What Mr Men Character are You?

So anyway, this may – or may not – have happened to someone I know last week…

To protect her identity let’s call her Genny… (see Jen, no-one will know who I’m talking about… I changed the ‘J’ to a ‘G’… and I used Genny – the name you hate – not Gen, or Gennifer..)

So, Jen… whoops I mean Gen… whoops I mean Genny… nipped down to 7-Eleven™ to pick up a couple of Hot Chocolates. (She says the hot chocolates at 7-Eleven™ are the best going around… I suspect it’s more about the $2 price tag…). Anyway, Genny bought the hot chocolates and stepped out of the store, and onto the street… where a fast moving, well dressed, suited and booted woman inadvertently took Genny out in a sickening side swipe… causing one of the hot chocolates to tumble slow motion through the air (are you imagining it?), and land upside down on the footpath.

The offending woman stopped… profusely apologised and offered to pay for a replacement. Genny politely declined… or so she tells us… but the woman insisted and forced a $5 note into Genny’s outstretched… whoops… I mean un-expectant hand.

‘But it only cost $2… let me at least get you your change…’ Genny’s words… not mine.

‘No, no… I’m in a massive hurry…’ And with that, the woman disappeared in a puff of smoke… never to be heard of again… Or… strode off… $5 lighter and muttering under her breath about people always stepping out of 7-Eleven™ stores carrying 2 hot chocolates and not looking where they are going… you decide.

As Genny turned around to re-enter 7-Eleven™ she was stopped by what appeared to be a harmless and homeless lady…

‘Listen Darlin’ I’ll take the money… I’m a Hustler…’ (not Hustler like in the magazine Hustler, I think she meant Hustler as in the cheating, lying & thieving sense… Not that I’ve ever read the magazine Hustler, nor do I know anything about its contents…).

‘Not Likely…’ Genny replied and proceeded back into 7-Eleven™ to purchase an replacement hot chocolate…

The poor, homeless, tear-filled Hustler was now joined by her boyfriend… Picture him… no shoes… no shirt… one tooth… and ready for some biff… who said. ‘What’d she say?’ And they moved menacingly toward our heroine…

To cut a long story short… well shortish… Genny bought the hot chocolate… held the $3 change tantalisingly aloft for the dishevelled couple to see… calmly placed it in the charity money box on the counter… and hot-footed it out of there and back to the office.

When Genny re-told the story to all of us in the office, I sadly shook my head and offered…

‘If you were a Mr Men character, you would be Little Miss Trouble…’

Then… it… hit… me… We are always looking for ways to measure our culture internally in the workplace. Do you have a positive ‘culture’? How do you know if your ‘culture’ is bad? Is the only evidence of a growing culture in this office inside that yoghurt pot in the fridge – 3 months past its use-by date? Etc. etc. etc.

So, what if we simplified it by labelling everyone in your workplace as a Mr Men character? No… work with me here… Imagine you have… say… seven people in your office. Give them all a Mr Men identity based on their personality… Mr Fussy… Little Miss Naughty… Mr Tickle etc. If there are more positive characters than negative… then you have a supportive and happy work culture. If not, you have a problem… Simple, effective, understandable and efficient…

I love it when a blog comes together…

For the record, let me know what Mr Men character you think best represents you… and if you know me… give me a label… I’m a big boy… figuratively, not physically… I can take it…

Craig Watson

 

7 reasons why your social media strategy sucks

I had another blog already written and ready to go for this week. Surprising for me as I have a knack of being a bit lastminute.com and usually do my homework on the bus on the way into school, so to speak. Anyway, the change was prompted by a conversation that I tuned into on Twitter yesterday (#RCSAacumen). It was coming out of a conference Greg Savage held, the general gist being the importance for recruiters in having a social media strategy. 

The point of this blog is not to regurgitate what he discussed or argue whether social media is important or not. I will let you check out what Mr Savage has to say himself…. I don’t want to be accused of copying of the bright kid in class!

But it prompted me to dispel some myths about what a social media strategy actually is , or more importantly what it is not !!! Because from what I see, a lot recruiters, and their employers, think they have a social media strategy in place…but in reality they don’t.  So, what is not a social media strategy?

1. Having a Twitter or Linked account, or a FB page. My Dad has all of the above and last week he tried to buy something online by putting his credit card in the CD drive! No point buying a ticket to the disco if you don’t turn up.

2.  Just ‘liking’ or re-posting things without adding any new content or comments.  It’s a nice thing to do but what’s the point? Unless you are the lovechild of Pitt and Klum…. you are going to struggle to pick up spending the whole night on the edge of the dance floor and admiring the talent from afar.

 3. Mindlessly sending messages and spamming just because you can. The various social media platforms, especially LinkedIn, make it super easy to ping out an email to hundreds of people at once. In the time it has taken me to write this blog I have been sent five spam mails, one from a competitor advertising their jobs. No one is going to be impressed if they are the 50^th person you chatted up that night.

4. Assuming just because your employer is active, you are covered. Great if your employer is all over social media and pushing their brand out there. But you still have to build your own identity and presence.  You might get some interest because your friends are hot, but if you look like you have been dragged through a hedge backwards then it doesn’t really matter.

5. Focusing on how many people are following you or are in your network. It’s not the size that matters; it is what you do with it. Enough said!

6. Doing it for a couple of weeks or months. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is your social media profile. I have been at it for a couple of years and only recently am I reaping the benefits. You might get lucky on the first night…. but the good ones usually take a little longer!

…and the biggest mistake of them all…..

7. Posting endless streams of jobs on these sites. Check out the Twitter stream for QPL a company that recently brought in the administrators (although they have traded out of it now apparently). And I couldn’t find one for HJB who recently went under. (This is where the disco analogy runs out…!)

There are plenty of blogs out there that will give you the “how to” when it comes to building a successful social media strategy. In my experience there is no magic recipe and it really comes down to trial and error. Just don’t kid yourself you are doing it properly if you are doing the above….you may as well not bother.

Luke Collard

Put your hand up if you’re different…

I just returned from a new client visit… well… given that it is 7:30am, as I sit in front of my sexy little MacBook Air (cash for comments if you’re reading Apple ™ – don’t be afraid to send a newbie my way), I didn’t really just return from a new client visit – it was yesterday… Now that we have that cleared up let’s move on… quickly…

So… I was on a new client visit yesterday… the early conversation went a little like this…

Welcome… pleasantries… how’s the weather… blah… blah… blah… etc…

‘If you don’t mind me asking Mr Miyagi,’ I inquired, with my very best let’s get down to business voice. ‘I understand you have a strategic need within your business… but why did you reach out to me?’

‘Well,’ Mr Miyagi countered, with his predatory eyes stalking an errant fly buzzing around the board table, and his left hand – clutching chopsticks – steadily poised for action. ‘I have read your blog…’ probably never again after this post I’m guessing. ‘I have seen the research you have conducted into the industry… you have a very strong social media presence, and I have spoken to a number of senior people in the market and you come highly recommended…’

‘Really?’ I blushed, barely able to contain the excitement at being recognised… finally… for being able to add value to a client’s requirements… ‘Go on…’

‘Pardon?’ Mr Miyagi asked.

Did I just say that out loud, I thought… ‘Did I just say that out loud?’ I asked.

‘Say what out loud?’ Mr Miyagi questioned, as he sprang at the fly with his chopsticks… and missed.

‘Oh… nothing.’ I responded… well saved Craig.

Anyway, the remainder of the meeting went well. I took a detailed job brief… made sure Mr Miyagi was on board with our terms of business… and even tied Mr Miyagi down… not literally, he’s a black belt… to a month’s exclusivity on the role… and to all you ‘retained or nothing’ people out there, I gave it my best shot!

We were bringing the meeting to a natural conclusion…

Thanks for seeing  me… warm shake of the hand… do you have any plans for the weekend… blah… blah… blah… etc… And then Mr Miyagi hit me with one right out of left field…

‘Wax on… wax off… wax on… wax off…’ Ok, I made that bit up… what he really said was…

‘And just before we finish up here… tell me Craig… why should I use you? There are plenty of recruiters out there in your space…’

I looked at him blankly for a moment, before gathering my thoughts… ‘Well Mr Miyagi… you really answered that question yourself… earlier on. I have an extremely unique candidate sourcing channel via our blog… We have conducted extensive research into the industry to make sure we understand it and can consult on it better than our competitors, we are very active in social media meaning we have created an interactive community of candidates… and in your own words… I come highly recommended…’

Mr Miyagi smiled… and as I entered the lift he called after me… ‘I expect to see the profiles of three quality candidates by tomorrow…’

‘In your dreams…’ I responded.

‘Pardon?’

Did I just say that out loud? I admonished myself as the lift doors closed…

Point is… we are in an extremely competitive market. Your recruitment process will rarely be the differentiator… and if your fees are what makes you different more fool you… so what’s left is what value you can provide that your competitors can’t… And the best way to ad that value is to be an absolute expert in your market.

Become the expert and you automatically differentiate yourself from your competitors… simple… and remember… ‘Man who catch fly with chopstick is capable of anything…’

Craig Watson

“We don’t need recruitment agencies”…blah blah blah….

Yep, that old chestnut again! I thought this debate had been put to bed some time ago. But, like my tip in last weekends big race, it is still running.

People…it’s not The Beatles v The Rolling Stones, Holden v Ford,  or Brittney v Whitney ….nor is it Cowboys and Indians and you are not ten years old anymore !

I think the large majority of people in the industry now understand the importance of both. That was certainly the message from some heads of internal recruitment at a LinkedIn event I attended a few weeks ago. They were keen to point out that, whilst they had built internal recruitment teams, their need to use agency recruiters was as great as ever, and that they spend as much on agencies as they ever have done. In their own words, internal recruiters simply don’t have the network that agency recruiters have. Considering this included Scott McDaid, Head of Resourcing for BP, (not exactly small fry in the corporate world) I think their sentiments should be valid to anyone.

But some people seem intent on continuing to argue that agencies are the Darth Vader to their Luke Skywalker, and they simply don’t need them. An article in Shortlist yesterday reported how Hilti has saved ‘around $1m in recruitment company fees over the past three years after bringing its hiring function in house’.  That might even be true, but the comments in the article by their head of HR Kellie Warta,  that  “Hilti avoids agency recruiters where possible” demonstrates a lack of understanding of the value of partnering with an agency…or, probably more accurately, that they have been using the wrong agencies.

For me, the premise that it has to be either “internal” or “agency” and that one is better than the other is the most misguided and uneducated view point anyone can take.  Similar to those that think all internal recruiters are just the ones who couldn’t make it in the agency world.

Anyone who really gets recruitment, regardless of whether they work internally or with an agency, understands that both models are necessary, and the best results are often achieved when you can combine both and make then work well together. Look at the growing RPO sector.

So anyone who is still peddling around the “us” and “them” argument and talking about “the other side” with the intense dislike normally found between die-hard supporters of rival footy clubs…all you are doing is showing how little you really know about recruitment.

 Like the person who produced this meme for example ….an ex agency recruiter who is now working internally and in doing so has apparently become the all powerful master (name has been blanked out)

 

Luke Collard

Recruiters… Why can’t you sleep at night?

The life of an agency recruiter is stressful. (I reckon I’ve started 38.7% of all my blogs with the same sentence… feel free to explore archived posts… just down and to the right there if you don’t believe me).  Oh… and if you thought this post was going to be about the seedy underbelly of the recruitment world… and the guilt we should all be carrying for not returning calls, or… discriminatory behaviour against job seekers, or… posting ads for jobs that don’t exist, then you are about to be as disappointed I was the Christmas morning when I snuck out of bed at 3am, because I heard a noise that I was sure at the time was Santa… It was actually my mum and dad testing out the Twister ™ game meant for me… naked… whilst dad was swigging back the beer I’d left out for Santa… and… as I ran back to my bed with the words ‘left foot… yellow…’ ringing in my ears I wondered if I should have grabbed my sister’s new Kodak ™ ‘brownie’ camera and capture the moment for future blackmail opportunities… I didn’t… and that’s what left me so disappointed.

Anyway, back to the stressful life of a recruiter. You spend your day on the phone… in meetings… being barked at by a manager who (in your opinion), would struggle to manage a successful bowel movement… let alone a team of four recruiters. You are continually measured on your billing, your activity, your dress sense and your value to the team. It’s go… go…go… all day long. Then you get home to a completely different set of pressures… Flatmates who haven’t cleaned the dishes from a meal 3 weeks ago, the realisation that you forgot to set the TV to record the Breaking Bad finale, or… God forbid… kids who want to enlighten you with every facet of their day… including what they had for lunch (ingredient by ingredient), or… the details of their successful afternoon bowel movement… (your manager could learn a thing or two from this 4 year old!).

But what about the moment when your head finally hits the pillow at night? Some of us are lucky and have no problem at all getting to sleep… a quick, effortless slide down the slippery slope to la la land… where you spend your 8 hours in a dream filled world of lollipops and leprechauns. You wake refreshed and ready to face whatever may come at you in the coming workday…

Well… screw you! This week’s blog is not for you and your snoozy world… go away and search Google ™ for more relevant posts like… I sleep a lot, are you jealous? or… Has there ever been a boy born who can swim faster than a shark? or… If spray tanning was an Olympic sport, my girlfriend would win Bronze… What? You still here? I mean it… pi$$ off!

For the rest of us it becomes a vicious cycle… you can’t sleep because you are worrying about what happened today, or what you need to do tomorrow, or the uncomfortable conversation you need to engage in the next few days… Before you know it the digital clock next to your bed (yes, I still have one…) says 2:34am in a mocking tone… yes, I know digital clocks can’t speak… or mock… work with me here… Then, you can’t sleep, because you are worried about the fact that you can’t sleep. You finally drift off sometime between 5-5:30am and then your alarm goes off at 6:15am… you have your third coffee by 10:08am, you’re tired, fragile and your day gets shittier and shittier… Sound familiar?

Well here are my 4 tips to getting a better night’s sleep – you deserve it recruiters… so read on…

1.     Wind Down – Your body and mind need time to relax and process the day. Spend the last hour before you go to sleep ‘technology free’. That means no: TV, social media, notebook or computer. Read a book, get a few things ready for tomorrow, talk with your family. Develop a ritual… sleep will follow.
2.    Stressed About tomorrow? – Keep a pad next to your bed and make a list of things you need to do tomorrow. Prioritise them and make a plan. This will set your mind at ease.
3.    Worried about what happened today? – Guess what? You can’t change it. You can only tackle the repercussions when you are refreshed in the morning. (Refer back to step 2)
4.     Anxious? – Sounds corny, but reach over to your pad (you know the one you keep next to your bed), and make a gratitude list. Write down 5 things that you have in your life that you are thankful for. Then turn out the light.

Other than that make sure you don’t have coffee of caffeine after lunch, exercise in the morning and watch what you eat… I sound like mum right? (I bet you just pictured her in that Twister ™ pose again… didn’t you?).

Facts are you need to be well rested; for your family, your employer and your sanity. Take control and do something about it today… Oh… and if you still can’t sleep… read one of our blogs… it works for my wife!

Craig Watson