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The Fordyce Letter

Straight Talk for the Recruiting Profession


Articles tagged 'sourcing'

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Follow These 5 Tips to Place An Unemployed Candidate

by 3 days ago


fordyce-default

EmploymentSmall75Nobody wants to hire an unemployed person. It’s a problem that most recruiters — whether here in the U.K. or elsewhere — face. On several occasions, I’ve actually had clients request that I seek somebody already in work.

The increasing scarcity of jobs puts us in a tricky situation where:

  • Employers can be pickier about who they hire;
  • There are more jobless candidates (who nobody wants);
  • People are reluctant to trade in a secure job for a new one.

Clients are demanding high caliber candidates while refusing to consider the talent that is actually available to us and them.

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Ask Barb

What Can I Do About Clients That Take Too Long Making a Decision?

by 2 weeks ago


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

Loved your programs at the NAPS conference, I’ve implemented two of your ideas already with great results. I’m having an issue with clients dragging their feet during the interview process. When they give me the order they act like they want to hire immediately and then it’s as if they have all the time in the world.

This has resulted in me losing several candidates that I felt were very talented. How do you force the issue with clients who don’t understand the value of making decisions faster? When I press them, they stop returning my calls.  Do I just stop doing business with clients who can’t seem to make timely hiring decisions?

Catherine M.

Milwaukee, WI

Dear Catherine:

There are several reasons why clients don’t make decisions. These include:

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Ask Barb

Why Would A Client Pay You To Source From A Job Board?

by 3 weeks ago


Ask Barb

Dear Barb:

I just lost a major account because they said we provide them with the same candidates their internal recruiters find on the job boards. We have had great luck surfacing qualified candidates off job boards, I’m now wondering if the job boards are going to replace us? 

Charles S.

Syracuse, NY

Dear Charles:

To not be replaced by job boards, it is important you change the way you are attracting top talent. Clients expect us to recruit passive candidates who are working, although, they would consider a new job if the opportunity represented their next career move. You can use job boards to lead you to these candidates, or you can complete daily networking and recruiting calls.

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Industry News

Bullhorn Report Finds LinkedIn Dominates Social Media Use By Firms

by 3 weeks ago


Bullhorn social media power users

Bullhorn social media power usersIf you’re beginning to think every one is using LinkedIn to source candidates, you’re close to right.

Nearly every survey on source of hire or use of social media by recruiters shows LinkedIn to be a key part of the mix; often it leads all the listed social media sites. The company itself reported adding 2,400 customers in just the last quarter of 2012, bringing the total to 16,400 organizations under contract.

Now comes a Bullhorn survey to report that of the 160,000 registered users on Bullhorn Reach, 97% use LinkedIn to source candidates. That’s not as surprising as it might seem at first glance. Bullhorn Reach is a freemium site specifically for managing a social media program and posting jobs to the sites and to some job boards. Bullhorn Reach users, a large number of them staffing firms, search, and independent recruiters, are all committed to at least some level of social media interaction.

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Industry News, Social Media, Technology

LinkedIn Adds A Recommendation Feature

by on Apr. 10, 2013


Previous look
New LinkedIn Recruiter

New LinkedIn Recruiter

Sporting a new look and with some new features — including a recommendation engine that ‘learns’ the kind of people a recruiter most want — LinkedIn Recruiter is getting an official relaunch this morning.

The redesign itself is an updating the classic LinkedIn Recruiter look to make it more consistent with the LinkedIn homepage redesign that was introduced last fall.

Parker Barril, Linkedin’s Talent Solutions head of product, unveiled the fresh, new LinkedIn Recruiter at a live and webcast user event — ConnectIn – in San Francisco. As he put it, “the consumerization of the enterprise,” the trend toward making products and services easier to use, “is influencing a new generation of products.”

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Cold Calling, How-To

Important Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Phone Sourcer

by on Mar. 29, 2013


fordyce-default

die-hard phone jockeysEditor’s Note: If you’ve ever hired a sourcer to help with a particularly thorny search, you undoubtedly discovered that not only are they all not alike, but the range of services they provide is vastly different, as are their rates. Maureen Sharib is a phone sourcer who, with her husband, runs TechTrak. A phone sourcer is different from one who primarily sources via the Internet. Both provide a valuable, if different type of service for recruiters. In this post, Maureen offers guidance on hiring a quality phone sourcer.

What is your definition of phone sourcing? If they say they call companies to “check” on information they find on the Internet (“Is she still there? What’s her title now?”), keep looking. You haven’t found a real “phone sourcer.”

If they tell you they find names of people who hold specific titles inside specific organizations that you provide you probably do have a phone sourcer on the line but you need to dig deeper.

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Industry News

Source of Hire Survey: Employers Up Their Use of Outside Agencies

by on Mar. 21, 2013


2012 Source of hire CareerXroads

2012 Source of hire CareerXroadsWith the worst of the recession behind, employers are again turning to outside recruiters for help filling their more challenging positions.

In the annual Source of Hire study from recruiting consultancy CareerXroads, three dozen of the largest U.S. employers report an upswing in their use of retained and contingent recruiters. The 3.1% of the jobs they filled in 2012 through agencies is still a shadow of the 5.2% they filled that way in 2005, but it does represent an improvement from 2009. That year employers filled only 2.3% of jobs via external recruiters.

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Cold Calling, How-To

You’ll Get More Referrals If You Prime the Pump This Way

by on Mar. 1, 2013


Bill Radin

Here’s a technique I’ve found to be helpful, especially when I’m in search or sourcing mode and I want to stimulate referral activity.

The conventional wisdom when making a recruiting or sourcing call is to ask for the names of people who either have the background you’re looking for, or for people who might be in a position to make a referral.

So, if you’re describing a job to a prospective candidate, you ask the question, “Who do you know who can do the job?” or “Is there anyone you can think of who might have an interest in this sort of opportunity?”

Naturally, the more colorful your description of the job, or the more “sizzle” associated with the company, the more likely it is to get a referral. Unfortunately, some candidates are either tight-lipped by nature or develop a brain freeze when thrown a question they might not have anticipated.

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Industry News

Finding, Hiring Tech Talent Is Bigger Concern Than Pay, Benes

by on Feb. 15, 2013


Startup IT hiring challenge 2013

Startup IT hiring challenge 2013TechServe Alliance says tech employment in the U.S. hit an all time high in January. The 15,800 jobs created during the month brought total employment to an estimated 4,339,800 workers.

The one year increase of 4.14% compares to a national jobs increase of 1.52% and exceeds even the growth in the health sector, which increased by 2.26% between January 2012 and last month.

Noting that IT employment got off to a “strong start” last month, TechServe CEO Mark Roberts said, “Despite the lingering uncertainty with the U.S. and global economies, I anticipate demand for IT professionals will remain robust throughout 2013.”

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Industry News

Job Boards, Referrals Lead As Hiring Sources; Agencies Yield Strong Hire Ratio

by on Feb. 14, 2013


Silkroad Top 10 Online sources 2013

Silkroad sourcing effectiveness chart 2013Update: SilkRoad says there are errors in the report it published Thursday on which the post below is based. The most significant appears to be charts on pages 8, 11, and 15 and in the infographic on the SilkRoad blog showing some sources produced more hires than they did interviews. A company spokesman said in an email: “The issue concerning the numbers on Craigslist was an error and has been changed.  In regards to the information on page 15, that chart only represents the percentage of interviews and hires as a percentage of all external sources and does not take into account internal or offline sources.” Additionally, “There were no sources in our findings with a larger number of hires over interviews.  The issue with the image on page 11 is with the chart and Craigslist.”Note that as of this update, it does not appear the updates to the charts have been made.

Referrals and the company career site are the two leading sources for new workers hired by the 1,054 companies participating in SilkRoad’s just released study of recruitment marketing effectiveness.

Between them, they produced 40% of the more than 150,000 hires the companies made in 2012.

This is the second year the HR software provider has compiled ATS data from its customers to report on their source of hire. This year, the company included interviews as a measure of effectiveness.

The data set came from companies as small as 100 employees and some larger than 10,000; 60% had under 2,000 employees, 30% fall between 2,000 and 10,000, and the remaining 10% are larger. A company spokesman said the employers represent “the entire scale. We have lots of technology, healthcare, higher education and several other strong verticals.”

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