We’ve got good news for you, and we’ve got bad news. The good news is the rules behind getting hired or making a great hire haven’t changed much in the past few decades—it’s still about who you know.
The bad news: thanks to social media and technology advancing the ways we communicate, companies are quickly losing the upper hand in the hiring process. Gone are the days when hiring managers and executives didn’t have to care about the candidate experience.
Welcome to the new reality—that candidate you didn’t hire or never responded back to, they’re now your consumer, your competitor, your former brand evangelist, or sometimes your new found online critic with a critical mass following. And, yes, you’d better believe they’re sharing their experiences about going through your recruitment process with their family, friends, and everyone they know (and many they don’t) through whatever channels they have available to them.
Employment conversations start long before a candidate applies to a job, they start the moment a would-be candidate is introduced to your brand and how you develop and engage that conversation could determine the level of talent you attract and retain to build your company.
Want to attract the best talent? It’s not just about how much money you throw around anymore or if you’re the biggest player on the block. And, yes, you've heard all the hoopla, there is a war for talent going on, and it's only going to get worse, so your company needs to be prepared.
Candidates want to feel respected in the recruitment process and they want to know who they’re going to work for. Company culture, environment, growth opportunities, and even out of the box incentives like team sports are all factors that job seekers want to figure out up front before they even apply.
If you want the best talent on your team, you have to cultivate the conversations early and build out the internal image of your brand externally. (If you don't have a great one, you might work on that first, before you think about adding more team members.) And, guess what, job seekers also rely on their friend’s opinions too, especially when it comes to making a new career move.
Want to be on the tip of job seekers tongues’ when sharing about great places to work? Then, you have to be active in your approach and candidate's need to know you and what your company is all about. Connecting via social media and creating active engagement via your career portals is great, and becoming a necessity. But, the best relationships are still built on a personal level, and we, at Interviewing.com, want to help Chicago businesses to create these opportunities with their talent communities.
Forget some of the old methods you grew up with, we’re taking a new approach to the typical job fair and launching our first “Interview Social” event on November 15th. The event is part job fair, part networking, and all about creating connections and having fun in the process while building your talent communities and brand advocates (who can be great referral generators!) When you need to make a hire, we want you to have the right network at your side to get you closer to bringing your team member on board, faster, more easily, and hopefully with a smile.
We’ve already had some fantastic sponsors jump on board, including our Premier Sponsor RIVS, who is offering a free trial month of service of their recruitment software to participating companies, as well as our Silver Sponsor CityStaffing.
We know it’s especially difficult for startups strapped for time and cash to devote the effort they need into building their talent communities, which is why we’re extending our early bird discount of $250 (regularly $300 to participate) to Built in Chicago member companies through Friday, November 2nd.
If you know anything about cost per hire, the cost to participate is minimal compared to the amount of talent connections you’ll make and the branding opportunity at hand. Starting in 2013 we’ll be custom tailoring unique “Interview Social” events each month so get in touch today to discuss the talent communities you need to source to fill your hiring funnel. Contact Robin at [email protected] for more information on participating in the November event (not to be missed!) or events in 2013.
Tickets for jobseekers or networkers can be purchased here: https://interviewsocial.eventbrite.com/
