Hello from San Diego.  We are back from the Onrec/Kennedy recruiting conference in Chicago; what a great trip.  Wishing you went?  Be sure to read my Onrec/Kennedy 2009 recruiting trends.

I spoke to a lot of people who are feeling the pressure to be recruiting via Twitter, Facebook, text messaging, and other new media but they are not sure how to get started.  Below are my top 5 tips I presented at the conference; this is a must read before wasting time or money by jumping on the social media recruiting bandwagon. (Yes it is here to stay, so let’s figure out how to optimize your efforts and not waste time and money from not being prepared)

Tip #1 - Use prequalification questions to increase efficiency

• I like to call if my 10 second rule.  If you cannot tell if a candidate is a good fit within 10 seconds, chances are very good that he/she is not a fit. 

• Enable yourself to make a quick determination and stop wasting time on unnecessary qualification calls with candidates that do not have a chance of getting hired. 

• Keep it to 5-10 questions that allow for short, powerful responses.  Add these questions to the online application.
  

• Sit down with the hiring manager if possible to figure out what he/she is really looking for in this specific hire. 

• With conservative estimations, I save about 2 minutes per resume I review using this tip.  Just check the math to see how much time you save by looking at 10 or 100 resumes per day.
   
  10 resume views a day = 87 hours a year in saved time
  100 resume views a day = 870 hours a year in saved time
  
  (resumes x 2 minutes x 5 days x 52 weeks) /60 min in hour = x)

Tip #2 - Use an online database to store candidates

• In 1999, storing candidates in your Outlook system worked just fine.  In 2009, the time savings for using an online tracking system to organize your candidates is too huge to ignore.
  

• Candidate databases come in many names but a CRM, ATS, or an Applicant Tracking System are going to be the most common buzz words to look for.  Most of them cost about $39 - $200 per license.

• As a business owner, I am still surprised with how many boutique recruiting shops and large corporate organizations still do not use an ATS.  These systems save me hundreds of hours a year.

• You will find some job boards that have the ability to store candidates that applied for a job and some basic tracking or candidate organization built in, but the main advantage of an ATS is the ability to do Boolean searches within the system for candidates.
  

• If you are a small-medium sized boutique firm with 1-20 recruiters; I am writing some cool tips in a later posting that will really help you get started.

Tip #3- All job postings and openings should be on a job board aggregator

• Save thousands per year with this tip and increase revenue by posting to Indeed, Simplyhired, GoogleBase, Twitter, etc.

• Not sure how to get started- read my article Get Noticed- How to Increase Job Posting Visibility on Indeed and SimplyHired

Tip #4- Have a SWOT Analysis done each year

• SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. 

• If you are a company owner, account owner, team lead, or a member of a team; everyone should know where you stand and where you are going.

• Why would you waste thousands on social recruiting programs if you do not understand what you need to accomplish?

• Get started with Wikipedia on this topic

Tip #5- Measure your results

• What was your Submittal – Interview- Hire ratio from last month or last year? 

• What trends are you seeing with hiring and where should you be focusing your efforts?

• Are you using web analytics to track your web results for free?  Google’s is great!

• We will do an entire section on branding in the future; small steps go a long way.

• Are you doing a new hire survey to measure why candidates are accepting or almost rejecting offers? 

• What are your job posting results?  How many views are you getting?

We now have over 30,000 members on this mailing list, 9,100 members signed up on the site, and 29,000 within our Networked Recruiter Linkedin Group.  I will have some follow-up post regarding these tips and be sure to add a comment so we can share your ideas.

Enjoy every moment and have a blessed day!

Jacob Conway Founder- Networked Recruiter