10 tips to keep down the cost of recruiting

The whole job recruitment process is very expensive: the cost to post the jobs, the cost to contact candidates, the cost to fly them in (or the warm fuzzy feeling that it gives your candidates when you tell them you can't/won't pay), and then the cost to close the recruitment. And the cost we sometimes avoid: when we have to repost the position and go through the same thing all over again.

Here are some tips to keep down the cost of recruiting:

1. Post the job on your website and make your job page into an RSS feed. Obviously, people who want to work for your library can subscribe to that feed, but you can also submit the feed to vertical search engines like simplyhired or indeed.com. If they include your feed in their database, you can get greater exposure on the aggregator.
2. Distribute via listserve and newsletters. Most people are doing this, but sometimes they forget, or they just blindly send the information to the library school recruitment office. Yes, you should send it to them, but don't put something like, please post. Please post where? Get it on the student listserve, and ask if they can distribute it to the local professional listserve. If they have a newsletter, including the alumni newsletter, ask if your vacancy can be advertised there as well. Always include a closing date: if you don't, it's your own damn fault that they keep calling.
   
3. Stop printing the resumes that come in. Do you really need a paper copy of all of the resumes that arrive? You're just being hidebound if you said yes. Now is the time to start reading on a screen and making your comments with the comments feature, or making your notes in a separate document. Take your laptops into the room when you interview. No, really, it isn't intimidating. We know what computers look like, and we want you to save some trees.
4. Interview with Skype or MSN messenger and a webcamera. Do not incur any additional long distance fees. Yeah, yeah, you've already paid for the long distance charges. Are you getting the most out of the long distance fees, or do you only rarely make long distance calls--except during recruiting season? 
5. Have you thought about interviewing in Second Life? How about having a recruitment event, including virtual interview rooms, in SL? I think results have been mixed when using SL to recruit, but it is a way to have an information night outside of the conference season. You can also make a machinima of your talk and post it on YouTube--and with an avatar, you don't have to worry that you look splotchy, only too furry.
6. Do they need to come in for a presentation? Can they post the presentation on YouTube--or can they mail in a disc with the presentation? There's still a grey area around the appropriateness of using internet video in recruiting, but if you have already seen the candidate over the web cam, you know what they look like. Ask them to post their talk on YouTube and allow them to take it down within ten days. Personally, I like the disc option better, but you also have to destroy the discs--no uploading without permission, no matter how hilarious they are--when the recruitment period is over.
   
7. How many rounds of interviews do you really need? Three or more? C'mon. This is just prolonging the agony of the candidates--meaning they could get snatched up while you shilly-shally--and taking people away from other library work. Librarians need jobs, not a thousand interviews.
8. Do proactive hunting. You could post a job and wait for candidates to come--and you could make a list of librarians in your area, who you found via Google and invite them in for an interview. Even better, start handing out your business card at local library meetups and make sure they write down your job feed on the back of the card. They will still have to follow the rules to apply, but why not make use of the pool who is currently available? Also known as networking, which both employers and job seekers could make better use of.
9. Repost, but ask your second and third choices back. You put them on the list for a reason, and they are still pretty high on your list. In some cases, number 2 just missed being number 1 because they had less experience in one area than you thought you wanted.
10. Ask the successful candidate about how he/she found out about the position.Why was this campaign successful? Do you really know which strategies worked in the past, or are you just doing the same thing over and over because this is how you have always done it? Take a poll right now amongst the people who have worked for you for less than 3 years and find out how they heard about the job. Put your money and effort where you found the majority of your successful candidates.
    

If the cost of recruitment can go down, you can use the money for other aspects of HR, like training or extending contracts.You can also streamline the recruitment function by keeping notes on what worked, also known as "best practices". Bring some evidence-based tactics to your recruitment process.

How do referral programs work?

There is a post on ERE.net today about getting more bang for your buck out of referral programs on college campuses. If you aren't sure what a referral program is, here is how it works:

• Your friend or family member works for a company that regularly disseminates job postings throughout the company--or they make a habit of checking an internal job board with offerings.
• There is a notice that the employee will get a referral bonus if a candidate that they recommended for the position applies, interviews, receives an offer and accepts a job. The referral bonus is usually cash and can range from $50 to $2000, depending on the position and how hard it is to staff. (If you know anyone in nursing, they are bombarded with offers).

Just to be clear, the referrer gets the bonus, not the person that was hired--but once the new hire is on staff, they can start sending out postings to their friends and family.

If you are looking for work in special corporate library, or an information position with a corporation, you need to talk to your friends about where they are working and ask them to include you in the postings they send out to friends and family. If they don't know what you do, or what you want to do, explain what you are looking for. Take a look at their company's website and get an idea about the types of positions that they post by what you can definitely do and what you could kinda do.

There are a few reasons to be wary of these referrals: if you blow off the offer, will your friend be mad? Maybe. It could also take time for the bonus to pay out--up to six months in some cases, and usually not before your probationary period ends. But this is a good way to get job postings delivered to your in-box, and if it all works out, your friend might be very very happy. And you'll be employed.

Check out the H3 network to get an idea about how this service might work on the web. I received a recommendation to use this service from someone on LinkedIn, and though I haven't found anyone for a position, I am still hoping it might work for people in my network.

I also feel like I am referring people (I'm your really weak tie) to postings when I put up the Yahoo! Pipe for library jobs and the Career Jet widjet, though I don't expect any back scratching for it.