Hungry Tiger, Hidden Talent

I think of recruiters as hungry tigers; waiting in great anticipation to source their next hire, and I often pose the question “how do you proactively source for passive talent” for example. individuals not actively looking for work?” and a conceited response I often hear is “I found them on a job board, however they didn’t actually apply for my vacancy but I swayed them towards it nevertheless” I reply ”so, they were not actually passive as they were actively looking for work?” so, yet again I pose the question which often concludes with the recruiter pursing their lips and exchanging a look of sheer astonishment and perplexity, so,  I offer an array of suggestions using my own knowledge and industry expertise to educate them on what methods they can use to be proactive.

I ask if they have heard of “The Boolean Black Belt” often enough they provide me with a vivid insight of their childhood and advise that they had thoroughly enjoyed watching “Karate Kid” as a child; I swiftly point out that there was one word that was key in my question which was the word “boolean” which some admit they are not 100% comfortable with and sway them to a blog that is owned by Glen Cathey; an avid power user of Social Media, ATS and CRM applications, job boards, the Internet, and an expert on boolean search strings and semantic search for recruiting (hence the name); he opened my eyes to a new way of searching which enabled me to source successfully; his techniques are not only effective but have enabled me to source the toughest of tough on any search engine or information system available to me.  His search techniques kept me recruiting in the most proactive and time efficient manner as opposed to working reactively, i.e. posting vacancies with the hope that the talent I wanted to hire would find me.  I strongly believe in his theory of Just-In-Time talent delivery; – having the right talent, at the right time, at the right place, and in the exact amount required.

I usually question the recruiter’s bandwidth, i.e. do they recruit outside of the UK for professionals who converse in a language which differs to theirs and whether they utilise a translation tool like Google Translate:  oh the laborious pain of recruiting in a dialect you do not speak, however, I can honestly say that this saved me a huge amount of time locating profiles for professionals I could seek to hire.  It’s free (a language I also speak) and supports 58 languages, making it easy for any recruiter that is looking to tap into a new market, industry or location.  I used this to search for profiles on LinkedIn and for statistical mass translation of documents/profiles and impressively converse with other professionals without having to speak a word of their native dialect myself.  Obviously not all translation is perfect but the tool does make intelligent assumptions and if you have the intelligence and perseverance to string it together you will succeed which leads me on to my 3^rd tool:

LinkedIn: the world’s largest online professional network; growing at a rate of 2 members a second and available in 10 languages.  It would be impossible for me to count the occurrence of which I have utilised this network prior to working at LinkedIn. I have searched on the tool for passive talent which accounts for 80% of their member base but also prior to a business meeting or interview with an individual, I’d typically investigate how we were connected so that I could establish not only common ground but perhaps even a referral from one of my trusted connections if they were in my 3 degree network.  It also enabled me to reach a passive audience not necessarily looking for work but happy to hear about new opportunities; the talent that didn’t have their CV on a job board giving me that extra exclusivity of the person I wanted to pursue to hire.

I question how the recruiter is able to “keep in the loop,” i.e. are they part of a professional body, do they know the challenges with regards to new or past legislative requirements and best practice?  Are they sharing their expertise with an audience?  Do professionals in the staffing and recruitment world know who they are?  Which leads me on to the Institute of Recruiters, IOR: they have tapped an audience globally by utilising social media and have been able to exert their expertise, experience and encouragement which I have required throughout the latter part of my career in recruitment and staffing, enabling me to best leverage myself as a coordinated in the know professional recruiter. What I liked about the IOR was that they swiftly recognised that other key industry experts had a voice they could leverage and created the IOR group on LinkedIn with a growing member base, allowing me to network with others that were like minded but in a forum and manner that I felt safe and could trust.  I use groups such as these to get great market insights but also contribute to aid others with their quest to succeed in their daily working lives as recruiters.

However one thing is key which interconnects my suggestions: the Internet, without this my suggestions would be dissolute.  If you utilise a website with traffic, why not use some of that traffic for a purpose other than selling?  Even if you are unsure on who you need right now if you are working hard on your business or that of your clients business you are going to need someone soon enough, therefore the sooner you start building your pipeline, the larger a pool of talent you will have to draw from when it comes time to hire.  Don’t just share your vacancies with the world make yourself an employer or recruiter of choice and foremost an expert in the industry you recruit for.  Share articles of interest in groups or forums, give advice to others via sites such as LinkedIn and put your best foot forward.  Give individuals a reason to listen to your voice,

I find that a proportion of Recruiters work reactively; word matching from resume to job specification, lacking the knowledge of what they are actually recruiting and foremost what being proactive denotes and it may not be their fault in all entirety it could just be the way that they have been taught and a routine that they have been accustomed to over a length of time.  

The definition of being proactive is controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than waiting to respond to it after it happens!