Nearly every one of my clients is looking to add someone new to their team. The “go to” hiring solution for professional services is often to call a recruiter. And for good reason, the recruiters spend all year making connections and building relationships so that when you call with a hiring need, they can help. But this summer, I’ll encourage you to use your own internal connections and a bit of social media to try to fill your open position. Here’s a step by step process you can follow to use social media for experienced hires:
Deal with the internal politics. First, and perhaps most importantly, post the position internally. You never know who may want to slide sideways or work their way up into the exact position you have open but they don’t say anything because you didn’t ask. It’s best to know and address the qualifications of any internal candidates head-on on rather than deal with the gossip and rumors on the back-end when someone feels snubbed.
Find out who knows who. When you announce the new position internally, remind your staff of your “new hire bonus” and encourage them to think about who they may know that might be a good fit for the position and the firm. Post the job description to the careers section of your website so that employees can send a link to their contacts.
Using LinkedIn Step 1. LinkedIn is going to be your best source of new candidates. Create a post on your LinkedIn Company page and link to the careers section of your website. Then encourage everyone in the firm to “like” or “comment” on that post so that it reaches as many people as possible. If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, post it there as well, and encourage staff interaction.
Using LinkedIn Step 2. Now use LinkedIn to do an “advanced search” for people who may be qualified candidates for your open position. You can use criteria such as “keyword”, “Greater Boston”, “industry”, “title” etc to narrow your results. You can also choose to only look at 1st and 2nd connections so that you will only get results for people you know or who are in your direct network. Ask everyone in the firm to do this search and let you know who might be a good match. When you have a list of potential matches, review the options and start making phone calls.
Be your own recruiter. This is where the rubber meets the road. You all know your employees are getting daily calls from recruiters. Well, today that call is coming from you. Based on your LinkedIn research, whoever has the best relationship with the potential candidate is going to call to try to start a conversation. Since this person is not a recruiter, you’ll want to give him/her some direction (coaching) on what to say and what the goal of the call is. Basically, you just want to make the potential candidate aware of the open position, gauge his/her interest in making a move, and ask if they might have any friends who may be interested if they are not. Send a link to your job description on the website.
There are some experts out there who have warnings to share on this topic: You may get someone who will interview only to find out what salary you are offering even though they have no intention of moving (perhaps as a negotiating tool to get a raise from their current firm) or you may find that someone has no loyalty and will also accept phone calls for new job offers when they join your firm. Both of these are legitimate concerns. But if the alternative is to look at only those people who are available (not employed) then you have a different set of concerns to address – the underlying reason of why they were let go when we all know how hard it is to find good people!
Respect the process. This process takes time. If you’re not using a recruiter because you want to save money, then you have to realize that you are investing in a different way – internal resources. Put one person in charge of this process and give them an idea of what your expectations are in terms of time spent and reporting. Also, know when to “pull the plug” and let the experts take over. If you need your new employee to be ramped up and ready to go for a deadline or busy time, then you have a finite window of time to spend on this initiative. Summer is a great time to hire people, but matching schedules when people are taking vacations can be especially tricky.
Get ready for next time. You’re likely hiring a Millennial or Gen Xer for your open position. Understanding what is appealing to these groups is important. 100% of your candidates will look at your website before coming to interview. You probably wouldn’t hire someone who didn’t! This is why the careers section of your website needs a boost. Enlist the help of your staff and managers and give them a long leash. iPhones take better than decent videos so let them interview each other on what it’s like to work at your firm, what kinds of clients they work with, what firm related social activities they like most, etc. Let them post photos from around the office, summer outings or even pub crawls (perhaps ones from earlier in the evening!). Add testimonials or short quotes that give the reader an idea of the culture of your firm so that candidates can assess whether what you have to offer is a good match for them. There will be candidates who can do the work, but would not mesh well with your team. You’re better off learning that sooner than later even if it feels disappointing in the short-term.
Communicate and celebrate! If you use this method, share your progress and your success with the whole firm. It will be motivating for the next time you need to hire someone.
As it is with business development, new hires are something that should be on your agenda all year. It’s difficult to go from zero to one hundred overnight. If you have a spreadsheet of people who fit common profiles in your firm, you won’t have to start over each time.