You don't have to be a whiz to hire great people or find a great job. This site is about recruiting made simple. Find who you are looking for with tips from a whiz!
I recently filled this job in two different regions for our client! It’s their standard field sales position, so it’s something I’ve worked on several times in the past and where I feel I’ve got my strongest network of potential candidates.
This time was especially exciting because one of the roles was filled by a candidate I first talked to TWO YEARS AGO! Our client met with the candidate shortly after my initial call with him, but nothing was available at the time, so we agreed to keep in touch. He and I emailed and chatted quite a few times during that period – I found out I was pregnant, went on maternity leave and returned to work before anything became available! Thankfully, when you’re connecting with individuals who are already happily employed, they’re very patient. When the client said they were ready to start a confidential search, I called him again and we re-engaged him with our client. Things moved fast this time!
This is another fantastic testament to the power of hiring a retained recruiter to build a bench/pipeline of candidates for a typical position (w/multiple FTE’s) within a company. We can even do this for our clients using a short-term contract. We’ll identify great candidates for the role, make the introductory conversations, then turn over all contact info to the client at the end of the contract. Of course, at that point, relationship maintenance is up to the client – and that is the key to this long-term success! Building a network of qualified individuals at the right level and having those introductory conversations will fast track the hiring process to the final stages of interviewing when a position becomes available! In this instance, the client was able to hire our candidate before their current employee left, resulting in ZERO gap between the new and exiting sales consultant.
If I’ve connected with you regarding this job, thank you for your time! I appreciate both the opportunity to learn more about you, as well as the chance to introduce you to our client. As I told you when we spoke, let’s keep in touch! You never know when something might become available.
Comic by Cyanide and Happiness
Our client hired us to identify a Human Resources Manager for their growing financial services firm. They were looking for someone who could manage HR functions as a “department of one,” but have enough experience to offer leadership and guidance as they continue to grow.
This was an exciting search with the opportunity for me to make a lot of fantastic, new connections in HR! I appreciated that as a client, they had a clear idea of their needs, but were open to considering candidates who were a half-step outside of what they’d originally considered, with regard to secondary criteria like industry experience and current employer size. This helped to broaden their candidate pool without deviating from their primary search criteria.
If I spoke to you as a candidate for this role or if you offered referrals to great candidates in our search, THANK YOU for your time and consideration! I hope to have the opportunity to help you or someone you know again in the future.
Job postings should not be the same as job descriptions.
Job postings should prompt a call to action in a jobseeker. They should inspire someone to pack up a tent and set up camp outside your office building like a Black Friday Target sale. Okay, maybe that’s a little over-eager. But they should make someone excited about working for your company and interested in quickly taking the steps necessary to land a job with you.
Use job postings to convey your culture, highlight specific needs for the job, and explain what kind of person is likely to be successful doing it! This will be far more interesting to applicants than “other duties as assigned.” Job descriptions are better suited as documentation used within the company to describe the intricate details of a job someone already holds.
As a recruiter, I don’t rely heavily on applicants, but I do use job postings to convey necessary details about a job to a candidate in a written format. In that usage, I want to inspire my candidates to be excited about the next step in the interview process, develop some strong follow-up questions, and prepare for likely upcoming questions as we proceed. For more technical positions, it is handy if a client company can provide a job description later in the interview process to give additional detail.
If you’re looking for employees who are active and energized, start with making sure your job postings encourage that attitude!
I am EXCITED about the jobs, candidates and company cultures that are growing in our economy today!
We’re seeing more clients who are getting ahead of the curve by asking us to reach out to passive candidates (employed people who would consider a new job but aren’t actively looking). When I call a potential candidate they usually say that they’d be interested in hearing about new jobs and are willing to transition. Companies like Zappos are masters at engaging with customers in new ways through social media like Twitter and Facebook.
This is an exciting time for recruiting and hiring and finding a new job! People seem less fearful of bad things happening and more interested participating in making good things happen. Competition is fierce, but creativity is high and it is an exciting time to be working.
What steps have you or your company taken to move your business forward? What are you doing to attract top talent that is now willing to transition to forward-thinking organizations?
Hi! I'm Jessica. I believe that recruiting (when done correctly) is about creativity, minimizing limitations and applying new methods to make the whole hiring & job search process a little more efficient for everyone. In this blog, I will focus on recruiting and how HR, jobseekers and recruiters can make the hiring process a little smoother – and maybe a little more fun!
