Staffing in a zero unemployment market

What a whirlwind.  I've hit four annual contests with my employer, I'm still rolling, working on my next.  I've got a bunch more stamps on the ol' passport, its time to re-vitalize my blog.  LinkedIn has changed, Indeed is no longer free, candidates are hiding under rocks, the world of recruiting has gotten interesting.  Follow along with me in the months to come as I document the next 12 months of ups and downs.

The global staffing industry generated an estimated $461 billion in revenue worldwide in 2017, according to the “Global Staffing Industry Market Estimates and Forecast: May 2018 Update” released by Staffing Industry Analysts. (Staffingindustry.com)

-Z

Resume or Refusal?

Resume or Refusal is my own personal creed or takeaway regarding a candidate resume.  A resume can be your biggest asset to getting your dream job, or can cost you a position.  I received through the grapevine today an email one of my peers received from a client.

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This goes without saying that this is a nightmare for any recruiter to see in his/her inbox.  What it does show is the need for a recruiter to be an expert in recruiting, as well as an expert in the field they work in.

1.) You are responsible for your resume- Recruiter or not, you must take ownership of having a resume that is detailed, correct, spelled properly.
2.) You will pay the price if you do not have a good resume.
3.) You need to show your resume to at least two other pepole for second opinions!  (This is not an option)
4.) Expect to be questioned if there is an error.
5.) If you are a recruiter looking at someone's resume, and you do not understand a concept, or it seems wrong, ask!

Relationships are hard to form, and easy to break.  Do what you can as a recruiter, and a potential jobseeker to make sure you align your best to where you want to be!

Find the spelling error in my post, and I will give you a shout-out on twitter!  (First to find only)

"The end of sourcing is near!"



http://www.ere.net/2013/02/04/the-end-of-sourcing-is-near-the-remaining-recruiting-challenge-is-selling/



I want to talk to you about part of this article.  It makes several good valid points.  

• "The time is rapidly approaching were nearly every professional and working individual in the developed world can be found by a recruiting function."
• "With the growth of the Internet, social media, and employee referral programs, finding talent is becoming amazingly easy."
• "In recruiting, we call finding talent “sourcing,” and for nearly three decades sourcing has been the most important but difficult aspect of recruiting."
• "After all, if you can’t find great talent, you certainly can’t interview and hire them."
• "Finding Talent Is Easy Because Everyone Is Now “Visible”"

In many ways what we see in this article is a theme that has been reported for a long time.  It is a great deal easier to find talent, but we only see a tiny percentage of people out there.  Every time I go to a job fair, I am constantly amazed at how many people are not in any database and not on LinkedIn.  In the US alone for example there are about 157,000,000 people working.  LinkedIn does a decent job reportedly with 74,000,000 people in the United States.  That is a really hard number to wrap my brain around.  In the Midwest for example, more than 2/3 of the people I speak with in Manufacturing and Energy Services are working, and not looking.  Many of them forget that they even have a profile on the page.

Finding someone is one thing.  Finding someone who is looking for work is another thing.  A huge part of my role as a Sourcer for my company is finding people that are actively looking for work, but also being able to develop relationships with industry experts to drive referrals, and so that the "candidate" comes to us at some point.

The end is not "NIGH" for recruiting, things are simply as any industry does, changing with the times.  The challenge for Sourcers is to develop and become experts at the "ART" of sourcing as opposed to just the "SCIENCE" of recruiting.

The bottom line is that the majority of "Sourcers" I know do not fit into the mold of just finding people.  They find, they source, the interview, they refer to jobs.  As long as the economy is growing, there will always be a need for sourcers.  I do agree with the conjecture the article makes that we as "Sourcers" need to be better salespeople as part of our job, and that there are systems that can be put into place to ease that process.  It all to me comes down to good training, and being willing as a company to see the changes in the SCIENCE, and to use that SCIENCE to help refine the ART of sourcing.

<steps off soap box>

Look for my next post next Friday on a new Google Search tactic.  S_O_D

I am the 1%

Jokingly I title this post "I am the 1%".  My intention is not to mock the "occupy" movement, but I wanted to show everyone something I received today.

I am genuinely curious if anyone else received these.  I know of at least three other people in my company who got these emails, so I'm not sure if its marketing, truth, or both.  I included a screenshot.  Apparently LinkedIn gave out 1% emails, and 5% emails.

Its True!  Its Really True!

My thoughts:

• LinkedIn is either really busy, or really dead if I made the top 1%
• How many people got these emails?  
• Should I be proud of this?
• Should I put my picture on T-Shirts?

Please reply to the post.  Let me know if you got one of these LinkedIn emails, and your thoughts!

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/