Unfortunately for employers, great talent doesn’t grow on trees. Highly skilled, experienced candidates with hard to find ERP skill sets can sometimes be hard to find, especially for employers who heavily rely on one main vendor with a bench.
At GlobalSourceIT our recruiters are experts in finding niche IT consultants for our Fortune 2000, Public Sector and Higher Education clients. To help shed some light on what successful recruiting looks like, I wanted to share 6 of our trade secrets.
1. Become a Boolean wizard.
General searches lead to equally generic results, and a lot of them. It is essential for recruiters to know the different Boolean search operators (AND, OR, NOT, etc), and also learn some of the detailed terms relevant candidates should have on their resumes for a particular opportunity.
Simply picking one or two buzz words that are on the job description is not going to drive the results needed for success. Keyword searches that are too basic will end up creating more work for both you and your clients. Take time to really hone your craft!
2. Use multiple sources.
The amount of data available online has made it easier than ever to find potential job candidates. Social media, internal databases and job boards aren’t the only places to find top ERP talent. Here are a few creative sourcing and pipe-lining tips:
- Talk to already deployed candidates. Successful people often gravitate to other successful people. Talk to those who you or your company have worked with previously.
- Attend industry-related events. Talent that you want to talk to are always bettering themselves. Conferences and other industry events are a great way to meet new connections.
- Get involved in online communities. Find and join groups where ideal candidates hangout. You don’t have to contribute… just be a student of the group to learn the language and find possible resources.
3. Don’t find yourself thirsty…dig a well.
Waiting until a position opens up to start your search for talent will result in you always playing catch up. Create a pipeline of qualified candidates that you can reach out to. You can do this by continually keeping tabs on quality consultants by emailing or checking in on them via social media. This creates a pipeline of sorts when new jobs come in. This is especially useful for consultants with a very unique skill set. Also, when sourcing for one position, keep quality talent in mind for future positions.
4. Leverage your applicant tracking system… but don’t depend on it.
An applicant tracking system shouldn’t be limited to just storing resumes and running reports. It is also a valuable sourcing tool. It can provide you a starting point for your search, but you must understand that it has its own limitations. Some resumes may be discarded for plagiarism concerns or because of insufficient keywords. While an internal tool might be easier, your best bet is to use multiple avenues when searching for ERP talent.
5. Don’t post and pray
While creating job posts have proven to be effective, and can attract and encourage job seekers to apply, it’s simply not enough. Job descriptions alone aren’t enough when it comes to sourcing talent -- especially when that talent isn’t actively looking for their next contract role.
Most consultants won’t actively look for their next project until the very end of their current project. When lining up their next role, they will either get calls from recruiters or search when it is absolutely necessary. That means that job posts don’t matter to them. Higher level talent want to be found and presented with opportunities… especially the quality independent consultants.
6. Looking to tarnish your reputation? Try keyword search and sending.
We work in a very niche space and our reputation means everything. If we send our clients poor candidates based on a single keyword search it would be detrimental to our business. We hear all too often that hiring managers or project leaders spend hours and days sorting through resumes. Finding and qualifying candidates and then matching them to a need is our only job. We find, qualify with a plagiarism detection software, test skills and then conduct internal interviews before they hit the clients inbox.
