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Recruiting Trends for Job Seekers

Filed under: Candidates / Job Seekers, Career Building, Job Search, Resume

Recruiting Trends

Career Text On A Gold Key With Black Background As Symbol Of New Job

The Top 10 Best Recruitment Practices coming out of one the ERE Conference Think Tank Sessions include recommendations to hiring managers and recruiters on finding and engaging candidates. Carl Kutsmode’s article is a good read, especially for those recruiting talent.

 

Recruiting Trends for Job Seekers

What about advice for passive and active job seekers? How can job seekers understand these recruiting trends and leverage them in their own career management?

 

The Top “Get Recruited” Practices for Job Seekers (in no particular order)

 

Be findable online

As a job seeker, passive or active, you should be managing your LinkedIn profile, GitHub account, and other relevant specialized professional (social) media sites to provide an up-to-date professional portrait of yourself. Use keywords and active descriptions of your accomplishments so that searches are accurately identifying you.

 

Be attractive

I don’t mean you should go get a make-over, but ditch the selfie you took with your smartphone in a cubicle with those fluorescent lights that shows both chins. Make your online profiles attractive by keeping active on these sites, posting new projects, articles, updates, you increase the chances of being seen and promote a picture of yourself as a dynamic professional in your field.

 

Reach out

Search out the companies you like the most and connect with them via LinkedIn, and other media. Don’t just hit ‘connect’: Make a comment on their latest PR or post. Tell them you want to connect because you are passionate about their sector. Name the other professionals you have a relationship with at the company to strengthen the connection. Try to reach out in a meaningful way, it will give more momentum to further discussion and make you stand out. Connect with various players at the company from managers to HR.

 

Return calls/emails

When recruiting is done seriously, it is a sales function – the point is to get results. If you are contacted by an external recruiter or an internal HR person, respond even if you aren’t looking for a change now. A few minutes of prompt courtesy now will earn you respect and preference in the future; a lack of response or rudeness could get you blacklisted. No one wants to waste your time, and they certainly don’t want to waste their own time and effort.

 

Hackathon/Hangout

For those companies that really thrill you, try participating in a company event such as a hackathon or hangout. Participate actively so that you can show your stuff and facilitate making meaningful connections with the people working there. It may or may not get you a job offer today, but it will multiply your connections and differentiate you.

 

Post your resume

LinkedIn is definitely the best place to be for professionals, but there are many places to be online. Your own website is a great way to present what you want how you want. GitHub is a great place for developers to strut their stuff. Job boards are a great way to be found. Posting your resume is a good indication you are interested in dialogue and opportunities and not just counting down the days to retire or cash in your equity and move to the tropics!

 

Network!

Ok, all the above qualifies as networking. But there’s also meetup.com, industry associations, trade shows, alumni groups, special interest associations, and many, many opportunities. It may take a little time trying out various opportunities to find the right feel and return on your time, so take a look and start trying out those you haven’t yet.

Recruiting Success Stories: Raj Sen Sharma, Communication & Collaboration Platform

Filed under: Featured Placements

Recruiting Success Stories:

Featured Placement – Raj Sen Sharma

Director of Product Management – Communication & Collaboration PlatformRaj Sen Sharma

 

In collaboration with senior management, Redfish has been recruiting for several key roles for this Communication & Collaboration Platform creator. Moxtra provides real-time engagement via chat,voice calls, to-dos, videos, documents, screen sharing, annotation and voice and Read more »

Soft Skills: Easy to Feel Out, Harder to Test

Filed under: Hiring Strategies, Talent Acquisition

While hard skills are fairly easy to evaluate, soft skills are harder.

Soft-Skills-Definition

The soft skills are rather intangible: communication, leadership, critical thinking, creativity, team collaboration, attitude, common sense, and relationships, amongst others.

Coding and problem-solving tests are fairly straightforward ways to gauge hard skill level, but how do you measure a candidate’s soft skills?

Evaluating Soft Skills

 

Social Media

Almost everyone in the United States has at least one social networking profile at this point, so researching a candidate’s online presence is fairly easy. Social media and websites provide an interesting window into a person’s soft skills. Of interest is everything from how thoroughly and professionally people present themselves, to the content and comments that they choose to post on online media.

Video Interviewing

Some companies solicit video responses as a filtering mechanism that quickly gives a sense of a person’s soft skills. A company may ask candidates to answer a few questions in a video format to be submitted along with a resume or as the next step in the pre-interview process. There are obviously a lot of efficiencies gained by getting a peek at talent, although some people are fairly shy of performing in front of a somewhat anonymous audience. Read more »

The Top Five On-Boarding To-Dos Before the Start Date – By Tory Thomas, Recruiter

Filed under: Hiring Strategies, Talent Acquisition

The Top Five On-Boarding To-Dos Before the Start Date

Tory Thomas, Executive Recruiter, Tech Sales & Marketing Division

By Tory Thomas, Executive Recruiter, IT Sales & Marketing

 

You may be asking “Why on-board before the start date?”

 

Well… really you should be on-boarding from the first contact with a candidate. When you receive a resume from a candidate, you should be sending a warm acknowledgment, even if you aren’t hiring for that exact profile right now. This is how you build your talent pipeline.

When you schedule a first interview or have an informal dialogue, you are making an impression. At this point you are acting as your company’s brand ambassador and forming an impression with the candidate. Read more »

Tech Salary Trends & Skills / Positions in Demand

Filed under: High Tech / IT / Software, Tech Trends

Tech Salary Trends & Skills / Positions in Demand

Show-Me-The-Money

When it comes to salaries, a Bachelor’s Degree in STEM is hard to beat.

 

STEM leads the pack. Engineers not only rule the world, they are rocking the earnings. Mid-career salaries are highest for Petroleum Engineers, followed by Actuarial Mathematics, Nuclear/Chemical/Electronics & Communications Engineers according to PayScale.com’s recent survey on the majors with the biggest impact on future earnings. Read more »

Recruiting Success Stories: Tanny O’Haley, Banking Financial Services

Filed under: Featured Placements

Recruiting Success Stories:

Featured Placement – Tanny O’HaleyTanny-O'Haley

Senior Programmer – Banking/Financial Services

 

Enlisted by the visionaries of this stealth-mode Banking/Financial Services startup, Redfish has been recruiting for a variety of their early hires. Three years in the making, this privately-funded company is realizing the revolutionary idea of bringing banking services to the international underclass. Founded on the idea that we are all part of the global community, and Read more »

The Top 5 Reasons Not To Accept a Counter Offer – By Mike Curry, Executive Recruiter, IT Division

Filed under: Offers / Counteroffers

The Top 5 Reasons Not To Accept a Counter Offer

By Mike Curry, Executive Recruiter, IT DivisionMike Curry, Tech Recruiter Redfish Technology

 

So you find yourself with an offer from a new company, and whether you actively solicit a counter or you simply allow one to come, you are playing with fire. It is a highly risky move to accept a counter offer. These are the main reasons not to accept a counter offer.

 

1. Your Manager is Going to Hate You.

 

Okay, hate may be strong but s/he is not going to be happy with you. Once the relief that you are staying and that the projects underway haven’t been sabotaged by a sudden departure, negative feelings are going to seep in. The manager will likely harbor feelings of doubt about whether you solicited an offer just for leverage. S/he may worry that this incident will let loose a chain reaction, with others taking a stab at it. There’s going to be second guessing about whether you may try this again. Such a move will definitely be perceived as a breach of trust. Read more »

The Getting Hired Elevator Speech

Filed under: Candidates / Job Seekers, Career Building, Job Search

When is the last time you took an elevator?

optimistic young businesspeople on a white background

Some of you are rocking the views from your elevator ride! Some folks are taking the stairs wearing their activity tracker. Some folks have made successful careers in places where elevators are hard to find (yippee!), or where they stay in their fuzzy bunny slippers all day (ahhh). Whatever your case, do you have an elevator speech? Read more »

Social Recruiting – What You Need To Know

Filed under: Hiring Strategies, Talent Acquisition

Social Recruiting – What You Need To KnowSocial Recruiting – What You Need To Know

Buzz buzz buzz – Social Recruiting is all the buzz.

But is it more than a fashion trend to catch your attention? Will it really help you to hire? What do you really need to know about social recruiting?

 

So what is social recruiting?

 

It’s called having a conversation –

 

Social recruiting has been around since before there was a term called social recruiting. It’s basic human nature to talk about opportunities to your friends and people you like. And there’s an obvious head start in terms of cultural fit if you are reaching like-minded people through your network, so yes, social recruiting is an important way to acquire new talent. Read more »

Recruiting Success Stories: An Nguyen, Wearable Health Technology

Filed under: Featured Placements

Recruiting Success Stories:

Featured Placement – An NguyenAn Nguyen

Software Engineer – Wearable Health Technology

 

This socially responsible company with a goal of motivating users to improve their fitness is a favorite to recruit for. The team made up of world-class game designers, artists, and cutting-edge technologists is backed by an incredible leadership team. They are passionate about inventing fun, approachable, and mainstream products Read more »