What is Per Diem

• Per Diem is basically an allowance given to candidate in case the candidate is relocating from his home location to the client site to work for an assignment. For Per Diem to be applicable, following conditions must be fulfilled.
• The candidate should own a house / should be renting a house at his home location. (Proof of Ownership / Rent Agreement will be asked at the time of paperwork.)
• Distance between the location should be 50 miles or more.
• He/She should have enough expenses to maintain the two houses.
• Per Diem will be provided to the candidate for the first year of the contract only. If the contract extends for more than 12 months, Per diem will be stopped after completion of 12th month.

What is Daylight Saving Time in US

 

• The concept of Daylight Saving Time is the practice of advancing of clocks so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. In this, typically clocks are adjusted one hour forward at the start of spring and are adjusted one hour backwards near the start of autumn.
• Normally in US, the daylight saving is applied or starts at the last week of February and ends at the end of last week of October following Halloween’s day.

Some Key Facts about US Staffing

 •After the great recession of 2009, US Staffing industry has created more jobs than any other industry.

•This happened because staffing and recruiting industry is more resilient to any other industry when it comes to economic expansions and contractions.

•The other main reason why staffing business is ever so expanding is because of exponential rise in demand of contractual workers.

•The average tenure of an employee within staffing and recruiting industry is around about 24-36 months which is 35 to 40% higher than the average tenure of an employee within any other sector.

•The above statistics are just few pointers which indicate what is in store for people who are willing to make a career in this industry.

Email Etiquettes

Email is one of the most important forms of communication when conducting an employee search and corresponding with candidates. It is therefore vital to use maintain correct email etiquette whilst corresponding with potential candidates. As a recruiter, correct email correspondence is fundamental in ensuring that you communicate your point clearly, coherently and professionally.

Subject:

Use an effective subject line with every email that you send. This will facilitate correspondence and assist you in filtering through relevant emails and previous correspondence, as and when required.

Clarity:

Keep emails clear and concise. Don’t spend hours crafting an email; keep it to the point and do not veer from the subject.

Spelling and grammar:

Use proper spelling, grammar and formatting. Be sure to check the email over for any errors before sending it, as this will reflect negatively on you if done incorrectly.

Attachments:

Only include attachments where necessary and do not include them if they have no purpose to the candidate. Be clear as to why you are including attachments, and clarify how and why the individual must use those attachments.

Signature:

Use a signature that includes all necessary contact information, such as your phone number, website and any social media connections.

Professionalism:

Keep within the conventions of standard writing protocol. Be sure to remain professional throughout all correspondence with the candidate. Keep the email polite and formal; do not speak in a personal tone or use any sarcasm, colloquial speech, abbreviations or emoticons. Do not capitalize sentences as this will come across as ill-mannered. Remember this individual may work for you in future, and therefore it is important to send out a positive message about the company at all times.

Few Tips:

• Avoid subject lines like “Important” and “Hello”. Be descriptive about the nature of the contact.
• Avoid blasting recipients with the same email more than twice. Recently, I got four email blasts from a recruiter for a junior level job.
• Avoid having just a first name in the Sender’s field because some spam filters may interpret this as SPAM. Readers may also interpret your email as SPAM. Additionally, a recipient could just delete your email outright from their inbox if you are not familiar to them.
• Avoid sending emails at odd hours of the morning. That email you send at 5:32 AM may read to a spam filter, Outlook 2003 Junk Email folder, or recipients delete key as spam.

 

Phone Calling and VM Etiquettes

Do’s and don’ts while talking to consultants 

Do:                                                           

Introduce yourself and your purpose for calling

Clarify how you obtained the candidate’s resume and contact info

Confirm that the candidate is open to new job opportunities

Establish the candidate’s expectations: (Start date, wage, relocation, open to contract/A- work)

Work to develop rapport with the candidate rather than push for minimal submission info

Discuss the candidate’s reason for seeking new opportunities

Ask what the candidate’s ideal job would be

Give the candidate the chance to ask questions about the job, your recruiting background.

Be knowledgeable about the job and trends in the industry

 

Don’t:

Send emails to someone you have not spoken with or reached out to over the phone. Ideally you should call a candidate and then follow-up by email. Using email as a first contact is not as effective as a phone call.

      Ask for personal information (like E-check info) without explaining why you need it.

     Make assumptions about a candidate’s eligibility (always clarify start dates, transportation, Etc.

     Call candidates who are on assignment at Microsoft.

     Send more than 1 voicemail or email per day if you haven’t developed rapport with the candidate

 Voice Messages

Lead with your full name and purpose for calling. Slow down when giving your phone number.

Speak clearly and focus on enunciation. If you naturally speak rapidly, it helps to slow down when speaking over the phone.

Try to minimize background noise (no speakerphone)

Speak with high energy and confidence (no mumbling or whispering)

     Length of a Voice Mail Message Should Be Approximately 15–40 Seconds.

 

This accomplishes three things:

 

• If your message is longer than one minute, you'll lose their attention. Putting a time limitation on your voice mail messages prevents rambling.
• As such, it forces you to laser in on the most compelling language to achieve your secondary objective, which is a return call.
• Finally, it accentuates the importance of taking the time to craft the right language/wording in each message

    

        Each Message Must State a Reason for Them to Return Your Call.

 What is their motivation/incentive/urgency to want to speak with you? The following statements do not motivate a consultant to return your calls:

 

"I'm just calling to check in/touch base with you to see if you are looking…”

"The reason for my call is to see if you received the job description that I sent you last week."

 

It's hard enough to catch your consultant in the office/home and engage them in a conversation. It's twice as hard to get someone to return a voice mail. Therefore, you must weave in a reason/benefit that's compelling enough for them to stop what they are doing, write down your number or save your voice mail, and return your call.

 

What can you say? What value proposition can you share that will make them want to return your call? (I can assure you, wanting to “talk about a position" or “see if you have any friends that are looking" is not going to make your phone ring off the hook.)

                                            

What problem can you solve for them? What have you done for other consultants like theirs that they would be interested in hearing about?

 

Don't Give Away the Farm

 Don’t tell them everything about the position over the phone message. You want to keep some information to yourself to entice the consultant to call you back…once you have them on the phone, you can tell them everything

 Tone and Voice Clarity

  A candidate is less likely to work with you if he/she doesn’t like your tone:

Sarcastic: Any Unprofessional speech will make a candidate uncomfortable

Low energy: If you sound depressing, the candidate won’t waste time with you

Mumbling/Unclear: Poor communication will frustrate a candidate

Slang: Be aware that some terms used in India do not translate to the US. Take care not to use slang terms that confuse candidates.

 

Recruiting using Social Media

Social media is a common place where people meet each other, share information and interact. Social networks cover the entire world, linking people together. Because of their wide member base, they can be used as an excellent advertising tool, more and more companies are using them in recruitment. Although the scope of social media is huge you will be able to get a massive amount of value from utilizing just 3 of the main websites.

Twitter.com

Facebook.com

Linkedin.com

Google.com

Twitter.com

Twitter is an easy to use website which enables you to send and receive messages known as "tweets". A tweet is a 140 character massage which can be read by your 'followers' (subscribers). Twitter is great for companies looking to promote upcoming job opportunities but there are a few important things to understand before starting out.

Getting started with Twitter

There are two ways to use twitter for job advertising, the first is to sign up for a twitter account and post messages using twitter about the opportunities which you currently have.

For this strategy to be maximally effective you will need to invest some time in building up followers. This article has an outline of the considerations if you decide to take this route. Be aware of the following if you decide to build your employer brand on twitter:

Facebook.com

Facebook is a social network which is also used by millions around the world.

To get started with Facebook you can also create a company page by visiting http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages. You will be able to include more information about the company and its activities here. People will then become fans and receive updates that you share.

 If you need to post a job, you can simply give details about it in the "share" section of your page. Whatever you share will be visible to all your Facebook fans so the trick to success on Facebook is having as many fans as possible. You can start building up your fans by adding existing employees or suppliers however you should recognize that not all of your employees will want to allow you to see their personal Facebook pages.

 

LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn is similar to Facebook but is more business oriented. You should start by building connections to people you already know. This could include former co-workers, current clients, local entrepreneurs and even friends and family. Because you never know who someone else may be connected too that could make for a top-notch candidate. You should also join groups where you might connect with potential candidates. For example, if you are always looking for IT consultants you can find an affiliated group on LinkedIn. Once you join relevant groups find ways to begin discussions with people in the group. If you notice people who are active in the group, they always ask questions and answer others questions, those might be the people you hone in on for job opportunities.

When you find someone who may be a good fit for your company you have to evaluate their LinkedIn profile. Does the person have a complete profile including a picture? Do they have recommendations from peers, managers and colleagues? Are they a member of groups relevant to their field? Do you have any 2nd or 3rd degree connections to the person to get a more personal referral? You can find out a lot about a person from their profile before contacting them for an interview

To learn about how to use Linked in please go through the following link:

http://learn.linkedin.com/

SimplifiedRecruitment.com

To make advertising on LinkedIn network more straightforward, SimplifiedRecruitment.com allows you to add your jobs to the network automatically by broadcasting them to the simplyhired.com search engine.

The simplifiedrecruitment.com website allows you to tap into candidates via social media which might not be available via traditional job board advertising. The site will also keep track of all applicant sources, immediately letting you know what's working.

 

Google.com

Targeting Resumes

When using Google to search specifically for resumes, it’s a good idea to begin by searching for the word “resume” in the title and/or the url of web pages.

For example: (intitle:resume OR inurl:resume)

In an another Blog, I will cover in detail the Google X-Ray search. 

Recruitment using Job boards

Job Portal is a web based solution designed for companies who provide Recruitment or HR services to other companies. This helps them maintain data online at a central place. Internet technology has changed the process of recruitment these days, people likes to find and apply for jobs online as its easy and saves lots of time. Job portals used by recruiters for US Staffing are Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder , Craigslist. 

Companies collect resumes and job requirements online, sort them and maintain them for future use. Companies can also post jobs on these portals. Users (job seekers as well as hiring companies) are allowed to create their profile online. They apply, search, respond online according to their choices and preferences.

Monster:

Link: www.hiring.monster.com

http://media.newjobs.com/cms/usen/employer/clientadoption-pdf/tutorial/interface_7_1.html

http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hiring-advice/attracting-job-candidates/job-posting-tips.aspx

Dice:

Link: www.dice.com

https://employer.dice.com/assets/help/help_employer/WebHelp/employers/tutorials.htm

CareerBuilder:

Link:www.careerbuilder.com  http://www.careerbuilder.com/jobposter/help/

 

 

Recruitment Process Cycle

 

 

We follow a step by step approach towards the whole process of Recruitment. At each stage we have an involvement of Team Leads, Recruitment Managers, Operations Team and Account Managers. In this document, we will understand the Recruitment process followed in general.  Here are the steps:

Requirement Understanding:

Requirement Understanding is the whole base of our recruitment. The recruiters have to ensure that they get a clear understanding of the whole process and get to know all the aspects of the requirement. Any requirement that we work upon would have skill sets details, job description as well as the project description. The recruiter needs to understand the requirement as in, is the requirement a Technical, Functional or a Techno functional Requirement.

 If there is a skill set which the recruiter is not cognizant about, the recruiter should get on to www.google.com, www.bing.com etc. The recruiter should try to make an effort of finding more details about the skill set. This helps a recruiter in preparing the search string with a better understanding.

Sourcing

Sourcing is an individual approach. If a recruiter is clear about the requirement and has gathered the required information, the recruiter would prepare the search string in GEM. A search string is prepared on GEM, and GEM harvests the resumes from the job portals. These job portals are: Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, Hotjobs and Sologig. There can be other 3^rd party sources, which can be used to source resumes. These sources can be Google, Linkedln, referrals etc. Once a recruiter gets the resumes, they will screen it as per the selection criteria suggested on their campaign.

Screening

Screening is a process of reviewing the resume of the candidate in terms of various parameters to evaluate if it is a good fit for the current requirement or not. If a resume is good fit then the candidate can be contacted else the resume can be saved for future use.

Various parameters on which a resume can be screened are:-

• Sponsorship requirement (work authorization)
• Job roles and responsibilities undertaken in the previous contracts
• Contract pattern that the candidate works upon (long term / short term / permanent)
• Technical understanding as per the requirements
• Location pattern, relocation availability, open to commute
• Education and Certifications
• Technical certifications

Telephone Interaction:

After screening the resume of the candidate the recruiter must contact them to check for:

• Candidate's availability for the offered contract
• Currently working or not (contract / permanent)
• Evaluate the person for the various competencies required for the contract
• Reiterate on the terms and conditions being agreed upon with the consultant before disconnecting the line
• Inform about Right to Represent and Rate Confirmation Mail

Invite an affirmative acknowledgment along with client specific documents via email from the consultants on the terms and conditions of the job discussed.

Submittal and Follow ups:

A recruiter has to submit a resume to the client on the job portals. However, before submitting the resume on the job portal, the recruiter has to take an approval on the resume from the Team Lead / Account Manager. Please update the ATS accordingly.

Upon receiving of RTR, RCM and the updated resume from the candidate, the recruiter sends the Submittal email to the approving authority. The details would be reviewed and the resume is matched as per the requirement. The recruiter would also send the below mentioned details: 

Ø  Legal Name as on SSN/Passport:

Ø  Contact No.:

Ø  Email:

Ø  Availability to interview:

Ø  Availability to start:

Ø  Pay Rate:

Ø  Targeted Bill Rate:

Ø  Last 4 digits of SSN (If required):

Ø  Resident Status: 

Ø  Visa Validity (If applicable):

Ø  Current Location:

Ø  Willing to Relocate:

Ø  W2/C2C/1099/H1 Transfer:

Ø  Medical Benefits (Yes/No):

Ø  Corp Info: (If C2C)

Ø  ATS ID: