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?