Top 10 ways to use LinkedIn- Part 1

People often ask me to help them learn how to recruit on LinkedIn.  I decided to put together a list of my top  10 ways to use LinkedIn for recruiters.  Hope this is helpful!

1.) Finish your profile- if your profile is not at 100%, you are not showing up in as many search results as you might like.  You can view your profile from the main LinkedIn screen, and it should hopefully look like this:

2.) Make sure you are joining appropriate LinkedIn groups for your industry- I call this the "one of these things is not like the other" rule.  If you are in a great deal of groups that have nothing to do with your industry, you are not gaining the advantage of LinkedIn groups to build your network.  One of these things is not like the other:

3.) You can't just send invites and hope that LinkedIn is going to work for you.  You need to be posting industry related updates, and post within groups to be seen as an industry expert:

4.) Make sure you don't just bombard people on LinkedIn.  LI is just like any other potential sale that you need to make, but look for opportunities to communicate to your network, and to people looking at you!

5.) Last but not least in my top 5, always let people do your work for you.  The following is a message posted in a group on LinkedIn regarding Pro-E jobs.  Look for easy information out there.

Mini Post- Hiresignals!

Here is my mini-post of the month, go check out the following:

I received an anonymous tip today to check out a new resource, http://www.hiresignals.com/. Stay tuned for more information, but to all my recruiting associates out there, you may very well want to register.  Essentially this is a filter for Firefox that goes over LinkedIn.  It registers people as "confidential jobseekers" and certain settings for their security, then broadcasts that to recruiters.  You can then reach out like a standard first contact, but have a little more certainty regarding what you are about to contact.

Check it out!  I am still waiting on my link, but this promises to be an interesting addition to recruiting efforts.

Features! Features! Features!... (LinkedIn Endorsements)

LinkedIn Endorsements was just rolled out by LinkedIn.  I was immediately suspicious of the whole thing as another way to suck up some of my time endorsing people (I have already written over 70 recommendations  but I gave in and started playing around with the new features, and plugged in some keywords for myself.  Within about the couple of weeks, I have about 25 endorsements in my lead category.

Features:

• Easy way to give a "thumbs up" to someone who did a good job for you. -Digital Trends.com
• Share parts of your experience you are hoping to get more recognition in.
• One click as opposed to a recommendation like this: 

Socialmediaexaminer.com writes:

"This new feature is a very easy way to endorse the skills of others and vice versa. When coupled with LinkedIn’s already robust Recommendations feature, it’s a very positive way to promote not only your personal brand, but also the brands of your connections."

My Conclusions:

• This is a good supplement to the already robust recommendation feature of LinkedIn
• It is extremely surface level.  Its equivalent to a "like" on facebook as opposed to a comment
• It adds up over time.  "Expertise" can be in part shown by a significant quantity of +1's 
• I would ALWAYS rather get a recommendation from someone than a simple +1, but I will never turn down more exposure on LinkedIn

Resources:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/linkedin-rolls-out-skill-endorsements-and-its-as-easy-as-one-click/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/linkedin-endorsements/

The role of “Advanced Internet Sourcing” in your sourcing plan

After about five years of recruiting, and about three years of being a certified Advanced Sourcer, I wanted to speak about the need, and the place for advanced sourcing. I find that the majority of advanced sourcing training points to this set of tools that eliminates difficult sourcing, shortens your sourcing time, helps you develop other ways to find candidates. The problem I have is that most training is bandaid training as opposed to a “cure”.

Advanced Sourcing are “tools” to assist in your recruiting efforts, and should NEVER replace a traditional sourcing plan of getting people on the phone. We as recruiters have a huge power to impact people’s lives as a whole every single day. It is incredibly tempting for anyone learning advanced tools to assume that they can simply do everything online and never have to pick up a phone anymore. The phone is and will always be the most valuable sourcing tool.

Careerbuilder writes, “Most highly qualified people will not likely volunteer referrals unless you have shown them their due interest, and they have decided that your opportunity is not a good fit for them personally. Only after will they be likely to give you the name of someone who might be worth your time.”

You will never, I repeat that, never ever achieve any sort of candidate pipeline unless you are able to establish a good personal connection. Advanced Sourcing are “tools” that can help you contact people

With a good group of Advanced Sourcing tools like PIPL, Whitepages, LinkedIn, Googlemaps, and a few others, you can get access to phone numbers easily.

Buckman Enochs Cross writes, “Social media works. Job boards work, but neither one is a silver bullet. There is no such thing when it comes to successful staffing. Recruiting on job boards or through social media is no different than recruiting anywhere else. Without a well-executed strategy for how and why you are using that site, whether it is a job board like Monster or a social media biggie like LinkedIn, you will likely fail.“
The good Advanced Sourcing plan is key to any recruiting efforts, and has huge potential value when used as a supplement for traditional recruiting efforts. For example, with a good sourcing plan, less disconnected candidates, more direct contact to people, more submittals, more interviews, and better overall results. I highly recommend a mixed holistic sourcing approach, and a strategic element to all great sourcing plans.

-Staff or Die

A To-Do List For Interviewing Candidates

DO check the company website- I almost have to laugh when people don’t do their research.  You are a professional person interviewing for a professional job of one sort or another.  Know your stuff!

Make sure you dress the part- You should not show up to an interview in jeans and a t-shirt.  Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.  People evaluate you based on a first impression.  If you don’t bring your “A” look to the interview you are fighting against that first impression for your whole entire interview.

Entry level college graduates- I am not sending you into this job hoping that you will be able to convince them to like you based on your personality alone.  You have some good experience.  You should be able to entice a potential interviewer based on projects that you worked on, class work that you did, a thesis. You still have things to talk about.

Be early to the interview- Some of my friends (you know who you are) are walking GPS transmitters.  You should still plan to be there at least 20 minutes+ ahead of any interview.  You are going to pay the price for not assuming that there will be extra traffic. 

Story telling = success- You can call it the “star” method.  You can call it in Lou Adler’s words the “SAFW” format.  Either way you need to be able to describe and succinctly give a tale about specific things you did at past jobs.  Gone are the days when people would give you a shot.  The same goes for internal interviews to get promoted at a job.  If you master the ability to communicate regarding successes that you have had at an interview, you will be 2 steps ahead of a majority of candidates.

Have a “big idea” that you hope to impart to an interviewer.  This could be similar to your objective statement, and how you foot the bill.  “I save companies time and money”.  “I find and solve problems”.  “I have excellent experience fixing cars”.  Once you find your big idea, you just need to share that creatively in an interview.  What do I get as an interviewer from your experience that would help me to hire you?

Last but not least, leave your cell phone in the car.  It is distracting, it could go off.  When I meet candidates, and the phone goes off in their pockets, its extremely distracting even on vibrate, and it counts against your overall impression with an employer.

EARN the job you want by imparting your “Big idea” and working with your partners to position yourself for success.  This could be the person who found you for the job, this could be the asking good questions to the interviewer, this could be a networking call you make to help you find where you want to be.

Resources-

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121020150801-15454-use-solution-selling-to-ace-the-interview

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation,_Task,_Action,_Result

http://career-advice.monster.com/job-interview/interview-preparation/sell-yourself-job-interview-hot-jobs/article.aspx

A Recruiting Calculus

The Recruiting Calculus is a tricky picture. People fundamentally do not understand what they are getting when they pick up the phone to call a recruiter, and do not know how to make use of a recruiter in a "smart" fashion. I want to thank people like Lou Adler for some great words of wisdom. From Lou Adler- "For job-hunters, here's the first thing you must know about recruiters: recruiters find people for jobs, not jobs for people."

What does this mean?
1.) There are probably hoops to jump through. (A personal interview with a recruiter/References/etc)
2.) You are at the mercy of the recruiter for feedback.
3.) Recruiters for the most part don't create jobs.

Again from Lou Adler, "First find the job, then find the connection. This is what LinkedIn is all about. If you have a big enough network they show you how to get connected to the person who posted the job."

What does this mean?
1.) Social networking is great, but is only valuable when you have a sizeable network. 2.) You need to ask yourself if you are contributing, or withdrawing from your network. 3.) If you have a big enough network, you gain visibility into some HUGE network contacts.

My own personal tips for recruiting-
You work with quite a few connections, try to network to find a recruiter. Find a recruiter with tenure if you can, they typically have a better overall focus as opposed to a tunnel focus.
Most recruiters work on one job, then move on. Let the recruiter breathe before you call them four times in a week unless they submit you to a job.
If you get a feeling that they arent being honest with you, find someone else. Its SO easy to find recruiters who lie to people to get rid of them. If you aren't getting enough answers or feedback, find another recruiter.

MOST IMPORTANTLY
Stick with a recruiter who does a good job for you, look for contact with them over time, and build up that relationship. If they successfully found you a job, that's a great sign that that person is a career friend that you should keep around!

...So you want me to read your resume....?

Candidate,

I hope all is well with your job search.  Before you hit "submit" on sending me the email with your resume I wanted to make you aware of a few facts.

1.) The average job posting I get has over 350 views and 50 applicants.  Please consider that before sending me the same resume you sent to 100 other postings.  I know its frustrating not to get feedback.  I assure you it is equally frustrating to dig through 50 people that do not match my position.  If you have experience with "Inner-Moon Icy Astrophysics" please include that on your resume.  I do not always have time to call back 50 people, plus do the rest of my job.

2.) It can be tempting to think that applying to every job I have posted, and every job my partner has posted can be a good idea.  Don't do it!  We get emails for every posted applicant.  If I get three resumes from John Smith, I know you aren't really reading job postings.

3.) Please make your resume shine!  If you have a good resume, make sure it has bullet points.  If you have a narrative about your life, save it for an interview.  Dates are appreciated, anything that makes you stand out for the right reasons!

All of this is a general few tips to get a little bit of extra notice.  I believe that everyone out there has a job for them (which is why I do what I do), just help me do my job better.

My favorite to this date: A blacksmith applied for a job with me once.  It required a PHD in Mechanical Engineering, and 10+ years of Power Electronics experience.

Please stand out for the "RIGHT REASONS" in my inbox in order to get me to open up your resume.

Hope to see you soon!

-Me

LinkedIn Decisions- Are We Really Friends?

My favorite recruiting resource over the years has always been LinkedIn.  It offers a multitude and depth and breadth of candidates of all shapes and sizes for all sorts of weird quirky openings that I have had to fulfill.  LinkedIn also gives people a nice wow-factor when they are still in the "buy in" stage of advanced sourcing.

My favorite story about LinkedIn over all the years is my attempt to teach my partner Tony how to use LinkedIn.  We ran one search on Google with the Site command (To be covered later).  We found a list of twenty candidates, called the first two Engineering people on the list, left two messages.  Within 48 hours he had put one of the two to work for a really hard to fill spot.  The client was impressed, the contractor was impressed, Tony was impressed (and making more money) and even I admit to a little bit of surprise just how easy it was.

What I wanted to talk about today on LinkedIn though is the "Invite to connect" portion:

Assuming this is someone you DON'T know and have not spoken with, where do we go with an invitation?  Typically the rule of thumb is that sending out random invites to people is the quickest way to get banned, but lets go through the options on top.  Most people in my experience instantly click "We've done business together" by default.  This is sometimes true, but you are relying on either getting permission from them on a phone call, or just hoping that they do not click "I don't know" in a response and cause you to get red flagged.
Some people click friend.  This is my favorite ridiculous choice out of this whole list.  If you are really my friend that is fine, but if I have never met you, and you and I have never even exchanged a contact, please do not claim to be friends with me, and do not claim to be friends with other people.  I will say I don't know you, or archive your request unless your someone with a really big network!
Colleague or Classmate are nice and reliable if you went to school or worked with someone, and only in those choices should you select Colleague of Classmate.
Other is fine if you know their email address.
Ultimately, "We've done business together" is the only choice I would consider making without having permission to add someone from them directly.  At that point it is up to you to spruce up "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn" into something respectable (To be talked about later)

_staff or die!

Another Favorite Recruiting Technology Tool - Google Voice

I like to call this my number one under-appreciated recruiting tool.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Google Voice or GV, it is a totally free tool put out by Google.  You sign up for an account, you select an area code and a phone number.

Personally I chose (815) for an area code because I recruit for Rockford area jobs quite a bit.

I thought to myself, a strange number shows up, would I pick it up?  If someone from an area code that I am not familar with shows up, I'm more than likely not going to pick it up.  Using Google Voice, I can at least raise the odds of getting a pickup the first time!

I also give out my 815 number to people.  They call that phone number, it calls both my work lines, cell phone, office, and gmail phone number.  I can pick it up from any one of those, and someone can always track me down (its filterable for those of you recruiters that have a work life balance)

Thanks to Blog.frontrush.com for the following:

One application that we have been using in our office here at Front Rush is Google Voice. The advantage in having a Google Voice number is that it keeps you connected and accessible at all times. It helps to alleviate the fear of missing that key recruit call. It also gives you instant feedback so that if you do, you can get right back to the recruit (assuming that it is within compliance at your level)."

Takeaway: Its a great tool for staying connected, for finding people who might be more passive, and for what I call the "double tap" method where you call someone, and if they do not pick up, immediately call them a second time.

The Best Under-used Recruiting Technologies (Part 1)

Hello fellow Staff-Or-Die-ers!

I wanted to share some of the best free under-used technology tools.  Today I was hoping to talk about Outlook Social Connector (And the LinkedIn plugin).  

Linkedin.com/outlook features the following page:

I have been working with Outlook Social Connector (OSC) for about a year now, and it has made a few really nice changes to how I seek to network with people for my LinkedIn profile.

It sits at the bottom of my outlook in a small widow, and every time I get an email from someone I can send them a LinkedIn request with the click of a button.  

1.) Its faster- I no longer am required to log into LinkedIn to send invitations to the people I am mostly likely to network with.  They send me an email as part of the normal process of collecting a clean resume.  I click a button, and my work is done!

2.) Its free- Free tools to me are always better for the obvious reasons.

3.) Integrated into your day-it becomes part of the Outlook experience for me, and doesn't require me to install any toolbars. 

4.) It is always at hand-I can start typing a name of someone in my LinkedIn contacts, and it auto-fills in the email address if the contact has one on LinkedIn.  Again, this is a time saver for me.

5.) People I find that do not have a LinkedIn profile are more apt to actually set up a LinkedIn profile and start capturing valuable connections for me to work with!

I will post soon about some of my other favorite tools!  What do you think?  Used OSC?  Curious?  

Staff Or Die!

What's in a name?

I've been asked lately, why "Staff Or Die"?

I've been in the recruiting world for about five years now, and I feel like nothing captures the essence of staffing for me better than "Staff or Die".  I remember about year two, I heard someone in our recruiting pit use the phrase jokingly to a partner of mine.  It stuck with me ever since.  Staffing is definitely not for the faint of heart, and not for the easy to let down folks.  It requires a certain type of personality (crazy) to do the job, and even crazier to stick around.  Its like corporate HR without the glamour typically.

On the positive side of things, I love the feeling of helping people get jobs, I love the challenge of finding that weird background (Interplanetary astrophysicist).  I remember my training where my recruiting trainer told me that he had the best job in the world.  He would go home, and talk about his day with his wife.  She would tell him about nursing issues, patient problems, helping people.  She would tell him that she had saved lives.  He would then reply with "I got someone a job today".  I had a little shiver when I heard this, and I have been hooked ever since.

So next time you end a recruiting meeting, might I suggest "Staff Or Die" be a good end to the meeting?

"And that was the strangest interview I ever had!"

Thinking about topics to post got me thinking about interviews that I have actually been on or listened to.  Two stand out more than others.  I had one for a candidate that I listened into.  The candidate literally said about four words during the interview.

"We need someone to do SolidWorks design at a high level of efficiency.  Can you handle that?"- Manager
"Yes" -Candidate

"Our project is under some pressure to get this done quickly, can you design quickly?"-Manager
"Yes" - Candidate

The end result of this bizarre interview was an offer surprisingly.  I would expect 99% of the time that this type of interview would lead to some pretty heavy backlash from the site manager, but in this case it worked.

I compiled a list of my favorite off the wall interview questions, and hardest interview questions:

• "Tell me about yourself?"

• "What's something you are not telling me that you should?"

• "Why are manholes round?"

• "If you are in a plane and you see a cow out the window, what happened?"

I pulled a few more from a recent post on Glassdoor.com-

• "Name 5 uses of a stapler without staple pins."

• "You're in a row boat which is in a large tank filled with water.  You have an anchor on board which you throw overboard (the chain is long enough so that the anchor rests completely on the bottom of the tank).  Does the water level in the tank rise or fall?"

• "Just entertain me for five minutes.  I'm not going to talk."

What is the strangest interview question you ever had?

Creative Or Catastrophe!

Too creative, or just what an engineer needs to stand out in a creative field?  I get these from time to time, and the traditional recruiter voice inside me says "point and laugh".  At the same time, I have to give someone like this person credit for trying to stand out.  What do you think?  What is the most interesting resume you have received?