What are your current hiring strategies when you are the hiring decision maker on a new search? In this day in age, hiring decision makers have several resources to choose from to help them search, identify, qualify and hopefully recruit people. Preferably these candidates will be in their local market and match the short and long term requirements for their open position and the company’s culture, mission, and goals.
After years of speaking to hiring decision makers and tracking their process to hire a qualified person for an open position on their team here is the ugly truth about trying to recruit top talent with free paid or unpaid online job posts.
1.The free job posting strategy:
Hiring decision makers are encouraged or required to utilize internal recruiters (if available at their company) and to search through their company’s database of resumes that have already been collected (if available). They also begin with an internal search within their own network to then contact qualified, interested and affordable candidates for their open position.
If no current database resumes align with the skill set required or those people are not interested or affordable when contacted, then the open position is typically posted on the company’s website and also on their social media and sometimes even on ‘free job’ boards. The ultimate goal of this exercise is to “try to save money” by finding a person the company can hire without paying for job board postings.
This process usually takes a minimum of 2 weeks to 1 month to complete.When a hiring decision maker has this on their plate along their full-time workload it can be a time consuming and arduous process, with no guarantee a qualified person will be found, let alone hired. If by chance a person IS hired they do not come with any warranty if they don’t work out. If the candidate is let go or quits, the hiring process must begin again.
Though it’s understandable and strategic to try to save money where you can, when hiring, it does have a major downside. There are cons to taking this route when trying to hire a qualified, long term candidate.
2. The last ditch paid posting method:
When the “try to save money” process fails a hiring decision maker may decide to do a paid post, if funds are approved.
This, in turn, broadcasts the message to potential new employees that the company was not able to fill this position by posting it for free so only now your company is willing to pay to post the open position on job boards for one month in hopes that the best qualified, local people apply. Is this the kind of company your best-qualified candidate would hope to work for? One that doesn’t feel the need to invest in finding amazing new team members and will settle for anyone desperate for a new opportunity.
3. Too many or not enough applicants?
When we spoke to hiring decision makers at this phase they reported that the company received so many or not enough qualified, local applicants.
This outcome is a result of many factors: The time of year the position description is posted, the level, function, compensation, location and if the job board shows how many applicants have already applied.
In our experience, some of the qualified candidates we contacted for a position search that we were hired to fill (after the position was posted by our client company) were aware of that company position job opening. These candidates said they did not apply because there were so many people that had already applied. A simple paid post will never set you apart from your competition for the best candidates in your industry.
The best qualified, valuable and currently employed candidates are concerned with who their application information will be shared with and if their current employers will find out they are looking.
These top tier candidates make career moves because a trusted boss or peer or recruiter, that they have developed a relationship with, informs them of a new career opportunity and convinces them to investigate it, in confidence. These career motivated individuals are not desperate for a new opportunity, they are mostly already in a great position in their own company (your competitor) and are career minded, focused and not looking to job hop.
These are some of the cause and effects of not investing in your recruiting efforts. If you are not getting the caliber of candidate you want for your open positions remember the message a free or paid job posting sends to the candidate pool you are targeting.
Rethinking your recruiting strategy may be the one thing your company needs to get the warranted, qualified, and industry renowned candidates that can take your company to the next level.
-Lauren Flynn, Executive Recruiter at HeadMatcher
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