Jason Chong
September 4, 2013
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The OFCCP War Game

The OFCCP War Game https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g September 4, 2013 September 4, 2013

OK, so, before I start this rant let me go on record that, not being in government recruiting in a high-profile company I can allow myself some venom. That should be telling that with pure free speech out there and a President who feels the need to share everything without reprisal should be telling. Thank you for being a part of this my friend. Now, I digress.

Just a mere short years ago I wrote a two-part missive on what to expect from the new changes that were coming, and now here, and the pit falls with shaved bamboo at the bottom has brought us to. Recruiters and Sourcers were right to be afraid, very afraid of the oncoming onslaught of ridonculousness that has now ensued. Sadly, it was not the Government but the Human Resources or as I like to call them the “keepers of lawsuits” (they hate that term by the way) that became grabbing pitchforks and torches heading for the castle of the C suite with yet another complication and letting said C suite explain why they are somewhat relevant.

Recruiting has been forced by the OFCCP to start collecting data on hiring veterans and people with disabilities what started out as a noble effort has turned into nightmarish red tape. All the Department of Labor wanted was to track some numbers, but somehow a government organization has now stepped in and attempted to develop, deliver, and drive the strategy of how private companies should recruit and hire. Why? Because recruiting (and really HR) is so messed up that we can’t even count and sort our applicants? Recruiting should be OFFENDED and PISSED OFF that the government has said we suck so bad at our jobs that they need to teach US things. I won’t even touch on the fact that half of the veterans applying to places don’t self-identify because HR just can’t freaking help themselves from tripping over their self-righteousness to race over and “help” these guys apply by pulling them from the normal recruiting pool and dumping them off in a separate bucket because “well, we are NOW being held accountable for something we should have done in the first place.”

HR never does a single thing with recruiting daily that helps us, it just hinders us. Except when we find out someone is a veteran, then they are right there to mess it up with red tape instead of a red carpet.

One of the continuing challenges that employers/transitioning veterans face in the employment cycle – 99% of hiring processes and styles are based on matching functional skills between job & candidate. But when we look at veterans, we keep trying to match a diversity group to a functional skillset, which creates chaos in the processes and is near impossible to do.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the numbers, shall we? In order to hire and maintain the percentage that Federal contractors need to reach, which is 8% of the employees being a veteran status, it is a statistically impossible number to reach! Average software would not foster nor need a logistics officer or supply sergeant yet since now, being forced upon this dystopian thought process HR, fearing reprisal and unknown fines will go out of their way to prove that a Marine can indeed write code in C#.

Jason Chong
August 28, 2013
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How To Keep Your Candidate Outreach Emails Out Of The Spam Folder

How To Keep Your Candidate Outreach Emails Out Of The Spam Folder https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g August 28, 2013 August 28, 2013

Outreach emails that are designed to target top candidates take a lot of time and energy for recruiters to create. (At least, they should, if you want them to be effective and make the recipients feel like true VIPs!) So, it’s frustrating to think that all that good work might end up in a spam folder — never to be retrieved, opened, read, and enthusiastically replied to by the prospective candidate.

Emails end up in spam folders or get bounced for many reasons. The recipient’s mail system and security settings have a lot to do with that process, of course. Most spam filters and mail servers use a scoring method to decide which messages should be relegated to a user’s spam folder. The higher the spam score assigned to your email, the more likely your message won’t make it to the recipient’s inbox.

There are several things you can do, however, to help keep your candidate outreach emails out of the spam folder. Here are a few strategies.

When formatting outreach emails, think plain and simple.

@Formatting

You want your outreach emails to dazzle potential hires, of course. But if they’re HTML-heavy and bloated with images, color formatting, and other bells and whistles, spam filters will be inclined to reject them outright. Avoid DIV tags (HTML coding), which is generally good practice for emails anyway. And make sure not to leave tables empty.

Also, be careful about generating bad markups. (This often happens when copying and pasting from Microsoft Word.) Just type plain text in the compose field. Plain text works great — really. It will be less likely to send up a red flag with spam filters and will look professional to all recipients.

Subject lines should be brief — 32 characters or fewer, including spaces, is ideal, so they fit on small device screens — and straightforward. Be careful about the words you choose to include your message, especially in the subject line. Even seemingly benign words like “Success” and “Great” and “Boss” could be flagged by a spam filter. Phrases like “Apply now” and “Call now” and “Urgent” can also put your email on the short path to a spam folder. (Note: When crafting your outreach emails, take the time to do a quick search online for current lists of spam trigger words.)

Jason Chong
August 28, 2013
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Why Tell Stories?

Why Tell Stories? https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g August 28, 2013 August 28, 2013

Candidates will remember you

Our brains are wired to remember stories. And, more of the brain is activated when listening to a story, so the information is retained better. Are you going to remember a list of company benefits, or the story about how someone took two weeks off to help her rebuild her parents’ house after Hurricane Katrina hit, thanks to a cool company policy?

“Why, yes we can”

@Conference

“Why, yes we can,” we said, and now that’s all we do: gather stories from employees and use them to create content for recruitment marketing and employer branding.

We really beat the drum on the story thing. We even named our company Stories Inc. But, why stories in the first place? It’s all about your brain.

Candidates will remember you

Our brains are wired to remember stories. And, more of the brain is activated when listening to a story, so the information is retained better. Are you going to remember a list of company benefits, or the story about how someone took two weeks off to help her rebuild her parents’ house after Hurricane Katrina hit, thanks to a cool company policy?

Jason Chong
April 29, 2010
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Building your EVP from the inside out: The time has come

Building your EVP from the inside out: The time has come https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g April 29, 2010 April 29, 2010

Next week, the top minds in the talent space will meet in Chicago to share their methods and motivations behind employer branding. In preparation for the conference, we want to put forward a consideration for the future: The next goal of our industry is to build and execute great EVPs from the inside out. It’s something few practitioners have nailed, but it’s the next logical step. Think about it…

Most of you sit within talent acquisition and are focused on the candidate and the candidate experience. We have become amazing storytellers and have great new social channels and tools to amplify our message. But what happens once a candidate accepts the offer and joins on day one? The employer brand quickly becomes lost in a maze of communications around onboarding and other important internal messages from a variety of stakeholders.

So what’s the solution from the perspective of a employer brand practitioner?

1.

Drive external employer
Culture and employee

You own and drive external employer brand, employee engagement, culture and employee communications.
Most of you sit within talent acquisition and are focused on the candidate and the candidate experience.

2.

You sit
at the table

You sit at the table with the CHRO because attracting and retaining talent is at the top of his/her agenda and they ‘get’ what we offer. The next goal of our industry is to build and execute great EVPs from the inside out.

3.

To drive
the EVP

To drive the EVP from the inside out, you must actively partner with senior HR stakeholders (who are now your peers since you are sitting at the same table), including:

HR strategy and operations teams: for the employee experience and to gain valuable data
Learning and development: because they will need your expertise to work with leaders to make the EVP a reality across the organization
Diversity and inclusion: because employee resource groups are a great way to evangelize your employer brand, within and outside the company
Comp & benefits: to be sure the package is tied to what you are promising
HR Business Partners: who are the eyes and ears of the workforce
Oh, and Talent Acquisition
Wouldn’t it be ideal if the employer brand function reported directly to the CHRO, as a way to keep culture at the forefront and to give you access to the funding you need?

Jason Chong
April 28, 2010
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What Women Want…From Their Job

What Women Want…From Their Job https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g April 28, 2010 April 28, 2010

This is an aside post. This week the class will focus on the work of Ansel Adams. If you haven’t already, you’ll need to purchase Ansel Adams: An Autobiography (available at the school bookstore) and read chapters 1 through 4. In particular, I want you to focus on this section from chapter 2: Adams also came to understand how important it was that his carefully crafted photos were reproduced to best effect. At Bender’s invitation, he joined the prestigious Roxburghe Club, an association devoted to fine printing and high standards in book arts. He learned much about printing techniques, inks, design, and layout which he later applied to other projects. [1]Some of Adams’ success can be attributed to how successfully he replicated his work through printing. This week we’ll be learning about his print techniques and making some prints of our own. Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius. Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem consuetudium lectorum. Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula quarta decima et quinta decima.

Why Recruiters Should Take a Page (or Two) From Sales Team Playbooks

Why Recruiters Should Take a Page (or Two) From Sales Team Playbooks https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g March 28, 2010 March 28, 2010

Offer what people want to buy, not just what you want to sell.

https://gsfshow.com/from-sales-team-playbooks/

Jason Chong
March 28, 2010
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Samsung Developer Conference 2017 Opening Keynote

Samsung Developer Conference 2017 Opening Keynote https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g March 28, 2010 March 28, 2010

It has never been more important for recruiters to perfect their “sales process” for identifying, nurturing, and hiring qualified talent.

Consider the current hiring environment: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate in November 2016 was 4.6 percent –the lowest level seen since 2007. Employment is growing rapidly, especially in top industries like technology and healthcare, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’Occupational Outlook Handbook. And top candidates – if they’re even open to a new opportunity – know that they’re in demand and often have multiple offers to choose from.

For recruiters, this can be an exhausting and unforgiving landscape to navigate, especially if they don’t have the right resources and strategies in place to be productive. Leveraging many of the same techniques and tools that sales & marketing teams use to be successful can help. The idea that the work of a recruiter is very much akin to that of a salesperson is certainly not new. It’s a logical connection to make: Both need to identify qualified prospects, nurture them through a specific process, and eventually – hopefully – close the deal before the competition does.

By taking a page or two from sales playbooks, recruiters are likely to find it easier to source candidates, build a pipeline of talent, and hire faster. For example, recruiters should work to:

Jason Chong
March 22, 2010
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Songs played at conferences and how to use them

Songs played at conferences and how to use them https://gsfshow.com/static/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Jason Chong Jason Chong https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3d2a9c009ea0eae71329848fd3d285c1?s=96&d=mm&r=g March 22, 2010 March 22, 2010