A new customer just sent us a testimonial and among many very nice comments the Corporate Human Resources Team Leader said the following: ” I have already recommended Talmax to a few companies. Talmax is an intuitive candidate management system that has enhanced our ability to source, screen and manage applicants efficiently. It was easy to integrate Talmax into our existing process and the automatic feeds to Simply Hired and Indeed.com create instant value for our organization. Best-of-all Talmax is an affordable solution for an organization of our size!”  (Perry’s Ice Cream, Akron, NY)

But, you want to know the very best part of these comments?  The author actually made 3 excellent suggestions that would provide additional features within Talmax that would enhance the usefulness of the software.  Because everyone today whether customer, vendor, candidate or supplier is so very busy, it’s often very difficult to get a written testimony about your product,

To receive such a complimentary testimony AND a thoughtful list of suggestions makes The Sourcerer sit up and listen because this is obviously a customer who cares.  I’d love to have a hundred customers just like Perry’s Ice Cream.  Great relationships in business are very special!

Talmax has an announcement that will help you find qualified candidates faster and can truly lower your recruiting costs. 

Effective immediately when you use a Talmax Career Site to list your current openings, your jobs will not only automatically feed to Indeed and Simply Hired, they will now also feed to Facebook and Twitter allowing you recruiting access to both these very popular social media sites.

This new feature is convenient, it’s automatic and it’s included every time you list a new job on your career site.

If you want to attract the “right” candidates, you first need to consider your job through the eyes of the candidates you want to attract. Good candidates crave information. Great candidates make decisions about applying for a position based on the tried and true proposition of “WIIFME” (what’s in it for me).

What really interests the candidate?

• Highlights of the company’s history (brief, noteworthy pieces of data)
• Job requirements (the absolute, “MUST HAVE” requirements)
• Background/skill requirements (the “must have” only)
• Job/background preferences (it would be nice if the candidate also had…)
• Duties and responsibilities (how will the candidate will spend his/her time)
• Company “selling points” (why would a candidate want to work here)
• Job “selling points” (specifics about the “what’s in it for me”)
• Company benefits (extremely important to so many candidates)
• Relocation information (can be “broad-brushed” but candidates need some info)
• Travel requirements (how much, how often, where to)
• Compensation/bonus opportunity/overtime pay possibilities (if you can, this key component is very beneficial to include)
• Testimonials from co-workers (tidbits from satisfied, enthusiastic employees are very appealing to quality candidates)
• Information on the culture & working environment (what would you want to know about this category if you were a candidate)

 What is the best way to present this information?

• Use headlines on your job presentation to separate each category of information
• Make your headlines intriguing (for example, instead of “Company Selling Points”, call that section “Reasons why you might want to work here”)
• Use short sentences or bulleted points
• Keep your job presentation attractive but concise
• Present a picture of the company and the job that candidates can visualize
• Make an effort to tell your story in a compelling manner
• As a time saver, use a format that lets you re-use sections of your job presentation such as company history, reasons to work here, environment & culture, etc. in future job listings

Instead of requesting that the candidate e-mail his/her contact data and attach their resume, allow the candidate to apply on-line, directly from the job presentation page. Doing so encourages qualified people to apply immediately using a process that gives the company a more complete picture of each candidate and gives the candidate a positive impression of the company and of the company’s sourcing process.

To implement a sourcing system like this there are several components you should explore.

1. Flexibility – You want an automated sourcing system that allows you to define all the fields you want included on your Posting Page.  You also need to define the number of categories you want, as you will want to present certain jobs using a less comprehensive format with fewer categories while others will require a very comprehensive explanation with a lot of “sizzle”. In other words, the software must present a job the way a candidate wants to see it.
2. Ease of Use - You should be able to enter your own data without the need to involve technical support from your IT department or tech-support team. The software must be easy to understand and the navigation must be intuitive.
3. Information retention - You need to be able to re-use or change certain data in future job listings without technical support. You must be able to edit, save and archive information for future use.

 Attracting the quality of candidates your company needs and converting the best of those who apply into new employees starts here:

• Create a plan and make-up a schedule
• Select the sourcing tools that will drive candidates to your career site
• Set the bait and sell the “sizzle”

A reader recently wrote the following to The Sourcerer:

“I’m responsible for hiring and I’m finding that I am bombarded with stacks of resumes very few of which meet my hiring criteria. What can I do to attract better candidates who more closely match my needs?”

You know it is really easy to make mistakes when you are sourcing candidates…unless you begin the process prepared.  Attached is a brief guide for managers to help with your hiring process.

In summary, The Sourcerer recommends that you:

• Create a hiring plan that really works
• Prepare a compelling job description that will attract the talent you need
• Control your recruiting costs and maximize effective candidate sourcing

  This article will also offer solutions to the mistakes that lead to spending too much on your recruiting efforts and offer ways to avoid hiring the wrong person because you have attracted the wrong candidates.

 Click here to read more.

We’re looking for 100 companies that could benefit from a six month free use of a Talmax Career Site.

Today, The Sourcerer is celebrating.

We recently put the finishing touches on an update of our website and have completed a number of significant changes and upgrades to our Talmax Career Site SaaS software. 

We are enthusiastic about the results of these efforts because we listened, very carefully, to the users of our Career Site product. The changes we have completed make that product even easier to use and, we think, more effective for the user.

A Talmax Career Site and automated candidate screening tools can plug right into a company’s existing website. The Career Site becomes the primary vehicle a company can employ to attract and screen candidates for every type of job from blue-collar to high-level executive.

Now we would like to roll this new SaaS software product out to small to mid-sized companies for a final critique before we begin a massive marketing program.

That is where you come in.  We are looking for 100 companies that could benefit from a six-month free trial of a Talmax Career Site. 

The user gets to experience ALL the features and benefits of this “plug-in” career site for a full six months, including all the candidate-screening tools.  There is NO obligation to buy anything.  All we ask is that the user completes a brief survey at the end of the six months to let us know what he/she thought about the product. 

If you and/or someone you know want to particpate, full details can be found at:  www.talmax.com/nocharge  Simply click on the red starburst.  It’s just that easy.

The Sourcerer thanks you for giving Talmax a hand.

Sick of your “normal” recruiting methods?  Tired of reviewing resumes from unqualified people who answer your ads or postings in droves, with no regard to whether or not their credentials match your need? Interested in saving your valuable time…and lowering your recruiting costs?

If this sounds like a pitch to buy a new service, it’s not.  It is simply an idea you might want to try.  It was done for a real company… and it worked!

An accounting firm needed to replace a key administrative person who had been with them for a very long time and was retiring.  They hired Talmax to find candidates.  We searched the databases of Monster and CareerBuilder for someone in their area with the background they wanted.  Talmax found about 100 or so “run-of-the-mill” possibilities, but no one really special.

Because the type of person we needed could come from a lead adinistrative job in a law firm, we searched the local member ALA site for potential candidates. That’s when the light bulb went off. 

The site contained a rather long list of vendors who were sponsors of various local ALA activities and who regularly called on all the member firms in the organization. We sent an e-mail to the contact at each of these vendor companies asking for referrals.  We included a link to a Posting Page, which contained a detailed description of the job that they could forward to anyone they felt would be qualified and interested.

We received eight referrals, all of high quality including the person who was ultimately offered and accepted the position.

How’s that for “out-of-the-box” recruiting? 

Got a recruitment story of your own?  Send it to The Sourcerer so we can share it with other interested parties.

If you haven’t read it yet, allow me to strongly recommend that you get yourself a copy of “Inbound Marketing” by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and read every word.  I found it to be a comprehensive and eye-opening review of the multiple facets of marketing using social media as a mechanism to reach an audience of prospective buyers and ultimately to convert those prospects to customers.

There is a chapter titled “Picking and Measuring Your People” which addresses the need for companies to find and hire inbound marketing savvy people.  The book referred to these people as “Digital Citizens” who were either “born Web” or very familiar with the Web and who speak Web fluently.  The authors suggested using a framework they referred to as “DARC” to identify and hire these types of candidates.

The “D” in Darc refers to identifying people who are Digital Citizens.

The “A” deals with hiring people who can demonstrate analytical acumen. Because every marketing activity of inbound marketing is completely measurable, the ability to analyze the results will insure better decision making according to Halligan and Shah.

The “R” stands for hiring people who have Web reach.  Web reach is simply a new form of Rolodex; that is, a personal network of connections within a specialty or industry industry through the web.

Finally, the “C” refers to finding “Content Creators”.  These are people with great writing skills who can create what the authors refer to as “remarkable content”.

As I reflected on this chapter of “Inbound Marketing”I had two distinct thoughts:

1. Identifying job candidates who have the skills, background and characteristics required to handle the development and executive of an inbound marketing plan effectively, will necessitate careful consideration.  For each person to be hired, a prospective employer will need to create a comprehensive job description, interviewing questions and determine what, if any, testing should be done to help the hiring authority judge a candidate’s viability. 

2. The second thought I had dealt with a personal observation. It seems to me that when any company initiates a new idea or concept designed to improve efficiency, effectiveness and ultimately to increase the sales of a product or service the company offers, it almost always results in the need to find the right person to insure that the idea or concept is generated successfully.

Interesting, isn’t it…no matter how sophisticated or leading edge our approach to business, it inevitably boils down to a need to hire the right talent!

Let me know your thoughts on this or on any other topic in our blog. The Sourcerer wants your input…

The Sourcerer decided that the topic of unemployment is so much in the news today that it would be interesting to see what pundits throughout multiple generations had to say on this subject.  I think you’ll find these quotes worth reviewing:

• Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden.  ~Orson Scott Card
• A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under this sun.  ~Thomas Carlyle
• You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.  ~William Shakespeare
• A man who has no office to go to – I don’t care who he is – is a trial of which you can have no conception.  ~George Bernard Shaw
• The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you’re on the job.  ~Slappy White
• Of all the aspects of social misery nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment.  ~Jane Addams, 1910
• Cessation of work is not accompanied by cessation of expenses.  ~Cato the Elder
• The hardest work in the world is being out of work.  ~Whitney Young, Jr.
• Hunger is not the worst feature of unemployment; idleness is.  ~William E. Barrett
• An “acceptable” level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.  ~Author Unknown
• Unemployment diminishes people.  Leisure enlarges them.  ~Mason Cooley
• Unemployment is like a headache or a high temperature – unpleasant and exhausting but not carrying in itself any explanation of its cause.  ~William Henry Beveridge
• We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.  ~John F. Kennedy
• When I quit working, I lost all sense of identity in about fifteen minutes.  ~Paige Rense
• I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work.  Work organizes life.  It gives structure and discipline to life.  ~Bill Clinton
• What is the good of being a genius if you cannot use it as an excuse for being unemployed?  ~Gerald Barzan
• The shock of unemployment becomes a pathology in its own right.  ~Robert Farrar Capon, “Being Let Go,” New York Times, 5 August 1984

The Sourcerer would love to add a quote from you to this list…