State
of the Internet - 2003
There
was a time I was worried…3 to 4 years ago…that the recruiter community was
over-using the Internet. Hundreds of recruiters across the country gave up tried
and true recruitment methods like asking for referrals, recruiting from their
files, cold calling in favor of having resumes from Internet ads delivered to
their InBox awaiting their arrival at work the next morning.
It worked for a while, about a year until the clients started using the
same services, running the same ads and getting the same candidates in their
InBox’s. That worked for our clients as well, for a while. Probably a couple
of years. These days, I think a lot of the clients that had relied exclusively
on the Internet are realizing that it is not exactly what they had in mind after
all. Too much work.
When
a client gets a resume from one of us…it is an actual candidate. Qualified,
interested, ready to interview. When a client gets a resume from an Internet ad
they are getting nothing more than a lead, a lead that dozen’s of other
companies have, that they have to screen and qualify. Multiply that by, maybe,
400 or more resumes for some jobs and our services look more attractive. I have
heard of clients that get hundreds of resumes from an ad then pick a few
candidates to interview from the first 30 or so. What if the best candidate is
number 128? They do not get their money’s worth because they do not have the
skills to review 400 resumes in a timely fashion. To pick the best 20 to
screen…the best 3 to interview…the best one to hire out of the 400. I am not
saying they don’t make a hire from their Internet ad as they probably do but I
am saying I do not think they are getting the best candidate for their open
position.
Several
years ago when I used to check Monster.com for St. Louis IT/MIS job order leads
fairly regularly there would be over 1000 jobs advertised in my area on any
given day. Last summer that number was down to about 250, give or take. More
recently it was up a bit to 285. Interestingly, I did not see many of my clients
running ads. More specifically, out of the 285 ads, 205 of the ads were placed
by placement/staffing/consulting type firms (us). Ads placed by companies hiring
for in-house needs (our clients) numbered 56 and there were another 24 that did
fit into either category for some reason or another (this is not, I repeat, not,
a scientific study). I checked further. Logged onto both HotJobs.com and
CareerBuilder.com and ran the same searches. I came up with these totals:
Ads
for St. Louis IT/MIS job openings
Service
Total Ads
Recruiter Ads
Client Ads
N/A
Monster.com
285
205
56
24
HotJobs.com
149
114
32
3
CareerBuilder.com
72
41
21
10
Totals
506
360 (71.15%)
109 (21.54%)
37 (7.31%)
As
you see, companies that we would normally consider our clients placed only 21.54
percent of the total ads running that day (if you are wondering, yes, I did
review over 500 Internet ads for the purpose of writing this article). This is
way down from a time when most clients I had were running Internet ads. Also, I
have recently seen companies running Internet ads and using third-party
recruiters simultaneously. Hopefully, a good trend that we will have to keep an
eye on.
But…as
we all know well it is still slower that it used to be. Other than make a lot of
calls, work hard and hope for the best what can we do to make more money when it
does get busier…especially as it relates to the Internet? A few ideas:
Probably
one of the easiest and least expensive projects you can work on is to build your
candidate database. Candidates are still plentiful right now and easily
obtainable. The unemployed guy who sends you his resume now is the hard-to-find,
employed guy you will want to try and place down the road. I am not saying to
run any ads just to populate your database, or even to communicate with every
single person that sends you their resume but do keep them and organize them
somehow. I get a lot of resumes in the course of a week and frankly, these days
can’t use the vast majority of them but I have created a resume directory in
my Outlook program to store all of these great leads for when I need them in the
future. Better yet…get them in your database. Name, resume, a few keywords and
you are done. Also, use the Internet search engines for an hour or two once a
week to download resumes of passive candidates that you may need in the future.
Save these to a resume directory on your hard drive and then you can use the
Windows/Find program to search those resumes in the future. This will pay off
big time down the road for you when candidates are harder to find.
Another
project is to try and create better processes and streamlined procedures for
dealing with client/candidate communication. I recently wrote about an Internet
service that, for a monthly fee, would not only manage your emailing lists for
you, but would also give you the content for your regularly scheduled mailings.
A service like this constantly keeps your name and contact information in front
of your clients or candidates and makes them more apt to think of you when the
need for your service arises. Better than contacting a client two days after
they just filled a position you missed out on. At the other end of the spectrum,
for those who don’t want to be a few hundred a month into a service, there is
the do it yourself method. Simply compile a list of your candidates and clients
you wish to keep in regular contact with, along with their email addresses and
simply send them all a greeting of some sort each month. Using Outlook you can
create Groups and send the same message to each member of a group with one
click. Other email software has similar features I am sure. Can’t hurt.
One
more idea is to take a look at your web site. If you still don’t have one make
sure you do as soon as you can. Even is you do not use the Internet to recruit
much I feel all recruiters need some sort of web presence, it’s almost
expected these days. There are pre-packaged recruiter web sites out there
running anywhere from $300 or so on up into the thousands. If your needs are
simply, a lower end site should do the trick. Having the web site is not enough.
All who do need to take a few minutes and spend the $30 to $50 it takes for a
third-party company to register your site with all of the Internet search
engines. You can do this manually for free but you would have to visit each
search engine individually and the professionals are able to register you with
search engines you don’t even know exist. Well worth the money. Make sure your
web site does what you want it to do. More for marketing…beef up that area.
More for recruiting…do more to lure them in. Your web site can be a great
source of income generation if utilized properly.
Lastly,
take advantage of the fallout. Hundreds of our competitors have gone out of
business in the last couple of years. All of those recruiters I was writing
about earlier that over utilized the Internet probably comprise most of those
that went under. I was recently browsing our local business journal and noticed
a bank had posted a foreclosure notice against the personal residence of the
proprietor of a local consulting firm, who I have known for years. This thinning
of our ranks has left big gaps in client coverage. Not necessarily this moment
but now is the time to push for new relationships, meet new people so when
things break loose a bit you are ready.
The worst is over. Most recruiters I have communicated with are busier now than they were a year or so ago…even six months ago. No, nothing like it was a few years ago, not even close, but for sure, getting more job orders…making placements. If we all have made it this far we will probably see it through to better times again. Anyway…have a good year.
Tip
I recently wrote a review in this column on a passive
candidate recruiting service, HTC. More recently HTC, a company that specializes
in knowing the right questions to ask a client, has sent me a list of their 8
mandatory questions you need to ask a when taking a job order for a passive
candidate search. They have graciously allowed me to reprint these questions
below:
1.
What are the target companies or the kinds of companies you would like
candidates out of?
2.
What department(s) could these candidates be found in?
3.
What would their title(s) be?
4.
What degree(s) or certification(s) might the candidate have?
5.
If this a management position, what level manager would they be?
6.When
we identify someone from one of the target companies in the correct department
with the correct title, has the right degree/certification and the number of
years experience you are looking for, are there any other MINIMUM skill set
requirements that need to be met?
7.
What is the absolute minimum number of years experience that this candidate must
have with each skill set?
8.
What is the maximum amount of salary you want the candidate to be currently
making?
These questions are somewhat abridged but the entire text can be found at their Web page http://htcresearch.com/HTC%20Research%20Corp%20folder/HTC%20Research%20Corp/8questions.html. Also, visit their Web site at www.htcresearch.com.