KeenHire Blog by Margaret Graziano

Shaking Hands and Never Letting Go

Today the challenge for all of us in the staffing recruitment profession is establishing and maintaining customer relationships that last.  I have heard many times, “I am only as good as my last placement” or “How do I convince the customer that I am unique in an over saturated marketplace, where everyone makes the same promises and very, very few actually deliver?”  

KeenHire Talent Management is built to deliver a higher quality of service  to our end user as well as to maximize the time and effectiveness of our recruiting partners. 

Our recruitment, hiring and retention programs elevate how we are viewed by business leaders and position our consultants as the full life cycle solution to their talent management challenges.  

As the founder of KeenHire, I have spent five years investigated leading industry technology, new age sourcing solutions, lean recruitment processes & tools and dug deep into enough assessment and on-boarding instruments to make anyone’s eyes glaze over.

The coolest part of my research was that I sat in the seat of a recruiter for over two decades, I have a keen sense of what works, what doesn’t, what’s fluff and what’s real.  The result of these efforts is that my team and I created a world-class hiring process that maximizes our ability to put the right person in the right job for the right period of time. The technology and efficiencies enable us to do it all for the right price. 

KeenHire is committed to transforming the way staffing and recruitment is delivered. We have vetted and designed a conscious-hiring process that maximizes Keen Certified recruitment and retention professionals’ effectiveness.

Imagine you show up at your customers’ door, no one but people in your circle are offering the level of service you did. Imagine your customers invited you in to planning meetings and strategy sessions.  Imagine your recruitment and hiring process is the fabric of your customers’ talent acquisition and retention strategy.
 
As an independent recruiter or contract staffing professional, jumping from one gig to the next has got to be exhausting. Sure the money is great but when the jig is up, it’s up. Not to mention that you become part of most company’s dysfunctional hiring process and you pretty much have to go with it or say something and make waves. For most people making waves is not a lucrative option.
 
Imagine yourself as the Sheppard of a world class recruitment and hiring process, fully armed with the tools you needed to do the best job in the minimum amount of time and are paid an engagement fee, a project fee and a performance bonus for work well done. Furthermore, visualize you as an integral part of the new hire on-boarding and employee engagement process and achieving another bonus for effective retention.
 
Imagine participating in on-going training and development and elevating your ability to deliver better candidates in a shorter time frame and offer leading edge talent management solutions to your customers.  Imagine being surrounded by and serving like-minded customers, working with philosophically aligned professionals and being known as someone who truly makes a difference in their work.
 
There you are, shaking hands with your client and never letting go. Be a KeenHire Certified Talent Management Provider and experience all the above and more.
 
 
 
Service Provider Track                         Sales/Business Development Track
 
Talent Strategy 3.0                             Talent Strategy 3.0
Talent Delivery Model                          Strategic Selling
Behavioral Interviewing                       Talent Delivery Model
Assessment Interpretation                   Success Factor
 
 
56 hours of intense training, coaching and certification over 7 weeks. 10 hours of follow up mentoring and coaching that solidifies your mastery of the systems, tools, training and technology.   66 hours of career altering training and development.
 

Regular cost is $4592 when you register for all three courses you save $919.00. Your price is $3673.00 per person or $55.65 per hour of training.

How Can You Improve Performance Metrics and Employee Productivity?

A study of the Corporate Executive Board found that since the recession began, managers have become less effective at defining employees roles and accountability. Before the recession, only 60% of employees said their managers did an okay job of effectively communicating expectations, since the recession that number has dropped to 45%, which considering is quite low.  Before, Front Line and HR Managers told employees how they fit in to the overall strategy and market share objectives, now they tell employees to get to work and be grateful they have a job.  Ouch…….that is pretty short sighted thinking.

The highly interesting part of this is that when employees understand how what they do fits into the overall strategy of the business and the achievement of their corporate objectives productivity can increase by 10% at a minimum. Ten percent of ten employees equates to an additional headcount.

When I lead my Maximize Your People ROI workshop and keynotes I speak a great deal about Jim Collins’ call to action, “Put the right people on the Bus”.  Five years ago I learned two provocative processes for assessing, evaluating & validating job specifications, at Keen we call these Benchmarking and Role Analysis.  Both of these tie Organizational Development and Recruitment processes together and drastically improve hiring metrics and recruiting success rates.

If you want to attract more of the best, you first have to truly understand why some of your employees are high performers. Is it coincidence, dumb luck or a lot of hard work when a key manager assembles a team of high performers?  Or is it a calculated and well-executed strategy?

Experts say that building a high performance work-group does not happen by anything other than a well defined, executed recruitment plan and selection hiring process. High performing teams are not created by accident.  There is always a plan of attack that attracts people with solid competencies, required behaviors, complimentary traits, and shared values.  Companies like HP create programs for this by assessing their top performers and understanding what drives their performance; aspects like competencies, motivators, behaviors, values, work style, and emotional intelligence.  They then build a hiring model that vets candidates with similar winning formulas.

This is what KeenHire refers to as benchmarking.  The Keen team has assessed over 1000 high performers conducted over 200 corporate benchmarks since our launch.  In one company alone, we saved the employer over $1,000,000.00 in poor hiring costs  Download Keenhireclarknatcasestudy because they stopped hiring people who they thought would fit and they started hiring people they knew would fit.  This new age Talent Management stuff really works!

Conducting a Role Analysis on positions that you are filling whether through an internal promotion or a new hire impacts not only your ability to put the right person on the bus, it effects your companies ability to improve workforce production and engagement. When your employees know that you chose them because they had the natural ability to do the job in a way that amplifies the companies mission and vision and they know what is expected as well as how these accomplishments impact the big picture; they are awake and aware to exactly what you are counting on them to achieve on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis they are much more likely to achieve it. 

The Bottom Line is if you want a more productive, engaged workforce hire the right people for jobs they are well equipped to do, make sure they know what you expect from them and then encourage them to use their natural talents and abilities to get the job done.

If you have professional HR Management, Contract Recruitment staff or In Sourced Recruitment consultants on your team make sure they are trained in these critical hiring selection programs and strategies; if you do not and you need to go outside to Recruiting services require these service providers to offer solutions that enable you to hit your hiring and retention metrics. 

2010 Goal Setting and Accountability

It is January 26th, Have you Set your 2010 Goals and Action Plans yet?

Here is a quick overview of the process that Keen Coaching utilizes with our Emerging and Executive Leaders. 

1. List 2009 Successes - Celebrate, pat yourself on the back, kiss the mirror, get a hug, give a hug

2. List 2009 Resentments, In-completions and Disappointments - then say what you need to say, burn them, laugh at them, but get over it.

3. List your 100 Life Goals 

4. Look 5 years old and imagine your life as the masterpiece you want. What are you doing? Where are you living? What is your bank balance? How does it feel? Create Affirmations for each area of life that is important to you, be very descriptive of how life looks, feels and is in the future that you create. 

5. Create a 1-2 page 2010 Plan - Business & Personal Goals in the areas of life that are important to you. For me it is Fitness,Family, Fun, Financial, Love Life, Work - not in that order. Chose what your overarching area of concentration for 2010 is going to be. Chose the Values that you will use to monitor your behavior. Set dates to each goal. Make them measurable.  Add some ZIP and ZAP to the goals. Loose 10 lbs gets old and boring, like washing the toilets. Looking fabulous and sexy in the speedo is a bit more enticing. 

6. Create a monthly habits chart - things you will do that bring out the best in your. Drink lots of water, do Yoga, meditate, Say thank you, etc. Download MonthlyHabitschart

7. Create a monthly score sheet for your goals so you can track your progress.

8. Create a Weekly Activity Tracking Sheet Download WeeklyGoalTracking2010

9.Use a daily 6 Most Inspired Actions worksheet to keep yourself attached to the weekly, monthly and annual goal.

10. Create a HOT, Fun, Inspiring Vision Board  -See  Above..... :)

11. Engage  buddy you can count on to schedule weekly accountability calls with you, have a consequence for blowing the call.

2010 - Your Time To Ascend !

From The Trenches-Strategic Positioning For Recruitment and Staffing Firms

KeenHire's Keen Recruiting Institute began it's 1st 2010 training session on Friday, January 22. It is an exciting course for me to lead as I have 3 member companies who have already taken Keen's Talent Strategy 3.0 / NAPS CERS course in attendance and 3 brand new Keen customers, 2 whom are Key contributors of dear friends of mine who own extremely successful staffing operations in California.

The students were challenged with coming up with their Unique Selling Proposition, reading Attracting Perfect customers and tying their 2010 personal goals with their business and sales goals.                                                                                                                                                  

Some highlights of the 1st weeks course are:

1. The Customer getting what they want, when they want it - Is critical. Actually, it's all that REALLY matters.

2. The look and feel of the competition in Staffing & Recruitment is very different today than it was 24 months ago. Your current and future customers do not need more of the same, they need full scope solutions that effect retention, engagement and profitability.

3. If we are not being more efficient and more effective in our Recruiting process and exceeding our customers needs, someone else will!

4. It is not about us-- Find out what is important to them.

5. What are their challenges and frustrations as it relates to their people - what keeps them up at night?

6. Sell to Decision Makers or don't bother selling at all. Companies do not need to pay your rates to have you submit a resume to a VMS or a MSP. Your success will be temporary, at best with that approach.

7. Know what makes you better and different and if you sound just like everyone else, get to work on figuring out WHY a company should work with you instead of everyone else.

8. It is about them, what they need - not about what you want to sell them. For some of your that statement alone will be worth taking the time to read this.

9. They have big problems to solve, like global competition and we need to be more than an ista fix.

10. Follow a process for defining your ideal customer, targeting & prospecting to them, qualifying their pain, budget and possible gain, engaging in their purpose, creating a win/win solution, a process for closing as well as a process for quality service delivery.

11. Do the work or none of what you learn matters

Next Week we will be delving into

Defining Your Market Niche and Prospecting 101

Recruiting: Filling The Talent Pipeline

Filling the Recruiting Pipeline  

Sourcing and Selection are two very different worlds. One puts as many applicants in the pool as possible and the other sorts and selects the best fit for the fulfillment of the positions’ key objectives.  Given there is a War for Talent many companies fear that they can not afford to be highly selective in their recruitment efforts. The reality is while there is a war, there is also a recession which means certain industries are dying and with that is the emergence of talent from hidden sectors. 

If you strategize effectively you will easily attract solid ‘core’ talent from industries that are highly compatible to yours. Yes, you may have to train the candidate to your company, products and services. However if you conduct the hiring process with thoroughness and integrity you hire ONLY the best suitable talent - rather hiring the best suitable experience (which we all know backfires when it’s the wrong ‘fit’). Either way you have to train a newcomer to your firm, so it is your choice whether you want to train and fix bad behaviors or invest in up front industry, product and service training.  

To attract, hire and retain the “right” talent Keep in mind there are now a multitude of cost effective options and alternatives.  If you are choosing to pay a fee, or hire a contract recruiter ensure your recruiter is highly skilled in both search and selection, or consider outsourcing pieces of the processes to firms or people who are highly skilled in a specific area, or make certain that your internal resources have all the tools & training  they need to improve their hiring batting average.

Options for Generating Candidates at the top of the funnel:

A. Hire a Contract Recruiter, a full scale Search Firm or a local Employment Agency

Interviewing & Hiring A Recruitment firm or Professional Recruitment Contractor:
Questions you may want to ask.
1) How many placements have you made in our field/niche/industry/position level?
2) What is your passive candidate strategy? Please outline it.
3) What system are you utilizing to evaluate your candidates strengths, behaviors,and competencies as they compare to our immediate and long term needs for the role?
4) What is your due diligence process? Who pays for that?
5) What is the average tenure of your placements?
6) Will you consider a fee arrangement with a percentage weighted on retention
7) How many customers have you retained for 5+ years?

B. Sourcing Candidates through the Boards & Internet

1) If you using the boards to source candidates – hiring a 3rd party sourcing company might be a prudent option; these companies have armies of people who scour the job boards while we in America are sleeping. The average cost of this service is $1500.00 per search to $2500.00 per month.  Different companies charge based on the deliverable. This emerging industry is rapidly taking their stake in the talent acquisition sector.
           
2) Resume Search Aggregation and Filtering – these are software as a service subscriptions that take your job specifications and pull appropriate resumes from a multitude of job boards. This type of software can save your internal Sourcers or Recruiters hundreds of hours.

3) Posting technology - There is job board and social media posting technology that takes your single job posting and delivers it to hundreds of specialty sites in seconds. Pretty cool!

C. Passive Candidate Acquisition: Social Networking 

1) If you chose this route make sure you are hiring/contracting with a person who has no fear of rejection, is willing and able to make an abundant of outbound calls on a regular basis and who has strong talent in navigating around the internet.

2) Linked in and Face Book are by far two of the most effective ways to find passive talent. 

D. New Fashioned Head hunting

How is your recruiter planning on building the list of who to call? Do they have the resources for list building; will they outsource this function; if so how much will that cost?  There are excellent technology solutions that your recruiters need be using to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness. 

E. Create an EVP and promote the hell out of it

Find out why people work for your company, find out why they stay. Create an Employee Value proposition and promote it on social media, industry sites, internally, to customers, to local colleges and vocational schools, etc. 

F. Pay Referral Bonuses

G. Build Your Internal Recruitment Team to Maximize Your People ROI

Consider implementing B-F with a carefully selected and trained internal recruitment team. The internal team must be evaluated based on hiring metrics, retention, efficiency and value they provide.

The bottom line is make sure you are investing in the right solution for your unique situation.

Talent Strategy 3.0 - Vail Colorado December 14 & 15

About the Program

With a rocky economy, hot new emerging industries on the rise, three generations in the workforce, Sr. level leaders on the verge of retirement/re alignment and a sea of recruiting alternatives knocking at our clients’ doors, it is time to start thinking about how we as an industry are going to align ourselves as strategic business partners rather than as transactional service providers. As the economy begins to recover it is imperative that you brand your firm as the human capital provider of choice.

The Society of Human Resource Management reports that 6 of the top 10 Workplace Trends are directly related to talent acquisition, selection & retention.

The number 1 trend to most likely have a major impact on the workplace is workforce retention, and the most critical HR function effecting business strategy is Staffing/Employment and Recruiting.

The above issues are not separate -they are looked at as Talent Management and there is no other group of people on the planet better equipped to empower corporations to solve these problems than people like us, top tier staffing & search professionals who work on the front lines of talent acquisition, every day.

The KeenHire™ Human Capital Strategic Consulting Series empowers search & staffing professionals to take a new look at search and staffing - a look from the shoes of an employer. Strategically speaking, retention begins with selection and effective workforce planning and we as an industry have everything to do with ensuring that the placements we make that need to, have a place in the succession plan.

Join us for this provocative, insightful and fun program that delves into the corporate strategic talent issues and highlights innovative solutions you can provide to solve them. Let’s face it, now more than ever your clients have recruiting alternatives. There is off shoring, in-sourcing, RPO and on line systems that streamline the work of recruiting. Even large global HR consulting firms are trying to cash in by getting into the recruiting game. Your ability to grow is directly contingent on your ability to adapt to the changing market as well as on your ability to meet and exceed your clients increasing needs.

Astute recruiters and search professionals are looking down the path for what they can do to offer a deeper level of service and provide holistic solutions to their clients human capital needs and therefore differentiate themselves from the sea of recruiting options available to their clients. In the past you had to be good on a daily basis to keep your clients coming back for more, NOW…..you have to be great and you have to commit to their end game, or someone else will.

Course Outcomes

Empower yourself in understanding and responding to corporate retention issues, dispel the myths and uncover critical issues affecting your customers’ ability to attract and keep the right people.

You gain hands on experience in uncovering the real Cost of unwanted Employee Turnover and the impact that it has on your customers’ companies ability to achieve its strategic objectives.

You gain competence and capacity to impact your customers’ recruiting and hiring efficacy.

You learn a strategic approach to assessing your customers’ REAL human capital needs, proactive workforce planning and a comprehensive approach for implementing a 3 –step top grading approach that positions you to build your customers’ organization with high performers in key roles.

You leave the workshop with an array of bolt on and augmented talent management strategies that meet the needs of leaders, managers and the multitude of front line customer facing and operational impact staff in your clients’ workforce.

You walk away with the power and prowess to influence the Talent Mindset throughout your entire customer base.

To register call 1-888-533-6447

$1299.00 per person

What They’re Saying

"This course was by far well worth more than the cost I paid to be here". Karen Richards-Fidelis Bio Pharma, Dallas Texas.

“I am pleased to recommend Margaret Graziano as a foremost authority in personnel recruitment, assessment, selection, and retention. I have paid to attend training and certification events with Margaret as the leader, and feel that the value was exceptional. Beyond her incredible knowledge of the aforementioned subjects, she brings a sincere passion to the training, and presents useable information in such a way that it is actually useful in a real-life setting. She cares about the people she works with and truly wants to advance our industry by helping others thrive as “true professionals”. Her training has helped me in my professional development, and the development of my organization. I believe that even if you are a “master” in this business, you can certainly increase your personal productivity and profits from her training, speaking, and the products offered by her company, KeenHire.

Ed Keil, CPC, CERS, Owner, Reliance Recruiting
hired Margaret as a Consultant/Coach/Trainer in 2006 , and hired Margaret more than once

“Margaret Graziano has proven to be one of the torchbearers of progressive Human Resource/Human Capital initiatives. Her insight to what Corporate America wants and needs in order to help their company grow and prosper is truly leading edge and spot on. She has wowed her contemporaries with her "Keen" insight to the marketplace and has produced products and services which will revolutionize our industry. If anyone has any questions about Margaret's ability, just let me know. There is no one better equipped to assist you with Talent Acquisition and Talent Management issues for your firm. Do yourself a favor and get her involved with identifying and helping you solve these HR issues.” October 21, 2008
Jeff Wilson, CERS, CPC , Managing Partner/Owner , Key Corporate Services, LLC

Some Aspects For Staffing Companies To Think About

A trend I have noticed is those who cut all costs necessary to operate their businesses are financially in worse shape than those who have methodically evaluated where to focus cost cutting.

I call these "knee-jerk" blanket cost cutting decisions Emotional Management and will suggest that everyone be wary of it. Are you cutting costs because of a fear of the unknown - the length of the recession, the direction of the economy, the ability for you to make a sale next month? Or are you cutting costs because you are determining which costs are necessary for survival, which are necessary for growth, and which costs are "lifestyle” costs? Food for thought.

 By Adam Peterson, CEO, Vipe Inc

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It is all about differentiation.  Keen recently surveyed over 25 large staffing and or recruitment firms, what is on everyone of their minds is how to generate more business and come out ahead of the rest. The following is a brief summary of what they said.

1. You are either the largest in your niche and you differentiate because you are the biggest

2. You have some new innovations that separate you from the competition

3. Your price is better

4. You have a means like RPO or VMS that catapults you to the front of the line.

5. You dominate multiple markets all selling to the same end user

6. Your brand is known to all

Think about it.....what is it for you? If you don't know, figure it out, and figure it out fast.

Best to You 

Margo

What I Love About Working With Recruitment And Staffing Businesses

Someone recently asked me why I enjoy working with staffing and recruiting people.  The answers probably have something to do with why I myself, spent 25 years as an active member of the industry.

Lets start with the industry as a whole; overall the staffing industry, temp, perm (oops direct), contract staffing and executive search all have something in common. We surround ourselves in people contact all day, every day; as an industry we have a better finger on the pulse of why people stay at companies and why people leave companies than any other industry on the planet.   We also know what the job market needs and what it wants, before the newspapers and CNN have even begun to think to ask.  Additionally we are amongst the first that feel the onset of a recession, so in some ways we are pretty astute economic fortune-tellers.  As an industry we put people to work, we give people hope, dignity and purpose.  As an industry we make new friends easily, keep friends and maintain our networks.

When I look at the people who flock to and make it in the staffing industry, I see so many commonalities, many which bring a smile to my face, some don’t and I’ll list those as well.

Most people I have met, are friends with, or have assessed all share a strong sense of urgency about their business, how they make decisions and how they serve their customers.  They also are for the most part bit on the competitive side, they like to win the games they play and the business they go after. They like a lot of action and enjoy the frenzy of the flurry of the deal or multiple deals coming in or closing at once. They know the numbers tell the story so they watch the numbers and encourage healthy activity.  They learn from their mistakes, as one can only spend so much time with the wrong candidates, clients, prospects, orders or co-workers.  They also like being evaluated on performance, the bottom line. They do or they don’t, trying is not something an experienced successful staffing person enjoys saying or hearing, especially out of their own mouth.

I would say most of my colleagues in staffing have a good sense of humor, and learn as time goes by, to find the humor in every no show, mis hire, client debacle, lost fee or candidate betrayal.  What starts out as a disappointment or angry rant typically dissipates into some long lasting joke or key lesson for future hires to laugh over and learn.

On the not so cheery side, most people in the staffing industry have a very healthy dose of Ego, with a capital E. At times that Ego, while shielding them from rejection also gets in their way of getting better, hearing the truth and making needed changes – in business and in personal relationships.  I know this because I have lived it.

And then there is the shoemakers kids, the staffing industry by far a has the worse turn over of any professional services industry. Although the BLS does not track our industry independently, most agency owners report close to a 45% turn over of established staff in tough times and 65-68% fall offs of new people hired who lack the right stuff to stay long enough to make the impact the company needed to justify the hire.  That is darn scary. Some people attribute the turn over to us making the job look too easy, because we are just so great at it, others say we adopt the practice 'place the best and hire the rest', and others say it's because we take care of ourselves and our businesses last.  

All in all, the staffing industry houses some of my favorite people, fondest memories and life long friendships, not to mention every aspect of my entire adult business life.  I am glad to be a part of it and happy that I am working with so many great new comers, established professionals and successful business leaders. In an effort to better serve our readers and customers we are asking that you click on the following link and take this Keen offerings survey. Thank you for your partnership and your support.

https://app.e2ma.net/app2/survey/25372/15365/9edbcfae7b/

Recruitment Differentiation-Being Extraordinary Is A Choice

With the impending employment crisis budding, barrier to entry being virtually null, margin erosion, and a new and provocative competitor around each and every corner (better job board sites, RPO, Off Shore, ATS that screen and assess candidates), now more than ever, staffing industry sales people need to differentiate ourselves against the sea of competition.

We already knew there was a sea of competition. Now that sea is turning into a very vast ocean, and that ocean has inlet water streams that flow to many other industries, as well as many other countries. Not to mention, last time this country faced a people shortage, every shoddy sales person who loved making a quick buck penetrated our market and pummeled our industry’s reputation, so that even in some circles the word “RECRUITER” has some people react as if what they just heard was a sound not that different from nails on a chalk board.

If you thought you had to be good on a daily basis to keep your clients coming back, NOW you have to be great. And you have to be different. Saying you’re different and actually being different begins with your unique selling proposition. What is yours?

Do you provide the BEST qualified and matched candidates in the least amount of time, for the best price? Many RPOs actually say the same thing and are delivering on their promises by adding services such as assessment and behavioral interviewing to their staffing offerings so they can validate hires against the predetermined benchmarks created specifically for their client.  Many of these RPO clients also employ Organizational Development professionals and utilize these credentials in their selling process.

Is your firm the one that really does head hunting? Are all your candidates passive and employed? Are you more connected than the rest on the social networks? 

Did you know many large companies are building their own executive search operations internally? There are even seminars and workshops provided by firms specifically for the purpose of eliminating search fees from their clients’ budget. 

Did you know the job boards; specifically Monster.com is establishing social networks in every industry with the purpose of connecting with candidates for the life of their career rather than just during search time.  When Monster accomplishes this feat, Yahoo HotJob, Career Builder and the Ladders won’t be far behind. As boards know if they are not continuing to innovate they too will evaporate.

Does hiring your candidates come with a risk free guarantee? Did you know when a customer hires someone through SearchPath they get a 12 month guarantee? 

Do you provide on-boarding and new hire integration? Does your firm aid your clients in developing the candidates once they are placed?  Did you know Manpower, Spherion, Apple One and Korn Ferry all have the systems, power and resources to offer these types of promises? Over the past four years all of these companies have added Human capital consulting to their service offerings, either through an acquisition or through grass roots home grown efforts.

Do you remember when it was value add to background check candidates?  Now it is no longer a unique value add, it is standard operating procedure and it’s expected.   It is my belief that the more talent astute CEOs and Business Leaders become, the more they  expect from us.

We can no longer operate as business as usual, we need to get into our customers’ world, see what they see, feel what they feel and offer what they need, and the way they need it. And it all starts with finding out what that is and assessing if and how we can provide it. 

Once that happens and you come up with your core differentiator and unique selling proposition it’s time to evaluate your selling strategy and determine if it is sufficient in the present day world with present day conditions.

If your selling system isn’t effective, I’d recommend registering yourself in a course and committing to getting better. Sell the way differentiated value service providers sell, not the way transaction based vendors sell.  

The time to lay the seeds for tomorrow is today, while everyone else is resting, sleeping, coasting, or freaking – this is your time to stealth forward.

He Who Owns The Talent Pool Owns The Market

10 Lessons Learned at the Florida Staffing Association Owners Conference

1.       The future competition is not just the newest recruitment / staffing firm offering better, smarter and more holistic talent solutions, it is also Monster.com and their NEW career portal as well as other specialty niche sites that aim to own the talent pool through various career pathing and career targeting technology.

As many of you know Keen embarked on creating a new kind of talent management firm 14 months ago and while we are having a great go of it and are making excellent margins, there is certainly something new to learn every time I turn around.

The most recent conference I led a key note for had a woman from Monster.com, Marica Biggar speak on the reality of the future for staffing and recruitment firms. She showed us demographics that were so evident of predicting our future the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. Obviously Monster.com has their hands on statistics that we only wish we had, and the good news is they are ready, willing and able to share it.  She showed us a chart of supply and demand, I think I first learned about supply and demand in 4^th grade, and the picture shown on the overhead was a caveman and a wheel. Looking back it was Economics for Dummies.

What was quite stimulating about this Monster chart was the linkage to Thomas Freidman’s predictions in “The World Is Flat”.  The jobs  and skill sets in America are changing, the talent pool is changing and is more diverse than ever; to attract and retain the best people will take skills and tools most of us have not even begun to think about.  We in Recruitment and Staffing need to shift as well.

2.       When there is a need and limited supply, they will pay; when there is no need and a surplus of people, they don’t need to.  As our speaker continued to blow us away with facts and figures that have everything to do with the amount of money we have in our bank accounts; we learned exactly where we need to focus our efforts, now and in the future.

 

3.       If you want to own the candidate market – you first must operate in a niche specific enough to do so and capitalize on the economies of scale both in your recruitment processes and in your business development processes.

 

4.       I believe that the hardest pill for recruitment and staffing owners, staffers and business development leaders to swallow is that they are going to have to reinvent who they are for their candidate pool and therefore reinvent who they are for their customer base. What worked in the past is not working now and wont in the future. Technology is advancing faster than humans are, and technology does not have get over the fact that times have changed, it just does. People on the other hand are so busy fighting the trends that in many cases they miss the boat.

 

5.       When you own the candidate market you are no longer spending your recruitment efforts on filling jobs, you are working on attracting and capturing candidates for their career life cycle. Imagine how much more profitable we’d all be if we focused on retaining relationships with candidates before during and after the placement, and whenever our niche candidates needed something having to do with their career (advise, coaching, training, internal progression marketing, a new job outside the company, development in their new leadership role) they could get served by your team. Imagine the power if people were tied to you and your firm first and foremost before they began their search.

 

6.       When you own the talent pool – you own the market. If you are the name to know for Talent Management in Clinical Research, if your company is the one sponsoring Career Progression workshops, Leadership Development programs, Campus Recruitment events, then your company becomes the “Go To” for that Brand of Talent.

 

7.       Monster.com says they are No longer in the job posting business, they are rolling our an immensely powerful tool that uses algorithms to manage their relationship with candidates and keeps them coming back to their site, even when they are not in ‘search’ mode.

 

8.       Vocational training is HOT, and needed. If you ‘Re-Train’ people with the right skill and talent and get them ready for the new emerging hottest roles, you become part of the Obama Stimulus Plan and win in more ways than one.

 

9.       When you host a meet-up, gathering, advisory council or web site that acts as a social connectivity point you own not only the candidate talent pool, you own those that want access to the information.

 

10.    The time for reframing who you are as a staffing and recruitment firm is while everyone else is waiting and wondering when the economy will turn around. The time to build your plan and plant the seeds is NOW.

 

After all who you were coming into the recession is no longer relevant. It’s who you are coming out that matters.