As in right now.  If you know you want to hire the candidate, make the offer.  If this may be the right candidate, set the interview.  Immediately.  If you know you are going to need to fill a certain role, start the search.  Right away.

Too many times a good hire doesn’t happen because someone drags their feet.  Sometimes it’s a very short delay, but that’s all it takes.  Desired candidates, those that fit important roles, are in high demand.  If you don’t move then someone else…

The recent trend with NBA stars is to try and team up with other stars to create Superteams.  The Golden State Warriors who recently won the NBA title certainly qualify and other teams and players are trying to find ways to catch them.  Today Chris Paul was traded to the Houston Rockets giving them two superstar point guards.  That’s a unique approach and a very serious attempt to create a Superteam that can compete with the Warriors and others.

Having a Superteam is great.  In sales,…

My son just graduated from high school and will be entering college this Fall as a freshman.  Since the prestigious university that he is attending is close to home he decided to take a class this summer to get a head start.  The other day I dropped him off for class and was surprised to see so many other students clearly heading to and from classes on campus.

These are our future candidates (and hiring managers) and there are a lot of them spending their summer getting ahead.  There…

There has been a lot of talk over the last 7 or 8 years about those not participating in the labor market.  People who are not working and not trying to get back to work.

For recruiting purposes they don’t matter.  They matter to our economy and to society as a whole, but they aren’t part of the recruiting equation.  You need to be qualified enough and motivated enough in order to really matter to the businesses that are working to grow and improve.…

We get trapped into the short view.  Someone resigns and we've got to fill that position now.  Something changes in the business and we now have an urgent need.

No doubt, we are under pressure to fill positions in a lot of cases.  The short view.  We need to get this done now, or else.  But recruiting is really about the long view.  Building a great business doesn't happen in the short run.  It happens because of great work done over a long period of time.  Consistent effective…

The candidate pool for any search is constantly changing.

An available candidate accepts a new position, no longer in the pool.

Qualified potential candidate who won’t respond to new opportunities because they are happy where they are has a sudden change and is now open to considering a change, enters the pool.

Candidate with too little experience crosses that line so they now have enough, enters the pool.

The candidate pool is a living breathing thing.  Effective…

Resumes are used to find reasons to eliminate.  After that, they are used to find reasons to separate.

So look at your resume and try to eliminate reasons to eliminate.  Job hopping is a good example and is consistently used to eliminate.  It takes time and diligence to avoid that one.  Others, like grammar and spelling errors or confusing presentation, can be easily fixed any time.

Reasons to separate are harder.  Take care of the reasons to eliminate first and then look for…

Sometimes candidates miss interviews.  Unforeseen circumstances do occur.  That’s okay and most of the time the hiring authority will understand.  As long as you communicate.

Car accident, just found out that a relative is sick and needs you right away, dog buried your car keys…….just call right away and let the recruiter or hiring manager know.  If you don’t show up and don’t communicate for a day or two then your excuse will fall on deaf ears.  They’re not that dumb.  Everyone…

Sales trainers used to train you to pin down your prospect.

“Which do you prefer, the green one or the blue one?”

“Who do you know that’s a fit for this position right now?”

Getting pinned down is uncomfortable.  Many people who get pinned down are going to avoid communication with the source of the pinning in the future.  When networking for candidates it’s much better to inquire honestly making it easy for the person you’re asking to help you now or at any time that…

The modern recruitment platform gives us a plenty of opportunities for efficient search among thousands of candidates and millions of profiles. Professional recruiters know that the use of recruitment platform, for example, SignalHire, makes it easier to …

The tools we now have for recruiting are incredible vs what was available just 10 and 20 years ago.  The internet, email, job boards, networks, databases, analytics, and on and on….

But good tools are of minimal value on their own.  It’s how you use the tools that matters.  That’s both a skill thing and an effort thing.  Give the right guy a good set of tools and he’ll build a great house.  Give me the same tools and you’ll have a real mess.  Recruiters have the tools to greatly…

In “How Google Works” by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, they devote a significant amount of time to hiring stating that hiring is the most important thing you do.

Look at any great company, or even a single branch or unit of any great company, and then imagine that business without it’s best employee.  Then imagine it without it’s best two or three employees.  The impact is incredible.  Great hiring builds great businesses. Bad hiring builds bad businesses and businesses that…

Hustle makes the breaks called luck.  This was a favorite line of a high school coach I had and a line that always stuck with me.  This is not to say that you are just lucky if you hustle and good things happen.  It is to say that if you hustle good things happen and some people look at it as luck, but your hustle made things happen and put you in a position to succeed.

As recruiters we run our processes, make the extra call, ask for referrals, make the extra follow up, and do them…

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Galina Panchenko – UX/UI product developer with …

TargetRecruit’s Executive Vice President Bill Inman has an insightful discussion with Jim Janesky, Managing Director at Corporate Fuel, discuss current staffing industry trends (Q2 2017), public staffing company valuations and valuation in the staffing mid-market in this interview (13 minutes total discussion).…

“You know what your problem is? You read too many of those self improvement books.”

I didn’t feel anything that moment. I accepted her words and moved on.

I don’t process things people say in real time. Later when we were apart, I thought…

At the end of last year, ERE published an article called “9 Talent-acquisition Trends to Watch for in 2017.”  I was excited to see one of the bullet points was as follows:

A/B testing will become a critical factor in the battle for talent. Do fewer candidates drop off during the application process if you reduce your number of screening questions? Is a candidate…

That’s right another joins in…the New York City Council has enacted legislation (effective in 180 days) prohibiting employers from inquiring about a job applicant’s “salary history.”   They are not the only ones.  There are several cities and states thinking about passing similar laws – some already have.  For example, Philadelphia passed…

Starting a new business is never easy, and choosing to put someone on payroll can be a huge decision. With a startup every penny, every meeting, released product, or marketing campaign is crucial, and you can’t risk hiring someone who lets you down. Fortunately, there are some tips available to ensure you find and hire the best person, every time.

1. Be Accurate and Persistent

Don’t wait until you realize you need someone to start working right now, instead keep your presence…

From what I can see, it seems most companies still ask for cover letters.  Isn’t this just one more hurdle and inconvenience to make applicants go through that really doesn’t add value?

Based on my experience, cover letters are not needed anymore.  I know I am not alone in this (from speaking with peers), but I have not read a cover letter in years.  By and large, we don’t care what is on the cover letter.  Everything we need to see should be on the resume.…