Before you consider paying for new tools, please answer the following questions:
- What tools are your currently providing for your team?
- Are they asking for additional tools?
- Which tools are resulting in placements or fills?
- What tools are a waste of your money and time?
When I’m in front of Corporate audiences, hiring authorities have shared their frustration of being bombarded by calls from recruiters the minute they post a job on a Job Board. They want to see what candidates they surface on their own, before they would consider using another resource for identifying talent.
Hiring authorities have also expressed their frustration in getting the SAME candidates from all the Staffing and Recruiting Firms they utilize. Often times, companies have already surfaced the candidates you are presenting because they’ve utilized the same Job Boards your recruiters are utilizing.
Their biggest question is “WHEN DID RECRUITERS STOP RECRUITING? Aren’t you supposed to submit passive candidates who are NOT reading the Job Boards or website postings?” Don’t you have an established network of talent that are referred to you by the candidate’s you’ve placed in the past?
These are all great questions and yet when I’m conducting in-house training for companies, most of the candidates they represent were the result of Job Boards or LinkedIn. The Job Board candidates usually represent the 15% of the population who are actively in a job search. Your clients want you to provide them with access to the other 85% who are employed, happy in their job, but also would consider a job that represented their next career move.
Most of your candidates and clients should be attracted to your company by REFERRAL. If you have a recruiter or account executive who has been in the Staffing and Recruiting Profession for more than 18 months, 40% of your new candidates and clients should be referrals.
As a Business Owner, it’s important that you increase revenue while controlling your expenses. Take time to review each tool you are offering and compare what you are investing in each tool to the revenue generated. This will help you determine which tools are resulting in sales and which tools you should cancel, because you’re not getting a return on your investment.
There are two things you can offer in this candidate-driven market to attract the BEST Talent. Your greatest asset are the people who work for you and they need to be TAUGHT how to make indirect networking and recruiting presentations. Teach them to attract the 85% of PASSIVE candidates who are NOT reading website postings or Job Board Ads.
Secondly, create a candidate as well as client Referral Program. Teach your team WHEN and HOW to ask for referrals. Provide them with scripts and track and reward individuals who place the most REFERRED candidates and land the most REFERRED clients.
LinkedIn is a great tool. However, communicating using inmail on LinkedIn is NOT recruiting. It’s only ONE way to attract talent and must be supplemented by daily recruiting presentations. The only reasons candidates do NOT return email or voice mail is they don’t understand the benefit in talking to members of your team. All presentations must focus on the WIIFM of your clients and candidates.
There are also many FREE tools being used by candidates to find jobs. Have your team ask what resources they are using and add those to their list of resources for candidates.
So…before you spend any more money on TOOLS, first assess your return on investment on your current resources. You could save money while increasing sales, if you teach your team how to recruit, market and increase referrals. This could represent better use of your time and resources!