ATTRACTING THE RIGHT CANDIDATE (PT 2)

Last time we looked at procuring staff for larger organisations, and in particular making  the best use of a recruitment company. However, for anyone with budget concerns a recruitment company's fees are an additional expense that is sometimes necessary and expedient, but would be better avoided if possible. If that's the case for you, there are alternative ways of sourcing good staff.

I will be looking at these alternatives in greater depth in future editions of this blog, but below  is an over-view of some of the principal strategies which are effective in attracting strong staff to your business - and which are either low cost or free.

Employee Referrals:

This is arguably the strongest source of high quality new employees. Who is going to recommend someone who will not be good for the role or fit in? Human nature is to look good in the eyes of others and be respected. As a result, we refer someone for a role because, to the best of our belief, the person will be effective and reflect well upon us.

My partners in Equitylinked and Big Project Consulting were both referred to me and started working with me at Osirian prior to us setting them up in their own businesses. I, for one, can definitely testify that employee referrals are very effective.

In order to make employee referrals effective you have to provide an environment which encourages and enthuses employees to be on the lookout for candidates all the time. An incentive scheme should be in place too as additional encouragement. A very effective way to take advantage of employee referrals is to request them when a new employee starts working for you.

Your website:

Using your web site to recruit can have very little or no incremental cost and provides unlimited space to talk about the positions available and the benefits of working with your business. A "careers" or "jobs with us" menu item on your website will lead people there. Ensure that interested parties can easily apply, ideally through multiple channels including - online, by email, post, phone, in person or fax, and if not practicable through the channel that best suits you.

Social and Business Online Media:

Time aside, this is another low-cost or free avenue, and one that is growing very rapidly. Develop your own and your corporate profile on these sites, keep it updated and over time these could become a major source of quality applicants.

Of course, time constraints can quickly become an issue and particularly at present, when we are all attempting to run lean businesses and departments. Maintaining your online presence can become very time consuming and therefore it's important to decide at the outset which social media sites to focus your activities on, as there is a growing plethora.

At Osirian we were faced with the same issue and ran a simple electronic survey with our contacts to establish how they use the online environment, and cross-referenced this with their age profiles.

The information we received showed that 93% of respondents use LinkedIn for their own professional profiles and many for their companies as well.  Facebook is used by 53% of our customers, but almost entirely for keeping in touch with friends and family.  MySpace and Twitter came in with 13% each.  These results proved that we were placing our emphasis in most of the right places and that developing a strategy for Twitter (despite it being the buzz at the moment) was not as urgent as we thought because our audience profile is not attracted to it - at least not yet!

Please email me if you would like to see the survey questions and summarised results. After all, it is easier to adapt and improve something that has already been prepared than create your own survey from scratch.

Irrespective of our own results, the largest and most used social and business media sites are LinkedIn, Xing (a European site comparable to LinkedIn), Facebook and Twitter. There are many more but these are good starting places to develop your personal and business profiles as best suits your target audience. If there are any good quality sector-specific networking sites which are applicable to you and your business then these should be utilised too.

Online and Offline Advertising:

During recent years there has been a growing number of advertising mediums all contacting us with convincing reasons to buy from them and offering excellent discounts if we take up their offers.

In order to move forward it is useful to understand the media that most applies to your requirements. A good starting place is to ask your existing staff what they read and where they access it from. Alternatively, look at the job specification you have created and search for similar roles on the web and see where they were advertised.

My personal experience is:

The large online job boards such as Monster, Jobsite and Reed in the UK are effective for general requirements;

You have to do some detective work to find the specialist and niche web sites for very specific requirements;

Any web sites have to have been up and running for some time to become known and generate a good candidate flow.

Small web sites which have recently started offer very low rates or free advertising but lack the candidate flow and can consequently waste your time and resources.

Online advertising aside, the majority of my own company's recruiting successes have come from one of our two local newspapers. Build a relationship with the advertising salesperson and over time you can influence where the ads are placed in the paper. (Marketing specialists suggest part way down on the outside of the right hand page.)

In a downturn newspapers struggle for advertising and revenue. Take advantage of this and negotiate hard for a good rate, additional discounts for running the ad more than once and demand colour for no additional charge. You’ll be amazed how helpful they will be for you in today's environment.

Networking:

It is very rare that we don’t know people who work in our own industry or similar industries. Let everyone know you are recruiting and ask if they know someone who might be interested. In today’s economic environment that good news will circulate and your network or their networks may well know someone who can help.

Customers:

This ties in closely with networking. Let your customers know that you are recruiting. They will know people in your sector and at your competitors. Treat it like an employee referral - i.e. as high priority - and ensure that your customers are offered incentives or discounts as a thank you.

Former Employees:

It is always good to stay in touch with past employees, especially those who you valued and regretted losing. By staying in touch and updating them on what is happening you could catch them at a time when it might be appropriate for them to look at coming back. Even if they cannot be tempted, they can be an excellent source of referrals and the employee referral scheme should apply to them too.

Other Sources:

There are many other sources, depending on time and budget. A brief summary includes flyers, signs, billboards, job fairs, radio, Jobcentres, cards in newsagents, universities and colleges and their Alumni networks. Many universities in the UK have access to government grants which allow you to recover some of the cost of the first few months salaries if you hire people who have graduated in the last couple of years. One of my companies, Equitylinked, works closely with Reading University in a relationship that helps the University now but in the coming years is expected to work well for both parties.

Next Time:

How to ensure your message sells the opportunity, and how to measure responses to your message.