Help Your Recruiter - Help Yourself!

OK - you're a hiring manager. Did you know the typical in-house corporate recruiter is covering 25-30 open jobs at any given time? That’s a daunting challenge to say the least.

There are several ways to position your corporate recruiter for success as he/she works to find the right candidate for your team. Each method is just one piece of securing quality applicants.

By building trust and rapport with your corporate recruiter, giving them time to ask lots of questions, tailoring the job description, identifying the appropriate networks, and connecting often, you and your recruiter can work efficiently and greatly increase your success.

Here are some helpful hints to position your corporate recruiter for success.

How to write the perfect sourcing email

This part is important.

You’ll have a formal job description, but your corporate recruiter will be reaching out to many people by phone and email (hopefully). The candidates you want to attract won’t look at a job posting or read an unsolicited job description that is sent to them - they’re working, busy and knocking it out of the park for their current employer. 

So what can you do to help your recruiter?

Provide a well written, brief and easily digestible summary of why this is an awesome opportunity. Keep it short so people can read it and make a decision within 30 seconds. That means keeping it at 125 words or less. The recruiter can use this over and over again as he/she conducts outreach to passive candidates or asking for referrals. The recruiter can also repurpose it to a phone script for when he/she is calling people.

It needs to have some emotion behind it. What will the candidate get to do? How will they grow professionally? What new skills will they learn? What does the career path look like? Why is this opportunity awesome?

Your recruiter needs something to use as “bait” to get people to talk to him/her. It needs to be honest and authentic, but it needs to be compelling and different. Fabulous candidates will talk to your recruiter for 20 minutes if they feel it’s worth their time. Help your recruiter tell the story.

Your job is to help your corporate recruiter explain to a fabulous candidate why a 20 minute phone call will be a good use of their time. You need to have something unique, challenging, exciting and different to offer.

Did I mention keep it brief? No one has time to read your 3 page job description or a burning desire to do so.

Let your recruiter ask questions!

Your corporate recruiter doesn’t work on your team doing media relations, employee engagement, change communications, investor relations….etc. Help the recruiter feel safe to ask questions so they really understand what the candidate will be doing on a daily basis and how their success will be measured.

A good to place to start is by telling them how you will know if a candidate was a great hire after they’ve been in the role for 12 months. What will they have accomplished?

It’s possible the recruiter won’t know what to ask. You need to break down the job and explain it to the recruiter like you would to a 5th grader. 

If the recruiter doesn’t understand the job you’re going to be wasting a lot of time.

Focus on educating the recruiter on what the candidate will DO, not what the candidate should HAVE.

Where to find fabulous candidates

Help your corporate recruiter to brainstorm where your perfect candidate spends his/her time, professionally.

Are they typically a member of certain professional groups? Do they typically come from specific universities? Do they attend specific conferences or have a particular certification?

Help your corporate recruiter to connect the dots so they know what Boolean searches to conduct and who to ask for referrals.

Below are just a few examples of sources to consider:

·        Competitors: Review your company’s competitors; perhaps an employee at one of your competitors’ offices may be worth approaching. You should give your recruiter a list of the companies you want them to target, or better yet, the names of specific people you want them to contact. 

·        Key Words/Titles: Help your recruiter understand what search terms to use. Do they know all of the various words, phrases and titles a candidate might use to describe themselves?

·        Conferences: Make a list of conferences that you think your ideal candidate may attend. Then your recruiter can do research and outreach to speakers and sponsors from those conferences and ask for referrals. If you’re looking for media relations talent, make sure your recruiter knows about conferences such as the Media Relations Next Practices Conference and Video Boot Camp

·        Certifications: If your role requires a strong background in change management, does your recruiter know about the Association of Change Management Professionals and their certification program? Is your recruiter searching for people who are a Certified Change Management Professional (CCMP)? You get the idea.

·        Centers of Influence: Let’s pretend you’re in the Pharmaceutical industry and are looking for a Director, Corporate Communications. Does your recruiter know that all of the major PR & Communication agencies have senior level practice leads who specialize in Pharma? Surely they know people who might be a great fit for your role. You won’t know until you ask.

·        Referrals, Referrals, Referrals: You and your team should be working your network for referrals and sending those people to your recruiter. This is one of the best sources for great talent.

·        LinkedIn Groups:  Do you need Intranet talent? Does you recruiter know about groups on LinkedIn such as Digital Workplace and Intranet Employee Benchmarking? With over 12,000 members it could be a good place for sourcing. Have your recruiter reach out to the group owner and group managers and ask who they might recommend

·        Vendors: Connect with your vendors to see if they have interacted with individuals at other companies who might make a great fit. 

·        Agencies/Consulting firms: Consider the companies you might hire for consultation; perhaps a candidate works at one of the companies you already interact with regularly

·        University faculty: Do you have respect for the journalism program at the University of Missouri? If so, make sure your recruiter reaches out to the Faculty and Staff. Here’s a 192 people who work there. Your corporate recruiter likely won't know this is a good Journalism school unless you tell him/her!

I could go on and on. The idea is to help your corporate recruiter figure out where to look. You can’t rely on job postings. 

You’re recruiter needs to be a detective and go out and hunt. Tell them where to look. 

Give them ideas. Help them find a piece of string they can pull to uncover a wealth of potential referral sources. Buy lunch and make this a joint effort and write it all down on a white board.

Meet Once a Week

You should have a standing meeting every week with your recruiter until the job is filled. This creates accountability, allows for regular communication and feedback, and gives you the opportunity to discuss what sourcing methods are working and which ones aren’t. It also allows you to make adjustments early in the process so you stay on track and your recruiter delivers.

Remember “Measure Twice, Cut Once”

A Carpenter knows to double-check measurements for accuracy before cutting a piece of wood; otherwise it may be necessary to cut again, wasting time and material.

If you put in the time and effort upfront to position your corporate recruiter for success, they will be grateful, committed and productive. And that’s what you need to win in today’s war for talent.

Finding great people isn’t difficult if you know where to look and have something truly special to offer them.

Andrew Gagen is the Founder & Lead Recruiter at MVP Recruiters. His recruiting practice has an exclusive focus on the Public Relations & Corporate Communications function. Andrew works nationwide with corporate clients helping them to identify and hire fabulous communications talent. He is an expert in recruiting individuals who have the essential planning, critical thinking and creative skills required to drive a business forward – individuals with gravitas and business acumen who know how to think strategically, digitally and globally.