How to Recruit Quality Staff in 2009

Gillian Meier shares some of the challenges that will be facing recruiters in 2009 and beyond.

Due to the current financial crisis there are a number of companies that are being forced into having to retrench staff, and the former rule of last-in-first-out does not necessarily apply any longer. Companies will most likely retain those employees that add value to their organisation and will retrench those that do not. These job seekers can be found on most CV databases as they are actively in the job market. As the global economic situation slides into recession companies will need to become smarter if they want to find and retain the best quality skills.

REACHING ACTIVE JOB SEEKERS Until now most recruiters have predominantly been searching through existing online CV databases for skills where such databases enable them to have instant access to central pools of job seekers. CV databases offer instant access into the active job seeker market, however there are those candidates that may not be actively looking but have placed their CV's into these databases and prefer to be hidden and are not searchable. Most of these candidates have created job alerts to inform them of opportunities that are available and that they might be open to considering; even though they might not have been actively looking for a job.

By advertising job opportunities on job boards, these candidates will therefore be notified of the vacancy and may choose to submit their application, whereas if the position was never advertised they may otherwise never have known about it. Recruiters should therefore realise the true value of a job board lies in their ability to reach both the active job seekers and passive candidates. While online CV databases remain the most convenient way to find active job seekers, recruiters will need to develop online recruitment strategies that are able to tap into the skilled, passive candidate market as well.

FINDING PASSIVE CANDIDATES - The passive, non-job seeking candidate is employed and is generally making a productive contribution to their current employer and may not have immediate plans to take active steps towards finding a new job; however these candidates are free agents and may always be on the radar waiting for the next opportunity. These are the types of skills that recruiters will need to hunt down if they want to be sure that they are hiring the best.

By advertising job opportunities on job boards, these job advertisements can be promoted not only to the active job seeker market, but can also be matched automatically to the hidden job seekers, as well as extended to the greater web audience through automated content driven job advertising to ensure that they attract quality targeted passive candidates.

RECRUITMENT WEB 2.0 - Recruiters are progressively turning towards the internet to find quality candidates as they realise the need to become more creative in finding quality talent. Those companies that have introduced their own recruitment or careers section to their existing websites have seen a significant decrease in their recruitment spend. The more pioneering recruiters have however already started to embrace Web 2.0, utilising the candidate targeting tools available through social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to find the more niche skilled candidates.

Recruiters are only as valuable as the quality of candidates they find, and resourceful recruiters will need to know where to go to find the best quality candidates from deep within the web. The best candidates are no longer hidden inside recruiter's drawers; they are wired to the Internet and are inter-connected to other like-minded people. With the right internet search skills, tools and techniques; search experts are able to dig up the most hard-to-find candidates in a matter of hours, at a fraction of the cost.

Talent is scattered all over the web. By combining specialised search techniques with a profound knowledge of online linking structures, an online talent acquisition specialist will be able to drill into the inter-linked communities, social networks and gathering places of networked professionals. Social websites provide platforms where communities of people with similar interests gather to network with one another. According to a study by US job board, CareerBuilder, one in five employers in the US are using social networks to research information about job candidates. Some employers have even started to use social networks to cyber-vet their employees and potential candidates.

To gain powerful advantage recruiters can partner up with specialists who are able to reach inside the web, root around and pluck out the best candidates quickly. Once an online head-hunter has acquired a detailed understanding of the profile of candidate required, they will be able to zero in on the candidate's most likely gathering places online by having a thorough understanding of the primary destinations. By means of applying an X-ray process, search experts are able to surface every page on the public web domain, thereby finding candidates hidden in areas that would ordinarily be overlooked.

Online talent search specialists will typically make use of a number of search tool sets to assist them in searching across the web. Using complex search strings and command structures they are able to automatically collect, interpret and present desired search results. This enables them to speed up the process of searching for people from millions of sources on the web. In addition to applying smart tools and techniques to finding candidates, an online head-hunter is trained to detect clues and recognise signs that will lead them to the right candidate by cutting through the clutter.

The challenge is being able to understand the structure of the Web well enough to be able to dig up the most hard-to-find candidates quickly. Resourceful recruiters should know how to find the best candidates in the correct niche networks from deep within the Web.

RECRUITMENT WEB 3.0 - To further streamline the recruitment process recruiters should recognise the benefits of data-driven web automation (also known as Recruitment Web 3.0) made available by intelligent technology. Through automating job advertising and centralising the processing of job applications recruiters are able to spend less time capturing job advertisements and screening job applications.

With emerging technologies all recruiters should look towards partnering with online recruitment providers that can assist them in customising their filtering processes. This level of customisation will enable recruiters to concentrate on screening suitably matched quality candidates, thereby slashing recruitment costs, administration time and reducing time to hire

Copyright (c) 2009 Jobs.co.za

Article Source: http://www.contentspool.com

Gillian Meier is the CEO of South African Job Portal, Jobs.co.za. Visit www.jobs.co.za for more information.

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