Recruiters Have Careers Too

Recruiters Have Careers Too

And, in today’s economy, they need to protect them! Even the best of recruiters have found themselves laid off by their employer or at a dead end in their organization.

How can you protect yourself?

Get Peter Weddle’s new guide, The Career Fitness Workbook. It’s available at Amazon.com.

The book has a number of special features:

Organized just like a physical fitness regimen, the book tells you what to do to improve the health of your career, how to do it and – unique to the Career Fitness program – how often in order to maximize the employment benefits you derive from your efforts.

From ancillary skill development and work pacing to soul work and gathering career intelligence, the book introduces a powerful blend of the best traditional practices and state-of-the-art techniques for effective job search and career self-management in today’s uncertain times.

Filled with worksheets and exercises, the book is a complete self-study program that delivers the knowledge and skills required for BOTH job search and career success.

So, get your career in shape. Get The Career Fitness Workbook today!

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The Uncertainty Factor

Even top performers are worried these days. Thanks to the drumbeat of news stories about business miscalculations, facility relocations, and corporate mergers and acquisitions – all of which produce layoffs – they too fear they will end up out on the bricks. As a result, uncertainty has now become as important a recruiting factor as a job’s salary level and an organization’s employment brand.

According to Wikipedia, uncertainty “is a term used in subtly different ways in a number of fields.” Those multiple definitions can be arranged on a continuum that stretches from the benign – as in situations where a person simply lacks information – to the hostile – as in those cases where the lack of information leads to harmful outcomes.

Uncertainty is now important in recruiting because the business environment has moved top performers’ perception of the term from one end of the continuum to the other. While they have traditionally been able to view uncertainty as a benign or at least neutral condition, they now see it as full of risk. And, that shift in perception provides a wedge for recruiting them.

The key, of course, is to provide a contrast between a top performer’s current situation and one which your organization can provide. Since its crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else’s, however, there’s no way your employer can accurately predict its future workforce needs. It is as afflicted with uncertainty as any other employer. So, how can you give candidates the confidence that they will not be harmed by taking a position with your organization?

Adding Certainty in Uncertain Times

The risk in uncertainty comes from a lack of information that has the potential to undermine your security. We live and work in an era of constant change, and being in the dark exposes a person to that change without any recourse. Change isn’t necessarily bad, but when it happens without warning – without adequate time for preparation – it can and often does derail a person’s progress, diminish their personal brand and undercut their financial wellbeing.

The antidote to this dark side of uncertainty, therefore, is proactive messaging or what might best be described as “add-certainty communications” – the nonstop transmission of accurate information that promotes preparation. The better informed employees are about the status, strategy and goals of their organization, the less risk they will perceive in the unpredictability of today’s economy. The availability of information doesn’t limit the incidence of change, but it does enable a person to develop and implement effective recourses to it.

Admittedly, add-certainty communications doesn’t seem like a very exciting or glamorous addition to an organization’s employment brand. In these days of high risk unpredictability, however, it says two important things about an employer: first, that it an organization which understands how precarious employment is now perceived to be and second, that it is committed to doing what it can to minimize the risk to its employees.

How can an organization credibly claim such a brand attribute? It must express its commitment to add-certainty communications in two ways:

First, add-certainty communications have to be a central part of the organization’s culture and, by extension, its employment brand. They have to be the way it operates and the way it describes itself to prospective employees. That takes courage as the resulting worker preparation can be a risk to organizational wellbeing. The return on such a commitment, however, is likely to be greater interest from top prospects and better retention among top performers.

Second, they have to be practiced in the organization’s recruiting process. The organization must proactively communicate with prospective employees – it must reach out to them, not once or twice but constantly throughout the experience – and provide them with information they view as appropriate and useful. There must be near continuous feedback on the organization’s progress in its review of applicants and an individual’s status in that evaluation.

All employees, to include top performers, are now struggling with uncertainty in the workplace. While its source – constant change – cannot be eliminated, its impact can be mitigated with the nonstop distribution of useful information. Organizations which brand themselves with a commitment to add-certainty communications, therefore, will differentiate themselves from their competitors and strengthen their appeal.

Thanks for reading,

Peter

Visit me at Weddles.com

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Be At Your Best With the Best Tools

The best recruiters use the best resources to get the job done. And, when it comes to reaching top talent online, their choice is clear. It’s WEDDLE’s Guides for Recruiting Success. Get yours today!

WEDDLE’s 2011/12 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet. This is the 10th edition of the Guide the American Staffing Association called the “Zagat” of job boards and social media sites.

WEDDLE’s Guide to Association Web Sites. This book details the recruiting resources and capabilities that are available at the Web-sites of over 3,000 professional and technical associations.

Finding Needles in a Haystack. This one-of-a-kind guide lists over 25,000 keywords and keyword phrases, across 5,400 job and position titles in 28 industries and professions.

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Outside-the-Box Training Sessions

WEDDLE’s is pleased to offer a number of uniquely insightful and practical training programs for corporate and staffing firm recruiting teams. The courses can be tailored to your specific industry or career field focus and delivered onsite at your facility or via Webinar.

The programs include:

Creating a Corporate Career Site for Post-Social Recruiting

Optimizing the Candidate Experience

Developing an Employment Brand for Top Talent

Best Practices in Online Recruitment Advertising

Optimizing the Content for Candidates Wherever You Contact Them

Building a Corporate Career Site for Passive, High Caliber Talent

The Art of Social Recruiting for “A” Level Performers

Transforming Your Resume Database Into a Candidate Gold Mine

How the World of Work Has Changed in the 21st Century

For more information about each program and its cost, please contact Peter Weddle at 203-964-1888 or peter@weddles.com.

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Sourcing Your Own Career Success

As recruiters and HR professionals, we spend 33 percent of our day (or more) on-the-job and 100 percent of our job helping others to achieve career success.

Don’t our own careers deserve equal attention? Absolutely! And the one best way to do that is by sourcing career success with WEDDLE’s books. They include:

A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream. This modern-day epic traces the journeys of three out-of-work professionals searching for answers in today’s seemingly nonsensical job market. Along the way, they discover the secret to “career security” and the pathway to real and lasting success.

The Career Fitness Workbook. This self-paced instructional guide introduces a complete regimen of activities that will help you successfully compete for and hang onto the job of your dreams. Think of it as “the habits of highly effective career activists.”

Recognizing Richard Rabbit. This fable for adults will entertain and delight you and help you out of the boxes that keep you from becoming the champion inside you. It is a novel and engaging way to recognize the talented person you are meant to be.

The Career Activist Republic. This blockbuster of a book provides a provocative yet positive assessment of the changing world of work in the American economy and describes an innovative strategy that will enable you to avoid the pitfalls and capture the opportunities in this new environment.

The Success Matrix: Wisdom from the Web on How to Get Hired and Not Be Fired. This anthology collects the best of Peter Weddle’s columns on job search and career success. It is the only book you’ll find that provides a candid and totally up-to-date look at how to get and stay ahead in today’s workplace.

In addition, read Peter Weddle’s WorkStrong blog for Career Activists. It’s a quick and easy way to stay on top of all of changes underway in today’s workplace and, best of all, it’s delivered right to your e-mailbox. Just click here to register.