The Best External Sourcing Channel – Association Officers (Ask industry association officers for names)

Professional association officers know emerging industry-wide talent better than anyone. This extensive talent knowledge is accessible to them because almost every eager new hire entering an industry will join the top association. Association officers pride themselves on knowing and building relationships with all up-and-coming members (some openly brag about their extensive network and the boost they provide).

These names have already been identified during each officer’s continuous search for conference speakers, authors, and industry best practices. With the right pitch, I have found that most of these officer “talent scouts” are willing to share these up-and-comer names with corporate recruiters for their talent pipeline.

The best part of this sourcing approach is that it saves hours and hours of recruiter time without spending a dollar of your budget. I call this underutilized sourcing channel Names From Association Officers or NFAO.

This NFAO Approach Provides Major Sourcing Advantages

There are many reasons why getting the help of association officers and well-connected volunteers will dramatically improve your sourcing and recruiting results among emerging professionals. These benefits include:

  • You will capture names that weren’t previously discoverable – In most cases, outsiders can’t You will capture names that weren’t previously discoverable – In most cases, outsiders can’t gain free access to the highly desirable membership list. The only affordable way to source an association’s members has been to wander the floors of their massive events. Given their size, that tedious, recruiter-driven approach has seldom been effective. Unfortunately, most corporate recruiting leaders aren’t aware that there is a superior alternative: building a relationship with well-connected association officers and using their willingness to boost the careers of their up-and-coming members informally. Not to help recruit them for a currently open job, but to merely provide you with their names for future career-building possibilities, like mentorships.
  • The provided names will be quality ones – The best people in an industry or profession almost always join a professional association. The roster of association members is a quality sourcing channel that includes mostly non-active job seekers. Because association officers can’t afford to make a mistake when generating names for their future officers, writers, workshop leaders, and speakers, you can be assured that any names they provide will be either “up-and-comers” or diverse individuals who have been identified after months of vetting.
  • Your recruiting results will soon improve – With an improved candidate pool containing much higher percentage of quality association members. And a markedly lower percentage of desperation targets. Before long, both your hiring speed and the performance of your new hires will measurably improve.
  • You will receive names almost immediately – Because of membership growth and volunteer burnout, association officers must be continually seeking out talent for their open speaking and writing assignments. So once an officer agrees to help, the corporate recruiter won’t have to wait to begin receiving names because that list has already been generated by each officer. That list of names will likely be continuously updated as long as your source remains active in the association.
  • A competitive advantage will be gained – Because most sourcers/recruiters don’t use many outside-the-box tools, you won’t face much competition when you use this NFAO sourcing approach. Providing this competitive advantage will impress your executives.
  • This name-capturing approach won’t use up your budget – Because most of the sourcing work has been done in advance and for free by association officers, you will save hundreds of sourcing hours. In addition, your corporation won’t have to place any expensive recruiting ads in the association’s newsletters or post many jobs on its niche job boards.

Implementation Tips

If you’re serious about implementing an NFAO program, here are some implementation tips that you should consider.

  • Identify the best associations to initially target – Once you identify the job families that your program will target, you should then work directly with your hiring managers and their team members to identify the professional associations that most people entering your industry for the first time usually join. Initially, I recommend that you target only a single association until you work out the bugs of your initial NFAO program.
  • Next, identify the well-connected officers in your target associations who know talent – Association officers are easy to find and contact. Fortunately, they are also almost always extremely open to conversations, even with strangers. Begin identifying your target officers by visiting the association’s website, and then seek the help of your most connected employees to identify the listed officers who are most likely to know the talent in your hot recruiting areas. Next, focus your efforts on those who currently mentor association members or frequently participate in well-publicized industry panels. It’s a good idea to ask more than one officer to become a name provider, but you shouldn’t let any of them know that you are also working with others.
  • Frame your initial request for help so it meets less resistance – Some officers will initially resist helping you because they don’t want to appear as if they are playing corporate favorites. Begin by making sure that your corporation is already a sponsoring member of the association. Then, lower your chances of meeting resistance by framing your request for names not as a recruiting request but instead as an egalitarian attempt to help the profession and the association by increasing career-building opportunities for diverse and up-and-coming talent. If you do meet resistance, consider offering the officer a fair trade by agreeing to become a volunteer or to speak or write for the association.
  • Slowly build a trusting relationship with the officer – Once you have identified an officer who can really help you, nurture them by immediately responding to their requests and by attending the sessions where they speak. Even consider sponsoring them to visit your corporate facility.
  • Consider offering a reward – Although technically the officer is not making a formal referral because they are just providing names and no additional recruiting help. If your corporate and association rules and ethics allow it, consider offering the officer a small reward whenever one of their supplied names gets hired at your corporation.
  • Consider these added ways for capturing even more names – Begin by encouraging one or more of your charismatic managers to give a scheduled presentation during the event, as those speakers will likely be approached by impressed attendees and officers afterward. Next, you should require each of your own employees who attend the association’s events to proactively identify quality members who should become recruiting targets. Also, if your corporation has a product booth at a major association event, make sure that your staff working in that booth captures the names of any attendees who ask particularly insightful questions. Finally, you should encourage your own leaders to become association officers.
If you only do one thing – Have one of your most persuasive recruiters attend a major industry event and informally contact several association officers to test how willing they might be to participate in your “name only” program.

Final Thoughts

Through my use of metrics, I have found that the best sourcing channels are those dominated by desirable, non-active job-seeker talent. They also have a high prospect hiring rate and are underused by your industry’s dominant corporations. Fortunately, this Names From Association Officers program meets each of these essential source selection criteria that lead directly to superior recruiting results. So why not assign a recruiter to begin developing a pilot approach at your corporation today!

Note for the reader

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About Dr John Sullivan

Dr John Sullivan is an internationally known HR thought-leader from the Silicon Valley who specializes in providing bold and high business impact; strategic Talent Management solutions to large corporations.

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