Marketing Headhunter.com

Burning Through the Database

CHICAGO, IL - Some VP's of HR feel cheated if they don't see 8-10 candidates for a given search -- even if the first two candidates are an exact match.

I don't get that.  Who's better at "Name that Tune?" The player who can name that tune in eight notes, or the player who can name it in two?  Recruiting is all about getting it right in as few attempts as possible.  Contingency recruiting, especially.

If a client wants to interview poorly fitting candidates, they should run a post on a job board.  On the other hand, ...

If a well-connected recruiter with a proven screening methodology has done his homework and understands the role, the corporate culture, and the underlying economics of the industry -- there's no reason why he shouldn't get it right in less than three submissions.

That's my philosophy, anyway.  After all, I get paid by the placement -- not by the submission.

And this isn't about my being lazy.  It's just smart candidate relations.  I am reluctant to churn through my VP-level candidate database when I know I may have already submitted a winner.

The same rationale applies when a candidate says "The client can call my references after they give me an offer -- because at my level, I'm reluctant to burn out my C-level references on speculative deals."

That makes total sense to me.  Does it to you?
______________________________________________________________________
Submit Your Resume | Download my vCard | Get My Searches | 97 Job Search Tips

Marketing Recruitment News

ATLANTA, GA - Happy Election Day!  Vote early and often!  Here are some choice tidbits from the worlds of marketing and recruitment:

1. Big news for Apple in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal: The company is losing one of its stars, Tony Fadell.  Mr. Fadell does not say where he's going, but given the recent non-compete flap between his replacement, Mark Papermaster, and IBM (Mr. Papermaster's former employer) ... Is it possible that Mr. Fadell is defecting to a competitor and staying mum about his plans until he's ready to address the non-compete issues?  One wonders.  Regardless ...

A-Players take note:  Consider what happened between Bratz and Mattel and understand that companies are getting pretty damn grabby about their intellectual property -- further underscoring the importance of talent in today's business world.  Even if your non-compete agreement is riddled with holes, your employer can still drag you into court.  Click here for more info.

2. Yahoo has disclosed that Scott Moore, who oversaw media properties such as its sports and finance sites, has become the latest executive to leave the struggling company.  From where I sit, the Yahoo brain drain looks painful.  It takes years to build a great company, and this year's defections at Yahoo underscore just how quickly things can unravel if management doesn't have its act together.  We used to have a saying in the trading business: "Your FIRST loss is your BEST loss."  Yahoo should have aligned with Microsoft months ago ...


3. Auto sales worst in 25 years.  Funny, but this fits right in with Faith Popcorn's recent observation that, under the new "vigilante consumerism," people are going to be keeping their old cars longer.

"People are finding shame in consuming. Consume is an evil word," says Popcorn. "This change in attitude applies to "anyone who is financially well off, but not optimistic anymore, mainly people with discretionary income that won't have it any more," she says. "These folks are behaving differently. They're acting like they need to cut out stuff."

Ms. Popcorn sees a major change in the way all U.S. consumers will behave in the future. In fact, she says the appropriate word for Americans is no longer "consumer," but "citizen."

My take:  For decades, the greatest marketing minds have known that "People don't buy features, they buy feelings."  But shame is a pretty dark word.  It's one of the darkest emotions in the human experience.  Are things really that bleak?

Marketing candidates:  If we are truly headed for an era of vigilante consumerism and citizen consumption, then you had better closely study the customers of the companies to which you are applying.  If you wouldn't hang out with them socially, then it seems unlikely that you will be successful marketing to them in an age of social media and total transparency.  Click here for more info.
______________________________________________________________________
Submit Your Resume | Download my vCard | Get My Searches | 97 Job Search Tips

Atlanta Recruiter Predicts Future of LinkedIn

ATLANTA, GA - One of my most popular posts from 2006 was called "The Future of LinkedIn."  Back then, my post sounded pretty far out ...

"And don't forget that Gmail offers calendering functionality.  Is it possible that Gmail and Linked-In could datamine joint users' accounts to advise users when they will be in the same geographic location? (ie, "You are scheduled to attend the National Auto Show in Orlando.  Fellow Linked-In members Joe Jones, Mary Brown, and Phil DeGraves will also be there.  Click here to see if they would like to meet you for coffee ...")  What happens if Linked-In and Expedia form a "social travel site" (like AirTroductions.com or TripMates.com), allowing Linked-In members to meet one another on shared flights -- or in airport clubs like Delta's Crown Room?  Dude!"

Well, kids, the future is now.

According to LinkedIn's applications page, "LinkedIn has teamed up with some of the Internet’s premier companies to bring you new applications that enable you to collaborate on projects, get key insights, and present your work to the world’s largest professional network. Getting started is fast and easy, as you’ll be able to install and use your new applications in just seconds."

And guess what??

One of those applications is "My Travel" by TripIt, which lets LI members see where and when their LI network is traveling.  Moreover, it generates "closeness alerts" for LI colleagues so they can connect on the road (ie, in an airport lounge) or while they're attending the same industry event.  Obviously.  My Travel also displays a member's current location, upcoming trips and travel stats on their LinkedIn profile.  Man.

I feel like Kosmo Kramer after Calvin Klein stole his idea for The Beach perfume!

Here's LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman explaining some new changes which might ultimately have the generalist, unspecialized, and soon-to-be-disintermediated third party recruiters of the world reaching for the Pepto ...

______________________________________________________________________
Submit Your Resume | Download my vCard | Get My Searches | 97 Job Search Tips

Marketing Jobs: "Getting Inside Information"

NEW YORK - While surfing the web today, I rediscovered something that I wrote for the Fordyce Letter last summer.  The Fordyce Letter is the Harvard Business Review of the recruiting business, and the publishers were running a contest called "The best recruiting lesson I ever learned."

My entry (below) won a year's subscription to the Fordyce Letter -- which goes for $189.  Since my submission never appeared on this blog, I thought you readers might enjoy it.

The best recruiting lesson I ever learned ...

... is that the odds of my closing a search skyrocket when I get my candidates to help each other get the job.

Here's how I do it: At the beginning of a search, I assure my candidates that I will do every-ethical-thing in my power to help them get the job. HOWEVER: In good faith, they agree that if they get knocked out of the search, they will make themselves available by phone to discuss my client's interview process with all surviving candidates.

For example, imagine that I submit six highly-qualified candidates for the same VP of Marketing job. Usually, four will get knocked out before the two survivors get called in for final interviews.  My method allows the final two candidates to have confidential, in-depth calls with the four "dead" candidates before going in for their final interviews.  From what I hear, a ton of outstanding intel is traded among these executives.

• What's in it for the "dead" candidates?  A great networking opportunity to help a colleague who's about to get a plum VP-level job at a company they respect.
• What's in it for the "live" candidates?  Valuable intelligence.
• What's in it for me?  Usually money -- and some very impressed VP-level candidates.

I still use this tactic every chance I get, and I'm surprised that other recruiters find this practice so foreign.  It freaking works!  Plus, you'd be amazed at how much camaraderie can be built up among sportsmanlike candidates who share a common goal -- especially when they belong to a tight-knit industrial community like online retail.

Thanks to Jason Davis and ERE.net for sponsoring this contest.  I plan to renew my Fordyce subscription at full price when it expires next month.
______________________________________________________________________

Submit Your Resume | Download my vCard | Get My Searches | 97 Job Search Tips

Crappy Housing Market Favors Local Candidates

PODCAST - This week the WSJ reported that we are experiencing the worst housing market since Hoover was president.  It's a total train wreck.  Throughout the country, home prices are down 11%-15% from one year ago, and the market continues to soften.  Indeed, experts say that we could be a year or more away from the market's bottom.  And condo owners have it worse than home owners, seeing declines of 21%-28%.

This 2-minute podcast explains why this is GREAT NEWS for local candidates.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.
______________________________________________________________________

Submit Your Resume | Download my vCard | Get My Searches | 97 Job Search Tips

Contingency Recruiting: "The Rushmore Effect"

CHICAGO, IL - Recently I undertook a contingency-based executive search for a Chicago-based ecommerce company.  Without being long winded here, the client's standards were really high.  But mine were higher.

Throughout the process, the client asked me to "increase the flow" of candidates -- but I refused to exceed my limit of four A-players at a time.  Like Mt. Rushmore ...

It's not that I couldn't submit dozens of average candidates.  It's that I simply didn't want to, and on a contingency-based search, clients are going to get what I want them to have.  Contingency clients use multiple recruiters for their projects, and if I'm one of, say, three recruiters chasing a search -- then I know that the client can get average candidates from my competitors.  And it's not my job to build the hiring company's database.  After all, until I close a search and they pay my invoice, I'm working for free.

I realize this makes me sound difficult.

But it's just good business.  I can't build a stellar reputation by submitting candidates who are marginally better than what the hiring company could get through Monster or from an unspecialized recruiter.  I need to win each search in a total BLOWOUT, and I can only do that by working with highly specialized rock stars and then learning to tell their story in a way that engages the client.

"Some days you get the bear.  Some days the bear gets you."

Most companies don't want to pay their contingency recruiter anything.  Seriously, most don't.  Especially in a nervous economy.  Twenty percent is a lot of money, so my candidates have to be soooo much better than my competitors' that hiring my candidates is a complete no brainer.  My candidates are an extension of my value proposition, and my fee must be lost in the rounding of the value that they will create for the client.  Otherwise, I'm wasting everyone's time.

All or Nothing

So, it's my job to source and submit the best and brightest candidates and then prepare them for anything in the interview process.  Which is why I will bury my candidates in market research, company briefs, industry forecasts, and the latest ebooks on SEO, SEM, email marketing, affiliate marketing, online merchandising, usability, web development, database marketing, CRM, web analytics, TV 2.0, and more.

And it's not uncommon for me to set up phone calls between my candidates and executives or consultants who have either worked for the hiring company or have an inside knowledge about the company and its competitors.  The exchange of market intelligence can get pretty spooky -- and it almost always amazes the hiring manager.

I want need my candidates to have an unfair advantage.  Because that's how you win in my business.  More importantly, that how my client's can win in theirs.

UPDATE:  The HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn, has an interesting take on my post.  Check it out here (along with my comments).
__________________________________________
  Get my latest searches.   (Opt out anytime.)

Seth Godin: "If I were a recruiter..."

NEW YORK - Seth Godin has an interesting post today called "The needle in a haystack problem."  Seth has been having trouble with the interface between Gmail and Apple mail, and he has been searching online for help from others.

According to Seth, "Forum posts have not been successful at troubleshooting this. I have no doubt that this blog post will find the person insightful, smart and kind enough to tell me what to do."  But Seth asks the obvious question, "What if [I didn't] have a popular blog?"

When a problem like the one Seth has becomes "less interesting" for the techies who can solve it, they lose interest in surfing the forums and the listservs that would provide the best answer.  In other words, the best answers, the best referrals, the best everything in online forums comes from the edges -- and those people like interacting with others on the edges.  When the channel becomes less edgy, they leave.  Next, the quality of the forum goes down -- and everyone heads for the door.

Seth Godin continues ...

Let's say, for example, I was an executive recruiter.  Surely, I would benefit from interrupting every person on the planet to advertise a great new job.  But I couldn't do it every day or every hour...

Part of the success of Facebook is that for your group of friends, you do get that ability (at least until they stop being your friends).  But the laws of information make it clear that it doesn't scale. No, there isn't an obvious answer.  But yes, it's a universal problem. Worth a think when you get a chance.

Here's my take as a card-carrying executive recruiter:  You have to do things that are edgy and risky and counter-intuitive.  For example, I have a job board called OnlineRetailJobs.com, and I advertise it very heavily both online and off.  My wife thinks I'm nuts.

On the face of things, I am losing huge money on it.  For example, I am handling searches now for two clients who have posted jobs on it -- and if the winning candidate is sourced directly through the job board, I lose a 20% commission.

So why do it?  Because the labor market is dynamic and interconnected and my candidates and clients will find each other anyway.  They do not operate in a vacuum.

It makes MUCH more sense to drive people to a job board that showcases my commitment to the ecommerce industry and links to my blog.  In a sense, it "credible-izes" me to my market, and I think that these soft benefits outweigh any opportunity costs there might be.

TRUE STORY:  I have become so credible among online retailers that TWICE last year I closed searches involving candidates who had applied directly to my clients and were rejected.  It was only after I interviewed these candidates and explained specifically how each could grow the clients' online business that their candidacies were resurrected.  Technically, the clients owed me nothing -- but most people are fair, and they wanted to pay me something for my expertise.  It was a win/win/win: The only acceptable outcome in an efficient market.

I also have a Linked-In group which online retailers and passive job seekers can join.  The group has nearly 500 members -- and it may be costing me money by taking searches out of the market.  That's the bad news.

The good news is that my "click to join" button is on the Linked-In bios of 500 (mostly) A-players in my marketplace, and the icon has become a branding element for my job board.  It has greatly improved my "signal to noise ratio" within my target market -- and I have become one of "the" go-to guys for ecommerce on Linked-In.  I couldn't buy that kind of credibility and trust -- but I can accelerate it by disintermediating myself.

So it's about trade offs and about being known as a community facilitator -- rather than as a parasite who simply lives off the asymmetric information provided by the friction in the market.  In a sense, I'm in the karma business.  We all are.

After all, you get as good as you give.
______________________________________________________
  Get my latest searches.   (Opt out anytime.)

"Why Most Recruiters Stink"

ATLANTA, GA - LinkedIn Answers (a great resource, btw) featured a question last week called "Do recruiters have a bad reputation?"  The inquiry continued ...

"It seems like I see more and more stories on LinkedIn about bad experiences with recruiters. Do you have a good story about a recruiter or have you had a positive experience with a recruiter that you can share?"

Good questions, indeed.

Do recruiters have a bad reputation?  In my experience, "YES" -- and one of the main reasons is that the contingency recruiting business pays recruiters $1,000-2,000/month draw versus straight commission.  That's a run rate of $12-24K per year with NO benefits -- even though a new recruiter who does not close a deal in his first three months on the job at a well-run agency is fired.

Would any bright, aggressive, empathic, resourceful, business-oriented person with a lot of professional options sign up for that kind of deal?  It's unusual.

The result is that most contingency recruiters are incredibly transactional in their approach to developing candidate relationships: They are "incentivized" to pick the lowest hanging fruit they can find, taking any search assignment a client will give them regardless of how it aligns with their own expertise.  Candidates suffer the consequences on the front end of this process, while the tail end of the recruiting process is fraught with serious conflicts of interest.  For example, asking your recruiter if you should accept his client's job offer is like asking a barber if you needs a haircut.

Retained recruiters are under a similar type of transactional pressure, although the economics of the retained search business are different, and I won't get into that here.

The bottom line is that the compensation systems in the recruiting business engender the kind of short-termism that gives the industry a less-than-stellar reputation.

Candidates, you can read good stories about exceptional recruiters in their LinkedIn testimonials.  Great recruiters are out there, but like I said: They're exceptional.

What are your thoughts?

Recruiters: "Differentiate or Die"

CHICAGO, IL - I'm not quite sure what the technical SEO lesson is here, but it has been a fairly expensive foray for yours truly.  Two years ago I snapped up the domains "ExecutiveSearch____.com" -- where the "____" was the name of a top 50 metro US city.  For example, I bought ...

• ExecutiveSearchAtlanta.com,
• ExecutiveSearchBoston.com,
• ExecutiveSearchChicago.com,
• and so forth.

Times fifty.  Then I started blogging on as many of those sites as I could.  Man.  Talk about time consuming.  It was exhausting.  Setting up all of those blogs ... changing the c-names ... editing my content so that it would match the local market ...

It's not like I'm insane.  It was a theoretically valid keyword-density play, where the URL would contain the keywords I needed to get recruiting business in those cities.  Seemed like a good idea at the time -- and it made sense from a naming standpoint.

So imagine my surprise tonight when I checked on the Google results for "Executive Search Chicago."  Not only am I not even on the first page of the results -- but even if I were, who would care?

Look at all that clutter!  How is any prospective client who uses Google (and they all do!) supposed to pick one recruiter out of the geo-mapped pack at the top of the results page?  Proximity?  Forget it.

Memo to executive search firms:  You need an instantly recognizable INDUSTRIAL or FUNCTIONAL differentiation.  You cannot just say "we have the best relationships" and expect the phone to ring.  It won't.  Which leaves you with three choices:

1. networking,
2. cold calling, and
3. SEO.

I've done all three.  SEO is by far the most effective -- and it's certainly the most scalable.  In that sense, maybe the SEO lesson here is that it's not how well you optimize your site, but that you have a business concept worth marketing in the first place.
__________________________________________
  Get my latest searches.   (Opt out anytime.)

Lisa Amorao: Best Recruiting Blogger

SILICON VALLEY -- I swear I'm not sucking up with this post:  In the wake of the latest Scoble + Facebook thing, I discovered the blog of Lisa Amorao -- a recruiting blogger from Silicon Valley.  Lisa is bigtime smart, and her blog rocks.  If only we'd known about her, perhaps she'd have been a contender for the coveted RecruitingBlogs.com Best Blog Award.  Oh well.  Wait 'til next year.