Jolene Timmons

I love television.  I love films and theatre, too.  But I grew up watching as much TV as I possibly could: Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Brady Bunch repeats and Happy Days.  Even in school, the AV cart was rolled into the classroom and we watched the Electric Company.  Last season I was curious to see the revamped version of this PBS classic.  As a major consumer of Children's programming, I was also excited to see that, although they've made it modern enough to keep my kids' attention, they've also retained many of the classic elements such as the call to action "Hey you guys!"

I am a fortunate professional to be able to combine my love of television, entertainment and media with my passion for connecting with people. Hiring is steadily picking up and we’ve been very fortunate at greenlightjobs Search Services to have worked on great projects with outstanding companies this year. With the number of projects out there growing again, it is essential to work as quickly and efficiently as possible. Again, I love all mediums but what better way to have spent this summer than connecting with great candidates and network contacts to discuss outstanding opportunities at a major TV Brand?

Hey You Guys!

Getting the word out is one of my favorite phases of recruitment.  It is always a great thrill to put out the call to action by tapping into our networks, reaching out to introduce myself to new passive talent and following up on referrals.  As follow up to a previous post, Postings that Entice, I want to explore a few quick ways to fast-track getting the word out. The foundation to our process at greenlightjobs is combining targeted original research, sourcing through referrals and leveraging professional recruiter databases, such as LinkedIn, on every executive search.

1. Original Research & Targeting Passive Candidates: If you have in-house access to research, include your research team as soon as you know about the possibility of a search. Even if the project doesn’t begin immediately, the researcher is able to proactively leverage previous projects or begin to identify additional resources needed to meet the needs of a hard-to-fill / unique position. If you aren’t able to do your own research or don’t have access to an in-house research team, reach out to your research provider before the project kicks off so that your project will have a priority in queue as soon as you have a green light. It is essential to share as much information as possible with the researcher the first day the project launches, ideally including them in the kick-off process meeting, so that you have strong results a week to 10 days into your time-to-fill.
   
   
2. Sourcing Through Referrals / Sharing with Professional Network: I write my posting description the first day I receive the job description. I quickly send out the posting description to my network the first day I have a new search. Lisa Kaye, our greenlightjobs Founder / CEO, does a great job of sharing with her extensive entertainment & media network. As much as I love originally research, I find that referrals make it possible to immediately start the outreach process. I send out the brief posting description (not a job description) and I’ve found that it is essential to include a deadline for responses. Sharing a posting via email is viral in nature. There may be immediate or delayed responses. Before I started including a response deadline, I would continue to receive responses well after the position was filled.
   
   
3. Leveraging LinkedIn: In addition to subscribing to the LinkedIn Recruiter tool, I proactively join groups that complement the targeted hiring needs. As a result, we are positioned to respond quickly when there is a specific hiring need. I participate and respond to job seekers from LinkedIn Groups. It is important to respectfully develop these relationships. When I approach a candidate identified through LinkedIn, I craft and send individual In-mails. I want to make it as personal as possible.
   
   
4. Posting for Active Job Seekers: Active job seekers fast track any search. I know that posting and reviewing resumes is a time consuming process but the time is well spent considering that there is outstanding and experienced talent actively looking for their next career opportunity. There are plenty of low cost and free places to post jobs that target a specific niche audience. Your researcher can help you target specific job boards, groups and organizations. Our greenlightjobs.com job board is completely free.

Reap What You’ve Sown

I recently completed work on three concurrent executive searches for a very successful cable network group. The combination of our initial efforts really paid off: one hire came from our greenlightjobs professional network; one came as a response from a posting we placed on our free greenlightjobs.com job board (and was picked up by Indeed.com); and the last hire was a passive candidate who I sourced directly through LinkedIn and approached by sending a personal In-mail.

I strongly advise starting the above steps immediately and simultaneously. Even if referrals start pouring in and it seems that the talent pool is headed in the right direction, it is important to round out the process by diversifying the candidate pool in all forms and sources. It takes more effort on the front end but it pays off a week into the search process.