How to Play and Win the Recruiter’s Marketing Game

When it comes to getting that job you want, it’s all about who you know. At least, that’s what we have been told. While there definitely is some truth in this, why is recruiting a $100 billion (annual) industry (Adams, 2016)? Why do we need sites like Glassdoor? And why are we constantly bombarded in the news with how hard it is to get a great job, especially for millennials? In a recent Forbes article, Susan Adams sits down with Robert Hohman, the founder of Glassdoor, a website basically for prospective employees of different companies (2016). On the site are key pieces of information about companies – salary information, boss reviews, interview tips, company reviews, and so on (2016) – obviously, pieced of information prospective employees would find very useful. There are over 500,000 companies listed on the site, and many of the companies will pay thousands of dollars (even up to over $100K) every year in fees for what essentially enhanced marketing on the site.

However, this brings me back to my original question (reworded), why does there seem to be so much disconnect between the employment situation along with so much talk of income inequality in this country while at the same time, such massive amounts of money spent on marketing to get the best employees? It would seem true that (although less compared to the recession) there seems to be a huge supply of people seeking employment. However, it also seems true, based on the recruiting industry being worth $100 billion per year and the popularity of sites like Glassdoor, that there is a huge demand for employees. So, what is really going on here?

  1. Hiring costs are extremely high (Huan, 2013).

It is actually cheaper for companies to leave a position unfilled and spent a huge amount of money marketing to find the right employee than it is to hire the wrong employee. These costs range anywhere from the obvious such as training costs to the hidden costs such as unemployment insurance, wasted time, lost productivity, and potential lost contracts or business from clients due to experience with a bad employee (Goltz, 2011).

Practical advice to overcome this: Be a good employee. Have someone objectively analyze your strengths and weaknesses. What could you improve on? Where are you messing up? Do you need to change your attitude? Furthermore, make sure if someone is going to hire you, they at the very least believe you REALLY want to work there and are not going to be a flight risk 1 or 2 years down the line. Many hiring managers can smell this from your resume/interview thus try your best to make sure you really are a good fit for what you are applying for.

  1. Top talent is extremely hard to come by (Huan, 2013).

This is the one that gets me. It seems the main reason companies spend so much in marketing to get the best employees is because real talent is almost impossible to find (Adams, 2016; Huan, 2013; Taylor, 2016). Not everyone can be a genius, but still, why is it so hard to find good talent and what does it take to be top talent? Of course, the definition will vary, but in general, a good employee is composed of the following ingredients: ample skills, appropriate education, and outstanding experience (Huan, 2013). This seems to be the problem for millennials. I have heard it from many of my friends – how am I supposed to get all of these things? Great jobs require great education, but often the great job also requires significant experience, thus how are you supposed to get this experience if you are focused on getting the great education? It’s almost like a Catch 22.

Practical advice to overcome this: Get creative! In a perfect world, one can gain the needed experience while attending college/grad school. Whether via internship, lower level entry positions, or even volunteer work, there are ways. I know some people that started businesses while earning business degrees. I remember reading an article last week about USC Basketball player Sam Dhillon (Go Trojans!) who is not only is conducting Alzheimer’s research and planning to go to medical school, but also runs a $3 million investment company (http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/samer_dhillon_853443.html). Another piece of advice that I have heard works well is to find out the qualifications needed for your dream job years in advance and then mold your life to get the qualifications (i.e. which degree, what job to have in the meantime, who to talk to, where to live, etc…). Finally, if you are a business owner (or plan to be), another piece of advice is that of Huan’s (2013): Don’t hire the perfect candidate! You may never find them. This is not to say you should hire a bad candidate, but rather you might be better off hiring the trainable candidate – someone that may not be the perfect fit just yet, but who could easily become the perfect fit via some training and development.

  1. People are not looking in the right places.

As I mentioned above, companies are spending collectively $100 billion per year in basically marketing to get the best talent. Take advantage of this! Make sure your Linked In looks outstanding, have people objectively review your profile, use Glassdoor, use social media, talk to those connections you, your family, or friends might know, find ways to make yourself “match” with the job you really want (without going so far as to lie); in other words, be proactive! One of my friends used Linked In, created a profile that matched with the type of job he wanted to have and went from making $25,000 per year to now $80,000 per year in literally 2 years. He didn’t lie on his profile, but one of the key things he put to count as “experience” was knowledge of certain accounting programs and experience using the programs for different clients. The trick? He taught himself the programs and the clients were basically I think 2 different individuals he found online and had worked with like one weekend per month for a few years on the side. Thus, he didn’t have to lie. The point? Experience does not necessarily have to be 5 years of working 9-5 for a specific company with a specific job title.

References

Adams, S. (2016). The founder of glassdoor explains how playing world of Warcraft led him to create a company valued at $1billion. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestreptalks/2016/03/10/the-founder-of-glassdoor-explains-how-playing-world-of-warcraft-led-him-to-create-a-company-valued-at-1-billion/

Huan, L. (2013). Don’t hire the perfect candidate. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2013/01/dont-hire-the-perfect-candidat/

Goltz, J. (2011). The hidden costs of bad hiring. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/the-hidden-costs-of-bad-hiring/?_r=0

Taylor, N.F. (2016). 6 ways to ensure you’re recruiting the best talent. Business News Daily. Retrieved from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6252-tips-for-recruiters.html

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