• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Pink Sky Career Counseling HomepagePink Sky Career Counseling

  • Home
  • Career Counseling
    • Interview Coaching
    • Networking and Personal Branding
  • Resumé Writing
    • LinkedIn Profiles
    • Cover Letters
  • Life Coaching
    • Your Retirement Journey
  • About Me
    • Creative Career Guide
    • Testimonials
  • Contact
  • Blog

Archives for November 2014

November 19, 2014 by Carrie Pinsky

Human Resources is a Brick Wall – Bam!

This is my own blog on my very own website. So, I feel safe here. This is my place to speak the truth. My truth about the world as I see it. Here goes.

I recently spoke to a group of HR professionals. In case you job searchers out there need some validation: HR does NOT get it. Throughout my presentation I felt as if I was hitting a brick wall. I had this epiphany. This is exactly how candidates feel when they apply for positions or try to make a follow up call. HR is a brick wall. I could feel it.

Bam!

I was speaking about recruiting. But mostly I was speaking about engaging people in order to build a brighter employer brand. Did I say engage? This room full of HR pros looked straight ahead. They refused to make eye contact. They would not answer the questions I posed to bring them into the presentation. I wanted to tap into the wisdom in the room.

Bam!

I was knocking, okay pounding, on a brick wall and no one could hear me. The HR folks did not want to let me in.

Now, you may be thinking: Carrie must not be a very engaging speaker. She does not know how to engage an audience. On Contraire! I do! I recently spoke at Quid Novi to rave reviews! It was not me. It was them.

Sadly, I was once one of them. Before I was a career counselor, I was an HR pro just like these folks. Only different. I have always been drawn to people and knew that HUMAN resources needed to be about people. Not paperwork. The folks in my audience could not wait to get back to their paperwork.

Bam!

Here was my message to the HR crowd. You have a unique opportunity to help your organization thrive by engaging your current employees AND engaging with candidates in order to become known as an employer of choice. This will give you a competitive advantage over other organizations that fail to see recruitment as the new PR. Recruitment is PR. How you recruit tells the world a LOT about your organization. People are watching this and taking it in. Top talent will NOT engage with you if you fail to engage with them in positive ways.

Here are 5 of my key points:

  1. Treat everyone as a potential employee, referral, or customer.
  2. Respond to people. You can use technology to help with this process BUT you must make your response human. No more dry, mean, off-putting emails to candidates who aren’t moving forward in the process. Think bigger. You may need this very talent tomorrow. If not them, then you may want to engage someone they know. Send people away in a manner that helps them feel GOOD about your organization. Make sure they know they can always come back in the future.
  3. Re-write those job postings! Top talent is NOT going to apply for a job that sounds more like a death sentence on a chain gang. Seriously.
  4. Make your application process easy and don’t waste people’s time having them jump through a million hoops before you even say, “Hello.”
  5. Figure out where your top talent hangs out and go there. Go there and be engaging. Hint: This requires that you stop doing paperwork.

So, at the end of my presentation I was feeling pretty shaken. The crowd was rough. Then one woman said, “You got me thinking. Maybe I need to go back to the office and change my voicemail. I make it clear that I won’t be returning their calls.”

I smiled. Okay, the presentation was a flop. But, if I opened one mind to a new way of thinking about recruiting, that was enough. That was my gift to the job seekers of the world. Maybe my fabulous clients will face one less brick wall.

Bam!

Filed Under: Job Search Support Tagged With: employee engagement, engage, HR, human, job postings, job search, recruitment, talent

Primary Sidebar

Pink Sky Career Counseling

417 South Howes Street
Fort Collins, CO 80521

Phone: 970-225-0772
Email: carrie@pink-sky.net

Recent Posts

  • Got Hope?
  • Career Goals – Creating the New and the Next in 2020
  • Nurture Your Creative Thoughts
  • Making a Case for Lazy Saturdays
  • LinkedIn – Get Found and Stand Out

Archives

  • July 2020
  • January 2020
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • April 2019
  • January 2019
  • September 2018
  • October 2017
  • July 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • September 2016
  • July 2016
  • May 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • November 2015
  • September 2015
  • May 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • August 2013

Here is what clients are saying…

“I enjoyed working with Carrie. I felt comfortable with her from the very beginning; she’s very warm, supportive, and easy to talk to. She helped me retool my resume and linkedin profile after taking care to learn about my experience, skills and desires. I highly recommend working with her if you have the chance.”

S.L.
Recreation Private Club Industry

Going in for meetings with Carrie was the best thing I could have possibly done for my education and career. With her tremendous help I was able to figure out what I wanted to do and how I needed to go about my career. I can’t possibly thank her enough for her crucial role in jumpstarting my career and getting me headed in the right direction.

G.W.
Student, International Affairs

Carrie was an informative, supportive and thoughtful guide during a time of career refinement. She served as a sounding board in assessing benefits and challenges of positions, reviewed application materials, prepared me for interviews and debriefed and supported decision-making. The mock interview coaching sessions were incredibly valuable to me.

J.S.
Professor, Higher Education

As a recent graduate with my master's degree in biomedical sciences, Carrie and Pink Sky Career Counseling were immensely helpful in the process of landing my first "real" job. I was at a loss for how to apply for a position to start my career in such a specialized field. With little to no work experience, Carrie was able to help formulate my resume, cover letter and references, and manage my LinkedIn page as well as provide general career counseling. Thanks to Carrie's help and guidance I recently accepted an intraoperative neurophysiologist position for NuVasive in Minneapolis, MN. I could not have done it without Carrie's help. Long story short - I highly recommend Pink Sky Career Counseling for any career counseling you may need.

A.M.
Biotech Industry

Not a day goes by that I don't thank Carrie in my mind on the way to my new job. Calling her was one of the best things I ever did for myself. Carrie is very intuitive, connected in the community, genuinely caring, and a master of her craft. Of course if you sign on for this, you have to dig deep and do things that are outside your comfort zone to get to where you want to be in life. But she held my hand all the way till the end and beyond. I cannot thank or recommend her enough.

J.D.
Non Profit Industry

I highly recommend Carrie. She did an amazing job helping me with my resume and providing valuable guidance in my job search process. I ended up being offered a great new job and wouldn't have gotten there without Carrie's assistance and support.

P.P.
Human Resources

Carrie is amazing, I had a position open that I didn't know about until 4 days before it closed, just before the weekend. She went above and beyond to get it accomplished for me. I highly recommend working with her.

E.H.
Security

Carrie was fantastic to work with. She listened to what I was wanting and she produced a excellent product, responses to my resume increased and just recently landed a great job!

T.M.
Accounting and Finance

Footer

Contact

970-225-0772

email: carrie@pink-sky.net

CONTACT NOW

Connect With Me

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
Connect with me on Social Media.

Copyright @ 2021 Pink Sky Career Counseling. All rights reserved.