Recruiters have come a long way since the cold calls and Rolodex days. Job Board websites were introduced in the late 90’s making it the most efficient way to search for jobs in the new millennium. LinkedIn was introduced in 2003 with features for job posting added shortly after, it has been a hub for digital resumes, professional networking and recruiting. These platforms and the services they offer are driving sourcing and recruiting processes for 95% of the talent acquisition industry. But these platforms are introducing new features and services approximately every 6 months. We are taking a look at what Recruiters, Sourcers, and Talent Acquisition Professionals are doing and what they should be doing to optimize their search efforts.
WHAT THEY ARE DOING:
Job Description Development – This is not just a listing of experiences and skills. There is still debate on how best to approach Job Description development. Depending on types of positions and company culture, Job Descriptions can vary from emphasis on technical qualifications and experience, to description of company culture and the best employee to fit in that culture. The key to this process is to determine what your audience will respond to most.
Job Boards – These have evolved from the big three of Careerbuilder, Monster and Indeed. We now have niche job board sites for every industry. All recruiters push their jobs to boards like these and some have applicant tracking systems that help automate the process. The key is to determine what sites have the audience you are trying to reach.
Working with External Recruiters – HR managers decide to do this when they either lack the internal talent acquisition team capacity, have trouble finding certain candidates or are looking for part-time/contract employees. But most growing organizations, large and small, work with external recruiters at some point. This is where CorTalent helps partner with their clients by providing a process to find passive and active qualified candidates that fit professionally and culturally.
WHAT THEY SHOULD BE DOING:
Employer Branding – This is the process of showcasing the employer culture to attract candidates beyond compensation. Many companies spend thousands of dollars to understand their customers, but have no clue why people work for their company. Bob Kelleher, CEO of The Employee Engagement Group, states in this article on Monster, to help define company brand, ask these three questions:
Why do people stay with your company?
Why do people want to work for your company?
Who are your stars and what are the common behaviors/traits that your stars possess?
Knowing the answers to these questions will helps employers attack the marketplace for the right talent. With jobs becoming more specialized, the employment landscape is turning in favor of the candidate. This means employers looking to pry talented workers away from current jobs need to differentiate their culture and work place environment. This could be a small thing, like Target loosening their dress code recently to “dress for your day”. Or, it could be significant like Zappos aggressive change to no work titles and no corporate hierarchy. These employers are in-demand from top talent because of their employer branding.
Competition Analysis – If you tend to compete with another company for the same talent (and continuously lose), you have to determine their “Secret Sauce” and how you can start winning over your targeted candidates. When it comes to analyzing your competitors, you can take the three questions above and ask them about your competitors:
Why do people stay with their company?
Why do people want to work for their company?
Who are their stars and what are the common behaviors/traits that their stars possess?
Then you ask one more question. What would be the biggest factor to make them leave their current employer?
The best way to determine this without guessing to do a search on LinkedIn for professionals that have worked for your competitor in the past. These professionals can not only give you feedback on why they left their former employer, but it could be a good icebreaker for a conversation about joining your team.
Positioning for Passive Candidates – Recruiting passive candidate is not a new idea, but with the specialization of jobs and decline of internal training programs, passive candidate recruiting has become more prominent. Many companies feel that they can put out the same Job Descriptions and on the same job boards and get these passive candidates. That is not the case. In CorTalent’s process to Find-Select-Retain, We Find these passive candidates by positions the employers brand and job appropriately to grab the attention of a passive candidate. This can be done in many ways. Posting job opportunities through social media to be present where passive candidates are everyday. Job Descriptions sharing opportunities for growth and contribution rather than just listing needed experience and skills. The idea of positioning job opportunities to passive candidates to be where they are on a regular basis and job boards are not that place.
Many are not doing these strategies above. If you have questions about this article or about CorTalent, please comment or reach out to our team.