SeattleRecruiting.com

What Did You Do For Your Interview?

Harry Joiner republishes one of his more popular posts, where he describes in detail the lengths a candidate went to in preparation for a job interview.  It's astounding the depth of what this guy did, and it made me wonder what all of you are doing to prepare for your job interviews.

Not enough, is the correct answer.  This is just a taste.  Read the whole thing.

The candidates who deal with these ever-changing marketing and integration challenges are freaking brilliant. But they're clever, too -- and there's a difference.

Example: Three weeks ago I put a candidate in play for a VP of Marketing role with a large multichannel retailer. His first phone interview with the VP of HR was in six days, so I sent the candidate a massive pile of market research on the industry, the company, and its competitors. That's standard for me.  I even offered to set him up on phone calls with industry analysts and vendors who know things about the company -- which he gratefully accepted. That's standard too.

But then he took it a step farther: That night, my candidate Googled several of the company's products to see how they placed in the organic search rankings. Satisfied that all of the queried products appeared on page one of the Google rankings, he proceeded to enter my client's site through their Adwords landing page in the paid search area of the Google results.

Some Thoughts On Boosting Jobseeker Profile

While developing a new list of products, including this training disc on how to use LinkedIn To Generate Sales Leads, I had the opportunity to help a friend out who is looking for decision makers to hire him.

Sourcing for people and sourcing for sales leads is the same thing. It's different contact strategies, but the automated function is pretty similar.  So here's what you do if you're a candidate looking to boost their LinkedIn Profile.

Watch the video in the link above. 

It's a series of site commands that you can use that start with the site command in google.

Once you make the contact, look for groups the person is a part of, and join those groups.  You can also search Answers to see what they say online, and if either section is active, you send an invitation to connect (without asking for an interview).

If you’re looking for new opportunities, beef up your profile to include:  Add more numbers to your resume on what you grew (percentage, dollar amount, or number of clients).  Also create a static webpage with your resume, and add it to your profile, with the title, my resume.   If you can upload a single page, make sure the page says rick_mueller_resume.html or building_materials_sales_resume.html.  Get a minimum of 5 references from your contacts, and beef your connections up to about 100.  Old clients, other salespeople in industries that aren’t competitive (they sell to the same decision makers you do), and any recruiter who will link to you.  Also use the outlook toolbar or browser toolbar to download contacts from your gmail application.

Don’t ask for anything when you connect, but say you’re building your network in Seattle or in their industry.  Personal message two sentences long for each.  

And finally, edit your public profile settings, and give yourself a vanity url – so it says linkedin.com/in/rickmueller, then add that to your email signature, and make sure it’s on your static resume page.

And remember that changing  your LinkedIn profile and answering a questions is not really looking for a job.  Neither is clicking "Apply Now."  Use the phone and be interesting.

 

 

Twitter As A Recruiting Tool Available Now

The Twitter training (twaining) is complete, over 90 minutes of solid work on using the Twitter protocol to recruit.  The cost?  $89.

You can find almost 1100 developers in Seattle in less than 10 seconds on Google.  Do you know how to reach them, get them to respond, and hire them?

Jim Durbin, the Social Media Headhunter, presents the sixth volume in his series on using social media to recruit.  Twitter As A Recruiting Tool demonstrates live shots of how to source, connect and hire from the world's most popular microblogging service.  Follow Jim at http://twitter.com/smheadhunter, or check out the recruiter training store for more titles.

Twitter is a microblogging site, a community where groups of people share thoughts and links in a text messaging format that allows only 140 characters. Having experienced explosive growth in the last year, Twitter is a hot property for finding passive candidates and engaging in industry debates.

Like all networks, Twitter has its own rules and etiquette. Users must choose to “follow” you to get updates, and writing the wrong updates will quickly drop the number of people who read you. Used correctly, Twitter is a reserve brain of 1000’s of people in your industry. You can quickly get the answers to questions, find “buzz” before your competitors, and increase the power of your SEO and online profile.

Mostly, you can use it to recruit really smart people. In this ninety minute presentation, Jim turns you into one of the “Twitterati” and sets you loose on a vibrant candidate population.

Facebook Training DVD For Recruiters

I haven't done much posting here, as most of my time has been taken up creating new training DVD's for recruiters.  The latest is the greatest, a 90 minute walkthough of Facebook, specifically geared to helping recruiters make placements from the world's largest social networking site.

Facebook is not a database, it's an organism that requires constant care and feeding, and my DVD shows you how to best make use of the site and its applications.

Can you afford not to buy this unique training?  We accept all major credit cards, ship quickly, and you can navigate through the menu to replay the training (built in Flash, of course).  And we have kick -ass theme music.

Executive Reputation At The Marriott

I have to admit, my favorite hotel blog is The Lobby, but a new entry is the Marriott's CEO blog, ably written about from 123socialmedia's blogs (locally renowned Barry Hurd).

SeattleRecruiting has been sorely neglected, but I'm hoping to remedy that.  If you're a local recruiter who wants to have access to a blog that can make you $100,000 a year more, contact me.

In the meantime, check out the SocialMediaHeadhunter site, which now has a new store where you can purchase training cd's on using social media to recruit.  And if you're looking for a community manager, a social media strategist, or an executive with Social Media experience, you now know a guy.

Training Staff During A Downturn

One of the advantages of being an internal recruiter during a downturn is the ability to sharpen your toolset when hiring is slow.  During good times, recruiters are too busy to do much but facilitate the process.  As reqs drop and hiring freezes take over, internal recruiters are best served prepping candidates pools and learning new tricks. High quality hires can be the difference between a layoff and a bonus - especially if you can find a candidate that makes an immediate impact.

So how do you do it?  Well, free up some of that training budget. In the next few weeks, I'll be rolling out my social media headhunter storefront.  Keep your eyes peeled.  We're going to give you the top training you'll need to navigate in the world of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIN.  And yes, blogs.

Follow me on twitter.com/smheadhunter, or drop me a email at socialmediaheadhunter at gmail dot com if you want to be on the mailing list.

Senior Technical Recruiter

My client is looking for a Senior IT recruiter with 10 years of experience for the Seattle market.  It's a third party firm that is seeking to grow with people that are driven to do and make more.

Senior people don't need to be babysat, and if you can drive results, you won't be micromanaged.  The office has more reqs than recruiters, and you'll be working with a very competent selling branch manager.

Yes, there's a list of requirements, but really it comes down to this.  You should be confident that you can make it to the six figure earnings level in six months.  With an aggressive base and one of the best comp plans I've seen for staffing firms, it shouldn't be that hard.  25 contractors and you're there.  The company job orders are about half vendor lists and half direct sales, creating a good mix of profit and revenue. 

Benefits, offices, nice people to work with - it's all there, but you have to get by my interviews to speak to the client.

This is a senior technical recruiting position.  Contact by e-mail, resume, or see if you can find my number online.  You are an expert sourcer, aren't you? 

Recruiting Tools 2.0 Workshop

I'm going to change the way you recruit, in less than 5 minutes a day.

My new webinar on August 12th is about Recruiting 2.0 Tools.  We're going to surf the world-wide web and repurpose social media tools to use in recruiting.  Calendars, video slideshows, click-to-call sites, and microblogging are all on the menu.  This will be like nothing the recruiting world has ever imagined.

Sign up for 1:30 EST, August 12th at Hireability.

Recruiting 2.0 Tools Workshop:  5 Minutes A Day To Change The Way You Hire

Jim Durbin is an expert in social media who connects companies with results-driven candidates. As a consultant and business owner, Jim has worked with over 40 companies to deliver integrated marketing solutions using blogs, social networks, widgets and video.

In this 90 minute webinar, Jim demonstrates a step by step walk-through of the hottest Web 2.0 applications, including Twitter, FriendFeed, Meebo, YouTube, Flikr, Skype, Jajah, and more.  This is no dry presentation. We’ll show you how to easily manage entire social media campaigns in less than five minutes a day, using free tools that connect you with hundreds of the right prospects in your market.   

Everyone's talking about Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, but these sites can take a substantial upfront investment to yield results.  In this one of a kind presentation, you’ll learn how to interview candidates over video, create click-to-call job orders, promote positions through microblogging, and build a referral system that requires no maintenance.   The best candidates are getting smarter about looking for work. They're using the power of Web 2.0 to connect with hiring managers and other great candidates, and their personal networks often shun recruiters as unnecessary middleman.  Using specialized knowledge learned in this webinar, you can get to those spaces and identify yourself as a savvy recruiter faster than your competition can post a job on Monster.

Jim Durbin, Social Media Headhunter

Durbin Media Group Clients

Every once in a while, I like to drop links to my clients to let them know we're thinking about them.

Ways To Get Noticed In Seattle As A Recruiter

If you are a recruiter in Seattle, and are looking for work - don't be afraid to shoot me an e-mail.  I don't actively recruit up here, but I may be able to hook you up with some of the people you want to be speaking with.

And if you're a company in Seattle looking to hire recruiters - if you're willing to try something different, you should shoot me an e-mail as well.  I'm not going to blithely post boring positions, but I'm willing to interview you on why a recruiter would want to work with your company.

And if you want to get in front of candidates, or show up on search engines, a recruiter interview with me still the best way to go.  The contact e-mail is up there on the right.