When I was growing up, there was not a holiday that I looked forward to more than Halloween.  Not only did I love thinking up a great costume and getting free candy but I always really enjoyed the Halloween route planning sessions the night before.

Every Halloween I’d go to one of my friends places (as they had a better neighborhood) and we’d map out the houses and areas we would hit up during the night.  After years of experience, we knew the houses that gave the “good” candy and the ones that gave us the apple on sticks that our parents wouldn’t let us eat.

For us, it was about hitting up the most good houses we could in the time our parents would let us trick or treat, so that we could build a bigger bag of candy to sift through in order to get the candy that we liked.  Because for every Mike & Ike I received (not a fan) I also got a tasty Snickers or Baby Ruth that would keep me hyper for hours.

As I look back at that kid in the Jim Carrey Mask zoot suit, I see a kid that practiced some pretty sound recruiting principles in his quest for “good” candy. While he didn’t know it, his end goal of getting the most “good” candy possible fits very well with the goal of every recruiting organization: to capture and hire the most qualified candidates.

But it doesn’t stop there.  Here are a number of parallels that you can bring into your recruitment marketing strategy:

Bigger reach, more candy: My biggest strategy on Halloween was to hit as many houses as possible during the night.  That meant going where I knew there were houses that gave “good” candy from the previous Halloweens.  It also meant not wasting our time walking to communities that didn’t have many houses or didn’t give out candy.  For us, the only restriction was our time curfew and/or the patience of our parents in walking with us to more houses.

In recruiting, you want to do the same thing.  You want to use as many “good” sources as possible to get as many qualified candidates to enter your ATS & Talent Network as possible.  In order to do this, you should be looking at your past experience, mainly analyzing your recruitment metrics for similar past positions and knowing what channels work best for your organization.  Your restrictions are not time in this case but mainly the recruiting budget that you need to stay under.  That means using the sources that provide the most ROI in your job distribution campaigns.

Sifting through your Halloween bag: One of the most fun times during the night was seeing what kind of candy that you received.  I’d immediately dump out my bag and start inventorying what I had, separating the candy I liked from the candy I wouldn’t eat.  I would put the candy I liked back in my bag for later and then I’d try to trade with my friends to see if I could trade some of the candy I didn’t like for candy that I would enjoy.

If you have expanded your reach and collected a mass of candidates from your recruitment campaigns, it is now time to start screening through resumes & candidates for a position.  You want to collect as many candidates as possible as it gives you more choices and options within your process.  Much like splitting the candy, you need your recruiting team to split candidates into two main groups: qualified and unqualified for the position.  Look out for candidates that qualifications don’t fit the position you are recruiting for but may fit another position that needs to be filled.

Making that Candy Last:  After getting all my candy back home, I tried to make my candy last as long as possible. I refused to gorge myself and feel sick with a Halloween hangover but instead sought out to enjoy every single piece.  I stored my candy in the cabinet and when kids had run out of candy a week after Halloween, I was still going strong with candy in my lunchbox.

In recruiting, you should similarly try to make your candidates last.  All the qualified candidates you collect should not only go into the interview stage and hopefully become hires at your organization but also should make their way into your Recruiting CRM so you can continue to engage with them in the future.  These candidates, while maybe not the best fit for the position now, may be great fits for a future positions.  Don’t use and abuse these candidates never to engage with them again but instead add them to your Talent Network so that you can savor them and hopefully bring them into your organization in the future.

Just like on Halloween when you were a kid, you need to make sure you are able to optimize the amount of candy or candidates you are receiving from your efforts.  If you understand your ROI, build your Talent Network and effectively screen the candidates that come through your system, you may just have as much success as your 10 year old self had on Halloween!