COMMON TALENT SOURCING MISTAKES

Common talent sourcing mistakes.

My recruiting education didn’t come from a mentor or any formal training. I learned how to become a recruiter “the hard way.” I tried processes that didn’t work but kept experimenting until I discovered best-practices to find candidates. My self-training and training seminars from AIRS University helped me get past misconceptions and mistakes to leverage automatic tracking systems (ATS) and resume databases for recruiting. Here are common productivity-robbing and results-reducing mistakes recruiters make when looking for the right match.

Overanalyzing resumes. Resumes are by nature imperfect and poor representations of experience and capabilities. Job seekers are not ‘professionals’ when they search for new career positions. If you can’t disqualify a candidate based on a 10-second resume review – call them. A study by The Ladders using eye-tracking technology while recruiters scanned resumes showed a six-second average assessing a resume to determine if the person might be a good fit. It’s critical to NOT be looking to determine if the person may be a good fit. Resumes are not complete pictures of the people. The better practice – determine if an applicant can be ruled out for minimum qualifications. While a particular resume might not be ‘perfect,’ it’s important engage every potential match. Some best candidates have uninspiring and lackluster resumes – they are not professional job-hunters and lack writing skills to describe themselves.

Having sourcing tunnel-vision. Don’t see each resume as only a potential match for the position you’re currently sourcing – every person is a conduit to a larger network. If a resume you’re reviewing isn’t an ideal match – they may know someone. Some recruiters look for references at the bottom of resumes for other potential candidates. Having a huge network of connections on LinkedIn, as well as trade groups memberships, helps for reaching out to 2nd and 3rd level connections.

Making assumptions about people based on their resumes. You heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover?” Don’t assume anything about a resume – including acceptable commute time, willingness to relocate, open for a (1099) contract position, if they have enough experience – just because it’s not in a resume or cover letter. Another mistake recruiters make – especially in the contracting industry – believing short-term periods are ‘job-hopping’ when the employee has actually moved (with an expired vendor contract) to a new vendor (actually proving stability).

Submitting the first candidates that fit a job profile, and moving on to the next position. What is a statistical probability the first two applicants happen to be the best you can find? Use the resume database’s internal search engine to find a larger pool of qualified applicants, not only those who have applied directly for the position, but also resumes of passive, past position applicants.

Not calling candidates that appear to be under- or over-qualified. Candidates who are too junior or senior for current openings, might fit future needs, or they might work with or know someone who is an better match and looking for a new challenge.

Searching only resumes posted within 30 days on major job boards. Job seekers don’t have expiration dates. Did you know that 75% – 80% of all resumes on major job boards are over 30 days old? Did you also know most people don’t even look at them, let alone take action on them? Some recruiters don’t call people whose resumes are over six months old. Opening searches to ALL resumes enables a search in a larger talent pool – the 66% of passive job searchers whom might talk for the right opportunity. Folks in jobs for 2-3 years may have reached the point of being interested in looking for a new job after achieving experience from the current position.

Research, analyze, and refine key word searches taking action on the results. Analyze search criteria to assess the possibility search terms may not find all qualified candidates, and might be eliminating viable candidates. The more relevant results increases productivity by enabling faster results, as well as more and better candidates. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to shop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Take some time to tighten Boolean search strings before taking action on search results.

Running overly generic/basic searches. Basic keyword and title searches yield generic and basic results – sometimes “too many.” A basic key word search returns such a large pool of results, you can’t review them all, leaving a hidden talent pool. Recruiters who don’t use ‘key’ and ‘unique’ Boolean identifiers unknowingly increase the size of the pool of candidates (results returned, but not reviewed). Anyone can run a basic search, but a talented recruiter will ‘read between the lines’ of a job description and use ‘alternative’ Boolean key words.

Assuming one search finds all qualified candidates. Consider every search run both includes qualified and excludes qualified people. One Internet search engine does not bring up all the qualified candidates. Each search engine has their own unique search algorithm, so a candidate not showing on Google, might be in the results queue in Bing.

Thinking after searching a particular source (your ATS, a job board, the Internet, LinkedIn, etc.) that you’ve found all of the available candidates and cannot find more. You will miss pools of candidates who DO match positions – you can’t find them because simple Boolean search strings made it impossible. Start studying various Boolean search engine techniques, including extensive strings of AND and OR, xray, site, and URL searches to improve search techniques to find more job candidates.

Thinking the major online job boards have poor quality candidates. There are just as many great, high quality candidates in each job board resume database (e.g., Monster, Career Builder, Dice, The Ladders, etc.) as there are on LinkedIn.

Relying solely or heavily on title-based searches. Not all companies use the same job titles for matching roles and responsibilities. Some use functional titles, while others use company-specific titles. This assumption contributes to not finding candidates matching a hiring profile or job order.

Only using skill/tech terms (e.g., Java, Oracle, Accounts Payable, EMR, etc.) when creating Boolean search strings. The best and most effective searches don’t rely solely on skill and/or technology-based terms, but also include responsibility terms and environmental terms where applicable. This is a critical step in moving beyond simple buzzword search and match. Buzzword sourcing is sloppy and lazy.

Not using the NOT Boolean operator. The Boolean ‘NOT’ operator is the least utilized, and a powerful standard Boolean operator to filter out unwanted results.

Spending 80% of the time using low-yield resources provided 20% (or less!) of the results. Recruiters should check their own company resume databases first, and should continuously be ‘farming’ for new resumes constantly for future potential jobs. Spending hours searching the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ for potential candidates and not heavily/effectively leveraging an internal resume database/ATS or other, better suited tools at your disposal is wasteful. Recruiters can find candidates on the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, but they are deep sources of human capital data. They are not designed for retrieving detailed work-related human capital data, can be time consuming, and a waste of effort for irrelevant results and false positives.

LinkedIn is specifically designed for storing and retrieving deeper human capital data. If you have access to any of the major job boards, they actually have a larger percentage of passive job seekers than active, plus rich candidate profiles. Until your ATS, LinkedIn, and any job board resume databases searches are exhausted, don’t spend effort trying to find people on the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but covers some of the most common and major mistakes recruiters make while searching for potential candidates.

 

Copyright 2012, Dawn D. Boyer

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COMMON TALENT SOURCING MISTAKES

Common talent sourcing mistakes.

My recruiting education didn’t come from a mentor or any formal training. I learned how to become a recruiter “the hard way.” I tried processes that didn’t work but kept experimenting until I discovered best-practices to find candidates. My self-training and training seminars from AIRS University helped me get past misconceptions and mistakes to leverage automatic tracking systems (ATS) and resume databases for recruiting. Here are common productivity-robbing and results-reducing mistakes recruiters make when looking for the right match.

Overanalyzing resumes. Resumes are by nature imperfect and poor representations of experience and capabilities. Job seekers are not ‘professionals’ when they search for new career positions. If you can’t disqualify a candidate based on a 10-second resume review – call them. A study by The Ladders using eye-tracking technology while recruiters scanned resumes showed a six-second average assessing a resume to determine if the person might be a good fit. It’s critical to NOT be looking to determine if the person may be a good fit. Resumes are not complete pictures of the people. The better practice – determine if an applicant can be ruled out for minimum qualifications. While a particular resume might not be ‘perfect,’ it’s important engage every potential match. Some best candidates have uninspiring and lackluster resumes – they are not professional job-hunters and lack writing skills to describe themselves.

Having sourcing tunnel-vision. Don’t see each resume as only a potential match for the position you’re currently sourcing – every person is a conduit to a larger network. If a resume you’re reviewing isn’t an ideal match – they may know someone. Some recruiters look for references at the bottom of resumes for other potential candidates. Having a huge network of connections on LinkedIn, as well as trade groups memberships, helps for reaching out to 2nd and 3rd level connections.

Making assumptions about people based on their resumes. You heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover?” Don’t assume anything about a resume – including acceptable commute time, willingness to relocate, open for a (1099) contract position, if they have enough experience – just because it’s not in a resume or cover letter. Another mistake recruiters make – especially in the contracting industry – believing short-term periods are ‘job-hopping’ when the employee has actually moved (with an expired vendor contract) to a new vendor (actually proving stability).

Submitting the first candidates that fit a job profile, and moving on to the next position. What is a statistical probability the first two applicants happen to be the best you can find? Use the resume database’s internal search engine to find a larger pool of qualified applicants, not only those who have applied directly for the position, but also resumes of passive, past position applicants.

Not calling candidates that appear to be under- or over-qualified. Candidates who are too junior or senior for current openings, might fit future needs, or they might work with or know someone who is an better match and looking for a new challenge.

Searching only resumes posted within 30 days on major job boards. Job seekers don’t have expiration dates. Did you know that 75% – 80% of all resumes on major job boards are over 30 days old? Did you also know most people don’t even look at them, let alone take action on them? Some recruiters don’t call people whose resumes are over six months old. Opening searches to ALL resumes enables a search in a larger talent pool – the 66% of passive job searchers whom might talk for the right opportunity. Folks in jobs for 2-3 years may have reached the point of being interested in looking for a new job after achieving experience from the current position.

Research, analyze, and refine key word searches taking action on the results. Analyze search criteria to assess the possibility search terms may not find all qualified candidates, and might be eliminating viable candidates. The more relevant results increases productivity by enabling faster results, as well as more and better candidates. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to shop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Take some time to tighten Boolean search strings before taking action on search results.

Running overly generic/basic searches. Basic keyword and title searches yield generic and basic results – sometimes “too many.” A basic key word search returns such a large pool of results, you can’t review them all, leaving a hidden talent pool. Recruiters who don’t use ‘key’ and ‘unique’ Boolean identifiers unknowingly increase the size of the pool of candidates (results returned, but not reviewed). Anyone can run a basic search, but a talented recruiter will ‘read between the lines’ of a job description and use ‘alternative’ Boolean key words.

Assuming one search finds all qualified candidates. Consider every search run both includes qualified and excludes qualified people. One Internet search engine does not bring up all the qualified candidates. Each search engine has their own unique search algorithm, so a candidate not showing on Google, might be in the results queue in Bing.

Thinking after searching a particular source (your ATS, a job board, the Internet, LinkedIn, etc.) that you’ve found all of the available candidates and cannot find more. You will miss pools of candidates who DO match positions – you can’t find them because simple Boolean search strings made it impossible. Start studying various Boolean search engine techniques, including extensive strings of AND and OR, xray, site, and URL searches to improve search techniques to find more job candidates.

Thinking the major online job boards have poor quality candidates. There are just as many great, high quality candidates in each job board resume database (e.g., Monster, Career Builder, Dice, The Ladders, etc.) as there are on LinkedIn.

Relying solely or heavily on title-based searches. Not all companies use the same job titles for matching roles and responsibilities. Some use functional titles, while others use company-specific titles. This assumption contributes to not finding candidates matching a hiring profile or job order.

Only using skill/tech terms (e.g., Java, Oracle, Accounts Payable, EMR, etc.) when creating Boolean search strings. The best and most effective searches don’t rely solely on skill and/or technology-based terms, but also include responsibility terms and environmental terms where applicable. This is a critical step in moving beyond simple buzzword search and match. Buzzword sourcing is sloppy and lazy.

Not using the NOT Boolean operator. The Boolean ‘NOT’ operator is the least utilized, and a powerful standard Boolean operator to filter out unwanted results.

Spending 80% of the time using low-yield resources provided 20% (or less!) of the results. Recruiters should check their own company resume databases first, and should continuously be ‘farming’ for new resumes constantly for future potential jobs. Spending hours searching the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ for potential candidates and not heavily/effectively leveraging an internal resume database/ATS or other, better suited tools at your disposal is wasteful. Recruiters can find candidates on the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, but they are deep sources of human capital data. They are not designed for retrieving detailed work-related human capital data, can be time consuming, and a waste of effort for irrelevant results and false positives.

LinkedIn is specifically designed for storing and retrieving deeper human capital data. If you have access to any of the major job boards, they actually have a larger percentage of passive job seekers than active, plus rich candidate profiles. Until your ATS, LinkedIn, and any job board resume databases searches are exhausted, don’t spend effort trying to find people on the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but covers some of the most common and major mistakes recruiters make while searching for potential candidates.

 

Copyright 2012, Dawn D. Boyer



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