Talent Attraction Safari Series #3
Want a Winning Formula For Your Business’ Talent Attraction?
Not everyone can experience a total change of perspective like I did in July 2023. I flew to Johannesburg, South Africa from Salt Lake City, rented a car at the airport, and drove on the other side of the road in the other side of the car for the first time. Regarding the drive, my biggest adjustment may be a surprise – the first 6 or 7 times that I clicked on the turn single, I cleaned the windshield (at least I had a Clean Windshield!).
This prompted me to think about how companies should take the First Step of transforming their talent acquisition process to the new Talent Attraction Process.
Imagine that these Impalas in this photo are candidates who truly are interested in working as your Employees. They are skilled in the professional tools that your organization requires. More importantly, they have the motivation and the high performing experience that you would love.
Unfortunately, these same people have been screened out as top candidates twice – once by the Job Board that advertises they will send you only the most qualified candidates. Then by your company’s Applicant Tracking System.
Why were they screened out? Typically by a poorly written job description that did not truly describe your open position. Their descriptive words that described their professional experience were different than yours.
In most companies, the Applicant Tracking System is used by Human Resources to save time by screening out candidates that do not match the keywords in your poorly written job description. Ironically, the candidates who receive the top keyword match are the ones who are smart enough to game your system with the right words – not necessarily with the right experience.
What is the first suggestion to improve your Candidate Sourcing experience?
- Work with your employees who are currently in those positions to write the first draft of their job description. Simply ask them to write (or Record) their day to day responsibilities. Add any monthly, quarterly, and annual responsibilities. You may be surprised to see some of their work is not in the company’s job description. If it is not there, you are recruiting the wrong people.
- Once the Manager reviews the employee version of the Job Description, they should chat with the employee to confirm that all their important responsibilities are listed. Then, the Manager should add any additional responsibilities or candidate qualities they feel will make their team stronger.
Remember, your high performers “change” your Job Descriptions annually by accepting and performing new, and sometimes, more strategic responsibilities. If you miss those responsibilities in your new job description by simply pulling the “old” Job Description out of the drawer, you lost the advantage the previous top performer gave you – and you are back to Square One. It is no wonder why Managers are dissatisfied with the current crop of candidates.
A second suggestion is to give your Managers access to your business’ Applicant Tracking System. They know far better the qualities and experience they need to upgrade this position than any recruiter (even me!). They will probably bring in a candidate (or more) who did not pass the keyword match screen – and did have the right experience. Often, when a Manager or Executive explained where they wanted this position to head, I introduced a candidate who did not have the “right words” on their resume but my conversation with the candidate indicated they were the Best Candidate. The majority of the time, they were selected and hired.
Several years ago, I coached a strong Director level candidate with a Harvard MBA who was totally frustrated with the lack of responses to his application submissions. After our conversation when they described their experience, I asked them for their target position. In my mind (with 40+ years of Executive Recruiting experience), they were eminently qualified for their targeted position.
I asked them to forward a recent Job Description with the resume they forwarded to the posting. Immediately, the problem stood out. The Job Description required a high school diploma (someone simply copied and pasted from another Job Description). Who, with a Harvard MBA would include a “High School Diploma” on their resume? The candidate used words that would have raised my good flags but were not the same words in the Job Description.
If the Vice President responsible for that Director position read their resume, they would have asked HR to set an interview immediately. They missed out on an amazing candidate. I coached this candidate to network into a position and taught them step by step how to succeed.
Many times, I have referred to Job Descriptions as the “Lowly Job Description” because not enough attention is paid to the Foundation of the Candidate Sourcing step. If the Job Description does not describe the job, a company will hire the wrong person.
Talent Attraction is Better than Talent Acquisition!
#1 Google Ranked “Talent Attraction Consultant”
With 40+ years of Expert Professional Talent Attraction Consultant experience mingled with 26+ years of Expert Career Coaching Experience, Bill is uniquely qualified to Speak, Author, and Consult on Talent Attraction, Career Search, and Proper Goal Setting.
If you would like a conversation on how to ATTRACT talent instead of using an Applicant Tracking System or HRIS to screen them out, we should chat. Click on Contact – RecruiterGuy to set a time for us to chat.
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Retaining Top Talent keeps your industry knowledge inside your company – instead of with the competition.
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