Lee Hecht Harrison's Recruiter Roundtable

Today I had a great experience at Lee Hecht Harrison’s Recruiter Roundtable. There were four recruiters, including me, on the panel answering industry questions. I recruit, interview, cold call, schedule, coach, market and coordinate all day long. When it’s your job to find jobs, you forget how difficult it is for those of you searching for a job.

Lee Hecht does a good job teaching people how to find a job and how to work with recruiters. The candidates there had some great questions and got some good answers. One of the questions that got the most attention was - What are the most important questions for a candidate to ask?

The general gist of the conversation lead toward the wrap up of an interview. It’s good to ask questions but not too many. The max you should ask is five. You need to close the interview. What do I mean by that? Ask what the next step is, ask the interviewer if there is anything you need to clarify, ask for the job. Never, never leave without asking a question. The kiss of death is not asking a good question. So do your homework on the company and the people you’re meeting with then ask a great question!

Plastic People

I’ve been working for a plastics/foam company searching for a Sales Manager, so my work these days revolves around what I call my “plastic people” search. Plastic people make me think of hunting down my kids little Lego people around my house. Consequently, I am now hunting around the Western United States for a “Lego” for my client. I can’t get the image out of my head – I’m around Legos often! The good part of this is that it keeps me smiling even when on a harder-than-it-sounds mission to find the perfect candidate for my client. To also better serve my client, and quite frankly to satisfy my own curiosity, I went on an internet research binge to learn more about foam. I started with Wikipedia and typed in foam. This is what I got:

A foam is a substance that is formed by trapping many gaseous bubbles in a liquid or solid. A foam is normally an extremely complex system consisting of polydisperse (A collection of objects is called polydisperse or polysized if they have a broad range of size, shape and mass characteristics.) gas bubbles separated by draining films.

It goes on from there, but it’s so technical that this is definitely not the blog for that particular subject. Although, if you know of a blogger specializing in said topic, please let me know as it might lead me to the right candidate for this job!. Most of the guys I’ve talked to (very few women seem to be attracted to foam; I’ve only talked to one,) pretty much fell into foam. They are not academic tech types who specialize in foam. They do not have degrees in chemistry or biology. Most of them happened upon the industry and learned on the job about their product.

I’ve learned about foam too. I've learned it’s in pretty much everything - cars, airplanes, couches, computers, phones, medical devices, TV’s, buildings, etc. Some of it is so specialized that before I call a sales rep, I have a bit of research to do on what type of foam they sell. The point of my foaming at the mouth message? (O.K. I couldn't resist saying it.) Sometimes something that seems so simple really isn't, it’s quite complicated and the search process can become quite complicated too. However, this can be the most fun and interesting part of the job as well. One thing is for sure, I will never look at all of those little Lego people scattered about the floor of my house the same way again either.

So off I go through the recruiting maze armed with new information and some silly images to keep me smiling while searching for the perfect plastic person.

The Bench

I got benched.

I just spent a week being very frustrated. I got a horrid cold/flu along with laryngitis. First off, I don’t do sick well. I like to be busy and doing almost anything other than resting. This means my version of sick is me trying to pretend I feel fine and then collapsing in a heap on the couch. My kids love the laryngitis part of the whole gig. I can’t talk, so they get away with a lot more bad behavior. What kid wouldn't like that?? That said, I did learn something about myself this week. Apparently, I normally sing a lot around the house - I know funny huh? I discovered that it’s not nearly as much fun listening to Pink crazy loud when you can’t sing along.

Working as a recruiter with laryngitis is almost impossible. All of my "sign language" can’t be seen over the phone and face to face meetings with me sounding like a frog are less than desirable - ugh. On the other hand, some people say my voice sounds great this way. However, the price to pay to have a, to quote a client - "sexy-raspy" voice for a week is too great. It plain ol' hurts to much to talk, so I shut up.

I guess I’ll have to reflect on this week as a rare week of Zen like silence – almost. It is definitely a lesson in taking better care of myself, which seems to be the true lesson being imparted to me through this experience. I guess occasionally getting off the roller coaster ride is a necessity in spite of the fact that I much prefer it! Sitting on the bench some days and letting others take the ride might not be so bad every once in a while. Regardless, it seems to be something I’m going to have to learn to do a little more often.

Now where does the line start? I want to get back on that coaster!!!

Taking my own advice - get out of your own network!

Last Friday I decided to take some of my own advice and get out of my normal work and social network. I RSVP'd for the Chapman Woman in Film Conference. What a great conference for women in general, and what fun it was learning about the film industry.

I majored in Communications/Public Relations. When I graduated from Chapman, I thought I’d never use the skills I learned in school recruiting. I was wrong. My classes taught me how to write and market. In the past, recruiting was all about talking and networking face to face. Now with recruiting becoming an on-line profession with more written communication than verbal all those classes with Janell Shearer and Veston Rowe came in handy. So going back to my roots was a good thing. I reconnected with some people I have not talked to in years and connected with some new people. Getting out of your normal network does work!

Writing A Thank You Letter After An Interview

When you’ve interviewed you must send a thank you letter! Very few people send one so be the one to stand out. A few things to remember when you do start writing:

• Don’t start every sentence with “I”. When you say “I” all the time it makes you look self centered. It’s about what you can do for the company, not what they can do for you. Get creative and restructure your sentences to change things up.

• Watch your grammar and spelling – double check everything.

• Make sure you pitch (sell) yourself and do it well. You interviewed there and now you know more about the job. Every sentence written should show why you should be working at the company.

• Keep it short and simple. Never go over a few short paragraphs and never over one page.

Proof read before you hit send.

Proof read your emails before you hit send. In the last week I’ve received four emails, all riddled with typos. We all make mistakes but when you are emailing your resume to a recruiter or potential employer, it’s not the time to make a typo. Compose your note and proof it before you add an email address in the "To" box. First impressions are huge in this business and you want to make your first impression a good one.

Proof read before you hit Send.

Should you send a recruiter references and letters of recommendation?

I get this question a lot. Recruiters don’t need any letters of recommendation or references immediately. I'd recommend that you don't offer them up to recruiters unless you are asked.

Why? 

Many recruiters will just add the names to their database and/or contact them to introduce themselves and they do it without asking you. In addition to that, you don’t want your references burned out by recruiter calls. Save that favor from your old boss for when you get a job offer and you need your references checked.