MightyRecruiter
A recruiting department must find a balance between meeting their hiring quotas and making recruiting into a competitive advantage. In essence, do you want to be a recruiter that does the bare minimum or excels at their job?
If you’re part of the latter group, you should always be thinking: What would my company look like if I could consistently attract better talent in less time?
This isn’t a new concept that only applies to today’s recruiters. It’s something that recruiters have been asking themselves for ages.
The difference is the yawning chasm that exists between what has worked to achieve this goal and what could work. Meaning, more and more we’re turning to technology to provide solutions. This is not only an eventuality, it’s also proven to be incredibly advantageous. The danger, though, is that it becomes easy to lose sight of the fact that we shouldn’t be using an online tool for the sake of simply using cutting-edge technology; we should be ensuring that digital solutions supplement and support existing objectives and methodology.
“Everything’s become ‘I’m an internet recruiter,’ meaning everything we do is on the computer… and so what’s happened: the tech’s too sophisticated and recruiters have lost the personal touch,” laments Janine Truitt, Chief Innovations Officer at Talent Think Innovations. “People who recruited way back when felt like they were community builders – recruiters brought people together.”
Janine, who consults in the sweet spot between the social media and human resources industries – and helps private and public companies foster their company culture into an ROI-yielding employer brand, believes we need to get back to our roots to grow tall in the future. It’s a subject she’s passionate about and one that she’ll be discussing as part of an upcoming webinar, The Future of Recruitment: What Recruiters Need To Know, on August 31 at 12pm.
I had the opportunity to catch up with her before the talk and get some insight into what a back-to-basics approach for modern success could look like. Our conversation touched on the upcoming webinar, but it also covered more macro trends in recruiting, such as how recruitment marketing starts with purpose, how recruiters should engage with a new community, and what recruiters can do to create a larger role within the company.
Recruitment Marketing Starts With Purpose
How can an old-school approach help companies attract more of the right people amidst all the new recruitment marketing buzz?
“It starts with communicating why someone should work with you,” says Janine. “People like to know their work has meaning. As a recruiter, I can’t just hire someone because there is a headcount; I need to understand why (in their opinion) this job is the right move for them. As an employer, there is a certain amount of thinking about how you position yourself in the market that helps you acquire the right people. I’ve long been a proponent of being clear about the day-to-day objectives tied to the jobs you are recruiting for and articulating why your company is an employer of choice. If you can do that you will likely attract people with similar motivations and interests.”
Remember, 72% of jobseekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job.
How Recruiters Engage With a New Community
In this age of online community development, how should a recruiter approach choosing and engaging with new communities?
“There are opportunities for recruitment within micro communities like online groups. In my opinion, groups are constant trial and error,” explains Janine. “It’s taken me becoming a part of a lot of different communities to figure out what works and doesn’t work.”
“Visibility in these groups is a key factor in having your outreach be successful. I become more visible in the ones that pack the value. Your success in being visible could be a group with thousands of people, but more often times, it’s a group with a few hundred people. It really depends on the administrator and the value her or she provides. However you look at it – just like in person – with most online group settings, you get what you put in.”
We also spoke of a “practitioner voyeur problem” where many people take the first step, joining groups that matter, but don’t make the leap into actually engaging with the community. As Janine puts it, to join a group, you are already admitting you are – at least in part – an insider. Have empathy for the group’s motivations and join in. If you’re going to be a part of the group, actually be a part of the group.
Recruiter Career Development
What makes the difference between a recruiter that remains in entry and mid-level positions and those who become leaders in the company?
“Recruiters need to be integrated within the company,” emphasizes Janine. “In the least, they need to stay informed of bigger picture metrics like retention rates – and at best, they need to be driving decisions in the relevant meeting. Early in my career, I stood up for myself and made concentrated efforts to be a part of the decision-making for workforce planning, retention, and development.”
She’s been there, done that, and I couldn’t say it better myself. A recruiter’s career development can accelerate by understanding what makes the business work beyond meeting the hiring quota.
The recruiter who gets ahead will be more than a recruiter. Business acumen, messaging, social networking, taking the extra step to add the personal touch – these are all business skills that extend well into recruiting. To hear from Janine live about how to apply these business skills, and more, into your day-to-day recruitment efforts, don’t forget to sign up for the Future of Recruitment: What Recruiters Need To Know on August 31 12pm PST/3pm EST.
Also If you’re interested in having a conversation about recruiting, just tweet @MightyRecruiter!
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