How nurturing your talent pool will ensure you thrive in the new recruiting dawn
With the number of new UK marketing jobs increasing by the week, its the altruistic recruiters who stand to gain the most
If you want your candidates to get the jobs you recommend them for, you need empathy. An apathetic recruiter has no place in today’s evolving society, where sharing has become the byword for success. Recruiters sharing? Who’d have thought. But as the UK exits recession and the pendulum once again begins to swing back in favour of the jobseeker, it will be the long-ball players (or visionaries, if you prefer) who benefit.
People buy people
Now, you might work for the greatest recruitment agency in the land, but if you’re missing the minerals you’ve got a short shelf-life. Attrition rates in recruitment are notoriously high, accentuated significantly in the past couple of years. So what happens when you move on from your agency? Assuming you land another job will your talent pool follow you or will they stick with the agency? Answer these questions to find out:
- When was the last time you contacted your community? This needn’t be a phone call (although this is best) because these days there’s social networking to get messages out, which would, of course, be great if you can answer this in the affirmative:
- When was the last time you hung out with your jobseekers on Facebook; or what did your last Twitter message say to encourage your marketing folk to keep following you; or how many relevant connections do you have on LinkedIn and do you send them regular, relevant, status updates?
- Clearly you cannot meet all your prospects but how many social events do you attend, from which you can a) meet candidates you’ve placed and b) engage with new candidates – possibly your next placement? Sharing a drink goes a long way.
- Do you contact applicants who may not be relevant for the role they’ve applied for but are possibly suited for something in the future? Given the recent rise in job applications (relevant and irrelevant) it’s not expected that you contact everyone but courtesy is a virtue.
- Do you offer referral rewards to your community? If someone you know recommends someone you didn’t and they fill your vacancy, do you offer anything to the referrer? It needn’t be much but a bottle of champagne, for example, will be remembered.
- When was the last time you sent a candidate a piece of advice or an article you thought they might find interesting – for no immediate gain?
Okay, so the above checklist is, I agree, somewhat idealistic. I know the market’s been tough and finding time to sneeze has been difficult enough, but if you’ve only managed half the above you’ve done more than many. And this is what you’ll be remembered for.
Communities, communities, communities
You might live in a village, a town, a travelling circus…: these are all communities. If the recent economic challenges have taught us one thing, it’s that sharing is not just a common currency for development, it’s essential for survival, too. Only a fool will forget the last two years, a period in which the entire staffing process has been rocked to its core. Just because the jobs market is dusting itself down, it doesn’t mean recruiters should revert to ‘type'.
When it snows and your car’s in a fix, you ask a neighbour to give you a push. When you’re baking a cake and you’ve run out of sugar, your neighbour will offer you a cup of theirs. And when you’re gasping for a pint but you’ve left your wallet at work, you’re plucky landlord will see you right. One day, these favours will be returned. That’s the spirit of a community and it transcends across all walks of life, especially recruitment. Or at least it ought to.
Recommend and thee shall prosper
Recruiters with tangible networks will succeed where those without, can’t. As the jobs market untangles its horridly sticky web, no doubt the bum-on-seats brigade of pre-2008 will likely see a glimmer of sunshine. But this will be a false dawn; for the short-sighted money-slaves almost certainly face a period of putrid purgatory before being unceremoniously dumped into the recycle bin of failure, resurrecting as either an altogether more considered staffing professional or, more commonly I suspect, the same being but in a different mask.
It’s who you know, not what you know, a wise man once mused. And never before has a truer word been said. Recruiters need to harness their relationships, build their knowledge-bases and plan not for the next day, but the next year. Time has been against us – I appreciate that. And I know any decent recruiter who doesn’t say he’s interested in money is a liar. But this is 2010. Things have changed. Regression is futile.
If recruiter reincarnation exists – in whichever guise it chooses to manifest itself – villages and towns will whoop in glee at what will be a better, more sustainable, community. Zippo Jar-Jar’s Travelling Circus will be pretty stoked, too.
What are your thoughts on community-building? Recruiters, do you buy into this? Jobseekers, do you get that ‘village feel’ or is there no room at the inn?
Simon Lewis | Editor | Only Marketing Jobs
