Paul Slezak
Posts by Paul Slezak:
What Do Candidates Really Think About How You Treat Them?
How you treat candidates is an integral part of the hiring process that can impact how effectively your organisation attracts and recruits quality talent.
Why I Love Sharing Hiring Strategies With Tech Startups
Certain hiring strategies apply far more to tech startups because typically nobody in the founding team comes from a recruiting background.
10 Tips for Resolving Workplace Conflict and Increasing Productivity
When it comes to workplace conflict, it’s up to the boss to resolve it and bring the office morale and productivity back up to par.
How to Assess Candidates Using the STAR Interview Technique
The best way to assess how a candidate will perform in a role, is to use the STAR interview technique to see how they performed a similar task in the past.
Why I Love Sharing Hiring Strategies With Small Businesses
If one of the most overused phrases in small businesses today is that “people are our greatest asset", why are hiring strategies so often non existent?
How to Avoid a Churn and Burn Approach to Hiring
Have you ever really stopped to think just how important it is to find the best person for the job and not just someone who happens to be immediately available?
Meet Sandra Karamitelios: RecruitLoop Recruiter In Brisbane, Australia
Sandra Karamitelios has nearly 20 years' recruitment experience and has placed top talent for organisations right across Australia and New Zealand.
How to Deal With Delusional Expectations in the Workplace
The notion of promotion can differ depending on whom you ask. For some it may mean more responsibility. For others it may equate to more seniority and a new title on a business card.
9 Agile Recruiting Tools For Candidate Outreach
You already have the people skills, now get the tech skills that will take your recruitment game to the next level.
Why Performance Appraisals Could Actually Be Destructive [Infographic]
Here's a really interesting infographic which poses the question around whether employee performance reviews are productive or destructive. You decide.
Meet Rick Gilbert: RecruitLoop Recruiter In Los Angeles, California
Meet Rick Gilbert. With over 10 years experience as a recruiter Rick has a successful track record of filling leadership positions in multiple states across the United States.
Will the Future of Work Rest on the Next Generation? [Infographic]
Here's an awesome infographic which shows the HR sector why the future of the modern workplace rests on the shoulders of the next generation.
5 Ways To Avoid Being ‘Just Another Recruiter Who Fails To Deliver’
If you want to instil trust in your client and be seen as a credible professional, here's how to avoid being ‘just another recruiter who failed to deliver’.
4 Traps To Avoid When Interviewing Candidates
Here are a few tips to avoid what, in the recruitment world, is often referred to as a “bums on seats” approach to hiring.
Meet Samuel Prince: RecruitLoop Recruiter In Seattle, Washington
Samuel Prince is a specialist recruiter for cyber security covering all major metropolitan markets in the USA, as well as the UK and Israel.
Why HR Analytics Can Help Improve A Company’s Bottom Line
Given the hype about how HR is shifting from an administrative department to one that plays a crucial role in outlining business strategies, should HR analytics be more widespread across HR departments?
How To Create A Winning Employee Retention Strategy [Infographic]
All too often, companies see salary as the sole contribution to employee satisfaction. The net result? Employees are looking for new opportunities in 2015.
Webinar Series: How To Build A $100K Income As An Independent Recruiter
Many independent recruiters are earning $150K+ while managing to strike the perfect work-life balance. Learn the tips to make it work for you.
Meet Danny Powell: RecruitLoop Recruiter In Houston, Texas
Recruiter spotlight on Danny Powell from Houston, Texas. 20 years recruitment experience right across the USA - from Atlanta, to Chicago, and from Oklahoma to Orange County.
5 Tips On How To Handle Staff Resignations
There are certain tactics employers should keep in mind in order to help prevent the repercussions of a sudden and unexpected change or loss in staff.
Recruiting Is A Professional Service. Value Your Time Like It.
Sometimes it’s hard for recruiters to get their heads around the notion of charging by the hour. But the sooner they start to value what they do like other professional services providers the better.
5 Ways To Let Your Team Know You’re A Control Freak
Every manager wants to be a control freak, right? Nobody wants to believe in empowerment, autonomy, or recognizing achievements. It’s all about micromanagement and having a demotivated team who live in fear. Sadly this is true of far too many managers.
Recruiter Tips: Sales Calls – Going Back to Basics
“We’ve never spoken but I have KPIs to hit so can we please meet?” Is this how your sales calls might sound? There’s a right way to making sales calls and a wrong way. Here are some tips to increase your chances of getting through.
Recruiter Tips: Busting The Myth Around Retainers
Why has the notion of working on retainer always been ‘reserved’ for perm or executive search consultants? Any recruiter can work on retainer ... even temp consultants.
Generation Showdown: X vs Y vs Z [Infographic]
Understanding the different motivations and skills of Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z is vital when it comes to talent attraction, selection and retention.
Recruiter Tips: Managing Your Clients’ Expectations
When it comes to dealing with our clients, as recruiters we can never ever assume. It’s absolutely essential that we manage our clients’ expectations from the get go and at every stage throughout the recruitment process.
Why Do We Fear Change In The First Place?
Survival of the fittest has actually hardwired our brains to seek patterns and avoid change. Marty Wilson explains how we can’t let that underdeveloped Neanderthal part of our brain convince us to spend our life safely tucked up inside our cave.
Passive Sourcing: You’re Doing It Wrong
Like many folks in the Bay Area, I get a fair number of messages from recruiters and hiring managers who are passively sourcing candidates. And after a while of getting these messages and talking to these people, I've come to a conclusion: you're doing it wrong.
Why You Should Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
‘Why would I even want to get out of my comfort zone? I’m comfortable!’ Marty Wilson suggests that there are two reasons why constantly trying new things that challenge and unsettle you is really good for you.
Recruiter Tips: Caring For Your Client After The Offer Is Made
It’s frightening to think how many recruiters will wash their hands of a ‘client’ once their fee is up on the board. I can’t stress how much additional business I have won over the years from clients after the offer was made.
A Weevil Plague, A Gastro Outbreak, And A Temperamental Debt Collector
For anyone running a business, any unexpected disruption to the day-to-day operations can become frustrating. But then there are some situations that a business owner or manager just can’t prepare for. After all we can’t possibly anticipate everything.
Are Recruiters ‘Luddites’ When It Comes To Technology?
Are recruiters as technologically disinclined as some claim? Why don’t you be the judge of that? But in the meantime here are three interesting findings from a recent poll conducted by the team at Software Advice.
Witches, Wizards And Warlocks In The Workplace
Despite having never actually worked at Hogwarts, I’ve still worked alongside my fair share of sorcerers and sorceresses. Sometimes I just didn’t know it … until they’d cast their spell!
Why Your Elevator Pitch Depends On Who’s In ‘The Elevator’ With You
You need to have your elevator pitch ready at all times. But just how well you articulate what you do can be the ‘make or break’ between someone believing in you and ultimately agreeing to buy from you.
Recruiter Tips: Are You ‘Consciously Incompetent’ Or ‘Unconsciously Competent’?
Whether you’ve been recruiting for one minute, 18 months or 5+ years, you need to recognise where you’re sitting along the ‘recruiter competency axis’ and remember you’re not alone.
6 Tips On How To Grow A Global Business … From Brad Sugars – Founder of ActionCOACH
Here are 6 tips on how to grow a global business shared by Brad Sugars the founder of ActionCOACH – the leading global business coaching firm – on his recent Australian road show.
Casual Fridays, Clock Watchers, Smoke Breaks & Other Culture Defining Moments
Here are few memorable questions and comments from candidate interviews over the years which very quickly helped me sort the yesses from the nos when it came to assessing cultural suitability for my own teams.
Acronym Confusion: Why The Customer Isn’t Always Right
I’ve always prided myself on my customer service ethic, and I’ve always built teams committed to delivering an awesome level of service. But one thing I have also learned is that no matter what the adages say, the customer isn’t always right.
Recruiter Tips: The Importance of Objective Evaluation
There are many hiring managers out there who should never be allowed to assess candidates unless you are either sitting right there in front of them, or they are 100% comfortable evaluating the CVs objectively.
An Open Letter To Hiring Managers … On Behalf Of All Recruiters
On behalf of my fellow recruiters, I feel compelled to share my thoughts to help employers realise that we really can make life easier … if you’re willing to partner with us.
8 of My Most Memorable “Aha” Management Moments
In this post I wanted to share some of my ‘light bulb’ moments as a manager. Those moments when ‘the penny dropped’ so to speak. When I suddenly realised what I had actually got myself into.
Set Yourself Service Targets; Not Just Sales Targets.
A satisfied customer tells one person, while a dissatisfied customer tells 10. And that’s before they hit social media. It’s harder to win a new customer than it is to keep an old one. So how are you adding value to your clients with the service you’re delivering?
Recruiter Tips: Handling Client Objections … What “No” Might Really Mean
Recruiters are faced with objections from clients constantly. Rather than viewing them as insurmountable roadblocks, think of the objections as opportunities often pre-empting further questions or concerns that your client may want you to address.
7 Interview Tips From Bob The Builder And Five-Year Olds
Drills, tunnels, torches, monsters, ghosts and bogeymen. Is this an episode of Bob the Builder meets Scooby-Doo? No. I just wanted to share a few interview tips to ensure you don’t accidentally miss out on your next rock star.
8 Hiring Stories You Couldn’t Make Up Even If You Tried
I’ve hired hundreds of people over the years but here are a few classic examples of when my grand illusions of a perfect fit were somewhat shattered.
6 Reasons to Set Success Expectations
As an employer looking to hire somebody new into your business, in order to determine whether a candidate will excel in a particular role, you should define your expectations of their success in the role before you start the recruitment process.
Do You Really Know What You’re Hiring For?
You never want to rush the recruitment process where you write a job ad, get inundated with applications, meet a whole lot of candidates, only to realise that you're actually after somebody entirely different. That would really be a complete waste of your time.
How to Alienate the Best Talent
It's pretty much a no brainer that employers will do everything they can not to lose their top performers. But what about potentially losing their best candidates before they've even had a chance to interview them? Seem strange? Have a read of Charlotte's story.
The 10 Biggest Stuff-ups I Made as a Recruiter
Anyone that's been in the recruitment game as long as I have will have had their fair share of disaster moments. After all nobody’s perfect. I've decided to share my Top 10 epic recruitment blunders ... the ones that left me embarrassed, lost for words, or rocking in a corner.
How the Best Family Owned Businesses Manage Talent
Don’t be stressed if the thought of raising a capable team to carry on the legacy of your family business once you retire is keeping you up at night. You are in good company. Succession planning is one of the most difficult tasks for any family business owner.
15 Beautiful Workspaces to Inspire Your Office Makeover
Ocean themed break-out areas? Meetings in a tree house? Or how about a work station designed according to a “No Screw, No Glue” policy. No it's not the kids' playroom at IKEA ... it's a sneak peak into 15 of the world’s most beautiful workspaces to help inspire your office makeover.
B2C Recruitment: Think Like A Marketer To Get More Candidates
Marketers know how to use social media to get people interested in their product. As a recruiter or hiring manager, thinking like a marketer can help you find and attract the best candidates.
How to be the Purple Cow in Recruitment
It's getting harder to earn attention every day, whether as a recruiter or job-seeker. Take some inspiration from these awesome examples of Purple Cow Marketing in recruitment.
How Marriott Hotels is Beating Facebook at Their Own Game in Social Recruiting
What do you do if you want to hire a waiter ... in a country where there are no waiters? Marriott Hotels have recognised that recruitment begins with a potential employee falling in love with their brand and aspiring to work for the organization.
Do You Provide Your Staff With ‘Training’ Or ‘Development’?
Offering your employees additional training can reinforce your commitment to wanting to develop them professionally and to help them excel within the business. When did you last think about what further training and development opportunities could benefit your staff in order to give your organisation that leading edge?
Creating a Culture of Superstars
Take a good look at your business. What is the prevailing vibe or mood in the office? Your company culture will have a significant influence on how your organisation performs. So the big question is, how do you create a culture to attract superstars?
How to Assess the ‘Soft Stuff’ When Hiring
Focusing entirely on someone’s technical skills can often result in a poor hire. And while it might take a bit more effort to assess ‘softer skills’ in a potential candidate, it can be well worth it in the long run.
The Internal Recruiters’ Playbook
Download a free guide for internal recruiters with all the tools needed to recruit the best people, in the least amount of time, within budget, and with the co-operation of everyone involved.
7 Tips To Help Manage Your Team Remotely
Is managing a team remotely really any different from a normal manager’s role if you can stay in contact almost as easily as being face-to-face? The answer is yes, very much so.
How to Manage Expectations Around Career Advancement
It’s important to be aware of the thought processes behind each of your team members when it comes to their career advancement.
How to Maximise the Return on Every Candidate Interview
There are five interview questions that will prove invaluable to anyone running their own recruitment process.
What makes a successful salesperson? It's a hunger to achieve sales targets and win new business, but also the desire to develop long-term relationships.
“No Indians Or Asians”: Avoiding Discrimination in Job Ads
A recent job ad posted in Tasmania sparked a huge outcry for using the phrase ‘no Indians or Asians please’. Written by a cleaning sub-contractor for Coles, it was clearly a case of blatant racism and condemned as such by everyone, including the management of Coles. It was probably written as the result of ignorance […]
Know Your Obligations as an Employer or Pay the Penalty
“This is Sue, she’s our new casual full-time contractor …” (huh?) OK, we know that not everyone is as taken by employment law as we are, but it’s still important to know the basis on which you’re engaging people to work for you so that you treat them appropriately (and legally) in the workplace, and […]
Toughen up and assess those soft skills too
Many business owners and hiring managers are far too reactive (and rushed) when it comes to making a hire. They spend the majority of the assessment process focusing on technical skills, in the hope that the new hire will be able to hit the ground running with minimal hand-holding. However, focusing entirely on someone’s hard […]
Employers Beware! Common traps to avoid when hiring new staff
As a hiring manager have you ever really stopped to think just how important it is to find the best people for your business? Not just mediocre people. Not just someone who happens to be immediately available to fill an urgent vacancy in your team. Not just someone who may have attended the same university […]
Building a Dream Team in 7 Simple Steps
“Our people are our greatest asset”. This is one of the most over-used phrases in the business world today; one that is subscribed to by many, but practised by few. And if the team building process is not taken seriously, the wrong people can often be brought on board. So how do you go about […]
To bid or not to bid, that is the question
Business owners or business development managers can get very caught up in the idea of tendering for a new piece of business with a potentially large client. This could be due to the fact that the client is a “big name brand”, which would look great in a future testimonial. It might also be an […]
How to conduct successful performance reviews
It’s coming up to that time of the year again. While there’s plenty of advice out there for employees on how to prepare for their mid-year or annual performance reviews, it’s just as important for employers to prepare for the process as well. Even in small businesses and start-ups, employees expect to have some kind […]
Do Your Staff Know You Give A Shit?
If done well, a recognition and rewards program can have very positive results and can turn an average group into a cohesive team of high performers.
So you call yourself a leader: Why would anyone follow?
Dissatisfaction with a manager’s leadership style (or lack of it) is one of the primary motivations for switching jobs. So how do you tell if you’re an effective leader? By the results your team achieves? Yes and no. Achieving goals is not necessarily an indicator of good leadership. It could be the lucky result of having a […]
Preventing last minute surprises: 4 critical pre-employment screening tips
In the world of recruitment it’s often said that “it’s not over ’till the fat lady sings“, and so it’s best to try to prevent any last minute nasty surprises. Once you’ve advertised the position, narrowed down the field and finally identified the perfect candidate, before you make them an offer, here is a check […]
Do you need a second opinion after seeing a recruitment specialist?
Many recruiters call themselves ‘specialists’, but if you peel away the layers, they often turn out to be doing nothing different to the more generalist recruiters. So, what is your so-called ‘specialist’ recruiter really offering you and are you getting real value for money? Generalist vs specialist A generalist recruiter is someone who works on […]
Curbing absenteeism in the workplace
I couldn’t even begin to count how many times during all my years as a recruiter that clients would ask me if I had a solution to their ongoing battle with absenteeism. I can remember one such occasion up in Hong Kong when a client asked if I knew the secret to reducing absenteeism in […]
You have two ears and one mouth for a reason
As a manager of some pretty large recruitment teams over the years, as part of my quality assurance process, from time to time I would sit in on interviews just to ensure that my recruiters were conducting their meetings with candidates in the most professional manner. The most common ‘trouble spot’ I came across was […]
Can your employer brand help you attract the best people?
I can’t even begin to think how many organisations I have dealt with over the years in either my capacity as a recruiter or as a manager of recruiters. But sitting across the table from a business owner, hiring manager or HR manager, the questions “what kind of reputation do we have out there in […]
Finding new customers and knowing the psychology of your target market
I caught up with a colleague of mine last week. She runs a successful small business and during our quick lunch we got on to the topic of finding new customers and general business development strategies. She put half her toasted focaccia down and said, “It’s all about going right back to basics. Everything we […]
Are you a control freak or can you let go?
If you haven’t already read “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, I cannot recommend it enough. A friend of mine leant it to me recently and I have to say I thought it was genius. Whilst our blog is not a forum for me to review books, many of the authors’ ideas really […]
It’s time to think of your staff as your competitive advantage
In today’s employment market it is crucial for business owners and managers to engender a work environment where the staff actually want to stay. Staff attrition can be irritating, costly and have a negative impact on morale in any work environment. As companies grow and teams expand, people will leave – it’s a fact of […]
Candidate attraction: finding the needle in a haystack
The ability to retain top talent is one of the keys to any business’ success. And yet, while companies with a proven staff retention record certainly have a competitive advantage, candidate attraction still remains one of the greatest challenges faced by businesses today. Losing top performers will always have a significant impact on your team’s […]
Attractive compensation plans: There’s more to it than the dollars
Having a candidate decline a job offer because he or she believes that (base salary aside) the compensation plan you are offering them is not attractive enough is a situation in which many employers are finding themselves in today’s market. With the war for talent as fierce as it is, the best candidates are definitely not […]
Don’t settle for ‘bums on seats’: Wait for the right person to hire
It’s typically at this time of the year that business owners and managers start to think about new hires for the coming year. But as a hiring manager have you ever really stopped to think just how important it is to find the best people for your business? Not just someone who happens to be […]
End of year performance appraisal season is upon us!
Where has 2011 gone? Carols are piping through shopping malls and train stations, it’s almost impossible to get a taxi on any night of the week, people are walking the streets wearing reindeer horns, and you can’t find anything half decent to watch on TV. Yes … it’s that time of the year again. Time for […]
The importance of creating an effective team environment
I have spent many years in the world of recruitment working all around Australia as well as further afield. I was fortunate enough to have worked with some of the world’s most recognisable brands. However I can honestly say that my fondest memories involve working with some incredibly dynamic managers of various small and medium sized […]
Why I had to be “kept in the loop”
Hi. My name’s Paul and I’m a recruit-aholic. I have been in the recruitment game for a long time. In fact when I tell recruiters new to the industry that when I first started there was no internet, no email, no online job boards, no mobile phones,and no LinkedIn, the first thing they usually ask […]
5 common mistakes of busy hiring managers
Hiring a new employee is one of the most critical processes for any business manager. For many businesses it’s literally a make or break decision: the right candidate could be the difference between the success of your business or a drop in your standards of quality or service. It’s a big responsibility, and one you […]