Ivan A. Stojnanovic
Founder of Portal Ltd.
MD of EmployIreland.ie and eRecruit.ie
60% of people think that recruiters will be replaced by AI. What do you think?
Likelihood of GenAl replacing a human in performing a skill, % share of skills in US job postings on Indeed, calculated as the average of daily values over the past year (August 1, 2023, to July 31, 2024).
With 2020 slowly coming to end I’ve decided to reflect on my experience. The recruiting industry faced many challenges this year from working remotely, to hiring freezes, to dealing with a global pandemic. Recruiters have faced a ton of challenges this year.
Virtual Interviewing
At the beginning of March many countries went into full lockdowns. With that many businesses for the first time allowed employees to work fully remotely. For my team, it might have shifted from doing in-person final round interviews to conducting those interviews over Zoom calls.
Employment Branding
Recruiters had to shift away from in person interviews and this impacted how to sell a company’s culture and environment. Employment branding had to quickly be utilized for company brands. I had the opportunity to interview Zack Gallinger on this topic.
I’ve spoken with a lot of recruiters over the past few months and there is no question that virtually everyone is struggling. The recruiters that have maintained the most business are those that have a strong unique selling proposition (USP). A unique selling proposition is a “unique benefit exhibited by a company, service, product or brand that enables it to stand out from competitors.”
Challenging Job Market
We’ve had to continuously change our process to deal with this bullish candidate market. Majority of candidates are requesting fully remote roles. It’s tough if your company does require even relocation.
Predicting 2021
In 2021, companies will still be on edge. Many will still be on hold and cautious to hiring. Hopefully, by mid-year thing’s will calm down and go back to normal after a vaccine is widely distributed globally.
I’ve predicted other changes for the upcoming year and how Covid will impact things below:
About the Author
Jonathan Kidder, AKA the “Wizard Sourcer,” is a top-ranked technical talent sourcing recruiter, staffing expert, and corporate trainer who assists organizations of all sizes in identifying and attracting top talent. A wizard at harnessing the power of social networking, Boolean strings, search aggregators, deep web searching, scrapers, and other advanced technology tricks and tools. In 2015, he founded a recruiting blog called WizardSourcer. Which has become one of leading knowledge resources for recruiters online. His mission is simple: To help Recruiters and Talent Sourcers stay updated on the latest sourcing trends within our community.
What are the Top 5 most in demand skills in Ireland February 2017?
I was looking at the Welcome to IBM® Kenexa® Prove It!® on Cloud tests today. I took the Excel 2013 one. And it was fun!
I took a test on the latest Dell XPS laptop. For those who know little about Dell ranges, those are the fancy fast ones. So here is how it went:
Kenexa needs Java
You remember those annoying popups we used to get, Java this, Java that, Java Update and something? Well Kenexa sends to to Oracle site to Install THAT old Java. Great! So I am installing Java. Accepting any rubbish that comes along to get Java. I am seeing how Yahoo is becoming my default search engine… Fabulous!
Reboot PC to get Java running, opening online the site in the browser, nothing is happening, I am getting the same error message: You need Java. Java, that I just got?!
I remembered that Google Chrome was not really supportive of Java, so I try with another browser (that Win 10 “thing”). That didn’t run Java either but suggested to “Open a link in Internet Explorer”. Old buggy one, I am thinking but let’s risk it! #YOLO
Internet Explorer opens Kenexa site and is running Java! Bingo! We are in business!
I am signing up to the Excel 2013 test and really looking forward to it. Now remember I have a quite new laptop, one that comes with the 4K resolution. Here is how my screen looks. Can you read it? Neither could I!
All the zooming in or font increases or anything that is within my knowledge doesn’t help me get the test to a state where I can actually read what’s on the screen.
I just decided, Kenexa, you know what, that is really a wonderful customer experience. And CTRL+ALT+DEL – into Task Manager to kill the application.
So if you are using Kenexa for assessing your candidates… you might want to try to use it yourself before you push it on your applicants.
In Recruitment: candidate experience matters!!!
Just found an interesting HR Director job advertised by Amazon Ireland. I really, really like it, and I think it would be good for it myself! I do not think Amazon is ready to go outside of the box and hire people like me for a role like that. Could I be wrong? Corporations might be screaming the word “Diversity” but leadership roles rarely get filled by really embracing it. Foreign accents are absent in boardrooms in Ireland. And that is exactly what an HR Director should work on! Chicken or egg situation isn’t it? :)
Anyway, I love the job description! It is slightly messy, someone was editing it a lot, so paragraph titles do not correspond much to the text beneath them – Benefits is the best example. But it does show a high level of creativity, a lot of care and, above all: modern thinking!
I wonder if the recruiter receiving applications, will simply decline all applicants without “HR Director” as a current title? Will they look for credentials as opposed to experience? Will they look for school grades or charisma – that is one of the top requirements of a great HR Director? I don’t know…
Anyway, I like it and wish all the best to who gets it. I’ll just be singing Ray Charles – It Should Have Been Me…
Here is a cool job advertisement:
Director, AWS HR
Job description
Position Summary
The Head of HR, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Ireland carries a critical role in managing Amazon’s human capital capability and requires a progressive, data-driven, customer-obsessed Human Resources Leader. This role will be pivotal in scaling an innovative, groundbreaking business.
Responsibilities
Direct responsibilities include providing support to a diverse set of businesses represented across the AWS businesses. The population is varied with a strong technical orientation – this includes data centre technicians working shift patterns, field workers, technical customer services and contractors. The Human Resources team consists of HR Business Partners supported by HR Shared Services, with indirect responsibilities including Web Consumer, Kindle and Ireland Compensation & Benefits.
The position is based in Dublin, Ireland. It will report into the Head of HR, EU AWS.
Key Responsibilities
Day To Day, This Person Will
Provide strong HR leadership and direction to HR business partners and Talent Acquisition teams in Ireland
Earn trust as a partner to the Ireland Leadership Teams, EU as well as global HR Team and beyond
Contribute to EU and global HR team, working beyond a local remit; will be recognized as having added value to the business, not just HR, by business unit and functional heads even outside the core geographies;
Be known for setting HR goals that are based on business drivers and ensuring HR is always looking for underlying people issues to help solve business challenges.
Interact and build strong, productive relationships with Amazon UK Corporate, Operations, Kindle and Digital
Manage and further build a strong, structured HR team with succession bench strength; identify, attract and develop new HR talent and provide a clear roadmap to progress further
Objectives
Focus and Deliverables for the First 12 Months
Further develop and coach the existing HR team to grow further and provide best-in-class HR business partner service to their clients
Act as counselor and trusted advisor to the Ireland Senior Leadership Team, coaching them to hone leadership skills
Build global relationships with other HR partners and business heads; will be recognized as having added value to the business, not just HR, by business unit and functional heads in all geographies
Will have ‘moved the needle’ in Ireland through innovation; will have produced and developed programs to provide measurable results– by time saved, revenue added etc.
Impact the role of the EU HR Leader through questioning perceived norms, bringing original perspectives to existing challenges and trying new methods to achieve results
Ideal Candidate Profile
Education
University degree required
MBA, additional technical or analytical qualification ideal but not essential
Fluent English is required
Experience
The ideal candidate will be an experienced leader with a reputation for hiring and developing the best teams and taking brave and innovative talent decisions. They will have earned the trust of executives, peers and teams through challenging preconceived norms to add value to a business beyond a pure human capital remit, developing programs that yield measurable change. Possessing natural gravitas and credibility, the ideal candidate will have a proven track record of acting as a counsellor and sounding board to CEOs or MDs and will be recognized for providing guidance that is indispensable in critical decision making.
Benefits
They will have built deep relationships across cultural boundaries with both the business and peers within a global, senior HR team and will be respected for approaching challenges with original thinking, penetrating insight and tenacity. They may well also be a subject matter expert in a human capital discipline such as Learning & Development, Talent Management or Compensation and Benefits. Experience of American corporate culture or post-merger / acquisition integration environments may also be beneficial.
The Head of HR, AWS Ireland will be a natural ‘strategic do-er’ who will balance execution strength with strategic insight and may have had previous experience with an online or a game changing organization. They will thrive in fast paced, data-driven environments and will have excellent communication and presentation skills, able to ‘zoom-in and zoom-out’ of detail while not losing sight of bigger-picture objectives. They will have a preference for fact-based decision making, be numerate, write well and quickly and be able to effortlessly influence across cultures.
Team leadership; will have developed a best-in-class HR team, preferably in an international role
Will have worked in an international, matrixed environment, preferably online
Will be adept at coaching; direct but subtle at all levels
Will have operated at pace; preferably in an organization experiencing hyper-growth in new markets
Will have delivered change and measurable results in environments with high levels of ambiguity where proven structures or complete data are not the norm
Professional Qualities
Professional Traits That Are Not Unique To This Position, But Necessary For Amazon Leaders
Is a great people manager that understand to further build, develop and motivate a great team
Is highly analytical and structured
Thinks strategically and long term, but can also dive deep and stays on top of tactical execution
Exhibits excellent business judgment
Create an environment where innovative drive is fostered
Is a superb negotiator, at ease sitting down with top level executives with vendors and manufacturers
Has relentlessly high standards
Is action and results oriented
It should have been me….
If you ask students in Ireland what companies provide the best opportunities you get some very interesting results!
Here are the top ten companies Irish IT students would like to work for:
1 Google
– Not a surprise. They have the tallest building in Dublin located in Dublin Docklands, area admired by cool young people.
2 Apple
– I got the new iPhone for 18th birthday and unfortunately the glass got broken on the party the same evening.
3 Microsoft
– Sound choice for Southsiders. There is even a parking space for every employee.
4 Intel
– Well there needs to be a space for the gadget geeks.
5 Facebook
– Got to “Like” it.
6 Boston Scientific
– I never actually got what these guys do?
7 Samsung
– Yeah, I hate Apple fanboys (and my iPhone broke on my 18th birthday…)!
8 Boeing
– Now that is surely caused by traumas from a childhood spent in cheap Ryanair flights.
9 IBM
– Didn’t know that crowd is still around.
10 Disney
– These guys are doing a really early start of their recruitment milk round. No wonder some students never shake it off.
It’s all cool that Dropbox has the Muppets in their recruitment video, but for the Employers Branding perspective, I would like to see at least one face there. Remember how well was it done in the original Muppets, where a guest of the show was a human? Could we not see one human the candidates could relate to in this Dropbox recruitment video?
I wrote various blog posts about the use of video in recruitment. I am not talking here about the video interviewing products, but creating the employment branding videos.
What NASA just published is simply great!
The youth unemployment is still in the double digits numbers in almost all European countries. The recession is slowly receding and there are positive signs all over. The US stock market is at it’s highest numbers ever, the oil price is on the other end of the scale, and that is all helping the economy – increasing your chances to land in a job you wanted!
One thing was the truth before the recession, during it and is still very much the truth now: You are in the driving seat of your career! If you want to become a Formula 1 driver you need to start somewhere. here is a local Driving Lessons school in Dublin. If you don’t do all you can to land it that dream job of yours, it very unlikely to happen. Why? There are plenty of of the colleagues of your yours who WILL do all they can to compete with you for the same job. The one who puts the most effort, and does it best will land in the best job. Will it be you? If you do all you can, you will get a job you deserve!
The most important is not to give up. Not to give up before you even started. The job will not come to you, you have to go and get it. Remember, even in the worst European economies, the majority of graduates do get a job almost straight out of college. Why do they get it? Because they have done something about it. They went out, looked around, found what they wanted and did all they could to land in their desired role.
And so should you.
Sending your application and the CV via the job sites, in the comfort of your home is far them enough nowadays. Uploading your CV to the CV databases and waiting to be found, rarely ever works any more. Having the perfect LinkedIn profile is nice, but itself usually does absolutely nothing for your career, especially in the early stages of it. Recruiters are sourcing for the experience that simply isn’t there on your LinkedIn profile.
Ireland is the 4th best country at attracting migrants with university degrees, according to the OECD data.
With that in mind, can you believe there are still companies in Ireland who what to hire only the local candidates? Talking about the missed opportunity and losing a competitive advantage.
I don’t think it is fair to say that a cover letter can get you a job on its own, however, it can definitely get you an interview. If after the interview process it is between to very closely matched candidates, the recruiter may refer back to the cover letters and that could sway their decision.
A cover letter is a great tool to highlight what you can’t fit into your CV, so make the most the opportunity to showcase your talents and don’t waste it.
What is the recruiter looking for
You as a candidate need to identify what a recruiter is looking for in a candidate, a job spec should be able to tell you this along with a quick look at the company website. Your cover letter should then highlight what you have done in your career and the benefit you would be to the company.
Highlight why you have chosen their company
We all know the situation when we meet somebody for the first time and all they do is talk about themselves, well don’t fall into that same trap. Explaining why you have chosen a particular company will give you a chance to highlight the research you have done on the company. It can help give you an advantage over other candidates by allowing you to explain why your skills and competencies are a close fit for what the company is looking for.
Personalise your cover letter
Sometimes a personal touch on a cover letter can make you stand out from the crowd, for example, “After living in Australia for 3 years I am really looking forward to moving home and working in a full-time job”. This can show recruiters the human side to your CV and it can also indicate to them that a person is serious about finding a good job and they are willing to work hard.
Make the recruiter want to keep reading
Your key objective is to capture the recruiter’s imagination so that they want to keep reading. A good idea is to highlight something that you have done such as “I increased turnover in our department by 15% in my first two months”, immediately you will have captured the recruiter’s imagination and the first thing they are going to want to know is how you did this.
The whole purpose of a cover letter is to get you an interview and if you can get the recruiter’s attention and they are willing to meet you, then you have succeeded in your task.
This post is written by the staff of: Skillda Careers – a leading careers website providing you with tips and advice to ensure your success in the jobs market.
When you combine a lot of creativity, technology, great skills and passion, you crate the great stuff! Here is a sample of such great stuff from my friends in Ericsson.
The recession had a very negative effect on the Irish job board industry. All the job boards are struggling. The number of jobs advertised in the last 5 years is lower than the number of jobs advertised in a single year before the recession. All that is really happening in the jobs board space are sites that really never get any mileage. Most just lack the innovation really. Publishing and marketing a jobs board in 2014 and using the marketing channels of the ’90-es, does not work as well.
Job Aggregators in Ireland
The recession brought aggregators to Ireland. Those have a benefit of a low marketing cost, so the recession suites them. They all work in some or another freemium model. The easy adoption is fuelled by the fact no manual work or investment is required from the employers. It costs nothing so why not? In Ireland, especially in the recession, we learned to like the “free”!
SPAMmers
There isn’t a month that a new Irish aggregator job site isn’t published. As an employer, they email you with the link to their site that is full of jobs. You might even find your own ones, although those might be the ones you had advertised on some job site a year ago. Those sites are usually low-cost web sites with about a penny invested in the design. They usually contain links to their supposedly social media profiles. By clicking on those you will most likely find that they have about 1 (or even not even that!), followers, likes, etc. The one I got today called www.JobsIE.ie – took their ignorance to the new level and didn’t even make the social media profiles they are linking to from their page. All those are the sites bound to disappear in the darkness of the Big Data on the internet. Never to be found by the search engines or the visitors. Their business model is based on spamming the employers and job seekers, with an aim to sell anything on top of their fermium model. Quite often they are passing off as a known job site, in this case, JobsIE.ie sounds like the Jobs.ie by SAON Group. Some employers might be fooled and actually end up paying them thinking they are paying a known job board, with over 10 years in existence.
International Aggregator job sites
The largest international aggregator job site that shored in Ireland is, of course, Indeed.ie. Is it profitable here in Ireland? I am guessing not. Do they care about it? I am guessing not as well. By having their presence in Ireland they are probably using Ireland as the rest of the internationals, paying their taxes here, or .. ehm,… avoiding to do so as to do Google, Apple, and the rest of the US gang here.
What is next for the Irish job sites?
It really depends on how the Irish economy develops in the years to come. If the recession continues, it is unlikely for any new job site to appear, and it effectively means a Status Quo. A handful of the leading sites will still be here, not turning any or turning a minimal profit. The shortage of proper advertising budgets will benefit those scammers and imposters. On the other hand, if the economy turns around, and especially if it does so rapidly (oh how we all wish that to happen!?), the new doors will open. There will be space for innovation. There will be space for the entrepreneurial spirit and new projects to be launched in this space. That is simply because there is no model that actually works well for everyone in the online recruitment today. LinkedIn, we know now isn’t the answer for most jobs. Neither is a traditional job site like IrishJobs. Monster changes so many times lately that I do not know what it is any more (but a CV database)? BranchOut and all those apps sitting on top of Facebook simply do not deliver anything to anyone. We need something new for the future. What do you think it is?
Facebook boasts a wealth of data about your relationships but very little professional information. LinkedIn is just the opposite.
A startup called Discoverly has developed a chrome extension that marries data from Facebook and LinkedIn. Founder and chief executive Theodore Summe jokes that Discoverly is “playing Switzerland” between the two social networking giants, which don’t speak to each other.
“Facebook and LinkedIn are great but don’t play well together, so valuable potential of users’ social data goes unrealized,” Summe told me via email. San Francisco-based Discoverly is building a series of products under the tagline “putting social to work,” and it competes with social business services like Rapportive.
Prior to starting Discoverly, Summe worked as a senior product manager for the Chatter product at Salesforce and was a technical analyst at Morgan Stanley. He has grown the team to five employees, including a UI and developer lead.
Summe gave me a link to the beta version, so I was able to give the service a whirl prior to today’s launch. I clicked the link, registered both my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, downloaded a Chrome extension, and waited about five minutes for the service to “warm up.”
Once you’ve installed the free extension, you’ll be asked a series of personal and professional questions. I completed the quiz in a few minutes and was informed that I’m “practical, realistic, matter-of-fact,” which are qualities that I apparently share with both Michelle Obama and Alec Baldwin. Winning.
You’re also invited to create infographics from your social data. Discoverly can pull information from Facebook and LinkedIn to discern the location of your friends, popular universities in your network, and other insights. This is a particularly useful feature for those who are considering applying to college or moving for a job.
All in all, it’s well worth the five-minute download to view Facebook data on LinkedIn, and vice versa.
Recruiters might use Discoverly’s chrome extension to track down candidates and quickly discover whether they share any mutual friends on LinkedIn or Facebook. It’s also potentially valuable for graduating students and new entrants to the job market.
At every turn, you’re asked to share Discoverly’s findings with your friend networks. Clearly, the product is built to go viral. It’s fun and contains some useful information, so I could see it taking off.
From a privacy standpoint, Summe stresses that you already have access to this information on Facebook and LinkedIn. The startup merely makes it a bit easier to navigate. It won’t share that you’re using the service with your networks without your permission.
Discoverly also offers a business service, which is primarily how it plans to make money. That product is used by 40 corporate customers in beta. The startup has raised a small seed round of $750,000 from Bessemer Venture Partners, Atlas Ventures, and senior executives at Yammer. It’s a graduate of the Silicon Valley-based Alchemist accelerator, which only accepts early-stage enterprise startups.
Good people from Computer futures have sent me some great muffins. Thanks, guys!
It’s not that often that I get branded food! I like it!
