Saturday, November 28, 2009

Free Webinar: Use Twitter to find and Attract Candidates

New to Twitter? Not sure if it is an effective recruiting tool? Spend 45 minutes with the Tweetajob crew to find out how savvy recruiters are sourcing passive candidates, as well as reaching active jobseekers. Yes, we're going to try to sell you some Tweetajob goodness (hey- at least we're honest!) We'll also provide valuable information about Twitter along the way. Sign up here.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Get Yourself Referred - Part I

When jobseekers ask, "What's the best way to get hired?" I always respond with the same answer. Get someone to refer you. Short answer to a hard question. The truth is, getting someone to refer you is not as easy as it sounds.

Perhaps at one time it was enough to ask a neighbor to "put in a good word for me."

Today, with hundreds of candidates applying for a single position, recruiters who work on dozens of positions at once, and technology that dictates the recruiting process, simple word of mouth isn't enough. You are going to have to put in Herculean effort in order to get someone to refer you successfully. Some steps you may want to take:

  1. Ensure that everyone has your correct contact information. Check your resume, your social networking profiles (especially Linkedin), your email signature, your business cards, your blog, to ensure that the info is correct and consistent. Email signature is especially important. Ensure that your phone number and email address appears in every email you send, even it is a reply, a reply all, or an email sent to someone you know very well. You never know when your contact might forward your mail to someone influential, or to HR.
  2. Does everyone know what you do, know your expertise? Be able to succinctly describe your career history, professional achievements and specialty verbally. For example, if asked, I would describe myself as having more than 15 years of corporate recruiting and recruiting management experience at Fortune 500 companies. Notice that my description is only one sentence long.
  3. Expand your "outer ring" contacts. These are professional colleagues, friends of friends, online contacts. Not exactly friends, but folks who might be happy to help or do a favor. If you have met someone at a conference, or have a link to someone through someone else, or perhaps regularly comment on a blog, these people are part of your network. It may take a bit of time and effort to strengthen these relationships. The end result, however, is an increased number of contacts who might refer you for an open position at their company. Before asking an outer ring contact to refer you, make sure you have taken steps to deepen the relationship. Share valuable information, collaborate on a project, support online/social media activities, write a guest blog post, meet for coffee, attend a professional meeting together, support a cause. Once the person is comfortable enough to call you a friend, they're ready to refer you.
Next: Doing your homework.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Do Recruiters Really Care?


I often talk to jobseekers -- friends, family members, folks I meet in the airport -- and they almost always have the same complaint. Recruiters don't call back.

It's true. When I worked for big corporate recruiting departments, there were many meetings and offsites where we talked about the problem. Solutions were hard to come by. Most recruiters really do care. But we're trained to spend time on the activities that yield results. In an environment where there are waaaay more candidates than jobs, the common courtesy of returning a call falls low on the priority list. I drew up this fictional chart to illustrate how a recruiter might spend a 40-hour work week. Often, recruiters are responsible for filling 20, 30 or more positions at once.

It's a big problem. Employers who don't return phone calls know they are damaging their reputation candidate by candidate. Yet, companies can't afford to employ resources to call every candidate. What can you, the jobseeker, do?
  1. Don't take it personally. It is a universal problem. If a recruiter fails to return your call, don't read too much into it.
  2. Whenever possible, secure a promise from the hiring manager that he/she will call you with the decision. Hiring managers have far fewer candidates to worry about, so they are more likely to make the call.
  3. Nobody likes to deliver bad news. If a recruiter or manager is procrastinating, it might be because they fear delivering bad news. Let them know that you look forward to a follow up call -- good news or bad news.
  4. Don't burn a bridge. Build a relationship. If you don't hear back, send a polite email expressing your disappointment that there wasn't a fit this time. Let them know how impressed you are with the organization, and how thrilled you would be to hear about future opportunities (even though this may not be exactly the case).

Don't get me wrong -- I don't think recruiters should get a blanket pardon. Recruiting organizations fall far short of their responsibility to provide a great candidate experience. I'm just saying give a recruiter a break. They're under a lot of pressure to fill jobs quickly and often are doing their very best.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

I'm Sorry Twitter, Tweetajob is the Best Job Service of All Time!

Hello from Chicago! The rest of the Tweetajob team might be a bit groggy, after a night of celebration. We are in Chicago to introduce the new Tweetajob to the recruiting community. The response has been tremendous. More than 100 recruiters have already signed up.

For jobseekers, this is good news. Recruiters want to find you on Twitter. We talk about it all the time. Tweetajob makes it easier for recruiters to post jobs. Yay us!

Most importantly, Tweetajob makes jobhunting on Twitter much more effective. Here's how it works:
  • Visit www.tweetajob.com
  • Complete a brief profile, indicating your location and career interests
  • Tweetajob will tweet only those jobs that match your criteria. Get jobs on your Twitter feed, or on your mobile device. You can also search for jobs on our site.

Sweet! Check it out. Let us know what you think. We are pumped!