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Big Data Wave Failing To Surface Analysts For Recruiting & Staffing Agencies

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You probably already have a good idea that the amount of candidate information available to your recruiting or staffing agency is growing rapidly.  But the real question is:  who is going to analyze this ‘candidate big data’ and organize it into sensible patterns you can understand?

Unfortunately, while the demand for qualified analysts continues to rise, the talent pools from which your agency is able to find these talented individuals is not seeing corresponding growth.  Business consulting firm McKinsey estimates that by 2018, the United States will have a shortage of between 140,000 and 190,000 people needed to analyze the growing amounts of information.

And in the meantime, candidate big data – and the corresponding risk that you miss placing an ideal candidate with one of your top clients – continues to grow.  So how can you best overcome the odds to find the right data analyst for your agency?

First, you will need to identify whether or not your local talent pool is up to snuff.  And if not, let’s face it, you are just going to have to get creative.  Rather than focusing purely locally, you’ll need to expand your reach into national markets where there is more aggregate talent available.  A few of the current ones include St. Joseph (Missouri), El Paso and Tucson.  Next, you will need to determine whether you are comfortable bringing these employees on remotely (which may involve time zone challenges) – or paying a premium in salary and relocation fees.

Of course, another option is to look for candidates that are more entry level – and more commonly found in most markets.  Just because these candidates don’t have the immediate skills you want right out of the box doesn’t mean they won’t be successful in the job.  Many companies look for skills and experience, only to get burned by someone just looking to get a paycheck.  If you start with motivation and a willingness to learn, you might land on some stronger candidates.

Finally, the last option – which can tie into both of the options above – is to lure candidates away from other companies.  It is here that the staffing and recruiting software you use to fill your client needs can be used to meet the needs of your own agency.  Your recruiting software can help you evaluate the candidates available in your market by helping you more easily search for those that may have reached out to your agency in the past – or those that are describing their skill set with a targeted set of keywords in social networks such as LinkedIn (ie, ‘staffing,’ ‘data,’ ‘analysis,’ etc.)

Big candidate data is essential to your agency’s survival – as is having the team members in place that can help you interpret it accurately.  If you aren’t where you need to be in terms of getting the right team members in place – your agency is not alone – meaning the time for worry is not today.  Today is the time to use the tools you have at your disposal, to think outside the box – and more importantly – to think outside your neighborhood – to find the right analysts that will help you turn candidate big data into the actionable metrics that will help your agency grow.

To learn more about how recruiting and staffing software from Bond US can help your agency achieve its recruiting goals, request a demo.

Waiting for Business to Improve? Don’t. Invest Now and Build Business Leadership.

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Three reasons why investing in staffing software or recruiting software will enable you to establish leadership in today’s economy.

BuzzardsA long time ago, I worked for a fast growing design and printing firm that prized both the quality of its work and its salesmanship. Prominently displayed in the sales bullpen as an encouragement to not wait for the phone to ring with an order was a large, framed poster, a cartoon of two buzzards sitting in a tree. The caption read, “I’m tired of waiting, I’m going to go kill something.” The same could be said about the value of NOT waiting-out today’s business uncertainties.

First, some background. According to the NBER, the most recent recession, the longest since the Great Depression of the early twentieth century, ended 18 months after it began, in June of 2009. At that time the “official” unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent. Today there are nearly 25 million underemployed and unemployed in the U.S., where the “real” unemployment rate in June of 2012 is still an alarming 14.9 percent. In fact, some economic observers make a convincing argument that we are “halfway to a lost decade.”

Sounds like way too much gloom and doom, right? Not so fast.

In the latest underwhelming jobs report for June, 2012 where only 80,000 non-farm jobs were created, one bright fact jumped out. About a third of those newly created jobs (25,000) were temporary in nature. it would seem that the still challenging economy and uncertain business picture has been really good for all of you in the business of finding and placing people in contingent assignments.

“During the last 12 months, privately held employment service firms have seen their revenues grow by almost 20 percent annually, which far outpaces the average annual growth of around 10 percent for private companies across all industries,” said Sageworks analyst Libby Bierman. “That sales growth validates what the employment numbers released this morning showed — the economy has recently been adding a lot of temporary jobs, which are positions that employment service firms routinely fill.”

Wait and See, or Forge Ahead?

So, your business is probably pretty good now, right? Sure, there’s a lot of uncertainty and you, like many business owners, may be reluctant to make any capital expenditures (just like a lot of businesses are not hiring FTE’s) because of that uncertainty. However, in the face of continued uncertainty, now is really the perfect time to re-visit your business plan (you do have one, right?) and determine what steps you can take to help set your business apart from your competitors and better serve your clients, candidates and contingent employees.

At the top of the list for review should be your most critical working tool, your staffing software and/or recruiting software. Here then are three reasons why investing in updating your software will enable you to establish business leadership in today’s economy.

First, Drive Actionable Knowledge to Reduce Uncertainties

Your staffing software should enable you to better know your business, your market, your friends, and your enemies. Detailed management reporting from your staffing and recruiting software can give you insightful analysis of sales, client trends, operational costs, most profitable clients and segments, and wins/losses versus your competition. As business guru Peter Drucker once said, “The basic economic resource… is and will be knowledge.” The more you know, the more effectively you can act to wring every penny of profit out of every business transaction.

Second, Improve Your Ability to Attract and Retain Your Own Top Talent

Chances are you too are hiring members of the “Millennial Generation” to staff your own business. This generation, and the X Generation that precedes it, are among the most “connected” ever. They’ve got their smart phones, tablets, laptops and always-on connections. They get technology and use it daily. Your staffing software and recruiting software tells your own employees whether or not you and your business “gets it” as well. Their expectations are high, and well-designed, user-friendly software will enable them to be trained easier and faster and so deliver greater productivity (that is, profits) to your business over a shorter period of time.

Third, Improve Your Competitive Advantage and Leadership

Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and Chief Executive of General Electric Co., made a point of GE’s continuing technology investments during the recession, saying, “If you keep investing in technology and innovation in the worst of times, your competitive advantage grows.” Immelt’s statement is backed-up by a survey by the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor. It’s based on a sample of more than 700 business owners/managers of companies with fewer than 100 employees. “Technology can dramatically increase your productivity, resulting in more output without necessarily adding to your staffing expense,” said Anita Campbell, Editor and Founder of Small Business Trends, LLC. “It’s no coincidence that of companies that plan to spend, technology is the biggest category of planned investment expense (39 percent).”

Equally important, the staffing software and recruiting software available to you right now is much improved over the software you may have purchased five or more years ago. In the competitive software market, developers like Microsoft Corporation and Bond International Software have the size, scale, innovativeness and financial resources needed to invest in development — and have continued to do so. That means that your team will have access to software tools that enable greater efficiency, are easier than ever to use, and are more cost-effective to deploy. All of these are potential competitive leadership advantages.

A final thought. Salesman, engineer, and auto executive Lee Iacocca once said, “So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” I would suggest that, in today’s business climate, waiting is losing to those who forge ahead.

Our Adapt, eEmpACT, and StaffSuite solutions are updated regularly to improve your business. CLICK or give us a call at 800-318-4983 today. We’re here to help you succeed.

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Recruiting from the Viewpoint of the Millennial

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You probably know about the current employment disconnect companies and recent college graduates are experiencing.  Data found in your staffing and recruiting software probably even helps to demonstrate this disconnect firsthand.  While just about every workplace demographic is suffering, the Millennial generation in particular is experiencing a high degree of hardship.

What does the gap actually look like?  Examine the following statistics (found in this article), compiled by Experience, Inc. In a study analyzing hiring trends for the class of 2012, it found:

  • 91% of employers would like students to have one or two internship experiences under their belt by the time they graduate, but 50% have failed to hire an intern in the past six months
  • 87% of companies believe internships should be at least three months in duration, while most internships last two months
  • 42% of employers are turned off by student unpreparedness during interviews
  • 26% of businesses say they do not like students’ ‘bad attitudes’

As a staffer or recruiter, how can you help alleviate this disconnect – and in so doing – better serve both candidates and the companies you represent?  By taking the time to better understand the Millennial Perspective.

During the recruiting process, you may often find yourself wondering what it is that makes different generations of employees tick.  It’s easy to simply blame the new generation of worker and push them aside.  But, Millennials are the current generation of employee, and somehow, you are going to have to find a way to hire the best candidates and integrate them into your workplace.

The  recruiting software you use may not be able to reveal some of the following thoughts and attitudes many Millennials have:

  • Millennials do want to be praised regarding the quality of their work.  What may appear to be a “bad attitude” toward work may really be a frustrated employee who doesn’t know which direction to go.  Yes, Millennials were raised in a generation where everything they did was viewed as wonderful, but the average individual wants positive feedback so he or she knows they are on the right track, not necessarily because they need their ego polished.
  • Most Millennials do want to work hard.  While employers see candidates unwilling to go the extra mile or who feel entitled to great salaries and benefits without the requisite work, the truth is many Millennial candidates were willing to work unpaid internships during college and accept low hourly rates in order to make it to the next step in their careers.  It may be that the frequency of candidates willing to be brasher about their workplace expectations is greater than in the past, but it’s certainly not representative of every worker in Gen Y.

These two counterpoints are ones staffing and recruiting software may not be able to pick up on – they require individual judgment.  Sure, there are some candidates out there with poor attitudes, but those candidates are found in every generation.

When recruiting this generation, keep an open mind and try to see things from their perspective – you may find yourself surprised when you do.

To learn more about how recruiting and staffing software from Bond US can help your agency achieve its recruiting goals, regardless of what generation candidates you are bringing on, request a demo.

Moxie Maven Alexia Vernon On What Your Staffing Agency Needs To Know About Onboarding Millennials With Recruiting Software

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Recruiting software user – Alexia Vernon If you work for a recruiting or staffing agency, you have an opinion on Millennial – or Generation Y – candidates.  For seasoned recruiters or staffing professionals, these candidates – born between the early 80s and early 90s – can bring a frustratingly unbalanced mix of confidence and sense of entitlement.  And, of course, all the resulting headaches.

But is this a completely fair assessment of Generation Y recruiting? Or can staffers and recruiters relieve their headaches by taking time to better understand how the ‘wants’ of Generation Y sync with the ‘needs’ of clients? For help, I turned to consultant and author Alexia Vernon.

Called a “Moxie Maven” by the White House, since winning the Miss Junior America competition in college, Alexia Vernon has been working with companies, campuses, and community organizations to help develop successful, sustainable, and socially impactful employees and leaders. She has shared her advice with myriad media such as CNN, NBC, CBS MoneyWatch, FOX Business News, the Wall Street Journal, CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, and Forbes.com.

She is also the author of Awaken Your CAREERpreneur: A Holistic Road Map to Climb from Your Calling to Your Career, and most recently, 90 Days 90 Ways: Onboard Young Professionals to Peak Performance.

Below, Alexia shares what your recruiting or staffing agency needs to know when onboarding Millennial workers:

Some have referred to Generation Y as the entitlement generation. Do you feel that the fault behind this admittedly broad definition rests more with Millennials themselves, or with traditional employers being hesitant to change their views?

Alexia Vernon: While I like to think of Generation Y (Gen Y) or Millennials as “creative, collaborative, and tech- savvy” rather than “disrespectful, whiny, and entitled,!” I believe that Gen Y’s’ bad rap stems equally from the fact that EVERY generation is a little rough around the edges when entering the workplace AND that Gen Y, overall, has been a very coddled generation.

Scheduled play dates. Trophies for everything short of breathing. Oprah playing on our TV’s when we got home from school. Why Gen Y behaves as it does though, honestly, is not so important (unless you’re a demographer or run a Gen Y consulting business like me!). What matters is that employers understand how to meet us where we are when we come in the door and co-create solutions to take us where we need to be in order to capitalize on our lauded potential.

It’s been said that money is not necessarily a primary motivator for Generation Y. It has also been said that Generation Y employees will stay at their first job for only about two years. How can employers retain the most skilled Millennial employees, when traditional motivators are not what these employees are after?

AV: You are correct. Across studies, the #1 reason that Millennials consistently leave a job is because they no longer feel like they are learning and growing in their roles. And this is great news. Companies should not get in their own way of retaining top talent by moaning over the fact they don’t have the capacity to offer Millennials a raise or a promotion. Rather, employers have a real opportunity to put time and energy into ensuring that Millennials have opportunities to stretch. Whether that means participating in a formal learning and development program, sitting on a committee, spearheading a new project, or simply engaging in a mentoring relationship – it’s important that companies put their high-potential Millennials in these situations to keep them engaged and growing professionally and personally.

In your book, 90 Days, 90 Ways, you share strategies for employers to successfully onboard Generation Y workers. What advice would you offer to recruiters or staffing agencies that find themselves a few steps in front of the onboarding process, striving to effectively place the most skilled Millennial candidates with appropriate employers?

AV: Look for a strong cultural fit. While a candidate might look like a good fit for a company on paper – for the relationship to be a long-term, mutually beneficial one, it’s important that an employee fits in at a deeper level. Make sure you know how your talent communicates, creates, learns, handles conflict, plays, and so forth so that you are effectively playing matchmaker.

Based on your experience, what would you consider to be the most significant hurdle for any Millennial entering the workforce today?

AV: Unfortunately, I’ve been giving the same answer for the last four years. — the economy. When you have less educational and professional experience than Baby Boomers, Gen X’ers, and even older Millennials who were laid off, became under employed, and/or are in the throes of reinventing themselves, you really need to be clear about how you are uniquely poised to deliver the value a company desires in order to stand out in the application process.

Similar to the question above, what would you consider to be the most significant challenge that employers or staffing agencies should be aware of, prior to hiring or placing a Millennial worker, and how can this challenge be overcome?

AV: Companies that are employing Millennial talent should be aware that, as a generation, Millennials have had fewer opportunities to hone face-to-face communication skills than any previous generation in our nation’s history. While Millennials love to work collaboratively, build relationships, and so forth, they typically have a lot of room for growth in their interpersonal communication. The good news is that high-impact communication is a skill. As long as companies are aware that their young employees need formal and informal opportunities to practice their 30-second introductions, negotiation, feedback, banter, and presentation skills, they can efficiently and effectively get their young employees producing the results they seek.

You can learn more about Alexia at AlexiaVernon.com, follow her on Twitter @AlexiaVernon, or connect on Facebook and LinkedIn.

To learn more about how recruiting software and staffing software from Bond US can help your agency achieve its onboarding goals, regardless of what generation candidates you are bringing on, request a demo.

How Recruiting Software Can Help You Evolve To Generation Y Recruiting

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Some may find it strange that the personality of a group can impact the attitudes and practices of an entire industry – but when discussing generation Y and recruiting, that is exactly what is happening.  By 2025, this 30-and-under crowd will make up half of the world’s population – and account for 75% of the workforce.

As a recruiter, you need to both be aware of how this group will force your practices to evolve – but also – be aware of how the tools you have at your disposal that can ease this evolution.

And if you’ll forgive a bit of helpful Friday bias, I’ve listed below a few ways that a tool like recruiting software can be this tool:

  1. Ensuring You Remain as Technologically Savvy & Connected As Your Candidate
    Gen Y’s have grown up completely immersed and connected by technology and social media.  For better or worse, the right candidate may be counting on this ability to be found by the right employer or recruiter, rather than vice versa.But as my colleague Phil McCutchen writes, when searching for candidates in social media, “you need help separating the chafe (all the junk out there on the Internet) from the wheat (all the good candidate and employee information you need for recruiting.)”With the right recruiting software, you can do everything from record candidates’ online profiles on LinkedIn (ie finding the right candidates) or automate job postings through RSS feeds or social media sites – an effective, if slightly old fashioned method for this group.
  2. Record New & Unfamiliar Idiosyncrasies
    What candidate isn’t interested in more money?  Potentially, many Gen Y candidates.  Per the latest Cisco Connected World Report, Gen Y’s will often count social media freedom, device flexibility and work mobility in much higher regard than salary. They will also oftentimes flock to employers that offer such alternatives as compressed work schedules, teleworking and generous leave packages.As a recruiter, the first steps in effectively servicing both employers and Y candidates is to find the connections between the employer that is offering and the candidate that is wanting.  The only potentially new wrinkle to this idea is the variety of non-traditional wants you may hear from candidates.  The right recruiting software is the one constant you can count on to help keep it all straight.
  1. Keep A Steady Candidate Funnel
    According to a Gen Y and Facebook study by Millennial Branding, the average Gen Y employee will spend just two years at his or her first position and will job hop multiple times in their career.This does not mean you stop recruiting Gen Y.  It simply means that you always have a backup in mind, especially for your bigger clients.  By using software to match up your current clients with your current list of candidates, you can ensure you are always ready to fill a hole left by a Gen Y candidate that is following their own natural progression.  And the best part is, the new candidate you provide will probably have an even more evolved skill set than the first employee you placed – ensuring your candidate pool continues to be the one your clients prefer to pull from.

How have your recruiting processes evolved to keep up with Gen Y?  Or what challenges have you faced when trying to evolve with this candidate?  I encourage you to share, via a comment below.

4 Staffing And Recruiting Tips To Attract Candidates Online

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Whether through your website, blog, Facebook page or optimized LinkedIn profile, the success of your recruiting firm or staffing agency depends on its ability to attract the best candidates online.

So the question is “Are you doing all you can to build your online staffing and recruiting efforts?”  If you had to pause for even a moment, here are 4 tips you can start to leverage today to bring more candidates to your virtual door:

1. Build a Better Keyword List – What words do candidates use to describe or find your recruiting firm or staffing agency, before they know you by name? If you are able to answer this question, from the vantage point of your candidates, you will have a pretty good idea of the keywords that should be used in everything from your web copy, to your blog posts to your social profiles.

Remember that the keywords you choose will make up the foundation of your messaging and should be sprinkled throughout the content you create.  Also remember that the language used by your candidates is ever-changing, so always be open to researching and revising your list.

2. Create Content That Solves Problems – Finding the right job, or finding a job period, could fairly be assumed as a common problem for job candidates.  Imagine if your recruiting firm or staffing agency developed content designed to help these candidates – for instance, a blog post offering first time hire interview tips, or a skills assessment designed to help candidates zero in on their dream career.  This type of content, with the right keywords sprinkled throughout, not only helps attract candidates – it helps build up the trust that can transform into deep brand awareness.

3. Maintain Your Social Presence – It’s one thing to launch a Facebook page or LinkedIn profile – but quite another to maintain it.  When developing or updating your social plan, ensure there is a commitment to consistently posting updates, sharing content and engaging with other users.  Not only does this activity put off signals that can help to boost your search ranking, it shows your candidates that you are an active and knowledgeable firm or agency.

4. Give Your Employees a Voice – Candidates are not just looking for a recruiting firm or a staffing agency.  They are looking for someone they can trust.  This is a feeling that is very emotional and very personal.  And one of the best ways to start building this personal connection is to ensure your employees contribute to the output of your company.

Whether it’s through blog posts they author or social conversations they engage in, putting your employees out there can help to quickly attract candidates that are seeking a more personal connection to your firm or agency.

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of social media, and how our recruiting software can help, contact us or request a free demo.

6 LinkedIn Optimization Tips For Your Recruiting or Staffing Agency

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Recruiting and staffing agencies are becoming more and more familiar with the idea of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and the need to optimize their websites and blog posts.  But SEO represents just one slice of an online marketing program – and website optimization is simply one tactic.

Being truly resonant online requires the creation and maintenance of a holistic online footprint.  And for even the smallest recruiting or staffing agency, this footprint can encompass everything from media relations to social networks.

Since your recruiting or staffing agency will need to start somewhere as it embarks on its major optimization initiative, I’ve offered six tips below to help you optimize what is – perhaps – the social network most ingrained in your current social staffing plan: LinkedIn.

1. Revisit Your LinkedIn Company Overview – Chances are your recruiting or staffing agency looks a bit different than when you initially created your LinkedIn profile.  Not only do you have more employees, more services, more clients – but you’ve also likely evolved your messaging since your launch.  And this means that new keywords hold new value for your online marketing efforts.  If it’s been 12 months or more since you’ve reviewed your LinkedIn company profile, schedule yourself 30 minutes to review this copy to ensure it is using the keywords that most accurately describe the attributes you want your agency to be found for today – rather than the agency you were when first being established.

2. Work With Your Team To Optimize Personal Profiles – If your website is capturing traffic from LinkedIn, a significant percentage is likely coming from the profile pages of your employees.  As such, ensuring those profile pages are easier to find for either hyper-qualified prospects (ie prospects that know your sales reps by name) or those just entering the awareness stage (ie those seeking a seasoned staffing supervisor in Minneapolis, MN) is key.  Work with your employees to ensure their personal profiles both link back to your web properties but also that they are optimized with the same set of keywords that shape the balance of your recruiting or staffing agency’s messaging.

3. Link To New Content – Creation of new, optimized content represents the heartbeat of your agency – making it critical that the content you create is shared as effectively with as much of your audience as possible.  Fortunately, LinkedIn – like Facebook and Twitter – will allow you to autofeed your blog content.  With all autofeeds in place, a simple click of the publish button will ensure your latest content is shared with dozens of groups and networks instantly.

4. Refresh Your Postings – Both clients and candidates could be browsing your agency profile daily to find out more about the latest job openings or candidates.  Be sure that the updates posted to your LinkedIn company profile are as frequent as necessary.

5. Offer Proof Points On the Products/Services Tab – Why should candidates or clients use your recruiting or staffing agency?  Here’s your chance to set yourself apart.  Include compelling images and testimonials to communicate your company’s unique strengths.

6. Answer Questions & Become a Thought Leader – Remember that at its heart, LinkedIn is about professional networking.  And a big component of this is trusting your network to help you answer questions.  Once or twice a week, review the Answers section of LinkedIn for open questions from others in your industry.  What myself and my team commonly will do is look for open questions related to recruiting software, as this represents our company’s specialty.  If you see a question you can help with, share an answer publicly.  (Remember – this is not a sales tactic – so please do not try to shoehorn in a sales pitch at the end.  That said, it is perfectly acceptable to optimize your answer through the use of keywords.) Simply build trust by sharing your knowledge.  You’ll be surprised how often this tactic will lead those on the Answer string to click through to your profile – and ultimately – to your website.  And from there, you may commence selling.

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of social media, and how our recruiting and staffing software can help, contact us or request a free demo.

Legally Speaking: How Should Your Recruiting or Staffing Agency Address Social Media Privacy Issues?

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I’ve recently made my opinion on employer Facebook snooping quite clear – any the negative feeling I feel deep in my gut is shared by nearly every other source I’ve seen.  Fortunately – it seems this negative view is slowly being transformed into laws and guidelines.

The furor stems over the demands of some employers, recruiters or staffing agencies to get social media passwords or log-ins from employees or candidates.  At the heart of the matter is the question of whether employees or job candidates should be forced to allow potential employers, recruiters or staffing agencies more access into their private lives.  While current laws may still leave room for interpretation – it is perfectly clear which way the wind is blowing.

A recent Denver Business Journal article points out that in Colorado, employees’ legal off-duty activities are protected, and that could extend to Facebook use.

Two Senators apparently agree that forcing job seekers to share Facebook passwords is a breach of privacy and possible cause for discrimination.  Charles Schumer (NY) and Richard Blumenthal (CT) have asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to launch an investigation into whether employers asking for passwords during interviews is in violation of federal law (New York Times, March 25, 2012).

In the article, a Facebook executive warned that “if an employer discovered that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer might be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it did not hire that person.”  Such protected information includes gender, age, religion and race – much of which you can find on Facebook profiles.

Today, only Maryland prohibits employers from requiring employees to turn over social media passwords.  However California currently has a bill before the Senate (having just won unanimous support in the House) which would also ban employers from demanding access to Facebook accounts (AB1844).

The challenge will be moving forward that with the interconnectedness of the Internet and the proliferation of information on social media, recruiting firms and staffing agencies will be tempted to use whatever tools they can to get a better idea of candidate personalities and profiles.

Case in point, many recruiting firms and staffing agencies rely upon LinkedIn as heavily as they do resumes to get a clearer picture of candidates.  However, the difference is, LinkedIn profiles have been created for that very reason.

The next year should produce an interesting array of new laws and regulations.  In the meantime, what actions should your recruiting firm or staffing agency take?

I say this not as a lawyer – but as someone that has worked in the staffing industry for several years.  While we may be tempted to take advantage of all information we are – currently – legally entitled to in order to find the right candidates, there are certain lines we simply should not cross.  While it may be true that asking for social passwords is not currently in violation of any laws in most states – the stain such an action leaves on an agency could be difficult to bounce back from.  This holds especially true if privacy laws change – and your agency’s actions are cited as even a minor reason as to why.

Bottom-line: employees and job candidates have private lives.  And as long as they fill your needs – or meet the needs of your clients – that’s OK.  My original position was to steer your agency clear of Facebook snooping stupidity.  And my opinion – now backed up by mounting legislation – has not changed.

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of social media – from both a business and ethical standpoint – and how our recruiting and staffing software can help, contact us or request a free demo.

Will LinkedIn Profiles Replace Resumes At Your Recruiting or Staffing Agency?

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Industry standards are hard things to change.  And most times – they are still in use because they still work.

Take resumes for example.  When it comes to staffing and recruiting, they’re required reading – whether you choose to read each in detail or automate resume reading with staffing or recruitment software. But the resume has new a force threatening to take its place as the industry standard: the LinkedIn profile.

The question is: Will LinkedIn profiles completely overtake resumes as the prime way for your recruiting, employment or staffing agency to learn what it needs to know about candidates and job seekers?

Personally, I don’t see it as an either-or situation just yet.  That said, I don’t think any true candidate picture is complete without a powerful LinkedIn profile, regardless of the strength of their resume.   Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Personal Branding Is Here To Stay
Branding isn’t just for businesses any more.  Now candidates have ample opportunity to present themselves to your recruiting or staffing agency in a compelling fashion through their customized profiles.

Rather than the traditionally brief resume, a personal profile can be a more creative platform for showcasing a candidate’s unique interests.  In addition to listing job experience, the profile can link to a blog, share a reading list and even offer SlideShare presentations.

2. Messaging Makes A Difference
A candidate’s online profile is the ideal place for you to get a better sense of a job seeker’s communication skills.  With all the added information a candidate can include, you can assess not only how qualified a person is for the job but also how they communicate their strengths.

Candidates can use a more conversational tone to expand upon their experience and interests and recruiters can get a better sense of the person’s personality and creativity.

3. Referrals Can Complete The Picture
A candidate’s profile can provide you with a treasure trove of referrals and recommendations.

It can also offer a road map of a person’s career path by showing how well connected that candidate is within their chosen industry.  The profile is the online fulfillment of the traditional “Recommendations Provided Upon Request.”

With a finite universe of qualified candidates, enterprising recruiters and staffing professionals need a variety of tools to discover the cream of the crop.  The LinkedIn profile combined with a resume – rather than one or the other – offers the most complete and powerful overview.

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of social media, and how our recruiting and staffing software can help, contact us or request a free demo.

Why Selecting Your Staffing and Recruiting Software Is Like Hiring a Top Producer

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Improve your business success by using the same criteria for selecting your staffing software and recruiting software that you would use to select a candidate to boost your sales and recruiting bottom line.

Select software like you select a top performing sales personAs a staffing and recruiting professional, you know the value of a top producer in your business. They are hard to recruit, as you won’t find any colleges offering majors in “staffing and recruiting sales,” or “third-party recruiting and staffing.” More importantly, your top producers, whether in sales or recruiting, are likely to produce 80 percent of your business profits.

You want your business to grow profitably, so it makes sense then to apply the same criteria to your staffing and recruiting software selection as you would to hiring a top sales and recruiting producer for your business. After all, your recruiting software is the single most important tool your top producers have to produce results with. But how do you go about it? You can use the established character traits of top performers as principals for selecting your software.

Here we’ll apply the seven character traits of top performing sellers as described by Steve W. Martin, who teaches sales strategy at the USC Marshall School of Business, to staffing and recruiting software vendors:

  1. Modesty. A team orientation to your recruiting and staffing software solution. Your recruiting software vendor will recognize and position you and your staff side-by-side with their own staff (sales, technical support, development, etc.) as one team with one goal – your success. Your software vendor should have the deep expertise and skills in-house – from sales to development to training to support – to understand and address your business needs. Find out how many staff they have in key positions and how long they’ve been with the firm to determine how their teams’ experience can support your business.
  2. Conscientiousness. A strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor should take the importance of your business success very seriously and feel deeply responsible for the results. This “ownership” of your success is most often seen in their ongoing investments in technology development, their honesty in their business dealings, and the responsiveness and quality of the after-the-sale customer support you get, so find out how much of their gross is dedicated to development and talk to lots of customer references about product performance and support.
  3. Achievement Orientation. Understanding and measuring how your software fits into your business. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor should be fixated on achieving goals and continuously measuring their performance in comparison to their goals. This means that they are continuously refining their products and services based on your feedback (and that of their other customers) to improve performance. Learn how they measure their development and support performance and seek to improve it for insight on how key performance metrics play a role in their business.
  4. Curiosity. Inquisitiveness about your business that translates into effective solutions. Your staffing software and recruiting software vendor should have a hunger for knowledge and information about your business, your customers, and your industry. They will be driven to ask you difficult and uncomfortable questions in order to close gaps in information that will help them provide you the best solution and services.
  5. Lack of Gregariousness. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor is your technology advisor – not your BFF.  Your staffing software vendor should have long experience with many customers across relevant industry segments. That gives them deep insight into the business of staffing and recruiting and how their solution can improve your success. As your trusted advisor on recruiting and staffing technology, they may offer recommendations that, at first glance, may be counter to your own thinking, but are nonetheless sound.
  6. Lack of Discouragement. Competitive, never-give-up attitude to winning and keeping your business successful.  The staffing and recruiting business is a tough, competitive one and your recruiting and staffing software should be eager to help you compete. That means that, regardless of what the business climate is like, they are focused on developing and delivering the products and services you need with dedication, expertise, and staying-power to support you today and in the years ahead. Seek references that have been with the vendor for some time and ask about their software and business support experiences.
  7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. Aggressively capable of “thinking outside the box” to discover and implement new technology to enable your success. New technology and ideas confront old perceptions and ways of doing business daily. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor must be comfortable embracing changes in technology or business processes that offer you important new benefits and fighting for their cause even if it means rankling you in the process.

So there you have it – seven principles for selecting your next staffing software or recruiting software package based on the same standards you should use for selecting a top performing sales or recruiting staff member. If you are in the market for a change in business software, these can be helpful in your selection process. Even if you are not in the market for new software, maybe you should consider applying them to your current software vendor – you might find it enlightening.

If you would like to talk to us about how our staffing and recruiting software can improve your business, click demo or give us a call at 800-318-4983 today. We’re here to help you succeed.