You will not believe this....

Recently I was attempting to secure a position with a large financial services organization as a Sr Talent Acquisition Specialist. I did what I do and I went to LinkedIn and searched for the VP of Talent Acquisition and called. To my pleasant surprise I was immediately connected to the person, not a voice mail! In the course of my conversation I was told that the organization does not accept phone calls from candidates or resumes sent directly to the recruiters. I was told that if one of the "excellent recruiters on the team" determined that I was a "fit" for the position I would be contacted. This was stated in a very professional cordial manner and I was complimented for my tenacity. I did attempt to overcome the objection to the call and my asking to send a resume directly to a recruiter or calling the recruiter three times and was denied three times, again with the utmost professionalism. I do respect the VP's position. I was informed that because of the volume of applicants that managing individual contacts was unproductive.

Wait, this is a Talent Acquisition position we are discussing correct? Aren't Talent Acquisition professionals tenacious by definition? We hunt, source and seek out new Talent by definition, correct? When I was managing Talent Acquisition pros I was impressed if they called a Sr Manager directly to introduce themselves and the reason for the call. I encouraged and modeled the behavior. I have had a successful career doing this and I have trained others who are currently being successful using this technique among others to the "right thing."

If organizations want to Post and Pray when seeking a specialized talent/skill set so be it. I would be so bold as to say good luck and if you don't want to interview a Talent Acquisition Specialist that is tenacious, then you may want to re-think your Talent Acquisition Strategy or do much praying. Just saying...

Social Recruiting...Good & Bad Guys

This was an excerpt from my thoughts on the @Animal Radio Show http://bit.ly/4khIBF.

I really am searching for what the Social Media Recruiters do and how they do it. Techniques, questions, recruiting skills.

Am I the only one that feels this way? Why do Personal Branding experts choose not to respond to a request for help in leveraging a relationship to facilitate gaining information? Inquiring minds would like to know...just saying.

A Warm Cold Call for the Passive Candidate

I have never liked the phrase Cold Call. When I was trained to become a Recruiter, we learned to use the phrase Warm Call. Well, after all, that is what the inititial call is isn't it? If the call is cold you will, well be cold. The candidate or client for that matter will be cold. It is really that simple. I don't need any "guru" to tell me differently.

I was recently interviewed on the @Animal Radio Show http://snurl.com/fzl4i. During the interview I was asked to Warm Call a Passive Candidate. This was unrehearsed and improvised. Here is the 10 minute audio clip http://cli.gs/coldcall. I will let the clip speak for itself and allow you to think what you would like to. The Passive Candidate is Craig Fisher of http://www.alistsolutions.com/ and @Fishdogs.

Social Recruiting...all that Twitters may not be a Glitter

After I participated in the @animal http://cli.gs/DBSPy9 Radio Show I became more introspective about how I use Social Media as a Social Recruiting tool. What do I use SM for? How do I integrate SM with Full Life Cycle Recruiting? How do I use SM to source new Client Partners and new Human Capital Partners? I am defining SM as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Blogs. I am sure there are more, but for the sake of this article these will suffice. I have my own bias of LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs and telephone with a healthy component of Boolean Searches to glean information.

What happens after I Source Human Capital Partners and Client Partners using all of these SM tools? Is my work completed? Do I simply introduce the two to each other and receive compensation, a multitude of referrals for new business and move to the next project?

I think not. As a Human Capital Specialist I must build a relationship personally with the Human Capital Partner and Client Partner, This relationship is built on trust. I establish this thru frequent, meaningful and professional contact with both parties. I ask the questions embedded with the Power Words "Who, What, Why, Where When and How of both Partners. I discuss with them how I have conducted myself in similar scenarios. I assist them in identifying and defining their challenges and how my brand can meet those challenges by eliciting their buy in. We create a partnership. My skills facilitate this, not SM. SM maybe the delivery mechanism for this, but SM does not make it happen. I use SM as a way of verifying what was agreed upon, better said I use email to verify and validate the level of commitment of all involved. I use the telephone to actually build the relationships with my Partners, wow what a surprise-:)! A series of in person meetings when possible is the best way, but present day logistics make this challenging. Together with my Partners we measure our progress, make adjustments and achieve our mutual goal; the hire.

My skills at asking questions as a Human Capital Specialist, which include the use of Social Media, may qualify me as a Social Recruiter. But I was successfully recruiting by using my social skills long before the Social Media tools existed as many of you were. Now we have evolved and adapted. Social Darwinism applied to Human Capital Acquisition and Client Partner development?

That is my take.

Some Thoughts on Social Recruiting

In case you have not heard, there is a Group on Twitter #socialrecruiting. This appears to be have been spawned by @dmanaster of ERE fame and @scottbaxt as far as I can determine. Another great site for this @socrecruiting. Follow these people and Sites.

This is a terrific and timely idea for the direction that the two disciplines of Social Media are heading or should I say colliding. This could very well be the “Big Bang” theory we have been seeking in Social Media and Recruiting.

How do we leverage the best of both disciplines? I have some thoughts. These thoughts are mine and in no way reflect the thoughts of anyone mentioned in this brief paper aimed at stimulating discussion.

We need to partner with the Social Media influencers and all of the experts in Social Media to leverage their clients for us to have an impact on Social Recruiting. We need a workable alliance of SM and Recruiting voices to develop an infrastructure that will allow us all to be successful in providing high quality cost effective solutions to our clients for Human Capital Sourcing and Acquisition and Social Media services. The time appears to be right for a radical shift in the thinking of corporate America on how to attract and retain Talent. Much is written about this daily. We need a blueprint and we need builders to execute this blueprint. Social Recruiting can be this blueprint. The manner in which these highly experienced and intelligent professional interact with their clients will enable us to leverage our Recruiting agenda. Without this partnering endorsement and our own efforts and experience in alliance we will have a much more difficult task ahead of us

We need people with strong influential Recruiting voices, who are willing to share their experience. We need the best of both SM and Recruiting for a thesis, antithesis synthesis to occur (my apology to Hegel) for a powerful solution to our challenge. The SM relationships and expertise and our Recruiting relationships and expertise are the mechanism for entry into the conscious of an enlightened Corporate America. We need to identify companies conducting business in the SM space being responsive to their customers by going where their customers are and listening to them. This will be paramount for our collective success.