Working With a Recruiter - Why, Who, How?

By Anna Mathieu

There are a whole lot of recruiters offering various services. How should you choose a recruiter and how can you make the most out of working with him or her?

Why should I work with a recruiter?

Looking for a job can be a fulltime job. Networking, putting your profile out there, and searching for opportunities are all important. Whether you are actively looking or just keeping abreast of new opportunities, working with recruiter leverages your search and marketing efforts. These are the top reasons why people choose to work with a recruiter.

Top Reasons to work with a recruiter

Shorten the Job Search.

Recruiters have the resources to conduct a focused recruitment effort and draw on an extensive database and network. Years of experience in matchmaking allow recruiters to understand company needs and candidate objectives and put together winning teams.

Gain Access to More Desirable Jobs.

As trusted hiring partners to the client companies, recruiters offer access to top job opportunities may not even be advertised. Staying in communication with hiring managers and understanding the hiring process and staffing needs, means being aware of opportunities before they hit the street.

Get Paid What you are Worth.

Recruiters work with hundreds of organizations across the country and know exactly how much specific talent and skills command. Recruiters will match your ability and objectives to the appropriate and competitive compensation.

Open More Doors.

Networking is a key component of the recruiter's success. Professional recruiters have extensive connections with dynamic companies all over the country and can open up doors all over.

Career Growth.

Even in a challenging market, there are many opportunities for professional development and growth, as well as increased pay. Recruiters focus on promising companies who are hiring now.

Confidentiality.

If you are looking for new opportunities while employed you likely want to be discreet. We will keep your search confidential and not divulge your name until there is mutual interest.

Keep it Real.

Recruiters are looking to provide the best talent and fit, so if an opportunity in not a match, they know why or will find out and provide feedback. Respecting everyone's time and effort is a key tenant of this business.

What you should know when you consider working with a recruiter?

Placement vs. Recruitment.

Recruiting is the process of locating and qualifying candidates for an employer as part of a specific search assignment. A recruiter may be internal or provide a recruitment process outsourcing service (working on filling just that company's hiring needs), contingent (gets paid a commission or fee upon successful hiring of the candidate), or retained (is generally the exclusive agent tasked with locating a candidate for a specific position and is likely paid whether or not a hire is made).

Placement is the process of marketing available applicants seeking employment to employers seeking employees. This is quite a different objective, and candidates should recognize which type of firm they are working with to avoid frustration.

Specialization.

There are mega staffing firms that represent all types of opportunities, pay scales and industries, and there are those firms that specialize by industry, function, and geography. Be discerning. Chose a search firm that shares your focus. If you are looking for a marketing career in solar or a software development position in mobile communications, work with a recruiter who focuses on your niche. Companies typically specialize by type of employment: temporary staffing, independent contractor roles, or in permanent fulltime positions.

How to work with a recruiter to get the best results:

So you've identified a recruiter or two who specializes in your industry, role, area, and type of employment. Now what?

Sell yourself.

Polish your resume, craft a cover letter, and send it to the recruiter(s) you've chosen. Call and speak with the recruiter so that you can start to paint a picture of your skills and objectives that is deeper than an 8� by 11 rectangle.

Establish the relationship.

Get to know your recruiter and ensure that they understand you. Solicit feedback about your skill set and presentation. Share your goals and objectives. Even if your recruiter doesn't place you today, a relationship will keep you on the recruiter's radar for the next opportunity.

Practice Good Communication.

Be professional and courteous, and keep the recruiter in the loop. If you are not interested in a particular position or the timing isn't right, decline politely and promptly. Tell the recruiter where you're already applying so that there is no duplication of efforts; confusing the employer or wasting people's time will likely cause them to move onto the next candidate.

Be Honest and Professional.

In today's world of background checks and internet, you can be sure that any misrepresentation will be discovered at some point, so be forthright. While the company makes the hiring decision, the recruiter locates and qualifies the candidates and is the entry to the company. Be sure to proofread written communications and conduct yourself professionally in all interactions with your recruiter.

Follow-Up but Don't Pester.

Good follow-up in a professional courtesy and affirms your interest. A good recruiter will provide feedback as available. It is bad for your job search however to carry follow-up to the extreme. If a recruiter doesn't get back to you, it may simply mean that your particular talents are not a current match. A successful recruiter is on the phone all day and must ensure the communications that lead to a successful hire.

Never Go Around a Recruiter to The Company.

Companies contract with recruiters to handle the qualification and logistics of the hiring process. If you are the right person for the job, the recruiter will present you, and provide the follow-up the client company desires as part of the process. If you go around the recruiter you will likely destroy your relationship not only with the recruiter but with the company.

About Redfish Technology, Inc.

Redfish Technology specializes in locating talent in the High Tech and Green Energy sectors. Recruiting since 1996, the company offers nationwide coverage and boasts offices in Silicon Valley, the East Coast, and the Intermountain West.

As a full service, outsourced recruiting resource, we will partner with leading High Tech and Clean Tech organizations to source the world's next generation of technical and alternative energy leaders.

Connect with Redfish Technology on the web: http://www.redfishtech.com

Join the LinkedIn group: "Redfish Technology: Jobs in High Tech & Green Energy" - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1834005

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Recruitment Websites Can Help Boost Employment

By Ador Talukdar

As almost all job-seekers can readily realize, it is not always easy to find a new job, and it becomes even more difficult when the economy slows instead of increasing. Recruitment websites can help employees to smoothen the transition to new jobs, while they can also help the employer to lighten some of the burdens that are associated with finding new employees.

Recruitment websites will normally be at the lead in indicating where employment is expected to be headed, or the direction that the economy is to take, as employers make use of the facilities and services offered to hire new employers. The website can be specific to certain industries, or they can be dedicated to particular regions. They can also be dedicated to specific employment levels. There are recruitment websites that offer their services that are dedicated solely for executive level employees, while other firms may offer resources that any job seeker can use.

A closer examination of the number and types of vacancies at some of the better websites, can easily indicate, which sectors of the economy are growing or those that are retreating. This information can be vital for those changing jobs or career, or even more important for those provide career counselling. It may not be a very prudent decision to plan for a career in an industry with very little prospects for growth, and it may be easier to get an indication of the prospects by observing the trends that can be identified by the number of vacant job positions.

Navigating the job market, can be confusing, because much of the published reports may indicate that the number of available jobs may be in decline, while employers express frustration at not being able to find the right employees. The truth is that much of the job market remains hidden, but the proper use of recruitment websites may actually help the discovery process.

Individual organizations across almost every area of the supply chain may establish a site specifically for recruiting new employees. The facility will allow job seekers to apply directly at the company, where applications will normally be processed by the Human Resources department of the firm. Smaller organizations that do not have a Human Resources department may use the services offered at the bigger, and well-recognized sites. The vacancies that are listed will be very likely from employers who need to hire workers.

The sites offer tremendous benefits to both job seeker and employers, and make it much easier to contact employers. For employers, it is a cost-effective any very efficient method of finding new employees, while job seeker can find the job the very closely matches their requirements. When the process is working as expected, it can bring the worker, and employer together in a much shorter time, and it can be done with minimal human input.

There may be some cost associated with the operation of recruitment sites, but the costs may depend primarily on the types and options of services that are offered. The more advanced sites will usually make easier to job seekers to find jobs by offering advanced search features.

Recruitment websites serve a number of different purposes, they can not only help job-seekers to find jobs quickly, but employers can use recruitment websites to find employees at lower costs. For more information you can visit the website here.

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Human Systems Management Vs Human Resources Management

By David Wudyka

Prelude: The Evolution of Human Resource Management

From the dawn of the Computer Age to the birth of the Internet, technology and business have evolved with unprecedented speed. Technological advances have produced competitive advantages. However, competitive advantage is no longer achieved or maintained solely by technological innovation.

With the rapid ability of product developers to create new products, the only remaining competitive advantage in business to capitalize upon is not technology, but people. Simply put, those firms attracting and retaining the best people and making the most of their human resources will thrive. Those who don't, will not.

As an increasingly competitive world forces business to change, adapt and respond more quickly, companies are reconsidering the very essence of how they conduct business. These demands produce new expectations of how people contribute to organizations. People must possess greater knowledge, play new roles and operate to higher standards of performance.

The New Role of Human Resource Management

Because the emphasis today is on people and what they can bring to the business, it's only natural that the Human Resource (HR) function would one day reexamine how it supports a firm's business plan. That time is now. Once merely thought of as the organizational police, administrators or the company store, the Human Resource function is finally becoming a true strategic business partner in progressive companies.

Some say HR's mission is to add value. Regardless of its characterization, the new HR role is to make a business more successful. Just like the order of movements in a symphony score, a business and its objectives must first be understood. The HR function, long associated with understanding and working with a company's human element, is well suited to apply and integrate its organizational knowledge with the strategic business plan for maximum impact. The net result? The new HR function can now contribute to the success of the firm in ways which weren't possible in the past. In fact, the new HR role is so different, it deserves a new name - Human Systems Management.

What Is Human Systems Management

Human Systems represents any organizational system in which the role, impact, and reaction of the human element are of critical importance. Human Systems Management encompasses much of what Human Resource Management has become, and more. In it, the HR function is re-creating, redefining, and essentially retuning for the Post-Modern and Information Ages. The system may be exclusively human (e.g., the process of team building) or sociotechnical (i.e., the interaction of people and technology). It may involve the redesign of work or the design of new pay systems to improve employee satisfaction and organizational performance.

The key element is, and always will be, the human element. The desired outcome is twofold: improved individual as well as organizational performance. At its core, however, is business strategy.

New Knowledge, New Opportunities

The Human Resource function, with its overall view of the business, has a great opportunity to capitalize upon and synthesize the new knowledge we have gained about organizational behavior.

For example, we know that employee involvement is vital to the success of many companies and business programs today. People who do the work know the work best. They should participate in decision making that affects their jobs, workplace and livelihood. People, therefore, will acquire skills by choice, if given the opportunity.

We also know that well-designed jobs and pay systems encourage skill acquisition and increase job satisfaction. In addition, we have learned that teams of people can be self-directing with equal or greater effectiveness than supervisor-led groups. When people are self-managing, the challenges and the rewards of achievement increase the meaning of the work they do.

The HR Department must also reexamine its traditional role. For instance, roles like Employment, Compensation and Training are performed in new ways to free the HR department to focus on other value-adding activities. This can be achieved through outsourcing, internal consulting, automation, the assumption of HR functions by line management, leaderless teams, team-based decision making, self-guided computer training, the Internet, reverse interviewing, as well as other strategies.

The result? The new proactive HR function can act more like a strategic partner.

A Strategic Partner for Human Systems Management

But how can organization's move forward from Human Resource Management to Human System Management?

They should seek out a strategic partner who specializes in Human Systems Management. This allows the partner to orchestrate new strategies that will enhance a business' chance for success and to serve as a centralized resource for data and ideas.

The strategic partner should not only provide a level of professional expertise usually found only in larger, more costly consulting firms, but also form more personal working relationships with an organization's management team. This means that management can then always depend on the strategic partner's ongoing availability and support.

Specifically, a strategic partner can help orchestrate the transition to Human Systems Management by:

- serving as an organization's entire HR function where none exists;

- complementing the role of small HR functions in mid-size firms;

- and consulting with larger, well-established HR functions on new ideas for improving performance.

The Finale: Working in Concert

Today the challenge of Human Resource Management is to integrate the best traditional approaches with new and innovative techniques and strategies of Human Systems Management. When these elements work in harmony, and with the firm's strategic plan, the organization becomes the beneficiary.

However, a business needs to work under the guidance of a skilled orchestrator. Therefore, it is essential that a Human System Management consultant work in concert with an organization's leaders as a strategic partner to create Human Resource programs that align the efforts of people with the employers' objectives to achieve common goals that will benefit everyone.

Some call this "organizational synergy." In reality, a simpler way to think of it is organizational success.

David Wudyka, SPHR, MBA, BSIE, is the Managing Principal and Founder of Westminster Associates, a human resources and compensation consulting firm. Mr. Wudyka was one of the first 200 people in the U.S. to be certified in the field of Compensation by the former American Compensation Association. In addition he is certified by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). He has an MBA in Organization and Management from Syracuse University, and is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island's College of Industrial Engineering where he received his B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering.

60 Spring Street, Wrentham, MA 02093

Voice/Fax: (508) 883-9770

E-Mail: dwudyka@westminsterassociates.com

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What is Strategic Human Resource Management?

By Rana Sinha

In Human Resource (HR) and management circles nowadays there is much talk about Strategic Human Resource Management and many expensive books can be seen on the shelves of bookshops. But what exactly is SHRM (Strategic Human Resource Development), what are its key features and how does it differ from traditional human resource management?

SHRM or Strategic human resource management is a branch of Human resource management or HRM. It is a fairly new field, which has emerged out of the parent discipline of human resource management. Much of the early or so called traditional HRM literature treated the notion of strategy superficially, rather as a purely operational matter, the results of which cascade down throughout the organisation. There was a kind of unsaid division of territory between people-centred values of HR and harder business values where corporate strategies really belonged. HR practitioners felt uncomfortable in the war cabinet like atmosphere where corporate strategies were formulated.

Definition of SHRM

Strategic human resource management can be defined as the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation, flexibility and competitive advantage. In an organisation SHRM means accepting and involving the HR function as a strategic partner in the formulation and implementation of the company's strategies through HR activities such as recruiting, selecting, training and rewarding personnel.

How SHRM differs from HRM

In the last two decades there has been an increasing awareness that HR functions were like an island unto itself with softer people-centred values far away from the hard world of real business. In order to justify its own existence HR functions had to be seen as more intimately connected with the strategy and day to day running of the business side of the enterprise. Many writers in the late 1980s, started clamoring for a more strategic approach to the management of people than the standard practices of traditional management of people or industrial relations models. Strategic human resource management focuses on human resource programs with long-term objectives. Instead of focusing on internal human resource issues, the focus is on addressing and solving problems that effect people management programs in the long run and often globally. Therefore the primary goal of strategic human resources is to increase employee productivity by focusing on business obstacles that occur outside of human resources. The primary actions of a strategic human resource manager are to identify key HR areas where strategies can be implemented in the long run to improve the overall employee motivation and productivity. Communication between HR and top management of the company is vital as without active participation no cooperation is possible.

Key Features of Strategic Human Resource Management

The key features of SHRM are

• There is an explicit linkage between HR policy and practices and overall organizational strategic aims and the organizational environment
• There is some organizing schema linking individual HR interventions so that they are mutually supportive
• Much of the responsibility for the management of human resources is devolved down the line

Trends in Strategic Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management professionals are increasingly faced with the issues of employee participation, human resource flow, performance management, reward systems and high commitment work systems in the context of globalization. Older solutions and recipes that worked in a local context do not work in an international context. Cross-cultural issues play a major role here. These are some of the major issues that HR professionals and top management involved in SHRM are grappling with in the first decade of the 21st century:

• Internationalization of market integration.
• Increased competition, which may not be local or even national through free market ideology
• Rapid technological change.
• New concepts of line and general management.
• Constantly changing ownership and resultant corporate climates.
• Cross-cultural issues
• The economic gravity shifting from 'developed' to 'developing' countries

SHRM also reflects some of the main contemporary challenges faced by Human Resource Management: Aligning HR with core business strategy, demographic trends on employment and the labour market, integrating soft skills in HRD and finally Knowledge Management.

References

1. Armstrong, M (ed.) 192a) Strategies for Human Resource Management: A Total Business Approach. London:Kogan Page
2. Beer, M and Spector,B (eds) (1985) Readings in Human Resource Management. New York: Free Press
3. Boxall, P (1992) 'Strategic Human Resource Management: Beginnings of a New Theoretical Sophistication?' Human Resource Management Journal, Vol.2 No.3 Spring.
4. Fombrun, C.J., Tichy, N,M, and Devanna, M.A. (1984) Strategic Human Resource Management. New York:Wiley
5. Mintzberg, H, Quinn, J B, Ghoshal, S (198) The Strategy Process, Prentice Hall.
6. Truss, C and Gratton, L (1994) 'Strategic Human Resource Management: A Conceptual Approach', International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.5 No.3

Rana Sinha is a cross-cultural trainer and author. He was born in India, studied and lived in many places and traveled in over 80 countries, acquiring cross-cultural knowledge and building an extensive network of professionals. He has spent many years developing and delivering Cross-cultural Training, Professional Communications skills, Personal Development and Management solutions to all types of organizations and businesses in many countries. He now lives in Helsinki, Finland and runs http://www.dot-connect.com, which specializes in human resource development as well as communication and management skills training with cross-cultural emphasis. Read his cross-cultural blog http://originalwavelength.blogspot.com

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