Hiring People_ Recruit and Keep the Brightest Stars - Kathy Shwiff [9]
Convince browsing candidates why they should come work for the company. Include accurate information about opportunities for advancement, and give them the tools they will need during the recruitment process, such as the recruiters’ name, title, and contact information, office locations, and information about how you choose among applicants. Finally, provide an online application. By gathering basic information abut the candidate, asking a few key questions, and capturing the candidate’s application electronically, you can build a valuable talent database.
Keep the content of your Web site accurate and up-to-date. When company rosters change or new branches open, revise Web pages as appropriate. There should be fresh content on the pages that attract the most traffic. Look for links that don’t work. If possible, speed up the time it takes to search job openings and upload a resume. Regularly road test your Web site from the job seeker’s point of view.
Visitors should be able to access your job listings easily. Let people browse jobs without registering. Make the application process simple and include a function that lets people e-mail job listings to friends. Build in the capacity to search by job category, by keywords, and, if appropriate, by job location. You may want to have a separate section for college recruitment. Many cutting-edge corporate Web sites give applicants a choice of various methods for submitting their resumes—in a word-processing document or PDF file; by cutting and pasting it into an online application; or by a resume builder. These sites also allow candidates the option of storing their resume or profile.
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The BIG Picture
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BUILDING A REPUTATION
Some companies don’t have to advertise openings. Their reputation as a great place to work precedes them, and they often get unsolicited resumes. If you’re not getting your share of those, make it part of your recruiting strategy to raise general awareness of your company. Mark Nowlan, a columnist at Entrepreneur.com, advises small businesses that want to raise their visibility to issue news releases to publications read by the people they’re trying to reach. While you can distribute news releases yourself, the most reliable way to broadcast news about your company is to use a newswire service, such as BusinessWire or PR News, Nowlan says.
Even when your business is not making news, your executives can become known as experts by making themselves available to reporters looking for experts to quote in articles about industry trends.
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BUILDING A REFERRAL NETWORK
A surprising number of job seekers land their positions by networking with friends and family. Finding new employees through such referrals has many advantages, not the least of which is cost. Beyond that, many companies find that new employees who come to them through networking with current employees are more qualified and have a low turnover rate.
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“Employee referrals are the single best way to find more top people…At least 50 percent of the people you hire should come from this group.”
—Lou Adler, author of Hire With Your Head
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THE BOTTOM LINE
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IMPROVING YOUR EMPLOYEE-REFERRAL PROGRAM
Dave Lefkow, the senior director of strategic partnerships at Jobster, has several suggestions for improving your employee referral program. He first recommends setting measurable goals, such as increasing the number of hires from employee referrals by a specific percentage.
Second, announce the details of your program online and include the guidelines and forms. Third, offer rewards. Although cash awards are popular, some small companies give