Bloggers with Bite
FORE! HITTING THE BIG SHOTS IN RECRUITMENT IS EXPENSIVE In golf, the latest technological advances in equipment can earn you a lower handicap and shoot you up the rankings. In recruitment, the latest hi-tech software solutions can achieve a similar outcome, but you need to make the right choices before teeing off
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ny golfers out there? Even if it bores you rigid, you’ll know that golf is a popular game, played mainly by men in strangely-patterned jumpers and trousers. You’ll also know that it’s an expensive pastime. For example, if you live in the Home Counties, you’ll have to buy a Jaguar just to transport your clubs. Then there are the balls, tees, golf bags, Pringle knitwear, etc. Sometimes it seems golf is like recruitment — namely one vast conspiracy, that in which to succeed, you just need regularly to spend more money on shiny new things. If you don’t, your game will deteriorate, you will be shunned by your clique and your life will be miserable. And your competitors will get all the petroleum engineers. This is due to the fundamental human desire to belong. It’s why we all tend to dress the same and look askance at those who don’t (especially in a golf club). Similarly, in HR, if your competitor is developing an employer brand, then by golly, you need one too. If they are using LinkedIn’s Talent-Thingy then you don’t want to miss out. And if a salesman says he has some magic beans that will guarantee you that
Alastair Blair works as thePotentMix, an independent expert on recruitment, media and marketing. www. thepotentmix. co.uk/medianewsletter
petroleum engineer, be honest, you’ll get the chequebook out. But in the haste not to be left behind, it’s difficult to tell whether those magic beans are actually going to work. No recruiter wants to admit that their latest expensive digital purchase hasn’t covered them in glory. But like golf, it’s hard to resist the siren lure of the salesperson who promises to take five shots off your handicap — or find you that petroleum engineer. ‘Just spend five grand, madam, and your problems will be over.’ The real problem is that most HR/recruiters don’t have the information they need to decide whether this mad dash to recruitment nirvana is actually worth it. Yes, once we have bought the ‘solution’ we can measure the ROI [return on investment], the amount spent and the numbers recruited, but there is a Catch-22: you need to spend the money first. And, crucially, even if you do spend the money, your online reputation may be so crappy that your investment has no impact on those petroleum engineering vacancies. You really do need to know all the stuff swilling about in cyberspace about your recruitment efforts — and those of your competitors. Otherwise, you buy all this equipment/software, stand on the (metaphorical) first tee and blame it for not working/wonder why no one applies for your petroleum engineering jobs. What you need are some proper web analytics. They’re difficult but rewarding. Too few recruiters have much idea what is being said online about them, their social & mobile efforts, ranking on Google, or whether their competitors’ mad dash to digital is leaving them trailing. Without this information, your investment in that new ATS may just be a golf trolley that loses a wheel half way up the first fairway. Get on to Mr Google and key in ‘web analytics’. I’m off to play golf.
You really do need to know all the stuff swilling about in cyberspace about your recruitment efforts — and those of your competitors What do you think? Tell us at recruiter.editorial@redactive.co.uk
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