Recruiters vs. Candidates Dont Burn Bridges, Build Them

Recruiters vs. Candidates Dont Burn Bridges, Build Them Two questions for both recruiters and candidates: How do you treat others? Do you treat them how you would like to be treated? Maybe it should be obvious that you don’t want to burn a bridge with a recruiter, or a recruiter with a candidate  Over these past 20 years, I’ve become curious about human behavior in this industry of talent advancement. Here are some tips for both recruiters and talent to help everyone realize how they can prevent burning a bridge and further develop a much sought-after soft skill: Say thank you You’ve just given the other person 30 minutes of your life. Let’s start with something really basic from our childhood; saying thank you. It’s a really basic courtesy and sometimes people fail to say two small words that can make a huge impact on your interactions with people and how people perceive you. I was once told that in life you can never go wrong by expressing gratitude. In fact, it has a huge mental upside when you regularly demonstrate gratitude. When you are in the market for a new job, or seeking to advance your career, impressions speak volumes especially among those who don’t have a lot of time to get to know the real you.  Recruiters who are working at the speed of light, take that moment to thank the person who just spent time sharing their life goals with you. Say it genuinely. It takes only two seconds. Dont lie Do not lie to your recruiter about your experience. And recruiters, do not lie to the candidate about the role, the salary range or anything (as candidates will burn your bridges for other candidates with you, or worse, jeopardize a recruiters reputation). Firstly, lying results in lost of trust and falling out of favor. You also risk making the other party look bad if your lie becomes discovered by the company. In short, you’ve just jeopardized everyone’s reputation. People don’t react well to that type of situation. Candidates; remember a good recruiter will help you strategize around areas of concern if you are otherwise a strong candidate.  And recruiters, if the salary is $200K and the candidate’s base is $500K, don’t lie to them to get them through the door.   No one gets through their entire career unscathed, and mistakes do happen. With the recruitment process, honesty really is the best policy with everyone. Never underestimate the power of honesty in winning an ally. Every area for concern can become a positive development when properly framed. Stay confidential Can you handle sensitive information carefully? When dealing with a senior-level position, the ability to handle confidential information is critical, from both the recruiter and candidate.   Corporations need leaders and recruiters who can maneuver difficult, sensitive situations and maintain confidence. When you are interviewing, you may become privy to a lot of  information that is not to be shared even with your spouse or mother! You can consider it as a direct test of how effective you really are as a leader or a recruiter. People who gossip and share secrets about the organization, product or talent are usually insecure, and clearly lacking the  emotional maturity needed to manage such a high level of responsibility. Be warned recruiters will also turn away from candidates whos  professional reputation is that of a gossips. Be clear and stay true to your word You need to know what you want, be able to articulate and stick to it. If you are approached for a position or approach a recruiter and go back and forth flip flopping around it won’t reflect well on your personal brand, and ditto for the recruiter and candidate. Time is money. Get to the point and then stick to it. Don’t say yes when you mean no. It’s odd to come across people who stick to their word. It’s a measure of integrity a quality that can be hard to find sometimes. When you behave in a way that demonstrates integrity, you’ve just jumped ahead of most of the competition and that will serve you in the end. People who take a lot of shortcuts without showing respect for the other person in the partnership negatively impact their careers.   It’s worth repeating â€" treat those how you wish to be treated yourself. Clarity, strength, resilience, being upfront and courtesy are among the top soft skills companies want among talent as well as internal and external recruiters. When you demonstrate these qualities in your interactions you avoid burning a bridge improve your communication style, get a better return on investment and keep moving FORWARD. About the author: Caroline Stokes is the  Founder of Forward  Human Capital Solutions. She is an executive career coach and headhunter.  

How to Measure the ROI of Your Employer Brand

How to Measure the ROI of Your Employer Brand Sponsored by Link Humans Calculating the return on investment of your employer brand has notoriously been very tricky. The value and impact of your efforts can be hard track. Therefore justifying investing your companys time, money and resources on your employer brand to your boss  becomes a real issue. As employer branding experts, we know that investing in your employer brand can improve your talent attraction and company culture in so many different ways. But we need to justify this with real data. Traditional methods There are a number of traditional ways to measure your employer branding efforts, here are a few important ones: Retention Rate: How many of your employees are you retaining per year? Employee Engagement: Is there an increase in productivity  of your employees? Quality of Hire: Are you getting an increase of quality applicants? Cost Per Hire: Have you saved money on each hire? Number of applicants:  Has your talent pool increased? Sure these are important and dont completely disregard them, but more often than not these data points are not solely based on your employer brand. Other factors might come into play. You might have a change in your consumer brand focus, that in turn effects of employer brand. Or you might be relocating the business due to unforeseen circumstances. So how do you actually measure your employer brand? For example, how do you measure if your work/life balance is improving, or if your benefits system truly works? Or even more important, how do you measure if the strategies you have put in place to improve your candidate and/or employee experience have actually worked? This is where the Employer Brand Index comes in. It dissects what people are saying online about you as an employer on user-generated sites, such as online forums, social media, and employer review sites, where employees, past and present, feel free to discuss their employers openly, without being in the confines of their office space. The Employer Brand Index categorizes and analyzes these findings into employer branding themes and highlights the specific aspects of your employer brand people are talking about the most, positively or negatively. Numbers matter! The Employer Brand Index then quantifies these findings into a single number on a 1-10 scale, 1 being the best and 10 being the worst, to easily equate what areas work and what areas dont. Because if you then periodically measure these areas over time, you can see how things are changing. You are able to find out if the employer brand objectives and strategies you have put your effort into have actually have benefited your company’s employer brand. It’s critical to know if the time and resources you put into your talent attraction program actually works right?  The Employer Brand Index gives you a single, tangible number you can use to articulate the status of your employer brand. So what’s the ROI of EBI? Finally, you have a tangible measure of how your Employer Brand ranks in the marketplace as a single number that can be tracked over time. You can use this to justify spend on Employer Brand and can measure the effectiveness of your initiatives. This will save money spent on employer branding efforts and strategies that DON’T work and allows you to focus your budget on those that DO! It will help you identify what your pros and cons as an employer truly are and allows you to concentrate your messaging on the reality rather than assumed core values. The Employer Brand Index action plan will help you form or refresh an EVP that represents your true reputation as an employer and to fix any issues highlighted. Want to have your companys employer brand online reputation evaluated? Learn more here.

3 Ways To Overcome Self-Doubt and Boost Your Confidence - Classy Career Girl

3 Ways To Overcome Self-Doubt and Boost Your Confidence Who am I to speak on this stage at this level? Who am I to have a translator and to have their hair and makeup done and flown my husband and daughter down to Brazil? Impostor Syndrome: is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. 3 Ways To Overcome Self-Doubt and Boost Your Confidence My coach told me that it never goes away. As soon as you hit one level, there’s another level that you need to break through and scarier things, and she was so right. If I could do that, I can do anything. Give me any stage; I’ll nail it. It’s also how I feel about childbirth, I had a lot of self-doubt about the labor process and going into it I really wanted a natural childbirth for both of my daughters. Even with personal things like childbirth the same steps apply. I’ll talk more about childbirth at the end of this podcast, in case you could care less. Subscribe to the podcast on  your favorite platform below: iTunes Google Play Music Stitcher Radio TuneIn iHeartRadio Sound Cloud Positive Thoughts Affirmations. Read them morning and night. Next episode I’m going to do an entire episode about this. So I’m not going to go into detail on how to create  them I’m just going to tell you to do them today. Saying positive things to yourself every single morning and night. It removes that self-doubt from your mind. You can do this. You visualize your success. I am sitting in a coffee shop in Paris working with my husband. I am a happy working mom. If you know your vision, you repeat that those visions are coming true and you say positive things to yourself. I am 100% committed to being the person I need to be. I will become the successful person that I know I can be. Shut Out the Noise There’s so much distraction these days online. Getting rid of the noise is so important. Unsubscribe, unfollow, and delete those people that make you feel jealous or not good enough. Unfollow the people you feel competitive or like you will never be good enough to be like. Keep following the people who are positive and make you feel inspired. Get rid of every distraction that is giving you self-doubt. I used to follow a lady I never felt good enough for. She actually instilled self-doubt in me. I told her that my husband had quit his job and was working for me and she said how’s that working for you and laughed. I had to unfollow her everywhere because it really brought me down and was someone I admired. The same thing happened with another coach I spoke with, and he asked me how many members I wanted to help launch their dream careers and businesses by the end of the year and when I told him he said I should lower my number. Don’t Do It Alone Mastermind group. Accountability partner. Coach. Friend. Tell someone your dreams. I remember three years ago telling my mastermind group I wanted to create physical products and the fact that they believed me really helped me believe that I could do this and it was possible. One of my mentors Stu McLaren has also been really encouraging. I can’t wait to tell him how our membership sites are doing because he is constantly cheering me on. He’s featured our story as a success story so it makes me strive for more success because I know he’s cheering me on from afar. As far as childbirth goes, I followed these same three tips. I kept positive and only read encouraging stories about natural labor and tried not to listen to people’s negative experiences which I knew so much of. I shut out the noise and got into a group of other women who wanted natural childbirths. You Might Also Enjoy These Episodes Decrease Overwhelm: The 5 Biggest Time Management Mistakes How to Stay Organized  

How to Keep Control of the Recruitment Process

How to Keep Control of the Recruitment Process Something that doesn’t get enough attention when thinking about recruitment, is that for the majority of people who attend an interview with your business it will be their only direct interaction with your company. How they are treated throughout that process, good or bad, will form not only their view of your business but indirectly your ability to attract good people in the future. The most common complaints candidates make about a recruitment process are: They didn’t receive any feedback from the interview; The process dragged on; If they had known more about the role they wouldn’t have attended the interview and the interview was a waste of time; All of which are  very avoidable if you take some time to effectively plan the recruitment process. The key areas you need to think about when planning your recruitment include: Time Frame; Recruitment Strategy; Job Description; Interview Process Feedback; Offer, Contracts and Induction Period; Time Frame Setting a time frame is important because it gives everyone a deadline to work towards and it will help you: Differentiate between what is desirable criteria and what is essential criteria; Determine what kind of process you need to run; and Create a sense of urgency; A simple start point is: State date â€" X; Offer accepted, and resignation â€" Allow for 28 days (in most cases for permanent positions); Offer made and contract out to candidate â€" Allow for 2 days; Final Interview â€" Allow for 1 day; Each interview prior to that â€" Allow for up to a week; Short list â€" Allow for up to a week between short list and first interview; Search stage â€" Allow for 2 weeks; Brief agency / internal recruitment team; As you can see, assuming a 2 interview process and not allowing for any adjustments in the search parameters or testing, you are looking at 8 weeks between when you brief an agency to when the new hire starts. Some easy ways to reduce this time is: Agree interview times for each interview stage â€" If you do this the recruiter will prepare each candidate that they need to keep times free to attend future interviews; Use a specialist recruiter â€" Most specialist recruiters will have short lists of 3 ready to go for positions they regularly recruit. Meaning you can ask to meet there best 3 while they undertake a search specific for your role; If there is a risk that you will need to adjust the search criteria, you can run 2 processes at once, that is meet candidates that fit the ideal candidate profile and those that fit just the essential criteria of the role; Making the above adjustment to run an efficient process will reduce the time it takes for you to fill a given position and creates a real sense of urgency which candidates and recruiter alike respond well to. Recruitment Strategy Assuming you decide to use a recruiter there are, broadly speaking, 3 ways of engaging with an agency: Contingent search; Exclusive search; Retained search; Contingent Search: A contingent search is when you agree with a recruitment agency that a fee will only be paid should said agency introduce a candidate you hire. Contingent recruitment is by far the most widely used method because it allows businesses the advantage of using the network of multiple agencies without any initial financial commitment. Beware though, there are a few problems with using multiple agencies, including: Lack of consistency. By that I mean you are less likely to see change or continuous improvement in candidates presented if 5 first round interviews are through 5 different recruiters, than if they are through the 1 recruiter, because you can only provide feedback on an individual rather than the group; Time lost giving feedback to multiple agencies, less likely to give constructive feedback leading to lower satisfaction of those who participated in the process; Candidates are often approached by multiple agencies for the same role, leading to confusion and often lower levels of engagement; Low level of engagement from recruiters, a recruiter is far less likely to invest time because they will have other jobs that are more likely to see a return on that investment. Exclusive search: An exclusive search is, as far as a client’s financial commitment is concerned, a contingent search. The main difference being the client agrees to give an agency X amount of time to fill a position before they will accept applications from anyone else. The most important thing from a recruiter’s point of view is that there is a high level of engagement from the client, which usually means: Meeting with the hiring manager and HR where applicable; Commitment from the business to meet X amount of candidates through them before making a hiring decision; Agreed interview times and days; Exclusive agreements are a good strategy for the majority of positions, including high volume positions  because: High level of engagement and accountability â€" The recruiter will feel as though they are a very realistic chance of filling the position so will prioritise exclusive positions over contingent. Continuous improvement â€" Feedback on CV’s and interviews are going through the one person, so you are more likely to get continuous improvement rather than repetition of mistakes as you might when dealing with multiple agencies; Candidate engagement â€" You will you be more likely to give useful feedback to everyone who participates in the process. In addition to this candidates actually respond better if they believe a position is exclusive to an agency because it creates a sense of scarcity, by that I mean better to be 1 of 5 on a short list than 1 of 5 of 5 shortlists; Time efficient â€" Using a single agency will mean fewer interviews, fewer phone calls and as a consequence of this a quicker turn around; Retained Search: A retained agreement is when you agree to pay an agency part of the fee up front, part on deliver of short list and part on placement of candidates. The more specialised the role, or the fewer candidates that exist who could do the job, the better off you are using a retained search because: Specialised positions require a significant investment of time from a recruiter and, as a recruiter; if I can’t place this person somewhere else then it becomes a question of whether this is a worthwhile investment of time; Retainers carry more initial financial risk than contingent and exclusive searches, however will deliver better results for the same reasons as an exclusive search with the additional benefit: The recruiter knows they will get paid, they will prioritise filling a retained search over every other job they are recruiting for that reason; If you have used a recruiter before and trust that they will be able to fill a job, retained search is without a doubt the most effective recruitment strategy. Job Description Despite having the ability to add a significant amount of value to the recruitment process, job descriptions are often at worst neglected and at best generic. While it is probably the last thing you want to allocate time to, especially if someone has just resigned, taking the time to prepare a detailed job description will allow you to effectively: Evaluate what is absolutely essential criteria for a position and what is desirable; Help differentiate your job from the 100’s of similar positions on the market; Minimise the risk someone will either interview for, or worse, accept a position with your business that they otherwise wouldnt have had they known more; Give candidates and the recruiter reference material to work off when preparing for an interview or submitting candidates on a short list; As part of the process of putting together a job description, if you do decide to use a recruiter, it is a good idea to sit down with them to get a feel for: What talent is currently available in the market and how realistic your expectations are with respect to time frame and salary; What compromises on the job description and desirable experience you can make to make to secure someone in a shorter amount of time or for lower salary; Options regarding temporary and contract staff to afford you more time to find the perfect candidate; Interview Process Feedback Regardless of if you want 1 interview or 10 interviews the key points you need to address to run a successful interview process include: Setting clear expectations of exactly what each candidate will need to complete prior to receiving an offer and in what order, i.e. X amount of interviews, technical test, references offer etc; When and where each stage will take place; What information you want to get out of each candidate at each stage, as well as what information you want to give each candidate and at each stage; When feedback will be given to candidates either directly, via a recruiter or HR; Candidates set aside a considerable amount of time to both prepare for and attend an interview, not to mention often arranging time off work to do so.   For that reason it is no surprise that the most common complaint recruiters will get from candidates who attend an interview is that they didn’t receive feedback. Providing constructive feedback to candidates (as well as recruiters) will ensure: Regardless of the outcome candidates will, including unsuccessful ones, exit the process with a positive impression of the business; Candidates that are progressing are able to address any areas of concern in future interviews, giving you more information to make a decision; Provide the recruiter with valuable feedback on the candidates they have presented to the business improving their performance on the current and future roles they recruit for you; Offer, Contracts and Induction Period The most common mistakes that lead to candidates turning down an offer: Salary is less than what they wanted; Candidate’s personal situation changes including being offered a job they are more interested in; Business takes too long to either offer the position or get a contract out to the candidate; If you confirm a candidate’s salary expectations and interest in a position, either directly or through the recruiter, at each stage of the recruitment process the first two mistakes are easily avoidable. If you are in a situation where circumstances have changed and you are simply unable to offer the salary a candidate wants, they are going to feel short changed. Some options to help in this situation include: Agreeing to a salary review after 6 months; Bringing forward participation in bonus pool to first year of employment; Signing bonus; Once you have got the candidate’s verbal acceptance on the offer, you really need to get the contract out to them as quickly as possible. There are a couple of reasons for this: A candidate will not resign until they have received a written contract, delaying the start date; Until a candidate has a written contract, the offer is just a promise and you leave the door open for other businesses to swoop in; Every day that passes candidates will start questioning if the offer is actually coming; I’ve recruited for some of Australia’s largest businesses, some of which, as crazy as it sounds, will never have a contract out in under a week. Candidates can do funny things at offer if they don’t receive a contract quickly, so if you know it is going to take longer than 24 hours you need to organise to contact the candidate directly and explain the situation. It is one thing to hear it from a recruiter it is another to hear it from a hiring manager. Once the offer is accepted, the candidate has resigned the only other tasks remaining to be done are: Call the candidate, let them know you are excited that they are going to be starting with the business; Make sure they have a computer, logins etc ready for day one; Set clear expectations for the probation period; Provide feedback throughout the probation period, even if it is as simple as, “I think you are doing a good job, we will catch up in more detail at the end of the month” I’ll be going into more detail on each stage of the process in future posts so if there is anything that you want further clarification on or have specific examples worth addressing please feel free to get in contact and I’ll do my best to cover them in those posts. Image Credit: Shutterstock

Social Media Spins Too Fast - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

Social Media Spins Too Fast Last week I attended the first Career Thought Leaders conference in Baltimore, a symposium for those of us in the careers industry  â€" career coaches, resume writers, and other career management and job search professionals. Along with workshops on resume writing and coaching,  topics covered included online identity and reputation management. It seemed that most of my colleagues attending had embraced , but some hesitated diving much deeper into social media and building their own online brands. Some either didnt know about or had been ignoring tools like blogging, Google Profiles, ZoomInfo Profiles, Twitter,

A challenge to all managers Do you know your people - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

A challenge to all managers Do you know your people - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Im going to risk provoking business leaders everywhere and state that any leader worth her salt knows how happy her people are at work. This is a leaders most basic responsibility. You shouldnt need to see a pie chart you should know already. The question of ?How happy are people in our organization??? is typically handed over to HR who can then distribute a job satisfaction survey that results in a lot of statistics which can then be sliced and diced in any number of way to produce any number of results. You know ?lies, damned lies and statistics???. Im not saying these surveys are worthless. Wait a minute: I am saying theyre worthless. Theyre a waste of time and money because they very rarely give a company the information or the drive necessary to make positive changes. As I said, you as a leader/manager shouldnt need a survey to know how your people are doing so I challenge you to a simple exercise. It goes like this: Make a list of all the people who report to you. If you cant remember all their names, thats a great place to start :o) Next to each person, put a number from 0-10, based on that persons happiness at work. 0=desperately unhappy, 10=ecstatic. Next to each number write what made you choose that score. What have you observed that person doing/saying/not saying that led you to that particular score. Heres an example of such a chart: Alice Smith 8 Always sounds positive at meetings, continually praises co-workers, greets everyone with a loud, cheerful good morning every day John Wallace 4 Very quiet in meetings, has looked tired for weeks, has called in sick often last three months Mia Jensen ? Good question. Never complains but never looks particularly happy either. Mike Wagner 9 Always cheerful, arranged that great picnic a month ago. Seems friendly with everyone etc.. Can you do it? Can you do it for all of your people or only for some of them? If youre not reasonably confident of all your scores or if youre unable to rate some of your peoples work-happiness add step 3b: Step 3b: Observe your people for a few days to gather more data. Dont tell them what youre doing, just observe them. Dont be weird about it or anything, but take a closer look at your people to find out how happy each of them is. Once you have more data, update your chart. A while back a survey showed that 60% of all managers felt that dealing with their employees took too much time away from their work. Well guess what: Your employees are your work! Your most important responsibility as a manager is to keep them productive. And that all begins with knowing how theyre doing and how happy they are at work. Once youve observed your people and know how theyre doing, you can go to the last step: Step 4: Verify your scores. Have a fifteen-minute chat with each of your people to find out how happy they are. Ask them to rate themselves from 0-10. Also ask them what makes them happy at work and what could make them happier. And dont forget to ask them what they think of how youre doing your job! Do this exercise now and then repeat it periodically. Every three months is great. As I wrote that last paragraph, I could almost hear the collective cry going up from the leaders reading this: I dont have time for your shenanigans I have too much on my plate already. Lets turn that objection upside down: You dont have time not to do it. This will cost you fifteen minutes per employee every three months but it will save you enormous amounts of time because you install an early warning system that tells you when things are starting to go badly for your people instead of when they finally blow up and/or quit. You make them happier at work and your organization/department will reap the benefits. There are two things you need to be prepared for: You may be told things about your leadership that you didnt know and which may not sit well with you. Be open to whatever criticism and/or praise you recieve. You cant possibly act on all the feedback you get, some of which may even conflict, but you need to receive it openly and constructively. Do not get defensive. When criticized ask follow-up questions to make sure youve understood the criticism fully and then thank the person for their honest feedback. You also need to act on the feedback you get, to show people that youre committed to improving as a leader and that youre actually receiving their feedback. Try it and let me know how it goes. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

How To Use A Resume Japanese Writing Service

How To Use A Resume Japanese Writing ServiceIf you are still in the learning stage of learning Japanese, consider using a resume Japanese writing service to give you some additional assistance. Resume Japanese writing services are quite common nowadays since it is easy to search for them online and the various websites that offer such service make the job much easier for you.Resume Japanese writing services provide information about how to write your CV in Japanese. It also helps you get through the entire process of preparing your resume without any problems. You can now be able to send your resume in time for the Japanese selection or interview and get the results that you wanted. You do not have to worry about anything because they are fully prepared and equipped with the knowledge and tools that can help you succeed.It does not matter whether you are a college graduate or a person who has little experience of writing resumes. They will work with you regardless of your previous ex perience and as long as you can communicate the right way to write your resume in Japanese. This can only help you do the job faster and you will be able to prepare your CV faster since you do not have to do any editing.Being a foreign exchange student does not necessarily mean that you should make an effort to be able to learn about Japanese language. You may be only just recently arrived in Japan. But if you find out that you are among those who are really good at reading and writing in Japanese, then why do not you try to utilize a resume Japanese writing service for assistance?In order to submit a CV in Japanese, you have to be able to send an English or a Japanese letter. The letter is going to contain your most important information about yourself and your experience in Japan. However, this letter must contain enough information about your resume. If you want to be able to prepare your resume in time, you should be able to write the letter well and ensure that the information contained in the letter is correct.There are many kinds of resume writing services that are available online so you can choose the one that you think is going to be helpful to you the most. Before you decide on the one that you like, make sure that you have read all the requirements and what you are going to pay for it. It is better to know the terms and conditions of the service that you are going to use.Look around and compare the different service providers and the prices that they are offering. There are usually charges that vary depending on the number of pages that you have to send. Make sure that you are going to pay a reasonable amount so that you can afford to send several CV letters.In the end, a resume Japanese writing service is going to help you prepare your CV in Japanese in the fastest possible time. You can avoid any errors in the preparation of your resume by utilizing the services of a professional.