Recruiters who don’t communicate with recruiting source representatives are passing up opportunities to drive efficiencies up, and cost of hire down. That’s because many sources will organize recruiting events, publicize them, and connect recruiters with candidates free of charge.
Yet recruiting source representatives say they rarely hear from corporate recruiters, only receiving infrequent calls when a recruiter needs to fill an immediate opening.
Says Bev Principal, assistant director of student employment services at the Stanford University Career Development Center: “If I meet with a company representative during the summer, and receive information about its entire breadth of career opportunities, not just the immediate openings, I can pass that information along to students during career counseling sessions or I’ll remember to invite that company to participate in specific career events here on campus.”
Principal says she regularly e-mails students about recruiting events, and sends a monthly newsletter to engineering students. If she has information to share about an employer or its job opportunities, she passes it along.
John Weitzel, internship coordinator at El Camino College, says that employers are often disappointed in student turnout when they schedule a last-minute campus recruiting event. He starts promoting the retail holiday job fair, for example, when students first return to school in mid-August, and companies like FedEx and Disney set up campus recruiting visits a year in advance. FedEx is on the students’ radar screens because it recruits on campus every Monday.
“Not every student knows what they want to do when they finish school,” says Weitzel. “If I know Northrop Grumman has jobs other than engineering, like grant-writing and marketing, I can talk about those opportunities with students who seem suited for those careers.”
Even sources that provide experienced candidates can be better used through proactive planning. Olin King, site manager for the West Covina office of the California Employment Development Department, says that employees who lose their jobs due to offshoring receive special benefits and retraining, and he can sway them toward specific courses — if he knows local employers have hiring needs.
“We can set-up recruitment sessions, where we’ll line up the candidates and employers can come to our office to interview,” says King. “There are opportunities for employers to provide career advice to 300 experienced workers at our older and wiser seminars, which cater to job seekers 40 and older. We also bring education and employers together to fulfill specific needs in the community, but the only way to do that is through collaboration, and I just don’t hear from corporate recruiters.”