Passive Doesn't Always Equal Best--A Microsoft Viewpoint

Microsoft's ambitions are anything but small. The world's #1 software company provides a variety of products and services, including its Windows operating systems and Office software suite. The company has expanded into markets such as video game consoles, servers and storage software, and digital music players. Microsoft has reached settlements to end a slew of antitrust investigations and lawsuits, including agreeing to uniformly license its operating systems and allowing manufacturers to include competing software with Windows. In early 2008 the company made an unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo! for about $44.6 billion; Yahoo!'s board rejected the bid as "inadequate".

I asked Brian Fippinger, Senior Staffing Consultant/Recruiter at Microsoft, if passive candidates really make for better candidates. This is what he had to say:

I believe that there are many myths in recruiting and many times we make the process much harder than it needs to be. In truth, the best candidate for an open role....is the candidate that fits the role best. At times, they are happily working in their current positions and need to be nudged (they are, by definition passive). Other times, they are looking for new challenges (sometime voluntarily...other times not..they are, by definition active).

The good recruiter is the one who can identify the best candidate by looking at all the tangible and intangible factors, sell them on the job and then sell the hiring manager on the candidate. Our job is not to have a bias one way or the other. Passive does not always equal best.

Do Passive Candidates Really Make For Better Candidates?

Pilgrim Home and Hearth was founded over 50 years ago in Northern California. Pilgrim produces grates, screens, toolsets, log holders, wood holders, log carts, and other hearth fashion products for the specialty, catalog and OEM Manufacturer markets.

Our business portfolio includes three primary retail brands: Pilgrim, Smithsonian Institution, and Napa Forge.

I asked Gene Russell, President of Pilgrim Home and Hearth, whether he thought passive candidates really make for better candidates.This is what he had to say:

"Each comes with their own unique characteristics. My very best marketing hire was very active. However, often times they are too aggressive to fill their income gap and will talk themselves and the company into something that is not best for either party. I have also found that 99% of so called passive candidates are not all that passive, especially in today's internet exposed and networked world. The world is full of free agents who are fully employed."

Heather Hamilton of Microsoft Talks about Corporate Blogging to Attract Candidates

Corporate recruitment blogs can help build your talent pools as well as paint a real picture of your company culture and what it's like to work there, according to Microsoft's recruitment manager.

Heather Hamilton was one of the first recruitment professionals in the US to use blogging as a means of creating talent pools. She says Microsoft's recruitment blog began as a tool for collecting resumes, "but we soon found that creating a platform for two-way communication with prospective candidates allowed us to be aware of any myths about the company, paint a real picture of what it's like to work at Microsoft, and give people the tools to tailor their resumes, thereby increasing [our] recruitment success rates".

She says companies that haven't started blogging are missing out on a rich recruitment tool that can create a dialogue with potential employees, increase visibility in the online space, and demonstrate an understanding of their target market. Opening the lines of communication has had a major impact on Microsoft's recruitment outcomes, she says. see whole story

Hard-to-Fill Positions-- JB Smith at Google Inc.

I asked JB Smith, Senior Lead Contract Sourcer/Recruiter at Google Inc. what he does when he has a hard-to-fill position.

This is what he had to say.

"Don’t ever discount any options without trying them first. The best recruiters never take anything for granite. A single search is only a specific step in a larger problem solving process.
Go back and ask yourself the question “Why” were you searching for that position? Either search for something or create a new problem to solve with a different set of searches.
Go back to the HM and review the requisition. What was stated in the requisition, can it be stated a different way. In addition to talking to the HM, talk to others within the group. Set up a casual meeting (lunch or coffee) and brainstorm to find more creative ways in how to find candidates for them.

What user groups do they participate in, associations, clubs, blogs, trade magazines, newsletter, alumni, publications, universities, mergers and acquisitions currently going on with the competition, seminars attended, conferences attended, professional networking, , patent searches, call experts in the industry, dig deeper by sourcing the competition?
Find out what companies local to the client have people with the same skill set and then Google and other techniques to find them? What new technologies are they checking out and where can you find those? Ask the HM how he found his current employees. If able too, review the resumes of the people currently in the group you’re searching for.

You are probably kidding yourself about how systematic and exhaustive you have been. Get a fresh perspective and ask a colleague for their input. Sometimes you just need to change the equation to get the answer you want. Look for requisitions from the competition and job boards that are similar to the position you’re searching for and review how their specifications are written.

Have you looked at companies and tried to find someone trapped by a glass ceiling that would move for a career opportunity? Contact reputable advertising agencies and speak to the account representative that specializes in the industry you are in to see if they can make suggestions. This also can hold true for trade show and job fair representatives.

Look at the familiar first before you try something unfamiliar. Don’t give up; it will eventually come to you. Have you networked everyone? Have you really gotten every name?"

Second Life--A Virtual World to Find Passive Candidates

Second Life® is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.
From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.

Companies such as Sony, Wired, Cisco, IBM, Accenture, Microsoft, Verizon, TMP Worldwide, HP, T-Mobile, L'Oreal and others have participated in 24/7 job fairs and have done hiring in this virtual world.

Kevin Singel, a partner at Accenture, affirms, "At Accenture we have been very successful using Second Life to reach more junior level candidates."

Dave Levinson, CEO of Cranial Tap, declares, " Second Life represents a stepping stone to what is coming. It is clear that the mass consumer audience is ready to be entertained, socialize, learn and transact in virtual worlds.

The promise of this space is great and should not be written off due to recent negative press or failure to find something to do one afternoon. Virtual worlds platforms will (and do) support entirely new forms of interactivity and engaging events in ways never before possible ."

Glenn Brown, an organizational development manager, states about Second Life, " It is an opportunity to meet (virtually) a self-selected population (much like LinkedIn in this regard) of highly intelligent and creative people from all over the world.

That isn't to say that SL doesn't also have it's token share of cyber geeks, but I suspect that a lot of them soon tire of it and go elsewhere anyway. I've been amazed at the intelligent, sensitive, thought-provoking real-time conversations that occur in SL between people in vastly different time zones who otherwise would probably never have the chance to meet and exchange ideas."

Randy Rittle, a senior IT analyst, discusses a June 2007 Wall Street Journal article about Second Life. see article Randy states, "The Wall Street Journal had an article about companies doing interviews in Second Life the other day. The article mentioned Verizon, HP and Microsoft being involved in a job fair in SL. One person mentioned they couldn't figure out how to dress their avatar in a suit, so they showed up in jeans and a sweater. One couldn't figure out how to sit in the chair, so they sat on the table during the interview.

Other mishaps have included an interviewer slumping over in a chair as if they were asleep, participants accidentally flying away during the interview and one person in an HP interview handed the recruiter a beer instead of a resume. The recruiters seemed to see it as an adjunct to their more traditional hiring practices; some noted that the candidates were more relaxed, interacting through chat the way they might with friends in instant messaging and the mishaps sometimes act as "icebreakers" for the conversation. HP mentioned that buying the land and setting up in SL for the job fair was less expensive that getting an outside recruiter to hire one experienced candidate.

Zhdan Staruch, Client Partner at Verizon Business, concludes, "Yes. Companies in France are starting to use Second Life. For example: Areva, Atos Origine, Accenture, .... look out, if you're not ready now, you're quickly going to be considered a has-been !"

2 Year Search for Transportation Engineer at McMahon Associates

I talked with the General Manager of McMahon Associates in Florida about a senior transportation engineering job in Ft Myers, Florida, that had been impossible to fill. For 2 years it had remained open.

Having built an enthusiastic, dedicated team of more than 150 professionals along the East Coast, McMahon Associates, Inc. offers unrivaled breadth and depth in experience in all transportation engineering and planning services. McMahon Associates is a trusted advisor in traffic, highways, transit, structures, signals and more, from concept to design and construction services, including helping the client find the transportation funding it needs to implement its plan.

I took on the job and went to research, so to speak. I surveyed the market, building a list of all competitors within a 20 mile radius. Why 20 mile radius? That's usually as far as someone local will drive to get to work.

For the next two weeks, I called into companies and got the names of all the transportation engineers at the competitor firms. These professionals were passive candidates.

Ft. Myers is a small area and everyone knows each other. So, once I had my list of 50 passive candidates, I started to call and profile them. I introduced the opportunity, too.

I found a number of qualified candidates but they didn't want to leave or were in the midst of long projects. But I did find one passive candidate open to the idea.

I turned over the information to the General Manager of McMahon and Associates. He took it from here. Interviews were arranged.

With some fairly straight forward negotiation, a deal was cut and this new candidate switched firms and gave McMahon Associates new breadth in their business offerings for the Ft. Myers area.

Sam Medalie
Telephone Names Sourcer
Sam@longfellowsearch.com

The Boston Consulting Group--The Hunt for the CFO

It was late afternoon when I called The Boston Consulting Group. I talked with one of the decision makers in the Worldwide Human Resources department. The company was looking to
fill their open CFO position. It had an internal candidate, but it wanted to see all the good passive talent that was out in the market before making a decision.

The HR decision maker had met with the top search firms, Korn Ferry, Russell Reynolds et al. In the time it took for them to prepare their proposals, I had already conducted research, screened and interviewed/profiled candidates.

I started with 50 passive candidates and then narrowed it down to 22 CFO's in the United States. They were at the top 22 management consulting firms in terms of gross revenues. Each were top-notch and met The Boston Consulting Group's success criteria.

After 5 interviews, The Boston Consulting Group narrowed it down to two CFOs. These were the only external candidates.

It took about 4 weeks to do the research and the interviewing for a $700,000 job.

My research was good; it gave my client the impetus to hire the internal candidate with confidence that this was the right decision.

A great research project.