How well do you know your candidate?
So you’ve got your basics inplace, you know their credentials, checked out their employment history andhave some inclination of the grades they got a few years back. Granted, a greatstart, but enough to convince both you and the client they’re the right personfor the job? Probably not.
So where do you turn next?
Even the savviest database willonly hold a candidate profile which is reasonably dull and provides littleinsight into true candidate behaviour. But with an abundance of ‘big data’readily available online, recruiters need to harness it and turn it intosomething workable.
Social media is a greatstarting point. For one, it highlights the active and not so active jobseekers. Who are they engaging with on Twitter? Have they asked for a recentrecommendation on LinkedIn? Have they been looking at Monster? All of thesesigns segregate those who are actively looking as opposed to those who areperusing and often time wasters.
So you may have established howbest to contact them or the kind of opportunities they are looking for but whatelse can social media provide you with? Businesses want to know the sort ofperson they’re recruiting, do they like to travel or blog in their own time forexample – all of which is freely available to find online.
This information, paired withthe internal database, provides recruiters and head hunters with the necessaryinformation of when to engage. An interface between the two sets of informationcompletes the circle between internal and external and often opens up newchannels of communication – active Tweeter? Tweet them. Always on LinkedIn?Then send them a message.
There is a huge amount of dataout there, half of which is redundant but half of which is awaiting interrogation.In a competitive market where having the business edge is key, recruiters needto do all they can to obtain a true candidate profile.