A new customer just sent us a testimonial and among many very nice comments the Corporate Human Resources Team Leader said the following: ” I have already recommended Talmax to a few companies. Talmax is an intuitive candidate management system that has enhanced our ability to source, screen and manage applicants efficiently. It was easy to integrate Talmax into our existing process and the automatic feeds to Simply Hired and Indeed.com create instant value for our organization. Best-of-all Talmax is an affordable solution for an organization of our size!”  (Perry’s Ice Cream, Akron, NY)

But, you want to know the very best part of these comments?  The author actually made 3 excellent suggestions that would provide additional features within Talmax that would enhance the usefulness of the software.  Because everyone today whether customer, vendor, candidate or supplier is so very busy, it’s often very difficult to get a written testimony about your product,

To receive such a complimentary testimony AND a thoughtful list of suggestions makes The Sourcerer sit up and listen because this is obviously a customer who cares.  I’d love to have a hundred customers just like Perry’s Ice Cream.  Great relationships in business are very special!

It occurred to me that I might have led you astray. I recently wrote a blog on the use of Posting Pages to attract candidates by “selling the sizzle” about your company and the job you have available.

In the article, I plainly said that getting candidates to go to your career site was “not all that difficult”. A number of readers disagreed and said quite the opposite.  They found it very difficult to get qualified job seekers to go to their career sites.

Therefore, instead of following my plan and writing about candidate screening (and how it can save you lots of time while reducing your recruiting costs), I am going to discuss non-traditional ways to drive talented candidates to your career site. 

In a previous commentary, I gave you a long list of the more traditional methods of candidate sourcing from internal job postings to the use of third party recruiters. You can review that list by clicking on:

http://www.talmax.com/sixdos/

The purpose of the next few blogs is to give you a number of “non-traditional” ideas to attract the talent you want to hire. Each of these ideas requires a little thinking “outside-the-box”.

Leverage Relationships with your Vendors

Ask yourself if the candidates you want to respond to your job opening might now be working for a competitor. If so, who are the companies that sell to you and may sell to your competitors?  Chances are someone at one of those suppliers may know a potential candidate who matches your requirements.

Finding a list of these suppliers is simply a matter of reviewing your supplier list and using a little internet research to identify their competition. Once you have a number of companies who currently sell either to you or to your competitors, go to the website of each of these companies and look up the names and e-mail addresses of any of the sales people you can find.

Yes, this takes some time; however, if you are not getting the response to your job opening that you need, why not take the time to do a little investigation? You can either do this yourself or spend thousands of dollars having a third party recruiter do it for you.

Next, create an e-mail (I have included a sample for you) and send it to every sales person on the list you have created. Provide a description of your position (if you read my article on Posting Pages, you will know how important a well-crafted job description is when attempting to attract the right candidate). Ask each person you contact to forward your e-mail to anyone they know who may be qualified and interested.

This process is not hard to do and it can help you find referrals who are potentially great candidates for your job!  Will it work every time…No, but it is definitely worth trying anytime you cannot attract the talent you need.

I have included the following sample e-mail for your use:

Subject Line: Do you know anyone who may be interested in this job?

Dear #Contact Name#,

We are attempting to locate a suitable candidate to fill a key position with our company.  I believe you sell to our industry and I thought you might be aware of someone (perhaps a friend or business acquaintance) who might be both qualified and interested.

So that you can review the position in detail, click the link below or simply copy and paste the URL into your browser. 

Enter posting page URL here

 If you know of someone who might fit our need, please forward this e-mail to him/her for review.

We would be most appreciative of any help you can offer.

Regards,

Your Signature
Your Company

I’ll have more suggestions for you in my next blog.

Talmax has an announcement that will help you find qualified candidates faster and can truly lower your recruiting costs. 

Effective immediately when you use a Talmax Career Site to list your current openings, your jobs will not only automatically feed to Indeed and Simply Hired, they will now also feed to Facebook and Twitter allowing you recruiting access to both these very popular social media sites.

This new feature is convenient, it’s automatic and it’s included every time you list a new job on your career site.

Occasionally you receive a piece of information that just makes you feel good, about yourself or your company or in this case…both.

The following is a testimonial I received today that  I wanted to share because it made me feel good about the 4 years that went into creating a product called Talmax. The struggle was worth the result.

“As the Human Resources Manager for Niagara Thermal, my initial experience with Talmax was a little different.  I was a candidate, looking to relocate.  I found the job I currently hold on Indeed and in order to apply for the position, I had to go through the Talmax online application process.  I was very impressed.  It was very streamlined and allowed questions to be asked of me as an applicant that gave me insight into the company’s personality.

 Now that I am the HR Manager at Niagara Thermal, I regularly see how our Talmax Career Site and the Talmax candidate screening tools help us identify and screen people for jobs at all levels in our company.  I like Talmax because it works, it helps me lower our recruiting costs and it saves my staff a whole lot of time while increasing the efficiency of our operation. 

 If you have any specific questions about Talmax, just give me a call.  You can reach me at 716-297-0652 x242 during regular business hours (EST).”

John Grubb, Human Resources Manager, Niagara Thermal Products

We’re looking for 100 companies that could benefit from a six month free use of a Talmax Career Site.

Today, The Sourcerer is celebrating.

We recently put the finishing touches on an update of our website and have completed a number of significant changes and upgrades to our Talmax Career Site SaaS software. 

We are enthusiastic about the results of these efforts because we listened, very carefully, to the users of our Career Site product. The changes we have completed make that product even easier to use and, we think, more effective for the user.

A Talmax Career Site and automated candidate screening tools can plug right into a company’s existing website. The Career Site becomes the primary vehicle a company can employ to attract and screen candidates for every type of job from blue-collar to high-level executive.

Now we would like to roll this new SaaS software product out to small to mid-sized companies for a final critique before we begin a massive marketing program.

That is where you come in.  We are looking for 100 companies that could benefit from a six-month free trial of a Talmax Career Site. 

The user gets to experience ALL the features and benefits of this “plug-in” career site for a full six months, including all the candidate-screening tools.  There is NO obligation to buy anything.  All we ask is that the user completes a brief survey at the end of the six months to let us know what he/she thought about the product. 

If you and/or someone you know want to particpate, full details can be found at:  www.talmax.com/nocharge  Simply click on the red starburst.  It’s just that easy.

The Sourcerer thanks you for giving Talmax a hand.

And now a Blog entry that’s just for fun.  The following are Dictionary definitions that you may not have previously heard:

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS: The process by which certain people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what is going on.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato

SITCOMS: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiney.

XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s work place

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the “rank and file”. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were created to solve

404: Someone who is clueless. From the World Wide Web error message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested document could not be located

OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake

WOOFYS: Well Off Older Folks.

To finish up, how about a few “gems” found on recently submitted resumes…

“Education: College, August 1880-May 1984.”
“Work Experience: Dealing with customers’ conflicts that arouse.”
“Develop and recommend an annual operating expense fudget.”
“I’m a rabid typist.”
“Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain operation”

 If you have some “gems” of your own from resumes you’ve received or a definition for our modern-day dictionary, please share your submittal!

This week I stopped at my local Home Depot store to get a couple of extra keys made and I got to talking with the clerk who was taking care of my order. I asked her if she liked working at Home Depot, expecting her to say something kind of “vanilla” about working in retail where the hours are tough and the pay is generally low.

Well, you should have heard this woman…she went on and on about how great the company was, how much she liked her job, her co-workers, the benefits, the way she was treated by her boss, etc, etc. I found myself taking a whole new attitude toward this company after that conversation.  And that got me thinking further…

Wouldn’t it be great to capture the enthusiasm of happy, satisfied employees and place their comments on your company’s career site so that candidates could see and read the reasons why they should consider your company as a potential employer!  Not the marketing hype from your sales department or ad agency, but the honest comments of real employees. 

No matter how high the unemployment rate is, finding truly talented personnel is difficult, to say the least.  Why not let your own employees help by giving interested candidates reasons to consider your company as their next employer?

Consider including the positive comments of one or two people from within the actual department or area where you have a new job opening.  You may find that doing so will encourage top talent to apply.

What do you think…

Candidates often ask questions of recruiters on issues about a new job possibility that range far beyond the scope of the job responsibilities, salary and benefits.  Top tier job seekers want to know:

• What’s the company like?
• How many employees do they have?
• How many people work in the department I’m applying to?
• What’s the working environment like?
• Can you tell me about the company’s culture?
• Do they have much turnover?
• Why is the job open?
• Is there a clear career path in this position?
• Do they promote from within?
• What kind of opportunities are there for advancement?

Candidates who are interested in career growth want to know so much more than a typical job description will tell them.  You can use your Career Site to present this type of ancillary information. Information that can increase the interest a highly qualified candidate may have in your organization.

It’s up to you to create the “sizzle” that will help convince that “just right” job seeker to pursue your company.  There are lots of topics you can include on a well designed Career Site including:

• Employee testimonials (VERY effective)
• A company events calendar 
• A diversity policy statement
• Employee photos
• List of charitable events in which the company & employees particpate
• Company vision or mission statement
• Comments from satisfied customers

Use your imagination to create a Career Site that will appeal to the level of candidates you want to attract to your company.  Whether unemployment is at record highs or is incredibly low, finding  top talent is always difficult.  Sell the reasons why your employees like working at your firm.