Why recruiting needs to be investigative - intellerati
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A presentation by Intellerati, the recruitment research division of The Good Search, LLC, on why recruiting needs to be investigative. It isn't that there are too few candidates. It is that there are too many.
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Why recruiting needs to be investigative - intellerati
- 6. Candidate pool is now an ocean © 2011 Intellerati, the recruitment research division of The Good Search, LLC
- 12. 40% are off the grid © 2011 Intellerati, the recruitment research division of The Good Search, LLC
- 18. Perpetual Employee Directory © 2011 Intellerati, the recruitment research division of The Good Search, LLC
- 19. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Creditors List © 2011 Intellerati, the recruitment research division of The Good Search, LLC
- 20. License Databases © 2011 Intellerati, the recruitment research division of The Good Search, LLC
Editor's Notes
- Searching Smarter. Why Recruiting Needs to be Investigative. A presentation by Intellerati, the recruitment research division of The Good Search, LLC.
- Your goal is to recruit the best people.
- Your challenge is that the economy has made it harder. While that may seem counter-intuitive, here are a few of the reasons why:
- The high rate of unemployment, hovering around 9 percent, has created an avalanche of applicants. Clients tell us, however, that increasingly the quality of that applicant pool is low. They estimate only about 1-to-3 percent of those who apply meet the minimum qualifications for the job. The vast majority do not. Still, because it is easy for unqualified candidates to apply, they do so in massive numbers. On top of this, recruiting teams have suffered huge reductions in headcount. While that has rebounded somewhat, it has not kept pace with the growing number of openings. (I recently had a conversation with one recruiter with more than 250 requisitions on her plate.) There are simply fewer corporate recruiters and sourcers available to do the work of recruiting compared to just a few years ago. Also, many candidates are more reluctant to make a move. They fear switching employers make them more vulnerable to being laid off as the last one in, first one out. Making matters worse, hiring managers often have unrealistic expectation. They assume that the economy has made it easier when, for so many employers, it has not.
- There is good news, however. With few exceptions, everyone is open to opportunities. Executives, technologists, and other experienced hire workers are painfully aware that no one is immune from layoffs. Consequently, it makes good sense to be on the lookout for the next opportunity. For passive candidates, looking has become a form of career insurance. This is huge.
- As a result, the candidate pool is now an ocean. Its waves wash over recruiters on online, on job boards, in social media, by email, tweets, and texting. In fact, those channels have a multiplying effect. A candidate can be in so many places at the same time. Those doppelgangers all want a piece of you. Each application, status update, email, tweet, and text demand more work of you and your talent acquisition team. Consequently, you have to recruit differently. Let ’ s do the math.
- All told, there are 194 million workers in the United States.
- Of that 194 million, 9% are, without a doubt, active candidates because they are unemployed. So if you target only officially active candidates, you ’ re eliminating 9 out of 10 potential candidates that are the ones you most want to recruit. Corporations use layoffs to eliminate under performing workers. And thus, this slice often includes a higher percentage of disgruntled, dissatisfied, and disappointing workers.
- If you go to LinkedIn to to search for passive candidates, you are limiting your search to just 17% of the working population in the U.S. That ’ s less than 1 in 5. In other words, there ’ s 80% chance that you have eliminated the best person for the job.
- If you turn to search firms who claim that their close personal relationships with candidates will magically produce your next hire, you have just shrunk the candidate pool to just .00000077 percent of the 194 million.
- Or 150 people, the theoretical maximum number of relationships any person could have at any one time in their lives. This number includes family, childhood friends and other people you ’ d never recruit. Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. It was first proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar.
- Also, if limit your sourcing to the Internet, you may very well be missing as many as 40% of workers are not discoverable on the web. They either avoid it entirely or they avoid social networking - keeping very low profiles -- due to privacy concerns, fear of identity theft, or they don ’ t want to it appear as they are looking for a job. Also, I've recently observed some powerful Hollywood executives cultivating an air of exclusivity, choosing to be as an “ unlisted ” as possible online, much like an unlisted number. While we in recruiting tend to be obsessed social networking, we need to remember that many successful professionals have better things to do with their time. The whole online personal branding/social networking thing simply is not a priority. Those people are often amazing candidates that you would miss if you only looked for them online.
- So what’s a recruiter to do? With so many incomplete sources of candidate information scattered like buckshot across the Internet, you must investigate. You must target active and passive candidates. You must look online and off. While it sounds harder, mastering this approach actually makes your recruiting easier.
- You start by drawing up a list of target companies to figure out where passive candiates might be hiding. Check for less obvious local offices of companies headquartered elsewhere. Be strategic. Look for hot companies that have been inching up in market share, making them hotbeds of talent. Alternatively, look for companies hit by bad news, earnings surprises, or uncertainty due to announced mergers and acquisitions. Employees at those companies are much more likely to make a move.
- Next, go into each target company and map the teams where potential candidates are seated. You want to title, map, count, and plug. First, reverse engineer titles -- find out what title the target company uses to describe the candidate that your are seeking. Each company has its own special nomenclature. You do this by reviewing job postings, profiles, and resumes. This saves you an enormous amount of wasted time and effort recruiting titles that look right on the face of it, but are actually so very wrong. Next, you you map every team and you count, chatting up candidates to find out how many others at their company do what they do. Last, you check for holes in your research to make sure you ’ ve identified all potential passive candidates.
- By asking how many potential candidates there are at each company -- by counting and by estimating -- you figure out how many people you've identified and how many your research has yet to identify. That empowers you to go back in to find those people and plug those holes in your research. This is the only way to identify amazing candidates you would otherwise miss. Also, it tells you exactly where the candidates are and are not.
- An investigative approach also leverages alternative sources of information for competitive advantage. For instance, virtually every time someone interacts with the government, a record is created. So you simply need to ask what government agencies regulate or require licensing or reporting from your candidates. Go there.
- For instance, the Federal Election commission database of individual contributors is searchable by company name and even by title. There you ’ ll find every individual that contributed money to a federal campaign. In other words, it serves as a perpetually refreshing employee directory of your target companies. The neat thing is that thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, there are a huge number of databases available to the general public. They ’ re getting easier to search and easier to find.
- Creditors lists are another kind of employee directory the government is kind enough to provide. When a target company goes into bankruptcy, creditors often include every employee who worked at the company. The list includes their home address and titles.
- License databases are another great resource for finding candidates who are CPAs, lawyers, doctors or other licensed professionals. You find potential candidates as well as ensure they have the license that is required.
- You want to do primary sourcing early and often with Phone ID. Unlike the stuff on the Internet, the information is current, much more accurate, and often the shortest path to where you want to go. Whenever you are in doubt, pick up the phone. It can save you days of wasted effort. Also, you don ’ t need to lie or ruse as there are so many ways into an organization. If you get shut down going in through the switchboard, dial an extension and get transferred to where you need to go. If you get shut down calling headquarters, call a branch office. If a top-down approach does not work, try chatting up more junior people. Call Tech Support or the Mailroom.
- An investigative recruiter recruits and investigatives at the same time. There is an art to gathering that information. You do it by networking, building relationships, and leading conversations to where the information might be volunteered without your having to ask. Asking direct questions shuts down sources that would otherwise be helpful
- The rewards are many. Suddenly you are not wasting your time processing the 98 percent of applicants that are wrong for the job, or chasing after passive candidates that aren’t right. You focus in on a tight list of candidates that are spot on. An investigative approach is smarter and efficient. That means less work and more fun for you. It reduces time to hire and cost per hire. It produces candidates you never dreamed existed and game changing hires.
- So, it is time for recruiters and sourcers to start thinking like detectives. To implement, you can build it our buy it. Either way, you need sourcers and recruiters with deep investigative research expertise beyond what has been the industry standard. So, get your gumshoe on.
- To schedule a complimentary consultation call 203-227-0693 or email krista.bradford (AT) intellerati.com