A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN INTERNET RECRUITER CONTINUED...
The
last session of A Day in the Life of an
Internet Recruiter included some questions about when to involve recruiters
in the process and what data to get prior to involving the recruiters.
To remind you of the problem, we were having great success generating
interest from “passive candidates” but were not having success getting the
recruiters to pick up the phone and call them.
This was particularly disturbing since the candidates were from direct
competitors and had replied to my email saying they would like to speak to a
recruiter. Here is what we’ve
learned since then… True to my
hypothesis, recruiters told me that they didn’t feel part of the relationship
and weren’t sure where they added value when I’d already recruited the
candidate. I had to sell them on the idea that they had an important
role to play in taking the initial candidate interest and moving forward to
establish candidate control, network for more leads, shepard the hiring process,
negotiate and close the offer and defend against the possibility of the counter
offer. I decided that I was my own
worst enemy by doing full pre-screen interviews and backed off to get the
recruiters involved as soon as the candidate expressed interest.
The result has been a much higher rate of candidate follow-through by the
recruiters.
Meanwhile,
I decided to get on Mark’s bandwagon and see what value monster.com had to
offer. I volunteered to mine the
monster.com resume database for the entire team and handle the job postings for
one recruiter for 6 weeks. I begged
the boss to let me out of it after 4 weeks – and what a terrible 4 weeks it
was! My rejected candidate numbers
were at an all time high, my client interviews were down, my overall candidate
volume was down, and I was consumed with useless messages from totally
unqualified people. The candidates
that were worth talking to had tons of other companies talking to them – even
though I contacted them the day their resume was posted in the monster.com
resume database. I returned to my
roots this week and was delighted to flip and x-ray sites that revealed tons of
passive candidates – recruiting was fun again!
UPDATED
REVIEW – RECRUITMAX
Last
fall we wrote a review on a web-based database service, RecruitMAX. Although
they have an excellent product I did not feel at that time they were going to
have a lot of success with TFL readers as their pricing of $30,000.00 for 10
users was beyond what most of us would be willing to spend on that type of
service. I recently heard from them again requesting an updated review as they
had made some changes to both their service and their pricing. I was happy to
oblige. I recently spoke with their representatives and obtained access to their
new beta site for the day.
The
new beta site has a much different look and feel that the previous release, much
better that is…easier to use…seems simpler than before. Upon login, you are
presented with your calendar for the day, which integrates with your daily
planner and task list. Over to the left of the page you have easy access to
buttons for adding new candidates or new companies, quick find features to
locate candidate based on name, company, title (plus an advanced search
feature), etc., and a search feature for your search assignments. Adding a new
candidate is easy and there is much information to add per candidate…probably
20-30 different items per person, including their resume. You can also assign
your candidates a user name and password so they can log into their profile in
your database to make changes to their record – a unique feature as far as I
know. From your own home page, you can save searches for both candidates and
search assignments, develop reports on both candidate and client histories,
create a file of favorite people (MPC’s – Most Placeable Candidates) and
list all of your activities for the day.
Keep
in mind, this is not some software package you install and network from your own
office. None of those hassles. This is a truly web-based database/contact
manager application that you access from any computer with an Internet browser.
Use it from the office, from home, while on vacation (Does anyone else work
while they are on vacation?)…anywhere you have a computer with an Internet
connection. Multiple licensees allow everyone in your office to share the
database. It is going to work best using cable or DSL as there is a lot of
refreshing and reporting that takes up bandwidth.
I
spoke with Jamie Davis, the RecruitMAX representative who ran me through the
service and provided me with all the information I needed for the article.
Jamie can be reached by email at jdavis@recruitmax.com
or you can contact anyone on the sales team toll free at 877-394-5644. You can
also check out their website at www.recruitmax.com.
Jamie would like to extend a special discount to the TFL readership. They will
take $500 off of the set-up fee (normally $2500) for anyone who mentions the
article in the Fordyce Letter. This offer will be good through the end of
August.
Check
it out.
I
had heard about the EmployMAX.com site from at least a couple of my recruiting
pals but never had a spare minute to check them out until recently. I received a
marketing call from them inviting me to go through an on-line demo that I took
advantage of. What an excellent site. It is fairly simple in that it is a job
order posting/resume-searching site but they have a few advanced features
lacking in the competition.
I
spoke with Maya Covert, a sales representative, who guided me through a live
demo of their site, which currently has approximately 340,000 resumes in their
database. I feel I am a good test subject in these situations because the
searches I run for my own business are very geographic in nature. I am always
most interested in the number of candidates that reside in the St. Louis area.
We ran several searches with my own criteria and got what I think were above
average results very quickly. You are easily able to email resumes to yourself
in multiple formats. You can also name and save your searches, have them run at
night and email all the new candidates to your InBox before you get into the
office in the morning. Great feature. They will also have a PowerCasting feature
that will ‘push’ your jobs to passive candidate on the Internet that are not
currently in the EmployMAX database.
Pricing
is not inexpensive but definitely in the ballpark for most people. For a
six-month subscription, their fee is $1,095.00 and their one-year subscription
is $1,995.00. Both services include unlimited jobs and resumes. A big positive
is that the jobs do not expire. They stay up until you take them down. The
one-year service also comes with 2 weeks free and a guarantee for a second year
of service at the same price. Another bonus is that each subscription includes 3
user ids and passwords (something you definitely pay extra for with most
services) and training and assistance.
Anyone
interested in a live demo or more information should contact Maya Covert via
email at maya@employmax.com
or by telephone at 727/588-4400. You can also check out their website at www.employmax.com.
As
an aside, they do have a free feature I noticed on their website…Power Tools
for Relocation…which includes a salary differential calculator, a moving cost
estimator, a relocation wizard and an insurance questionnaire. Very helpful
tools if you are involved in a lot of relocation’s.
Check
it out.
x-ray
technique with url searches: For example, in AltaVista, in the advanced search mode, type:
host:adc.com
AND (url:staff
OR url:team
OR url:list
OR url:directory
OR url:alumni)
Your
search will bring up 2 links. Click on the one that says:
Yes!
Here is a list of Fiber Engineers from one of my client’s direct competitors,
along with their photos and contact information.
Much more fun and productive than a monster.com search.