If you run a business, you need high-quality, dependable employees who you can rely on to get the job done. It’s not easy finding good help, especially with niche positions that require specific skills. When you have a position open, you could let the talent come to you – or you can actively seek it out through recruiting.
Most recruiting happens at least in part in the virtual space. You may have received a message on LinkedIn yourself from a recruiter looking for someone like you to fill a job opening. Recruiters connect with potential candidates via social media or e-mail, and link them to information about the company to get them interested in applying. They may even do an interview via videoconferencing software to get a feel for the candidate’s skills and talent.
Whether you rely on professional recruiters or you do it yourself, it’s important to have a plan when you’re recruiting virtually. Managing the volume of candidates and the communications between each one can quickly become overwhelming. Here are four tips to help you manage your virtual recruiting project.
Table of Contents
Establish and Follow a Process
In recruiting, your process determines the outcome. The approach you take should fit both the needs of your company and the type of job being offered. Take some time to read up on best practices in recruiting, and establish a process that covers all your bases. For example, having just one point of contact for all virtual candidates improves consistency. Recruiting takes a lot of work: you want to do it right the first time.
Create Content about Your Company
When you make the first contact with a potential candidate, you want to be able to show off your company and get them interested in applying for the position. How can they know if they’d want to work for you if they don’t know anything about you? Be ready with captivating and compelling content to entice them – like a recorded webinar, a live presentation via videoconference, or a well-produced video introduction. Think of it as marketing material geared toward future employees. The content should explain your company and where the position you’re advertising would fit in.
Keep Track of Your Contacts
You might have just a handful of candidates, but you could also end up with several dozen. The advantage of interviewing many candidates is that you have more options to choose from. The larger the pool, however, the harder it is to remember who you’ve talked to and what you’ve told them. At the minimum, use a spreadsheet to keep track of your contacts. There are also applicant tracking tools available, which are a must for large searches. If you know your candidates well, you’ll better be able to pick the right one when it comes time to do so – and all candidates will have a better, more personalized recruiting experience. Even the candidates you don’t end up hiring will remember you for your professionalism and may keep you in mind for the future.
Develop an Assessment Strategy
Recruiting is both a science and an art. The science involves identifying the skills, experience, and personality that you want in an employee and being able measure those traits in a real person. The art is being able to recognize signs they’re a star candidate, as well as red flags – the things that aren’t so quantifiable. Developing an assessment strategy will help you organize the standards you want to set for the ideal candidate. This can be as simple as putting all of the required and desired qualifications in a spreadsheet and filling it out for each candidate.
Bonus Tip: Post the Position for the Most Effective Search
Even if you’re doing everything right in the recruiting process, you might miss a star candidate or two because they’re not on LinkedIn or their name didn’t come up in a search. This is why you should still post the position on a variety of job boards and career websites while at the same time reaching out through social networks and the Web. You can do a thorough job of researching and contacting potential candidates, but the right person could be the one that contacts you first. Approach your hiring strategy from multiple angles, and you’ll land that perfect hire.
Loading...
