ROI Recruiting

Defining Risk

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:47:00 +0000

One of my candidates turned down an offer from our client this past week. The position was remote, and he instead took a position with a local firm, with a lower salary, for a variety of reasons, but the one that seemed to stand out was that he felt more comfortable with a firm close by, a team to work with, and people that he knew. All good reasons for sure. And all the more understandable since he was the in the job market due to a layoff at his prior employer.

I got the impression that it seemed a 'safer' choice to him than the opportunity I presented.

But it got me thinking about risk. For example, people typically view stocks, bonds, commodities, etc as 'riskier' than savings accounts, CD's and other insured deposits. However, financial advisors frequently point out, that there is another type of risk with insured investments, and that is the risk that these 'safe' investments will generate lower returns over time (say 3 or 4% annually), than stocks or bonds, which might generate 5-10%. The risk is that when you retire, you may end up with substantially less with a 'safe' investment, than with a 'risky' one.

The same can be true of career considerations. Taking the safe career path, avoiding the risk of failure, may seem the safer route, certainly more comfortable for many. But after years of looking at resumes, you rarely see executives, business owners, or investors who usually took the 'safe' route. They almost always took risks, took them regularly, and usually made some mistakes along the way. But they typically identified those quickly, made adjustments, and moved on.

In this day of frequent and often surprise corporate acquisitions, divestitures, expansions, contractions, bankruptcies, etc, becoming accustomed to risk and being able to assess it quickly and accurately may be one of the greatest assets a person can have. Seemingly 'safe' choices can turn out not to be, sometimes surprisingly quickly. As with investing, you may find upon retirement that having consistently taken the 'safe' path throughout your career, may not leave you as well off as having taken more risks along the way.

Career Coaching, Career Counseling

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:15:00 +0000

A couple of anecdotes came my way recently regarding 2 related subjects. Career Counselors' (as in an academic career counselor) and paid career coaches or job finders.

One came from Linked In: A fellow had apparently been burned by one of these outfits that claimed to have "the secret to the hidden job market". My take on anything related to career search that you as the candidate pay for: No one has the secret to the hidden job market. Only you know what fits you. The most that these places will do is spam your resume' out to a bunch of recruiters and industry contacts, probably ones that they don't know well or at all.

There are cases where you might pay someone for career help; interview coaching, resume' writing, or other discrete tasks, or training on how to do your own search, research, write cover letters, identify prospects. But the less work that you supposedly have to put into it, the less valuable it will be.

The other example came from a network security candidate, a new college graduate. His career counselor at the college cautioned him against pursuing 'too narrow' a field, like network security, and advised him to take a broader curriculum. He then graduated and contacted us about a network security career, and guess what: he didn't have enough studies in the field. He was extremely upset, and rightfully so; I've never met a career counselor that had enough expertise in multiple fields to be making any kind of specific recommendations on a particular career. What they should do, again, is provide guidance on how the student should go about making a decision, the pro's and con's of a broad vs. a narrow curriculum, statistics on growth in particular fields etc. But I would never caution someone with a passion for a particular area to avoid it. Just the opposite; I think the real path to success lies in pursuing your passion, not just 'finding a job'.

Opinions are a dime a dozen, mine included. Your best career resource is going to be you, when you've studied and researched and evaluated numerous opinions of others. Never rely on one person or entity to make decisions for you.

Another note: My impression is that there are plenty of generalists out there. In any field. I frequently see such people struggling with job changes, finding a fit, etc. Top notch people in any field will rarely have trouble finding work, so your goal should be to be one of them. And just make sure that field is not a dinosaur. If you pick one that turns out to be headed that direction, re-train yourself in something related and growing and move on from there. Again, a top notch person will not have much trouble making the transition.

Your Résumé and ATS Systems

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:14:00 +0000

A small tidbit of advice:

Most recruiters and hiring organizations use some sort of ATS (Applicant Tracking System) today for managing and storing applicant résumés.

Some of these tips have been shared in other places, but it's worth a reminder:

Try and keep the formatting fairly simple; too many tables, boxes, graphics and other creative effects to show off your skills, can get either lost completely, or corrupted, sometimes leaving the document unreadable.

Try and minimize graphics that end up bloating the file size.

Name the attachment something useful; not "Résumé", or the modified date, but your preferred job title (e.g., VP IT Services), or something else descriptive. Many of the ATS systems default to the document name for the title of the record when they are imported, and if the recruiter forgets to edit it, you end up in the system under some undecipherable heading.

Identify preferred locations, travel ability, complete address info, and identify phone numbers as office, home, cell etc so the recruiter can document your info properly and quickly. Make sure to include the info on the Résumé since it is probable it will be separated from the email you sent.

Wallowing in Self Pity

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:05:00 +0000

Evidently the economy is slowing down. I've been slow to see it in ROI's business, but am starting to see the signs of frustration in some groups of candidates.

There's always going to be those who do well more or less regardless of the current economy, and those that struggle regardless. I suppose the difference between a good and bad economy is how it affects the majority.

I posted a new position for a fairly junior level opportunity this week, (2-3 years experience) and was amazed at some of the negative emails regarding the salary (right at market level base on Payscale data.

The position was posted to a regional job forum, where a lot of folks hang out looking for work.

One of the dangers I've seen of a job support type group, is that you have a group of people facing some challenges, and who need above all else to maintain a positive frame of mind, some enthusiasm, etc. Yet, there is a strong tendency, that must be fought vigorously, to wallow in self-pity, complain about this, that or the other thing (in this case companies, the economy, outsourcing, government, recruiters, advertising, H1B visas, NAFTA, politicians, executives, or [add endlesslessly to list here ____].

I've had a number of occasions where I've had an opportunity in an arena where perhaps there aren't many jobs, but with an employer who wants to find a certain someone, etc. And I run across someone. But their cover letter conveys a certain frustration or resentment, or it doesn't, but it comes across when we speak on the phone. So I move on. And they've completed the vicious circle once again, not recognizing that they are the ones once again responsible for their situation.

The last thing I'll do is present someone to a client, that comes across as bitter, or unenthusiastic, or resigned, or whatever. These people need to stay positive and focused, and they need to cull anyone from their circle that doesn't help them do that. Having others telling them they're being 'preyed upon' or 'undervalued' or whatever, is NOT helpful.

No one on this earth is guarenteed a long life, or prosperity, or career satisfaction. You have to work for it. And no other person or company or government is responsible for giving it to you. You have to either find it or create it yourself.

If your situation isn't to your liking, either change it, or shut up and live with it. It's no one else's responsibility to do it for you.

"Poker Tells", Recruiting & Life

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:34:00 +0000

It's funny how a topic can seem to surface repeatedly in a fairly short period of time.

The subject of 'tells', like a poker tell, or behavior that serves as an indicator to others, has popped up several times recently.

Several movies and shows recently touched on the subject:

"Lucky", with Drew Barrymore, Eric Bana, and Robert Duvall, revolves around poker playing, including "tells", both at the poker table, and in life.

"Next", with Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel, stars Cage as a Las Vegas magician of sorts, who makes some side money playing poker using some special abilities.

"2 1/2 Men", with Charlie Sheen, recently had an episode that referred specifically to poker tells, when Charlie was playing cards with his nephew.

About the same time I saw the above, one of ROI's recruiters and I got into a discussion about 'tells' on the part of candidates.

One of the most critical dynamics in recruiting is the give-and-take of information sharing between recruiters and their network. Trying to recruit without trying to sincerely help candidates, doesn't work very well. Likewise, candidates that want you to find them a new job, without helping you, don't provide a lot of motivation to the recruiter.

However, the sharing of information takes at least a little time to develop. I give a little, you give a little, I give a little more, you give a little more.

We've discovered that as long as we, as recruiters, are being reasonably generous with our time, and sharing, that we frequently get a pretty accurate and consistent 'tell' on the quality of the candidate based on how they respond.

Candidates who are a bit insecure, have had sort of average, or bounce around type of careers, or are more junior level, frequently don't want to share information on their contacts and friends. They give the perception of either mistrust, or fear that one of their contacts might win out over them for either a position we are discussing, or some future position, so they don't want to increase their competition.

High caliber candidates, on the other hand, typically have the attitude that there are plenty of jobs out there, the right one will come to me, and I want to help my friends and contacts so they'll help me. If someone I know is a better fit for a position than I am, then they should get it. They are more discerning about positions they go after, are quicker to disqualify themselves when it doesn't seem to be a fit, and frequently volunteer other contacts without even being asked.

Is the Career Becoming more like a Business?

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:01:00 +0000

From Linked In:

Seems to me the obvious answer is yes.

If you look at human history, for all except the last few hundred years, and the last century primarily, most people were responsible for their own income, welfare, health maintenance etc.

It is only recently 'we' (most) started looking at corporations, government, etc for taking care of all of our needs. For a few decades in the US after WWII, people were able to look at lifetime careers in corporations, but personally I think that was the anomaly period. We need to devote more attention in our education system to preparing people to manage their lives and have the ability to create and produce, rather than just check off a bunch of coursework in college, and come out waiting for someone to hand them the rest of their life.

Recession? Where?

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:02:00 +0000

Business is really booming at the moment, but if you listen to the media, doom and gloom is everywhere. There are certainly pockets, the stock market, the real estate market, mortgages (I guess that's a good size chunk isn't it?), but the tech sector seems to me to be still motoring along.

I am getting occasional comments recently from tech people that things are "slow". Seems they aren't feeling the love from recruiters and hiring firms like they have been the last couple years.

ROI currently has more openings than ever, so it almost seems like a bit of a disconnect.

It's funny; people have a love/hate relationship with the recruiting industry sometimes - they want to be called and sought after, but can get annoyed sometimes, and particularly by the wrong recruiters.

On the other hand, when things slow down, they start to wonder why the calls aren't coming in any more.

I get questions from people sometimes about how things are going, what I see happening in the industry as a whole. I pick up a lot of intel talking to people, but I always caveat my responses this way: ROI is small. Our piece of the universe is not that large, and what we see may or may not be representative of the whole. Recruiting is like real estate, where they say "all real estate markets are local"; recruiting tends to be ""local"" in the sense that a particular firm or recruiter's business (which may not be geographically focused) will represent just a small slice of what's going on.

It's not unusual at all for two more or less similar firms in a region to be seeing different results, or even 2 comparable recruiters in the same firm.

Things haven't tanked yet, but there are some signs around.

Going Global

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:39:00 +0000

The world is such today that going global no longer has to even be part of an organization's strategic plan, it can, and will happen without even trying.

I get approached every month by international contacts seeking to form relationships and do business. Numerous RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) companies, mainly from India, have sought out ROI.

I've communicated with numerous overseas candidates, vendors and recruiters. Now ROI has it's first non-US client. Today we held our first in person interview overseas, between a client and candidate based in Canada, both of whom happened to be in London at the time.

Where are you looking for your next business opportunity?

Why ROI?

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:48:00 +0000

Definitions of ROI:

1 Return on Investment: A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments using the ratio of the gain or loss on an investment relative to the amount invested.
2: King (French)
3: One of our dogs, an Australian dingo

Le Roi, Leroi, or more commonly Leroy, a common name, comes from "Le Roi", "The King".

Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Recruiter?

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:04:00 +0000

Do you like working independently?
You will spend most of your time talking with others on the phone, emails, research, developing and maintaining a contact network.

Do you have a lot of self discipline?
You need to be able to devote adequate attention to the various aspects of recruiting – research, finding search orders, finding candidates, screening, following up, negotiating, maintaining your contact database, etc. You cannot focus on certain aspects and neglect others and expect to be successful. Not everyone is equally strong in all areas, but if you are particularly weak in any of them, it will probably impact your success.

Do you have what it takes to overcome adversity and frustration?
Like any sales position, there will be disappointments, busted deals, and things that seem out of your control that impact your success. The fact of the matter is that you can control more than you think, by developing the ability to identify issues early on and avoid them. We can teach you how, but you have to take control and learn. Most people that try recruiting give up after a few months. I would say 75-80% in my experience, 10% achieve some level of success. 5% considerable success, and 1 or 2% spectacular levels, meaning $250K - $1M annually.

Does your financial situation and time horizon make sense?
Depending on variety of factors, it will take time to ramp up. Depending upon your finances, income expectations, age and other factors, are you prepared to commit to this field long enough to make it pay off? If you are used to making $200K annually in your present career, you can achieve that as a recruiter also, however, it may take 2 or 3 or 4 years to get there.

Do you have expertise in a particular industry or function (IT, Finance, Sales, etc) that you can leverage and is that area a good market for recruiting services currently, OR, is there an area which you can and would be motivated to learn that is a good market for recruiting?

Do you have good computer skills, internet skills, google searching, etc?
This isn’t an absolute requirement, but is increasingly helpful in today’s world. There are still recruiters out there who do it all ‘the old fashioned way’ through word of mouth referrals, etc. And frankly, that is still the best way. However, the more tools you have in your toolkit, the more successful you can be, and internet research, and the ability to maintain a database, copy and paste contact info, upload and download documents etc is a part of the job. The more adept you are at these skills, the more useful they are, and the less time consuming.

Copyright 2007 ROI Recruiting

Web Traffic, Advertising, Etc

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:13:00 +0000

I get marketing calls and emails regularly from various firms promising to improve roirecruting.com's web traffic, etc. I ignore them (hope you guys are reading this), because they don't really get what I'm after.

I could care less about raw traffic, or even 'relevant traffic' when relevance is presumed simply because of some keyword match. What I want is really relevant traffic. Many of the firms claim to promise this by some sort of proprietary methodology, use of key words, etc. But I already know that key words are a poor tool for optimizing relevant traffic generation. My website currently says we do mostly hospital IT and IT Network Security, nationwide. But I continually get inquiries for Pawleys Island, or Finance, or Pharmaceutical related, which is not what we do.

I focus my advertising efforts mostly on targeted advertising to professional associations and networks of people that are very specific to my recruiting interests. If I send out information to a group of these people, 50% of the responses may be somewhat relevant to my efforts; at least worth looking at. If I post an ad to a general job board, the relevant response might be 10 or 20%. If I use internet key words and general advertising, it might fall to 2-5%.

When I was with another recruiting agency, we used to have to take turns reviewing all the incoming resumes. Each of us tended to have our own niche of people we recruited. When I was working on responses to my own recruiting efforts, 10-20% of the respondents might be of some interest to me; when it was my turn to review the general company applicants, the usefulness was maybe 1 or 2%. Generally speaking, that effort was actually a waste of time!, because percentages were so low I should've been spending my time working on something else.

Google ad words and similar advertising methods obviously have their place, but be wary of campaigns that generate quantity, but not quality, and in recruiting, quality means placement clients and placement candidates. If you are generating traffic that is just taking up your staff's time and energy, file and email storage, and other resources, you need to re-think your strategy.

Growing

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:35:00 +0000

ROI is coming to a crossroads.

Oct 2007 was our best month in history.

We are currently working with at least 8 active clients, 7 of whom are former placement clients (which means good clients). We have a total of over 50 open positions with those firms. And I just picked up 4 more assignments with a new client today.

It's time to grow.

We've had some sub-contractors working with us part-time, but with this much business, we need to start thinking about some full-time help. The question is: what kind? An experienced full-cycle recruiter? If so, can I find someone I will be comfortable with handing off some of my near and dear clients? (not so sure about that). If I hire someone with their own niche, that's great, but it doesn't help me with my work load. How about a junior person? but then we'd be sort of developing into the split desk, account rep/recruiter setup that I've blogged about before. How do I do that and maintain the quality of the process and connections with the candidates (you get a lot of intel from them)?

I'll be more content to maintain the status quo, rather than hire mediocre people, or create a revolving door, that will diminish the service my clients have to come to expect. I can make a good living doing continuing to do what I'm doing. In most respects, it might be less of a headache to leave it be. But it's hard to say no to more business if the business is there.

It's really all about finding the right people, and keeping them!

Email Addresses and Other Contact Info

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:26:00 +0000

This is really part of the topic of career management and professional networking in general.

Career management and networking are supposed to be ongoing, long term activities, not something you fire up whenever you are ready to make a change.

Not only do you need to make a continuous effort to do this, but you need to make it as easy on yourself as possible to allow it to happen.

One simple example is managing your email addresses; you need to have one for professional networking that you can maintain over a long period, but try not to get too polluted with spam.

I recommend getting one from Google gmail, or perhaps Yahoo, or MSN, etc. They are free, you don't have to change when you move and change ISP's, they're accessible from the web, anywhere. With google, you can also download to Outlook or other email clients if you wish. Try not to use these outside of your professional networking efforts if possible.

You don't want to use emails that change every time you make a job change or physical move (employer email or ISP).

You will also almost certainly have an employer email, and an ISP email. Use work for work of course. ISP email maybe for misc. web logins, things that are likely to generate spam.

There's nothing more frustrating for a recruiter to have a great opportunity for a candidate whose contact info has become completely obsolete in a matter of only a few months.

College grads who use their *.edu emails on their resumes and applications are really missing the boat.

Elevator Pitch

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:09:00 +0000

The Elevator Pitch or Elevator Speech are terms that refer to a brief overview or pitch of a product or service, that can be delivered in say, 30-45 seconds. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator_pitch

The concept is critical to candidates as well, in that studies have repeatedly shown that you often have less than a minute to make your point when trying to influence someone. Whether introducing yourself at an interview, a social event, or writing an intro on a cover letter or resume, you must be clear, concise and to the point about what you want, what you offer, and how you can help someone solve a problem.

It amazes me that so many people in the midst of a job search cannot quickly articulate even the basic parameters of a job search.
What type of role?
Where? (relo or no, and if so where)
How much travel?
What type of money?
What type of company? (big, small, culture)

I receive dozens of resumes a day without any basic information concerning these questions, and often inquiring about positions for which the person has no obvious qualifications.

A candidate without the sense to be able to do the above in an initial communication, already has two (maybe three) strikes against them with respect to their communications skills and common sense.

Grand Central

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:46:00 +0000

I've been using GrandCentral and thought you might like to try it out. Here's an invitation to create an account.

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If you haven't heard of GrandCentral already, it is a service that lets you pick a new phone number from virtually anywhere in the US for FREE. Integrate all of your existing phones and voicemail boxes into one number that never changes.

GrandCentral gives you total control over your calls:
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Information without the BS

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:39:00 +0000

I've wondered a bit about the question of style in writing this blog. Should I stick to the typical corporate politically correct, bland, model? or go with a more rogue, bare-knuckles approach, where some posts might offend?

I guess I've tried to strike a middle of the road approach and provide some real information on how recruiting works (from my point of view anyway) and not worry too much about how much or how little marketing value the blog provides (while hoping that somehow it does provide some). Some may disagree with some of the content, but I doubt much of it is going to get anyone's temper up, though some people may have a different point of view on some of the topic.

Judging from the site traffic statistics, it gets some readership, but I'm not likely to make a gazillion dollars selling it off to someone any time soon.

I have gotten several notes from others who said they liked the style and found it refreshing.

In reviewing the site traffic statistics, I'm able to see where the traffic comes from. Google searches are of course one of the large sources, and the traffic info actually provides the phrases entered as search criteria. Frequently, the search phrase is not an exact match for any of the content, but nevertheless, was close enough to lead someone here. So for a new wrinkle, I thought I'd review some of those and make them a topic for a subsequent post.

One recent query was: "sales and recruiting what is a pipeline" ?

Not having the option to ask the person to clarify, I suppose I can interpret the question as best I can and take a stab.

A "pipeline" refers to the business, in this case, search assignments, that are in work, or coming. It could refer to actual searches in work, or possibly potential searches not yet started. A key metric for a recruiter is his/her ability to have plenty of searches in work, and therefore a fair number of opportunities for candidates. However, having too many can also mean that the recruiter is not serving the needs of the client well if they are spread too thin. Quality is also a key factor. Some assignments may come from clients that are using a lot of recruiters, or who won't pay the recruiter's normal fee. Or that may be using the recruiter as a back stop while they try and fill the assigment themselves.

The best pipeline is usually made up of a small number of quality clients with whom the recruiter has done business in the past. There is a high degree of communication, and a well developed relationship, which translates into the recruiter being able to share much more detailed information with the candidates with whom they work.

Resume Graphics

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:01:00 +0000

Food for thought:

Not infrequently, I receive resumes containing logos, graphics, etc for certifications, prior company logos, or other graphics. Sometimes a lot of effort has gone into these, and some look pretty good.

However, there's another consideration. If done inappropriately, documents containing graphics, even only one, can be quite large. I received one today with a logo, and the 3 page resume was 2MB, whereas other similar ones might 30-40KB. Since email systems store copies when you forward, you can easily end up storing 6 or 8MB of files if you send it to a couple others.

Unless the individuals are of immediate interest, I am sometimes tempted, and occasionally do, delete these files, since when you accumulate enough of them, they can inflate your data storage requirements rather quickly, and in some cases, hamper the your system performance.

Use graphics sparingly, if at all. They are usually unnecessary.

Expertise and Specialization

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:24:00 +0000

I saw a reference to an article today on the risks of promoting your 'expertise'. The article sort of began to coalesce some of my own thoughts, ie. it's better to under-promise and over-deliver, rather than the other way around.

My own experience has been that if you sell a client on your abilities and then fail to perform, you may be in worse shape than if you'd never sold them at all. Sort of along the lines of the saying, better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open it and remove all doubt.

When I started in recruiting, my career had been in IT. It covered a number of areas; lots of enterprise project management, a little development, operations, ERP, supply chain, EDI, etc. As a matter of fact, I had just come off a bunch of EDI projects for a telecom company.

My first search assignment ended up being an interface programmer position for a hospital. Now granted, I hadn't worked in a hospital, hadn't worked on Egate (the tool in question), or used HL7. And I didn't tell the client I knew anything about those. But I did ask questions that told them I understood applications integration at a reasonable level, EDI, and some of the issues involved. After filling that position, and many other similar ones, eventually candidates and clients started telling me how surprising it was to talk to a recruiter who actually seemed to understand what they were talking about.

The point is, I didn't proclaim myself a specialist, the clients and candidates did.

Too many recruiting firms hire newbies and proclaim them specialists in some area the minute they sit down. Once they talk to a few people and remove all doubt as to their 'expertise', they have already set the stage for their failure.

My personal philosophy and the philosophy of ROI is to under-promise, and over- deliver. Our reputation is built on performance, and we do very little advertising. We believe in telling you and showing you what we do, and letting you be the judge of how well we perform.

Full Desk Recruiters vs. Split Sales and Recruiting

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Wed, 02 May 2007 23:54:00 +0000

Like any business, there are different ways to run a recruiting firm. Besides perm vs. contract, 'space', and contingency/retained, there's another differentiator.

Some firms are comprised of 'full desk' or 'full-cycle' recruiters, and some split sales and recruiting. There may be other terms used which can mean the same thing, or a hybrid, like 'team approach', or different titles, Directors, Account Managers, Sr. Recruiters, Jr. Recruiter, etc.

A true full desk recruiter finds his/her own clients, recruits the candidates, and handles the entire process. A split sales and recruiting approach means one person deals with the client and another does the recruiting. Some have researchers, assistants, junior recruiters or whatever.

Most of my contacts tell me they prefer full-desk recruiters. They want to be talking to the person that knows the client, the position, the culture, not someone with a watered down, passed along job spec, or be getting screened by a junior person. Recruiting firms who adopt this approach are, in my mind, sacrificing quality of process in an attempt to scale revenues.

It is difficult to bring someone new in and have them do full-cycle recruiting. Firms that do may tend to have more turnover than others, because it is a real sink or swim approach. Believe me, I started that way, and I swam, but most sank.

The team approach in recruiting is a way to bring junior people on and learn pieces of the business slowly. But how do you think a CIO is going to like getting pre-screened for a CIO slot by 26 year old with 12 months experience as a recruiter? Do you think they'll be thrilled spilling their life story to someone like that, and then again (maybe) to the Account Manager, and then to the client? Probably not.

There's a place for junior people, doing research, handling lower salaried search assignments, etc.

Infosec Sites

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:37:00 +0000

http://www.cert.org
http://www.issa.org
http://www.isaca.org
http://www.sans.org
http://www.giac.org
http://andyitguy.blogspot.com/
http://andylark.blogs.com/
http://blog.alertlogic.net/
http://blog.ncircle.com/blogs/sync/
http://blog.tenablesecurity.com/
http://blog.vulnerableminds.com/
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/
http://chuvakin.blogspot.com/
http://consentry.typepad.com/blog/
http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/
http://erratasec.blogspot.com/
http://ggee.org/blog/
http://infosecplace.com/blog
http://infosecpodcast.com/
http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/
http://mcwresearch.com
http://networks.feedburner.com/Security-Bloggers-Network
http://pcianswers.com/
http://psifertex.com
http://rationalsecurity.typepad.com/
http://riskanalysis.riskmanagementinsight.com/
http://ryanlrussell.blogspot.com/index.html
http://securityincite.com/
http://securitywatch.eweek.com/
http://spiresecurity.typepad.com/
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/
http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/
http://techbuddha.wordpress.com/
http://technobabylon.typepad.com/
http://theconvergingnetwork.com/
http://www.bloginfosec.com/
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/gunn
http://www.cutawaysecurity.com
http://www.emergentchaos.com/
http://www.episteme.ca/
http://www.isc2.org
http://www.larstanpodcasting.com/
http://www.matasano.com/log/
http://www.mckeay.net/
http://www.nemertes.com/blog/andreas_m_antonopoulos
http://www.raffy.ch/blog/
http://www.realtime-itcompliance.com/index.html
http://www.realworldtech.com
http://www.rsa.com/blog/
http://www.schneier.com/blog/
http://www.securitycatalyst.com/
http://www.securityfocus.com
http://www.stillsecureafteralltheseyears.com/
http://www.vitalsecurity.org/

The Costs of Serial Interviewing

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 23:57:00 +0000

One challenge effecting companies, recruiters and candidates is what I call serial interviewing.

When a company gets highly interested in a candidate, usually after a couple telephone interviews and maybe one round of face-to-face discussions, but long before the deal is done, they frequently let other prospects slide to the back-burner. It's often not by design, but if the subsequent interviews take a while to get scheduled, and the negotiations take a while, then the recruiter and other candidates can get left in limbo.

Doing so can be tempting, because interviewing numerous candidates and bringing several in for face-to-face interviews can be time-consuming and expensive, but if the main candidates falls through, you often find that the pipeline has run dry, other candidates have accepted other offers and the process has to be ramped up again, which in the long run, can end up being being even more costly.

I encourage employers to take a parallel approach and keep a pipeline of prospects going, until someone has accepted the position and is firmly moving towards the start date. Not doing so is the surest way to having a position stay open for months as one hot prospect is chased, and then disappears, and then another, and another. If you have several in work concurrently, the odds of someone landing in the role in reasonable time frame are much improved.

Promotions

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:34:00 +0000

I read a column today - Ask Annie on CNN talking about losing out on a promotion to an external candidate.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/02/news/economy/promotion.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007040306

I think Annie missed some points on the psychology of promotions and why it can sometimes be a challenge to get promoted internally.

Hiring managers may be more motivated by risk avoidance than anything else. If they have someone who has been performing well in a job, and they promote that person, there is some risk of failure in the new role. Plus they have to hire someone new to replace that person, and there is a risk there. So they are essentially taking on 2 risks. If they leave the current person in the role, and hire someone from outside for the promotion, they may perceive they are only taking one risk, the new hire.

To position yourself for promotion, you not only need to perform well, you need to help your boss minimize the perceived risk of moving you up. That means taking every opportunity to perform the tasks required at the new position before being promoted, however that can be accomplished. It also means diplomatically making him or her aware that there is a risk of not promoting you, and that you could be prepared to leave. This is a very delicate process and needs to be done subtly, by making yourself and your capabilities known, participating in professional groups, and making sure that your skills are sought after by outside organizations. This cannot be an 'in your face' 'promote me or I'm leaving' type approach.

If you are not being approached at least from time to time for promotion opportunities outside your current org, then it's questionable how 'promotable' you really are.

You also need to adopt a posture of managing and leading and indicate your willingness and ability to mentor someone into your old role, from within, or without.

If you are simply doing your job and waiting around to be rewarded, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Career management, networking, etc are all active tasks that need to be conducted continuously, not just thrown into high gear when an attractive new opportunity opens up.

Keywords in Resumes

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:50:00 +0000

I saw a post to a networking group the other day encouraging candidates to include a big grouping of keywords in their resumes. I say no. Here's why:

Although I agree with the thoughts on including key words on resumes due to the automated search processes used today, I don't personally care for the key words section.

Keep in mind, that your resume needs to serve multiple purposes: serve the machines, provide the summary info for the quick screener and provide detail for those that want more.

Kind of a challenge to hit all of those right? and remain clean, readable, well formatted, etc.

I prefer those that include key words in context, ie in the job descriptions, accomplishments etc. Then you can get some idea of how well they know those tools.

Those big buckets of key words are pretty useless in my opinion; they may get the search agent to pull you up, but when I see them my eyes glaze over. How do I tell the difference between someone who saw Java once 4 years ago and someone really good?

Include the buzz words in your positions, explain how and where you used it. One nice trick is to explain the projects, and list the tools used for the project. That way I can tell what you used when and where and for how long. Much more valuable. And if you used it in several different assignments, then I have a pretty good idea you might know it well.

Other Recruiting Firms

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:39:00 +0000

If you are looking for a recruiter and ROI is not a match for your "space", you might try these resources:

http://www.ere.net/search/DEFAULT.ASP

http://www.hireability.com

Codestorm.Org Post

noreply@blogger.com (John P) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:51:00 +0000

I responded to a post on another site the other day. The candidate had some concerns about the behaviour of a recruiter that contacted him. The recruiter provided very little info on the firm, was pressuring him somewhat for information, and the firm name seemed to be associated with 2 or 3 other domain names etc, when he researched them on google, etc. He concluded that they might have been some sort of scam. The incident reveals the risks of not having a two way dialog with candidates, and not sharing information about yourself, your firm and your background, rather than just drilling the candidate for information. Here's my response:

First, you could be correct. I don't know this firm, and there might be something screwy going on. As I note in my blog, candidates OUGHT to ask a lot of questions themselves, not just be on the answering end of things, coughing up all kinds of information.

However, there can be legitimate reasons for some of what you saw. I am familiar with one of the names you ran across, techiegold, which I believe is some kind of co-op job board. In my experience, recruiting firms frequently have different firms for different segments of the business, ie. one firm that does candidate or executive coaching (which you need to be careful of, since this area usually involves costs from the candidate side). Firms often separate their perm recruiting business and temp or contract business, to develop different brand identities, and for legal and HR reasons due to the fact that you may not want to have the same HR policies and benefits for the recruiting staff as the contract staff that works there. (Perm recruiters don't hire candidates, they charge a fee to the client for placing. Temp or contract groups hire the candidate and bill out to the clients for those people's services).

A firm may have acquired another and maintain both the old name and the new name, if they have good, well-established identity and reputation.

All of your comments are fair questions. Really the recruiter blew it by not engaging you in a more 2 way conversation to educate you about him/her and their firm, rather than just rushing you along.