Many Contract Recruiters have contacted me over the last couple of years to inquire about “virtual” Contract Recruiting opportunities.  Well, with the price of gasoline reaching $4.00 per gallon, maybe it’s time to get serious about virtual Contract Recruiting?  Certainly, it’s time to suggest it to our current employers.

So what holds back companies and agencies from setting up Virtual Recruiters?  I think the answer may just be “out-dated thinking”!  I think they are afraid that if some recruiters do virtual recruiting that everyone may want to do it.  I also think they don’t understand the technology of today supports virtual Contract Recruiting.  After all, we recruiters are hooked to a telephone and internet connection for most of our normal work day.  The big exception might be when we spend time with candidates or clients, but those are and should be scheduled events.  The rest of our day doing sourcing, database mining, recruiting, telephone screening, and other recruitment tasks can all be accomplished quite efficiently anywhere we can get a phone line and internet connection.

It appears that the biggest concern with virtual recruiting is to make sure Contract Recruiters are efficient, motivated, and actually getting the work done.  Seems like all of those issues can easily be accomplished and verified first with the “professionalism” which needs to be a part of all Contract Recruiter’s efforts, and secondly with some goal setting or metrics which recruiters can provide to employers to substantiate their high performance.  Bottom line, if you don’t fill the positions, you are not effective right?

As a virtual Contract Recruiter, you should reach out to your employers and suggest ways to be more effective and efficient.  I think virtual recruiting at times can make the most cost effective sense.  After all, you don’t even need a desk, office space, or water fountain to gather around if you are virtually recruiting.

As gas prices continue to rise, more Contract Recruiters will join the ranks of “virtual Contract Recruiters” in the coming months and years.  It only make sense to get a VOIP phone and a high speed internet connection in your home office and spend at least part of your week doing recruitment work and not pumping gas!