A shift towards direct candidate sourcing has gathered pace in recent years (online job boards, Linkedin, Twitter and databases) and the larger organisations especially, with the brand profile and financial and human resource to capitalise on it, are increasingly advertising themselves and using their own methods of attracting talent.
At RK Supply Chain we find ourselves typically engaged for those harder to fill, specialist supply chain and logistics positions, operating as a search organisation, engaging our own networks and various other candidate attraction methods.
The days of recruiters just banging out an advert and sending CVs across, ultimately for a fee, are long gone (and rightly so). As the shift continues towards a specialist search outfit for supply chain roles, some have questioned the relevance and benefit, now and in future, of job board advertising altogether.
Do we advertise a role we’re working on because it’s a proven method of attracting the best talent out there, or is it more useful as a brand awareness exercise to show both candidates and clients that we have a strong presence in that recruitment space? Either way the quality of our adverts is important.
There is a strong argument that the quality of adverts written by Recruitment Consultants (and, indeed, direct employers themselves) is generally poor. I know I’m leaving us wide open for any number of criticisms of the ads we’ve currently got posted on our own web site or supply chain job boards! The usual suspects are poor spelling and grammar, lack of structure, a weak (or non existent) message. Take your pick.
What’s the ROI for posting a vacancy on a job board though? What is the point in applying you might say? If we invest as little time in writing adverts as David Cameron does in listening to Nick Clegg then do we not just get what we deserve? Well, yes we do.
But the argument of some of my colleagues is that no matter how much time and effort they have put in, the quality of response remains depressingly poor, with people applying for roles they must know they are not right for. You should hear some of the groans coming from one if my colleagues (who will remain anonymous) when they go through their ad response.
If you’re applying for a role, make sure you’ve got at least some of the key criteria the advert is highlighting. Remember – my client is most probably working with me to find the person that they’re struggling to identify through their own connections/advertising/web site. If I’m advertising for an experienced Logistics Manager in the retail industry it’s because that is what my client has engaged me for. If you’ve got one year of logistics experience in the construction industry and you send me your CV I’m unlikely to call you about that job.
By all means send me your CV through the RK Supply Chain web site, follow it up with a call, I’ll be happy to speak to you and see if we can help with other roles. My point is, if you read the ad (have you even read the ad?) and you haven’t got the right experience, then don’t waste your time and mine by hitting ‘apply now’.
The truth is, the way we operate as a business and the wide range of talent attraction and assessment we employ, advertising on job boards is only a fraction of our approach. But it remains important for several reasons to us, our candidates and our clients so let’s all make an effort to do things properly and try to cut out some of these frustrations in the future.
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