Labor Day Recruiting and Sourcing (holiday tips for recruiters)

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Morning all,

If you’re in the US, you know that this is the Labor Day weekend, a time where not only do many people have an extra day off, but even more will offer extra phone information in their "out of the office" messages!

If you’re one of those intrepid recruiters who want to use this holiday period for some quality sourcing, here are some rather useful places to garnder great tips indeed:

Step 1.)  Participate in the free Magic Method Telephone sourcing chats.

Overseen by Maureen Sharib, these chats are populated with extremely savvy telephone sourcers.  Check out this transcript over at MagicMethod Midnight Moves Chat Log.  The next one is this Saturday evening - visit the Magic Method Ning network for more information.

Oh, and gaze upon Recent Posts Tagged With ’sourcing telephone’ and weep with joy….

Step 2.)  Be alert for extra ‘out of the office’ phone message information

Chances are, many individuals will invoke ‘redundancy’ in their phone messages during the holidays (in case of extreme disaster-preparation!).  Thus, the phone message might be augmented to include:

If you need further general assistance, please contact our Regional Sales rep "CovetedName #1"  at (numberNumberNumber), if you are looking for technical assistance, please contact Technical BOFH "CovetedName #2", if you’re looking for ….

Sure, you might be recruiting for Masters of Nmake, Sablime and XKSH all wrapped up in one, and uncover instead a phone number for DACS II Cross Connect….but you never know when you’ll need access into telephone hardware resources instead of software build processes in the future.  (Geekiness, thy name is Barbara.  :)   ).

Step 3.)  Be empathetic to gatekeepers

Got holidays?  Could be the company has got temp help to oversee the phones during the joyfully painful holiday parties!  Even if not, think about it - you have 98% of a company enjoying themselves while the rest are still "on the job".

If that isn’t deserving of empathy, I don’t know what is. 

Here are some resources for that:

• How to Make a Gatekeeper Feel Comfortable
• Right and Wrong Moves with the Gatekeeper
• How shy people should approach gatekeepers

Next, consider the following:

Step 4.)  Did you realize the following about Holidays?

I came across the most excellent article that has the following insightful bullet points:

• Thinking globally requires you to recruit globally.
• Not all top performers celebrate …..
  
• Top performers are sitting around and have time.
• Everyone else’s recruiters are asleep.
• Blockers and screeners have let their guard down.
• Budget time often means frustration and availability.
• Recruiter workloads are lighter.

Read the entire article by Dr. John Sullivan HERE!   Even though that article focuses on December recruiting, lots of the advice presented is relevant for Labor Day as well.

* * * * *

Now, the above tips are for the art of recruiting and sourcing.  What about your OWN candidate and client network?

Hopefully, you already have a thriving, vibrant candidate network in place, you have your own newsletter that you send out regularly to brand your name/skills in the recipients’ minds etc.etc.etc.etc.

Why not create an issue that gives them useful tips for Labor Day enjoyment? You can even make it a two-prong approach by first blogging about Labor Day within your industry niche (that’s the industry aspect), and then focusing your newsletter on the "fun" aspect (thus giving your readers both business and pleasure).

For example, my RISE Recruiting eZine will feature a "Safety Tips for Labor Day" inset as well as a link back to this specific blog post you are currently reading.  After all, recruiters and sourcers have families who might participate in Labor Day festivities…why not address those needs as well?  Other nifty ideas include:

Labor Day recipes:

•  Food Network Labor Day Dishes
• This Labor Day, workin’ is for the hens
• MomLogic 5 Easy BBQ Tips
• Texas BBQ Forum

Need some resources for the origins of Labor Day that you can include in your newsletter/blog?  Move now to:

Labor Day History: 

• US Department of Labor - History of Labor Day
• Wiki Labor Day
• History Channel Labor Day

That’s all very well and good for stimulating the brain, but what about Labor Day Traveling tips? 

Well, if YOU were traveling, chances are…you’d be interested in the traffic/weather/construction conditions, right?

If your candidate/client network is local, you can include direct links:

Local newspapers/TV news channels for travel tips:

These have traffic reports!  Local newspapers can be found at US Local Newspapers; global newspapers reside at Online Newspapers.com.

Local construction problems can be uncovered at the National Traffic and Road Closure Information.

And don’t forget about Traffic.com - you can get travel times, traffic conditions and more.    For example, here’s the update for Dallas/Ft. Worth.

General funnies!

Laughter is always the best medicine, so point your readers over to Nicky 510 - the comics are mind-blazingly funny indeed. 

I hope the above resources are useful for you!   However you choose to spend the Labor Day weekend/holidays/etc., may they be profitable in family enjoyment,business bottom line, or both….as well.

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

ps - Sourcing on the phone during the holidays can be greatly benefitted by these goodies:

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