5 Hard Truths About Agency Recruiting

5 Hard Truths About Agency Recruiting The world of contingent, agency recruiting is extremely competitive. The salesperson that visits clients will usually have a nice suit on and promise you the world, but as the saying goes, don’t ask how the sausage is made. The main thing to understand is that contingent recruiting is a sales game and, as with any sales industry, it is all about earning commission. Contingent recruiters must provide a majority of their service for free and there still is never a guarantee of earning their commission. [I would venture to say recruiters provide roughly 80% of their services for free]. It is only if their candidate gets selected will they be paid. As a result, it creates a lot of competition, not just amongst competing agencies, but between the many candidates the recruiter has sent to the client. Therefore, agency recruiters focus more on making a successful placement with any candidate rather than a specific candidate. So while a candidate may be sent to that client by the recruiter, there could be as many as 5 â€" 10 other candidates being sent as well. This makes for a difficult situation because the candidate and recruiter have the same goal, but different outcomes.  What I mean is both parties want a successful placement, but the recruiter will be happy with whoever gets placed as long as they are earning a fee. The point of this article is to take a look into the truth behind agency recruiting. Please understand that I do not have an axe to grind against the agency world. I spent the majority of my career in that environment and I had a great time. I made great money, met some of my closest friends and helped change the lives of people when it came to their careers. However there are parts of the world of agency recruiting that I feel it is important for people to understand: 1) Agency recruiters are not there to get a candidate a job: If you are working with an agency recruiter, do not expect them to fight to get you a job. Ultimately recruiters are loyal to those who pay their salary those people are the client. They will contact you about a job, but if you do not fit the bill it is on to the next candidate. Yes you will enter into a pipeline of candidates because that recruiter should be filling similar positions. However, if they do not have an immediate role for you, do not expect them to go around looking for you! READ MORE: NEWSFLASH: A Recruiter is Not a Job Finder! 2) Recruiting  agencies hire young: Most recruiting agencies hire right out of college. There are many reasons for this, but the one I have noticed the most is because recent college graduates will work 60 hour weeks for about 30K a year. That is typically what is asked of you right out of the gate. Most agencies will have working hours from 7:30- 5:00, however if you leave right at 5:00 you can expect a not so great meeting with your manager the next day. As a result there is a high turnover rate. The amount of people I have seen get let go is astounding. It’s the main reason companies like Aerotek, Adecco, Robert Half or any of the other major agency won’t hire someone with experience. It is impossible to get someone with good recruiting experience to agree to that kind of demand. 3) Agency recruiters have the candidates best interest in mind when it benefits the recruiter: A candidate is only useful to an agency recruiter if they are in consideration for a job. If you are not in consideration for an opening they will most likely not give you a second thought. Again this industry is sales based and a popular phrase in the agency world is “closest to the money”. A candidate not in consideration is not closest to the money therefore is an afterthought. 4) Your resume may open the door for other candidates: Go to any car dealership and what will you notice? The shiny, new cars are always out front drawing the customer into the showroom. Recruiting is no different. If your resume is one that is impressive on paper consider yourself that shiny car. Recruiters will use your resume to show their clients that they should do business with them because they will get them the best resumes. It is good to see yourself as the resume that opens the door for them, but you may only be starting the process to get someone else hired. Hiring managers do not want to hire the first person they see, they want to do their due diligence. So while your resume may be the catalyst that starts the conversation between a client and a recruiting agency, you may just be setting up someone else to get the job. 5) Candidates are numbers: The old saying goes “Sales is a numbers game”. The same goes for recruiting. When a recruiter first starts out in the agency world candidates are treated as numbers. For example, when I first started my career at Aerotek I was told to just bring in as many candidates as possible to gain experience. Regardless if I had a job for them or not I should bring them in for an interview. What about the candidate? They are taking their time to come into the office and interview with a recruiter, for what? All so the recruiter can gain experience? I am not against training people, but that is up to managers, not the responsibility of prospective candidates. Conclusion: This article is not to persuade someone from entering the recruiting industry or candidates from working with agency recruiters. I personally have gone through all these experiences and have enjoyed my career tremendously. If you survive the initial demands as an agency recruiter there is a great career awaiting you. So if you are looking for a career in the industry, jump on in! Just understand the truth behind what goes on. As a candidate you need to be selective with who you work with. Develop a relationship with a recruiter beyond just picking up the phone the next time a job comes in. Understand which recruiters are working in your specific industry and networking with the people you want to meet. Then develop an understanding with the recruiter of what your career goals are so they can align you with the proper hiring managers. A good recruiter should be there to create conversation between two people who normally may not be connected. Recruiters can open up doors that you didn’t even know existed, you just need to know which ones to work with. RELATED: 5 Recruitment Agency Myths: DEBUNKED! Image: Shutterstock

7 Universal Design Tips for Stand-out Personal Branding - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

7 Universal Design Tips for Stand-out Personal Branding - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Design plays a crucial role in building your personal brand; use the 7 universal design tips to help your brand stand out from the competition ensure your messages get read. The appearance of your personal branding messages determines whether or not they will be noticed, read, and remembered. At a glance, prospective clients,employers, and readers, will make an instant decision to either pay attention to your words, or just move on. To make your personal brand stand out from your competitors, you need to pay as much attention to the appearance of your messages as you do to their content. The growing popularity of mobile applications like iPhones, iPads, and Android-based tablets is making design an even more important personal brand building tool than ever before. 7 universal design tips The following 7 tips are universal because you can use them as a guide to designing and formatting everything from business cards to blogs, ebooks, landing pages, and web pages. Open, inviting image. Add plenty of space to the margins, borders, and space between the text and graphics in your online and offline marketing materials. White space projects an open, contemporary, and easy-to-read image. When text and graphics looked stuffed into a   page or screen, your messages inevitably project a dull and hard-to-read image. Magnetic headlines. To succeed in attracting your prospects attention and engaging their interest, headlines must be easy to locate and easy to read. The typeface and type size you use in your headlines must form a strong contrast with the other text on the page. A good starting point is to combine headlines set in sans serif typefaces, like Frutiger, with serif typefaces, like Times Roman, for body copy. Avoid setting headlines entirely in upper case type, i.e., capital letters; this makes them harder to read. Review your headlines and make sure line breaks do not split phrases and proper nouns, i.e., first and last names. Never hyphenate headlines. Scannable. Design should make the structure of your message be obvious at a glance. Start by chunking, or breakiing-up, your message into topics and using subheads to introduce new topics. Readers should be able to glance at the subheads and get an idea of the ideas being discussed. Limit subhead length to a single line, add white space above them to emphasize the break with the previous topic, and never underline subheads. Another way to aid scanning is to use bullet lists or numbered lists whenever possible. Easy to read. Here are some of the ways to make your ideas as readable as possible. Choose a familiar body copy typeface,   one that doesnt draw attention to itself. Avoid long lines of type; these slow readers down. Choose a type size thats neither too small or too large for the line length. Adjust line spacing so theres enough white space is present to highlight the characters in each line. Always add hyphens to split words at line endings. Selective emphasis. Add a focal point to each page or screen to reinforce your message. Focal points can be headlines, photographs, charts, or quotations summarizing important points. Practice restraint adding text style attributes like bold and italics. When 2 words in a 5-line paragraph are set in bold or italics, the emphasis is obvious.   But, the emphasis is lost when too many words are emphasized. Never underline text to add emphasis; underlining actually makes the words harder to read. Use color with care. Less is more when it comes to color. Avoid rainbow design using every cover available. Instead, choose a paletteor collectionof a few basic colors that you can own, like Published Profitables blue, yellow, and red used online and offline. Explore high-impact websites like Roger Blacks, based on black, white, and red.  Be careful setting text in color; often words become harder to read when you wanted to make them more noticable. Clutter-free. Eliminate clutter and distraction. Be selective. Know whats important and make it the center of attention! Never interfere with your readers ability to focus on your main message. Avoid distracting blog sidebars crammed with dozens of competing messages that make it hard for readers to focus on your posts.   Avoid cluttering ebook pages with supporting details that you can group together at the end of the chapter or in an Appendix. Train yourself to notice the different ways the above design tips show up in attractive, easy-to-read personal brand-building messagesand theyre usually missing from dull, hard-to-read marketing materials. The importance of becoming design aware Knowing more about the basics of design will help you do a better job evaluating the success of your current personal brand building messages. By analyzing the design elements of your personal brand, you can identify whats workingand whats not working. Never analyze the design components of your personal brand in a vacuum. Instead, compare your brands use of design to your competitors use of design! In addition, youll be better able to choose the right graphic designer or web designer. By knowing your personal branding objectives as the basics of design, youll be better able to direct freelance designers and evaluate their work for you. Author: Roger C. Parker’s Published Profitable blog contains a 14-page report, White Paper Design that Sells, that provides examples and information you can use to put the 7 universal design tips to work building your personal brand.

How to Fulfill Your Fitness Resolutions in 2017

How to Fulfill Your Fitness Resolutions in 2017 So, it’s that time of year again. We’re gearing up for the silly season, and as we start to eat and drink more than we do at any other time of year, we start making dramatic resolutions for the new year in the hope that we will turn our lives around. How about this year, instead of making wild resolutions that you will never stick to, why not be careful and considered when planning your goals? The whole point of a resolution is to reach it, right? Read on to find out how you can fulfil your fitness resolutions in 2017. Write it down and measure it To ensure you stick to your goals, you need to make them both specific and measurable. Broad, vague goals can make you feel unmotivated about exactly what you’re supposed to do to achieve them. Not only is writing down your goals a great way to accomplish them, but it can also help you figure out the exact steps needed to get there. Keep it interesting If your resolution is to exercise consistently and regularly every week, you need to think beyond the treadmill and the weight rack. Even for fitness experts, sticking to one or two types of exercise can be detrimental (and mind-numbing!). Experiment with yoga, rock climbing or some martial arts classes like those at IDF Training. The more variety in your exercise program, the more fun it will be to follow, and the more likely you’ll find something you absolutely love. Make realistic resolutions Your fitness resolutions should be reachable. If you’ve never lifted weights before, attempting to hit the weight bench seven days a week is setting yourself up for failure. Be realistic; changing a lifetime of habits can’t happen overnight. Start with small, logical fitness steps and work your way up to bigger goals. Treat yourself Humans need positive reinforcement, and that goes for fitness goals, too! If you reach one of your fitness milestones for example, a perfect chin-up or a new cardio personal best treat yourself! Choose a reward that won’t sabotage all of your hard work, as well. Choose a beach day, a mani-pedi, a new item of clothing or a massage. Regular rewards in pursuit of a goal means that you will reach those milestones faster than you previously thought possible. Question your motives Superficial goals can tend to lose their appeal after what seems like an endless amount of time dieting and exercise. Instead, try to correlate your goals with a more direct and ongoing path toward health and happiness. Regular exercise has been proven to have health benefits including lowering cholesterol, boosting overall energy, and even increasing happiness. Bringing some deeper intentions to your workout can make all the difference in sticking to your goals. Ask for help Not only is exercising incorrectly bad for your fitness results, but it can be detrimental to your health, too. If you want to try a new weight technique or a new type of training, book a session with a trainer or ask for help at your gym. In order to prevent injury, trainers and instructors are there to help, so make it a point to ask for advice. Hold yourself accountable Stay on track with your goals by holding yourself accountable. Book in for 8 weeks of an exercise session that demands attendance. Commit each week to seeing a friend for an exercise class or a run on the beach. Knowing that someone is waiting for you to exercise can prevent skipping workouts, and plus it’s a lot more fun than going it alone. As well as this, according to some studies, sweating with a friend improves results! Don’t disappoint yourself this new year. Make some realistic resolutions that can be the beginning of a wonderful change for your life. Measure your progress, keep things interesting and don’t forget to ask for help and treat yourself! Remember, you are the key to your fitness success, and failing to plan is planning to fail. . Image credits. Main.  Fitness.     DoIt.

How Universities Are Failing Their Graduates, Part 3 - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How Universities Are Failing Their Graduates, Part 3 - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Cigarette advertising was banned from radio and television in 1971. In addition, while not legislated, many television networks have made it a policy to eliminate advertising of alcoholic beverages… or restrict such advertising based upon the age of program viewership. Both of these actions were intended to eliminate negative influencing of impressionable audiences. With such massive amounts of advertising dollars eliminated, other industries with available budgets were destined to fill the revenue voids. Alcohol, Tobacco, Prescription Drugs and Higher Education Two notable industries who rushed in to fill the void were prescription drugs and higher education. It was estimated that drug manufacturers spent $2.7 billion on radio, television, internet, and similar advertising. This made me wonder what higher education was doing. What I found was, according to the Educational Marketing Group, that colleges and universities purchased over $570 million of paid advertising in the United States during 2013. That made me think Have we swapped  alcohol and nicotine for  prescription drugs and higher education? With this rolling around somewhere in the back of my  mind, I was driving down a major artery in Atlanta the other day and noticed a billboard advertising an MBA program from a little-known university. A few minutes later, I saw another billboard advertising an MBA program from one of the top universities in town. Later, I pulled behind a public transportation bus that was wrapped in advertising for a third university. Although I have yet to see  a PhD advertised above a men’s urinal, I have a sneaky suspicion  that it is only a matter of time. Higher Education: A 20 Year Payback? Which brings me to the subject of this, my third and final installment in this series: Universities are failing their graduates by overselling the value of the products they are vending.   When a consumer is  experiencing disappointment with a purchase, they sometimes feel  that the seller “overpromised and under delivered.” I believe this is the case with higher education.  While smoking the same cigarette as a dromedary was once considered chic, consuming the same higher education as your parent or friends appears to me to be  the new chic. According to The Economist, a whopping  43% of all grades given college and university students were A’s. The same article also noted that young graduates have seen their incomes decrease by more than 15% over the last decade, despite the fact that the percentage of the U.S. GDP spent on higher education has tripled since 1962. If this information doesn’t yet have you squirming in your seat, I sincerely hope that this quote from a 2014 WSJ article titled A College Education Still Pays For Itself, Fed Economists Say will: Although there are stories of people who skipped college and achieved financial success, for most Americans the path to higher future earnings involves a four-year college degree. We show that the value of a college degree remains high, and the average college graduate can recover the costs of attending in less than 20 years,” wrote San Francisco Fed economists Mary C. Daly and Leila Bengali. Yes, you heard it right. The WSJ and Fed economists actually think that it is a good thing that you have an average shot at breaking even on an undergraduate degree in less than 20 years!!!!! While I don’t have the underlying data to be sure, I’ll bet that this analysis did not take into account the time value of money. If that’s true, then the payback could be more like 25 or 30 years. I dont want you to be suckered by the university hype. So, here is my question to you. If I offered you a financial investment that would break even in 15 or 20 years, how excited would you be to make that investment? And what if I told you that there was a decent chance you would not complete the investment (degree) and hence get a poorer payback. And what if I told you that you would also have to invest four years of your life, when you could otherwise be learning real-world job skills while earning a living? Let’s get real. The idea that a college degree pays for itself is, at best, a matter of debate regarding the number of decades. At its worst, you fall for a sales pitch promising career success and come up empty handed. Dinosaurs are dead. Is higher education (as we now know it) headed for a slot beside them in the Museum of Natural History? You tell me.

Writing a Resume at 40 - Create a Resume That Can Open Many Doors

Writing a Resume at 40 - Create a Resume That Can Open Many DoorsWhat if I told you that if you could write a resume at 40 that you would have more leverage in the job market? Or, maybe, maybe not. But what if you can create an experience statement for yourself and have the ability to use that statement to interview in the future? Your resume will then be a unique resume and that statement will be placed in a separate folder for you to review and peruse when the time comes.Some professionals advise including a listing of your qualifications as well as a list of your previous work experiences and general information about your experience. On the other hand, some people feel that to have a resume that is valuable you must include specifics.For example, I would write a resume or a summary that does not mention that I have two Masters degrees, has worked for my company for seven years and has worked on several projects. People may then try to interview me but they won't know that I have been with the company for a very long time. They may also not know that I went to school for both my Masters and my MBA. All of these things are important in the interview because if you're a trained professional, the potential employer will want to know that you've done the research and considered all of the facts before making your decision.Most potential employers know that you have had numerous jobs and maybe even think that you should have researched more than one different career options. So, if you want to increase your chances of landing that job, go ahead and include more details. However, if you only have one strong point, don't include that statement. Besides, I recommend not going into too much detail and just putting in the basics and moving up from there.There are many career coaches that can help you write a resume at 40. You may want to start by reviewing their suggestions and researching as much as you can about how to write a resume at 40.Most importantly, you need to make sure that you are comfortable and confident during the interview and make sure that you don't embarrass the potential employer. Remember, you will be representing yourself and your resume. Your image needs to be perfect. Therefore, do everything in your power to make sure that it is what you really want.Remember, it's a career opportunity and you want to stand out from the crowd. Always remember that the potential employer has to get the most from your resume and therefore he or she will be screening through a large number of resumes to determine who is right for them.With all of this said, I am very happy that I am able to write a resume at 40. It has given me a head start and the knowledge of some really good opportunities to apply for more positions.

Help me evaluate my book - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Help me evaluate my book - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Alrighty my book about happiness at work is aaaaaaalmost there. Now I could really use your opinion and feedback. Im doing my final write-through this week and Im incredibly happy with it. Either this is a friggin great book or Im seriously deluded. But why dont you tell me which it is :o) UPDATE: Im totally blown away here, and I think over 40 people giving feedback is probably as many as I can handle, so Ive closed the sign-up. Thank you to everyone whos signed up to give feedback. Im really excited about showing you the book and to hear what you think! This monday my wonderful girlfriend and I are leaving for a short vacation in London. If youd like to review this release candidate (nerd humor, I apologize) of the book, write a comment on this post. That way I get your email adress (dont worry, it wont appear on the site). Then well do it like this: On monday November 6 Ill email an electronic version of the book to all the people whove signed up. You pick the one chapter that you find the most interesting and read it and give me feedback on it. Youre more than welcome to read the entire thing of course, but focus on one chapter so you can give me some thorough feedback on it. Forget all about spelling, grammar, typos and punctuation, Im going to get some pros to fix all of that. Focus on the contents of one chapter, and please answer the following questions for me: What do you really like about this chapter? What could be better? Are there any holes in the contents or the arguments in the chapter? Something I need to focus more on? Some point I should elaborate more on? Does anything seem redundant? Something I can safely cut out? What is your overall impression? Is this chapter ready to go into the book? If you were to write a three-line review of the book based on what youve read, what would it say? Be honest. If you love it, say so. If you think it sucks, say you love it anyway :o) Just kidding if you absolutely hate it or see something you dont like, tell me Im a big boy, I can take it. Write your feedback in the text document Ill include and mail them back to me no later than friday November 10. Ill then do the final rewrite that same weekend and provided that I dont need to make too many changes, the book will go out to proofreading the monday after and to printing later that week. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Measuring Trust

Measuring Trust The interview is a mutual exchange of information.   This requires both parties to engage in good questions to gain better understanding of one another.   One of the big intangibles for both is Trust.   But how do you measure or evaluate it? I attended a presentation yesterday on Trust and Transparency delivered by Robert Whipple.   He has just released his 3rd book, this one is called Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind. His presentation took a look at the elements that make up trust and what each one of us, leader or not, can do to improve our organizations perceived level of trust. These are the important measures of trust, according to Whipple: Solving problems Focus Communication Customer retention Morale and motivation Productivity Need for perfection Development of people Reinforcement Each one can be used to explore and question the organization and individual.   As you consider these measures, havent you been asked questions during an interview that assess your  involvement with them?   Is the interviewer aware of what they evaluating-the big picture, how do you contribute to the organizations level of trust? When you tell your STAR stories, do they support trust enabling actions?   Whipple suggests these are the things leaders do to increase the level of trust. Advocate well Reinforce right behavior Act in the interest of others Follow up Admit mistakes Coach privately Have patience Explain paradoxes Let actions reflect values Dont hide problems Whether you are a leader or not, each of us has the opportunity to carry out these actions. Finding the right cultural fit  should be  important to you.   Frequently we become disenchanted with our job when there is a lack of fit.   The big contributor to a companys culture is trust.   Working within an organization with low trust tends to produce dissatisfaction quickly.   We sometimes say, Ill know the right company when I find it.   Starting by identifying  a company that exhibits high levels of trust is usually a solid start. As you interview, develop questions to test how well leaders are using the actions.   Asking the interviewer situational questions can provide this insight. How do managers support  their people. Tell me about a time when a manager supported a team member. When someone does the right thing, how is it recognized? How do  managers prefer to communicate with the team? When someone presents an idea or suggestion, what has the outcome been? How has  leadership communicated their mistakes in the past? Has their been a time when a decision has had to be overturned in the organization? How did that happen? When  a manager  provides feedback how does that occur? Can you give me an example of how management provides feedback to its team? On a scale of 1-10, one being low, could you rate leaderships level of patience? Can you provide an example that demonstrates this? How has  leadership communicated changes in business or problems? What are the real values of the organization? Can you provide an example of at time when these values were demonstrated? What support does  a manager  seek from  the team? Has there been a time when  leadership has asked for solutions from the teams? It would be overwhelming to ask all these questions at once. Certain questions have a time and place and audience.   Chose the correct venue and time to probe in these areas.