I was interviewed recently by Undercover Recruiter author, Jorgen Sundberg. I met him earlier this year in London when I spoke at the TRU London unconference. Great guy. I hope to be back in the UK and maybe see Jorgen again at TRU Manchester in September. Jorgen’s blog is great and this interview offers some interesting stuff. Enjoy.
From: Job Search and Social Media Tips from Fishdogs by Jorgen Sundberg
Today, I spoke to Craig Fisher, aka Fishdogs. He is a hot shot recruiter, social media strategist, speaker and founder of A-List Solutions based in Dallas, Texas.
What do you recruit for and what geography do you cover?
Our main business is IT staffing and executive search. We mainly cover the Dallas/Fort Worth area in Texas. But we have clients with offices nationwide that we service as well.
How’s business and outlook for the year?
Business has been brisk since December. Our projections are good. We’ll set records. But last year started strong and then fell off as unemployment rose.
What is the key to your success?
Our clients like us because we have a good combination of technical and business knowledge. So we get under the hood and discover what the client’s real needs are. This usually differs substantially from the given job description.
We also talk with current employees and try to develop a personality profile that will work long term. Then we are able to really target specific candidates vs. sending multiple resumes to see what sticks.What are the trends you have spotted in your field?
Sourcing is a bigger and bigger deal. I have been a full desk recruiter and did all my own sourcing. But I have also employed dedicated sourcers for specific searches. It’s great to have someone who can just churn out skill-qualified candidates.
Unfortunately you still need a good recruiter to vet these candidates thoroughly. And that’s where the process often breaks down. We find more candidates, but they are not vetted, pre-closed, etc. So candidate to hire ratio is no better. Maybe worse. It is taking longer to hire overall.How much do you use social media to find clients and candidates?
We use social media all the time to find clients and candidates. Most of our new clients come from social media. Many of our candidate or candidate referrals do too. For sourcing, Linkedin is by far the most effective. Linkedin is also good for creating groups of candidate and client communities.
Twitter is best for actual relationship building. You can have better conversations there than on any other platfform. I like to use Twitter to compliment my Linkedin and Facebook accounts. Facebook is becoming a better referral tool as I create more groups there for specific communities. But Twitter is still where the conversations take place.How important are resumes and cover letters?
Resumes and cover letters are still very important. But they may begin to take more of an online or virtual form on sites designed to keep the information fluid and dynamic.
