Hey @mariejourney you up for this challenge?

TRULondon – Sourcing and Social Media

This is dedicated to all my friends at Social Recruiting and TRULondon…

Just Call Me PET.

For those of you who don’t know (what? have you been living in a cave?), I was the organizer and chief bottle washer for this year’s Recruitfest.  As part of the Recruitfest festivities, we had The Recruiting Animal attend and attempt to perform his show live.  Now, he’ll tell you that we completely sabotaged his show (like he needs any help with that); however, due to some space issues it didn’t go off just as the Animal wanted.  I still thought it was a funny show, and one thing struck me during his opening rant…I think he forgot his place and just said “I’m the Glenn Beck of the Recruiting World”.

And you know what? I had no idea who Glenn Beck was! (seriously, I don’t watch TV a lot).  So I looked him up. And yes, Animal was right. He is the Glenn Beck of the Recruiting World.  My tale however, does not end here. I started to think to myself that Animal has created this online persona, this mad, uncouth yelling person – and if that’s his persona what should the Radical Recruiter’s persona be?

Flash forward to this past Wednesday. I was on the #tnl twitter talk (JD don’t get started)….and the following conversation happened:

@radicalrecruit: Sorry why can’t we equally consider the client and candidate, I’m confused. #tnl

@sueyoungmedia: @radicalrecruit Walking too fine a line… #tnl

@mikeramer: His brand & like it. RT @sueyoungmedia @radicalrecruit Walking too fine a line… #tnl

The point of the conversation had been who do we work for: our clients or the candidates, and some Social Media conversation that had been peppered into an earlier discussion on: is HR the new PR – by my friend @blogging4jobs.  During the discussion I had raised the point that, with the advent of Social Media PR, Branding and Employment Branding is less and less under the control of the Company and more and more in the control of the consumer.

So back to my original point.  The conversation I mentioned earlier again turned my thinking back on my own brand message and who I wanted to equate it to.  And I came up with this guy:

For those of you know are not Canadian and don’t know this fellow his name is Pierre Elliot Trudeau. He was Canada’s 15th Prime Minister.  He was well known for a few things like flipping people the bird, and saying fuddle duddle (that’s not what he really said) in the House of Commons.  But more importantly he was known to raise the level of debate in Canada.  Trudeau was not afraid to speak out passionately and articulately about issues that affected Canada at the time.  At the same time, he welcomed people to disagree with him and simply requested that if they did, to  do so publicly and provide him an opportunity at rebuttal.  Trudeau remains today Canada’s longest serving French Canadian Prime Minister and served at a time of fundamental change both within Canada and Canada’s role in the world.  He was extravagant, intelligent, and at times a huge ass.

That’s how I see my role in the Recruiting World. I seek to raise the level of debate, where there is opportunity to speak passionately about Sourcing, Recruting, Social Media, HR and the new HR. I plan on being there.  Let me set the record straight here, I’m no Trudeau.  I mean sure, I’ve been known to flip the bird, and sometimes to even mutter “fuddle duddle” myself.  However, I’d like to use his standard as my own.  I want to challenge the Recruiting World to start looking outside that  pretty little box that we have built for ourselves.  Let’s continue the debate and invite in outside opinions, let’s engage with all the people that we serve: the candidates, the clients and each other.  I’ve spoken with a lot of folks in other industries and they have all commented on how cooperative the Recruitment industry seems, and they are marveled by it.  I would like to see us continue our own discussions internally, and show the world why we are the best people to guide them and their children into the new world of employment.  Because that is Radical.

Why HR Should Report to Recruiting —

Just this past September ERE held there Expo in Florida.  One of the key speakers for the Expo was Mike Grennier of Walmart.  Now, I didn’t get to go to the Expo but because all my “friends” were sending back copious twitpics about how much fun it was I decided that I had better watch the stream from the Expo.  During Mike’s speech he made an off-the-cuff remark that maybe instead of Recruiting reporting to HR, HR should report to Recruiting.  I got thinking about that idea and pretty soon it started to sound pretty good to me.  By now you’re likely thinking “this dude is a power tripping maniac”, right.  Well I’m not tripping here, but I do think there’s some validity to this argument.  So without further ado, or disclaimer, here’s why I think HR should report to Recruiting.

Number one reason, HR is a cost centre, sorry, it’s the absolute truth.  Agreed good HR practices are good for the business, but all those policies, training etc, they all cost money.  Recruiting however, brings money into the business.  This is no better illustrated than when we work in consulting environments.  We bring in top talent, those folks get deployed on contracts, they bill, therefore the business makes more money (pretty simple).  Here’s where it get’s even funkier, we start to up the talent quotient, we bring in a diversity of talent.  All of a sudden the business can start charging more margin on the consultants, and hey, maybe they are really smart people and they start to develop new offerings that the business can sell to differentiate themselves in the market.  BAM, we’ve provided real value to our business right.  OK, well, now your thinking Geoff, that’s great for a consulting business but what if it’s not that kind of environment.  Well, we still affect any businesses ability to produce their product.  Even in a strictly automated factory setting a certain amount of human capital is required.  If those folks are not in place, the process becomes slowed or in some cases stalled thus directly impacting the viability of said business.  My point is, we (Talent Acquisition or Recruiting) bring the Talent in the door, and in most businesses that alone would put the Recruiting function at the top of the pecking order.  Hey, again, HR has an important role to play in nurturing that talent (if they choose to), but most often Recruiting is impacted by the performance of HR, so maybe we should be driving the process.

Number two reason, Recruiting understands Marketing and Branding and Social Media so much better than the HR community.  First let me address Marketing and Branding, on a daily basis Recruiting speaks with your customers.  That’s right folks, all those folks we interview, they are not just potential employees, they are also your customers.  During those interviews we come away with a very good sense of what people think about your company.  If it’s all-good, we can help you capitalize on the market intelligence that we gather on a daily basis.  If it sucks, well, we can help to make it better by identifying what messages are actually out there about your company.  Today’s HR is more focused on internal movement, policies and processes.  They are not as outward looking as Recruiting is, so once again they limit themselves in their ability to make true impacts on the business….just keeping it real here folks.

And here’s the part that really gets my shorts in a knot.  Recruiting has been talking about Social Media for a long time, at least as long as Facebook and Myspace has been around.  While certain sectors of our profession are still asking “is it a fad” most of us agree that Social Media is here to stay.  So because we’re always so concerned about the best way to engage talent, we’ve started to build talent communities, we are following people on Twitter, we are starting Fanpages on Facebook, we are building talent pools and puddles to better attract the brightest and best to your companies.  So here’s where it gets interesting.  What if Mr. or Mrs. CEO we took those concepts and turned them around to your customers.  We (Recruiting) all ready know what they are saying about you, we already have the data about where they are hanging out on the internet and in Social Media.  And we’ve been working in this world long enough to know how not to f*&^k it up royally.  Now let’s turn that knowledge into a way to really help you break into markets that you may have never played in…to bring people to you that previously you hadn’t had the chance to engage with.  Sadly HR seems primarily focused (and sometimes Marketing and Legal) on limiting the liability of using Social Media.  In most cases that means shutting it down all together, basically telling employees that as an organization we don’t trust you.  You Mr. or Mrs. CEO are therefore put in a situation where you’re shutting your door to untapped markets because you are afraid of what people are going to be saying about you.   As Recruiters we can tap you in on a little secret —- they are saying it anyways.  Your customers as we speak are tweeting about you, blog posts are being written about you, and Facebook folks are leaving comments on each other’s walls about you.  At the very least turn to your Recruiting teams and ask them to generate some data about what is being said, because they know how.

My third and last point, I think Recruiters are more fun…now I’ve known some (a few) fun HR folks, but most of them seem stressed out, worried and overworked.  Recruiters though, we know how to party.  Now wouldn’t you want to work for the fun people, I know that I do.  And the Recruiters that I work with well – they are “off the chart”.

So next time you look at your org structure, just think…who should report to who…for a little fun, challenge yourself.  Because that’s Radical.

Radical Recruiter at the Breech

Natural Birth and the Sourcing World

This week I am attending the International Breech Birth Conference in Ottawa.  I am here partially because I am a closeted birth junkie, and partially to spend some time with my little girls in Ottawa.  During the pre-show today for TalkSourcing Maureen Sharib asked me what natural birth and Sourcing have in common.  Of course my off the cuff remark (they are often off the cuff), would have been “nothin fool”….but then I started to think, and they do have a lot of similarities.

People, and when I say people I mean both men and women have been taught to fear natural birth.  I mean common folks, how could you not.  Any sane person who’s watched TLC and a few episodes of a “Birth Story” would be terrified.  Many women worry about the pain, and for men we worry about the complete loss of control during the birthing process.  Sourcing is very similar.  We have been taught to believe (and I’m not sure how this came about), that it is painful as well.  That if we allow our recruiting teams to engage in this “unknown” or “unhealthy” recruiting activity then we’re going to get hurt.  Now, clearly I’m not talking about physical pain here, but emotional pain and financial pain through potential litigation or just rejection.  And when the Talent Acquisition department doesn’t understand Sourcing as a profession they fear that loss of control as well.  You often hear Recruiters and Management worrying about “where is he getting these people”, or “are you lying to people” or “is this representing our brand well”.  I once had a former client tell me that they didn’t want to know how I was finding these fantastic people (plausible deniability), however, they loved the increase in quality of candidate, oh and could I leave the building when I did it.  Needless to say Starbucks made a lot of money during those months (I had to buy coffee to use their wireless), my cellular bills went way  up, and there should be a place on University Avenue with my name engraved by now.  It doesn’t have to be painful to bring sourcing into your organization, it doesn’t have to be mysterious and you don’t have to loose control.  Most of the people we source have provided their information freely to the site(s) where we find them.  We are not hacking, we are not misrepresenting.  All a sourcer does really well is take disperate pieces of information and put them together in a way that provides you (the recruiter or the hiring manager) with a bigger, better and more robust picture of what your candidate knows, who they know, and what are they passionate about.  If you’re really worried about a fully deployed sourcing model in your recruiting ecosystem, hire a Sr. Sourcer – they will be happy to show you the way.

I also hear the birth community talk about “choice” and when they say that they mean informed choice.  The ability to have all the factors surrounding your decisions laid out for you so that you can make an informed decision around the choices affecting your birth.  Aren’t we having the same sorts of conversations in the Sourcing and even the HR community at large.  What the birthing community calls “informed choice” we call “transparency”.  As sourcers I see most of us being true believers in “transparency”.  I will tell people where I got their names, yes even if I source them from Facebook, Twitter, or an Association site.  In phone sourcing there is the myth of “Rusing”, I believe the most really good phone sourcers never have to “ruse” to get information.  All they have to do is be honest with the person on the other end of the line and use their voices in a way that helps that person want to give you the information you are looking for.  If you want a good example of this look up Maureen Sharib and Xtranormal on Youtube, she’s been producing some first class animated video around phone sourcing.  And look, as an HR community and Recruiting community we don’t want to trick you into taking a job that you are not qualified for…. PERIOD.  We want you to be successful as a candidate, we want you to love your job, we want you to like and trust us.  Otherwise, you will never let us place you again, you will never refer your friends to us, you will not refer business to us and you may even dissuade people from working with us.  This whole evil Recruiter thing…nah, maybe dumb recruiters, but not evil.

Lastly, in birth as in most of the world technology is changing rapidly, in some cases too rapidly, as new drugs are developed, as new procedures are in place, as Midwifery slides ever closer to Medwifery, our ethics and procedures struggle to keep up with the changes.  So the result is a return to more traditional and normal practices (ie. Homebirth, Waterbirth etc….).  Sourcing is no different, Social Media, Semantic Search, and Aggregators coming out of the Ying Yang.  We are struggling as a community to develop and harness the potential of all these tools while integrating them into our daily work routines (yeah, like we have routines).  So in the Sourcing and Recruiting community we are hearing the Raven call of “let’s get back to basics”, or, “we should all just be working the phones and placing people”, or, “it’s not all that complex.”  Here’s the thing folks, technology, social media, semantic search, it’s not going away.  As much as we might try to wish that it would…it isn’t.  So we have to live with that fact.  I think we are having currently a very healthy discussion on the benefits of these tools and how to best manage them within our HR and Recruiting paradigm.  Honestly, I don’t know the answers, but I hear some interesting questions.   Questions like “how do you manage the time suck of social media”, or, “where do you cross the line of active discrimination if you are looking at photos on Facebook”, or, “when is a candidate now a candidate and when are they a prospect”, or, “how do I gather intelligence from Social Media and use it in a way that is understandable and helpful”, or, “how do I protect the intellectual property of my company when I don’t know what everyone who works here is tweeting out on any given day”.  All great questions, but I guess my point here is let’s not retreat from these issues, let’s not turn our backs and walk slowly into the past.  Let’s turn and face these issues and have an honest and healthy debate, out of that we’ll reach consensus .. just in time for the next big thing.

I’ve had a lot of time to think this week about how these debates; they are not exclusive to our industry.  They are happening everywhere, in different circumstances, in different venues…but still the same debate.  And I value the knowledge and insight, so I wanted to share it with you.  Because that’s Radical.

Twitter and Armagedon

Could this be the end times, find out here…

Resumes Suck and Recruitfest Wrap up

Comment, what do you think of resumes….

Recruitfest – See you in Toronto

Almost a year ago this week exactly I went to the first Recruitfest held at the Intercontinental hotel. I’ll admit it, I got lost in my own city, you see there are two Intercontinental hotels in Toronto, the one in Yorkville and the one downtown and well, I went to the wrong one.

So I showed up slightly late and a bit out of wind and very frazzled for the first Recruitfest, and there to greet me when I came down the escalator was a smiling Julia Stone and Maren Hogan. I almost immediately felt better, and soon I realized why Recruitfest is different from other Recruiting events. It was because I felt like I was in a room full of my friends. People that you could have a great time with and learn from and have wonderful discussions. I also got to know Jason Davis (thanks Jason for the opportunity)…and we started what I think is a good friendship. Over the next year we would meet about once a month, and sometime in January of 2009 I started thinking and pestering Jason about the next Recruitfest in Toronto. Jason needed some convincing, he wasn’t sure that in this economy that we could pull off a successful un-conference in Toronto. However, after a few talks he relented and decided to allow me to produce this year’s show. And I have to say…I am very excited, here is why.

I uns-chool my kids, there I’ve said it. I believe very strongly in the concept of child lead learning, and my kids, well they are smart kids. Therefore I also believe strongly in adult lead learning and that’s what an event like Recruitfest is all about, there is no structure, there is no timetables, what there is ….discussion, networking and learning. Great minds in the Recruiting and HR sphere will be descending on Toronto in three days time to take part in what I like to call a major mind meld. I mean think of the ideas that will be born, carried away and then implemented after Recruitfest. I blows my mind and I feel very privileged to have been given the opportunity to facilitate what I hope will become a Recruiting annual event.

I also have to say that I have been blown away by all the folks that I have gotten to know, to talk to, to tweet with, to converse with over the last four months. I am honoured to be counted amongst your number, over time you have all become my friends, sure we may not meet up for beers every Wed night but I know that I can always count on you for a virtual smile or pat on the back, and I really appreciate that.

Keep looking out for updates, reviews and more stories from Recruitfest 09 – it’s going to be AWESOME.

On September 23-24th we’ll all be amongst friends, and I am really looking forward to it.

See you there.

Geoff

Radical – here comes the revolution

People often ask me, if I’m the Radical Recruiter, where is the revolution…well here it is.