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!

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.

If you want to attract the “right” candidates, you first need to consider your job through the eyes of the candidates you want to attract. Good candidates crave information. Great candidates make decisions about applying for a position based on the tried and true proposition of “WIIFME” (what’s in it for me).

What really interests the candidate?

• Highlights of the company’s history (brief, noteworthy pieces of data)
• Job requirements (the absolute, “MUST HAVE” requirements)
• Background/skill requirements (the “must have” only)
• Job/background preferences (it would be nice if the candidate also had…)
• Duties and responsibilities (how will the candidate will spend his/her time)
• Company “selling points” (why would a candidate want to work here)
• Job “selling points” (specifics about the “what’s in it for me”)
• Company benefits (extremely important to so many candidates)
• Relocation information (can be “broad-brushed” but candidates need some info)
• Travel requirements (how much, how often, where to)
• Compensation/bonus opportunity/overtime pay possibilities (if you can, this key component is very beneficial to include)
• Testimonials from co-workers (tidbits from satisfied, enthusiastic employees are very appealing to quality candidates)
• Information on the culture & working environment (what would you want to know about this category if you were a candidate)

 What is the best way to present this information?

• Use headlines on your job presentation to separate each category of information
• Make your headlines intriguing (for example, instead of “Company Selling Points”, call that section “Reasons why you might want to work here”)
• Use short sentences or bulleted points
• Keep your job presentation attractive but concise
• Present a picture of the company and the job that candidates can visualize
• Make an effort to tell your story in a compelling manner
• As a time saver, use a format that lets you re-use sections of your job presentation such as company history, reasons to work here, environment & culture, etc. in future job listings

Instead of requesting that the candidate e-mail his/her contact data and attach their resume, allow the candidate to apply on-line, directly from the job presentation page. Doing so encourages qualified people to apply immediately using a process that gives the company a more complete picture of each candidate and gives the candidate a positive impression of the company and of the company’s sourcing process.

To implement a sourcing system like this there are several components you should explore.

1. Flexibility – You want an automated sourcing system that allows you to define all the fields you want included on your Posting Page.  You also need to define the number of categories you want, as you will want to present certain jobs using a less comprehensive format with fewer categories while others will require a very comprehensive explanation with a lot of “sizzle”. In other words, the software must present a job the way a candidate wants to see it.
2. Ease of Use - You should be able to enter your own data without the need to involve technical support from your IT department or tech-support team. The software must be easy to understand and the navigation must be intuitive.
3. Information retention - You need to be able to re-use or change certain data in future job listings without technical support. You must be able to edit, save and archive information for future use.

 Attracting the quality of candidates your company needs and converting the best of those who apply into new employees starts here:

• Create a plan and make-up a schedule
• Select the sourcing tools that will drive candidates to your career site
• Set the bait and sell the “sizzle”

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.

 The Sourcerer received the following inquiry last week…”We are having trouble attracting candidates to our company’s career site.  Can you help? ”        

 You bet!  To solve this problem you first need to take a hard look at your current career site. The purpose of a well-designed Career Site is to save your company money. The money you save comes from cutting your recruiting costs when you have open jobs to fill. To attract the quality and quantity of candidates you need you must have a career site that:

• Attracts the caliber of people you need to hire
• Provides the kind of information that candidates want to see
• Generates sufficient traffic to satisfy your sourcing needs

 A carefully crafted Career Site can attract high caliber talent while cutting your recruiting expenses by 50% or more. 

Read more…

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…

The owner of a mid-sized marketing company recently asked if I thought posting jobs on major job boards like Monster or CareerBuilder had become a waste of time and money.  His e-mail said: “With so many people unemployed right now, I’m afraid I’m going to get inundated with unwanted and unqualified resumes if I post an opening on one of these gigantic job boards” Do I agree?

 The Sorcerer’s answer: No and here is why…

 Media guru and recruitment consultant, John Zappe, recently quoted job posting distributor, eQuest, who said that CareerBuilder and Monster are still the most requested sites for advertising job openings. Companies looking for people use these sites because that is where the vast majority of job seekers register.

Even though a candidate may sign-up on specialized and/or local job boards, that same candidate will register with one or more of the major Job Boards to be certain that he/she has the maximum amount of exposure to potential employers.

 That means that candidates, both talented and not so talented, will respond to an appealing job posting, often in significant numbers.  Recruiters, Hiring Managers and HR professionals learn to dread the affliction known as “resume fatigue” when it becomes necessary to review a large number of candidate resumes for an open position.

 Is there a solution for “resume fatigue”? 

You bet, it’s called Talmax.  Check it out!

The head of a small insurance firm recently received this e-mail from a recruited candidate: “Thank you for considering me for the Executive Director position.  While I believe I have the background in administrative and facility areas, unfortunately I do not believe I have the level of financial background that the position requires.  In the event that other positions become available, please do not hesitate to contact me again, since I would be most interested in pursuing employment with your firm, based on the detail about your company included in the Job Listing.”

The Sourcerer’s creative recruiting tip for today: When recruiting, make it a point to “sell” the reasons why qualified candidates should be interested in your company. Fortune 1000 companies regularly do this with every job opening.  On their career sites and in their job descriptions, they provide information designed to appeal to the best talent available…and that appeal does not have to tie exclusively to compensation. Sure a compensation package is important to any talented candidate; however, there are other elements of the position and other information about a prospective employer that are every bit as critical.

Quality candidates want to know about the work environment, about their co-workers and the attitude their fellow employees have about the company. Candidates want to hear about the “social” side of your workplace including things like company events and the organization’s participation in charitable activities.  Top talent needs to understand the potential career path this position could take including the advancement possibilities and the degree of responsibility they will have in the position and in the company. The appealing picture you “paint” of your company and the people who work there can go a long way in attracting and landing the best available candidates. You need to provide this information as part of your Job Listing when you are looking for the best people you can find.

I have included a link to a Posting Page that contains a sample Job Listing to show you how easy it is to create an effective presentation that sells the job and your company.

View a sample Posting Page

Today’s high unemployment numbers do not preclude your need to provide these “selling points” in your recruitment advertising if you really want to source exceptional people. Even if a top quality candidate is not interested in or not qualified for a currently open position, he/she will return to your website to review future opportunities if they find your company an attractive place to work.  You can build that perception.  In recruiting, if you “sell”, they will come.