An interesting post by Vanessa Dennis prompts this question.
Collaboration has broken out with several large corporations who apparently receive substantially more resumes than they can use. Rather than let the less-than-best-fitting sit, they are offering them to a select group of peers. No recruiting agency has access.
It would be interesting to hear about:
- The business model and how ROI will be measured:
- How much of this is viewed as corporate altruism and what brand impact will this have?
- How are the candidates directed to the joint portal? What sort of actions trigger the communication (assumed that it’s by email)?
That’s AllianceQ. How about our firms? What are we doing with candidates who don’t fit our current list of openings? To hear it from candidates, they rarely hear… anything from the companies they apply to.
We can unceremoniously make little changes that will have huge impact on our companies’ employment brand:
- Make a commitment contact and close out candidates when they are no longer viable for your openings. Commitment first, logistics second.
- Put the logistics into place and train to your commitment. For us, our ATS enables any candidate who applies to check their status. This is helpful at a basic level.
- When you first meet your candidates, message to them your organizations selection process including how they will close out. This sets expectations for the candidate and does obligate you to follow through.
- How you communicate the expectations should be at multiple touch points or mediums: verbal, website, email. My team verbally closes out candidates. There is more emotion, true. It is more time-consuming, true – but it was the commitment we made to our organization.
- Related to item #1, contact and close out all employee referrals. For most, this is their largest, best source of candidates. Spare no effort to do right by them.
- Think beyond recruiting. How can these candidates, who will not be hired (either now, maybe never), turn into customers? Discuss it with your marketing team. Thought needs to be given on messaging etc., but if you’re with a consumer-facing organization, consider it. Master Burnett presented about adding CRM to your ATS at a recent conference with a specific mentioning of SugarCRM.
Do you have other ideas to share? Please do. Applicants aren’t leftovers. 8~)
Photo – Julia K/ Doggie bag
