Are you delivering niche marketing or corporate blanding?
I was MC at the ATC Sourcing Conference in Melbourne last
week. It was, as usual, an excellent day of learning with a varied array of
speakers who made the audience think carefully about the future of recruitment
through the lens of sourcing.
Here’s a summary of the major points I took away from
the Conference, thanks to the keynote speakers, Mark Tortorici, Fiona Anson, Matt Charney, Karen Lawson, and Derek Zeller.
of a traditional recruiter
person to train as a sourcer, the core competencies and interests to look for
include: technology aptitude, ‘hacker’ mentality (likes to take things apart),
interest in data, research and/or puzzle games. These competencies could be
developed through hobbies and scholastic pursuits, not necessarily work.
those employees effectively, is to teach those employees how to continually
learn (unlearn) in the workplace.
approximately four seconds to decide whether to consider the position more
closely. The consequence of this is that you need to use bullet points and
intros in your job ads like you might for a movie poster (eg Catch Me If You
Can: The real story of a true fake) to hook job seekers in those first few
seconds.
the core messages that must be contained in your content are:
want a career not just a job
more
with people like them
want to work with cool stuff
very defined markets. This will lead to the decline of general networks. (Fiona
Anson)
goal) is to build brand desire. Focus on the candidate experience and that
mostly means, feedback! If candidates don’t want to be associated with your
brand then even if they are in your network, they won’t engage with you and
won’t become a candidate for a vacancy. (Fiona Anson)
surprises me
knows my struggles
knows my
preferences
generates emotion
is better described as ’employment blanding’; it’s all far too generic and
distinctly unmemorable. (Matt Charney)
resource for candidates :
acting on it) is the single most important thing you can do to ensure that you
maximise the value from an asset (ie candidate) you have already invested time
and money to capture and assess. (Derek Zeller)
recruitment agency, travel agency, stockbroker etc) collaboration with
customers is critical to avoid your business becoming irrelevant :
customers who connect with each other. (Karen Lawson)
I leave you with some questions you might do well to
ask yourself as a recruiter:
How much is my future linked to
my capability to source high calibre talent?
Do I know where to reliably
find high calibre talent?
Am I a better sourcer of high
calibre talent than 12 months ago? Two years ago?
What am I doing to ensure my
sourcing skills are better than my competitors and my clients?
Your career as a recruiter almost certainly depends
upon your answers to these questions.
Headhunting: Unethical or a necessary
part of a competitive job market?
What’s your candidate strategy?
Social Media: The future’s so bright,
you gotta wear shades
Candidate sourcing and advertising:
The sun rises on a new era