ESPN Highlights from the Borgata Hotel & Casino
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the Thought Leadership Institute’s event at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City. I can’t remember attending an event where I remember learning more. Here is a download of the highlights of what I learned. Warning, this will be a bit miscellaneous, but so is my brain.
The Bat-Phone. I met real veteran of high level executive recruiting. When I talked to him I felt like I was talking to someone in “black ops recruiting.” One technique that is used these days for executive recruiting is to send the prospective target / candidate an i-Phone loaded up with a bunch of hand picked applications. The “targets” and their kids love it. More importantly, it provides a secure line between the recruiter and the candidate that the candidate is SURE to answer.
Freezing the Market. One leading staffing head was asked, “Do you use headhunters?” His response was a different sounding “yes.” He said company engages the top headhunters to neutralize them so that they don’t recruit their best people. Now this is a company that treats talent as a source of competitive advantage. Things are indeed not always as they seem.
Negative Design. One staffing head uses this practice to build a top rate candidate experience. When he visits a countries recruiting staff, he poses the question, “What can we do to guarantee that a candidate will never return our call after an interview?” Then the HR / Recruiter staff proceeds to list all the details that would offend a candidate:
a. We would have them stay at these forgettable hotels
b. We would take them to ugly route from the hotel to the office
c. We would leave them in the lobby too long
d. Our interviewers would be late and un-prepared
e. We wouldn’t……
The staff then designs the recruiting process so that none of the negative things are part of the recruiting process. He spoke of controlling the experience. If there is such a thing as brilliant common sense, then this is it.
Aspirational Hiring. “Who is the best brand manager in Moscow? I don’t care what industry he/she is from – Let’s go get’em! Get an i-Phone in the mail.” This company does this for ALL positions. I finally met someone that is actually more extreme then all of the Talent Management Theory.
“We Recruit the Family.” This is what a particular staffing head said nine times during his presentation. His team tunes into the family’s social media signal (i.e. the kids) and they keep focused on making the family happy. If the family isn’t happy, it will not work. I thought I was listening to an SEC football coach.
“Kevin-Bacon-afication.” The six degrees of Kevin Bacon is a game that most people have heard of. In preparing for my talk, I actually decided to see if I was connected to Kevin Bacon. Shockingly, I am now 2 degrees from the real Kevin Bacon. This is hilarious and it also highlights the looming reality that we will all be able to identify everyone at a point in the near future. What does that mean going forward for the role of the recruiter?
“Recruitville.” I had a blast floating a challenge to the participants to design a Farmville like recruiting game. The group came up with some very useful and interesting LEVELS of recruiting mastery. Stay tuned from a deeper piece on this one.
Linking Recruiting to Performance. One recruiting organization links recruiter performance to the performance rating of their placements for three years. Again, I have finally met someone that goes beyond the theory.
Thanks to the TLI team for an inspiring and thought provoking event.
January 22, 2010
9.21.2010 - Elaine and Mark will be presenting their valuable insight on timely topics. For more information,