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Conversation

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: dialogue, discourse

Synonyms: chat, communication, communion, conference, converse, debate, discussion, exchange, expression, gab, hearing, observation, questioning, remark, speech, talk, talkfest, tète-à-tète, visit, yak.

Conversation is the real secret to recruiting.

The magic of good networking, for the purpose of recruiting is the art of conversation.  As a tool, conversation - something we all have many years of experience with - can be honed and mastered.

A Question to ask yourself: Right now, is conversation your strongest recruiting tool? How do you speak to others? Are your conversations and interactions professional and attractive? Think ...

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I've blogged on Blogger and Yahoo over the years.  I was somewhat happy with Blogger but didn't like the layout limitations.  (generic)

I'm now blogging on Wordpress but only recently realized you can't add your own plug-ins.  At least I haven't figured out how to do it. 

I almost think WordPress is "too" high tech for the average blogger, but I'll keep at it!

That being said, I'm keep looking for a Wordpress App on my iPhone.  Like everything else, maybe WordPress will be easier/faster from there.

So... "where are you blogging ...

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Only Two Months left to take advantage of the 179 Deduction!

How can Section 179 apply to your staffing business?  President Obama extended the 179 Deduction through 2009 via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). There is no guarantee it will be renewed in 2010 or beyond, so if you are considering purchasing staffing software for your business, this would be the time!

According to http://www.section179.org/  "the IRS tax code allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment purchased or financed during the tax year. That means that if you buy (or lease ...

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Last July 29th and 30th , over 800 troops returning from active service in Afghanistan and Iraq attended a pilot 2-day event at Ft Dix, NJ. 

Volunteers included Tip of the Arrow, Fort Dix staff, ESGRA, and NJ SHRM members led by Sherrill Curtis from the NJ SHRM Garden State Council along with hundreds of professional coaches and 50 employers with openings.

Information about the event was promoted extensively including through my blog and summarized later in John Zappe’s article for ERE..

...but the core of this event, what made it a bit different from other initiatives was the time ...

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I'm not an angry person or a vindictive person. I don't think you can be an effective recruiter if you are. But it's frustating to me when a potential client complains about their hiring costs if they use my services.

Yes we charge a decent fee. But remember that we only get paid if we produce a candiate that the hiring manager wants. Also we're not just a source of resumes as some companies try to portray us. When we're involved throughout the hiring process we add value.

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by Jeff Dickey-Chasins for OnlineRecruitingNews.com

As the recession begins to wane, it’s a good time to assess what effects it has had on the relationship between employers and employees. Why? These changes will continue to reverberate over the coming years and affect how recruiting and hiring is conducted, what technologies and approaches are used in finding candidates, and which resources are brought to bear in retaining top talent.

A case of two perceptions

Per this recent report from Human Capital Institute and Monster, 84% of employers feel that their employees are loyal and content to have a job ...

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For some in recruiting, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just another acronym in this already jargon-laden industry. However, SEO is a proven recruitment marketing tactic that has been around for years and should be incorporated into a company's recruiting strategy to increase applicant traffic to the corporate career site.  

Each month about 775 million searches are conducted on Google, about 226 million of them job related. That means that just under a third of the questions being asked on Google are related to job search. Is your recruitment brand being well represented?

Nicole Bodem, Arbita's Director of Search ...

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I heard it from several attendees at #SocialRecruiting summit - "I'm hoping to build a case to bring back to my company." That is the mantra of an employee playing it safe. One of the speakers, Fred Wilson, a venture capital investor in twitter, indeed.com, meetup.com and others, suggested going rogue.  He did state that you need to be mindful of laws and other legal compliance issues.
Some people are early adopters and others are not. Why are some people and companies early adopters and other not? I think risk tolerance is a big reason. People that are ...

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(Guest Post by Paul Smith)

In today's tough economy competition for jobs is at an all time high. The national unemployment rate has increased to double digits, companies are becoming more selective in who they hire, and the interview process is taking longer and longer.

We have all heard the talk about searching for a new job...how to go about it, how much time per day to spend looking, resume tips, and working your personal network. But what happens when you land the interview? How are you differentiating yourself from your competition and why should a potential employer ...

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Do you suffer from high turnover in the workplace? One issue that is greatly underestimated by most managers is that of employee turnover. It can literally wreck your organization and your continuity. The longer you have a consistent team in place, the more you learn to become an extension of each other. Your productivity and efficiency skyrockets when you have a team that works well together. For this reason, it is incredibly important that you create a working environment that allows your team to flourish, a place where your employees want to be on a long-term basis. Remember, your employees ...

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I might piss off a lot of Recruiters here, but who cares. 

Recruiters can't be trusted. Right up there with Car Salesmen and boiler room Stock Brokers, we are some of the slickest back hand dealing corporate raiders in all the land.

We are the group of scoundrels at every convention trying to collect candidates.

We are the ones standing at the elevator handing out business cards.

We are the ones writing blogs on how to circumvent gate keepers.

We are the party crashers.

We are the drunken idiots streaking through the college quads.

However,

We are the ones ...

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The more you know about working with recruiters, the more successful your job search will be.

Today, Sarah Welstead, the Director, User Experience at Head2Head was a panelist on Career Coach Daisy Wright's radio show for jobseekers.

We answered questions from real job-seekers about how to get the most out of working with recruiters.

Click here to listen to the show!

And don't forget to follow the host, Daisy Wright, and my co-panelist Jeff Lipschultz on Twitter:

Daisy Wright

Jeff Lipschultz

The economy may be growing again, but employers aren't hiring...This is a jobless recovery!

Despite a "supposed" economic expansion, businesses are still unsure about the future with respect to the job market.  The unemployment was 10.2% in October, from 9.8 percent, in September. I feel this rte is much higher. It does NOT account for small business owners that have closed down, individuals who have come off unemployment rolls yet still remain unemployed. Nor does it account for the masses who are working part-time since they can't find full time employment. That rate is more ...

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Perhaps one of the most neglected functions for on-going development is the recruiting function. Most organizations hire recruiters based on previous experience and then expect them to apply that experience into their culture and hiring processes with minimal instruction.

The majority of training for recruiters is focused on technology training, whether it's the applicant tracking system, the candidate database, performance management, or HRIS system. These are just the technology elements of the job.

A career recruiter will bring a strong foundation of skills in sourcing, screening, creation, and closing of candidate offers, etc. Those coupled with technology understanding are ...

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In keeping with the football theme from last week's post, not only did I marry a man who loves football, my Father also has a tremendous love of the game. My Dad played for the mighty undefeated Marcellus Mustangs in a suburb of Syracuse, NY in 1963. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard about that team or how certain aspects of how that high school senior year season impacts my dad's life. Since my dad grew up in the Syracuse area and went to SU, I love watching SU football and have heard ...

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Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are an effective way to post positions, organize candidates and streamline the hiring process. For many HR professionals, ATSs are typically their first experience with new talent management solutions. In my experience, once the value of the ATS has been recognized, there is a spark of consideration for new features, benefits and values that opens up the potential for investing in additional talent management solutions. The question then becomes "where does the ATS end and other talent management solutions begin?"

Identifying where your ATS ends in the spectrum of overall talent management solutions really depends on ...

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Year-end is fast approaching and the door will soon close on budget approvals for your 2010 fiscal year. How do you “sell” your leadership on the value of an Applicant Tracking System? When the bottom line is the primary focus, you need to make the case for your ROI on the investment in new software. When compliance is the major issue, you should be able to make that case with ease! ATS Return on Investment CAN be quantified, measured, and calculated:

1. Department efficiencies can reduce costs when a manual process is eating hours of the day that could be more ...

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I posted this to my blog yesterday morning, but wanted to share the wealth (so to speak) here on my ERE blog account too on some of the very many things I took away from the Social Recruiting Summit:

The last thing I wanted to do this morning was board a train. Last night's journey home from the Social Recruiting Summit in NYC via Amtrak, a trip that's normally just shy of an hour - and I might add a trip that's even shorter than my daily SEPTA commute into Philly, was four very long hours looooonnng. The ...

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I know that my core expertise over the years has been recruiting and sourcing.  I don't call myself a guru of anything except my own thought process (and even that is sketchy some days!) But I do interact with a fair amount of people within the social media and social recruiting sphere - both veterans and newbies alike.  And I have had my fair share of wins and losses within the social recruitingsphere on a pretty respectable scale.  The one thing that I hear more and more from newbies, and not quite enough of from experts, is how to create ...

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Japan ranks as the world's second largest economy with about $5 trillion in GDP last year. Despite this highly visible position in global commerce, student research tells us that Japanese candidates, especially Gen-Y candidates, are more attract attracted in much greater numbers to Japanese companies.

In this new podcast I talk with executive recruiter Jason Ayers and employer brand researcher Eijiro Kawada about what makes the Japanese employment marketplace so different. They offer some interesting ideas on how non-Japanese companies can compete in what seems to be a very exclusive market.

Listen to the podcast now at TheUniversitySpace.com ...

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