This is the question I’m constantly asked by the attendees of the corporate and talent acquisition conferences I address. According to LinkedIn, companies spend over $2.8 Billion dollars on job board ads, tools like ZipRecruiter and website postings. You can’t compete with those budgets and they don’t want to receive the same candidates from you that their internal team is surfacing.
At any given time only 15% of the population is conducting an active job search and that is the percentage of the talent pool your team is attracting if they are using these tools. When you hear from your team that there are no candidates, it because everyone is targeting the same 15%. That leaves 85% of the talent pool (passive candidates) as perfect targets for your recruiters. These passive candidates are employed, have a successful track record, but will make a change if they’re presented with a job that represents career advancement.
Unfortunately, when many recruiters leave a message, send an email or talk to a candidate, they are focused on pitching a specific job. Candidates often feel like we represent our clients and don’t care about them. We prove them right when they are pitched a job before we find out what they see as their next career move.
Think of all the assignments, contracts and job orders that were written in the past 90 days. Then think of the business that was written but never filled. Imagine how your sales and profits would increase if you filled a majority of the business written.
You are the owner, the leader and it’s critical that you teach your recruiting team how to become proactive recruiters. During a recent in-house training session, I was asked to watch a team of recruiters make recruiting presentations. All I heard for over 45 minutes was clicking on the keyboard. I went in and asked the owner to stand in the back of the room with me. Again, only clicking on keyboards.
My guess was that his team was sending InMail on LinkedIn and felt that was “recruiting.” He disagreed until we asked them what they were doing. Many were sending InMail, some were reaching out on social media sites, some were sourcing or conducting research, but none of his 40+ team members were conducting a recruiting blitz.
Rather than deliver the training I had prepared for the afternoon, I spent the next two days teaching them how to brand themselves, differentiate from their competition and how to make recruiting calls that would attract the best talent. They are now talking to the other 85% of the talent pool and filling a much higher percentage of business written.
If you want to fill more business that you write, teach your recruiters how to recruit! It will also save you a ton of money currently being spent on resources you can discontinue using.
If you don’t have time to train your recruiters how to recruit, contact my office at 219.663.9609