An IT director's take on how to get through the hiring process without resorting to paying recruiting firms.While staffing is not a luxury (although "enough" staffing might be), sometimes it seems like the recruiting process is. In the SMB market, especially, paying an agency fee is an easy and frequent target for cost-cutting. Recruiting is always tougher than it really should be. From my observations there always seem to be plenty of jobs, and plenty of candidates—the challenge is getting them to find each other.
As someone who has spent time on both sides of the interview desk, let me share some ideas for finding staff without having to pay an agency.
Your company Web site. More and more companies are actively maintaining a careers section of their Web site (as opposed to a static page that invites candidates to submit an e-mail to a never-reviewed mail-box like resumes@company.com). Active maintenance includes posting all current jobs with details (including location, title and description), purging the list of filled jobs, and allowing candidates to create a job agent to alert them of new postings that match their interests. Offerings in this space, like tools from BrassRing and Taleo, can be customized and integrated into your company's site.
Traditional job-posting Web sites. Recruiters and job seekers commonly use sites like Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder and Yahoo HotJobs. On the recruiting side, take care in posting listings (location, key words and title, for example) so that candidates' search agents at these sites will find them. Keep in mind that when you post a job on one site, there's a pretty good chance that aggregator sites like Indeed, Jobster or SimplyHired may also pick up your posting, giving it more exposure.
A site that's gaining quickly for posting jobs is LinkedIn. And don't ignore Craig's List—it's it's not just for technicians and programmers. In January, there was a job posting on the New York edition for the CIO of a very large and well-known company.
These ideas are essentially passive mechanisms. Think of them as "post-and-pray" methods. The only people who will find your posting are people actively seeking them out.
Click here for a slideshow on the 10 most wanted IT skills.
But hope is not a strategy. Perhaps your ideal candidate isn't actively hunting but would still be interested in your opening. To find these hidden gems, you have to be proactive in your search, just like a job seeker needs to be. To be proactive, consider the following:
Networking. Every job-seeker knows that the path to the next job is to network, network, network. The same can be true for hiring managers and company recruiters. When you have a job opening, alert your network—colleagues, friends, partners, professional organizations, community groups, conferences and vendor connections. Take a look at the finalists that didn't make the cut from the last time you recruited.
Using the search tools on job sites. All the Web sites mentioned have tools for searching. But those tools are not just for seekers to find jobs. They are also for hiring managers and in-house recruiters to find candidates. You may not hear much buzz about it, because those with hiring responsibilities often keep their hiring sources or tools or both close to the vest (for fear their competitors will start to tap those same resources). However, the secret is getting out. Don't wait for candidates to find you, you need to find them.
Outplacement firms. Many companies provide outplacement services to employees being laid off. As a result, these outplacement firms have a wealth of qualified candidates at all levels and are eager to partner with hiring companies to match candidates with openings.
These techniques are the same ones that recruiting firms all along the spectrum, from contingency to executive-retained search firms, make use of. If you want to cut these firms out, you'll have to begin adapting their methods.
Brian D. Jaffe is an IT director in New York and co-author of The IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done. He can be reached at brian@red55.com.
