CI techniques - finding jobs as recruiters (1 of 3)

2 blog entries in a week yet alone in a month - whoah, I know - shocking as I'm NOT one of THOSE bloggers that blog just to blog. Heh - this inspiration is dedicated to my new friend Dr. S from Barcelona, Spain - love your soul Dr. S!!! ;-) Let's make a difference together, eh?

This series of blog entries is dedicated to my colleagues and fellow recruiting friends out there - think out of the box and let's try to decipher the economy and what our skill set can offer and get you all back in the work force!!

Sticking to the theme of my blog purpose of competitive intelligence - what does this mean towards recruiting? How does CI translate into recruiting mechanics in the end? Folks, recruiting is tactical by nature, but I'm a strategist and applied strategy towards recruiting for 11 years and have held tactical roles like you have too, but always retained a strategic focus because that's my passion in the end. My purpose here now, is to help you think, embrace and get out of your comfort zone.

Part 1 of this series will define CI again, but translate how this applies to our industry of recruiting.

Part 2 of this series will discuss how WE as recruiters can help others find jobs, but tend to forget how our talents can actually help ourselves find jobs.

Part 3 will discuss how CI strategies towards analyzing competitors can also be applied towards our industry in recruiting - how can we find business, but more so, how can we find jobs in this economy right now.

Part 1: CI defined and how this translates and applies to our industry of recruiting.

A simple definition googled off Wikipedia..."Competitive Intelligence (CI's) purpose is the action of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about products, domain constituents, customers, and competitors for the short term and long term planning needs of an organization. CI is both a process and a product. The process of collecting, storing and analyzing information about the competitive arena results in the actionable output of intelligence ascertained by the needs prescribed by an organization."

If I substitute a few simple words for you, let's re-read this definition to see how closely matched CI is towards recruiting.

Recruiting's purpose is the action of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about people for the short term and long term planning needs of an organization. Recruiting is both a process and a product. The process of collecting, storing and analyzing information about the candidate results in the actionable output of intelligence ascertained by the needs prescribed by an organization that results in hiring an asset for the organization.

WTF people? What does this mean to us recruiters right? Simple, recruiters gather information about candidates, we analyze candidate's skill sets, and translate their skill sets AND soft skills into alignment into a company. Everyday as a recruiter we talk to people and decipher if a good fit for our company (if corporate recruiter) or a viable candidate for a plethora of clients most predominantly driven by a skill set checklist (if a headhunter). This is quite similar to CI principals if you truly decipher the jargon above.

Recruiting essentially is the backbone of any organization in the end. Being labeled under the HR umbrella really makes me cringe at times though I love my HR friends - truly! Human Resources - oh really? I just don't like the associated term towards "resources" here with recruiting because recruiting, is not about resources, but WE are in the human factor business. People associated with the term 'resources' always bothered me as I think of people in a company as 'assets.' The better assets you have, the better equipped you are in general. Resources tends to sound so transactional to me I guess.

With thousand of lay-offs happening these days, there are still job postings out there and jobs to be filled. We have to analyze the jobs being laid off really and from a bigger picture - what are the most critical jobs being retained and more so in our functional mind set, what jobs are needed to be filled? Being extremely big picture here, what industries are actually growing or even sustaining this crazy economy?? People, this is the same thought process I have as a CI professional really - what industries are our competitors focusing on? What geographies are sustaining the economy?

So you're a recruiter and laid off? Heh - I've been there and survived. Trust me, it sucked and I had a mortgage, medical bills and responsible solely for supporting my child on my own, but I figured it out - you can too AND you will find a job friends. Be open-minded and think out of the box and utilize your own career counseling skills towards your candidates, but towards yourselves.

Please don't hesitate contacting me 1-1 @ knewman@triquestpartners.com as I'll try to help you build a strategy for yourself.