As we have mentioned before, recruiting is sales; but sales in not JUST about the numbers it's about performance.  When it comes to selling yourself as a recruiter to employers or job candidates, success is not simply in the raw numbers, true success is measured in the number of contacts you initiate with prospective employers or job candidates on a consistent basis over a long period of time.  That means contacting prospective employers and quality job candidates for the first, second, third, fourth and fifth time and so on over a period of time. That is where true, long-term recruiting success comes from.

How do you know if you are initiating ongoing and consistent contact with employers and job candidates?  Well, the first place you can look at is your results.  How many interviews with job candidates have you scheduled?  Is it the number you want?  How many employers are you meeting with this week?  Are you on target?  Do you have a system of tracking how many employers and/or job candidates you contact each day or week?  Do you keep track of who you're contacting and follow-up with them over a period of time?

To experience more success as a recruiter, make sure you have a system that includes the following:

1.    A system of prospect follow-up communication, which can include the phone, email or postal mail.

2.    A system of tracking who you contact, when you last contacted them and when you are scheduled to contact them again.

3.    A system to measure how many times you have contacted prospects.

4.    A set goal of calls to make each day.

5.   A monthly plan to reach out and make new contacts.  How many law firm recruiting coordinators will you contact?

6.   Check in at the end of each day to make sure you are on target to meet your goals.

References, that ever important element of sealing the deal on a job offer. But how exactly can a job candidate find and secure references that will actually benefit him/her in securing the job of their choice.

Well, first let's look at some basics.  Never put your references on a resume or cover letter.  Only provide references once the employer requests them.  Typically, an employer will request three references; but every job candidate should be ready to present more if needed.

Who should you use as a reference?
Potential references could be former employers, clients, co-workers, partners or judges.  But they can also include well-known community, political and business leaders, educators or members of any professional organization you belong to. It's generally not a good idea to use current employers or co-workers as references if you want to keep your job search confidential.

Helping Your References Help You
Always ask before you place someone on your reference list and meet with them to make sure that they will give you a positive reference.

Provide a copy of your resume to those who agree to act as a reference and create a one-page "cheat sheet" that summarizes your strengths, weakness, work style, practice areas and reasons for leaving the firm if applicable.

After leaving a potential employer your reference list contact your references and remind them that they will be receiving a call.

Ask for feedback from the reference after he/she has been contacted by the employer and don't forget to thank them for their help.

Blogging power has become all the rage with the ability to connect to the right people and sell ideas, products and services.  But recruiters can also use blogging to find the right fit for an employer's job opportunity.  Companies such as Microsoft have already successfully used blogs to recruit some of their best talent and there is no reason why recruiters can't use this tool to their advantage

Here are some ways blogs can help recruiters:

Recruiter blogs reach talent who are not looking for jobs.  Some of the best job candidates are already employed; but if the right opportunity came along many would be willing to jump ship.

Blogs are more personal, giving talent the opportunity to know the person behind the company.  They are informal, allowing a more natural form of communication to take place between the recruiter and the candidate without the restrictions of a face to face meeting in a business environment.

Blogs are viral.  If you've got a great job opportunity and post it on your blog, the blogosphere will spread the word faster than any help wanted ad ever could.

If you're a recruiter and have something to say about recruiting, the job market or great job opportunities, why not consider giving blogging a try.

     Seven Tips for Staying Out of Trouble On-Line
 
A lawyer was interviewing for a new job. He connected with the interviewer, received positive feedback on his resume, and perfectly articulated why he was interested in the firm. He thought a callback was in the bag. That was until the interviewer confronted him with a compromising picture from his MySpace page. Asked to explain what he was doing in the picture, the attorney froze. Not surprisingly, he didn’t receive a callback from the firm.
 
Employers Surf the Web
 
As a legal recruiter that places associates I can truly say that due to the explosion of the
Worldwide Web, you are more than just a resume and an interview. You are a searchable item on the Internet. Anyone can “google” you and find out your club memberships, school alumni activities, and even your recent time in a local 5k race. Some employers make sure the issue is front and center from the very beginning. For example, one of the questions asked in the vetting documents for a position in the Obama White House is: “Please provide the URL address of any websites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, etc.)." 
 
According to a survey by CareerBuilder, more than 25 percent of hiring managers search the Web before deciding to hire a specific candidate. And over half have decided not to hire someone based on what they found. Here are some of the things that were discovered on-line: Candidates lied about their qualifications, had links to criminal behavior, bad-mouthed or revealed confidential information about their previous company or a fellow employee, indicated they had used drugs or alcohol, showed provocative or inappropriate photographs, used tasteless screen names, etc. The bottom line is that what appears on-line may have serious consequences for you personally and professionally. No matter how hard you work on your resume, how great your references are, or how brightly you shine in an interview, you need to make sure everything about you will pass muster. Therefore, you need to work hard to make sure anything that could be construed as negative or questionable is not posted anywhere on the Internet.
 
Even If You Already Have a Job
 
This may sound like something that is only threatening up-and-coming lawyers. Wrong. Many law firm and in-house recruiters are creating “dummy” Facebook and MySpace accounts – not only to research potential summer and lateral associate candidates – but also to monitor current employees. Poor Internet decorum can kill your current career just as easily as it can ruin your future job prospects. 



Reputation Management in the Internet Age Continues Here.....

We've talked a lot about what it takes to get hired; but many job candidates, despite their best efforts send signals to employers that say -- DON'T HIRE ME. Let's take a look a few:

Lack Of An Overall Career Goal -- In other words you're just floating waiting for life to happen to you instead of making things happen in your career.  Oftentimes an employer may ask an interviewee where they see themselves in 15 years or 20 years.  They're asking this question because they want to know what your career goals are.  If you say, "I don't know" or fumble through the question that's a sign that you don't have any clear objectives for the future of your career which is a bad sign.  What you're saying to the employer is that you're unfocused and unmotivated and that you're probably a bad long-term investment.

Changing Answers To Interview Questions -- During an interview many employers will ask the same questions several times in different ways.  They want to make sure that the job candidate's answers are honest and genuine.  Don't offer insincere or "canned" responses to interview questions. Because if you do you may end up giving different answers every time the question is asked again; but different. Doing so tells the employer that you probably can't be trusted. Remain honest throughout the process and you want be snagged by this issue.

Consistently Bad-Mouthing Former Employers -- Okay, we know this is a tricky one.  Some employers may have been "not so good" in the past; but that's no reason to bad-mouth them in an interview.  Only highlighting the negative aspects of a previous employer tells an interviewer that you will probably one day bad-mouth them.  If you had a negative experience with a former employer resist the urge to go negative, try to highlight the positive aspects even while explaining what went wrong.

As a management consultant and trainer to the industry, I look at our industry and how it functions from a unique perspective.  I consider myself more of a student of the business rather than a trainer. I want to find out why things work so that I can develop a model that is duplicable among average people so that average people can achieve above-average billings.  It’s a unique way to teach the business and is  a different style compared to all the other trainers.  I know there are a lot of great trainers out there that are incredibly talented and use that talent to achieve success in the business.  The problem with this is that most people just don’t have that same level of natural talent.  Most of the people I have encountered in the search and staffing business are average people like me.  So if you weren’t born with the smarts of many of the industry gurus, how can you achieve success in the business?

You have to follow a system.  A system is a pattern or a model of doing something that can be replicated.  Consider it a recipe or a formula. If one person follows the recipe for making a cake and another person three states away follows it the same way, they will achieve similar results.

We can also incorporate reasons for failure into our systems thinking.  Look at what has kept other people from achieving in our business, and use those patterns as warning signs.

Recruiters fail because:

1. They don’t want to win badly enough.

This might be the most important reason why people fail in recruiting.  Desire will always outperform natural talent.  If you don’t believe me, then remember the story your mamma told you about the tortoise and the hare.  Whoever wants to win the most usually does, especially in a recession.  If you want to win, then you never pay the price of success.  You enjoy the price.   It never ceases to amaze me how many recruiters expect their boss to spoon-feed them training and to pay for it all. Champions take responsibility for their own training and aren’t afraid to invest in it. Go to the book store today with a $100 bill and buy a bunch of sales books for yourself. Take ownership of your performance and it will start improving right away.

 2. They get distracted.

Hey, this one’s my favorite because it is one of my biggest personal challenges.  I try to solve it by writing down my weekly and daily targets.  Ask yourself, ‘If I only accomplished only three things this week/day and considered myself still a success, what would they be?’  You can also use the weekly tracking sheet on the free downloads section on my site to help you with this.

Article continues here....

When preparing for your interview there is one thing that can kill your chances of landing that perfect job, DESPERATION.  One of the main indicators of a desperate job candidate is that he/she dwells on how hard they have been searching for a job. The solution? Don't talk about how hard you're working at finding a job.  Most people assume the most talented job candidates don't have trouble finding jobs and have their pick of the litter. Of course, job seekers know that the reality is not always that clear cut. All of us, no matter how talented have to put effort into finding work and sometimes the search can get frustrating. But many employers may not consider this fact, so if you suggest to the interviewer that you've been exhausting yourself looking for a job and/or that he/she is the first person to "give you a break" you may be sending a signal that something is wrong with YOU, not the economy, your recruiter or the hiring staff of various firms.   Instead of talking about the 100 resumes you sent out, talk about some of the fun things you are doing while being unemployed such as attending seminars, going to art galleries etc. Also emphasize to the employer that you are interviewing with their company because they are such a good match for your skills, experience and personality not because you are desperate to land any job.

Leopard Solutions offers webinars each week to our clients.  These sessions include instructional training on our systems as well as special educational sessions with guests from the legal and recruiting world.  Next Wednesday, January 28th, at 4:00 pm EST, a special session is being presented by The National Association of Legal Search Consultants.  The guests for the session are NALSC® President, Marina Sirras, Chair of Ethics, Helene Ashenberg, Esq. and Executive Director, Joe Ankus, Esq. They will be discussing the history of NALSC® and the membership benefits of the organization.

If you don’t know what NALSC® is about, this is your chance to find out!  They will discuss their annual conference and regional activities along with services to their members. Topics will include: Continuing Education, Networking Opportunities, SplitServ, Publications, Advertising & their Code of Ethics- Standards and Practice.

You are invited to attend!  If you are not a Leopard Solutions client, please email us for login details.  The session is free, and open to all who wish to attend. Leopard Solutions hopes that you will attend this informative session.

You've gone through the "agonizing" experience of the "first date" with your potential future employer and now they want a second interview.  What do you do?!  Well of course, you accept and follow these few tips to make sure you don't blow your chances.

1.    Take a mental review of your first interview.  Were there any questions or situations that made you uncomfortable?  Maybe you didn't quite know why you prefer THAT particular company as an employer or maybe you didn't give a good enough answer about your weaknesses and strengths.  Whatever the problems were, make sure you smooth them out before you show up for the second interview.

2.    Expect that your second interview will be more in-depth and may involve more people including senior employees of the company. Review all of your notes on the company, such as their mission statement, culture, achievements etc.

3.    Find out who you will be interviewing with in advance and do an internet search to find out more about them.  Don't forget to mention any articles you may have found that mention the interviewee's name in a professional capacity only. Don't mention anything personal.  For example, if you saw their MySpace page, don't say, "I saw your dog on MySpace, he's so cute," because it may give the impression that you're a "creepy stalker."  Simply say in a casual manner, "I ran across an article about your…..at….association…."

4.    If your second interview involves several people, make sure that as you speak and answer questions you give all participants some eye contact throughout the interview.

5.    Be prepared to answer some of the same questions that were asked in the first interview. Try to be consistent with your answers.

Remember, all of the rules governing how you comport yourself during the first interview still apply to the second interview.  Arrive on time, dress and behave professionally at all times.