When I travel around the country and talk to Internet recruiting experts, I'm usually asked the same
question: "What's the single best tool for Internet recruiting on the Web?" It’s
certainly an appropriate query, given the mountainous workload and speed bump-like
resources with which most recruiters must cope with. They know they need to have an Internet recruiting strategy
to be successful, but they don’t have the time to fiddle around with inefficient Internet recruitment tools.
Despite the chest-beating of the techno-fadist community, we're still in the Bronze Era
of Internet recruiting. We’re still learning how to build the tools for successful
candidate acquisition and recruitment via the Internet. Sure, some of the techniques now
being used actually work and some of those can even get the job done reasonably well, but
they represent a state-of-the-art that is crude, at best, when compared to what we'll have
in our tool box very soon. And there are other techniques being used today that are
best tossed into the trash and forgotten. They waste more time than they save,
and they may actually diminish the yield acquired online.
So, what should we do? First, it’s important to realize where we are in the
evolution of Internet recruiting because that position will help define the best tactic for its use. On the plus side, we are present at the creation, the advent
of a powerful new resource of recruiting on the Internet. Those who take full advantage of this asset
will undoubtedly acquire a competitive advantage over recruiters who do not online.
On the negative side -- at least from the perspective of Internet recruiting pros who already have
too much to do and not enough time -- sustaining that advantage will require an ongoing
investment of energy and time. New tools will be invented, old tools will changeand the
only way to stay abreast of what’s going on is continuous education. That training
course you just took in Internet recruiting techniques is the beginning of your education in
this area, not the end.
Second, it’s important to focus your limited time on best practices. We
certainly have enough experience on the Internet at this point to know what works and what
doesn’t in today’s tools. Yet, far too many of us have become entranced with
web dreams spun by the techie crowd and their favorable images of using the Internet to mine our way to instant staffing success. The reality, however, is something else
altogether. There are thousands of recruiters using the Internet to source candidates, but
precious few are using the medium to recruit them. The difference is best practices.
The concept of best practices is actually a constellation of three things:
- Using the right tools in the correct situation at the right time to generate a significant
flow of good candidates without using a lot of time or effort.
There are
hundreds of different Internet recruiting techniques and methods you can use on the Internet. The
recruiters who maximize the return on their investment of energy and funds are those who
know which tools work best in which situations. For example, the recruiters on the Internet who have participated in the ongoing survey
at my web site have voted mining for
resumes in newsgroups as the least-effective technique for 2 years running.
- Using the right tools so that they perform at peak
capabilities.
Knowing how to use the right tools to full advantage is not as easy as
it seems. Although job posting -- at both for-fee and free sites -- has consistently
ranked among the most-effective techniques among recruiters using the Internet, most
job-posting content is poorly written and less than effective. Classifieds and position descriptions take advantage of the Internet’s constant
accessibility and worldwide visibility, but they fail to capture the medium’s power
to deliver a descriptive compelling message.
- Being a good consumer of Internet recruiting services and products.
There are 40,000-plus
employment sites today, and more launch each week. You can select
the right tools for a given Internet recruiting requirement and apply it effectively, but if you use
it on the wrong site, your results will be just as poor as if you had implemented
a worst practice. And the only way to get it right is to be an educated consumer. Just as you
would if you were buying a car, you should get performance data on the
alternative sites you are considering for each of your requirements and compare their
value. These data are available at the sites, and also in my reference text,
"Weddle's Guide to Employment Internet Recruiting Web Sites and CareerXroads." Track your results and
ensure that each site performs as it should. If not, select another site --
there are simply too many options available to get bogged down with a poor Internet recruiting site.
The basis for these activities is one of the first precepts of Internet recruiting: There
is no magic that can do it all. In fact, the greatest danger to effective
recruiting on the Internet is habit, our very human inclination to fall into a rut when Internet recruiting. The better approach is to implement an online strategy that's
tailored to each new requirement. And that’s the real secret to capturing the power and the promise of
Internet recruitment.
-- Mr. Weddle is an author and commentator, and publishes WEDDLE's, a print newsletter about
successful Internet recruiting.
