Wendy Weber on Executive Recruiting

According to a new study by Burson-Marsteller, most of the Fortune 100 Global companies are engaged in social media.

More than three-quarters (79 percent) of the Fortune Global 100 companies are using at least one of the most popular social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and corporate blogs) to actively engage with stakeholders.

The study found that 65 percent of the Fortune Global 100 had active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent had a Facebook fan page, 50 percent had a YouTube channel, and 33 percent had corporate blogs. Only 20 percent of the major international companies were utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.

Some companies are interactive and not solely using social media to broadcast corporate messages. Companies using Twitter were following an average of 731 people each, and 38 percent of companies were responding to people’s tweets Thirty-two percent have also “re-tweeted” or reposted user comments during the last week.

To learn more about the study, click here.

…so says Betsy Goldberg, in her article entitled, “Get a Leg Up on Your Job Search”, in the March 2010 issue of Money Magazine.

Goldberg outlines these strategies for getting onto, and staying on, a recruiters’ radar:

FIND THE RIGHT RECRUITERS
Headhunters often specialize by industry or job function. Thus, the best way to find someone is via your network. You’re likely to get a better response if you’ve been referred, so ask friends in your field which pros were helpful to them, or use LinkedIn to check whether current or former co-workers are connected to recruiters; alternatively, see whether your industry association can suggest someone. It’s worthwhile doing all this even if you’re not job hunting just yet. Building a network takes time, and you might as well get a headstart.

MAKE THE INITIAL CONTACT
Write a brief introductory email explaining where you’ve worked, what you have accomplished, and what you’d like your next move to be. Attach a resume.

MAINTAIN THE RELATIONSHIP
Refer candidates when appropriate; people like to help those who have helped them. Return calls quickly and be open-minded about opportunities.

And if you land the job? Be sure to tell the employer about your positive experience with the headhunter – because recruiters especially like people who help them get jobs!

I am a member of a group of direct marketers called the Direct Marketing Idea Exchange. We meet periodically at New York’s Yale Club to share ideas and listen to speakers who are leaders in our industry.

Today Bob Allen, interim CEO of the Direct Marketing Association, joined us. Our meeting began with a lively dialogue on the relevance and future of the DMA. It was a productive discussion that resulted in a number of interesting suggestions intended to invigorate the association.

It was interesting, and somewhat disheartening that the 4 speakers at today’s luncheon are NOT DMA members, nor do they define themselves as direct marketers:

Michael Ferrante, CEO of Endai Worldwide
Chris Humber, Group Director of SEO for 360i
Ben Kirshner, CEO of Elite SEM
Jon Queen, CEO of El Toro

They represent the new breed of direct marketers. While “old time” direct marketers speak of “traditional media” and “new media”, to this new generation of marketers, it is all simply “media”. And it seems that the term “direct marketing” is associated with “old media”.

If you define direct marketing as one-to-one marketing that is quantifiable, it certainly would still be considered very relevant. But if the new generation of thought leaders don’t embrace the existing definitions, where does that leave the rest of us? Call it symantics if you wish, but it was an eye-opening revelation to our group.

The DMA, and those of us who make our living in the arena currently known as direct marketing, must change with the times. Some of it will be as simple as becoming better acquainted with different terminology; some of it will be more complex…learning more about, and embracing, some of the newer direct channels.

It has been said that the only constant is change. That is true in life, and true in our industry…whatever we call ourselves.

Have you ever heard of “white-fonting?” The practice of considering every possible keyword an employer’s parsing system might seek during it’s resume screening process, and putting them in the margins of your resume in small type, then setting the font color to white.

If you have encountered the frustration of forwarding your resume to a large company that posts job openings, and then utilizes a computer screening program to select the most qualified candidates by scanning for certain keywords that match the job’s required qualifications, read on…

After you “white-font”, no human looking at the document can see the words, but if all goes as planned, the computer will read them, and send your resume straight to the top of the pile!

In an enlightening article in the New York Post, this practice is revealed. Click here to read the entire article.

I am in the trenches, so to speak, reviewing resumes and speaking with employers every day. I had never heard of this practice. Although the article quotes career strategists and executive recruiters who claim to be familiar with white-fonting, it’s the first I’m hearing of it.

Have you heard of white-fonting? As an employer, have you felt deceived by it? As a job seeker, have you been successful by utilizing it?

This story captured my imagination, and I would love to hear from you about whether this practice actually exists, or whether it is “an urban myth.”

This is just fun! Glassdoor.com has compiled the Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions.

Questions include:

How would you move Mount Fuji? (Asked at Microsoft)
If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it? (Asked at Apple)
How many lightbulbs are in this building? (Asked at Monitor Group)
If you saw someone steal a quarter, would you report it? (Asked at Amazon)

Glassdoor.com is a career and workplace community where anyone can find and anonymously share salary details about specific jobs for specific employers or company and interview reviews describing life on the inside of an employer. What sets them apart is that all their information comes from either the employees who work there or the candidates who have interviewed there.

Crandall founder Hal Crandall had an unorthodox but unyielding requirement of any potential hire: they had to wear a wristwatch. (Of course, this was in the days before everyone had a computer screen with the time displayed in front of them). He felt that it was critical to be aware of the time, so that deadlines could be met and appointments could be kept. When interviewing someone who said that they “didn’t like” to wear a watch, and would just ask a co-worker what time it was he became doubly upset…that not only meant that time wasn’t valuable to the interviewee, but that that person would be willing to distract a worker that did wear a watch!

I’m not convinced the 25 interview questions above yield answers that would result in the most enlightened hires. Have you asked, or been asked, any interview questions that might sound oddball but resulted in an intelligent hire?

ExecuNet, a private network for business leaders, conducts a monthly survey of executive search firms known as the Recruiter Confidence Index. According to their latest survey, recruiting firms now expect a 19 percent increase in management search assignments from corporate clients – the highest since early 2008 – and are adding staff in anticipation of the growth.

According to December’s survey of 153 executive recruiters, 54 percent are confident or very confident the executive employment market will improve during the next six months – up from 50 percent in November. In addition to forecasting a double-digit increase in assignment growth in the year ahead, 21 percent of all search firms are planning to add professional staff in the first quarter of 2010.

Mark Anderson, president and chief economist of ExecuNet says: “The anticipated increase in search activity shows companies have started to expand their workforces after a long period of cutbacks.”

Introduced in May 2003, the Recruiter Confidence Index is based on a monthly survey of executive search firms. A leading indicator for the economy and the executive job market, a reading above 50 percent indicates recruiters expect the number of search assignments in the next six months will increase.

By Debra Donston-Miller of TheLadders.com, a company offering online job search and recruitment services for positions with base salaries of $100,000 or more.

“When you are being considered for a job, your potential employer evaluates myriad factors: your education, your experience and your successes, to name just a few. How about your personality?

Increasingly, organizations are turning to personality assessments to hire more effectively and avoid expensive and potentially embarrassing hiring errors, especially at the executive level.

“Testing is the application of science to the prediction of fit and success to the job,” said John Fennig, a licensed psychologist and managing partner of DRI Consulting, a management and organization consulting firm that administers pre- and post-hire testing. “There are two issues: Is the person the best fit, ideally, to the pool of other candidates — and how likely are they going to succeed at the job?”

Fennig said that in today’s tight job market, job seekers can expect closer scrutiny in the form of personality testing, as well as behavioral and cognitive testing. “Especially with the pools being bigger — it’s a buyer’s market, not a seller’s market, right now — job seekers are going to see more scrutiny, and they have to be cool with that.”

Tony D. Deblauwe, a workplace expert and founder of consulting firm HR4Change, said there are certain types of positions that lend themselves to personality testing, including sales jobs and customer-service jobs — jobs that tend to draw on personality as well as a certain skill set. Companies often administer personality tests for positions that require strategic thinking and complex decision-making.

According to experts interviewed for this article, some of the most commonly used tests on the hiring side of the house are the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF); Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness (DISC); Caliper Profile and California Psychological Inventory. (See Top Personality Tests on Page 3.) Myers-Briggs, one of the most well-known personality tests, is rarely used by hiring professionals, they said.

The overall point of performing these tests and others like them, Deblauwe said, is to go deeper than any job interview ever could. “If I can map exactly what I know is the gold standard for the position and what this company needs to have done against where you the candidate naturally lean, it’s another point in the decision-making process.”

And few if any rely solely on psychological tests to survey a job applicant. It is just one of several data points used to make a hiring decision.

“Testing should never weigh more than a third in the hiring process — it is being mis-used if it is pass/fail,” Fennig said. “What you ( the job hunter) have control over is two-thirds of the process — namely, your resume, your work history, your interviewing skills and the performance skills the interviewing panel may put you through to show your stuff.”

Gaming the tests

Up against stiff competition for a position, job seekers may be tempted to try and “beat the test” to optimize their results.

That’s the wrong thing to do, according to the experts interviewed for this story.

“There’s really no way to beat the test, or any of these tests,” said Justin Tobin, a psychotherapist in private practice in Chicago. “You just have to be yourself. It’s not just one question that’s going to figure out who you are. There are a lot of questions and a lot of information embedded in these questions. So you may not even be picking up on what the question is trying to get at.”

There’s actually very little people can do before taking a validated, reliable assessment, said Connie Kernen, business development manager at recruiting and research firm JMJ Phillip.

“The best advice is, and always has been, to simply answer the questions as candidly and as openly as possible,” Kernen said. “Generally, the first answer which ‘pops’ into the candidate’s mind is the best answer. Lying or exaggerating on an assessment can potentially result in two things applicants want to avoid: being dropped from consideration or ending up in a job they hate.”

Many tests are designed to pick up on dishonesty or disingenuousness. And even if you do game a test, you’re not necessarily doing yourself any favors.

“Be honest when you’re taking (these tests ),” said Abby Kohut, president and staffing consultant with Staffing Symphony. “If you try to fool the test or to make the test think that you’re something other than what you are, you’re not going to fool the test because the test is smart.” Worse, even if you were able to beat the test and receive a job offer, you might end up in a job for which you aren’t suited.

Know thyself, relax thyself

Recruiters and human-resources managers generally prefer to perform psychological tests early in the selection process, and many are now conducted online, before an initial interview.

But no matter where or when you take a test, taking stock of yourself before you answer the first question will help you relax and present yourself as honestly and effectively as possible, psychotherapist Tobin said.

“Before you take one of these tests, the most important thing is to know who you are and to be in touch with your own core values, your own strengths, your own limitations,” he said. “That can make you feel more comfortable taking the test and more confident to just be in the moment. A lot of these tests take you to hypothetical questions, like, what would you do if someone was yelling at you in the middle of a store? Don’t try and overanalyze what you think the answer is supposed to be. Just go with what you would really do in that situation.”

While experts say that you shouldn’t — and really can’t — study for a personality test, some recommend using the results from sample tests online or from past testing to add weight and balance to discussions about your strengths and weaknesses.

“Self-awareness is one of the elements of good leadership,” Fennig said. “Take assessments: One, (you’ll) be comfortable with the process of taking assessments; and two, more importantly, to know yourself will make people more informed job hunters. There’s probably no downside (to taking a sample test).”

What type of test to expect?

Just as there are many different kinds of tests, regulation of pre-employment testing varies across states and industries. In general, employment law in most states requires that testing be relevant to a position, and must be administered consistently across all candidates. Most states also require that the test meet professional standards. Unlike background checks, there are no laws entitling a job seeker to view the results of a psychological exam, but some employers and some tests in particular give job seekers access to the results.

DRI Consulting, for instance, gives all applicants copies of their results, plus graphed reports, and invites them to comment before the report is sent to the hiring organization.

“It’s like a good performance review; you get to read and sign off on the accuracy of it,” Fennig said. ” (Candidates) can’t change the numbers, but they can add stuff, they can comment, and then we submit that verbatim to the hiring organization. This has been hugely, hugely popular and effective.”

Fennig added that the testing is seen as informing not just the hiring organization but also the candidate about how and where they fit: “It helps the job seeker to say, ‘Oh, you know, maybe I’m not cut out to manage, and this is a management job.’ … The hope is that the testing informs in both directions.”

If test results are not supplied to you automatically, as they are with DRI Consulting, it’s a good idea to ask for them anyway, as it shows you are engaged and proactive every step of the process, Fennig said.

“The best candidates are clued into the decision path, and they know where they stand at each point,” he said. “So knowing that is a sign of leadership, a sign of power, a sign of confidence.”

First refusal

Can you refuse to take a personality test? Yes, said Deblauwe, and he’s seen it done, but just saying no is not a good idea if you really want the job.

The law is different in every state. Generally, however, if the test meets the professional standards defined by the state and is relevant to the job in question, it is permissible to make it a mandatory part of the job application, according to the American Psychological Association.

While it’s not likely to be told that you didn’t get a job because you refused to take a test, “unless you’re really, really good, the last thing recruiters, HR people, etc. want is someone who is going to be creating blocks for them. Good economy, bad economy — play ball,” he said.

Fennig agreed, adding, “Most execs who we work with have come to expect to be tested. They appreciate being tested because they are able to put their better food forward.”"

We are finding that some clients put incredible faith behind the tests we conduct. We recently had a client hiring for a SEO professional in New Jersey put our candidates through a 5 hour test measuring everything from aptitude to attitude, and nobody emerged as a viable candidate. We encountered a similar situation with a client in Iowa seeking an Account Director.

I don’t know enough about whether employees currently performing at these companies have passed/would pass these same tests to determine whether the tests are accurate predictors of future success, but I will say that they certainly weeded out some candidates that had performed spectacularly at companies you would know and respect.

I just had an amazing meeting.

A company I had worked with in the past called with a new search assignment.

The new management team saw some notes about me in their Talent Acquisition files, and they flew me out to become acquainted. I was absolutely “wowed” by their culture, and I think you will be, too.

This company offers the following benefits to all of its employees:
-Free breakfast in their onsite cafeteria
-Free lunch in their onsite cafeteria
-100% paid healthcare
-An I-Phone
-A $50/month clothing allowance
-A $50/month technology allowance
-A refrigerator at your desk

But as attractive as those perks are, they really are the tip of the iceberg. The company is state-of-the-art in so many ways. Two years after they launched, they switched business models and re-launched from the ground up. They literally resigned all of their clients and started over. What an undertaking. But they are a company with vision.

This company is virtually paperless, and each employee only has 2 small file drawers. All work is maintained on digital files. Their entire financial department is completely digitized, and they pride themselves on paying vendors early! To keep even the digital files organized, they devote 2 days a year as dedicated organization days, in which employees are to do nothing but organize and purge old files. Every employee has 2 side-by-side computer screens…and they are experimenting with 3! The company has a library that any employee may borrow books from. When I asked what book they suggested as a great read, they pulled 3 off the shelves and gave them to me on the spot. (FYI: Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono, On-The-Level by Patricia McLagan & Peter Krembs, and Good to Great by Jim Collins.)

They don’t conduct annual performance reviews, because they feel feedback should be immediate and ongoing.

They are not an easy company to be hired by. They conduct an extensive interview process, including 2 screening tests. They expect hard work from their employees, but they not only allow a work-life balance, they encourage it. Otherwise, I was told, they would have “a staff of boring people”.

I left my meetings so inspired. Not only for my good fortune to recruit on their behalf, but for the people I will recruit. Personally, I have never minded working hard, as long as I felt appreciated. I have had some of my most exhilirating career experiences in fast paced, challenging environments where I was valued and my work was recognized. This company has high expectations of its employees, but I bet they love coming to work in the morning.

Funny piece by Neal Hirschfeld in Sunday’s New York Times that will resonate with frustrated job seekers:

If They Won’t E-Mail You Back, Pretend They Did

Hirschfeld was fed up with interviewing for jobs and then having his request for information about next steps, or at least closure, fall on deaf ears. Three months after interviewing with a company that required not only an interview, but a pre-employment test, Hirschfeld decided to email the interviewer and happily “accept the job.” He wrote that he was “delighted to learn that he would be joining the team” and that “the salary and vacation were fine, and he would report for duty bright and early Monday morning.”

That elicited urgent email messages and phone calls from the organization, and a live conversation with the Human Resources Director, who was indignant about the “mistake”.

He said the words that I know many of my candidates would love to say: “Listen, lady…when you ask someone to come in for an interview, take a test and physically return it to you, and you can’t be bothered after three months to let that person know where he or she stands, much less acknowledge even receiving the test back, you are nothing but rude, thoughtless, unprofessional amateurs.”

Bravo, Mr. Hirschfeld. It’s hard enough being unemployed, and enduring the financial and emotional hardship of a job search, without also enduring the indignity of being ignored by prospective employers who both interviewed and tested you. I understand that employers are pressed for time, but an email note letting the candidate know they are no longer being considered is a simple courtesy that can provide the candidate with closure and allow them to move forward with some measure of respect.

Researchers say that Mobile Marketing will grow from $160 million in 2008 to $3.1 BILLION in 2013. The combination of mobile search and location based services will fuel this growth. Mobile Marketing has become accepted as one of the fastest growing and influential marketing message delivery vehicles here in the US. The embrace of mainstream advertisers such as Coke, Pepsi, Pizza Hut and Sony for example, and Google’s recent attempt to purchase Yelp demonstrates the importance of this growing marketing methodology.

I just attended a very informative meeting of the DMA of Long Island which featured 2 speakers on this topic. Both speakers articulated the idea that mobile marketing is about to really take off; it’s where internet marketing was in the mid to late ’90’s.

First Dennis Crowley, co-founder of FourSquare joined us by Skype. Thought I didn’t like being addressed by Skype (as opposed to a live human being), I learned a lot from Crowley’s presentation. FourSquare is a location based service app for mobile phones. Crowley claims its game concept “makes life more interesting.” Basically, its users constantly make people aware of their whereabouts, which makes it easy to meet up with friends and learn about fun new places.

Similar to Scouting, users earn points and badges for doing interesting things. For example, if someone “checks in” enough times from the gym, they can earn the “gym rat” badge. If someone has been to a place (favorite restaurant or coffee shop) the most times, they are named “The Mayor”.

I downloaded this interview from YouTube that helps to better explain FourSquare:

The second speaker was Nihal Meta, founder of Buzzed.

I had heard Meta speak 2 years ago about an emerging new social media – Twitter – and his presentation was so fascinating I went back to the office and opened my Twitter account.

Meta’s new venture, Buzzd, is about what’s going on right now at that bar, restaurant or club in your city, in your neighborhood or even the block you’re on. The “buzzdmeter” ranks the hottest places based on real-time posts from Twitter, buzzd and other social networks, so you know who’s there and what’s happening.

Meta said that if we want to look to the future of mobile technology we should go to Japan. They are already embracing it, and are much more sophisticated than we are in the U.S. For example, they use a QR code – a 2 dimensional barcode – in which you can hold up a camera phone to have an interactive experience.

He was full of interesting information, such as the fact there there is now a device that merchants can plug into your iPhone to swipe your credit card. There is also Google technology to measure traffic, by measuring where mobile phone users are “slowing down” on a highway.

This an exciting time for mobile technology, and the possibilities of utilizing it for fun, information and commerce are just beginning to be realized.