What do Fashion and Recruiting have in Common?

I recently took a trip to Vegas with my twin brother.

You would think being twins that we would look alike, dress alike, and have similar interests. But, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Once my mom stopped dressing us alike when we were 5, my brother, Nate Vogel, started getting into fashion. He’s currently a Sr. Director of Sales and Partner Readiness at Tableau Software where he goes into the office every day and shows off his latest designer fashions while being a Tableau Data Rockstar. I’m a recruiter who works from home, shaves every other day or two, and often wear sweatpants to work because that’s how I roll. So for our trip to Vegas, I brought my usual outfit of shorts, t-shirts, flip flops, hat turned backwards, and a pair of jeans in case we went out somewhere nice. My brother, seen in this Mock GQ Cover above (knows more about fashion than most men should), shows up with designer fashions, custom suits, ties, pocket scarves, statement jewelry, neck scarves (it’s 80 degrees in Vegas, but I guess you can wear scarves all year round to add texture and dimension and color to your look), watches, designer bracelets, multiple pairs of sunglasses, and several pair of shoes. He talks about his favorite designers like Thom Brown, Alexander McQueen, and Tom Ford. None of which I have heard of. After my trip, I was unpacking my luggage in our closet and noticed my wife had 10 different purses, 50 pairs of shoes, necklaces, earrings, watches, rings, scarves, sunglasses, chokers, headbands, and scrunchies. Admittedly, I know nothing about fashion and it made me wonder why do people accessorize and what is so great about all these accessories?

So... what is accessorizing?

It’s considered a must nowadays. In fashion it is the use of additional statement pieces that are not part of the main dress but help enhance, complement, and complete the main outfit. In recruiting we call our accessories, Chrome Extensions. These are software programs or tools that recruiters use to modify or enhance the functionality of the Chrome Browser. Although, in the real world I am a walking fashion faux pas, in the recruiting world I personally have enough Chrome Extensions to be considered a sourcing fashionista with all the accessories I have running.

Alright, so how do you choose the right accessories?

• The right accessory must complement the main outfit perfectly.

• Secondly, it must not overshadow the main outfit.

• Third, it must not clash with other accessories being used.

• Finally, it must not be outdated.

Accessorize your Recruiting with Contact Out.

I use it to enhance my searches on LinkedIn because it meets all the rules for accessorizing. First, it complements LI perfectly. Second, it doesn’t overshadow LI and sits in the background. Third, it doesn’t clash with other accessories I am using. And best of all, it’s not outdated.

As you can see in the image below, Contact Out adds a powerful overlay on top of LinkedIn profiles. How it enhances LI is that it gives you phone numbers, email addresses, and links to Twitter, Github, and personal websites. According to Contact Out's research analytics: An email has 2x the response of InMail, and candidates reply 5x faster. Contact Out has over 600 million emails in their database. All emails provided are triple verified and 97% accurate.

Contact Out also lets you easily export Linkedin profile information and contact details in one click to Google spreadsheets, which you can then import into your ATS. Contact Out also integrates with email sending tools like Yesware and Toutapp.

The Ultimate Power of Accessories…

While we were in Vegas, several people stopped us and commented on my brother’s attire. (Hint: Nobody commented on mine, thankfully!). We were also able to bypass a VIP line to get into a club because somebody liked his bracelet and said, “you guys shouldn’t be standing in this line”. Similarly, using recruiting accessories like ContactOut bypasses LindedIn's InMail service allowing you to email or contact the candidates directly. This means standing out from the hundreds of other recruiters who are InMailing the same candidates and waiting for responses. If you are like my brother and like to wear multiple accessories at the same time, I also recommend that you try others tools as well like Hiretual, LeadIQ, Lusha, and Connecifier Social Links, which we will be covering in future posts. Stay tuned! It’s always nice to have some variety in your tools for every occasion. Do you have a tool you’ve been using? Feel free to share it in the comments, or on social media with our hashtag #HoustonSourcingCrew.

About the Author

Jason Vogel is a Sourcing Manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). He is part of a national Sourcing Team whose focus is to identify, engage, and build a talent pipeline of passive candidates and convert them to active applicants for the firm to hire. Jason has 18 years of recruiting experience as an agency and in-house corporate recruiter.