A good read on the @Glassdoor blog for HR on why employer brand efforts are critical to increasing the caliber of your job candidates, and your success in converting them to permanent employees.

A few best practices when (not if) you check references on an incoming employee: ✔️ Always disclose to the candidate that you check references. ✔️ Use a tool like SkillSurvey. ✔️ Check them early, not after an offer has been extended.

If age discrimination is something you worry about in your job search, my advice? Don’t. Own your age and be confident about what you have to offer — whether you’re a young prodigy or an older, vibrant talent.

Curious about the best structure for conducting an initial phone interview? Here are the basics.

Are you rewarding your employees to hit financial targets? There may be a better way to create engaged, committed, creative employees.

Over on Glassdoor, 93% of employee reviews are about company culture. It’s a critically important metric in your hiring efforts. So if you want to hire the best, start by cultivating a better company narrative around what your people say about your company culture.

“So, Matthew, what is your superpower?” 🦸I am a big fan of oddball interview questions, and so is Glassdoor.

If you’re looking for a new job, I highly recommend turning on the LinkedIn feature Open to Work. This new-ish feature helps recruiters like those of us at The Source and Recruit Company scout out potential talent for roles we’re trying to fill.

The Source and Recruit Company team has been impressed by the resilience of so many of the companies we’ve worked with over the past year. There’s a methodology to resilience, and we like the way @FutureForum poses it.

Wondering what candidates are looking for in 2021? A few specific things stand out:

1. Competitive salary

2. Job security

3. Work/life balance

In other words — the same things they’ve always wanted.

How are you keeping employees motivated this year? I hear about things like: 💡Offering new skills training in virtual environments 💡Hosting internal annual or semi-annual conferences 💡Setting up Slack/Teams channels unrelated to work that allow teams to share ideas. Other thoughts?

One major shift that’s happened over the last year in hiring — more and more people are looking for jobs without leaving the home. So: ✴️ Be mindful of social media. ✴️ Get going on that blog. ✴️ Share employee stories.

A recruiter can be your best ally in hiring. To make the most of the relationship, be prepared going into your first conversation or two. The relationship you have with a recruiter is somewhat customizable, so don’t be afraid to be vocal about your expectations and needs.

There’s a lot of potential in hiring neurodiverse candidates. But you can’t interview them the same way you’d interview a neuro-normal candidate.

You hear so much noise in the business world about offering customers an elevated experience. But don’t forget, your employees are a kind of customers too. Recruiters act as an arm of your sales team, vetting potential hires and giving them star customer treatment along the way.

The Source and Recruit Company does the heavy lifting in terms of networking, sourcing, and vetting candidates. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for hiring. Your website is a sales tool, and don’t forget about a very important customer: talent.

“If it’s meant to be, it will happen.” This is the kind of advice people give job seekers when they’re not sure what else to say. In my opinion, it’s a lazy sort of optimism not entirely grounded in reality. Because it won’t just happen on its own. You have to make it happen.

Jargon to avoid in your hiring this year, according to the stats from @textio: 👎 overachiever 👎 value-add 👎 driven results 👎 buy-in 👎 key metrics 👎 thought leader 👎 win-win.

What do Elon Musk and law enforcement agencies have in common? They both use asymmetric information management (AIM) techniques to spot BS. AIM helps weed out candidates that are full of hot air.

Before you contact a recruiter, it’s a good idea to know ✴️Your big-picture needs as a business or team, and how your recruiting strategy will map to that ✴️Exactly what roles you will need to hire for in the next year ✴️What kind of pre-screening you’d expect a recruiter to do.