Best Practices are so yesterday! They are sourcing and recruiting techniques designed for a time that has passed.
Next Practices are strategies and tactics for winning the real War for the Best Talent – the one you actually face today and will face tomorrow. They modernize your approach to:
- Job Posting
- Social Recruiting
- Candidate Engagement
- Optimizing the Candidate Experience
- Managing Your Own Recruiting Career
so you maximize your success.
The book is composed of short, straight-to-the-point essays that can be read in ten or fifteen minutes and still transport you to a whole new dimension in the state-of-the art for recruiting and sourcing talent. With titles like Become a Talent Whisperer, Post-Social Recruiting, The Inconvenient Truth of Recruiting and Don’t Post a Job, Advertise Respect, they are sure to entertain and enlighten you.
So, don’t recruit with yesterday’s techniques. Get Next Practices and start recruiting right now with the next generation of recruiting mastery.
The book is available on Amazon. Click here to place your order.
Writing Email Passive Top Talent Will Answer
The noise of no-reply. That’s what an awful lot of recruiters are hearing these days. They send off email or InMail messages to key prospects and get back absolutely nothing. How can you write messages that passive, top talent will answer? Mimic the cold calling practices of third party recruiters.
It’s easy to say the wrong thing during a cold call to a prospect. You can come on too strong for those who haven’t thought about leaving their current employer. And you can come on too weak for those who have other offers to consider. The best approach is the Goldilocks call – one that’s just right for most prospects.
Staffing firms have learned that the best way to shape every interaction with a prospect as a Goldilocks call is with a script. Recruiters are given a template that guides the vocabulary, content, and pacing of their conversation. Sure, they can tailor the script to their personality a bit, but the basic structure is inviolate. It makes sure they deliver a persuasive message and effectively overcome any objections that may be raised.
Such an approach can also be successfully used with prospect networking on the Web. Those written messages have a lot more in common with cold calls than they do with traditional verbal interactions (where you can watch body language or hear voice intonation). As a consequence, they can be structured as written conversations that have just the right persuasive power to convince passive, top talent to pay attention to an employment opportunity.
The Goldilocks Online Networking Script
Socrates discovered the best way to start a conversation and keep it going. He realized that it is human nature to reply to a question. So, he developed a process that drew people in and got them engaged in a discussion through their answers to repetitive questions. That strategy is at the heart of an effective script for conducting a written conversation on the Web.
The script has three basic elements:
- A personal greeting. The script avoids such put-offs as “Hi There” or “Dear Prospect” and instead signals to the message recipient that you’ve done your homework and can address them by name.
- A value statement. The Golden Rule of Networking is as important on the Web as it is in the real world. It states that You have to give in order to get. In other words, if you want a top prospect to pay attention to your message, it must contain something of interest to them.
Now, the best talent almost never look for a job, but are almost always on the lookout for a career advancement opportunity. Therefore, the value statement should position an opening as “a great next step in your career,” “an opportunity to work with other top performers in your field” or some other similar benefit.
- A question. Every message must end with a question that connects the value statement to the message recipient. It is designed to get them thinking about what’s in it for them and therefore interested in learning more.
For example, the message might poke their pride a bit by concluding with “Do you think you’re ready for such an opportunity?” or it might make them feel special by asking “Are you ready to join your peers and work with the best and brightest?”
Obviously, this script won’t generate a response from everyone, but it will dramatically diminish the noise of no-reply. And, each time a message recipient answers your closing question, you’re learning more about them and what it will take to get them interested in your opening. That’s the kind of conversation that leads to new hires.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com
THE Sourcing Handbook
Shally Steckerl has a worldwide reputation as the guru of online sourcing – a true expert in uncovering and engaging the hardest-to-find and most-determinedly-passive high caliber talent. Now, you can know what he knows by purchasing his one-of-a-kind Talent Sourcing and Recruitment Handbook.
The detailed and up-to-the-minute information contained in this reference is invaluable to anyone in the talent acquisition industry, regardless of experience level. This book will answer your thorniest questions, give you a cornucopia of resources and make your recruitment journey as serene as it is successful.
Whether you’re a one-person operation or manage a staff, this book is essential reading for understanding the trends that are shaping the future of the talent acquisition industry.
Here’s what one recruitment leader has said about the book:
“Shally Steckerl has written a wonderful book that demystifies the recruitment process and breaks it down into an easy to understand combination of specific steps and strategies. His ability to deal with the little things that plague recruiters (“What exactly is the best Boolean search string to find this particular type of candidate”) to the higher level strategic questions (“How do I best position the value of our recruiting team to my business leaders?”) serves as a one-stop shop for anyone trying to figure out how to both recruit as an individual or to create an effective recruiting center within your organization”.-Steve Miranda, Managing Director – Cornell University Center for Advanced HR Studies (CAHRS) and ILR School Executive Education, former VPHR of SHRM
To get your discounted copy of the Talent Sourcing and Recruitment Handbook, click here to reach the book at Amazon.com.
2014 User’s Choice Award Winners
If you’re tired of reading the pundits’ picks for the best employment sites on the Web, here’s the alternative you’ve been looking for.
Each year, WEDDLE’s hosts an online poll for job seekers and recruiters to vote for THEIR picks of the best sites. We call it the User’s Choice Awards.
To see the 2014 winners, click here.
To cast your vote for next year’s winners, 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.