Honey, will you employ me?
Posted by Kyle Callahan on Wed, Apr 28, 2010
In honor of my third wedding anniversary this month, I thought I’d make an analogy: Trying to find the ideal candidate is kind of like trying to find a wife.
To all the lovely women out there, please bear with me.
When it comes to getting married, there seems to be two kinds of women: those who spend way too much time thinking about the prospect, and those who don’t — of course, there are also only two kinds of men in the world: those who are dumb enough to think there are only two kinds of women, and those who venerate the magical complexity that is the female condition; the latter wouldn’t dare to simplify the richness of that experience, unless of course, it was for the benefit of a possibly useful analogy; but I digress.
The women in the first group may not have a boyfriend (or a girlfriend, depending on their preferences), but they do subscribe to bridal magazines, they do build playlists on their computers with all the songs they might use for the first dance, and on the weekends, they actively source their local bakeries for potential cake designs. And when these women find themselves in a conversation with a person that comes close to matching their ideal husband (or wife), they stop paying attention to the ebb and flow of the moment and instead, start imagining the way their families will interact on the dance floor.
These kinds of wedding-seekers are the active candidates, the ones whose every focus is on finding the right partner for them.
If you’re an employer who wants to get in front of this audience, the process is easy. It’s all just a question of research. You define your target audience, discover where they are in the marketplace, and then make sure your message is there too. If I was a single guy looking to score a wife, I’d figure out where my preferred group of women hang out (coffee shops and bookstores), and then get myself there.
Employers interested in reaching active candidates should have a marketing plan that includes the main job boards, some niche job boards, maybe some alumni career networks, LinkedIn.com, etc. And because over 300 million people a month start their job search on Google (as opposed to 10 million on Monster), your plan should also include Search Engine Optimization for the career pages on your website, which will drive a share of those 300 million directly to your online postings.
In addition, depending on your needs and the number of openings, you may consider having a presence at some of your local job fairs, or possibly even hosting your own.
Of course, there’s always the recruitment advertising equivalent of running a single’s ad in your local newspaper, but in most cases (recruitment or otherwise), classified ads won’t get the quality of candidate you desire.
Then there’s the other kind of women, the ones who don’t stress out about winning a mate. These women are a bit more relaxed about the future—they’re not unambitious; they just don’t get worked up about it. It’s not that these women don’t want to get married to the right person; it’s that they believe the right person is bound to happen along one day.
These women are analogous to the passive candidates, and wooing them is a delicate process.
Finding them starts the same way as finding active candidates: by researching who they are and where they go. The difference is the way in which you approach them. Passive candidates aren’t chomping at the bit for a new career, so you gotta be smooth and seductive. You have to get them to imagine how much better their life will be if they partner up with you. You have to demonstrate how your organization can help them take their career to the next level, and show them why your opportunity is so much better than any of the others that might happen along. You gotta get them to not only pay attention to your offer, but also to select it: to say “yes.”
Whatever you do, you gotta do it smooth. You gotta woo. Because the passive candidate hasn’t been waiting their whole life for you to come along. They’ve been too busy living their lives instead.
Is it any wonder that employers prefer to recruit passive candidates? Something about their self-assuredness just makes them so…seductive.
Happy anniversary honey. And thanks for saying “Yes.”