Resolutions for Industrious Recruiters

Improve your recruitment skills


By: The Client Training Corner

As a recruiter, it’s always a great time to broaden applicant pools and strengthen your industry understanding, regardless of how many requisitions have been fully funded, or which businesses are ramping up or scaling back.

Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

Increase the Impact of Your Job Ad Content

Use this time to ensure that there is consistency in your job ad language. Is your organization being represented the exact same way in every job ad by each recruiter across the organization? Be certain that all general information is up to date. You made need to establish a template to create a consistent message.

Is the layout of your job ads also consistent? Are you using bullets to clearly separate sections of information, allowing job seekers to quickly scan your opportunity and make the decision to apply? Have you separated the required skills from the preferred skills? Is your employment brand well-delineated within the ad, with updated logos, images, and references?

Think of each of your jobs ads as a marketing document. Try using the same voice and tone you use with a candidate on the phone.

Fine-Tune your Search Strings and Saved Searches

Revisit your search strings. Watch a refresher tutorial regarding Boolean logic. Are there core positions or functions that your organization will always be looking for? Focus on those while new budgets and positions are established.

Take a look at the saved searches you have built on the resume database search tool. Fine-tune your search criteria to continue to push qualified job seekers to your mailbox each morning. Your goal is to keep the qualified applicant stream coming. Use this time to build relationships with those qualified seekers.

Innovate with New Recruiting Methods and Sources

Now is the time to investigate sources that have piqued your curiosity.  Are there diversity sources you’ve been meaning to research? How about building a recruiting strategy with Military.com? Are your campus relationships strong? Are there local sources and relationships that you haven’t had time to cultivate?

Use this time to look at your communication strategy from a job seeker perspective. Could you be using IM or text messages to cultivate relationships with seekers? Do you have ways to keep candidates warm in a recruiting cycle? What helpful links and information are provided in your electronic communications? Has your organization recently been noted in the press? If so, send that link to job seekers. Is there great information for candidates on your company website? Send that link, too. In other words, reach out!

Familiarize Yourself with Market Data

Take time to study the markets you support. Read competitor websites and press releases. What are they offering? How does that compare with the messages you’re giving job seekers about your organization? Use search engines to set up news alerts about your competitors. Read their postings on Monster. Some of the best competitor information can be found right on Monster!

Dive into the powerful data from Monster Intelligence to better understand local hiring statistics and new areas of the country that you could be asked to recruit.  Use this time to familiarize yourself with the newly redesigned Monster Resource Center and explore the depth of information available to you about hiring and staffing best practices.

Establish Consistent Networking Habits

Networking can seem overwhelming and time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. Devote 30 minutes a day to reach out to potential candidates who could lead you to the next candidate. Are they on your alumni website? Are they on a local networking site? Is there a name that keeps coming up in interviews that you meant to follow up on?  Is it that person who you met on a plane in July? Have you called references from top candidates’ resumes? Have you reached out to placements you made six months ago and asked them for referrals?

Make certain that your networking profiles -- whether professional or social -- are up to date. Have you mined these sites to find old colleagues and candidates to bring into your network? Have you looked at the available “groups” functions to find recruiter groups to join? Are there groups established for the core positions you recruit?

Finally, spend time on professional websites for recruiters such as the Society for Human Resource Management and the Electronic Recruiting Exchange. Read blogs about recruiting or the function or industry for which you recruit. Have fun with networking -- it’s really just relationship building!

Best of luck with your recruiting.