Thursday, December 21, 2006

getting references from strategic partners

I am a firm believer that referrals are the most targetted form of obtaining the right candidate. The chances of getting that right candidate is much much less thru any other forms of search - be it job sites, advertisements or mass mailing....

a reference is an emotional connect - which is win in nature - and hence there are very few people who donot respond to the same....

i came across a neat blog on referral marketing .....recommended reading ..here's the link...
http://blog.referralflood.com/

one of the ideas that that the author propogates is to search for references from amongst your strategic partners ....those with whom you share a common clientele....

for example lets look at "job sites" - for them attracting great resumes and hence building a database is the foundation of success. This is precisely what a recruiter also does - creating great databases by getting in touch with good candidates - so as to fill positions

collaborating with job sites is a 'win-win'...while advertising on job sites is passe....what is innovative is referral advertising ...
Recruiters could post jobs and also provide an interface by which candidates are encouraged to refer other candidates
so whenever you advertise a job on the job site...also have an icon allowing the candidate to refer his/her friend....of course donot forget to mention the goodies the referring individual can get ....

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

More referral ideas

i think there is no dearth of ideas that one can implement as far as acquiring references are concerned...
some of these are
1. get references from all candidates who are going thru an assessment process at your company -- there has to be one Recruiter whose job is to get these references - it could be informal or formal like on a sheet of paper
2. for Consultancy firms always meet your candidates whenever they are going thru a job process which has been set up by you - they will be more than willing to give you references
3. have lucky dips during the assessment process (for e.g during the tests) and let the winner get a gift hamper - such people will happily give you references
4. use job sites to identify candidates whose manager you want to target but donot know the name etc.....call up such candidates and glean the contact details of their managers
5. when going to a conference be one of the first to reach the venue - normally a delegate list is available outside - get friendly with the conference coordinator and get a couple of names from him! - or memorise the names and the company from the delegate badges which are lying on the desk - waiting to be handed over to the delegates
6. talk to strategic partners - they would give you a lot of references - for e.g if you need a IT infrastructure candidate speak to your IT vendor and he would give you references of the guys he works with in other companies - at least a name ...!