alstin communications

As VP of Client Development for Alstin, I (happily) find myself on the road a lot, talking to clients, prospects, people in the media, etc.–and I attend numerous industry functions each month. On Alstin’s blog, I’ll let you know where I am and what I’m hearing in the wonderful world of recruiting.

For much of the Mid-Atlantic, this has been a historic winter. We’ve already crushed the snowfall record for one year and we still have a bit more of February and all of March to go. While I am definitely a warm weather person, (I promise I will never again complain about the heat) I actually do like snow days: the kids off from school, sledding, a roaring fire all day, meals in the crockpot, etc. But enough already with this winter! That one two punch in early February (in my area we got 27″ one day and 17″ just a few days later) really knocked the wind out of my sails. My snow shovel is still leaning against my front door and I give it a dirty look each time I pass by.

Of course, this has led to many wisely postponed meetings (I think I’m up to 6 that have been delayed or canceled) so this edition will be a bit shorter!

Mt. Holly, NJ: At the February meeting of Tri-State HRMA, the speaker was none other than Gerry Crispin, one of the most respected names in the recruitment industry. Gerry’s topic? “Engage Them or Enrage Them: You Have A Choice: Designing Corporate Staffing Pages to Enhance Your Candidates’ Experience…or Not.” So great to see that our agency’s philosophy matched so well with Gerry’s. As recruiters, we spend so much time, money and energy driving people to the career portion of our website, but what happens once they get there? Can they find the information they need? Are they engaged? Are you selling yourself positively as an employer? How is the application process? At Alstin, we have designed several services around optimizing and measuring the candidate experience on your career site, including one of our most popular and affordable products, webglass.

Elk Ridge, MD: A potential heavy snowfall held off so the monthly MAHCR (Maryland Area Healthcare Recruiters) could go on. As I’ve said before, this is a really great group and this meeting featured a wonderful presentation by past president Nick Piazza on certain portions of the recruiter’s handbook. I certainly learned a lot, and I think even seasoned recruiters received a lot of great info from Nick’s presentation.

Philadelphia, PA: Back after a winter break with PAAHCR, the Philadelphia Area Association of Healthcare Recruiters. We met in the beautiful JeffStat training room at Jefferson University Hospital. Our speaker was Joe Stubblebine, founder of JobCircle and longtime friend of Alstin. Joe spoke on Social Networking for healthcare recruiting, and his presentation was full of good information and tips for using social media to recruit healthcare workers. Of special interest was the surveys that JobCircle had done on how (and if) recruiters are using social media to recruit.

Until next time, see you on the road!