Subscriber Discussion

Searching For Talent And Hiring In This Industry

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Dec 11, 2014

Looking for some assistance on search terms that filter out private investigator, security guard, security operators, information security, and all the other non electronic security related "security" positions.

What are the proper titles for people in this group who focus on electronic security in terms of technical talent, sales/account management, estimators, engineers, & designers, etc.?

Our postings although very detailed to our field keep turning up poor results, and manual searching produces to many non relevant candidates.

JH
John Honovich
Dec 11, 2014
IPVM

"technical talent, sales/account management, estimators, engineers, & designers"

I think those titles are fine. You might want to prepend 'physical security' or 'video surveillance' or 'electronic access control' to them.

The bigger issue is that it is hard to find such people as your field is such a niche.

Are you looking for people in a specific geographic location? Where are you searching / advertising?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Dec 11, 2014

We have found some good people working the booths of competitors at trade shows like ASIS and hired a few away...mostly salesmen, one sales engineer, and a project manager.

JH
John Honovich
Dec 11, 2014
IPVM

That makes sense. More qualified audience, though I have not seen the equivalent online, as in a industry job board that gets much traffic.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Dec 11, 2014

I suppose this is why the recruiters get paid top dollar for this service. We have spent good money running ad campaigns with no qualified responses.

JH
John Honovich
Dec 11, 2014
IPVM

A, I can give some more advice if you comment on: Are you looking for people in a specific geographic location? Where are you searching / advertising?

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Joe Mirolli
Dec 11, 2014
IPVMU Certified

John, thanks for the assistance, our general working area is the Mid-Atlantic region. Someone comfortable covering the Delaware/Maryland/Southeastern PA/Southern NJ area with immediate needs for account managers that can work directly with customers to propose them video and access control systems.

JH
John Honovich
Dec 11, 2014
IPVM

Hi Joe, well you can at least use this as an announcement to see what IPVM members are interested.

Btw, a number of people have told us it would be a good idea to have an IPVM industry job board. The idea would be that it would be free for both sides, as long as one had an IPVM membership.

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Dale Bullough
Dec 11, 2014
IPVMU Certified

YES! Industry job board would be outstanding. Especially given the level of execution of y'all's other offerings. I am sure it would be very effective.

(1)
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Joe Mirolli
Dec 12, 2014
IPVMU Certified

I second that job board notion. Did you say free? Even better! I remember other topics about this some time ago. It will be interesting to see what you make of it, nothing short of perfection as the rest of the site I would assume.

I know of several "Job" boards where its a service looking to hire a person for a single contracted job or those otherwise known as the "Trunk Slammers" go to location. Let it not get confused with a "Careers" board.

(1)
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
Dec 12, 2014

Joe, on your website, add the positions you have open. If I am a job seeker and I don't see specific positions listed, I assume right off the bat that you don't have any openings, despite your websites claim that "we are always hiring". Unless I was desperate for a job (which most of us security folks are not because there is such a high demand for us) I won't take the time to write a custom cover letter, and tune my resume for a position that potentially doesn't exist, or without having any information on the company, their values, their basic offereings (401k, dental, vision, etc.)

You guys could be the greatest company in the world to work for, and I could be the best candidate out there, but if you don't have a position listed that interests me, I'm not applying.

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Sean Nelson
Dec 13, 2014
Nelly's Security

I have found its too narrowing to try to find someone who has previous security sales and technical expertise, you could be searching forever and by the time you do find someone, they turn out to be subpar.

Ive had better success finding someone who has decent tech knowledge who is hungry to learn more and advance their career. These people are the easiest to train. I think investing in the person after hiring should have more of a focus than finding someone who is already completely knowledgeable in the security industry. I try to make my job postings sound more like a "techie" job than a "security" job and we will train you in the particular aspects of security. This produces alot more results than being very specific about advertising as a "security sales rep" or "security tech person".

The only problem with this route is it means you have to invest more in training, which if you are small company, this usually means investing more of your time as opposed to money. Time is super valuable when your small but it pays off tremendously when that person becomes independent.

(1)
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Joe Mirolli
Dec 13, 2014
IPVMU Certified
Thanks all for the feedback. Triaing part is absolutely correct and is the most proffered. Correct on the time it takes to do so to. But when your losing work becuase of time issues in the sense of bringing techs and reps up to speed being a slow slow process. Hiring expirience can also bring new an innovative ways that can go unknown by doing things the way you have always done them.
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