Recruiting Strategy

Recruiters look for job experience and then sort by skill level. But an alternative is to look for “skills experience,” which better reveals hidden candidates. “Skills experience” is when an individual has spent a considerable amount of time using a particular skill, but when most of the time that they spent exercising that skill occurred outside of their day job. …

Note: This “think piece” is designed to stimulate your thinking about the strategic role of recruiting Your firm’s future skill sets needs are increasing dramatically. By not adding future skills every day through every new hire, you are reducing your company’s ability to be competitive and grow. The importance of beginning to immediately build your organization’s future skill sets can’t …

When you’re struggling to acquire talent in these low-unemployment times, application incentives can be a key motivator and differentiator.

Today’s sparse talent pool increases your chances of a hiring mistake. But a no-fault divorce approach allows you to release mis-hires quickly. And despite the lack of available talent to choose from, the pressure from hiring managers to “get me, anybody, I need butts in chairs” is immense. So, it’s not surprising that hiring mistakes are increasingly common. And, with …

Arguments for Separating the Recruiting Function From HR  Note: This “think piece” is part of a series of articles that are designed to stimulate your thinking about strategic recruiting. Corporate recruiting can’t be completely successful in ending the talent shortage while it remains part of HR. If the recruiting function were to be made an independent business function, after being …

Even though increasing corporate innovation is almost always a top-five CEO goal, surprisingly few in recruiting realize that the highest business-impact action in corporate HR is the hiring of innovators. Innovator new hires make an immediate quantum difference in an organization’s performance, direction, and image. Top executives at firms like Google, Apple, and GE have calculated the tremendous “performance differential” …

In last week’s companion article “The Top 5 No Cost Sourcing Approaches — And Each Is Guaranteed To Work,” I covered the five best no-cost approaches for finding top candidates. However, in today’s highly competitive job marketplace, even if you find top candidates those with multiple job choices will be extremely hard to land. So, if you are also having …

If you work in the conservative world of corporate or agency recruiting, it never hurts to occasionally take a quick look at the wild side of recruiting. Such a look is especially valuable if you’re looking for a competitive edge in recruiting (and who isn’t). You gain a competitive advantage when you place your recruiting messages where they will appear …

Revelation! Did you know that two thirds (67 percent) of candidates decide on whether they would accept a job at a firm prior to their first interview? Recruiting leaders who have long treated all recruiting steps equally now need to rethink that approach. Rethinking is required because we now know that the first two steps (the initial communication and the …

When a corporate recruiting function conducts an audit, I find that the resulting data usually reveals that the recruiting problems that dramatically restrict applications routinely occur during the same steps of the “recruiting funnel.” So, if you work at a firm that is struggling to attract applicants, it’s a huge mistake to blame the tight job market. Instead, focus on …