Follow the bouncing ball. In 2005, Monster agrees to be a reseller for an ATS called HRsmart. Over time, as the market shifts and other tools (Indeed, LinkedIn) outmaneuver Monster, it decides to roll itself out as a product company that also happened to have a deep candidate database, and a job board. They bought several companies, and began offering career site hosting, nominal job distribution, etc. They kept HRsmart at part of that offering, but did not acquire the technology
*(As an aside, the ATS is a super important tool to not control it as part of your tech-offering stack, if you’re offering a full stack solution for sale…)
Monster sells its solution to a number of companies.
In 2015, HRsmart is acquired by Deltek, a poor-man’s, wanna be Oracle.
You remember them, from the movies, right..?
They decide that since Oracle has an ATS, they need one too. Support and development at HRsmart stops almost immediately. ATS begins to go down for clients, sometimes for days on end.
In 2016, Monster is acquired by Randstad, which has its own set of tools, as well as investments in numerous recruiting tech start-ups. Including some which could compete with Monster’s tech stack – so, is the tech at Monster being sunsetted, merged, or what..?
This week, HRsmart drops the ball with at least a dozen clients. Jobs do not post, and applying is turned off, as they announce that Deltek is being acquired by Roper Technologies. And if you use HRsmart, and think things were bad under Deltek? Just you wait. This ride’s gonna get all sorts of bumpy for you.
Here’s the thing – this is where it helps to be able to “dial a friend”. If any company that bought HRsmart over the past few years had asked for our advisement, they would not be in the boat they’re in now.
It’s that simple. HireClix Consulting Services (we’re calling it “Sherpa”) is designed to help avoid just these types of problems. We have spent years getting to know the technology in our space – who’s doing what, where, what’s the innovation, what’s breaking, who integrates with who & how, who simply cannot be implemented, and on and on. Our depths and breadth of knowledge in talent acquisition technology comes from years of working within the space. We install, rip out, reinstall, fine tune, etc, ATSs, live within their CRM, marketing platforms, sourcing tools. Manage our clients’ tool selection processes. Partner with the investment space, providing guidance to HC tech investors. Test products and help with design for vendors.
And, because of all of that – we don’t build products. Not ever. Any consulting firm that tries to offer advice on what tool to buy, when they build a tool like that… is pretty suspect. Our guidance is agnostic – client driven, and knowledge informed. We can get you to the top of your next mountain.
Meantime, if you’re reading this, and you’re using Monster’s technology, call us. Asap. It’s free – we’d like to help, since the site dropping, and acquisition, cannot be fun to be dealing with. Just email martin.burns@hireclix.com, or call: 617-851-7277.
I’m doing something meta here. Just got spammed by a recruiting agency that’s clearly too fond of Constant Contact, and clearly doesn’t care to do research. So, writing them back, but via social. Because it was a social media job. So: meta. Right? Is that how it works? I have no idea. Anyways: bit of a rant, with some blue language. Just ‘cuz.
Since they decided it was okay to spam me by name, I feel like it’s okay to mention them by name. Since, you know: fairness.
Dear Entech Network Solutions:
Nope. I am not a social media strategist. Nor am I receptive to what is clearly a mass-mailing. Call me arrogant, call me an individual, or – crazy as this sounds – call me freaking human. Nobody appreciates random recruiter spam (no one – no one, at all). We all hate it. And, it doesn’t work – in fact, the more you do it, the more people come to hate recruiters, and the more likely it is they will refuse to engage with them.
In other words: you are spamming yourself, and so many recruiters who actually give a fuck, out of business.
Here’s the damned spam:
Hi Martin,
I wanted to check in with you and see if you are open to new job opportunities! We currently have a client in New York City with an opening for a Social Media Strategist. We also have other similar opportunities for the same client in Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA.
The ideal candidate would have a strong paid social media background. They should also be heavily client facing and be a key player in the clients’ social strategy to optimize performance marketing across all social channels.
To find out more about this positions click below:
If this is not the right fit or time for you, we are offering a $500 referral payout bonus if the candidate you connect us with gets hired by our client. Please pass this message along as I would love the opportunity to partner with you.
I hope to catch up with you soon!
Sincerely,
Blah. Bleck. Had to get that off my chest. If you’re reading this, and you’re not in recruiting, just know that not all of us are like this. Many of us love helping match people and jobs, it’s why we do it. We give a crap, in other words. But… clearly, not all of us do.
Also, Entech? The mid-90s called. They want their web site back.
*Update: I did email the recruiter back directly, and asked her to think about focusing on quality, as opposed to playing the numbers game (I may have said “this spray and pray approach doesn’t work”). Her response? “Spray and pray serves us well”. So… I guess they’re… proud of it..? FML
It’s entirely possible you heard the news. Possible. Certainly, if you work in the recruiting industry, it’s definitely possible. Maybe even highly so.
Anyways: Randstad (big giant Dutch recruitment process outsourcing company) bought (former) big giant US job board company Monster.
Which is interesting.
This acquisition may benefit Randstad – the integrations are going to be fascinating – and there’s nothing wrong with that. If they really keep the Monster brand intact, it’s going to be tough long-term (and I don’t see them doing that). So, if it’s not to create an entire separate product company, and it’s me at Randstad, I’m doing this for a simple reason.
Growth, through (a modest) diversification.
The RPOs have had several years of growth in the EU and Asia-Pac, but were more stagnant in the States and Latin America. They’ll likely slow in the EU (political and economic instability may hinder job growth), but continue to scale in Asia-Pac, as hiring by scale vs quality is still more the need for many of the larger manufacturers. The larger RPOs have been retooling internal processes lately, seeking innovations in models, technology, offerings, etc. On the technology side alone, many, if not all, of them are dealing with legacy contracts from clients, have to work with disparate ATS’s due to their client base, often don’t do CRM internally, etc. Because of this, they don’t have the ability to get a strong handle on source tracking, SEO, etc etc, because their data is in multiple places.
Ranstad’s move makes sense, in this context. If they want to rip out a number of internal, hodgepodge systems, and replace them with something new, unified, and efficient (not to mention being able to provide this suite, at a cost, as a service to clients), then they have two options: build from the ground up, or buy an existing stack and adapt it.
Here’s why I think it adds up. First, Randstad is buying a stack that has some tested technology across most of the recruitment cycle. I say most of, for a reason. There are a couple important gaps.
Roughly, define the recruitment process as starting with “we need to hire someone” to end with “they started”. It’s everything in that gap. Monster’s tools hit at pieces of that process (sometimes over and over) – they’ve got workforce planning tools to get the job opened, advertising and research tools to find people, a CRM to keep track of leads, a career site hosting product for you, and an applicant tracking system (ATS) so you can track people as they apply and move through your process. The issue is… not all of it works well, or necessarily together. There are still issues with integration across the tools. The CRM is a challenge, to say the least. And – strangely – the ATS and career site hosting offerings aren’t even Monster-owned products.
That’s right: two of, one could easily argue, the most important parts of the overall hiring process, are not Monster. They’re HRSmart, owned by . HRSmart no longer works very well (source tracking is minimal-to-nothing, career site occasionally goes offline for hours – sometimes an entire day, etc). We’ve been urging Monster to work on the issues, but… well, not their product. And the products owners are Deltek, which is simply a private equity backed acquisition play that is not investing in development. So they’re not gonna fix it.
I see a possible future. If Randstad completes their acquisition, they’ll have some holes to fill in the offering stack. Notably, ATS and career site. Randstad invests in recruitment technology, and there’s an opinion out there that it’s simply as a way to test and potentially acquire technology firms. One of their investments is a platform called gr8people: a career-site product, ats, and CRM all in one.
Again, if I’m doing strategy at Randstad, I’m sliding those products into the stack, and shoving HRSmart out. Heck, I’m looking at my entire portfolio, and saying “can we really step up, and offer a working ERP that focuses purely on TA? It makes sense, right? You get your own internal ERP running, since it can track the vast majority of your product cycle; can offer a full stack to your clients; and get all that anonymized data in one spot, finally, where you can begin to build data models.
Here’s the rub for you, the HRSmart user: this doesn’t happen tomorrow. You’re still stuck with a platform that’s frustrating, and not going to get any better due to the integration. You may get access to the Randstad stack at some point, but it’s going to come with costs (higher fees, unlikely you’ll be able to just buy career site hosting & ATS, pressure to go RPO).
If it’s me, and now I’m just me, the guy who used to run Talent Acquisition at a few places, and thinks about this stuff way too much, I’m going to want to hear about options if I’m an HRSmart customer. Heck, I may just want to hear about options because I don’t like my current platform. If only for safety, to make sure what I’m doing makes sense (there are a loooot of options out there right now).
Can I Help?
Since I’ve been there, and feel your pain, I’d love to make an offer (paying it forward, since I’ve been given similar help in my time).
Call me. Well, or e-mail me for times, and we’ll set something up. A half-hour chat, about where you’re at, and what are your options. I’ll pontificate, probably, but mostly there will be good advice, and probably some laughs. A shared war story. Or two.
Here’s the info: Phone: 617-488-9444
E-mail: martin@hireclix.com
…a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. Wait… hang on, scroll past the picture.
Right then. The thing is, I’m in recruiting, and I get to conferences. A few weeks ago, at the Indeed Interactive conference, Jessica Miller-Merrell, and I got to talking at the bar, as people do. We were talking about all sorts of stuff (as people do). Our backgrounds came up – how we got to be where we are in our careers at that point in time. As I was talking about things, she said “You know, I don’t think a lot of people know how deep your background in the industry goes – you need to fix that. You should definitely write about it.”
I said I would. But I didn’t mean it. Or at least I didn’t think I did. I’ve made the same promise before, about writing in general – Jeff Newman is probably pissed about it, in his affable way. My college advisor gave up years ago.
I suspect my mom has given up, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. And that’s a two-way street, Mother!
(This guy hasn’t given up. But he’s a hopeless romantic.)
ANY-who. Then, this thread showed up on Facebook. I’d link to it, but you may not be able to read it. Here’s a screen grab, just to give a sense:
There were many sincere responses. People opened up about loving to help people. About bringing real change to an industry that has a bad (and, frankly, oft deserved) bad reputation. Improving the candidate experience. Changing lives. Changing how business is done.
And I, one of the industries awkward court jesters (there’s always at least one), wrote this:
I mean, it was kinda true.
But I felt bad. Flip, flippant, too cool for school.
Plus I’d promised to write about it.
AND, legitimate work reason: I need to sell my skills now. Because I am now a Consultant. That’s right: capital. Freaking. C. Baby. At a real company – a cool one, at that.
So… here it is: the story of RecruiterMoe (erm, that’s me – by way of starters: Moe was a childhood nickname from my godmother, I am a recruiter, and that Twitter handle happened be very available for some shocking reason…). Not the whole damn thing, mind you – I aim to leave a little mystery. So just the first chapters fleshed out, how I went from “Shit. I majored in writing poetry??” To somehow becoming someone who knows things people are willing to pay to gain access to. Holder of secrets and pathfinder of sorts. I’ll close with a sales pitch. Because: Consultant.
A genuine industry sherpa. Who woulda thunk?
Chapter 1: Zero Dark Recruity
College was interesting. Tucked away in the far far north of the States. Lots of characters, time spent in the deep woods. Then wrapping up in London and Europe. I bumbled around for a few years – argued with Franciscan monks about God. Moved to the South for a girl. Ran a bookstore. Things got Tennessee Williams level complex in my love life. Ran my ass back up to the North in a GTI that was a souped up and way too fast… I loved that car.
Tried my hand at publishing. The GTI and I parted ways at some point. Blown clutch, and trying to fund a business booking rock and hip hop acts around Boston made for a hard choice. Possible I should have chosen the car, possible not. Got to hang with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Perry Farrell, and this guy who called himself Moby. Almost got into a fist fight with the lead singer from the Lemonheads. Fun times, but bills to pay…
So… soon, I’m looking for a job. I have a stutter & talk way way way too fast.
I went looking. In the newspaper. That’s right: I. Am. Old. Monster was just emerging from under a router in an HR companies server room (I am not making that up) at that point. Newspapers had all the jobs.
I found an ad. It did make me laugh. And I found CPS – this client focused, ethical, old-school recruiting agency. Decided to use the word fiduciary in round 2 of my interviews, just to see if I could, because I thought it was funny.
They made me an offer. I think it was because the branch director was an obsessive reader of great books, and hated TV. We got to talking about books in the interview.
About that speech impediment? Making a living at full commission, on the phone (so: voice only) made a ton of sense.
Seriously: I wanted to force myself to talk slower. Fear of not eating, and being evicted, seemed like decent motivators to me at the time. Plus if I did it right: money. I was sick of eating ramen noodles, and praying I didn’t get sick, since, hey who needs health insurance, amiright? (Thanks for not being President yet, Obama… could have used your help). Over the next 5 years, I was trained in a few things:
Service, to clients and to candidates, is a granted privilege (that’s the company motto)
Screw that up, by being dishonest or cutting corners, and you’re don’t deserve to be a recruiter
I thought that was how all recruiters felt (I was, sadly, very wrong)
Mistakes happen – just own them when they do
Money isn’t the most important thing, but it helps pay bills – just don’t make it everything
Talk slower… No, Martin: slower
I had a girlfriend who hated how I talked to her when I was on the phone from work “You talk so normal.”
I knew I’d won something at that point
I also convinced them that using e-mail was okay. And that the Internet, and e-commerce companies, were okay to do business with.
Chapter 2: Internet and Ecommerce Companies Are Not Always Good to Do Business With (Or: what they hell is that sound? It sounds like something popped… like a million VC-backed companies crying out in anguish all at once, and then… nothing)
2001-2005 quite literally sucked at a business level. On a personal level, I got married and became a dad. Took a lot of the suckage out of things, and replaced it with this blissful exhaustion. My wife was generally freaked out at the roller coaster a full commission recruiter’s income becomes when the economy is in free-fall. I left CPS and took an outside sales job selling agendas and 7-Habits curriculum to school districts that were watching their budgets get slashed every minute. Managed to increase the territories sales – I am not sure how I did this. I drove a fantastic old brown Legacy wagon named Midge.
One day, I saw my future, and… no.
Chapter 3: Once More, Into the Breach
I missed the hell out of recruiting. I’d been so good at it. It was fun, I got to meet new people, learn about all kinds of businesses, and I could support a family. Decided to go back in.
I wanted to try out corporate – no idea why, aside from a vague feeling that being a hired gun gets tiring. And I was curious. On the agency side of the world, corporate recruitment gets ridiculed. I wanted to find out if all the snide comments were true.
But then I got to thinking that there was no company in the world that would hire me into corporate, with the economy still shaky, what with me having been out of the game for a few years. So I went and talked to a bunch of agencies, found one that seemed promising, and took a desk.
I didn’t like it. The thing at CPS was all about ethics and service. That we checked references thoroughly on candidates before submitting them, verified college degrees, all of it. If we found out something bad, we did not submit them. Period. We could call and talk through the issue with the client, if the candidate had a strong enough background and whatever we’d uncovered seemed potentially reasonable, but it was never to be done as a sell. Our job was to protect our clients, not make money and run. And that went to candidates, too – bad clients who didn’t treat their people well were verboten. The idea was that behaving this way, paying it forward, would come back as a benefit – a long game. You’d hear from clients, as well as candidates, quite often “You people at CPS are just different from any other recruiters I’ve ever worked with – you seem like real people.”
It was naive of me to think that was the norm. Turns out, most agencies will tell their people: “If you find a bad reference, bury that shit and find a good one. Tell the candidate to never bring it up. Also, you found out they lied about their degree? Only submit them to clients you know don’t do degree verification. Get the placement.”
I really didn’t like it. I couldn’t do it, and decided to leave.
At the same time, I was reading this new (to me) site, called ERE. Lots of great info on recruiting, trends, etc etc. People who seemed to believe in recruiting as a calling. A way of doing good, while making a living. Cool stuff. One day, while reading it, I saw an ad for a company called ZoomInfo. I liked their tech, and got a demo. I was also in the habit (still am) of checking out interesting companies for fun. I’d recently written Big Ass Fans a fan letter (yeah, pun intended), and gotten a bag of swag as a thank you. I was thinking about doing the same with ZoomInfo, when I realized they were 1 goddam mile from my house.
1 mile. So, I went to their career site. They were looking for someone to run corporate recruiting! I’d never done that before. But, I figured, at one point I’d never ridden a bike. Or kissed a girl. There’s always a first time, right?
You know what I did? I wrote the Mother of all Cover Letters. It was beautiful. I wish I still had it (this was pre-Cloud, and it’s likely on a hard drive in some dusty corner). Bryan Burdick, who I suspect is a genius, was the new COO there. He loves good writing, and he appreciates a great cover letter.
He hired me. It was time for me to hang my guns up, and ride out of town.
Chapter 4: Goodbye Shane, and Hello Sheriff
To tell you the truth, Bryan’s brilliant. I also suspect he’s insane. He’d just hired a guy whose entire recruiting experience consisted of working on the agency side, recruiting actuaries and accountants, to build internal recruiting at a fast-growing internet start-up. Not only that, but the CEO had the classic engineering-CEO disdain of HR. So, it was up to our controller and me to be HR. Bear in mind: I’d only been in an HR department once, years earlier, and it was to get yelled at.
Have you met me? There is no way I should ride shot-gun on an HR department. I mean, when they told me they were thinking about doing sexual harassment training, I quipped “There’s a class for that? I thought that stuff just comes naturally to some people.”
We were hiring software engineers – and not just web-devs, but experts in natural language processing, AI-driven, big-data search. Before those skills were at least relatively common in the software community. In a location that was nowhere near Cambridge or Boston. In an office park in a remote corner of a suburb. The subway did not, and will never, go there. Hell, the nearest bus stop was blocks away. And they wanted shiny kids from MIT.
We were also hiring marketers. Sales reps. Product managers. Executives.
Oh, and, over 4 years, maybe 3 accountants.
Like the GTA sheriff above, I decided to get scrappy (no, I didn’t shoot anybody – thought about it, but didn’t go for it). Since I was a department of one, I needed to use tools, I figured, to increase my destructive power – err, reach. So, I decided an ATS was a good idea.
(Btw, day 1 on the job? Nobody was expecting me. My boss wasn’t in yet. My desk was covered in a layer of dust, the light didn’t work, and the IT guys – who I rapidly came to love – had no idea I was starting, so hadn’t set up my desktop yet. Also: I had a used desktop. Not a laptop.
One of the first things I created was an onboarding plan).
I knew jack-shit about corporate. About software. About, hell: Excel.
When the Director of Core Dev said “We need to create some reqs,” my first thought was “Wrecks? I know about getting wrecked. Maybe he wants to go binge drinking?”
Luckily I knew how to fake it, and figure it out fast. Plus – turns out, not knowing what I was doing was an advantage. I didn’t know any better. Figured what I was doing was normal.
So… I found an ATS. Shopped around, did bake-offs. In the end, Colin Kingsbury had a solid one called HRMDirect that fit our needs. So I learned how to implement an ATS. Which meant not sleeping for a while, but: learning experience. We were a startup, figured that’s how we did it.
There were a lot of reqs. That’s right: I’d figured out what the word meant (thanks you Google). Hell, I’d gone and created a req-approval process that included service-level-agreements with the hiring managers, all done paperless. So I was sourcing. Prepping candidates. Scheduling interviews. Checking references. Making offers. Assessing, and training, interviewers on interviewing. Created an offer letter doc and process. Full-boat recruiting.
And… I was doing content marketing. Without any clue, I was doing inbound marketing before HubSpot was even a blip. It wasn’t genius. It was just me assuming “This makes sense, this will make my life easier, I’m assuming everyone else is doing this because it makes sense. I have so many reqs. Holy shit I need more candidates! Whadda ya mean you want a weekly dashboard for the exec team – aaargh….” Finding a way to multiply myself mattered. I was encouraging our employees to blog (this was 2006 – blogging was this random new thing – I know, I know… amazing how quickly things age…) Getting their names out there, tied back into our career site. Creating thought leadership everywhere we could that candidates we wanted might see it. Set up a blog on my side, too – the one you’re reading.
It seemed pretty clear that a blog that was all just reposted jobs would be.. boring. Like a radio station that was all ads – not content. So I decided to make mine about career advice, with the occasional post about ZoomInfo (like, every 5 or 6). I found a widget that could pull in freshly published jobs into a sidebar on the blog, from our carer site.
We set up an employee referral program, and worked with Marketing to create buzz (proud to say that at its peak, we were over 60% employee referrals).
Oh: and the career site got rebuilt. That was fun. Learned about A/B testing. Site maps. Created a voice for our employment brand in the process. It doesn’t look the same anymore – I still think mine was better.
Rock Stars: that may be my fault. Not sure. All I know is, I was up one night, late, and needed a generic description. I didn’t want to miss great people once I’d pulled them into the site, just because they didn’t see an opening. So… I was watching the show 6 Feet Under. One of the characters called the other “You’re such a rock star!”
It seemed cool at the time. Different. I wrote a description called “General Rock Stars”. It got blogged a bunch as a great example of how to do a job description. Next thing I knew…
Look: I never called anyone a ninja. Or guru. But, rock stars is something I caused, or at least helped accelerate: mea culpe. I just liked the line in the show…
Along the years, I kept trying on hats: designed & project managed a physical expansion of our headquarters; stepped into product marketing when we laid off our recruitment product marketing team; did some of the aforementioned HR stuff; worked a booth at conferences with our sales team; gave some talks to recruiting teams, helping schlep our products. Wrote copy (I’m fond of the summary I wrote here). It kind of goes on from there…
End of the day, I took an offer for a package, when the company shrank in 2010 – and it was perfect timing. I’d done a ton. Learned a lot. Had fun, got tired, did it again. But it was time.
Chapter 5: And This is Where I Start to Leave You
Look, you’re read a lot. If you’re still here (hi Mom). So thanks. I promise this starts to wind down.
After ZoomInfo, I kept going. Started my own business – Talent MatchUp – helping with talent products, career site design, branding, sourcer training.
Realized I was faking it. Went to Paris. Did a bunch of thinking on bridges.
Paris was fun. And it gave me time to think about consulting. I knew I enjoyed it, and that I had information, and leadership, to offer, but that I wasn’t fully baked yet.
Chapter 6: PreBirth of the Cool Consultant
Here’s some advice: If you’re hiring a consultant, make sure they’ve actually done your job (or something equivalent) before. If they haven’t led TA, built a department, hired & fired… if they haven’t implemented an ATS that they then had to live with, haven’t built and run processes that – you guessed it – they had to live with… how can they help you do that? Consultants who haven’t taken arrows, spears, and blows to the head as a result of their decisions cannot help you avoid those types of injuries. They lack the nuanced information that comes with doing the job. That’s what I realized in Paris.
To get to that point, where I could feel legitimate in my advising, I focused my company on being a mini-RPO for one major client, who I could get to know well, and advise, and prepped myself to go back inside. Joined, and then as head of global TA scaled a company from under 100 employees to close to 450, helped lead their international expansion, lived part time abroad, built teams & managed them. Then went to PwC. Learned about massive corporate, about matrixed environments. About OFCCP compliance – and what it’s like to live in that environment, and the subtle ways to work there. Helped them transform their recruitment technologies.
I built skills, in other words. Because, I wanted to be able to give advice that came from actual experience. Advice that would help, and create value – because as I’d learned several chapters back, that’s the long-game. Not spending 6 months at a client, hand them a deck with high-level buzzwords and bill them 6-figures (that happens, and people let it happen).
Chapter 7: C for Consultant (or: Bring the Noise, Bring the Pitch)
We’re building something bold. Funky. Fresh. The team here is brilliant – I’ve used them as a vendor in the past, and the contrast with the TMP’s of the world is shocking. Service matters to me, as does expertise – if that’s not clear already. This team lives and breaths those attributes. They’ve built on that, and the client list is scaling rapidly – Fortune firms are moving over, and others are trying to end contracts to do the same. They know how to help companies improve recruiting technology efficiences, are service consultants for some of the leading ATS & CRM platforms, build creative, etc. It’s a solid offering. With my joining, we’re setting up a service that will provide practitioners with real world advice and guidance around talent acquisition, particularly technology. How to gauge its effectiveness. How to untangle the spaghetti mess of legacy systems. What tools to invest in towards the future, and what the future looks like. How to get their purchases approved.
Need to write an RFP? We’ve got real-world experience there. Want to do a pilot, and measure it? Done that over and over. Need a perspective on why you didn’t select the tool the Managing Director’s wife’s cousin built that “He’s sure we’ll want to use – oh, and he told me that he’s in talks with all of our competitors”. Lived that, can help you be ready with docs, decks, whatever you need for air cover. Heck, you can even make us the scapegoat – that’s our job. We will help you look amazing.
So… yeah. This was supposed to be acres shorter. Became a bit of a ramble, wound up with a sales pitch (hey, I’m excited, okay?). You can reach me here: martin@hireclix.com
I’ll leave you with this. Complete non-sequitor, but he is America’s finest actor.
Here’s the thing: I believe experience can change us. That we’re just lumps of rock, and time is the wind, the water, washing over us. We are eroded as we go. I chose to control my shaping, as much as I could, early in my career. Not the minutia, the fine lines, but the broader strokes. To seize the wind and the water, and point it’s power at sections of me that I wanted to change. If I was shy, stuttered, talked too fast, and had a hard time talking, wrote poetry and read sci-fi? I was going to go into a role with that required me to be chatty, charismatic, etc: recruitment. Full commission. No draw. No food if I failed.
That’s the origin story – there’s tons of stupid detail behind that, and we can talk over beers about it someday, but I want to move forward and justify both my blog title, and my career. Because I stuck with it. I made this happen, and I’m proud of that.
I still talk way too fast. I still love sci fi. I’m still shy (I have managed to mask that last bit beautifully, but know this, when we’re talking, that I’m not 100% sure you give a crap – you’re still the coach, and I’m that kid you just kind hadda deal with). But… I found a lever. And I want to change the world. Because that’s important, in life. I don’t want to die without making change. My legacy will not be “he was that nice, quiet kid who wrote poem, wonder what ever happened to him…” No. Since I’m not a person of faith, my view is that this is my one shot, and I want it to count. To move the world.
Nothing major…
Archimedes once wrote: “give me a lever long enough, and I will move the world”. I can get behind that. I need a lever, before I go.
The economy matters – goods, commerce, food, all of it. It’s the engine. It impacts how we eat, sleep, grow, meet, date, survive. Affect the economy? That’s a lever. But… how?
Recruitment. Mother-effing-recruitment. Think about it: the economy is about money. The transfer of goods, via symbols. The way to collect those symbols is via a job (yes, yes: “welfare, blah blah blah” – fuck you, by the way: study after study shows that most people want to work, it’s just part of our DNA). Jobs bring us money, we spend money, the wheel is lubricated, etc etc. If you can impact the speed at which people get hired, their carer arc, job satisfaction, etc, you are greasing the wheel. And, on the other side of the table, the faster companies can hire the right people (that last bit is huge, and making mistakes there is always why companies fail), the better they can grow, hire more, etc. It’s that whole virtuous circle thing.
Most of the people in my industry are clueless about how important they are in this equation. And, to be fair: a some of them are terrible at it. There’s a whole ‘nother blog post coming on that.
I think I get it – and it’s why, despite my wandering eye for a career as dime-store poet, I stay in the game: I’m holding that lever. What I’m doing effing matters. There are hardly any other careers out there that have this level of impact. Each time I make a positive change to my profession, it means somebody’s job search got better. They found work faster. Their kids are less hungry, they’re less stressed out, they’re reinvesting in the economy via Wegmans, funding the PTA, flying the friendly skies again, etc etc. They’re tickling the economy. And, my work powered that – it mattered. And, at an enterprise level, working with huge brands, it really matters. It scales. By being active in my industry, the blog, my speaking engagements (huge irony there), etc etc, I move my industry. The lever moves, and the world moves with it.
I will always be that kid who didn’t get picked – but screw that: I decided to captain my own fate. I found a lever, and I’m am putting my weight on it. I encourage you to do the same…
A few months ago, a recruiter texted me with an opportunity, one for which I was (and will always be) wildly unqualified for. I led them along for awhile – just because I was bored, and wanted to see how far it would go, but never lied. They just kept texting and texting. The whole thing ended when I texted that I tended to go into high pitched giggles when stressed in a phone interview, and how could they help me? That killed it.
Or, maybe it killed it. Because they did it again, a week later.
What brought it to mind, were the following inmails from Robert Half. It’s insane. I’m a recruiter, with a degree in poetry. I am in no way qualified to handle anyone’s money. No.
So, just a random thought: would some sort of Algonquin-esqe round table, only in Newburyport, MA, over a few days next summer interest any of my recruiting friends?
Admittedly, I’m being selfish, since I live in Newburyport, but on the flip side, it’s a great place to spend a couple mellow summer days. Far from (some) of the maddening crowd, too.
I’m not talking about an organized conference, per se, maybe more along the lines of Bill Boorman‘s TRUs, but even more “un” unconferency. Really just a chance for a bunch of us to spend a few days talking issues, while eating really good food (we’re surrounded by farms & the sea, so the food’s pretty amazing), sipping beer and wine (multiple breweries in town, vineyards just over the hill…), maybe sailing or just hiking and birdwatching on plum island? Vendors welcome (ie: help, we need some sponsorship if we want to make sure everyone, not just those from big brands, get a seat on the beach), but not vendor booth area – just be part of the convo, since you’ve got a perspective on it too.
Part of what’s driving this is that I’ve decided I hate (and I mean _hate_) giving talks – look, we all get nervous, but I’ve got a speech impediment to beat the band, and it’s triggered by nerves, so… yeah, things get funky for me. With that said, I love (and I mean _love_) having conversations (so, I like being panels, since they feel like conversations… I’d probably do well as a co-host on The View). So this is my way of making this fully about having a chat. With great people. While eating. By the ocean. Also, by gorgeous countryside. And a nifty downtown. Also, conversations….
Uggh. Alright, so first: it’s been 6 months since I posted. That’s insane. The new job at PwC is amazing, love my boss/ team/ and the work we’re doing. I’m very much in my happy place. All that said, time is whipping by. I’ll make an effort to be more diligent here. Maybe. Sorta.
Or, well, to be a bit more honest: I have no idea. I’ll try to write more. I love it, have a hacker-level ability at it, and gods know I need the catharsis… But. Yeah. I am loathe to promise.
All that said, it’s a typical busy day, err night by now, and I should be pushing a deliverable. I just need to vent for a second, about abuse. Abuse of my time, of LinkedIn, of recruiting in general. One particular thing. Spam.
I have a connection, whom I’ve never met, and I’m not sure how we connected. That’s fine – she seems legit, works in recruiting, etc. No big deal. But for this: her only communications to me, ever, are spam. I just got one, and I’m going to post it as an example of why, when I ask for feedback on “what’s your biggest complaint about LinkedIn”, I get responses like this one from an engineer friend of mine:
“Too many lazy recruiters sending job offers that aren’t applicable to some ones skill set or even better asking for free referrals #hacks#drainonhumanity“
That’s a huge issue for our industry. We’ve talked and talked about it at a leadership level, but then we see data showing individuals who have sent thousands of inmails in a single month.
Thousands. Plural. Figure an average of 22 wrk days per month. 4400 inmails. 200 a day. Being generous, let’s say 4 hours a day just sourcing on LinkedIn. So… 50 an hour. Basically one a minute. That, or just pure bulk messaging (and we all know that’s what it really is).
How can that be effective? Nobody responds to those, unless they’re desperate. And, if they’re responding, they probably applied already anyways. It’s just busywork, by a lazy recruiter, and it’s killing us.
Please. Stop. It. Just leave the industry if that’s your approach, or take the time to learn a new approach. All you’re doing is making people hate the rest of us… and, sometimes, you get blogged about for it.
In any event, here’s the inmail I got (redacted to, well, not be a jerk on my end). Bear in mind, this is from the president of a staffing firm who – supposedly – knows who I am, and what I do for a living. Knows that asking me for leads like this, and in this fashion, is futile – heck, under LinkedIn’s new rules tightly limiting the number of inmails recruiters can send per month, is actually a waste of money and time. Should also know I’m a mean son-of-a-gun at times. This is like poking a bear with a short stick…
Hi Martin,
We are hiring!!! (sorry, this is Martin – editorial note – what?I have actually blogged about how much I hate unnecessary exclamation points – and, kid, this is a case in point. Imagine someone coming up to you at a party and shouting at you like this “We’re hiring!! WEEE!!!” You’d want to knock them on the head with the punch bowl in self-defense. And everyone would applaud you). Even though it’s cold outside, the digital job market is HOT! We are looking for top talent to fill the following positions:
For full job details please visit our career page at
(best if viewed in IE) (Wait. Whaaa? So: “best viewed in a browser that nobody in digital or marketing will ever use!”… and these roles are all about digital and marketing… anyways: go on…)
Account Management /Strategy
• Group Planning Director-Performance Marketing- NYC
• Account Director – Digital Performance Marketing-CHI
• VP, Group Account Director- Dallas/Ft. Worth
• Digital Strategist-LA
• EVP, Group Account Director- Boston
Analytics
• Analytics Director- Boston
• Web Analyst- Chicago
• Supervisor, Insights and Data Science- Chicago
• Supervisor, Insights and Data Science-Social- NYC
Display Media
• Digital Media Planner-CHI
• Digital Media Planner- NYC
• Digital Media Planner- SF
• Associate Media Director- RTB-NYC (Really Trying BS? I don’t understand, but yes, that is what this email amounts to)
Email Marketing
• Deployment Consultant-Miami
Search/SEO
• Associate Director, Search- Chicago
• Media Manager-Paid Search- Chicago
• Sr. Media Manager-Paid Search- Search- NY
• Sr. SEO Strategist- NY
• Director of Paid Media- Dallas, PA (Was that where they shot JR? I always thought he was a Texan…)
Social Media
• Social Media Manager/Recruiter- Ft. Lauderdale (NO. You are one, or the other. NO.)
Sales
• VP, Business Development- Multi-channel -NYC
• Media Sales- Digital OOH/TV/Video-NYC (What? OOOH TV! Is that somebody who’s still excited about the talkies? I’m confused. Also, clearly, if I don’t even know what the title means…)
Tell your friends!!! (Oh, trust me: I am)
We are offering a referral bonus if your one of your referral is hired by our client. You will receive an iPad or $500 gift card for your first hired referral and $1000 cash for any additional referrals that are hired. Candidates must exceed their 90 day probationary period before a referral bonus is issued. Referrals are valid for 6 months.
Thanks for your help! (Oh, no – thank you. I needed a distraction…)
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?
design, branding, sourcer training.
HireClix
Perform special projects and other duties as assigned
Good to Know 