One of the things I picked up from the Twitter stream from #MBuzz last week was the reaction from some recruiters that “crappy” applicants didn’t deserve any kind of acknowledgment because they had the audacity to apply for a job they were completely unsuitable for. How dare they waste a recruiter’s time.
I was thinking about this today when I received 5 consecutive e-mails all offering to post my jobs further and wider, to more and more free job boards at no cost to me, and then to the aggregators. They all had social features so that I can spam my jobs in to the various streams, and one that even automates this for all my employees at regular intervals. Post and pray and pray and spray.
The big benefit sold to me was that I could get more and more applicants, the assumption being that the more response I got, the better the chance I got the right candidate in the end. A pure numbers game.
I commented about this on Facebook, and it seems I’m not alone in thinking this. One of the problems is that many recruiters judge the success of their job postings by the volume of the response they get, not the quality of that response. Third party recruiters hide any identifying client information from ads, scared of the competition. Digital marketers fear posting anything but positive branding content, in fear that this will put people off and stop them from replying. Ads are badly written with only the basic information. Qualifiers are kept as wide as possible. Keep feeding the pipeline, pump in more, and more, and more.
Here is the problem. The more people you have in the system, the less time recruiters have to identify the gems or offer any kind of candidate experience, seeing some as not even worth an acknowledgment. Time to turn this on its head. You should be working on getting less response, not more. The more authentic your culture brand content, telling the real story, the more people you are going to put off because they don’t fit in with your values or culture. That is a great thing. We should be selective in where we are posting and sharing, what we are posting and sharing, and who too. Really looking to cut down the volume, allowing more time or selection and candidate experience. More time for actual recruiting and less time on the sifting and hiding.
Next weeks Colleague #HangOut on Tuesday is going to cover the Agency Candidate Experience. Attraction is going to be a big part o the conversation. Sign up for the community to join in the conversation, because less really is more!
Bill
Related posts:
Getting Better Response And Spending Less On Jobboards
Applicants, Candidates And Content Strategy #truLondon
#trulondon thought number 1; Lazy Recruiters!
We don’t want you to apply
#trulondon thought number 2: Small changes. Big differences
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Its definitely an issue – does this lead to increasing demand for niche jobs board where they own a particular segment of candidates?
I think there are a few lingering issues at play here – and I am going to sound “old” when I relate this story. Back in the days when job applicants primarily walked-in to apply and job adverts were in the newspaper and perhaps paper-postings at organizations (Chambers of Commerce, schools, community-based orgs, etc.) there was a need/urgency to have as many eyes see the job as possible. This was accomplished via human effort on all sides including recruiters/HR folks preparing, printing, MAILING/FAXING stuff – not merely clicking a mouse or using push technology. The mantra was ‘build up your applicant pool so you have enough to choose from.’ Sure – there was sourcing and targeted recruiting by orgs but at a slower pace and in a much different manner than there is today.
In addition, orgs here in the US who are federal contractors (and subject to the OFCCP’s oversight for compliance with Exec Order. 11246 and various affirmative action provisions) also need to take ‘good faith efforts’ to ensure that there are focused efforts to ensure all individuals have equal opportunity for employment. Because of this, org’s subject to EO 11246 have very defined outreach efforts such as posting jobs to widen their applicant pool – particularly for those job groups in which women or minorities are underrepresented in their workforce.
Even though it’s incumbent upon the recruiter or the org to determine if ANY referral source is garnering qualified/appropriate candidates, sometimes it’s just ‘easier’ to keep sending out the job posts in order to say “see – I’m working to recruit and grow a wide and diverse candidate pool!.” While there’s definitely a need all around to have a smaller candidate pool of folks who are the ‘right’ candidates, pre-determining (in some extreme cases) who the ‘right’ candidates may be could lead to what looks on the surface to be discriminatory – “we want more people just like us.” Know what I mean?
So the pipeline game continues -even though it makes perfect sense to narrow the pipe. (and for heaven’s sake – respond to EVERY applicant – crappy or not!)
GREAT post Bill – and pretty much captures the heart of this subject.
I think the reality is, that there is a confusing message we send as recruiters – because actually, like Robin alludes – we still want the wide network, the talent pipeline. BUT we want in small manageable clusters, as and when we need them – in a perfectly acceptable time-committed box.
The scenario of a recruiter these days, is that with LinkedIn primarily – we have access to a visible talent pipeline, but with minimal engagement necessary. A recruiter can populate a database of 1000s without formal registration or interview – and work from an extended network of loose contacts they THEY chose – as opposed to solid relationships developed from F2F interviewing.
This means the appreciation of advertising response has diminished – because we want to work in smaller circles by our own choosing.
This is a good and bad thing. In effect, the recruiter is effectively more often in a position to fill roles – because of their greater reach. But it also means the warmth factor of your average recruiter has gone. The `Candidate Experience` bit is less good, and the process is more antagonistic because of the relationship vacuum.
It’s a culture shift driven by the automated side of online/social media and the accessibility of data.
The more we automate procedures, the more the recruiter-to-candidate relationship breakdown happens.