Talk to any old school recruiter and they’ll tell you that our business is nothing more than a numbers game. If you make enough phone calls and interview enough candidates you will eventually make a placement. While this is true at a basic level, a recruiter’s resources and individual skill ultimately drive the speed to submission (i.e. finding great talent, interviewing them and then presenting them to one’s client for consideration).
It’s been years since I’ve last recruited and I know the fundamentals have not changed, but as I mentioned the resources available to a recruiter really can mean the difference between reaching an awesome candidate first or having one’s competitor beat you to the punch. These resources, or as we say Candidate Marketing Tools and Strategies, are also beholden to a numbers game. Sure you can provide a resume mining resource here or a job posting opportunity on the website du jour, but to truly have these resources augment the recruitment process, a data driven strategy that is continually monitored and tweaked is necessary.
At Yoh, this is where my team comes in; we are responsible for the continual tracking, evaluation and modification of our Candidate Marketing strategy. It’s easy for an individual or even influencers in our industry to make blanket statements that certain recruiting resources are either a panacea or obsolete, but the truth is that with the availability of information and a plethora of vehicles for both advertising and for candidates to seek job information, success is based upon a multi-faceted and ever moving target or conglomerate of candidate marketing tools.
eQuest’s newly launched infographic, pictured below, is a testament to both industry misnomers and the numbers game that both recruiters and marketers such as myself play. Regarding why Job Boards are not obsolete, this infographic does a good job at encapsulating both the numbers game that recruiters juggle as well as why a multifaceted approach including job boards is still vital to our industry. Serving both candidates and clients, ours is a task that is simple yet complex. Theoretically simple to identify matching skills set to the needs of a client’s opening, but complex because this is an industry based upon humans and not products; therefore, there are always variables complicated by no universal method for seeking or being sought.
Sorry folks, there’s no magic bullet (unless you’re talking about that blender they sell on late night TV) when it comes to recruiting. Job Boards are not dead, but they are not king. And recruiters still need to recruit. Luckily there’s an exciting story (well probably only exciting if you’re a nerd like me) to be told in your candidate marketing data (assuming you’re actually doing a good job of tracking it) that can unfold the keys for strategically arming your recruiters with the best mix of tools to efficiently and effectively drive business.
Now if only the weather were a numbers game, I certainly would like to figure out how to augment the single digit temperature and eliminate the foot of snow currently in front of my house…!
