Meet Ben.

Ben is the currently reigning singleton on ABC’s The Bachelor.

Ben is not unlike you, a recruiter.

Ben has a predicament.

Ben has a gang of women in a heated battle over the opportunity to win his heart and to be the last woman standing at the Final Rose Ceremony.

You have a database full of potential candidates.  One of them could be the last candidate standing in front of your client, winning you your next placement.  But it’s not always easy to get them there.

Ben has a lot going for him. Attractive. Young. Co-owns a winery in Sonoma.

But there’s one thing you have that Ben just ain’t got.

You have access to great technology developed specifically to give you every opportunity to fill your job order.

And with the latest Sendouts release, Version 8.8, this technology has been refined even further to help you make better matches, faster.

If Ben had Sendouts, he’d be more like you.

If Ben had Sendouts, he could automatically choose the women most likely to fit his marriage requirements.

With Sendouts, Ben could keep better tabs on all of the budding relationships with his lady friends. He could easily see which stages all of his relationships were in. If one relationship was moving too slow – reject. If one looked great on paper, and had been approved by his Jack Russel terrier, Scotch, Ben could send her out to interview with the final decider, his mom.

If Ben had Sendouts, he could save weeks of painstaking decisions and bouts of unnecessary heartache over the wrong candidate.

Ben may not find his match. But you will.

With Sendouts, you can automatically select the best candidate matches in your database, track them through the hiring process, and fill the job order. And because much of the process is automated, you can do it all without being bogged down by administrative tasks within the application.

Love can be hit or miss. So stick with Sendouts to make matches that really matter, and add to your bottom line.

_________________________

image from here

Obama on Instagram

A recent article from Forbes delineates a few ways the Obama campaign has been using social media in its political outreach efforts:

• -Fielding questions and speaking with ordinary citizens in a Google+ hangout after last night’s State of the Union address.
• -Holding a Twitter townhall meeting to get a greater sense of voter concerns.
• -Using Instagram to document the campaign trail.

Recruiters have integrated social media into their day-to-day business activities, posting jobs on their networks and sharing content with their followers.  But President Obama’s campaign demonstrates how you can take social media to the next level, using it as a vehicle to drive events and connect with people outside of your network.

Whether you’re attending a job fair or tradeshow, hosting a webinar, or conducting interviews on a college campus, don’t leave your twitter handle behind.  Social media is as big an aspect of the event as renting a booth or booking your flight.

Executing Social Media Events

Unlike holding spontaneous day-to-day conversations with your networks, holding a social media event takes some planning.

The Focus.  What do you want to get out of the event?  Are you curious what technologies your candidates find most effective in their job search?  Or maybe you want to pick the brains of a few thought leaders in your industry.

The Medium.  Choose a platform that will best suit your focus.  If you want to hear from a large pool of candidates, Twitter.  If you want to have a deeper discussion, video chat may be the way to go.

The Moderator.  Choose a moderator who can keep the virtual conversation on-topic.

The Marketing.  Get the word out with other pre-event marketing through press-releases, emails, articles, and print materials.  Let people know why they will benefit from participating, & how they can get involved.

An abandoned shopping cart is THE WORST for online retailers.  So close to making a sale, but the customer just didn’t bite.

Maybe the shopper couldn’t find the shipping costs, and decided to skip it. Maybe an item was out of stock when they went to checkout, so they left the site feeling disappointed. Perhaps they had a question, but it was too difficult to contact someone for an answer.

Getting candidates to apply to your jobs online is exactly the same. They’re shopping for an opportunity, and you want them to apply to yours. But what if the perfect candidate searched for jobs on your site, found an opening that piqued their interest, clicked to apply, and then….dropped off?

Turn strong candidates into applicants, and avoid application abandonment.

Save Every Shopping Cart. Give Candidates a Profile.
Make it easy for candidates to come back to your site and immediately know their place in the recruitment process. Do they have interviews coming up? Are there assessments they can complete online? Is it easy for them to update employment history or skills set? Who is their recruiter, and how do they contact them? Giving candidates an area to keep tabs on their job search keeps them coming back for more.

Display Product Availability. Keep Your Jobs Fresh.
How long has the job been open? In the new economy, the mindset among candidates is that there are a lot of qualified workers available, and jobs go fast. If a job has been open for three months, a candidate may assume that it has been filled by now, or in the later stages of the hiring process, and skip the time investment in filling out an application. So if a job has been hanging out there for a while, re-post it to attract new applicants.

Provide Shipping Costs Upfront. Give Salary Information.
A little transparency can go a long way. Most candidates are capable of self-screening based on salary. Providing the salary range upfront gives applicants a sense if a job is the right fit, and can motivate a passive candidate to take the time to applying, knowing the job fits their requirements.

Make it Easy / Eliminate Lengthy Applications.
It may be convenient to have every single stat on every candidate, but to a passive candidate who isn’t really looking in the first place, a lengthy application process can be an immediate turn-off. Get the basics, but avoid asking for the nitty-gritty, like the name, address, and phone number for their manager from three jobs ago. Save it for round two.

Eliminate Registration. Let Them Apply with LinkedIn.
While a LinkedIn profile may not be as fleshed out as a resume, it still captures basic information about a candidate, and gives you a starting point for building a relationship with them. Widen your applicant pool when you skip the username and password, and let them apply with just a click or two.

Build Trust.
You probably aren’t posting jobs on Craigslist to get top-tier candidates. So don’t operate like some shady Craigslist poster. Return inquiries. Avoid cryptic job descriptions. Make contacting a real person easy.

__________________

inspired by this post.

image from here.

Many companies will be wrapping up their summer internship programs this month as college coeds head back to school.

Is your company taking advantage of its internship program?  As a recruiting and staffing professional, are you targeting internship programs that go above and beyond as a source for up and coming talent?

A solid internship program can be your company’s own microcosm of talent.  On a larger scale, when businesses invest resources in their interns, the economy benefits as a whole.  Integrating the least-senior, and most transient member of your company as a contributing member creates a talent pipeline that feeds your company and the economy.

Great Company Culture – The Wheaties of Internship Programs

A report from J-Intersect looked at the standards by which benchmark internship programs operate.  The keystones of excellent internship programs included:

• Customized, High Value-Add Training
• Developing Brand Through Intern’s Experience
• Benchmarking & Best Practice Collection
• KPI Management & Program Assessment

A great internship program provides the framework in which an intern can develop his or her strengths in a professional environment, identify with and contribute to the company brand, and potentially grow into an outstanding member of the company as a permanent employee.

A company’s culture has a big influence on how internship programs achieve this type of environment.  Internship programs cannot excel without dedicated mentors, training, and development.  A company culture that is built on positive attitudes, cooperation, and helping everyone in the company succeed is fertile ground for benchmark internship programs.  These types of cultures are naturally adept at feeding talent and integrating team members.

Building the Foundation

So if company culture is the foundation of successful internship programs, how do we get there?  Is great culture grown out of perks like free gourmet lunches severed in the cafeteria every day, free child care, and video games in the conference room?  Or do great cultures built on trust and cooperation cultivate an environment that cares about every employee – thus driving awesome perks?

Here are a few factors that contributors on LinkedIn attribute to excellent company culture:

• Low turnover
• Professionalism
• Good mood overall
• Humor
• Give & take between colleagues and employers
• Open mindedness
• Learning mindset
• Engagement
• Discussion of ideas and suggestions
• Trust

Some responses got a little more concrete, mentioning:

• Ping Pong tables
• Fuse ball
• Free soda and snack machines
• Video games
• No drug testing required
• No dress code

Great company culture is expressed in many ways and nurtures companies from top to bottom.  It is also company culture that lays the foundation for creating talent pipelines via internship programs.

Feeding Companies and the Economy

So you’ve built an awesome company culture by eliminating the dress code, providing free snacks, and having an open company forum once a month.  Then you implemented a mutually beneficial internship program in which your interns thrived and produced a viral video ad that got 1 million hits last month.  So how does that help the economy as a whole?

According to the report from J-Intersect the top ten ways summer internship programs that meet their benchmark objectives have a positive impact on society and the economy at large are:

1. Attract better talent
2.  Expand sector’s reach
3.  Improve entrepreneurship
4.  Improve professionalism
5.  Improve sector performance/effectiveness
6.  Develop future sector employees/leaders
7.  Increase contribution to GDP
8.  Increase sector growth
9.  Increase sector funding
10.  Generate innovative and bright ideas

More Than Go-fers

The popular consensus is that opportunity is wasted when internships consist of coffee runs and running copies.

Okay, we did ask Taylor, the Sendouts summer intern, to order milkshakes once to celebrate an internal sales goal.  But that was a one-time deal.

The big picture was that multiple departments contributed to his development, and likewise, he contributed to multiple departments.  He was asked to analyze data, write blog posts, and even create his own mini-marketing campaign.  These were true contributions to Sendouts, and he will have solid evidence of his experience moving forward into the job search.

Interns are bright, they want to succeed, and they offer a unique perspective.  Given the right training, they can quickly adapt to different roles in the company.

Give them the tools they need, beginning with investing the their training.  Provide mentorship, and don’t be afraid to challenge interns and give them ownership of projects.

The Challenge

Nurture a company culture built on trust, use it to feed your internship program, develop a talent pipeline, and watch as interns give back to the economy at large.

Is it that simple?  What challenges do you face when cultivating company culture and talent pipelines?

Do you think that benchmark internship programs can help put people back to work?

This month, among the usual stats on revenue, cost per opportunity, and wait times for support calls, Brian Hopcraft, our President & CEO, referenced an article that appeared last month on ERE.net - "These are Real Lives We're Dealing With".  The article touches upon the important impact recruiters have on people's lives, especially during the difficult job market we are still dealing with.

There is a lot of chatter in the recruiting industry about developing relationships, engaging candidates, and jumping into the next hot social network.  With all the chatter going on, it can be easy to get distracted from the fact that there is more to that list of data you store in your ATS than the next placement. 

Every record represents a candidate who is an actual person with unique story, like

The once-primary-bread-winner who has a lot of working years ahead of him, but is struggling to find a job because he is close to retirement age.

The mom working over-nights at one of the big pharmacy chains, sacrificing time away from her family until a better opportunity comes along.

The young professional stuck in a corporate job where his potential for success is diminished because it just isn't a good fit.

Un & Underemployment have a deep impact on financial health, relationships, and self-identity.  Even as we are learning to tie our shoes, we’re asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Dreams of being a ballerina, an ice cream truck driver, or a fire fighter evolve into hopes of becoming an event coordinator, chain-logistic manager, or lawyer.

Embedded in us from an early age, we learn that careers aren’t just aspirations, they are labels we use to shape our identity.

When we make a placement, we provide people with an opportunity to pin on a shiny new label that they can wear with enthusiasm.

Back to Brian –

So far this year, our clients have placed nearly 45,000 candidates using Sendouts.  Together, we – the vendors, recruiters, HR professionals, hiring managers - have changed the lives of tens of thousands of people.  And, as Brian pointed out, that's about the capacity of Busch Stadium.

That's powerful.  A stadium full of people whose lives have been changed for the better.  All because they worked with a competent recruiter who used a software tool to

1.  Find them

2.  Save them in a record

3.  Connect with them over time

4.  Search them out when the perfect opportunity arose

"Software" and "Recruiting" - two pretty abstract labels.  Both middlemen in a larger process.  But we are integral, and we are changing lives.

So the next time you go to a baseball game, and the Cards are beating the Cubs, and there's not an empty seat in the house - take take it all in.  You can't control who wins the game, but you can have an impact upon every life in the stadium.