KCRecruiting

Looking For More Kansas City Recruiting? Check Out Ning

The Kansas ity Recruiting Community On Ning is up to almost 500 members, and it's turning into an interesting career coaching site for candidates.  I've spent a lot of time in KC, and the Midwest value of helping out your neighbor is pretty strong.

If you're a recruiter here, or if you want to take stock of a recruiter before you send in a resume, this is a good place to start.  Of course, if you want your own voice, starting a blog is still the best way, but if you're looking to network with other recruiters - head on over and start up a profile. 

Should Human Resources Recruiters Blog?

YourHRGuys says yes, and tells us why. Reasons #1 and #2:

1. It has made me more thoughtful - Many people think blogging means you have to go out on a limb and say something sexy every post. My experience has been the complete opposite. People appreciate advice that is interesting, unique and thoughtful. Some people who give career advice seem almost glib at times and others give perpetually boring advice. If someone says you should wear a top hat to your next interview to stand out, that’s just entertaining but not useful. If someone says you should work on your handshake, that’s not entertaining but it is useful. I’ve tried to say things that are both entertaining and useful. So when you wear that top hat, make sure you give a really great handshake.

2. It allows me to learn - There are some really smart people in the blogosphere that I have been fortunate enough to interact with in-person or through telephone, e-mails and comments. This is why I couldn’t possibly do all of my 2009 predictions without including feedback from the great people online as well. Since I started getting involved with blogs (a lurker for four years and contributor for more than two and a half), I’ve learned about subjects I never would have even known about. It is truly amazing.

The key reason to blog is knowledge - both about your industry and about your business.  You'd be surprised how many people never take the time to look critically at the way they do business. In today's business climate, that's going to be a problem.

How can you improve, if you don't know what you do right and wrong?  Blogging demands content, and the best content is looking at your situation and discussing what you do wrong, and how you plan to fix it.

Forget the rest.  Blog for yourself. It makes you a better employee, more aware of what's going around, and there's that personal branding boost you need for the future.  It looks like I'm coming to Kansas City in February. If you start your blog between now and then, I'll be happy to promote it. And if five people do it, I'll give each of you a shiny recruiter training CD on how to blog to hire candidates.

Advice For Job Seekers

The best blog out there for job-seekers is Chris Russell's Secrets of the Job Hunt.  I reviewed his book several years ago, and it remains the best book on the basics of the job search.

Chris's blog (one of many) is targeted to candidates, unlike most of what the rest of the recruiting world covers. I advise you check it out.  It's now a social network, much more than a blog.

If you're interested in building a Kansas City based network for candidates, KCRecruiting.com is the perfect site for you.  More on this at SocialMediaHeadhunter.com.

RehabCare College Recruiting Blog

One of my clients, Rehabcare, just launched their campus relations blog.  This is a fun team of college grad sourcers, and they spend a lot of time on campuses talking to students about joining Rehabcare as an occupational, physical, or speech therapist.

Expect to see a lot from them.  Expect the best from them - but at least drop by and give them a shout.

For their career center, if you're a nursing student, check out their student careers website.

Minneapolis Hosts First Recruiting Road Show

John Sumser took the band on the road, and headed out to Minneapolis-St Paul recently to meet with local recruiters in what was termed, the Recruiting Road Show.

Local Bloggers Paul DeBettignies, Steven Rothberg and Andy Keith were all there at the Best Buy Headquarters, along with 120 local recruiters.

Now those are some impressive numbers.  Here's a recap of all the people that were to be thanked from the MNHeadhunter blog, photos from the event are at Flikr, Steven Rothberg says they sold out their tickets, and more, and of course, the wrap up at Recruiting.com.

Here's the official site.  It shows that there is a pent-up demand in local metropolises for recruiting information and conferences.  The original idea, like mos good ones these days, started at a Chipotle, and the next event is in Atlanta.

I'd be willing to bet Hallmark could drum up a pretty spectacular one here in KC.  Just as a thought. If only there were more recruiting bloggers.

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Teaching Line Recruiters How To Blog

I keep saying that the only purpose of recruiting blogs is hiring more people.  If blogs don't make our jobs easier, we should save them for offhours.  The question of whether a recruiter should blog boils down to a few simple facts.

1) Will it help hire more people than other activities?
2) Will it help hire better people than other activities?

Everything else is marshmallow fluff.  My contention is that the only way for us to determine if blogging is an effective recruiting tool is for recruiters to use blogs and report on the results.  For the purposes of these examples, we're going to make the assumption that the authors of these example blogs are competent bloggers who update regularly, write well, and join online communities.  That's a big assumption, but here are two specific ways a recruiter can use blogs to improve the number and the quality of the people the hire.

Blog Example # 1:  Hyperion Recruiter.
Search Google for "hyperion essbase st louis"

The results should bring up a series of posts I made when I was looking for Hyperion Essbase programmers.  To this day, Hyperion Essbase searches from MSN and Google routinely lead people to my site who submit their resume for placement.

Blog Example #2:  Desktop Java Recruiter.
Do a search of "Swing interview questions" on Google. 

While looking for a swing developer, I posted a list of Swing Interview Questions.  That one post is my  highest traffic builder, bringing 10 people a day from around the world looking for a list of swing interview questions. 

Analysis:
What kind of people use search engines to find jobs?  Primarily the people most difficult to find - travelling consultants who are constantly on the lookout for new long-term positions.  These consultants, ERP experts (SAP, Peoplesoft Financials, Oracle Express, Siebel), financial experts in Hyperion, EDI experts in Streamserve and other programs, usability architects, and hundreds of other specialites outside of the technical world are looking for new positions.

They are also looking for advice on how to do their job better.  A recruiter who hosted a blog on the technical aspects of hard-to-find technologies for their firm is going to better locate hard-to-find people with a blog that pulls candidates than phone calls that push them.

Good recruiters for years have haunted forums, lurking for top talent.  Doesn't it make sense to bring that talent directly to your website?

Staffing Site Review: Kforce

I used to work for a third party staffing firm by the name of Kforce. They treated me well as a salesperson, but ultimately, I left to start my own business.

Today, I had occasion to look for a Kforce Office in St Louis, as I was passing a candidate on to that local office.  I searched "kforce staffing st louis" and the only good result was the main site Kforce.com.

I went to the office locations tab, and guess what? There is no listing on the Kforce.com website for an office in St Louis.  There is also no listing on the Kforce.com site for Kansas City.  Sorry, no results were found.

How could this be?  I know for a fact that there are offices in Creve Coeur, MO, and Overland Park, KS.  Ahhh, says the smartest of you.  If you search Creve Coeur and Overland Park, you can find the offices.

Yes, I can.  But how can candidates, who are maybe only given the name of the company, supposed to find the local offices if the company doesn't even take the time to create  decent search on their own site?

Does your company website make it hard, or easy to find you?

Blog Case Studies: Carl Chapman

Small Business Owners often ask why they should blog, and recruiting branch managers are even tougher.

"What is the value of blogging?" they ask.

Carl Chapman shares his results and reveals hard numbers in a blog case study from Dave Mendoza.

Monetarily, the blog has helped drive, directly, well over $50K in business and another $120K in yet to be filled contracts since the beginning of this year. This is a measure of the direct impact to just my search firm.

I wonder if KCRecruiter and KCHeadhunter.com are available.  Don't miss the chance to hear me speak this Thursday at the Recruiter's Roundtable at the Hallmark Corporate Headquarters.

10,000 Reasons To Start A Recruiting Blog

Harry Joiner is a friend of mine, and I knew he was mad talented, but I'm still in awe over his latest milestone.

10,000 candidates have downloaded his v-card from his recruiting blog, MarketingHeadhunter.com

When I first saw Marketing Headhunter in 2005, I figured that here was a new media expert who got the whole blogging and recruiting thing.  I was wrong - Harry was just trying out some new things, and the Marketing Headhunter was his attempt to differentiate himself from the pack.

Today, that has all changed.  The brand, the name, and Harry's recruiting talents have combined to make him a search engine powerhouse, and while I won't share his secrets, I can tell you that Harry is running circles around his competitors with his online profile, and he now has an automatic candidate lead generator that is demographically targeted at the best and brightest marketing executives.

Don't think those v-cards are just for show - Harry is making placements, and he now is that social media marketing genius that has learned to let the web work for him.

Where are the rest of you?  If you would like to learn how to build an online profile that helps you close more business this year, contact me about meeting you May 15th-17th in Kansas City.  jdurbin-(at)-durbinmedia.com

Looking To Write A Better Job Posting

The Recruiting Fly finds someone who understands the art of writing - PostBetter, a Recruitment Advertising firm.

Their blog has the following advice, and we're going to critique it.  The post is on writing a better job ad, and points out that recruiters who complain about a lack of candidates often have a terrible description.

Grab the job seekers attention
KCRecruiting:  Start with the TitleListing the title only works if the title is clear.  What the heck is a Senior Systems Analyst?  That only means something to people already in your company.  Make sure you aren't making the mistake of using jargon or titles people don't understand.

Give a little history. Summarize what it is your company does and what make is unique.
This requires of course that you actually be unique.  This is good advice to those companies who think that calling yourself the premiere company in your industry actually means anything.