I’ve said many times that your recruiting software needs to interface with Facebook and LinkedIn. One recent commentator thinks that we’ll all forget about the latter in two years.

“Why Facebook Will Destroy LinkedIn” was the provocative title on ere.net, an excellent source of recruiting information and buzz. The author is Jody Ordioni, an HR consultant who regularly contributes to ere.net.

Ordioni argues that Facebook has four distinct advantages over LinkedIn:

• Size – as in 630 million more users.
• Same demographic for both sites – namely, young-to-middle-aged professionals
• Monster recently chose to partner with Facebook, not LinkedIn, for BeKnown, its new recruiting app.
• Another app, BranchOut, makes Facebook (not LinkedIn) a more candidate-friendly tool by shielding some personal information from recruiters.
• Facebook’s peer-to-peer marketing power is not matched by anything at LinkedIn.

Ordioni’s prediction for LinkedIn: “2011 will be a tough year for the professional networking site. 2012 will be brutal. And, sometime in 2013, Facebook will finally destroy LinkedIn.”

Is she right? I don’t think so.

For one, LinkedIn is growing faster than Facebook. Many commentators have noted that  Facebook may be reaching its near-saturation point, which means that it will only grow (if at all) as more of the world comes online.

Secondly, LinkedIn is very well-established in professional circles. It’s “siloed,” as the IT people like to say, which means that, unlike Facebook, it’s for one area of a user’s life – namely, employment-related connections. Lots of people – as in, tens of millions – are comfortable sharing their work life on LinkedIn and their personal life on Facebook, and it will be hard to get them to change their practices and mindsets.

Also – as I noted in a recent post – the real social media recruiting challenge to LinkedIn and Facebook will come from Google+, which makes it easy for users to “silo” their e-lives without leaving the Google+ platform.

So don’t change your recruiting software yet. LinkedIn will be here for some time to come.

For ongoing thoughts about talent management, recruiting software, and other recruiting issues, subscribe to this blog.

Will Facebook Beat LinkedIn as a Recruiting Tool? is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. Recruiting With Facebook Followers of this blog know that 1) I think recruiting...
2. The Use of Social Networks in Recruiting Continues to Grow In two previous posts I discussed whether LinkedIn will Replace...
3. LinkedIn Kicks A@@ I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: LinkedIn...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Recruiting software can get you good candidates for interviews. The rest is up to you.

Tony Robbins, the popular (and controversial) self-help speaker and writer, has popularized “Neuro Linguistic Programming” (NLP), a way of interpreting non-verbal habits. If we can believe what he says about NLP, interviewers can learn a lot from the way a candidate moves while talking. The eyes, in particular, communicate a lot.

Here’s a helpful diagram from Global NLP training (Click to enlarge):

Image courtesy of bLaBbErWoRkS

 So, if the eyes look up the candidate is accessing visual information. If up and to the right, it’s a remembered event. If up and to the left, it’s a constructed event. “What color is your car?” will normally prompt an up-and-to-the-right response, for example, while “What kind of racing stripes would look good on a purple sports car?” would prompt the eyes to go up and to the left.

People who predominantly think in sounds – words and music, mostly – normally move their eyes side to side when accessing information. Every once in a while, they will look down and to the right, which indicates that they are accessing a “digital” or “recorded” sound, meaning a “tape” that they have created for themselves (as in “try not to slouch”).

The “Kinesthetic” response (down and to the left) is common in people who think with their bodies, as it were – they process answers until they “feel” right.

Supposedly, learning how to read such clues can tell you a lot about the way a candidate thinks. Moreover, it can help an interviewer change his or her behavior in order to set a candidate at ease. Practitioners of NLP say that, in almost all cases, people who have similar eye movement patterns find it very easy to get along.

At a high level, when people shift their eyes to the right after a question, it is to mentally search their memory for an example.  When people shift their eyes to the left when responding to a question (their eyes move to your right or left as you are facing them), they are generally trying to put together an answer they think you want to hear.  This could be good to know when asking questions about a specific example, accomplishment or experience the candidate has had which would indicate relevant job experience.

Is this theory helpful? I honestly don’t know, and I’m not sure how I’d find out. If I concentrated on a candidate’s eye movements during an interview, I’m afraid that I would miss most of what he or she would say! And I’m certainly not one to record interviews. Anyone have any experiences looking for eye movements and/or trying to adapt their interview behavior based on a candidate’s eye movements?

For now, I think I’ll stick to marketing the best recruiting software out there.

The Eyes Don’t Lie During an Interview is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. The Two Best Interview Questions You Should Ask I’ll say up front that the subject matter of this...
2. Companies Recruiting College Grads May Need to Increase Their Budgets I was recently talking with a friend of mine whose...
3. Does Your Company Career Site Suck ? As someone who knows a thing or two about recruiting...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m not prone to feel sorry for people who don’t put together a good resume and complain about not finding a job, just like I don’t feel sorry for recruiters who complain about bad applicant tracking software but who never took the time research such a crucial purchase.

But then again, I can’t tell you the number a times a recruiter has asked, “Why is it that the best candidate is never the guy/gal with the best resume?”

In other words, a lot of good candidates lurk behind those mediocre, poor, and maybe even downright awful resumes.

How do you find them without interviewing all of them? Assuming that a poor resume still contains all the basic information – education, experience, references – and is not padded, here are some good tips I’ve picked up for seeing a good candidate through all the dross:

• Look carefully at the work history. Two things speak well of a candidate: 1) A long time with one company and 2) No long periods of unemployment. Both suggest a solid work ethic, dependability, and initiative. Along the same lines….
• Look at the work history within a company. Did this person stay in the same position for a long time or did they steadily advance? If the latter, he or she is almost certainly skilled and is probably ambitious and eager for challenges.
• Study the time frame of graduate degrees. MBA’s are great, but MBA’s earned while working full-time suggest dedication and the ability to multi-task. On the other hand, a Master’s done between jobs can suggest a directed effort to enhance or even shift a career, and there are few qualities better in a candidate than passion for what they do. Likewise….
• Don’t dismiss “irrelevant” degrees. Everyone says that what’s most important is the ability to think and learn, but when it comes to hiring, most recruiters revert back to experience and relevant degrees – with “relevant” usually meaning something “related to business” like finance, accounting, or the ever-vague “business administration.” Philosophy and English Literature majors probably know more about analyzing an argument and communicating clearly than the average human resources major, so give them a break.

Have you noticed that I used the word “suggest” a lot? Like all good recruiters, I know that it takes a few interviews to know if a candidate is a good fit (and even then, every recruiter has a “He/She turned out to be a rotten employee” story).

Do you have any suggestions for squeezing good information out of a poor resume? Please leave a comment below.

One final note:  I still don’t feel sorry for those who buy bad recruiting software. Didn’t anyone tell them to look at Bond International Software, Inc. first?

How to See a Shining Candidate Through a Lousy Resume is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. Does Your Company Career Site Suck ? As someone who knows a thing or two about recruiting...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

What are some of the key features every applicant tracking software (ATS)should have?

I get asked that question a lot at conferences and other events where I promote recruiting software. Here are my standard talking points.

Applicant tracking software should….

1. Efficiently Track Applicants. It sounds obvious, I know, but software programmers can be like automobile designers: They get so caught up in bells and whistles that they don’t attend to streamlining high-quality core functions. How does the software manage candidates through the entire recruitment cycle and make you a more efficient recruiter? Always ask that first.
2. Be easy for company employees to use. If you need extensive training to use it or if you have a hard time figuring out features on your own, it’s too complicated. Remember, applicant tracking software isn’t just for recruiters, but for any person in the company who is part of the hiring process, including executives.
3. Be easy for applicants to use. Actually, it should be easier for applicants to use because they don’t have the benefit of (or the time for) a training module. Applicants should be able to see the status of their application(s), search for other jobs, sign up for email or text alerts, and forward information to a friend almost intuitively. They also should only have to enter their basic information once – an easy feature to overlook.
4. Automatically screen applicants. You and the candidate should be automatically notified if a candidate is, because of lack of a degree or requisite experience, not suitable for a job. This feature, which is typically in the form of “Knock-out Questions”, can literally save recruiters a hundred hours per year.
5. Be multi-lingual and multi-currency. That is, it should allow applicants and recruiters to easily translate Resumes/CVs as well as salary amounts. In today’s global economy, even small companies now need access to multiple cultures within their own country and top talent from countries around the world.

I usually try to answer questions about recruiting software in a product-neutral way, but here, in my own blog, I can just come out and say, “Bond Talent’s global applicant tracking software is the best in the business!” It really is. Contact us to find out more or to see if I really know what I’m talking about when it comes to recruiting software.

Five Things to Look for in Applicant Tracking Software ATS is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. Does Your Company Career Site Suck ? As someone who knows a thing or two about recruiting...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Recruiters have always had a preference for local candidates. Yes, there are some positions – usually C-level jobs – that warrant a nationwide search. But most positions are filled with local candidates because many candidates aren’t willing to move.

This is especially true today, when moving often entails 1) selling a house in a horrible market, 2) selling a house at a loss, and 3) coming up with a substantial chunk of cash to cover moving expenses. Obviously, most candidates for mid-level (and lower-level) positions won’t be able to do any of these.

Readers of this blog know that I’m a big proponent of using social media and other internet resources in addition to recruiting software. The “big” recruiting sites like Monster and Indeed allow users to do local searches, but many job seekers focus their attention on local internet sites. Recruiters, then, need to work those local sites too. Some common local job sites:

• Craigslist. It has great functionality, which is why it gets millions of hits each month despite its boring interface. The “jobs” list is quite extensive, allowing a recruiter to target their pitch to the intended audience. Craigslist also gives recruiters the option of posting positions anonymously, which cuts down on the number of phone calls when a job is posted – although some would also say that anonymous posting is bad for a company’s reputation.
• Classifieds. Yes, newspapers still have them and people still read them. In general, the older the target audience, the more likely they are to read a newspaper ad.  Classified ads always run online, so it’s not as if a recruiter is sacrificing online presence by running one.
• Hyperlocal sites. AOL invested over $100 million in Patch, which aims to have local e-newspapers all over the country. Results so far are mixed, but my guess is that Patch, EveryBlock (started by MSNBC), and similar local-news/sports/blogs sites are here to stay. Recruiting through them makes sense, especially since long commutes are what workers often hate most about their jobs.

Do you know of any other ways to take recruiting into the local online community? Let me know and I’ll share your insights in a future post.

For ongoing thoughts about talent management and other recruiting issues, subscribe to this blog.

Improve Your Local Online Recruiting is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. Does Your Company Career Site Suck ? As someone who knows a thing or two about recruiting...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In my last post, Blogging 101 for HR Professionals, I talked about why blogging in the HR world is a good idea. I promised a follow-up list describing how to get an HR blog started. Here it is.

7 Easy Steps for Starting and Maintaining an HR Blog

1.      Get permission from the boss. Unless, like me, you are the boss. Then just do it.

2.      Ask a few questions, then limit. What does your company (or HR department) do for people? How does HR contribute to the bottom line? What’s one trend in HR that you’re a part of (and why)? Once you get going, you’ll find plenty to write about. If you’re intellectually engaged in your job and in the HR industry, the real trick, in fact, is limiting yourself. This blog, for example, is focused on recruiting software, the staffing industry, business leadership, and employment patterns. I find lots of other things interesting, of course, but this isn’t the place to write about them.

3.      Start writing. It’s not an essay or a novel – it’s a blog post. Something around 200-500 words is fine. Present your question/puzzle (“I’ve been thinking about…”) and your thoughts.  Remember to have someone look over it before you post. Being good (or even great) at your job does not mean you are good at writing about your job – but with an editor and practice, you can become a good writer.

4.      Keep writing. A blog really isn’t a blog unless you’re posting at least once a week. Twice or three times a week is better. If you approach it as a way of working – that is, a way of getting better at your job by reflecting on it – it won’t seem like a chore. And once you start getting feedback, you’ll probably find that you wish you could blog more than you do.

5.      Spread the word. Start telling people about you blog: your colleagues, your peers in other companies, your mom, whoever. Solicit feedback (especially feedback online) and make changes.

6.      Don’t worry too much. I’d like to think that this blog is better now than when I started it. Remember: the internet is forgiving. If you misspell something on your website, you can make the correction without reprinting anything. If you write a poor post, you can write a better one in a few days, knowing that most readers won’t remember the poor one.

7.      Interact. A blog is more an ongoing conversation with an audience than a soapbox. That’s what’s great about it. I regularly get feedback from my readers/peers that teach me something and gives me fodder for future posts. Which leads to a request…

If you have any further ideas, hints, suggestions, or warnings about writing an HR blog, please leave a comment below! I will definitely follow up in a future post.

For ongoing thoughts about Talent Management, recruiting software, and other employment-related topics, subscribe to this blog.

Blogging 101 for the HR Professional: Part II is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. Blogging 101 for the HR Professional: Part I As you know, I spend a fair amount of time...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As you know, I spend a fair amount of time blogging about recruiting software and the talent management industry.  I’m always surprised by the small number of HR professionals who are also blogging.  It’s true, it does take time, but I’ve found that blogging is a great way to get more exposure for our company and products.

My intention in this post is to inspire other HR professional and recruiters to also consider blogging so with that, here are my 5 Reasons Why Blogging in the HR World is a Good Idea (in no particular order);

1.      You engage more with your job. It’s terribly easy to do a job thoughtlessly. When faced with a blank page, however, you have to start to really wonder about the things going on around you, even things you’ve seen a million times. You end up asking, “What are the new ideas out there?”, “Is there a better way to do X?”, “How will social networking impact this industry” and other such questions.

2.      You engage more with your industry. When you start asking questions, you feel like you have to answer them. So you go on the web, read other HR blogs, and start developing your thoughts on your own blog.

3.      You can become a thought leader. If you produce a steady stream of solid (and occasionally fun) content, your peers in the industry will think of you as a go-to person for HR questions. That can be good for both self-esteem and business.

4.      It’s fun. If you haven’t noticed, I love sharing my “Shakespeare time” with my daughter. There are business lessons to be learned in Shakespeare, to be sure, but the reason I started that blogging stream was simply because I liked it and thought it would be a fun way to put a new spin on things.

5.      It’s good for business. See above. Regular blogging also helps with search engine optimization, and it improves your sense (and, in most cases) your employees’ sense for what the company does and why. You can also promote your products, note upgrades and improvements (especially if you produce software), share customer testimonials, and link to product pages on your website.

My next post: Starting and Maintaining Your Own HR Blog. Stay tuned.

For ongoing thoughts about Talent Management, applicant tracking software, and other employment-related topics, subscribe to this blog.

Blogging 101 for the HR Professional: Part I is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. HR Thought Leadership and YOU Part 2 There are common traits that can be found in those...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I recently stopped thinking about recruiting software long enough to Google “pre-employment personality test.” The top result was “How to Pass a Pre-employment Personality Test” at eHow.com.

Which made me wonder if pre-employment personality tests actually do any good.

I’ve never been a big fan of such tests. Tests that measure actual skills that will be used on the job make sense, but “personality” is a vague term – which means it’s hard to test for – and it’s simply a fact that different personality types can thrive in the same job. At the risk of trading on stereotypes, I’ve met highly successful accountants with exuberant personalities and CEO’s of successful companies who were quiet and shy.

The tests themselves leave a lot to be desired. One had “I have known someone who shoplifted,” followed by “Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.” How can anyone “strongly agree” with such a statement? You either have known a shoplifter or you haven’t. The question is either just plain confusing or, worse yet, is meant to be confusing, which would mean that it’s manipulative. Either way, what is an employer supposed to learn about a candidate from the answer to this question? The makers of such tests always talk about gleaning personality types from hundreds of such questions, but with many of them so odd, I’m skeptical about any conclusions drawn from them.

It also seems to me that any skilled recruiter or employer should be able to get a sense for a candidate’s personality in an interview (or maybe two interviews). Yes, it’s true – every employer has a story of someone who was great in the interview but who turned out to be a toxic colleague. But if such a person can fool an experienced interviewer, he or she shouldn’t have much trouble answering the questions on personality test in their favor. After all, anyone can go online, learn about how such tests are analyzed, and adjust their answers accordingly (see above).

I also wonder about using a candidate’s time by giving them such a test. Isn’t it inconsiderate (or even unethical) to take advantage of a candidate’s desire for a job by subjecting them to a half-hour test that may or may not tell you anything about their suitability for that job?

If you have stories or data that suggest I’m wrong about pre-employment personality tests, pass it along. Until then, I recommend that you stick to interviewing OR hire them as a Temp-to-Perm worker if you want to see a candidate’s personality.

For ongoing thoughts about Human Capital Management and other employment-related topics, subscribe to this blog.

Do Pre-employment Personality Tests Work? is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As someone who knows a thing or two about recruiting software, I assumed that information on building a company “Search for Careers” webpage would be easy to find. They are, after all, pretty common, especially in the websites of medium- to large-sized companies.

I was wrong. Or, perhaps, all of my normal internet search tools weren’t what was needed for this topic. (If you have suggestions, please post a comment below!)

In any case, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about these pages from job seekers, and I’ve learned that some very well-qualified candidates simply walk away from jobs if the online application process is too cumbersome. A recruiter’s nightmare!

Rather than focus on “What your career webpage needs to be successful,” I’ll pass on the complaints and let you examine your own career webpage.

• Complaint #1: My information got lost. A lot of application programs automatically time out after 10 minutes or so and then erase all of the information already entered. In many cases, it may take candidate more than 10 minutes to track down important information (like the phone number of a former boss who has since moved on to a different company). A similar complaint: “There was no way to save my information before final submission.”
• Complaint #2: Inconsistent information. A standard story: “I read the job description on the website, went through the application (which took 30+ minutes), then was informed that the job was no longer available after I submitted everything.” Another common story: “The posting I saw said that two years of experience was required, but the application program says I’m not qualified because I don’t have five years of experience.”  Would you want to work for a company that did that to you?
• Complaint #3: It required me to enter information that was already on the résumé. I’ve heard this complaint over and over. Why should anyone have to enter the information of her four previous employers when that’s already on the résumé she uploaded? A related complaint: “I applied for more than one job at a company and had to enter everything in multiple times.”
• Complaint #4: No one to follow up with. Someone spends 30-60 minutes filing in boxes, then hears nothing and can’t find out if his information even got through. This reinforces the opinion that the company’s public search is really a front to cover an inside job transfer.
• Complaint #5: Personality questions. “How do you take criticism?” “Do you consider yourself a team player?” Such questions – which are meant to provoke self-examination – are a real turn-off for applicants As more than one applicant has wondered, there’s no way for an HR person to know if the applicant is telling the truth, so what’s the point of asking such questions?
• Complaint #6: Too long! After registering with a username and password, filling in all the little boxes, and uploading a résumé, online applications often take more than 45 minutes to complete. That’s too long, especially if most of the pertinent information is on a résumé.

Have you checked out your career webpage lately? Have YOU tried applying for a job through it? You should !  If not, some of your best candidates may be clicking off your site in frustration.

Does Your Company Career Site Suck ? is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. Top 5 Social Networking Potholes There are many great ways Social Networking can be utilized...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Followers of this blog know that 1) I think recruiting software should be augmented with active participation in social networks and 2) I love it when readers contribute to the ongoing conversation here by sending me a comment or an email. So I was quite happy when a reader took the time to tell me about a new Facebook functionality that can help recruiters.

The application is called “Work For Us,” and like all things that are successful on the web, it’s pretty simple and straightforward. Here’s what it looks like:

Candidates can apply for jobs and forward jobs to friends and groups without leaving Facebook.

The cost for “Work For Us” ranges from free (with one job slot) to $199/month (20 job slots, automatic job imports, and $150 in Facebook ads) to $799/month (unlimited job slots, automatic job imports, and $500 in Facebook ads).

The site promoting “Work For Us” boasts over 69,000 “monthly active users” and claims to be “the #1 recruiting solution on Facebook.” I believe it! And my guess is that this number is going to get much bigger in a short amount of time.

I’m glad to see that someone isn’t letting LinkedIn monopolize recruiting in the world of social networks, and I’m glad that there is yet one more way to augment recruiting software.

Happy recruiting! (Or should I say, “Have fun on Facebook”?)

Recruiting With Facebook is a post from: Human Capital Supply Chains

Related posts:

1. The Use of Social Networks in Recruiting Continues to Grow In two previous posts I discussed whether LinkedIn will Replace...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.