I have a confession to make.

I’m a bit of a one-trick pony – but that’s how I’ve been successful as a recruiter.

I’ve known quite a few recruiters who take the approach of: “well, I’m not particularly knowledgable in any industry so I’ll just give everything a shot.” I have never seen success with the ‘Jack of All Trades’ approach.

Making the perfect fit between candidate and client requires an intimate, hands-on understanding of what is required of the candidate in the position. You have to know what makes a great salesperson, developer, whatever – and the best way to know that is to have worked in the industry yourself.

I was a coder before I hired coders for other people. One of our Hire Syndicate members, worked on oil rigs before he started recruiting in the industry.

If you don’t have industry-specific experience what’s text best option? Pick an area that your interested in and start learning and specializing. Read the best books and blogs from thought leaders in that field, go to local meetups. Immerse yourself. Get to know the patterns of success in that type of job. Then look for those kinds of candidates.

Having domain-specific knowledge is a great way to add value as a recruiter. The best ones know this, and specialize, specialize, specialize.

What do you think? Is it possible to be successful as a generalist recruiter?

This post is a part of my Recruiting Best Practices series. Read the rest here.

You can now access and share your in-network jobs and candidates from your blackberry, iPhone or android device.

Mobile Recruiting can mean different things to different people.

What does Mobile Recruiting mean to you? What types of features and/or functionality would you like to see in the next app.

I’m asking you to dream the future of Mobile Recruiting so we can create the best platform that will free you to close deals from the office to the beach!

I have a niece who’s in the process of applying for colleges. She’s a very intelligent young woman with a love of math – and she told me she wants to be an accountant! She thought that this was the best application of her passion.

I told her about how she might want to look into being a developer – it’s a lot of logic and math. She objected – “computer programming” was boring and nerdy (I was going to say something about accounting at this point, but I let it go!), and certainly not something she wanted to do.

I mentioned that I place developers at companies all the time, and a lot of them are what a teenager might call “cool”: bit.ly, Stardoll, RGA. I talked to her about how developers at these companies aren’t relegated to a corner in a basement – they’re treated like rockstars with great pay, a fun work environment, and lots of leeway in how and when they work.

This was like a revelation to her! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’d think there was some conspiracy in high school career departments to make development work sound like programming punch cards to fed into vacuum-tube mainframes at IBM.

The world has changed. Computer geeks are the cool kids in the office – Fred Wilson recently wrote about how tech startups deck out their office amenities better than a Four Seasons. Silicon Valley is on fire right now.

We need more computer science majors to maintain the innovation that we’re known for as a country. It has to be apparent at the high school level that “computer programming” is a huge, diverse field with interesting problems to solve.

Job Sharing on Social Media

We’ve added  buttons on the upper right of your job view for posting jobs to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  You can share not only the jobs you’ve posted but also jobs in your Pods and from recruiters you’re connected to.  Either way, you get the email.

“Candidates in Process” Visible in Job List

Many of you have asked for a way to see the activity on a particular job. We’ve added a column in all job list views that show the number of candidates in process – the number signifies how many candidates are under consideration by the recruiter who owns the job. When a candidate is submitted, the number increases, and when a candidate is accepted or declined, the number decreases.

Pricing

We’ve announced our pricing plan with three tiers.  After a lot of conversations with you, our users, we’ve come up with what we think is a plan that can work with everyone. Our philosophy is to provide a powerful technology platform that empowers your split network at a nominal monthly fee.   You shouldn’t have to share your fee with anyone other than your split partner.

Invite a Friend

You can now invite potential split partners into The Hire Syndicate from inside the application. Build your network on The Hire Syndicate and do more splits – it’s that simple.

Job Alerts

The Hire Syndicate now updates you when new jobs are posted by recruiters  you’re connected to (directly or in Pods). To change how often you’re updated (immediately, daily, or never), change your Account Settings.

Live Chat

You may have noticed the little ‘click to ask a question’  button . Ask us anything – even if it’s a simple “How do I…” question.

What’s next?

You tell us. We love hearing from you on what’s working and what could be better.  We’ve got some exciting stuff on the drawing board  - so feel free to comment or email me directly.

Just like anything else in recruiting (or even in life!), you only get what you give. In talking with you, our members, we’ve found that the people who get the most out of The Hire Syndicate are also the ones contributing the most to the community: posting jobs, submitting candidates. Here are five easy ways that you can start making connections and placements today:

1. Create a pod. Think of it as an opportunity to be a founder at the center of the network.   I recently spoke to a recruiter who told me, “Hey, I don’t see any legal pods for recruiters based in Eastern Europe. THS must not be for folks in my industry/niche.” I explained that this is an opportunity to stake your claim and start a pod.  Plant the seed.  We have new recruiters signing up from all over the world from all kinds of industries every day.  It’s only a matter of time before like-minded recruiters are joining your pod.

2. Send out invites.  Every account comes with 3 invites, which are all pre-approved (you’re vouching for them, so they automatically get access to the THS system).  You

already know and work with other recruiters, so this is your opportunity to get them onto the network.  Invite recruiters from your pod.

3. Post jobs to the Global network.  When posting a new job, check the sharing options. You have the option to post a job to the “Global” section.  In the Global section, recruiters that you’re not connected to can see your job. In addition, your job will be included in The Hire Syndicate’s job blast.

4. Send an e-blast. This tool creates a formatted email with all of your currently open jobs on The Hire Syndicate in an easy-to-read table format. You can then use a 3rd part mail solution like icontact or Emercury to send the email to everyone in your network outside of The Hire Syndicate.

5. Upload a picture. Trust is important to any recruiter-to-recruiter relationship, and you can always improve that by letting know there’s a real, living, breathing person on the other side. Plus, isn’t it always nice when you can put a face to a name of someone you’re doing business with?

You can’t always use that same old system for every placement you make. Sometimes, you’ve got to change up your approach to make the win-win happen.

Recruiting can be a wonderful thing.  As an independent recruiter you make your own hours, work from wherever you want and choose whom you want to work with. It’s not always mangoes and sunshine, but it’s a wonderful feeling when you make that connection. A candidate gets a great job, your client gets a great new employee, and you get a nice sum of money.  That’s a win win-win situation.

I recently received an email from a former candidate who’s on my ‘Hot Opportunities’ email list.  He was asking if I ever worked with college students.  His son, Kevin, was about to graduate from Villanova.

I wrote back: “Sure, send him over.”  I had a good conversation with Kevin.  He seemed like a bright and passionate kid.  He was very marketable – but, unfortunately, not to my clients.

Companies that are paying recruiters fees usually want the position filled yesterday and with a candidates that has at least a few years’ experience.  Kevin did a summer internship at Google and wasn’t graduating for another couple of months.  This was going to be a tough sell.

It took a creative pitch to the client: “You and I have been searching for senior devs for a while now at 120-160K.  And we can’t find any.  Think of Kevin as a ‘diamond in the rough’. At 80K he’s going to work really hard and he’s very talented.  In a few months he’ll be up to speed and I think you’ll get greater value in the long run from him than from the more experienced senior developers.”

Within a week I had Kevin interviewing with 3 of my clients.  By the end of the following week he had 2 offers.  He accepted one and was ecstatic.  A week later, I received a wonderful thank you letter from his father.

It felt great to make a family happy.   Kevin can finish up his college graduation with the knowledge that a great job is waiting for him.

Lessons Learned

1. An email list (like The Hire Syndicate’s E-Blasts) keeps candidate relationships from dying out (try starting one with tools like Constant Contact or Icontact).

2. College recruiting can work – in some situations recruiting and shopping soon-to-be-grads can pay off.

3. Create a win for both sides through creative thinking. Look at what both client and candidate want and then find a way to meet those needs.

image from pedrosimoes via Flickr

With respect to recruiting I believe it refers to scenarios when both sides of the recruiting equation are there (the right candidate for the right job) but yet they elude you.  Why does this happen?  From a single recruiter’s perspective this could be that both the hot job and the right candidate for it are not being connected.  As a recruiter our first line of defense is what we know in our mind.  We typically have a good handle on our open recs and we know some of our active candidates.  However, there is always a pretty good possibilty that the right candidae in our DB exists but we just don’t realize it.  What can we do to bring this match to our forefront and make the placement?

When it comes to dealing with strategic partners in your split network this problem (as well as opportunity) multiplies exponentially.  So many potential placements that do not get realized due to lack of communication and connecting the dots.  If Cody only knew I had the ideal candidate for his .NET position, or if I only knew that Cody had a position for my rockstar .Net developer, we’d be on our way to closing a deal.

In my ever prevailing quest to maximize placements while minimizing the amount of time spent making them I have developed some techniques which we have implemented through The Hire Syndicate to empower our members.

‘Hot opportunities E-blast’ – this simple yet effective method of communicating open reqs to ones network continues to be an effective way to uncover potential placements as well as spur activity with new and old clients.

Our new ‘Recruiters Blast’ takes this one step further. Now you can communicate your hot open reqs as well as hot candidates specifically with your split network.  Both reqs and candidates are shared anonymously.  This has absolutely increased potential deal flow within our network.  Not to mention it feels great to be able to effectively offer star candidates opportunities beyond your own.

We will continue to explore better ways to connecting the dots and enabling recruiters to make more placements.  What methods for reducing missed opportunities are working for you?

THS 1.0 has been built based on your feedback. Through conversations we’ve had with members, emailed suggestions and common sense we’ve learned a lot of what you are looking for. We’ve listened and built that into the new site.

Current and new members can apply here.

New features include:

• Recruiter Direct Connect: Recruiters can directly connect with another recruiter as well as connect through a pod.
• Public Connections: THS now has an area where recruiters can search for and connect with other recruiters and pods.
• Public Job posting: Recruiters can choose to share their jobs with others outside of their network.
• Deal Tracker: From submission to placement you can now track deals throughout the process keeping both recruiters on the same page.
• Overall simplified interface: We strive to Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.). A lot of work and effort has, and will continue to be done to provide an easy to use and simple User Experience.

We want to hear from you!  Let us know what you think, what you feel may still be needed, what makes sense and what doesn’t.  Email us, post comments here or contact me directly (allen@thehiresyndicate.com).  We always welcome conversations with members and will be conducting Usability Sessions with members (in-house and online), so let us know if you are interested.

Together we will continue to evolve The Hire Syndicate which will enable us all to make more placements faster and have greater freedom to do the other things we love to do.

Our approach to doing this has been to increase the value of our service by leveraging our split network through The Hire Syndicate.  Connecting and sharing jobs and candidates with other trusted highly networked recruiters enables us to close positions faster.  In today’s hotter than ever tech sector this edge is invaluable.  Higher fees enable us to incentives our split network to prioritize positions.  It’s that simple.  This works out to be a win win scenario for all involved.

I would love to hear from other recruiters who are innovating ways to increase the value of their service.

One pain I think all Recruiters share is the need for a cost efficient way to source quality candidates.

Let me start by saying I have always been of the mind you never know where you may find that right candidate for a position and some methods are more appropriate for certain positions.  The question is which method is most efficient? Which method over time will continue to yield high quality candidates with less cost in time & money?

Major Job boards

These are mostly useless.  Time is wasted sifting through unqualified resumes, or if you do find a quality candidate chances are he/she is highly circulated therefore of lower value.   I believe smaller niche job boards I believe can be more effective.

Cold calling

I have never had great success nor put a lot of effort into cold calling. However I believe this is still I viable resource for those Recruiters who have the cold-calling gene. Specifically using social media sites like LinkedIn to identify candidates.

Social media recruiting

LinkedIn inmails used to have a decent yield, however I am noticing diminishing returns as of late. Im not seeing much from postings to meetup & Linkedin groups.  Twitter & Facebook:  I am skeptical on these channels for connecting with quality candidates.  Would love to  feedback on these.

Referral & Split Networks

I have found the most consistent source for viable candidates to be those that come through my Referrals networks.  I think the trick is growing managing & effectively communicating with your referral network.  This is why I use tools like bi-weekly (job) eblasts through The Hire Syndicate to keep my recruiter and candidate networks abreast of hot job activity.

Job E-Blast

The e-blast is a blunt but effective tool that serves both sides of the recruiting connection.  We at A-List Placement send out all of our jobs to everyone in our network.  Just recently we closed two Sr. Java Developer positions with passive candidates who responded to the e-blast.  We also consistently sign-up new clients, often former candidates now in hiring positions because they get the blast and see that we recruit for the types of positions they are looking to fill.  You can see an example of our e-blast.

Successful Recruiters will ultimately have a number of tools for sourcing candidates and use them accordingly depending on the req.

What’s working best for you?