Press Release
Making Sure Applicants Measure Up

Recruitment Extra, November / December 2004

Despite the increasing challenge of finding quality hires in today's market, the struggle doesn't stop once job applications start hitting the desk. In fact, for many employers and recruiters, this is when the real challenge begins. As tempting as it may be to assume that any available candidate in today's market is a good candidate - it would be foolish to believe it. Validating or qualifying candidates against specific job criteria is crucial to successful placement. On the one hand we need clients to be liberal with their selection and consider a profile that may not sit exactly within the 'skills box' in favour of a better cultural fit, yet on the other hand candidates still need to be measured in terms of their suitability and effectiveness in a potential role, through various tools such as testing, reference checking, psychometric measures and in some cases beyond.

As our use of the internet supersedes print advertising in the pursuit of attracting a quick response, the emphasis has shifted in recent times to, away from quantity and towards quality, seeing many suppliers, particularly the job boards firmly ensconced in finding solutions to further fine tune results. All you need to do is take a look at the job board marketing campaigns right now to see that they are all busy turning their original promise of delivering the highest number of responses on its head with the latest catch cries of key word searches that serve to screen job seekers in or out, (depending on how you look at it). The use of applicant tracking systems are also on the increase with recruiters now able to ask specific questions of respondents in order to rank them accordingly and probe beyond the statutory information detailed in CVs.

Ed Coleville, business Development Manager of Recruit Advantage, pioneers of the recruitment system Turbo Recruit, is passionate about the developments that technology is allowing the industry to make. The company acts as an intermediary between job boards and clients and boasts a product called Artificial Intelligence that uses lines of questioning directed by the client to hone in on an applicant's relevant skills or experience. The product also automatically accesses the internal database for any already-registered suitable talent. While such advances are in recruitment technologies are making the lives of recruiters easier, Coleville agrees that there's still some gaps that technology simply can't fill. "It would be nice to think that candidates were applying for roles individually, roles that they really are interested in and want to get into the hiring chain for. But there's still a feeling that candidates are applying on mass in the hope that something might stick."

Elizabeth Varley, Managing Director of Sydney's Challenge Consulting agrees, adding that the industry is faced with a multitude of candidate management issues that need resolving. "The whole aspect of candidate management is now far more complex. The sheer flow of communication via candidates is far faster today - we have applicants from referrals, internet and print advertising, walk-ins and direct approaches. Obviously it's important that all those applicants, good, bad, or indifferent, leave us with a positive experience - that takes an awful lot of communication from us in return," says Varley.

Recruitment companies are, though, becoming more mindful of the value in handling candidate flow and recording exactly where it's coming from. Coleville can quite easily show me the breakdown of candidate response to an advert against every job board used and perhaps more interestingly the client's own internal database. "Internal databases are slowly becoming more useful in the recruitment process. They have always been defined as one of the most important tools a recruiter can have and yet they are typically one of the most under-utilised resources the industry has. Often all they contain is an amalgamation of years of candidates who have applied for roles and for the large part it's a hit and miss approach."

While some in the industry are making use of every resource available to track and manage candidate response, others we spoke to are having just as much success with their own systems and are reluctant to invest in applicant tracking systems or software systems that often don't; answer all of their needs. There is one point, though, that everyone is i8n agreement on; candidate education. Few candidate are really aware of what happens behind the scenes af5er an application is made. Even fewer still are in the habit of tailoring CVs to suit the role they desire or highlight their skills and attributes clearly. So how can recruiters ensure that candidates measure up when it comes to meeting a job brief?

• Communicate with candidates via newsletters, emails and telephone conversations as to what works and what doesn't work in a CV
• Ask clients to get involved in the advertising process and contribute to ad content where possible
• Utilise systems that enable open-ended questions and probe candidates for more information
• Keep copies of ads that have been particularly successful in drawing the right response and compare the content and information shared with those that were not so fruitful
• Always measure and record which resource (print advertising,. Online advertising, referrals and internal database) is pulling the best results
• Hold candidate get-togethers that encourage communication about the job search process and take the opportunity to educate candidates about how you want them to approach a job application
• Talk to suppliers, software providers and job boards about what it is you need and how you want candidates to behave online.