This Week, In Recruiting - Issue 139

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Open Kitchen: 6 x Job Search Tips for Recruiters 'Open To Work'

Last Friday, we gathered together a load of recruiters who are or had been on various stages of the job search in 2023. It was a great conversation where we shared support, experience and insight on the State of the Recruiter Job Market in 2023. There was a ton of great job search tips shared, so I collated them together in today's Open Kitchen. I hope that they prove useful to you if you're on the market.

1. Actively Maintain Morale

Being involuntarily on the job market can be a demoralising experience. This is especially the case if we have not previously had experience of being there for a prolonged period of time. It is important that we recognise the psychological impact of being involuntarily unemployed and to work to actively maintain our morale, as it is a key component to eventual success in a tight job market. Rejection rate will be higher, rejection ratio will be higher, so how long you can stay in there with full energy and effort will be critical to securing the opportunities when they are uncovered.

Our panellists shared some ways in which they were keeping morale at a high level.

• Connect with other job seekers - job search in 2023 can be lonely experience, especially if you have been used to working in teams with high collaboration intensity. The shift from a high touch environment whilst at work to a low / no-touch environment whilst on the job search can be stark. Getting together with others can help restore the community we all need to perform
• Help others. It's incredible how much helping others can be beneficial to our morale - we all fundamentally want to be useful and valuable. One of the perverse outcomes of being out-of-work is the sense that we have lost that value, a very quick down elevator to despair. Remember you are an expert recruiter, so helping others find work can help shore up your morale and sense of purpose.
• Take a break. Working to a job search structure is probably a good thing but as with every structure there must also be breaks from the work, so that you can recharge. This means taking weekends seriously, it means taking sleep seriously. It might also be helpful to do things entirely unrelated to the job search - give the mind and body a break from the grind.

2. Measure Activity to Outcome

The modern day recruiter prides themselves on being 'data driven' but how many of us actually practice it in our personal lives? We need to better understand where we are spending our time and work out which activities are producing what outcomes. We know for instance that the job applicant flow rate is huge - 400, 500 applications per job role. Even if your fit-to-role is close to exact, the numbers alone will tell you that chances of securing that single role are low. We are also seeing increase of job requirements - need for language skills, precise sector experience - which seem to be ways in which employers are trying to suppress the applicant flow rather than 'real' needs for the position.

In these circumstances, vitally important to measure your activity to outcomes. Tanguy was courageous enough to say that he wished to have done this much earlier in the process, as it would have helped him identify which activities produced the most return and therefore enabled focused on those.

Everyone had at least a spreadsheet but Caroline made a strong recommendation for Teal which I have to say, looks pretty good.

3. Build Brand Awareness

With job applications a low percentage activity, job seekers need to think about other ways in which to connect to opportunity. The similarities between selling yourself and selling a product / service were stark; one needs to build brand awareness, make sure that the people who already know you keep you top of mind, whilst at the same time increasing the number of the people who might know you.

Please note, this is not the same as 'job begging' - just broadcasting that you are looking for work - but illustrating how you do that work by contributing to conversations in public, online. Some ideas on how to do this

• Publish your method - as a recruiter you will have developed your own method of doing every aspect of the recruiters role - job requisitions, stakeholder management, candidate outreach etc. None of this is really that significant a secret and right now the greatest value it can be to you is as a piece of content which you can share with others. This not only solves the 'content' problem but also gives you an excuse to push something into the Internet which might be discovered by someone who can influence the situation. Publishing your approach will also help potential future employers figure out your MO before getting involved in a hiring conversation - this will be exactly what overcapacity employers will be looking for!
• Comment & Contribute to the Community - easy cheat to spend an hour a day adding perspective and commentary to industry conversations. Job seekers are fortunate to be living in the age of social web - the opportunity to increase visibility by engaging with prominent people in the industry is basically free marketing for your wares.
• Use annoyances are content for original posts - getting involved in conversation will not always be pleasant agreement (!) Often times disagreements will occur in which case replying in-thread is fine, but also have a think as to whether the debate has inspired something enough to create an original post on the topic. This is an opportunity to lead a conversation, not just contribute to it.

4. Maintain Relationships with Recruiters

Lets not neglect recruitment agencies, especially those who operate at senior level. Registering your CV with them is first port of call but find ways in which you can be useful to them in their activities, such that you become an obvious candidate to invoke when an opportunity does come their way. Remember that for many job roles at exec / leadership level are confidential, incumbent-in-place scenarios so there may not no job advert, no way of knowing about the opportunity without the agent being the conduit. Hence, 'being top of mind' is going to be a crucial differentiator

5. Be Open About the Job Search with Everybody

Don't assume that people know that you're looking for work. Even a public announcement on LinkedIn might not be enough, as only a small percentage of your audience is likely to see it. We had the conversation last week on the value of the Open to Work badge on LinkedIn - and - at least according to us recruiers - it was overwhelmingly considered so, so make sure you update your profile accordingly.

It's more than just the badge though, it is the mentality. Being aware that others may not be aware is one of the hustler mindsets that out of work recruiters should try to adopt. I loved Sofia's approach of expanding beyond the recruiter network and actively engage other people and other communities - not only for community / morale but also because they too are people who are connected to different networks and communities which may lead to opportunities down-the-road. The 'every conversation is an opportunity' mindset is probably one we should cultivate irrespective of our current job conditions, but particularly useful in this context.

There's loads more besides and I strongly recommend that you watch or listen to the episode. If you're on the job market - good luck to you - and I hope that these notes have been of some use.

Now out of the kitchen, onto the lounge...??

What's in the News?

OpenAI announce GPT Builder

It's hard to look beyond Open AI's announcement of GPT Builder earlier this week. This unlocks the ability of anyone with a ChatGPT+ account to create their build GPT's, trained on data you choose to use. Not only this, but your GPT's can be published on OpenAI marketplace and can start generating revenue for you. Expect a surge of GPT's being built and launched, including very many for recruiting and HR purposes. What happens afterward, I really don't know. Read about it here - and get on it

If you have any news which you think the wider market needs to know about, put into comments below on this thread.

What's Going On?

Big List of Recruiter Events to Attend in 2023 & 2024

Nearly at 100 events on Big List in 2024. Keep adding to this folks - any events in Recruiting or HR you think people should know about, add to the bottom of the list. We are close to making this the one stop shop for all your event needs in 2024!

Impact of EU Pay Transparency Directive on Compensation, 14th November, 10am

EU Pay Transparency Directive comes into the force in 2024 and it will have impact on pay transparency, reporting commitments, as well as communication rules on what can or cannot be said in pay discussions for both employees and candidates. Important we get across the basics of this and start planning according. No better guest speaker that Rachel Gibbs, Rewards Consultant (Merities Consultant). Join Figures CEO Virgile Raingeard and I next Thursday. Register here

The Key Skills to Mastering Stakeholder Management, 14th November, 2pm

Final part of the SME series with Tribepad Grow - how to better manage your key stakeholders. If you are the 'first recruiter in' to a growing SMB, chances are the hiring managers will have never worked with an in-house recruiter before. How do you start building the sort of win-win cooperation which will ensure TA has a chance to succeed? We're with Grace Carey, Senior Talent Acquisition Partner (Lightspeed) and Gita Selli, Talent Acquisition Manager (Loadsmart). Register here

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep233 - AI-Enabled Candidates - What is the Assessment Plan? Thur 16th Nov, 2pm GMT

Are you seeing an upsurge in AI-enabled job applications? You probably are but just didn't know it. Recruitment pipelines are not designed to cope with the surge of applications and we might need to come up with a plan. Do you have one? We're with Christine Ng, Head of People & Talent (Quantum Motion), Robert Newry, CEO (Arctic Shores), Antonia Manoochehri, Founder (Lumenai), Becky Lee, Head of Student Talent Attraction (EY) & Bas van de Haterd, Founder (Digitaal-Werven) to try and figure it out. Register here

How to Hire A DevOps Engineer, Nov 29th, 10am GMT

Part 2 of a new series I'm doing with We Are Developers - bringing together tech recruiter + software engineer on screen to in order demystify the behaviours that each might encounter from the other. This week, we are going to be talking about How to Recruit a DevOps Engineer with Ixchel Ruiz, Ambassador (The Linux Foundation), Iwan Gulenko, Founder, (CoderFit) and hosted by Rudi Bauer MD, (WeAreDevelopers) and myself. Register here

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter,?comment below?with the link and event details. Don't forget to at mention me so that I see it

Whose Story?

Geraldine Butler-Wright, Founder & Chief People Officer, RocCas

Congratulations on Geraldine Butler-Wright on the launch of her new consultancy business. Perfect timing for us to get to know her better, via 20 Questions on the Brainfood Tribune.

If you want to take part in this series, comment below and volunteer your interest. Free and available for all comers

Who's Hiring?

EMEA Corporate Recruiter - Technical, ISS, London, UK

Technical Talent Acquisition Manager, Qonto, Paris, France

Tech Talent Acquisition Partner, Serendi, Prague, Czechia

IT Talent Sourcer, Serendi (Spanish or Czech speaking), Budapest, Hungary

IT Talent Sourcer, Serendi (English speaking), Nis, Serbia

Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist, AIHR, Rotterdam, Netherlands

People Operations Specialist, Blinkist, Berlin, Germany

Senior Recruiter, Western Union, Vienna, Austria

If you are hiring for recruiters or HR people, you are welcome to post jobs FOR FREE on the Brainfood Jobs Job Board. Use coupon code: BTCFREE for 100% discount.

Whose Available?

That's 400 members of the community. If you are a recruiter or HR person that is looking for work, join the Brainfood Talent Collective here. If you are an employer hiring recruiters, apply for a company account here, and use the code: BTCFREE to freely post jobs and search the db.

Who's Moving?

Renita K?sper joins HRS Group as Global Director Talent Acquisition & Employer Branding. I think it was Bill Boorman who mentioned in the Brainfood Online Community that he had noticed an uptick of senior TA hires happening and had hoped it signalled at least the bottom of a very tough recruiter market. I'm seeing the same, and I'm delighted to see this news in particular. Congratulations Renita - does this mean you are now in Cologne??

Syeda Younis joins Future Partners as Research Director after 4 years with Veris Insights where she started as an Associate. Strong research eco-system is essential to healthy decision making in the recruitment industry. Look forward to seeing what you get up to in the new gig Syeda ??

David Hunter joins Computershare as Head of Talent Acquisition Operations, having previously lead the TA functions at Commscope and lead teams at Skyscanner.

Promotions to celebrate: Marina Hartung goes up to Global Talent Senior Leader at AMS and Lucas Vinther-H?j goes up to EMEA Sales Director at Workday - Peakon Centre of Excellence - congratulations both!

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business, and feel the wider community needs to know about it, comment below with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue.

What Are You Doing?

Michael Wright formerly of Global Head of Talent Innovation and Operations at WPP is launching his new talent consultancy business, Taligence focussing on Exec Search.

Vicki Saunders formerly of EVP of Currys Plc, is launching her own consultancy business, The EVP Consultancy. Follow Vicki for more details to come on this! Congratulations Vicki, you got me thinking about ways in which I might be able to help...

Toby Nieboer needs help. Please read his post on his redundancy here, which comes along with deportation order from the United States. Gofundme page is here.

End Notes

Final trip of the year coming up this week. I'm going to be in Eindhoven from Wednesday, where I will due to meet up with the cool cats at AIMS International on Friday. I was going to give a talk on how AI would impact Exec Search, but now with the recent release of GPT builder, I think I may need to redo the deck ??

After this, I will be back in the London until 2024, and getting my head down on reviewing the year, predicting next year and rebuilding all the brainfood assets from the ground up as AI-enabled tools...

Have a great week everybody

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world of work.