I’m Calling You Out…

Dear Talentburst.

Really? Actually, I should thank you. Sometimes, I get to wondering why people in my profession get such a bad rap. Then, I get something like this…

And it all becomes clear:

Dear Martin

I came across your resume on an online job board (really? which one?) and wanted to reach out to you to see if you might be interested in a contract opportunity (So, I’ll quite my permanent job for this? Oh, joy) in Cambridge, MA

My client is looking for a Recruiting Sourcer (btw, _not_ bolding this stuff makes it seem a bit less like a form letter. I mean, only a bit, but c’mon, at least look like you’re trying) to join their team on a contractual basis. My firm TalentBurst, Inc. is headquartered in Massachusetts and provides nationwide staffing support to our client.

Please carefully read the Job Description below, and if you would like to pursue this opportunity please email me an updated MS Word version of your resume and call me at (xxx) xxx-xxxx at your earliest convenience.  I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you. (Points for polite – granted, I don’t think you wrote this, but… points to somebody)

Recruiting Sourcer (I should point out, I am not, and never have been, a Sourcer – that’s a whoooole bunch of black-magic, hat out of a rabbit kinda stuff – I’m a Director of Talent Acquisition. I pull budgets out of finance, attend lots of meetings, hire people smarter than me, and function as their spear-catcher)

Cambridge, MA
4 + Months contract

The Recruiting Sourcer, as part of a team, will be responsible for building an ongoing candidate pipeline through research and internet searches. There is a high focus on creative sourcing, identifying active and passive candidates, generating marketplace knowledge, and pipeline development.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following:

45% Source candidates:
Independently develop and maintain candidate flow supporting a variety of job families. Source candidates by utilizing a variety of search methods (i.e. internal database, job boards, networking, internet searches, organizations, etc.)
40% Communicate with Candidates:
Screen and assess candidates’ fit to role
Educate and excite candidates about Pega as an organization and the role
Present screened qualified candidates to assigned recruiter for recruiter screen or to directly to hiring manager for review as agreed with assigned recruiter
Provide full lifecycle support on an interim basis in the absence of the assigned recruiter due to vacation or leave
Follow defined recruiting practices
Utilize and maintain Recruitment Management System with high level of accuracy
5% Contribute to continuous improvement:
Contribute process improvement suggestions and RMS user stories to help drive maturation of RMS.
Utilize available means, including free webinars and training sessions provided via job board vendors, to stay abreast of best practices and share improvement recommendations with colleagues
5% Mentor and Coach:
Act as a mentor and / or ongoing to coach to new or more junior members of the team
5%:Perform special projects and other duties as assigned

Required Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree
2+ years of experience in a high-volume Recruiting or Recruiting Sourcer role
Ability to learn and allocate time efficiently; handle multiple deliverables while concurrently managing competing priorities
Strong communication, interpersonal, time management, and organizational skills
Strong analytical, problem solving, and research skills
Knowledge of Microsoft Office Products including Word and ExcelAbility to work with enthusiasm in a challenging, fast-paced environment
Possesses the appropriate level of technical/functional expertise and knowledge

Education:
Must Have Bachelors degree

***Please note my deadline for Submittal of qualified resumes is by CLOSE OF BUSINESS TOMORROW ******

(Oh, no! I may miss the deadline!!!!)

So, here’s the thing: spamming candidates is never a good thing. Because for each one that responds, there are 99 who think “Damn recruiter spam – I hate recruiters”. Which is a lousy way to attempt to do business. Next time, make sure you’re trying to recruit someone who may wall _want_ the job you’re pushing.

Also, and as a s(n)ide note: Talentburst didn’t just lose a candidate (and some self-respect). They lost a client. I mean, who _pays_ to get embarrassedlike this?

Senior Talent Acquisition Positions – Mobiquity – Boston, New York City

Just to follow up on my previous post, here’s the official job:

Senior Talent Acquisition Specialists – Mobiquity – Boston and NYC Offices

Are you interested in being a key part of a new recruiting department – one that’s focused on 21^st Century recruiting? Inbound-marketing oriented, utilizing the most cutting edge tools available today, a team that will invent practices and approaches that will be emulated by other recruiters?

Want to change the world (of recruiting, at any rate)? Want to have fun while you’re at it, as part of a highly respected team that works for a company that gets how important recruiting is?

Then, what are you waiting for? Seriously: skip reading the rest of this if you understand how unique that all is, and apply. Now. Toot suite, and all of that. And (or), reach out to Martin Burns, Director of Talent Acquisition: www.linkedin.com/in/martinburns/

The idea is: you get it, too. You’re a recruiter, and you think that’s pretty darned cool. You’re proud of what you do. You want to be valued, given lots of room to experiment, and take pride in helping build a company. It’s what you do.

Recruiting for a services company is fascinating: the number of moving parts, dynamic nature of the business, and how important it is to hire the absolute best makes it a unique environment for recruitment. Layer in a start-up, rapidly scaling tech company on the cutting edge of the next wave of technology, and you’ve got a unique challenge. Mobiquity is a professional services firm working with the Global 2000 to create innovative mobile solutions and apps that drive business value.  Combining strategy, user-experience design, app development and backend integration, Mobiquity delivers solutions that span the entire mobile ecosystem, driving business innovation and competitive advantage. The people are key – and, so is recruitment.

Here are some bullets….

Roles & responsibilities

• Be awesome. Funny helps, too.
• Create, and maintain, talent pools of appropriate candidates for a group of roles you’ll own – heavy on the tech side, but likely to include a mix of marketing, sales, G&A, etc
• Treat your candidates like people – because, that’s what they are. Get back to them on time, be honest about their status, don’t overpromise.
• Partner closely with hiring authorities, making sure you understand what they need, and keeping up active communication with them throughout the hiring process.
• Create engaging recruitment-marketing, from job descriptions and live events, to campaigns that drive candidates to the company.
• Research & source from unique corners – you’re not on Monster: you’re on GitHub & Stack Overflow.
• Prescreen candidates: you find it a point of pride that when it’s time to make an offer, you know exactly what it will take to close the A-player you’re looking to bring onboard.
• Gather input from subject matter experts across the company – you’re probably a sponge by nature. You find learning fantastic.
• Set up related campaign workflow, tracking and alerts within the CRM and marketing automation systems
• Track, analyze and communicate to stakeholders about candidates, the hiring market, and what it will take to keep a pipeline of A-level candidates engaged and – ultimately – hired.

Qualifications & experience

• At least 3-5 years of experience in a fast-paced recruitment environment
• Ideally, you’ve worked corporate and agency sides of the business
• Experience working with an ATS – we use JobVite, but that’s not required, everything’s teachable
• You like people – and, they tend to like you…
• Solid writing skills – you have fun creating engaging copy and job descriptions
• Did we mention a sense of humor?
• Organizational skills help – but, not rigidity. You need to be comfortable with a bit of chaos. It’s spicy.

Seeking Extraordinary Talent Acquisition Professionals: Boston, Redwood City, and Beyond

In putting together a job description/ ad for the talent acquisition professionals I’m looking for, I wound up writing a manifesto. Not sure it’s what I’ll run with, but I like it. Kind of a lot. thought it deserved life somewhere, and since I have this handy-little platform available to me, I’m going to take advantage. Please, feel free to pass along, dissect, disavow, dissemble, diagnose… just, don’t duplicate (unless you’re willing to pin the blame on me). Never was a fan of copycats.

In any event: I’m building a team. It’s going to be fun. There’s loads of potential, a great platform, some interesting challenges, and support from the executive team. Don’t expect me to breathe down your neck, but do expect me to help you when you need it. I know I need people in Waltham (near Boston), Redwood City (that’d be near San Francisco), and I’ll probably need somebody in Gainesville.

Senior Talent Acquisition Consultant                                                                                                                               

Ever want to be part of building something extraordinary? Now’s your chance.

Why Join Mobiquity? Why Now? Because it’s Your Best Move, and Now is When it’s Available

There’s a reason why thought-leaders like Andrew Hiser, the pioneer of human-centered software design, have joined Mobiquity. It’s because they see the future becoming the present: Mobile changing everything.

It’s the 5^th Wave. The world in your pocket. Applications that tell doctors how well your medication is working as it passes through your body, to ones that alert a restaurant that you’ve pulled into their lot and are ready for you to walk their take-out to them.

Apps that help drug addicts recover, and apps that will help you retire wealthy.

We’re not talking about flinging birds at pigs anymore (fun as that is). We’re talking about changing how people behave, how business gets done, and how we will shape the future.

Mobiquity is at the leading edge of the wave. Positioned to define the future of mobile, a name that will become as familiar to the world as the names of the biggest successes out of the Internet wave.

Talent Acquisition Makes it All Possible

Without solid talent, organizations stagnate, and fade away. Without the greatest talent, organizations can’t surge, can’t become the key leaders in their space. Our job is to make sure that happens. We seek real recruiters. Budding talent acquisition thought leaders. We get the big It: that it’s always about the people. That A players hire A players, while B’s hire C’s, C’s hire D’s, and well… then you get to F. Failure.

Our role is to find the A’s, engage with them, excite them, and help them through the hiring process. We’re matchmakers to the Nth degree, but we’re also business people. We use marketing, social media, talent pools, innovative sourcing & research, and a degree of sales skills to attract the very best. We never cut corners, we don’t lie, harass, or avoid hard truths: we are the A-players of recruitment.

We Are Looking for You

Join us, if you see recruitment as much of a calling as a profession – if it’s your passion, as much as your paycheck. We’re going to blow some things up. You should find that exciting. You should find process a tool best used lightly. You should be funny. Funny matters, in this role and in life.

If you’re sitting there, thinking “holy crap – I’ve been looking for this!”, you have a next step in your journey to greatness: Find Martin Burns, Director of Talent Acquisition at Mobiqutiy. Work for him, if you want a boss who wants you to teach him some new skills, who wants you to try new approaches and make some mistakes along the way, and who wants to hire people who he can help grow into leaders in our game-changing, rapidly evolving  profession.

Make the Best Move – Join Mobiquity

You can find Martin all sorts of places: mburns@mobiquity.com. 617.851.7277. twitter. linkedin. facebook. etc, etc…. You’re in the game. You get it.

Related articles

• Dr. Changelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying, and Went to Mobiquity (recruiter.wordpress.com)

Dr. Changelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying, and Went to Mobiquity

Funny, how life goes. A few weeks ago, I was buzzing along, running Talent MatchUp & working with a great client called Magenic. I’d been working onsite with them for a little over two years, and it was great. Smart people to work with, a nifty little model that I think may be a significant part of how we do recruitment in the future, and I’d become friends with many of the people there.

All that said… something was missing.

That’s not unusual, of course. You spend a few years doing the same thing, and you can start to feel a bit stale. The work had become fairly routine, I was in a pattern, and… I hate that. I’m not someone who’s good at rinse-cycle-repeat, and that’s where I’d gotten myself. Not that the work didn’t have its fun challenges, but still. I wanted something harder.

Like many entrepreneurs, I don’t know how to say “ahh, this is good – don’t mess it up.” On the contrary. I honestly think I exist to mess things up. A little bit of chaos, of weird, seems to suit me. It’s probably why the Absurdists have always resonated with me. Why I felt so at home the first time I stepped into the ICA. Why I find comfort in The Fairy Fellers Master Stroke.

Safety isn’t exactly in my power alley.

So. Last Tuesday, like I do from time to time (and, you should, too), I reached out to my network. Said something along the lines of “I’m sure you haven’t, but if you’ve heard of my dream job being open, could you let me know?”

See, here’s the thing: sometimes, when you speak into the Void? The Void also speaks back to you.

In this case, it was my friend Steven. He’d heard of something. Something that was Really Cool. Perfect. Insanely great. So, like I’m always telling people they should do, I took the resume I routinely update (you should, too), and shot it to him. He made an intro to their insanely great Chief People Officer. We had coffee. She’s insanely great.

So’s the team that she lined up to meet me on Monday. They’re really great. Winning dream-time kind of people. A smart idea, and first to market. Profitable in their first year. An inspirational founder who has multiple successes under his belt. Big goals, and smart plans on how to achieve them. I really wanted in.

So… yeah. It happened. The big IT. Susan (the Chief People Officer – did I mention, insanely awesome?) asked me to come onboard, and build their recruiting department. I think I hesitated for…. no. Nope, didn’t hesitate. Couldn’t. Took the job.

So, in my rambling way, I’m very (very) happy to announce that I will be joining Mobiquity later this month, as their Director of Talent Acquisition. I’ll be rolling up Talent MatchUp in the meantime, since Mobiquity is going to be scaling hugely, and will need all of my focus (along with the recruitment team I’ll be building). It also means that Magenic will be looking for an experienced talent acquisition specialist for Waltham (know a good one? send ‘em my way, and I’ll treat ‘em right).

Mobiquity is going to be big. They’re a year out of the gate, and already a leader in the mobile space – and, with IT directors now saying that mobile spending will be  growing by 50% in 2013, that’s a good place to be. The executive team is impressive. Well planned expansion underway. They’re – wait, _we’re_  going to be hiring. A lot.

If you – or, someone you know – is looking to get in early with a game-changer, this is it. Find me anyway you can, and let me know who you (or they) are.

Short term (ie, yesterday, if possible), I’m looking to hire several experienced Sales Executives for New York and Philadelphia, as well as a Client Partner for New York. I’m going to have a lot more to share, soon (developers, developer, developers….G&A. Marketing. Recruiters…). Stay tuned.

Also: the career site needs some work. Which I find geekily exciting. Just bear with us for a brief bit.

The Funny Things Candidates Send Us

JobMob has a post up with a list of funny things candidates send to recruiters (hint: if you’re formatting your resume like a Playboy centerfold “fact sheet” – and you list “intelligent people” as your biggest turn-on, spell intelligent right). It’s a pretty fun read, and eye-opening. Some of those tactics actually worked.

Granted – many of them don’t. I generally recommend you only go all-in if you’ve got a good, relevant reason to do so (for instance, I’m sure Playboy’s seen the centerfold-resume schtick before, and are probably okay with it, but Bank of America might not think it’s as… appropriate). Also, be careful what you send – boob cupcakes (sense a theme here?) can, and did, misfire.

In my time, I’ve gotten a few fun ones: giant novelty aspirin; Target flip-flops; a vinyl copy of Stand! by Sly and the Family Stone; a copy of The 21 Balloons; money (seriously – well, not “real” money, just a book of McDonald’s coupons – which showed lack of research, as I’m not a fan of the golden arches). Actually, the only one that got the candidate an interview was the giant aspirin, and that’s because it was a prop in a nifty marketing campaign from the candidate. Who I’m still in contact with, because he’s clever and interesting.

I’m curious – if you’re a recruiter, what sort of weird/ greatness have you gotten? If you’re a candidate, ever tried this approach? Succeed? Fail? Would you do it again?