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 Tim Spagnola on September 13, 2011 at 12:58pm: "talent communities and its a smart way to stay on candidates radar" - agree 100% big and small all organizations can benefit

Comment by Paul Alfred on September 13, 2011 at 4:22pm: Chris you have a big budget ... Don't forget to calculate your cost per hire ... in the end ... Ok so you recover in 6 months break even in 8 ... if that ...

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 13, 2011 at 6:31pm: And i would enjoy recruiting in the land of Oz where money is no object, In a distant and faraway land where All executives and the board of directors think that recruiting is the most important department in the company and will approve the new guy to throw out everything they ever had and start over. Then i would wake up and know that i was dreaming about a perfect world with rainbows, unicorns and software that always works like the vendor said it would. But never forget that the wizard was a sham and the land of OZ was but a fairytale where real people do not exist with all their quirks just a long list of acronyms that do stuff like recruiting only the best who always want the job.

Comment by Bill Ward on September 13, 2011 at 7:18pm: Kudos for throwing the ideas out there. That takes some courage knowing the critics are just waiting to annihilate you.

If I ran a global recruiting function, I would follow the tried and true KISS methodology. I think a good course of action would be to meet every single key stakeholder in the company and spend as much time with them as I could to get a sense of what their needs are, what's worked and what hasn't. That's not easy. You've got to have solid business sense and communicate at a fairly high enough level to dig into the issues and ultimately succeed at the conceptual sell when putting forth a plan designed to navigate uncharted territory. I would also do the same with my recruiting and marketing teams to see what has succeeded and vice versa. How else can you establish creditability and buy in from the executive sponsors that you'll ultimately need to push these "initiatives" through?

You're simply going in like a bull in a china shop and putting lipstick on a pig if you don't understand what's held your company back from recruiting effectively and efficiently. In the end, all you're doing is automating lousy business process.

Comment by Paul Alfred on September 13, 2011 at 10:22pm: OK Jokes aside ... Sandra Land of Oz ... Cmon ...LOL... I am just making a point that all of the points Chris made are great but we need to always watch our cost per hire ... These tools need to implemented in stages and with a buy in from Key Stake holders across the enterprise or org is paramount and before all of that a Strategy with some real goals and milestones defined. If you looked at a cross section of Companies they may have started by looking at bringing in a Director of Talent Management then build a team around the resource - everything else is sporadic at best .... Some Companies are just happy they invested in the LinkedIn Corp Network for Recruitment. Looks like there is work out there for us pundits ...

Comment by Bill Ward on September 13, 2011 at 11:57pm: Paul,

What are your thoughts on implementing all these bleeding edge solutions? In my opinion, most people look at tools as simply one more thing they have to manage rather than streamlining their job and making them more effective. It takes a lot of skill and tenacity in order to get buy in not only from executives, but the users who will be expected to become more productive by way of any new fangled process or system implementation.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 14, 2011 at 1:07am: This reminds me of the brand new Aggie MBA who decided he would revolutionize the pig production business. He bought the best pigs, put them on the latest scientifically developed feed, built climate controlled barns operated by the latest technology but his pigs didn't grow, didn't gain weight. He called in the consultant phDs from A&M who did blood work, stress analysis. All the latest and greatest but still just skinny puny pigs.

The Aggie looked across the fence one day. His neighbor, an old farmer, had the biggest, fattest, healthy pigs he had ever seen. They were rolling around in mud living in old shelters and generally being pigs.

The Aggie was horrified. He called the old farmer over and said, "how do you have such fat, healthy pigs?" "I have done everything, the latest science, called the experts, spent millions and I have skinny pigs". "what do you do and how do you do it?"

The old farmer smiled and said, "feed em' apples, all the apples they want, any time they want."

A few weeks later the old farmer was driving down the road, saw the aggie holding one of his pigs up off the ground so the pig could eat apples off the tree. The farmer yelled, "what the hell are you doing"

The Aggie yelled back, "feeding my pigs apples"

The farmer said, "doesn't it take a lot of time and a lot of people to do it
that way?"

The Aggie said, "hey man, what's time to a pig".

Comment by Paul Alfred on September 14, 2011 at 2:32am: @Bill Corporations that have decided to commit to implementing a Talent Management Strategy which incorporates Social Media Channels can do so with a well planned strategy and with collaborative tools like SharePoint this can be done effectively. The Key is buy in and commitment from key sponsors and you must have a leader to drive the initiative ... This also has to be done in stages. I have seen it done in a number of organizations with measurable results. @ Sandra... Pigs, but I get the point... LOL.

Comment by Chantelle Legg on September 14, 2011 at 8:31am: I would be very interested in working for a company that ran like this! So if you ever start one up as written above let me know ;)