As I entered the bar at the Falls Church Marriott the night before #RecruitDC, I could tell it was going to be a great show. A cadre of old friends were there. Pete Radloff greeted me with a big bear hug and I wondered if the empty bottle of Troublemaker wine was a sign of things to come.
Click to see See all my RecruitDC pics on Facebook
As it turned out the only trouble came at the airport in form of cancelled flights or the lack of Wifi. Poor Audra Knight, who spoke about personal marketing for recruiters, left for a 9pm flight to Boston only to have it cancelled. She would be forced to stay another night. By the time I got to Reagan National on Friday I found her at the Legal Seafood awaiting her rescheduled flight to Hartford. She would have to drive to Boston from there to retrieve her car. Not fun.
Aside from the travel challenges most of had a great time at another sold out event in the DMV. Most of the recruiters in the room were technical recruiters. I wondered secretly how they all compete against each other from the same tight talent pool. Must be challenging.
I spoke with a Raytheon recruiter who was having trouble convincing candidates to relocate to Hawaii of all places. The cost of living is a barrier to her recruiting efforts. I also met a recent grad, Katie Jones, who took a job as a sourcer after college. It was good to see the next generation there in learning mode.
The RecruitDC team also made an announcement. They launched their own job board for DC area recruiters. Check it out.
I attended 4 sessions throughout the day, here are my take-aways from those talks.
Perri Chase – Closing Candidates
- To her, recruiting is NOT sales and marketing. To her it’s about getting two parties to says yes to each other. She’s a matchmaker.
- Was doing executive search…candidate was trying to raise base from 150k had a previous base of 225k….why are you gonna blow this offer she said to candidate? “My wife doesn’t know i have a bonus” he says…crowd laughs…she forgot to ask more around his base salary needs.
- 90% execs say retention is a top issue
- Perri schedules her own interviews…doesnt want to risk meetings getting missed.
- 10-25% of new hires leave in the first 6 months…funnel recruiting is still a problem.
- Top reason – the role is different from what they expected during hiring process.
Craig Fisher @Fishdogs on Candidate Experience
- If you know who you are targeting you can create better messaging to candidates.
- “Bring what you bring” EVP…come to CA however you are..your code your vision your you.
- They hired models that looked like their people.
- Had employees write online journal based off their core values…sent out emails employees responded.
- 2 things managers are not good at: managing & hiring! they still hire on gut feel
- Trained team in india to look at every resume that came in (put in yes/no pile) and responded to them within 24hrs…candidates loved it because it came from real person…80k resumes per year…they hire 3k per year.
- #LifeatCA hashtag to get inside look at company on social media
- they use IFTTT to automate some social recruiting tasks
- EXIT INTV IDEA: when someone leaves the company…have meeting with your mgr and gives a card that says thank you for your service with us…starbucks gift card. Helps with not torching you on Glassdoor reviews. Using it with new hires too.
- use Repost app for instagram to reshare employee photos
- ROI: prefers to track number of interviews vs number of hires for social recruiting/advertising
Audra Knight @media2knight on Personal Marketing
- 76% of candidates want to know more about a recruiter before they apply
- Your Li profile is boring
- Ned better SEO for LinkedIn more keywords
- Applied for job on twitter because a recruiter she found at company had a cool twitter presence
- What makes you as a recruiter credible, what makes you different
- Bury bad content on yourself with good content
- LI summary is only 2 lines now so put important info up front
- Twitter pin your fav tweet
- Website buy URL and forward it to about profile
Charney @mattcharney did the closing keynote
- Most HRtech isn’t worth it
- Retention is the new recruiting. That will accelerate in this tight market.
- A quarter of new hires are out after year one
- Company aren’t doing enough to help their employees move internally and advance
- People who get referred stick around longer
- HR jobs unlikely to be replaced by robots anytime soon
I collected a handful of business cards and the most creative one I got was from Jackie Shu. She put a boolean string on the front. Sounds like someone you should hire!
The Fall version of RecruitDC will take December 7th in Bethesda, Maryland. Early bird tickets are just $75 for one of the best values on the recruiting conference circuit.