When Did Recruitment Become Not About Recruitment

I did a blog post back almost 3 years ago back in February 2009 titled “Five Trends We May See Happening in Recruitment”. One of the points I made was that as Recruiters our role was becoming more involved in areas like branding and marketing as we become more proactive in our candidate search. Fast forward three years and I think that my forecast has more than come true. These days every company has a Facebook Page, G+ Page, Twitter Account and any other latest and greatest Social Media page that is out there. As Recruiters we have to be where the people are and we have to tell people our message.

One thing that has been on my mind though lately is when did recruitment become not about recruitment?

In an attempt to better connect and engage with communities of people (candidates) I think some companies are becoming so focussed on ‘friending’ or ‘liking’ people online that they have forgotten that as Recruiters we have hard targets like number of placements, interview to placement ratio, time to fill, etc… that we are responsible for. I think there is an increasing disconnect between the soft targets (branding) and the hard targets (numbers) that is occurring.

As companies strive to better engage with their online connections I think what is happening is that we are getting taken away to some degree from our recruitment objectives. I think some aspects of Social Media is making Recruiters soft. It is great to know what someone’s favourite movie is or what they had for lunch – but how does that contribute to their potential placement. It is important for a person to feel connected to a company before they join a company and are being courted but that has always been the job of Recruiters, we just used to do this on the phone.

I have been involved in different branding initiatives some of them have been successful, some of them have failed. The one thing that I think is important is not to hide your message behind the content or run initiatives mainly because it seems like a good idea to increase your online presence. Recruiters if you are looking to hire the best people be clear about that and say so, don’t run a contest in the name of recruitment if it does not help you find the best people out there. Don’t start a community to talk about everything and anything – keep it focussed on your end goals – hiring the best people in your market.

Social Media has been a huge part of my own individual success in recruitment I am not making these comments through a ‘that’s not the way we used to do it’ thought process. I started blogging in 2007/2008 to hopefully help people in their job search and to share with people information about Oracle to help them make an informed decision if Oracle was a place for them to work.

Candidate Engagement is important, you have to know your target audience, but I feel that online recruitment has focussed so much lately on branding/marketing that people have forgotten that we are hear to search for, identify and onboard the best candidates for our roles.

[Edit] I just pressed publish and thought to myself am I a crazy in this thinking? Let me know your thoughts.

 

This Family is Going Green With 20 New Solar Panels

The past few months have been busy: work, kids, the new dog, travel back to Canada, etc…. but during all this activity we have been researching and looking at getting Solar Panels installed in our house. Today our Solar Panel Installer finished the installation of our solar panels on our roof and believe it or not I am excited about this.

As a sidenote – if you are looking at getting Solar Panels in Melbourne, I can highly recommend Glen Clark. Out of all the people and companies we spoke to, he was by far the most thorough in providing details and information to us. It may be good sales skills, but he was the person who wanted us to make an informed decision instead of just trying to get our money. He delivered what he said he would and in the timeframes he said as well – we have been really happy going with Glen for this job.

So how did we end up getting solar panels on our roof? A few months ago, we received our electricity bill and it was higher than normal, and by higher than normal I mean almost double what is statistically has been over the past 2 years. So when we called our Energy Provider to ask about the bill and see if we can find out what happened – we pretty much were told “that’s what the bill is, tough luck” – or at least that’s how it felt anyway.

This one conversation with the Energy Company’s Customer Service triggered the thought in my head that I did not want to be in such a one sided arrangement. It got me thinking that the price of electricity is not going to go down, it is a limited resource that is only going to go up and as something that is controlled by a handful of energy companies they really are calling all the shots in terms of pricing and service. So in the end, thanks to my Energy Company for opening my eyes to this.

We got 20 panels on our roof which should bring our electricity bills to close to $0.00 and who knows we may be able to generate enough power to sell kW back to the grid. I like that  we are going to save money by installing these solar panels, I think they they are an investment that is going to pay for itself, but the great thing about going through this exercise is that it has caused us to really look at our electricity usage and see how we can be more efficient in our daily lives. Two big examples are that the beer fridge in the shed has been unplugged and the dryer is being replaced by a clothesline.

The savings are great, but it is also good to know we are being green and doing our small part to help the environment.

 

We Welcome a New Member to the Family

After we had Joshua almost 3 years ago now, Melinda and I thought that was as big as the family was going to get – 2 adults and 3 kids, that is more than enough people in one house and plenty to keep busy with. It turns out we were wrong – today we have welcomed a new family member into the house and what a learning curve it has been for all of us.

The past few weeks we have been talking with Beagle Rescue Victoria about adopting a beagle. Many of these beagles through no fault of their own have been left without a home or without a place to stay. I had some great conversations with Tam from Beagle Rescue about which beagle may be best suited for our family and vice versa.

Today Tam from Beagle Victoria brought “Tash” to meet us at our house. Tash is an older beagle between 6-8 years old and what a great girl she is.

Tash was living on a breeder’s farm until she stopped producing enough of a litter to be “cost effective”. I am hoping Tash can now relax and enjoy her days a bit more and have some fun with the kids. Mel and I both thought that the girls would be the ones who would be all over Tash, but Joshua and Tash have been playing together all day and getting into mischief together, this could be trouble!

Having a dog (and a beagle at that) will be a lot of extra work and responsibility for all of us, but I think it will be a good experience for all of us and its a great chance to give Tash some stability from what could have been an uncertain future.

 

Oracle Campus Recruitment is Hiring in India

Last week I attended the ATC Source Conference here in Melbourne. I had the chance to talk to and listen to Jim Stroud. As you can see from my previous post – Jim spoke about Recruiting and Sourcing via YouTube. Fast forward to this week and here I am looking to find another Campus Recruiter to join our Team in India. I am working with one of my colleagues in India and she is helping me source for candidates, but I thought what a great time to put into practice some of the things I listened to Jim talk about last week about using video for recruiting.

I think the recruitment landscape is going to change in the next 5 years and I think candidates will be searching for jobs in a different way than what they do today. So with this position that I am looking to hire I think someone who shares this thought with me and who wants to look at different ways to find great people for Oracle would be great in our team, so I figured rather than posting a standard Job Description, why not try something different to try to get a different result.

So this afternoon I took my iPhone and rather than provide candidates with a written Job Description I thought I would do a video Job Description outlining a little bit about the role and what I am looking for. It is not complete but I think from a candidate perspective it gives a better feel for me and what I am looking for more than a written Job Description on its own would.

Note: I quickly realised that either I need to learn video editing or I really need to find somebody who can help me with video editing.

I am not sure if I will find our next Campus Recruiter via this video or not. I hope I do but if I don’t that is ok this video is just one means I am using to find the next member of our team. Bill Boorman was also at the ATC Sourcing Conference and one of the things he mentioned that stuck in my head is – “don’t be afraid to fail – Fail often, Move on and Fail Cheap”. It was good motivation and Bill reinvigorated me to try something that no one else is doing to recruit (ok maybe saying no one is a bit of an overstatement). You only fail at something if you don’t try – I know it sounds a bit corny but I think it is a good saying and a good outlook to have.

Here’s the plug: If after watching this video and reading a bit about my thoughts, if you think this is the right opportunity for you please get in touch and let’s discuss.

 

ATC Source Conference in Melbourne (Jim Stroud Presentation)

Jim Stroud talks about how to recruit on YouTube

Jim started his presentation at the #ATCSource Conference and started talking about the 7 Reasons why you should recruit on YouTube (this feels eerily like a David Letterman Top 10 List – but it works). Anyway in no particular order here are the Top 7 Reasons to recruit on YouTube

1) The people are there – YouTube has a huge audience and with the uptake in people using mobile devices the thinking is that people will use YouTube to get information more and more.

2) Universal Search – ah ha – just like Glen mentioned previously – do a keyword search in YouTube for the skill set you are searching for and you can see who is looking for those type of videos for example: Java Programmer. You can also do a google search with the site:youtube.com string3) Free Statistics

4) Low Cost using a Flip Camera (well now it would be an iPhone) – it’s real and its a powerful message. The more real your videos are the more believable they are. Nobody believes an actor reading a script

5) It evens out the competition – Corporations do not use video to recruit – Why not get a competitive advantage!!!! It is a big opportunity, nobody else is doing it – why not get on board now

6) All the cool tools that are available: You get a mailbox, you can send video email. Statistics – I have had a YouTube account for a little while and while I have not used it much – I had no idea it had this capability. The depth of the statistics is great and I love that you can send a video email via your webcam to people you want to talk to.

7) Return on Investment – YouTube delivers results – how many views were generated, how many hires did we make from those views. I have not looked in-depth at the statistics on YouTube but from what I have seen today you can really drill down information. It will also increase your search engine ranking.

I am believer in using video for recruitment myself. I think it is going to get more relevant in the coming years, especially with the uptake of mobile devices. This presentation today has been a real eye opener for me – I have always had video on my mind but this presentation from Jim has really given me the motivation to get more involved in this space.

 

ATC Source Conference in Melbourne (Glen Cathey Presentation)

Glen Cathey – forget boolean and think information retrieval

I am at the #ATCSource Conference in Melbourne today and have written a quick blog post reflecting on some of the things that Glen Cathey has spoken about. He is the 1st speaker of the day – I hope I have the writing energy to write other blog posts for the other speakers who are scheduled later in the day.

Glen Cathey spoke about control and how much control Recruiters have when they are mining information and reaching out to candidates. This got me thinking that most of the good Recruiters I know who always hit their target and who always seem to get the right person for an open role tend to by nature be control freaks. This is not necessarily a reflection on Glen’s talk about data mining – but more so about work ethic. Good Recruiters know what they are looking for and when they find it they tend to control the process from beginning to end. They close the loop and make sure there are no surprises for either the candidate or manager. That is they ensure candidates are interested in the job, they ensure managers are available to interview, they ensure feedback is given after a meeting, they ensure candidate and manager know salary expectations and pay scales – the more that a good Recruiter controls the recruitment process the fewer surprises you get at the end of the road when you make an offer and the higher your hit rate is going to be.

Back to Glen’s presentation:

There are 5 Levels of Talent Mining:

1) Keyword/Title Search – pretty much what is says you are keyword searching – it works but it’s not a big deal. Example: “Java Developer” AND Melbourne. These can be automated

2) Conceptual –  Using related terms and concepts to find people: for example: Ruby on Rails OR ROR OR rails OR “Ruby on rails”

3) Implicit – searching for and identifying what isn’t explicitly mentioned

4) Natural Language – Searching for responsibilities and keywords, not just keywords and titles. For example “responsibilities” = verbs and nouns – things such as “I close” or “I sell” – this targets what people do not what they write about themselves

5) Indirect – searching for the wrong people to find the right people. Talk to someone under/over qualified and ask for referrals.

Recruiters: when you are looking for your ideal candidate – don’t just stop at a simple LinkedIn search (the 1st step of talent mining), your competitors who are listening to @glencathey are digging much deeper into the same talent pool and finding the people are not by just doing a 1st level search. Yes this takes more time commitment but to find the right person isn’t it worth the investment?

 

90 Days (ok Actually 3 Months): What Has Happened

To say it has been a busy 3 months is an understatement (yes it has been almost three months to the day since I last posted on this blog). Things have been busy for me from all angles – the family and I went back to Canada for a number of weeks in June, I changed roles within Oracle at the same time, I have caught up with old friends and family and we have had 3 birthdays during all of this as well.

I downloaded the Everyday Application a few months ago and used it for most of this time. The premise is that you are meant to take a photo of yourself every day for well whatever period of time you want to. There were a few bad hair days in the mix for me but this App was fun and if I had the patience to do it for a few years it would have been more interesting seeing the changes.

Anyway back to what I have been up to. Going back to Canada was fantastic. It had been 5 years since we were last in Canada and we all had a great time catching up with friends and family. While I love living in Australia and the life we have here, we all really settled back into Canada very easily and into old friendships and relationships without skipping a beat. Mel and I were even able to spend a weekend in New York without the kids which was great!!

Work wise it has been busy for me as well. I have recently started a new role here at Oracle and I am loving the new challenge and opportunity. One of the things that I love about working at Oracle is that there can be so much learning and development that you can do if you want to. Sometimes it involves stepping out of your comfort zone but that is what growing is all about.

Working in such a dynamic company creates opportunities to develop yourself and continue to grow and learn. I am still working in our Recruitment Organisation, however I am now focussed 100% on our JAPAC Campus Hiring initiatives. We have a great Campus Recruitment Team and I am excited at getting the chance to work with everyone and build on the success we have already had.

The last 3 months have been busy, hectic, challenging and fun all at the same time and I think that is why it has gone by so quickly!! I am looking forward to next 3 months and hope they are just as good.

 

My New QR Barcode

This morning I have downloaded my own QR Barcode from http://www.scanme.com/ The Barcode Look like this:

If you are reading this, have a smart phone and are wondering what this barcode is – download a free scanning application (eg. Scan from QR Code City on the iPhone) point your camera to the barcode right above this text and my online information such as my LinkedIn and Twitter Pages will come up on your phone.

So what is this barcode and what does it do? Taking information from the Scanme About Section of their Webpage:

“What is ScanMe?
Scanme allows you to create and manage a unique QR barcode. This enables anyone who scans your barcode with their smartphone to see what you want – such as options to connect with your social media sites with one-click.

What is a QR barcode?
The Quick Response (QR) barcode is one of the world’s most popular types of two-dimensional barcode, readable by virtually all scanning apps on smartphones in any orientation.

Why should I barcode myself?
If you don’t know someone’s phone or email address, barcode scanning is the most effective way of sharing details quickly, enabling them to save and use your information immediately on their phone. If you’ve not tried it before, download a free app (see homepage) and scan your barcode. You’ll love it, or your money back!”

If you have a smart phone with a camera – download a free scanning application (eg. Scan from QR Code City on the iPhone) point your camera to the barcode and my online information such as my LinkedIn and Twitter Pages will come up.

I think this is pretty cool and could serve a whole number of purposes. If you see these barcodes anywhere have a quick scan with your phone and find out just who is behind that barcode.

 

A Display of Athleticism? Maybe a Work In Progress: Under 6 Soccer

This year Marissa wanted to join the under 6 local soccer team. For the past few weeks she has been going to weekly training. This week the result of all that training came to be. Marissa and her team had their first game today and what a game it was.

The main thing is that the kids had fun, which I think they all did. The game was 40 minutes long, which was a good length. The players certainly got their fill of excercise which is much better than sitting in front of the TV.

Watching the game and cheering for the kids was great. While it took a while for both teams to work out which goal they were supposed to be kicking on and while there was not much strategy that all added to the fun of it. The kids enthusiasm and energy was contagious and it creates a good environment.

Marissa got a couple of good kicks in and she chased the ball most of the time. I say most of the time as there was one instance where she was excited to show one of the players on the other team her missing tooth. While this exchange was happening the ball rolled past Marissa and the other player and they were happy to carry on with their conversation with little regard for the ball.

Marissa is one of two girls on the team and I wonder why there is such disparity in the number of girls playing at under 6 level. I think there is a much higher representation of girls at the higher age groups but I am not sure. Regardless of gender, the kids are enjoying themselves and that is a win in itself regardless of score.

 

Easter Camping in Phillip Island

To start, I may be using the word ‘camping’ a bit loosely in the title of this blog post.

Camping in Phillip Island at Easter is not really ‘getting away from it all’. In fact given the number of cars we saw over the 5 days we were in Phillip Island going over the bridge – I think we were doing the opposite of getting away from it all and actually (to take a quote from Blur) following the herds down to Phillip Island [insert P.I. instead of Greece].

That being said we had a great time. We went with two other families who have kids in a similar age to ours and they all get along well. Even though I lost way too many card games of both 500 and 21 – the nightly cards games were fun as well.

You may remember we bought our monster 12 man tent last year and we have taken it to Wilsons Prom and Great Ocean Road so far. This time we borrowed a camper trailer to give it a try. It was so easy to set up and pack away – I think I spent more time reversing the trailer into our camping spot than it took us to set it up.

The camper trailer was a great idea. It could be something that we look into next year for ourselves. Back to the five days we were camping. We had mixed weather: some rainy days and some sunny ones as well. We took the kids to a Trout Farm on Good Friday where the girls both caught a fish which we had cooked up there. It could be the most expensive serve of fish and chips I think I will ever have in my life.

What else did we do? I think our break was a good mix of activities and also just kicking back a little bit. We went to a fair at Churchill Island on Saturday. Went bowling on Friday after our Trout Fishing adventure. Easter Sunday we had a easter egg hunt in the morning followed by a walk at the Koala Conservatory. Monday the kids spent the day at the beach and on Tuesday we packed up and headed home. In between this I have to say who ever created the jumpy pillow is a genius. I say this even though I did end up spilling my coffee all over myself trying to Joshua off the jumpy pillow at the campsite one day when it was raining and the pillow was wet. I am pretty sure our kids were there at some stage of every day bouncing around. It was great way for the kids to burn off some extra energy and for the parents to relax for a bit.

Next time – I would love to try the camper trailer again and this year I would like next to try the Grampians and if possible get to Tasmania as well. If we can get one of those two trips in the next 6-7 months I will be happy.

 

The Taste of Humble Pie with a Side Order of Facebook

For those of you who read this blog, you will know I am a Social Media enthusiast. I utilise Social Media in my work, in my personal life – it touches just about everything I do in some form or another. About 12 months ago, with so many SM sites to use and update, it all became a bit too much for me to manage. I had to draw the line and make sure my days didn’t get sucked up into the abyss of SM.

If you look back in the archives you will see blog posts that I have written where I announced that I was closing my facebook account. While I enjoy SM – it was becoming too much for me to maintain too many SM sites. Facebook was good in its own right, but it did not give me the competitive advantage that other networks did and I was not really all that interested in what people were doing with Farmville or Mafia Wars. As for keeping in touch with family and friends – call me crazy, but the phone (skype) still works.

I know there are settings to limit the amount of feeds and updates that you get on Facebook but at the time it was easier for me to simply close my account and draw that line in the sand to help me monitor my SM usage.

I know when I need to eat humble pie and today setting up my new FB account, I certainly got a full serve of it. Today I reluctantly joined back up to FB. I would have liked to have thought that today when I set up my new Facebook account, it would be the event of all events but rather than setting up my profile with a bang I have re-joined facebook with more of a whimper.

So why did I rejoin FB? There are two main reasons: The first is as much as I use phone, email, messenger, twitter, etc…. to keep in touch with family and friends FB can be good to keep the channels of communication open with people that you don’t always speak to. There are some people who I used to speak to on FB that since I closed my account I do not think I have spoken to since. I would like to keep in touch with these people (as well as everyone else) but I don’t always have the time available to me. FB gives me the chance to keep in touch with people I don’t see or regularly interact with every day. The second reason is that I want to look at using FB for work. I have used FB in my role in the past but it has not really been effective. With some of the changes over the past 12 months I think there are some new apps that could be beneficial.

One thing that I want to do better this time around is better balance my work and personal connections. I don’t necessarily want to share pictures of my kids with my work connections and vice versa I am sure my family isn’t hanging on tender hooks (sp?) to find out what role I am hiring for. How do I balance this?? Any suggestions?

I may have been quick to close my account but I don’t regret closing my FB account last year, at the time for me it worked. Will FB be around in 5-10 yrs who knows but for the moment I am happy to jump back on this bandwagon, although I think in a more limited capacity than previously.

Oh my new FB profile is facebook.com/david.talamelli
(it still needs to be updated)

 

You Are Hiring But Do Candidate’s Want to Work For You

So here you are – it has happened, you are now interviewing for that position that you have either applied for or maybe were called about. Whether you are an “active” candidate looking for a job or a “passive” candidate who was contacted about the opportunity, it doesn’t matter now. Regardless of the circumstances of how you got to the interview stage, how you and your new potential manager connect with each other at interview will play a part in whether you are successful in landing that job.

The best manager/employee relationships I think tend to be the ones where both the manager and employee have a common goal that they are both working towards and they work together in unison to achieve these goals.

Candidates – when you are interviewing for a role, remember that an interview is a two way process. An interview shouldn’t be just a case of a company interviewing you to see if you are a good fit for a certain role. Don’t forget in an interview process it is equally important that you take the opportunity to similarly interview the company to see if that role/company are the right place for you to move to as the next step in your career.

I think an interview should not only be a chance for a Hiring Manager to get to better know a candidate and asses his capability and cultural fit for a team/company but it should also be a chance for the candidate to similarly assess a company or manager about whether they are someone that they want to work with.

Managers – I know Recruiters have been talking about the “war for talent” since before many of you were managers, but there is no denying it – it exists. You are not only competing with other companies for talented individuals but you are also competing with the existing companies that those talented individuals are working at. Companies are not going to let the people they have identified as superstars resign without a fight (this is the classic Counter Offer scenario which may be another blog post in itself).

So how do we get these great people – their current employer will do all they can to keep them, everyone else wants them – does this mean all hope is lost? No, absolutely not.

The same reasons that have always existed on why candidates are interested in other opportunities is still there: it could be that someone is looking for career advancement, or they want the chance to work with new technology or maybe you have an opportunity that is exactly what that person is looking to do.

As a Hiring Manager don’t just conduct your interviews in question/answer mode. You should talk to that individual to work out what it is they are looking for and you can then relate how your role addresses that. It is potentially going to be the two of you working together so you two are the ones who have to be most comfortable with each other. Don’t oversell the role – set realistic expectations of what that candidate can expect working in your team – give them the good, the bad and the ugly so they can make an informed decision.

Manager’s think back to when you last were looking for a job and put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. When you were looking for a job, what was it that you wanted to know about Oracle, or what was it that you wanted more information about.

There are some great Business Leaders that work here at Oracle – if you are one of them it is likely that you already are doing all these things anyway. The good news for you is that you are also likely raising yourself head and shoulders above what many interviewers do – that in itself gives you a competitive advantage in this ‘war for talent’ but as a great Business Leader you already know that