Then, lots of stories on how we plan to change the culture of adidas Group talent management. The foundation is okay, but so much is broken today.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Round 2
It's been a few years since I've written my last blog, but lots and lots of things have happened over the course of the last few years. Things have progressed in recruiting overall at work, and I believe we are about to enter a new challenges within the adidas Group. More news to come really soon ... once we get the contract finalized.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Headhunter Lesson
After a few phone calls today, I was compelled to write another quick entry in my blog. My first job in recruiting was as a junior recruiter for in San Jose, California. Of course part of my job was doing sales calls, really about 50% of my job. After 2 or 3 years, and moving into more sales focused jobs, I realized that during 1999 and 2001, I had to average about 100 sales calls to get one new job order (or position to fill)… When making these phone calls I realized that out of 100, I would get voicemail 75 times, 10 times people would just hang up, 14 times people would talk for a few minutes and say they don’t have any needs right now, and 1 out of 100, they would say that they had a new position and my timing was right. Therefore, I got the job order.
As I mentioned, 75% of the time I got voicemail and I left a very nice message, reintroducing myself to the HR representative or recruiting manager reminding them that I was here for them when they needed me. I was well aware that they wouldn’t call me back, unless they had a need, and I was comfortable with that. Today, things have seemed to change. On average, I get about 5 – 10 calls from headhunters on a daily basis. I call back the few that I have worked with, but don’t call back the rest of them. If I don’t have a need, I don’t necessarily have the time to spend 15 minutes finding out more about them. The interesting thing is headhunters today tend to get very angry when you don’t call them back. They escalate this to other people, badmouth the person they called and say, “he never calls me back”… I even get calls from hiring managers saying, this guy from XYZ agency called them just to tell me that he is angry that the recruiting guy never called him back.
I was a headhunter, so I can appreciate the long hours put in each day making telemarketing calls… but I think people need to realize that the best thing they can do is leave a nice short message, “checking in”, and then try back in 45 – 60 days. If you do catch the recruiter or recruiting leader on the phone… first, don’t act surprised, and ask the question, “do you have 5 minutes for me to introduce myself? And then I can follow up and email you some information on our services.”
Who knows if any headhunters will read this, but if you do, I have just told you the formula for getting a bit more business, or at least business within our group.
Steve
As I mentioned, 75% of the time I got voicemail and I left a very nice message, reintroducing myself to the HR representative or recruiting manager reminding them that I was here for them when they needed me. I was well aware that they wouldn’t call me back, unless they had a need, and I was comfortable with that. Today, things have seemed to change. On average, I get about 5 – 10 calls from headhunters on a daily basis. I call back the few that I have worked with, but don’t call back the rest of them. If I don’t have a need, I don’t necessarily have the time to spend 15 minutes finding out more about them. The interesting thing is headhunters today tend to get very angry when you don’t call them back. They escalate this to other people, badmouth the person they called and say, “he never calls me back”… I even get calls from hiring managers saying, this guy from XYZ agency called them just to tell me that he is angry that the recruiting guy never called him back.
I was a headhunter, so I can appreciate the long hours put in each day making telemarketing calls… but I think people need to realize that the best thing they can do is leave a nice short message, “checking in”, and then try back in 45 – 60 days. If you do catch the recruiter or recruiting leader on the phone… first, don’t act surprised, and ask the question, “do you have 5 minutes for me to introduce myself? And then I can follow up and email you some information on our services.”
Who knows if any headhunters will read this, but if you do, I have just told you the formula for getting a bit more business, or at least business within our group.
Steve
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Candidate Experience
In my opinion, the candidate experience is one of the most significant factors in determining whether or not a prospective candidate follows through with the process and accepts an offer with a company. When I came to Germany in 2006, I came over from our smallest brand TaylorMade which is a company made up (at the time) of about 750 employees. Our recruiting team was comprised of 3 people, and we worked with a total of about 75 hiring managers.
In this size organization, candidate experience was something relatively easy to set standards with. Each and every recruitment activity came across my desk, with so few hiring managers we could monitor the recruitment activity to ensure that everybody was doing what they could to provide a quality experience to all that entered our doors. Overall, I felt very confident that prospective candidates inquiring about jobs with TaylorMade left with a very positive experience 97 out of 100 times regardless of whether they recieved an offer or not.
Coming to Germany, and heading up recruiting on a global level became a bit more complex. Being in more of a "hands off" role to day to day recruitment globally, it became quite apparent that I couldn't monitor activity in the same way I did with TaylorMade. With more than 750 HR people, and thousands of hiring managers in over 100 countries around the world, speaking dozens of different languages, I was presented with a new challenge.
How could I set standards for candidate experience on a global level?
Well, I haven't figured it out completely yet, but if I can choose one thing to implement while in my role, it would be a set of standards that would be followed globally by every HR representative, recruiter and hiring manager world-wide to ensure that whether someone recieves an offer or not, they leave with a positive impression of our Group.
Over the course of the next 14 months, I will partner with my recruiting leaders around the world to understand what the best people do best, understand what candidates like and dislike, and figure out a way to ensure that the "great candidate experience" is not the exeption, but the norm.
I welcome the feedback of anybody (job seeker or not) to better understand what you require from an organization to leave with an exceptional experience and positive impression of an organization.
More to come soon!
Steve
In this size organization, candidate experience was something relatively easy to set standards with. Each and every recruitment activity came across my desk, with so few hiring managers we could monitor the recruitment activity to ensure that everybody was doing what they could to provide a quality experience to all that entered our doors. Overall, I felt very confident that prospective candidates inquiring about jobs with TaylorMade left with a very positive experience 97 out of 100 times regardless of whether they recieved an offer or not.
Coming to Germany, and heading up recruiting on a global level became a bit more complex. Being in more of a "hands off" role to day to day recruitment globally, it became quite apparent that I couldn't monitor activity in the same way I did with TaylorMade. With more than 750 HR people, and thousands of hiring managers in over 100 countries around the world, speaking dozens of different languages, I was presented with a new challenge.
How could I set standards for candidate experience on a global level?
Well, I haven't figured it out completely yet, but if I can choose one thing to implement while in my role, it would be a set of standards that would be followed globally by every HR representative, recruiter and hiring manager world-wide to ensure that whether someone recieves an offer or not, they leave with a positive impression of our Group.
Over the course of the next 14 months, I will partner with my recruiting leaders around the world to understand what the best people do best, understand what candidates like and dislike, and figure out a way to ensure that the "great candidate experience" is not the exeption, but the norm.
I welcome the feedback of anybody (job seeker or not) to better understand what you require from an organization to leave with an exceptional experience and positive impression of an organization.
More to come soon!
Steve
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