As we’re all going through plenty of turmoil at the moment, I thought it would be a great idea to take a fresh look at the process of recruiting. More specifically, let’s look at job advertising:
Why do companies advertise jobs?
- To attract the best people?
- To facilitate revenue growth?
- To cope with peaks in their workload?
- To generate awareness of their company?
- To phish for people’s CVs?
Maybe I’m cynical about this but surely sticking a job post on a job board or in the press is not going to attract the best people. What it will do mainly is attract people that are either out of work, or just about to be out of work.
Who is going to wade through all those resumes and separate the wheat from the chaff? What this process will do, however, is increase recruitment agencies’ lists of names to search from the next time a similar vacancy comes up.
For service industries where a high percentage of contractors are employed, advertising jobs to bring more bodies on-board is a good idea especially for the directors of the company involved. Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.
Advertising jobs to bring in new people to help smooth out peaks in workload seems like a sound practice, but this depends on how many and how quickly they are brought in. Large scale recruitment like this can lead to the “Emperor’s new clothes” style of project where everyone is doing nothing but everything is fine, according to senior management. Call this the big consultancy approach, if you will.
Advertising fictitious jobs is a cheap method (in more ways than one) of raising the awareness of your company’s brand.
A very common ruse used by recruitment agencies is to “phish” for resumes by advertising nonexistent jobs. People by the very secrecy of the process don’t get to know the name of the company supposedly with a vacancy to fill. It’s cheaper than paying job board rates for searching a resume database and a useful hook (no pun intended) to attempt to get leads from unsuspecting people.
So can we agree that this is an expensive, rather scattergun approach. You might hit the right target, but not with your eyes shut.
Why companies shouldn’t advertise jobs
What are the three most important things about finding talent? Networking, networking, networking.
Here’s the thing. If I want someone with top notch skills, how do I find them? In an ideal world I use all my many networking connections (two of the most over-used words in the English language at present) and presto, they’re hired….so job advertising is redundant.
Back to reality, where it’s much more complex than that:
- Most of the people on the planet don’t belong to social networks (how many are truly active users?) and although the market leaders are growing rapidly, are they growing in the right direction for job seekers, agencies and employers, and are we even in the right vehicle?
- It’s not as if we’re all applying for jobs every minute of every day. This is a fundamental fact which doesn’t fit at all well with social networking.
- There are clearly tens of thousands of different jobs out there ranging from seaweed collector to CEO of a multi-national company, and there are obviously different job types too; permanent, contract, voluntary, part-time – so I doubt “one size will fit all” when it comes down to a solution.
Some kind of networking will be involved, but let’s keep the social side out of it. Business is business at the end of the day. This could of course include an extended network not just for the workplace but for people that provide services outside of the workplace such as gardeners, builders and so on. These are still professional relationships, just a different kind.
What’s Next?
Connections and networking will give us recruitment choices that we never knew existed before, but we’re not there yet. The game is afoot. In the words of my business partner, the whole recruitment process is “so bad it’s not even wrong.” Maybe, just maybe, this whole thing is the wrong way up.
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May 26th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Agree 100% on the networking piece. Disagree 100% on the job posting piece. Job postings are essential, as they describe the position in question and even when networking, you need a posting to provide context to a conversation. Traditional face-to-face networking (with friends, family, professors) has been rated as the most effective method for finding a job time and time again in every survey we conduct. This is why employee referral programs (ERPs) work well for large companies. There’s so many people that someone is bound to know someone who could be a fit for a job within a company. However, job postings are high up there as well.
The problem is not with the job postings. It’s with where you post them. Post them on a broad generic site, and you will get everyone and their brother applying and your ATS and email will get inundated. Post them on a targeted niche site (either geography-specific, discipline-specific or both) and you will get those who are of interest applying to your jobs. In small to medium companies where there’s a specific need for talent and one’s network is not enough, niche audiences are the way to go, and job postings are one good way to target them.
Best,
Roberto
May 26th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Mr. Findlay is certainly provocative, but his condemnation of advertising jobs is simplistic.
While the common wisdom is that the best candidates don’t respond to employment advertising, they DO respond to employers they perceive to be dynamic and thriving. Perceptions enhanced, and sometimes fostered, by employment advertising. (And there are many anecdotal bits that show the top candidates will respond to employment advertising.) Employment advertising also improves internal morale and mitigates voluntary turnover, because employees see their employer is actively seeking talent. The advent of networking online doesn’t “make job advertising redundant,” but rather is facilitated by job advertising. If I see an opportunity at an employer where I have friends, I will reach out them to get the inside track. Or if a friend approaches me, job advertising helps me gauge whether or not I want to pursue the opportunity.
At a time when employment advertising is severely depressed by the economic recession, the labor market is frozen further by fear on the part of candidates who have been convinced by the media that no one is hiring and no job is safe. As The Economist recently reported, workers will stay with “the devil they know,” making recruiting– via social networks or otherwise– more difficult than ever. An employer who stands out in this situation by advertising opportunities enhances its reputation as a place to work and re-assures its internal talent that those workers have made the best choice.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
If you need to hire a key person, paying $400 or $4000 or $40,000 is irrelevant because you must have them. In many cases the organization has to find someone qualified and they have to do it quickly and time is most certainly money. Identifying a qualified and interested candidate is a fundamental service for businesses; it will never go away as long as it works consistently. All this stuff about twittering to recruit and face booking to recruit and networking to recruit is fun but when you need to find a pediatric neurosurgeon in Philadelphia, you cannot twitter that. You need to find a partner that reaches healthcare professionals in Philadelphia. You need to find someone that has already done the heavy lifting. This is going to be some type of “job board”. Try phillyjobmatch.com
May 26th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Roberto,
I think it’s much more important for a recruiter to provide a top quality job brief, not a job post. Something that really describes both the position and the company.
Yes, networking works well but not everyone is applying for a high-flying job and has a well-established network of contacts. Not every company is a multi-national conglomerate.
The problem with job postings is that it’s like swimming in treacle. There are just too many job boards, generic, specific, aggregators… it’s a sticky, expensive mess.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Hi Mark,
Thanks for your comments. I agree that candidates respond to “employers they perceive to be dynamic and thriving”, but I’m not so sure that perceptions are “fostered by employment advertising”. I’m sure that I’d love to work for a company like Google or the New York Times (a little tongue in cheek) but I know that I’ve never seen a job advert for either company. I think how a person views a company is much more about what they read in the news, absorb on the net and discuss with their friends and colleagues than reading through job adverts.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Rafael,
Just how many pediatric neurosurgeons in Philadelphia positions are you going to fill? Not many. I doubt whether they’ll look at some kind of job board. More likely they network with other healthcare professionals.
Is Twitter the answer (@jobs, @CV)? Is FaceBook the answer? No, they’re alternative channels but more than likely they’ll get clogged with junk sooner rather than later.
I agree with you when you say that “identifying a qualified and interested candidate is a fundamental service for businesses”. That requirement isn’t going away, I just think that there’s going to be a lot of different recruitment channels in the near future. Some will suit employers, some will suit recruiters, and some might even suit candidates!
May 27th, 2009 at 2:22 am
I have meetings with many job agencies this year, and in my best estimate, 3-out-of-10 agencies appear to have the only intention to send me to an interview. Most of these agencies appear to be beefing up their database, and have promised to call me when real opportunities open up. Now such promises has been frustrating….
May 27th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
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May 28th, 2009 at 4:11 am
William,
Yes, welcome to the real world of job agencies. There’s no honour amongst thieves! :-)
May 28th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Edward,
You’re not in the SEO business by any chance then? Yes, promoting your brand/business will be THE way to attract people, not by advertising jobs.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Graham – On some levels I agree with you, an organization needs to attract people organically. But how does a supermarket attract a Deli Manager? How does an Airport attract a baggage handler or security guard? There has to be some place…a centralized depository where people can find jobs and where employers can find candidates. I have worked for companies that did not want to hire active job seekers for key roles. I have had CEO’s tell me, go find us a CFO at one of these 3 companies and make him an offer he cannot refuse…thus the passive candidate database was born. I’m all for thinking out of the box but if organizations don’t advertise their jobs, how do they fill positions? How can they find people they need with the experience they want? Even with all this unemployment, it takes companies a lot of time and effort to fill positions and that’s now. Remember when the economy was rockin? It was nearly impossible to find a qualified and experience person to fill a job and you had to pay through the nose to get them. My point is that most high profit businesses are driven by their talent and therefore most talent driven businesses will drive their talent acquisition strategy aggressively. One of the cornerstones of that strategy has to be advertising jobs; this is an active and aggressive strategy. I do not think relying on a breeze to bring people in good enough. For key roles, you have to drive this with all means at your disposal. Its a jungle out there.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
It’s the message not the medium.
While I agree that just “sticking a job post (read: dull job description) on a job board or in the press is not going to attract the best people” and I agree that wading through all those resumes effectively is an underrated skill – I do not agree that job advertising is a waste. Nor do I think that not posting, or only posting on niche boards is a good solution.
Big boards have their place, but, just like in all recruiting – the key is the message. A great recruiting message, that paints a compelling picture of the job will attract great people, whether you cold call with it, write it up and post it on a big board, tweet it, connect through LinkedIn. It’s the message – what’s in it for the candidate to take the job – great people love challenge, but most job descriptions never describe the challenge – just the responsibilities.
Once we finally figured out how to craft the right message, we’ve had great results with advertising and social media recruiting. (for everything from CFO’s to IT managers to fundraisers to very specialized positions)
May 28th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Graham, while I agree that networking is key, and that posting alone will not bring you the best of the best, I do see it as an integral piece of the puzzle.
For all of our positions (And in full disclosure, we are a mid-size company of 600 people), we do networking, ERP’s and postings, as well as social media promotion of our roles. And while 30%+ of our hires come from ERP and another 40% come from networking and social media, there are still 20-30% that come solely from postings.
What you need to keep in mind here is that there are people out there who don’t want to be found, and they are the ones that will look at and respond to a well-crafted and incredibly specific & intriguing job advertisement.
Case in point, I recently began a search for a very narrowly used skill set in the technical arena. While I sourced many people through networking (Groups, LinkedIn, etc.) I worked with 3 VP’s to craft a description that would sell itself, and I told them that they needed to treat me like the candidate and describe the role and why I would want it as a candidate. It was tremendously successful, and I have had at least 6 candidates whose exact words to me were “I have not been looking at all, but this just seemed so appealing and came across as though the company really knows what they are looking for”. Now while the vast number of candidates for this came from networking and niche sites, these candidates were finding us!
As with any recruiting tool, since the days of the fax and newspaper ads, there is NO magic bullet. However, this is one of the bullets in the arsenal a recruiter should have. To dismiss it completely, is a bit near-sighted, and could potentially cost you a dynamite candidate you never even knew you had.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Graham:
Networking is the best way to fill spots, but not always a viable option for smaller companies in small cities. Employers need to get the word out somehow.
I am intrigued by the fact that when I click on your name from the comments above, I am redirected to KnokKnok.
KnokKnok looks like a makeshift job board to me, thus contradicting your entire article. Hopefully, your third Cheezhead article is also your last.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
good post Rafael…graham findlay it sure seems like you have hijacked this site lately to push your agenda. haha
May 29th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Rafael,
I think we’re violently agreeing! What I’m saying is that spending a lot of money on job adverts may not be the most effective way of attracting the right candidates. There are new channels emerging right now. Nobody has got the killer app (if one even exists), but the more qualified candidates you can reach the better by whatever means.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Hi Bob,
You hit the spot perfectly with your opening line “It’s the message not the medium.” There’s far too much unqualified brief with a race to hit the job boards as fast as possible.
You also say, “Most job descriptions never describe the challenge – just the responsibilities.”…right again….lazy HR departments and greedy recruitment agents have a lot to answer for here I think.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Pete,
Yes, posting is a piece of the hiring puzzle, but it’s a diminishing piece. You’re exactly right though, recruiting someone is a mix of different channels (that’s what I am trying to get over in my original piece). I just see that new (and hopefully) less expensive channels are appearing right now. Thanks for your comments and real-life example.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Oh LOVE this post! I have been thinking about writing an article like this to educate job seekers to not respond to blind/anonymous ads.
We should not stop advertising jobs, but we should provide full information about the company. A job applicant should make it a policy of NOT responding to job ads that do not have information about the company that is hiring, such as a website, phone number, and/or email address.
Everybody talks about that a job candidate should research a company that they are interested in working for. How can one do that when the job ads don’t provide this information? No wonder companies complain that job applicants don’t know anything about the company.
On Craigslist, I personally started responding to ads in the gigs section by stating “if this job posting is REAL, I am interested.” This is because there are so many fake job ads that are posted anonymously without any contact information. Those job ads that provide a phone number appear to be the most legit job postings.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Will,
Most people registered with Cheezhead have a link to their business website. This is pretty much standard practise with the exception of those who want to comment anonymously.
I never plug what I do in my articles as a matter of principle. It’s up to the Cheezhead editors as to whether they publish an article, not me.
I have a new idea for an article about anonymous blogging that adds no value. Perhaps I’ll call it “Pointing out the bloggingly obvious”.
Glad you’ve read all my articles on Cheezhead to date.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:23 am
Hi Nick,
Thanks! Couldn’t agree more about qualified job ads and the lack of information provided by job agencies (and sometimes even the employer).
June 1st, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Great article, and I can’t stand “phishing” tactics either, and refused to do it during my 12 years in the recruiting industry. What’s worse in my mind, is when recruiters “phish” for the intent purpose of getting a referral for free.
You mentioned that “It’s not as if we’re all applying for jobs every minute of every day”. This is so true and to take it a step further, on average only 20% of workers are taking active steps to find a new job (maybe a little more these days) which leaves a market of 80% that nobody has a built a solution for. Those people know a lot of people and if motivated properly a huge portion would probably be good for referrals from within that 80% population of passive candidates, and the best part is they can activate themselves.
Which leads me to your other point about “There are clearly tens of thousands of different jobs out there ranging from seaweed collector to CEO of a multi-national company”. If you could compartmentalize your networks on one social network site and post just seaweed collector jobs to that network, people are more likely to know people who do what they do.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
“Who is going to wade through all those resumes?”
No one is…and that’s what’s wrong with both the concept of job boards and the recruiting process (which is broken). It’s a waste of everyone’s time to either post a job or apply to one through the boards (or for that matter, a company career site).
Advertising jobs in a low unemployment cycle is a decent way to get the word out….but it’s not going to bring out the so-called passive job seekers. These days, everyone is looking.
As I mentioned in “What Do Job Boards And T-Rex Have In Common?”, the boards are dead. Right now, unemployed folks are looking everywhere, including the boards, and still hold out hope they will get a response.
There was a time when job boards had their usefulness. From the employer’s perspective, they are overpriced dinosaurs. And, only 12% of their hires come through the boards, so why do they continue to pay for the ‘privilege’ of posting on the boards??
For job seekers, the boards give them the opportunity to apply for jobs that everyone else on the planet has for. Only spammers and identify theives seem to like them.