Customer Reviews

Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for YoungTalent

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
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It just makes so much sense. If you want new customers to buy your product or service, you start by understanding your potential customers.

This is the only book I've read on recruiting that start inside the heads of top recruits (1000 of them interviewed for the book). Only knowing their perspective can you sell top talent on working for you.

The first part of RECRUIT OR DIE does a great job of telling you exactly what you need to know about today's young people to successfully recruit them. And the authors back up their points with stories straight from the mouths of current students and recent grads.

The second part of RECRUIT OR DIE lays out the recruiting process from start to finish--including what to do AFTER THEY ACCEPT YOUR OFFER to make them more productive and happier at work to give you the best chance of keeping them in your company.

The best part is that Resto and his co-authors demonstrate how effective recruiting should be as rigorous as sales. In fact, you could probably just replace "recruit" with "customer" and the book becomes a sales management handbook! And a pretty good one at that.

If you recruit for your company in any capacity, you need this book. It is literally a step-by-step guide to recruit the best talent from universities around the country.

Here are few of my favorite parts:

1. "Their Lives are Their Careers" - This section calls out the fact that recent college grads don't draw a bold line between work/life balance; WORK IS LIFE for this new generation, and in order to recruit the best talent, you must embrace this new way of life in your company. The authors suggest rotational programs, special project assignments, and an informal work culture to bring out the best in your new recruits.

2. "Gossip Hounds and Constant Communicators" - Ah, word of mouth! These guys have been doing their reading. The authors accurately assess that with online social networks you can bet that your recruits are talking about their experience with you the second they leave your boardroom. In fact, they may be doing it WHILE THEIR IN YOUR BOARDROOM!!! In order to make sure they're telling their freinds about the good stuff, you have to pay attention to details. It ends up being the most topical stuff that makes a big impression: the money, the perks, powerful people, execution of the recruiting process (call them back on time!)

3. "Improving Your Recruiting Staples" - This truly is a step-by-step, highly detailed section that will allow you to fine-tune your career fair booth, information sessions, and job postings. Some VALUABLE ADVICE from this section: (1) All about location, (2) Have recruits RSVP, (3) Get the RIGHT speaker, (4) Talk up the glamour, (5) Haul in the Alumni, (6) Be clear about next steps. This is just a taste - this section really lays it out for anyone participating in recruiting activities.

I have a lot of exposure to recruiting at my company, and everyone that has read this book (about half of our recruiters at this point) seems to "get it". We have changed our approach to campus recruiting in many ways, and I truly recommend that you get this book if you are serious about recruiting the best talent to your company.

Recruit or Die is a fantastic read with a fresh perspective on recruiting. In fact, it's the only work I've seen that covers college recruiting so comprehensively. As a student right now, it has also helped me to gain much more clarity in understanding the recruiting arena. Definitely worth every page.

If your company recruits new hires by going to college campuses, you need to read Recruit or Die, no matter how good you think you are at recruiting. If you have a formal recruiting program or even if you just attend job fairs looking for good new employees, this will still be a valuable book for you.

The good advice begins in the Introduction, where the authors ask and answer the question: "Why Microsoft, McKinsey and Goldman Sachs?" They point out that all three of these favorite places for graduates to seek employment have a great brand. But other companies do, too.

What sets these three apart from the pack is what they do. The authors identify four things.

They won't settle for anyone other than exactly the recruits they want.
They work harder and smarter than their competitors to know their target audience: the recruits.
They sell themselves better than their competitors do.
They present a united front.

That's strategy. Tactically, the authors tell you that contact is king, that you should sell your people first and your company second and that courtesy and class go a long way.

The authors suggest that if you follow the kind of diligent process that the recruiting stars follow, you'll get great results. I think they're right.

Years ago, when police departments suddenly found themselves facing massive retirements with few recruits showing up at the door, I designed recruiting programs for police departments. Almost everything I learned that's positive is here plus a ton of details that I wish I'd known at the time. You can cut your recruiting learning curve by reading Recruit or Die and applying its lessons.

You'll learn to think, for example, about your company and the jobs you're offering from three perspectives. You'll ask yourself what the differences are between what you have, what recruits think you have, and what recruits want. That set of distinctions, alone, can help you sharpen your offerings and your process.

Again and again you're reminded to build on your strengths. You're reminded to meet the questions and needs of the people you want to recruit. That's all good, but there are some things I wish were different.

There's too much emphasis on "talent" as "people who've done well in school." Sometimes the young person who's dramatically improved performance late in school is a better choice for your company. One Fortune 200 company used that as part of its target recruit profile for years.

There's also way too much emphasis on big schools, big companies and the east and west coasts. Scan the schools whose students are quoted in the book and you're hard pressed to find any schools in the Midwest or in the South below Chapel Hill.

There are virtually no smaller company examples even though the lessons of the book are adaptable to small companies. And there are virtually no small schools represented either.

The fact is that the bulk of college graduates will be something other than first-tier brains and come from something other than first-tier schools. They will go to work at companies of all sizes, all over the country.

I wish the book reflected that reality better. But even if you're a small company recruiting at a small state school in a Midwestern state, there's a lot of good practical nuts-and-bolts advice in this book. You'll find a wealth of information on the operational details of attending job fairs, effective job postings, following up with recruits.

The bottom line is that if you need to recruit, you need to read Recruit or Die.

Although I haven't been with my company too long, throughout the whole book I was able to connect what MY COMPANY could do to better attract valuable new hires, not only on campus, but afterwards as well. I believe that a big advantage is having connections with those graduate school programs as you suggest, so that they can feed the company, while the company is promoting its own talent into the front door for a win-win.



I'm going to buy two more copies and have lunch with the head of HR at my campus locally, and then ask for the same with the head of HR at our national HQ when I fly out there later this month. I look at this as an opportunity to help my company get the best hires AND spread my personal brand wider in house.

I have been a consultant in the field of college recruiting for many years, and, as part of my professional practice, conduct surveys and focus groups with graduating students on behalf of client companies. The findings presented in Recruit or Die absolutely mirror what I've heard from students on an ongoing and consistent basis. It's well-written, a fun read, and a completely accurate reflection of how employers' recruitment practices impact their image among targeted students -- and that, in reality, "campus brand" is shaped by what students tell each other about their experiences -- the good, the bad, and the ridiculous.

The sub-title to this book is "how any business can beat the big guys in the war for young talent". However, the book itself is geared to those recruiters (i.e., investment banking firms, Google, McKinsey and Co.) seeking to fill positions from elite schools (i.e., MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon and other Gourman 20 schools). If the reader is such a recruiter the book should rate a five star. However, for its intended of audience of "any business" (i.e., non elite recruiters) the book cannot rate a five star. The reason for this is that, unfortunately, the many of the strategies (and advantages) that elite recruiters have are simply not available to smaller firms. For example, the book recommends having information sessions off campus at very expensive "hip" hotels, clubs or restaurants and sending perspective interviewees expensive books or gifts (an example cited was a $100 engineering text or author autographed business best sellers) or how to "leverage" a great name such as "Google", etc. in recruiting campaigns. None of this advice is really usefull to those firms that do not have these budgets or that do not need (or are unable) to recruit from elite schools.

On the positive side, there is still plenty of advice that can be used by smaller recruiters. About 80% of the advice in the book can be described as such. Much of this involves scaling down the advice provided to the elite recruiters or just simple common sense (i.e., having information sessions that actually provide real information, having courteous and enthusiast recruiters, making use of alumni, etc.). Hence although the book is geared to elite recruiters focusing on elite schools, there is still considerable advice that can be useful (with modifications) for smaller recruiters.

I have gone through the interview process three times at MIT, twice as a student and once while an employee at Microsoft. I have also interned at Thomson West, which is frequently mentioned throughout the book. From all of my experiences with these companies and others, the information presented in the book is extremely accurate, both from a process perspective and the attitudes of students.

For a company, I loved that the book focused on:
1. Knowing what you are selling - I have talked to many employers who did not have a clear idea of this, and it was a huge turnoff. The book provides a great list of questions to help you identify what you are selling to students.

2. Establishing personal relationships with your recruits - When looking at competing offers, in retrospect, I realized that I have always chosen the company where I had the greatest relationships with the recruiter, other alumni, etc. The book emphasizes building these relationships and provides great suggestions on how to build them.

3. Setting expectations appropriately - This is a prevailing theme throughout the book, and I couldn't agree with it more. The book lists everything from making sure you tell recruits when you will follow-up with them to how to properly set expecations about recruitment goals within your organization.

While the primary audience of the book is recruiters, as a current student, I also found the information in the book helpful in navigating the interview process the second time around. I used the contents to identify companies with great recruiting processes, ask more meaningful questions about the companies, and provide better feedback to companies on how they could improve. While juggling information from so many companies, it even helped remind me of what was important to me about the next company I work at: career growth, opportunities to solve challenging and meaningful problems, and the culture of the company. I can't wait to apply what I read in the book when I start recruiting for the next company I work for.

Whether you are a student, a new recruiter, or an experienced one, I would definitely recommend picking up Recruit or Die!

When I heard about Recruit or Die, I ordered it immediately. I finished the book in only a couple days. It was an easy and pleasant read. I have been working on developing an online recruiting and job posting business geared towards college students, and reading Recruit or Die has changed the way I define the goals of my business. Moreover, Recruit or Die has supplied me with many new ideas that will help me to further differentiate my product from those of competitors.

The world of recruiting is in a state of flux right now, and nobody seems to really know where it's going. I think a lot of the change is happening first in college recruiting, and Recruit or Die does a great job of not only describing where the industry is now, but where it should be going. This is by far the best HR-related book that I've ever read.

Well I have just got the book but feel so fascinated as each page moves. It has reinforced my understanding also. How companies waste their time and HR department undertake such a process that will put off any candidate seeking career opportunity. We all know that CVs hide more than they reveal. and the best of the talents do not apply for the jobs.

All that is required in what Chris Resto aptly advises is to reflect contagious energy , fresh perspective and abundance in aspiration.. The job seeker wants is a career accelerator and not a mere job.. The Recruiter wants is a profit accelerator. Unless that bandwidth does not happen, the very exercise shall be futile. Yes one does get a job but managing and growing in it is the real challenge.

Since I happen to run Professional Mentoring Programmes and Pre placement training, the first thing that I advise people is to put the CV into a shredder. Because the Recruiter needs them more than the job seekers.. So first read the Nick Corcidilos ASK THE HEADHUNTER ([...]) That is indeed a must read for avoiding the HR Dept traps. Jeffrey J Fox also advises the same in Don't send a CV.. But now Christ Resto in this new title Recruit or Die explains the dynamics of Job market and best practices.

Read all this if you want the " right job " and never be a CV pusher.

with best wishes

RK Dhanvada
rk@dhanvada.com
India