Random Thoughts From a Corporate Recruiter: The Book

 

I have been blogging/writing online for the past 5 years. Five years on from my first post and when I look back I would never have thought that I would create so much content or that blogging would introduce me to so many new people and ideas.

When I started blogging in 2008 my initial focus was work related as I wanted to give people a window into what working at Oracle could be. I quickly found that I was writing more and more about information that would help people in their job search in general.

For me, writing regularly has been a great creative output for me to take some of the thoughts that have been in my head and put them onto paper. I hope that in some small way some of my thoughts may have helped someone, somewhere.

I have recently compiled my corporate related blog posts from 2008 into an eBook that I have just published online via Leanpub.com. The book is called: Random Thoughts From a Corporate Recruiter

 

This is not a self help book or a book showing tips and tricks on how to find a job or how to hire great people. It really is as the title suggests – random thoughts from a  Corporate Recruiter on either Recruitment, Job Searching or Social Media (for job searching).

 

One of the main reasons I wanted to create this book is for my own personal use. Looking back at all the posts I have written, I wanted to find a way to not lose those thoughts in time that I have had. I hope some of these posts are relevant, useful or entertaining for you as well. I would love to hear your feedback.

 

As a side note the great thing about publishing on Leanpub.com is that you can buy the book within a price range. Unlike Amazon where there is a set price for a book at Leanpub a reader can pay a range of prices that they feel is fair for the book they buy which I think works well.

Anyway I hope you like the book. Happy Reading.

 

Google Glasses Certainly Seem Exciting, This Video Makes Me Think Twice

I have to admit, I am a bit of a tech geek, I love my gadgets and when I think of how some of them have changed how I work, where I work, how I gather information, track data, etc… we really have seen technology go in leaps and bounds in the consumer market.

When I saw the initial introduction of Google Glasses I was intrigued and excited at the possibility of what this may mean with how we interact with technology. One of the big things that really grabs my interest with this is to see if these glasses can help Augmented Reality take the next leap in its penetration into the market. So in concept Google Glasses seemed really exciting.

I say seemed because earlier this week I saw this video by Con Agra Foods. Besides the horribly scripted lines the voice actors had to read, this video really made me feel that maybe Google Glasses could potentially be really underwhelming.

In the video we see two friends go about their day to get ready for a party at the end of the night. They add items to their grocery list through out their day, measure how far they walked this week (see my last blog post – you tend to know if you sat on the couch all week or actually did any exercise) and voice texted each other as well as check the news, etc…

One of the main examples that made this video make me think how underwhelming Google Glasses has the potential to be was the “map my grocery list” comment at the approximately 1:40 mark of the video. Really – map my grocery list?? I am sorry but who is that time poor or grocery shopping challenged that they do not know to find the frozen peas in the freezer section of the grocery store? When has grocery shopping become such a complicated task to achieve that I need a map on where to find the milk?

Maybe someone thinks this is the best thing since sliced bread (if only I had Glasses and this amazing App so I could find sliced bread) but this seems to me like people trying to peddle apps we don’t need or make our lives seem so busy or us seem to be have zero life skills that we need an app to measure how to think.

I hope Google Glasses becomes something really innovative. I think the potential really is there to do some great things sadly I don’t think this video demonstrated much of that at all.

 

 

 

WHY I STOPPED USING NIKE+ AND STARTED ENJOYING RUNNING AGAIN

I wrote a blog post about 3.5 years ago titled Nike+ iPod Why Didn’t I Buy You Earlier

I have been running for about six or seven years and while I go through ups and downs of motivation that I think happens to everyone, I try to average about three to four runs a week. When I first started using Nike+ and measuring my runs, it was really great to be able to look back on my runs and measure my performance either over time or over a specific period.

Since that post I don’t think I have used Nike+ for maybe two or two and half years. What, why would I not keep track of my exercise so I can see if I am doing all the things I am supposed to or not or imporving or running faster/longer, etc…

Even though I am not tracking how far/long my runs are, I think a runner tends to know if they have had a good run or not. When you finish a run you know if you have really put in a good performance without having to verify it by distance or time. I think I have started taking a more wholistic view to running the past few years. So even though I am not measuring my distance – I know roughly if I am running 5 kms or 10 kms and I still have the motivation to keep improving my performance.

For me running serves a couple of purposes. The first is to keep some degree of healthiness. I work from home full time so I have made a conscious effort to make sure I get out and keep moving to stay healthy in some shape or form (maybe a better description is to avoid from becoming unhealthy). The second reason is I find running is a good time for me to tune out to the world and focus my thoughts internally. Life can be quite hectic with 3 kids and working full time and all the other pressures of a normal day. I find when I go for a run my mind tends to wander and I often come up with some of my most creative ideas to problems I am trying to solve. I am a believer in the saying that your best ideas don’t necessarily happen sitting a desk.

I run for the enjoyment of it and all the benefits I get both physically and mentally, I am just not sure I need an application to tell me if I have had a good run or not.So Nike+ it was great having you on my runs for a period of time but I am glad to say that my love for running probably has only become stronger since we have gone seperate ways.

 

Camping at Upper Yarra Reservoir

The kids, Melinda and me all love camping. Nothing beats getting out out of wifi range, unplugging from all the distractions of the day and setting up the tent. Unfortunately, this year has been too busy for us to get out camping as much as we would have liked. Up until a few weeks ago we had not been out camping this summer at all. I have been travelling with work, the kids have been busy with various school schedules and Melinda is always running around working with some group or association.

A few weeks ago summer gave us one last weekend of sunshine before giving into autumn. With this, we took the opportunity to take advantage of the weekend and packed the tent and the kids into car on Friday night and headed to Upper Yarra Reservoir for 2 nights of camping.

Getting away even for 2 nights, was great for all of us. If you are wondering why I have put a picture of a tree in the gallery above, this is because this is the tree where both Melinda and I found Marissa on Sunday morning after breakfast. All weekend the kids were trying to climb this tree and on Sunday, Marissa finally figured it out. We were a bit panicked as Marissa was high up in the tree and had a fair way to get herself back down, but she was at the top of this tree and couldn’t have been happier. This is what I love about camping. Kids don’t need an ‘application’ or a tablet to enjoy themselves. This may be sound crazy but kids knew how to have fun before the infiltration of media devices came into our daily lives and the crazier thing is they still know how to fun without having to open an app, be online or be connected to some media device.

I am hoping next summer we get more opportunities to go camping and spend time offline and ‘off the grid’  so to speak so we can remember the simple things in life are often the best. No application or mobile device needed (although I shouldn’t speak I did check my email on Saturday from my phone).

 

Campus Recruiters, Are You Looking for an Exciting Role? This Could Be It

 

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 (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.