Success or Failure, your CHOICE!

Your Success and Failure in Your Business and Personal Life is Up To You.

This is absolutely correct. The burden is yours and yours alone. From the mid 1990’s until about the mid 2000’s, there were a series of books written named Chicken Soup for the Soul. The series was co-authored by Jim Canfield. One of Mr. Canfield's books, The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be gives us the secrets to success in all forms of life, including how to achieve the highest goals possible in your career.
Canfield says that “If you want to be successful you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life.” “This includes:

* The level of your achievements
* The results you produce
* The quality of your relationships

You have to be brutally honest with yourself about yourself. To accomplish this you have to give yourself a reality check. For some, like me, it might be a bitter pill to swallow; for others, maybe not so much. It just depends on you, your expectations and where you are in life when you enact this reality check. However, if you do this then the outcome may just be the results you have been looking for and striving toward, but you certainly won’t ever know if you don’t take the time to do it in the first place.

Here are Canfield's fundamentals for success on the job and in life.
 
1) Take 100% responsibility for everything. The biggest myth in today’s society is that we are entitled to a great life, that somehow, somewhere, someone is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time and wonderful personal relationships just because we simply exist. I feel that today’s younger generation seems to fall into this category the more I interact with them. Unfortunately for them, the real truth is that you alone are the person responsible for how you live your life.
 
2) You have to give up all your excuses, blaming, and complaining. Blaming is something we all do at some point in our lives. We can’t help ourselves. We are conditioned this way even though the real problem is always ourselves. You have to stop doing this if you are going to change your life pattern to be more positive. Forget the victim stories, the reasons you can’t and won’t and your blaming of outside circumstances. Instead, you have to ask yourself “How did I create that?” or “What did I say or not say?” and “What do I have to do differently the next time to get the result I want?
 
3) If you don’t like your outcomes, change your responses. If you keep on doing things the way you have always done them, you’ll keep on getting the same responses. In one of my previous articles I quoted an old mentor of mine who used to say “there are both stupid and dumb people in life. The stupid person makes mistakes; the dumb one makes the same ones over and over again.” If you use a particular form of marketing to gain new clients, and you don’t gain any, then you have to re-examine your methodology and try something different. Otherwise, you won’t get the new clients you are targeting.
 
4) Everything you are experiencing today is a direct result of choices you made in the past. Every experience in your life is a direct result of how you responded to a previous situation. After all, you only have control over THREE (3) things in your life: your thoughts, images you visualize, and your actions. How you use these determines your experience (So much for “controlling” our candidates. This is why recruiters need to learn to manage the process)
 
5) You either “create” or “allow” everything that happens to you. Some might disagree with this statement but according to Canfield, when he says create he means directly causing something to happen by your actions or inactions. An example might be that as a Recruiter, you have an opportunity to add an alternative income stream to your business model but you decide you don’t want the extra workload at this time. A few weeks down the road, you find out your major competitor in your geographic territory added the business you decided against and now he/she is doing an extra $5,000 a month in business.
 
6) Pay attention to “yellow alerts.” These are caution signals or advance warnings; telltale signs. comments from others, gut instinct and personal intuition, These include external, an example might be, your clients dropping like flies because they tell you they no longer like the service you offer them, to internal, that gut feeling that you had when the very last client you spoke with called and you just knew it was going to be bad news as soon as you picked up the phone.
 
7) Results don’t lie. The easiest way to determine what is and isn’t working in your life, both business and personal, is to examine the results you are producing. You are getting the clients or you’re not! You are closing deals or you’re not. You’re making new friends or you can’t seem to meet anyone.  

Bottom line here! The only way to change your results is to change your behavior.

Why a Passive Candidate Should Take a Recruiter’s Call

The candidate is happy. 

They get a call from a recruiter. 

Why should they be open minded enough to have a conversation? 

Well, there are many advantages to discussing an opportunity even when they’re content where they are. Hopefully, this article gives you some insight on why it makes good career sense for the prospective candidate to be a little more open-minded when they get a recruiting call.

Yes, it’s information you already know.

First of all, there is no better time for someone to evaluate an opportunity and company with a clear mind without any negative, outside influences or external pressures. The worst time to go to the grocery store is when you’re hungry. You’re more likely to buy food that you know is not in your best long-term interests.
It’s no different when it comes to only talking to recruiters when they’re actively looking for a new job. Opportunities will appear to be more appealing than they really are when you’re currently unsatisfied in your position or company. When an individual looks into an opportunity when they’re happy, they can vividly see how the opportunity would positively or negatively impact their career since they’re not trying to fill a void. An employee is more likely to settle for a lesser position when they’re unhappy than they would have if they were content.
Life is better as a recruited candidate as opposed to a being a job applicant. Why? Because they have the leverage when they’re being recruited and referred by a recruiter. When someone “applies” for a position, the company is screening and qualifying them since they’re the one looking for a job. When that same person is “recruited,” they are investigating and qualifying the company and opportunity to determine whether or not it will help them grow professionally. The tables are turned. Since they’re happy where they are, if the opportunity doesn’t provide career growth, they have the leverage of staying where they are. When they’re unhappy or looking, they’re running away from their current situation and more desperate to make a change so the company they are applying to has the leverage.
Even if the opportunity doesn’t entice them enough to move forward, in today’s corporate world, the only job security they have is the security they give themselves. If they don’t look out for their own career, no one else is going to do it for them. Dig the well before you’re thirsty. Having a connection with a recruiter who knows them, their background, and career aspirations is one way to do that.
If they’re happy, then they’re probably performing well in their role and hopefully their company is taking good care of them. There is no other time in their career when they’re more marketable. This is the best time in their career to take their successes and accomplishments to test what they’re worth to another organization, whether that means a more challenging role, a faster-growing company, or exposure to a new industry.
The best time for professionals to keep their options open is when they’re satisfied in their current role and company. They don’t have to consider the recruiter’s opportunity unless it meets the criteria that they set, not the other way around. There is no other way to learn as much about an opportunity without officially interviewing with a company itself other than learning about it from a recruiter on an exploratory and confidential basis. Actively looking for a job can be a full-time job itself. It can also be also be very stressful. People who get ahead don’t wait until there is something that they don’t like in their current role to have an open mind.  They are proactive and keep their options open.

Why Clients should love Recruiters!

Here are some reasons why clients should love recruiters:

Save The Clients’ Time. The time it takes to search and source can run up to 40 to 80 hours a week, for just five great candidates. Good recruiters will not just find the candidate that fits the bullet points on a job description, but instead will find a person who is going to interview well for that company’s environment. Good recruiters don’t just throw resumes at a position. I would rather throw three good ones than 10 bad ones.

Sell the company and find the Sizzle.  After a couple of placements, the trust factor kicks in, and the recruiter starts to learn more about their client’s business, they get to know the hiring managers, the HR staff, and management personnel. They may have even toured the facility. At this point, a recruiter has something to hang on to, and that is respect. As a recruiter, I know their business, and I know their people. I am confident I can find them the right people, THAT FIT IN.

Prepping Candidates For Interview.  If I prep a candidate correctly, I save everybody from embarrassment. Here are the main points that I emphasize with any candidate:

• Be extremely polite, courteous, and respectful to all you meet, no matter what their position. I can’t emphasize this enough.

• Know what your skillset is, write it all down if you need too, and take it in to the interview. Talk about your ability to lead other people, teambuilding, accomplishments, and give examples of all of these.

• The most important part is telling your story – tell it with passion. I had a young man that interviewed, and he told the story of when he was a small boy he would go the plant where his Dad worked, and learned early what hard work was, and learned about engineering from his Dad. When he was in High School he worked there after school. After High School he went to college and became an Engineer. “This is my life,” he explained. He has trained for this moment since he was a young boy. They did hire him, without experience, but just on the fact he had passion and vision for what he was to accomplish.

Recruiting is made up of a number of processes, and a good recruiter becomes very skilled with those processes as time goes along. Pick your recruiter as though you were picking your next employee. As your relationship flourishes, he will represent you, and work hard for you.

Most Sourcing Is Painfully Dull

— It’s Time to Try Some Creative Approaches

Compared to the extremely high levels of creativity and innovation that are found in marketing and product branding, the sourcing aspect of corporate recruiting would have to be given a grade of “F” when it comes to creativity and trying new sources. Using the benchmark standard, the CareerXroads annual survey of external hire sources, more than 90% of corporate hires come from traditional and well-established recruiting sources (i.e. referrals, job boards, the career site, direct sourcing, college career centers, social media, and career fairs). With the exception of possibly social media, you could hardly call any of these major sources “creative.”

In fact, because everyone uses them by definition, they can’t be creative — they are simply common. In order to be labeled as creative, sources have to be unique and infrequently used, as well as effective. For example, creative sourcing might include the use of contests, video games, radio, movie theater ads, billboards, and TV ads. Being creative in sourcing is essential for three basic reasons:

1. No competitive advantage – if everyone else uses the same sources as you do, your firm simply cannot gain a competitive advantage over your talent competitors. Being a unique user of an effective source does provide a competitive advantage.
2. Lost in the volume – when literally every corporation uses the same source, your message cannot easily stand out and get noticed, simply because of the volume of recruiting messages.
3. Active only sources – when you focus so much of your sourcing on active sources (i.e. job boards, print ads, and career fairs), you are failing to reach the 80% of employed individuals who are not actively looking for a job (i.e. the so-called passives). Most creative sources reach both non-lookers and active job seekers.

A List of 20 Proven “Creative Recruiting Sources” That Most Are Not Using

Below you’ll find a list of sourcing approaches that would have to be classified as “creative” simply because so many corporations don’t have the courage to try them. A few of the firms that have tried these approaches are listed in parentheses.

1. YouTube videos — using employee-produced videos to show the excitement within the firm can allow you to cheaply provide authentic recruiting and employer branding messages (Deloitte, Zynga, and Hyatt)
2. Your own contest – offering your own online technical contest allows you to assess and attract individuals who are not looking for a job, as well as to get answers to your current problems (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Quixey, and Whirlpool)
3. Contests sponsored by others – recruiting at externally sponsored contests like cooking competitions and poker competitions can allow you to assess the work of top professionals (Harrah’s, and Microsoft, Dell, and MGM Grand)
4. Video games – using video games to attract and excite candidates can impress individuals who love video games (U.S. Army, MITRE, and Marriott)
5. TV/Radio – using both cable and Internet TV shows to show what it’s like to work at the firm can get a powerful message across. Targeting the specific radio stations that your prospect audience listens to can also be effective, especially for diversity prospects (Southwest Air and Zappos)
6. Movie theater ads – placing ads between movies at movie theaters in order to attract can be effective if members of your target audience are frequent moviegoers (Southwest Air and TSA)
7. Billboards – using highway billboards to recruit and build your employer brand can make your message visible to commuters (Google, EA and MGM Grand)
8. Employee referral cards – providing employees with employee referral cards to give to people who impress them during their course of their day can be an inexpensive and effect sourcing tool (Apple and Southwest Airlines)
9. “Show your work” sites – sourcing on Internet sites like Dribble and Pinterest where individuals post their actual work can allow you to assess and complement on the work of individuals who are not actively looking for a job. Recruiting on Slideshare can also be effective because you can view the presentations of the individuals that you are considering (Southwest Airlines and Work Club).
10. Location sourcing – physically placing recruiters and recruiting signs close to competitors or where potential hires “hang out” can easily and quickly get the attention of many prospects (EA, zscaler, Google, Cake, Tokbox, TSA, and Fingg.com).
11. Recruiting at non-recruiting events – recruiting at events that are regularly attended by your targets including charity events, sporting events, and wine festivals can allow you to reach employed individuals who are not expecting to be recruited at these types of events. Recruiting at events held by clubs and professional associations that many prospects join can also be effective. (Google, Cisco, IBM, the U.S. Navy, and UPS).
12. Direct mail – because almost everyone uses the Internet, sending candidate messages directly to their home can make your message stand out (FirstMerit Bank and Starr Tincup).
13. Consumer products — placing recruiting ads or brand messaging on consumer products like pizza boxes, coffee sleeves, and gas pumps can be a subtle but effective recruiting tool (TSA and Sun).
14. Question sites/forums – recruit individuals who continually give high quality answers on Internet questions sites like Quora and Focus and on functional forums.
15. Use the mobile platform for messaging – the smart phone is the most powerful communications medium, simply because prospects are constantly on it and carry it with them at all times. Make sure that your corporate website is compatible with smart phones and use text, voice, and videos to communicate your message to prospects (Sodexo, the U.S. Army, and AT&T).
16. Talent communities –  for large companies, you can develop online talent communities where you build relationships over time with a group of prospects based on learning and professional issues. Only after the professional relationship is solidified do you pursue recruiting possibilities (Microsoft and UPS).
17. Assigned referrals – rather than waiting for employees to find a referral, when a top candidate has already been identified, the firm can use software to identify which employee has the strongest social media relationship with the target. The employee (or employees) is then given the assignment to use their connections to contact and to build a recruiting relationship with the target. (Zynga)
18. Blogs – having your employees write blogs can send an authentic message to individuals who are not actively seeking a job (Google and Microsoft).
19. Creating a story book – compiling and publishing a book highlighting key employee’s stories about the firm’s culture and environment is a form of authentic messaging (Zappos).
20. Community organizations and churches – if you’re looking for entry level and hourly workers, an often overlooked source or community organizations and churches. These organizations are likely to be among the first contacted by individuals who have recently joined the community. 

Final Thoughts

If your idea of sourcing is limited to putting together a Boolean search and posting your job on a job board, your overuse of these “tired approaches” may be hurting your firm. Seventy-five percent of all hires come from the same five sources. It may be time to get a fresh perspective, so why not make a commitment to build a relationship with your product marketing and branding teams in order to identify the breath of creative approaches that they use to reach their potential customers?
If you’re not sure whether a new creative approach will work, simply survey a sample of your top employees and best hires to see if using a new source would’ve been effective in reaching and selling them? And remember to ask new hires what approaches attracted them so that you can tell if your new sources actually had a positive impact.

The Strategic Recruiting of Purple Squirrels, Innovators, and Gamechangers

There is no more valuable recruit than a “Purple Squirrel.” 

In fact, a single Purple Squirrel recruit may be more impactful than all of your other hires combined during a single year. If you’re not familiar with the term, a Purple Squirrel is the moniker that denotes an extremely rare and talented recruiting target. Purple Squirrels are valuable because they are extreme innovators. Once hired, they can change your firm’s capabilities, direction, and marketplace success almost instantly.

 

 

The benchmark Purple Squirrel was Tony Fadell, who conceived of the concept of the MP3 player while he was at Philips. But Apple recruited him away, allowing them to dominate and make billions in a product area (the iPod) where they had little expertise before recruiting him. This single Purple Squirrel acquisition made Apple billions and set the expectation for future market dominating innovations at Apple!

The most stunning thing, however, about Purple Squirrel recruiting is the fact that there is literally a zero chance that these valuable game-changers and pioneers can be recruited using the existing recruiting process at 99.5% of the world’s major corporations. For example, everyone would agree that Steve Jobs, even in his youth, was a Purple Squirrel, but the fact is that he was rejected by the recruiting process at HP, despite all his talent, simply because he had no college degree.

These purple squirrels are true pioneers with the capability of not only coming up with original ideas but also in successfully implementing them. Purple Squirrels are generally not senior executives, but instead, they are often mid-level employees in product development, technology, mathematics, social media, or the monetization of products and services. Each of these areas are essential for market domination.

Why You Should Develop a Process for Recruiting Purple Squirrels

There are numerous reasons why firms are beginning to realize why they need to focus their recruiting effort on Purple Squirrels. Some of those reasons and benefits include:

• Their incredible economic impact – the tremendous value of these purple squirrels is not idle speculation, because Apple has calculated their performance at 25 times and Google 300 times the performance level of an average hire. Think of the tremendous economic value that recruiting could bring if your firm had the capability of recruiting early-career pioneers like Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Larry Page (Google), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), or a Tony Hsieh (Zappos).
• Innovation is replacing productivity — the tremendous economic success of Apple has convinced many CEOs that continuous market-leading innovation has a higher economic impact than the more traditional HR goal of increasing workforce productivity. Average employees simply don’t come up with pioneering, game-changing solutions, so if you need them, you need to recruit a few Purple Squirrels.
• Technology superiority is becoming essential everywhere – most executives have also learned that every firm in every industry now must maintain superiority in technology and many Purple Squirrels are technologists who can provide that technical superiority.
• Impact on employer brand image – adding Purple Squirrels to your workforce will instantly improve your employer brand image and the likelihood of attracting other top talent.
• They can be the driver of a culture of innovation — recruiting even a handful of Purple Squirrels may shift your culture (like it did at Apple), so that it becomes an “innovation culture” where serial innovation becomes the norm.
• The recruiting competition is weak – because only a handful of large corporations (e.g. Google, Facebook, and Apple) have the capability of recruiting these individuals, your main competition will be limited to executive search and startup firms.

Why Traditional Corporate Recruiting Approaches Fail on Purple Squirrels

Applying traditional corporate recruiting approaches guarantee failure because Purple Squirrels really are different. Here is an example to illustrate the difficulty. Let’s assume that you are trying to recruit Tiger Woods to your local golf team. He certainly wouldn’t return your messages and you would not be allowed to approach him personally. If you did get a brief 30 seconds with him, he would simply say that he is happy where he is. In fact, it would take a recommendation from a trusted colleague or reading about a “WOW” aspect of your golf team even to get his attention. And even then, it might take months to get him to agree to an interview. There are at least 10 ways that Purple Squirrels differ as prospects and candidates. They include:

1. Finding them is easy – even though they are rare individuals (less than 1% of the workforce), they can easily be identified because of their track record of high-impact work. They are likely to be award winners, speakers at conferences, they may hold patents, and a simple Google search will identify their great work.
2. Direct sourcing is required – these are “super passive” prospects who will literally never again apply for an open job. They cannot be successfully recruited or even contacted using traditional methods. The recruiting may need to be done by an executive or a peer Purple Squirrel.
3. Their primary motivator is “the work” – you can’t impress them with perks or even money. You must realize that their primary motivator is “the work” and the opportunity to do the best and most challenging and impactful work of their life. If you don’t offer compelling work, you have zero chance of recruiting them.
4. They must be fought for – because Purple Squirrels already have a good job and are highly valued, their current boss will fight ferociously to keep them. Because they continually receive “anytime you’re ready” job opportunities from colleagues, they will not even see, no less respond, to a job posting.
5. They expect a personalized job – they undoubtedly already have a flexible job, so they expect that any new “dream job” will of course be designed around their interests and needs. Their expectations may include remote work options, a choice of projects, and even an opportunity to select their own team. If you show them a standard job description, they will simply walk away.
6. They will not discuss job opportunities with strangers – they will not ever return recruiter calls and a longer-term relationship with a peer may be required before you can even approach the topic of a career opportunity.
7. You must know their “job acceptance criteria” – they will not even consider an opportunity unless it meets each and every one of their “job-acceptance criteria.” As a result, you must tailor the opportunity and the offer around their decision criteria. You must also identify any potential deal breakers and then find a way to avoid each of them. On the positive side, at least one “WOW” will likely be required before they will even consider an opportunity.
8. Their decision will be influenced by others — they don’t make major decisions without consultation, so you must identify and attempt to influence those who will be involved in any major decision (i.e. spouses, other Purple Squirrel colleagues, former bosses, references, mentors, etc.).
9. Hiring managers may be resistant – hiring managers are certainly accustomed to holding all of the power over their recruits. Unfortunately, because of their past success, Purple Squirrels often have an ego and they expect to be treated as at least equals. If your hiring managers are not trained to accept a little arrogance and extremely high “demands,” they will likely reject these Purple Squirrels because of their own ego issues.
10. They expect to see innovation in the recruiting process – they understand their value and their power in the recruiting equation, so they will expect a great candidate experience. If your recruiting process doesn’t also include some dramatic innovation, Purple Squirrels will simply assume that innovation doesn’t exist at your firm and they will immediately drop out of your recruiting process.
11. Skill assessment becomes secondary – because they have a successful track record of implementing innovation, you won’t need to do a lot of formal skills assessment. Because these individuals know their tremendous value, requiring more than one interview or even an updated resume might be a dealbreaker. Selling them needs to be the primary recruiting focus.

Approaches for Successfully Recruiting Purple Squirrels

Space limitations prevent me from providing a complete recruiting process for successfully hiring Purple Squirrels, but I can provide you with a handful of approaches that have been successful in the past. These recruiting approaches include:

• CEO recruiting – having the CEO act as your chief recruiter can make all the difference, provided that you guide the CEO throughout the process. The CEOs of Apple, Facebook, Zynga, Starbucks, and Google have all been directly involved in recruiting.
• Use proactive key employee referrals — proactively approaching one or more of your high-powered employees and asking them to take the lead on contacting and building the relationship is a wise beginning. Be sure and educate them on the do’s and don’ts of Purple Squirrel referrals. You might also assign a senior executive to help throughout the process.
• Develop a talent community – this approach was pioneered by Microsoft, and its basic premise is that the only way to have conversations and build relationships with Purple Squirrels is through non-recruiting topics. That means building online social media based talent communities containing hundreds of participants that are based 100% on learning and best practice sharing.
• Involve them in your work – the basic premise of this approach is that you must get Purple Squirrels involved with the important work that you do. That means periodically asking them questions, asking them to serve as an advisor, or making them a beta tester. Over time, they will learn to understand what you’re trying to accomplish and appreciate the capabilities of your team. Also consider invited open houses where your team shares its work and plans with top prospects. These can be held at night in the functional department.
• Prioritize your jobs – you only need a handful of Purple Squirrels in order to impact your firm, so you must put together a process to identify the handful of jobs and business units where a purple squirrel could have a dramatic impact.
• Comment on their work – one of the most effective approaches for building relationship with a purple squirrel is to initially positively comment on their writing and their work. Eventually proceed to occasionally criticizing it and offering suggestions. Finally, ask them to review your own best work.
• Build a behavioral profile of your target – use your own purple squirrel employees to get an idea about how to best contact and understand them. Use Internet searches and Google Alerts to find out what events they attend, what organizations they join, where they write, what they read, and what their favorite communications channels are. Use that information to fully understand them, to make your first initial contact, and to build a long-term relationship with them.
• Identify the “right day” to discuss an opportunity – because Purple Squirrels are likely to be well treated at their current job, on any given day a recruiting opportunity with almost always be responded to with a “hard no.” However, there are a handful of “right days” where they would be more likely to consider a new opportunity. Those “right days” might include days immediately after their boss, the CEO, or a close colleague left. Right days might also include days surrounding when their current project is coming to an end, after they’ve been denied a promotion, or when the company is experiencing a significant difficulty (i.e. a merger, a layoff, or a scandal). Their own and their friends’ Facebook postings and Twitter comments can provide you with an effective heads-up on when a “right day” is occurring.
• One-day hiring capability — you must have the capability of moving extremely fast once a Purple Squirrel does become available. In order to make an offer in one day, you will need to have previously opened up a” corporate resource” position for them and have already put together their dream job offer which meets each of their job acceptance criteria. You also need to be prepared with a counteroffer strategy, because their boss will undoubtedly make one or more counter offers.
• Include something that WOWs them – in order to improve your chances of success, you need to do something that dramatically impresses them on “offer day.” Some possibilities include “hire them both” (hire them with a close colleague), let them pick their own (boss/team/project/location), or offering them a huge bonus if they accept immediately. Other possibilities include having your CEO make the offer in person or allowing them to design their own dream job.

Final Thoughts

Although recruiting Purple Squirrels may seem unusual to you, the practice is actually quite common in the sports and the entertainment industries. Everyone there already knows the tremendous advantage of adding a single player like LeBron, Kobe, Tiger, A-Rod, or Lionel Messi to a team or Angelina Jolie, Jack Nicholson, or Matt Damon to your movie.
If you want to pursue the approach in the corporate world, the first step is to identify a few “Purple Squirrels” and ask senior leaders to estimate their impact if they were successfully brought on board. When you get a resounding “yes,” you need to be prepared with a complete plan on how you have the capability to contact, build a relationship, and eventually recruit them. After bringing one successfully on board, the rest will be easy.

Why do we need Recruiters?

It must seem pointless or comical to ask, “Why do we need recruiters?” Ask any recruiter and, after the laughing stops, you’ll hear all the reasons you—or at least that recruiter—could possibly imagine.
Yet, even though the list of reasons will be compelling, anyone who is the stubbornly curious type will still want to know the reason, the main reason and the real “prime mover”.
That’s the nature of human curiosity: What was the real (or main) reason for the Civil War, the 2008 economic meltdown, the tangling of my phone cord and, of course, (the Biggest Question of All) why does the physical universe or anything at all exist rather than nothing?
As for needs: What is the real or main reason we need vitamin C, why does the Fed rather than the Treasury control the money supply, why do we need recruiters? Do we?
The Need for Gods and Recruiters
Somehow, we can’t help believing that there has to be one reason that is more important or that is the “real reason” for whatever we want explained.
That’s what has made many religions so attractive and durable (with exceptions like the now defunct ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian polytheistic religions. Like modern science, they insisted that, whatever happens, there is no single explanation or factor accounting for it—in their instances, because of the maneuverings of squabbling, multiple gods as the multiple causes of everything, including why one’s well or goat has gone dry).
We are tempted to look for one reason or cause even when we know that what is to be explained is
1. “over-determined”—there are multiple independent causes, each of which is sufficient as an explanation, e.g., the sad fate of a chicken that tried to cross the road but that was simultaneously hit by both lightning and a truck;
2. “multiply-determined”—there are factors, like the quarreling Greek gods, individually insufficient as explanations, that together are the reasons, e.g., the presence of gasoline plus the presence of a match plus the presence of someone dumb enough to have lit that match jointly explain the predictable explosion.
Viewed this way, looking for the reason recruiters are necessary may seem fruitless, in the same way as looking for the reason someone else has been hired to do a job. But notice how persistently tempting it is to ask for the reason when somebody else got the job or the client company you were hoping to get.
Then there is the even more probing pair of questions, suggested above: After dropping the question “What is the real reason we have recruiters?”, it is just a matter of time before the most inquisitive among us will drop the other shoe and ask, “Do we really need them?”
Reasons Why We Need Recruiters
So, let’s take a look at  some of the (un)usual reasons why we need recruiters, if we indeed do need them, and see whether there really is what deserves to be called “the reason”—a number #1 reason why recruiters are necessary.
Division of labor in obtaining labor: Perhaps the most obvious reason why we seem to need recruiters is that their specialized skills and resources (including networks) make finding, vetting and placing talent a much more efficient process. We can thank Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations for this explanation: Basically, specialization creates efficiencies that create wealth. Being a recruiter is merely just another form of facilitator specialization.
Moreover, the employers that recruiters serve are subject to the same laws of efficiency: A project manager or CEO also has to specialize in his job to compete and succeed. Hence, because there aren’t enough minutes in an hour and no hours in a minute, the delegation of hiring to an HR specialist is advisable and generally unavoidable. It’s that simple.
Swelling ranks of the employable and of employers: In a tribal village of 200 people, recruiters are completely unnecessary. The small labor pool means that extensive and elaborate sorting and sifting of job applications is not required at all. Not only are the labor pool and applicant numbers small, but also the applicants will certainly be well known to the C.E.C.—the Chief Executive Chief. This reduces the sourcing and screening time to virtually zero. On top of that, compensation package negotiations will be streamlined in a tribal village, since there will be few, if any, opportunity costs for either the C.E.C. or the applicant, inasmuch as there will be very few applicants or jobs to choose from.
The modern world of work on a crowded planet is completely different. First, the huge numbers of employable people, applicants and companies create innumerable mathematically possible combinations of employers and applicants as matches to be checked out.
Second, the kind of tribal firsthand knowledge of both the employer and the prospective employee is, apart from cases of nepotism, pre-existing acquaintanceship and in-house hiring, virtually non-existent.
Third, the existence of countless competitors for both those hiring and those to be hired makes shopping around, vetting and negotiating in the world’s huge modern economies more protracted, costly and complex processes.
The need for human buffers in a vast, impersonal bottom-line-oriented marketplace: We’ve all heard, “This isn’t personal; it’s business.” That sums up the massive transformation of the close-knit tribal village into the modern urban faceless-bee beehive, of simple, friendly bartering with neighbors and friends into complex, remote, money-denominated, automated and highly impersonal marketplace transactions. That’s the transformation of “Gemeinschaft” (personal, community-based) interactions into “Gesellschaft” (formal, impersonal, commerce-based) interactions that is one of the most important transformations in all of human history.
Yet, despite the fact that recruiters are part of this modern gargantuan system of formalized business relations, they somehow are expected to and do manage to maintain a human face and to provide a “human touch”—especially because they are the helping hand that makes the employer-new employee deal-sealing handshake possible.
Because the recruiter’s defining function is to help employer and job-seeker achieve their goals, his or her role is special in the domain of  hardcore business: Recruiters, like caregivers, exist to help and only to help, including helping those who may be motivated to help themselves (to what they desire).
In contrast, employers and prospective employees will always, or at least initially, be tempted to play a “zero-sum” game, e.g., with respect to salary, in which gains for the candidate mean losses for the prospective employer and vice versa,  and where maximizing satisfaction on one side means reducing it on the other.
Recruiters, however, are readily perceived as trying to maximize satisfaction for both the employer and the candidate (even though this is in practice, if not logically, impossible). More reasonably, what the recruiter actually does is to maximize such respective satisfactions subject to unavoidable constraints (that manifest themselves in the negotiations the recruiter helpfully facilitates).
To put this point in terms that Adam Smith might approve, recruiters supplement the cold, impersonal, often merciless “invisible hand” of the Gesellschaft marketplace with their own Gemeinschaft warm “helping hand”.  In this way, a recruiter serves as not only a catalyst of employment, but also as a personalizing buffer between conflicting expectations of the hiring and the hired, and between the impersonal forces of job supply and job-seeker demand.
The Main Reason We Need Recruiters
Being only examples of the reasons we need recruiters, these cited explanations are, nonetheless, at least sufficient to answer the second question, “Do we need recruiters?” In terms of the framework outlined here, we can say that the need for recruiters is “over-determined”: There is, in our modern world, more than one reason why recruiters are necessary.
Still, the temptation to ask for the reason stubbornly tugs on the mind. Habits die hard and slowly; such an intellectual instinct as this one dies even harder and more slowly. So, as a concession to this reductionist urge to know the reason, the single most important reason we (still) need recruiters, and on deep reflection, I will try to offer one.
We all need to eat.

Why Posting Resumes on Job Boards and Company Web Sites Doesn't Work Well?

So you're surfing on one of the job boards. You've been laid off, or are afraid you will be, or maybe you're just the type who likes to keep his options open. And you see it, the perfect job. It's so perfect that if you ARE working, you have to do a double take to make sure it isn't your own company posting your own job.
But it's not. In fact, the job is posted by a company you've heard good things about, one of the top five on your list of places to apply to. You can't believe your luck. You check the date it was posted. Today! It doesn't get better than this. So you go through all the links, fill in all the boxes; paste this and re-type that; maybe they even let you attach your Word file or PDF someplace. You hit the send button and YOU ARE IN!
You know where we're going with this. Nothing happens. No calls. Weird, but you've seen it before. The job requisition could have been cancelled, or they might have already had someone in mind for the job. Who knows?
A couple weeks later you get a call from a headhunter, looking for someone like you. Exactly like you. Something clicks and you ask him if he's calling about that perfect job you applied for a couple of weeks ago. The headhunter tells you he is in fact working on that position and the employer just gave him the search assignment this morning.
You tell him you already sent in your resume via the job board or via the company's web site. There's a pause. Does somebody see his commission slipping away? Then the headhunter suggests that if you want, he'll approach the company with your resume and try again. "What the heck," says the headhunter, "If they hire you, I try to collect the fee. Maybe I do and maybe I don't because companies don't like to pay a headhunter for a candidate who is already on file. " but either way, you still get the job.
What happened? Right now your resume is stuck in "screen-bot" limbo. The hiring company has your resume in their database. It never made it to the hiring manager because the automated search and screening methods (screen-bots) can't be perfect when it comes to lining up candidates with hiring managers.
So you tell the recruiter to go ahead and submit your resume one more time. You know where we're going with this, don't you? Nothing happens again.
A few weeks later, you call the headhunter and ask him about it. He can't figure it. He sent in your resume; the company said they'd already seen it, and they weren't interested. The headhunter asks if you know anybody else. Depending on the kind of person you are, you may or may not express some crankiness at this point. Two weeks later the job is re-posted by the company, still unfilled.
Welcome to the job-hunting world of today. You have just fallen victim to a very serious glitch in the recruiting process; one that will get worse before it gets better, and one that ABSOLUTELY NO ONE wants to admit even exists. You have stepped onto a land mine that quite possibly will not only limit your own job prospects, but is potentially serious enough that it could actually slow down hiring once the job market starts to pick up, hurting hiring companies & investors as much as job-seekers. The glitch is simple enough to fix but it won't happen soon enough to help you out.
Here's what may have happened. You did everything right on the job application. Unfortunately for you, the company you sent your resume to has had hard times just like everybody else, so you sent your resume to a reduced and overworked HR department. When they programmed the screen-bot to search for your resume, maybe they didn't put in enough key words and it didn't get picked up. Maybe they programmed in SO MANY keywords that every morning the hiring manager opens his email and saw three hundred resumes, none of which was ever close to what he was looking for. That's why he stopped reading resumes from the screen-bot months ago. He was just waiting the two weeks until his boss let him hire a headhunter to go find the right person.
The problem here is that the hiring company didn't just lay off people when it cut costs. It also re-negotiated all agreements with search firms and demanded a clause: "If a search firm sends in a resume that's already "in the system" the search firm doesn't get credit for it. " HR figures this way it gets a couple freebees now and then. Good for keeping a lid on hiring costs. The search firm was hurting too, of course, so to retain the account, it signed the contract.
Thus the headhunter knows that if he sends in your resume, not only will he DEFINITELY NOT get paid, but also you may actually get hired. The position gets filled, his search disappears, and he gets NO commission. He's just coming off a bad couple of years, himself. Do you think the headhunter will really present your resume?
What are you going to do about it? Send in your resume again? If that worked, the employer would have caught it the first time. Call a different headhunter? Any firm that works with that company have probably signed the same agreement. You are stuck, my friend.
There is no HR department in Silicon Valley or anywhere else in the world that wants to admit it could fill many of the company's open jobs with resumes that have been submitted or posted on the job boards for weeks.
Searching and screening by HR either results in too many resumes to send to the hiring manager, or so few that the right candidate isn't included. HR people are tired of hearing from a hiring manager that the last stack of resumes were a bad fit and caused him to waste an hour reading them all.
Screen-bots just aren't as good as a headhunter who really knows the hiring managers and the candidates. A few really smart companies already know this and they hire headhunters to data mine their resume databases for a reduced fee.
There's also no headhunter who wants your resume to go anywhere near a job where he won't get paid because they already have your resume on file. Open positions are rare and headhunters want to fill them with candidates who will generate a commission.
You are stuck in screen-bot limbo. What can you do? You have options. You should forget about using the online job boards as they really are a waste of time and are cluttered with too many candidates & jobs. You should call a headhunter you trust and have them work for you.

We don't get paid to find candidates!!

Wow… stop and think about it. Anyone can find a candidate – that is, anyone with a computer and a little know-how about Boolean searches. Simply put in some key words and "voila”… out pop dozens of candidates. Or how about putting a half decent posting together and sticking it on some job boards. Easy – right?????


Here’s where we differentiate ourselves as professional recruiters (yes, I did use the term professional!)….


Adding Value – a commonly misused phrase. What does "adding value” really mean? So many of our clients (or potential clients) think that all we do is to grab resumes from job boards and flog them. No wonder we get objections about having candidates submitted who are already on the boards. What we fail to do is to EDUCATE our clients on the PROCESS of what we do as professionals.


Think about it… we can find a resume, chat with a candidate and even get them interested in going to an interview. However, that is not what makes a PLACEMENT!! Here’s where our expertise comes in.


The ability to assess the appropriate "fit” of the candidate to your client’s particular position is paramount. No matter how "technically qualified” the person is, if they are not a fit, the placement won’t fly. You don’t just need to know, "Can they do the job?” but "Will they do the job well?”


Ask yourself, "How well do I know this candidate?” The more information you have about the candidate, the higher the chances are that you will have a successful placement. You know how many times you have presented a candidate – only to find out that they turn the job down. 
Did you stop and examine, "What could I have asked or learned about the candidate to mitigate the potential of a turndown?” Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that they will say "yes” when it was a "no” all along.


You should be asking for more info about the candidate – things like… what motivates them? 


Why would they consider moving from where they are? What’s missing in their career now? 


What do they value (as opposed to what you value)? How long have they thought a potential career move through (people don’t tend to change careers overnight… it takes time!)? So many questions we fail to ask and yet it really is part of the overall process of making a successful placement. Is there a "favorite” question you like to ask, no matter what? I tend to close the interview with… "Name three things that are important to YOU as you consider moving from one career to another.” Expand on each thing and write them down… go back and reflect on this as you work through the recruitment process because that is the benchmark that the opportunity will be measured against. 


Restate this wish list to the candidate throughout the process to remind them of what they said was important to them. Draw parallels between your job opportunity and what they consider to be important to them. As you work through the process you will find it easier, the more information you are armed with!


So you see… we don’t get paid for finding candidates and submitting resumes! We get paid for our ability to bring the placement to a successful close

Tips to Successfully Interview over the Phone

Employers use telephone interviews as a way of identifying and recruiting candidates for employment. Phone interviews are often used to screen candidates in order to narrow the pool of applicants who will be invited for in-person interviews. They are also used as a way to minimize the expenses involved in interviewing out-of-town candidates.
While you're actively job searching, it's important to be prepared for a phone interview on a moment's notice. You never know when a recruiter or a networking contact might call and ask if you have a few minutes to talk. Review these tips on how to pull off your phone interview without a hitch.

Be Prepared to Interview

Prepare for a phone interview just as you would for a regular interview. Compile a list of your strengths and weaknesses, as well as a list of answers to typical phone interview questions. In addition, plan on being prepared for a phone conversation about your background and skills.

• Keep your resume in clear view, on the top of your desk, or tape it to the wall near the phone, so it's at your fingertips when you need to answer questions.

• Have a short list of your accomplishments available to review.

• Have a pen and paper handy for note taking.

• Turn call-waiting off so your call isn't interrupted.

• If the time isn't convenient, ask if you could talk at another time and suggest some alternatives.

• Clear the room - evict the kids and the pets. Turn off the stereo and the TV. Close the door.

• Unless you're sure your cell phone service is going to be perfect, consider using a landline rather than your cell phone to avoid a dropped call or static on the line.

Practice Interviewing

Talking on the phone isn't as easy as it seems. I've always found it's helpful to practice. Have a friend or family member conduct a mock interview and tape record it so you can see how you sound over the phone. Any cassette recorder will work. You'll be able to hear your "ums" and "uhs" and "okays" and you can practice reducing them from your conversational speech. Also rehearse answers to those typical questions you'll be asked.

During the Phone Interview

• Don't smoke, chew gum, eat, or drink.

• Do keep a glass of water handy, in case you need to wet your mouth.

• Smile. Smiling will project a positive image to the listener and will change the tone of your voice.

• Speak slowly and enunciate clearly.

• Use the person's title (Mr. or Ms. and their last name.) Only use a first name if they ask you to.

• Don't interrupt the interviewer.

• Take your time - it's perfectly acceptable to take a moment or two to collect your thoughts.

• Give short answers.

• Remember your goal is to set up a face-to-face interview. After you thank the interviewer ask if it would be possible to meet in person.

After the Interview:

• Take notes about what you were asked and how you answered.

• Remember to say "thank you." 

• Follow with a thank you note which reiterates your interest in the job.

14 ways to get INSANELY motivated!

Here are 14 quick strategies to get and keep yourself motivated:

1. Condition your mind. Train yourself to think positive thoughts while avoiding negative thoughts.

2. Condition your body. It takes physical energy to take action.  Get your food and exercise budget in place and follow it like a business plan.

3. Avoid negative people. They drain your energy and waste your time, so hanging with them is like shooting yourself in the foot.

4. Seek out the similarly motivated. Their positive energy will rub off on you and you can imitate their success strategies.

5. Have goals–but remain flexible. No plan should be cast in concrete, lest it become more important than achieving the goal.

6. Act with a higher purpose.  Any activity or action that doesn’t serve your higher goal is wasted effort--and should be avoided.

7. Take responsibility for your own results. If you blame (or credit) luck, fate or divine intervention, you’ll always have an excuse.

8. Stretch past your limits on a daily basis. Walking the old, familiar paths is how you grow old. Stretching makes you grow and evolve.

9. Don't wait for perfection; do it now! Perfectionists are the losers in the game of life.  Strive for excellence rather than the unachievable.

10. Celebrate your failures. Your most important lessons in life will come from what you don't achieve. Take time to understand where you fell short.

11. Don’t take success too seriously. Success can breed tomorrow's failure if you use it as an excuse to become complacent.

12. Avoid weak goals.  Goals are the soul of achievement, so never begin them with "I'll try ..."  Always start with "I will" or "I must."

13. Treat inaction as the only real failure.  If you don’t take action, you fail by default and can't even learn from the experience.

14. Think before you speak.  Keep silent rather than express something that doesn’t serve your purpose.

Should YOU use a Recruiter?

Why should I use a recruiter?

You are at your desk, or at home watching TV when you get a call from a recruiter who has found your contact information using the many secrets of the trade (sorry – that’s our secret!). Before you hang up the phone, remember that recruiters can hold the keys to the hidden jewels of the job market. Use them and they may just open the door to a new career opportunity. What I have learned working in this industry for over 20 years is the important role a recruiter can play in a persons career path. Even if you are not looking now, you may need their help later, so this applies to those who are blissfully happy with their careers, as well as those looking for a new opportunity. Here are the top 5 reasons why you should use a recruiter.

1. Hidden Job Market. I said earlier that recruiters hold the hidden jewels of the job market, and here they are – undisclosed jobs. Many times, especially with Sr level positions, companies have confidential roles that are for restricted eyes only. Companies then turn to recruiters for help with these positions. You cannot find these positions listed on Monster, or the various other job sites on the web. Imagine - your dream job may just be a recruiter away. This point goes hand in hand with #2.
2. Connections. Recruiters have clout with hiring managers and sr. level executives - many of us do not. You send your resume to numerous companies, and post your resume on various job sites to no avail. You still haven’t heard a peep. Recruiters have the connections to not only get you in the door, perhaps even the back door, but also get feedback – whether positive or negative – rather quickly. Think of how many others are applying to the same job you are…tons. Hiring managers and HR personnel simply cannot and do not have the time to review every resume. A recruiter can guarantee that you won’t be just another resume in a pile; you will be sent to Sr manager who will review your resume. Don’t you love recruiters just a little bit more now?
3. Expertise. Are you underpaid? Overpaid? Are you ready for a Sr role? Are your technical skills up to par? Are you doing the job you'd really like to be doing today? There are a number of questions that can help you make an informed decision when it comes to strategic career planning, and a recruiter is a great resource to utilize. They can help you find answers and ask questions that will guide you to the right job and the right steps to take in order to advance your career. Best of all, this information is free, unbiased and essential when determining your position and worth in today’s job market.
4. End Game is the same. You and your recruiter have the same goal, and that is to make sure you are putting your best foot forward, meeting the right people, and hopefully getting you an ideal role that is a perfect fit for both you and your future employer. They're on your side. This leads me to point #5…
5. Long-term ally. Let’s say you found a recruiter, you find a job (whether it was their role or not), and you are now perfectly content, remember this may not always be the case. Come 3-5 years down the line you may decide to try your hands at a new company/role again. Or you may spend the rest of your days in the company you are working for, but may need advice when it comes to compensation, employee rights, etc… You now have an ally that is there for you to utilize. Recruiters (meaning legitimate, professional recruiters) are in it for the long haul. They are in the business of building relationships with both candidates and clients, and making sure both parties are equally satisfied. Therefore you not only gain a new role, but you also gain an important ally to guide you through your current and future career path.

So the next time a recruiter calls you, you just might want to pick up the phone.

Let's GO CAPS!

Let's GO CAPS and beat the Bruins today!!

SHUTTLESWORTH!!

Amazing shot from the roof of our favorite client's building overlooking Dulles Airport. Cool.

7 Things You Should Never Do During An Interview

Here's some good old fashioned EWSG sage advice!


With the job market extremely tight, even the small stuff counts, especially when you’re on a job interview.  That’s why it’s so important not to say or do the wrong things, since that first impression could end up being the last one.

With that in mind, here are seven deadly sins of job interviewing.

1. Don’t Be Late To the Interview

Even if you car broke down or the subway derailed, do everything you can to get to that job interview on time.

If you have a legitimate excuse it’s still hard to bounce back and people are suspicious because they hear the same excuses all the time.

On the flip side, you don’t want to show up too early and risk appearing desperate, but you do want to be there at least five minutes early or at the very least on time. 

2. Don’t Show Up Unprepared

It seems simple, but countless people go on job interviews knowing very little about the company they are interviewing with when all it would take is a simple Google search to find out. As a result, they end up asking obvious questions, which signal to the interviewer that they are too lazy to prepare.

Don’t ask if the company is public or private, how long it’s been in business and where they do their manufacturing. Sharpen your pencil before you go to school.

3. Don’t Ask About Salary, Benefits, Perks

Your initial interview with a company shouldn’t be about what the company can do for you, but what you can do for the company. Which means the interview isn’t the time to ask about the severance package, vacation time or health plan. Instead you should be selling yourself as to why the company can’t live without you.

Your interest should be about the job and what your responsibilities will be. Asking about vacation, sick leave, 401K, salary and benefits should be avoided at all costs, unless the interviewer brings it up.

4. Don’t Focus On Future Roles Instead Of The Job At Hand

The job interview is not the time or place to ask about advancement opportunities or how to become the CEO. You need to be interested in the job you are actually interviewing for. Sure, a company wants to see that you are ambitious, but they also want assurances you are committed to the job you’re being hired for.

You can’t come with an agenda that this job is just a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

5. Don’t Turn The Weakness Question Into A Positive

To put it bluntly, interviewers are not idiots. So when they ask you about a weakness and you say you work too hard or you are too much of a perfectionist, chances are they are more apt to roll their eyes than be blown away. Instead, be honest and come up with a weakness that can be improved on and won’t ruin your chances of getting a job.

For instance, if you are interviewing for a project management position, it wouldn’t be wise to say you have poor organizational skills, but it’s ok to say you want to learn more shortcuts in Excel. Talk about the skills you don’t have that will add value, but aren’t required for the job.

6. Don’t Lie

Many people think its ok to exaggerate their experience or fib about a firing on a job interview, but lying can be a surefire way not to get hired.  Even if you get through the interview process with your half truths, chances are you won’t be equipped to handle the job you were hired to do.  Not to mention the more you lie the more likely you are to slip up.

Don’t exaggerate, don’t make things bigger than they are and don’t claim credit for accomplishments you didn’t do. You leave so much room in your brain if you don’t have to fill it with which lie you told which person.

7. Don’t Ask If There’s Any Reason You Shouldn’t Be Hired

Well meaning career experts will tell you to close your interview by asking if there is any reason you wouldn’t be hired. While that question can give you an idea of where you stand and afford you the opportunity to address any concerns, there’s no guarantee the interviewer is going to be truthful with you or has even processed your information enough to even think about that.

All you are doing is prompting them to think about what’s wrong with you!

Just a few cents worth of advice from the search group...

Crypto Guys!