Considering how important it is to just about everything a business does, it’s a surprise that hiring isn’t given more strategic attention. With the advent of affordable hiring software, there’s no longer any excuse for this. Here are three key recruiting methods that will help you get a hiring process that works and a flow of better candidates.
- Is social recruiting for real?
Social recruiting has sometimes been touted beyond its capacity to deliver, but it can help. You need to create buzz around the jobs on your careers page. LinkedIn has scores of groups you can join, mention jobs in, or initiate general discussions around a role, a company or industry.
Smart companies make sure they have created Facebook groups or a Facebook Jobs tab, or even run a Facebook ad campaign, with the sole purpose of attracting potential candidates. Your biggest fans are a good place to look when you’re hiring. Add as many touch points as possible between you and prospective candidates.
Social media has a role, but you cannot afford to ignore job boards. Depending on the nature of the role being hired, free job boards should be the first port of call.
- Job boards still essential
Some job boards, like Indeed, also offer free options that can be combined with paid ones. SimplyHired and Glassdoor offer free postings when you access them through an ATS like Workable. For the most effective places to post your jobs, check out our job board directory, which enables you to choose job boards based on industry, location, and cost (paid versus unpaid).
Don’t post your jobs on Friday evening, or by Monday, they’ll be last week’s news. Wait until Sunday evening or Monday morning and advertise your roles when the candidates are most active. Most job boards use freshness as a factor in ranking job search results.
When the volume of candidates is the priority, LinkedIn, Indeed, and Craigslist are the top sites for posting paid job listings on account of their popularity, functionality and reach. These provide the maximum return on investment (ROI).
Are paid job boards always the way to go? No. There are many jobs where the free job boards can perform adequately. Indeed, for example is the biggest job board in the world. Indeed’s free version has a huge amount of candidate traffic and can provide great candidates. The decision on which job boards are best for you needs to happen on a role-by-role basis.
- Candidate sourcing 101
Advertising has its limits and referrals are great but sometimes they won’t provide you with enough leads to be confident that you’re making the right recruitment decisions. Which leaves you looking for those “passive candidates”, the ones who aren’t actively seeking a new job.
This used to be known as headhunting although these days there’s also strategic sourcing of job candidates (think of it as headhunting before the kill). The key to this is to know as much about your prey as possible. The necessary steps should already be familiar from your hiring plan and job descriptions.
Picture your ideal candidate and ask these three questions to begin building a profile:
- What experience would they have?
- What kind of job are they doing now?
- Which companies have good people doing this job?
Once you have a profile the sourcing begins. The good news is that there are more sourcing tools than ever, and everyone will already have a digital footprint. Github is strong on programmers, TalentBin is a good all-rounder, and then there’s LinkedIn, the biggest professional network. Browse profiles and make a long-list of prospects.
Now begins the courtship. You need to put your research to work in framing an approach. Start with prospects whom you can reach out to using your existing network. Utilize the hard-won experience of recruiters when it comes to cold-calling (usually via email) prospects outside your network.
Make sure to warm up your cold call. With a bit of research and a concise, personalized message, you’ll improve your chances of getting a response from the passive candidates you approach.
The recruitment funnel
Done properly, your recruitment process should resemble a funnel. What you’ve seen here belongs at the top of the funnel — the wide net you cast to get the highest number of quality applicants. For the rest of it, look to our Recruiting Strategies Guide For Small Businesses. You’ll find mini-case studies, interviewing techniques, tips for leveraging recruitment software, and advice from recruitment experts such as Tim Sackett, Mervyn Dinnen, and TalentCulture’s own Meghan M. Biro.
About the Author:
Christine Del Castillo is the Community Manager at Workable where she primarily works on community building, digital content creation, and social audience development. She frequently writes about HR tech, hiring, and recruiting for Workable
photo credit: No 3 – green paint via photopin (license)
Workable is a client of TalentCulture and sponsored this post.
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