Recruiting Trailblazers

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Vanessa Raath is a Global Talent Sourcing Trainer | International Keynote Speaker | Career Brand Specialist & Coach

Vanessa holds a teaching degree and spent 8 years as a teacher in the United Kingdom. She now combines her passion for teaching and recruitment in order to offer much needed Sourcing Training to the South African Recruitment Industry. 

Marcus and Vanessa discuss how the art of sourcing has really grown into a separate career - and a different skillset to recruiting - as well as international sourcing and online brand building.

1:46- Introduction

2:54- Definition of a sourcer

3:17- Three things a sourcer has to be able to do

4:31 –Difference between Sourcing and recruiters

8:23- Being a standalone sourcer

9:09- Having the first conversation as a sourcer 

12:14- Is LinkedIn recruiter still a the best resource

13:16- Searching via Google - XRay Searching

15:31- The importance of messaging as a recruiter and sourcer

18:00- Learning via Facebook or twitter to help you reach a little bit more

24; 07- The need to separate TA into a sourcing function and recruitment function

24:72- Is transactional recruiting getting harder as brands and agencies search for more ways to differentiate themselves?

27:43- What an effective sourcing strategy looks like today?

28:00 – Knowing your audience

30:00- Getting a working sourcing strategy in South Africa

32:00- Why companies need better branding

35:23- Sourcing community in South Africa

36:30- Building a strong and trustworthy online brand

38:58- Shout out to the sponsors of the podcast (Recruiter.com)

39:30- What do people need to post online because you are building a brand?

40:00- Working with a ratio

42:03- Educating your community and adding value to the community

42:50- Is video the tool of the future?

43:14- Video’s engagement

44:21- LinkedIn algorithm and how it works

45:32- Conclusion

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with recruiter and coach Chris O’Connell. He achieved worldwide top-biller status as SThree and managed teams generating £15 million in revenue. Then, he started his own recruitment business, grew it to £25 million in annual revenue and, in his own words, “lost it all.”

Today, Chris does what he truly loves. He helps leaders build purpose-led businesses that perform optimally with a focus on what Chris calls the BASE Mindset, which stands for Behavior, Attitude, Skills, and Experience.

Listen in as Chris shares what he learned about leadership and company culture after losing his recruitment business, how vulnerability and servant leadership manifest themselves in the workplace, empowering the individual to empower the team, dealing with the mental health crisis amid the pandemic, and the importance of personal branding.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [02:45] What Chris learned from losing a £25 million recruitment business

●      [07:06] Things that Chris did right in his previous recruitment business

●      [09:53] Chris’s advice to himself if he could build that business again

●      [11:08] Why vulnerability is the top trait of every great leader

●      [14:26] How your family life affects your leadership capabilities at work

●      [15:21] How Chris coaches his clients to improve their own leadership skills

●      [16:26] Where a leader’s strength, resolve, and confidence come from

●      [18:51] What “servant leadership really means”

●      [21:50] How COVID-19 is changing the KPI-driven recruitment industry

●      [24:44] Managing the individual, not the team

●      [28:38] Transitioning away from a “survival of the fittest” company culture

●      [30:00] How leaders can maintain accountability in a remote working setup

●      [32:42] The role of gratitude in the workplace

●      [34:30] The pillars of mental health and wellbeing in the workplace

●      [36:33] Common problems associated with working from home

●      [38:55] Helping your people talk openly about their mental health

●      [46:08] Personal branding best practices

Key quotes:

●      “Don’t put all your eggs in that one basket that is your business. Building a big business is great, but it doesn’t guarantee happiness.”

●      “Just because a recruiter is at the top of the board doesn’t make them a great performer.”

●      “People buy from people, not companies. They don’t care how many awards you’ve got or how operationally efficient you are. They want to be from that person who understands them and enjoy the journey.”

●      “Your company has to have a framework or a company or team ethos, but you have to allow the individual to flourish in their own skin.”

●      “It’s much better to execute three or four things really well than 25 things really badly.”

●      “I think mental health and wellbeing is the number one component that’s going to drive business’s success in 2021.”

●      “Personal branding is more important than business branding.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      BASE Mindset

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Hung Lee, who built the Recruiting Brainfood newsletter from scratch into a thriving community of over 25,000 adoring fans, with a potent and fascinating curation of content aimed to satisfy, inform, and entertain recruiting and growth professionals all over the globe.

Aside from Recruiting Brainfood, Hung is the co-founder of tech recruitment company Workshape.io and the tech startup 300 Notes.

Listen in as Hung shares the limitations of an algorithmic newsfeed like that of LinkedIn, a key strategy to getting engagement for your content on LinkedIn in spite of the algorithm, where you should put your focus if you want to build a big email list, the importance of being relentlessly consistent to build (and keep) a large audience, and the pros and cons of the hybrid workplace.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [02:30] What is Recruiting Brainfood?

●      [04:32] Recruiting Brainfood’s reader avatar

●      [06:15] How Recruiting Brainfood differs from the LinkedIn newsfeed

●      [10:36] Getting your content out there even if the algorithm is “against” you

●      [13:31] Building your own custom audience with an email list

●      [18:00] Why you need to stay consistent with your content

●      [20:34] How Recruiting Brainfood makes money

●      [22:52] What Hung would change if he could start the business again

●      [27:22] How Recruiting Brainfood filters its article submissions

●      [30:14] Trends that emerged out of the pandemic in the recruiting industry

●      [32:36] Why a hybrid working environment may not work in the long run

●      [41:12] The slippery slope of measuring productivity in recruitment

●      [45:45] How entry-level positions fit into a work-from-home environment

●      [50:58] The future of designing workplace culture

●      [52:03] Hung’s plans for Recruiting Brainfood in 2021

Key quotes:

●      “Recruiting Brainfood was created to reduce the size of the internet to make it more relevant to people who are in the recruiting and HR profession.”

●      “What gets interactions is not necessarily great content. It’s usually outrageous, emotive content that generates that kind of engagement.”

●      “Yes, you should experiment in your business, but you shouldn’t experiment irresponsibly with your people’s attention.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Recruiting Brainfood

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Julia Pollak, Labor Economist at ZipRecruiter, a leading online employment marketplace that uses powerful matching technology to connect millions of businesses of all sizes and job seekers every month.

Julia is a Harvard graduate, and Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University, and an enlisted helicopter mechanic in the U.S. Navy Reserve. She is also the winner of the Military Excellence Award as the top recruit of more than 800 people at the Great Lakes cohort.

Julia’s job is to use data accumulated through billions of these interactions to gauge the health of the labor market and also to generate insights that can help job seekers and employers stand out and succeed in that market.

Listen in as Julia shares the state of employment as uncertainties of all kinds persist in our day-to-day lives. She discusses which roles and markets are currently experiencing a high volume of applications and which of these verticals are unable to accommodate these sizable talent pools. She also touches on job seeker confidence, best practices for applicants today, and the paradox of remote work.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [03:15] Julia’s role at ZipRecruiter

●      [04:42] What the data shows regarding employment rates throughout 2020

●      [07:30] Are there more applicants per advertised role today?

●      [09:51] Roles that are attracting more candidates now

●      [12:09] Markets with a glut of quality applicants struggling to find work

●      [15:33] Sectors experiencing the largest decline in the labor market

●      [17:26] The current demand for recruiters

●      [19:46] Markets that agency recruiters should be focusing their efforts on

●      [23:14] What is job seeker confidence and why is it so important?

●      [28:16] Common misconceptions about the current labor economy

●      [31:11] Job seeker sophistication and education

●      [34:32] Other common missteps by job seekers

●      [36:24] How job seekers should set their expectations on ZipRecruiter

●      [38:52] What candidates should do if they do not get any feedback

●      [41:41] The dramatic increase of work-from-home opportunities

●      [45:50] The impact of prolonged forced remote working on mental health

●      [49:16] What a potential post-COVID office paradigm would look lke

Key quotes:

●      “One of the roles of a marketplace like ZipRecruiter is to allow employers to look through the database of job seekers and reach out proactively to job seekers who would be a good match. Those kinds of innovations allow smaller companies who don’t stand out to get ahead.”

●      “Nobody trains people on how to look for a job and most people only learn what to do and what not to do the hard way.”

●      “About 60% of jobs have been gotten through networking.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      ZipRecruiter

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Guillaume Moubeche, the Founder and CEO of Lemlist, a tool that many recruiters are starting to embrace which automates sequences and personalizes cold email outreach to both candidates and clients.

Lemlist has quickly amassed a $3m ARR in under 3 years - and Recruiters are embracing the tool in an effort to automate and personalize outreach at scale.

Guillaume shares how the many hurdles and uncertainties this year brought us served as teachable moments and opportunities for the company.

Listen in as Guillaume shares the inspiration behind Lemlist and how he and his small team bootstrapped the business, ways to personalize your outreach, how Guillaume and his team built the Lemlist Family, how recruiters and sales professionals can tap into the community for inspiration on creating better outreach campaigns.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• [02:34] The initial concept behind Lemlist and how it began as a company
• [04:17] Personalization: The gap in the market
• [06:43] How recruiters can use Lemlist
• [11:37] Uploading your existing database for Lemlist to apply its features to
• [12:55] The power of reaching out with a video message
• [15:18] Ways you can personalize your message
• [20:10] Examples of success users have had with Lemlist (i.e open rates)
• [24:02] Lemlist’s multichannel capabilities (i.e. email, LinkedIn, calls, etc.)
• [29:01] How Lemlist differentiates itself from the competition
• [31:05] Building a community around Lemlist
• [36:02] Where to learn more about Lemlist

Key quotes:

• “The truth is, whenever you reach out to people, you need to have personalization because you’re building relationships.”
• “Outreach, whether you’re doing it for recruiting or sales, has the goal of getting a reply and eventually getting a meeting to get to know the person.”
• “Hiring is always a struggle, especially in the early days, because you don’t know the level of expectation you can get from someone.”
• “Whether you’re in sales or recruitment, the essence of both types of outreach is building relationships.”

Resources Mentioned:

• Lemlist

Today’s Sponsor:

Visit video.recruiter.com and enter code Recruiter1000 to access the recruiter.com video beta program for free

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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Just a 2 minute message from Marcus at Christmastime!

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Mitch Sullivan, trainer and recruiter known on LinkedIn for his biting wit and take-no-prisoners approach to the recruitment industry, social media, and his passion for copywriting.

Mitch created the online training course, Copywriting for Recruiters, and is the author of On Recruitment, a book chock-full of wisdom and best read within easy reach of a six pack or a glass of wine.

Listen in as Mitch shares his unique approach to gaining a massive following on LinkedIn; how to maximize attention, interest, desire, and action in direct response advertising; the problems with contingency recruitment; and the four key areas to turn clients (hiring managers or companies) to retaining a recruiter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [02:26] How Mitch amassed over 40,000 fans on LinkedIn

●      [05:25] Producing engaging content on LinkedIn

●      [07:46] Mitch’s most successful post

●      [10:03] Has Mitch ever crossed the line with a post on LinkedIn?

●      [14:36] Mitch’s ROI for his social media efforts

●      [18:02] The principles behind Mitch’s course, Copywriting for Recruiters

●      [23:20] The current state of copywriting in recruitment today

●      [27:51] Selling yourself to the best candidate

●      [31:50] The importance of outreach to the copywriting process

●      [33:53] Writing a job ad that cuts through the noise

●      [42:14] Contingent versus retained

Key quotes:

●      “If you’re consistent in how you write, prepared to use wit and sarcasm from time to time, and you never, ever say anything that you couldn’t back up, you’ll go far on LinkedIn.”

●      “Clickbait only works if what comes immediately after the clickbait title or headline is something that relates to it.”

●      “If you want to get more of the right people with the right qualifications responding to your ad, email, or social media post, you’ve got to immediately tell the reader what’s in it for them.”

●      “Recruiters have got to change their thinking. It’s not about being a good writer—it’s about being a good thinker.”

●      “All of the heavy lifting in recruitment is done in either attraction or assessment.”

●      “The only way the industry is going to regain or discover some respect is by acting more like ad agencies and only taking on work that they’re capable of fulfilling and being paid on.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Copywriting for Recruiters

●      Mitch Sullivan on LinkedIn

●      [email protected]

Today’s Sponsor:

Visit video.recruiter.com and enter code Recruiter1000 to access the recruiter.com video beta program for free

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Jamie Beaumont, a recruiting technology entrepreneur. He ran his own recruiting agency in graduate recruiting before he founded Offerd, a SaaS tool that automates the many top-of-the-funnel administration tasks.

He also, more recently, founded another SaaS platform for recruiters called Fuel, which he calls “the Klarna for Recruitment”, helping agencies get paid 100% of their fees upfront whilst allowing their clients to split their payments over six months.

Listen in as Jamie shares how he was able to found two SaaS platforms after only graduating in 2012, his unusual LinkedIn content strategy that wins him business regularly, why you should minimize automation as a recruiter, and how to effectively use social media for business.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [5:33] How Jamie was able to become a serial entrepreneur so quickly

●      [09:09] What Jamie learned from losing five figures overnight day trading

●      [17:21] The advantages and disadvantages of being your own boss

●      [19:46] Jamie’s content strategy on LinkedIn

●      [26:28] How Jamie wins clients from people engaging on his LinkedIn feed

●      [27:37] Combining social media content creation with traditional methods

●      [29:46] How Jamie ranks different growth hacks

●      [32:42] Threading the line between automation and personalization

●      [38:50] Having a strong, powerful message and sticking to it

●      [40:19] What is Offerd all about and who is it for?

●      [45:03] Why Offerd tried to solve too many problems

●      [47:05] Why Jamie launched Fuel

●      [52:55] What people often get wrong about using social media for business

Key quotes:

●      “What realistically separates an entrepreneur from somebody else is actioning that idea instead of just sitting on it.”

●      “Don’t be arrogant. Things are far more difficult than you think they are, and it’s usually when they’re going fairly well, there’s something going wrong at the beginning, because you should be learning.”

●      “I don’t like selling. I like splitting audiences.”

●      “Automation within recruitment can be complete suicide because it’s a people business.”

●      “What people don’t realize about social media is that it’s a conversation, not an announcement.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Jamie Beaumont on LinkedIn

●      [email protected]

●      [email protected]

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Sam Wallace, Founding Member of Chief, a private network designed specifically for senior women leaders. She is also the Managing Director at Sheffield Haworth, an international executive search and talent advisory firm.

Sam is part of a globally-integrated team dedicated to executive search work across technology and professional services. She is a mom of identical twins, loves the mountains and mountain biking, is an avid reader, and partial to the odd Chardonnay.

Listen in as Sam shares how to support companies through change, how data utilization will play an even bigger role in the future of the staffing industry, a primer on “defensive hiring”, and the importance of considering the “art” of recruiting as opposed to looking at it simply as a transaction.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [5:19] What it is like to work at Korn Ferry

●      [12:42] Why Sam moved on from Korn Ferry

●      [14:38] Joining Carmichael Fisher Executive Search

●      [18:44] How Sheffield Haworth is different to Carmichael Fisher

●      [20:12] What makes a great leader and what is “servant leadership”?

●      [21:35] How COVID-19 has changed the way people lead

●      [22:47] The transformation of female leadership in 2020

●      [24:06] How much of recruiting leaders is “art” and how much is “science”?

●      [26:24] Evaluating candidates beyond the resumé

●      [29:33] How Sam gets to know candidates

●      [31:05] What is UPWARD Women?

●      [32:56] Avoiding the mistake of being a transactional recruiter

●      [34:21] Building a more valuable network

●      [37:29] Sam’s favorite kind of search

●      [40:18] Distinguishing yourself from other search professionals

●      [42:39] What is “the albatross search”?

Key quotes:

●      “Leadership needs to be defined for the specifics of the organization.”

●      “So much of leadership is about communication, empathy, and transparency.”

●      “Leaders fail when they focus simply on outcomes. While that is important, the first and most important thing for leaders to do is create teams that are truly motivated to get to the end game.”

●      “The role of an executive search recruiter is the consultant.”

●      “The challenge with search is when it becomes a transaction. When it’s reduced to the act of making the placement, that’s when the nuances regarding the art of recruiting gets lost.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Sam Wallace on LinkedIn

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Mike “Batman” Cohen, founder at Wayne Technologies, and well-known in the sourcing and recruiting community as an advocate and practitioner of technology automation and innovation in the industry. He has spoken at many conferences such as SourceCon, Talent42, Sourcing Summit, HRNow, RecruitCon, and many more.

Mike admits that he has been kicked out of every agency he has ever worked in. While obviously not proud of that fact, he took it to mean that he could never fit into the traditional corporate staffing environment and decided at some point to stake out on his own. At the beginning, he served as a consultant to various companies. After a few years growing his skills and expertise, he gained the confidence to start Wayne Technologies, putting his focus into top-of-the-funnel sourcing.

Listen in as Mike shares how to upgrade your outreach messaging in 2020, his best practices for writing an email, and identifying and conquering addiction.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [2:24] Why Mike is called Batman and how Wayne Technologies came to be

●      [6:38] Milestones that changed Mike as a recruiter

●      [11:03] Mike on his first talk at ERE

●      [13:24] The job of a recruiter

●      [17:24] The best ways to reach out to people in 2020

●      [19:54] Sending personalized emails

●      [30:58] Connecting with Mike for his message templates

●      [31:54] Using video effectively

●      [33:48] Building an email database and expanding your LinkedIn network

●      [37:23] The power of injecting your communications with personality

●      [40:11] Overcoming addiction

Key quotes:

●      “Contingency recruiting is a grind. You can be doing everything successfully and still not be making any money.”

●      “The actual job of a recruiter, when you break it down to its essence, is to be a bidirectional data pipeline. That’s it. We take data from an organization and bring it to market. We take data from the market and bring it to the organization to allow both parties to make the best informed decision for them.”

●      “The only reason to write an email is to get a response.”

●      “Your silver bullet to getting people’s attention in your message is your personality.”

●      “Anything that you do to escape from any of those really strong or uncomfortable feelings or situations is addiction.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Mike "Batman" Cohen on LinkedIn

●      The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage by Brené Brown

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/