Why are we still ballsing up recruiting basics with candidates? – Notes from the #RecHangout

This month’s google+ hangout was a corker.   The subject was “Why are we still ballsing up recruiting basics with candidates?” and I think we had the most twitter and webinar chatroom activity we’ve ever had.  We were joined by Greg Savage, ex recruiter and author or blog site The Savage Truth. Our host, Alan Whitford, keep the conversation on track whilst Mark Stephens (Technology in Recruitment Alliance and founder of the F10 Group) and  Louis Welcomme (Colleague Software) also shared their thoughts.  My contribution was scribbling notes rapidly in the background whilst trying to keep up with the Twitter activity.

It was a really interesting hour and you can watch the hangout here:

Greg covered such a lot but I’ve sourced a few blogs which I think support some of the themes discussed:

• Greg wrote this ahead of our hangout – What you can learn from the ‘Dark Ages’ of recruitment (there are 43 comments on this blog – well worth reading those too!)
• The future of recruitment is a mix of highly evolved use of technology and sophisticated human influencing skills.  Greg talks about this in Want fun and money from recruitment? Make these 4 changes and this blog from Matt Jeffery back in 2011 is also pretty spot on still: A Vision for the Future of Recruitment: Recruitment 3.0
• Build a personal and business brand so that the most relevant job seekers come to us – Notes on building a brand from our March hangout Plus learn to use social media to attract including Greg’s How I got to 30,000 (now 40,000) Twitter followers
• Don’t just whack over a couple of CVs and hope the client wants to see your guys; When your client says “send me the résumé”….you say this!
• Actually speak to candidates.. Should Recruiters Stop Using the Phone?
• There is no “war for talent”. It’s a seduction or romance for talent.  < someone find me THE blog to go with this one please 😉

I could probably add at least another dozen links but I suggest you listen to the hangout and go from there.  However, there are three summary points from the Hangout I want to share

Clients pay recruiters for candidates they can’t find themselves AND for managing the process

Become a skills hunter and a talent magnet

AND

“For fucks sake be smarter..”

Louis at Colleague has scheduled our hangouts so well that our next one at the end of May talks about using technology better – find out more details here