WEBINAR: The Recruiter Makeover

Just in time for the Springtime hiring season (that is a real thing, right?), I call your attention to the next installment of the often imitated but never duplicated Fistful of Talent webinar, this one tailor made for recruiters and talent acquisition pros that might need their own professional spring cleaning.

Titled, The Recruiter Makeover: 7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves as Marketers, the FOT crew are partnering with the cool folks at Jobvite for a fresh and edgy look at ways recruiters can re-cast themselves for today's 'everything is marketing' age. In this FOT webinar you'll see how the world’s full of great products/services that eventually became commodities, and how unfortunately, there are a lot of recruiters in danger of becoming commodities as well if they don’t change with the times. Odds are you feel the shift under your feet—great candidates are less responsive than ever to average recruiters, which means you have to become a more effective marketer of the brand and opportunities you represent to keep your closing rate high.

If you’re still reading, that means you haven’t been average in the past.  Join the FOT crew on May 8 at 2pm EST and, and the gang will give you the roadmap for a career makeover that includes the following goodies:

- The Ugly “Before” Picture. We’ve all seen the “before” pictures used in makeovers and this one is no different.  Using your “average Joe/Jane” recruiter, we’re going to take a snapshot of the recruiter most in need of our makeover.  Brace yourself, because “before” pictures in makeover workups all look like mug/prison shots of Lindsay Lohan, right?

- Trendspotting 101. We can’t start prescribing the skill equivalent of makeup or liposuction for recruiters until we tell you about the trends that are causing the need for the makeover.  Candidates have more options and messages flowing to them than ever before.  Whether its the emergence of Indeed, Glassdoor, LinkedIn or the social recruiting scene, recruiting is morphing into marketing.  We’ll compare and contrast some of the trends to tell you why recruiters are evolving into marketers even as they keep their core recruiting skills strong.

- 7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves As Marketers. Makeover time. We’ll hit you with our list of things you can do to reinvent yourself as a marketer who just happens to recruit for a living.  You can do this. Don’t believe the naysayers that will say this is hype.  Those people are just trying to keep you average.

- Our Top 5 List of Recruiters Who Have Strong Marketing Game. It’s all empty talk until we give you examples, right?  The FOT crew will break down our top 5 list of recruiters who have added the marketing toolkit to their games, complete with emphasis of which of our “7 Ways” list they specialize in.  Everyone in the world needs role models—even recruiters.  We’ll tell you who to connect with and emulate to become a marketer in the recruiting game.

Evolving your game as a recruiter isn’t easy. It takes thought, expertise and time you don’t have, because you’re busy filling positions.  Join FOT on May 8 at 2pm EST for The Recruiter Makeover: 7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves as Marketers, and we’ll show you how to add marketing chops to your personal recruiting brand so you don’t get left behind.

Use the link above to register for the FREE FOT Webinar and feel better about yourself for at least the next 12 minutes.And as always the FOT Webinar comes guaranteed - 60% of the time it works every time.

Have a great weekend!

WEBINAR: Get inside the brain of the mobile job seeker

You (and everyone else you know) simply CANNOT PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY.

You can't do it. Admit it. Just try and go 20 minutes disconnected from that little miracle device. 

After five minutes you will give the phone a furtive glance. After ten minutes your palms will start to get a little clammy and you will be compelled to pick up the phone, (but you will still have it locked). 

Make it to fifteen minutes and you're sure that SOMETHING COMPLETELY AMAZING AND WONDERFUL AND LIFE CHANGING IS GOING ON AND YOU'RE MISSING IT!

So you break down at minute seventeen only to find the only things you've 'missed' are some forgettable work emails, some strange dude who might be a 'bot followed you on Twitter, and your cousin 'liked' your latest Instagram selfie.

Disappointed, you turn to one of the few important things your little handheld portal to the Universe has to offer - you start looking around for a better job. C'mon admit it, you have a few job board apps on that little screen, maybe a couple of company career site apps too, and you have definitely clicked on a few job ads that you've seen on the mobile apps for LinkedIn or Twitter.

It's ok, no shame at all. You are just like the rest of us in that there really isn't much of a difference or distinction between the activities and expectations for information and capability that we want from our iPhones and what we grew up with on our old PCs.

Whether it's processing work stuff, shopping, and certainly, looking for that next great job opportunity - if it is happening, it is happening more and more on mobile devices.

So as an HR/Talent pro you need to ensure your talent attraction game is ready for this new playing field. But don't fret, your pals over at Fistful of Talent have you covered with the next installment of the free FOT Webinar series -  Happy Hour Job Search: Driving the Behavior of Mobile Job Seekers, to be held on Tuesday, April 1 at 3:00PM EDT.

In the webcast, presented by Kris Dunn from FOT, and Ed Newman from iMomentous, the guys will hit you with the following:

A complete breakdown of the basic demographics and behaviors of mobile job seekers, with strategies on how to use that data to influence candidate behavior.

Inside information about power users of mobile career sites, including the level of education they’ve achieved, years of work experience and most prevalent zodiac sign (we’re kidding about the last one–but it would be cool if Capricorns were the most mobile savvy, right?).

What behavior and life patterns surrounding mobile use cause employers to see spikes at particular hours of the day from mobile, and how that impacts your mobile recruiting strategy.

The impact of mobile friendly career sites and email campaigns to click through rates from mobile candidates.

Then, we’ll show you how all the factors listed above make providing highly relevant content and calls to action the key to success with mobile candidates.

A winning recruiting strategy starts with understanding the candidate you’re seeking. Where is your candidate sitting at the moment they choose to hit “apply?” What are they doing 10 seconds before they land on your site?

Remember how your parents thought the Internet was a fad? Don’t fall into the same trap with mobile recruiting.  Join Kris Dunn and Ed Newman on Tuesday, April 1st from 3-4pm EST for Happy Hour Job Search: Driving the Behavior of Mobile Job Seekers, and they’ll hit you with the best strategies to get the most out your mobile recruiting strategy in 2014 and beyond.

Have a great weekend!

More (if you can stand it), on HR and the future robotic workplace

I feel at this point I simply have to beep banging on the robot drum, if for no other reason that everyone else seems to have jumped on the bandwagon too, and I want to make sure folks recognize I was driving said bandwagon ages ago!

I'm over at Fistful of Talent today with a piece called, Will You Be Replaced by a Robot? Let's Break it Down - here is a little bit of what I am riffing about there:

Ok, so let’s assume you were either on board with the seriousness of the robotic threats before, or had been skeptical but have read over the Oxford paper and have come around. How do you actually know, or at least take an educated guess at the actual threat to what you do, i.e., how can you determine if or when the robots are coming for you?

Well let’s break it down using the three primary criteria cited in the paper - perception and manipulation task requirements, the need for creative intelligence, and last, the need for social interaction and intelligence on the job. Your task, as you read through these parameters, is to think really honestly about how what you do fits on along the continuum of ‘Easy for a machine to learn and perform ←→ No way a robot could EVER do this’ in the three categories...

Check out the rest over at Fistful of Talent and be sure to let me know what you think.

Or let the robot that is actually writing all these posts know what you think. He's cool with that.

Happy Wednesday!

WEBINAR: Engaging, not stalking - or how to make eye contact without looking like a maniac

It is pretty easy to toss around phrases like 'HR is the new Marketing' and 'Recruiting is really just sales'. Those chestnuts have been the topic and title of many a blog post, conference presentation, and yes, webinar. But it is a lot harder to think, act, and execute like a marketer that has to find, attract, nurture, and close prospects than it seems on the surface. But fear not my friends, help is on the way to help you amp up your talent attraction efforts and get you executing like the best Madison Avenue big shots.

The gang at Fistful of Talent are back, this time with my friends, (and 'Awesome New Technolgies for HR' selection), from Jobvite for the latest FOT Webinar titled '5 Easy Ways For Recruiters to Engage Talent Pools – Without Looking Like Complete Stalkers' to be presented on October 3, 2013 at 1:00PM EDT.

Sign up for the FREE webinar and the gang at FOT will hit you up with the following:

• A simple definition of what a talent pool is, how you organize it in your ATS, and how to manage the concept of “opt-in” to the people you include in that talent pool.  The definition of who gets included and “opt-in” is important, because you’re gong to broadcast a bit over time– which will feel different (in a good way) to candidates included in the talent pool.
• A checklist of information you already have access to in your company that those passive talent pool candidates would love to hear about.  It’s a checklist!  All you have to do is go find the info we list and you’re golden.
• Data on best practices in thinking like a marketer (do you use email, LinkedIn, snail mail, text, etc.) to engage your talent pool – without looking like a stalker.
• Grand Finale, we’ll deliver the top 5 ways to engage talent pools – and for each engagement method, we’ll list what the communication looks like, where to find the information and why doing it the way we recommend is the best practice

And as a Special Bonus the crew will give you a monthly calendar of what to do and when to do it related to our list of 5 ways for you to engage your talent pool. It couldn’t be simpler than that.

It’s time to make the talent pools you’ve built in your ATS actually like you and your company.  Join FOT and Jobvite on October 3, 2013 at 1pm EST, “5 Easy Ways For Recruiters to Engage Talent Pools – Without Looking Like Complete Stalkers” and they will show you how.

REGISTER HERE:

WEBINAR: Why you shouldn't pick your talent like you did your sorority sisters

I think the biggest scam going in the HR/Recruiting/Talent game right now is this idea of 'Hiring for Cultural Fit'.

I've written about it a few times on the blog (most recently here), but the main point I keep coming back to is that 'Hiring for cultural fit' is simply code (and a convenient excuse) for 'Hiring more people that look/act/think/come from/share the same college just like us.'

I think it takes the focus off of what is usually more important criteria that needs to be considered in the hiring process, AND, it puts HR/Talent pros in a position where they are set up to fail.

For the geeks out there  - I'd say it is the Admiral Ackbar take on hiring - 'It's a trap!'

But fear not, O true believers, there is another way out of this trap. And my friends over at Fistful of Talent are ready and able to step in to help you learn how to focus on what really matters when making selection decisions in the hiring process.

Why is this important?

Because people have an innate and subconscious tendency to hire the most attractive, smooth-talking candidate when making a selection decision. But having the most attractive pledge class on the block may not always prove to be the best hiring strategy for driving your house’s bottom line.

That's why FOT'ers Tim Sackett and Kathy Rapp are going Greek this summer with the FOT webinar FOT’s 2013 Rush: Why You Shouldn’t Pick Your Talent Like You Did Your Sorority Sisters, brought to you by the team at Chequed.com.

Join Join your hosts Tim and Kathy on July 17 at 1pm EST and they’ll hit you with the following:

1. A deeper look at the old way of hiring paralleled to sorority rush. Skit Day and behavioral interviewing, matching interview polos and Lily Pulitzer-laden ladies, Pref Day and the final offer… sorority rush has bad HR written all over it. But adding more steps does not always lead to the best hire; that’s why FOT is giving you an actionable plan to align your hiring process with your desired candidate profile.

2. FOT’s complete guide to dumb things your hiring managers do when making hiring decisions — and how to change them. In order to break the mold you have to know what the problem is, right?  We’ll cover items like hiring based on alma mater, handshake, favorite flavor of fro-yo, etc. in true FOT fashion. You guessed it — we’re calling out common biases and aligning them with your favorite Greek characters from pop-culture for easy reference when making your next hire.

3. We’ll explore the cliché “Hiring With Your Gut” and breakdown when that good old standard makes sense, when it’s lazy and when it may get someone fired (for a variety of reasons). While the paddle is optional in this section, not having a defined hiring process tied to an underlying job profile is not. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered in this section.

4. Five rush strategies to end the Stepford Wife plague in your house today. Ready to mix up your pledge class? We’ll show you how to go from the House Bunny to a balanced group of team members in 5 simple steps.

5. We’ll wrap this webinar by bringing in an industry expert from Chequed.com for a little game of “It’s the freakin’ science, dude.” Hiring isn’t an art—it’s a science. We’ll give you the cliff’s notes on why so you can ace your next hiring exam.

Forget what you learned in college, and put FOT’s rush system to work at your company for a more balanced team today. Who knows, we may even get crazy with an FOT rendition of Shout to close this thing out right…

Register today: