Archive for the 'Recruiting' Category


Recruitomatic & The Social Jerk (Or: Why you hate recruiters)

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

This week we started a “pound Nick with questions” thread — and you’ve been pounding! Great questions and topics — and pointed insights. A recurring theme on that thread is recruiters — the inept, the inane, the ones who waste your time, and the ones who leave you frustrated and angry. (There are good recruiters out there, [...]


How Employers Can Help You Get Hired

Monday, December 5th, 2011

In the December 6, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader who helps seniors find jobs shares an “interview invitation” one of his clients received. It’s a landmark! Why don’t more employers do this? Join me below to discuss other ways employers can help you get hired. I’m a training and placement specialist and a [...]


Employer Fined for Stupid Recruiting

Monday, November 14th, 2011

New Jersey is the only state where it’s illegal to publish job ads that exclude unemployed people. Is that because New Jersey has especially stupid employers, or because New Jersey is the first state to recognize that there are too many employers everywhere that behave stupidly? Does it matter? Here’s what matters: The company that [...]


Reference Abuse: Don’t do it

Monday, November 7th, 2011

In the November 8, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a seasoned professional takes employers and recruiters to task for demanding detailed references too soon: I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately: Recruiters are asking for detailed references before I even meet them or decide I’m interested in the job. They want multiple references before they’ll even [...]


Good Headhunters: They search for living resumes

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Next week I’m doing a presentation to a group of alumni from Cornell University’s Johnson School of Business, about how to work with headhunters. These are seasoned executives who have been running companies for 7-15 years, and who turn to their alma mater’s Career Management Center for an added edge. What they want to know [...]


TheLadders’ Mercenaries to Critics: They’re good eggs!

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Beleaguered and battered by the press, by career industry pundits and — mainly — by its own customers, TheLadders recently convened a war council to round up industry “leaders” to defend its flagging reputation. But this little event quickly blew up in TheLadders’ face, and now it’s leaving egg all over TheLadders’ leading apologists, who are beginning to look like paid [...]


Recruiting: Have employers put on their thinking caps?

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Joe Light (Recruiters Rethink Online Playbook) suggests employers may have put on their recruiting thinking caps. Light discusses whether employers and recruiters are shifting their focus away from job boards and towards more personal (and productive) recruiting methods. “About 24% of companies plan to decrease their usage of [...]


Work for free, or no interview for you!

Monday, January 24th, 2011

One of my favorite job-advice pundits is The Evil HR Lady, Suzanne Lucas, who calls ‘em as she sees ‘em. In her current post, Job Interview or Bake-Off?, she deals with the subject of employers who tease job hunters with interviews… if only they will do some free work first. Say what? It happens more [...]


Readers’ Forum: The dogs of recruiting

Monday, November 15th, 2010

In the November 16, 2010 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader asks why she’s being chased by wild dogs after she posted her resume online: I’ve suddenly been contacted by four different “recruiters” from different recruiting companies. On Thursday, one recruiter cold called me and said he saw my resume on Monster, asked me a few background [...]


Now THIS is a job description

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

I still think the best way to find great people to hire is to go where they hang out and talk to them. But if you’re gonna post something online to tell people about your organization and to get them interested… Joey deVilla over at Microsoft Canada has a good idea. Just tell people about [...]