Recruit Like the Professionals
by Bob Corlett Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Bob Corlett is the founder and President of Staffing Advisors. He developed The Results-Based Hiring Process® and is one of Washington’s best known thought leaders on staffing and recruiting. Thousands of HR executives and business leaders receive Staffing Advisors’ popular newsletters and read his blog – The Staffing Advisor. In his volunteer work, Bob runs the Staffing Alliance of Maryland Employers.
Full Bio
Conventional wisdom suggests that when an organization has a job opening the first thing to do is to post a help wanted ad – right? Wrong. Processing the resumes that come from general ads often leaves little time to recruit the best candidates. Reading a stack of resumes is merely an “illusion of activity” but often not a productive activity. A combination of proactive network recruiting and pinpoint targeted advertising will yield faster results and save time, money and aggravation.
Professional career counselors usually teach job seekers to network more, and spend less time sending resumes. As everyone has heard, contacts are the key to getting a job. What’s often overlooked is that people usually hear about new jobs not from friends, but from people they don’t know very well. Studies show that acquaintances are far more important than friends in finding a position. Professional recruiters know this instinctively, and always ask “who do you know?” Unfortunately, most employee referral programs reach only the friends of employees and do not extend out to reach acquaintances – the layer where the good candidates are hidden.
If you do not have the budget to hire a professional recruiter, you can still follow their process. Good recruiters first ask a lot of questions to form a clear picture of the ideal candidate profile. Next, they write down what aspects of the job would convince the candidate to consider it (close to home, salary and benefits, learn new skills, good work environment, etc.). Only then do they begin to market the job very selectively to a small targeted audience.
To recruit like the professionals, you must first write an attractive and clear one page description of the job (avoid using the actual job description, it’s often far too dull). Next you should post the “job advertisement” prominently on your organization’s Web site, a few relevant professional interest listservs and on a few niche job boards (like www.DCJobNetwork.com or www.idealist.org). The next step in the process is essential; email the “job advertisement” to as many people as possible including your clients and professional associations. Ask your employees to email it to their friends and associates and put a note on the original email requesting each recipient to forward it as they see fit. Make it easy for applicants to apply by either accepting applications directly on your website, or by directing responses to your online job posting. By narrowing your outreach to people already interested in the field, or people who live in your community, the total number of responses will be lower, but the quality of applicants will be much higher.
Fundamentally, the less time you can spend screening out bad resumes, the more time you can spend talking with good candidates. Don’t overlook the available free screening resources at your disposal. Many nonprofit and government organizations are happy to screen and select candidates at no charge, including the government operated One-Stop employment centers. One of the most convenient nonprofits for most employers is WORC (www.worconline.org), a regional collaboration of hundreds of nonprofits in the Washington region. WORC’s “One-Click Clearinghouse” is a job board with a twist. Instead of sending jobs directly to applicants, the jobs are forwarded to hundreds of nonprofit job developers who then do the screening for you and submit candidates who match. You can reach out to a huge and diverse candidate pool, without having to screen all the responses personally.
Professional career counselors usually teach job seekers to network more, and spend less time sending resumes. As everyone has heard, contacts are the key to getting a job. What’s often overlooked is that people usually hear about new jobs not from friends, but from people they don’t know very well. Studies show that acquaintances are far more important than friends in finding a position. Professional recruiters know this instinctively, and always ask “who do you know?” Unfortunately, most employee referral programs reach only the friends of employees and do not extend out to reach acquaintances – the layer where the good candidates are hidden.
If you do not have the budget to hire a professional recruiter, you can still follow their process. Good recruiters first ask a lot of questions to form a clear picture of the ideal candidate profile. Next, they write down what aspects of the job would convince the candidate to consider it (close to home, salary and benefits, learn new skills, good work environment, etc.). Only then do they begin to market the job very selectively to a small targeted audience.
To recruit like the professionals, you must first write an attractive and clear one page description of the job (avoid using the actual job description, it’s often far too dull). Next you should post the “job advertisement” prominently on your organization’s Web site, a few relevant professional interest listservs and on a few niche job boards (like www.DCJobNetwork.com or www.idealist.org). The next step in the process is essential; email the “job advertisement” to as many people as possible including your clients and professional associations. Ask your employees to email it to their friends and associates and put a note on the original email requesting each recipient to forward it as they see fit. Make it easy for applicants to apply by either accepting applications directly on your website, or by directing responses to your online job posting. By narrowing your outreach to people already interested in the field, or people who live in your community, the total number of responses will be lower, but the quality of applicants will be much higher.
Fundamentally, the less time you can spend screening out bad resumes, the more time you can spend talking with good candidates. Don’t overlook the available free screening resources at your disposal. Many nonprofit and government organizations are happy to screen and select candidates at no charge, including the government operated One-Stop employment centers. One of the most convenient nonprofits for most employers is WORC (www.worconline.org), a regional collaboration of hundreds of nonprofits in the Washington region. WORC’s “One-Click Clearinghouse” is a job board with a twist. Instead of sending jobs directly to applicants, the jobs are forwarded to hundreds of nonprofit job developers who then do the screening for you and submit candidates who match. You can reach out to a huge and diverse candidate pool, without having to screen all the responses personally.