Posts Tagged “Recruiting”
Guest Post from an HR Analyst. About the Author: Kyle is the HR Analyst at Software Advice – a company that reviews human resources and applicant tracking software.
Social media can be a great tool for sourcing, screening and recruiting candidates. For a number of reasons, though, many recruiters sometimes find themselves crossing the line as their quest to find quality candidates. Many are asking, “How far is too far?”
Beyond learning the hard way, there are some best practices emerging to help recruiters know when they’ve pushed the envelope too far. And hiring professionals are discovering a new line of recruiting applications and tools built into applicant tracking software to help them rise above the same old hashtag to better identify, connect with and place viable candidates.
Many folks using social media in their recruiting efforts are running into the same issues. Regardless of how good your intentions, these issues can tarnish your reputation and cause you to miss out on golden opportunities. Here are the top three:
- Spamming job posts. Want to render your social recruiting efforts ineffective? Spamming people with your job opportunities is a surefire way to do just that. The key to social recruiting is to be social and engaging. Share industry news and articles of interest, exchange personal messages, etc.
- Prying rather than researching. Some positions require a flawless social media presence. For the rest, you shouldn’t be digging too deeply into their profiles. Screening should be focused on general impressions of candidates to see if they would fit within your company culture.
- Penalizing candidates for level of access. It’s not unusual for candidates to deny recruiters access to their Facebook profile, inviting them to connect via LinkedIn instead. Many people use Facebook for personal, rather than professional networking – especially in Generation Y. Don’t write off candidates for showing a bit of backbone and managing their public image – it’s hardly something to penalize.
Lessons Learned from the Trenches
Carolyn Betts, CEO of Betts Recruiting, is one person experiencing more success in social recruiting than others. She was recently featured in a New York Times article, for leveraging social media to grow her recruiting success. She’s picked up a few tricks worth sharing:
- Focus on strategy. You won’t be able to make the most of social media if you’re going into it blindly. You need to have a plan for how you want to accomplish your goals. Betts suggests starting with one social media site, familiarizing yourself with it, then growing your presence gradually.
- Have realistic expectations. When you consider the industry you’re in and the position you’re hiring for, are your deal-breakers realistic? You need to determine upfront how much weight you are giving a candidate’s social media presence.
- Leverage the right apps and tools. Many successful social recruiters know that in order to make the most of your social recruiting efforts, you need to leverage the right tools. Why go it alone when there are applications with built-in best practices for recruiting more effectively?
Expanding Your Reach with Software
According to a recent study, approximately 85 percent of U.S. companies used LinkedIn for recruiting last year, though only 30 percent of active job seekers are on LinkedIn. As such, many recruiters are finding LinkedIn a bit overcrowded. Where are the candidates? The large majority of them are on Facebook.
Because the data recruiters are looking for is a little harder to find on Facebook, however, many miss the sourcing opportunity this vast network provides. Fortunately, there are third-party software developers devising methods to put actionable candidate information into the hands of recruiters quickly and efficiently. Some of these recruiting solutions are standalone applications that leverage recruiters’ networks. Others – like Bullhorn Reach – are applications designed specifically for automating social recruiting.
For further reading, check out Kyle’s HR blog at: http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/hr/social-recruiting-how-far-is-too-far-010271/
You might think employers want to stay as far away from discriminating practices as possible. What you don’t know is that many are using a legal strategy by which to discriminate, often times unfairly. I’m talking about credit checks in the hiring process. Many employers have begun using this as a way of determining someone’s “reliability” or worthiness before making an offer of employment. What’s wrong with this picture?
Let’s review:
dis·crim·i·nate
–verb (used without object)
1. make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality.
–verb (used with object)
2. to make or constitute a distinction in or between; differentiate.
Since employers are using credit checks to separate classes of people, by definition it’s discrimination. It’s legal and it’s an ugly practice, especially in a time of economic turmoil and record numbers of home foreclosures. This type of hiring practice not only perpetuates discrimination but it further injures our economic recovery as a nation. There are so many still unemployed that there was recently another extension on unemployment benefits for those that have exhausted theirs. During that time of receiving unemployment, do you think those people were able to keep up with their credit card payments? Now they face losing job opportunities for making the choice to feed their families instead of maintain their credit score.
Since when did hiring someone to do a job have anything to do with their credit? Since when did hiring someone have anything to do with anything other than their qualifications and abilities? Now more than ever, employers continue to use this form of discrimination as a way to narrow the pool of candidates. There’s only one problem with this type of competition – it leaves the most unfortunate victims of the economy out of the game altogether. I find HUGE fault with eliminating a hard working and qualified candidate because their house is in foreclosure or they haven’t been able to keep up with credit card payments. First penalized by the economy, now penalized by employers. How is the workforce supposed to recover? We should be questioning laws that allow any kind of discrimination in the work force. Employers need to get their heads out of the clouds and start looking at people instead of credit reports and numbers. I don’t care what some psychologist says about credit being a basis for knowing if someone is reliable or trustworthy. I don’t care what your CFO says about keeping hiring costs/risks down – discrimination is discrimination. Spade. The end. Is that really the picture you want to paint of your organization? “Oh, we’re a really great company to work for – as long as you have good credit!” This is the real world, perhaps you should join us.
Here’s what you need to know if you’re a job seeker:
1. Employers can legally request permission to run a credit check on you.
2. Employers are REQUIRED to get your signature on a permission form to do so. This could be on a job application too, so READ CAREFULLY what you are signing!
3. The credit check isn’t detailed, but gives the employer your credit score and # of delinquent accounts.
4. Get a copy of your own credit report. Being proactive about your credit is a better approach than being reactive.
There are a lot of ways employers can silently discriminate against you but this is by far the most widespread and legal way it’s done. Now, tell me your thoughts on how we can fix this….
JobShouts™ is pleased to announce its integration with Broadbean, the global leader in job posting distribution and sourcing analytics. The integration was spearheaded by Broadbean’s internal development team and was completed just recently. Kelly Robinson, CEO of Broadbean says, “Broadbean has grown so significantly over the last ten years because of relationships – our relationships with job boards and job board channels, as well, as our many tech partners and of course, our clients. It is for this reason that we are happy to engage and integrate with JobShouts. With the reality that social media is a new and incredibly fast communication tool, Broadbean is eager to work with companies like JobShouts that not only understand that shift, but embrace it.”
This integration should be of particular interest to employers looking to tap into social recruiting. Says Rayanne Thorn, US Marketing Director for Broadbean:“We first met JobShouts through real-time social media channel Twitter, we soon saw the direction they were headed and we were eager to learn more and see if there was a possibility for a partnership. It was when we met in real life that the true partnership was moved forward. Broadbean is innovative and happy to introduce new channels to our clients. We welcome JobShouts to our table.”
JobShouts President, Robin Eads, comments: “Broadbean’s product is a time and money saver for recruiters, which is something we have always strived to be. We are proud to be included in their service offering.”
Official Press Release Links:
http://www.i-newswire.com/jobshouts-tm-now-available-to-broadbean/62677
http://www.pr-inside.com/jobshouts-now-available-to-broadbean-customers-r2140801.htm
Most recruiters use job postings as a means to an end. They use them as extra hands when they have a full desk, to develop pipelines or for brand representation/perpetuation. Whether you’re posting jobs for any or all of these reasons, it is important to recognize the impact (or lack thereof) that job postings can create.
When I worked in agency recruiting, I frequently used documentation from clients to post jobs. It was easy to copy and paste what they had already put together and get it “out there”. I failed to realize that in doing that, I wasn’t creating much desire for job seekers to reply to my post. I started looking at my job postings more closely and noticed that if I rewrote the posting in my own words, I got much better responses. I would include information about my client that I knew would entice the applicant, without revealing who the client was. After all, I knew from my relationship with my client what they were really looking for – not just skills but candidate personality. I wrote the job postings to attract that type of personality. Sure, re-writing the job posting took more time but it paid off. I got more responses. I got better responses. I got hires. Even if you’re in HR and you’re posting on behalf of a hiring manager, you can still add verbiage to the specs you’re given to attract the right candidate.
Photo courtesy of MotivatedPhotos.com
The emergence of job search engines has directly impacted the importance of good verbiage in job postings. Most recruiters don’t know that cross-posting the exact same job to multiple job boards doesn’t increase the chances of finding a candidate match, nor does it increase the number of postings that show up on the search engines. Indeed and SimplyHired filter out duplicate listings and only list the posting that they indexed first. Accordingly, if you copy and paste the client requisition word for word – and 5 other companies have done the same – there is a big chance that your posting might not even get seen on the job search engines. Write your job specifically for your audience. Are you hiring for a Telephone Answering Service? Then say so.
This means knowing what part of a client requisition is important and what part isn’t. It means including relevant key words that your candidate audience is searching for. It means including information about the environment, the benefits, the hiring process and so on. Many candidates are apprehensive to respond to vague job postings. They fear it’s just another “black hole”, a potential scam job, or in some cases, that it might be their current (or former) employer.
Confidential postings really turn job seekers off. If you want to remain confidential about the search, then hire a headhunter – don’t post the job on the internet. Don’t expect a job posting to be a silver platter, either. If you have a hard to fill position, a job posting is just another vehicle to perpetuate the message that you’re looking for that person. It still doesn’t mean that person is looking for your job. In other words, you’re still going to have to work on it. In some cases though, using appropriate key words to attract passive candidates can work. For instance, your job posting could turn up in a Google search when they are searching for other things pertaining to their industry or career. Pick your key words carefully! Don’t just dump them all into a meaningless paragraph at the bottom of your job posting.
The information you include in your job postings speaks volumes about your company, your recruiting practices and your professionalism. The bottom line is – job postings are advertisements for your company; represent yourself well.
The title of this blog might seem ridiculous; of course you want ROI from recruiting budget. ROI might be added functionality, added scalability, added hires, added something which ultimately adds to the bottom line. What about job boards? How are you measuring your ROI on those? For years there has been debate among recruiting professionals about measurable ROI from job boards.
As a former recruiter, my ROI from job boards was nearly nil. Job postings became more time consuming than time saving. Every year the job boards got more expensive and every year I had more unqualified candidates to sift through. What’s wrong with that equation? My objective was to place as many people as possible as quickly as possible; that’s the only way I generated revenue for both my employer and my wallet. The job boards didn’t seem to care. They just continued to get more expensive and impose more limitations. What do you mean I’ve exceeded the number of searches allowed? It was just BOGUS.
Someone needed to change it all and I got tired of waiting for it to happen.
I’m sure there are those that think I only talk so much about JobShouts! because it’s my company. While that’s true to some extent, a larger part of why I talk about it so much is because I get really excited about changing the experience for recruiters. And producing results! I’m excited to be a pioneer in this industry. After years of using job boards and knowing what didn’t work, I’m now in the thick of creating what works. It’s working so well, that the “big” job boards ought to be running scared.
It’s a well known fact that our job postings are indexed by job search engines. We’ve continued to perfect the “formula” by which we operate – including quality of job ads, categorization, link love and so on. Apparently, we’re pretty attractive not only to the job search engines but also to candidates as well. I was so excited about our latest report from Indeed which showed we averaged 4.5 clicks for every 1 click on non-sponsored ads. Essentially, the only way to get better exposure for job ads with the job search engines is to pay for sponsorship on those sites.
Good Stuff:
This is only 1 of our distribution channels and we are highly successful on so many more.
Sharing metrics is important to me. I want our customers to expect a better recruiting experience. I want them to pay less and receive better quality candidates. I want them to have access to the most innovative and effective recruiting tools available. After 15 years of pounding the internet, learning and using Boolean and other x-ray techniques, I’ve learned a thing or 2 about what’s actually effective. My knowledge is your pearl in the oyster. Get that elusive ROI you’ve been after for so long. Use it, love it, share it!
As an Employer, an Applicant Tracking System is probably a necessity. Or at least that’s what corporate and organizational executives lead you to believe. Nonetheless, it’s in place and you have to live with it. But how smooth is your application process? 9 times out of 10, it probably frustrates job seekers and leaves them feeling like they’re applying to a “black hole” rather than a company with actual people. It’s a brick wall, with no way around, no way to attract the attention of 
hiring managers other than a sterile profile. Boring, lame, confusing, complicated – these are all typical terms used by applicants when forced to interface with an Applicant Tracking System. Have you walked through your company’s applicant process to see what it entails? Often it seems like an interrogation. For applicants, doing this once is painful enough – doing it multiple times over and over because each company’s ATS is different? Ridiculous. Frustrating.
What are we doing to change this? Is this all we can expect in the future or will there be a more humanistic approach? An ATS is an automated way to collect data. It’s very impersonal and leaves little room for creativity or expression, which should be evaluated factors in hiring your next employee. Why wait until you’ve brought someone in for an interview to find out they don’t have any?
Obviously, no application process will satisfy the OFCCP police, employers and the job seekers 100%. What can we do within this industry and this process to add some human back into Human Resources? I’m curious about your thoughts on this.
Most people that are familiar with JobShouts know about our job postings and that we’re integrated with social media – but some may not know about or have yet to try our Social Search feature.
So, what is JobShouts Social Search? How can it help my recruiting/sourcing process?
If you’re an employer or recruiter who regularly uses resume databases to source your candidates, pay attention.
Social Search was developed from a sourcing technique that I personally used very successfully in my days as a recruiter. I specialized in recruiting a lot of hard to find candidates and clients were often amazed at my pinpointed accuracy. My secret? Social media, networking sites and search engines. I used a variety of sites to source from where I could make real connections with people based on a specific opportunity uniquely matched to them. Some might call this cold call sourcing or passive candidate sourcing. This method for me was very successful – so successful in fact, that I was able to stop relying upon resume databases full of outdated content.
The only trouble with this method was, it was very time consuming. Going to each site, figuring out what search criteria worked best, sifting through results for good quality, etc. Each site search could take from 5 minutes to 2 hours depending on the number of results that I got.
The premise behind Social Search was to streamline this process. Social Search allows you to search up to 8 different sites all at one time: LinkedIn, MySpace, Spoke, ZoomInfo, VisualCV, Twitter, Facebook AND – the best part of Social Search – the resume search feature. Social Search finds “hidden” resumes of potential candidates wherever they might be posted publicly, such as on their webpage or blog. Best of all, the results are sorted and labeled according to the network on which they were located.
Here’s an example. Using Social Search, I searched for “business analyst” in Miami:
You can see it pulled up a number of profiles on various sites; from there you can click on a profile to see if it’s a match.
So now let’s say you’ve located a great potential candidate on MySpace (“Suga Cane” listed above) but you don’t know her real name or how to reach her. Well, you can message her through MySpace and hope she responds OR, you can use the information you find on her MySpace profile to help locate her real identity.
This is what we know from her MySpace profile:
So now we know who she currently works for. Using “Gemaire” and “Inventory Control Analyst” I searched LinkedIn and found out that her name is Marisa Howell. Now, she’s a viable and potential candidate! Connect with her through a shared group on LinkedIn or use her name to search for contact information. It’s as simple as that.
Let’s face it – in the world of social media and online networking – far more people are keeping up with their social profiles more often than their resumes. Using this search will net specifically targeted candidates through publicly available information and eliminate the need for using a resume database. Recruit smarter, deliver better results to your clients and stop wading through the same candidate pool as everyone else.
Questions? I’m all ears. 🙂
JobShouts.com has been working really hard to transition to next level and build something of true value to employers, recruiters and job seekers.
For employers and recruiters, our newest tool is now in beta testing and we need your help and feedback! We’ve put together a search tool we call Social Search, that allows you to search multiple social networks in one click. You can search for specific skill sets on social networks such as Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, VisualCV, Spoke, Jigsaw and more (we can release additional networks as they come online)
Check out Social Search, see what it can do help streamline your pipeline development. Do a search, search for PHP in Dallas, “Business Analyst” in Ontario, Cosmetologist in NYC – anything! From these results, you can click through to the social profiles to view them. Our “Shout Bar” will iframe the profile and allow you to “Star This” candidate for later evaluation. (the “star this” feature is not fully developed at this time, so while you can star candidates, you don’t have the ability to view them) That’s a feature reserved for premium employers.
We’d like to gauge interest in this tool to help us determine value, pricing, etc. For now, it’s free. 😀 Tell all your friends and let us know what you think! Comments, questions – all feedback is welcome!!