A Hot Take: Job Boards
In the vein of creating a team recruitment, retention, and empowerment strategy for a local business, I set out to challenge the traditional job board avenue.
Let’s be honest, we can all tell a smooth operation from a disorganized one.
We can all walk into an establishment and instantly feel the anxiety of the staff, hear the bangs of dishes falling in the back, see the panic in the team’s eyes as chaos ensues.
A well-oiled machine isn’t built by accident. It’s the product of carefully selected team players, thorough training, and streamlined workflow.
The difficult pill to swallow is that no amount of Standard Operating Procedures, state-of-the-art equipment, or stellar management can create high-value team members.
The people that make up an operation are the foundation of any success a business can hope to achieve, but you don’t just stumble upon great people.
You have to discover them.
GO BEYOND JOB BOARDS
So you’re looking to build your team with solid players.
Throwing up a job listing on boards like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, or Workable are the typical go-to’s. These are all well and good but be prepared to waste hours sifting through dozens of skeleton resumes and applicants that didn’t read the job description.
The problem with job sites is that you’re casting the net so wide that you’re spreading your efforts thin. Your job listing is like a bobbing fishing line in the middle of the ocean. Maybe you’ll get a bite eventually, but nine times out of ten, it’s not the fish you were hoping for.
You might generate a lot of interest on job sites, but as soon as candidates click apply, the work is back in your lap. Congratulations, you just created a bunch of paperwork to sift through.
Ben Forstag shares, “A recent HR manager told me that they get an average of 400 resumes for each position and only look at the top 10-20—meaning 380 resumes are not even reviewed.”
If you’re looking for quality over quantity, there’s a more efficient approach.
DEFINE THE TALENT YOU WANT
Narrowing in on the kind of person you want to fill a role on your team is necessary in having the eyes to recognize them.
Beyond their professional qualifications, what kind of soft skills are you hoping potential candidates hold? Empathy, clear communication, creativity? Identifying the characteristics of your ideal team member and then determining where to reach this kind of applicant is just as important as determining whether they have the skills to complete the job.
You can’t teach upstanding character. It’s inherent. And it’s a lot easier to find it than it is to try to create it out of thin air.
MARKET FOR THE TALENT YOU WANT
Conducting your talent acquisition like a marketing campaign will help you reach your ideal pool of applicants. Essentially, you proactively weed out weak candidates by not casting the net in their direction in the first place.
By approaching recruitment from an active instead of passive stance—throwing up a job listing and seeing who responds—the power shifts back into your hands.
You’re not looking to reach just anybody. You’re looking to reach the right somebody.
In being thoughtful in your search, you save yourself from hours of reading through resumes, piecing together the picture of applicants, and setting up interviews that candidates may or may not show up to.
THE BETTER WAY
When it comes to discovering the talent fit for your vision, the answer is in intentionality.
Sifting through stacks of resumes and half-completed applications is an archaic and inefficient means of recruitment in today’s world. This leaves companies with the opportunity to not only build a team that gets the job done, but individuals that are handpicked with care.