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Sourcing Candidates

No Nonsense Guide to Candidate Sourcing

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Every business starts out as one employee. As the business grows, the business owner will need to hire more staff so he or she can focus on sales and growth. This means hiring more accountants, more operations personnel, a marketing team, and perhaps a finance team. It means candidate sourcing.

We can all agree it’s very difficult to find talented workers to fill open roles. With the unemployment rate at a decades low, an HR manager or a business cannot simply post a job opening on LinkedIn.

It will be a slog to mine LinkedIn or post jobs in every internet job board. For a small business, every minute spent on finding a new employee means less money and time for other things, like marketing and sales.

One of the reasons why we created a tech enabled recruiting service at Vested is to help these small businesses automate their candidate sourcing efforts.

And it all starts with Talent Branding – something we feel is important in today’s job market:

But if you’re a business owner who is keen on doing this yourself, then bookmark this guide on how to source candidates.

This guide will show how to source candidates within your organization and if that’s not enough, it will show you how to use resources that are available out there for sourcing candidates.

Sourcing Candidates Internally

Filling an open role with an existing employee has many benefits.

First, if an employee has been working at a company for an extended period of time, then he or she already has a reputation and a history. You can check his or her past work evaluations. You can ask his or her boss and peers about work performance and long term career goals.

Most of the data points needed to evaluate a potential hire are readily available if you’re hiring within an organization.

Current employees are more likely to be loyal and committed to the company. They have friends and colleagues. They have a vested interest in helping the organization. They also have an existing knowledge of how things work and require less orientation and training.

Finally, internal promotions are great for morale. It shows other employees that one can have a future within the organization. Work hard and your loyalty will be rewarded with a promotion. It’s great for company culture if everyone has an expectation that hard work eventually pays off.

If new perspectives or ideas are needed for an open role, hiring internally may not be the best option. The company culture and processes are already ingrained in most internal candidates. If you need someone to “think outside the box,” then perhaps it’s necessary to hire outside the box.

How to Search Internally for the Perfect Candidate

Communication is key. Existing employees need to know there is an opening so they can apply.

Posting the job will help announce the new role in the organization. This could be as simple as a notice in the break room, an email announcement, word of mouth, a post on the company website, or it could be all of the above.

It’s helpful to include job requirements, skills, experience, and management reporting structure for the new role.

Applicants should be encouraged to talk to the hiring managers and team members so they can explore fit and understand the role better.

Another way to source internally is to encourage referrals. The best incentive is money so offer a cash bonus for any referrals from internal employees. Employees will be incentivized to search their own networks to help fill the role. They’ll do the talent sourcing for you by sending you emails and contact numbers of friends, family, and past co-workers, which will save you time from mining the Internet and the job boards yourself.

Finally, you can try rehiring former employees. Former employees already have a familiarity with the organization and the culture. Hiring former employees who resigned might be better targets than employees who were let go. Terminated employees could still harbor hard feelings and want no part in the future of their former employer. However, it could be a different story for former employees. If they are incentivized by a higher salary, a nice title or both, then they could be swayed to rejoin their former employer.

Sourcing Candidates Externally

If leveraging your existing employees is not possible, then it’s time to find candidates externally.

Using Job Boards to Find Talent

Job boards have been around since the advent of the World Wide Web. It’s still one of the most popular ways to find talent to fill open roles in your organization.

  • Popular Job Boards: The list includes Craigslist, Indeed, Monster.com, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. These boards are very well known so they attract a ton of candidates. The only drawback – job boards attract people who are already actively looking for jobs. Even though this means they are more likely to take the open position, it also means they may not be the top talent in your industry. The best talent are often still working at an organization and climbing the corporate ladder. They are less likely to be surfing job boards for another job. So if you want to attract high quality passive candidates, then job boards are not the best option.
  • Niche Job Boards: Niche boards specialize in a particular field and business function. Craigslist and Indeed allow anyone from any industry to post their jobs. Their pool of talent is large but it doesn’t help the hiring manager to narrow down their search. It might be better to focus on a narrower focused board. For example, org specializes in the recruitment of pilots. So an airline might be better off posting a job opening there rather than a generic, jobs supermarket like Indeed.

To stand out in job boards, it’s important to have effective job descriptions. It should attract candidates to the role, and it should also set expectations. If 8-10 year experience is required, then that should be in the job description. If Javascript is required, then that should be included. The more focused the job description, the likelier you’ll attract the right candidates.

Promote your brand. In a jobs supermarket like Indeed, you’ll be competing with other employers in your industry. Use videos, infographics, and pictures to stand out. Show how great your brand is so candidates can have the confidence to submit their resumes to your job listings.

Use Social Media to Find Passive Candidates

The problem with job boards is they often attract candidates who use the “shotgun approach.” They barely read the job descriptions and use the law of large numbers to their advantage. They apply to as many job openings as possible and let the rule of percentages work for them. For every 100 submissions, they’ll be happy with 10 interviews regardless of who they are.

These candidates are often the least desirable. They do not care about the role or the company, which means that even if you hired them, they’ll likely leave in 1-2 years for a better paying job.

The best talent are often passive candidates. They display one or more of these traits:

  • Currently employed and not actively seeking employment
  • Content with role but willing to listen to new opportunities
  • Employed or under employed and haven’t applied to your company

These candidates typically don’t spray and pray with their resumes in job boards. They are highly selective of who they talk to, as they know they have the skill and experience that employers want. They can afford to be selective.

One of the best ways to attract these types of candidates is through social media. Everyone in the world is active on at least one social media platform:

  • Facebook: With over 2 billion users, Facebook is easily the largest social media network in the world. Whether it’s a teenager or a CEO, that person likely has a Facebook profile. They use it mostly for networking with friends and family, and perhaps one or two sessions of Candy Crush or Farmville. Users tend to stay long periods of time in Facebook, which is a great for someone looking to reach passive candidates. Companies can engage in Facebook ads to showcase their brand or more directly, showcase job openings in their organization. Facebook ads are still the cheapest form of advertising, especially considering their potential reach is enormous. Even a simple brand awareness campaign will do wonders in terms or reaching out to passive candidates on Facebook.
  • LinkedIn: LinkedIn is an obvious choice to search for passive candidates. LinkedIn is literally a host for digital resumes in the form of user profiles. If you’re hiring for business, being active on LinkedIn is a must. Although much more expensive than Facebook, LinkedIn ads can help reach a highly targeted niche (business). There are options for brand awareness, such as sponsored posts. There are options for automated InMails. There is a host of options to attract passive candidates on LinkedIn.
  • Twitter: Twitter is a great way to target influencers within your industry. Twitter is often a place where leaders in an industry speak (or Tweet) their opinions on anything from the latest business news to what hot new restaurant to check out. It’s easy to compile lists of passive candidates who would be amazing hires for your business. You can use Twitter ads to promote brand awareness, and use direct messages to recruit industry leaders and influencers.
  • YouTube: YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world (only its parent Google is larger), so passive candidates are likely to be watching videos on YouTube. Often, people use YouTube to search for how to videos, and this is a great way to reach potential new employees. Establish your company as a leader in its field by creating how to videos about your industry. If you are a web design agency, create how to videos about website development and website marketing. Become a leader in your field and YouTube will promote your channel and videos. This will increase the likelihood that passive candidates (using YouTube to answer a question or looking for a tutorial) will encounter your brand or company. You can then retarget them to keep them in your recruiting funnel.
  • Reddit: Reddit has one of the largest user bases on the planet. It’s made up of subreddits, which are highly niche focused. A savvy recruiter can navigate through Reddit’s endless list of subreddits, and focus on highly active subreddits relevant to their industry. Then he or she can identify thought leaders and active users on that subreddit. They can then engage in communication and introduce that Reddit user to their recruiting funnel. Reddit is an under-utilized source for finding talent, but if used effectively, it could be a unique gold mine to find thought leaders in your industry.

These social media platforms are a great start to finding those passive candidates. If you focus on brand awareness and outreach, you can get these passive candidates in your recruiting funnel. They’ll be more likely to be qualified for any open role in your organization.

Old School Networking

Before there was social media, candidate sourcing was done the old fashion way. This meant meeting people in person and using personnel networks. Here are examples:

  • Attend Conferences: Every industry often has a conference. For example, data scientists have Tableau conferences, where there are opportunities to network with highly skilled data scientists. Attending an industry conference is a great way to collect business cards, and create lists of highly qualified individuals.
  • Alumni Networks: Many schools often have alumni conferences or networking events. It’s not just a time to relive past college glories. It’s also an opportunity to collect business cards, and identify people who could work within your company. They are more likely to be receptive to recruiting overtures because alumni share a common bond – the university.

How much time is needed to source candidates?

Many factors come into play, when estimating the time needed to fill an open role. For executive roles, expect a long drawn out search. It’s important to take time for an executive because he or she will be the face of a large division. There is little room for error when it comes to hiring an executive. On the flip side, finding an executive assistant will not be as time consuming for a company.

As a general rule, expect to spend 30 minutes to an hour sourcing passive candidates. This means going through LinkedIn, fielding questions, reaching out to potential candidates, doing research, and staying active on social media. There is a reason businesses hire whole HR teams to do candidate sourcing. It is a long and grueling task.

Conclusion

Candidate sourcing can be a long drawn out process, especially for a business owner with few employees. Even a medium to large company with a dedicated HR staff will need time to find highly qualified talent to fill roles.

A better solution could be to use technology to automate candidate sourcing. Check out our tech enabled recruiting service here.

Whatever method you use to source candidates, don’t skimp on the process. Employees are the life blood of any successful organization.

Categories
Interview Tips

3 Ways to Form the Best First Impression at Your Interview

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

It only takes 0.1 second to form a first impression, and that impression– whether you like it or not– can exist for about 3 months.

It’s especially important to consider this during the job search process, being that those snap judgments can have a direct impact on the outcome of the interview, and the professional relationship that results from it.

First impressions can make or break an interview, so you’ll need to know what to do to make sure your interviewers develop an exceptional perception of you. Body language and how you say things matter.

Here are some things to keep in mind when preparing for your next interview, so that you can get the job, and leave a positive impact on the ones you encounter. 

[1] Look confident

Confidence, or lack thereof, could be the first thing that someone notices in an interview. In fact, studies show that 55% of the first impression you make on others is attributed to physical appearance, so the way you look is extremely important. A strong and confident presence can help you stand out from other candidates, and help you come across as skilled, reliable, and valuable to your interviewers.

Don’t let any insecurities prevent you from exuding confidence in your interview: conditions like tooth discoloration, severe acne, or even male pattern baldness can distract your mind throughout the meeting. Before your interview, make an effort to accept and embrace the things that make you uncertain. Develop your confidence through acts of self-care, try some power poses in the mirror, or find a suit or dress that’s both professional and comfortable. Confidence in yourself, the way you look, and the way you carry yourself can go a long way in helping you shine throughout your interview.

Bonus tip: Keep steady eye contact and attentive body language so your interviewers know you’re engaged and actively listening.

[2] Prepare– don’t rehearse

While there’s no doubt that you should prepare for your interview to some degree, excessive preparation of your answers can come across as rehearsed, and in turn, disingenuous. If your interviewers think that your answers came from a Google search, and not from your own knowledge and experience, they’ll most likely be turned off by your responses and form a negative view of you.

Look into common interview questions before your interview to see what experiences or skill sets you’ll need to convey. In order to prepare for your interview without scripted answers, write down your answers in bullet forms, so you’re not reciting back pre-written responses in sentence form.

Practice answering the questions out loud to someone you know, and get their honest feedback– preferably someone with interview experience, or experience in the desired field. Peppering in your thoughts and experiences throughout the meeting in organic ways should help you come across as well-spoken and capable while leaving a positive impression.

Bonus tip: come with a list of questions for the interviewers. These questions don’t need to be in bullets, but you should come prepared with questions about the company or the role itself. It will help you appear interested, ambitious, and will help the flow of dialogue between you and the interviewers.

[3] Find a connection

While nerves can often make it difficult for you to be yourself, it’s important that you find a way to communicate naturally and effectively with your interviewers. Since a first impression is formed so quickly, you’ll need to find some common ground in which you can relate to your interviewers relatively soon after the interview starts.

When you find something that allows you to relate to your interviewers, you can develop a deeper connection, which can benefit you in the long run. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about their professional experience, educational background, or even interests. You never know– you may just find something that you’re both passionate about which will help you develop an even better first impression. Plus, being able to relate to your interviewers can show that you can get along well with others and work productively in a team setting.

Bonus tip: If you’re not sure what to ask, start with simple get-to-know-you questions about what books their reading, their hobbies, or their favorite local restaurants.

It’s crucial that you feel comfortable and confident so that there’s nothing impeding you from being yourself and excelling in your interview. When you develop a connection and bring your utmost confidence to the meeting, there’s no doubt you’ll have the best chances to win over your interviewers and land the job.

Categories
Fractional Recruiting

What is Fractional Recruiting

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Why employ the Fractional Recruiting model for your business?

Finding an executive or hiring someone to search an executive has become too costly. Especially when unemployment has been in a downward trend since the financial crisis, finding a full time equivalent for an executive position has been very difficult.

Firms have tried to adjust by giving more duties to existing leadership, but this has a tendency to lead to overburdening existing executives. Again, it’s a job seeker’s market out there. So an overextended executive will eventually lead to an unhappy executive, who will likely jump to greener pastures and better pay.

So what should firms do?

At Vested, we have become pioneers at finding executive level talent at a reasonable cost. We do this with our $999/monthly subscription service. We also do this by recruiting fractional executives for firms who need executive talent but have a limited budget.

It’s great for the following reasons:

What is a Fractional Employee?

This term originated in universities and colleges, where professors and university level employees divided their time. Professors often have many interests. They are sometimes needed in government to work on special projects, like consulting on the construction of a Mars Rover.

Or perhaps it’s a professor who excels in Finance thought leadership so he or she is hired by Wall Street to teach at their employee training sessions. Because of their demand, professors work in academia as well as in government or private businesses.

They may lecture a couple of days in university and spend Fridays in Wall Street, teaching CPE courses at an investment bank.

Fractional employees are not freelancers so their job is not based on project completion. They can be retained on an ongoing relationship, so he or she can be an adjunct professor at a local college and provide consulting services to a Wall Street firm on the side. Institutions prefer to retain them on an ongoing basis because of their expertise about a particular subject.

Fractional employees generally forego benefits like 401K or health and dental, but they receive greater flexibility in hours and commitment. Many workers prefer this relationship because of greater flexibility over work/life balance.

Why use a Fractional Employee for Business?

I’ve already discussed how some Wall Street firms often use fractional employees to teach their training courses. Every summer a Wall Street firm welcomes their new associates and entry level analysts into their ranks.

Most often, especially the entry level analysts, have little to no exposure to accounting rules or finance theory. Moreover, working in the financial services industry means passing certain tests to achieve certifications.

Many Wall Street firms hire accounting and finance professors at top local universities. They are already skilled in handling a classroom.

Plus, they are considered the best in their profession. Who better to teach the new leaders of Wall Street?

For the professors, they get paid a lot of money during the summer (when universities are closed) and it becomes an easy routine for them. This relationship works for both sides:

  • Professors get an on-going work without sacrificing their normal duties at a university
  • Wall Street firms don’t have to pay benefits to get top level educators to teach their employees

It’s much more cost effective for Wall Street firms to have this relationship as they don’t have to pay the benefits.

Fractional Recruiting is Excellent for Startups

This employee-employer relationship works very well for startups. For fast growing startups, there’s always a need for experienced C-Level executives.

Often, startup founders are led by engineers or very technical people, or they are led by newly minted MBAs.

For the founders with an engineering background, they have excellent coding skills and product development but lack the financial savvy to attract venture capital.

For the MBAs, they have the financial savvy, but have very little coding and product development skills.

Often, C-Level executives are needed to fill the gap or need within the organization. The technical founder needs a CFO or a Controller to handle the finances and to pitch to venture capitalists.

The MBA founder needs a CIO or Product guy or gal to develop the actual product to sell.

Unlike large established firms, startups do not have an unlimited budget. They often have to make sacrifices. More often, limited capital is used to build the technology and improve the product, leaving very little for recruiting and retention of C-Level executives.

This is where fractional recruiting is a game changer for startups.

By employing a fractional recruiting relationship, a startup can fill the talent gaps within their organization without sacrificing a long term commitment to a particular person. It can be try out for both sides.

The startup can use a fractional relationship to assess if a particular person is the right candidate long term. Conversely, the fractional employee can test to see if there is a potential future with the startup. Since there is no long-term commitment, any side can walk away from the relationship.

Both sides of the table benefit from a fractional relationship

The startup can fill the talent gap in the organization by having an experienced C-Level executive on the team.

Whether it’s a CIO to help build the technology or a CFO to manage the finances, the startup can employ a highly skilled individual to help push the startup to the next round of funding.

If all works out, the fractional employee can be extended a full time offer to fill the job once capital is more abundant.

The employee benefits by building institutional knowledge of the startup. He or she may not have the benefits of a full time employee, but the fractional employee will have a better work/life balance.

Moreover, he or she can walk away at any time if the role is not right. When capital is no longer an issue, the fractional employee will most certainly be at the top of the short list for the C-Level position.

Why Vested is the best resource for Fractional Recruiting?

At Vested, we have a strong history working with startups like care/of, Trustwave, Peloton and Convoy. Their stories and testimonials can be found here.

Moreover, as an early stage startup, Vested also knows the dilemma firms find themselves in when they have to choose between product, technology or hiring talent.

With agency recruiters, they can charge as much as 45 percent of first year salary to find an executive.

This is a non-starter for almost any startup. At Vested, we have a pool of candidates willing to work on a fractional basis.

We provide the recruiting service at an affordable cost, and provide a dedicated member of our support and recruiting team to help with the ongoing relationship.

We understand startups go through various stages of radical growth. We too have experienced the famous “hockey stick” effect of startups so it’s necessary to find the appropriate working relationship with a fractional employee.

The working relationship can be a 60, 90 or 120 day plan, but if you don’t plan properly, the departure of this fractional employee could leave a gaping hole in the growth of your startup.

There’s also the matter of compensation. We can work with you to discuss how best to structure the compensation.

It can be balance of salary, equity or work/life balance. Every individual is different and every company is different. We will work with your company to structure the best fractional employee relationship that makes sense for both sides.

To better understand if fractional recruiting makes sense for your business, contact us for a complementary consultation of your HR needs.

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Categories
Hiring Best Practices Recruiter Tools Recruiting Metrics

Why is Time to Fill an Important Recruiting Metric

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Breaking down Time To Fill

How can you measure the efficiency of recruiters? Well, it is the time to fill or time to hire that demonstrates how efficient the recruiter is. The long time opening of the job posting indicates the in productivity of the recruiting team. It indicates that the services are disrupted and the current employees are taking the burden of that extra job.

That is why; the accurate measurement of time to fill becomes necessary. The fellow managers should be able to provide realistic time frames in order to fill the vacant positions.

Moreover, the metric time to fill provides an insight into their own strategies, resource allocation and planning of budget. Longer time taken to fill the positions will result in higher cost per hiring.

How to calculate time to fill?

It is a simple calculation that helps in measuring the definite time period. It represents the time taken by the company to fill a position. However, the starting point or the reference point can be any of these three.

  • When the hiring manager submits the job opening for approval.
  • The job is approved by the HR or Finance.
  • The job posting is advertised by the recruiter.

The end of the time is marked by the moment when the candidate accepts the job offer. The starting point can be any as per your company policy but the ultimately target remains to fill the positions and teams consistently.

How to calculate average time to fill?

The average time to fill can be calculated with a simple formula. Adding all the time taken to fill the different positions and dividing it by the number of roles gives you the average time to fill. For example, if you hired for total four roles and it took 10, 20, 30 and 40 days respectively, then the average time to fill is

10 + 20 + 30 + 40 / 4 = 25

The positions that remain open for most of the times cannot be included in the calculation of time to fill or average time to fill. The opened positions will greatly inflate the average time to fill affecting the efficiency of your hiring process.

What is the ideal time to fill?

According to the Society of Human Resource and Management (SHRM), the average benchmark for time to fill is 42 days. It accounts to be 59 in the Engineering industry.

Different companies can have different time to fill irrespective of the efficiency of their recruitment process. You need to calculate it internally for the sake of your company.

How to reduce the time to fill?

These efficient recruitment strategies can effectively reduce your time to fill.

Take a look at the ideas:

Build a candidate database: It does not make sense to start looking for candidates from scratch every time you find an opening. Refer your ATS that may have a list of candidates who have made it to the final stages of hiring. Also, you may have data of the candidates who by chance, applied after the position was filled. This candidate database can be really helpful at the times of need.

Source actively: Passive candidates can help you build a great pipeline. Try to lay a strong foundation and build relationship with them. It will help you at the time of the job opening and you would be able to contact them directly.

Scrutinize your time to fill: Time to fill does not compromise of a single term; instead it is build from different layers. Time to interview, time to send application, phone screening and a few other processes. Analyze how long each stage takes and how can you improve it by decreasing the time taken.

Create an effective referral program: Keep sending the reminders of your job openings to your colleagues and offer your current employees with referral incentives. An email with the job descriptions and employee recommendations can be a great way to remind. The process will help to reduce your efforts on job advertising and resume the process of screening.

Use on-demand recruiting: At Vested, we understand how difficult it is to find the right candidates. This is why we started our company – to take away the stress from candidate sourcing so your HR team can focus on talent retention and other HR internal functions.

You can hire a traditional recruiter and pay as much as twenty percent of the first year salary for every hire. Or you can try Vested’s on demand subscription for only $999 a month.

The talent acquisition leaders need to well-versed with all the techniques to enhance their overall performance and speed up the process.

(photo from pexels.com)

Categories
Sourcing Candidates

How to source for candidates on Twitter?

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Not every high volume pipeline is the quality one, sometimes you get the most potent and active candidates from the most unexpected place.

A few years ago, candidate sourcing was all about posting the job advertisement, visiting job fairs and waiting for the applications on your company careers page, but the overall scenario has changed with the passage of time. The focus lies on identifying the exceptional candidates among the mediocre and average ones.

It becomes a bit easier to identify the more qualified and proactive candidates on the social networking sites and powerful search engines. Twitter is such a place. 250 million current users, growing by 500,000 new users each day followed by 350 million tweets, sound interesting. But is the platform relevant with professional terms?

The third-largest social networking site, Twitter helps you find a variety of candidates based on their locations and topics.

Recruiting by Twitter is identified by one’s marketing and sales target. It is a wealth of data for sure- you just need to know where and how to look.

The huge user base of engaged professionals, hashtag and keyword search-ability, Twitter is quite beneficial as a recruiting tool. The lists help you segregate users into talent pools. Sourcing with the help of Twitter is an art. We have put up this guide that will help you learn how to find the talent. These Twitter sourcing tips and tricks will make you a pro in Twitter sourcing.

Step by Step Approach to Twitter Candidate Sourcing

Start with an exact search: Besides going here and there, it is always advisable to go for your exact demand. Whatever you are trying to search put it in the quotation marks. For example, if you are looking for a software engineer, you can search it as “software engineer”.

Add an alternative search: Alternative search can be done by using OR in between two terms. Quotations marks need to be put on the both terms. For example, “software engineer’ OR “engineer”.

Add an additional search term: The trick can be used for multiple search requirements. Instead of OR you should use AND if you are looking for more than one quality in a person. For example, if you are recruiting for a marketing agent and a social media expert, you can search “Marketing” AND “social media”.

Exclude certain elements: You can even exclude a certain set of search items from your requirement. Simply use the minus sign before adding the required word to your search options. For example, “software developer” –android.

View all tweets addressed to a certain user: Is the username appearing in too many searches or too many people are searching for the user? Well, it is easy to identify this on Twitter. Type it like this to:username (no @ necessary).

View all tweets sent from a certain user: It is easy to identify how many tweets a certain user has send. It can be identified in this way from:username.

Search for tweets near or in a particular location: Twitter makes everything simple. Type in near:location, or near:location withing: 5mi.

Search for tweets between two dates: It is almost impossible to find content between two dates in any other social media networking site. However, Twitter makes it possible. Type in:since 2014/05/02 until: 2015/09/28.

Search for all the tweets that contain a certain link: Twitter gives you access to find the certain links or terms related to the stuff you are looking for. Drive your search by “filter:links”. For example, “social media marketing”  “filter: links”

Find specific content: You can even target the search to a particular source or platform. For example, if you are looking for a social media expert from the source Instagram. For example, “social media marketing”.

The right hashtags play the key role in sourcing through Twitter. Drive your every search with the help of targeted keywords. Prefer to use skill based hashtags like #sales #marketing #Jobs #hiring etc.

Use the most popular and relevant hashtags to gain maximum search results. Even, there are a few hashtag generators that can help you find and visualize relevant hashtags based on trends and analytics.

Engaging people on Twitter can be initiated by striking up a conversation with the potential candidates you may find. Being a social media platform it engages people in two-way conversations.

To learn more about best practices on candidate sourcing, check out our ultimate guide on sourcing candidates.

(Photo by Mohammad Danish from pexels.com)

Categories
Sourcing Candidates

How to source for candidates on Facebook?

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Started with the Mark Zuckerbug’s attempt to create a private network channel for his friends and colleagues, Facebook has a come a long way since then.

Currently, it is the biggest social media network in the world with more than 1 billion users. With our ultimate guide to candidate sourcing, you can definitely find talent on Facebook to fill open roles.

Your next hire might have been sharing a post or picture on the Facebook right now.

Too many users on a single platform make it ideal for the purpose of recruiting. It has become an easily available space to attract and convert talent into hires. The latest features, the newest trends and best practices, recruitment through Facebook is an interesting concept.

How to recruit employees on Facebook?

Facebook recruiting is not limited to posing jobs online only but there can be a pattern of searching the candidates online proactively and building relations with them.

It develops a mutual trust and you can encourage them to apply for the vacant job positions.

Be direct

Posting the job vacancies directly on your company’s Facebook page can be the simplest option. The ad post will route candidates directly to your Facebook page and, they will take interest in further information  and visit your company careers page.

Interestingly, Facebook provides different customization options for your Company profile. The choices of ‘Early careers’ and ‘Professional careers’ makes it easy for the newcomers to find jobs of their choice.

Indirect methods

It is not only the direct job openings but Facebook can be a great platform to promote your employer’s brand and improve your Company’s image. Recruiters post potent information regarding the culture and mission of the organization.

Sponsored ads and buzz words help recruiters to target their audience. It helps them to reach the potent areas that are left behind their approach.

Your current employees are your other potent source for Facebook recruitment. They can be your best advocates in the front of your target candidates. Let them use their Facebook page to express their achievements and their experience at your Company.

Post videos of your office get-together, office day sneak peek, after-work Friday meet up or training sessions.

The pictures will represent your happy office culture and teamwork spirit. The applicants will get an idea about your vibrant work culture. They will have a clear idea what working with them will feel like.

Socialize

This is what Facebook is meant for. The platform gives you space for building relations candidates and networking with potential hires. Recruiters must assign a manager to respond to people’s questions and answer them as soon as you create your Company’s page.

The conversations can be later stepped up to ‘Career chats’. The real time session will motivate candidates to apply for jobs. Also, there are special groups for recruiters which you should join.

Source candidates

Facebook can be a great platform to source for passive candidates as well. You can search for these candidates based on their special ideas and special criteria.

  • Job title – who live near you
  • Job title – who speak a particular language
  • People who work with (competitor)

Increase employee referral activity

Facebook recruitment makes a great way for referral activities. It becomes quite easy for employees for to share jobs and attract candidates on a social media platform. Moreover, they know your work culture, and they already what kind of employees will be the best match to it. They will search the best potential coworkers for them and this will help in building the human infrastructure of your company.

A step-by-step guide

The following strategic step-by-step guide will help you to start with the recruitment process.

  1. Find the potential candidates.
  2. Create a Facebook page.
  3. Share your Company culture in pictures and posts.
  4. Create the job post ad.
  5. Promote your job post ads for free on your page, Company profile and with the help of your current employees.
  6. Take up a small budget and promote your jobs.
  7. Use Facebook live
  8. Create job tabs.
  9. Communicate with the potential employees.
  10. Share specialized content that will help in recruitment.

The Facebook recruitment will help you to take the candidate sourcing process to a complete new level.

Facebook can be the ultimate guiding force to source, attract and hire new employees.

(Photo by Bruce Mars on pexels.com)

Categories
Recruiter Tools Sourcing Candidates

How to manage a talent pipeline with Modern sourcing tools?

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Hiring process is no more the usual old process of posting a job and inviting applications. In this modern era, it has evolved.

It has become much like a talent pipeline where sourcing the right candidate has become easy and effective. It ensures a regular flow so that you don’t have to wait while expanding the work.

What is Talent pipeline?

Setting up a talent pipeline is an effective approach in managing the recruitment process. Although, creating an effective talent pipeline strategy needs lots of efforts, time and careful planning yet, once done it shortens the process of hiring. It enhances your chances of getting the best people. It is much like your own talent pool and you can pick the right talent that matches your requirement.

It is a well-stocked database that can fulfill all your hiring needs of the future. And, that is why; it becomes so important to manage these pipelines.

We have enlisted a few management tips that will help you to manage your talent pipeline.

Develop your internal talent pool

Internal hiring has always been a point of argument. These are the people suitable for your company culture and know you well. Their performance evolution can help you to conduct effective planning for succession. Identify who in your staff possess the critical skill and support you in difficult times of emergency hiring.

There may be a few conditions related to it. Some of your best talent may need training sessions in order to hold critical positions. These are the right people to invest in. They can be your potential successors who can be placed at any position at the time of requirement. They can even provide coaching in the future.

 Sourcing an external talent pool

It can be a challenging task to recruit the external talent. It needs lots of sourcing and networking to create and manage an external talent pipeline. It needs a strategic approach to build and manage this kind of pipeline.

These few tips will help you.

 

Modern sourcing tools will help you find resumes and profiles

Sourcing does not need to be reactive all the time. The modern talent pipelines and sourcing techniques bring you closer to the pool of talented professionals. Keep the contacts in radar even if they are not looking for the job. The modern hiring templates along with the tools make it easier to maintain a relationship with your future talent. Boolean search tool on Google help you find talent effectively.

Keep an eye on rejected candidates

There is much talent who gets rejected at the final step of the hiring process. You can keep them as an option for your future requirements. You know that they are talented enough to pass the initial stages of the hiring such as cognition and screening. Although rejected for a certain position, they can fit in some other position. Show them respect and make sure they leave your space with the positive impression of your company.

Attend events to persuade passive candidates

There are certain events such as meetups, job fairs, university career fairs and conferences that act as a platform to meet passive candidates. It only helps you refine your recruiting pitch and your talent pipeline will keep loaded. Never bound your work with filling current opportunities only but meet the passive employees with equal enthusiasm and future opportunities. Connect with them and try to keep in touch.

Source candidates from their social media profiles

The world of social media networking has made the process of finding the talent easier. From LinkedIn to Twitter to Glassdoor and Facebook, you can keep searching and adding candidates to your talent pool.

Develop your referral programs

Referrals are probably the greatest way to source the best candidates that are talented and adjust well with your company culture. In this case, your employees will be looking for candidates when you will be busy with other tasks. It speeds up your work and your talent pool never loses its grip. Encourage your current employees to refer other talented persons they trust.

Apart all this, employer branding is first step in setting up your talent pipeline. Attractive employers are the pre-requisites when it comes to maintaining your talent pipeline. Make sure to set up your employer brand and be a desirable place people would love to work into.

(Photo by Fox from Pexels.com)

Categories
Hiring Best Practices

Why Hiring an HR Team for a Startup is a BAD Idea

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Startups are the most raw and original form of a business. They are hard because they face uncertainty and lack of resources.

They know their destination but the direction and the way towards the destination changes each day. But, they grow as they move.

Hiring, candidate sourcing and growing your people along with the company is one of the toughest challenges you face while growing a business. HR is one of the most challenging and ignored aspect of running a HR. Why it is ignored in the initial years?

One should not hire a full-fledge HR team in the initial years because of the size of their business. Startups are small and they don’t need and afford a specialized team in order to manage their staff. However, these are not the only reasons to not hire an HR team for your startup. Following reasons will further clear my point.

Startups are inherently goal oriented

What is the purpose of hiring an HR team? They do not get numbers for your next quarter. Then, what? The purpose of an HR team is to measure the overall performance of the team and train them according o their potential. They provide strategic thinking to the leadership and support them in their Human resource related decisions. Apart from this, they perform the duties of recruitment. Basically, they are aligned towards the goals of the company. All these point are invalid in the case of a startup.

All these functions are done collectively till the count of the employees reach 50. The whole team remains together in the compact office size. All the potential and strategic thinking is done on the products and marketing. Startups are already goal oriented and they do not need any HR team to direct them towards the goals and orientation of the company.

PEOs provide the backbone

It is the back office operations of the HR that are crucial. They perform the duty of paying salaries, deducting taxes, benefits and withholding the funds. Startups also need to perform all these duties and that’s why they pair up with Professional employee organizations (PEOs).

Instead of creating an HR platform, they outsource all these duties to the PEOs. Outsourcing payroll, health insurance and other things is quite cost-effective and you end up paying nothing as compared to the cost of HR team.

A PEO enters the startup in such a way that it becomes it HR, payroll, benefits employer of record, takes the responsibility of employment tax and every other responsibility of HR. The other day-to-day aspects of the employees are taken care by the startup itself. In this way, the big company benefits are extracted from outsourcing by spending just an inch of money.

Why employees join and stick around

An employee joins a company and lasts there for three particular reasons:

  • The salary and the economic returns they get.
  • Their learning and building process
  • To have fun

Inspite of well-settled and established companies, Startups optimize all these three requirements. And this is why the traditional companies need HR to sell their jobs and buy employees. HR needs to market the benefits of having jobs in traditional companies in order to retain these employees.

Startups are equipped with solving bigger issues and one solution returns in magnificent economic returns. Money does not remain a trouble in such cases. The learning is also a constant process because it involves the things that are new and needs to be established. And the employees have lots of fun in order to create these open-floor plans and implement them.

Startups have people with enormous energy who work in pre-assumed direction with all their dedication. They do need anyone to manage their energy or channelize them because they already do much more than their capability.

Their stamina and enthusiasm simple ends the need of an HR. They do not need voices around them because they keep too busy in listening to their extinct and colleagues. You and your team remain accountable for everything. Their behavior accounts and contributes to the vision of the company.

Each of the duty of the HR can be easily outsourced. It will save you from expanding your space and funds both.

(Photo from rawpixel.com from Pexels)

Categories
Sourcing Candidates

How to Recruit at a Job Fair

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Ever wondered what candidate sourcing is like at a job fair?

Speed-dating I think. The employers meet their tentative employees, at the set time and place, looking for a correct match.

The successful sourcing initiatives are the key to a successful recruitment plan of a company.

Entering into the job fairs with this approach will help you search the right talent in the pool of talent and potential candidates. Job fairs are the right place to entice top-tier candidates.

These few tips will help you to stand out and gain maximum experience at a job fair.

Host a contest: It is quite significant to attract the best talent in a career fair. But, how to do so? The super-strict environment of a job fair can be stuffing and anyone would love to get rid of it. Introducing a talent hunt or a completion will lighten the professionalism and inspire everyone to participate in it. You can ask them to submit their copy of resume in exchange of participating into your contest.

Advertise your presence: A running organization already has a large pool of employees to engage with. Your broader community includes top-tier candidates. Announce your presence in the job fairs via social media and email marketing lists. Provide the specific list of information including location of your booth. Also, provide hints about your special display. Try to show up with a special swag item to create hype in the fair.

Digitize your booth: No one wants to mess with the trail of papers in this time. Try to use digital things for collecting resumes and filling out applications. The digitization of hiring process is quite beneficial to modern recruitment process. Use laptops or tablets to display your recruitment videos, demonstrations and presentations to paint a positive picture of your brand.

Know your roles: Defining the roles clearly is the first step towards the recruitment. It will help you to fill the roles efficiently. Make a sheet that includes the position with all its key responsibilities and daily tasks.

Try to post all these details online so that it can be totally transparent. It will help you set up a mutual beneficial relationship between you and your employee.

Pick the best reps: It is not that simple that your HR team go to the job fair and promote your brand. It is better to send people that will work with the new hires on daily basis. Make sure the most positive, energetic and enthusiastic employees of your organization join the fair and meet new people.

It will help you in two ways. Firstly, your departments will come in direct contact with potential talent, and they will narrow it down as per your own requirement. Secondly, potential candidates will have a direct conversation with your employees and know about your reputation. It gives a first-hand experience to both.

Provide sustenance: Not only creative freebies, you will also want enticing passer-by to munch on your booth in job fair. Keeping candies, coffee, pizza or snacks at your counter will help you to catch their gaze. Being creative can be fun, but sealed and labeled items should be preferred. Something branded will create a good reputation of your brand.

Leverage your wins: Has it ever happened that your company has names as the best places to work in your area? Or has your organization won any nomination in last few years. Do you have a referral from an employee that makes your organization shine? Put all the information on a banner, literature or your backdrop?

Emphasizing your props will help the potential candidates to make a biased reputation of your brand.

Don’t sit: Sitting behind your counter on a job fair is a big no. Stand in front or on to the side of the table. It will intimidate the job seekers especially younger ones. It helps to invite people. Moreover, either sitting behind the table or standing at all, keep smiling. It is first thing the potential candidates will notice about you. It creates a positive aura.

Arrive in plenty of time to set up: One can easily spot a difference between a quick and relaxed work. A neat and maintained counter will simply enhance your impression.

Pick unique swag: Job fairs are about free promotional items. Therefore, it is important to maintain a realistic attitude.

Categories
Recruiter Tools Sourcing Candidates

How to source for candidates on Glassdoor?

  • Post author By Vested
  • Post date

Glassdoor is a platform that gathers user-generated reviews about different companies and company-life. The best part is the reviews are anonymous. It is much like a Trip Advisor to the HR.

Glassdoor has hugely changed our prospective towards recruitment marketing and company culture. The Google backing makes the platform more authentic and reliable. It has become one of the ultimate job sites for candidate sourcing.

Though the platform started as the employee share feedback to employers, it has transformed into the fastest growing career community online. Employees use it as a trustworthy platform that provides honest information about a certain company and employees.

The smart platform for both employees and employers, Glassdoor has a network of about 24m members and 300, 000 companies in 190 countries. The smart place has emerged as an opportunity for employers to set up their brand. It is a space to gather competitive intelligence and source candidates.

As a recruiter you should know about the best platform to find quality candidates. The well-prepared and qualified candidates make the process of hiring easier as they stick around and tend to thrive.

The candidates at Glassdoor are known as informed ones. They put in their time and efforts into research before entering into the process of recruiting and their chances of being hired are 2x more than the candidates from other sources.

Posting a job at Glassdoor is not enough to initiate the process of hiring. Job seekers look for adequate information about why they are ideal for the position.

We have enlisted 5 ways that will help you to source the right candidate from this platform.

Respond to reviews: The most powerful way to attract the uninformed candidates towards your recruitment is responding to their reviews. A total of 61% of employees admit that their perception towards a company changes after reading the employer’s response towards the company and their policies. Companies that respond to the reviews of their current or x-employees are known to be responsible and caring towards them. It creates a positive image of your company and your chances of getting response increases.

Advertise your job: On Glassdoor, your first attempt decides your way. You should put on ads to precisely target the candidates you need. Your ads will help you to specify the location, industry and role. Glassdoor also enables you to monitor the performance of your ads so that you can make data-driven adjustments. These ads attract candidates the same way a magnet attracts metal. It increases the chances of applications you get and in turn you a get a pool of employees and you can select the right candidate from.

Build a diverse and inclusive work force: Two-third of the job seeking employees admit that they evaluate companies on the basis of diverse workforce. They consider it as an important factor while going through the job offers. Glassdoor allows you to demonstrate the inclusive culture of your company that you foster.

Learn from our best places to work winners: Recruiting the informed candidates is an art. Winning companies use Glassdoor efficiently to attract top talent. These are the real-world examples you can learn from. You can take advice from them or can simply trace their path.

Screen for role fit: You should have a strategy in order to screen the applications. You need to know what exactly you should look for in these applications. The knowledge will help you to quickly surface the most informed candidates in time.

Optimize job titles and descriptions: Job titles are the most appealing part of posting a job. Eye-catchy job titles catch the attention of job seekers immediately. You can take help from Glassdoor account to calculate which the most searched job description is.

Let candidates learn about you: Glassdoor is a platform that gives opportunities to the informed candidates to know more about your company. That means you need smarter work but not harder. Target your audience in such a way that you can provide a personal view of your enhanced profile for up to 4 audiences depending on their industry.

Industry benchmarking: You need to set goals and decide your benchmarks to measure and track your success. You must analyze which channel brings you the maximum candidates so that you can lower your cost per hire.

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