The netPolarity Blog

“I have a list of technical user groups and post my open positions, but I don’t get much of a reply.”

Hilarious, right? I take it back. If this is you, you probably don’t think it’s all that funny because you’re probably dealing with a very unhappy and unsympathetic hiring manager.

We’re here to help. Join us on Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 11am PST for an information-packed webinar on Sourcing Technical User Groups. (Click here to register.)

Everyone thinks Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn when we say “social media,” completely forgetting that user groups have not only been around a lot longer than these communities, but that they are more useful than ever to recruiters, especially when sourcing for very specialized skillsets.
While recruiters still use these online communities in their search efforts, many don’t go beyond hope and pray — post requirements and pray for replies — with disappointing results.

In this webinar, netPolarity Sourcing Manager and MARS Head Instructor Mark Tortorici will shed light on technical user groups, and forums and show attendees how to actively mine these online communities using advanced sourcing tricks to make the most out of them, exponentially expanding your talent pool for passive and hard-to-reach candidates. We will focus on technology-specific user groups, diversity-related groups, and other technical groups & forums like Github and Stackoverflow.

Of course, in true Mark Tortorici fashion, we will also go through search string examples that you can immediately put to use after the webinar.

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending SourceCon for the first time. Unlike most attendees, however, I was neither a sourcer nor a recruiter. I attended as support for netPolarity Sourcing Manager and MARS Head Instructor Mark Tortorici, who was speaking at SourceCon.

As the marketing manager for netPolarity and its training arm, MARS, I came to SourceCon to meet my target audience in person. That’s a given. Above all, however, my mission was to connect Mark to those who seek his expertise, in a meaningful way — beyond the exchanging of cards, beyond adding contacts on LinkedIn.

Not being a sourcer or a recruiter, it was a challenge explaining to other attendees exactly what I was doing there. To keep introductions short, I introduced myself to people as the lead groupie for Mark the Tortorici.

It was an appropriate title, I thought. This was, after all, the conference to meet and learn from rockstars of the sourcing world.  Meeting The Lance Haun of ERE, Amybeth Hale, a Jim Stroud and Glen Cathey sighting within the first hour, I was star-struck from the beginning.

“OMG, OMG, OMG…I think that’s Lance Haun, should we go introduce ourselves to him?” This band of groupies consists of me and my multiple personalities. “Is it really Glen Cathey? And Jim Stroud! We’ve only seen him in pictures!” some other Lisa said. “OMG, OMG, OMG, it’s @researchgoddess!”

Star speaker after star speaker, Donna Quintal, Bryan Chaney, Shannon Van Curen, Jackye Clayton, John Vlastelica, Jeff Weidner, Sarang Brahme and of course, Mark the Tortorici…this conference was gnarly and I mean that in the most intense, the most righteous of ways.

Luckily, SourceCon was held at the Georgia Aquarium, so as overwhelmed as I was with all the star power around me, this mermaid was well within her element with fish friends swimming close by to calm me down.

I even met a fellow mermaid, Julia Stone, aka @BizWerkerJulia. Together, we stared at the giant aquarium, geeked out on fish, launched the Occupy SourceCon movement and demanded better internet connectivity. Surely, Ronnie Bratcher can relate.

Hats off to the Marketing Team at Dice Employers Network for a job well done sponsoring SourceCon with Rockstar Sourcing Moves…and for making my SourceCon mission such a breeze to accomplish. I could not have come up with a better stage for Mark the Tortorici, or a funner party to not just meet — but most importantly — bond with my target audience, the sourcing community, all while Mark rocks on stage. I’m a big fan, Dice marketing studs!

You know who else I was an instant fan of? The organizers of SourceCon After Dark: Ronnie Bratcher, Chris Havrilla and Eric Jaquith. Check out Bratcher’s post on the origins of SourceCon AD.

While SourceCon presentations were all awesome, conference speakers rarely give out their real secret sauce in the form of a slide. The most eye-opening information presented in conferences usually happen in more intimate settings like mini sessions where the environment is more interactive, relaxed and alcohol is present. SourceCon AD was the perfect venue for hardcore extra-curricular sourcing.

The most enjoyable part of SourceCon AD was hanging out with sourcers and recruiters, finding out about their biggest sourcing puzzles and guiding them over to The Tortorici. As great as Mark is onstage, he shines even brighter in small group settings, with a connected laptop and an ultra-challenging req to conquer.

Next SourceCon is this Fall, and it will be held in Seattle. In the weeks that have passed since the last one, I’ve come to know more of the good people I met in Atlanta and I look forward to seeing them again in the fall, maybe stay an extra day or two for a swim in Puget Sound with Julia Stone, a bike ride with Ronnie Bratcher, and in a city where it rains plenty, a mushroom foraging trip with Suzy Tonini is in order.

Did you miss Mark at SourceCon? You can view his SourceCon presentation here, and yes, for more Tortorici goodness, may I recommend a recording of his SourceCon follow-up webinar via ERE and sponsored by Jobvite: “New Sourcing Tools and Trends for 2013.”

More Tortorici and you want it now? Attend one or both of our webinars this week: From Boolean Basics to Advanced String Creation (tomorrow, March 19, 11am PST) and Secrets of Social Media (Thursday, March 21 at 11 am PST). You can sign up for both and save. Use this link to register.

Namaste,
Lisa

Sometimes it happens. You come across a candidate profile/resume that is so perfect for the job, that you will believe ANYTHING the candidate tells you. The combination of this hope/desire/need to fill the job coupled with the difficulty or desperation of the situation can sometimes cloud your vision.

Of course we want to find candidates that are a fit for the job. Of course we want them to be “The One”. 

But we should use our wiser powers of judgment and logic to figure out if the person is a right fit for the job.

We do this by asking what the candidate does vs. what skills they have. *

There is no shortage of candidates out there. Sometimes it can feel like you are trying to dodge bullets with the number of candidates who tell that you can do the job. Whether you source or recruit, the qualification of candidates should be dealt with throughout the hiring process.
For sourcing, you have to establish what the candidate is doing and how they are doing it. In other words, if you need a candidate that has:

“Ruby development experience for a PHP web application with UI experience”

Here is a Google search for this req. The focus should be on ruby development with front end web technologies like HTML, JavaScript libraries, and PHP.
Also, putting “Ruby by itself can be a loaded term, because many engineers just add that to their resume since it’s a hot technology. So instead, we add some other words to describe the use of Ruby in action.

(inurl:resume OR intitle:resume) (“ruby gem” OR “developed ruby” OR “in ruby” OR “ruby developer” OR “ruby application” OR “ruby framework”) php html (javascript OR “java script” OR jquery OR mootools OR dojo OR extjs OR “ext-js”) (ui OR gui OR “user interface” OR “front end” OR frontend)

So let’s say you find a candidate that has this in their resume:

“Programming Languages: C++, Java, C#, Visual Basic, XML, HTML, Javascript, CSS, Perl, Shell, Cobol, ADA, Erlang, Lisp, Haskell & Ruby”

Does that mean we have a match? Well, no. We have to qualify the candidate, if you even want to go that far into the process. Most candidates will put the technologies they are the most familiar with at the beginning of a list.

What we would like to see on the candidate’s experience is:

“Developed a web application framework in Ruby and PHP with front end components written in Jquery, HTML5, and PHP”
This is much better of course, because we can see the development experience in the languages that we want.
Now in either case with these resumes, you still have to qualify what the candidate is doing, what type of company and software they are developing, and how many years’ experience they have doing it.

If you decide to pursue either candidate, then you have to ask them the right questions about their experience:
“What have you written with the Ruby language?”
“What did the application do?”
“How many people or users did the application support?”
“Is the company still using the application?”
“Was this a research/school project?”
“How many lines of code can be attributed to you alone?”

Asking the right questions of the candidate is necessary. The candidates who are a better fit will be able to talk in depth about their work based on the questions you ask. The wrong candidates will not/cannot do that. The more you follow this path of detective work, the better you be at sourcing/recruiting.
I will be presenting at Sourcecon in Atlanta. I highly recommend that you attend if you are at all interested in learning about the secrets of sourcing from the experts.

I also conduct trainings for those who wish to learn how they can improve their sourcing skills and their technical understanding of job reqs. You can contact me for more info about training for sourcers & recruiters: markt (at) netpolarity (dot) com

- Mark

#sourcing #training #sourcecon #netpolarity

On our previous post, we shared with you the things we look for when hiring raw recruiting talent.

On the other side of the netPolarity equation — our flagship — is sourcing.

“Sourcers are of a different breed and it’s not as easy to spot one just looking at a resume or even interviewing,” netPolarity founder and President David Chuang said. “We use a different set of criteria when we look for sourcers.”

What do we look for in a resume? People who come from some type of technical background – IT, software development, QA – are great candidates to become Sourcing Analysts at netPolarity. Programming as a hobby? That works, too.

“Our sourcers process huge amounts of information,” David said. “We can teach a person advanced search methodologies, but he or she needs to be the type of person that enjoys sorting through massive piles of data all day long,” David said. “Not everyone can do that.”

“Sourcers tend to be more left-brained,” netPolarity President David Chuang said. “We look for analytical people,” David said. “It’s a little harder to spot a good sourcer than it is to identify a recruiter because the trait we are looking for isn’t always evident in a resume.”

If we must put a name to that specific trait we look for: geekiness. Recruiters are naturally curious about people, sourcers tend to be extra curious about technology and information. They get excited about the latest gadgets, the most recent software updates and they can’t help but tweak things.

“We look for that troubleshooting mentality,” David said. “They tend to be the do-it-yourself type. They are the types that will jailbreak their iPhones or spend a sleepless night working on a personal project.”

Exhibit A: Sourcing Analyst Chris Schwacofer’s Macho Man Randy Savage costume, which he worked on for weeks leading up to Halloween. He sewed the entire costume himself.

“Not everyone gets their sense of humor,” David added. “Their unique personalities definitely make netPolarity a more interesting place.”

This is quite true about the sourcing analysts we currently have at netPolarity. Exhibit B.

“I guess you can say they are the opposite of a recruiter. Sourcers deal with information, recruiters deal with people.”

netPolarity’s service delivery infrastructure, however, is still team-based so we can’t quite do away with interpersonal skills. They still have to partner with recruiters and their account executives.

“Forming teams with the right mix of personalities isn’t easy, but when done right, you get incredible results,” David said. “We’ve been doing this for years; we have it down to a science.”

Did you read this post and think, “that’s me!”? Send us an email and attach your resume!

As the point-person fielding questions about MARS, I am often asked about how our training program came to be. How did it get this awesome?

The simple answer: it is the result of many years of turning entry-level talent into high-caliber professional sourcers and recruiters. MARS is the heart of netPolarity, the organ that pumps life into the organization.

It is no secret that the best place to start in staffing is netPolarity, and many who aspire to enter the world of talent acquisition come to work for us because of our training. Because a large percentage of the people we hire have no experience in staffing, recognizing raw talent is critical to our hiring process.

“We can teach people complex and advanced search methodologies, but we can’t change who they are in terms of their personality,” David said. “We can give you the skills, but recruiting is not for everyone. That said, we’ll look at resumes, but we are more interested in who you are as a person.”

So how do we spot raw recruiting talent?

Let’s start with the resume:

College Degree
While it’s not a must, we do like to see candidates with four-year degrees.

“What a degree tells me is that the candidate has the ability to finish something they started.” David said.

Leadership Roles
Whether it’s for an amateur or children’s sports team, or a social cause for the community, we look for candidates with leadership experience.

“Natural-born leaders are hard to find,” David said. “Leaders have very strong personalities.”

People-centric Experience
Recruiting is a people-centric occupation, so when evaluating resumes to spot raw talent, we look for experience indicating previous exposure to environments where they’ve had to deal with challenging people.

“In the past we have hired people from retail, former teachers, people from finance” David said. “In the interviews, I really like hearing stories about how they dealt with difficult people,” David said. “We are looking for people who have naturally high sales aptitude,” David said.

Career Progression
We look for people who are goal-oriented. I can tell you firsthand that this is a critical trait to have. If you are not goal-oriented, you would not enjoy working as a recruiter and would definitely not be successful at netPolarity.

In a resume, career progression would be a good indicator of a goal-oriented candidate.

“We are a metrics-focused company,” David said. “To be successful here, a person needs to be goal-oriented and productivity-focused. We have aggressive placement quotas, goals they need to hit. If someone does not have the drive, they simply won’t make it.”

“We train our people to be high-performance and we keep them performing at their peak by setting goals.”

The Interview
So you made it to the interview. What is David looking for then?

Articulation Skills
“We are looking for people who are highly articulate,” David said. “Basic overall composure, eye contact, confidence,” David said. “Handshake is a big thing for me,” David said. “I can tell right away by how sure that person is of himself from their handshake. Sweaty palms are always a tell-tale sign that person is not going to do well in the interview.”

Just as with any interview, we expect candidates to do their due diligence.

“Have they seen our website? What do they think about it? It’s easy to tell when someone is not being honest,” David said.

Can you dance on your feet?
For the most part, the interview is pretty conversational. David says he likes to throw in unexpected questions so I am not going to give the playbook away here.

“My goal during these interviews is to take them out of their comfort zone,” David said. “I like to ask questions that get them to talk about themselves and their values as a person.”

“I’m looking for a person’s ability to dance on their feet,” David said. “As a recruiter, you’ll be dealing with clients and candidates so you’ll be dancing on your feet all day long,” David said.

Do you have the ideal recruiter personality?
David looks for what he calls “recruiter personality:” outgoing, inquisitive, talkative. “They are naturally curious,” David said. “They are always asking open-ended questions, they are always trying to figure out what you’re about, where your pain points are because that’s what they’re going to try to fill.”

“Recruiters are innately self-driven, independent, entrepreneurial” David added. “It is not uncommon for recruiters eventually go independent and open their own businesses.” David said. “It is that strong recruiter personality that drives them to do that.”

Hunter or Gatherer?
Hunters make good recruiters, and it is those innate hunting instincts we try to spot when we are evaluating new talent.

“In the agency environment, recruiting is a direct revenue generator, not a support function,” David said, comparing agency versus corporate recruiting environments. “If we don’t meet our numbers, we don’t eat. We get paid based on what and how much we produce.”

“Our recruiting environment is a bit more hardcore. Oftentimes, we have no access to the hiring manager and the skill sets we look for are very difficult to find,” David said. “It’s a different, more intense kind of stress, but a hunter enjoys that challenge,” David said.

“We hire people who like to chase,” David said. “We hire people who don’t take no as a challenge rather than a rejection.”

David Chuang is the president and founder of netPolarity.

The Employee Lounge is a sacred place. It is a place where our hardworking recruiters and sourcers can find relief from a busy day of seeking hard-to-find talent for our clients. It is where the hungry are nourished, the tired are caffeinated, and the thirsty are watered. It is a place that inspires creative ideas and fosters free exchange and collaboration among peers.

It is where we celebrate: birthdays and holidays, our achievements and triumphs, professional and personal, big ones and small, marriages and engagements and sometimes, the much-needed breakup. It is where we mourn with our peers over lost candidates, lost deals, and sometimes, lost loves.

I can bet that at one point in their month-long training before they were fully-certified MARS-Elite Staffing Professionals, each recruiter and sourcer here have spent some time in the netPolarity Employee Lounge studying for Mark Tortorici’s midterm or final, or practicing for their much-anticipated role-playing session with Account Executive Will Huynh.

It is where more senior staff mentor interns, passing on tricks of the trade they’ve learned over the years. It is where search methodologies are debated, new strategies created. It is the birthplace of many projects.

It is where teams are solidified.

But in many workplaces around the world, workers miss out on the benefits of having a breakroom that fosters productivity, creativity and team camaraderie. In most cases, it is because of Inconsiderate CoWorkers (ICW’s) ruining the breakroom for others.

ICW’s and their breakroom crimes are divisive workplace issues that hinder forward workforce momentum, an issue that we at netPolarity feel strongly about. Everyday, ICW’s perpetrating breakroom crimes cost companies thousands of dollars in lost productivity due to staff irritability which quickly leads to snippy emails and smack IM’s. It’s an issue that, if left unadressed, could lead to a widespread epidemic of low morale in workforces around the globe.

Through blog posts, Facebook statuses, Tweets and Instagram photos, I read about the plight of office workers around the world who dared to tell tales of cake carnage, sticky spills, smeared frosting and fuzzy food. I read about the cupcake that an ICW mercilessly stripped of its frosting, poked for its filling, then left alone in an empty box in a cold breakroom. The violated cupcake was discovered by the company receptionist, who now needs counseling.

I wept for that fallen cupcake.

We at netPolarity know that harmony in the workforce begins in the breakroom and we are taking a stand against ICW’s who commit breakroom atrocities and crimes against pastries.

There is hope. We at netPolarity believe that with a little guidance, ICW’s can become likeable employees that can work with other professionals and make meaningful contributions towards overall workplace harmony.

We’ve created a best practices guide to help spread Workplace Harmony and Increased Productivity. We believe that with these simple rules, workplaces nationwide can reap the benefits of having a breakroom that fosters teamwork, free exchange of ideas and creativity, ultimately leading to happiness and productivity.

DON’T BE A CRUMB.
Crumb. It happens, but when it does, clean it up. Don’t just sweep it off to fall on the floor; wipe the crumby surface with a damp paper towel/sponge and throw the crumbs in the garbage.

ZERO IN ON ZAPPING
Before pushing START, consider whether your food will be explosive, offensively stinky, or both. Covering your food with a paper towel will prevent most splatters. If splatter does happen, clean it up before the projectile congeals.

TAKE PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE REFRIGERATOR.
Fuzzy, moldy food items left rotting in a breakroom refrigerator is not just unappetizing, it’s unsanitary.Take personal responsibility for the food you bring in: label your food items.

And finally, a personal plea, on behalf of baked goods in breakrooms nationwide — the cupcakes, the donuts, the eclairs who can’t speak for themselves…

RESPECT BAKED GOODS, DON’T POKE FOR THE FILLING.
Pillaging a cupcake for its whipped cream cheese frosting, a muffin for its top, an eclair for its custard, or a Krispy Kreme for its raspberry filling is just like killing a majestic Great White Shark for its dorsal fin. It’s wrong.

If you are lucky enough to have a boss or peers nice enough to bring baked goods, show some respect for their gift. Take a piece and enjoy. If you are on a diet and would like to eat just a portion instead of a whole (or maybe you’re saving your calorie intake for “just the good parts,”) make your intentions known. Chances are, you will find someone to share that piece with. And isn’t that better than pissing someone off?

Did you know that when two co-workers are brought together by sharing baked goods, a cupcake goes to pastry heaven? I know so. My heart is painted happy whenever I find them in the netPolarity breakroom.

Writing a resume is a science. Every element from the chronology (to reverse or not to reverse?), to the layout (paragraphs or bullets?), to the objective (leave it off… well, just leave it off) must serve a specific purpose. A wrong move or poor decision regarding your resume’s content can instantly remove you from consideration. With so many variables to consider, there are two simple phrases everyone should remove from their resumes:

"Participated in" and "Involved with"

These two phrases are guaranteed to move your resume from the consideration pile to the trash heap. To begin with, they are weak descriptors. Worse, they make a candidate sound unqualified. Being “involved with” something or “participating in” some aspect of a job implies your role was peripheral and that you do not command the skills or expertise required of a position. From a recruiter, sourcer or hiring manager’s perspective, a candidate who was involved with quality assurance testing is not as strong as someone who unit tested a java-based application or black-box tested a piece of software, even if you happen to be the greatest tester on Earth.

When sifting through hundreds of resumes from qualified applicants, hiring managers and recruiters are in a position to be selective, and chances are they will go with the candidate who is clearly doing the job as opposed to the candidate who was “involved with” or “participated in” the role.

So take a look at your resume. If you see these either of these phrases remove them immediately. You don’t want to imply to a hiring manager or staffing professional that you are not the right candidate for their openings.

Matthew Ferree is the Lead Technical Sourcer  at netPolarity and is one of our talented instructors, training the next generation of super-sourcers and recruiters under our in-house MARS-Elite program. You can also read more from Matt on his personal blog, Reqt.

As a leading supplier of IT talent to Fortune 1,000 companies, netPolarity recruits for some of the most competitive environments in the staffing industry. To be successful in our business, we have to get to the best candidates before our competition does, deliver the right skills for requirements, and to ensure quality, we have to nurture our assets: our candidates and contract employees.

While our competition struggle to deliver on all categories — speed, accuracy and quality — netPolarity does it with relative ease. This is largely due to our service delivery infrastructure. netPolarity is made up of various service delivery teams, each operating as individual business units. Each team comprises Technical Sourcing Analysts, Recruiters and the Account Executive.

Technical Sourcing Analysts are highly-trained hunters. Using complex techniques and the latest sourcing methodologies, they can find pretty much any set or skill combo our clients can conjure up. From there, our Technical Sourcing Analysts deliver the candidates to our Recruiters, who then qualify, test and validate the candidates’ skill sets.They are tasked with ensuring that candidates not only meet the requirements but most importantly, have a thorough understanding of the assignment to ensure a perfect fit.

From there, the Account Executive takes over and drives the hiring process forward. As the team leader and the client-facing point-person of the team, the Account Executive’s job is to ensure that everyone’s — the client’s, the candidate’s or the employee’s — needs or issues are met or resolved.

Each team at netPolarity pretty much has a distinct personality with its own sets of strengths, making our service delivery infrastructure a key ingredient in our staffing alchemy.

Meet E-Team, led by staffing veteran Elda Romero (top right).

“We are big on customer service,and our team has the perfect mix of people for that,” said Elda. “Kristal is so sweet and patient, and Tracy’s bubbly personality just brightens everyone’s day,” Elda said of her team members: Kristal Sellamuttu (top left), Chris Schwacofer (middle), and Tracy “Starburst” Vuong (bottom left).

The secret behind E-Team’s candy-like sweetness is their strong sourcing foundation: Technical Sourcing Analyst Chris Schwacofer.

“He’s always spot on when it comes to delivering what the recruiters need,” Elda said. “Because he gets it right, the recruiters can really focus on taking care of our candidates and employees.”

Our contractors under E-Team’s care show their agreement, complimenting Kristal and Tracy not just in quarterly surveys but in the continuous flow of thank-you cards they send to our office.

“You updated me through every step and with every conversation you had with the hiring manager,” wrote one netPolarity contract employee on a card to Kristal. “You MADE it different. I enjoyed working with you. You are very nice and good at what you do.”

Much thanks, E-Team, for indulging me in today’s photoshoot!

The objective line is perhaps the most debated piece of information on a resume. Should the objective line sell a hiring manager on your skills or should it be a stepping point to move up on the corporate ladder? Some hiring managers are adamant that a well structured objective demonstrates a candidate’s clear understanding of their skills. Others complain that objectives are often distracting because they are too limiting, vague or just plain wrong. So what should you, the resume writing job seeker do?

Consider these three all-too-common mistakes people make when including an objective line on their resume (you may notice yourself falling into one of these categories):

First is the kitchen sink method, where a candidate lists every possible position for which they feel they are qualified. A typical “Kitchen Sink” objective may read something like “To obtain a position as a Systems Administrator, Systems Engineer or Network Administrator.”

When screening resumes, a Sourcer, Recruiter, or Hiring Manager is looking for a profile to be cohesive and show a proven track record of success in a particular position. From where we sit, including a position in the objective line for which you are not necessarily qualified for is a red flag as it may indicate a candidate is trying to embellish their skills, is not fully cognizant of their abilities, or is grasping at straws to get an interview.

The remedy: leave out the objective entirely and let your skill set speak for itself.

When a candidate applies for a position that is outside of their current job title it speaks louder to a staffing professional or Hiring Manager when the candidate’s experience makes that candidate a fit, not a single line on their resume.

Scenario two happens when a candidate lists their objective as attaining one specific position, even if they may be applying for another. This objective may read something like: To obtain a position as a Systems Administrator.

Many job descriptions include cross-functional duties that may be above the typical pay grade of the job being advertised. For example, a Systems Administration position consisting of many responsibilities typical of a Systems Engineer is posted and the Hiring Manager would prefer that the right candidate will eventually transition into an engineer role. Many candidates apply who meet most of the requirements but pigeon hole themselves as a Systems Administrator through their objective. These candidates could be rejected for appearing to the Hiring Manager that they are happy in their specific role and have no desire to move on.

A candidate could avoid the possible rejection by just leaving off their objective.

Finally there is the vague objective. These are all too common and often look like this: To obtain [insert position here] in a dynamic growth-oriented company.

Off the bat this could apply to any company. Objectives such as these scream to a Hiring Manager or staffing professional that the candidate has done zero research on the company they are applying to and are simply blanketing the globe with their resume in the hopes that something sticks. Not a great way to make a first impression.

The remedy? Take it off your resume.

Looking at these three common resume objective scenarios I can only come to one conclusion: Leave the objective off your resume and let your skills speak for themselves.

Matthew Ferree is the Lead Technical Sourcer  at netPolarity and is one of our talented instructors, training the next generation of super-sourcers and recruiters under our in-house MARS-Elite program. You can also read more from Matt on his personal blog, Reqt.

As we train more and more sourcers and recruiters under the MARS training program, we realized that the need for a certification was imminent. In an ever-competitive recruiting market, certification would not only give us a way to stand behind the students who have completed required coursework, it would also give them a way to distinguish themselves as highly-trained recruiting professionals.

There are three types of MARS Certification: MARS-Elite, MARS-ProS and MARS-TechPro. The certification type indicates the type of courses and tests passed to achieve the certification.

MARS-Elite
MARS-Elite is the top training certification one can achieve under our program.

To qualify for this certification, a candidate must meet one of the requirements below and successfully pass the final test.

• Any individual that attends and successfully passes netPolarity’s 4-week Sourcer/Recruiter Training Program OR a customized Corporate Sourcer/Recruiter Training Program
• Any individual that attends and successfully passes a corporate Sourcer/Recruiter Training Program (must include Advanced Sourcing Modules, Technology Modules, and Recruiting Modules)
• Passing the final test

What can you expect from a MARS-Elite-certified staffing professional?

• MARS-Elite professionals have the ability to source, find and rch ANY candidate no matter how unique or difficult the search may be.
• MARS-Elite professionals understand every major technical discipline & job function in the corporate world, and can comprehend emerging new technologies.
• MARS-Elite professionals have a complete understanding of the recruiting process, have the ability to cold call, have negotiating abilities, know how to close candidates, and have a comprehensive knowledge of legal, HR and compliance issues that may arise during the hiring process.
• MARS-Elite individuals are historically rated as top performers in their field and in the industry.

MARS-TechPro
MARS-TechPro is our certification for technical staffing professionals.

What can you expect from a MARS-TechPro-certified staffing professional?

• MARS-Pro professionals have the ability to source, find and rch ANY candidate no matter how unique or difficult the search may be.
• The MARS-TechPro certified professional understands major technical disciplines and job functions in the corporate world with a focus on specific technologies.

There are two ways one can attain the MARS-TechPro certification:

Option 1:

• Attend our 1-day Advanced Sourcing Class
• Attend two (2) Technical Booster sessions
• Pass the MARS Technical Sourcing test.

Option 2:

• Attend the Boolean Basics to Advanced String Creation webinar
• Attend the People/Email Sourcing webinar
• Attend the Social Media Sourcing webinar
• Attend the Xtreme Passive Sourcing webinar *or* Diversity International Sourcing webinar
• Attend two (2) Technical Booster sessions
• Pass the MARS Technical Sourcing test.

MARS-Pro
MARS-Pro is our certification for non-technical staffing professionals.

What can you expect from a MARS-Pro-certified staffing professional?

• MARS-Pro staffing professionals have the ability to source, find and rch ANY candidate no matter how unique or difficult the search may be.
• The MARS-Pro-certified professional understands Sales, Marketing, Professional Services, Financial Services, Supply Chain, Human Resources, Accounting, Project Management and their corresponding job functions in the corporate world, including a focus in specific verticals from the Pro-S Booster sessions.
• Potential employers can expect MARS-Pro graduates to be rated as top performers in their field and industry.