Candidate Resumes
We all try our best to do our part for the environment. Various green movements are springing up as marketing campaigns for companies, generating the beneficial awareness of caring for the world we live in while unifying people under one powerful roof. From the creation of national parks to the preservation efforts of conservation groups, endangered species acts, to recalls of harmful pesticides, and regulations on toxic waste disposal and oil rig safety; humans have come a long way in finding the ideal balance between the technologies that improve our lives, and caring for the planet that keeps us living. While there are mixed feelings about the cost effectiveness of recycling programs, with some stating that recycling adds extra expenses to city budgets; the general consensus remains that while it may or may not be cost-effective, it is still beneficial to the environment and to our land space.
Yet for all the good that recycling does in the waste management industry, recycling in the recruiting industry may just be the biggest blunder since Coca Cola’s “New Coke” ads. When seeking to fill a position, whether it be a specialized ophthalmic technician or a general secretarial position, many recruiters are still recycling resumes in their existing databases. Not only is this an incredibly unproductive method for finding great candidates, it also significantly decreases the likelihood of the employer hiring the candidate recommended by the recruiter, not to mention the employer’s perception of the recruiter’s competence.
The largest fallacy of this method is the simple fact that each employee search must be customized. Retaining candidates of various fields, qualifications and industries in a database to later recommend to an employer’s job opening with very particular criteria makes about as much sense as playing basketball with a hula hoop. There are few if any employers who just want a random person to fill the role at their company. All business owners are aware that if there is one constant in running a successful business, it is that the quality of your employees is directly correlated with the overall productivity and success of your business.
Where does that leave recruiters and hiring managers who urgently need to find top employees? Popular job boards are not what they used to be a year ago. The amount of existing job boards is increasing; therefore competition among the boards is increasing as well. One would think the increasing competition would drive prices down, but for whatever reason this is not turning out to be the case, with the boards becoming more expensive over time. There is few if any traffic on any single job board due to the competition, and they provide no guaranteed results. Luckily, for recruiters searching the right way via a targeted search, there are multiple alternatives available. There is an ample amount of industry job boards, profession job boards, social sourcing, referrals through candidates, referrals through clients, and referrals through vendors and affiliates. Popular job boards and premium bulk job boards are still utilized due to tradition and a constant need for a larger candidate pool, but their high costs and low ROI are indicative of a potential industry shift toward more specialized recruiting. This in turn will yield candidates of a better fit for the employer, which leads many hiring managers to wonder why recruiters are not utilizing targeted searches in the first place. A note to recruiters: recycle paper and plastic, not candidate resumes.