In my New Years Prediction post I discussed the role M&A would play in the recruitment world and pontificated that Monster should buy Taleo, or vice versa. And that tiny thought (on top of my awesome suggestion to name it TALONSTER) has stuck in my head for a bit. Given the continued beatdown of Monster’s stock, coupled with a lackluster Q4 I am motivated to throw good ‘ole Monster.com a bone: a roadmap of how to transform and grow again. Save your applause for the end please.

Monster’s current state reminds me of two companies. First, IBM, and second, Best Buy (particularly present day). The IBM correlation comes from the pivot Lou Gerstner made in the early ‘90’s toward services, and away from IBM’s essence as a hardware manufacturer. And then the full embrace of this new ethos as a global services provider when then CEO Sam Palmisano acquired PWC and divested IBM of a 20 Billion dollar PC business in 2003. Very gutsy decisions, and a remarkable shift from what was a steady, reliable and low growth giant to a dynamic technology leader celebrating 100+ years of existence.

The Best Buy comparison comes from the recent body blows delivered by the likes of Forbes magazine describing a company that is looking at a downward business spiral that feels “gradual, but will then occur suddenly.” Hat tip on that last phrase (heavily paraphrased) to Ernest Hemingway…Monster’s latest quarter feels a little like that, and words like “deflationary” are never great things to hear on an earnings call.

So here is how Monster turns it all around - Go end to end. Repeat after me, “I am no longer a job board.” And do not repeat it in the same way your sales folks repeat it to customers who you are trying to keep from Linkedin and new social recruiting tools; say it like you mean it. Be willing to SELL THE 20 BILLION DOLLAR PC business…metaphorically speaking. Then you go out and buy (in no particular order):

• A true ATS provider (SilkRoad, iCIMS, Taleo) - just make it a solid player who is top of mind and decent in market share
• A leading background services provider - any Lexis Nexis jockey will do
• An online skill assessment provider
• A social recruiting feeder tool - Jobvite, etc
• A VMS tool that is a neutral contingent workforce provider
• An on-boarding solution
• An RPO firm that can do project work or go whole hog like an Allegis group, etc
• Bernard Hodes - or something similar
• A compensation/HR consultancy - Hewitt, Mercer, etc.
• An HRIS provider
• A partnership with and/or an actual payrolling firm
• An employment law firm

You knit this together to in essence provide large scale and growing companies an end to end solution for the entire employment lifecycle. What have you just done for companies? You have made it possible for me to live in ONE ECOSYSTEM with essentially one employee record from cradle to grave. With the right synergies do you realize how compelling a one-stop shop like the above would be to cover all manner of recruitment, employee information and HR policy and procedures? Do you understand the margins that exist in some of the companies above particularly related to consulting and RPO work?

Oh, and the you do one last thing - you give the job boards away for free. Sell me the above as an enterprise user and basically open source the job boards.

It is time to wake up and move on from being a job board, and become an organization’s HR solution. Just start “gradually, then suddenly.”

P.S. If any of your board membership reads this and runs with it, you have to change the logo to my face. Thx.

Everybody does it. Why not me? 

Time for a few bold and relatively uniformed predictions on recruiting in 2012. While this is completely uninformed and nonscientific (ergo the picture of Miss Cleo above) it is partially motivated by the array of pundits who have assaulted my twitter feed lately - all making predictions but most of whom do not seem to actually be working in corporate HR at the moment…or ever…or only as consultants or social media recruitment moguls available for speaking engagements, but who rarely seem to “mogul”. But I digress.

The following list will absolutely occur in 2012, quite possibly.

M & A - The acquisition of Success Factors by SAP was a loud signal that enterprise blue chip software firms are welcoming new bedfellows. I see this bedfellow trend continuing. For example - shouldn’t Monster buy Taleo? Or vice versa? Success Factors was a bit of a pivot for SAP in some ways (albeit slight) and the legacy job boards need a similar evolution to continue to remain viable in the recruitment industry. And that evolution ain’t social media…To be frank, I think my idea is brilliant and want a piece of the action the M&A guys from the big banks get to seal this deal. I predict in fact that we’ll see a huge blob emerge in the ATS - job board space and with it a bunch of new, awesome vendor names - like “Talonster” -picture two large bird claws snatching a resume for a logo. Awesome.

Hiring will be a slight surprise - Pressures will still persist on the job market but I have felt a floor for a while. While the salaries will continue to be lighter and we will not see the talent free-for-all of the bygone real estate binge, job growth will knock down a clear percentage point or two by the November elections. Oh, and if you are in digital media, ecommerce (a dated reference at this point), or anywhere near an engineering profession you are already in an uber-tight market.

I will still not get back to you in a timely or consistent manner - This is the MOST AWFUL challenge of corporate recruitment and the hiring process: Feedback. I could blog for a year on the intricacies of this issue, so pick your poison: requisition volume, candidate volume, bandwidth issues, breakdown in business line communications, varied responsibilities (like employee relations and payrolling and benefits, and on and on and on), selection methods, etc, but this issue will largely go unaffected this year. We’ll do our best with the tools at hand, but the black hole will persist.

So there you have it. Three quick predictions. Nostra-recruiting-damus. 

Welcome your predictions or rebuttals in the comments section. Here’s to 2012!

The job applicant experience can be (and is for many) a deep trough void of follow-up, communication, transparency and progress. When corporate openings are being flooded with hundreds of candidates, some more discerning in what they apply to than others, strong applicants can struggle to be heard. I get this frustration. I am a part of this frustration. One of the chief things I share with candidates trying to push through this noise is to work your connections; even if outside of your core discipline. Work is a part of any Network for a reason. Making meaningful, tangible connections requires effort and cultivation.

• Work it while you are gainfully employed
• Work it while active in your community
• Work it while attending professional development programs 
• Work it while at your summer BBQ (alright maybe only recruiter folks like me do that)
• The only thing that grows without effort is mold and my waistline.

Imagine an applicant pool as a packed room full of strangers and vague acquaintances all seeking the attention of the host (the recruiter in this instance). Then imagine the human seas parting and a light shining on an individual who is presented through a warm introduction from an old friend. That is your network at “work”. Now I am pretty sure this is a horrible analogy but if you want to emerge from a pack of nondescript strangers as a candidate to be paid attention to remind yourself daily of the effort needed to stand out in this noisy applicant environment.

 I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with the HR team from the Developmental Disabilities Institute of New York (ddiny.org) earlier this week. We had come together to discuss the role social media is playing in recruiting. A topic that is top of mind with my current organization and heavily-discussed in recruiting circles. While our target labor pool varies significantly (nonprofit org versus private sector employer) I left the meeting with affirmation that content is STILL king when it comes to employment branding and outreach. 

Much of our discussion was around the tactical approach to social recruiting. Where to try and hub your information. What tools most effectively targeted your market (facebook v. linkedin). How to efficiently manage and host articles, event announcements, etc. 

But in the end it always comes back to one common thread: the story. DDI-NY has a leg up on me in many respects when it comes to their story. Just have a look at their careers page to get an understanding of the personal investment and caring outreach that takes place 365 days a year. But every organization has a story to tell ~ And in the evolving world of social recruiting that is where the opportunity to leverage network effects and the values of your organization can be optimized for recruitment (and branding) success.

Tools like Linkedin might be leading stock markets and industry peers at the moment, but content will always be KING.

As I write this it is the night before our company’s Take Your Child to Work Day. We run a great program and I am very excited for my daughter to experience her first “9 to 5”. For the full effect I have even planned for an unexpected traffic jam on the Long Island Expressway; will inadvertently spill some coffee on her clean shirt and at some point during the day will make sure she mistakenly hits Reply All on an embarrassing email (I jest…sort of).  

I have a difficult time explaining what I do for a living to my second-grader. The best I can come up with to date is “I help people get jobs”. Pretty lousy summation but it does go over  better than “direct corporate recruiting for a global imaging technology firm”.

One of the things I have come to understand in my line of work is this ongoing struggle to draw in talented women to management and corporate leadership roles. I currently work alongside very talented women at all levels of management but read enough business data each year to know my daughter has far fewer CEO’s to identify with than my two sons. The statistics are actually quite remarkable (read: lousy). Catalyst noted in their 2011 report that of Fortune 500 companies, women in those firms represent only a 2.2% of all CEOs and 15.7% of all board seats. These figures do not reflect the females’ participation in “management, professional and related occupations”, which accounts for 51.5%. I am more of a back-of-the-napkin type when it comes to math but I do know that 2.2% of 500 is really disturbingly low. Like, really, are you kidding me low. Of course you can debate the impact that a female’s role in the family and child-rearing have on private sector career advancement but to go from a 51.5% participation in mid-level roles to 2.2% of Fortune 500 CEO’s is not defensible.

Now is my seven year-old daughter’s worth only measured in Fortune 500 success? Absolutely not. In fact tomorrow will open her eyes to yet another set of great opportunities…at least that is how I see it. But 97.8% of the Fortune 500 already seem to think she can’t be a successful CEO. Maybe we should carve out one more day this year to emphasize that issue so we are not only taking our children to work, but ensuring that all kids can take a career opportunity and fully realize it.

If you look at my career path there is a moment in 2000 where I decided to step off of the higher education admin ladder (Provost JOHN!) and shift to the corporate world. I had realized that I moved at a corporate pace (at the time I thought that always meant ‘faster than university admin’; not always true). To be blunt I saw and still perceive a tremendous amount of waste in college operations. Where and how much is for another blog post. In a recent Techcrunch interview Peter Thiel takes the perceived value of a higher education degree and lists it as the new “bubble”. His perspective is very interesting and more than your typical contrarian rant. One comment I thought was very interesting: 

“If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates?” he says. “It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.”

Thiel and the interviewer do a better job of rounding out his perspective than just the above comment but it is tremendous food for thought. And the reason why I would mention this piece? Two-fold. One, my personal career path was diverted in large part due to the inefficiencies and disappointment I had in the university admin model. Again, a topic for another blog. Second, as a leader of corporate recruiting obviously weight is placed on credentials and education when assessing job applicants. While there are leaders at all levels of management with and without degrees an emphasis is still placed on these accomplishments in higher education. Peter Thiel’s comments at least serve as a reminder that not all credentials assure success and not every candidate excluded from some of the elite universities is inherently less talented.

When speaking on career development and the job market I often hear similar themed questions. One that always comes up, “What is the one thing a candidate can do to succeed in an interview and land that job”. Of course that question is often asked in different ways (like “Hey, what gives with you recruiters?) but it comes up constantly because no matter what role you are interviewing for it matters. My answer is always the same: RESEARCH. RESEARCH the company in depth. RESEARCH the opportunity. RESEARCH the individuals you may be working with, for or around. It is the one thing candidates so rarely do well and the one thing if accomplished, makes it nearly impossible for an HR gatekeeper to keep you from moving forward successfully in the application process. Failure to do this is simply unacceptable, especially in the current technological era. 

This brings me to the title of this post. In the not so long ago era of job application (think pre-1999) a candidate was armed with just one quiver in their application arsenal: the phone. Sometimes even a rotary version…

The resourceful (read successful) candidate used the old school Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon approach and their fingers. You needed to get your research on an organization via a call to a friends parent, who may work for a vendor who supplies that company and subsequently knows a contact within the organization. That call begets a few more nuggets on the company, so on and so forth.

If this was possible pre-web, the fact that in my opinion 2 out of every 3 candidates walks in without enough research done today is inexcusable. You. Fail. Interviewing is rife with subjectivity and presuppositions no matter how skilled and objective a company’s candidate assessment process may be. The one thing I can say has been an absolute truth for me in my recruiting career is ‘do the research’. Make Kevin Bacon proud.

With some recent debate by MSNBC and others about the optimism of the rather “meh” numbers coming out of the National Association of Realtors I wanted to touch on the negative impact the poor housing climate is having on recruitment efforts. In a time when hiring management still misperceive an overwhelming buyer’s market for talent, the stagnation (and in many cases leg down) that housing continues to face is stalling some of the best talent from relocating to a new opportunity and with that opportunity, driving new business, sales, product development, hires, etc. This talent paralysis is another pothole on the slow economic road to recovery. 

In my opinion the housing market will stagnate for a number of years and I would like to share two of my proposed solutions/recommendations because well, I feel like it:

Government partnerships to subsidize housing options: Jetblue decided to stay in the NYC area with a nicely package 30 million dollars in local incentives. It is not atypical for regions to provide this support to keep or draw in industry growth. Could a similar approach be taken by local municipalities to fund near term breaks for company relocations? This could take the form of: closing cost support, staying property tax bills for the short-term, or providing compelling tax relief to companies who pay for or subsidize an approved relocation program. As always this would require some validation process and accountability, but nothing more than a business zone development program currently requires (whether or not that is enforced effectively is another topic).

True commitment to a remote/virtual office model: While more offices talk about the virtual office concept it is my sense that the majority still cling to the idea that proximity equates to productivity. That is still a misconception and would require a shift in attitude first and foremost, before an appropriate policy and infrastructure could be built. Can a company get comfortable with the idea that their ideal Global Sales Leader can be based outside of “corporate”?

In the end I think this is a topic that requires more ink and awareness than the month to month reactions of Wall Street pundits to new housing data. If this stagnation continues for years on end, the job of Recruiter might need to morph into Realtor, and I would look silly with one of those glamor shots on a business card…(I of course look great with a glamor shot on my Linkedin account)

Ok, this actually makes sense, and makes me feel better-Price was high, but Anthony’s worth it - http://t.co/CRz0m2W via @newyorkpost