3 Ways to Find Undervalued Talent on the Internet

 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Finding those diamonds in the rough who are constantly moving onto greener pastures is the recruiter’s dream. Except that with the increased use in social media and online recruiting, the challenge has become greater as the overwhelming sense of networking sometimes seems to swallow us whole. Chances are that hidden talent won’t be hidden for long. Recruiters will soon be everywhere in every single nook and cranny around the Internet on the hunt for the perfect recruit.

Using places where recruiters haven’t saturated the market yet will give a company the competitive advantage when recruiting hidden talent. Not sure where to look? These hidden gems won’t be a secret for long, but using your network in unconventional ways is a good place to start. A good recruiter will have already built the foundation, but might not be using them to actively recruit. We’ve come up with a few avenues that recruiters need to be seeking out candidates. Top talent is hard to find in certain industries, so why not switch up your recruiting strategy?

LinkedIn & Facebook Groups. Tapping into the true power of Facebook and LinkedIn groups will allow recruiters to tap into unused talent and networks. Specifically, LinkedIn groups now have their own “Jobs” tab. While it looks like the one in the main menu, it’s completely different. Under this tab, recruiters are allowed to put jobs advertised to a specific group of people. These messages allow recruiters to micro-target meaning less competition and advantage to the job seeker participating. Facebook Groups are still in development, but allow recruiters to target the younger demographic and it’s fairly cheap advertising for jobs.

Evernote Hello. There’s no worse feeling then networking and forgetting a business card or even losing a card. Recruiters are constantly talking to people, taking mental notes, and on the search for a perfect candidate. With Evernote Hello recruiters are able to instantly scan a business card immediately after meeting a potential candidate and make notes on them. This tool is perfect for career fairs when recruiters see hundreds of students or professionals at one time. Best of all—the app is free!

Your Blog. Most companies don’t take advantage of their blog when it comes to recruiting. A smart job seeker will be apart of your community, which includes reading and commenting on topics from your blog. Putting themselves out there and making themselves known could be an entirely new blog topic. By providing specific resources and downloads for job seeker audiences and positions you want to hire and recruit is a great way to build relationships. From there you’ll be able to invite them to your talent network and gain better insights and information.

Where have you found recruitment to be the best? Give up your secrets!

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 


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Overcoming Video Interviewing Anxiety Disorder?

 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Bigger companies are starting to adopt video interviewing as an alternative to face-to-face interviewing as volumes of candidates and costs all increase simultaneously. Thanks to new video interviewing technologies recruiters are able to setup virtual interviews and replay them when they get to work each morning, after lunch, or in bed right before they go to bed. 63% of interviews in 2012 were conducted via some form of interviewing technology. Many companies and business are looking to start are looking towards this technology as a way to interview potential candidates.

So what does this mean for candidates being interviewed with this type of technology? Not much, maybe; for the majority have anxiety no matter the type. Job seekers may have new questions, however.. We’ve come up with a few methods to overcome possible anxiety as it relates to video interviewing.

Prepare. This seems like the silliest pieces of advice we could give you, but when it comes to an interview you don’t ever want to be unprepared. Most times in video interviewing you’re giving just a minute or two to formulate a response. Rambling is the first sign of not knowing what you’re talking about and the easiest way to show that you’re confidence is shot. If you leave the gate not knowing what you’re talking about, the recruiter is likely to skip over your interview altogether. Research the company, prepare sample interview questions, and be confident in your presentation. If you have to, take notes and jot them down, but don’t be caught reading them.

Dress for Success. When it comes to video interviewing people don’t think that wearing appropriate attire will matter. After all, it’s likely you’re doing the interview from somewhere within your house, could even be your desk in your bedroom. What a backdrop? Be prepared for anything. Take the interview seriously and dress up. You also feel how you dress. So if you feel like you’re in an actual interview, you’re likely to have more confidence in your ability to perform well.

Don’t Rush the Question. 9/10 times we feel like since we’re being timed on our answer we have to talk fast and rush our response to make sure we get in all the information we want. On the same note, 9/10 times we will rush the question and have a lot of silence at the end or we will do the most regrettable thing ... ramble. Rambling isn’t pretty and avoiding it at all cost is the best when interviewing.

Participating in a video interview is, in most cases, the same as being interviewed in a face-to-face scenario. Relax, breathe, and by the time you know it, the interview will be conducted and you’ll either be moved onto the next step or start your job search process over again. Incidentally, over time, your style will improve. Just as in the real world. The more you interview, the better you become.

What are your video interviewing most unpleasant stories? What’s your experience with these types of interviewing?

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 


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Returnships. How to Proactively Recruit Candidates Pivoting in Their Careers

 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Mid-level professionals have been heavily impacted by changes in the current economy. Professionals from a wide range of industries such as finance, IT, human resources, and engineering are looking for opportunities to change careers and even enter a new career field. These types of positions are usually filed by those who are already employed, but looking to take on a new set of challenges. Their qualifications speak for themselves and these employees are sometimes capable of taking on the responsibilities of two or three less qualified employees.

Returnships help candidates who are re-entering the workforce who have taken off work to have a child, take care of a family member, or are pivoting in their career. When companies struggle to find the qualified candidates they need, despite the high unemployment rate. Some employers have started thinking outside the box to solve this dilemma through what are commonly known as returnships. Recruiters are taking a different approach when it comes to recruiting more seasoned professionals. Creating a returnship program will give recruiters a set of defined barriers that’ll help enrich their recruiting efforts.

Question is where do you find these job seekers and how do you create a program that works and betters your company? We’ve come up with a few insights on how to successfully recruit within a returnships program.

Have a champion. This is one of the most important aspects of creating and recruiting within a successful returnships program. Without some type of champion of the program it won’t receive the support and dedication it needs. The champion should come from someone in a higher executive position that has the power to push ideas, candidates, and training through at a fairly successful rate. If your Director of Recruiting believes in returnships, that would be ideal.

Be willing to take a risk. Employers might be wary of candidates who are wanting to switch up their career field, have been out of a job for awhile, or are coming back from a pregnancy or extended leave of absence for medical reasons. Counting this group out entirely would be a great disservice to your company because these seasoned workers have a lot to offer an employer. Candidates in a returnship might not match a set of skills that you’re looking for, but they have experience in work style, great cultural fit, and soft skills that are hard to come by when recruiting directly out of college or someone early in their career.

Understand the learning curve. Similar to a new recruit fresh out of college, those participating in a returnship might have a bit of a learning curve. Their skills might be a little rusty when it comes to the corporate environment, but once they get in the groove of things, these skills will come back naturally. Assign a worker or a champion of this program who can guide them through the processes again and help expedite their success.

Returnships offer a company an entirely new workforce that has the skills and experience needed to elevate their company to the next level. Offering a second chance to workers in this class allow the company not only some good Public Relations, but the skills of workers who might have 10 or even 20 years of experience. So next time someone applies that might be a little older than your normal recruit, take a second look, they might be worth the risk.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 


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Pushing Diversity. 5 Ways to Win By Recruiting & Hiring a Diverse Workforce

 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Diversity is more than just the color of our skin. It’s diversity of thought and even diversity of life experiences. We’ll go beyond your Affirmative Action Plan Initiatives to talk about how to push diversity and win by recruiting and retaining talent that drives results and change at your workplace. As our nation and workforce are both becoming more diverse it’s important to match this trend in the recruiting world.

It’s undeniable that the war on talent is a tough fight and no company is able to afford restricting its ability to attract and retain the very best employees available at any given time. A diverse workforce combines workers from all experiences and backgrounds that foster an environment of creativeness, innovation, and productivity. Boosting our bottom line will strengthen more naturally when we learn to draw upon our nation’s diversity. A key ingredient to growing a strong and inclusive economy is our ability to hire in a diverse nature.

We’ve come up with five ways your company can benefit from recruiting and hiring a diverse workforce.

Diversity helps foster a more innovative workplace. When companies use diversity to find and recruit workers from all different qualifications, backgrounds, and experience effective problem solving will come more natural. When a company is able to solve problems more effectively, their productivity will rise and they will be able to focus on more innovative ideas. A recent survey conducted by Forbes states that 85% of surveyed companies agreed or strongly agreed that diversity is crucial to fostering innovation in the workplace is done through being able to solve problems more effectively.

Diversity expands workplace knowledge of other cultures. This might sound quite simple, I work in a diverse workplace therefore I learn about other cultures. One benefit to hiring a diverse workplace creates an environment of openness and ongoing learning on how to deal with other cultures. As business moves in a more global direction it’s important to learn about how other cultures interact and handle business. This can easily be picked up from working with someone more diverse then yourself.

More qualified workforce. When companies recruit from a very diverse set of potential applicants, they are more likely to hire the best and the brightest. No longer is competition defined by one pool of applicants, but it’s spread over a diverse population of people. In order to succeed in the market, you must be willing and able to recruit from a very diverse set of applicants. Hiring the right talent is crucial.

Hiring diverse reduces turnover, increases bottom line. According to a recent study by American Progress, the economic cost of discrimination is over $1 trillion in cumulative spending power. A diverse workplace as stated earlier is more then just the color of our skin, but it’s also our sexual orientation. The cost of an hourly worker leaving a company can cost up to 5-10 thousand dollars to replace and an executive can cost upwards to $211,000. Hiring a more diverse workforce helps foster a warming and inviting atmosphere that provides companies not only good PR, but also lower turnover rates.

Escape legal woes. The last benefit to hiring a diverse workforce is escaping the cost of legal actions against your company. Workplace discrimination exposes business to potentially costly lawsuits that could cost upwards of 100K for every case brought against you. Especially in states that have outlawed gay and transgender discrimination.

There are numerous benefits to hiring a diverse workforce and all of these directly benefit the company you’re working for. There should be no reasons that a recruiter wouldn’t want to hire the best talent even if that talent comes from a diverse background. Recruiting looks good when it comes to turnover rates, a company’s bottom line, the talent within a company, and the company’s ability to be innovative.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 


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Why Resume Sorting Software is the Root of All Things Evil

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

When a job opens up and resumes start to arrive, human resources professionals have a huge task on their hands. In fact, nearly one-in-four human resources managers said they receive, on average, more than 75 resumes for each open position; 42 percent receive more than 50 resumes. That same survey also revealed that the vast majority of human resources managers (78 percent) reported at least half of the resumes they receive are from unqualified candidates.

These types of situations, which occur every day in thousands of offices across the world, is partially responsible for hiring managers turning to an outside source to help them wade through resumes. I’m not talking about a recruiter or an assistant. I’m talking about what has led the way in coining the term “resume black hole:” resume sorting software.

There are various opinions on the talent management software. On one hand, the software is a huge timesaver because it could be nearly impossible to view every resume that passes your desk if you work for a large company. On the other hand, though, you could be missing out on great employees because you’re weeding out candidates based on what keywords they did or didn’t use or because they didn’t rank high enough compared to other candidates.

It’s generally viewed as a necessary evil. The kicker with any automated system is that it can also automate mistakes. You have hundreds of resumes running through the system and rather than looking at the resume on an evaluation grid where multiple points of interest are evaluated, it’s sorting through them based on a combination of keywords. Some systems are better than others and some systems are set up better than others, with the right types of keywords and reasonable criteria.

Candidates are getting crafty, though. Considering that these systems have been around for years, people are catching on. The automated rejection email also may have tipped them off. Some are finding ways around the software using a few different methods.

National Public Radio tells the story of an IT professional who used keyword-identifying software to generate his resume. (Spoiler alert: it still didn’t land him the job.) There are also a slew of candidates who are creating their own personal marketing campaigns to get them noticed. It sounds a bit over the top, but when your resume is continually falling in that “black hole” and is never seen again, you have to get creative. Just for kicks, there’s this email from a brutally honest student seeking an internship on Wall Street.

The fact is, there are thousands of hiring managers who simply couldn’t do their job without talent management software that weeds out candidates, but there are also millions of qualified candidates receiving rejection emails on a daily basis. There’s got to be a happy medium between requiring that a candidate have 35 keywords on their resume to pass through the first round and hiring managers manually reading through stacks and stacks of resumes.

On some level, I suppose you could say it’s a form of survival of the fittest. Those who make their resumes stand out get noticed. Those whose resumes don’t stand out will continue the “apply and deny” cycle.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 


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