Month: April 2018

Categories
Human Resources

Find a Job Like a Recruiter in 4 Strategic Steps

Finding the next step in your career can be a lot less stressful than applying to job postings and hoping for the best. If a job-searcher takes a more active approach, they can guarantee a higher level of success and have much more control over their future. It’s overused, but most agree, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

1) Create your job profile

I like to think about a job profile as location, industry, function & scope. If I sell insulation across the southeast from Greenville, SC – then I would likely be looking for a job within sales in the southeast (preferably Greenville) in the building materials industry. At this point you start making your company target list. A good number is around 20 with your top 5 segmented out.

2) Sweep through applications

Go on to the popular websites such as Indeed, CareerBuilder, Monster & ZipRecruiter and apply to all of the applicable positions according to your job profile. Do not limit your companies, however. That list is to be used later. When you’re applying for jobs, you’re best off spending maybe 4-8 hours applying for all of the jobs you possibly can. Afterwards, forget you even applied. After you do this (once every two weeks max), you should only be waiting for phone calls back. Focus on phone conversations, if they call you, the relationship can be on your radar, otherwise its not worth the brain strain. Apply liberally, this can also be used as a networking tool. If something seems a bit too high, apply anyway. Applying above your pay grade is obviously much more productive than applying below it.

3) Connect with applicable recruiters

Connect yourself with recruiters that apply to your job profile as far as location, industry & function go. For example, a company/recruiter that works exclusively in your city/metro/target area. If you’re in IT, you’re probably going to work best with an IT firm like MDI Group. If you’re in building materials, sales or manufacturing operations, you’ll do great with Legacy.

4) Network and Grow Your Niche Like a recruiter

At this point you’ve clearly stated exactly what you’re looking for, you’ve got your eye on the prize. Now its time to get out and spread the story. Don’t wait for new jobs to get posted, don’t rely on the recruiters to find you a job, it’s time for you to really get to work. Here you should be chatting and getting introduced to anyone and everyone that falls within your niche, more specifically your top 20/5 list! Stay focused and continue to build out your network within your target job.

Taking an active approach and tracking relationships will help you greatly in finding a job. Treat it like a sales job. You’re selling yourself! Build your network, gain trust and offer solutions. Remember, there’s a job opening because there’s something that needs to be addressed, sell the solution. As much as you’re going to be concerned with what the company is going to do for you, you need to have a clear idea of the value behind what you’re able to do for the company. This will make you much more confident and clear-minded during interviews. Follow these steps and you’ll have your next job in no time!

Categories
Human Resources

Why College Kids Hate Recruiters and How We Can Solve It

group of adults taking self portrait with mobile
I recently read through Elana Goodwin’s article on ERE Media titled “Why Students May Not Want to Work with Recruiters”. It seemed pretty important to me because if students aren’t interested in working with recruiters, I need to know why and I need to figure out how to fix these issues. If students feel a certain way – I’m sure there are others outside of University that feel the same way.
At the same time, I wanted to be able to provide a look from a different angle at the objections towards working with a recruiter and explain some of the stemming causes of these points of conflict. Elana covered multiple issues, the four strongest arguments I believe she made were the lack of transparency, lack of response, lack of activity and lack of reliability.
“Students feel working with a recruiter can be challenging as you can’t always be sure that what they’re telling you is the truth… Whether students work with an external or internal recruiter, they may end up being lied to — and while it may sometimes be ‘for their own good’ or to soften a blow, it’s still a lie.” (Goodwin)
This is a common issue raised by candidates working with recruiters. As Elana mentions, we see this with internal as well as external recruiters. I think the issue here stems from two things: a recruiter’s hesitance for confrontation. If you are working with a recruiter who shies from confrontation or that may be restricted behind corporate red tape from saying certain things, you will end up running into this situation.
One of the points we make at Legacy is that we must work with honesty and transparency. This isn’t only ethical, but it improves our business processes and our quality altogether. We do not look to put square pegs into round holes. We do not look to shy away from being honest with our candidates. We are a team looking to achieve a goal – increase a candidate’s quality of life through their career while at the same time building our client’s human capital. If we do both of those, retention is not an issue.
“Additionally, there are recruiters who may never call back candidates, and students will expect and accept a no-response when applying to jobs through a website in situations where says they won’t contact all candidates unless selected to move forward in the application and interview process. When students are dealing with a person and that recruiter fails to get back to them and let them know they weren’t picked, it’s likely that student won’t want to work with any other recruiters in the future, thanks to bad experiences in the past.” (Goodwin)
Another very common issue – most common with high-volume jobs where the amount of active candidates interviewed gets to an overwhelming level for human resources or recruiters. That doesn’t excuse the action, though. There is no excuse for not getting back to an active candidate in the interviewing process.
At Legacy, we don’t typically work high-volume roles. We are able to commit ourselves to conversation by phone. If we are working a high-volume job on a project, our software is able to send out status updates automatically through our system when certain stages are met in the hiring process.
Some firms have recruiters working eight to sixteen different search assignments at once which would make it very difficult to keep up with all candidates, but at Legacy we make sure to keep the search assignment load low in order to ensure we are giving candidates the attention they deserve. We have found that splitting a recruiter’s hours per week between fifteen jobs doesn’t turn out as positively as focusing in on two to four jobs.
“Some recruiters will keep a backlog of resumes to peruse and review for new job openings when they’re tasked with filling a position while others will seek out completely new candidates and won’t even check past applicants to see if anyone would be a good match. Knowing this, students may question why they should bother working with a recruiter, and the answer to that will depend on the practices the recruiter uses to fill empty positions.” (Goodwin)
Elana makes a great point here that took me a while in my career to really understand. A recruiter must be able to realize the passive candidate pipeline just as much (if not better) than the active candidate pipeline. A very prominent external recruiter swears by the process of building your passive candidate roster specific to the job functions you’re most likely to address.
For example, Legacy works primarily in the building materials industry and we focus on meeting and understanding sales and operations individuals’ aspirations for the next step of their career. That way, when our clients bring up the need to either increase their company’s revenue (sales) or lower their company’s costs (operations) – we are able to solve their problems faster than a company that needs to go out into the market and run an entire search! When the Panthers are in the middle of the season and need a lineman to cover an injury, do they quickly sign someone from the free agency or do they wait around and scout for next years draft? More than likely, they have a couple of free agents they know they can pull in when necessary.
“Students feel they are the ones who will be most motivated to find themselves a job — so relying on a recruiter may seem counter-intuitive and counterproductive to students. Students, especially millennials, approach job-hunting as they do many other tasks and things: with independence and the knowledge that whatever is unknown about the job or application process is inherently know-able and self-teachable, thanks to the power of the Internet”. (Goodwin)
This is one of the great things about millennials when it comes to finding a job – they know that ultimately, they are the ones responsible for finding themselves a job. For soon-to-be (or recent) graduates, I typically suggest the following strategy focusing energy on five avenues:
  • Passive Opportunities
    • Recruiters – Pair yourself with recruiters specialized around your background
      • Industry
      • Function
      • Location
    • Personal Network – Make your availability and interests known. Don’t stop at friends and family. Figure out friends of friends that may fall into an industry/function you’re interested in.
  • Active Opportunities
    • Job Boards – Apply liberally. If you’re on the fence, apply to learn more. Its a numbers game, remember the plate-spinning theory.
    • University Job Fairs – Make it a focus to speak to as many companies as possible in person. Endorse opportunity, learn as much as you can about every company and role so you can accurately make the best decision for yourself. It’s better to have five offers and turn down four than to fight for one offer because you limited yourself.
    • Target Companies – Make a list of 20-40 companies you are most interested in and reach out to their human resources department. There are plenty of ways to meet influencers if you are truly determined.
Want to know one of Warren Buffet’s big secrets behind getting rich? Multiple income sources. That way, when one fails, you still have money coming in from a handful of other avenues. The same applies to finding a job (or any goal for that matter). Don’t let your success come down to one strategy being successful, work through multiple avenues to leverage your efforts.
All in all, the criticisms college students have of recruiters are valid and present in many recruiting firms we see in the industry. As companies get larger and more complex, some things do fall through the cracks of process and overleveraging. All firms need to make sure they are able to respect a candidate’s time and perception or they may find themselves without any candidates in the future!
Categories
Industry News

Self-Healing Concrete of the Future

Self-Healing Concrete: Reinforcements from Bacteria

Written By: Thomas Berry

Email | LinkedIn

Ever since the Ancient Romans learned that mixing horsehair in their version of concrete prevented cracking, man has sought ways to increase the longevity of this pivotal building material. Little did anyone know, the answer to this problem has been around since the Romans mixed up the first batch of horsehair concrete. The answer does not lie in horsehair but in bacteria!

Bring in the Materials Scientists! 

In 2006, Professor Henk Jonkers of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands was approached by a civil engineer friend who had read an article about introducing limestone-producing bacteria to monuments for increased longevity. This friend wondered if the same application could be applied to building materials and challenged Professor Jonkers with the difficult task of producing a self-healing concrete utilizing bacteria. Professor Jonkers worked diligently over the next few years and came up with a viable solution.

Professor Jonkers knew that the problem with regular concrete was small cracks that became larger due to leakage. Jonkers knew that concrete was extremely alkaline. This meant not only would the bacteria have to lie dormant in the concrete for many years until cracks appeared, but it would also have to be able to survive the alkaline conditions of concrete. He found his answer with bacillus bacteria. These bacteria can survive in extremely alkaline conditions and produce spores that can lie dormant for years without food or water.

With the bacteria and water problems solved, Professor Jonkers had to come up with a solution to feed the bacteria at the precise moment to repair cracks. The bacterium could be fed sugar by mixing sugar in with the concrete but this would make the concrete soft and weak. Jonkers found the solution with calcium lactate which does not compromise the integrity of the concrete. He mixed the bacteria and calcium lactate into water soluble capsules within the wet mix of the concrete itself. When water leaks through the cracks of the concrete the capsule dissolves releasing the bacteria with a food and water source. The bacteria feeds on the calcium lactate and produces calcite, which is limestone, and this heals the cracks of the concrete. Professor Jonkers called his new creation “bioconcrete”.

Bioconcrete: Powered by Bacteria

Bioconcrete is mixed just like any other concrete is mixed today but introduces the bacteria healing agent into the mix cycle. The bacteria lie dormant in the hardened concrete until years later when the concrete cracks and water leaks in. This water activates the bacteria which then begins to feed and produce a limestone waste that heals the cracks in the concrete.

This invention comes in three different forms. A spray to apply to existing structures with small cracks, a repair mortar for repairing large cracks in existing structure, and the self-healing concrete form to build from scratch.

There are currently many locations that could benefit from this technology in concrete. Coastal areas and areas that see high annual rainfall amounts could greatly benefit in Professor Jonker’s self-healing concrete. These areas that have higher than average rainfalls typically have some of the worst concrete damage due to the high likelihood of water leaking through micro cracks in their concrete structures.

elf-healing Irrigation Canals in Ecuador

Professor Jonkers’s invention has already been tested in several applications in developing countries. Most notably is a concrete canal and irrigation system in Ecuador made completely of bioconcrete.

As of right now, bioconcrete seems like expensive technology since it costs 30% more than standard concrete but Professor Jonkers says the costs can be reduced if they can find a way to incorporate sugars instead of calcium nitrate. He hopes that the construction industry will see the benefit in saving repair costs down the road as opposed to building costs.