The days of finding the right job candidate by simply taking out a classified ad in your local newspaper are over. Today, serious job recruiters must
attend networking events, surf the Internet’s job boards and actively participate in
business and social virtual communities,
such as LinkedIn, in order to root out the
right candidate.
“Businesses need to build a good employment ‘brand’ and use the best recruiting
techniques to woo candidates,” says Ruth
McCurdy, Vice President for Corporate
Connections at Talent Tree, a staffing company based in Houston.
Smart Business spoke with McCurdy
about some of the top recruiting techniques
business can use to rope in top talent.
What are some of the assumptions businesses might make about recruiting talent
that is counterproductive to finding the right
candidate?
In fields where companies are vying for
the same candidate, it helps to get creative.
There are many good workers looking for
jobs but who may not be in a competitive
industry. Many of these people can be
retained. College graduates with little or no
experience are often excellent candidates
for many positions. In this market, business leaders need to have flexibility and
look more at the candidate’s ability to fit
into the corporate culture and his or her
ability to be trained.
Another opportunity that is often overlooked is passive job candidates — that is,
people not currently in the market for a
new job. In the right circumstances, these
workers can be persuaded by a new and
better opportunity. That’s where a company’s strength of its ‘employment brand’
comes into play.
Can you explain how a business develops
an employment brand?
It is similar to a marketing brand, which
companies already have. Look at Google
— it has a strong employment brand. The
company has been in the press enough so
that the average job candidate has heard
about the perks that come along with working for that company and what the
corporate culture is like. Employment
branding is a mindset that changes a business owner or CEO’s thought process
about recruiting: It is not about filling open
positions but about constantly selling candidates the idea of working for your great
company. This is done effectively through
positive stories told in word-of-mouth networking — either in person and online —
and through your company Web site. It is
important to have a recruiting page on the
site for this kind of information. A business
needs to put as much an emphasis on getting the right people in the door as getting
customers.
In addition to developing a strong employment brand, what are other top recruiting
techniques businesses need to use?
- Employee referrals (with incentives
given) - External referrals (through networking)
- Continuous online sourcing (job
boards and other business networking
sites) - Posting openings (online and off)
Could you tell us more about online recruiting?
Businesses need to actively engage in
social and business networking sites
because people who are connecting online
know people who are looking for work.
Some networking sites have job boards
and others have subgroups for job networking. It is the same idea of networking
in a community, such as a Chamber of
Commerce gathering or an industry event,
except broader. The Internet allows businesses to open up to the entire world and
connect with potential job candidates.
Plus, many of these sites are free.
Using other techniques, such as the
Google alert tool, can be a wonderful
source of information. For example, you
can set an alert for ‘layoffs’ and the name of
your industry or field, or even a company,
to get the heads-up on when candidates
will be entering the job market. You can
also set key words for what you are looking for in a candidate’s resume. You will be
amazed at the kinds of valuable information you get in real time.
What about the good, old-fashioned classified ad?
It used to be that classified advertising
was the end all, but this way of looking for
candidates has become very expensive
and, frankly, not broad enough. Research
has shown that most job candidates go to
their computer first when they are looking
for work.
Recruiting for the right candidate today
has to be intentional and strategic, and
using more than one method is the best
way to do this. Businesses have to be
proactive — not reactive. A proactive
approach will build a candidate pool for
when you are ready to recruit; the old reactive approach always leaves businesses
scrambling to fill a slot.
RUTH MCCURDY is Vice President of Corporate Connections at Talent Tree, www.talenttree.com, a staffing company based in Houston.
Reach her at (713) 361-7555 or [email protected].
