I wish my friend and colleague Heather Huhman had launched
her new business, Come Recommended, before I published my recruiting and
retention primer Success for Hire, as it certainly would have been incorporated
in my list of must-have hiring resources.
Come Recommended is a web service in which job candidates build profiles
that include at least three recommendations.
Employers can review these recommendations before deciding whether to
pursue a candidate further. In other
words, it saves them a step.
I
remember feeling so frustrated that I had just spent 45 minutes of time on this
candidate—not to mention the time sifting through all the applications—that I
could have been billing to clients. There had to be a better way. Many experts now claim traditional online job
boards are dead. They have become behemoths, bogged down by fake or misleading
job ads and résumés of unqualified candidates. And although I encourage
candidates not to leave combing the job boards out of their search plan, that
action alone simply isn’t enough anymore.
The
way hiring managers seek out and employ individuals is changing—rapidly. With
the slumping economy, they are experiencing cuts in their staffs, resources and
overall budgets. Now, networking, referrals and references reign supreme.
Welcome to what I call “recruiting 2.0.”
Being
a member of the Come Recommended community can only help you -so if you’re job hunting or think you might
be in the foreseeable future – set up your profile today.
What a great idea! Having testimonials to show a future employer is always ideal, but it's hard for employees to pull good ones out of a performance review. This ensures that a person's recommendation is written and posted in context.
Posted by: Charlotte Weeks | June 15, 2009 at 02:43 PM
Sounds to me like we're moving back to authentic networking again. Only one step more to face-to-face recommendations. Historically, that has been the modus operandi for jobs.
Posted by: Dan Erwin | June 17, 2009 at 10:18 AM
@Dan: But what about the fact that this allows you to read references electronically, rather than call someone on the phone? It seems to me that we're moving in the opposite direction (not that it really matters all that much at this stage of the screening process).
@Charlotte: Great point. It's always a good idea for performance to be documented.
Posted by: Alexandra Levit | June 18, 2009 at 02:14 PM
Recommendation idea is really good! Though I believe in assessment tests too. You know our clients have actually saved their time and appreciate the whole screening procedure. To know what our clients say about us: http://www.hirelabs.com/testimonials
Posted by: Jennifer | July 01, 2009 at 04:49 AM
@Jennifer: Great to be aware of your firm as a resource. People are always asking me, so thank you!
Posted by: Alexandra Levit | July 03, 2009 at 04:43 PM