Think of Recruiting as a Strategic Asset

It’s often surprisingly difficult to find exactly the right person for the right position. Innovative organizations think of recruiting as a strategic asset, as valuable as intellectual property and a strong sales pipeline. These organizations go far beyond posting ads on recruiting sites to secure the talent they need; the need for that level of recruiting innovation will only increase.

Wait a second: Why talk about recruiting in this puzzling job market? The answer isn’t super simple. 

To be sure, layoffs grew 46 percent in September vs. August, to nearly 30,000 in that one month period alone. However, there remain 1.67 jobs for every unemployed person in the United States. 

A survey by Blind, an anonymous social networking site, indicates that 53 percent of surveyed employees at 50 large tech companies feel less confident in their positions compared to one year ago. Yet 47 percent of surveyed employees feel no change in their confidence level or are more confident than they were one year ago. The difference between the two viewpoints is statistically insignificant. 

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Why You Should Recruit Nonstop

News outlets focus on doom and gloom because it attracts eyeballs. Savvy talent recruiting teams know the real story is much more nuanced and they understand the need to recruit nonstop. Here’s why.

Employees Are Pondering Their Future

In today’s economy, many people are still taking a new look at themselves and their work, figuring out if where they work and live are what they want for the longer term. Even the most motivated employee might decide they want to live in a new location. Having a pipeline of talent to replace people who leave helps ensure a smooth transition.

Businesses Still Need People 

Many business transactions were put on hold during Covid-19 as potential partners and customers waited to see if there was still a need for the partnership or purchase. If a potential customer gives the green light and the organization doesn’t have the bandwidth to take on the work, the organization may lose the business as quickly as they won it. 

There is also a risk that, after getting that green light, a company suddenly goes into overdrive, rapidly making hires and not properly training new employees. A lack of seasoned employees could cause the loss of business if the partnership or customer isn’t satisfied once the relationship is underway.

Customers and partners also frequently have recruiting needs. If the innovative organization can provide talent recommendations, such support deepens the engagement between the organization and customer or prospect.

Recruiting Uncovers New Opportunities

The organization might not be seeking talent to expand its product or service offerings. Still, its recruiting program might uncover that perfect person that offers capabilities adjacent to the organization’s core offerings. That person might come with a customer base of his or her own, so the risk to the organization of hiring the person is minimized and the organization now has a new skill set it can sell into its existing customer base.

You Gain a Competitive Edge

The employee your organization hires is the person your competitor doesn’t. If an organization is on the cusp of needing more people, it can be strategically wise to bring them in to avoid them going to a competitor. 

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Non-Traditional Approaches to Recruiting

With the need for continuous recruiting clear, in today’s competitive market for talent, recruiters must think about non-traditional approaches to uncover the talent they need. Here are five tips that go far beyond the spray and pray approach of running ads on recruiting sites:

Go Where the Workers Are

Find communities of people passionate about their work in the skill set where your organization wants to recruit. For example, GitHub is the world’s largest social coding site, where people host, share and collaborate. Slack and Facebook groups include similar passionate communities.

Along similar lines, identify interview sites focused on the specific skill set your organization is seeking. HackerRank, for example, focuses exclusively on helping companies and developers find each other. 

Explore Lots of Platforms

Conduct x-ray searches on a wide range of search platforms. Entering phrases such as Ruby on Rails + developer + Atlanta, also known as Boolean searches, can provide much more streamlined results than less specific searches. Platforms to search include but aren’t limited to Ask.com, Bing, Baidu, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo.

Look for people who provide insightful reviews about topics related to the position for which the organization is recruiting and then track them down on social media. Another idea along these lines: Seek out people on Amazon who write meaningful reviews on books related to the position the organization is recruiting for. 

Develop Metrics for Recruiting

In addition to continuous recruiting and injecting more creativity into the recruiting process, organizations should have in place metrics to evaluate their recruiting success. Management guru Peter Drucker once wrote, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” There are dozens of potential metrics, but most recruiting teams likely only have the bandwidth for a few. Here are five essential metrics:

• Source of hire
• Time to hire
• Cost per hire
• Employee longevity
• Applicants per hire

AI and other tech tools have the potential to assist in recruiting going forward. But the most successful recruiting teams know the key to winning is heavy doses of inspiration and perspiration.