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

Part 2 of using referrals for college recruiting by Dr John Sullivan on ERE

By Riges Younan

With the increasing use of technology for the screening, matching and the sourcing part of the recruiting process your resume will increasingly not be read by a human until after it is read, parsed, and classified by a computer. So forget about the pretty graphics and nice borders because it may look like good to the hiring manager or recruiter but it looks like this ‘;anf;oasdfpoahs;gasfughv;asdnfg;asubfg;auhd’ to the computer (and just in case you are like me, not technical.. that’s not code.. it’s just me telling you that it’s a mess).

Here’s what to remember

1. You resume must be in Microsoft Word format. Not HTML, PDF, WordPerfect or RTF.

2. Looks are deceiving: Plain is good, Fancy is bad. No headers & footers, no graphics, no tables in Word, no fields in Word - and don’t use resume templates particularly resume templates from Microsoft (sorry Gatesy!)

3. Don’t mix font types or size for data. Sounds boring I know but it’s the actual content not the way that the content looks that’s important to recruiters and hiring managers.

4. Capitalisation does matter. Don’t use CAPS unless you need to.

5. See what your resume looks like in plain text. Resume systems convert the resumes into plain text and then they read and process plain text.

6. Contact info comes first. If you want a job, let people know how they can get in touch to chat.

7. Use common header terms to start resume sections. [Job Objective] [Education]

8. Don’t use columns or tables for formatting anything.

9. Keep like data in order. [Dates] [Company] [Position Title] [Description]

10. Do not combine sections.

11. Always end company names with common company name words. eg Pty Ltd, Inc, LLC, Ltd.

12. Omit page numbers.

13. Put skills into work history descriptions. eg: Sales, Developer, HTML, CSS, Management etc

14. Don’t put references on your resume, EVER.

These are some high level points. When you sign up as a member on 2Vouch there is a link to a much more detailed document with specific examples in the “Update My Profile’ tab.

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?

By Riges Younan

Jason Davis and Cheezhead talk referrals and ‘how they are the lifeblood of recruiting’ you can listen here. Now, I don’t agree with Jason that referrals need to be anonymous because if I was receiving a referral for a job,  I would want to know who referred that person? and why they think they are a match? This would allow me to qualify the quality of that referral.