Eavesdropping on Recruiting

Listening to my recruiters call potential candidates, do phone screens and set up interviews has really become a ritual. I sit in a cube near them and while I’m posting to social media, researching vendors, wrangling vendors (LOL), investigating hard-to-fill areas and looking for ways to help them in general, I hear “Good afternoon, may I speak with..” “Hey, I’m just giving you a call back to check on your status of paperwork..” “Ok, I can walk you through this process, it will take about 10 minutes…” ”Do you have time between 2-4pm for an interview…” “ While on the interview be sure to be professionally dressed and really talk about your experience and excitement for the position..” and the list goes on and on.

What occurred to me the other day is that these people, MY recruiters are truly helping others. While it might seem like an automated machine of filling requisitions and jobs, they WANT these people to get jobs. I hear them talk about their candidates and how they get frustrated when the hiring manager doesn’t give them the time of day when they are a good candidate. Or when the candidates act like they are telemarketers – they really are trying to get this person a job and squared away to be hired! I also hear them coach them after the hiring manager decides not to hire them. They ask about the interview, ask what was said and provide feedback based upon the hiring manager. I would have LOVED to get that early on in my career or even now! Interviews often feel weird when you are denied a position – how can I improve? I’m hearing them do this for their candidates, whether they are part time or salaried.

Sometimes recruiting gets a bad rap. Recruiters are like salespeople in a lot of ways – they are selling the job and organization to a candidate. They are looking to assess fit on the front line and are looking for people that WANT to work; who would be a good addition to the team. I hear candidates and hiring managers tell these people that they do not have the best interests of others at heart – that they just want to reach numbers. That isn’t what I’m seeing. I’m seeing people trying to do right by others. I hear it every day. And I’m proud to hear it! 

Business Advice - GO TO CONFERENCES!

This past week was full of new things that I learned and experienced that I feel that I should share with other aspiring professionals. I weaseled my way into attending two conferences with my company. Normally, they don’t like to send such young “inexperienced” people to represent their company and brand, but I got student level prices, so it was hard to argue against it. That’s the first thing I learned, push the issue if you really think that you attending a function can be beneficial for the company and for you as a professional. Now, I don’t mean stomp your feet and demand it. Create an argument that they simply cannot say no to.

So anyway, I was able to attend these conferences! One was HR Southwest (#HRSW) whose primary function is to highlight current and emerging trends and explain how they have changed in the past year. I learned a ton about many varied aspects of HR. As a vendor (I do mostly selection and development consulting), sometimes it is hard to see the struggles that internal HR professionals face and how my tools can help to alleviate some of those struggles. I will go over a few things I learned, just because I find them so cool!

The coolest thing I learned concerned flexible competency modeling. Typically, competency modeling is done while only examining the job itself and maybe bringing in some of the organizational culture. Flexible competency modeling also takes the overall business strategy into consideration for competency model development. While the culture hits on the strategy a bit, understanding the positioning of the business is integral to selecting individuals who can realize the vision. I digress a little bit, but I did learn at least one thing that is not only super cool, but can be applied to my company’s best practices to make them even more competitive. This brings me to my second piece of advice: make sure that if you do attend a function on behalf of your company that you can demonstrate that you learned something (s) that they can use in the future.

The other conference I attended was the People Report Best Practices Conference. People Report is an organization powered by Black Box Intelligence who offers various data trends to organizations that sign up as members. They typically focus on the restaurant/service industry, but the attendees varied across industries. I got to go to that conference for a few reasons. One, I helped the marketing director to come up with an awesome “theme” for our presence. Two, my company hosts a dinner at the closing of the conference and is known for dancing or putting on some type of show. Right up my alley, right?! 

I used my talents (haha) and outside work experience to head up teaching my coworkers a series of dances that tied into our overall “theme.” It was a huge success, and really fun for me to do, as I will always have a passion for dance, even if it is cutesy and fun. In addition, my sorority recruitment days helped me to work a booth, design buttons and T-Shirts, organize an event and keep an outward positive attitude. That is my last piece of advice: understand your talents and strengths and apply them to something that will not only help you succeed as an individual, but that will also benefit the business. 

I’d love to hear any other stories of anyone doing those three pieces of advice or simply some suggestions on conferences or events that are awesome! Have a great week!