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Employer Branding Talent Acquisition Timebound

Secrets of the Internal Recruiter: David Cherry at McAfee


Today I had a chat with David Cherry, who is a senior international in-house recruiter for McAfee, and an old colleague of mine based in London. He shared very insightful tips for job seekers and his thoughts on the changing career industry, all kept very secret until now!
 

What do you do at McAfee David?

 
Currently I’m a Senior Recruitment Business Partner working in the internal Talent Acquisition Team for McAfee, my day is taken up recruiting (across various functions) throughout Southern and Central Europe and our Emerging Markets region. I am also heavily involved in social media using tools like Facebook and Twitter.
 

Tell us about your background

 
My first job was actually as a QA Engineer for a small software company – I’ve always been interested in technology and being 19 years old, building servers and programming modems was (at the time) the best thing ever! Unfortunately I was made redundant after 9 months, so I did what every does and uploaded my CV on to Monster’s database – this was how I ended up in recruitment and have been working in the industry now for over 10 years, always with a focus on technology,
 
To begin with I joined a small recruitment company in London and began focusing on networking and telecoms recruitment in the UK. Through the relationships I had built I had the opportunity to work for one of my clients (Ochre House) who provide outsourced recruitment and HR solutions, and one of their clients was McAfee, after 3.5 yrs working on site at McAfee I was given the opportunity to move in-house in to a permanent position.
 

What is the job market like in your region (EMEA)?

 
You can get so many different answers to this question depending on who you speak to. Personally I think the job market is increasing and gaining strength every day. At the same time businesses are being more cautious and only recruiting positions which are deemed as critical hires. There are a lot of jobs out there but unfortunately due to the downtown there are even more people looking for those jobs which increases the competition.
 

What’s it like recruiting across so many countries?

 
It’s the most interesting part of my job, I have recruited in at least 30 different countries in my career and whilst it does mean I am incredibly busy every day I really enjoy working with different people, making new contacts and learning about new countries and cultures.
 

What are McAfee typically looking for in a candidate?

 
There’s no silver bullet to this question and every manager and every client I have recruited for will look for something different but being passionate and motivated is a great starting point.
 

What are you 3 best tips for job seekers?

 

  • Be honest

 

  • Spell check your CV/resume

 

  • Be prepared for an interview / have your own questions

 

How important are CVs and cover letters nowadays?

 
CVs are crucial; this is the document that gets you in the door, the document that holds the key to speaking to someone or securing that interview!
 
Covering letters; myself I’m not as interested in these and would tend to go straight to the CV but I do like to see a covering email explaining why someone is applying, their current situation etc… Just not something that’s 5 pages long! The more effort a candidate puts in to their application the more effort you will find a company will put into their response.
 


  

Any horror stories?

 
Several I can think of, but none I can repeat!
 
I did interview someone a few weeks for a customer facing position; I asked a fairly straight forward question ‘What are your main strengths as a communicator?’ to which I got the reply ‘I’m not very good at communicating’ – Moral of the story think about your answers before speaking.
 

Success stories?

 
I’ve seen many in my current position, the best are when you’re involved in hiring someone at the beginning of their career and then over the next few years you’re able to interview them again and, in some case again. Before you know it they become a manager and you start working with them to help build their own team. 
   

What are the social media trends in the career industry?

 
Social media is gaining momentum all the time and there are a lot of different options for an employer to take advantage of. When thinking about a social media strategy you should start thinking about the finish line and what you want to achieve – you will then be able to choose the right media and platforms to suit your objectives.
 

Are recruiters, as brokers, threatened by LinkedIn?

 
I would say no, there will always be the need for someone to facilitate, technology and automation can be fantastic and can assist with the speed of a hire but there is a danger to removing the human element and this could just damage your brand as an employer.
 

 

What is your favourite social media tool?

 
Has to be Twitter – it’s one of the most responsive on the market today. You can get your message instantly to wider audience, it has the ability to snowball very quickly. You do, of course have to be careful what you tweet about – what goes on the internet, stays on the internet! You can, of course, follow me on Twitter.
 

What does David have in the pipeline?

 
I’m going to be at the Undercover Recruiter Meetup in London on the 15th September, I will be talking about CV writing, interview tips, job hunting, what are the good and bad things you can do to enhance your chance of success. 
 

What’s the one thing people can do to help you?

 
Candidates can help themselves by keeping their profile up to date on LinkedIn or any other online media they are using for job hunting. If it’s not there is a huge risk that a recruiter would just overlook the profile and move on to the next.
 
Also in my current role as an internal recruiter I would suggest to approach companies directly there is a big push, particularly with the larger organisation to reduce recruiting costs, which means reducing reliance on external recruitment companies.
 

Final words of wisdom?

 
What did you want to do when you were growing up? Are you doing it? If not, why?
 
David Cherry has over 10 years experience in recruitment focused on head hunting and executive search and works across both sales & technical positions in Europe. As part of the internal Talent Acquisition Team at McAfee, David started in a technical recruiting role responsible for engineering and technical support in the UK and Israel.
 
David is currently responsible for supporting the management team in Southern Europe, Central Europe and our Emerging Markets across all levels and functions, with the main focus on sales and sales related positions.
 
Connect with David on LinkedIn and be sure to follow him on Twitter [url=https://twitter.com/davidcherry4″>@DavidCherry4 

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Employer Branding Talent Acquisition Workplace

Do Candidates Need a Premium LinkedIn Account?

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Linkedin have offered premium accounts to the greater public for some time now, these have been popular with salespeople and others for years. Congratulations to all you job seekers out there, the time has cometh for to get your credit cards out.
 
Cashing in on job seekers
 
LinkedIn recently announced their new Job Seeker
Premium Accounts, basically charging job seekers to use an enhanced version of LinkedIn. Have LinkedIn gone nasty and exploiting the people that need it most? Not really, they will still allow you to use it the basic version for free so no panic.
 
There is definitely an online trend to charge for services at the moment. LinkedIn are hopping on the same band wagon as The Ladders, CareerBuilder and other platforms aimed at job seekers. They have all noticed that there is no great shortage of cash out there, however definitely a shortage of jobs. This could very well be due to layoffs avec payoffs.
 
As long as the value you are getting from a paid account outweighs the cost, it could be worth considering paying a little to speed up your job search.
 
What are the benefits?
 
First off, you and your profile will be bumped up to the top of the pile when applying for a particular job. This is very much like a sponsored link on Google, your name will come up highlighted in the applicants list which is likely to get you some attention from the hiring manager (along with the other paying applicants of course).
 
You will also be able to send InMails straight to employers that aren’t in your network. This is particularly useful when you don’t have any contacts in common and it’s impossible to obtain emails for direct contact outside of LinkedIn.
 
On top of that, there’s the Profile Organizer feature which lets you track the contact you have with others, save favorites and even add your own notes to others profiles. A good old spreadsheet can probably do the same but this one is automated for you.
 
Finally, there are some webinars with Lindsey Pollak that act as video tutorials on how to use the new functions and how to search for jobs on Linkedin in general. Lindsey definitely knows her stuff so this could be useful.
 
What’s the damage?
 
Your brand new and shiny job seeker premium account comes in three versions; basic, job seeker and job seeker plus.

 

 
As you can tell from the image, they vary a bit on price, the only difference in service is the amount of ammunition you will have for each feature.
 
Basic: With this option you get five folders in your Profile Organizer and you get 100 profiles in your search results. You get 10 introductions to inside sources at companies.
 
Job Seeker: Here we get five InMails which you can use to contact any employer inside or outside your network. Your search results expand to 250 profiles, you get 10 folders for your Profile Organizer and you get 15 insider introductions.
 
Job Seeker Plus: The top of the line deal lets you send 10 InMails, 25 folders in your Profile Organizer and your search results of hiring mangers go up to 500 profiles.
 
Is it worth upgrading?
 
If you use LinkedIn daily and have hit a wall where you have run out of InMails, can’t seem to get yourself organized enough and think insider introductions will help you – go ahead and try it. As long as you get useful incremental results, stick with it until you get that new job. This is assuming that you have the money to spend, check your budget and ideally cut back on something else instead.
 
Personally I was never convinced of the ‘regular’ premium accounts, I can live through not having 500 people coming up in my search results (the more precise search, the better anyway). I don’t really see the need for InMails as I tend to get the proper emails of people, more often than not you can guess it.
 
I think it’s a shame there are no free trials for the job seeker premium account but I can understand why. Job seekers are not long-term customers for any business, as soon as they get a new job they no longer need the service. LinkedIn have decided to milk it from day one which is probably the right decision from a business perspective.
 
What do you think?
 
Do you use the premium account today and has it helped you at all? Are you going to try it out?

Categories
Employer Branding Workplace

Do You Get a Pay Increase when Changing Jobs Internally?

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Got this question from a Linkedin contact today and thought I would share the answer with the world, and at the same time enlighten any other career advancers who are in the same boat.
 
First off, let’s pretend the contact’s name is Carlos and mainly for comedy effect that he is the mustache sporting gentleman in the photo above. Second, let’s look at the question:
 
New internal gig, more wonga?
 
“Can I ask you for an advice? If I am given an opportunity to change my role/responsibilities by moving to a different department in the same company, is it a good idea to ask for a raise?
 
Thing is a new role has opened up in my company and open for internal people only. I am very much interested. As part of the process, I am required to go through interviews and other recruitment related stuff. I am thinking of asking for compensation raise when I am in the final round. Is this fine thing to do? If yes, what stage should I ask for it – final stage when everything is confirmed or at the first step even before applying for it?”
 
Of course he should get more moolah
 
There are really two questions here. The first is, should Carlos ask for raise when moving jobs internally? I would say yes he should. The new position could entail new tasks, more responsibilities or more travelling to different sites – these are all good reasons for giving someone a raise as they increase the workload, stress and learning curve for the employee. But what if the new position is merely a change of scenery, doing the exact same job but in another location? Carlos should still get a raise as he has to make changes in his life, and he is crucially taking a risk moving away from the safe confines of his current position. 
 
How much does one ask for?
 
Carlos doesn’t want to rule himself out early in the process by making high demands. In my experience, he has nothing to fear as long as his request is reasonable and he can justify it. Asking for a 10% increase when taking on a new position is realistic, perhaps even 15%. If Carlos goes any higher than this, he could be treading on thin ice.
 
What about the timing?
 
Question number two is when does he ask for the pay hike? The more honest and upfront he is, the more he will be respected for it. There is nothing wrong in valuing your own work as long as you can back it up. I say he should prepare the reasons why a raise is justified and then mention it in the first interview. It can even work in Carlos’ favor if the hiring manager realizes that Carlos doesn’t sugar coat anything and speaks his mind on matters like these.
 
Bottom line
 
Going for a new internal position is a safer way of learning a new job in a tough economy. You are still taking a risk though and you deserve a reward for it. If you want something, you have to ask for it. And you have to be prepared to back your request up with a good case. As long as you provide value equal to, or exceeding your request – you are in the money. Go for it Carlos and please let us know how it went!
 
What is your experience of moving jobs internally, more cash or just more work? Please share your thoughts in the comments.