possible.  They would be able to share with you the scope in its entirety, warts and all. So you wont be looking at it through a rose tinted lens and make a decision based upon the bright and colorful brochure. It isnt hard to reach out to them, even if they are complete strangers. The approach I would suggest is to use an ego bait.  What that means is to let them know how to impressed you are with their current credentials as a cyber security specialist. Next I recommend you  follow up by letting them know you wish to get into this field and see them as a role model based on their career trajectory.  Lastly, you can  offer to buy them a coffee so you could get some advice from them on how best you could proceed from where you are. A typical template would go something like this: Hi Peter I was doing research over Cyber Security on LinkedIn and I stumbled across  your profile. I am amazed by your career trajectory and how youve managed to achieve so much over your career! I am currently working as a Network Engineer and I am looking to better equip myself with the skill-set required to prepare myself to move into Cyber Security functions. I hope I could learn from you a tip or two. Coffees on me. ?? 5. Offer Free  Help Getting a paid gig (read: job) would be tough if you do not have the prior experience required for it. Companies would be hesitant to spend a few months of salaries on a gamble.  But all this could be overcome if you display passion and genuine interest in your target employer. For example, lets say you are into marketing and your target is a training school.  Schools thrive on enrollments and it would help you to make a huge impression if you are able to pass warm leads to them pro bono.  If you could keep this over a short consistent basis, Im sure you stand a huge chance if you were to ask for a permanent role doing the same thing. This was the same strategy the Ryan Graves  (he is Uber employee number 1) used when he wanted to work for Foursquare, but they werent keen in him. [Image Credit: Shutterstock]

Why Didnt I Get the Sale - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Why Didn’t I Get the Sale - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Once it is recognized where you may have erred, it is very easy to move forward on a positive path for future sales. Reviewing past experiences is the best way to learn how to improve. Recall conversations, client requests, and delivery follow-up as these will lend insight for future improvement. Here are some additional tips for increasing your odds for gaining the sale: 1. Ask questions of your prospect; in particular, “What’s your budget?” Most salespeople and entrepreneurs are afraid to approach the subject of money with prospective clients. In fact, many hide from the subject until the last moment. It’s a waste of time and energy when, in the end, you hear, “Oh I don’t have that kind of money to spend!” Early in the conversation, after the introduction and pleasantries are exchanged, be brave enough to state your service isn’t the least expensive. Add you would like to comfortably work together so you need to know their budget. Understand, a smaller amount will be conveyed than might be truthful, but upon question and answer, it will all be revealed. Just as you are summing up your client-to-be, they are doing the same of you. Work to build the trust. 2. Get the entire list of needs, wants and deep down desires You may have multiple complimentary services and products to offer. Through additional questioning you will gain insight as to which will be the most appropriate. Asking general questions such as, “Have you ever considered…” or, “How are you currently handling…?” This will lead to a deeper discussion and unveil new possibilities. Key to making a sale is to take careful notes in your prospective client’s vocabulary. Put those words in the proposal as they will be recognized and convey you were paying attention. Your proposal will be considered more seriously. 3. Reflect all of the above in your proposal After spending much time with your prospective clients, they will want to see everything they shared in the proposal. Anything omitted will raise question, possibly concern, and potentially ruin the sale. The following true story reflects this: A salesperson and manager were in a meeting with a client for close to an hour. In that time, the client relayed he was happy with the service the company provided and so their forthcoming proposal would be given first consideration. The sales representative believed he had a 75% chance for getting the sale. But the manager made a giant error. He advised the representative to omit a requested item because it would significantly raise the price. The salesperson knew this was wrong but felt he had no choice. Upon presenting to the client, the salesperson saw the discontent. Simply put, omitting the item omitted the trust between the two. The proposal was folded up as if it would soon be tossed into a wastebasket. Next, the salesperson was told that competitive bids would be sought. The episode became a poor reflection on the salesperson’s personal brand. The lesson learned is every pursuit requires personal reflection from every angle. Doing so will lead you to the Smooth Sale! Author: Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, (800) 704-1499; authored “INSPIRED Business A New View for Building Business and Communities”; “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results”,  and “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews.

Which KPIs Should 3rd Party Recruiters Track

Which KPIs Should 3rd Party Recruiters Track Regardless of  who you are and what you do, there is always room for improvement. Its safe to assume that all  top-performing recruiters must continually  strive for best practice  and find ways to make their operations better, slicker, more efficient and strategic. However, honing  good habits only works when there is synonymous attention  on  breaking bad tendancies, too. With the new year just around the corner, its the perfect time to start reflecting and taking action. To  give you some pointers on where to start with your critical self-analysis, we  called in our expert panel. Heres what 13 recruitment leaders say recruiters simply MUST  stop doing next year: Billy Smith Recruitment Agencies need to start measuring conversations not dials. Recruitment going forwards is all about building relationships and spending time getting to know candidates is far more important than getting numbers up. Client retention is another important KPI with repeat business from existing clients being far easier to obtain than new business. Clients will only return if the service has been good and the people they saw are of good calibre leading onto my next point about CV’s sent. This is only relevant if you are sending high quality candidates each time. It’s far more important to send one or two good quality CV’s who you know fit the job description perfectly over sending five CV’s just because a recruiter is measured on that basis. Billy Smith  is Managing Director at FGS Recruitment Iain Hamilton Many agencies say they are not KPI driven they are. Using market intel to build a talent funnel and taking a total addressable market view to talent attraction, will allow agencies to measure how many they have in their funnel. This as a KPI would drive some recruitment businesses to seriously expand their talent pool. Then, measure how often the people in the funnel are engaged with and what stage they are in the funnel (awareness, educating, considering, decision). By nurturing people at awareness and educating stage, recruiters can focus on recruiting from the consideration and decision stage. Iain Hamilton is Founder of People Traction Adam Glassman Track and use your performance data. What does it say about you? Are you better at driving a volume of applicants? Are you fantastic at finding C-suite placements? What do your time to fill, offer to hire ratios and quality of hire metrics look like? Track all of these elements and use them as your differentiators. Adam Glassman is Recruitment Strategies Manager at Alorica Lysha Holmes Revenue and profit for experienced recruiters, not activity. If you are experienced you KNOW what you have to do to achieve the result. If it is a business with more junior staff, then activity should be measured and I would suggest this is on new clients achieved and interviews gained rather than calls. QUALITY every time. As you become more experienced, allow the consultant to contribute to their own KPI and very often there are variations in how desks run so it should not be one size fits all across a whole business. Lysha Holmes  is Founder of Qui Recruitment Gill Buchanan KPIs should focus on quality and outcomes, not just quantity. Successful fill rates to roles should be monitored, but effective recruitment isn’t just a numbers game. Measuring the overall candidate and client experience is key to being able to develop long term business relationships. Look for feedback on social media, make regular follow up calls and send out online questionnaires to measure the quality of service provided. In addition, monitor the recruitment process from start to finish by looking at the time to hire, efficiency of the job application process, and at the communication channels in place. Gill Buchanan  is Director at Pure Resourcing Solutions Chad MacRae You need some kind of candidate experience metric â€" forward-thinking internal recruiting teams who are doing this (HubSpot and Capital One, for example) use a Net Promoter Score, based on a candidate feedback survey. Agencies should be doing this too. Because it isn’t about “bums in seats,” it’s about finding people who will really thrive on the job. To get those people, you’ve got to treat your candidates like customers â€" with respect, courtesy, empathy. And yes, there are ways to measure and make sure you’re doing that. Chad MacRae is Founder of Recruiting Social David Morel Business flow â€" the amount of new business that comes in and whether this is repeat business or from “new clients”. Where have “new clients” come from?  Candidate flow â€" self explanatory.  Conversion rates â€" amount of business each consultant places from the number of jobs they have worked on.  Billings versus targets â€" individual and team. David Morel  is CEO Founder of Tiger Recruitment Lisa Jones Along with the usual CV Sends and interviews, I feel that we need to get some digital KPIs added to the list.  Every recruitment leader wants to drive more viable talent into their CRM, to create a legacy an asset which is worth something to their clients, hence a great recruiter KPI is the cleanliness of data on the CRM. Lisa Jones  is Director at Barclay Jones Bronwen Hann There are a lot of fancy new KPIs that larger agencies are measuring, but they don’t always translate into results. We’re focusing on some back-to-basic measurements: how many interviews to hire, number of sendouts, time from job order to sendouts, days from job order to close. In our opinion, you shouldn’t be looking at the size of a recruiter’s candidate database as a measurement of their effectiveness. It’s more important to look at their relationships. Agencies should also measure how long a client has had a job on the market to help determine how best to package that job for their candidates, and whether that job is worth working on in the first place. Bronwen Hann is  President   Senior Partner at Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting James Nathan Of all the KPIs available, I think it is important to focus on actual contacts made and the quality of those contacts. Only when you analyse the quality of those can you improve. We all understand that client development work is based on numbers, and that the more calls you make the more people you will speak to, but what you say and what you achieve from that contact is all important. Quality first. James Nathan  is  Founder of The James Nathan Experience Dualta Doherty The market is changing to be more and more product focused so I’d go for: CVs outs Interviews Fill Ratio Application per job posts Social/Email Analytics â€" i.e how many views your posts are getting, email send out engagement etc. Dualta Doherty  is Founder of Pro Recruitment Solutions Caroline Stokes  I’d like agency recruiter KPI’s to be about 2 things: 1)  timeliness of service and feedback to candidates and clients in a ‘meaningful’ way 2) demonstration of how a recruiter has evolved quarterly based on candidate and client feedback All of those impact upon service productivity, which includes: attraction, engagement, retention and placement of talent for their clients. Caroline Stokes  is Founder of FORWARD

Worlds Top 10 Best Corporate Blogs - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

Worlds Top 10 Best Corporate Blogs Mark Schaefer (@markwschaefer on Twitter), a consultant, author, and college educator, and Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, set out to identify the 10 best corporate blogs in the world. He slogged through the good, the bad and the blah, reviewing hundreds of corporate websites: Amid the coal pile that is the state of corporate blogging today, I did manage to find a few diamonds that don’t bore to tears with pronouncements, promotions and product announcements (the Killer P’s). His research led to 3 general observations: The best blogs are dominated by the tech sector. Corporate blogging has evolved far beyond the idea of personal journaling. There is a chasm between the adoption of blogs at large companies versus the rest of the world. A study showed that only 22% of Fortune 500 companies blog, compared to 45% of the Inc 500s and about 80% of non-profits. His picks for the top 10 corporate blogs, in no particular order, with each ones goals: Caterpillar  Goals: Problem-solving, community-building, loyalty Starbucks  Goals: New product development, engagement Marriott  Goals: Customer satisfaction, sales, crisis management Wegmans  Goals: Direct sales, loyalty Manpower  Goal: Thought leadership General Electric  Goal: Brand Awareness Fiskars  Goals: Customer engagement, brand awareness Southwest Airlines  Goals: Enhance corporate image and integrate with traditional media Patagonia  Goals: Compliment brand image, engage community Whole Foods Market  Goals: Compliment brand image, direct sales Related posts: You’re a C-level Executive Job Seeker and You’re NOT Blogging? How to Lose Friends and Alienate People with Social Media C-level Job Search: Blogging? What Am I Going To Write About? Content Stealing: Bloggers Behaving Badly photo by Sean MacEntee 00 0