Archive for the ‘ End-to-End Recruitment Lifecycle Management ’ Category

Are Your Interviewers Good Enough?

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When you interview people for a job you are asked to make a judgment call on whether the people you interview are good enough and suitable for your company, but what makes you think you are good enough to do the interview and represent your company? Are you suitably trained to conduct a proper interview and make that decision yourself? I suspect not.

The vast majority of hiring managers whether they work in HR or not have never been trained how to interview people; the psychology, the questions to ask, what not to ask, how to decide who is good enough or what good enough looks like.  Many will have the information needed to sell the company and the job to each candidate, but fail disastrously by simply asking the wrong questions, focusing on the wrong competencies in a person’s background appropriate to the role, not listening to the answers given and not exploring each answer or further.

I know some companies train and certify every manager before they are able to open a Requisition, before they are able to hold an interview.  Why don’t more do it?

What is often forgotten in the recruitment process is the candidate.  There are plenty of articles and blogs written about how poor the candidate experience is in the majority of companies, yet little attention is given to the quality of interviews.

Do you realise you could be missing out on very good talent for your organisation because your interview processes or the people doing the interviewing is substandard, boring and in some cases illegal.

In an interview a good candidate will be interviewing you and your company. Or they would be if given the chance to.  They too have to make a very important choice.  To a greater extent the decision the candidate has to make is far more important and crucial than the decision you have to make.  If they get the decision wrong it could screw up their life; if you get it wrong you rectify and move on.   Candidates therefore must be given the opportunity to represent themselves and as most interviews follow a typical Q&A format the right questions need to be asked to elicit the appropriate answers or at least stimulate the appropriate level of discussion.

I will give you an example from recent personal experience.  I was being interviewed for Director, Global Recruitment by an HRD.  The role was very senior and of a strategic leadership nature, yet a ridiculous amout of time was spent going into detail on a project I worked on in early 2008, that was purely transactional and not at all relevant to the role I was being interviewed for.

Where were the questions about the ATS they are about to acquire and deploy, my thoughts related to the announcements from LinkedIn made just that week, to the use of social media, candidate experience, employer brand, the impact of the AWR or many others more relevant to the most senior resourcing role in the organisation.  I think you get the point.

This is not a rant nor is it a specific observation on that one incident – there have been others in the last 7 weeks – this post is purely an observation about the lack of attention and lack of priority given to one of the most important jobs/functions in a company; that of an interviewer.

So before you judge a candidate be sure you judge your interviewers’ ability,  otherwise you will be failing your candidates and losing out on the good people you set out to acquire.

How many companies train and certify their managers before they let them near an interview room?

Do you?

2011
11/21
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Starting a Job is not “Job Done”, It is just the start – Day 41 of #myjobhunt

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Day 41 of #myjobhunt = Day 1 of #mynewjob

So here we are at last – Day 41 of #myjobhunt and exactly 8 weeks after leaving my last job and starting my quest for a new career opportunity, I finally arrived at the day that it had all been aiming at.

Today I started my new job – well not actually today but the Monday of this week was Day 1 of what I will now be calling #mynewjob – obvious really. – I hope to call it that if I remaining appropriate to blog about my new job. Of course this may not be a good idea, but the jury is out.

One thing I am mindful of however is that whilst the quest for an offer had come to a natural and positive end with me accepting and starting a new job. The next step or phase in the process is the most important. I, like anyone who starts with a new employer has to now live up to billing and deliver and do it in style. I don’t mean I am going to be flash or a smartarse, but the aim is to deliver efficiently and effectively and against demand and expectations. It is all about making sure my new boss is vindicated for hiring me and is made to look good in the process. It won’t do me any harm either will it now? As fun as it was, I don’t want to be back to #myjobhunt any time soon, thank you very much.

But at this point early on the Day 1 Monday morning my only focus was making sure I made the train in time, to make connections so that I could meet my new boss at St. Pancras International for the Eurostar to Paris. Not the normal first day and rather pleased we didn’t need to catch the first train out!

Having spent 8 weeks not having to worry about getting out of bed let alone waking up, I set the alarm for 5am to be sure I was up, ready and able to catch the first train a 6.38am. I actually woke at 4am rolled over went back to sleep, the alarm was on silent so I didn’t hear it go off at 5am and finally woke up luckily at 0536. I had 20 mins to get myself out of the house. Not the best way to start a long day on the first day of a new job. Apple Inc. don’t you know how absolutely ridiculous it is not to allow an alarm to override silent mode. How dumb can you be? Okay, okay my fault knowing the limitations but still a design fault nonetheless. I have my phone on silent at night because of the number of mutations that don’t know that my number is not the number they want!

Anyway I made the train, no problems with the tube and made it to St Pancras and onto the Eurostar all very calm and collected thanks to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. I did however have to tell a man of the cloth that he can’t get on the train because his god wasn’t about to move the cases in front of him, human intervention would be needed to stow them properly, so that I could pass. I was smiling at the time! He saw the funny side of it too. Made it to my seat – well no not mine but by time the passenger whose seat it was arrived, I was very comfy and not about to move. All sorted. At this point it is worth pointing out that I had been up for 3.5 hours and had not yet had a coffee. Everyone on the carriage was lucky to make to Paris I tell you, but a dose of Led Zeppelin is a sort of cure all for me. I am not at my best without coffee, at least 3 large mugs at that. But I was sat next to the second most important person in my life at that moment – yup my new boss and thus just had to behave. I was in a smiling mood, honest.

So the first two and half hours of my new job were spent in fine, amusing and generous company – well what did you expect me to say? I spent the time listening to an induction of sorts and an overview of the challenges ahead, not much of it making a lot sense yet. But so glad I focused and concentrated as it all started to come together later in the day and throughout Day 2.

I intend to blog about my first 30 days as best I can without divulging operational specifics or making my team and colleagues uncomfortable. If I feel that this becomes the case I will stop. But I want to be able to relate the job hunting process with actually starting a job. When I wrote Day 1 of #myjobhunt I did so purely for my own purposes; I wanted to dump my thoughts and reflect on the day past and what needs to be done during the next day (I think I’ve written those words before, sorry). I want to see if by tracking my daily activity and reflecting on what happens and what is needed next, if my performance and my decision making is made any better than previous versions of Gary. I‘m not going to start a daily blog because I think that would become too specific and ….well boring. What I will try and do is give some kind of perspective of the personal challenges and changes I will have to go thoughts and some of the thoughts observations and experiences. It might not be possible. But let’s see how we go, eh?

So Day 1 I arrive in Paris having met only three people who work for the company, not bad when you consider that the total workforce is approx 55,000. Straight to the office and into a kick-off meeting.

This meeting was to actually kick off the “next phase” deployment of a global project that my boss is the owner of. So three hours of acronyms and language that was all alien to me and much of what was being discussed was initially so confusing. However much like a dimmer switch being slowly turned up, the more the afternoon wore on, the clearer much of it became and actually raised a number of questions that would have direct impact on what I was here to do. My job – ownership of all recruitment processes for Europe (excl UK); strategy, planning, operations and delivery.

Names of people were going in one ear and out another, every time I spoke to someone I was introduced to another person or process with further suggestions of who I needed to speak with or meet. Copious notes are being taken and comments attributed to people; no matter how many times I hear it I note it down.

I have already been assigned one project that needs to happen now and active involvement and the other I need to get up to speed with very very fast, and I know there are two or three others that are being discussed. How much of these will come my way remains to be seen. And this is addition to the normal daily stuff of planning and leading a strategic approach to recruitment and resourcing delivery.

The pace and scale of what we are doing is stunning. The excitement and energy created by a team that doesn’t know the meaning of “can’t do”, and seems to live by the “let’s get it done” ethos is a rush – they plan fast and execute even faster.

I am on the balls of my feet and bouncing ready to get in the game.

Music of the day = Thoughtless by Korn

That was Day 1 of #mynewjob for you.

2010
09/29
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How do I get onto your PSL?

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If you haven’t yet come across UK Recruiter I recommend a visit and a read. Run by Louise Triance, UK Recruiter not only provides a wealth of information to all those involved in the UK recruitment market, but Louise is a big advocate of getting agencies and in-house recruiters to network and cooperate with each other.

Louise recently asked for contributions to her “Recruiter Clinic” series by asking various people involved with the recruitment business “What is the question you are asked the most often?” and “What is the answer you give?”

I was pleased to help.

This is the question I get asked the most: How do I get onto your PSL?

Answer: Many large organisations with traditional purchasing models follow complicated and cumbersome RFQ, RFI and tendering processes to select the suppliers for their PSL. There is no sure fire way of getting through the rules, weighting and scoring matrices that can be set up by procurement teams I’m afraid. This kind of process and the resulting set up, tend to leave suppliers feeling they are being kept at and arm’s length, with limited relationship potential, other than that of traditional supplier/buyer and that any quality in service is diminished. I agree. It’s a lottery and to be honest a waste of energy and time for all concerned.

In organisations where there is more emphasis on quality of service and importance placed on cooperation and understanding of the business, as well as the personalities required in the different roles, it is crucial that you build a relationship with the key stakeholders. These will either be with the in-house recruiting teams or the hiring manager.

A bit of advice, if the organisation you are trying to sell to has an in-house recruiting team, bypass them at your peril, for they can be the decision makers not only on which agency to deal with, but also on which people will be hired. You will almost certainly ruin any chance you have of dealing with that company if you try and go around the in-house recruiting team to the hiring managers directly.

Within such organisations PSL’s are built based on suppliers’ previous track record with a company, on feedback and input they get from the hiring managers. In-house teams in many of the HR departments talk to each other and compare notes on agencies, especially if they are members of The FIRM, and thus it is important that the levels and quality of service you offer is of the highest standards at all times.

If you are invited to give a presentation as part of a PSL review, be sure that you know the company you are presenting to inside out. You have to know the scope and scale of the company, which markets in operates in, who its competitors are, what the competitors are doing (in respect of sales strategy, reorgs, hiring) why they hire, how they hire, what competences they look for in the various departments, what technologies are important to that market, what is the buzz in the market, what legislation could affect them. This is more information than you can possibly get from an hours superficial searching on the internet. This is proper and through research, but it has to be done if you want to have any credibility. If you can clearly show that you know the market better than the in-house recruiters then you will be adding value already.

Hope this helps

2010
09/14
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What does the Recruitment Industry Compete on?

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In a departure from #myjobhunt blog series

Recently I was asked “What do you think are the key factors that the recruitment industry competes on?”

My Answer:

You have to think about what you are competing for. Are agencies and search firms competing for the potential candidates or are they competing for the actual deal with the customer? They should have both in mind always.

Of course if competing for the candidates you have to be able to present yourself as credible and effective. An agency has to present itself as knowing the market as well as the ins and outs of the customer they are representing to the candidate, without the hard sell. They have to know all there is to know to ensure that the candidate has sufficient information to determine if the job and company is suitable. Also armed with the customer knowledge the agency recruiter will be able to determine accurately if a candidate can be turned into a credible applicant in front of the customer.

Competing at the customer level we look for agencies or suppliers that will be able to represent our brand, our company and the position we are recruiting for as if they work for us; much like a sales channel does for products. If a search firm or agency can show they have the ability to understand our business, our processes and our culture then they will be equipped to sell our proposition to each candidate and be of greater service and thus value to all parties.

To compete we all have to be in the position to represent ourselves to each other and meet the expectations of all involved. If as a customer I respect the agency or search firm – and more importantly the person I am dealing with – I will invest the time to educate them and equip them to better represent me. In doing so the agency or search firm will be armed to earn the trust of the candidate. The candidate will have confidence that they will be represented to the customer and the customer will have the confidence that their brand is in safe hands. The customer will appreciate that candidates from that particular source will be thoroughly vetted and closest to the mark.

So answer to the question; the industry competes on knowledge and credibility……………oh yeah, for the poorly managed in-house PSL structures its all about price and not quality of service and the poorly equipped agencies all compete on speed of service rather than quality.

I welcome thoughts and comments on this one please

2010
09/10
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Employer Branding - Bad
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Small Details & Attitude=Big Impact – Day 11 #myjobhunt

This is the start of Week 3

After the activities of Day 10, I definitely needed the weekend to recharge the batteries. The problem I now have is that the days are actually blurring into each other; what is a work day and what is the weekend? It doesn’t’ help that my wife is not working either whilst on her summer break. This in itself is a good thing as I have company and a welcome distraction every day. It also gives me someone to speak with in person who whilst impacted by #myjobhunt and has a direct vested interest in me being employed, isn’t actually part of the activities. However being around all the time makes each day feel like a weekend!

My wife is studying psychology and isn’t shy of using some of what she learns. Whilst a lot of the time all I hear is “blah blah blah blah”, there are times when what she has learned draws me in and opens up an enjoyable and very useful discussion. It also helps keeps the balance between the push to find a job and the positive mental attitude to actually do so.

I was looking forward to today; 3 interviews all with the same company throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Have a good feeling about the people and the company for this one and was hopeful that it would be upheld after speaking with each of them.

But first let me share the first part of the day with you. The first 5 or 6 hours of the day to 13:00 were dominated by LinkedIn. As you will know by now I am concentrating my efforts on using Social Media and my network of friends and contacts to pursue opportunities. The dominant platforms for me in this space are Twitter, LinkedIn and this blog. I post this blog both here and on RecruitingBlogs.com to give me greater coverage, that’s the hope anyway. Whilst it is good to get my thoughts down, reflect on the day past and look forward to the next, I am conscious that what I write and how I write it could have an influence over #myjobhunt. This is a job hunt. And whilst it doesn’t stop me from being open and honest, it does mean that certain ethics and conventions are adhered to, being discreet being chief amongst them. And not talking crap is another 🙂

I digress – A LinkedIn Day. It wasn’t LinkedIn themselves as an organisation that dominated the first part of the day, although I did put a call into them, but the activities within my communities on LinkedIn. With approx. 80 million users I expect you will have a profile as I do. Whilst I have one profile, I have two different networks on LinkedIn; I have my usual connections and I have a Group that I am heavily involved in – yeah you guessed it, The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers or The FIRM. Taking some advice from someone last week I decided that now I know the finish date at my current employer and therefore when I will be able to start a new job (26th August if anyone has a job for me!), it was time to update my LinkedIn profile to reflect my new status. I did this at the weekend. I am not sure if having done this or having previously made both communities aware of my quest, was the cause of nearly all of the communications I got on the morning of Day 11, but by changing my profile it reminded all that I was looking. Throughout the morning I had communications, via email and InMail from people I knew via LinkedIn or from others on LinkedIn I who had just found me or who had been referred to me. Each of them offered help, conversation or actually sent me links to jobs they had seen. I doubt I will ever know exactly what prompted this level of activity but the coincidence is there. I’m glad I did what I needed to.

The rest of the day was dominated by the interview schedule. Unfortunately the first one got postponed until later in the week. So after a little bit more work I took the rest of the afternoon off.

The second and third of the scheduled interviews took place as planned.

I will say that I was very tired and ready to call it a day a good couple of hours before the first interview started. I had a moment early on when I was worried that I was too tired to actually do the interview and give a good account of myself. However from an interviewers perspective (this is what I am after all) this wouldn’t really be acceptable. In a work environment we are all asked to perform to normal high standards even when at our lowest. I asked myself “how would I be if this was a crucial business meeting that needed full concentration and clarity of thought?” I had to wake myself and get my game face on and fast. I knew I couldn’t reschedule and needed to perform.

Thankfully the first interviewer was very engaging, full of enthusiasm for her job and for the people she worked with. An infectious and impressive attitude. I think because I recruit for a living I find myself very aware of how others conduct interviews. If my opinion was asked for, I’d have to say that this one was faultless and an enjoyable 45 minutes on the phone. The only problem was that I don’t think I gave a very good account of myself. Have to think about that one and reflect on the performance and answers to the questions. I can’t change it now, but I can learn from it.

So the last interview of the day is at 915pm and I am pleased to say this was a much better performance. Looking at these two it is important to recognise that whilst I had a feeling that they went well, based on enjoyable conversations with each interviewer, they were in fact interviews that had a focused agenda. No matter how well I got on with either of them, if they don’t think I can do the job or fit in with their team they won’t endorse my hire will they. For my part I liked what I heard and actually liked the questions I was asked. Therefore I hope I did make the right impression for the job. Fingers crossed.

Music of the Day – If I Had a Million dollars by Bare Naked Ladies

2010
08/17
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End-to-End Recruitment Lifecycle Management
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Interviews, new shoes and wet suits, Friday 13th – Day 10

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I have now been actively looking for a new job for 2 whole weeks. This is Day 10. I’m counting the days as those on which I actively seek work, or at least should be. 2 weeks wow!! I remember sitting in the office on my last day thinking it is so cool to have August off – I can enjoy the summer and relax. I expect this is how pretty much everyone else would react too.

A few days later a bit of reality to my situation sunk in. Yep you guessed it. It was raining! Might as well find work in that case. So instead of being distracted by having a “summer holiday” I instantly started my new job; that of finding work. So here I am two weeks later. I’m not going to recap, other than to stay that I have been so busy for nearly 8-10 hours most days that it has not only flown past, but it has been a blast. I have enjoyed every minute of it! Well expect probably for Day 9!

Friday 13th! Couldn’t have a better day to travel by motorway, train, and shank’s pony to and in London and for important interviews at that. Something was bound to go wrong, dammit. To try and avoid any slipups or disasters I made sure I was prepared.

At the end of Day 9, I wasn’t acutely enthused by the prospect of going to London for Day 10. I hadn’t planned it very well and had a large gap of time from 12.30pm to 4 pm to kill between fixed appointments. I woke up very early 04:36 to be precise, for some reason I do not know. So by the time I got the train station I had that grainy real lack of sleep feeling. Needed to do something about that to ensure my game face was on by the time by first interview came around at 11:00. Readers of previous posts will know I like to listen to the 23 minutes worth of Suppers Ready by Genesis on the train. I find it incredibly relaxing. Not today though I needed loud and heavy. I have about 8 or 9 AC/DC albums on my iPod – shuffle time. And very loud too. I was pleased that the train was pretty empty so I didn’t feel guilty about annoying others.

By the time I got to my first Starbucks of the day I was with it and ready to go. I made sure I was there a good 40 minutes ahead of time. Whether I have been making a sales call in a previous life or going for an interview I have always arrived up to an hour early, found the exact location of where I need to be and then go and find somewhere close by to relax for at least half an hour, with the intention of getting to my appointment 5-10 minutes early. This half an hour is crucial. If hot it allows me to cool down; if wet it gives me a chance to dry of. If all ok, as it was today it gave me a chance to read through and understand the job descriptions one last time in preparation for the interview. There was no point in using the free Wifi at Starbucks to research the company at which I was interviewing – I had done that in advance. If you haven’t done it in good time you are not going to learn it in 30 minutes are you?

Game face on! Here we go. I have to say that this interview was with a Search firm, referred to me by Fiona Lander of Lander Associates (guess where I met her? Yes you guessed it, at a social networking event run by people I’d met online) and who had been retained by a vey large and impressive organisation. One thing that took me by surprise was being asked to fill out an application form. I’ve not filled one of those out for 25 years. I was so impressed by this firm. Not only did a spend a good hour with the owner of the company, but she introduced me to her whole team and asked me to give them a 5-10 minutes presentation to them so that they too understood my background and what I was looking for. I felt important, which I know doesn’t happen with most search or agency firms. They even offered to let me use their office so that I could go online and kill some time! How good is their customer and candidate experience? Whether successful via their efforts or not, I will gladly recommend them to others – once my process is over that is.

I declined their offer as I needed feeding and watering, so headed off to nearest Starbucks for the WiFi. But being lunch they were packed. So had to make do with a Costa instead. I checked email to find I have 4 interviews in my diary for next week. One a new opportunity and three of them will effectively be 3rd, 4th and 5th interviews, separately with their senior Global HR people, for a permanent job I’ve pursued since Day 1. This is a role that I was starting to twitch about as not heard from them for over a week, but I most certainly have now. Not bad at all and not even 1pm yet. As I was sitting down my phone starts to ring, another company, not an agency but a member of The FIRM following up an email exchange, calling to discuss a potential contract opportunity with them. 20 minutes later we finished the call by arranging to meet next week to discuss further. What a great few minutes. Coffee and Panini now cold but was I bothered?

I had two further calls whilst in the coffee shop, both to do with The FIRM and potential sponsorship of events. I had to check the date again – yes, still Friday 13th.

Three hours to kill and by now it was raining – really really raining hard and for all my preparedness I did not have an umbrella with me. Oh well only one thing for it – go spend half an hour waiting it out buying shoes! All very SATC aren’t I? But not sure black brogues are much to get excited about.

For my next interview I had to get across to the other side of London, but still with plenty of time, thankfully the rain had abated so was able to get to the Tube without getting wet.

Another location and another Starbucks. Result here too. I charged up my Starbuck card with £20 and got a free coffee into the bargain, a seat and free WiFi. I had less than an hour. First inkling that the date was going to get me was that I couldn’t check in to the location using 4square. Haha not a big deal is it.

Now I had a 10 minute walk to the company at which I was interviewing, so had to be sure not to rush. Oh yes it was raining, a drizzle but that light rain that makes you feel damp and raises the humidity level so that you add sweat to the mix too – how comfortable will I be in the interview? Good job I got there with 15 minutes to spare and was able to cool down, dry off (a little) and use the facilities to tidy up.

I had a really good interview with another member of The FIRM who has some really exciting plans and an exciting position, but we both agreed that the journey to their location each day was likely to be too much to be conducive for long term peak performance. I wasn’t disappointed and I hope neither was he. It is always good to attend interviews; you will learn more about the job and in qualifying it fully it might be perfect; you could also learn something about yourself and your behaviors in an interview – ready for the next one.

By the time I left for the walk back to the Tube it was raining very hard. I got soaked. It didn’t matter I was going home. I certainly wasn’t in a Jason kind of mood and slaughter wasn’t on he agenda no matter what the train was like. 2 hours later I was home and a very exciting and fruitful Day 10 was at an end.

Music of the Day – Fairies Wear Boots by Black Sabbath

Friday 13th didn’t get me and even getting as wet as I did it didn’t dampen my spirits at all.

Must remember to take suit to cleaners! I expect it will get a bit more use and the others I have are not interview quality. We all have a suit we feel more confident it, don’t we?

Thanks for all the continued good wishes and support, thanks for reading and have a good weekend.

2010
08/14
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Deep Breathing and a Breath of Reality – Day 9

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After yesterday’s (ok earlier today but still Day 8 ) comments about optimism, disappointment and realistic expectations it won’t surprise you to know that I was a bit frustrated today with a feeling of impatience and yes, a little disappointment. This was despite reflection and writing Day 8 first thing today. Maybe it was to be expected.

Therefore once I had finished the writing of Day 8, I needed to blow off some steam. I am lucky to live in real rural countryside. I have no neighbours and no roads nearby. Access to my house is via a farm track that has a tendency to wash away in heavy rain. The point is when I step out of my house I am straight into open country and know I will be crowded if I see another person in the distance. I had planned a walk of about 5-6k at full speed walk; up hill, down dale and through the woods. With some exercises at about half way. It did the trick, always does.

I had a number of calls this morning all of which helped to raise my spirits and put a proper perspective on things, two of which came when I was on my walk. Not only did this give me an excuse to do some serious heavy breathing down the phone, but I had a good laugh at the same time. Thanks Lisa, thanks Emma.

The rest of the morning was spent on other calls and tasks, but by the time 2pm had come around and I hadn’t really done too much by way progressing #myjobhunt, and was finding it hard to be inspired today. Maybe it was time for a short day.

I did have a couple of really great chats with couple of CEO’s that I had been introduced to by friends of mine in the recruiting business. However good they were, I had a bee in my bonnet, “must find work”, “must find work today”. I was losing focus.

In Day 8 I said that it was important to take two steps forward for every setback. Today was one of those days when I couldn’t find the two steps forward.

I logged off and concluded the job searching for the day. Or had I? About 5pm it was time for a real finish and to go out. I took my phone with me. This was the best decision I had made all week, taking the phone that is. Whilst I was out I received a phone call from someone I had met at previous networking meetings and follow on Twitter. What a call it was, a real eye opener with a potential opportunity that sounded like a brilliant idea. More on this next week, I hope. I had by this time ventured into the local (well 12 miles away) Waitrose. I was so distracted by this call that I loaded up the belt at checkout only to realise I had nowhere near all of the items I needed. Reloaded the trolley and off I went again. Made the lady of check out laugh.

Then on getting home, my inbox is full of emails; 2 interview confirmations for tomorrow, 1 lovely email of support from someone in the USA, a VP at a large US securities firm, and a promise of a telephone interview from one of the contacts made on Day 8.

The only real downer for the day was on getting to Waitrose and checking in on 4square I was horrified to find out I was no longer mayor. There’s loyalty for you. Bugger.

Music of the Day – Jeepster by Marc Bolan & T-Rex

Two things I have learned today. Don’t give up and when you are job hunting be available 24/7 and don’t leave your phone at home, you never know who will call or when.

The other thing of great importance to me personally was a reflection, inspired by my wife, on how I felt today relative to the previous Days. For the best part of today I was disappointed because nothing positive had happened, but then I hadn’t had a negative either. So I shouldn’t have been disappointed. The major part of today was a normal day when job hunting. On reflection it had been Days 1 through 8 that had been unusual with the amount of positive news and action. I had been fortunate and need to recognise that balance is important and positivity is crucial.

Tomorrow I have two interviews for permanent jobs and a potential telephone interview for contact position and if I don’t blow any of them it will be a good end to the week.

Thanks for reading.

2010
08/12
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1 Step Backwards – 2 Steps Forwards – Day 8

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This is supposed to be my Day 8, but due to social activities at the end of said day I have to write it at the very start of Day 9 and before I do anything else.

It is hard to reflect on Day 8 and get myself into the right frame of mind to write about it. 2-3 minutes jotting down all of the key points from yesterday put some order to it though and a different perspective.

It has to be said that didn’t enjoy the first few hours. It was spent doing a load of housekeeping, filing (yeah right, binned most of it! – sorry recycled, ok?), and general organisation ready for some calls I had to make and others I was looking forward to receiving after 10am.

Whilst I was doing all of this I was keeping an eye on an evolving discussion on The FIRM’s discussion board. It was around In-House v’s RPO (or outsourcing). Some great thoughts and opinions, all of them of value and all of them from a perspective of experience or objective thought. There is a great analogy used about Whisky to highlight how and why an RPO engagement will or wont work; to paraphrase, “it’s not the drink but the drinker that has the problem!” I like it.

There are parts of the discussion that touched upon the “will I, wont I” work for an RPO organisation question which as you might expect is in my mind at the moment. I can see clearly where and how RPO engagement will add significant value and clearly understand how it will prove problematic. It also has to do very much with the willingness of the suppler to add value to the customer and its internal business units, rather than just making money out of the deal, as well as the willingness of the customer and the disparate hiring communities to fully engage with the RPO provider, as if they are part of the organisation. I know of the best and the worst of these.

The whole discussion has opened the door further for an idea I had last week during my conversation with APSCo, Day 4 I think it was. More on this in the next few days I am sure.

Then serendipity played its part as an RPO vendor, well its Biz Dev Manager, with whom I had never had any direct communication called out of blue. He called because he’d heard that I am looking for a new position – it is so fantastic how word spreads and where it spreads to. Whilst the job he wanted to discuss wasn’t what I was looking for, the call did give me the opportunity to discuss RPO and what they thought of joining in the aforementioned discussion, albeit external to The FIRM. Again more on this in the next few days.

One of the early calls I had been expecting was for an interview, for a contract position. My expectations were high for this call for no other reason that it sounded good and I was referred in. However I have some work to do to secure this one. That’s fine, it will be better for it.

I also had a call from a chap at another agency. This came about as a direct result of one of his colleagues following me on Twitter and reading this blog. Does make you want to shake people who resist Social Media as a valid branding and communication medium and sourcing tool, doesn’t it?

I had a lot of good calls and email exchanges, some of which were with people who are in the same situation as me, i.e. looking for their next job. Some of them have been out of work for a while and others not even a day. All I can say to those that might be struggling, is don’t sit back and wait for the jobs to find you. They won’t! I was encouraged for my own circumstances, by others who are also finding opportunities to pursue, it does seem the job market for the in-house recruiting types is very good at all levels at the moment, if you know how to promote yourself and find them! That’s the key.

At this point I think is worth pointing out that I have had a couple of knock backs already. The reasons for these knock backs; lack of a degree, (as if that really matters, with over 28 year of “real world” experience to my credit!). The vacancy is cancelled – frustrating for all those involved who have put work into it and poor process. More on this as time goes by, you can bet on it. Whilst disappointed I am not surprised, it has to happen; the important thing for me personally is to ensure for every rejection I get I have to have 1 or 2 new opportunities started to keep the positivity going and keep advancing the cause. Today I had three new ones come my way.

What have I learned today? – In a conversation I had at the end of the day, with someone who I met through Twitter who now has become a very good friend, I was reminded that whilst I want #myjobhunt to be a sprint, it could well be a marathon and a much harder challenge. The first 8 days have been very positive and full of optimism and I have no reason to be negative, but it doesn’t hurt to set the right level of expectations for myself does it?

Music of the Day – Breaking into Heaven Stone Roses

2010
08/12
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It’s Raining, It’s Pouring but i aint Snoring! -Day 7

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Day 7 rocked to the foundations, despite a very slow and groggy start.

Get up, coffee on and fire up laptop getting ready to go. Raining harder and steadier than we’ve seen in months and it doesn’t look like it is in a hurry to pass by either. No way I’m going out to feed the chickens in that! I reconcile this with the fact that I know they won’t want to leave their shelter and brave the rain just to get to the feeder, will they!

First task on the “work” list is to review all of those wanting to join The FIRM. I get a little sadistic pleasure in rejecting some of them – yeah as if it means anything!

So added a few today. It’s steady and then onto the next task. Finalising the newsletter. We send out a newsletter to all global members of The FIRM during the first week of the month with update and news. Emma did most of the work as always but just needed me to add a couple of items that had come to me at the last minute. This took a few hours to format and was ready to go out later in the day. I think each month we get better at it. We now feature a blog of the month; no it’s not me but Jim Stroud this month as well as a write up on a diversity event by one of the members. Plus the usual selection of offers for our members.

All of that and answering emails that had come in overnight had taken me to lunch time in the blink of an eye. Time then to start applying myself to #myjobhunt.

I was frustrated first thing not to have received emails I was expecting from a couple of people. Once I thought about it and looked closer I found them both in my spam filter. Why does that happen to legit emails? Then I remembered I have a new PC and the AV software purchased with it needs configuring. No guesses which one I have and trust :). So all tidied up and both emails responded to. Fingers crossed they will lead to something; one of them was confirmation for a 2nd interview. Phew! Time and date for that one was added to the calendar late in the day. Good news.

At the risk of repeating myself it still surprises me how many people contacted me today out of the blue, some of them I haven’t had much dialogue with before, wishing me well or just for a general chat. I got a message from someone who I’ve followed on Twitter and who has followed me back for sometime, but we’ve never communicated outside of Twitter. Very pleasant exchange. Interesting too to hear how she obtained her current contract assignment. Very encouraging. There was also a message in my LinkedIn inbox from another who wanted to keep my brain active with an idea around recruiting. Sounds intriguing and I am looking forward to exploring that one further. I don’t mind if these conversations or email exchanges as well as the others that I have, are not directly about jobs or work for me, it is just good to speak with like-minded people active in the recruiting space.

By about 14:30 in the afternoon I hadn’t really done too much that many would call job hunting. I think I had though – I’d had real or online exchanges with close to twenty people already.

Now, what I haven’t explained is that I do not get a cell phone signal in my house. On previous days when I’ve said to my wife that am going to the office, I have meant the vegetable garden, 50 metres up-hill from the house. I get a signal up there you see. This is ok until it rains. Like yesterday; a 40 minute conversation with someone left me feeling quite good, so I came down the slope without care; feet slid from under me and I landed hard. Luckily on my most padded bit (no not my head!). Not so lucky it was straight into a bed of nettles. So the garden is the office on good days and not suitable on rainy days, and with it coming down for Noah today, I have to drive up the lane to the top of the hill and park up. As soon as I do the calls start coming in. Initially voicemails, but then as I am returning those calls more messages are left. By the time I had returned to the house I had spoken with 2 Search firms, applied for one contract position, offered to help with referrals for another and confirmed one interview.

That was a very fast and very productive hour. On my return to the house there is an email from someone in The FIRM outlining a position that looks ideal for me, both in terms of location and content. It is via an agency that contacted her but since she is in my online network, it is allowed.

The day closes with the newsletter being sent out and feedback, as well as input, coming back to us.

The one negative of the day is the reflection that I hadn’t heard from anyone in respect of two jobs I had applied for on Day 1, other than an auto reply. Not surprising given that both were via agencies. Do I name and shame them? I am inclined to do so but want to sleep on it and hear your thoughts. It is a constant complaint in the market. We all know this and strive to ensure we offer better care and service. But here we are with two companies/people who have no respect. I might just out them tomorrow and see what happens – let’s call it part of the experiment shall we?

Music of the Day – India/Mountain Time, Joe Bonamassa

That’s it. Thanks for reading.

2010
08/10
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End-to-End Recruitment Lifecycle Management
Job Hunting
Networking
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Mondays; Another Start to New Opportunities -Day 6

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Oh! it's a rock.

I hear you asking “where did Day 6 go” on Saturday? Well it went fishing; yup I had a day off from #myjobhunt

And a very pleasant 7 hours it was too. The fish thought so too, they were quite comfortable at the bottom of the lake, not giving my flies a second glance. Well one did and I bet all its buddies were having a right laugh at it. They knew better.

Yesterday was spent more on the customisation and configuration of my new laptop. All working well so far.

So today, Monday 9th Aug is Day 6 in job hunting terms.

Interesting though that the start of the day was still related to my PC. In Day 5 I commented on my poor customer experience at a retailer and kindly asked any of their recruiters reading to pass along my comments. What do you know; one of them was reading and contacted me. There followed a brief exchange of emails and my thoughts veered towards the correlation between the consumers’ customer experience and the candidate experience. I’ve written about this before but it is so very important that everything we do as recruiters ensures the very best candidate experience. In the consumer world candidates are customers and we all know how fickle we can be as consumers. Repairing a bad experience is hard enough as a retailer, but repairing damage done through poor candidate care is almost impossible to rectify and stop from spreading virally.

I was pleased to see further messages from others wishing me well and offering support. These messages of good wishes do mean so much and are always a pleasure to read. Most welcome thank you.

As many will know I co-organise The Forum for In House Recruitment Managers, or The FIRM as it commonly called and having time to spare I am doing a lot of work on this project as well. Yesterday we announced a webinar for early September “Social Media & Employer Brand” and by 0830 this morning there were a considerable number of members booked in. Any subject that involves the use of or impact of Social Media is useful and looking forward to this one.

One idea we are playing with is a schedule of events; both half day and full day sessions for members. I have had immediate thoughts for one centred on the value and use of RPO by organisations. Will be looking to explore that idea further. If anyone has thoughts on this I’d be happy to discuss. My contact details are in the Contact Me pageI also explored more selfish avenues, specifically a consulting services offering. I had a couple of discussions on this with people who I have known for some time and who might be potential customers to see if the concept would work. I was pleased to say that not only was the concept met with enthusiasm, but they were generous enough of offer welcome advice about what to focus on and how to implement the ideas. Will spend bit more time on this in the next day or two and no doubt will write about it at some point. It is not my priority at this time but I need a backup plan, just in case.

Over the weekend I received 2 emails from companies making introductions to others within their organisations with a view to discussing possibilities and options. These were followed up without delay and appointments made for this week and next. The diary is filling up.

The point is to explore everything that is a realistic option. I know I have mentioned this before but no harm in reminding myself of it. Have to stay grounded and focused.

I also had a preliminary telephone interview for one of the jobs I was approached about last week and hope to be able to progress that one. A new opportunity in London has also presented itself to me today and whilst on the surface it doesn’t look ideal, I still want to know more; just to be sure I am not being hasty.

Music of the Day – The Lark Ascending, Ralph Vaughan Williams

Yes I know not my usual Rock n Roll – but listen to it – one of the great pieces of music – and I mean EVER!!

Lesson of the day – don’t expect others to run at the same pace as you if you don’t let them know that you’ve started the race! They will only feel marginalized and frustrated. Don’t take anything or anyone for granted, qualify everything and communicate with everyone. Sorry.

2010
08/09
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