Diana Meisenhelter

"Often the recruiting function is broken because they (companies) don't have the right people doing that... So in a room full of recruiters, I ask... "How many of you have ever been involved in a recruiting training course?" Of 200 people, 1 or 2 people raise their hands because we don't train our recruiters how to recruit; we just stick them on the phone or in front of a computer and they do a lot of what we call reactive recruiting where they want the candidates to come to you - 'post and pray', instead of going out and really building relationships, doing research like a good salesperson would do and find out and then target those candidates, instead of just waiting for people to come to us." - Diana Meisenhelter

Welcome to a special Talent Acquisition Channel podcast on TotalPicture Radio. This is Peter Clayton reporting from Riviera Advisors' 10th anniversary celebration in beautiful Long Beach, California, Joining me is Riviera Advisors Partner, Diana Meisenhelter, recognized as a leader and a strategic thinker in the staffing and recruiting community. Her current practice focuses on helping service-based companies improve their in-house recruiting capabilities.

Interview Transcript, Diana Meisenhelter

Welcome to a special Talent Acquisition Channel podcast on TotalPicture Radio from Riviera Advisors' 10th anniversary celebration in Long Beach, California. Riviera Advisors is a premiere global human resources consulting film that helps organizations worldwide improve their internal recruiting and staffing capabilities. Visit RivieraAdvisors.com/podcasts to access all of our interviews with HR and talent acquisition leaders recorded at the 10th anniversary celebration, as well as many thought leaders in HR and recruiting recorded at IACPR, SHRM, ERE and other high-profile conferences and events.

I am so happy to be at Riviera Advisors' 10th anniversary celebration in beautiful Long Beach, California when the sun is shining and it's about 70 degrees. Joining us today is Diana Meisenhelter who is one of the principals with Riviera Advisors.

Peter: Diana, welcome to TotalPicture Radio.

Diana: Thank you very much. I'm really happy to be here.

Peter: Tell me a little bit about your background.

Diana: I've been in human resources for over 20 years. I started as a generalist and kind of gravitated naturally to the recruiting function. I've enjoyed every minute of it. It started really to be more about the hotel business early in my career. I've worked for many chains at the corporate level. When I used to say I was in the hotel business, people would say, talk about housekeepers and a lot of hourly level jobs but what I was doing was working at the corporate level and global hospitality organizations and I've been with Riviera Advisors for about seven years now and we work with many different industries, but my background really has been about running HR at the global level for talent acquisition.

Peter: We're at the 10th anniversary celebration here, what changes have you seen within talent acquisition over the last decade?

Diana: Wow, in the last 10 years, I'd have to say a lot of the big changes were probably technology. Ten years ago, I think we were still receiving faxes and mail for resumes. In fact, I used to keep a file on resumes of the week and the funny letters people used to send, and people really aren't using that way of communicating into companies anymore. It's technology. It's all about the applicant tracking software. It's all about the social media and everything that you're getting involved in around the computer and how do you get people to communicate to you and that what kind of jobs you might have or what kind of person you are through the technology. That's a big part of what I've seen.

I've probably seen more sophisticated recruiting organizations where I remember 10, 15 years ago we were creating in-house executive search functions within an organization I was running and that was new. Now, it's kind of a standard that if you're going to create a staffing organization especially on a global level, that you already have some of the expertise that you're bringing in from different types of executive search to create that yourself. So I think people are focusing on the importance of technology, around the importance of creating tools and resources internally versus outsourcing some of that. At the same time as I say that, there are a lot more companies that are outsourcing some of that technology in some of those resources and recruitment because it can be complicated, and I think we've finally realized that in recruitment, it's a certain type of talent that makes a really good fit and to help companies find the best talent.

That's evolving; it's not just let's put the first person to graduate from college into a recruiting job because it's an easy one. I think companies are starting to realize that's not such an easy job and it's not for everybody. So that's one big aspect, especially one like candidate assessments, that's huge now. I mean when we were that 10, 15, 20 years ago, it was kind of leading edge. Now, more and more companies see the value in using assessments to know who you're talking to.

Peter: Tell me about a typical engagement with Riviera Advisors. When you go into an organization, what kinds of things are they looking for you to help them accomplish?

Diana: At Riviera Advisors, I've worked on many projects over the last seven years and I have to say what we bring to the table is helping companies better understand what's working and not working in their recruiting function. We are razor focused on staffing, recruiting, talent acquisition. Oh by the way, the other thing that's changed over the last 10 years is that we still haven't figured out what to call ourselves. Are we talent acquisition, recruiting, talent management... I still don't know if we've figured that out, but we help companies really evaluate what's working and not working around their staffing function.

The best projects that we do are the ones we were able to help organizations objectively look at how they are running the staffing function. So we look at technology, we look at other organizational structure, are they the right people in play, are they hiring the right recruiters, how they're training their recruiters, how they're working with candidate assessments, how are they working with hiring managers.

One of the biggest changes in the last 10 years that I've seen too is that hiring manger and recruiters, they're starting to talk to each other and realize they have to play in the sandbox together and having that conversation is really important, so bringing that to the table is a lot of what we do as subject matter experts. Everyone at Riviera Advisors, all of our principals are past staffing leaders. We have run organizations, global organizations, staffing organizations and I think that adds a lot of value that we've sat on those seats and we know what works, what doesn't work and we've fallen on our face sometimes and we share some of the bad parts of the things that we've done in our career. I think people value that a lot in that we come to the table with the experience as well as the resources. We know who's out there that can help with some of these things out in the marketplace as a vendor neutral organization knowing the subject of staffing or recruiting and how they can be more effective.

Peter: Is there anything, Diana, that when you go in and you start doing the assessment process within this organization, is there something that you can say this is typically broke; this is part of the process that we usually find that the companies are really struggling with and not doing a very good job with.

Diana: Immediately I have to say not hiring the right recruiters. As much as they're getting better at it, they're still not putting people in those jobs that have the natural propensity to recruit and have a passion for talent. Just putting somebody because there have been an HR generalist and a recruiter role or putting somebody that's a brand new grad into a role isn't the right perspective on that job.

Often the recruiting function is broken because they don't have the right people doing that and also they don't train the recruiters. So in a room full of recruiters, I ask this often when I'm doing public speaking is, "How many of you have ever been involved in a recruiting training course?" Of 200 people, 1 or 2 people raise their hands because we don't train our recruiters how to recruit; we just stick them on the phone or in front of a computer and they do a lot of what we call reactive recruiting where they want the candidates to come to you - post and pray what we call, instead of going out and really building relationships, doing research like a good salesperson would do and find out and then target those candidates and just waiting for people to come to us.

The biggest, biggest issue that I see across all different industries at all different levels is the fact that that passive recruiting. Some of that is because of technology. We think the technology has helped us.

It's also hurt us because we think that we have the message out in the big, bad Internet world. So all the candidates that we want to capture coming into our ATS and therefore, we can just spend our time - because we only have so much time in a day - to focus on our computer screen to pick out the right candidates. We know that employer referrals are still some of the top if not the best candidates that are out there and we forget to pick up the phone and we forget to really source that source of hire that we can bring in to the organization instead of sitting in front of the computer. So one of the biggest issues is that passive recruiting, post and pray concept that we see.

We talk about metrics and not being held accountable, that's changing over the last 10 years. More and more staffing organizations have reports now where they can measure time to fill, cost for hire, source of hire, where they're getting their people, where they're getting the best performing people for the organization, all those things that are fairly new to our profession are also places where there's a lot of opportunity because they're not asking the right questions or measuring the right number or even communication what they know and what they don't know back to the business.

Peter: One of my perceptions - and this is truly just a perception - of someone who has gone to a ton of these HR and recruiting conferences over the last several years is that certainly there was a trend towards instead of having internal recruiters working for an organization to outsourcing, the recruiting process to an RPO or hiring contract recruiters to come in and fill specific roles within organizations and not having full-time professional recruiters working directly for that organization and really building a culture and a practice within the organization, is that still true today? Are companies looking at this and saying, "Yeah, we really like this RPO model and we really don't want these internal recruiters working for us," because then in good times we've got to ramp up and hire a bunch of recruiters and then when the business goes south and there's all these cycles going on then we got a lot of bunch of people go."

Diana: My answer to that is yes and no, and the reason I say that is who you hire is your culture and how can you outsource that, so there's a time and place for an RPO, there's a time and a place for contract recruiters and I can tell you I hired many contract recruiters that I still use to this day and introduce to our clients. They're your secret weapon, when there are good times and bad times that you can bring them in. But I'm a believer that you still need to have staffing organization that is focused on your mission critical jobs, that you're working those, that you own those responsibilities to make sure you're hiring the absolute best for the company because who knows better than if you're hiring the right recruiters, what is the best candidate for that job.

Not that you can't use outside sources. For example, contract recruiters to help source candidates with the selection process and all of that part of what we do in staffing needs to be done as much as you can internally. The process, the paper, the let's get this from A, B, C, outsource any of that you possibly can and focus on the things that really important to your organization to make sure you get the right person at the right time and the right job and I think that's going to make a huge difference in any organization. But I am a big believer you can't outsource all of it. Some of it some of the time and it depends on the company and the specific place that company is right then at that very moment.

Peter: Another thing that certainly has changed over the last 10 years, Diana, is the importance and the reach of global recruiting within many organizations because let's face it, most companies, if you got over what? Two hundred employees, you're probably dealing on a global basis and having to hire people in far reaching places where you really don't have much staff and you certainly don't have recruiters on the ground, so how do you handle that job?

Diana: That's also probably a good answer to your previous question about what I've seen changed in the last 10 years and that answers probably a lot around the global component. Many of our clients today, most of our clients today are global. It's not just now where we have a corporate office and maybe we deal with some of their offices; we're talking about offices all over the world and you have to know where you're recruiting from. You don't necessarily have to be in that location, but you need to understand that culture where the pipelines are to find people, for example, in China or in Europe and understand what that's all about and you may need contract recruiters for that component to actually source that area of potential pipeline internationally or globally to bring people into the company, but that is evolving.

More and more of our companies that we work with today are creating these global recruiting strategies in specific areas of the world - like Latin America, APAC, Europe - and how do manage that function and order for this whole company to be successful and it's not just focused on that corporate office and a couple other different offices, but how do we interact with each other, how do we use technology, how do we help each other, how do we deal with the economy as a scale, how do you do of culture because every country is a little bit different, right? Or in some cases, a lot bit different, but a company culture on a global level, somebody we may have hired in China is not going to have the same competencies that may match that organization that we hire from someone in the UK, for example.

That's the complexity of the staffing function at a global level today and we're just learning in some cases what's working and not working and I think every day we're getting better and better at that. I think the United States is doing very well in that space in helping other countries kind of come up to speed with the technology and the resources and the tools that we use here in the US to identify talent and sharing that globally in order to find the best candidate for a company.

Peter: I want to go back to something you were talking about earlier, Diana, and that is the fact that being a recruiter is truly a profession and there's a lot of complexity around this profession, so for someone who is interested in becoming a professional recruiter, maybe just starting their career, what advice would you give them? What kinds of things would you suggest that they do to really become that top level recruiter?

Diana: When I started in recruiting 20+ years ago, it was different than it is today, because today it is a complex profession. In those days, we got a resume, we review the resume, and we did kind of we call a classic whole for way of recruiting. It was yes, no, maybe, right? Now, it's complex with the technology and the resources and the tools that we use.

To be a good recruiter today, you need to make sure that you are recruiting for a company you believe in. That's the first thing. Don't just go out there and become a recruiter because you want to become a recruiter? Who are you recruiting for, because you are a sales person, so you had to put on your sales hat; is this somebody I can sit down and talk to somebody about this great organization and why you should come work here? If you want to become a recruiter, make sure you work for a company, an organization, it can be an external company, it can be an RPO, it can be an organization, but you have to believe in what you're selling and that's the first part.

Another part I would say would be about do you have the talent, do you have the competencies, are you wired to be a recruiter? If you're not good at talking with people, if you are better sitting behind a computer - and I hate to say this - maybe you have a degree in accounting and you thought you were going to work in an office and not have a lot of interaction, then you may not make front of the house type of a recruiter. You might be a good sourcer, where you can get on to the computer and find candidates and provide resources for recruiters, because there are different levels of recruiters, right? There's the leader of recruiters, there's the full-cycle recruiters, the sourcing recruiters. It's gotten a lot more complicated over the years, but if you want to become a recruiter, you have to really think about to have a passion for people and any aspect of that because you are in a lot of ways a matchmaker.

You are about finding an opportunity for somebody in a company and you match them together. When it's really good, it's one of the best experiences you can ever have and if that's something you think you might have interest in, you may be a good recruiter. I'd also say recruiting, try to be a contract recruiter. Try it out. See if it's something you're interested in before you put a lot of effort into it, but as the economy gets better, we're going to need more and more recruiters and the most important part about being a recruiter is having relationship skills, so if that comes naturally to you, and you have the gift of the gab, the rest will follow.

Peter: That's some great advice. A couple of things that we keep hearing over the last couple of years, sort of the buzzwords du jour -transparency, and authenticity and of course, sites like Vault.com, Glassdoor.com, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, the usual suspects, I mean they are all making this world much more transparent and if you're not authentic, somebody is going to out you on Vault or Glassdoor... how have all of these social networks transformed the recruiting industry?

Diana: I think we're just finding that out. I think there are some companies that are trying to stay away from even talking about it. They have attorneys telling them what to do and not to do. The reality is it's there and it's staying. Those venues that you're talking about and how we share information about people has changed forever. So we as recruiters have to figure out how to use that to our advantage.

If you're talking about a company's brand for example... I've got to say, I know of companies that have really bad reputations for the recruiting process where they'll sit in the lobby, for example, for two hours waiting for interviews and that type of stuff shows up on these sites. All companies and all recruiters need to be savvy about understanding about their brand and the fact that that transparency is out there and the minute they don't show respect and integrity and honesty, it's just a matter of time before the rest of world hears about it.

So I'm okay right now as I see where this is all going. I am a big fan of social media. I think it is a good thing for the recruiting industry. It's a good thing for companies and it kind of keeps us honest, and I think we don't know where it's going because it's going so fast. Think about two years ago where we were with social media; it's in a whole another place.

Peter: Oh absolutely.

Diana: Absolutely and where we're going from the recruiting perspective, I heard somebody give us a statistic - I can't source this at this point - but that LinkedIn after employer referrals is the number one source of hire today for recruiters. So that alone is awesome and how do we use that as a recruiter to our best advantage and be honest and have a level of integrity that people see that we're not playing a game. The days when we used to put these fancy recruiting brochures together and talk about how great it was to work at a company. Candidates are a lot smarter today than they were 10 years ago. They can all with a click of a button find out just about anything they ever want to know about a company, who they're interviewing about, the good, the bad, and ugly and that has changed forever and I think the best recruiters understand that or are using those different channels of communications for their benefit.

Peter: Diana, why are so many companies blocking Facebook, blocking LinkedIn, blocking Twitter for their employees use? I mean their employees are just going to bring in their smartphone and use those networks anyway.

Diana: I know several companies that are doing that. I don't understand. I mean they can do it at home. I guess there is still the old idea that when you're at work, you're at work and like for me personally, there's not a line anymore for me. I'm at work and I'm at play all the time. That's the way I operate. I think most of the world is changing that way, but I think the old way of when you're at work from 8 to 5, you work and then you couldn't go do your other stuff. I think there are still some companies who haven't gotten there and I think there's fear. I think that they're operating under the idea that if they let people into Facebook, they let people into LinkedIn, then they're going to go look for another job. Somebody's going to recruit them. Well, I don't think they - maybe they're not thinking the telephone still works. People call them all the time and they could be... if somebody wants to leave the company, they're going to leave the company and they should see this as an opportunity for retention to give them freedom to be part of the rest of the world and then maybe they won't have a problem with these employees looking on Facebook and LinkedIn and just put some parameters about rules, just like other things that we've had... cell phones and things that have been in the marketplace for a while. I think it's all about fear and I think that's changing. More and more companies are letting people do it now with parameters about when and why and how, because people are using Facebook and people are using LinkedIn for business.

Peter: Well, people are using Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter for recruiting.

Diana: Right, absolutely.

Peter: How many companies do we know that have a huge presence on Facebook and people tweeting and putting their jobs out on Twitter and that same time, they're blocking all these networks internally, right?

Diana: I think that's changing. I think companies that are stilling blocking that are going to be the ones that are going to be left in the wind when the rest of the companies out there that see the possibilities of finding talent and building relationships long-term pipelines as the world changes. You got to be up on it and if you're not up on, you're not going to get the best candidates, because the best candidates are up on what's going on in the world and in many cases, so I think you have to be part of it. If you can't beat them join them so to speak, so I think that's the way we have to go.

Peter: Yeah, especially if you're trying to hire high-potential millenniums. If you're blocking all these stuff, you're not going to get them, and are you hiring adults? I think to your point, the organizations who I see that have very successfully integrated all of the social networks within their culture, within their organizations have very well-communicated and defined rules of how you are supposed to use these networks at work and then they trust their employees because they have hired adults and they feel like if we were bringing you into the organization, you've got a job to do and you're going to do that job and treat it that way.

Diana: You know what? I can't believe that companies don't think that they're not using their smartphones during the day.

Peter: Exactly.

Diana: Checking their text and checking their Facebook updates and so forth, so I think it's going to change. It has to change. Those companies are going to be in trouble.

Peter: Is there anything we haven't discussed that you think is important to share with the audience regarding your role here at Riviera Advisors or perhaps some of the trends that you're seeing over the next few years in recruiting?

Diana: Yeah, I think that the world of recruiting is constantly changing and the people are good at what they do or the ones that are paying attention, that are asking the questions, I think the new recruiters are coming up behind us so to speak and are much more in tune with the world sometimes and some of the ones that have been around a long time and have been doing that, that way for a long time and if we want to be competitive in any industry, in any job, in any city, we have to keep up with that and so being in contact with your local associations like the staffing management associations and ERE and other conferences like SHRM and all other ones.

There are so many out there and we've talked about, IACPR for example, that you have to be up on what's going in the world of recruitment and if you're not, you're not going to continue to be successful and you're going to continue to be passive and do passive recruiting. You're not going to be successful in getting the best candidates and I think employers, company CEOs are realizing the importance of talent acquisition and are holding the talent acquisition function much more responsible and are expecting them to be up to speed on what they need to be doing as an internal consultant to that organization, so you have to know what's going on and who to contact if you don't know how.

Peter: Diana, thank you very much for taking time to speak with us here on TotalPicture Radio.

Diana: Thank you. I sure appreciate your time.

About TotalPicture Radio

We're always interested in hearing from our listeners. Please share your thought and opinions on our podcast today. Visit the Talent Acquisition Channel of TotalPicture Radio, that's TotalPicture.com to add your voice to this discussion and be sure to visit RivieraAdvisors.com/podcasts for a complete library of thought provoking in-depth interviews on HR and recruiting including the complete transcripts from these discussion from Riviera Advisors' 10th anniversary celebration. To learn more about Riviera Advisors' real world experience in leading and managing corporate internal recruiting and staffing functions, please call toll free 800-635-9063 or visit RivieraAdvisors.com.

This is Peter Clayton reporting. Thank you for tuning in to TotalPicture Radio, the voice of career and leadership acceleration.

About Diana Meisenhelter

With 20 years of experience in corporate staffing and recruiting, she has had direct responsibility for directing global staffing functions through the development and implementation of resources in recruitment, selection, and diversity.

Prior to Diana joining the Riviera Advisors team in 2004, Diana held the position of Vice President, Staffing and Talent Acquisition for Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. Wyndham operated over 200 hotels in North America. She also was the Director, Worldwide Recruitment for Westin Hotels & Resorts, managing the global recruiting efforts for over 100 hotels in 22 countries. Diana held senior recruiting roles with American General Hospitality and Embassy Suites, Inc. Her industry experience also includes healthcare, executive search and retail.

Diana received a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Maryland in College Park and an Associates of Arts degree from the University of Maryland in Munich, Germany. Diana sits on the board of directors for the DFW Staffing Management Association. Diana is based in Dallas, Texas.

About Riviera Advisors

Riviera Advisors is a premier global human resources consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations develop stronger internal recruiting and staffing capabilities. Working with organizations across virtually every industry, from start ups to Fortune 500s, Riviera Advisors blends an unparalleled and real-world depth of experience with specific expertise in the critical area of Talent Management. Riviera Advisors offers its clients a number of cutting-edge services including: recruitment process and organizational design; staffing, planning and strategy; and recruitment related training. Founded in 2001 (celebrating our Tenth Anniversary) and based in Long Beach, California, USA, Riviera Advisors has representatives in Dallas, Texas and Boston, Massachusetts, serving a global client base. Riviera Advisors also manages the STARoundtable, (Strategic Talent Acquisition Roundtable), a networking, best practices and benchmarking community for corporate recruiting and staffing leaders.

Riviera Advisors is a proud member of the ASHER Talent Alliance, a global alliance of talent acquisition providers working together to benefit the unique and individual needs of their clients. To learn more about ASHER, visit ASHERTalent.com.

About Peter Clayton

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Peter Clayton, Producer/Host, is an award-winning producer/director of radio, television, documentary, video, interactive and Web-based media who has created breakthrough media for a wide array of Fortune 100 clients.