It’s obvious that recruiting in 2012 has changed significantly from what it was just a year ago and it’s light years away from what it was 10 years ago. Every day brings more tools, more competition, and more challenges.
Take a look at the recruiting tools that you use on a regular basis. The tools today are far superior to anything recruiters have had available in the past. In 2012, there are an abundance of mobile tools, a wide variety of search engines and incredibly popular social media sites, all of which inevitably lead to pools of passive talent. Take a step back and examine what technology you use every day for finding passive candidates. If job boards are your main source of hires, you might want to shake things up a bit. That’s not to say there aren’t great candidates on job boards, so don’t ditch them, but let’s face it, there are tons of great candidates that are not on job boards.
Having the right tools and knowing how to use them well is what really sets you apart in the recruiting industry. The inevitable truth is that if you aren’t using the same sites and tools that your competition is, you’re going to miss that top-notch candidate who they can find. Competition for core talent today with industry specific skills is getting tougher all the time. The true top talent is being headhunted often, and when they are happy in their current role it can be tough to persuade their interest in whatever you have to offer. Begin your sourcing strategy by targeting top talent from direct competitors so that you get candidates engaged right away. Prior to making the cold-call, make sure you are armed with all the possible persuasive ammunition that would most likely gain some interest from that candidate. Things like the company’s values, benefits, holiday schedule, positive leadership news, and diversity initiatives are all good things to prepare prior to making even one cold-call.
The greatest challenge today for most recruiters is interviewing. Even if you get that top-tier candidate interested in the role, they might not have interviewed in 8-10 years. And it’s a well-known fact that interviewing has changed significantly in even the last five years, so prepping candidates can help them have a successful interview. Often recruiters don’t understand why the hiring manager is not dazzled by the candidate they just know is the “perfect fit” for the job, and it all comes down to the interview. People who don’t understand behavioral interviews don’t really grasp how to answer the questions. It is the recruiter’s responsibility to share this knowledge with their candidate before they interview. Unless your candidate works in recruiting or HR, they might not know anything about behavioral interviews.
Tools, competition, and interviewing are all core components to recruiting in 2012 and are only going to continue to change in years to come. Be aware of what is changing and how you as a recruiter can adapt to those changes. With technology changes, comes soft-skills changes like interviewing. What companies are doing today could end up being completely different in the next 5-10 years, so make sure you are watching and ready for those changes.
