A lot of recruiters still view recruiting as a transaction..a new requirement comes in, and they start working on it as they would start building a new piece of furniture: putting together every piece of nail as they build another chair!!!
I have heard some people use the term "inbox recruiting" to better explain this behavior..you get a job requirement, you post it on the boards and then you wait...you wait for the candidates to hunt for you and find their perfect job...
Well, the above strategy did work for some companies in the past. But not anymore! More and more companies are reporting difficulties attracting top talent. And things will only get worse. Scary situation? Yes, unless you start shooting today.
Embrace change: First things first, change is the only constant in the world today. With technology changing so rapidly and the iPod generation a lot more demanding than ever, some of the old and archaic recruiting techniques don’t work anymore. So, get ready to kick some old habits.
In this article, I talk about some strategies to significantly improve the job search experience for a candidate.
- The black hole syndrome: www.whatis.com describes a black hole as an imaginary place where objects, files or funds go when they get lost for no apparent reason. This is exactly what happens when a candidate applies for a job online: you send in your resume and then you hear nothing for days, sometimes even weeks. In this day and age of instant gratification, why do companies still treat their recruitment function as a black hole?
Most companies today have implemented technology to send out auto-responses when a job-seeker applies to their website. Certainly not enough. When you buy a computer from Dell, you get a detailed tracking activity regarding the built stage of your specific configuration and when it is likely to be shipped. A job seeker should know when her resume was viewed by the employer, whether employer is interested in moving forward, any other jobs in the company where the job-seeker may be a fit and likely interview timeframe.
- Long drawn application process: I do not know why a job seeker still has to fill each of the boxes to explain where she attended school and what she did at the different organizations she worked at. Isn't the resume parsing technology intelligent enough in today's date to pick out the relevant stuff from her word resume and fill in the blanks?
- No more clicks: I entered the keyword Java on Monster to search for jobs in
Job details should open up by doing a simple mouse over rather than clicking. If a job seeker is interested in a particular job, search results should automatically get updated to show similar jobs.
- No more searches: This is a candidate driven market, right? Every job board and every employer career site in today’s age should have an artificial intelligence supported job matching engine that compares the job seeker’s CV against all jobs and ranks matching jobs on keywords, job title, years of experience, salary range, size of company, industry etc? Furthermore, the algorithm should take into account the kind of jobs people with similar backgrounds, job titles and companies applied to and providing the job-seeker with such matching jobs.
- The great wall of recruiting: The Berlin Wall went down in 1989 but companies are still reluctant to take down the Great Wall of Recruiting. It is important for companies to hire the best talent but let us not build these brick walls that will probably keep all talent out.
I was at a seminar the other day where one employer was very concerned about a job board not allowing them to post jobs without divulging company name!!! Is a candidate supposed to send all her life history to someone without a name?
The # 1 pet peeve of candidates according to a survey is lack of feedback from employers. Today's job seeker wants to know whether or not you are interested in them, whether or not you are going to move forward and how long the process will take.
- The good ones don’t want to get inundated: If you are a technology job seeker, try posting your resume on one of the big sites like Monster, Dice, Careerbuilder or Hotjobs and see what happens...if you are good, your phone will not stop ringing. Well, the job boards seem to be doing their job, right?
Definitely yes if you have already quit your job and this is the only thing you want to do. But, remember, most of the good guys are still employed and don't have the time to deal with every tom, dick and harry who "owns" a job!
Advances in technology has made personalized bulk emailing easy but do your homework before you send out an email blast to candidates. Don’t send a business analyst candidate a programming job.
Do your research before you call/email a prospective candidate. Understand why your job is superior to what she is currently doing and pitch accordingly.
- Personalization: Amazon did it in 2000. When I go to Amazon it knows who I am, what I viewed last time and what I may be interested in based on what I viewed and what I bought. Why can’t today’s job boards and corporate career sites become smarter?
- Talent groups and networking: Most job boards and corporate career sites are similar to notice boards. They offer one way flow of communication and tell the job seeker what the employer wants. They are very effective if you want to conduct “recruiting transactions” and attract active job seekers who are looking for something that very moment.
However, most job seekers don’t exhibit this pattern. Most of us would like to be aware of better opportunities and make a switch if something great comes along. Talent needs to be grouped into different categories by either skill or industry and job seekers should be encouraged to share ideas among each other. The more time people spend on your corporate site or job board either sharing ideas or researching companies or building networks, the better are your chances of attracting them. And while they are on your site, target them with matching jobs and see if they bite.
- Let them ask questions: Let your career site be a two way communication tool. Run a FAQs section for each and every job that you post and answer questions from job seekers every 2nd day. The more information you share, the better qualified candidates you will attract.
- Poorly written job descriptions: Differentiate, Differentiate, Differentiate! Make your job descriptions stand out. As Lou Adler has probably stated in many of his articles, make the job descriptions about the candidate and not about the employer (What is in it for me?)
- Resumes do a poor job of branding the job seeker: A 2-3 page word document cannot really do justice in terms of explaining the 6+ years of experience the average job seeker has. Online job boards should take the lead and provide the job seeker with a branding page where the job seeker can load work history with some non confidential work samples, recommendations from co-workers, professional goals, link to a LinkedIn profile and a professional blog to write views on area of functional expertise. The ideal branding page should not require the user to scroll down the screen and sections of the page should get enlarged on mouse over.
Jobfox has done a nice job candidate branding and some of their ideas are really refreshing. But I am not too excited about their grid in the center that requires me to limit my area of expertise around just one function (http://www.jobfox.com/people/sarahsmith).
And you will win their hearts and minds if you can build that relationship of trust. Your likely reward: tons of referrals.
