Introduction
to The Internet Recruiting Edge
(note - this material is copyrighted. Reproduction is not allowed)
Candidate nirvana?
If you are a recruiter residing within the range
of a telephone, chances are that you've been contacted by at least one
enterprising Internet consultant who proclaimed that getting your business
on the Internet is easier than teaching Bill Gates how to sell software.
No sooner did you finish that conversation than you received a mailing
from one of the multitude of resume banks residing on the Internet, ensuring
you that their service was The Answer To Your Business Needs! Thousands
of Resumes! Join Now and Receive a Set of Ginzu Carving Knives For Free!
It's not suprising that your business is being
targeted by Internet services with all the ferver of a flock of vultures
zeroing in on Bambi. Virtually every sort of profession is being bombarded
with the message that old technology is out, the new Internet technology
is in, and if you aren't On The Internet (in great big capital letters),
you are just plain ineffective.
Which, of course, is simply ridiculous.
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If wishes were resumes…
Imagine the following. One day you wake up and
realize that literally millions of resumes are at your fingertips. Simply
heaven! Or is it?
"Millions" is a number that conjures
up a never-ending supply. For example, during the summer it feels like
there are millions of mosquitoes waiting to make your acquaintance. Or
the winter bestows upon us millions of snowflakes, happily migrating to
the center of your driveway. In either case, it's a pain to deal with.
The same thing can happen with a million resumes!
Do you handle professionals from other countries who need a visa? Or does
your firm deal with every sort of career and recruiting field out there?
Are your doors flung open wide for college students?
What good is a million resumes if they aren't
targeted for your particular needs?
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Oh where oh where is
my candidate now
Recruiters need qualified candidates. Traditionally,
they find them from referrals, cold-calling, targeted paper mailing, and
other venues that require vocal or visual communication. In other words,
they operate in a very pro-active stance.
Alas, this takes time. A lot of time. Wouldn't
it be wonderful if qualified candidates were drawn to your business twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week? Do the Internet consultants and website
designers who contact your firm understand this most basic desire?
I remember one recruiting firm based in NJ for
whom I was searching out Windows NT candidates. Forget about the resume
databases; I was determined to find individuals who hadn't yet realized
they desired a new position in their career. Think of it - people who hadn't
yet been targeted by 231 other recruiters! People who would actively contact
me! People who would have the qualities the recruiting firm desired.
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To this day, I'm amazed at the risk I took. Come
to think of it, though, the worst thing a person can say to your request
is no. "No" is a simple word, "Yes" might be transformed
from a word into dozens of qualified resumes. The key is locating that
one resource that is poised to benefit from what you have to offer, and
making that connection happen.
That recruiting company ended up having their
position advertised to over 78,000 NT professionals. When looking for gold,
visit Fort Knox. When searching for NT gurus, try discovering a professional
organization mailing list and establishing a rapport with the list owner.
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Easier than falling off
a sidewalk to use?
You've probably heard how thousands of businesses
are now "gaining an address on the Superhighway," but if that
were really the case, how do people find you? Do you have to send out welcome
cards to the millions of Internet surfers? Would plastering the equivalent
of a thousand billboards up on various sites be more effective? Come to
think of it, where would you hammer? Even more importantly, what would
you hammer?
Finding and attracting quality candidates on the
Internet is more than simply logging onto career-related services or plugging
keywords into search engines, hoping to locate that one crucial individual
who would be perfect for a particular job opportunity. It involves a comprehensive
understanding of how the Internet community operates, and the best ways
of tapping into its valuable resources.
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Remember that first client for whom I designed
a publicity campaign? My contact wanted access to as many resumes as possible.
Sounds simply smashing, except that one tiny word was missing from her
requirements - qualified. Obviously, this is not a minor detail! After
a few weeks of receiving literally hundreds of resumes, she asked me, why
aren't most of them worth pursuing?
Actually, the answer would be that most of them
could have been, had the circumstances been different. Wyoming candidates
are terrific for Wyoming, but as useful as dried jello for a NJ-centered
firm. Chemical engineers are in great demand in the petroleum industry,
for example, but as sought-after as dandelions in the field of systems
administration.
On the Internet, the phrase "Ask and ye shall
receive" can be taken to new heights. The key is precision.
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Wheels still work
The recruiting industry is one of personal contact.
You interact with the clients, meet the candidates, determine a match,
and then proceed with negotiating to a close as smoothly as possible. No
matter how sincere Internet consultants are, there is just no way that
electronic communications can replace the one-on-one interactions so important
to this profession.
Armed with a telephone and a means to get around,
superb recruiters can find candidates, make matches and close deals just
as effectively as those who live for their electronic mail fixes. The difference
the Internet makes is the reduction of time necessary to initiate that
crucial first contact.
Consider the following. Millions of individuals
surf the Internet, millions more actively peruse search engines for information,
and still millions more hang out at bulletin boards, forums, chat groups,
mailing lists and the like. That's an awful lot of millions! The Internet
allows you not only to contact far more people in a shorter amount of time,
but also to set up shop in a brilliant, visible fashion which can draw
qualified candidates to your business as easily as candy draws children.
Wheels still work, sure, but jetliners get you
across the country far faster than a car.
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Don't buy a mansion if
you only need a mailbox
When contemplating "Getting on the Internet",
it's tempting to buy into the biggest, coolest, neatest recruiting website
and publicity campaign that money can buy. Similar to aspiring athletes
who invest in $200 sneakers because their heroes market them in the media,
some recruiters feel that the professional website designers or resume
database marketers know far more than mere mortals about how to shine on
the Internet. Declared to be a key component in selling the sizzle, the
finished product often fizzles once the money has changed hands and reality
starts to intrude annoyingly on your site. By that time, of course, it's
too late.
Recruiters need qualified results from their Internet
activities. I'm sure you don't want to waste your valuable time sorting
through hundreds of useless resumes, buying services which contain resumes
dating back to the Stone Age, or investing in a recruiting website that
ends up being as visible as oxygen on a clear summer's night. You want
to find qualified candidates before your competition does. You want to
see your recruiting website show up in the top ten on as many search engines
as possible. When candidates think about careers in your recruiting field,
you want them to equate that with your name as easily as you connect the
term "qualified" to "placement."
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I'm going to teach you all that. Over the years
in which I've actively participated in the Internet, I have designed publicity
campaigns and websites for several choice recruiters (and have politely
declined those whose ethics were questionable). I'm going to show you where
to look on the Internet to find that desired candidate. I'm going to illustrate
how you can establish business relationships with the candidate factor
by using mailing lists and netnews. I will demonstrate how, by using proven
sleuthing techniques and common sense, you can proactively ferret out those
individuals who haven't yet placed their resume on the Internet.
Of course, that in itself isn't enough to create
the kinds of results you desire. While proactive searching is very important
indeed, passive advertising in the form of a dynamite website is also a
crucial factor. Note that dynamite doesn't mean more gadgets than James
Bond's Porsche; in this case, it means an effective Internet web presence
that is easily found by those who are searching.
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Who is this book for?
This book has been written for a wide range of
audiences, which include:
- Recruiters who want to locate high-quality candidates
fast on the Internet.
- Recruiters who want their company to be visible
on the Internet
- Recruiters looking to either build or buy their
own site (they will learn the questions to ask professional designers and
what makes a good website great).
- Recruiters who want to understand what the Internet
can do for them.
For the most part, it is assumed that the average
reader's experience with the Internet is encompassed by turning a computer
on, dialing into an Internet Service provider account such as AOL, Compuserve
or a local provider, and surfing various and sundry pages. For the most
part, all the information contained within this guide is geared towards
those people for whom the Internet is a business tool. Techniques will
be presented that discuss how to publicize your website, where to find
forums dedicated to your particular field of recruitment, questions to
ask prospective website developers to ensure you are not taken for a ride,
and more.
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Do you currently post jobs to the Internet? Are
they providing an acceptable rate of return? Are your posts written in
such a way as to attact the eye when people peruse the jobs newsgroups?
How can you design your posts to stand out from the 1,450 other ones crowding
the newsgroups?
Have you ever wondered why some websites are more
visible in search engines than others? Or perhaps why another company,
which appears on the 4,123rd page of search engines, still have plentiful,
qualified traffic? Do you feel that the Internet is shrouded in mystery,
and requires a Ph. D in Computer Science to comprehend?
It doesn't have to be that way. This book will
show you how.
The majority of ideas presented in this book are
applicable to just about any website or publicity campaign already created
or any in progress. You do not have to greatly modify already-existing
pages - you don’t even have to touch them to bring in audiences (you would
create side-doors in this case). No matter what your Iinternet recruiting
goals are, you will find good advice and information to help you achieve
your objectives.
Are you ready? Let's go!
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