If you’re new to the Twittersphere, here’s a few basic tips. Starting a Twitter account is as easy as logging on to www.twitter.com and filling out the form. But that won’t get you followers. For that, go to search.twitter.com and search on basic terms like #job, #employment, or one of the more popular Twitter abbreviations, #NAJ (Need a Job). You’ll get hundreds of potential contacts. Take the time to read the comments and re-tweet the ones you like. Twitter recommends using this method to help you find your own voice. You’ve only got 140 characters for each tweet, so keep it short and use abbreviations whenever you can. Also, use sites like www.tinyurl.com or www.bitly.com to create abbreviated URLs. Use hash tags (as in the search words above) to have your posts included in jobseeker searches (No special trick: just add the hash or pound symbol right before a key word). Integrate your Twitter account with Facebook to reach more people, and be sure to have a strong company website that lists the available openings as soon as you tweet them.

By its nature, Twitter is a quick and breezy environment. It is a good idea to focus your Twitter account on open jobs. Sure, you can send the occasional tweet about an upcoming job fair or trade show, but if people know to look to your tweets for new jobs, they will follow you and respond to your messages. If you have an RSS feed, you can use www.twitterfeed.com  to automatically send tweets from the RSS. This free service saves you from manually tweeting all day. It will also send the links so that your applicants leave Twitter and go directly to your application site. Twitterfeed doesn’t have a tracking component, so be sure to include a question about how applicants found you on your target site. However, if you get Twitterfeed or another service, don’t just let the computer do all the work. Twitter is a 2-way conversation, and you’ll make a lot of new friends (read: new applicants) if you’re willing to tweet back and forth with them. Use the @ handles (as in @keitholbermann) to make your tweets more personable and attract their attention.

Twitter is an exciting tool for communication and recruiting. Take some time to get to know it and it will help you find the best candidates. Then you’ll go away singing “Ah, Tweet Mystery of Life, at last I’ve found you”! -Thomas Cunniffe

There are several pre-fabricated time management plans on the market, but you’re unique, so why should you try to fit your life into someone else’s plan? The key to any successful time management plan is self-evaluation. How do you work? When are your most productive hours? What parts of your day do you enjoy most? Now, combine the answers to those questions with simple priorities. What are the most important things you must accomplish each day? What time of day is most conducive for making the most of your time? So, for example, let’s say that you enjoy talking to prospective candidates and the best time to contact them is the evening at home, rather than in the office during the day. Great! Set up a block of time for calling candidates, determine the best environment for doing the job, turn off the computer monitor, close the door, smile and dial. Now, continue the process for your second most important task and so on. Once you have several blocks of time set at optimum work times, you’ll have some empty spots. This is the time to take care of ongoing projects like entering candidates into the CRM, or for meetings with co-workers. Again, if you know your own work habits, you know what will work for you. Data entry is a great way to keep your mind active without drawing on your creative side, so find the times that work best for you and plug them in. And speaking of plugging in, play background music while performing those mundane tasks. Personally, I’ve found that the forward rhythmic momentum in Bach’s keyboard music keeps me moving during these times, but find the music that best suits your situation.

Sounds easy and basic, right? Well, here are the tough parts. You must discipline yourself to follow the plan! The toughest part of any task is getting started. I find that thinking about the best way to do a task makes it easier to start actually doing it. Once you’re in the act of doing something, you’ll usually find that the time passes quickly and you’re getting a lot accomplished. The other difficulty is that something will come up that will distract you from your plan. In those cases, remember the Latin phrase “Semper Gumby: Always Flexible!” Naturally, you’ll want to prioritize these “emergencies”, but if you decide that something just can’t wait, take the time to deal with it, but do it quickly and efficiently so you can get back to your original plan as soon as possible. This brings up the final key to successful time management: Allow more time than you expect to complete a task. Many of us make unreasonable demands on our own time. So, if it takes 90 minutes to call your stack of candidates, allow 2 hours. If you get through the stack early, you can move on to another task or treat yourself to a little extra free time.

The best part of learning effective time management is that once you have the skill, it can become second nature, and you can apply it to other parts of your life. Just think about how much stress you can alleviate by just getting more accomplished. That should keep you motivated at any time of the year.

Health care remains a strong, growing force for job creation and growth. Virtually every branch of this field seems to grow, from medical records and nurse’s aides all the way up to doctors and surgeons. Most of this is due to the implementation of President Obama’s Health Care bill, but experts say that the retirement of Baby Boomers will strike the upper echelons of health care, with new doctors needed for rural areas and small practices.

High-tech continues to grow, especially in the field of cloud computing. The sales and marketing elements of cloud computing have shown a tremendous jump in available positions over the last quarter. Because of the expertise needed, these positions may be very difficult to fill, but the demand is expected to increase. However, it is projected that Management Analyst positions may be easier to fill as there are plenty of qualified candidates in the work force. Outside of cloud computing, demand for system developers and project managers continues to climb.

The demand for accountants is expected to rise in 2012. This appears to be especially true in the New York City area where demand seems to be outweighing supply. Wanted Analytics reports a 25% increase in openings during the fourth quarter of 2011 than in the same period in 2010. Cost accountants may be easier to place because of their transferable skill sets, but tax accountants are also needed. This field may be highly competitive for recruiting companies as they work to fill the available positions.

The field of Industrial Engineering is showing tremendous growth, especially in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Boston and Detroit. The jobs in Houston are proving hard to fill as the local talent pool of industrial engineers covers a mere .17% of the total workforce. To fill the positions, recruiters may want to tap into the talent pools in places like Houma, Louisiana and Palm Bay, Florida, where studies show a greater percentage of industrial engineers.

Finally, manufacturing and production are starting to grow. In Wanted Analytics’ recent report, most of the major sub-categories—including machinists, front-line supervisors, printing machine operators, and assemblers—all made significant upturns in the past 90 days. Welders were the only category that went down (by 16%), but the demand for dressmakers and tailors shot up 313%! The talent pool for these jobs varies widely by city. Wanted Analytics reports that Chicago has a rich talent pool for these positions, but recruiters filling the same jobs in Minneapolis could find the task much more challenging.

As the economy and job markets slowly improve, all indications show that the above industries are the most in-demand. However, only time will tell. You can check back with us next year and see how the predictions held up.

So if you’re just getting started, what’s the best platform to use? For basic usage, Skype and Facetime seem to be the best options. Facetime has become quite popular, but it should be noted that it only works with Apple products. It may seem like everyone has an iPhone or an iPad, but that’s not the case. If you have those products, Facetime is pre-loaded, so you don’t have to worry about downloading software. Skype is now owned by Microsoft, and there are free versions for both PC and Mac applications. Thus, it retains wider usage and availability. Of course, if you want more bells and whistles, all you have to do is Google “video interview platform” and you’ll find plenty of companies dying to sell you their video conferencing packages.

Once you’ve settled on the platforms, the actual task of video interviewing is not that different from in-person interviewing. Yet, there are some elements to remember. First of all, we’re dealing with technology, which means things can go wrong. So, testing the equipment before every interview is an important detail. It’s like the old mantra: count on getting a flat tire on the way to work, and if it doesn’t happen, you’re just there a little early. All of the major platforms allow you to do test runs and let you see what you look like on camera. Assume that the candidate is also doing a test run, but be prepared to make adjustments once you’re both online.

Video interviews can give you great insights on a candidate’s appearance and body language, but keep in mind that the camera and microphone can pick up things that we generally ignore. For example, many coaching sites tell candidates to pick a professional looking atmosphere to place the camera. You should do the same. Keep in mind that white backgrounds can make you look flat, and will create hard shadows. Keep the sun at your back, but never frame against a window as the camera will be unable to discern the light and shadow combination and will put you in silhouette. If you’re looking for eye contact, remember that you must look into the camera, not the screen. Further, as many movie stars have learned, one should train oneself to look at the camera with their downstage eye to avoid looking cross-eyed on camera.  However, the biggest problem can be the microphone, which is usually sensitive enough to pick up all sorts of little noises. The simple act of shuffling papers can sound like a torrential windstorm, and you probably have more paper on your desk than the candidate.

If prepared and conducted correctly, a video interview can save your company the cost of flying a candidate in for an interview, and can help you decide if a candidate is ready to hire or eligible for a further interview.

Gotta go—the mailman’s at my door. Maybe he’s delivering my robot…Thomas Cunnffe

Once you’ve selected the candidates you want to interview, call them to schedule a time for a phone interview. While some candidates might be willing to talk to you right then, it’s best to give them time to prepare for the interview. Many sources recommend that an interviewee find a quiet room for their interview, that they smile while speaking, and refrain from vocal fillers like “um”, “ah” and the like. Of course, this is precisely on-target, since presentation is the key to a successful phone interview. After all, most of us do some of our business over the phone, and as an interviewer, you should be listening for the way the interviewee presents themselves (just as if you were a potential customer).

The interview itself should be structured. Think of a typical college exam: it starts with short answers and finishes with essay questions. In an interview, the short answers are the opening light conversation, the description of the job and its requirements, and a review of the candidate’s job history. As in an exam, the short answers shouldn’t take up too much time, so that the majority of the allotted time can be used to answer the essay questions. These are behavioral questions and as discussed in a previous blog entry, they should deal with specific instances that are common with the position being offered. Throughout the process, take detailed notes of what is said and how it is said. Be prepared to ask follow-up questions if the answers fail to address what you want to know. Maintain a constant speech flow throughout the interview so that there are no “dead spots” and keep the tone conversational so the candidate can feel comfortable in formulating their answers. The interview should close with a summation of the interview process in your company, and when the candidate should expect to hear back from you regarding the next step.

After the call is concluded, take time right away to review your notes and the interview. If you have found reasons why a candidate should not move to the next step, write them down! Don’t go by a “gut feeling” or expect to remember the reason for it later on. Having a list of negative and/or positive points will give you a solid reason for your decision, especially if you must defend it to other members of the hiring team.

Harry Morgan, best known for playing Colonel Sherman Potter on “M*A*S*H”, died earlier this month at the age of 96. One of his best lines as Col. Potter has become a mantra with me: “The world is too big of a place to be in competition with everyone. The only person I need to be better than is the person I am right now.” With the New Year coming up, we’ll all make resolutions that we’ll probably forget by January 15. But improving ourselves must be a primary focus for all of us, regardless of career, age or social status. Recruiters have a unique opportunity to help people improve themselves, but how can we improve ourselves at the same time?

To begin the process of self-improvement, we must know where we are now. Examine your own work habits and find places where you could be better. Analyze everything you do from the opening call to the final placement. Revisit the basics to be sure you’re not ignoring them. If you can, record your calls and study them later for ways to improve them. Don’t expect this to be easy: we all have egos and we have to keep them in check during this process.

Recruiters are in the people business. We must recognize the impact we have on the lives of the people we want to place. Take the time to get to know these people. Probe to find out what matters to them as they seek a new position. Listen carefully as they answer your questions, and note down anything they say that could inspire further questions. Use your knowledge of your clients and their available positions to fine-tune a match between candidate and career. Above all, keep at it—no matter how much research you do, there’s always another avenue to explore.

Recruiters are also in the sales business. We must convince our clients that we can deliver quality candidates in a timely manner, and to do so, we must convince our candidates that our clients are offering them a unique chance to improve their lives. To achieve these goals, being persuasive is one requirement and being a good closer is another. Can you convince someone in an argument, no matter how ridiculous the premise? If not, read Jonathan Swift’s masterful parody “A Modest Proposal” to see some of the methods to create a strong argument. And how many ways can you close a sale? Can you quickly adapt your standard closes to fit the immediate need?

Finally, recruiters are in the follow-up business. As a liaison between companies and candidates, it is vital to keep the communication channels open throughout the recruiting process. Keep everyone in the loop and keep the process moving so the placement can happen quickly and smoothly. If things start to disintegrate, find ways to fix the problems and retain the momentum. And if a deal does fall apart, let all of the parties know that you’ll work hard to complete the work you started.

Your own level of self-improvement will depend on your own experience, but striving for a better version of ourselves is an ongoing process which extends to all aspects of our lives. So make 2012 better for everyone, starting with you. Happy hunting -Thomas Cunniffe

Attracting attention is doubtlessly the most important aspect in writing a successful ad. On most job boards, readers filter the search results by job category and then browse the headlines. Therefore, it is not enough to simply put the job title in the headline. The job title should be included, but with powerful language around it. For example, instead of “Sales”, use something personal and exciting: “Are You an Enthusiastic Sales Professional? We want to talk to you!” The more memorable your headline, the more readers you’ll have.

Once a potential applicant has decided to read your ad, keep their attention by offering them the details they require. Don’t lose the tone of your headline! If you are using a headline like the one above, address the reader directly as “you”. Describe the job as succinctly as possible, using bullet points to identify the major responsibilities of the position. Be sure to tell about any additional expectations. For example, if the job requires evening or weekend work, or extensive travel, an applicant should know that up front. Include a general location and (if applicable) tell whether the office is accessible by public transportation. Be thorough—a job listing with too few details will bring more questions than applications.

Now that you’ve said what you need, tell what you’ll offer. Some indication of the salary should be included, plus a brief description of the benefits. Give an idea of the work environment: if it’s friendly and upbeat, be sure to say so. Emphasize the importance of the position, so that the applicant will feel that his work will matter. Tell of growth opportunities and any relevant awards that your company has won. Don’t short-change this section: make them want to work for you!

Finally, it’s time to encourage the prospective applicant to follow-up. Make it as simple as possible. Always include an e-mail address for submitting resumes. Don’t expect that every applicant has access to a fax machine or has a fax modem in their computer. Specify what type of documents you’ll accept (Word and PDF should be standard) and if your company’s e-mail program won’t allow attachments, be sure to mention that in your ad. And as implied above, if you’re not willing to take phone calls regarding the job, be sure that your ad includes all of the pertinent information. To ensure this, have several co-workers read the ad before you post it. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a village to proofread an ad.

There are several other aspects to consider when creating an ad, including the use of graphics, and whether to use your company name. Basically, those are choices that can vary with the situation. Graphics can add to an ad’s aesthetic feel, but they can also slow down the reader. Many companies don’t want to tell the world that they are looking for help, while others feel that their name will bring in more applicants. Regardless of what you decide on these aspects, the above tips should help you bring in quality candidates. Happy hunting! -Thomas Cunniffe

It is important to be up front with the candidate, and let them know exactly what you’re doing. This establishes trust and prevents a backlash from candidates who thought they were responding to a currently available position. It is the opposite of the sales technique of emphasizing urgency. Here, the candidate should be assured that they are only prospecting at the moment and not making an immediate change. However, you cannot become complacent!

Take the time to contact your candidates on a regular basis. And time is the element. You have to devote the time to reach the candidates, and if you wait too long between contacts, the candidate may lose interest or find another job. Thus, one must not keep too many candidates in the pipeline or the success rate may plummet. And while they’re in the pipeline, take the necessary steps to pre-screen them so that when a position comes open, the hiring process can move forward quickly and efficiently.

So, how to keep the pipeline flowing and minimize leaks? Use that sense of urgency that you held back from the candidate and apply it to the hiring manager. It is easy for hiring managers to be complacent in this economy, but they need to know that candidates in the pipeline will not stay there forever, and when qualified candidates are found, it is important to take action to bring these people onboard. Of course, agency recruiters have an extra avenue to pursue: a candidate growing impatient with one company’s slow hiring process can be offered to another company that moves expediently.

Like any “tried-and-true” method, the candidate pipeline has its benefits and flaws. Yet, with the proper care in maintaining the pipeline and moving forward with the right candidates, it can be a time-saver and efficient recruiting tool.  Happy hunting! -Thomas Cunniffe

An immediate “I’m not interested” or “you’re the fifth recruiter to call me today” can shut down a conversation before it even starts. Some recruiters just ignore these early objections and move on with their pitch, while others respond with a quick witty remark or ask permission to tell about their position before the potential candidate makes a decision. Your personality has to be a big part of your approach on the phone, so use what works best for you, and be willing to adapt your approach to the candidate’s reactions.

Now give a brief synopsis of the job you’re offering, but don’t mention the compensation. Next, ask them about their job history and their salary. You’ll need to know their salary, or at the very least, their salary expectations before telling them the compensation for the position you’re offering. Otherwise, you won’t know if the position you have will fit their financial needs. If the salary is lower than what the potential candidate currently makes, ask them a few probing questions about their previous employers to see if their contentment at a job is centered only on money, or by other factors. Also, try to compare benefits, commissions, bonuses and the like to get a realistic take on the total compensation package.

If the compensation question doesn’t come up right away, ask about the potential candidate’s personal career goals, and determine whether their current job fits those objectives. Depending on their age and career level, time may be the best argument for changing positions. If they want to move up in the world, they can’t afford to spend their time in a stagnant position.

At this point, the potential candidate has the basic information to begin forming a decision. Emphasize that you just want them to take the next step (in-person interview with you and/or the client) rather than pressing for a final decision. Even if they agree to take the next step, there will be more objections to come. However, these later objections should be legitimate concerns rather than just a way to back out. Consider their objections carefully, probe for deeper meaning and understanding and work with the candidate to find a reasonable solution. And if you don’t know the answer, don’t be afraid to say so. The candidate will appreciate that you want to give them the right answer instead of a pat response. Happy hunting!  Thomas Cunniffe