Who Do You Know?

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:49:00 PST

I would wager that it wasn’t a recruiter. This was a question I used to jokingly ask my potential candidates to break the ice, get them relaxed and open up. Usually they would say something like “I’ll let you know when I decide to grow up” or “retired” or simply “employed”. Funny, they all seem to hold true, even today. I don’t ask that question anymore but the “retired” answer seems to be more and more attractive to me now. If not retired, then maybe ready for my next stage of life that allows me to work part time from a remote tropical location and do what I love. That could include recruiting or something to do with social media… maybe I’ll be like Bethenny Frankel and have an online empire and fabulously successful blog… WHAT… it could happen!

My friend, Dennis Smith, recently posted an Infographic on his blog jobgeeks.com of the most popular jobs since 1970. His comment was that he didn’t see “recruiting” anywhere on the list. This made me smile and reminded me that when I graduated college with a BFA in Advertising Art, the world of recruiting was as unknown to me as outer space. After all, I was going to be an advertising executive for the Richards Group working on incredibly creative campaigns like Chick-Fil-A and winning CLIO awards that I would display in my super chic, urban loft.

Two years later I was still tending bar (a lucrative skill I picked up while working my way through college) and doing small projects for friends and customers like designing logos, business cards, signs, flyers, etc. Not exactly the career I had mapped out. But I was getting by and had a flexible schedule, no bills to speak of and kept a bag packed in the trunk of my car in case a spur of the moment trip materialized (which they often did, usually scuba diving over the weekend in Cozumel). One day a friend of mine (who had been trying to recruit me to work for her at a Personnel Agency for months) came into the restaurant and pointed to a 40 something waitress working there and said that was going to be me in 20 years. Suddenly I was considering a career transition…

After all Patty pointed out that I would be a natural recruiter… I had the perfect combination of sales, smarts, savvy, and storytelling (another skill I picked up bartending). Hey maybe I should trademark that as the 4 S’s of successful recruiting – that could launch my online empire. Stay tuned for my next blog…

The next week I was working in an office in the Galleria Tower I for $800 a month draw vs. commission. Somehow this seemed like a step back but not one to wimp out, I persevered and was given a desk, a marketing script and the yellow pages and told to start “dialing for dollars”. This was my introduction into the world of recruiting… I was now a Full Desk Recruiter! Turns out I was a recruiting natural and indeed have become moderately successful in this unplanned career. Even though at times the path has been rocky (2002 was a really, really rough year) it’s always been interesting and I have lots of wonderful stories to tell. Case in point – let’s revisit an earlier blog posting.

Of all the recruiters I know, only a handful actually planned for this career. Most like me, stumbled upon it and found success and an aptitude. It’s not for everyone, but neither is blogging or social media which is the turn my recruiting career is taking me at the moment. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I hadn’t made that decision 20 years ago.

I’ve told you mine, now you tell me yours… what is your story… how did you become a recruiter?

Evolution of the Mobile Phone… from Talking to Texting to Working

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:53:00 PDT

I remember my first mobile phone… do you? Go back to the early 90’s with me (yes I said early 90’s). My husband sold automotive accessories and was always lugging around this huge brick that he would use to make calls. Imagine the giant handheld device with a foot long antenna. It was bigger than the satellite phones we use today.

He lugged that phone everywhere and I’m sure everyone thought he was incredibly cool and hip. It was a great conversation ice breaker. I didn’t really see the value of having a mobile phone until he installed one in my car (yes, installed).

At the time I was working for a temporary staffing agency as an outside sales representative. My territory was pretty much all of Dallas and I spent the better part of my day in my car. Having that phone in my car turned out to be one of the best gifts he ever gave me and initiated my relationship with mobile phones. A love affair that continues and deepens every day!

My next phone was a smaller handheld device… anyone remember these puppies?

Enter the SmartPhone… I’ll never give mine up. You will have to pry my iPhone out of my cold, dead hand. All my contacts, photos, emails, personal information – everything I need is on that phone. I enabled the MobileMe locator in the event that I have a stroke or something and somehow it becomes misplaced. My daughter started college and we have been talking over Face Time – she has a Mac computer and called my iPhone. Now that I have my iPad we don’t even need a phone or phone number to talk.

I’m now on my second iPhone (will have to pay full price for the iPhone5 now) and received a package from the Apple store yesterday with my new iPad2 in it. SWEET!!! Couldn’t wait to get it synced and start using it.

I’ll probably use it now more than my iPhone since the screen is larger and I can actually see the WebPages. This will replace my laptop now when I’m out and about. I can work, take notes, make videos, face time, the possibilities are endless!

This made me realize just how far we have come with wireless devices. We started talking on our mobile phones. Then they introduced this little tool called texting… what a game changer! Any of you who have children are texting pros I’m sure. I actually prefer to text now and find that I don’t use all of my monthly minutes anymore, even downsized to the minimum package. From texting I have noticed that I’m using my mobile phone more for work now since my Outlook is on my phone and I use at least 5 Social Media apps daily.

My iPhone has become my mobile wallet and is used mostly for the apps and for those occasional phone calls or in case of emergency. Can’t wait to see what’s around the corner… isn’t technology amazing?

Just call me +Leslie

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:09:00 PDT

That’s right… I’m in Google+… totally socially networked now. Are you impressed? I’m overwhelmed!

Just when I was getting accustomed to using my twitter handle @leslie12002 (which I still use in my signatures and is a great way to reach me) along comes the new social network, Google+. Thank goodness I have connections and was able to get past the bouncer at the door. Now I’m at the club, just had my first trip to the bar but still watching the crowd to see what’s up. Not sure I’m ready to get out on the dance floor yet. Don’t want to give away all my moves until I’m sure this is a place I want to hang out. Also I haven’t quite figured out yet all the security issues, the bouncer seems like a capable and reasonably good guy but will he be there if I get in trouble?

My first thoughts are to keep this social network for my cool, socially connected friends who share relevant information with a twist of humor. What I don’t want is another invitation to Farmville. I’m a big city girl after all… or is that wicked city woman? I started with just my immediate contacts in my circles, and then I found a list of all the Google employees and decided I had to have a circle for them. Is there a limit to circles? Can I assign which circles come into my home stream? What I really need is a HootSuite for Google+… has anyone found one?

Looking over my 2 week old Google+ ecosystem… I now have 13 circles created thus far, 128 people in my circles with 32 people adding me to their circles. I have no idea how these people found me or why they want me in their circle, I’m not sharing relevant or witty information yet (remember, still at the bar). My first instinct is that they want to sell/send/spam something to me or even worse – stalk me! (Of course I intend to use it for recruiting purposes, after all my momma didn't raise no dumb babies.)

The jury is still out on Google+… for now I’ll continue to monitor my stream and selectively add to my circles. I'm open to suggestions and creative solutions. Let me know if you have anything that will sway me, all I need is a good reason to bust a move!

LinkedIn Improved Email Settings Features

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:39:00 PDT

Someone at LinkedIn must have read my previous post... have you seen the new features under your settings page? (I don’t remember it being this way before, but then again, my memory isn’t exactly the steel trap it was in my youth.) They have made it much easier and more organic to manage all your email settings now by adding the new email preferences link that allows you to control how all email is sent to you. Click on the settings tab (hover over your name) in the top right corner and land on this page:

Now if you click on the Email Preferences Tab you can manage messaging to you via email:

• Select the types of messages you're willing to receive
• Set the frequency of emails
• Select who can send you invitations
• Set the frequency of group digest emails

And you can manage how LinkedIn pushes information to you via email by clicking on the Frequency of Emails link. All this in one place!

• InMails
• Invitations
• Messages
• Group emails
• Announcements
• Status updates
• Notifications
• Network Activity
• And several others including LinkedIn Partner Emails

Thank you LinkedIn!

Too Much Information? Easy Steps to Manage your LinkedIn Status Updates & LI Twitter Stream

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:11:00 PDT

Recently I received an email from one of my LinkedIn connections requesting that I “remove him from my list”. This person is a connection that I know personally and I was surprised at the email since I don’t have a list and wasn’t sure what he meant. Turns out he was referring to the frequency of my LinkedIn status updates… seems he had all his connections status updates set to come to his inbox and my daily updates were becoming “too much noise”.

For a recruiter, this can be a fine (on) line to walk… how many updates are necessary and how many are too much? My solution was to twofold… to show my connection how to manage his LinkedIn Status Updates and for me to manage my LinkedIn tweets and only post the tweets especially relevant to my network and my role as a recruiter. Seems I have gotten a bit overenthusiastic on twitter lately. 

My part was accomplished by going to my LinkedIn settings under “manage twitter preferences” and checking the box to only post my tweets with #in instead of every tweet that was going out.

For all of you out there who are having this problem, here are the steps to manage your LinkedIn Status Updates so that you won’t be affected by all the online noise. This is how you can turn off status updates on your LinkedIn Profile and you won’t receive any of them at all in your stream:

1. Go to your LinkedIn profile and click on your name in the top right corner

2. Click on SETTINGS

3. Click on the ACCOUNT tab on the left bottom of the page

4. Under settings – click on “customize updates you see on your home page”

5. Under the General tab uncheck the “status updates from your connections”

Hope this helps… we are all out here in the sphere together… let’s all try and get along.

Five Reasons Why I Love My Job

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:53:00 PDT

All the headlines I read today seem to contain numbers; 13 Strangest Ways People Found Out Bin Laden Died, 3 Traits of the Most Compelling Internet Companies, 6 Tips to Improve Your Cover Letter, The 3 P’s of Success, 10 Tips To Get People To Act On Your Emails, Top 10 Corporate Blogs and 33 Clever and Creative Billboard Ads. Are we becoming a society reduced to getting our information fed to us in list form? This actually works for me as I constantly multi task and am easily distracted. (oohhh, something shiny...)

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, back to numbers. If I can recall my numerology training, we could have a little fun figuring out the meaning of all these numbers. Today is turning out to be my day of Fives… which was actually the numerology value of my maiden name. Now 5 is the number of senses we have and is a very tactile number, describing feelings, sensations and emotions.

All my tweets so far today have been about Fives… 5 Ways to Be More Efficient on Twitter, 5 Top Mobile Marketing Myths and 5 Best Practices for Travel and Tourism Brands on Facebook. I must be feeling the love because to continue with this theme, I’m dedicating my blog today to the Top 5 Reasons I Love My Job. There are way more than just 5 reasons I love my job… there are many reasons why Intuit has been on Fortune Magazine’s Top 100 Employers List for the past decade. In fact last year, we moved up to number 44… not too shabby! So let’s have a big GROUP HUG and find out my personal top 5:

1. My passion: I love recruiting and especially enjoy my role as a strategic sourcing recruiter. We receive extensive training in cutting edge social media recruiting tactics, encouraged to blog, tweet, make videos, post on Facebook and YouTube.

2. My colleagues: I am working with the best group of people! They are truly supportive, helpful and appreciative of the work we all do, always ready to help out wherever possible and provide positive feedback

3. Company culture: We have a flexible workplace, collaborative environment that encourages innovation and personal development, and is friendly, open and positive

4. Our Products: Intuit has a suite of products that address almost every financial management need for consumers and small businesses. We have the opportunity to work on reqs for high demand, cutting edge technology and business processes in areas like; Mobile, Social Media, SaaS, Global and Data

5. Recognition: My managers are quick to respond, eager to assist, understanding of challenges, appreciative and recognize achievements

In over 20 years of work, I have had the opportunity to work for some amazing and some not so amazing companies. Intuit is right at the very top of my personal “Best Place to Work”!

Data Driven Decision Making - YouTube as a Recommendation Engine?

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:48:00 PDT

Those of you who have been following my tweets are aware that I have been strongly evangelizing my company's involvement in our push to “data driven decision making”. We are offering our products as online/SaaS offerings as well as mobile applications. With this direction, data becomes more and more a priority and talking point.

From Intuit’s business perspective… one of our greatest assets is in the data we collect through our software and services for small businesses and general consumers. Our goal is to transform our data assets into innovative services to better serve our customers. We are currently in the process of transforming our DaaA strategy... specifically in web analytics. We are focusing our efforts on data driven insights on customer behavior, customer acquisition and lifetime value. Over the course of the next two years we will be building a linked collection of data assets to provide near real-time market intelligence to our internal and external customers.

From our recruiting perspective… how do we use data as a two way experience in our recruiting efforts; for a better candidate experience as well as from a branding and awareness recruiting best practice? Being on the forefront of Social Media recruiting, I am taking this discussion to the cloud and would appreciate your insights as candidates, customers, colleagues and interested parties.

Intuit Careers already has a strong presence on Facebook as demonstrated by the data we receive from fans and downloads of our video chat presentations. We also have a strong LinkedIn presence with our Intuit Careers page, Alumni Community, Data and Insights Community and many other Intuit product pages. We are also seeing more and more candidates following and interacting with Intuit Careers on twitter (follow @intuitcareers and our list of Intuit Recruiters).

Going one step further I am proposing using our YouTube channel as a recommendation engine and am asking you to visit Intuit Careers on YouTube where we have many videos posted about our products, culture and our various business units. Go ahead… surf, browse, view, play, share and most of all comment! We want your opinions/feedback/suggestions here: www.youtube.com/intuitcareers.

Pease give us your honest feedback as your insights will help us shape and improve the way we interact with you through our social media channels. Stay tuned… more to follow!

Why Intuit employees agree with Fortunes Best Places to Work designation

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 06:26:00 PST

Networking to Find a Job… Are You Using LinkedIn?

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:35:00 PST

There is just no getting around it… LinkedIn has become the major player in networking. Whether you are looking for sales contacts, employees, or just company information; this should be your first stop on the research train. If you are unemployed, underemployed or just looking for that dream job… this tool could just be your ticket.

Recruiters have been using LinkedIn for years to source passive candidates. Why don’t you join the party and use LinkedIn to network for a job? Intuit is proud to have the most connected woman on LinkedIn as a part of our Right Talent team. Stacy Zapar has over 30,000 first degree LinkedIn connections and she will be on the Intuit Careers Live Video Career Advice Series Facebook Chat on Thursday, February 17th at 11:00 am PST.

No matter if you are a seasoned LinkedIn Uber user or a relative Newbie to the tool, you will find something to take away from this chat. Please join Stacy Zapar tomorrow as she discusses how to use LinkedIn in your job search.
Participating is simple. Log on to www.facebook.com/intuitcareers and click on the chat and blogs tab on the left hand side of our page up to 10 minutes prior to the chat beginning. You do not need a webcam to participate. After Stacy’s presentation you will be able to text chat in your questions for Stacy to answer live.

And while you're at it... if we are not already connected on LinkedIn… here is a QuickLink invitation to join my network: http://bit.ly/feKQg0. Hope to connect with you soon and Happy Networking!

Live Facebook Video Chat Tomorrow ~ Career Advice Series ~ Intuit Careers

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 06:05:00 PST

Mark your calendars and join us tomorrow. Intuit Careers resident career advice expert and social media leader, Gail Houston, will be hosting a live video chat on our Facebook page tomorrow… here are the details. Hope to see you there!

You are invited to attend the Intuit Careers Live Video Chat Career Advice Series Tuesday, Feb 8th at 11PST. Gail Houston from Intuit, co-lead of Crossroads Career Transition Workshop will teach applicants how to create a resume that will get noticed – even if you are entry level. Participating is simple. Log into Facebook up to 10 minutes prior to the chat beginning. You do not need a webcam to participate. After Gail’s presentation you will be able to text chat in your questions for Gail to answer live.

Facebook Link - http://www.facebook.com/intuitcareers?v=app_10339498918&ref=ts

If you do not have a Facebook account, or if you encounter any issues with the link in Facebook please use this alternative link. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fe-m-marketing.com%2Ffacebook%2Fintuitcareers%2Fintuit_live_chat.html&h=54f6dzAs5O178WjcK4XIzAH9IKA.

You will enter the room as a participant. You can either use your name or it will default to User####. All participants will be able to ask questions by entering questions in the text chat box at the right hand corner of the room.

We look forward to seeing you there.

The Top Ten Reasons Recruiters Don’t Respond

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:27:00 PST

Whew… just finished my very first video chat on Facebook. Glad that’s over. I couldn’t get out of that chat room fast enough. Sorry Gail for leaving you hanging. I’m not usually the nervous type but working with technology and all the hiccups we’ve been having lately, I was expecting the worst. Thankfully all the technology worked just fine… it was me that had the “technical difficulties”.

I can sit and write forever… give great advice, respond to questions and actually sound moderately intelligent, because of the ability to edit before sending. Unfortunately my mouth doesn’t have an edit filter and I tend to blurt out the first thing that enters my pretty little head. So if you were on the chat today, hopefully you enjoyed the presentation and could appreciate my slightly warped sense of humor. My apologies if anyone was offended. I promise to do better next time… if I’m ever asked to do it again.

If you missed the chat, the slides will be uploaded on slideshare.net and here is my Top Ten List:

#10. We receive an email with the subject line: “do you have any job openings?”
#9. We receive a resume for a candidate asking us “what do you think of my resume?”
#8. The resume is full of spelling and grammatical errors and has an inappropriate email address.
#7. We receive an email with no resume attached or no contact information.
#6. The candidate applied to over 20 jobs in the database in all different disciplines.
#5. The candidate will not disclose current or last salary.
#4. The candidate becomes angry with denied an interview.
#3. The request is to “meet for a cup of coffee” to discuss openings at your company.
#2. The candidate clearly doesn’t meet the minimum requirements of the job.
#1. This is your LinkedIn profile picture:

New Year’s Resolutions… Confessions of a Corporate Recruiter

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:40:00 PST

It’s Sunday, January 2, 2011 and I’m sitting in my living room looking at all my Christmas decorations thinking… this is really going to take a lot of time and effort to put all these away, and today is the best time for me to do this since it’s back to work tomorrow. My next thought is… so what else can I do to procrastinate? I know… I’ll write my New Year’s Resolutions for 2011!

Now I have long since abandoned personal New Year’s resolutions so this posting will be dedicated to my professional endeavors to make myself a better recruiter. I will try and keep it short and succinct. (My recruiting Jedi master will admonish me for that last statement… Do or do not, there is no try.) Anyway, here is the list:

1. I will answer all my emails… yes all of them.

2. The priority and job appropriate emails will be responded to within 24 hours and the courtesy emails within 72 hours. (OK, realistically 120 hours… but no more than 5 days.)

3. I will enter all my candidates into the database, completely filling in all the fields and attaching a new copy of their resume and ALL notes.

4. I will keep all of my submitted candidates informed of their status within 72 hours of submission… even if it is just to apprise them there is no feedback from the hiring manager.

5. Once I receive an open requisition, I will submit at least 3 qualified candidates within 7 working days.

6. I will proactively source candidates in anticipation of future needs and have them packaged and ready to go when new requisitions are open.

7. I will accomplish these goals in a timely manner that will not interfere with my personal activities and time allotted to my family and friends.

8. Oh, and I almost forgot… I will finish writing and post my blogs the day I begin them. And post a minimum of 2 blogs each and every month.

Just how long do you think it will take for me to break these resolutions? Would any of you analytics professionals out there like to help me create a test? The Vegas money has the odds at 5 to 1 for three weeks. Personally, my money is on the length of time it takes my naturally red hair to lose its fiery, copper red sheen… typically between 4-6 weeks.

In the interim, and just for grins, I’d like to know how long you think it will take and/or how long it usually takes you to break your New Year’s resolutions. Please complete this survey… we can all have a good laugh next month.

Technical Difficulties

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:41:00 PST

In our world of high tech: blogs, video chats, LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter, etc. What are we supposed to do when our technology lets us down? Soldier on? Not likely... I’m more the freak out and run around with my hair on fire type. Hup two three four... get out of that fetal position and make the best of it! Ummm Hummm.... I know, right?

Sooner or later it happens to us all... the best we can do is... keep on keepin on, make the best of a bad situation, gittin jiggie with it... OMG! How many more Soul Train references can I come up with?

In case you haven't guessed, I was the victim of technical difficulties this afternoon. We were presenting a video chat at work today on our Facebook page and right after we started our computer crashed. Being totally prepared, we quickly switched to our back up computer, and realized the video camera wasn't working. We diligently pressed on and continued with the presentation. Just a few minutes later the network at work went down... arrrgggghhhhh!!!!

Somehow we managed to keep the voice up and running along with the PowerPoint and we were able to finish the chat and limp away licking our wounds. The moral of the story... you can never be over-prepared (and next time we will run the chat with multiple admins stashed away at hidden locations) I'm not saying it's a cave in Afghanistan but... this next time the SAT phone stays on! Stay tuned... more to follow... same bat time, same bat channel.

The Gift of Christmas… Everybody’s Christmas™

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 16:36:00 PST

Christmas is just two weeks away… how did it sneak up so fast? Seems like just yesterday it was Thanksgiving and now if I don’t have my packages in the mail next week, my friends and family out of town won’t receive their presents before Christmas. Looks like I’ll be in a wrapping gift frenzy tonight and tomorrow. Fair warning to anyone planning on visiting me this weekend… be prepared to tape, twist, snip and curl!

Thinking about this makes me realize just how fortunate we are… we have gifts to give and receive. And we have a Christmas dinner to prepare and enjoy in our nice warm, cozy home. We even have too many party invitations to be able to attend them all so we selectively choose our events and make sure we see our closest friends. Oh and I almost forgot… we have new holiday party clothes to keep us stylishly warm and make a good impression during all these festivities.

We tend not to think about the people we don’t see during this season, the people who aren’t invited to our parties or not part of our immediate circle of friends. Sure we by presents for the Angel Trees, give to the Salvation Army helpers, donate to Toys for Tots and other wonderful charity organizations. And while these are good things to do and things that need to be done, they don’t really affect us on a personal level. So this year I am going to do something extra for Christmas… I’m going to make this year’s Christmas Everybody’s Christmas™.

Everybody’s Christmas™ was started by Crosswalk Worship and Lovers Lane Church Outreach Ministry at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church. It was conceived to be a Christmas eve, eve worship service and grew to become an outreach into the Dallas community to bring in people who wouldn’t normally be able to have a Christmas celebration. What happens on this night is... a dynamic worship service, a free amazing Christmas meal for the community, coat give aways, exciting childrens activities... and much much more. All are welcome, join us if you can. You can watch the video on YouTube.

I hope that Everyone has a very Merry Christmas this year! God Bless.

Shopping for a Job?

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 11:53:00 PST

Happy Holidays! I can't believe Thanksgiving is over and it's time to gear up for the Holidays. Shopping is on everyone's agenda right now and some proactive people braved the crowds on Black Friday to find great bargains and whittle down that Christmas Wish List. Can you spell STRESS?

Tis the season, right? Right, but for many people the holidays are extra stressful because they are unemployed or underemployed and searching for a job. It's hard to get excited about the holidays if you are on a tight budget or no budget at all. It's a fact that this season finds more people depressed than any other. So what can you do to navigate the holidays while shopping for a job?

Here is a great article from TheAfter5Edge to walk you through the seasonal job search:

http://theafter5edge.com/2010/11/27/essential-holiday-job-searching-tips/

Maybe we should also get into the spirit and help someone find a job this holiday season… we can help by giving encouragement, support and passing along job leads. We can also help them network and connect with recruiters and hiring managers in our networks. I am extending an invitation to visit my company website, http://www.intuitcareers.com/, and let me know when they have applied for a job online at Intuit. I can't promise you an interview but I will make sure that the recruiter handling that job is aware of your interest. At Intuit, we pride ourselves on giving back to the community and this is just one small way I can offer my services as a recruiter.

Let’s start paying it forward... get into the spirit and help someone have their best holiday ever… Happy Networking!

Does Your Do reflect Your Who?

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:29:00 PST

I found this blog while scanning my tweets and wanted to share with you too. It is from Blogging4jobs and really got me to thinking... who am I? Does your Do reflect your Who?

Authenticity, Lifestyle, & Purpose — Who Are You?

Welcome to the Jungle... Rock On with Intuit!

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:39:00 PDT

As you may know by now... I work for one of the BEST companies in the world, Intuit. Not only were we recognized by Fortune Magazine as "America's Most Admired Software Company" in 2008; we have been named by them as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work for" for over a decade.

One of the many reasons I love my job so much is that our senior leadership is awesome. Leadership makes all the difference in a company's culture because it sets the tone for the rest of the employees. Our leaders are all extremely sharp, approachable, really know the recruiting industry, always willing to help and most of all... they know how to have fun!

Let me introduce you to two of our top performers in Recruiting: Axl and Slash. (not the original ones from Guns N Roses, but a close second, right?) This picture was taken on Friday in our San Diego, CA location right after lunch... looks like they were brown bagging it that day. :-)

Maybe one reason Intuit is the best place to work, EVER, is that these are some of the people responsible for making decisions on who we hire and bringing new talent into the company? I like their style and am happy to be part of the team... Rock On Intuit!

Purple Squirrel… Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:06:00 PDT

October is a nostalgic month for me. I was born in October and during this month I seem to find myself reflecting back on milestones of my life. (In between the month long celebrations of my birth:)

One milestone is the launch of my blog… it was on October 5, 2006, after a networking luncheon at the DFWTRN. The topic that day was blogs and how to use them as a recruiting tool to find candidates. The speaker was so motivating that I rushed back to the office and created very my first blog.

Flash forward to March 2010… I receive an email from a reporter in California working for the Orange County Register who was doing research on the term “Purple Squirrel” and came across one of my blog postings. She was writing an article on unemployment in the area and one of her candidates used this term. Not knowing what it meant, she contacted me for an explanation and for insight on employment in the current economy. We had a phone conversation and she quoted me in her article.

Now just this month, I receive an email from someone working for a company in Princeton, NJ who found my little blog while working on a marketing piece about what this company can do for its clients; i.e. serve as a purple squirrel by meeting their needs from the business side to creating the technology. We have connected; I’ve given him my input and am now anxiously awaiting his article. As they say in academia… publish or perish!

Who knew that my little blog would have such a far reach? I’m thrilled and encouraged to explore this further to see the impact in the blogosphere. What is the difference between “Best of the Best” candidates and “Purple Squirrels”? If you dig deeper, you will find that the purple squirrel candidates are not necessarily the Top Tier candidates but rather have a combination of rare or hard to find skill sets and company backgrounds.

In all my years of recruiting, I would much rather connect with a Top Tier candidate and establish a relationship; even if they don’t specifically meet the requirements of my job openings. I can’t tell you how many placements I have made from referrals… in fact; most of my best and most challenging openings were filled by referrals from my recruiting network. And I have found almost every one of my jobs from personal referrals. In fact, my current role with Intuit was presented to me by someone I met over 10 years ago. We stayed in contact and now I am happy to be working for a company that has been on Fortune Magazine’s list of Top 100 Employers for over a decade!

Surrounding yourself with quality is a good practice in both your professional and personal life. Purple Squirrels may get you a fee for a placement, but quality connections will serve you better in the long run. What do you think?

Teens and Mobile Phones

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:54:00 PDT

Just finished reading my friend Dennis Smith's blog posting on Teens and Mobile Phones. Being the parent of a teen, I couldn't agree more! As a recruiter at Intuit, I couldn't resist sharing this as well as one of our cool mobile phone apps, Mint. Somehow I don't think it's just the GenY's out there that manage their money on their phones... how many others of you out there use your phone for more than calls and social networking?

To Be or Not To Be… an Independent Recruiter

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:11:00 PDT

Well, I did it… finally made the decision to go independent. After much soul searching, debating and comparing scenarios it was abundantly clear to me that if I truly wanted to become an independent recruiter and be my own boss, the time is now!

One of the deciding factors was the fact that so many corporations are now outsourcing recruiting and HR. A friend of mine who works with a subsidiary of a major telecom carrier informed me that all of their recruiting will be outsourced within the next few months. Also it seems that more and more of my colleagues, senior recruiters with 15+ years in the business, are working through RPO companies on contract assignments.

I discovered that the demand for high producing recruiters, who are technically savvy, socially networked and can hit the ground running is at the pinnacle right now. In fact some of these RPO companies offer benefits and even pay a portion of the consultant’s insurance. What was I waiting for????

So I gathered my courage, dusted off and upgraded my home office, updated my resume and opened for business. Now it’s time to make the announcement to my social media network so here goes… posting it on my blog, Facebook and LinkedIn pages as well as tweeting the news!

And just to confirm this was the right decision… I have started a contract assignment with Capital One as of August 2nd and absolutely love it! Got the gig in less than a week from a Facebook buddy who I had never met in person. (See… social networking really does work;) Now calls and emails are coming in weekly with at least 3-5 requests for a senior recruiter, which I happily pass along to my network. The moral of this story is… do what you love; stay networked and help as many people as you can. It will change your life and probably someone else’s as well.

Last Recruiter Standing 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:46:00 PDT

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the DFWTRN and everyone at the Last Recruiter Standing 2010 luncheon yesterday who voted for my story! (Yes, it really is a true story, I have witnesses.) There were so many great recruiting stories; funny, embarrassing, and almost unbelievable. This just confirms that there are no "typical" days in the life of a recruiter. Here is my most unbelievable recruiting story... I would love to hear your comments.

While working for a clerical temporary staffing agency back in the early 90’s, we had a very high profile client in the Crescent Court Office Park. At that time, the Crescent was the most upscale office building in town. This client needed a temporary receptionist to answer the phones and greet visitors; “meet and greet” as we called it. It was made extremely clear that this temp needed to be the best we had; front desk appearance, well spoken, immaculate demeanor… the whole package.

We placed a stunning lady on the assignment… She looked like she had just walked out of the Ralph Lauren store in Highland Park Village and had incredible office skills as well. The first day the client was so pleased they called and thanked me profusely for finding this “gem” of a receptionist, saying she was absolutely perfect and better than they could have imagined. A few days later, the client called and asked that she be replaced. I was stunned! When I asked why she wasn’t working out, they only replied that I needed to come down to their office and see for myself.

Prepared for the worst, I arrived to find what looked like a scene from the Mel Gibson movie, Signs. My temp had aluminum foil wrapped around her head which resembled a giant Hershey’s Kiss. This was to prevent aliens from reading her thoughts. Her shoes were wrapped in bubble wrap which popped as she walked up to greet me… to hide her tracks of course, so no one could follow her.

She had come in that morning saying that she dreamed she had been abducted by aliens the night before. She then preceded to “alien proof” her desk and work space. This consisted of surrounding her desk with sugar packets (evidently these aliens couldn’t tolerate sugar) and constructing a barrier around her chair by taking coffee stir sticks, making an aluminum foil paddle on one end and inserting the other end into the seat of the chair. This was done with multiple sticks, side by side around the entire chair seat and back. (Isn’t the power of aluminum foil to deter aliens amazing? I should have bought stock in Alcoa.)

Needless to say, she was escorted out of the building and her file was flagged “Do Not Use”. Looking back, it would have been more appropriate to file her application in The X-Files.

Recruiting from the Cloud - Changing the face of 3rd Party Recruiting

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:04:00 PDT

Most of my career as a recruiter has been with smaller, boutique firms… companies who specialize in a specific market, develop relationships with customers and carve out a niche business in the process. About 10 years ago I noticed a changing trend in the marketplace. One of my biggest clients, Sabre, contacted me and informed me that they were moving to a centralized staffing model and I would be working with a third party company, Chimes. This was my introduction to VMS. I wasn’t pleased… it seemed to me that the Great Wall of China had been constructed. Essentially I no longer had direct access to the hiring managers or control over the process.

As time passed, more and more of my larger clients were adopting Vendor Management Systems. Then just when I could spell VMS; the business vertical evolved from software companies licensing their products to large corporations into a birth, if you will, of some of the largest staffing companies such as Volt, Manpower, and Adecco spin off’s of VOPs (Vendor on Premises) , MSPs (Managed Service Providers) or BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing) services.

Now I had to go through one of my competitors to even gain access to a company’s recruiting or HR department. I am no longer displeased… I am hopping mad! The veins in my forehead are throbbing, my eyes are popped out and when I hear for the 20th time in a day from a hiring manager that I now have to contact their new VMS to become an “approved vendor” (even though they don’t want to go that direction… it’s coming down from above), my brain explodes, a sharp pain hits the pit of my stomach and I double over in my chair (and maybe even throw up in my mouth a little bit). Is it worth all my hard work and efforts to get on this merry-go-round? Time to regroup and reevaluate… how am I going to be able to continue to do business today?

Then a few months ago, the veil lifted and I was able to ascend to the clouds… or at least the Recruiting Cloud! I am so excited about this concept of a staffing marketplace that I have become a Program Evangelist and am here to spread the word to all the independent recruiters and boutique agencies out there that there is a way to do business in this new recruiting environment. Don’t give up! Think of an independent marketplace for buying and selling services. A place where independent recruiters can have access to companies with open requisitions who are looking for the best possible candidates to fill these openings... Enter YOLO Talent Exchange.

YOLO Talent Exchange is reinventing and improving the way employers and staffing agencies interact to exchange workforce talent. YOLO Talent Exchange is all about building a better process and adding value for both the Employer and the Staffing Agency, and doing this on a national scale.

Why is YOLO unique? I'm so glad you asked. YOLO Talent Exchange is building a unique marketplace design that will change the staffing industry! We believe this will result in a more efficient, more productive, and much more powerful talent-providing machine. So what do we call it? The “YOLO Talent Exchange”. “The better solution for buying and selling staffing services.” We are most certainly not a VMS.

Demystifying Cloud Computing

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:04:00 PST

Cloud Computing is the new buzz word… do you ever wonder just how much you really understand about this new phenomena? Here is an article from ChannelWeb outlining the 100 coolest cloud computing vendors. This really helped demystify the cloud for me.

As an extra bonus, here is the link to the Top 10 Cloud Computing Predictions for 2010.

The Last Meal For 2009 – Time For Our Last Supper?

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:12:00 PST

I just read an article about New York City’s Tavern on the Green restaurant… here is the link. Seems that this New Year’s Eve will be the last meal they serve as they close their doors. The economy has gotten to them and now they are bankrupt.

This got me thinking… (don’t roll your eyes, it does actually happen:) if a restaurant icon like this can’t make it through the recent rough economy; we have to count ourselves lucky if we are still standing, right? Especially in the staffing industry… the last 18 months have really hit our industry hard, leaving a wake of death and destruction for employers, employees and agencies alike.

All the economic forecasters are saying that 2010 will be the year we rebound from this recession. I can only hope and pray they are right. But my recruiter’s instinct also tells me that we are close to a rebound. I plan on spending the first quarter preparing for the oncoming wave and anticipate that most companies will use contractors rather than increasing their staff, at least for the first part of the recovery.

So let’s all go out tomorrow night and have our “Last Supper” for 2009 and the recession!

Crowdsourcing - The Wisdom of the Crowd

noreply@blogger.com (Leslie Mason) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:20:00 PDT

Just how wise is the crowd anyway? Everyone is talking about crowdsourcing, or using the talent of the crowd, to create solutions and/or content for business. It can also be used on a personal level to put problems out there “into the cloud” and taking the combined opinion of “people in the cloud” to determine the best solution by way of the most popular answer. There are hundreds of social networking websites that can be used for this purpose… Facebook and Twitter are probably the most popular right now.

A great example of this was a recent episode of House where the patient was a high tech software developer who owned a very successful internet company but, of course, had an un-diagnosable disease. (Remember it is House, after all… and no, it was not Lupus! ;)

When the first few attempts of House’s team to diagnose what was the cause of his illness went horribly wrong, he posted his symptoms on the internet and offered a reward to the person with the correct diagnosis. And the correct diagnosis was submitted by one of the people in the crowd… in this case the crowd was pretty wise. (Actually it was House who solved the mystery anonymously since he didn’t have his medical license back yet.)

Sometimes I am so at a loss for a solution that I ask advice from almost anyone I come in contact with… the person on the other end of the phone, the cashier at the store, the neighbor walking their dog, the person in the elevator in our building at work. Almost any opinion is better than not having an answer. Maybe there is something to this Wisdom of the Crowd after all… what do you think?