A New Beginning

A whirlwind of activity the last two to three weeks for me. I have been working on a short term assignment for a cable company helping them find candidates for some of their key business class roles and at about the same time I started the interview process with a potential employer. My assignment officially ends tomorrow and I received the “official” offer today.

I am proud to announce that my personal job search has ended. I have accepted an offer from Comcast to be their Director of Talent Acquisition for their Freedom Region. This role is based just outside of Philadelphia and will be very similar to my previous position at Time Warner Cable in Texas. I am very excited because the interview process was quick, everyone I met or spoke with were impressive and overall the job and culture feel like a great fit.

This of course means that we will be relocating from Austin to the Philadelphia area. We will miss Austin. What a great town that we called home for three years. The people, unique restaurants, activities, culture, lakes, and the general Texas environment were spectacular. We never had a dull moment and felt like we only scratched the surface of what can be done in and around this city.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers, leads, networking calls, emails, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, words of encouragement, resume tips and reviews. I would especially like to thank Kim Hollenshead, Bryan Chaney, Right Management’s Jo Lineberry, Recruiting Animal, Porter Shifflett, Susan Strayer, Michael Goldberg, William Uranga, Glenn Warner, Martha Bartlett (she referred me to a Comcast recruiter who sent my name on – extra thanks Martha!), Melissa White, Juan Munoz and Seth Feit. Without your actions the past five months might have been brutal but instead it was a very positive experience.

We are looking forward to a new beginning in my career, a new place to live and the experiences yet to come. The kids are looking forward to snow days again. My wife is looking forward to her job search in a new city. I am also looking forward to meeting the team, the challenges and rewards and having an impact on the TA function to help Comcast move forward.

Now it’s time to update my LI profile!

Corporate Recruiters Can Effectively Source

“Corporate recruiters do not know how to effectively source like third party recruiters.” How many times have corporate recruiters heard this from the third party recruiters? Sure some TPR’s will say that they used to be in-house recruiters before making the switch to the agency side of the business, therefore they can claim to know and can speak on everyone’s behalf.

I agree, to a certain extent, that due to large requisition loads, broken processes, meetings upon meetings, and involvement in personal development projects that corporate recruiters are at a disadvantage. (Side note – as a leader I have done as much as I can to eliminate or minimize these issues for my teams). However, even with these obstacles corporate recruiters can still effectively source no matter the size of the organization and the lack of a dedicated sourcing function.

In previous postings I have stated that time management or the structure of the recruiter’s day are key to ensuring a successful search. Another ingredient is a methodical sourcing strategy. After the kick-off meeting I would have a plan either in my head or in my notes on the sources I would go to first. Then I would work through them at the specific times I had set aside each day for sourcing activities. This allowed me to use my precious time efficiently resulting in the identification of quality candidates.

My plan was usually – company database first, job board databases, referrals, job board posting(s), broader internet searches, and then, depending on the positions, other sources could be career fairs, school visits, alternative advertising, target competitor companies or more recently social network sites.

By being methodical in my approach to sourcing I could act more like a TPR in seeking out talent for the more difficult searches and moving my company forward.

I welcome your thoughts.