Marketing Headhunter

Your Blog is Not Your Resume

Conceptually, I like blogstar Robert Scoble.  I have never met him, but I have seen him on video, heard his podcasts, and read his blog.  That makes me as much an expert on him as the rest of the world who only knows him through these media.  In that sense, blogging is like the Truman Show.

In today's episode, Mr. Scoble says he just told a "clueless" recruiter from Yahoo who was asking for a resume that he "just took a job that didn't require a resume, sorry."  While that's not quite the same thing as telling someone to pound sand, I wonder:  Does Mr. Scoble have a driver's license?  Because I'm pretty sure that unless his new employer is insane, they did a routine background check on him.  Good luck being above that.

Memo to everyone else:

You need a resume.  A good one, in fact.  We all do.  I'm sure Steve Rubel had one when he joined Edelman.  I've been self-employed for several years and mine is up to date.  What's the big deal?

We all have to work within a system.  Nobody's above it.  In fact, if you're self-employed, you probably need a fresh, hard hitting, credential-rich resume more than anyone -- along with a believable story as to why you would consider going back "in-house."  Trust me, I applied for a handful of jobs during the last recession and couldn't get arrested.  Having my own website and newsletter only made it worse.

Will your blog help you land a job?  In my experience [as a blogger and a recruiter] it is far more likely that you'll get a new job with a company that has no idea what a blog is.  To wit, last year I was contacted by a B-list blogger who wanted me to help him get a "blogging" job with a Fortune 500 company.  His salary idea?  After some coaxing, he said "Oh, I dunno.  $200K?"

C'mon.  Consider that most of Corporate America wonders whether it should even be blogging -- let alone under which department's budget a blog would appear.  And good luck determining the blog's ROI.  Even experts like Charlene Li say "it's not about the math."  Which just means they don't know.  Indeed, my expert B-list candidate is still looking for work.  And blogging, of course.  For free.

A blog is no substitute for a resume.

Look:  Even if your blog rocks, part of being an acquirable "microbrand" is knowing that when the right opportunity arises, you must be able to capitalize on it without giving your suitor pause to wonder what kind of "target" refuses to jot down their credentials on paper.  If you're above that, what else are you above?  Nobody likes a diva.  Or a cover-up artist.

I'm not saying anything about Mr. Scoble other than he's lucky to have skirted the system -- in much the same way that Blake Gottesman skirted the system when he got into HBS without a college degree.  But that's unusual, and I would not count on that happening to you.

UPDATE 3-17-2008:  Seth Godin says you don't need a resume.  Gentle reader, I assure you that Mr. Godin is 100% wrong.  Trust me.  I do this for a living at a very high level.  It's unusual, but Mr. Godin can be dead wrong.  Perhaps this is some kind of St Patrick's Day hoax.

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My advice: Don't Drog Blunk.

Seth Godin has an interesting blog post about customers getting banned from businesses for bad behavior.  Example:  If a passenger gets rowdy on a flight to Timbuktu, might they find themselves blacklisted on future flights?  Until Seth's post, I had never thought of that possibility.  And further to my ACLU / CRM post, might the offending passenger find himself unable to buy a ticket on all airlines who share customer data?  Hmm ...

Like most of us, I'm not sure I like the idea of having a black mark on my permanent record because of one unfortunate incident -- which may or may not be my fault.  I can recall vividly an occasion where one airline bumped me from an intentionally overbooked international flight and left me stranded overnight in a crowded airport.  Jerks!  I'm sure if I had had a blog back then I would have written about it.  Thankfully, I'm above that now.

We all have stories like this.  And now we all have blogs.  Will we [as customers] ever pay the price for telling those stories?  Seth thinks so.

My question is, "How might such stories be held against job applicants?"  Everyday I hear stories about candidates getting Googled by prospective employers.  And now that I am experimenting with ZoomInfo's PowerSearch -- an absurdly powerful research tool which serves up cached /archived pages on people -- it seems like unfavorable or regrettable web pages are like tattoos:  Easy to get.  Hard to remove.

My advice:  Don't blog mad -- or drunk.  Increasingly, the web has a tendency to remember such things about customers and candidates.
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My Prediction Stands

My buddy Michael Keleman (AKA "The Recruiting Animal") sent me this link from ClickZ.  The article points to a prediction I made two days ago:

"Is there a chance that Jobster would shift to using the Recruiting.com brand, a notion that some bloggers have floated?  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” responded Recruiting.com's Jason Davis, adding, “Jobster spent a lot of time and effort developing that brand.  I think it’s a powerful brand in the industry now.”

Powerful, yes.  But that's not the issue.  The issue is intrinsic value.  According to Dane Carlson's popular blog valuator, Recruiting.com is worth $165,975.  I think that's way too cheap, but nevermind.  My point is that not many companies pay elephant dollars for content.  They pay it for a community [See # 3], and/or they pay it for a destination.  In Recruiting.com's case, the destination is worth much more than the community.  Not because there's anything wrong with the community, but because there's so much potential with the URL.

It's the brand, sort of.

Jason Davis [an incredibly nice guy and a brilliant entrepreneur] is exactly right:  Jobster is a very good brand.  Amen.  But a brand is only as good as the customers and prospects who know it.  To the 99% of the world that has never heard of Jobster, the brand simply doesn't exist.  But the word "recruiting" does, and that's why 420,000 times last month, people entered that word into a search field.  They had a need.  Trust me, nobody Googles the word "recruiting" for fun.  There's pent up demand there.

Now we get to a critical point on Jobster's strategy:  Who is Jobster's customer?  Is it the candidate -- or the client?  Are they selling a better way for candidates to find a job?  Or are they selling clients a better way to find great candidates?  My money is on the latter, because that's where the money is.  In fact, that's what I do for a living -- and it's called "recruiting."  And what's the best URL to have if your value proposition involves recruiting?  Exactly.

Don't movie stars usually change their names?

Just because Jobster has always been called Jobster doesn't make Jobster the best name for the company.  In the age of Google, the best name for any company is the URL of the need that it satisfies.  Like LasVegasEscorts.com.  Or MarketingHeadhunter.com.  It's every CMO's dream come true:  A hot prospect enters the need into Google and -- wham! -- there you are.

In light of that new reality, the intrinsic value of your company becomes the Lifetime Value of the prospects you can convert in a simple bake-off between your firm and the two others at the top of the organic rankings.  In that sense, pay-per-click is really just a consolation prize for all the losers who can't win the Gold, Silver, or Bronze medals in the organic search competition.

Venture capitalists love that kinda junk.

Now, suppose you are Jobster's CMO.  Do you want to brand a word that already exists -- or do you want to invent a word that stands for the need your company satisfies?  Put another way:  Would you rather own the URL "Sex.com" or would you rather try to brand a word that has "sex" in it, such as "Sexster?"  Give me "Sex.com" any day because it costs virtually nothing to develop a top-of-mind brand position with your market -- especially if that's what they're already searching for.

The fact is, the easiest thing to brand is what's already in the customer's mind.  It's already there.  All you must do is credibly lay claim to it.  And there's nothing that will more credibly allow a company to lay claim to a need that's already in the prospect's mind faster than buying the all-one-word dot-com domain of that need.

I know.  I've been there.  Which is why my prediction stands.
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Jobster Acquires Recruiting.com

Don't adjust your sets:  Jobster Acquires Recruiting.com

When I first saw this, I thought it might be some kind of practical joke.  But then I realized it wasn't.  And thank goodness for that.

This is a stunningly great idea, and one of the few marketing plays that I have seen a dot-com make that makes real sense.  Jobster gets a branded destination, lots of type-in traffic, a thriving online community, and the halo effect of having aligned with people (Jason Davis, et al) who have a ton of street credibility.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

According to http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ the term "recruiting" has a monthly search volume of 420,448.  That is an amazing amount of traffic, even if Recruiting.com is getting only 25% of it.  How much would it cost Jobster to buy all of those clicks in with a PPC initiative?

Do the math:  Jobster is currently paying $3/click -- and many powerful online retail VPs (ie, my clients and candidates) expect these PPC bids to increase as less sophisticated players step into the market.  Remember, with PPC programs, you are only as smart as your dumbest competitor.  At current prices, my guess is that the value of Jobster's PPC savings will be $1-to-2 million per year.

And what about organic search?  How much would it cost Jobster to claw its way to the top of the organic search results without actually owning the domain "www.recruiting.com?"  A bunch -- if it's possible at all.

Obviously, I'm no expert on SEO (that's Cheezwhiz's specialty).  But I don't need to know how much a lady weighs to tell you if she's fat.

According to Rupert Murdoch, we are still in the first inning of the Internet age.  There's no telling what terminal value Jobster's finance jocks assigned to the acquisition after accounting for growth in the online recruiting space, synergies, and so on.  If I am only directionally correct in my thinking, then the Jobster acquisition of Recruiting.com makes a ton of sense.

Prediction:  By December 31, 2006, Jobster will be renamed Recruiting.com

The ACLU, CRM, and CRAP

I'm doing a search for a multichannel retailer who seeks a new Director of CRM.  For those of you who don't know, "CRM" stands for customer relationship management, and it's essentially a companywide database marketing initiative that allows a business to communicate with different customers differently, nurturing a two-way dialogue with them that's CRAP:

• Consistent
• Relevant
• Anticipated, and
• Personal

The goal of CRM is for a company to get smarter about you each time you touch it, no matter where you touch it -- so that its offers address your true needs and values, and so that you never have to tell it the same thing twice.  Next to continuity marketing (which includes membership clubs and subscriptions), the Holy Grail of CRM is for companies to be able to anticipate your needs.  That's the aim of "data mining" -- and it's just a taste of what's to come in The Intention Economy.

To see how powerful CRM can be, check out one of my candidate's links to the ACLU's spoof on CRM.  This post has nothing to do with my personal views on information privacy.  It's just a very effective demonstration of what a well funded, forward thinking organization can do with a well-mined database.  Click here to view.
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Why Recruiting is like Blackjack

I do a lot of searches, and one of the critical mistakes I see hiring managers make is that often they feel like there's a better candidate right around the corner.  Never fails.  No matter how good my first batch of four candidates is, hiring managers always ask "Who else is out there?  What else you got?"

Assuming that you are not simply stalling my best candidates until you can source a comparable one without a search fee, this is a fair question.  But if you are partnering with a reputable recruiter who knows your industry, company, and the position, then there's a good chance that the first batch of four candidates will be better than the second or -- heaven forbid -- the third.  Remember, we recruiters make most of our fee when a deal closes, so we will usually hit you with our best shot in the early innings of a search.  Also understand that in all selling situations, ...

You MUST close your prospects
when they are in HEAT.

Fact is, your odds of closing an A-player decrease the longer you allow the deal to drag on.  Recruiting is selling and selling requires momentum in much the same way a jumbo jet needs speed to gain lift.  If I send you an A-player and you tell the him that he did very well in his interview, then he assumes that you will move him quickly through the hiring process.

But if you subject an A-player to a herky jerky, hurry-up-and-wait hiring process, then he is likely to get a bruised ego and tell his friends about his bad experience.  This damages your employment brand and my reputation.

You and I need to sell in tandem.  Nothing will help us close a great candidate more effectively than a sharp, well coordinated attack.  Such an attack starts on the drawing board, where you and I have agreed on all of the attributes of a perfect candidate beforehand.

Why recruiting is like Blackjack

When I first speak with a hiring manager, I will explain that recruiting is like Blackjack.  You know the rules:  Players are dealt two cards in the hope of getting a total of 21.  The player who gets the closest to 21 without going over, wins.  Naturally, 20 beats 19, 19 beats 18, and so on.  A score of 21 is called Blackjack, and anything over 21 is called a "bust."  For recruiting purposes, it's merely overqualified.

In an executive search, I will always "deal" the hiring manager my four best resumes.  Based on our "drawing board" sessions and my knowledge of my client's industry, company, and the position, the resumes are usually on the money.  Next, after reviewing the write-ups of my own interviews with each candidate, it's up to the hiring manager to perform on-site interviews with any of them he chooses.

Let's say that he opts to meet with three of them, Candidates A, B, and C.  After his interviews, the hiring manager advises each of these candidates that he likes them and will be in touch shortly regarding next steps.  Based on my debriefs about the interviews, the candidates are usually hopeful -- especially Candidate A, who enjoyed an excellent chemistry with the hiring manager.  Based on the interviews, the hiring manager scores my candidates as follows:

1. Candidate A:  20
2. Candidate B:  18
3. Candidate C:  17

Now he has a problem.  He wonders "Is it possible that if I held out, I could draw a 21?"  My answer is always "Absolutely!  With much less overlap than you'd think, there are 44 million resumes on Monster, 17 million on CareerBuilder, and 4.5 million bios on LinkedIn -- and that's just the tippy tip tip of the iceberg.  There is always a perfect candidate out there somewhere."  The problem is finding them quickly, and you've got a job to fill.

Nobody's Perfect

According to the Wizard of Odds, the odds of getting a 21 in Blackjack are 4.8%.  Similarly, if your best candidate is a 20, then it does not behoove you to stall Candidate A while holding out for someone better.  Best case, you could interview a dozen candidates before the perfect one comes along.  Worst case, you could interview another twenty and be no better off than you are now.

Realistically, all you will do is take the momentum out of the deal for Candidate A and allow him to unemotionally analyze your opportunity -- and others.  Remember, as part of our recruiting efforts we have awakened Candidate A to the fact that he could be doing better elsewhere.  Since first taking our call, Candidate A has gone from "passive" to "active" in the job market.  By week three, he may be talking to your competitors.  Not good.

The key to winning with Blackjack as a recruiting metaphor is in knowing what constitutes a 21.  If you haven't defined what the perfect candidate looks like, then you won't know to what extent a candidate is nearly perfect.  Nor will it make sense to hold out for a better candidate if the first four don't "feel right."  Define the perfect candidate so that you'll know him when you see him, and don't be afraid to pull the trigger when you do.
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Coming Soon to ChangeThis ???

Not sure if this was a good idea.  While enjoying a frosty beverage and surfing the ChangeThis website the other night, I thought of an awesomely pretentious title for a manifesto [Jaws music, please] ...

The Ultimate Insider's Guide
to Bomb-Proofing Your Career

Putting aside the fact that I have no earthly idea how to "bomb-proof" ones career [whatever that means], the title simply sounded like it might generate a bunch of clicks.  As the beer flowed, I came up with a paragraph outlining the manifesto's "concept" and submitted it as a proposal.  To my astonishment, it was approved and now sits on the ChangeThis Manifesto Proposals page -- mocking me.

So gentle reader, if you want to see me write this high-sounding manifesto, vote for it here.  If you don't, your mercy is an inspiration.