IF I RAN RECRUITING

I've often wondered what I'd be doing if I didnt run AllCountyJobs.com any longer. I could probably do a variety of different things and one that comes to mind is a corporate recruiting department. I would bring a fresh perspective and shake things up.

Here's what I would do if I ran recruiting...

I would hire a director of recruitment marketing to create an employment branding strategy. We'd use the new strategy proactively to position the company as a great place to work.

I would hire copywriters to rewrite job descriptions into job ads that sell. A job description is not designed to sell. A job "ad" must properly sell the company and role.

I would dedicate people to staff social media and engage with candidates. Individual recruiters would be responsible for their own twitter accounts and be judged on how they grow their followers. They would also rotate days managing the company facebook career page and interacting with job seekers.

I would use new media to promote my jobs. That means utilizing Youtube and podcasts (aka 'jobcasts') to give potential candidates an inside look at the company.

I would start a talent community to create long term relationships with clients. Companies like Pepsi and AT&T have their own talent communities and its a smart way to stay on candidates radar.

I would buy our own niche job board to help source candidates. I'd run it separately, apart from our company and use it to mine candidates as well as a free way to post our own listings.

I would streamline/revamp the application process so that job seekers know where they stand in the process. This will probably mean getting rid of the existing ATS.

I would redesign the Corporate career site that showcases my employees. We add interviews with star employees, add plenty of video and podcast to compliment the content.

I would hire an SEO firm to ensure our career site and job listings are ranking well in the search engines.

Chris Russell is the CEO/Founder of the regional job board network AllCountyJobs.com LLC based in Connecticut.

Comment by Chantelle Legg on September 14, 2011 at 8:38am: Without Dreams, where would we be!

Comment by Paul Alfred on September 14, 2011 at 10:54am: Dream with an executable realistic plan of action.

Comment by Jacob S. Madsen on September 14, 2011 at 10:56am: Chris is right and is I believe very much on the right track. This is not whether one method is better than the other but about utilising and embracing the numerous angles and methodologies that can be utilised. The best blueprint and inputs I have ever seen and standing out amongst the vast range of discussions is 'Recruitment 3.0' written by Matthew Jeffery, see www.ere.net In here you have a direct and comprehensive recipe as to how companies could go about their recruitment. Bottom line here is that it needs to be veru closely integrated and part of the entire structure of the company. Read it and judge for yourself

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 14, 2011 at 11:25am: Thereis no question that what Chris would do would be the ultimate dream of anyone running a recruiting function. Unfortunately most companies see a recruiters dream as an expensive nightmare. If the company is large it's like turning a battleship on a dime. If it's a smaller group the cost of copywriters, Seo people, social media dedicated people and buying or starting a job board is of course prohibitive and or hard to justify.

Great dream.

Comment by Dan Ogden on September 14, 2011 at 11:28am: What if you ran recruiting with a limited budget and no additional headcount?

Comment by Josh Peek on September 14, 2011 at 11:49am: If it were only this easy...we could all only wish that a TA organization had this kind of budget and autonomy to implement even half of these fantastic ideas. Great post!

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 14, 2011 at 12:01pm: I think Andy Headworth said it best in response to that diatribe on ERE.

"how about we fix recruiting and talent management 1.0 and 2.0 before we move on to 3 and 4."

Comment by Hilary Boslet on September 15, 2011 at 4:51pm: This is a great list! I completely agree with every single one of your points and have myself argued the benefits of many of these... sometimes to blank stares and no avail. Companies MUST get on board, understand that this is what we're doing today, these are best practices and that it could all change in six months (but we'll be ready). I politely disagree with some other comments that all this costs money... not really! These are all "Work smarter, not harder" concepts. Think of this concept: if the job description, or job ad, was written as a great marketing and branding piece, the recruiter/hm would, for the most part, receive the best candidates. This would save huge amounts of time and frustration for everyone, especially the recruiter. What is one perfectly written and perfectly placed job ad worth?

Comment by Francois Guay on September 17, 2011 at 4:04pm: Keep dreaming Chris your on the right track. Hilary...lets also be on the same team. I agree many of these are low cost solutions, everyone always wants to think about buying an expensive software solution, or lets spend money on talent branding, etc...

For a recruitment strategy to work short term and long term, the solutions must be able to morph to your ever evolving strategy. A recruiting strategy evolves based on the business strategy. So keep it low cost and flexible. Of course we need to keep metrics in mind and cost per hire but at the end of the day it's all about the business metrics and did we add value to the overall bottom line. Act like a recruiter but be a business person first.