I enjoyed a really nice bottle of Cabernet last night, and it suddenly occurred to me that the similarities with great candidates were striking. Both take a great deal of effort to produce on the front end, not to mention the right timing and conditions. But if the end consumer doesn’t time their intake properly, both wine and candidates spoil and turn into wasted effort and money. Of course shelf life varies widely, and this is where the two really depart.

With candidates, we can continue to have input and develop the relationship, but that only goes just so far. At some point, especially with great candidates, there has to be some interaction with a hiring authority which results in a line of sight to an opportunity. If not, they’ll spoil and find opportunity elsewhere.

Are you filing great candidates in the “I’ll have to get to it later” folder? Is that really in your best interest? Does it produce the best return on your investment in generating those candidates?

Just my 2 cents…well, $45 actually…and a little food for thought.

BTW, it was a 2005 Joseph Phelps Napa Valley Cab. Great now and should develop nicely over the next several years!

Make it a great day!

A word of warning to all of you FaceBookers out there that may soon be looking for a new job. Knock knock…”We can see you!”. Example, you just graduated from college and you want to get that dream job. You apply for positions at a few companies and you do not get the job though you seem really qualified for. Why you ask?!? Because perspective employers are using the likes of FaceBook, MySpace and other “personal” sites to get a little better look at who they are about to hire. Do you really want a soon to be manager looking at pictures of you getting wasted at a fraternity party? See you later job offer! BYE BYE! To avoid this, #1 Keep it clean or #2, Keep your profile “exclusive” and/or private to select friends. Good luck and happy FaceBooking!

It’s ALL in the Details – From a Recruiter’s perspective

What do we recruiters need to know to help find that perfect candidate for our clients?  Is more information or less information better? Is just a job description enough?  Well for me, a recruiter at a contract research recruiting firm, partnering with our clients is almost as if we work at their site.  We are actually an extension of their recruitment team and sharing the right information is key to our success. 

Sure, job descriptions are important and yes, all the technical requirements are a must have to find the right candidates, but honestly it’s not enough. Clients need to provide details such as:

-why the positions are open
-team or department structure
-details on hiring manager (his/her management style)
-expectations
-what the team lacks
-how long positions are open
- challenges as to why they have not been able to fill the position on their own to date

I can go on and on; you get my drift, right?  Details!!!  Speaking to a hiring manager is also a bonus; his/her version of the position and ideal candidate provides incredible insight.  Sharing their knowledge, what he/she really is looking for, what the must haves are for this candidate, what he/she is willing to bend on or be flexible on is very valuable.  This type of information can’t be picked up from a job description alone. So yes, hiring managers on intake calls should be a RULE.

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It was well over a years worth of hype that I resisted before joining the popular social networking site, Facebook.  One of Facebook’s top competitors, LinkedIn, has been my primary selection of social networking for a few years now.  Through my experiences with these two sites it’s been made certain to me that both have slightly different purposes that can make a huge difference to their users which should be considered when building a network.

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Here’s a simple tip to help increase your ROI on Candidate Development (CD) projects, and make your recruiting efforts more proactive.

I should point out that it is still important to maintain a fairly tight focus on the criteria for the position(s) that initiated the CD project, in order to produce the kinds of people you seek to fill that opening. However, in every search we generate people/resumes/leads that are close but not quite a fit for the current opening.

In some cases people are too junior or too senior. Or they might not have all of the skills/experience that you were looking for in this specific position. Then again, we might also come across people that work in the same department, but have a totally different role. In each of these situations, these people might just be the exact person you’re looking for on another search in the future. Or perhaps they’re the perfect fit for another hiring manager in your company. And if we’re targeting specific competitors/companies where you normally find and hire good talent, then they are definitely worth capturing.

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