Recruiting Strategy 101

There are many views on how to best go about creating an effective recruiting strategy. And while there really is no magic bullet, there are some key fundamental techniques that every employer should utilize as they look to identify, convert, and hire key employees into their organization. With all of the competing resources that are available out there, it is very important to have a solid baseline understanding of how you will structure your recruiting efforts. Below is a good formula for how to establish this baseline and how to reduce your reliance on 3rd party recruiters.

1. Employee Referral Programs: One of the most effective methods of bringing talent into an organization is to establish a good Employee Referral Program. And while most companies do have an ERP in place, most do a less than adequate job of communicating the program. Employee awareness is key to managing an effective ERP. Within most companies there is a great deal of confusion as to how much the ERP pays out and to the timing of the payouts. If an employee is unaware that they can make significant money by bringing their friends, former colleagues, and acquaintances into the organization, it will quickly slip into the back of their minds and they will not spend their free time doing so. However, if an organization continuously promotes the ERP and recognizes those who have made successful referrals, the word will quickly spread and everyone in the organization will effectively become a part time recruiter. This is by far the easiest way to make a significant dent in your hiring requirements.

2. Job Boards: While there are a lot of skeptics out there who like to criticize the effectiveness of job boards, it is usually the most cost effective means of getting your positions in front of the largest possible audience for the least amount of money. Even if you have had limited success with job boards in the past, you really need to be out there in case that perfect candidate happens to be looking for a job in your area. A great example of this is with employees who move away from home after college. Many of these are great students who move away to pursue their dreams. Often, after spending a few years building their resume and getting a great deal of experience, they decide to move back home to raise their family. In this case, the most logical way for them to start their job search is to go to the major job boards and do a search for relevant jobs in their hometown. In this instance, if your job is not posted and your competitor’s is, you may very well lose the chance to interview (and hire) this candidate. Besides, job postings are relatively inexpensive, especially when purchased in bulk. Even if you only make one hire for every ten job postings, your cost per hire is well below the typical average.

3. Interactive Advertising: This is a very large “bucket” which includes email campaigns, targeted job ad placements, Search Engine Marketing, targeted sponsorships, direct mail sourcing and more. Interactive advertising is a great way to reach out to the “passive” candidates, because it is very targeted. To most effectively utilize interactive advertising, you should first profile your ideal candidate. Where would this individual go for research or relevant content? What communities might they belong to? What subscriptions might they receive? Once we know these things, we must then meet them where they hang out and serve them a compelling message to convince them to click on your opportunity and check it out. This targeted approach is easily utilized on line, but can also be used for off line advertising as well. For example, through targeted, personalized direct mail such as RecruitCard (www.recruitcard.com), you can reach your target audience at home, by name, speaking to them about a specific opportunity that they are a potentially great fit for.

4. Targeted “landing pages”: Wherever possible, you should try and provide only the content that is relevant to the job seeker that you are going after. Candidates don’t want to have to sort through irrelevant information to get to the information that is important to them. They want to quickly assess the opportunity and to see if it is something they should look into further. By segmenting your audience and serving them only relevant information (video, job function specific testimonials, slide shows, objectives, work environment, opportunities for growth, etc.) you will drastically increase your conversions. Recruital (www.recruital.com) is a great example of audience-specific websites. By driving your traffic to job family specific, targeted website, you can track your visitors by source, enabling you to make more informed decisions on future campaigns.

There will never be a replacement for 3rd party search firms. They provide a valuable service and put a great deal of effort and resources into finding the right candidates for your positions, often in a very timely manner. However, this should be a last resort. The cost of just a few placements can usually cover a strong interactive campaign with a targeted “micro-site”. It is time to be proactive. Doing so will allow you to more effectively compete for scarce talent and, in the end, will drive your recruiting costs down significantly. Happy recruiting!

The Recruitment Outsourcing Evolution: Are you keeping up?

Evolution: n.: A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. *Source: dictionary.com

Where it All Started

While outsourcing in the U.S. in general dates back to the 1800s, when wagon and ship sail production was outsourced to Scotland, the outsourcing of business services, such as staffing, really started in the 70’s and 80’s as IT companies began to grow rapidly. This initial outsourcing of services such as payroll processing quickly led to the outsourcing of accounting services, billing, payroll, collections, word processing, and finally staffing.

While IT companies blazed the trail, other companies quickly jumped on the bandwagon as the growth of the economy quickly outpaced the capacity and scalability of corporate recruiting teams. In addition, as the professional labor market tightened, it became increasingly difficult to find highly qualified candidates in the time frame that was demanded by business managers.

Before the development of the Internet and the subsequent boom in E-connectivity, the outsourced staffing industry was mostly a universe of order and uniform standards. There were contingency firms, retained search firms, temporary staffing firms, and contractor management agencies. While there was some crossover between these services within the staffing firm community, there was very little differentiation. The fees were fairly well fixed, the markups were fairly standard, and in the end, it usually came down to which vendor would be selected rather than which type of service was the best fit for the client.

Enter The Internet

In the mid to late 90’s, as Internet access exploded into people’s homes on a wide scale, services like Online Career Center (now Monster), Career Path (now CareerBuilder), Career Mosaic (later Headhunter, now CareerBuilder) and HotJobs (now Yahoo! HotJobs) emerged along with systems for sorting, tracking and searching for candidate profiles. When this happened, staffing companies began to thrive.

At this time, companies had not yet started to embrace the Internet as a recruiting tool. As a result, staffing firms were able to maintain their business models, while recognizing huge increases in efficiencies gained by having easier/less costly access to candidates. During that time, client corporations continued to pay traditional fees while the staffing firm’s cost to serve plummeted. As a result, margins soared and the staffing industry became an extremely profitable business.

Like so many other area of business, the widespread use of the Internet turned what was once order and standardization into a very complex arena. This hyper-transformation shattered all prior paradigms about when, where, and how outsourced recruiting could be used to assist in supplementing corporate recruiting efforts.

More Evolved Solutions

What used to be essentially four types of outsourcing has now spun off a slew of variations from the traditional staffing models. The end result is that companies now have a great number of options available to them. While the traditional models are still the primary models offered by most of the large, well-known staffing firms, the increased competition has been a windfall for companies looking for more scalable solutions for meeting their staffing objectives.

Though the traditional models of retained search and contingency staffing still make sense in some instances, more often than not, there are alternatives which are more tailored to the specific needs of an individual corporation or even an individual position. In addition, increased competition and increased options have helped to significantly drive down costs.

Like any other business, when new programs, products, or services are released into the market, the initial price point is very high. Then, as the market grows more saturated, and production techniques are stream-lined, the cost to produce drops and consumers realize the benefit of plummeting prices. A VCR in the mid-90’s cost $500 and up, and you can now get a combination VCR/DVD Player for less than $75.

In the same vein, where outsourced staffing for a position used to cost 25 – 30% of first year salary, you can now get a search (depending on how comprehensive the sourcing efforts) starting at under $1,000. And while cheaper isn’t always better, there are now extremely flexible and scalable solutions on the market that provide clients with a tremendous value at a fraction of the historical price points.

How to Stay Ahead

So, whether you are currently utilizing staffing firms and are trying to get away from them, are currently considering supplemental recruiting use, or are simply ensuring that you will be prepared as needs increase and capacity is stretched, make sure that you have a thorough understanding of your needs and the options that are available to you.

If your cycle time is much higher than you would prefer, or your recruiters are juggling more requisitions than they can keep up with, there are cost-effective solutions in the marketplace that can help. You no longer have to do a quick mental calculation of 1st year compensation multiplied by the number of positions multiplied by 25% when looking to outsource your recruiting needs. There are offerings that can provide the level of service that is right for you, at a price you can afford.

Be sure to do your research. Find a recruiting partner whose approach and capabilities were designed to meet your needs – instead of a prepackaged, one size fits all solution. You will most likely be pleasantly surprised.

Evolution: n.: A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. *Source: dictionary.com

In Conclusion

Market changes over the past 10 years have been anything but gradual, and the process has certainly become more complex. Fortunately for corporations, the complexity has created a better market with strong, focused solutions to meet any given recruiting challenge.