In theory, building a talent “pipeline” sounds like an ideal strategy, ensuring that you always have a steady supply of the talent you’re looking for. In reality, there are many issues with building talent pipelines, and they all “leak” extensively. I recently delivered the closing keynote at the always excellent Talent42 technical recruiting conference where I explored the core issues associated with … Read More
Building Talent Pipelines and Just-In-Time Recruiting – Part 4
Welcome to the 4th and final post of the “Building Talent Pipelines and Just-In-Time Recruiting” series. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to read parts 1, 2, and 3 before reading this post. In Ben Franklin’s the Way to Wealth, he talks about the issues associated with carrying unnecessary inventory, “You call them goods; but, if you do not take care, they … Read More
Building Talent Pipelines and Just-In-Time Recruiting – Part 3
In Part 1 and Part 2 in this series, I explored many of the intrinsic limitations and hidden costs of building traditional talent pipelines – sourcing, screening, and “keeping warm” candidates for which you do not have a current need. To recap, traditional candidate pipelining: Is a “push” based strategy that is not based on an actual customer (client or candidate) need Often … Read More
Building Talent Pipelines and Just-In-Time Recruiting – Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, I explored and challenged the practice of traditional candidate pipelining. Some people may have interpreted my thoughts on the subject to mean that I don’t believe in any form of proactively building candidate pipelines. That would be incorrect. Anyone that really knows me knows that I am not a black/white, either/or kind of guy. What … Read More
Building Talent Pipelines and Just-In-Time Recruiting – Part 1
Back in 2009 I wrote a 4-part series examining the logic and practices behind proactively building talent pipelines and how I believe that traditional talent pipelining can be significantly improved through leveraging Lean production principles to achieve Just-In-Time recruiting. I haven’t written much on the topic of applying Lean principles to the recruiting life cycle in quite a while, and … Read More
100+ Free Sourcing & Recruiting Tools, Guides, and Resources
It’s been a LONG time coming, but I finally got around to updating my free sourcing & recruiting tools, guides and resources page where I now keep a current list of the best of my work all in one place for easy bookmarking and reference. You can find it here on my main page: Additionally, I thought … Read More
How to Find Almost Anyone’s Email Address with Rapportive
Sourcers and recruiters are always looking for different, easier and more effective ways of divining the email addresses of people they are looking to engage. While there are many ways of researching, guessing, and verifying valid email addresses, did you know you can find almost anyone’s email address using Gmail? I didn’t, until I stumbled across a very interesting … Read More
What is Lean Just-in-Time Recruiting?
The process of identifying an organization’s talent needs and identifying, acquiring, and retaining talent for those needs is essentially human capital supply chain management. A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving something of value (a product, a service, or a person) from a source to a customer/consumer. Conventional supply chain … Read More
Will 2011 be a Big Year for Recruiters and Social Media?
I read a brief sidebar article in the November 1, 2010 Fortune magazine that detailed the hottest jobs of 2010 and I was pleased with what I saw, and I thought you would be too. Apparently, Fortune worked with “LinkedIn’s top data crunchers” to pull some exclusive information about the job titles that saw the biggest percentage increase in 2010 … Read More
#RecruitFest 2010 Reflections and Insights
Is it just me, or does it seem that there have been a record number of sourcing, recruiting, and HR conferences this year? And we’re still in October! I would have loved to attend RecruitFest in person but I was unable to. However, I did catch quite a bit of the event via the live streaming they offered. There were … Read More
Lean Recruiting & Just-In-Time Talent Acquisition Part 4
If you haven’t already done so, be sure to read parts 1, 2, and 3 before reading this post. In Ben Franklin’s the Way to Wealth, he talks about the issues associated with carrying unnecessary inventory, “You call them goods; but, if you do not take care, they will prove evils to some of you…You expect they will be sold…but, … Read More
Lean Recruiting & Just-In-Time Talent Acquisition Part 3
In Part 1 and Part 2 in this series, I explored many of the intrinsic limitations and hidden costs of traditional candidate pipelining – sourcing, screening, and “keeping warm” candidates for which you do not have a current need. To recap, traditional candidate pipelining: Is a “push” based strategy that is not based on an actual customer (client or candidate) … Read More
Lean Recruiting & Just-In-Time Talent Acquisition Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, I explored and challenged the practice of traditional candidate pipelining. Some people may have interpreted my last post on the subject to mean that I don’t believe in any form of proactively building candidate pipelines. That would be incorrect. Anyone that really knows me knows that I am not a black/white, either/or kind of … Read More
Lean Recruiting & Just-In-Time Talent Acquisition Part 1
I wrote about how I learned to use Boolean search to leverage information systems to quickly source candidates, and I challenged the concept and practice of building candidate pipelines. Amybeth Hale commented on my post (thank you – you inspired me to finally write this one!) and mentioned that she was puzzled by the mention of the fact that I never … Read More
How I Learned What I Know About Candidate Sourcing
When it comes to my theories and best practices for leveraging information systems for quickly finding highly qualified candidates, I am often asked, “So, how did you figure all of this stuff out?” It’s a fantastic question, and I am happy to be asked it, but my answer doesn’t seem to satisfy anyone. The short answer is literally that “I just figured it out.” … Read More
Lean Recruiting: No Forecasts or Talent Pipelines Required!
Lean Recruiting: No Forecasts or Talent Pipelines Required! This is a follow up post to this article I wrote on Lean/JIT recruiting, which I circulated as a dicussion topic through a few of the larger staffing and recruiting groups on LinkedIn. I recieved some interesting responses, some of which led me to believe that perhaps I was not clear enough with my … Read More
Lean Sourcing and Recruiting: JIT Candidate Acquisition
Lean Sourcing and Recruiting: JIT Candidate Acquisition According to globally accepted supply chain management principles (such as those of Lean and the Toyota Production System), building and maintaining product inventories is wasteful. In an ideal state, companies would acquire the right material, at the right time, at the right place, and in the exact amount. This is called Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory management. However, … Read More