HRMDirect President Colin Kingsbury writes on the latest in recruiting and technology.

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My contribution to this week's Blogswap is up on David Kippen's excellent blog on branding and recruiting. It's about transparency and how recruiters can use blogs to engage their candidates and clients in more productive dialogues.

We've always believed very strongly in transparency here, which is why we put the pricing for our applicant tracking system right there on our website where anyone can see it. One of these days maybe a law will be passed requiring vendors to put prices on their website so consumers can make a fair and objective comparison. Until then I just have to ask--what does everyone else have to hide?

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permalink  |   ( 3 / 657 ) Our longtime favorite Bob Wilson posts about the ongoing battle for vertical search supremacy and notes this:

Wilson’s 2nd corollary: Winners blog. It’s not ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ – it’s ‘effect’ and ‘effect.’ Proud of what you’re doing? Winners blog.

My first reaction is that this is on the order of the statistically-proven fact that pirates prevent global warming but then again....

Since starting this blog in late 2005, I've put up about 35 posts, and in that same time we've grown at nearly twice the rate we did last year with the same sales team and marketing budget. And some of those clients are companies are excited about too.

We are certainly proud of what we're building here and while we are neither the largest nor oldest provider of applicant tracking systems but that hasn't stopped large, established, and innovative companies from joining our fast-growing family of customers.

If there is one thing I hope our blog here does do, it's to give future customers a good sense of the caliber of people behind the corporate facade and a sense of our dedication to building a truly wonderful ATS. And to that end we have a couple of really exciting things coming online very soon which I am looking forward to sharing with everyone.

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permalink  |   ( 3 / 685 ) Those of you who read my blog regularly have noticed that I try to keep the press-release fluff out of it, but 2006 has been very good to us. So it is time to start thinking bigger, and to that end we are looking for great people in the following categories:

Inside Sales Rockstars
You sell or have sold software to corporate HR managers, and are accustomed to working with minimal direct oversight in a primarily telephone/web-based sales process.

What we are offering:
- Base salary
- Strong commission schedule
- Stock options
- Telecommute from anywhere in the US

Why you want to sell HRMDirect products:
- Unmatched curb appeal
- Shorter sales cycles due to aggressive pricing
- Clientbase growing 10-15% monthly
- Total support from a company committed to new client acquisition

Email me at ckingsbury-at-hrmdirect.com or call 617-938-3801 for a conversation in confidence.

Know someone who fits this profile? Send them our way and we'll pay you $2,000 if they join us.

Web Application Developers
You derive satisfaction from creating beautiful user interfaces and elegance in the code behind them. You are excited about the opportunity to help define the engineering culture of a great product. You agree with Steve Jobs' comment that "Real artists ship." You have solid experience in C# and ASP.NET and MySQL and/or SQL Server.

What we are offering:
- Base salary
- Bonus package
- Stock options
- 100% Telecommuting (Boston-area candidates preferred, though)

Why you want to join our team:
- Developing new products is more fun
- Work daily with a founding team that recognizes the value of good engineering
- Minimal bureaucracy and very few meetings
- We've still got all of the good qualities of a start-up, but our product is established and successful

Email me at ckingsbury-at-hrmdirect.com or call 617-938-3801 for a conversation in confidence.

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permalink  |   ( 3 / 635 ) We are exceptionally pleased to have David Perry of Perry-Martel as our Blogswap guest this week. David is a true innovator in the field and has literally written the book on aggressive career development tactics for job hunters. What we love about David is his refusal to accept excuses for the pursuit of mediocrity that characterizes much of recruiting, and his post is true to form.

Leadership Equity by David Perry
They used to say there were just two types of people in the old west – the Quick and the Dead. The Quick knew that it came down to not only talent and ideas, but execution. The Dead thought only talent mattered --- with predictable results.

Increasing the value your company is not just about “collecting talented people.” It’s about aligning your people with the company’s overall strategy, getting them to buy-in and to commit to a common vision. More importantly, you need to compel them to work towards the idea not because you told them – but because you gave them impassioned reasons to do it. Only then will employees take responsibility for how their actions affect the business.

Companies today, more than ever need leaders capable of managing a diverse community of people with a common mission who are willing to routinely operate at levels of peak performance. That’s how organizations compete in a knowledge based economy as centres of excellence – without leaving dead bodies at every gun fight. That's how you build Leadership Equity.

Is your company geared to go for the gold?

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permalink  |   ( 2.9 / 749 ) Shally Steckerl's blog post on SMS recruiting at ERE made me think about CBS's plan to advertise on eggs this coming fall. CBS knows full well that their advertising will be perceived as both intrusive and in-your-face. Odds are there will be protests at CBS headquarters and affiliates around the country involving groups of people pelting the buildings (and quite possibly network employees) with the CBS-branded eggs. And CBS knows these events will be covered by ABC, NBC, and the local newspaper. It's a classic case of, "I don't care what they write about me so long as they spell my name right."

Shally's post is less of a gift to bored headline writers, but it prompts many of the same questions. In these cases discussion often becomes segmented, like the old sitcom convention, into the angel and the devil that pop up on opposing shoulders. One says we can't do anything that might ever offend anyone, not even once, because that might tarnish our reputation. The other says, "if it feels good, do it!" Shally is happy to be pictured with horns sprouting from his forehead and his point that this technique is being used by NCAA coaches is apposite.

No one is debating whether intrusive marketing is intrusive. The more important question is whether it is effective. CBS will have its name cursed millions of times in America's kitchens this fall. People will debate at length whether anything is sacred anymore, but in the end, the product CBS is selling is scarce: if you like The Amazing Race, you have no choice but to watch it on CBS. At that point the question becomes whether the eggs offend you more than the show entertains you.

With SMS and recruiting, the balance is slightly different. At the early stage of the process, recruiters' solicitations are generally not worth very much: it's just an invitation to a conversation about a job you may not want and probably won't get. So the cost to blackballing that pushy recruiter seems very small, while the satisfaction of showing him who's boss is significant. So I think in this situation the intrusive approach has a real risk of alienating candidates.

But there is a way around this. If your communication offers a product of real value, whether it's a free Starbucks coffee or a guaranteed interview, you will get brushed off less. More importantly, you are going to need to learn how to do this sooner or later because within a year or two, every other recruiter in town will be SMS-spamming candidates. It's like telephone cold-calling: the first guy who did it might not have been objectively good at it, but he probably got great results because no one expected it. Poorly-executed SMS will deliver results today because it is novel, but it likely won't be for long.

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