Pedagog Recruiting & Careers

Finding great people isn't the hard part anymore. Getting them to talk with you is. Twenty or thirty years ago, one of the biggest advantages a recruiter could have was access. A Rolodex. A proprietary database. A network of people you couldn't find on your own. That's really not true anymore. LinkedIn, AI and modern research tools have changed that. Give me a position, a little demographic info, and just a little time, and we can identify a large pool of profiles who look like they could do the job. But they're probably not looking. They may already have a great job. They aren't checking job postings. They aren't responding to a recruiter who generically reaches out. And they certainly aren't in the right mindset for someone to tell them about an "exciting opportunity." That's where recruiting actually starts. Can we get that person to talk with us? Can we earn enough trust for them to tell us what would actually cause them to consider leaving something good? Can we understand where they want their career to go — and determine whether this opportunity might genuinely help them get there? Finding people has become remarkably easy. Recruiting them hasn't. #Recruiting #ExecutiveSearch #TalentAcquisition #Hiring #Leadership

I've seen extremely qualified people lose job opportunities because nobody wanted to work with them. I've also seen slightly less qualified people get hired because everyone did. We spend a lot of time talking about skills, experience, degrees, certifications and accomplishments when discussing someone's qualifications. All important. But hiring managers are also sitting across from someone thinking, consciously or not, "Do I want to spend 40+ hours a week working with this person?" That's not necessarily bias or hiring someone because you'd like to have a beer with them. It's things like being able to disagree without becoming defensive. Listening. Being curious. Giving other people credit. Reading the room. Having some humility. Being someone others trust when things aren't going well. I've recruited some incredibly talented people over the years who probably never realized this was the reason they weren't getting hired. Being really good at what you do matters. Being someone other really good people want to work with matters too. #Hiring #Recruiting #Careers #Leadership

Employers should do their homework too. Earlier this week I wrote about homework a candidate should do before an interview. But it’s a two-way street. I’ve interviewed thousands of people and companies over the years, and you can feel the difference when someone walks into a conversation having actually taken the time to learn something about the person sitting across from them. Read their resume before the interview. Not while they’re sitting there. Know where they’ve worked. Understand a little about those companies if you don’t already. Look at their LinkedIn profile. Where did they go to school? What have they posted about? Is there something interesting in their background, hobbies or interests that gives you a place to make a human connection? It doesn’t require hours of research. It just requires some effort. And I think candidates notice. We spend a lot of time talking about candidates needing to sell themselves in an interview. Their experience. Accomplishments. Hard skills. Soft skills. Why they’re the right person for the job. The employer should be selling too. Why is this a great opportunity? Why is this a good company? Why should someone want to work for you? What might this role mean for their career? Most importantly, do you seem genuinely interested in getting to know the person sitting across from you? I've watched interviews gain momentum because someone found a common connection or asked a question that made it obvious they had actually read the resume. The conversation changes. People relax a little. They open up. It starts feeling less like an interrogation and more like two people trying to figure out whether this might make sense. That matters. Candidates should show up prepared. So should we. #Hiring #Recruiting #CandidateExperience #Leadership

Monday’s post about doing your homework and being prepared for an interview included a suggestion: use AI as part of your preparation. A conversation in the comments afterward got me thinking. The gap is widening. And that’s really nothing new. Throughout history, people who are willing to adopt new tools, learn new skills, and change their behaviors generally created advantages over those who weren’t. What feels different right now is the speed. Changes that once played out over decades are increasingly happening over years. Sometimes months. Which means the gap between people who are adapting and those who aren’t can widen much faster. But I think there’s another way to look at it. The opportunities are coming faster too. You don’t need to become an AI expert. You don’t need to understand how large language models work. You don’t need to completely change the way you work tomorrow. Be curious. Try something. Monday I suggested something pretty simple. If you have an interview coming up, give your AI assistant your resume, the job description, interview agenda, information about the company and people you’re meeting, and whatever research you’ve done. Then ask it to help you prepare and see what happens. Maybe that leads you to use it to practice interview questions. Then improve your resume. Then research a company. Then prepare for a performance review. Then analyze a job offer. One bite at a time. Because while you’re deciding whether AI is worth learning, someone competing for the same job, promotion, client, or opportunity may already be using it to become better prepared. That doesn’t mean they’re smarter than you. They may simply have been curious enough to try something new and willing to adapt when it worked. If you don’t already have an AI assistant, finding your next job seems like a pretty compelling reason to give one a try. The gap is widening and the opportunities are abundant. You get to decide which side of it you’re on. #CareerManagement #ArtificialIntelligence #CareerAdvice #FutureOfWork #JobSearch