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Paul Slezak's Posts - RecruitingBlogs 2014-08-22T15:06:05Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak http://api.ning.com:80/files/uAUMBNt1qBMwkQ*ySZ2CtZmG*8lDoZh0zmLkR2P82SiwDlgmefEQ*h76h*oex6dHAAoXodC9jDkpP7XC8xG8GA__/867927605.jpeg?xgip=0%3A0%3A271%3A271%3B%3B&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1 http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=14dq58dtzepoz&xn_auth=no An Open Letter To Hiring Managers … On Behalf Of All Recruiters tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2014-08-08:502551:BlogPost:1819886 2014-08-08T05:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

Mr Client,

I apologise in advance for the somewhat generic greeting, but it's been ingrained in me from way back when I first got into recruitment.

I still remember all the role-plays and all the training manuals. Every scenario seemed to involve an interaction with "Mr…

Mr Client,

I apologise in advance for the somewhat generic greeting, but it's been ingrained in me from way back when I first got into recruitment.

I still remember all the role-plays and all the training manuals. Every scenario seemed to involve an interaction with "Mr Client". Hopefully they've all been updated by now to include just as many interactions with "Ms Client" too.

Please allow me to start again …

Mr / Ms Client,

I've been in this game for a long time. So on behalf of my fellow recruiters (past, present and future), after some recent interactions with a few of our own clients on both sides of the Pacific, I feel compelled to share a few thoughts.

I just hope that in reading this letter you'll realise that we really can make your life easier … as long as you're willing to partner with us, and not lure us in and then forget about us. Or worse … promise us the world before stabbing us in the back.

It hurts …

What I am really trying to say is:

We want to work with you

I've heard this one over and over again: "But it's so damn hard working with a recruiter!"

To be honest it's probably because you think we're working against you!

Trust me we are not (all) trying to rip you off. Believe it or not, many of us won't manipulate you into taking someone on who isn't right for you; or convincing you to pay someone more than they deserve just so we can earn a higher commission.

We actually want to find you the best possible candidate. We're on your side. We just want to let you get on with what you do best, while we get on with what we love to do … and do what we do best.

I beg your pardon? You can't say that!

Bernadette recently wrote a great piece about the problem with stereotyping during the recruitment process.

One of our clients clearly did not read that post since when he briefed us just last week he said something so outrageously discriminatory to one of our team members that when I heard about it, I thought I'd been transported back to an era long ago … to the time of To Kill a Mockingbird.

So please just be mindful of anti discrimination legislation. Even if you tell us not to bother sharing the details with you of anyone [insert sex, age, religion, skin colour, etc] we actually won't listen to you.

Actually we probably won't want to work with you anyway … so this was more of a heads up!

We're not mind readers …

We might be good … but we're not that good.

So when we say we need to meet with you (or at least speak to you) to get a better understanding of what you're looking for, there's a reason for it.

If we don't get to know you and your business properly, what will end up happening is that you won't like anyone we send you (and that's when all the complaining starts … and that's how we end up getting a bad rap).

Nobody knows your business better than you do. And if you want us to help you grow your team, you'll have to share some of the information in your head with us.

Every company is different. So even if we've recruited a hundred [insert position title] candidates for other organisations in the past, the person you're looking for will be different.

Spending some time with us up front will prevent a lot of time wasted later.

Are you serious?

I've mentioned this story before, but it's appropriate to share it again.

I will never forget on one particular occasion I was sitting with the General Manager of an organisation, when she looked me straight in the eye and said something that really took me by surprise. "Actually, Paul. More than anything, it's crucial that you find me a Scorpio. We need a bit more bite around here".

I thought she was joking but she was being completely serious.

I mentioned above that we're not mind readers. But we are not astrologers either!

If you want a recruiter to help you find your diamond in the rough then we really need to be working to a professional brief.

Please … no mumbo jumbo.

If for whatever reason you happen to have your own 'alternative' hiring criteria (like recruiting based on star signs), then please don't waste our time.

Rather when you find yourself needing to bring someone new into your team, you may just want to consider running your own an ad along the lines of: "Scorpio required to add bite to a team of obsessive Virgos while reporting to a dynamic Piscean"!

Good luck with that one!

This is not a job description!

I'm not a yes person. So if you asked me to find you a [insert position title] for your business and then said "Come on, Paul. Surely you know what I'm looking for", you know what? I wouldn't even think about your role for a second.

I need a job proper job description.

And you know what else? If you scribbled a few bullet points on to a Post-it Note and gave it to me, I still wouldn't even consider working on your brief.

I loved Jenn's recent reference to job descriptions being 'lethal weapons' since often they can bore a candidate (not to mention us recruiters!) to death.

Contrary to popular belief, we aren't just here to put a bum on a seat. We've seen thousands of position descriptions and could help you put one together.

Here's a hint. If you don't have a position description, or if the idea of creating one is in the 'too hard basket', just ask!

Do I really need to define 'exclusivity'?

It's pretty offensive when you tell us you haven't briefed (or won't be briefing) any other recruiters but then after we provide you some amazing candidates, you go ahead and tell us that you've hired someone through another recruiter (one of our competitors).

That's a slap in the face (or the 'stab in the back' I referred to earlier).

We'd rather know the lay of the land from the outset.

How would you like it if we told you our perfect candidate wasn't looking at any other opportunities? You met them; you loved them; your team loved them; you wanted to make them an offer … Then … "Woops … sorry … we've actually just placed them with one of your competitors".

Ouch. Right?

As my 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Porter used to say … 'honesty is the best policy'.

Here's my number. So call me … Maybe?

If we wanted to work on the case of the disappearing client, we'd reach out to David Copperfield for some handy hints.

Working with a recruiter is a two-way street.

We send you profiles and résumes, we organise interviews, and you meet with our candidates.

All along the candidates are craving feedback … a quick update … eager to hear about potential next steps.

If we don't keep them updated, their only thought is that we have forgotten about them (or actually that we don't even care about them). Never once do they think you haven't been able to come back to us with feedback.

So please … if we send through a handful of résumes, please call us (or at least email us) with your initial thoughts. If you interview one of our candidates, please don't just delete and ignore those voicemails that we leave you over the next 24 hours asking for your feedback. Please call us to discuss how the interviews went.

We just want to keep your candidates in the loop.

I guess that's it in a nutshell.

Yours truly,

All Recruiters Out There

PS … Did I mention that we all want to work with you? Really we do!

Please note, this post originally appeared on The RecruitLoop Blog
 Why Recruiters Should Stay Close To Their Candidates During Their Notice Period tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2014-07-28:502551:BlogPost:1817372 2014-07-28T08:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 My flight home from San Francisco the other day was delayed by over an hour. It felt like every 10 – 15 minutes the boarding time would be pushed out, resulting in a mass sigh or groan of frustration from the all the passengers waiting in the departure lounge.

I wasn't paying too much attention to the…

My flight home from San Francisco the other day was delayed by over an hour. It felt like every 10 – 15 minutes the boarding time would be pushed out, resulting in a mass sigh or groan of frustration from the all the passengers waiting in the departure lounge.

I wasn't paying too much attention to the people around me. It was late, I was really tired, and I could hardly keep my eyes open.

So when I heard "No f#%&ing way … You can't be serious …", in a John McEnroe type of outburst from the guy sitting opposite me, I just assumed another delay notification must have appeared on the monitors.

"You have got to be kidding me. No way!"

He was now clearly pretty irate so I opened my eyes and looked over at the monitors. But there was no indication of any further delay.

I looked across at 'John McEnroe'. He must have thought my eye contact was a sign I wanted to engage in conversation since the tirade of abuse continued. But he wasn't angry about the delay; and he wasn't angry with anyone around him (least of all me). He was actually abusing his iPhone.

"No coverage in here?" I asked, smiling somewhat awkwardly?

Clearly I had now invited a conversation.

"Huh? Oh no … I've just seen an email from a guy who's meant to join my team next Monday telling me that he won't be starting. Nearly three months of interviews and salary negotiation and he has the nerve to just send a one-line email telling me he's changed his mind? Sorry I'm just p*ssed off …"

I couldn't help myself.

"When did you last speak to him?" I asked casually.

"What's it to you?"

OK. So now I wished I hadn't made eye contact. A few minutes passed.

"About 6 weeks ago … not that it's any of your business".

Boarding had finally commenced and they'd called my boarding group. So I just stood up, hoping that this guy wouldn't be sitting anywhere near me for the next 15 hours!

As I sat with my eyes closed waiting for the plane to push back, I couldn't stop thinking about how agitated he had been and yet he hadn't spoken to his future employee for 6 weeks.

So much can happen between the time a candidate accepts a new position and the time they actually start in their new role. As a recruiter, you need to stay particularly close and be in frequent contact with them in order to prevent any nasty surprises.

I have to admit that for a split second I thought about trying to find 'John McEnroe' and giving him some advice. But I then decided that I'd be happier just including a few tips in a blog post instead.

 1. Countering the counter-offer

Please understand that managers are not restricted to making a counter-offer to a team member just at the time they hand in their notice. I've seen it first hand when a manager has let the dust (or heat) of the actual resignation settle and half way through (say for example) the 4-week notice period has dangled a carrot too good to refuse. Your candidate accepts the counter-offer and that placement fee suddenly disappears.

Try this: Call your candidate about a week after they resign and ask them if their boss has tried to throw more money at them. If they say no, ask them if more money would now hypothetically be an incentive to stay.

2. Pre-empting the peer pressure

For some people, leaving a job can be quite a traumatic experience – especially if they have been at the company for many years. All the different farewell lunches, the soppy "we're all going to miss you" cards …

One of my recruiters once had a candidate call him from her team farewell lunch to say she'd changed her mind. Whether it was staged or genuine, the candidate had succumbed to the soppiness, the hugging, and the various "remember when …" trips down corporate memory lane, and there was nothing my recruiter could do to change her mind.

Try this: Tell your candidate to be ready for an emotional guilt trip. Ask them when their farewell lunch is and jokingly say you'll make a booking at a nearby table. And then do it if you have to!

3. Beating the 'Devil you know' …

Notice periods are funny things. While they certainly allow for any necessary handover to take place, they are also often just the right amount of time for your candidate to realise that things might not have really been as bad as they seemed; and that perhaps they were over reacting when they first came to see you.

Better the devil you know?

Maybe they'll suddenly realise that they'll miss the routine … the Monday morning meeting, the monthly birthday cake celebration in the break-out room, the quarterly team function, and of course the annual themed Christmas party.

Try this: Call your candidate every Monday afternoon during their notice period and ask them how the meeting went. If you have to, find out when the next birthday cake day is, and meet them for a drink that evening. Remind them that they are leaving to further their career, and that friends will always stay friends. They could even arrange a reunion type of quarterly function!

4. "I've found something better …"

Not quite the words any recruiter wants to hear from their candidate one week before the end of the quarter.

This happened to me once many years ago and I certainly never let it happen to me again.

I foolishly believed that just because my candidate had accepted a job with my client, that this meant she would stop looking for other work.

Boy was I wrong.

Try this: When you meet up with your candidate, casually say something like, "You must feel like such a free agent now that you've resigned. [pause] So what other exciting roles have you applied for?" and you may just catch them off guard.

5. Keeping the seagulls away from your chips!

I remember my first manager teaching me that if a candidate I was working with ever called to say they had accepted a role (especially through another recruiter) that this meant I needed to speak to even more potential clients and do everything in my power to find a better offer for my candidate.

"Become the ambulance chaser", he said.

I can share this now, but I honestly hated that pressure.

So you need to picture that as soon as your candidate tells all the other recruiters she's registered with that she's accepted your offer, that all those other recruiters will be swarming in and going into overdrive to derail your placement.

Try this: Call the candidate and blatantly ask her how many other offers she's had from other recruiters in the last week. And of course ask if any of them have piqued her interest.

[Or you could try this (I promise I never did this, but a colleague of mine did this a few times and (unfortunately) it worked): Get one of your colleagues to call your candidate, pretend to be from another agency, describe a similar role (offering more money) and gauge your candidate's reaction. I can't believe I just shared that tip … but my colleague salvaged a few placements using this shady tactic.]

6. Looking out for light bulb moments

This one also happened to me many years ago. I'd been working on a really tough brief and I'd found the perfect candidate. He was feeling pretty burnt out from his current role and wanted to take a six week break before starting in the new role.

It was around Christmas time so my client was comfortable waiting.

I'd spoken to him twice but he had then taken his family away on holidays for three weeks.

I called him a few days after he got back.

"I was actually going to call you", he said. "I've done a lot of thinking, and I've decided I just don't want another demanding job. I need to be able to spend more time with my kids. I'm really sorry to be letting you down, Paul".

Try this: I used this tactic many times after the above episode 'robbed' me of a huge fee. If a candidate requested to take an extended period of time off between finishing with their employer and starting in their new role, whenever I would call them or meet up with them, I'd say, "Do I need to call my client and let him know that you've decided to become an artist and have moved to a cabin in the woods?"

A laugh on the other end of the line was always comforting …

* * *

Remember that just because a candidate has resigned from their current position and has accepted a role with your client, it's certainly not a done deal. Make sure you call your candidate at least once a week during their notice period. Maybe even grab a coffee, lunch or a drink with them if possible.

Trust me … keeping in touch and ideally sitting down with your candidate face-to-face between the day they hand in their resignation and the day they're due to start working with your client could help prevent a recruitment catastrophe.

Please note this post originally appeared on The Recruitloop Blog.

 What Can a Social Footprint Really Reveal About a Prospective Candidate? tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2014-02-21:502551:BlogPost:1790857 2014-02-21T02:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

With the explosion of social media networks, we have all become content creators, networkers and spectators, and we end up spending hours online in networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus, both creating and consuming content.

Over 500 million photos – not to…

With the explosion of social media networks, we have all become content creators, networkers and spectators, and we end up spending hours online in networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus, both creating and consuming content.

Over 500 million photos – not to mention several billion updates – are posted every single day, and growing exponentially.

We live in a social media world where everything can be seen and heard immediately. It's all essentially branding and it's how candidates and organisations market themselves to one another – a timeless concept.

The reason why branding has always existed on a personal as well as a business level is that we have to sell ourselves or our organization in various situations, whether trying to impress a hiring manager during an interview, or to promote the company brand and mission.

Candidates and employers are branding and communicating to each other in a two-way dance to attract the right fit.

But where exactly does so much of this external branding and communication of 'who I am' or 'who we are' take place?

A hint: If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of countries like Sweden, Israel and Switzerland. The amount of content shared socially out there is 'Astounding' (with a capital A!) and is increasingly being used by diligent employers and recruiters who need to make consistent, solid hiring decisions.

In this day and age it has become common practice to 'just Google it', or when it comes to candidate or company profiles, to attempt to gain more insight via searching the major social media vehicles. For some 'the social search' has now become second nature. But why is this?

Pre-interview verification

More and more employers and recruitment professionals are turning to social media since they want to see who a potential candidate is prior to even interviewing them. They want to see how a candidate communicates and positions their personal brand and persona to others.

But, what are employers really looking for to facilitate a successful hire and increase top employee retention?

Fit and suitability

How will a candidate fit in with a company's culture, mission and values? And how well will they mesh with their prospective work colleagues?Employers equate fit and suitability with building and retaining top performers.

Many hiring managers have moved beyond simply reviewing a person's qualifications and experience on a CV to effectively screen, evaluate, and interview top candidates for key positions. They're gauging fit and suitability based on a candidate's social footprint. In-depth 'social screening' and assessment up front can help both job seekers and employers ensure a proper fit and reduce time spent 'in limbo'.

The resumé has been replaced by a social snapshot

The future of the resumé will be a social snapshot that showcases a candidate's personal brand – an expression of who they are in their world of social networks. This leads to the question, what do social networks say about a prospective candidate?

The five C's to look for when evaluating a candidate's social footprint

Community. A person's community reflects where they spend their time and can show their interests, hobbies and who they surround themselves with.

Content. Content is king. It really reveals one's character and shows potential employers what the individual is all about, what they are saying, and what they are doing within these networks.

Context. Context tells a story about how one is living their life, and it can give an indication of how professional they are.

Communication. A prospective employee's written message shows how they engage with audiences within their communities – how they talk with friends, family and peers online.

Consistency. In direct relation to content, context and communication – how consistently does the individual exhibit across their social networks? This can reflect behaviour, validate how they represent themselves or indicate their authenticity, and that they are who they say they are.

Analysing a candidate's social footprint can transform and streamline your entire hiring process.

This can then allow for a better connection with employers, adding value to all parties involved in the hiring process by increasing the ability to better assess an individual candidate's cultural and professional fit.

Please note this post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog.
 7 Essential Telephone Screening Questions tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2014-01-29:502551:BlogPost:1784906 2014-01-29T06:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 I've seen far too many people fall into this trap over the years and you may well have found yourself in a similar situation either as a hiring manager or as a recruiter.

You're inundated with applications. You skim through the plethora of cover letters or maybe have a quick glance at the…

I've seen far too many people fall into this trap over the years and you may well have found yourself in a similar situation either as a hiring manager or as a recruiter.

You're inundated with applications. You skim through the plethora of cover letters or maybe have a quick glance at the front pages of the resumés starting to clog up your inbox.

A few key words, relevant job titles, or 'nice-to-have' company names jump out at you and you immediately pick up the phone to book a candidate in for an interview.

If you're feeling too swamped, you may even ask someone else to call the candidate on your behalf to invite them in.

No questions asked. It's just a call to book them in to see you.

So far so good?

Ah … not quite!

It's crazy how often a recruiter or hiring manager will then walk into the interview only to quickly realise that the candidate in front of them is totally wrong for the role (or company) in question.

And yet had they spent even just 5 – 10 minutes on the phone assessing the candidate, they certainly would not have invited them in for what turned out to be a complete waste of (everyone's) time.

Phone screening is certainly one way to determine whether a candidate might be suitable for a role and therefore whether or not they should qualify for a face-to-face interview.

But knowing what to keep an eye (or ear!) out for during a phone screening call could also prevent the odd catastrophe.

1. Do they even remember applying for the role?

The first question I always ask during a phone screen (after I introduce myself and let them know where I am calling from) is whether they can actually recall applying for my role. You can tell a lot from how they respond to this question.

2. What was it about the role (or ad) that attracted their attention?

I remember asking this question once to a candidate whose work history actually looked damn good on paper.

She literally burst out laughing. "Are you serious? I've probably applied for about 50 roles in the last 2 weeks. Do you really expect me to know why I specifically applied to yours? Probably because I desperately need to find a job. Does that answer your question?"

Let's just say I didn't even need to go on to Question 3!

3. Where are they up to in their job search?

Are you the first person they are speaking to? Is yours the only position they have applied for recently? Or have they already been for five interviews this week?

The answer to this particular question could help you assess any possibility of you working with them exclusively if they're an A-grade candidate (especially if you're a recruiter) or reveal just how quickly you should get them in to meet with you.

4. What are they ideally looking for in their next position?

Ask them to create a wish list for their next role and get them to talk through it right there with you over the phone, including:

What type of manager they want to work for;

What hours they ideally want to work;

Whether they want any more flexible working arrangements (eg to work from home one day per week).

Assuming you then decide to bring them in, you will also be able to refer back to their wish list during the face-to-face interview.

5. What are their salary expectations?

It's an unfortunate fact but the majority of applicants will typically 'stretch' the truth slightly in response to this particular question. It's also important to ascertain what salary they are currentlyon.

So you might also want to ask, "If I were to ask to see a pay slip, what salary will it indicate you are on now?". Whilst it might cause an awkward silence or a nervous cough, you are more likely to get a straight answer.

6. What is their notice period?

If someone is immediately available (and not working), you need to find out the backstory. Similarly if your need is urgent and when you ask your applicant for their notice period they say "six weeks", well there's no point in wasting anybody's time on this occasion.

Asking this question can also suddenly make the whole job hunting process become very real for any job seeker. If they say "Gosh I'm only just starting to put the feelers out" (or words to this extent), well then they certainly shouldn't go straight to the top of your interview shortlist.

7. What is their availability like for an interview in the next few days?

You might get a similar reaction here to the question about their notice period. But if an applicant says they're just really busy and wouldn't be able to meet you until next week at the earliest, then again you need to question how serious they are about the whole process. If they say they can meet with you before or after work or that they'll "do anything to make it happen" because the position looks perfect, then you might just be on to something.

The way an applicant responds to each of the above questions can tell you a lot about them and about just how serious they are about finding a new job. So listen very carefully to what they have to say.

Remember you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. It's only a 10 – 15 minute telephone call. So make sure you're listening twice as much as you're speaking!

Of course if you still feel you might not have time to telephone screen your applicants, then asking them to record a video interview is certainly another option.

Please note this post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog
 How to Become a Resumé Reviewing Pro tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2014-01-25:502551:BlogPost:1783984 2014-01-25T04:48:38.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
Please note this post originally appeared on The RecruitLoop Blog

 Don't worry. I know exactly what you're thinking.

Surely in this day and age resumés are becoming obsolete! I mean who even has a CV these…

Please note this post originally appeared on The RecruitLoop Blog

Don't worry. I know exactly what you're thinking.

Surely in this day and age resumés are becoming obsolete! I mean who even has a CV these days anyway?

Gosh even we recently confessed that we hired our Head of Growth without ever looking at her resumé!

But for all those business owners and hiring managers out there working in organisations or industry sectors where LinkedIn profiles or social footprints may not be as relevant or as common as a good old hard copy CV, this one's for you!

Now I can't even begin to think of how many thousands of resumés I've scanned in my time. You do the math … 20 years … often up to 90 applications per job ad …

OK stop. That's a lot of trees (yep – even today the majority of recruiters and hiring managers still like to print out a candidate's resumé. Go ahead and ask them!)

So how do the pros review the barrage of CVs after the tsunami of applications hit their inboxes?

The Pile Splitter

I interviewed a recruiter many years ago who placed people into call centre roles. She would be inundated with CVs for every role she advertised. Apparently her theory was quite simple. Each day she would wait for all the applications to come in. She'd make a pile of CVs on her desk and then split the pile in two. She only screened the bottom half and she dumped top half straight in the shredder bin. [In case you're wondering … I didn't hire her].

Residential Bias

Many hiring managers are obsessed with knowing where a candidate lives. This is why most recruiters will typically remove the candidate's address from a CV before sharing it with their client.

Oh … she lives there! There's no way he'd travel in from that far!

If somebody wants a job and they're prepared for a long commute, then please don't judge someone on where they live. Unfortunately because so many candidates put their address at the top of their resumé, residential bias (as I like to call it) is rife!

To Whom It May Concern:

I have to admit I have been guilty of this one myself. There were times when I would be swamped with CVs and cover letters. If I had made it clear in my job ad that all resumés should be addressed to Paul Slezak, then if I received a cover letter that said "To whom it may concern", well unfortunately I didn't even read the cover letter let alone the CV behind it.

That's what I would call resumé skimming at its fastest!

Say Cheese!

Right up there with 'residential bias', are employers (and recruiters too!) looking at a candidate's photo (if they've decided to include one) and letting a mug shot lead the decision making process.

Assuming the majority reading this blog post aren't recruiting for a modelling agency or a prime time television network, then a candidate's photo should be the least of your worries.

Virgo or Sagittarius?

If it's included in the resumé, a candidate's date of birth is also somewhere the hiring manager's eyes will gravitate pretty early on.

I used to think this was related to age discrimination. But over the years I have learned that quite often it's not the year of birth that's being scrutinised at all. It's actually more the day and month.

Believe it or not there are people out there who build their teams based entirely on 'zodiacal compatibility'! There you go – no need to even read the CV. Better yet forget engaging a recruiter! Just hire consulting astrologer!

Now on a More Serious Note …

Whenever I lecture graduates and job seekers on how to create a compelling CV, one of the first things I tell them is that a recruiter or hiring manager will make a decision in the first 10 – 15 seconds of looking at a CV as to whether or not a candidate is suitable.

It's true.

So now looking at it from your perspective, if you're making a judgement call within 10 – 15 seconds, what should you be looking out for in a candidate's CV?

In many previous blog posts and e-books I have stressed the importance of distinguishing between a candidate's ability to get a job and their ability to do the job and ideally excel in it.

Typically during the resumé reviewing process, your focus is on the getting part. It's during the screening and interviewing stages where your focus should shift more to the doing (and excelling) components – and we have stacks of information about that.

Relevant Employment History

Where has the candidate worked? Not just in what companies but in what capacity? You can get a very quick idea as to how suitable their previous work experience has been.

Gaps in Dates

Cast your eye quickly down the work experience or employment history section and ensure the dates flow logically. But if you detect a gap in the chronology please don't write the candidate off immediately. Instead make a note to flag it with them if you speak to them. They may well have a very valid reason for not having worked for a specific period of time.

Required Qualifications

Some roles require set qualifications. Without having to delve into what specific subjects they studied, you can quickly skim to see when and where they obtained their degree.

Responsibilities and Achievements

Has the candidate just listed their responsibilities from their previous roles? Or have they also included a list of achievements associated with them? Whilst a list of duties will once again help with the job getting assessment piece, seeing what they actually achieved (going beyond the job description) will help assess the doing part.

Personal Accomplishments

I have always placed a strong emphasis on this section of a candidate's CV (if they've included it). Life experiences can give you a great snapshot of what they're like outside work.

I used to do a lot of graduate recruitment and often from an academic and work experience perspective the hundreds of CVs would all start to look the same. But if I noticed under 'personal achievements' that a candidate had taken part in a 10-day Vipassana meditation course, had built a raft with a group of friends and spent a month canoeing down a river in South America, or had successfully organised a major fundraising event, I felt that those candidates may well have more to offer than those who just ticked the stock standard boxes.

Finally I just want to highlight that I am definitely a firm believer in looking at a candidate's social footprint alongside their CV. And for anyone I ever hired personally to work in any of my teams, I never even took their resumé into the first interview since first and foremost that meeting was all about assessing cultural suitability.

But if you're being swamped with candidate applications, it's important that you can quickly sort the wheat from the chaff.
 9 Ways to Burn Bridges With Future Candidates tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-12-20:502551:BlogPost:1778066 2013-12-20T00:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
 Congratulations on finding the perfect person for your role! Now, what are you going to do with all those resumes that you no longer need?

Here's some advice: Burn them. Seriously. Who cares? That person made a connection with you, your company, and your brand; but none of that matters now. You…

Congratulations on finding the perfect person for your role! Now, what are you going to do with all those resumes that you no longer need?

Here's some advice: Burn them. Seriously. Who cares? That person made a connection with you, your company, and your brand; but none of that matters now. You don't need them. You've got what you need and over 50% of them weren't even remotely close to what you needed – or will ever need in the future anyway. The best thing to do with people who didn't make the cut is to treat them like garbage, right?

Plus, fire = toasty! (It's been cold in San Francisco recently.)

Wait a second though. Don't burn them (fire code regulations could pose a problem, after all!). There are plenty of other creative ways to cut off ties with these people, some of them much more fun and requiring a lot less effort than pulling out the gasoline. These ideas will leave a bad taste in their mouth about your employer brand probably for the rest of their life! Better yet, they'll tell all their friends about their bad experience, so you'll never have to deal with a passive pool of admiring candidates.

Here are 9 easy and simple ways to burn bridges with future applicants:

1. Don't Respond to Their Application

We hear that this one is a pet peeve and it really annoys them! They know that it's so simple for us to set up an automatic email reply letting them know potential time frames for hearing back about a job. They also know that it would take us probably about two minutes to put together a group email to all the unsuccessful candidates to let them know they didn't make it (using bcc, of course). Knowing we couldn't be bothered to do either of these things makes them really mad, so poof goes the bridge!

2. Unfriendly Careers Page

You just need to warn them that you get about a hundred applicants a month wanting an unpaid internship so they don't get too excited. That's if you can bother putting a careers page up at all. After all, all the good people are in the passive job market right? And they never look at careers pages of companies who contact them. Keep that careers page as unfriendly and scary-looking as possible to make sure that only arrogant self-obsessed people will ever apply for any of your roles.

Bonus points if your careers page is unfriendly, scary, tough to navigate, AND out of date!

3. Refuse to Take Informational Interviews

Why on earth would you want to talk to someone who wants to know about your job rather than apply to work for you? You wouldn't want to run the risk of discovering someone with transferrable skills and increasing your workplace diversity and creativity levels. Also, you won't have to deal with the headache of fielding interest from an experienced candidate willing to work junior positions to get a foot in your industry's door. Say no.

Oh! Better yet, don't reply to their request. You're clearly too busy.

4. Post Jobs That Don't Really Exist

Sometimes it's just good to see what's out there and find out who you could reel in to keep on your passive candidate file. High quality applicants particularly hate spending time filling out a resume, researching the company, taking time off their current work, and traipsing in for an interview only to discover the role isn't actually available anymore! If you do this one right, you'll never have them apply for another role with your company again. Another bridge gone!

5. Have a Bad Application User Experience

This is a great way of filtering out people who have an eye for design, appreciate great user experience, and prefer to get things done quickly. Your application system should be as unfriendly as possible. Make sure resumes realign when they get uploaded. Ask them to manually enter their job experience and university degrees even though it's all on the resume. Don't allow pdfs, and ensure that at least one link is broken in every application process. Bonus points if you can make the search function turn up vague job descriptions with tiny text – that works wonders with starting bridge fires.

6. Don't Have a Mobile Website

No one who is serious about a job search would do it on an iPad. Keeping your careers webpages desktop-only makes sure that the person on a train or in a café during lunch can't apply. They'll have to do it at home, and they'll probably forget about it. Also, it'll make them frustrated with your brand for about a week as they keep realizing that they never have time to apply for your role. If you're lucky, by the end of it they'll just give up.

7. Ask Them Pointless Screening Questions

These are best combined with a requirement to upload a cover letter. After writing the cover letter, ask the applicant to put all the same information into the question boxes. They'll realize they need to say the same thing differently. Again. Considering the amount of times they've looked over and rewritten their resume already, this sort of requirement brings them straight to boiling point. At the very least, it will give you a reason to cut out candidates with common sense who just copy and pasted the information from cover letter to screening questions.

8. Hire an Unenthusiastic, Clueless Recruiter

It doesn't really matter who the recruiter is as long as they don't know who you are or what your role is about. Get your roles into the hands of as many depressed and overworked recruiters as you can. An unknowledgeable or unenthusiastic recruiter has been known to turn off many a high performing candidate on behalf of their clients.

Bonus points if you can find recruiters like the ones who really annoyed me in the past.

9. Treat Current or Ex-Employees Badly

The great thing about the people who work for your company (or used to work for your company) is that they gossip. They tell all their industry friends about what it's like to work for your organization and when they've been treated badly, it turns other people off from wanting to work for you as well. Especially if someone is leaving your employment; don't bother to look after them. You're not getting any immediate benefit from them anymore anyway. Move on to the next sucker…

Clearly, we don't actually think you should burn bridges with your future candidates! We just wanted to have a little fun with it to show just how easy it is to alienate folks you might want to hire in the future. You're pretty safe if you avoid these 9 things – gotta keep those bridges intact!

Please note this piece by Jenn Steele first appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog.
 Tips for clients: How to Conduct a Proper 30-day Post-hire Check-in tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-12-16:502551:BlogPost:1777315 2013-12-16T06:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
 I can vividly remember starting a new job many years ago.

The place was a bit of a shambles and just between you and me my boss was a patronising prick. He'd seemed so nice; so approachable … during the interview process. But from day one it was as if Dr Jekyll had left Mr Hyde alone in the…

I can vividly remember starting a new job many years ago.

The place was a bit of a shambles and just between you and me my boss was a patronising prick. He'd seemed so nice; so approachable … during the interview process. But from day one it was as if Dr Jekyll had left Mr Hyde alone in the building!

One morning about a month into the job, I happened to get into the elevator at the same time as Barry (not his real name). He was on his way up to "an important meeting" and as I stepped out at my floor, he asked "everything cool after month one, Slez?"

The elevator door closed behind me.

Let's just say everything wasn't cool after month one. And I wasn't there after month two.

In fact there has never been any evidence of my 34 days at that particular organisation on my CV. It's as if it never even happened.

I had definitely learned something during that month though. How not to treat staff – especiallynew staff.

Asking a new team member after their first month if "everything's cool" while you're on your way to another meeting is not only unprofessional. It's just rude. After all I didn't even get a chance to respond.

Actually I did. When I handed in my resignation a week later.

New staff members are still fairly vulnerable after a month in a new role. In fact many would describe themselves as feeling "consciously incompetent" – in other words they are aware of how much they still don't know.

This is why the 30-day post-hire checkin is crucial. It's not only a chance for you to discuss whether your initial expectations are being met. It's the perfect opportunity for your new team member to share with you whether their expectations are being met too.

[Oh – and for any recruiters reading this … my advice is that you always conduct the 30 day checkin with both your candidate and client in person. Not over phone and definitely not via email.]

1. Put time aside

30 days in any business can pass by in no time at all. One minute it's the first of the month and before you know it you're preparing for month-end. But for a new employee it can feel like an eternity if they haven't received regular feedback.

You should check in regularly with every new staff member in the first few weeks. But you should definitely set a specific time aside for their 30-day checkin. It's even worth scheduling it in both your calendars from day one. That way it won't get overlooked.

2. Preparation

If there's a meeting scheduled, you can be assured that your new team member will be preparing for the conversation. So in order to avoid an "everything cool?" scenario, spend a few minutes preparing your part of the 30-day checkin too.

In terms of your 'success expectations', what specific and measurable outcomes (if any) had you defined for your newbie by the 30-day mark? Without these having been clearly spelled out, your new team member won't have anything to go by when listening to your feedback – either positive or constructive.

3. The setting

Needless to say a moving elevator isn't the most appropriate forum for the 30-day checkin. Neither is a cab on the way to or from a meeting. Nor is just sitting down on the corner of your new team member's desk with a beer for a chat on a Friday afternoon.

Personally I have conducted many 30-day checkins with new team members over lunch in a café. I found it to be a more relaxed and informal setting but a chance for us to have an in-depth conversation reflecting on their first month in the business.

4. The 2-way conversation

Remember that the 30-day checkin isn't just your chance to provide your feedback. Of course you will have your chance to speak, but you should let them kick off the conversation.

"So … it's already been a month. How have you found the role so far?"

"How would you describe your first month in the team?"

"Can you believe it's been a month already? I'd love to hear your observations on how you've found things so far"

These are so much better than mumbling "everything cool?" just as an elevator door is closing.

5. Listen carefully

Just as you (hopefully) did in your initial interview with them, during the 30-day checkin you should listen twice as much as you speak.

Take notes, and ensure you are engaged and not distracted (make sure your phone is out of sight!)

Of course when you are providing your feedback, whilst you might have a few general observations, where possible try to relate the conversation back to your specific success expectations.

6. Encourage them

For the most part, 30 days is too early to make any drastic decisions. Whether it's a free flowing conversation or there are a few awkward silences or unexpected pieces of difficult feedback (from either side), where appropriate let them know that you are on their side and will do all you can to help them meet their objectives.

7. Follow up

Believe it or not this is one of the most important steps – even though it happens beyond the actual 30-day checkin. If you have agreed to make some changes, investigate something, speak to another team member, or come back to your new team member with a response to a particular question, make sure that you do so. And if possible commit to doing so in a relatively short period of time.

Nobody respects an "all talk and no action" manager. And if that's the impression you create at the 30-day mark, it will be hard to regain the respect when it comes to any future performance related conversations.

Please note this post first featured on the RecruitLoop Blog.
 How to Fail at Hiring (Even With a Great Recruiter!) tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-12-05:502551:BlogPost:1775497 2013-12-05T22:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 Let me be frank: even the best recruiters can't save you from yourself.

You can fail at hiring. Maybe you're even failing now.

"But Jenn," you say, "I still manage to hire people. How can I be failing?"

You can be scoring a failing hiring grade and still do just enough to fill…

Let me be frank: even the best recruiters can't save you from yourself.

You can fail at hiring. Maybe you're even failing now.

"But Jenn," you say, "I still manage to hire people. How can I be failing?"

You can be scoring a failing hiring grade and still do just enough to fill positions. It just takes a lot longer to fill them, and you're probably missing the best candidates. If you're really failing, your hires probably aren't working out very well, either.

Do you wonder how to fail at hiring? Here are some ways:

Become a moving target

"We've decided to take this role in another direction."

"We thought we wanted people with 15 years of experience, but now we want to talk to people with 5-7 instead."

"Thanks for coming in to interview for role X. But we think you're a much better fit for role Y, so we're going to chat about that one instead."

How often do you say things like this during your hiring process? If it's more often than once every few years, you're doing a great job at failing at hiring.

By being flaky about what you want while you're talking to your recruiter or your candidates during the process does a couple of things:

It lengthens the process. By constantly changing direction, you're lengthening the time it takes you to fill your open role. Each change of direction means that your recruiter has to go looking for a completely different batch of candidates.

It frustrates candidates. Your recruiter sold superstar candidates on your role. If you've changed any part of the description, either the recruiter has to disappoint the candidate or (worse) the candidate takes a day off to interview with you only to be disappointed in person. I've had the latter happen to me – it is really not cool. Serious fail.

If you're really not exactly sure what you want, work with your recruiter on pinning it down, rather than simply informing him or her about a certain job description, only to change its direction later. Recruiters have seen quite a bit in their careers and can really guide you towards the type of job descriptions that will pull in the candidates who will be best suited for your situation.

Fail to communicate

Not happy with the candidates your recruiter is sending you? Do you want to see something more or different? Do you have a different process you'd like the recruiter or the candidate to follow? By all means, keep quiet about it.

Not communicating is one of the best ways to fail at hiring.

If you're not communicating with your recruiter or your candidates, they have no way to know how to make you happy. Think about it – how will they know what to do if you don't tell them?

There is virtually no way for a hiring manager to over-communicate to a recruiter (or even to most candidates) during the hiring process. Make sure you're blindingly clear about what you want to see or when you need a change. Do you want the recruiter to be more transparent? Tell her! Do you need the candidate to do a video interview? Tell him!

Drag your feet

Do you wait a week or two before calling a candidate when you receive an application? Do you wait a while before replying to a recruiter's email about an awesome candidate? Awesome – you're definitely on the route to failure.

So many companies fail to get back to candidates that they assume that they're not a fit if you don't get back to them immediately. And recruiters can't guarantee a candidate's availability for a phone call that they're not expecting.

I know you're busy, but you have to be fast to land the right candidates. Prioritizing hiring and responding quickly will keep you from failing to catch the good ones before they're gone.

Be rude

Do you let candidates wander around your office until they find their way to the elevator? Do you avoid eye contact at all costs? Do you hang up the phone without saying goodbye to your recruiter? Do you treat recruiters and candidates as subservient to you?

Congratulations! You're not only failing at hiring; you're probably failing at life, too.

Acting like you're better than other people – especially during the hiring process – will leave a bad taste in people's mouths. This will really hurt you if you're trying to win a candidate that has multiple offers, and will poison your position with recruiters, candidates, and possibly throughout the industry.

So brush up on your manners and be polite during this process. Apologize if you make a misstep, and remember that you're dealing with future co-workers (or possibly bosses!), and act accordingly.

Be a clueless hiring manager

Since we already did a post about this, I'm not going to belabor the point. However, you really do need to know what you're doing when you interview candidates in order not to fail. In other words, if you want to fail, continue to be a clueless hiring manager.

So, be honest – are you already failing at hiring? Are you on your way? If you are, act fast to turn it around. If you can turn your failing grade into a passing grade, you'll land better candidates, fill your open positions faster, and increase your employee retention. Not such bad results, eh?
 Your 6 Step Job Description Checklist tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-12-02:502551:BlogPost:1774760 2013-12-02T11:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 I'll never forget the time I was sitting opposite a client taking a brief for a new position in her team and when I asked her if she had a position description she literally scribbled a few bullet points on to a Post-It note and handed it to me across the table.

Was she…

I'll never forget the time I was sitting opposite a client taking a brief for a new position in her team and when I asked her if she had a position description she literally scribbled a few bullet points on to a Post-It note and handed it to me across the table.

Was she serious?

Apparently so.

I should also point out that the all too common "We're hoping to create the job around the best candidate depending on their previous experience" never really cut it with me either.

So here's a step-by-step job description checklist for any business owner or hiring manager thinking about bringing somebody new into their team.

1. You can't not write a job description

It's not uncommon for an employer to know that they definitely need to bring somebody new into their business, but to not have carefully thought out exactly what it is that the new team member will be doing. I've written about this previously.

This is a dangerous way to start.

From experience, the very first thing a candidate thinks if their potential new employer (or recruiter for that matter) can't provide them with a detailed job description is either that the job doesn't exist, or that the company doesn't really care much about their employees.

Not a great impression to make.

Similarly no employer wants to hear a team member say, "Sorry but that's not in my job description". Every manager wants staff happy to go beyond the call of duty. However the "call of duty" still needs to be documented in some way.

2. The position title must be a true reflection of the role

Don't make a job title too vague or 'creative'. You will just confuse people or perhaps even put them off. Internally you might decide to call your receptionist the "Director of First Impressions", but on a job description that you share with a candidate during an interview it should still make reference to "Receptionist".

Here are a few examples of real job titles I have seen on job descriptions that required some 'translation' before they really made sense to the relevant candidates.

Dream Fulfiller = Financial Services Consultant

Creative Guru = Creative Writer

Web Wizard = Web Developer

Office Dynamo = Office All-rounder

Sales Ninja = Salesperson

3. Reporting lines need to be crystal clear

You need to clearly define the reporting lines as well as any "dotted lined" working relationships. Specifically you need to spell out who they will be directly reporting to, as opposed to who they will just be working closely with.

I remember a client once showing me the job description he had created for a new marketing assistant. Under "reporting to" it said "All Staff".

I tried my best to suggest that he identify one key person but he chose not to listen.

He employed a great marketing assistant and about a month later he called to tell me that Kitty had resigned. When I asked why, he said she'd just felt she'd had far too many people telling her what to do.

I tried.

4. Duties and responsibilities

Without stating the obvious, the most important 'ingredient' in a well-crafted position description is a list of the duties and responsibilities involved in the role.

However as opposed to simply listing them one after the other, think about what percentage of time you expect the successful candidate to dedicate to each of these tasks.

This will certainly help candidates better prepare and prioritise in order to meet your expectations.

5. Separating skills and competencies

Sometimes it's hard to separate the necessary skills required in the role from the core competencies required in the successful candidate.

To make it easier here, think of the skills as something that a candidate may have learnt such as a particular software package. While the competencies are more natural traits or attributes like "highly organised", "team player", "confident negotiator", "someone who can multi-task" or even "someone who is hungry to win" – definitely a good trait for any sales person.

6. How much detail should you really include?

If you don't want to commit to a fixed salary, then at least come up with a salary range – but do some research to ensure that the range is within market rate.

It's also a good idea to include any specific job related benefits such as the flexibility to work from home from time to time, travel, a company car, etc.

Generally speaking, a job description should be no more than one page that includes a brief company overview, the elements outlined above, and also a snapshot as to what's on offer – even if it's just something like "a young, fun and creative team".

Oh and one last thing … without at least creating a basic framework outlining what you are looking for, how would you expect to write your ad, assess applications, or even benchmark candidates?

You need a reference point.

Yes. That's the job description.
 Do you REALLY know what you're hiring for? tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-11-26:502551:BlogPost:1773516 2013-11-26T03:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 I am speaking to employers and business owners all the time.

As part of our popular RecruiterMatch offering, before a prospective client is matched with the most suitable recruiter, I will often contact the business owner or hiring manager to really drill down on their specific…

I am speaking to employers and business owners all the time.

As part of our popular RecruiterMatch offering, before a prospective client is matched with the most suitable recruiter, I will often contact the business owner or hiring manager to really drill down on their specific hiring needs.

Believe me this saves a lot of unnecessary stress and frustration (not to mention wasted hours) for the employer and the recruiter if both parties are fully aware of what's required right from the outset.

So let's assume you're thinking of engaging a recruiter for a new role within your business. Now rather than me giving you a call (as much as I'd love to pick up the phone and speak to you), let me ask you a series of questions now to help us both understand what you're really looking for.

What do you think you're after?

I had a small business owner tell me the other day he needed a "receptionist who would also do some bookkeeping". What he probably didn't realise was that it's not easy to find a receptionist who is also qualified to do bookkeeping. And it's practically impossible to find a bookkeeper who'd be happy to be distracted by having to answer incoming phone calls.

The position you have in mind should ideally be one that you can fill successfully and not one that is either impossible to fill, or one that will result in a revolving door situation as candidates quickly realise they're not cut out for your 'hybrid' job at all.

What are the most important duties or responsibilities?

In the above-mentioned 'dream position', when I asked Brian to talk me through what he believed the successful candidate would spend most of their time to doing, it turned out he was actually looking for an office manager. I asked him how many calls come into the business every day and believe it or not it was less than 10! As for customers coming into office? Never! So he certainly didn't need a receptionist at all.

Why do you actually believe you need to hire a … ?

It's amazing what this question can reveal. Brian is clearly a very busy man (just like any business owner). But just because the phone rings 6 or 7 times a day, it doesn't mean he needed to hire a receptionist. Brian was feeling stretched in terms of keeping all the other balls in the air … stock control, managing his website, going to meet his clients, invoicing / bookkeeping etc.

Is it really a full-time role?

What we quickly realised was that the supposedly critical invoicing / bookkeeping element of 'the job' was something that could easily be outsourced to an off-site bookkeeper. And once we ascertained that an office manager (as opposed to a receptionist-bookkeeper) would certainly be able to answer a few incoming calls, Brian then discovered that he probably only needed somebody in the office between about 10:00am and 2:00pm every day since he was out on the road every afternoon.

"Gosh this role would be perfect for a Mum (Mom!) wanting an admin role that she could work around her kids' school hours". Brian's words. Not mine.

Can you realistically afford to hire a … ?

Once we'd agreed that Brian would go to market looking for a part-time office manager, I then gave Brian a ball-park figure in terms of what he'd have to pay someone in such a role.

"Brian? Are you still there? Hello?"

He was mortified by the salary I'd suggested – even pro-rated for a part-time role!

He admitted he wouldn't be able to afford that sort of money for at least another 3 – 6 months.

What are some other alternatives?

If I hadn't asked Brian these few quick questions, I believe he would have expected the impossible.

Whether or not he ultimately decided to use a recruiter or he had tried to hire for this role himself, he would never have been able to find someone … for a whole host of reasons.

The original role he had in mind was pretty impossible to fill; it turned out that he didn't actually need someone full time; and the most critical part was that he didn't have the budget to pay new employee. I hadn't even come to the question on whether he actually had a budget for recruiting!

If you're looking to hire, ask yourself the questions I asked Brian. You too may find that part of your 'critical new role' can be outsourced. If you don't have the budget to make a new full-time (or even part-time hire), perhaps you could consider getting a temp in for a few weeks just to get on top of things.

You might even be able to get an intern in to help you if there's an urgent project you just can't make time for.

The main point I have tried to make here is to never rush into making a hire.

If you plan to engage a recruiter, hopefully they will ask you a series of questions similar to the ones I have included above. At least they will get you thinking along the same lines.

After all you don't want to rush into the recruitment process, write a job ad, have your inbox inundated with applications, meet a whole lot of candidates, only to then realise that you're after somebody entirely different. That would really be a complete waste of your time.
 How to Alienate the Best Talent tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-11-18:502551:BlogPost:1771250 2013-11-18T01:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
 I've read literally hundreds of employment contracts over the years. I've written a fair few of them myself too.

It's pretty common for most employers to include some kind of non-compete clause within their employment agreements in an attempt to protect their best interests.

These clauses are often…

I've read literally hundreds of employment contracts over the years. I've written a fair few of them myself too.

It's pretty common for most employers to include some kind of non-compete clause within their employment agreements in an attempt to protect their best interests.

These clauses are often referred to as a 'Restraint of Trade' and usually prevent an employee from working for a similar type of business for a specific period of time in they event they leave the organisation.

Restraint of Trade clauses are usually brought up when an employee resigns as a bit of a scare tactic – a 'gentle' reminder to not approach clients or to perhaps even dissuade them from joining a competitor.

I can fully appreciate not wanting to lose your top performers (and their intellectual property) – hence including a Restraint of Trade clause.

But what about potentially losing your best candidates during the recruitment process before you've even had a chance to interview them, by invoking what this week I termed the Prestraint of Trade clause?

In case you're wondering, "Prestraint"is not real word.

Charlotte's story

I first heard about this graduate's experience from a friend of mine a few weeks ago. I was so intrigued by the story that I arranged a time to speak with Charlotte personally.

Charlotte has just completed her undergraduate degree in media and has been actively looking for a graduate opportunity in the advertising industry for 2014.

She had applied to several of the top ad agency groups and had in fact been invited to attend interviews by three of them all within the same week.

Prey on desperate candidates

One of the agency groups contacted Charlotte and told her they would be running a panel assessment day, since within their network they had 20 graduate roles available on offer and they'd be inviting 30 graduates to attend.

Apparently the way the assessment day would work was that graduates would be rated and ranked and offers would be made to the graduates on the following day. They wouldn't even know which specific agency had made them the offer, what team they would be working in, nor on what specific accounts.

Personally I have never heard of anything like this and I spent the good part of a decade running a recruitment business that predominantly serviced the advertising space.

Apply unnecessary pressure on your candidates

But here's where the story turns a bit bizarre.

When the head of the assessment day contacted Charlotte inviting her to attend, she happened to mention that she'd also been invited in for interviews by two other agencies.

At this point Charlotte was blatantly told that she would have to give up any other interviews if she wanted to attend the assessment day.

She was told that she would in fact have to sign a declaration stating that she would withdraw from the other interviews, and that if she was selected by the panel, she would have to sign the employment offer immediately – not knowing anything about the agency, salary or any other conditions of employment.

"Decide now, Charlotte", she was told. "If you've got feet in two camps, you'd better make up your mind".

The head of the program made it very clear that she could not attend without signing to confirm that she was not interviewing elsewhere. He also reinforced that if she attended and was offered a graduate role she would have to accept on the spot.

The pressure to potentially have to make a choice without knowing anything else was too much so Charlotte withdrew her application.

Make your candidates feel completely inadequate

Charlotte's withdrawal caused quite a stir. The panel representative called her begging her to reconsider.

They put even more pressure on her to sign.

Charlotte asked what would happen in the event that she did sign the declaration, attend the assessment day, receive an offer, but then decline the offer to take on another position.

The response she received made Charlotte feel as if she was now being threatened and bullied.

"It's happened in the past, and those people are black-listed within the industry".

* * *

What I find particularly hard to understand is that it tends to be the better candidates who are invited in by more than one organisation to attend an interview.

Would this particular agency group in fact prefer to lose the best candidates by pressuring them to sign a "Prestraint of trade" document preventing them from even meeting with other organisations?

As a recruiter I have typically advised candidates (graduates in particular) against jumping at the first job offer without at least comparing it to something else.

I suppose the agency group would then in fact prefer a B-Grade candidate willing to accept a job offer site unseen, as opposed to an A-Grade candidate who may ultimately accept their offer once they have weighed it up against others.

Surely it's better to avoid alienating the best candidates before they've even had a chance to see what's on the table.

NB – for those curious to know where Charlotte ended up? She was offered a position with an iconic agency as part of a fantastic graduate program! No Prestaint clauses, no threats and she was thrilled to sign the offer!

This post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog.
 Top Tactics To Close Candidates Considering Other Offers tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-11-12:502551:BlogPost:1769566 2013-11-12T22:54:32.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
Please note this post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog

 You have finally made an offer to a rockstar candidate only to have them turn around and tell you that they are considering a couple of other offers.

Time to…

Please note this post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog

You have finally made an offer to a rockstar candidate only to have them turn around and tell you that they are considering a couple of other offers.

Time to panic, right? After all, if they turn you down, you'll have to start the process all over again.

To make things even worse, while they compare your opportunity against their other options, your other candidates are accepting jobs elsewhere. If you're not careful, you'll be back to square one.

Stop. Don't panic.

Closing candidates who are considering other offers can be very complicated.

Unfortunately, many job offers are ultimately declined. This may be a direct result of delays or indecision by the hiring manager; providing an offer that isn't quite attractive enough; or not providing consistency during the hiring process.

While the numbers may be against you, it is possible to turn it around in your favor and secure the person you want for your role – even if they do have other offers on the table.

Here are some tactics to help you close candidates who may be considering other offers. You'll note that closing the right candidate starts well before you give them the offer.

The Golden Rule: ABC

You've heard it before. ABC – Always Be Closing. The key to winning the war for the best candidate is to continuously work on closing them right from the outset.

The time to begin working on closing the candidate is not when you're at offer stage; it's when you first meet them. If you're running around looking for a way to sweeten the deal after you've already made your offer – sorry, but it's too late. Unless the candidate has been lying to you, you should have a fair idea of whether they will accept your offer when you make it.

It's your job to find out during the very first interview what other roles they may have applied for directly; what positions they may have been represented for by a recruiter; or even just any other role they might be considered for within their current company.

Shorten the Hiring Cycle

Schedule interviews quickly after advertising or presenting the initial job description. Ask for samples of their work prior to or during the interview so that you can make a good decision in less time. When you are considering multiple candidates, schedule multiple interviews in a single day.

The more time you take to make your decision, the more time the candidate has to explore other opportunities.

Listen to What the Candidate Wants

It's easy to assume you know what will make a candidate interested in the position and ultimately accept it. But do you actually know? How often do you ask questions about what is important to them? When they mentioned that they needed more detail about the benefits package, did you ask what was most important to them or did you simply launch into a list of all your benefits? Listen, listen, listen.

Ask your candidate to create a wish list for their next role. Get them to talk through it right there in front of you and to write it all down.

Ask them to think about everything from what type of manager they want to work for; what hours they want to work; whether they may want any more flexible working arrangements; what additional training they may be expecting etc.

Don't Try to Lowball

Trying to undercut an employee by saving a few dollars on their salary is pathetic. If you want the good employee, pay them what they're worth.

If you are making these hires for yourself, a rookie mistake is to assume the salary you made the person before them is good enough for the future employee. Salaries are primarily dependent on the market; what else can they get? Remember that last year's market prices or what you feel the market prices should be are irrelevant. Do some market research to ensure the salary you offer is competitive.

Make the Offer Quickly

Make your offer promptly. For example, it's 5:05pm and you just got word that your client, hiring manager or team definitely wants the employee. Do you leave it until tomorrow? No! Call the candidate now. Give them an evening to mull over your offer so that when they receive your email the next day, confirming that you would appreciate an answer by the end of the business day they won't feel rushed.

Get Details of any Other Offers

If you have already made an offer to a candidate and they mention that they are considering another offer as well, ask them for details about the other offer. Ask for the salary, benefits, work environment, and what they like and dislike about the job opportunity. Ask what their deciding factors are.

Don't make any new offers at this stage – you simply want to garner as much information as you can. Watch that you're not grilling them, though. Ask questions simply and respectfully, letting them know you want to understand what the competition is and how your role competes.

Create Meaning and Dignity

Often a meaningful job with a lower salary will be chosen over a less meaningful job with a higher salary.

But what makes a job meaningful? Career progression, challenge, and wider impact. Outline how the role can progress through the company (but only if you know it actually can). What challenges will the role be tackling? How does the company as a whole, and that role in particular, make a difference in the world? These are all aspects of the role that will convince a candidate to choose yours over others.

Give Them the Royal Treatment

Invite the candidate to lunch and give them another tour of the office they will be working in. Believe it or not, many candidates aren't even shown their future office or desk before they start! Introduce them to other key people. Show them the great areas for staff relaxation or the noisy production floor where the fantastic products are being created right there on the spot.

Give them a taste of the energy of the place and make them want to be there.

Have a Backup Plan

Nothing makes you more confident in a negotiation than a strong backup plan. You know if it all goes awry, things will be okay. This confidence is apparent to the candidate and it subtly weakens their negotiating position. If their other offer is genuinely better and you know you cannot match it, you are empowered to cut off the negotiations and move onto the next person without wasting any time.

Getting a candidate across the line requires nearly as much luck as it does skill. Employing the right skills at the right time, though, may just turn luck's beneficial eye in your direction when it really counts.
 My 10 Most Memorable Candidate Interview Moments tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-11-06:502551:BlogPost:1766150 2013-11-06T00:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
Please note this piece first appeared on The RecruitLoop Blog

 I was trained from very early on never to ask a candidate a question about a their age, religion, marital status, or whether they might perhaps be suffering from a particular…

Please note this piece first appeared on The RecruitLoop Blog

I was trained from very early on never to ask a candidate a question about a their age, religion, marital status, or whether they might perhaps be suffering from a particular medical condition – despite what I may have be thinking to myself at the time.

But what about if there was a guide out there designed specifically for candidates? One that provided them with a few tips about what not to say during a job interview.

Personally I've heard some real 'doozies' over the last 20 years so I decided to put together my 'Top 10′ classic candidate interview moments … those that have remained memorable for all the wrong reasons!

1. This takes 'too desperate' to a new level

My candidate had had quite a few roles in her career before she met with me looking for some temp work. Let's just say I may have described her as having jumped around a bit. She told me about her last few (permanent) roles and when I asked her what she was hoping to do in terms of a potential temp assignment, she said, "Oh, Paul, look I'll do absolutely anything … 'xcept prostitute m'self"!

2. This one left me struggling for words

I've always asked candidates how they would be described by their peers. I would usually receive clichéd responses along the lines of "a great team player", or "having a great sense of humour", or perhaps even "a bit competitive". But on this more 'memorable' occasion, I certainly wasn't expecting this one: "I guess they'd probably describe me as the office handle [pause]. Everybody's had a turn"!

3. The only time I ever felt scared

I was sitting across from a candidate who I was seriously considering representing for a pretty senior role in financial services. His background was perfect and I knew that culturally he also suited what my client was looking for. I asked him how he would feel if, for whatever reason, he didn't get this particular role. He looked me in the eye, made a pistol shape with his middle finger, index finger and thumb, pointed the 'pistol' straight at me and made a gun firing gesture. Then he simply said "So you'd just better make sure I get the job"!

4. Um… thanks for insulting my profession?

It's never easy to let a candidate down and tell them you won't be putting them forward as part of your shortlist. But while Odette seemed like a lovely lady (and she'd told me a few times during the interview what a great mother she was), I knew she wasn't what my client was after. I explained to her my reasons for not representing her for that particular role but told her I would certainly keep a look out for other suitable opportunities. She thanked me but then asked, "What about becoming a recruiter? Surely anyone can just sit there asking questions to job applicants all day. It can't take too much skill!"

5. This candidate probably should have rescheduled

Hong Kong 2006. I was still getting used some some of the cultural nuances and I'd often seen a few of my staff eating congee (a form of rice porridge) when they were unwell. There was quite a pungent smell in the interview room and I noticed my candidate was eating congee when I walked in. I thought she may have put it aside when the interview commenced but Jessica kept eating. A few minutes into my questioning, she put the styrofoam bowl of congee down on the table, went quite pale, then a bit green before projectile vomiting right at … well … me!

6. Mobile phones should be switched off during an interview

Trevor seemed like a great candidate. Articulate, well presented, he had a great CV. I thought I'd found the perfect candidate for my client. But then his mobile phone rang. As he reached into his pocket, I just assumed he'd fumble around a bit and switch it off. But instead he took the phone out of his pocket, looked at the caller ID and then asked "Sorry … do you mind if I take this? It's about another role"! "Sure", I replied … "You can take it outside if you'd like. But then please don't bother coming back in"!

7. There is such a thing as overly honest

I spent many years recruiting for roles in call centres. They were typically customer service positions and so one of my standard questions would be "Can you please tell about a time you dealt with an irate customer and how you handled the call". This particular candidate had given me an example of when he'd be working in the credit card call centre for one of the big banks. One particular customer had been very irate. When I asked the candidate how he'd responded to the customer, he said "Oh I just told him to shove his Visa Card up his a*$e and hung up"!

8. I didn't think I was recruiting for Master Chef

"What's been your greatest career related achievement to date?" I would think this particular question is one that is asked by the majority of recruiters or hiring managers during an interview. I'll never forget interviewing Olga who had applied for an account management role with a leading ad agency. She asked me if she could have a moment to think about her answer. No problem at all. She closed her eyes and I could see she was deep in thought. She opened her eyes and (in all seriousness) said "I made a mean chicken kiev for my team's Melbourne Cup Day lunch last year"!

9. This candidate didn't make the shortlist

I always asked my candidates if there was anything else I needed to know before bringing the interview to a close. I was recruiting an office manager role for a busy law firm in the city and I thought Belinda was a pretty strong candidate. But then she answered my question with this: "I won't start work before 9:00am; I won't stay back after 5:30; I definitely won't take any work home or work on the weekend; Oh and I have been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue so I don't really 'do' pressure very well". I guess she wasn't such a strong candidate after all.

10. Have I already mentioned that sometimes they're toodesperate?

By the time Joanna registered with me, she'd already met with at least a dozen other recruiters. Clearly she didn't believe in working with one recruiter exclusively! She'd been put forward for a few opportunities but hadn't been successful in getting a job. I asked her why she felt things had't quite gone according to plan. She just burst into tears and said "I know I'm probably coming across too desperate. The last recruiter I registered with accused me of looking so desperate that even Brad and Angelina wouldn't adopt me!"

Sometimes I just wished I could have pushed a button during an interview if a candidate said something stupid, and they would have just been ejected from the room without any need for further explanation. The minute a candidate would say something completely inappropriate … BAM! The interview would be over.

Come on all you recruiters out there! We've all got our 'classic interview moments' … why not share a few of your own!
 10 Reasons It's Dumb to Ignore Active Job Seekers tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-10-29:502551:BlogPost:1763898 2013-10-29T08:58:37.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
 Please note this post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog.

Have you ever heard someone say that active candidates – those who are actively in the market looking for job opportunities – are a waste of…

Please note this post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog.

Have you ever heard someone say that active candidates – those who are actively in the market looking for job opportunities – are a waste of time?

The belief seems to be that, 'If they are looking for a job, then they can't be any good.'

Instead, recruiters have encouraged organisations to focus on those people who are already in jobs, saying, 'Focus on the passive talent! The best candidates are currently employed!'

This is a myth and it's time to destroy it.

This belief was created, shared and perpetuated by traditional recruiters to justify sky high fees for their work and convince unsuspecting organisations that they needed headhunters (and the associated fees) when really what was needed was a simple job ad.

Passive candidates can be a great source of untapped talent for organisations and every good recruiter should devote a period of time to maintaining their passive candidate funnel. However including active job seekers when searching for the best talent can be just, if not more, effective and cost thousands of dollars less.

Here are 10 reasons why you can't afford to ignore active job seekers:

1. Almost all workers are always seeking new job opportunities

A study done on Candidate Behaviour revealed that 71% of people currently employed actively search for new positions as a regular part of their routine. 27% search for new opportunities as regularly as every week! Job search email alerts sent directly to a person's inbox makes keeping an eye on currently available job positions easy. It's likely your candidate will come to you before you manage to reach them passively. How devastating if you ignored them simply because they did your work for you!

2. Active job seekers may be active for good reasons

Not everyone is an active job seeker because they're not good enough to get the job they want. They may be moving cities for family reasons. They may have taken a sabbatical the year before. They may have just graduated from further education. They may have thought their current role was something that it turned out not to be. Almost everyone has been an active job seeker at some stage in their professional life. There are many reasons a person is an active job seeker. Remember an 'active' job seeker isn't necessarily out of work. They might be active because they have made the conscious decision to find a new role and are just doing something about it!

3. Keyword searches don't find everyone

If you're searching for someone a little unusual to fill a role requiring creativity and innovation, you likely won't find the word 'creative' or 'innovative' on their LinkedIn profile. Creative people are often hiding behind more traditional titles, maybe ones that do not currently relate to the job you are looking to fill. You may be missing out on a potential creative gem by limiting your talent pool to only those who show up in keyword searches.

4. Active job seekers are often the fastest to get across the line

It takes a lot of effort to recruit a passive job seeker – dozens of unanswered emails, hours convincing and negotiating. On the other hand, an active candidate is often ready to go. They are open to new opportunities and have already mentally left behind their current role. When a candidate is the right candidate, an active jobseeker will have required far less work to get across the line than a passive one. There's no need to take the path of most resistance if the result – a great candidate for the role – is the same.

5. Active job seekers can be surprising gems

It stands to reason that active job seekers are far more invested in their potential for a job role than you are. Recruiters can't know everything about a person and often need the jobseeker to present their skills in the right way for a job match to be obvious. Judging a person by the small amount of information available on their LinkedIn profile is to unnecessarily narrow the options.

6. Passive job seekers tend to have outdated profiles

When a person is happy in their current role, they usually do not maintain an updated profile on LinkedIn or any of the job search sites. Approaching someone with outdated information about their job history can waste time and resources.

7. Passive job seekers are in control – because YOU called THEM

Negotiating a package with a passive job seeker starts with you, the employer or recruiter, on the back foot. You called them so they know they have the upper hand. Landing a qualified person for the role who was recruited passively may cost more than landing a qualified person for the role who was recruited actively. Same result, more money spent.

8. Active job seekers are ready to go – now!

When you've got a time sensitive recruitment job, passive candidates are not your best friend. You'll destroy your reputation or hurt your business in the process of attempting to only recruit people who are currently happy in their roles and who may have lengthy notice periods. If you need to open a new office in a new city and staff it with 20 employees, you should be prepared to consider active employees or you'll never get it off the ground.

9. Passive does not necessarily equal 'talented'

Theoretically, if someone searching for a job means they are untalented, someone who is not searching for a job must be talented – right? This is completely untrue and quite ridiculous. There are plenty of deadbeat, uninspired and quite simply average employees quite happily sucking their current employer dry and getting through their regular 9-5.

10. Why does it matter how they got to you?

A great candidate is a great candidate. Judge their ability to do the job not by how they arrived at your door but by how they have evidenced their ability to perform in the past, what that says about their future ability and how they respond in your interviews and questioning. These are greater predictors of their future success at your company than how their resume got into your inbox.

A great recruiter sources potential candidates from many different sources. A great recruiter discriminates a good and bad job seeker, not from the method they used to get in contact, but from their skills, attributes and experiences. Don't buy into the passive jobseeker myth – it could cost you money and reputation.

 My Top 10 Epic Recruitment Blunders tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-10-15:502551:BlogPost:1758254 2013-10-15T01:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 I caught up with a client the other day. She was actually a candidate I placed many years ago and we've kept in regular contact.

She's a pretty tough business woman (I remember she was a pretty demanding candidate too!) so I felt quite chuffed when she told me that of all…

I caught up with a client the other day. She was actually a candidate I placed many years ago and we've kept in regular contact.

She's a pretty tough business woman (I remember she was a pretty demanding candidate too!) so I felt quite chuffed when she told me that of all the recruiters she's dealt with throughout her career both as a candidate and hiring manager, she rated me "right up there".

Nice.

As I walked back to the office I started thinking about some of my all time favourite candidate and client moments from nearly 20 years in the game. But since then I've also had a few flashbacks to some of my more epic disaster moments. After all … nobody's perfect.

And I'm not just talking about one of my very first client meetings where my nose decided to start bleeding profusely … all over the CV I was presenting to my client. I mean the ones that left me embarrassed, lost for words, or rocking in a corner.

1. Why you should always meet (or at least speak to) candidates yourself

I was working on a tough client brief and as I always did, I had booked times for my client to interview potential candidates in advance. I had been inundated with ad response so I split the pile of CVs and gave half to my admin assistant. I asked her to please call them and if anyone was a stand-out to just book them straight in to meet the client.

A few days later, I called my client to get his feedback on the first candidate interview.

"How did things go with Sam this morning?", I asked. "He's got a great background and I think he'd be great for your team".

"Interesting you should say that, Paul", my client replied. "Sam definitely has a solid background. But I should probably point out that Sam's a woman"!

[Awkward silence]

2. As if anyone could make a loss on a contractor!

It's no secret how the world of contract staffing works. It's pretty straightforward. You pay your contractor $X and you charge your client $X plus a nice profit margin (in some cases I would charge $X + 60%). On one occasion I'd been in such a hurry that I quoted my client the $X (contractor's) rate … for a 3-month assignment.

I'll never forget the email from our Finance Director: "Paul. Please come and see me. You're actually losing the company money".

3. Always discuss salary expectations up front

I have to admit this happened pretty early in my career. But I know it happens all the time.

I was working with a tough client (OK so he really scared me!) on a pretty difficult role. I had interviewed a candidate who had a very interesting background and I thought would be perfect for Mark's team.

Mark agreed to interview my candidate the next day.

The interview went well and he called me wanting to make her an offer of $80,000.

I called my candidate who started laughing hysterically down the phone. She was after at least $120,000.

When I called Mark to see if he'd be willing to offer her any more, his parting words before he slammed the phone down in my ear were "Paul … you're about as useful to me as an ashtray on a motorbike"!

4. The one (and only!) time I neglected to do a reference check …

It was late on a Friday afternoon. I still had 4 or 5 temp jobs to fill. I had found (what appeared to be) a great candidate for my client's 2-week assignment and he could start on Monday morning. One minor problem – I hadn't been able to get through to any of his referees.

"It's only a 2-week temp job. What could possibly go wrong?"

Evidently quite a lot … when the temp shows up for work displaying pretty obvious signs of substance abuse!

5. The automated candidate rejection letter

In a contingent world, the clock is always ticking and far too often it just feels like a résumé race.

I knew my client wanted to see a shortlist by the end of the week. I was working on 5 or 6 other briefs at the time and had received at least 50 applications for this one role.

There had been a few stand-out candidates in the first dozen or so CVs I had screened and I had presented them as the shortlist to my client.

A few days later I realised there were still around 30 applications I hadn't even opened. So I decided to send them all an automatic rejection letter.

Thank you for your recent application for the position of [I added the job title] recently advertised. Unfortunately in this instance your background and experience did not quite meet the stringent criteria stipulated by my client and I will not be proceeding with your application. I will, however, keep your details on file and contact you in the event a more suitable position comes up.

10 minutes later I received this reply.

Dear Paul. Thank you for taking the time to let me know my application was not successful. I should point out that this morning I interviewed for what I am convinced is exactly the same role. One of your competitors submitted my details a few days ago. I've literally just been offered the role and have accepted a package of $110,000. Regards …

OK. So I just missed out on a nearly $20,000 fee.

6. They might look good on paper …

You want to impress your client. But time is always of the essence. So when a rockstar résumé comes across your desk you jump on the phone to your client and try to book them in to interview your candidate (well at least that's what I did).

The problem was when I finally met with my one shoe-in candidate (about an hour before she was due to meet my client), she made it pretty clear that she wasn't even remotely interested in the opportunity I had just briefed her on.

I assumed being honest with my client would be the way to go.

Never assume.

7. Search your database first. Isn't that what it's there for?

I had taken a brief for a really senior role and had immediately told my client that due to the level of the role, we'd definitely have to run a display advertising campaign in order to attract the passive candidates.

Back in the day this meant another $5,000 over and above the 28% of the candidate's salary he would already be parting with.

I wrote a great ad which appeared right up the front of the paper and the response was of a really high standard.

I submitted 5 candidates as my shortlist and my candidate Karen was successful in getting the job.

A few weeks after she started I took Karen and my client out for lunch (after all the placement fee had been over $30,000).

During the lunch Karen said. "There's one thing I've been meaning to ask you … why didn't you just call me in for an interview? I'd been on your database for at least a year. You could have saved all that money on that big ad".

My client carefully put down his knife and fork, stared right at me, and waited for me to reply.

8. Disaster at the eleventh hour …

I'd been working on a confidential brief for a high profile luxury brand in Asia with an estimated fee of around $40,000.

After at least 6 months of searching, I had found the perfect candidate.

Christian had accepted the offer just before Christmas but was only due to start the following February after Chinese New Year.

I always kept in regular contact with all my candidates before they started in their new role (except on this one occasion). I guess with the Christmas holiday period, Christian taking his family back to Canada for a visit, and Chinese New Year it somehow slipped my mind.

Basically 6 weeks passed and I never once contacted Christian to check in – not even a simple email. I just assumed it was all tracking along nicely.

Then 24 hours before he was due to start his role, I received an email from Christian telling me he and his wife had realised how much they both missed Canada and that they would be relocating back to Canada since he had managed to find another opportunity.

He thanked me for all my efforts and asked me to also pass on his apologies to my client.

Let's just say they didn't exactly take that news all that well.

9. When did you last go and visit your client?

I'd been working with one particular client on and off for a few years. But it had been at least 6 months since I'd last placed anyone with him and clearly just as long since I'd spoken to him or been out to see him.

Spoiler alert: This took place a long time ago – when mobile phones were still a bit of a novelty!

My client had faxed me (I told you it was a long time ago!) a job requisition and asked me if I'd be able to help him find another sales rep.

I spoke to a few really good candidates and was quickly able to arrange interviews. I briefed them all on the role, gave them the details of my client's office and specific directions for how to get out there.

I'd planned to call my client and my 3 candidates to see how the interviews had gone the next day after my morning meetings. When I got in I noticed the little red light flashing crazily on the phone on my desk. 6 voicemails.

It turns out my client had moved and their office was no longer where they were when I last went to visit them. Each of the candidates had turned up to a vacant office space and had turned around pretty disgruntled (to say the least).

My client had also called a few times leaving more abrupt messages as time went on wanting to know where my supposed "superstar" sales reps were.

Nobody was impressed.

10. Perhaps I've already mentioned that you should always meet candidates in person?

I was working on a business development manager brief for a very conservative top-tier law firm.

I'd received an awesome application from a candidate living interstate at the time. I'd done a one hour telephone interview with Jayden, and although he hadn't worked in law previously, his skills were certainly transferrable and he seemed really motivated to move into a more professional services environment. He also seemed to have the right attitude.

Jayden was willing to fly up to Sydney for interviews so I had booked him in to meet with my client.

Unfortunately Jayden's flight had been delayed so I didn't get a chance to meet him before his interview at the law firm. But at least I'd prepped him again the night before he flew up.

I'll never forget the voicemail message that my client left for me after the interview.

"Hi Paul. Jayden seemed nice. But I'm not sure how you could possibly think that someone with a spider web tattoo on his neck and a bull ring through his nose could sit in a meeting with the partners let alone represent us to the market. I think we'll have to brief another agency …"

Oh to have had video interview screening tools back in the '90s!

So there you go … my personal top 10 epic blunders.

Come on all you recruiters out there … nobody's perfect … not even after 20 years in the business. Let's hear a few more disaster stories.
 7 Recruiting Metrics You Should Really Care About tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-10-10:502551:BlogPost:1757700 2013-10-10T01:40:54.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
 Please note: This article originally featured on the RecruitLoop Blog.

If you measured every metric that every article on the web suggested you should measure to confirm whether you are employing effectively or not, you would end…

Please note: This article originally featured on the RecruitLoop Blog.

If you measured every metric that every article on the web suggested you should measure to confirm whether you are employing effectively or not, you would end up spending most of your time measuring recruiting activities instead of actually recruiting!

While measuring your recruitment activities is certainly important, from my nearly two decades in the recruitment industry I can confidently tell you that there are really 7 metrics you really need to care about.

Keeping tabs on these metrics will ensure you are informed as to how your business is doing on the talent management front. I have also included some tips for how to simply and quickly implement these metrics within in your organisation, whether large or small.

1. Time to Hire

From the time you advertise your vacancy, how much time passes before the successful candidate starts? Not just before they accept your offer, but until they are actually on board?

Companies with strong talent management processes have faster hiring times than those without. Of course, the exception is any market that is short of suitably talented candidates; if you have strict hiring standards, it may take longer to find the appropriate person. Compare the time to hire across different roles and aim to lower the average as time goes on.

2. Sourcing Channel

It's important to track where your candidates came from.

If you're smart about your recruiting, you will have multiple channels from which to source your potential candidates – an advertisement on a job board; another one on LinkedIn; some direct contact with passive candidates; and a pool of potential employees connected to your careers pages either on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Every job vacancy needs to know:

How many applicants came from each source;

How many qualified applications were garnered from each source;

Where the short listed applicants were sourced; and ultimately

Where the successful candidate first heard about the position.

These metrics need to be kept in a database that can be cross-referenced over periods of time. Keeping tabs of this metric will save you money in the long run as it will highlight the effectiveness of your various channels.

If one channel is proving to be ineffective, you have justification to shut it down. Similarly, if one channel seems to be producing a higher than expected ratio of qualified candidates, you can focus more resources in that direction.

3. Cost of Hire

It's a no brainer that the cost of every hire should be measured but have you considered all costs involved in a hire? Recruiter fees, whether internal or external, are straightforward. But what about the time it took the manager to interview? You should consider these factors when calculating the cost of hiring new employees:

Advertisements placed (if they are billed directly to you);

Setting up and maintaining social media accounts like Facebook and LinkedIn;

Time your hiring managers spend interviewing potential employees;

Recruiter fees; and

Any accounting and administrative costs involved in setting up a new employee (eg contracts, pay accounts, health benefits etc)

4. Retention

Now that you're seeing the true extent of the costs involved in hiring a new employee, it's important to look at your retention rates.

Thousands of dollars per year can be drained from your budget with low staff retention rates. The costs don't just come from direct expenses associated with hiring a new person but also in the loss of productivity around the resignation, rehiring and retraining processes. Remember the cost of losing an employee can be as high as 3-4 times their salary.

Retention rates are best looked at from a cross-sectioned perspective. What is the turnover rate for a specific role? Compare that to the turnover rate across specific departments. Try checking the turnover rate by pay grade. i.e how many resignations vs terminations has each department / role / pay grade had?

A proper analysis of this metric should be performed every 3-6 months and graded across a period of time to show trends.

5. Open Vacancies vs Positions Filled

Larger organisations will need to keep track of the number of vacancies the organisation has vs the number of vacancies that have been filled recently.

This metric could be measured either per month or per quarter and the result should go alongside the 'time to fill' ratio. A company managing their talent acquisition will have a low amount of open vacancies when compared to positions filled.

6. Offer : Acceptance Ratio

It's great to be in a position to make an offer to a rock star candidate. Unfortunately, if they then turn it down for something else, you are back to square one. This process costs you time and money, as well as morale, which is why this is such an important measure.

How many formal offers did you have to extend before you ultimately filled the role? This measure can go alongside your 'cost of hire' metrics.

7. Gender Mix

Many studies have shown the benefit of a mixed gender team, from greater innovation to greater profits.

Think about placing a metric within your dashboard that measures the percentage balance of men and women on your team in three levels; front line, middle management and senior positions.

From time to time it's good to step back and assess the gender mix within teams and within the organisation as a whole.

How to Implement These Metrics

If you are working within a large organisation, the clear way forward for easy collation of this information is a customized software application that gathers data from as many sources as possible and automatically populates a dashboard with figures and timelines.

Consider providing mid level information for your hiring managers as well.

The information should relate specifically to one particular team or department and compare them to averages from the rest of the company so they are aware of their own talent management capabilities.

If customized software is not a possibility in your budget right now, a simple excel spreadsheet will do. Set up a regular interval to measure the metrics – eg every three months at a minimum – and request the information from your hiring managers at the appropriate time.

If you are a small operation, keeping tabs on these metrics as you go is the easiest way – updating the spreadsheet each time a hire is made and comparing each one to the previous ones.

When done right, metrics will save you time and money rather than sucking away precious resources into analysis.
 7 Ways To Piss Off Any Candidate tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-09-20:502551:BlogPost:1753527 2013-09-20T02:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 I've spent most of my career as a hiring manager, but I've recently had the opportunity to become a candidate (which resulted in your getting to read my blog article today  ). And I have to tell you – it can be shockingly annoying to be on the candidate's side of the table.

I've had many moments…

I've spent most of my career as a hiring manager, but I've recently had the opportunity to become a candidate (which resulted in your getting to read my blog article today  ). And I have to tell you – it can be shockingly annoying to be on the candidate's side of the table.

I've had many moments where I've wondered, "Did a human write that email, or did a random phrase generator?" Or, "Did they even bother to READ my LinkedIn profile before sending me job spam?" Or even worse, "If you can't get my name right (and it's Jenn – seriously, not hard in the US, where it was the most popular girls' name for 15+ years), please don't call me."

After all of these experiences, I've put together a list of the top 7 ways to annoy me as a candidate:

1. Get my name wrong.

I am not John. I am not Jan. I am not Jane or Janet or Jean. If you're contacting me – especially if you're contacting me as a passive candidate – please get my name correct. Dale Carnegie said that "a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language." Well, getting my name wrong certainly hits a sour note!

2. Send me nonsensical job spam.

I got this email just last week:

09/13/13 10:24 AM

Hi! My name is <redacted> and I'm an IT Recruiter for <redacted>.

We have a 6-12 month renewable contract in Boston, MA for a Project Manager Standard Associate (2 yrs). The hourly rate for this is W2 $<less than I've made in a long time>.

Let's review why this is very silly to send me:

I don't work in IT any more (I haven't since 2009).

I don't live in Boston any more (I haven't since 2011).

I have 15+ years of experience (not two).

It's way out of my hourly range (and not in a good way).

A quick Google or LinkedIn search would have helped this person avoid sending a ridiculous email that could have gotten me complaining about their company on social media (and not with the name redacted as I did here!).

3. Ignore my current title/industry.

This one follows closely on the heels of #2. Reaching out to me on LinkedIn for positions or industries that in no way resemble anything that I am doing or have ever done in my career (e.g., executive assistant roles – which has happened!) only proves that you aren't careful in trying to find the right candidates for the roles you're trying to fill. If you're demonstrably careless about something as vital as finding the right candidates for your role, why would I work with you?

4. Fail to confirm interview places, people, dates, and times.

I will readily admit to being a bit of a 'Type A' personality, but I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who likes to have some idea about where, when, and with whom my interview will take place. Not having any idea where I'm going or who I'm talking to at minimum 24-48 hours out makes me cranky. And when I'm cranky, I'm less likely to perform well at the interview or be really interested in the role.

5. Do not listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth.

"So, what are you looking for in a role?"

"I'm looking for a company that I can live and breathe. I want to do high-level strategic growth work and provide leadership."

"Great! You'll fit right into our entry-level temporary accounting role!"

Sounds ridiculous, right? Sadly, it's happened. If you listen to me, we'll be much more likely to make a good match. Of course, I need to listen to you as well!

6. Pull a bait & switch.

Years ago, I went into a company to interview for a role that was right up my alley. I prepped for it, and I was really excited about the company and the role – the role was to build something really exciting and lead a great team. I discovered (in the second of a full day of interviews) that they had switched the role without telling me. The new role was to evaluate the nationwide operations and make layoff recommendations. There was no building anything – there was tearing down instead – and no team. By switching the role and not telling me until I got there, they wasted everyone's time.

7. Don't get back to me.

This one, frankly, is just rude. You'd be annoyed if I didn't get back to you, so I expect the same courtesy from you. We're all humans and this is a very small world – let's just be courteous to each other, okay?

Candidates are very well-connected today. I realize that we're all ridiculously busy and make silly mistakes sometimes, but annoying one candidate can have a domino-like effect in their networks. Don't destroy your hiring brand with these easy-to-avoid mistakes (or by taking these 20 simple steps to destroy your employer brand, either!).

 How to be the Purple Cow in Recruitment tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-07-24:502551:BlogPost:1730837 2013-07-24T11:02:46.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
Please note that this post first appeared on the RecruitLoop blog

 Hello?? Hello!?!?

Okay, paying attention now? Thank you. Because what we have to say is really impor… put down that iPhone! I'm speaking to you! Right. As I was…

Please note that this post first appeared on the RecruitLoop blog

Hello?? Hello!?!?

Okay, paying attention now? Thank you. Because what we have to say is really impor… put down that iPhone! I'm speaking to you! Right. As I was saying, we have something really important to say to yo… hello?

Welcome to the 2010′s. (Seriously, you can actually listen now.) With the rapid spread of social media, mobile and 'always-connected' applications, getting attention in a content-saturated world is now harder – and more vital – than ever. Whether you're a recruiter attempting to get clients or a job seeker looking to get hired, competition is fierce. But the rules of marketing yourself to stand out and get noticed are the same.

So how do you stand out?

Become a cow.

Okay. That's it. We're going home now.

…

No? Want more explanation?

Okay… specifically, become a purple cow.

Anyone in marketing knows what we're talking about. The term purple cow comes from Seth Godin, whose book Purple Cow, hit the New York Times Bestseller List in 2003 with the bold, yet somehow also obvious, assertion that the key to business success was to make your products or services stand out from all the rest.

"Be the purple cow in a field of monochrome!" was his William Wallace style exhortation and businesses rushed in to follow the steps to becoming totally different from each other.

In reality, being a purple cow in a field of beige is not a one-time activity or a marketing strategy. It's a constant way of thinking creatively about the individual interactions you have every day. The only way to stay different from all the other people doing the exact same thing as you is to capitalize on what is different.

What is different?

We're so glad you asked…

You + The Other Person + The Situation = Uniqueness.

There's only ever going to be one combination of your interaction with a recruiter or a potential client and this is what you need to capitalize on. Every interaction you have should be a search for what makes you, the other person or the situation unique. Common interests, shared sense of humor, a way of speaking… the more you can capitalize on your uniqueness, the more memorable you will be.

We've compiled some examples of fantastic Purple Cow Marketing techniques by individuals connecting with the uniqueness of another individual. The first example was sent to our friends over at DesignCrowd.

Startups and Bubble Wrap

As you can see from Alec's profile above, he likes bubble wrap. A recruiter named Nathan from Mantech Recruiting sent him the below message. On bubble wrap.

G'Day Alec.

I heard you like bubblewrap.

Here is some limited edition stuff from my private collection I can share with you.

I'm a tech recruiter here in Sydney and I know of some good people that want to come work for you, look me up on LinkedIn or gimme a yell, yeah?

It's not just the bubble wrap that works here. Nathan's noticed from Alec's profile that he's a casual sort of guy. Phrases like 'Gimme a bell yeah?' 'G'Day' and the careless writing style with a thick black texta actually work towards building the uniqueness that results in memorable interactions.

Consultants and Long Erasers

In an effort to attract the attention of graduates at Universities, McKinsey & Co printed 3000 pencils with overly long erasers at the end of them, distributing the pencils throughout Universities in Switzerland.

"We're looking for students who aren't satisfied with just any solutions"

Again, the content of the message is as important as the mode of communication. Simple, direct and stating what they were looking for in professional language, it let the audience know that they were on the same page. The pencils resulted in an increase of visits to the McKinsey & Co recruiting page and found their way into advertising free zones such as the library and common rooms.

Buy Me Now

You may remember Phil Dub, who created his online web resume to look like an Amazon page?

It went viral and after 2 months and 1.5million hits later, he was employed by Birchbox as a Technical Product Manager.

His mode of communication was unique, yes – using a web page rather than a traditional resume. But the creativity was really about finding the point of uniqueness in his target market. He combined his uniqueness (his name) with their uniqueness (their logo and branding) to come up with a purple cow concept.

The key to standing out and being memorable to clients is combining uniqueness. It creates point of commonality that resonate strongly with an audience.

How to be the Purple Cow

If you are struggling to find a point of uniqueness with your target, brainstorm around these areas when developing your pitch…

Your Target

Their likes/dislikes

Common phrases

Places of birth

Clothes

Dreams/Goals

Places of travel

The Situation

A recent world event they would have (or should have) heard of

The building they work in

Something they might walk by every day to work

A Social Media post their company posted the other day

You

If you have something unique about you that makes you stand out, by all means use it. However, the best way to create connection though is by identifying with something already in the other person's world.

Standing out is not a one-size-fits-all solution – which is why not so many people are capable of doing it. To effectively be a purple cow you need to apply effort and creativity to every possible individual situation and opportunity that could come your way.

It won't work every time. In fact, there may only be a few instances where you can make yourself truly memorable in the eyes of your future employer or client. In these few instances, however, you will stand out from the crowd. And you only need a few of those opportunities to land the job, or client, you've been chasing.
 How Marriott Hotels is Beating Facebook at Their Own Game in Social Recruiting tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-06-26:502551:BlogPost:1718865 2013-06-26T01:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

The Marriott Hotel chain is known for its large complexes and global enterprise, employing hundreds of thousands of people all over the world in hospitality positions from cleaning to management and tourism.

With revenue exceeding the $11 billion dollar mark, the red…

The Marriott Hotel chain is known for its large complexes and global enterprise, employing hundreds of thousands of people all over the world in hospitality positions from cleaning to management and tourism.

With revenue exceeding the $11 billion dollar mark, the red lettering logo is called home frequently by business and leisure travellers month in and month out and all year round by its host of enthusiastic and diverse employees.

What it's less known for is it's social media recruiting strategy, arguably the leading example of the effectiveness of social media recruiting in the entire world. The strategy is so effective, they outrank a number of large government departments, such as the US Airforce and British Army, as well as Facebook itself for engagement through a social platform!

How have they done this?

The answer is simple really but no less surprising: they're being social!

It may surprise some readers to discover that Facebook's recruitment page is not actually set up for Web2.0 interactivity. It's attractive, yes, with clear benefits and information. It allows users to select the particular location they are interested in working in and read open positions currently available. An interested applicant can even apply directly to Facebook through the website (prepopulated with their facebook details of course) through a step-by-step process.

In other words … Facebook's recruitment page is actually just a web page.

By comparison, Marriott Hotels – the largest Facebook recruitment page in the world – has 998,000 likes and 50,000 people interacting with the page every week. That's more than the equivalent of a third of their actual work force. It is one of the most surprising 'Leaderboards' of the decade.

Here we've unpackaged the keys to Marriott Hotels' success to get you away from the static webpage and into your own social media recruitment strategy:

Selecting Your Platform

Marriott aims to attract people who are interested in other people and service/hospitality jobs. The selection of Facebook as a platform, as opposed to Twitter or LinkedIn or Google+, was a deliberate move on the basis that the majority of their employee-types used the platform and would search for information through it. IT companies are having success with Twitter whereas professional services, such as lawyers and marketers are better found through LinkedIn.

When setting up your social media recruiting strategy, select your platform based on what your employee-types are most likely using.

Encouraging Dialogue on Brand and Culture

Marriott's Facebook recruitment page doesn't just list available jobs; it showcases what it's like to work at Marriott and actively encourages constant engagement. Updates include celebration of company anniversaries and memorable events, congratulations to specific employees or teams for certain achievements along with photos and videos of life inside the hotels. One post asked fans to guess which location the hotel in the picture was in, prompting hundreds of comments and even more shares.

Marriott realised that recruitment begins with a potential employee falling in love with your brand and aspiring to work in your organization.

The second step is to interact with your organization and enjoy it. Their Facebook recruitment page is designed to facilitate this experience onto the next one of searching and applying for jobs.

Experimentation

Late last year, Marriott spent thousands of dollars creating an online game utilizing Facebook, similar to Farmville.

'MyMarriottHotel' allowed players to virtually run their own hotel, hiring and firing employees, delivering food and cleaning rooms. The happier the guests, the higher the points.

The game was more than just a fancy marketing tool. Marriott was working hard, engaging outside consultants, to actively connect with employees in the Indian and Chinese markets where they were struggling with a lack of talent. During research into the problem to identify solutions, it was discovered that young people in the 17-24 year old age group were moving to the city from the outside areas and using social connections, primarily through Facebook, to land new jobs. Many of them were spending as much as 8-10 hours a day on social games like Farmville.

The idea of a social game opening up the world of hospitality to a group of people who are used to earning less than the cost of a glass of coca-cola in a day was risky. If it failed, it would hit Marriott's reputation and also had the potential of trivializing the work its employees were already doing.

After much research and testing however, the game was launched and became a huge success.

Well researched and thought through risks are worth taking. The social media space is new and has many undiscovered opportunities for engaging with an audience.

Now is the time to experiment and reap the rewards.

Connecting People to People

Whether Marriott first thought of the catchphrase 'Where I Belong' in response to the success of social media with their target group or if they focused on social media because of their core value of creating belonging is an interesting question. Either way, Marriott effectively ties one of its core values into their recruiting goals through the 'Where I Belong' campaign, encouraging current employees to upload a photo of themselves and a sign saying their name on a dynamic page of their Facebook platform.

Marriott have realised that one of the greatest powers in recruiting is social connections between people.

Why do people hire headhunters? Headhunters have connections and know people who can get your job in front of the perfect candidate. The same effect happens with social media except on a much wider and perhaps shallower scale.

Connections between people don't have to be tangible. A connection may come from seeing someone of a similar ethnic background or similar aspirations enjoying and championing your company.

To achieve success with your social media recruitment platform, focus on creating strong connections between your current employees and potential future employees. Highlight teams and individuals, show real faces and share stories.

Examples like Marriott Hotels show the power contained within social networks for finding the right people, whether it be waiters or executives. If you haven't embarked on a social media strategy yet, now is the time to begin.

Want to meet the leaders in social media recruitment? Check out our infographic:

 When an employer promises 'training' and 'development', what do they really mean? tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-06-04:502551:BlogPost:1710293 2013-06-04T04:25:41.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

Please note this this post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog.

Over the last few weeks I have met with literally dozens of business owners.

I was having a conversation with one particular client about the importance of up-skilling when it comes to staff retention and I happened to ask her what investment her organisation placed on training and development.

I was quite surprised by her response.

"Now come on, Paul", she said. "We both know too well that 'training' is what people have to do to dogs, to circus animals, or to those poor dolphins at Sea World."

Once we had moved beyond any reference to pet dogs and theme parks, she told me that herlearning and development budget would be a key investment in the new financial year.

From a staff retention perspective

From an organisational perspective I have always recognised the importance of keeping staff up-skilled and aware of the latest techniques, industry trends and initiatives. However if you ask employees today within any organisation (large or small) you will get a very mixed opinion around the notion of learning (or training) and development.

Some employees will seize the opportunity to be up-skilled as part of their professional development; others will simply see the chance to attend an in-house training course as a welcomed distraction from their day-to-day tasks; while others will roll their eyes at the mere thought of even half a day away from their desk seeing it as a complete waste of time.

You can't please everyone

Despite these differing views, in almost every single pre-appraisal questionnaire I received over the years from my staff as part of their preparation for their performance reviews, in response to the question "What further training and development do you feel you would benefit from in the coming six months?" they would always include a wish list.

The reason I raise this point is that it's coming up to performance review season in the next few weeks. For some organisations it will be annual appraisal time, while for others it might be time for a mid-year check-in.

When did you last think about what further training and development opportunities could benefit your staff in order to give your organisation that leading edge? When did you last discuss up-skilling with your team members?

Offering your employees additional training can reinforce your commitment to wanting to develop them professionally and to help them excel within the business.

However it's important to distinguish between what your organisation is willing to offer its staff in terms of learning and development as opposed to the idea of further education.

I once had a staff member ask me whether the business would support her in a diploma in organisational psychology. This was more of a personal interest and so while she certainly received my (moral) support, the company wouldn't pay for her to go "back to school" as her request lay beyond the realm of training and development and was more around a desire to gain a formal qualification.

Larger organisations vs SMEs

Within larger corporates, the learning services or training 'department' typically exists to ensure that all staff members are given sufficient levels of training and professional development.

But not every business is large enough to justify having a team dedicated solely to staff training. In SMEs in particular often the training and development hat is worn by the owner of the business.

How your staff might perceive training vs professional development

It's important to think about what you are offering your staff members from their perspective.

Would they think you are offering them training to help enhance their skills just to improve their work performance? If so, they may interpret this as a fairly selfish tactic from your perspective since in their eyes the training provided might ultimately benefit the business more than the individual team member.

Or could they view your offering as a genuine investment in their personal or professional development? This gesture is likely to result in more respect towards you as a manager or business owner since you'll be seen to be taking a vested interest in their career aspirations.

Internal vs external opportunities

If your organisation doesn't have a formal learning services team, then there should be somebody within the business responsible for liaising with external course facilitators who would be involved in training staff as and when required.

You also need to ensure that anyone who has been working in your business for a while understands that training and development doesn't exist solely for new or less experienced staff. Encourage longer standing staff members to talk to you about an ongoing professional development plan.

Remember also that training and development courses do not have to physically take your staff away from their desks. In this day and age there are so many recorded conference calls, podcasts or webinars from external industry experts that they can download and work through at their own pace and in their own time.
 Tylenol Anyone? I've Got a Desk-Splitting Headache! tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-05-16:502551:BlogPost:1702984 2013-05-16T23:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

As if last week wasn't bad enough, yesterday our Regional Director Desmond sent out an 'All Staff' email to let us know he'd be "making a few changes".

I read the first few lines of the email …

"We are lucky enough to have some great clients that constantly are in need of…

As if last week wasn't bad enough, yesterday our Regional Director Desmond sent out an 'All Staff' email to let us know he'd be "making a few changes".

I read the first few lines of the email …

"We are lucky enough to have some great clients that constantly are in need of awesome candidates."

Blah blah blah …

"To help us close more deals faster, we've got a new consultant Belinda Frankston joining us today".

You can't pay my bonus, but you're hiring a new consultant?

I just hit 'delete' and got on with my morning.

About half an hour later a tall blonde woman walked up to my desk.

"Hi I'm Belinda, but everybody calls me Bindi!", she said in a Minnie Mouse voice. (No one actually has a voice that annoying, right?)

Bindi!? Is she serious?!

I politely introduced myself.

Bindi tilted her head to the side like a perplexed cocker spaniel and spilled the beans. "I've been assigned to help you with your clients. Desmond explained that you have been doing such a good job that you deserve some help". I looked at her very suspiciously, as she explained that we would be splitting my desk alphabetically and she'd be taking over my accounts with last names L-Z.

Splitting my desk?

I couldn't believe it. Half of my accounts! Just when I have spent the last 18 months of my life painstakingly building my client base from scratch and I am finally (supposedly) starting to make a decent commission, I have to hand half of my portfolio over to a Bindi!

The worst part is I apparently have to help her with the transition and introduce her to my clients!

I wanted to burst into Desmond's office swearing. But I thought it better to calm down and formulate my thoughts first. I emailed Desmond asking for a time to catch up and he agreed to midday.

I got very little actual work done. Instead I played political ping pong in my head all morning. Would he at least pretend to listen? Or would he just lay down the law and reiterate that 'it is what it is'?

When the time came, I marched into his office with as much dignity in my eyes as I could muster. I was all prepared to unleash my wrath, but he anticipated my anger and side stepped the situation.

He gave me his boyish smile, and suggested we grab an early lunch. "There's this great new sushi place I've been meaning to try."

I wasn't hungry for sushi, I was in the mood for justice.

We sat down to lunch outside in very cool (but very uncomfortable) modern lounge chairs. Clearly, he was trying to butter me up. We talked about the weather, his weekend plans (ugh) and anything else to avoid what needed to be discussed.

He finally opened up. He gave me the same sob story from last week about how the Agency has so much potential and how we are just on the cusp of great things, but money is still tight, and we all need to work together as a team to weather the storm.

What … we're a pirate ship now?

He insisted that hiring Bindi wasn't his idea, although he wished it was because she is "smoking hot".

Where is HR when you need them?

He refuted each one of my points before I had a chance to air my issues, and left me with nothing more than a splitting headache (and I hadn't even drunk any sake!)

As we walked back to the office it hit me that I've really been left with two (terrible) options. I can either suck it up, hold my head high and continue to grind. Or escape the agency.

I definitely do not want to give up recruiting altogether but I'm at a crossroads.

What should I do? #EscapetheAgency

This post originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog.
 Monday Morning 'Bored-room' Meetings tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-04-29:502551:BlogPost:1696612 2013-04-29T10:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

This post by the Anonymous Recruiter originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog. Here he vents on the curse of every recruitment agency – the Monday morning meeting: Predictions, pipelines and peer pressure.…

This post by the Anonymous Recruiter originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog. Here he vents on the curse of every recruitment agency – the Monday morning meeting: Predictions, pipelines and peer pressure.

Mondays. Every recruiter's favorite day of the week … Not!

Besides the agony of the end of the weekend, Monday seems to be the one day when "small talk" is acceptable.

I don't like small talk. Particularly, in the morning.

Waking up and slaving away at my cold calling recruitment career is frustrating enough, without being asked the stock standard water cooler questions, "how was your weekend?", or "did you get up to much?".

I digress. This post is about that all too familiar (in)famous Monday morning meeting – a true recruitment agency staple.

Aside from the boredom, the meeting is a complete efficiency drainer.

Sunday evening and early Monday morning, I prepare diligently, and hype myself up for the week. This helps me hit the ground running on Monday. However, my momentum is significantly curbed because I have to mentally prepare for the morning meeting.

To be honest I can't recall the last time I actually got a decent sleep on a Sunday night. Just thought of the inquisition that might be directed at me, the 'pop quiz' around market insights or 'gossip', or the fact that I'd have to endure another mental game of "bullsh*t bingo" as my colleagues tried to outdo each other with figures, fake stats, and industry jargon.

Predictions?

My prediction is that we'll still be in here at 10:30am!

Pitched as an opportunity for "everyone to be heard" and a "chance for any issues to be aired", the Monday morning meeting is really a chance for management to check up on you as you deliver your weekly five-minute snapshot on client activity, budgets, new business in the pipeline and of course the obligatory corny one liner to give the impression you really care.

Talking about corny one liners … I can't believe our branch manager Maxine (or Pepsi Maxine as she's known behind her back) kicks off every Monday meeting with the words "Now let's all keep it snappy, people – a fast game's a good game" – like a clichéd netball coach shouting at her team from the sideline.

Are you serious? Then why does she let all meetings go on as long as a NBL final that's gone into overtime?

Any recruiter will appreciate how developing a pipeline of new business and sourcing new candidates is simply a matter of serious effort and can be cyclical. So there are the inevitable Mondays where I just don't have enough to report. This can be incredibly embarrassing and is usually not reflective of how a recruiter is performing.

I swear I could do an entire blog entry just on Monday morning meeting agendas.

How many times have you discussed all of the items on the agenda in the first 20 minutes of the meeting? Then, still follow the agenda point by point mostly reiterating the same information?

I'm feeling nauseous just thinking about it.

The result of this regimented agenda practice is anything but open, and lacks a great deal of transparency.

I honestly do value the thoughts of my teammates, it's just that I find the Monday morning meeting a terrible forum for feedback.

And I know I am not the only one.

How do you deal with Monday morning meetings? #EscapetheAgency
 Recruiters Anonymous: I'm Living an Agency Lie, and I Need Help! tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-04-16:502551:BlogPost:1690129 2013-04-16T05:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 I have been living a lie. For far too long I have pretended to fit a mould, that simply is not me.

For the past seven years, I have woken up every morning, wrangled my tie around my neck, shined my shoes, put on my corporate face, and tackled the recruitment agency world. My time, my (awesome)…

I have been living a lie. For far too long I have pretended to fit a mould, that simply is not me.

For the past seven years, I have woken up every morning, wrangled my tie around my neck, shined my shoes, put on my corporate face, and tackled the recruitment agency world. My time, my (awesome) clients and candidates, my decisions are not my own.

Working for a recruitment agency is living for a recruitment agency.

Unfortunately there are many agencies out there that know they have a bad reputation. That's why they all describe themselves as a 'new kind of organization' with a 'different culture', 'a new way of doing things', and where their 'people really make the difference'.

They have lots of names. Some call themselves "talent agencies" or "staffing agencies", while others prefer "placement agencies", or "employment agencies".

Noticing a trend? Agencies are all about the whole, the power of many, not about me as the expert, experienced recruiter.

The dictionary defines 'Agency' as "an establishment engaged in doing business for another". Why would I want an establishment engaged in doing business for me!?

I am an individual. I am a recruiter. I am not an agency.

There is a difference. My perseverance, tenacity, social intelligence, and mastery of relationships has made me the best that I can be.

I close deals. I place the best candidates into awesome jobs. I have that special knack for being able to match the right people into positions and companies that fit them perfectly.

So why am I starting to feel that perhaps I'm not longer a good fit for my own company?

I am a person, not just a piece of the agency puzzle. I have a life, and I know there is a world outside of my pod. I would love to escape my not one, or two, but three bosses, and if I have one more 'meeting about a meeting' …

Working as part of a team is great, as long as everyone pulls their weight.

My agency, like a lot of agencies, incentivises us with commissions based on how the team performs as a whole.

I work ridiculously long hours, I bring in the most new business by far, and yet I am being compensated as if I am an average performer. The model simply isn't fair, and only benefits the agency as well as some of my underperforming colleagues.

However, if I were to ever question this model, I would be accused of not being a "team player".

The truth is I am very frustrated, I feel alienated, and can't help but wonder if there is a better way to use my polished recruitment skills outside of these walls.

Sorry if this entry has turned into a bit of a rant, but this is my only outlet.

There must be other recruiters that feel the same way I do, who have been silenced by the fear of being hit with the all too frequently thrown around "remember there's no 'i' in 'team" corporate speak.

If there are others out there that feel this way, it would be nice to know I'm not alone.

This post by The Anonymous Recruiter originally appeared on the RecruitLoop Blog:
 How to Destroy Your Employer Brand in 20 Simple Steps tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2013-02-12:502551:BlogPost:1663008 2013-02-12T05:24:16.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
This post was originally featured on the RecruitLoop Blog.

I remember walking into my first day in a new job many years ago and nobody knew who I was. My manager wasn't there and hadn't even told anybody I was starting.

Less than three months later I was gone.

I still tell this story…

This post was originally featured on the RecruitLoop Blog.

I remember walking into my first day in a new job many years ago and nobody knew who I was. My manager wasn't there and hadn't even told anybody I was starting.

Less than three months later I was gone.

I still tell this story nearly 20 years later (usually including the company name!).

A few years later I walked into my first day at another company and everyone in the office welcomed me by name. My desk, computer, phone, stationery etc had all been set up and my new business cards were already waiting for me. Oh and a team welcome lunch had also been arranged.

I stayed with that company for nearly seven years.

I continue to promote that company (by name) and personally refer people to them regularly even though I haven't worked there since 2000.

A business can't just rely on its product brand to succeed. Your role as employer (of choice) is to ensure that the experience and feedback of employees past and present is just as powerful as the message you promote through your product or service.

Your employees (and potential employees) can be your best sales and marketing channel. But they can also kill your brand quite literally at the push of a button, whether through social media or sites like InsideTrack, Glassdoor or Grindstone.

It can take years to build brand credibility and just seconds to destroy it.

So in case you were wondering, here are 20 simple ways to completely destroy your employer brand:

1. Write sloppy job ads.

When you're advertising a new role, write the job ad really quickly just before you leave the office. Don't bother proof reading it, or running a spell check. For bonus points, be completely vague about the role, or how you'll make the selection. Ignore all the advice in this guide on how to write better job ads.

2. Use language that discriminates carelessly.

There's no better way to turn large numbers of applicants away at the gate, than carelessly discriminating against gender, age or race. If you're lucky, you might even end up breaking the law! If you can only do one thing to destroy your employer brand, make it this one.

3. Build a 12-step application process.

Every step you add in an application process is another opportunity to lose candidates. Clunky, outdated recruitment systems (not naming names) can also help. Alternatively, a one-click apply process (eg via LinkedIn) probably has the opposite effect. Your call.

4. Be deliberately vague about how to apply.

Ask candidates to 'call for a confidential discussion or to learn more about this exciting opportunity'. They'll probably think you're a recruiter just fishing for names to add to a database. But if they do call to speak to you, make sure the gatekeeper tells them to apply online. You'll take another good hit on your employer brand.

5. Ignore responses from some candidates.

All candidates expect a response. Needy huh!? And it's not only GenYs. It turns out anyone who applies has an interest in where they're up to in the process. So, ignoring applicants and leaving them in limbo is a great way to get them offside.

6. Engage a recruiter who doesn't understand your business.

Traditional recruiters generally work across dozens of employers. They also have strict KPIs and big targets. Many are spread too thin, and will do anything to meet their numbers to make commission. Whether it's deliberate or just an oversight, they can destroy your employer brand on your behalf! Now that's efficient outsourcing.

7. Keep candidates waiting at least 10 minutes for their interview.

Nothing screams 'I'm the boss' like keeping people waiting for meetings. It's the perfect way to stamp your authority, while avoiding any direct conflict. Strangely, this also applies for candidates, who've taken time out to come to your office. Keep them waiting long enough, and they might just walk straight out the door to a different job offer – perhaps even with a competitor. Nice work!

8. Create a chaotic first impression.

This one's actually surprisingly easy. Candidates come in to meet you, and your receptionist looks totally disinterested, or is on a personal call. The front desk is a mess, and your office isn't much better. It's amazing how much a fresh set of eyes from the outside will read into all this. Besides, who wants to appear professional to potential future employees anyway?

9. Run unstructured, inconsistent interviews.

Adopt a casual, chatty style to show them what a laid back, fun boss you are. Avoid any structure or process altogether, and make sure you completely confuse your candidate while you're at it. Ignore this framework and template, if you want to hurt your employer brand with unstructured interviews.

10. Exploit candidates for free strategic advice.

This one's a tradeoff. You can hurt your employer brand, but get free strategic advice at the same time. The trick is to ask candidates to solve real business problems, masked as 'case study questions'. It's like a free consulting session! Then implement their answers, without offering them a job. A perfect way to destroy your employer brand. What are you waiting for?

11. Provide a vague job description. Or better yet, nothing at all.

Our favourite approach here is to avoid a giving candidates a specific job description, and tell them that you'll 'tailor the role around the best candidate'. While this seems smart and flexible (qualities that might help your employer brand), the lack of clarity actually has the opposite effect.

12. Tell white lies to candidates to get them over the line.

Coffee is for closers, so do anything to get candidates over the line. If this includes telling little white lies, then go for it! You could fib about the salary, culture, management style or working hours. After all, it's only your employer brand on the line.

13. Conduct every interview outside the office.

Never invite candidates into the office. Instead, only conduct interviews in cafés, hotel lobbies or even bars. It's a great chance to show off your great taste in venues, and that you've probably got something to hide back in the office.

14. Create a sweatshop culture, promoted as 'work hard and play hard'.

Asking your team to do a bit of overtime every now and then is one thing. But to really harm your employer brand, keep them back every night or on weekends. Provide pizzas and cabs, and promote it as a 'work hard and play hard' culture.

15. Build a public profile of your company that's totally different to the real story.

Forget about the reality of daily life in your company. Build a public profile that matches what you want, rather than what actually happens. This is a surefire way to destroy your employer brand, both with current and prospective employees.

16. Become a remote manager and hide behind email.

Keep the door to your office closed, or work from home. Don't walk the floor with your team, and rely on email for all communication. Be as invisible as possible, and you'll harm not only your employer brand, but your personal one.

17. Pay your staff late.

Cash flow is king. If that means you need to pay bonuses, commissions or even salaries late, then so be it! And while you're at it, don't bother paying any statutory entitlements either! After all, surely you'd rather keep some cash in the bank to survive than keep your employer brand intact.

18. Talk trash about past employees.

They don't work for you any more, so just say whatever you think about them (focusing on the negative!). For real impact on the employer brand, bag them out in team meetings, public forums or even to clients who may have dealt with them previously.

19. Avoid giving any feedback, or conducting any performance reviews.

Employees crave feedback. But delivering it properly is painful and time consuming. Why not just save all the hassle by avoiding the topic altogether? At the end of year, ignore this advice toconduct regular performance reviews. If anything, just give them a few bits of feedback in the back of a cab after a meeting or down at the pub.

20. Make public commitments you never plan to follow through.

The final step is a bit like lying to candidates to get them over the line. Make loud, public statements about actions or initiatives you plan to take based on staff feedback. Then do nothing about them. Most people forget quickly anyway, right?

In isolation, use any of these steps to destroy your employer brand. But for a wholesale, 'smash and burn' program, follow them one-by-one. Your employer brand will never recover!

PS, take all of these steps with a grain of salt.

After all, what idiot would really want to destroy their employer brand!?
 How to Maximise the Return on Every Candidate Interview tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2012-11-28:502551:BlogPost:1626182 2012-11-28T23:00:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak

 With the war for quality talent as fierce as it is right now, if you are lucky enough to have identified a star candidate, you need to ensure that you make the most of the interview and not waste your valuable time.

There's no denying the value of asking candidates a series of behavioural or competency based interview…

With the war for quality talent as fierce as it is right now, if you are lucky enough to have identified a star candidate, you need to ensure that you make the most of the interview and not waste your valuable time.

There's no denying the value of asking candidates a series of behavioural or competency based interview questions to be able to more accurately predict how they will perform in your environment.

But there are also five essential questions that will prove invaluable to any hiring manager running their own internal recruitment process.

Whilst these specific questions don't focus at all on a candidate's past behaviour or personal attributes, they will tell you (very quickly) just how serious the person sitting in front of you is about their job search and ultimately about working for your organisation.

1: Why are you really sitting in front of me today?

 The answer to this question will reveal whether your candidate is running away from something (eg a hostile working environment, bad manager, job they have grown to dislike etc), or whether they are running toward something (eg a better job, a new career direction, or a new challenge through a more senior position etc).

Candidates that I like to refer to as "run aways" are more likely to simply take the first new opportunity presented to them even if it's not the right one just to get out of where they are today. Believe me you don't want to be their "rebound employer" because the likelihood of them sticking around with you for very long is close to zero.

"Run toward" candidates will be more strategic in their job search, will have more questions for you as their next potential employer and will be less likely to have just applied for every job they possibly can.

2: What are you ideally looking for in your next position?

 This is where you basically ask your candidate to create a wish list for their next role. Get them to talk through it right there in front of you (and remember to write it all down).

Ask them to think about everything from:

What type of manager they want to work for;

What hours they want to work;

Whether they want any more flexible working arrangements (eg work from home one day per week);

Whether they expect any particular benefits (car allowance, parking, mobile phone reimbursement); or

What additional training they may be expecting etc.

Once you have a full understanding of what they're looking for, you will know whether you are able to meet their wishes.
 You will also be able to come back to this list at the time you make them an offer and remind them of exactly what they told you they wanted. No last minute or unexpected demands.

3: What salary are you on now?

It's an unfortunate fact but the majority of people will typically 'stretch the truth' slightly in response to this particular question. Even if it's just by a few thousand dollars, candidates will always inflate their current salary. Fortunately there is a way to prevent this.

Ask for proof.

If a bank is allowed to ask to see a pay slip to approve a credit card for $2,000, why can't you ask to see a pay slip when discussing a salary of $60,000?

Another way to phrase the question might be, "If I were to ask for a payslip, what salary will it indicate you are currently on?".

Whilst it might cause the candidate to become fidgety for a minute, or to break eye contact for a second, you are more likely to get a straight answer.

4: Who else is involved in your decision making process?

No matter how independent or confident a candidate may appear to be to you, nobody ever makes a decision about a job change on their own.

It's your job to find out who else is involved. You don't want to get to offer stage and then have a candidate say, "actually my wife isn't happy with the long hours we've talked about", "my husband doesn't want me doing so much travel", or even "my parents aren't comfortable with me taking this job".

I have heard all these (and many more) before.

I'm obviously not suggesting you invite husbands, wives and partners into the interview with your candidate. Nor am I saying you should bring the whole family together for one last supper before offering your candidate the job.

By stating up front that you are aware there will be other decision makers involved, it will get them talking up front – and not when it's too late.

5: How will your manager react when you resign?

Again this might seem like bit of an odd question to ask in your first interview with a candidate, but it will tell you a lot.

If your candidate tells you that the manager would completely understand and respect their decision or perhaps even that they wouldn't be at all surprised, then you're OK.

But if the candidate responds by saying their manager will probably offer them more money, there is only one thing for you to do. Send them back to work, suggest they call a meeting with their current employer and to actually ask for a pay rise. If the request isn't granted, tell them to then come back to you.

After all, why should you waste your time going through the entire recruitment process with a great candidate who, when they resign, is offered more money and then turns your offer down?

They'll be happy but you'll be back to square one.
 How to turn a job interview from exploration to exploitation tag:www.recruitingblogs.com,2012-11-13:502551:BlogPost:1621722 2012-11-13T09:30:00.000Z Paul Slezak http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profile/PaulSlezak
Please note: This article was originally posted on the RecruitLoop blog

As a career recruiter, I've seen my share of 'shifty business'. And sometimes from employers themselves! It usually involved a client contacting my candidate directly so as to avoid having to pay a recruitment fee.

 Such shady dealings have unfortunately always taken…

Please note: This article was originally posted on the RecruitLoop blog

As a career recruiter, I've seen my share of 'shifty business'. And sometimes from employers themselves! It usually involved a client contacting my candidate directly so as to avoid having to pay a recruitment fee.

 Such shady dealings have unfortunately always taken place behind recruiters' backs. It's a way for desperate clients to use a recruiter for his or her expertise (not to mention their contacts) but then do whatever they can to avoid having to pay for it.

 I had never come across any reputable businesses engaging in such 'dirty tricks' - until recently.

 'Interviewing' for free creative and strategic advice

 Whenever this particular ad agency posts a new vacancy, or uploads a new job to their careers page, they are inundated with applications. The agency is a highly sought-after place to work in the industry, with the 'best of the best' always keeping an eye out for any new opportunities.

 When the agency recently posted a role for a Group Account Director to take over a global account, half a dozen of Australia's most qualified 'G.A.Ds' immediately applied. A good friend of mine was one of them.

 All six of them had a first round interview and the 'shortlist' was quickly reduced to three - including my friend.

 After the second interview she was told that she was one of only two candidates being asked to research and present their strategy to completely reposition their client's iconic brand. The presentation (third and final stage in the recruitment process) would take place the following week.

 After spending an entire weekend preparing for her presentation, she received glowing feedback and it was clear that she had left a great impression with the agency's upper echelon.

 Then things went cold and she didn't hear anything from the agency for a few weeks.

 When someone finally took her call, she was told that whilst her presentation had been 'outstanding', they wouldn't be taking her application any further.

 People in the advertising industry talk, and it didn't take long for my friend to find out that the panel had also told the second candidate that his presentation was 'outstanding', but that they weren't pursuing his application either.

 However as it turns out, what the agency did do, was take the best creative and strategic elements from both 'outstanding' presentations, pitch the combined concepts to their client and secure the work on the global repositioning (a million dollar piece of business).

 Employers taking advantage of recruiters while still having every intention to make a hire is one thing.

 Abusing a 'shortlist' of top candidates when an organisation is under resourced and where there is no real vacancy in sight is nothing short of exploitative.

 'Headhunting' dirty tricks

 A former client of mine has been a Business Development Manager within the legal industry for the last 15 years. He recently shared the following story with me.

 Although very comfortable in his current role with a mid-tier firm, he was recently 'tapped on the shoulder' by a global top-tier firm.

 First a coffee, then a lunch with two of the partners. He was flattered and was seriously considering the potential move as it would be great for his career and would also give him international exposure. They even asked him if he'd be happy for them to start to contact a few referees.

 However alarm bells started ringing when they asked him to come back a week later and present a full business plan, together with a list of clients that he'd be able bring across, as well as a some examples of tenders he'd recently won.

 As part of his own due diligence, he made a call to the firm's HR Department only to be told that they were completely unaware of any Business Development Manager vacancy and that they were under a total headcount freeze. Some more quick research revealed that the firm was in fact in the process of making redundancies.

 Clearly a manipulative way for a 'leading' firm to potentially get their hands on some quick new business in tough times.

 Needless to say he politely withdrew his candidature.

 What constitutes taking the 'interview' process too far?

 For any employer or recruitment manager, the interview process is meant to be a chance to assess a candidate's skills and core competencies. It's a time to determine a candidate's suitability to the culture and work environment and also a chance for the candidate to learn more about the job on offer (assuming the job actually exists).

 It's unethical for any business to advertise a vacancy, and to 'shortlist candidates' under the proviso that there is a real job on the table, when their only objective is to pump high calibre candidates for information, or milk them for leads or free strategic advice.

 Exploiting talent and leading them down a mythical path is a sure way to tarnish your employer brand or ruin any chance of being regarded as an employer of choice in your industry.