So, just like yesterday, she’ll spend her day today scanning profiles, looking for the perfect fit, confident she’ll find “the one.” She’s dedicated countless hours to her searches and waking up this morning she thought to herself, “today will be the day.” 

Which of the following best describes that passage?  Is it …

A)     The start to a bad romance novel

B)     A shameless stereotype of a single thirty-something

C)     The profile of a happily married Hire EQ recruiter who’s on the hunt for the perfect candidate

Though “A” and “B” were perfectly logical choices, “C” is what we were going for here.  Given this week’s holiday, it seemed only logical that we recognize the parallel between professional recruiting and matchmaking (be it for personal gain or as a professional service).  The principles are the same:  individuals are rated and scored against a list of criteria, a top few will be selected for further screening, some tough decisions are made and, eventually, a final person is selected as the best possible match.

As a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) company, we are, in a sense, in the business of matchmaking for businesses.  Our goal is to forge relationships—hopefully long-term ones—between the employers who hire us and the employees we find for them.  We take great pride in bringing the right people together with the right companies, and have a pretty darn good track record of doing it.  And, while we might not be able to help the lovelorn in their searches, we can help you find you your next great employee!

Though a different type of recruitment, a story recently broke about how one young man’s Twitter feed absolutely changed the course of his future.  Yuri Wright was known for being one of the top-ranked high school cornerbacks of last season.  Wright was being heavily courted by several schools, and had an offer on the table to play for Michigan.  That’s right—he was being courted.  After his Twitter feed blew up with “ill-advised comments” and derogatory statements, he was not only dropped from Michigan’s list, he was also expelled from his conservative preparatory high school in New Jersey.  He blasted the extreme locker room talk across his feed and it didn’t take long for the comments to bruise his image and take away his chance of being a part of the nationally-ranked Wolverine pack.

Despite this kid’s on-the-field stats, it was his online conduct that counted in the end.  No matter how good his highlight reel and resume showed him to be, he couldn’t escape who he had shown himself to be to his 1,600+ Twitter followers (and to the Michigan recruiters).

In the same right, employees and job seekers have to be more mindful than ever of their online activity.  The resources available to hiring managers and recruiters are endless.  Is all this research really legal though?  As I also mentioned a few weeks ago, there are emerging laws on this type of candidate (or employee) screening.  Some information is permissible for use in either terminating or choosing not to hire someone, while other information like disability or religion is not.  Many companies are creating their own social media policies so that the gray area around social media use becomes a little more black and white.

Do social media background checks happen?  Absolutely.   Can they be regulated?  Sort of.  As we all know though, once viewed, some things just can’t be un-seen or un-read.  So, to any employee or job seeker who is worried about being discounted because of their social media presence, I’d pass along the old adage that “the best defense is a good offense.”

In speaking with a lead talent acquisition specialist for a nation-wide property management company, I found that most of our pet-peeves were the same.  She is tasked with high-volume hiring and recruiting for properties all over the country and has little time to spend on anyone who is not a top-tier candidate.  According to her, there are 5 sure-fire ways to end up in her (or some other) application graveyard:

1. Sending files that aren’t readable.  If I can’t open the file (which happens more often than you’d think), they’re out.  Documents need to be in Word file or preferably a PDF — a universally acceptable file! If I can’t open it, you can’t have the job.

2. Misdirected cover letter/objective.  If you are applying for a sales position with me, don’t tell me how excited you are to apply for a marketing job with “company X.” If they can’t pay attention to that little detail and are sending me a “stock letter” I’m not interested. This also goes for the “summary statement” — I want to make sure they are applying for the job I am offering!

3. Unrelated experience or failure to prove relevance.  Job history…do they have any? If they are applying for a sales position, have they SOLD anything in the past? I appreciate a diverse job history, but if you are applying for a management position with us it’s important you have some relevant experience.  Show me that you’ve managed something in the past or show me that you have the capacity to do so.

4. Typos, spelling errors, down-right lazy formatting. Your resume is your foot in the door.  Sort of like when you interview– the suit you wear, the time you take grooming — it all matters.  Take the time, organize, prioritize, SPELLCHECK and proofread!

5. Shaky job history.  If there is no longevity there, it’s is a huge red flag. Were you fired? Did you quit? Regardless, I don’t want to pay to bring someone on who may not last.

The bottom line is that serious job seekers need to take the time to show that they are serious candidates.  A little bit of extra time and care put into the application process goes a long way.

Why use social media?  Aren’t job boards enough?  Well, maybe, but here are a few reasons it’s worth utilizing.

1.  To Quickly (and Inexpensively) Advertise Openings to Your Network and Beyond

Social Media, for the most part is still network-based.  Meaning, if the posting about your job made its way to Sally, there’s a good chance Sally is somehow connected to you via a current employee, a friend, or simply because she has chosen to follow your company’s updates.  This network-based listing essentially brings those to you who are either already connected or already interested in your company.

Depending on the type of company you are, the proper use of social media will be attractive to younger employees.  This may not matter in all fields, but if recruiting recent grads is of interest to you, it is imperative that you to put some real effort into this type of campaign.

Advertising openings in this way is virtually FREE!  Who doesn’t like free?  With the exception of small fee on LinkedIn, the other most common posting sites—Facebook and Twitter—are free.

2.  To Research Applicants

Everyone knows (or should, unless they’ve been dwelling under a rock for the last 10 years) that it is nearly impossible to hide from your online self.  Who you are online translates directly to who an employer perceives you to be in reality.  According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s outreach manager, Joe Bontke, “75% of recruiters in the United States report that they have rejected candidates because of information online.”  Recruiters are using social media sites to help cull through applicants much like applicants use these networks to scope out potential employers (and co-workers).  By viewing sites like LinkedIn (and now Facebook’s Timeline) it is easy see a candidate’s work history and experience at a glance.  With a few additional clicks can come photos, previous status updates or postings, likes/dislikes, affinity groups, and political or religious views (some things that employers are not supposed to consider before hiring).  This does bring up questions about what should or should not be permissible, so it’s important that recruiters are aware of the laws regarding this type of research.

3.  To Scout for Talent

And, finally, if you are simply not satisfied with the applicants who find you, turning to sites like LinkedIn to scout out talent is always an option.   As a recruiter, trying to fill jobs outside of your own geographic area can add one more layer of difficulty.  Also, if the job is highly specialized, it might mean that turnover is low and that qualified candidates aren’t really on the market.  In this case, scouring public resumes and profiles might lead to some viable options.  Perhaps someone isn’t necessarily “looking,” but maybe the right offer could change that.  At HireEQ, we often use a cross-platform approach.  For instance, based on our search using one social media site we might find someone with the right skills in the right location.  But, in order to find their resume or employment history, we have to turn to another source to dig for more information.  There’s no one way to do it, but that’s what keeps it interesting.

If you are still skeptical about the use of social media for recruiting, here are some quick stats from UPS (United Parcel Service) about their success with it.

• UPS switched from 90% of their budget in print media in 2005 to 97% of their budget in social media in 2010.
• In 2010, UPS received 3,926 applications based on Facebook postings.  Of those, 226 were hired.
• The interview to hire ratio from applicants on Facebook and Twitter is 2:1.
• The cost of hire went from $600/$700 per hire to $60/$70 per hire.

So, while traditional recruiting outlets still prove themselves to be valuable and useful, adding social media components to the mix will certainly enhance your ability to reach and find quality candidates.

Talent, in the most basic terms, is skill or aptitude.  Talent is generally easy to quantify and measure—both its existence and its absence.  Grit, on the other hand, can be slightly harder to define.  To me, it’s the stuff that cowboys are made of.  It’s sort of a hardness and fortitude of character—an unashamed resolve.  I suppose my image of this gritty cowboy is somewhat born out of the recent movie starring Jeff Bridges, aptly titled “True Grit.” So, which will get you farther in today’s job market:  measurable skills or unyielding determination?

Let’s start by looking at what types of job openings dominate the market today.

 Go ahead—try it.  Log-on to Careerbuilder.com and see which industries are hiring in your area.  I did, and the top five happen to be:  Management, Sales, Health Care, Information Technology, and Engineering.  Just for fun, I looked up ten major cities across the US, only to find the same five reign throughout (with the exception of a few (like Nashville and Phoenix), where Customer Service outranks Engineering).

Management and Sales may not require a specific degree or career path, but they certainly beg for a very particular set of skills.  The remaining industries—Health Care, Information Technology, and Engineering—demand specific (often high-level) training, degrees and certifications. We could, however, also argue that talent alone is not enough to stand out in these industries.  Take sales for example.  A salesperson is hired because he or she has a base-level ability to sell.  In order to make it to the top of any sales charts, however, he or she has to be hard-nosed, resilient–even ruthless.

So, with that said, back to our question:  will it take talent or grit to get someone out of the unemployment line?

We don’t have the answer, so we’d like to see what you think.  What has been your experience as an employer or job seeker on this one?

(And, If you’d like to find out just how gritty you are, here’s a short quiz.)

Basing your objectives for 2012 on the successes, challenges and changes brought about in 2011 is a good thing.  These are indicators of what has worked and what needs work for the future.  The New Year should be, however, new.

While not everyone likes or participates in the ritual of making resolutions, there are few business owners who will disagree with the practice of goal setting—on both administrative and personal levels.

A coach I once had made each player set personal goals at the start of each season and even before each game.  To simply say “my goal is to win” was not acceptable—to him that went without saying.  Success, you see, was not an option or something we might do if put down on paper—it was understood.  He wanted us to strive for the little things that would collectively and ultimately lead us to that title.  If we all focused on our part, we were much more likely to succeed as a whole (so went his theory).  Time and again, we won games, swept tournaments, and were recognized as all-conference individuals alongside our honors as a team.  We were motivated individuals who, when focused on achieving personally, were more aligned to succeed as a unit.

This same theory can be applied to business.  If each employee sets personal goals within the larger framework of the company’s mission, there is a greater chance that the company as a whole will prosper.

You might be familiar with the SMART theory of goal setting.  This theory asserts that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.  The graphic below briefly explains and helps to cross-check each of the tenants to the SMART theory.

Have you put as much effort into planning for 2012 as you did in closing out 2011? What goals can you set as a business owner to make sure that the coming year is a prosperous one? Will you start by setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals for the organization?  How will you motivate your employees to buy-in to those goals?  Will they be required to set some of their own?

January beckons us all to reflect and to plan ahead.  So, no matter where you hope to take your business in 2012, we wish you a year filled with success, prosperity, and achievement—how you measure it will be up to you!

According to the department of labor statistics, 3.5 million people find jobs in the month of December.  That number may be a bit lower than the January numbers (just above 4 million), but it is still indicative of an active hiring season.  In fact, General Motors announced last week that they just hired 437 employees to begin a second shift rotation in January.  Capital One Financial Corp out of Richmond, VA plans to hire 300 new employees before 2012 for their bank and card operations.

The job market takes no vacations and celebrates no holidays.  Regardless of months of the year or days of the week, there are jobs to be had and jobs to be filled.  From an employer’s point of view, there is a lot to be said for the candidate who holds true to his or her passion and search during a time of year when distraction and is at an all time high.  The candidates you find still in the game so late in the season may be proving something about themselves in that alone. You might find those who stick with the job search through the highs and lows, are simply more resilient and dedicated in all they do.

No time is a bad time to find the job you’ve been looking for or to hire the perfect candidate.  Be it March or December, it is important that both sides strike when the opportunity is hot.

If you have an opening on your sales team (or expect to soon because of an upcoming retirement or relocation of a current team member or because of a new market opportunity for your business), the position and needs of your business should be examined carefully–long before the opening goes public.  You will want to:

Analyze the job description carefully
Is this the same job description you used five years ago before you hired the last sales team member?  Are the functions outlined and required quotas listed outdated or stale?  Surely your business has seen progress and, with that, so should the expectations you have for new hires.  Comb through the description to make sure it reflects your business today!

Build a clear picture of your current sales team
As an employer, if you don’t have a good handle on who your sales team is and what they offer—individually and collectively—it will be hard to know exactly who you would want to join them.  Take the time to assess what you have before you try to determine what you need.

Build a clear picture of your ideal candidate
Are you more interested in someone who can step in to the last guy’s shoes and maintain old relationships, or are you more interested in finding someone to conquer a new territory to generate new sales?  Is it more important that you see an immediate boost in sales or do you have longer-term goals in mind?  You need to be clear on what the primary role for this new hire will be.  With that done, you can begin to build a picture of that perfect candidate, and clear understanding of what traits you must have versus what traits you would be willing to compromise.  Know your priorities apart from your preferences.

Let’s face it.  In an ideal world, you would have the time and resources to go through the steps above for every single hire, but that may not be practical or cost efficient.  Another option for those who simply may not have the time to stop and examine the position, the current team and ideal candidate each time is constant source recruiting.  This model manages and nurtures a current pool of talent, so that when a need arises, it can be filled quickly.

No matter your industry, frequency of hiring needs or business size, keep in mind that transition is the perfect time for restructuring and changing what may not have worked before.  Take the searching and hiring period as an opportunity to define and seek what is best for the future of your business.

The résumé has come a long way since 1500 when a traveling Lord in England passed out hand-written letters of introduction, being the first to formally call it a “résumé.”  By 1950, the practice of maintaining and circulating a résumé went from a business formality to an expectation.   Later, with the advent of word processing programs in the 1970s, résumés transformed into a more formal style, becoming the blueprint to the format that is still used today.

Once the digital age hit, the résumé began to evolve much more rapidly. Since 2000, we have seen the classic “one-page résumé” morph into everything from infographics to YouTube videos and interactive advertisements.  Speaking of infographics, the one below provided by Rezscore.com pretty much covers the timeline completely.

Job seekers, what are you doing to make your résumé stand out from the stacks?  Are you relying on your experience to do the talking, or are you hoping that creativity points will send yours to the top?  As the competition for desirable positions continues to mount, sprucing up your first impression is undeniably something worth considering.

Employers, do you sometimes feel like finding well qualified applicants is like discovering a needle in the hay stack?  Well, in the same way the résumé has evolved, so has the talent screening process.  Thankfully, services exist today to help time-crunched hiring managers and business owners cut straight to the heart of the applicant pool, allowing them to only focus on narrowing down the top candidates, as opposed to sifting through hundreds of unqualified résumés to find that “needle”.

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Just for fun, here are a few examples of some creative “résumés”  floating out there today:

And, a sample interactive résumé:

QR CODE – Content-rich Resume from Victor petit on Vimeo.