Tag: recruiting

What We Don’t Learn From Most Job Ads

What We Don’t Learn From Most Job Ads

Quick challenge: Try summarizing all of your professional responsibilities in 150 words. If you’re like most people with jobs that involve decision making and critical thinking, that would be tough to pull off in such a limited space. So why do we put so much stock in the similarly brief job descriptions of the advertising most companies use to recruit employees?

Despite advances in social networking and automation within large human resources departments, hiring for all but the most entry-level positions still remains more art than science. Looking back over three decades of recruiting, I know first-hand that employers and job seekers alike can benefit from a more thoughtful approach to hiring.

Employers: Don’t sell the job. Sell the company.

The pace of the recovery in housing, commercial property and the full breadth of real estate is finally picking up. Likewise, the competition for talent and the urgency in filling positions critical to growth continue to mount. Dangling a title, a compensation range and the boilerplate language from a years-old job description in front of a universe of potential candidates is no longer the most effective way to find qualified people. Companies must declare – transparently and with pride – what differentiates their organizations from their competitors. Too often, these are things hiring managers take for granted. Look at policies like leadership development programs, reimbursement for continuing education and similar benefits for high-potential employees. If something stands out compared to the rest of the industry, let candidates know it when advertising a position.

Also, don’t just recruit for the immediate opening. Look for people who can grow in their leadership over time, and make that potential for advancement clear when communicating with candidates. Driven people won’t just be interested in the current role, but also how it will lead to the next career challenge a few years down the road. Let potential employees know what that looks like. Additionally, give them a sense of the culture they’ll be growing within. Is the company young and changing fast, or established and expanding at a measured pace? How much risk are employees encouraged to take? Is the style of the company’s leaders one that drives hard for a unified vision or one focused on consensus and collaboration from the bottom up? Do people leave early on Friday afternoons when the weather is too good to resist, or are Saturdays a part of the workweek more often than not? These questions don’t have right or wrong answers. But there are right and wrong people to hire to fit the culture that each represents. Creating realistic expectations during recruitment also helps set the stage for beneficial relationships with new hires.

Job Seekers: Research pays off.

By the same token, job seekers shouldn’t assume that life at another company will be the same as it is at places where they’ve worked before. Even within identical market segments, professionals in various organizations interact differently, share different values and approach business in different ways. Generic ads for the same position at two companies might make their demands sound identical. Yet a workplace that touts its support for people with families will offer a different experience than a team that never skips the chance to trade war stories at the bar after a 12-hour workday. As such, job seekers should look beyond the traditional list of benefits and compensation and try to get a feel for what it’s really like to work there. Check what current employees say about their workplace online. Network with people at the company. Ask them, and those involved in the hiring process, to describe their work environment. Is it loud’ Silent’ Competitive’ Sociable’ What personality traits do people who get ahead typically share’ It’s important to gauge these things at companies you’re interested in working for, even if you’re currently employed. That way, if and when you need to, you can enter the job market with some of the most critical homework completed ahead of time.

After all, there’s more to any given job than will ever fit on a single sheet of paper. Employees make the best career decisions – and companies retain the best people – when they have a true understanding of both the role and the workplace.

Christopher Frederick has helped match the talents of executives with leading companies in real estate for three decades. We’ve also developed a better approach to recruiting that combines the power of a 300,000-strong professional network with the discretion and one-on-one touch of a professional recruiter. Want to see this unique process up close? Contact us for a free Join.me presentation and watch how we can create a powerful search customized to your unique needs.

Same Craft, Different Tools – How thinking digital transformed my business

Same Craft, Different Tools – How thinking digital transformed my business

When I began building a digital network of real estate professionals five years ago, I had no idea just how thoroughly it would transform my recruiting practice. That network is on track to reach 300,000 members at the end of 2014, and it’s allowed me to find and match some of the best people in the business with leading companies worthy of their talent. Along the way, I’ve taken note of a few themes in online recruitment that might prove useful to job seekers and hiring managers alike:

Reaching Far but Looking Close

There’s an old New Yorker cartoon with a picture of a golden retriever using a computer. It’s captioned, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.” On many online forums for job candidates, no one really knows if you’re a vice president or what that actually means. I frequently encounter professional profiles that list work experience aligning with the professional qualifications I’m searching for. Yet on closer inspection, the descriptions of job titles are too vague to offer any clues into the critical competencies and knowledge demanded by a given position. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Be specific. Give examples. “Vice president” tells me a lot less than “vice president of sales and marketing for the Northeast region.” A closer look should reveal how many people you’ve managed, for how long, and the highlights of what that team achieved under your leadership. Even if 500 hiring managers view your profile, they won’t get in touch if they don’t find the information they need to make an informed hiring decision.

First Impressions Count

And this day and age, it’s impossible to know where that first impression might occur. It could be in person, on LinkedIn or even via the photos from a conference your company posted to its blog. At the very least, dress for the job you want in the picture you use for social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. Likewise, be sure to proofread every public profile accessible to potential employers, and refrain from packing your email signature with dated logos and unnecessary text. Life isn’t a press conference, and no one expects job candidates to look 100 percent professional in every picture floating around on the Internet. But on career-specific websites, it’s important to devote as much attention to thoughtfulness and professionalism as you would meeting someone for the first time.

Success Story

Of course, none of this is to give the impression that digital tools haven’t revolutionized the process of connecting people to the companies where they can best reach their potential. Technology’s positive effects for job seekers are well-documented, but it’s also had tremendous benefits for the companies doing the hiring. At Christopher Frederick, I’ve been able to add seven people to my team in recent years as a direct result of my approach that combines one-on-one recruiting with the resources of our exclusive digital network. We’re often able to find qualified candidates in a matter of days, where a similar search would have taken weeks under our old approach. Most importantly, we’ve emerged from the recession filling more executive positions and satisfying more clients every year. Our experience proves that time invested in digital networking doesn’t just pay off for job seekers, it is also critical for companies competing for talent in today’s job market.

For more than 20 years, Christopher Frederick has helped match the skills of high-value executives with leading companies in real estate. Visit our website at www.chrisfred.com where you can find exclusive job listings for real estate professionals and read more about our one-of-a-kind approach to executive recruitment.

Motivation or Qualifications? How Passion is Often More Important Than Credentials

Motivation or Qualifications? How Passion is Often More Important Than Credentials

We’ve all worked with “that guy.” The one with the impressive degree. The one with a long list of respected companies in his past. The employee who looks fantastic on paper, yet underperforms the minute that sterling resume gets tucked into the drawer of his new desk. As seasoned recruiters and personnel departments can attest, credentials and motivation don’t always move in unison. Likewise, many job hunters who endured unexpected career shifts during the recession possess valuable knowledge and dedication in spades, but that might not be immediately evident in their job history.

Employers: Focus on commitment

When business was slow, hiring managers could simply skim the most experienced people from a consistent pool of available talent. A brutal job market all but ensured new hires would work hard, if only for fear of being replaced. Thankfully, business has improved. Highly skilled workers – for example, seasoned purchasing and residential land acquisition experts – are again in short supply, and firms must adapt to attract the best talent. That means committing to the employee. Recruitment efforts should demonstrate an eagerness to fill the position with the right person. Companies should be responsive to candidate inquiries whenever possible. They should also communicate their workplace culture and potential advancement opportunities to show they’re committed to hiring good people for the long haul. In the same vein, hiring managers need to look for motivation on the part of candidates to perform the job at hand. Beyond their qualifications, do they seem excited about the specific opportunities of the position? Are they hungry for a step up in their career? Did something draw them to your company over your competitors? Most of all, companies will need to adapt their thinking to the realities of the post-recession labor market. What did applicants do during the downturn to adapt and add value when business was tough across the board? Highly motivated, well-suited candidates may not necessarily have the traditional resume bullet points associated with the position.

Job Candidates: Show, Don’t Tell

It’s meaningless for a candidate to simply list traits like passion, commitment and drive in a cover letter. After all, anyone can say that. Instead, job seekers need to sell the specifics of their skill sets and experience to employers. Examples of past projects turned in before deadline and exceeding goals show passion. Past loyalty and the sacrifice of time and compensation during lean years show commitment. Consistent follow-ups and non-stop networking show drive. Highlight strengths that are as relevant to the day-to-day needs of the employer as possible. One particularly effective way to demonstrate motivation is learning as much as possible about a hiring company. For example, I recently placed a candidate who at first appeared over-qualified for the job. He did his homework, researching everything he could about the company, good and bad. He approached the interview with the attitude that he could make the job opening an even better opportunity for the employer. By sharing his accomplishments and skills gained during the recession, then making a detailed case for how he could improve his new employer’s business, they ended up creating a new opportunity even more attractive than the original job. Both sides demonstrated how motivated they were, and both came out winners.

At Christopher Frederick, we’ve spent more than two decades helping some of the biggest names in real estate hire motivated executives that lead their businesses to growth. To learn more about how we leverage our digital network with our extensive recruitment experience, contact Chris Hingle at chingle@chrisfred.com. Or visit our website at www.chrisfred.com where you can find exclusive job listings for real estate executives.

Big Data or Big Mistake? How a Personal Approach to Recruiting Can Beat Out Automated Screening

Big Data or Big Mistake? How a Personal Approach to Recruiting Can Beat Out Automated Screening

When it comes to creating a pool of potential job candidates, some employers think bigger is better. Large companies will often make use of their electronic application systems to gather any and all resumes that come their way on a continual basis. The logic for doing so is sound, as personnel departments can then analyze the resultant data for insight into their hiring programs while building a seemingly endless bank of potential employees. In practice, though, such automation is only useful to a point and can actually hinder the very personal process of building a successful team.

To start with, resume-reading algorithms are not perfect, even when it comes to basic sorting. I once read of a job candidate who found he’d been marked as unqualified by a computer program despite a relevant degree from Stanford. The full name of that school is Leland Stanford Junior University, but the computer didn’t understand that Mr. Stanford shared a name with his father, assuming instead that the applicant had only been to junior college. It might be impossible to review hundreds of applications in a timely fashion without some form of automation. But a better solution is to create a smaller applicant pool by tailoring job solicitations to a specific group of the most qualified people. This approach is also more fair to those searching for jobs. Many have grown wary of online applications after submitting them by the dozens and hearing nothing in return, potentially because employers solicited applications on popular job boards as a way to gauge potential response, rather than to actually fill a position. In an environment where candidates feel they are casting their resumes into a lottery drawing, they are less likely to apply for the most appropriate positions or become motivated to pursue a particular employer. Be upfront about the position, its requirements and your hiring time frame. Serious candidates will see you are reaching out to them in good faith and will take extra steps to show that they have the most to offer.

For example, my executive recruitment firm approaches only candidates with demonstrated leadership in real estate, narrowing our target audience further by geographic area. Our digital network has nearly 200,000 members, but it’s our seasoned recruiting expertise that makes that network effective. While we make use of technology to help reach the best candidates, we then review responses individually, interacting with applicants and conducting the one-on-one work needed to find the right personalities and knowledge to fit our clients’ needs. It’s the second part of that process that computers cannot replace. Don’t make big mistakes when it comes to your big data while hiring. Digital technology provides today’s managers with an array of powerful tools, but using them well requires discretion and the ability to evaluate candidates as people whose potential value is not always obvious on a spreadsheet.

Over more than two decades, Christopher Frederick has helped some of the biggest names in real estate hire the people key to their success. To learn more about how we leverage our digital network with our extensive recruitment experience, contact Chris Hingle at chingle@chrisfred.com. Or visit our website at www.chrisfred.com where you can find exclusive job listings for real estate executives.