Here’s an all too common scenario these days. You meet with the hiring manager to develop a clear understanding of the skills and attributes they’re looking for in a new hire for a critical opening. Next, you invest the time and effort to write a job posting and upload the ad to a job board or social media site. Then, you sit back and wait … and wait … and wait for the applicants to appear. All you get is the sound of silence, and when your boss wants to know why, you have to figure it out. And, the best way to do that is to ask hard questions.
There is any number of reasons for a low response rate to an ad – ludicrous requirements from the hiring manager and an organization’s lousy employment brand are two that spring to mind. Those are tough to correct, however, so let’s focus on what you can change, by asking yourself three questions.
Possible Correction Number 1: Did you write a job posting that was good enough to attract top talent?
Sadly, far too many job postings today are simply a position description repurposed online. They use a vocabulary only a hiring manager could love – terms like “requirements” and “responsibilities.” If you have any doubt about the impact of such uninspiring words, consider a recent survey of 2 million job postings on 800 job boards. It found that 75 percent of the ads failed to generate even a single application! That’s right, not one. Was that the job boards’ fault? Maybe. But most job boards today are seeing record traffic, so they’re delivering the prospects. It’s what those prospects are reading that leaves them cold.
Possible Correction Number 2: Did you select the right sites for posting your ad?
There are two behaviors that undermine outcomes when posting an ad online: habit and herds. When you post your openings on the same sites over and over again without (a) evaluating the yield that’s generated or (b) checking to see if any potentially better sites are available, you are putting your yield at risk. Similarly, if you simply follow the herd and post your ad on the “site du jour” – the one everyone else is talking about – you’re exposing it to more competition than would likely be found at other sites. The key to success, therefore, is to shop for posting sites the way you shop for electronics or a car: be a smart consumer and do your homework.
Possible Correction Number 3: Did your applicant tracking system let you down?
If you “test shop” many applicant tracking systems today, you’ll find an appalling candidate experience. In far too many cases, the application form is too long, too cumbersome, too complicated and too bureaucratic to do anything but turn off all but the most desperate of job seekers. In fact, in that survey I mentioned earlier, a hard-to-fathom nine-out-of-ten candidates abandoned the application before completing it! To put it bluntly, many employers are hemorrhaging talent from their systems. Now, corporate legal departments can shoulder some of the blame, but just as often if not more, the fault lies with the development staff at the ATS.
Of course, asking hard questions only gets you part of the way to a solution. It’s also essential that you use the knowledge you’ve acquired to change the way your organization interacts with and ultimately recruits talent. In fact, questions are only hard if we’re too hard-wired to listen to and learn from the answers.
Thanks for Reading,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com
Next Practices – The Book
Best Practices are so yesterday! They are sourcing and recruiting techniques designed for a time that has passed.
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What’s Happening In the Job Market?
Despite all the happy talk about the growth in job openings, it’s still incredibly hard to find a GOOD job and one that pays anywhere near what it costs to live in this country. That’s as true for recruiters as it is for everyone else in the workforce.
So, what’s going on?
There are plenty of talking heads opining on cable and more than enough blog posts and magazines offering their take on the situation. But, wouldn’t it be nice to look into this situation and its causes without having to endure a lot of self-appointed punditry?
Well, now you can. Read Peter Weddle’s novel about the 21st Century world of work in America called A Multitude of Hope. It uses the fictional tale of three job seekers to explore what’s happening to individual working men and women in a workplace and job market churning with change.
To read a FREE excerpt of A Multitude of Hope, click here.
The Recruiting Resources You Deserve
The best recruiters use the best resources to get the job done. And, when it comes to reaching top talent online, their choice is clear. It’s WEDDLE’s Books. Get yours today!
WEDDLE’s Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet. This is the 11th edition of the Guide the American Staffing Association called the “Zagat” of job boards and social media sites.
The Talent Sourcing & Recruitment Handbook. This is Shally Steckerl’s tell-all guide to his sourcing secrets and cybersleuthing for hard-to-find talent.
WEDDLE’s Guide to Association Web Sites. This book details the recruiting resources and capabilities that are available at the Web-sites of over 3,000 professional and technical associations.
Finding Needles in a Haystack. This one-of-a-kind guide lists over 25,000 keywords and keyword phrases, across 5,400 job and position titles in 28 industries and professions.
Make Weddles.com Your Recruiting Headquarters
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