Learn about Your Industry, and Network With Talent in the Process!

A few years back I decided to join associations such as ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and WTS (Women’s Transportation Seminar) where I was able to meet with a wide array of professionals. I learned more about the industry I recruited for while learning about new projects and business-related items.  I would attend events free and paid. It helped build my personal brand as well as get my company’s name out there.  Going to these events was extremely valuable to learn more about the industry for which I recruited.

Another benefit of going to events is that it shows your hiring team and other stakeholders that you are deeply interested in what they do.  For example, I recently went to a Geotechnical event in Washington D.C. and learned more about slope stability.  Prior to attending this event, I informed one of the Senior Principal Engineers of my plan to attend, and he was thrilled that I would take the time to learn more about his industry.  Doing something like this can really help when talking to prospective candidates, as you are speaking their “language.”

It is important that you do NOT recruit at these events.  Your name tag will mostly likely include your company name, but not your title. If anyone asks, be truthful and tell them that you are a recruiter for XYZ company.  Sometimes the person who you are talking with might take a step back, but assure them that you’re not there for recruiting purposes.  However, more often than not they will give me a business card (I have stacks of them) or send me a LinkedIn connection request shortly after.  Hence, it just continues to build my pipeline.

Socializing is the Spice of Life

As a recruiter, it’s important to socialize with professionals that you consistently communicate with.  It shouldn’t matter what line of business you are recruiting for. Each industry has some type of professional organization, association or society that you can be a part of. Sometime these cost money, but your company might be willing to cover the cost if it means engaging with passive talent.

So, if you are a recruiter and want to separate yourself from the pack, look around and find out what groups or associations you can join. It will help increase your knowledge of the industry, while building your network and future pipeline.  Many organizations have happy hours, lunch and learns, community events, and more. So, “get out there!” It’s important to be seen and heard not only within your own company, but within the industry as a whole.  

The post Get Out There; Effectively Networking With Talent appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

It’s a good idea to pay attention to your notifications in LinkedIn from your connections’ posts anyhow. A recruiter or sourcer in your network may share a tip that could be useful, especially in the comment section.  

Mikey Weil is a 1^st connection of mine, and he is posting a Boolean string a day. JK (Jung Kim) shared a Twitch Boolean X-ray search string of his own in the comment section!

FYI: JK was a 2nd connection for me not 1st, which meant I now have another person I can reach out to and connect with in the sourcing community!

If you look at the string shared from the comment section, there are some formatting issues. So, pay attention to that. Always make sure before adding a string to a search engine, to check for formatting.

Let’s break down the string: 

• • The string is x-raying into the Twitch website by using the site command (site:) and website domain in order to target a specific website (in this case, Twitch)
  • If you were to look at a profile, you will notice that the userid is included within the URL. So, for the purpose of the string, an Asterisk is put in place so that you can pull up multiple users in a result
  • Next in the URL, you will notice the word about . This is because when viewing a profile, it brings up the about page of the profile. By adding this piece in your string, you are sure to pull in profiles
  • This is the basis of your string, anything else that comes after it, you can use different kinds of keywords to specify the types of profiles you’d like to see. In this case, software developers or software engineers. The quotations lock in the words. 
  • Lastly, you will notice social media included in an OR statement: . (Note: the pipe | can be used as OR in google rather than having to type the operator OR). This will pull in profiles that have links to any or all these social media sites within the profile. Helpful, because now you not only have a way of viewing this person within another channel, but a way of messaging or gaining personal contact information. 

You can then take the string and put it into the Google search engine.

In this first example, you can see that all the results are of profiles. Let’s take a look at the first profile. 

On mewtru’s twitch profile, you will notice that the Boolean string pulled in exactly what we were looking for: 

• • About page (further confirms why using about in the URL was necessary in bringing up profiles)
  • An engineer  
  • Social media profile link

If you have Hikido (email finding tool for Github profiles), you can check if mewtru’s Github profile has a personal email using the tool. However, don’t forget that some Github profiles will include a personal website.  

In viewing mewtru’s Github profile, you can see that there is a link to the personal website. The personal website did not have a personal email but does provide a link to the LinkedIn profile.

In the LinkedIn Profile, go to contact info, and look at the LinkedIn user id. If you put the userid@gmail.com you can test email in Gmail to verify if it is in fact the correct email. When plugging in the email, it does in fact belong to the individual.  

You now have personal contact information for a software engineer, working for a great company, found on Twitch, originally sourced through the LinkedIn comment section, from a notification alert of a 1^st  connection’s post. 

In this 2^nd example, we use the same string, but let’s see if in addition to finding personal contact information, if we can pull out anymore information to lead us to other searches. 

When clicking on the Twitch link for AdamMc331, you are brought to his profile, but he does not have as many social media links as the previous example. However, he does have a link to his Github. The Boolean we used let’s us know that there is going to be at least one social media link if not all. 

So, from the Github link on the Twitch profile, you can get both a twitter account and personal website link.

When you click on the link to take you to the personal website, you have now gathered the following additional information: 

• • LinkedIn profile link 
  • Stack Overflow profile link
  • Dev Community profile link
  • Personal email address
  • Resume

FYI: when you click on his dev community profile link, it provides similar information. This could be another source to try and find talent. Always look at the profile to see what you can pull.

In many cases, if you come across one profile, there may be more just like it that can become another source. On the profile, there is a location, an email, the person can provide where they work, it also provides a time the person joined the site. A Boolean string could be created from this. So, let’s test it out by looking at the URL and seeing if we can X-ray to get more profiles. 

IT WORKS! 

Note: you can always try other email domains, location specific (or no location at all, your choice), etc.

To wrap up, notifications from your 1^st connections is a great alert/reminder to check out LinkedIn posts as it can provide you with valuable information that may lead you to find even more sources.

Always look at everything around you in profiles, on posts, in LinkedIn comment sections, and be curious.

One lead can lead you to even more leads. Happy Sourcing! 

The post Use the LinkedIn Comment Section of Posts to Find New Leads appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

What about the kind of information you seek when hunting down an expert, candidate, or potential partner on a platform like LinkedIn?

It would certainly help to know proactively the types of projects each person has led, or all the relevant extras they take on across their professional and personal lives, such as hosting a podcast, mentoring, or volunteering.

Next Generation Professional Social Network

Welcome to Polywork, a professional social network where people share what they do and collaborate with others.

Polywork is a small design-obsessed team working on building the next generation professional social network to enable people to share what they do and collaborate with others.

They believe that the world needs better information on what people can do to make it more productive. lets users create a free personality-focused professional profile where they can share updates and send collaboration requests to others on the network.

In contrast to LinkedIn, Polywork features “badges” to highlight personal and professional skills and interests as opposed to focusing just on a job title. Users also have the option to add projects and accomplishments to career timelines.

Whether it was pivoting careers or starting new projects like a podcast or a store on Etsy to pass the time, the pandemic amplified a growing trend of people who do more than one type of work. Existing professional social networks use the job titles we hold and schools we went to as the main way to identify who candidates are.

Is This Flawed and Outdated?

Consider for a minute the myriad of similar job titles we look for Site Reliability Engineers. At companies like Facebook, these engineers are called “Production Engineers.” Looking on LinkedIn for “Site Reliability Engineers” or “SRE,” actually eliminates results based on job title that could be a fit for the role. 

Yes, as a social network dedicated to professionals, LinkedIn offers a treasure trove of business contacts, but I’d argue that there is more to learn about our candidates which yields better outreach and increased engagement.

All the result of being able to find or decipher a better picture of who our candidate is and what they are interested in doing or producing.

On the professional networking side, the approach allows users to get a quick visual overview of an individual — perhaps fleshing out some of the dry details they already saw on their LinkedIn account — and quickly navigate to individual examples of specific activity.

Recruiters looking for professional ice-breakers will probably relish the chance to find more up-to-date material to work with, ahead of making a cold pitch.

Current professional networking platforms don’t cut it. Your moniker might read “Software Engineer” or “Product Manager” or “Designer” and perhaps the school you went to. But these titles alone don’t come close to capturing what we actually do in our professional lives or the types of work we find motivating.

Enter Polywork and Resume 2.0

As opposed to being a resume directory with a social-professional network built adjacent to your resume profile, Polywork is a historical professional portfolio or journal that also is a social-professional network.

Polywork focuses on letting people tell their own stories and all they’re capable of, so we can meet new people, supercharge our teams, and unlock creativity.

From capturing details like who you collaborated with on various projects to career highlights, to a system of community-created badges reflecting both personal and professional traits, Polywork is building a new professional network, from the ground up, that reflects how we work in 2022. 

It looks like Polywork is building a professional network that strongly appeals to the aesthetics of young professionals like influencers, developer advocates, designers, hustlers, lifestyle entrepreneurs, models and musicians.

These have been the early adopters. While making these observations, it’s important to consider the function and future of resumes because it becomes apparent that this network is for everyone. 

What is a Resume, Anyway?

A resume is a pdf you email to a company. Another way to see it is that a resume is a burdensome standardized method of communication.

A resume is job-history-oriented, and that we use to verify an applicant’s supposed “experience,” right?

Candidate says they know Java, so they know Java. Right? Well, how well do they know it? Can you verify it via a code test or a code snippet from Github?

It’s not like carrying a certification from your state’s Bar Association, is it?

There is this supposed authenticity via the resume. With a resume it primes the hiring manager or recruiter to use job-history oriented as the filter:

• Is this person changing jobs too frequently?
• Does this person have gaps in their workplaces?
• Does this candidate really know Java?

After all, Java is to Javascript like Ham is to Hamburger. Same thing, right?

The problem with this analysis (and complete absence of logic) is that these are concerns and do not tell if an applicant is qualified.

Also, it does not adapt to the market as a whole.

Shitty References and Bogus Endorsements

References have not been legitimate for years.

Anyone can pretend to be your reference. Anyone can endorse your work without tangible proof.

People on LinkedIn will endorse me as being knowledgeable with SEM. This is preposterous.

The reason they endorse me: I used to place a lot of search engine analysts, managers, and sales people. It would be more useful if the proof of endorsement was tied to an activity such as posting a SEM certification like Google AdWords.

You can kind of replicate this on LinkedIn by mentioning people on a post in the public time-stream. However, it eventually becomes lost and cannot be easily filtered. The LinkedIn social network is adjacent, not your resume.

Opportunity Over Spam

Direct Messaging on LinkedIn, on the whole, is people messaging you for unsolicited services. It has us treat every connection or relationship with suspicion and apprehension.

Polywork has messaging with a purpose before being sent to a target user, a first big step to cut down on spam.

I could see them expanding this feature with their AI assistant to assess whether the sent message is genuine, meaningful and a wanted communication. The system could quickly penalize unapologetic spammers via an internal karma system.

Another option is to associate activity tags with contact types. This would allow contacting users to be forced to understand the context of what they are messaging for — and do their homework to understand if there is genuine alignment.

Can’t LinkedIn copy these features? Like how they can copy Instagram User Stories and Clubhouse audio chats?

Sure they could.

LinkedIn could replicate these features, but — and here’s the but:

The fundamental way the social network works, like connections and resumes profile through the public live stream, these features would be subject to exploit that render them not as valuable.

LinkedIn Resumes are not useless, but their value and purpose are going to change. LinkedIn is not positioned to deliver on Resume 2.0.

Find a Developer

If you know me, you know that I try 100 different ways to find developers and engineers. What does this Polywork have to do with developers?

The normal combination today for developers applying to a job is Resume + LinkedIn + Github.

Isn’t that a lot of “stuff” to supply in an application?

Polywork can solve all this in one package. I think that will be better for developer communities for their proof of work. 

Duplicative Work

Convincing people to duplicate their social networking activity or indeed ditch their existing hard-won social media networks looks like a big ask. The risk is irrelevance, despite a pretty interface.

Sure LinkedIn is boring. The whole point is that it’s low maintenance.

Polywork’s name and philosophy suggests it might be okay with being added to the existing mix of professional and social networks, i.e. rather than replacing either. But, well, a supplementary professional network sounds like a bit of a sideline.

Polywork launched in April 2021 but isn’t disclosing user numbers yet — and is currently operating a wait list for sign ups.

The post The Next LinkedIn appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

If you’ve made it this far, you know that we have egos, and not just us (though certainly us, too), but everyone. These egos influence us and the way we interact with people around us. Sometimes our egos go undetected, minding their business and letting us go about our days.

Other times, they cloud our judgment and make it impossible to act objectively or even rationally. While we believe that ego is primarily an individual issue, one that we ultimately control, it can also manifest on a larger level.

The HR echo chamber is a prime example, one where the majority of the ideas come from a few folks at the top that bounce around and around and around. Now, to be perfectly clear, we’re not here to attack any one person, organization, or association. That’s not our style.

The HR and TA industries are rich with resources. We’re writing this in one such destination, grateful to have the platform. But we have noticed ego often creeps into the conversations surrounding these spaces, both from the people doing the resourcing and those absorbing and putting the information into practice.

So, What’s the Problem?

The concept of an echo chamber comes from media studies, and while definitions vary, the basic theory is that these are environments where opinions and beliefs get reinforced through repeated interactions with peers or sources who have similar tendencies and attitudes.

In practice, that means reading and re-reading similar stories, listening to similar presentations, and internalizing similar thoughts from the same thought leaders until you consider their word to be the final truth. We see the effects of this with some of HR and TA’s more rigid mentalities.

This is not to say that the information out there is bad. But the ego associated with the HR and TA echo chamber has led to the idealization and adoration of some over others, directly challenging the growth and expansion of ideas. At a time when many are looking to move the needle on initiatives such as diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, we have to challenge the status quo.

That isn’t comfortable for some egos, and that’s the point. The same old doesn’t cut it anymore.

It’s up to HR and TA to shake off their egos and develop resources outside of said echo chamber – resources full of new or even dissenting ideas and opinions.  

But What Else is There?

We’re here to advocate for a more flexible sentiment. We want to hear from up-and-coming voices and explore content that exists outside the immediate landscape. Doing this supports both unlearning and gaining a broader understanding of what surrounds you. It also helps you overcome your ego and bring a fresh perspective back to HR and TA.

Where to start? Micole Garatti, Marketing Director at Fairygodboss, recently said, “Be the person in the room who constantly brings up other people who should also be in the room.” Think about that because it requires humility and the ability to actively listen to, recognize, and amplify the thoughts of others.

That can be a big ask of our egos. But what impact could you have on those around you by merely introducing them to someone else? Seeking out people who think differently than you do, who challenge your mindset, is a small step in an entirely new direction. You might already know these people and just haven’t thought of them in this context.

They could be hiring managers, marketing, legal, even your CEO. Why not step outside the HR and TA comfort zone to invite others in?

Likewise, look for adjacent content. We send one another things we find interesting almost every week. Very few have anything to do with HR or TA directly. Not long ago, this meant an episode of the podcast, Call Your Girlfriend, about burnout that talked at length about what’s behind the façade of success and ambition.

The episode was mostly about workplace issues, even though the hosts consider themselves a journalist and a businesswoman, respectively.

You might be questioning the relevance of certifications or continuing education from one organization versus another. Know that you have options. You don’t have to follow a set course because it’s what someone, somewhere recommended.

In the same vein, you might aspire to become an influencer, wondering why you see the same people on these lists, year in and year out. Recognize that what worked for them likely might not work for you. Blogs don’t have the same pull in 2021 that they did in 2011. Everyone has a podcast now, and many think Clubhouse is the new Twitter.

Maybe that means this is your chance to revolutionize HR and TA on TikTok. You get to decide. Just don’t let the fame go to your head, OK?

Ego surrounds each of us, and in professions that rely on engaging other humans, egos get magnified. To cut through the noise of the echo chamber and find your true voice, you need to get quiet and listen. Drop any and all doubt and silence your inner critic by listening hard to yourself – and to others.

Foster self-trust by acknowledging you don’t have all the answers and neither does anyone else. At the same time, adopt a mindset of mental liquidity, which enables you to quickly change your mind without being stuck on a particular worldview.

The point is to get familiar with your ego, where it comes from, how it infiltrates your work and shapes your way of thinking.

We think HR and TA owe it to themselves to unlearn, to dismantle the ego in, out, and all around the space. That’s why we’re here to pose this challenge. We’re ready to take this journey, growing pains and all. Are you?

The post Dismantling the HR Ego: Looking Outside the Echo Chamber appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Ego impacts the way we see the world around us. It influences how we perceive threats, challenges, and opportunities. And whether we realize it or not, ego clouds the judgment of HR and TA on a daily basis. This is not a criticism so much as an observation and a concept we explored in-depth in the first part of this series.

For this part, we’re going to carry the conversation forward and look at what happens when ego intervenes in HR and TA’s interactions with other audiences.

But first, Nietzsche:

“What damages a person most is to work, think, and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty.”

Now, read that last part again. What did you see first – automaton or automation? We talk a lot about automating HR and TA, allowing these functions to free up time in their day, to improve speed and efficiency.

And while automation absolutely works to the benefit of HR and TA, it doesn’t solve for what’s happening internally – for being automatons.

By many accounts, HR and TA have spent the last year just trying to get the work done. They were told to do more with less and to do it now. Given that HR and TA partner with others, these pros have found themselves in precarious and unenviable positions.

That’s not necessarily new, so much as it’s gotten worse. The blame and shame game has led to increased finger-pointing – at hiring managers, at candidates, at leadership – and intensified feels of loneliness, inner turmoil, and defensiveness.

More often than not, this plays out as ego on the part of the HR and TA pros, tasked with justifying their actions and expertise at every turn. But defense mechanisms aren’t the answer, and sometimes the only way out is through.

Mending Fences

You’ve probably heard about Clubhouse, the audio-only chat-based social network. HR and TA took to the app almost instantly, launching rooms and having conversations about everything from robots inside the ATS to griping about hiring managers. The nice part about these off-the-cuff discussions is that people from across the space have a platform to share their experiences.

Listen in, and you’ll realize that ego creeps in pretty quickly as some get louder and more aggressive and others jockey for the opportunity to demonstrate their expertise. Even in a room with like-minded professionals, HR and TA still feel the need to prove their worthiness.

There are four possible responses to most scenarios – fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Since flight might imply weakness and freeze could infer incompetence, the ego of HR and TA tend to go with either fight or fawn, depending on the threat at hand. But what typically comes across to the other party is insecurity.

Insecurity leads to discomfort, discomfort to miscommunication, miscommunication to misalignment, and the issues pile up from there. How do we help HR and TA persevere? We make it OK to be vulnerable. We make it OK to be human. And we start to mend fences with the other side.

Improving Communication

We’ve talked about the challenge of silos and the “us versus them” mentality before but not in terms of finding a solution – and certainly not through the lens of ego. And at the end of the day, it’s these gaps that create the tension and cause ego-driven reactions.

Going back to Clubhouse for a moment, one thing we repeatedly hear in HR and TA rooms is that “we’re speaking different languages.” It’s the Tower of Babel, and it’s up to HR and TA to bridge the divide and make sure everyone is on the same team.

It’s nearly impossible to predict or control external variables, so much of this work needs to come from within HR and TA. That means learning to understand our egos and use them to our advantage, through active listening and effective communication.

Both require discipline, practice, and taking comfort in our own discomfort. Adam Grant recently shared, “Vulnerability is not the opposite of resilience. Vulnerability builds resilience. Projecting perfection protects your ego but shuts people out and stunts your growth. Revealing struggles shows humility and humanity, opening the door to new sources of support and strength.”

Rather than keep pointing fingers or making excuses, HR and TA need to drop the façade, within this space and out. There is nothing perfect about working with other humans, day in and day out. Humans are, by nature, flawed creatures. Pretending otherwise is how we become that “mere automaton of duty.”

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Those of you that know me, know that I love talking about the candidate experience and in particular the micro experiences or moments that make up the candidate experience. I strongly believe that we need to give MORE thought and action to the experiences our candidates, employees, and alumni have (or don’t have) with our companies.

We need to orchestrate these experiences. We need to care enough to orchestrate. Well, that’s the backdrop for this particular interview.

Meet Randy & Socrates.

Randy Womack is Chief Executive Officer of Socrates.ai, providers of the Employee Awesome Digital Conversation Hub. He has over 20 years of experience in the Software as a Service (SaaS) marketplace and 30 years in technology and operations.

Before Socrates, he was CEO at Aasonn, an SAP Partner. He also served as Chief Operating Officer of Castlight Health, where he helped pioneer the Enterprise Healthcare Cloud. He led Sales, Marketing, Product, and Operations to a successful IPO in four years. Previous to Castlight, he was the VP of Operations and Chief Information Officer for eight years at SuccessFactors, an SAP Company, which built the leading solution for Cloud People Management.

Mr. Womack also held sales, technology, and operations leadership roles at Greylock, Digital River, and Dell, and he has had the rare privilege to help lead three early-stage startups to go public (CSLT, SFSF, DRIV).

I really hope you enjoy this interview and keep an eye out for Socrates. I really like what they’re doing and the problem they’re solving. Please enjoy.

Q1: Work-related, what’s keeping you up at night these days?

Lately, it’s watching how employers communicate with their workforce and knowing that these organizations were already hard-pressed to provide timely, relevant, and engaging content pre-COVID-19. Now, these organizations are completely overwhelmed.

While the separation between work and home life, which was just beginning to disappear has completely dissolved. Employees have to juggle family health, childcare, and schoolwork on top of calls and assignments. At the same time, employees need information that can be accessed quickly. With the absolute minimum time lost to searching. And without the frustrations of interpreting technical or legal prose.

Q1: Continued

Most organizations don’t have team members whose sole responsibility is to author, publish, update, and circulate content to the workforce. Coupled with a lack of resources around evolving regulations and legislation, changes in business strategy, mergers, and acquisitions. It is no wonder that the typical “library” of documents or the “FAQ” page is sadly out of date and filled with difficult to understand jargon.

That means HR and service center staff spend hours answering basic employee questions, over and over again. This leaves them with little to no time for the complex issues that demand the full attention of their expertise. Employees who have grown accustomed to a fully on-demand personalized world of media, information, and products, are frustrated with the “You are caller number seven, we will answer your call as soon as possible” experience.

Given the technology and the SaaS models we have today, it makes no sense that companies cannot collaborate, share, and respond in real-time. For instance, many companies created their own COVID-19 material. They did the best they could on their own. Versus working with other organizations to compare what other workforces are asking and partner to create straightforward answers.

Please do not misunderstand. Company leaders killed themselves to get the information ready. They did a brilliant job doing their best to help their workforce. But it was very inefficient with everyone working in silos on the same problems.

Q2: What’s your short term (>3 years) vision for Socrates?

Socrates.ai is an employee experience platform. Not a development toolkit. Designed to create a more consumer-like experience within the enterprise by:

1. Providing a single place for the workforce to go to ask questions or perform tasks, regardless of the channels they use.
2. Saving employees time on every interaction with the company.
3. Creating meaningful experiences in the moments that matter.

Just as Single Sign-On solved the problem of remembering usernames and passwords for all the applications and services in the enterprise. Our platform pulls all the apps, policies, services, and bots together while respecting the existing system of records. And then simplifying the employee experience for the workforce.

Socrates utilizes whatever technology or user interface creates the best experience. Whether that’s straightforward answers or a conversation dialogue, digital walkthrough, or chatbot. To save the employee time and create a meaningful experience. We look at every request and task to determine what interface will offer the best user experience and then make it happen.

Once you start mapping anything a person could ask or want to do it in a large enterprise, it gets complicated quickly. A lot of the information is in documents or websites.

Socrates.ai has a text-processing engine that reads content like a human and answers employee questions, with a single response or in a conversation. Rather than an employee searching through documents. We do the document or web site processing automatically.

Q2: Continued

Hence, customers simply review the answers for accuracy and decide if they would prefer a more straightforward explanation than is often delivered by the policy. We also cleanse the content of old dates, logos, and conflicting answers, so we provide the customer with a clean update.

In the case of a crisis like we are experiencing today, we can publish content in near real-time and understand what people are asking and where the existing content has gaps. Workforce communication should be two way and close to instantaneous. Not one way, and rear-view mirror. Because we are a SaaS model and a platform, enterprises can share their experience or content with others. And, we can share best practices, trends, and lessons learned.

Socrates.ai also personalizes answers through integrations. Simplifying complex workflows with natural language and making cross applications interactions seamless. For example, a new mom has to deal with a lot of applications and services to have a baby. You simply cannot have a baby and take advantage of everything a company requires and offers in this instance from a single application or service. When you optimize in this way, you need to pull all sources together to cover the entire employee experience.

Q3: What’s your long-term (<3 years) vision for Socrates?

Today, the market is really focused on giving accurate answers to questions. Personalizing the info when it comes from applications and services. Ultimately, saving people time. Some of the market is even exploring using memes or videos to make people laugh. It is a significant first step.

But as leaders, we have yet to realize the power of digital conversations. We need to move beyond standard corporate content like policies and informational portals into digital conversations. That share knowledge, experiences, opinions, and all the topics that people want to know from their colleagues and their company. We should be able to talk digitally to the company and understand the company’s viewpoint as well as ask our colleagues questions without having to call, text, or email.

Digital conversations are powerful. And, in some cases, more impactful than a person to person conversation. For example, if you planned how you would answer your daughter if she told you that she was pregnant while she was in high school. Would it be the same answer you would give her the moment you walk in the door after a tough day?

Your answer might change if you planned what you would say to her in advance versus reacting at that moment. We see the same thing at work all the time. The words that a male manager says when they find out a key performer is going out on maternity leave are often suboptimal and different from the way they would respond if they were not in react mode.

Q3: Vision on the Digital Conversation

Digital conversations allow us to create and store information and knowledge that can be accessed 24/7. In private. While delivering our optimal message, lessons learned, or company viewpoint.

Our journey into digital conversations starts with the workforce being able to talk to the company and the company listening to what the workforce is asking. Digital conversations enable the company to speak to each person in the workforce directly. And not leave essential issues to the manager or matrix manager.

A simple example is tattoos. The hiring manager is super excited about their new hire who has tattoos sleeves. And when assigned to their first project team, the matrix manager asks this person to cover up and says that their tattoos aren’t appropriate.

Which manager is right, and who decides? Whatever answer the employee receives will have a genuine impact on their attitude, engagement and longevity. The company should have a set viewpoint on tattoos and make it available via a digital conversation so the new hire can get the company’s position at any time and in private with a simple answer instead of policy. There are many issues like this, particularly around culture, that should not be left to managers who have experiences and opinions that may or may not align with the company.

Q3: Vision on Work-Life Experience

In the future, leaders, managers and some people in the workforce will load content for the entire company to access at any time. Think about creating a repository of knowledge and experience that can be accessed by the workforce via natural language questions. Leaders will create digital versions of themselves that will make them more accessible and human than they are today while still sharing their insights and perspectives. It is not just leaders. It will be all the workforce.

Think about the general tribal knowledge in the workforce and the things only a few people know, like how to correct an error in the payroll the night before the payroll run. Now that can be available digitally in a simple question and answer format by the person who fixes it but had a personal emergency and is not available.

The other thing to think about digital conversations is the real-time and longitudinal data from these will be a new frontier. It will offer a whole new world of real-time responses, forecasting future problems and continuous improvement of the workforce. The difference versus our consumer lives is that in the enterprise, this digital content and conversation will stay within corporate guidelines, meet security policies, have permissions and be audited and reviewed for compliance.

Our work-life experience will change dramatically as we embrace digital conversations, with the enterprise experience moving beyond the consumer because the knowledge captured is beneficial to everyone inside the organization.

Q4: You’ll know Socrates has reached its full potential when?

1. The workforce can digitally talk to the company and get straight forward personalized answers.
2. The workforce trusts the company to ask about any topic that is important to them as they do with friends and family.
3. When the workforce engages with the company, it feels like the Jetsons instead of the Flintstones.

Q5: What advice do you give leaders regarding evaluating technology?

Think long-term, be part of creating the vision, contribute and, most importantly, give back and collaborate with your colleagues to drive the technology forward. Often it is the vendor driving the market when it should be a consortium of leaders driving the vendors.

The post Fireside chat with William Tincup & Randy Womack of Socrates appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

This article was co-written with Ben Dattner, an executive coach and organizational development consultant, and the founder of New York City–based Dattner Consulting, LLC. (You can follow him on Twitter at @bendattner.) Elizabeth Wood, the other co-author, is Chief Human Resources Officer for Levi Strauss & Co.

Setting the stage

In the war for talent, successful companies think long and hard about their employer brand and the value proposition that they offer current and prospective employees. By regularly surveying employees, conducting exit interviews, and interviewing candidates who receive but do not accept offers, companies can evaluate and improve their overall competitiveness as an employer of choice on an ongoing basis. These “macro” methods can help attract, recruit and retain a talented employee population, but in order to attract a unique and talented individual, it’s also crucial to develop a “micro” focus on that particular candidate’s unique motivations and priorities. And for an individual candidate, a role is likely to be appealing if the opportunity presents them with a compelling “story” that fits well with the arc of their life and career.  

Some candidates jump at the opportunity to take a leadership or managerial job. Other qualified candidates will only accept a role with certain attributes or associated rewards. But what about potential candidates who are open to being or becoming organizational leaders in general, but who are undecided about a specific opportunity? For board members, investors, company managers, and/or headhunters, coming up with an appealing offer can involve two general strategies:  first, endeavoring to configure a role that meets the criteria that the candidate is seeking, that is to say changing the substance of the offer and opportunity. If an individual is sufficiently talented or uniquely qualified, the company might even create a new role or reconfigure an existing role in order to woo him or her to join the organization. However, it’s not always possible to reconfigure a role, so it’s helpful to know how to sell an existing role to a potential leader, involving first understanding his or her career mission and motivation, and then framing the role in a way that makes it appear more appealing. To do this, it’s important to get to know the candidate as a person, to develop an understanding of their own unique “heroic narrative” which needs to be considered along with their personality, and to carefully consider the criteria that they will use to make their decision.

How do they view the “story” of their career?

Whether we are aware of it or not, all of us are cast as the hero or heroine of our own career heroic narrative and psychodrama and have mental and emotional scripts that, while irrational at times, can help explain and predict what kinds of opportunities will be alluring and which won’t be. For example, some leaders seek situations where they are tasked with turning around a dysfunctional or underperforming team, department or company. Other leaders might have no interest in turnaround situations, but instead will seek roles where they are cast as the innovative disrupter, challenging the status quo and taking on more powerful rivals.  In both of these examples, there are likely psychological reasons why one context might be appealing and the other aversive or uninteresting, often rooted in one’s childhood and early family experience. Sometimes, the company, headhunter or board member might directly know enough about the life and career history of a candidate to understand the roots of these deep motivations, while at other times such motivations might need to be indirectly imputed based on how the leader talks about his or her potential interest in taking on a new role, and what the attributes of an appealing new role would need to be.

How do they find meaning in their work?

It is often the case that the most talented and accomplished leaders are those who are motivated by a sense of meaning in their life and work, and who endeavor to serve and assist others. Leaders vary, however, in the constituencies they are most motivated to serve. Some candidates will find a role appealing if it affords them an opportunity to better serve customers or clients of the organization. Other candidates will care more about employees and will be most motivated by the chance to improve the workplace experience of the organization’s rank and file or frontline staff. Asking a candidate to provide examples and tell stories about his or her most meaningful past career experiences and accomplishments can provide a helpful window into what future opportunities might be most interesting to them.

What are their most favorite (and least favorite) “ing’s”?

Careers in general and roles in particular can helpfully be thought of as being a “portfolio” of “activities” e.g. “ing’s.” Every candidate has “ing’s” that he or she enjoys most and least. Some leaders might enjoy “fixing” dysfunction or “re-energizing” employees, while others may prefer “disrupting” an industry or “competing” with established players. In terms of least preferred “ing’s,” some leaders might bristle at “budgeting” or “long term planning” while others will try to avoid “reassuring” disgruntled customers and “lobbying” for stakeholder support. Developing an understanding of, and a common language around, the individual’s most and least favorite “ing’s” can be very helpful in framing the appeal of the potential leadership opportunity and comparing and contrasting it with either the candidate’s current role or various other possible roles or career moves.

Who do they enjoy working with?

In addition to pitching the candidate on the “what” of the prospective role, it’s also a good idea to emphasize “who” they will have the opportunity to work with, both in terms of individuals that they would work closely with as well as the culture and climate of the broader team, department or organization. Some prospective leaders like to join more established teams and organizations where there are experienced executive already in place, while other leaders like to join startups where there is an opportunity to be the “adult in the room” for talented but inexperienced founders or managers. Giving the candidate the opportunity to meet a selected but broad sample of current members of the organization can be invaluable in terms of giving them a sense of how well they are likely to connect with, and be able to effectively lead, their potential new team.

In conclusion, to effectively compete for talent, companies are gathering and analyzing more and more data about their candidates, employees, and voluntary and involuntary “alumni.” However, individual candidates have their own unique set of motivations, priorities and systems of meaning and selling jobs to individuals is more of an “art” than a “science.” It is said that “the plural of anecdote is data” which, if true, implies that the singular of data is anecdote. Anecdotes are stories and developing an understanding of the stories of candidates, including what kind of challenges they gravitate towards, what accomplishments they find meaningful, and their preferred activities and coworkers is the best way to have them become part of your company’s story and to have your company become part of their story.

The post How to sell a leadership job appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Email is a complete cluster-fuck to almost everyone. We all complain about it, but secretly love how much we get, because it makes us feel (a) busy/high and (b) relevant. Both matter a lot to work, even if we don't admit that.

In reality, email is just a way to underscore the pre-existing hierarchy of wherever you work. To wit:

• High up a chain: Never respond to a thread for days/weeks, then respond at the 11th hour on a project, change everything, and that's fine
• Low down a chain: If you don't respond instantly at 11pm to a "stakeholder," your next performance review will say you "lack initiative."

That's the main problem.

The other problem? No one knows how to write emails with any context, often because they're doing it on-the-go from mobile. You could copy an idea from the Army -- BLUF, or Bottom Line Up Front-- and fix this, but that's very rare. Most emails are a train wreck of nothingness that you need to decipher just to do your job, and that's definitely true in the hiring manager-recruiter relationship ecosystem. And we wonder why only 15% of employees globally are engaged with their job, eh?

Maybe there's a small fix here, though.

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This issue we're about to discuss came up at a few HRTX events this winter and spring, always on the diversity and inclusion education track that we offer. Here's the basic quandary, which has been an issue in recruiting seemingly forever: how do we get more diverse candidates and, eventually, employees? There are entire books written on this topic, and a blog post will not fully solve it. But, we need to obviously pay attention to the problem, and it's severe.

HackerRank recently released a 2018 Tech Recruiting Report. (There's a press release too, largely about the disconnect between recruiters and hiring managers, which is another all-time recruiting issue.)

While there's a lot of interesting data in the HackerRank set, this might pop out the most:

• Recruiters report that internal referrals is their top sourcing method (59%). This is problematic, considering that on average, 75% of white Americans have entirely white networks without any minority presence.

Not good.

So, what do we do?

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SHRM has been talking about mentorship a good deal recently, including an article on “How To Find The Right HR Mentor” and another on “Elevating The Next Generation Of HR Leaders.”

This actually got me going down memory lane a bit to an article I wrote in October 2015 – seems like forever ago -- about how to ask someone to be your mentor.

This is all very near and dear to me. It matters tremendously, and I sometimes wish more of us in executive-level roles would understand and embrace that. We had people who guided us and deflected politics away from us as we rose up. We need to pay that forward.

I work hard at taking time to coach several of my past staff members, startup founders from The Atlanta Tech Village, and recent graduates from my alma mater (UGA).

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I'm sure some organizations already do this, but in terms of me, my friends, my family and people that email me about work stuff, it's not normative.

Look, the hiring process is legitimately broken. I think we all somewhat know that, even if we don't admit it. We claim to hire from "a sense of purpose." We don't. The war for talent became the war on talent.

A lot of the issue here is the actual hiring manager, i.e. the person who will be your eventual boss (in all likelihood). You absolutely need to understand one concept about work to realize why hiring sucks so badly: work is about control.

It has nothing to do with productivity, getting the best person, etc. It has to do with "I own this and that makes me relevant." A lot of hiring managers, who are often middle managers, think this way.

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You may not have heard that stat before but you probably have heard of the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle. The 80/20 rule basically says that 80 percent of your success comes from 20 percent of your efforts.

I would like to introduce my own rule of thumb to the world of statistical abstraction. I call it, very originally, the 90/10 rule.

My 90/10 rule was something I first started thinking about when I was an agency recruiter, back when I was conducting 8 to 12 in person interviews.

Why you need to follow the 90/10 rule

I was speaking to people that wanted to, or needed to, change jobs. When people are looking for a job they realize that they need a network, however, by the time they realize they need a network it is too late to develop one.

So, I began to coach people, and what I started to coach them on is how you need to spend 90 percent of your time on your job and 10 percent of your time on your career. To be clear, I am NOT saying that you should spend 10 percent of your time looking for a job.

What I am saying is that you should spend 10 percent of your time on your career. That means, among other things, reading, attending conferences, attending networking events, and volunteering.

Remember: The time to build your network is BEFORE you need it.

I would like to speak a brief moment on networking. Building an actual network is one of the most valuable things you can do from your career but you have to do it right.  And, you can learn a lot about networking from the tale of Desert Pete.

Networking and the story of Desert Pete

For those not familiar with the story, Desert Pete was lost in a desert and dying of thirst when he found an old water pump. Next to the pump  there was water in a a jar full of water, because old water pumps had to be primed before they would pump water.

The water next to the pump was not water for drinking, but, water to prime the pump. Desert Pete, like the travelers before and after him, was mightily temped to forget about priming the pump immediately drink the water.

In the story says, Pete says:

Well, I found that jar and I tell ya nothin’ was ever prettier to my eye And I was tempted strong to drink it, ’cause that pump looked mighty dry.

But the note went on have faith my friend, there’s water down below. You’ve got to give until you get — I’m the one who ought to know.

So I poured in the jar and I started pumpin’ and I heard a beautiful sound, of water bubblin’ and splashin’ up outta that hole in the ground.

I took off my shoes and I drunk my fill of that cool refreshing treat I thank the Lord and thank the pump and I thank old Desert Pete.”

Networking is about more than just finding a job

Networking is not about going to a meeting and handing out your card. But, networking IS taking a few moments after you’ve had to let a candidate know that you can’t move forward with them to let them know you would like to introduce them to a recruiting contact of yours that might have a job for them.

To build a true network you have to prime the pump. Building a true network means providing something of value to someone who has no immediate ability to compensate you.

Also, to be clear, networking is not just about finding a job.

Over time I have developed a network of professionals that work in many different fields. There are people I know I  can call and ask technical questions to when I don’t know the answer. People in my network provide me with candidates for my open jobs.

My network has opened doors for me in my career that there is no way I could have opened myself.

Glen Cathey recently spoke at SourceCon again. Instead of giving a talk about all of the shiny new sourcing tools available, he spoke about the power of social engineering. He spoke of not only the necessity but the power of being a human and not a “zombie recruiter.” The science of Social Engineering is a playbook on how to build an effective network.

Pass along the wisdom

I would recommend investing 10 percent of your time not only building your network, but in reading good articles, attending conferences, and making connections among your peers. And, I would like to one up the Desert Pete analogy in the hope of making a larger point.

We live on a small blue oasis in the enormous cosmic desert of space. Make it a point to pass on the wisdom of Desert Pete,  Take all you need, but make sure you leave enough water for the next person who comes along behind you to prime the pump.

Be as much of an advocate of yourself as you are your candidates and remember.
You’ve got to prime the pump, you must have faith and believe.
You’ve got to give of yourself ‘fore you’re worthy to receive.
Drink all the water you can hold, wash your face, cool your feet.
But leave the bottle full for others, thank you kindly,

–– Desert Pete

The post The 90/10 Rule of Networking, or the Story of Desert Pete appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

It’s a term I hear a lot even if it isn’t always clear what it means, so don’t feel bad if you’re also a little fuzzy on the definition of “soft skills.”

If you manage Millennials, you better have collaborative skills

The post One Big Thing That Recruiters Really Looked For This Year appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

The main driver of this change? It continues to be the increasing scale and use of technological solutions to traditional and modern workplace challenges. As we progress beyond the advent of connected work apps and online platforms of the past five years, we’re preparing to move past other impactful organizational shifts — like the rise of remote workers.

All this is to say that 2018 is going to be another significant and very interesting year for both workers and their relationship with the workplace, and there are some key things those in the HR space should be aware of.

Here are my predictions on what will be making an impact in the year to come.

1 – The app and information overload will continue

Apps and SaaS online platforms have become as standard in our jobs as Microsoft Office, and while they have added some great new tools and abilities to our work day, they  are also increasingly making work more challenging. How? By giving us more programs to juggle and making information more scattered and difficult to retrieve.

Though this overload is hard to stop. We’re seeing the rise of a new solution that will greatly expand in 2018: the use of AI-powered assistants that can plug into the various apps and platforms we already use and retrieve the information we seek on our request.

With developments in natural language processing, we can now have a text chat with a helper bot and ask questions about diffuse information sources that it answers in plain English.

2 – Employee engagement efforts will get smarter

Making employees feel more connected, engaged and happy at work has become a major priority for workplaces and their HR teams. We’ve seen a lot of enterprise firms getting flexible with their approach to employee work-life balance and adopting some of the more casual approaches to work and workplace rules seen in trendy tech startups.

This will continue in 2018, but at a higher level: efforts to engage employees will be given a major boost by smart new digital tools that let HR better monitor and react to engagement and office culture.

Underlying AI technology — like machine learning — is now parsing the language used on workplace chat platforms, and even in employee emails, to analyze employee sentiment for potential negativity, a sign of disengagement, and doing so on an office-wide level.

Expect this to become more widespread as new tools read more telltale signals. Researching whether such engagement tech is right for your HR challenges will be key in 2018.

3 – Diversity and inclusion will be an even bigger priority

This past year saw some major corporate scandals around diversity and inclusion, leading to more awareness and calls for change. There have been some major shots across the bow, and we’re seeing executive teams start to make some major reforms to modernize their workplace makeup and culture.

This will be a significant priority in 2018, not only in response to very public scandals but also because of the fact that more inclusive, diverse workplaces have been linked to higher productivity and are now recognized as better for innovation and new ideas (and more attractive to Millennial hires).

At the ground level, HR should be aware of the new set of equity tools designed to eliminate unconscious bias in recruiting practices. You can now have your job-posting text read by an AI bot who will suggest more inclusive language, and another will help screen resumes in a fairer way.

This is a fast-growing area, and one every HR department should be evaluating for fit.

4 – More human workplaces, more collaboration

Can smart tools using AI and machine learning make work better?

We don’t have a complete answer to that yet, but we are seeing the needle start to move with the application of AI software to areas with a direct impact on our workplace mood and empathy levels. This includes the physical design of our offices to be more human-centric, and assistants that can read our emails as we write them and let us know if we’re coming off as unprofessional.

At the same time, the importance of collaboration is rising as the micro-jobs that eat up our work day are automated by virtual assistants — tasks like booking meetings and drafting routine documents. With more time for creative, deep-thinking work, more value is being placed on employee collaboration, which is becoming a key factor in firm performance.

Both these trends are going to get bigger in 2018, and successful workplaces will want to stay on top of them.

5 – Remote workers are the norm, and can do more

Having an employee work from home once elicited some quiet skepticism around the water cooler, but those days are now long gone. Indeed, leading workplaces now treat remote work as a standard feature, one that can not only let employees be more productive, but opens the door to a truly global workforce that provides a deep bench of talent.

Working remotely was once a bit awkward in terms of work routines and processes being locked to a physical space, but the digital workplace has gone a long way to throwing off those restrictions. Come 2018, and beyond, this will become the standard, and expect a majority of high-performing firms to have a constant chunk of their staff permanently off-site.

Our workplace tech stack has adapted to this new reality, and as more software migrates to the cloud with files accessible 24/7, we’ll see remote working grow tremendously.

This will be further accelerated by the rise of smart tools giving remote workers new abilities that would previously have required a visit to the office, such as creating and exchanging routine documents and meeting with HR for basic work-policy questions and assistance. The range of remote applications will continue its exponential growth, and is something the modern enterprise must be aware of and willing to adapt to.

6 – AI will go mainstream and get REALLY smart at understanding data

In what will be a seismic shift in 2018, enterprises will no longer require a computer or data science degree to understand and use the baseline and deeper functionality that workplace AI brings. Non-specialized knowledge workers will see the immediate benefits of these AI-powered tools, from frictionless collaboration and information sharing to quick and accessible new insights.

Yes, 2016 and 2017 both paved the way for the arrival of mainstream AI, and now we’ve reached a turning point, thanks to the standardization of third-party apps and integrations that can be understood and augmented by AI. This will allow employees to do more at work using previously inaccessible data, yielding new discoveries. To pick one example, 2018 will usher in the era of business intelligence beyond the usual, allowing employees to derive success metrics at the click of a button and gain new perspectives.

It’s clear that 2018 is going to be another exciting year for employers, workers, and their relationship with the workplace. HR teams should be aware of the upcoming shifts and opportunities to unlock new value, and, understand how to properly use data, insights and emerging tech to supercharge everything from employee engagement and productivity to organizational structure and IT.

Happy New Year!

The post Predictions and Pitfalls In the Workplace: 6 Things to Watch For in 2018 appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

If you send a LinkedIn invitation to a friend or work colleague, it is often accepted within 24 hours. Then you see some influential people on LinkedIn and you think that it would be great to connect with them.

You read all their articles on LinkedIn Pulse and you would love to meet them if they are available, or just chat with them over LinkedIn. Maybe you are just expanding your network and you find some interesting people that you would like to add to your network, in case you ever find yourself looking for a job.

So, you decide to send them an invitation.

After two weeks, they are still not in your network and you are wondering why they did not accept your invitation. You aren’t sure whether it is just pending or if they declined. Maybe they did not even receive notification from LinkedIn, or perhaps they are on vacation, or just busy.

Or maybe you just did something wrong. You never get a second chance to make a first impression!

So, here are the main 10 reasons people decline invitations. Please note: I changed the names of people in these invitations and examples.

1 – Incomplete LinkedIn Profile

Do you have a complete profile? Not sure? Check again. One reason your invitations are declined is that your profile is missing a title, job description, and perhaps even good content.

Make sure that your photo is full-size, professional and not a random (fake) picture from the Internet. Also, ensure that your work history has useful details. It also pays to include recommendations and endorsements from several people.

The more complete your profile, the better the chance that your invitation will be accepted. People want to see a profile that reads well and communicates serious thoughtfulness. If you got an invite from a person with just a name, would you hit the “Accept” button?

2 – A Lack of Proper Grammar

Even though you are not writing a thesis or an essay, proper spelling and punctuation are still of the utmost importance. Try to also avoid writing in capital letters, which is often interpreted as screaming.

Trust me; no one wants to see this in their inbox. Unless you have good reason to shout, keep to the lower case. And if you must use capital letters, do so sparingly.

Also, use formal language if you are approaching people you don’t know. Casual, slang-filled invitations will only get you rejections. If you are not sure about grammar or typos, you can always check your spelling and grammar in Word or on Grammarly.

3 – Using a Generic Message

Many people are tired of seeing ubiquitous template LinkedIn messages. That’s why you need to create a “hook” in your invitation. Have you read the person’s post or article? Do you have a contrary opinion to a view or opinion that they expressed? Do you live in the same city as this person? Create a personalized hook to draw this person in.

Unless you have communicated with this person outside of LinkedIn, and they can clearly remember you, then the generic message might be just fine.

Here’s the LinkedIn Template Message (and these are the most boring 11 words in the English language):

LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to add your own notes to the LinkedIn invitation, so it really behooves you to do it.

4 – People are not Using LinkedIn Daily

LinkedIn has 500+ million users; from that number, only 106 millions are active users (Statista report, April 2017). From that 106 million:

• 53 percent of active users spend between 0-2 hours weekly on LinkedIn;
• 22 percent spend 3-4 hours weekly; and,
• 10 percent spend 5-6 hours (survey from Statista March 2016).

As you can see from these statistics, the only people who spend a lot of time on LinkedIn are recruiters, because it’s their work tool. But candidates? Not so much.

Also consider this: One of the reasons why your invitation may not have been accepted just may be bad timing. You can send the invite out on a Monday, but if the person you’re sending it to is not logged in to LinkedIn until Friday, your LinkedIn invitation will not be seen until then. Given that, your invitation could be easily overlooked.

5 – Not Getting the Name Right

It’s bad enough that you are sending someone a template message, but misspelling their name is just not acceptable.

Of course, this can happen and people can overlook the error in the invite, but some take it seriously even if they don’t treat your obvious grammatical errors like they are a big deal. If you are going to get anything wrong, it should not be the name of a potential connection in a LinkedIn message.

6 – Offering a Job or Selling Something

If your main intention is to sell, do not make this known up front. It is better to connect first. Many people dislike opening their inboxes only to see a template sales pitch disguised as a LinkedIn invitation.

You should focus on connecting instead of trying to sell. And if you are planning to sell, don’t do it just a few minutes after your invitation has been accepted — wait at least one day.

If you are offering a job, don’t use a LinkedIn invitation. This is not the right venue, especially when you are not adding any info to the invite.

I was fooled once with this type of invite and got an offer for selling Herbalife.

Candidates are also getting template messages such as, “Hi, I have a job offer for you! Please add me to you network.” After they accept the invite, there is radio silence. And if you are using the same template as these spammers, don’t expect that candidates will treat you any differently, especially if they already have had that bad experience.

7 – You Are a Complete Stranger

If you are sending random invitations to people without speaking with them first, you will not get a lot of acceptances. We’ve all received connection requests from strangers, and we know that sometimes it’s better to steer clear and skip the connection.

Also, asking someone you are still trying to add to your connections to lunch or dinner will make the firewall stronger. So yes, your message was compelling and they will want you to be in their connections because they like your profile … but a lunch or similar request in the first invitation is just taking it too far.

Accepting your invitation may mean that they still have to come up with a polite way of declining your request, and that’s something that no one likes to deal with. Maybe they like the idea of lunch with you but you have to wait for them to check their calendar. Then you know the rest of the story — something happened along the line and they forgot about your invitation.

Remember: Do not make people commit to anything in your LinkedIn request other than accepting your initial invitation. Most people do not want to meet unless they have first developed a relationship with you.

8 – You are Too Impatient

Every month, I get at least one invitation that I consider a little bit pushy.

For example, I sometimes receive a LinkedIn invitation with a note asking me to add someone to my network. I don’t accept the invitation, but a few minutes later I get an email with a proposal for cooperation, and then another a few minutes later requesting a connection on Skype. Before I’m able to finish my answer on that email, my phone notifies me about a new Facebook friend request from that same person.

If you are impatient, just send the email — and nothing else. Sending so many requests to a stranger on so many social media sites is never a good approach. Don’t ruin your one and only personal brand.

9 – You Are Not From the Same Field/Location

LinkedIn was built on the idea that people will connect; however, after they implemented the connection limit (30,000 connections), people became more selective about who they add to their network.

If you are working in a Lesotho bank, and you would like to connect with a software engineer from Canada, there is a high probability that your invitation to a Canadian software engineer will never be accepted.

Networking is not playing Pokémon; you don’t have to catch them all and accept all the invites you receive. The same is true of the people you are getting invites from. You should always add a note stating why they should add you into their network.

10 – You Are Not Putting in Extra Effort

If you view the profile of the person you are trying to connect with, this will raise the possibility of your invitation being accepted. If you have never visited their profile and just sent an invitation, it could appear to the recipient as though you are just hitting the “Connect” button.

Have you actually tried to connect more than once? Maybe they didn’t get your first message. If they have not replied, give it some time and then try again. Some of your prospective contacts may assume that the first invitation was a scam, and a second invitation might change their perspective.

A follow-up message after they have accepted might also be helpful and shows that you are committed to building a relationship with them.

Final Thoughts

LinkedIn is still a great networking platform that you can leverage for your personal and business needs. Having the right connections is very important in getting the most out of that platform.

Always ensure that your LinkedIn message is personalized whether or not you know the recipient personally. Personification is a very important component when you reach out to somebody, plus, your message won’t look like a template.

If you have a mutual connection, mention the name of this person and keep your message short while providing them with a “hook” to bite on. Then, do your best to follow up.

Sometimes, the reason your invitation was not accepted could be because the person you are trying to connect with is not actually using LinkedIn. They may have created an account but have stopped using it. In this case, the message you sent may have nothing to do with why your invitation is pending.

Always remember: Not everyone checks their LinkedIn profile constantly. So, don’t take it personally if they don’t respond.

The post 10 Reasons Your LinkedIn Invitations Are Getting Ignored appeared first on RecruitingDaily.