LatinOcean - Marketing and Web Technologies Applied to Talent Management

Over the past couple of years I have seen recruiters getting significantly wiser as to how to use web-based products, services, techniques; to source the talent they need to deliver to their clients. The majority of the tier-one players have made serious investments in skills (adoption / training) and products (e.g. subscriptions) in order to create what I call a multi-channel sourcing platform using generalist sites, niche sites, search, search marketing, professional/social networks, referral systems, etc. I’d love to think that LatinOcean had something to do with that.

This multi-pronged approach to candidate engagement – I am also happy to report – hast lost its novelty value and is now imbedded in the recruiters’ workflow, which is where it makes a difference. It is now part of the day to day for a material number of agencies and internal recruitment teams. This is not going away; we’re not going to just post classifieds anymore, is my bet.

Concomitant to this evolution, job seekers need to think now (more than ever) as to how to nurture a multi-channel job hunting platform online. Which employers do you want to be targeted by? Who do you want to meet? What is the first search result you want to appear when someone Googles your name? What is the best platform to research a company or agency or individual recruitment consultant?

What I am pointing to is that we, as job seekers / professionals in constant career flux, need to understand that it is our responsibility to determine/influence our reputation online and to use the channel other than just clicking the ‘apply online’ button to get the job you want. We are empowered and able to do so without the need for technical wizardry or expensive/cumbersome overheads.

Given this, I thought I would start a bit of a list as to what you can/should do/consider when refining your ‘interactive job seeker’ self. Hopefully the list and the points outlined can be enriched with adds / edits from the readers.

1. Reports of the demise of the standard word/text/PDF resume have been greatly exaggerated. This is still the document that recruiters work with when it comes to the crunch. So if you are going to post one of this mothers online, ensure it is a current one and it reflects your agenda/interests pretty much up to the minute.

2. The resume format of choice might be the same but possibly there are smarter ways to manage its distribution/broadcasting. Give emurse a try to keep multiple versions of your resume, and a fairly clear trail of who you’ve sent it to. If you believe a fancier CV format will contribute, register with VisualCV and give it a crack

3. If you want to be seen and approached at an early stage of the recruitment process or as recruiters conduct their sourcing activities, work on your online profile. LinkedIn is still very much the place to go for this (XING is not playing in Australia and has no plans to do so – in any English-speaking nation, for that matter). Beef up your profile with work experience, academic pedigree and associations; all of this gives the system a chance to connect you with (arguably) solid connections.

4. Avoid things that create churn for the recruiter. Serial/batch job applications to classified ads are as counter-productive as multiple postings of the same advertisement. In both cases you as the job seeker are on the receiving end. If your name crops up multiple times for a large variety of roles, you may not be considered as a serious applicant. I know this is a broad generalization and a perception that maybe overridden in case you happen to be a good candidate for any of the roles, but I think it’s a reasonable rule of thumb.

5. Google yourself, and have a look; which result comes first? If you have a common name (you know what I mean, so don’t take offence) narrow down your search to your profession or company. Are your results showing within the first 10-15 results? Are you happy with the results that point to you as an individual / professional? I spend a bit of time on my LinkedIn profile and it appears that LinkedIn corresponds by investing in SEO on my behalf (and theirs, of course)

6. Search yourself on Zoominfo. This engine crawls the net to work out a profile extracted from the info accessed. You can actually register and ‘claim’ the profile the system works out and update it with current information

7. If LinkedIn appears too slanted to networking as opposed to to-the-point job hunting you can keep an eye for the LinkedIn job ads. Alternatively you can have a look at resume databases like LinkMe, which is more a job-seeker ready environment with some social features. Remember also that you have the option on several job boards to make your profile and CV visible to recruiters

8. Use Google, LinkedIn, Zoominfo and Facebook to research a company of a specific individual recruiter. If you want to check out a company, also check their careers site; further to this, create a Google email alert so you can receive news or blog postings about the company you are interested in (you want to hear from people that have actual experience with the company, not with their PR machine). While you are at it, create an email alert for yourself (e.g. enter your name as a search key)

9. Publish (this is a bit of a big one to elaborate) may tackle on part 2

Just run out of time, I am sure there are good/better ones to add for job hunters to consider; send your comments and adds to keep building this up over the next few days.

Send me an email if you need further help on this, I might be able to tailor a few things for your specific situation as a job seeker (jorge at latinocean.com).

Have a great rest of the week

Popularity: 1% [?]

Last week I went to the shops because there was a toy sale. It was the first day, so there was a toy overflow on the shop floor.. lots of people, parents with strollers filled with screaming kids, and me.The main attraction: the prices and supply were both good.

I went there mainly to lay-by toys for Christmas. Now, don’t get the idea that I am a fab planner and the ultimate smart buyer; the thing is if I don’t put these toys away now, I will never see them for the rest of the year, let alone closer to the Christmas season. The lay-by area of the shop was packed. You have to make an approx. 10% deposit of the total price, and few a couple more payments before picking the goods up.

I thought that maybe the store was leaving money on the table, that the discounts were too good for toys which people were effectively buying for the holidays. But, what is the shop gaining?

For starters the toys had to be picked up in November, until then they were not available. In reality the layby numbers were giving this people great marketing intelligence, which also impacts logistics, floor space utilisation, triggers other campaigns, etc.

How would lay-by work for recruitment?

- Employers would let agencies or their internal recruitment teams know the professionals they need 6-8 months in advance of actually needing the person
- External recruiters would charge 10% of the agreed fees; internal one would get an inter-department journal crediting their expenses.
- I am not sure if it would be necessary to discount fees significantly but if you take the cost of money, the upfront ‘deposit’ could enable an agency to reduce fees in accordance to their average financing costs
- Recruiters would work with significantly larger lead times to fill roles, with better understanding of the clients’ talent demands, and therefore with a more focused approach to talent sourcing

Do you think this would improve the timely supply of talent?

Is it realistic to know people requirements six months in advance, other than sudden departures, etc.?

What are the real-life show-stoppers to recruitment lay-by that you can foresee
* lack of trust that the recruiter will actually find the right person?
* hiring managers changing their minds?

Popularity: 4% [?]

The notes to the latest Seek Employment Index report that on a year-to-year basis job applications are 5.5% higher compared to a corresponding 35.8% increase in news job ads posted to their site. I assume that the numbers for the other two biggest job boards show similar trends (set me straight if I am wrong please)

If I were to stick to the Seek numbers, the stats are saying that a typical/average advertiser is getting @ 22% less applications per ad; which implies less candidate processing work, less job-application-related exchanges, etc; so this is in itself not a bad thing from a processing cost and churn side of the equation.

The problem arises when with the available candidate pool (constantly fed by your applications flow) you cannot fill the role. What this means in turn is that the candidates that make up the 22% that are NOT applying to the roles you advertise happen to be the ones you needs to make a placement or fill a vacancy. So you could be receiving 22% less applications but in fact you may be losing up to 100% of your quality applications (placeable candidates).

What do you do if you are an advertiser?
What advertising advice do you have to give if you are a job board?

If you find flaws in my reasoning, pls give me a shout… and kudos to Seek for their transparency with the trends.

Popularity: 3% [?]

A few months back I reported Checkster going on alpha testing. It is now open for access before release.

Checkster has a retail offering for individuals (candidates) and an offering to recruiters/hirers. Having seen products like those marketed by Insala, I did not find the tools used ‘brand new’; having said that, people might find some of the insights extracted from the reports useful to focus career or job seeking efforts.

On the b2b side, the twist is that these tools are being used in the recruitment process as an incremental source of reference checks, as opposed to when a professional is out-placed, undertaking company-sponsored career development, etc. I expect the value of having these assessments will be directly proportional to how they contribute to get the right individual for the job (measured in terms of tenure, performance on the role, etc.).

Popularity: 2% [?]

TalentSpring, in beta mode during q2 2007

Founders: Bryan Starbuck, CEO - Andrew Boardman, Development Manager - ex-Microsofties, no recruitment pedigree (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Their bios on the site here

Tagline: wisdom of the crowd brought into the candidate selection processes

How it works: potential candidates enter their profiles, subject to voting on other peoples’ profiles. system algorithms are meant to pick candidates who put crappy scores. recruiters use these scores to spot top talent in their corresponding industries and pay to contact the people they like (recruiters need to enter a JD in the system)

Value prop for job seekers: you resume stands out in front of recruiters because it carries a user-generated score (the merit score)

Value prop for employers/recruiters: easier to spot top talent because of the - you guessed it - Merit score

Comments:Does it sound a bit like jobster to you? I am unsure how the merit score is a good assessor of the quality of the candidate, and if recruiters will rely on the score to make contact/interview decisions. Very early stages though.

Thank you to Kris for the tip

Popularity: 4% [?]