Kevin Wheeler posted over on ERE.Net that he felt it is time for a candidate’s bill of rights. Something that 2Vouch agrees with, in fact a recruiter’s manifesto is being worked on in the back room of the 2Vouch corporate headquarters. Kevin looks at five areas for the bill to cover:

• Honesty & Authenticity
• Accuracy
• Complete Information
• Process
• Status
• Confidentiality

Basically he is calling for Recruiters, and Employers to respect the candidate’s time and position through open and honest communications.

The level of frustration is growing. The longer the recession continues, the deeper this will become. Candidates are not asking for a lot — just basic guidelines and an understanding of how we make interview and hiring decisions. They are seeking some understanding of what the process and timelines are for a position and how your organization goes about its hiring. This is not a lot to ask, but I have not seen a single corporation that spells this out at any level.

By Michael Specht, Consultant to 2Vouch on Social Media and Recruiting

Watch Riges Younan, CEO of 2Vouch, talk about SocialRecruiting.com. In this short 3 minute video Riges covers the idea behind the site, why people should contribute and what will happen with the results.

By Michael Specht, Consultant to 2Vouch on Social Media and Recruiting

By Riges Younan

I’m preparing my presentation on Social Recruiting for the Australiasian Talent Conference in Auckland and I would like to know what questions you have about social recruiting.

What do you think about this definition?

Social Recruiting harnesses the evolution of Web 2.0 technologies and social media to communicate, engage, inform and recruit our future talent

So, it would be great if you could help me craft my presentation.

Job hunting can be a very difficult time for candidates. Looking the the right job, dealing with recruiters, getting the interview, and finaly receiving a suitable offer.

Most jobs end up having only a few candidates make the shortlist for the interview stage. For a candidate getting to the interview stage means they are one or two steps away from a potential offer, they just need to pass the interview and not crash and burn.

The best way to get through the interview is knowing what sort of questions will be asked and then practice. Interviewers like to ask behavioural based questions, such as “Tell me about a time when you resolved conflict within your team?”. The best way to handle them is to follow the STAR method:

Situation: give an example of a situation you were involved in that resulted in a positive outcome

Task: describe the tasks involved in that situation

Action: talk about the various actions involved in the situation’s task

Results: what results directly followed because of your actions

While many questions are fairly standard you always get unique ones, and they tend to be the important ones. Coming up with a good reply to meet the STAR method can be tough.

This is where the art of story telling comes in.

Shawn Callahan from Anedote posted a really good introduction to how to tell stories during a job interview.

Job interviewers these days know the importance of stories. They know that stories give a good insight into your capabilities and experience. They call it behavioural interview technique, which is just a fancy title for collecting stories from you. So you’d better have some stories to tell that reveal your character, skills and attitude to life.

Every story we tell gives people an insight into who we are. They are quite revealing. So before you tell them to an interviewer it’s a good idea to tell your stories to a friend and ask them about the qualities they inferred about you based on the story. Is it resilience, courage, persistence, creativity etc.? You will surprised to find that a story which you thought, for example, was about persistence, comes across to the listener as arrogance. You will want to avoid those ones.

Shawn goes on the give a great step by step approach to developing your own stories. If you are in the process of trying to find a job this is a must read blog post.

By Michael Specht, Consultant to 2Vouch on Social Media and Recruiting

By Riges Younan

An Australian blog called The Didge was brought to my attention yesterday after they had posted a review on 2Vouch. I’ve posted a comment on the blog but it is currently being moderated, so I thought I would share my thoughts here too. Once you have finished reading this, Michael Specht has posted his view on that post.

My Comment here

Hello David,

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to review 2Vouch, it is a very considered post. My view is a good supply of candidates the job-boards major challenge will be to limit the increase in inappropriate applications and the increased time cost associated with screening and responding to those candidates. Our view is referrals will become even more valuable because they provide a great filtering and screening mechanism for companies looking to hire.
I agree that some industries are suffering and will continue to suffer from the current economic climate; this is why our market entry strategy is focused on customers within industries that will continue to experience a supply and demand imbalance such as Online, Digital, ICT and Engineering etc

As for referrals being only financially driven, why would people bother referring jobs to their contacts that have no chance of getting the job? This would only damage their reputation and social capital within their network, and ultimately lead to receiving no reward. So we don’t see this as an issue. In addition, we give referrers the ability to make a choice, either to take the cash referral reward or choose to automatically donate all or a portion of that reward to one of our charity partners such as Sids & Kids or Guide Dogs Victoria.

Our research suggests that one of our biggest challenges is to minimise the risk to a person’s reputation. Doing this will ensure our members feel comfortable putting their reputation on the line when referring a job to someone they know, and we are well advanced on a solution that we believe will mitigate this risk. It is important to note that referrers on the 2Vouch platform are unable to pass on the details of another person to an advertiser unless that potential candidate is interested in the job opportunity and authorises via the system that they would like to be put forward. We are very focussed on our member’s privacy and that is at the core of our whole process.

Cost reduction will be on the agenda for most businesses and sourcing a candidate that comes with a personal recommendation for ~3% of the salary and with a 110% money back guarantee you must admit is a very attractive proposition. So unlike existing online sourcing solutions we only expect our customers to pay when they receive value and that value is a candidate that they have hired or placed with one of their clients.

Lastly, 2Vouch has been founded based on over 12 years of global recruiting experience so we have developed a number of sophisticated online and offline tracking mechanisms that enable us to monitor the recruiting process. However, our fundamental belief is that the majority of people will always do the right thing, particularly when they know there is a referrer in the middle of the transaction and the potential damage to their online brand if they do the wrong thing.

David, you raise some interesting points around design and UI etc – I encourage you to sign up as a referrer and gain the full user experience as your feedback about our platform would be very valuable.

To your readers, if you are interested in trying 2Vouch out you can reach us at www.2vouch.com

Great blog – we enjoy the healthy debate and we are all for people helping the online recruiting industry in Australia evolve.

Best,
Riges Younan
Founder & CEO |2Vouch

After one of the longest bull runs in the history of the markets, the winds of change are blowing through the financial markets. It seems like the effects are flowing through different parts of the economy and big companies have already started announcing lay-offs.

Since we have just launched a recruiting business, a lot of people have asked us “how do you think a down-turn in the economy will impact your site?”

Our answer has stayed the stayed the same, “There is still lots more demand for professional people - especially in IT - than there is supply. Also, good companies always need good people. The only thing that will really change is that referrals will become even more valuable.”

Why do we think referrals are even more valuable in tougher times? There are at least 5 reasons:

1. As things get tougher, adding value to your network will help position you if your own situation changes (you get retrenched, your company starts to run into trouble, you just want a change)

2. As more people are looking for work, employers will get more irrelevant applications. This will increase their cost and time to hire. In this environment, referrals provide a great filtering mechanism

3. Good people - even in tough times - are usually working. As the external job market gets tighter, those people are less likely to be out looking for work. Referrals are a great way to get to those people

4. Cash is king. Other income sources may be effected during tough times. If you participate in a referral program that pays you a reward, you can earn some much-needed extra cash AND help people in your network

5. What goes around comes around. If you make great referrals to recruiters and employers, they may well look favorably on you if you ever come to apply for a job with them… or even help you transition when you want a change.

So, help yourself and your network by making quality referrals to people you know and recommend… especially as times get tougher.

By Riges Younan

10 trends for recruiting in 2009 by Michael Specht

‘Referrals. Time and time again referrals provide the highest quality hire at the lowest cost.’

By Riges Younan

Good overview by Dr. John Sullivan. Number two on the list is “referral programs”

‘Reinvigorating referral programs. Despite the growth of career-related Internet sites, the highest volume and quality candidates still come from well-designed employee referral programs. While heavy adoption was initially hampered by cultural issues around the world, today such programs are proving highly effective everywhere. Key focus areas include proactively approaching key employees for referrals (program targeting), leverage non-employee referrals, making reward systems more comprehensive, immediate, and visible, and last but not least, helping employees leverage social media to restore relationships, make new relationships, and build stronger relationships. Firms to watch: AmTrust Bank, Edward Jones, Whirlpool, and Amazon.com.’

By Riges Younan

I was contacted by David Campbell from lovedigital last week to get my views on how digital & social media is impacting the recruiting industry. Listen here

how do you think it’s impacting our industry?

By Riges Younan

Here is an interesting post by Louise of UK Recruiter fame about Video CV’s and discrimination in the recruiting process. My view is that video CV’s may increase the chances of discrimination earlier in the recruiting process assuming the recruiter/hirer has time to view the CV in the first place. Secondly, in a market where the supply and demand equation is still heavily in favour of the supply side ( and I don’t see that changing materially in the short to medium term) what type of candidates have the time to sit and record a video CV in the first place.. certainly not the highly sought after ‘passive’ (don’t like term that much but anyway) candidates.. why? because they are too busy doing what they do best… WORKING!.. what do you think?