This Week, In Recruiting – Issue No9

Remember: Recruiting Brainfood for evergreen, deep-dive curated recruiting + HR content

Sponsored by our friends at Triplebyte

Resumes are subjective and bias-prone. Use skills data to identify the talent you should interview.  Triplebyte Screen provides a granular skills report for each applicant, including calibration against 200,000+ engineers who have taken the assessment. This gives hiring teams a data-driven way to identify top talent, reduce wasted interviews and find hidden gems from underrepresented backgrounds. Triplebyte Screen is completely Free to use, forever. Get started screening today!

---

This Week, In Recruiting – Issue No6

Open Kitchen

What I learned about LinkedIn in last Friday’s Brainfood Live with Andy Foote, is that I don’t know much about LinkedIn.

This place is such a multi-product, multi-feature beast that unless you are a full-time consultant on it there is next to no chance of being on top of it all. So I’m going to use today’s segment to share some of the stuff I learned, need to know more about, and why I think it could be important for most of us here.

1. LinkedIn #Hashtags (Specifically: Create & Market Your Own)

Did you know that you could follow hashtags? I didn’t. So I have been using them quite casually, more as an indicator to the human reader what my post might about, rather than thinking about how they might become ‘channel-within-a-channel’ to increase the relevancy of the content on the newsfeed. Following a hashtag, means you’ll end up seeing more posts with that hashtag in your newsfeed. Obviously. I’m going to blame a school-age sports concussion on my Homer Simpson-like speed-on-the-uptake on this ?

Applying the law of diminishing returns to generic hashtags (i.e #recruiting), the better strategy according to Andy might be creating your own hashtags (i.e. #recruitingbrainfood) and using them consistently enough so that they become included in the LinkedIn hashtag taxonomy and henceforth be additionally discoverable by search or recommendation.

Hashtags do exist as their own thing – you can find and follow #recruitingbrainfood for example, as the hashtag has its own page, but this probably only gets generated after it hits a certain frequency of use. #TWIR for example doesn’t exist yet as its own page. It will be a good experiment to see whether I can get it created so I will be using it consistently for the promotion of This Week, In Recruiting. Anyways, food for thought for audience builders – if you do any regular posting on LinkedIn, you probably want to do it on your own hashtag

2. LinkedIn Events (Specifically: Use Registration Form to Collect Email)

LinkedIn Events have been an irrelevance for most of the time they have been around….but would that change if you knew you could download the email addresses of your attendees? Well, it seems since at least January this year that is exactly what you can do. 

So LinkedIn Events has become Eventbrite-on-LinkedIn without too many people noticing, with the same advantages and disadvantages that come with that. We now get a way to access LinkedIn user emails – something we haven’t had since it was removed from Contact Export in 2018 – but only if they become registered attendees to our LinkedIn Events. The disadvantage comes with an additional acquisition load now required – there is no bulk invite for connections to events (a good thing) which means some labor-intensive work doing one-to-one invitations. I sense a secondary market of not-entirely-allowed LinkedIn outsourcing to emerge to do this.

Ultimately, this may be a stepping stone toward changing the primary location of LinkedIn Live – the live streaming service which is still in the beta stage for so many people – from personal profile to LinkedIn Event, so that the live stream might in future only be available for registered attendees to events rather than anyone who happens upon the Livestream in the newsfeed…

3. LinkedIn Live (Personal, Page, Group, or Event?)

….which will basically go to mean ‘more marketing’. Good and bad again – good in the sense that attendees will have intentionally registered to see a Livestream but bad in the sense that they may no longer be able to ‘casually drop in’ if one of your connections going live, which of course is entirely the point of live streaming.

The shift from subscribing at a channel level (i/e a personal profile) to subscribing at an event level (i/e LinkedIn events) will increase the acquisition load for the content producers, meaning an advantage to bigger operations with marketing resources. It will also lead to the production of more marketing appeals – i/e ‘Hung Lee has created (yet another) event, please register!’ – something which I don’t think anyone would welcome. It’s probably a wrong turn for LinkedIn but that doesn’t mean they won’t make it so if you do or have watched any Brainfood Lives from LinkedIn, now might be a good a time as any to follow the channel on Crowdcast and watch it there – it’s always free, from both cost and spam, and most importantly, one-time registration.

4. LinkedIn Groups (Time To Reactivate)

Apparently, there is a significant product team working to revive LinkedIn Groups, once one of the best features of this platform. We’ve seen the return of some admin/moderator features, and you do wonder whether LinkedIn can now see the opportunity they had, squandered, yet may still be able to bring back again.

As Andy mentioned in our chat, whilst we may not visit groups anymore, we’ve also never really left them either. Cast a cursory glance at your group membership after you read this post – I bet you’re surprised at how many groups you might still be a member of!

So group owners likely have a potential audience/community ‘pre-acquired’ from another time, for an original purpose everyone has forgotten about, but which currently just sitting there waiting for something interesting to happen. Maybe Groups will be another place where LinkedIn Live could be piped into, or perhaps it is going to be the primary location for LinkedIn Audio – the rumored Clubhouse clone LinkedIn has said they are building. Now imagine you wanted to run a social audio event and you had a ready-made, interest-segmented group you could re-engage with a new channel.

Food for thought for sure.

Anyways, as ever, in the kitchen too long, onto the lounge.?

---

This Week, In Recruiting – Issue No5

What’s In The News?

SmartRecruiters are launching a new industry-aware – 2021 Internal Recruiting Awards to recognize internal recruiting efforts made by teams in our industry under conditions created by the pandemic. Nominations are open to any employer, regardless of industry, size, geographical location, or market presence. The deadline for submissions is Friday, June 11, so if you think your team has done something amazing, apply here.

Harver exits to Outmatch, as announced on Chad n Cheese’s podcast. One of the crown jewels of the Dutch recruitment tech scene, Harver has been at the leading edge of video-based assessment. Outmatch continue their acquisition spree to create a data-driven assessment powerhouse. Press release here

Firstbird is collecting responses for their annual Employee Referral Program survey. 15 questions, takes about 2 minutes to do, responders get a copy of the report after the responses have been collated. Give it a shot if you are involved in TA / HR.

Remote How is a launching Remote Experts Marketplace – an online space that matches Remote Work Experts with organizations and individuals who want to get the best advice of shifting operations to the remote setting. Open to both sides to apply now, so if you think you know what you’re doing, or you know you don’t, sign up here

Lili, the Neobank catering for freelancers and solopreneurs, raises $55 million Series B to build our team and platform. Payroll for the new world of work is a super-hot category. Techcrunch report here

Worksome raises $13 million Series A to help build out their freelancer marketplace platform. Surging investments into the space opening up for a new way of working. Particularly interesting is the back-office component of this platform – a massive headache for employers who might otherwise be keen to diversify their workforce. Techcrunch has a decent piece on it here

Davies Group, announce the acquisition of Grovelands, a specialist recruiter in fraud, financial crime, remediation, and regulatory transformation projects in highly regulated markets. Press release here

Finally, our buddies at Handshake announce a massive $80 million dollar raise at a $1.5billion dollar valuation to become the latest HR tech unicorn. LinkedIn – the social network for professionals – left a massive gap in the market for early career talent who don’t have a lot of work experience. That is space Handshake is now very well placed to fill. Congrats especially to my buddy Dimitar Stanimiroff, picking winners again 😉

If you are a recruitment service provider or technology business and have any news to share, comment below, this is your application to get into next week’s edition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it

——————————————————————————————————

What’s On?

H.U.G Digital – Your Virtual HR Experience, 18-19 May, 10.00 am CET

Europe’s biggest get-together of HR happening this week – it’s H.U.G Digital by our friends at Personio. Speakers from Spotify, Volvo, Accel, Babbel, and many more. Excited by the networking component also. Packed event folks so worth dipping into this, even if you cannot commit to the two full days. Best of all? Zero cost to you – register here

The HR Congress, 18-19 May, 8 am-5 pm BST

This looks like a great event. Came across this late but realized that a few Brainfooders were speaking at this and checked it out – and wow – this should be an intellectual deep dive. Superb speakers list, including Dr. Richard Claydon, Barry Flack, Siobhan McHale, Dave Ulrich, and many others. Full agenda here, register for your free tickets, here

#TheCandEs Virtual Conference: Diverse & Inclusive Recruiting, Hiring & Candidate Experience, 19-20 May, 11.00am – 3pm EST

Kevin Grossman of the TalentBoard leads #TheCandEs in a 2-day virtual conference, focusing on the intersection of CX & DEIB. Love the focus and the refreshing speaker lineup. Free to register folks so do it here, but please also consider a small donation to the organizers.

LinkedIn Solved Day 1, 19 May, 8 am PST / Day 2, 20 May 8 am PST

There are few people in the business who know more about sourcing on LinkedIn than David Galley and Irina Shamaeva. Limited seat workshop with these two legends on how to overcome search limitations and use hidden operators on LinkedIn. Going to be worth the money folks (only $99.00 per session). Check it out here

Mental Health – The number 1 mistake businesses make within the Workplace, 20 May, 11 am BST

What is the No1 mistake businesses are making when trying to support employees’ mental health? 1-hour webinar from our buddies at Claremont Consulting and Everymind at Work promises to deliver 100% tactical session for HR & Employee Wellbeing practitioners. Free to check out, so check it out, here

Brainfood Live On Air – Ep109 – Moving from Agency to In-house, 21 May, 12.00pm BST

Responding to a load of inquiries from recruiters who are thinking about moving in-house. The market has changed so much since the days where it was an admin role for juniors or for recruiters who had been burnt out by the pressure of agency. We’re going to talk with people who have done it and people who recruiter recruiters who are doing it – and hopefully finding the right formula which helps ease the transition. Register here

2021 National Mental Health Break, 21 May, 3.00 pm EST

Covid-19 has been enforced learning on all of us on the importance of mental health, especially in the workplace. Hosted by Shine, the award-winning self-care app, sign up to get the free mental health break guide and learn how to bring National Mental Health Break 2021 to your workplace. Register here

If you have an event, webinar, or podcast going on next week and want it featured in next week’s newsletter, comment below with the link and event details. Don’t forget to @ mention me so that I see it

—————————————————————————————————————

Who’s Hiring?

Senior Recruiter, Techaxis, Remote Germany

Senior Recruiter, Techaxis, Remote Netherlands

Talent Acquisition Manager, Techaxis, Remote United Kingdom

Associate Recruiter, Techaxis, Remote United Kingdom

Global Talent Attraction Lead, 5CA, Remote EMEA

Senior Recruiter (Temporary), BCG Digital Ventures, Manhattan Beach, CA, USA

Senior Recruiter (Temporary), BCG Digital Ventures, New York, NY/NJ, USA

Talent Acquisition Manager – Business (m/f/d) (German-speaking), Personio, Munich, Germany

Senior Talent Acquisition Manager (m/f/d) (German-speaking), Personio, Munich, Germany

Talent Sourcer (m/f/d) (German-speaking), Personio, Munich or Remote Germany

Talent Acquisition Manager – Product & Analytics (m/f/d), Personio, Munich or Remote Germany

Talent Acquisition Manager Engineering (m/f/d), Personio – Munich or Remote Germany

Talent Acquisition Manager, Gearset, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Talent Scout, Adobe, Paris, France

Talent Acquisition Consultant, Allstate, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

Talent Acquisition Sourcing Specialist, IQVIA, Bratislava, Slovakia (but also several alternative locations throughout Europe – check link)

If you want your job freely promoted in this newsletter next week, comment below with the link to the job. No third-party jobs or links to third-party sites. Don’t forget to @ mention me so that I see it

——————————————————————————————————

Who’s Available?

Anybody?

This segment is used to promote job seeker members of the community so I’ll be as pleased as anyone to be able to retire this segment for lack of use! The market has certainly picked up and demand for TA / HR folks is as high – maybe higher than the pre-pandemic peak. That may not be the case for everyone though, so if you are on the market, let me know if you want to be featured for next week.

If you are on the market or available for extra work, comment below with the ideal type of job you are looking for (job title, type of company, contract type, location). Don’t forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

——————————————————————————————————

Who’s Moving?

Bao Le steps up to Global Head of Talent at Just Auto Insurance after a 2-year stint as Head of Sales and Partnerships. Bao has been a long-time brainfood and a great supporter of the community, best wishes in this new focus with the business.

Peter Gold leaves Cornerstone OnDemand after 3 years as Manager Recruiting Solutions EMEA. No question Peter will have some interesting ideas on his next step, but in the meantime, enjoy the break, the scenery, and enjoy the ride 😉

Lorraine Rew joins xDesign as Senior Talent Acquisition Manager. It’s always great to keep up with former colleagues and see them get on. Congratulations to Lorraine and xDesign.

Tash Johnston, joins Irinabina Autism Services as Head of Talent Acquisition, after 2 years at the ATO. A huge supporter of the brainfood community down under, many congratulations on this move.

Andrew Hill, joins AMS as Recruitment Specialist, after 4 years with NatWest Group. Proper move this – swapping out sunny Manchester for even sunnier California. Good luck with the adventure Andrew!

Theresa Basnett Sandiford joins LinkedIn as Enterprise Relationship Manager after 2 years as Partnership Director at In-house Recruitment (IHR). Perfect hire for LinkedIn

Jason Webster, joins Handshake as Director of Enterprise Sales, after 2 years with Greenhouse Software. I’ve known Jason since the Ongig days – few people have a stronger network in HR tech sales, a great score for Handshake

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business, and feel the wider community needs to know about it, comment below with the details and see it featured in next week’s issue. Don’t forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

——————————————————————————————————

What Are You Doing?

Ben Fletcher launches a new business – Mothership. Simple proposition – if you have a business and want to sell it, get it valued here and an offer or not will be tailored to you in 30 days or less. Take the pain out of business sales – get in touch here

Nathan Beach is building an Open Database of University Spinouts – a database comparing deal terms offered by Universities for student entrepreneurs who want to ‘spin out’ their idea into a business. Great initiative to improve transparency for often early-career entrepreneurs

Mark Barnicoat, has a new business – launching Peeq, a boutique consultancy specializing in consultancy and talent supply for TA / HR departments.

Christian Payne gets into tech RPO with his new multi-tier service offering, Talentiir. Based in Copenhagen – great to see the growth of the tech scale-up market.

Daniel Plesa is launching not one but two new resources – StartupJobs, a job board aggregator for the tech scene in the Netherlands, and Hiring Resources, a gated community for People & HR professionals primarily sharing HR templates.

If you are doing something new, comment below with what it is and share a link to where you want people to go. Don’t forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

——————————————————————————————————

End Notes

It massive week for events it seems, with so many good things going on. Additionally, I hear rumors that some juicy in-person stuff will be happening in the summer, fingers crossed. Let me know which events you are going to, and which ones you enjoy most – we’ve probably worked out a few things now about how online events go – is there a formula for a successful event development?

OK, so that is it so far.

As ever, if you want inclusion on any of the segments above, comment below in response to this newsletter, and it should go in for Issue No10…..

Thanks

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both of you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in the world of work.