Log Your Recruiting Hours – Cause Sourcing is Stopping

The obvious is coming – most people will be on the grid.

That means that the role of recruiting is going to change. Sourcing will be important, but it will continue to commoditze and gain ground in outsourcing, so the value to actual employers will decrease, which will mean that the role of the corporate recruiter will change (because it will be cheaper to outsource sourcing).

That does not mean that corporate recruiters will have to stop sourcing – so relax. It will mean they will have to start “scouting” more – see some of my other posts to understand what scouting is.

Needless to say, there are about 2100 working hours in a year, and the amount of time that your recruiter will have to source is going to decline. If you combine screening technologies and strong job descriptions / authentic brands, you will be able to control the flow of applicants predictably.

Do your leadership a favor – take some time and start logging your hours – do the exercise for two weeks:

Make a spreadsheet, list of piece of paper that has the following columns – sourcing, recruiting, staffing, scouting. At the end of each day, mark a dot for each hour your spend on one of the four categories, using the following parameters:

Sourcing – each hour you spend on the phone / net hunting for some to propose an open job to. If the activity results in actually having a conversation and pitching the job, don’t count it as sourcing, count that as recruiting.

Recruiting – each hour you spend screening or convincing someone to apply to a job or take an interview / screen with a hiring manager. Don’t count any hours where you are doing work post application for that candidate.

Staffing – this is any work that pertains to the job itself being open. Meetings with managers, offer negotiating, scheduling candidates, writing job specs, etc. Anything that you would normally do to satisfy the acquisition process. For our purposes, throw the intake meeting / initial meeting with your hiring manager in here.

Scouting – any work that you do regarding gathering intelligence, general networking, or cruising for future talent. If there is an open job, don’t count it here. If you know of an opening coming up, or always have a need and you don’t have a like job open, count that activity here.

Wait two weeks and see how you did. Then do it again. Have others do the same. Now start asking yourself and your team members and leaders if this is the work you want to focus on, and then ask if you are developing the right skills given the work you do. You might find it surprising.

Happy Friday and have a night weekend.

We can’t find the talent. Really? Try telling me that on your telegraph.

I heard that not long ago from a friend of mine. He says he hears it all the time from heads of HR. We hear it too. We both had a good laugh about it.

Google. Twitter. Facebook. Referrals. Ads. Cold calls. LinkedIn. Research firms. Telephone sourcing. We still can’t find them.

You can find them. You can’t hook them.

If you are not getting the resources above, then you have every right to complain. You should navigate the politics of getting the right resources. Tell your CEO to wake up. But if you are getting the above, you may need to come to grasp a concept that’s tough to hear. It’s not your sourcing, its your approach.

There are thousands of companies that say talent is the most important thing. They use ATS systems, careerbuilder, and have a facebook page. But what are you doing as a company to distinguish yourself from the top competitor in the market? How does David beat Goliath? Well, it’s not by slinging stones at another company’s recruiting group.

If you want to sling stones, do it on the practice range, and sharpen your marksmen skills. If your prey is farther away and less in number, makes sense right? In fact, it may be harder to be a sourcer or recruiter at a less known company then a well known one. Why? Less applicants, stiffer competition, less marketing, etc. Now I am NOT saying that recruiters at name brands are weak. Not saying that at all. But do you really think that a recruiter who worked at Google recruiting in the IT group will have the same ratio of success working for the local branch of the state university and their IT group? Chances are it’s the same talent pool. Same people. But different benefit packages. Different compensation plans. All of a sudden, the driver is placed behind the wheel of an older sports car, but this one has a stick shift, not an automatic.

The new ANSI standard for cost per hired draft was published a while back. It’s a great formula and I was happy to work on it, but here is something I was saying the whole time – the more invisible you are, the more likely your cost per hire will be higher vs. competitors. Stop benchmarking yourself against the wrong people. Did it ever occur to you that your team may need twice as much effort, resource, or training to get the same talent your competitors get because their product or value proposition is actually perceived as better? Or maybe it is better in reality. Either way…apples to apples 🙂