BusinessForward

By Richard Balazs, Director of Operations, BusinessForward

Over the past 10 years, a core job responsibility of mine has involved recruiting talent for various positions in different industries. And it’s never been more fun, challenging and rewarding than now.

What’s so great about now? At first glance the overall hiring process is the same. You seek candidates, you meet many, you hire one. Often, the whole thing feels like what Forrest’s mama told him. I don’t know about you, but unlike life, I have to know what I’m gonna get.

To have more control over candidate choices, a social media outlet like LinkedIn is a fantastic asset. I’ve found this to be an essential tool in the complex HR toolkit. It truly enables a proactive and targeted search, mitigating some of the major challenges that come with recruiting.

While “traditional” methods such as posting an ad to an online job site or engaging a third party recruiter are still valuable, I find the direct “reach out” approach to be much more effective and efficient. This circumvents the sheer amount of resumes to sift through to find the few that are relevant. No matter how specific a posted job description, from my experience, too many of the applicants don’t even meet the basic requirements.

This of course has birthed numerous online employment application platforms. If you’ve recently been on a job search you’re probably cursing me for evoking this nasty memory. You know, the one where you spend two hours meticulously filling out an online form? Spent your day dismantling your resume, cutting and pasting the relevant info into the relevant forms, going through all the drop down menus, radio buttons, multiple choice selections only to hit submit and get an error message?

We on the hiring side can be frustrated by that process too. While those databases automatically filter qualifications through a sophisticated algorithm, keywords do not a great match make.  And, these programs don’t come cheap.

So what if you took control over your candidate search by hand picking? If you wear many operational hats like I do, winnowing down your quality candidate list to say, the top 10-15, at a sliver of the investment of time and expense is a game-changer. I’m truly not on the LinkedIn payroll, but I have to say this professionally geared social media platform has changed my HR life.  The array of serious people and the sheer information instantly available-that they’ve chosen to share-trumps any other tool I’ve used to find great talent.

The filters, of which there are many, and keyword searches to narrow down the list of people, should produce a great pool of people who have the skills you are seeking. And here comes the fun part.

Start reading. People’s profiles allow an animated look at their professional life and ambitions. With career trajectories no longer on a linear thrust, these profiles can be far more explanatory than an online application.

Are their interests in line with yours? A well done online profile is a great indicator of a person’s level of investment in their field and pride in what they’ve accomplished. Also, use this narrative to learn the “softer” skills of a candidate. Maybe they’ve listed volunteerism or extensive travel. If your company does community outreach or your team is multinational, maybe the candidate is a cultural fit.

Once you’ve done your homework your “A” list is ready for prime-time. Keep these three things in mind:

1. Be bold. Contact a shared connection for a quick pre-reference. People expect this today.
2. Be careful. Tailor your direct contact with the potential candidate. Remember, these people are not necessarily looking for a new career or position.
3. Be upfront. Say why you are contacting them but don’t be pushy!

Wait for a response. It will come.

Using this approach has garnered a response success rate as high as 70% for me. Were all these candidates interested in a new position? No. But they thanked me and asked to keep in touch in the future as things might change.  These are the folks who populate my “go to” list for the next time I need to fill that position.

Those who are interested can move straight to a phone call. I find these conversations so much more gratifying than the standard recruiting Q&A because the call isn’t cold. I’ve had great talks through which we both learned a lot. For some, it was not a fit. However, many are with our company today.

Before you embark on a LinkedIn recruiting binge, define not only the ideal person you want to hire, but be prepared to define that person’s customer if they join your team. In the digital landscape, questions are asked much more quickly and today’s candidates are savvy. You must set them up for success before their first day.

To this point, and maybe the most critical in proactive, social media recruiting: Be prepared to have an excellent pitch before your first conversation. You have become the living “help wanted” ad of yesterday to find the candidate of your choice.

In closing, I’d be remiss if I didn’t encourage you to look me up on LinkedIn and send me a message!

Richard Balazs, Director of Operations, oversees all operations and HR functions at BusinessForward. He hails from an extensive operations management background in multiple industries.