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Online Recruiting Simplified
July 14, 2008
Are Web-based tools a help or hindrance?
By V.Michael Prencipe
While companies hire true breakthrough performers by meeting them face-to-face, a great deal of work is needed even to get to this point. An effective recruitment strategy uses the Internet to more quickly connect hiring managers with great candidates and to widen the pool of qualified talent.
Used wisely, online recruiting tools can maximize your reach and time and can strengthen your company's message with candidates. Used poorly, they can be a dead end and a significant waste of time. What follows are some basics for using the Internet to connect with the right people.
• The only way to effectively recruit is to use multiple channels. You're trying to find that one person who is exactly right, and that means exploring multiple avenues. This includes your offline efforts, by the way—don't stop networking just because you've posted a job online. Work multiple sources (both online and real world) to get the word out about your opening.
• Make sure you've got an accurate, well-written, exciting job description. You need a posting that sells the job and your company. A good job description should be the first message a potential candidate sees about your company. It should provide a good story, but also a realistic picture of the level of responsibility and some sense of career potential. In the online world there's no character limit, so you can go into detail and include links to strong Web pages. Never view writing a job ad as a chore; don't just delegate it to HR or someone who reports to you.
• Pick several places to post your ad online. Here's where it gets tricky: There are several online sourcing options, all of which come with trade-offs. Let's start with blogs, e-mail listservs and interest groups such as Yahoo! Groups. These options are probably stronger in building long-term recognition than in immediately producing large numbers of applicants.
You can raise your company's profile and your own by participating in these venues, just as you participate in real-world associations and networking events. That higher profile may well pay off in more unsolicited applications from qualified sales and marketing professionals who are job hunting, or in better (and faster) word-of-mouth when you announce an opening. But generally speaking, becoming a listserv member or commenting on blogs aren't direct recruiting tactics.
For directly producing applicant flow, you'll probably want to rely more on job boards, social networks and headhunting marketplaces. Commercial job boards, such as Monster or CareerBuilder, will surely get you hundreds of resumes in a short period of time. This outcome also holds true for craigslist (and for a much more modest fee).
But the payoff of lots of applicants comes with a big downside: minimal screening. The great majority of the resumes you get won't have relevant experience. For this reason, commercial job boards are probably best when you're hiring for relatively low-level positions and/or if you need to hire multiple positions, such as several sales representatives in widely dispersed territories.
Moving up the scale, however, there are some job boards that are more exclusive. TheLadders.com, for instance, only posts jobs and accepts resumes from candidates in the $100,000-plus salary range. These more selective sites typically charge higher fees, but result in a more qualified pool.
While the commercial job boards produce volume, job boards run by professional associations may help you go more directly to candidates with the right experience. The fees are usually more modest, and these more specialized sites can be especially helpful if you've got very precise requirements for your position. Check out www.weddles.com/associations/index.cfm for a comprehensive directory. In addition, www.saleshelp.com provides a directory of sales-related job sites. The trade-off is that smaller job boards may get very little traffic (consult a site like compete.com to find out).
Given the many options, you may want to post on several boards. eQuest.com makes it relatively easy to post your ad simultaneously on several Web sites. For entry-level positions, you may want to try Nacelink.com, the Web site of the National Association of Colleges and Employers. For an annual fee, employers can post a job here that goes out to multiple schools of your choosing.
Web 2.0-style social networks such as LinkedIn or Zoominfo have added another dimension to online recruiting. These sites have some real advantages over job boards. You can search proactively for candidates who meet very specific criteria. You also have the opportunity to do preliminary checks on their profiles. As in the real world, the benefit of the "warm handoff"—that is, being linked by a common acquaintance—also contributes to a faster sense of trust and compatibility.
There is also a newer breed of recruiting tool, one that brings the headhunting marketplace to the online world. Sites like BountyJobs.com that connect a hiring company with qualified headhunters can exponentially expand an organization's pool of potential candidates.
Don't waste your time on unhireable applicants. You must set strict screening standards. In reviewing resumes, for example, most professional recruiters make a speedy first pass through a stack of resumes, spending no more than a minute on each.
Act quickly. Most candidates who are actively job hunting are interviewing with multiple companies. When possible, schedule multiple interviews for one visit. Get started on items with long lead times, such as chasing down referrals.
The most important part of hiring happens in person. As long as you learn to leverage your online recruiting resources well, you can make those in-person connections faster and more efficient.
V. Michael Prencipe is principal in HR Staffing Solutions (www.hrssinc.com). He can be reached at vmp@hrssinc.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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