Relationship Matters

What value is there in improving the relationship between recruiters and potential candidates? HRM speaks with ERE’s Todd Raphael to find out.

ERE.net - from email-based forum to major recruiting network

“One of the things our website does is give people a sense of perspective. It helps them not to freak out”
-Todd Raphael of ERE.net

When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September of this year, recruiters were working the phones and contacting candidates almost immediately. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, that it is now possible for recruiters to develop enough of a relationship with potential candidates that they can actually outpace their peers when something like this happens. Or perhaps it hints at just how deep the roots of the war for talent go, indicative of the sheer need for skilled workers who suddenly find themselves victims of cutbacks or – in the case of Lehman’s ­– inexplicable loss. Perhaps it’s both

One thing that is certain is the recruiting world is not the same today as it was several years ago. It is no longer enough to let the candidates come to you. Securing the best of the best isn’t a passive activity – it requires a driven strategy that is both proactive and creative. Todd Raphael, Editor in Chief at ERE, agrees: “Despite the slowdown in the economy, it’s still hard to find top talented people. A lot of the unemployed are people with the wrong skills for a lot of the recruiters that we work with. And with college graduates, who in many cases are the ones our people looking for leaders desire most, the unemployment rate is as low as 2.4%.”

And for jobseekers, the recruitment process is just as competitive as ever. “Candidates often don’t know if their resume was ever received,” says Raphael. “They have a hard time figuring out whether the job was filled by someone else, or even if it was filled at all. The hiring process is simply a black hole to many.” Raphael certainly has a point; but does he think that there is a responsibility of potential employers to let candidates know this sort of information? “There are some companies out there who are starting to put a very good overview of their hiring process online,” he explains, saying he thinks this is a good idea. By allowing potential employees to see that the hiring process is now, say, at the second interview stage, they can see that if they haven’t been asked back then they’re not in the game anymore. However, Raphael says that most companies are still not doing a very good job of communicating with jobseekers, despite the technology clearly being there to make this much-needed communication a reality.

To say technology plays a crucial role in the recruitment process of today is something of an understatement. Just a quick look at the history of ERE itself tells you that much. Founded in 1998, ERE was created as a ‘personal mission’ when CEO David Manaster saw a need for a valuable online community, where best practices could be shared and recruiters could learn about the latest industry trends. What began as a small online community now has more than 95,000 unique visitors each month. 20 years ago, networking on this scale just wasn’t possible because the technology simply wasn’t there.

Raphael, who has been with the company for three years, works on, as he puts it, “a little bit of everything.” Having previously worked for the Workforce Management publication for eight years, at ERE he helps put together conferences, the print publication The Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership (which goes out to senior recruiting leaders at mainly large and medium companies) and the ERE email newsletter. He is clearly a busy guy, regularly blogging and adding content to the ERE network. And with so many users and contributors on the site, there is clearly a need for this sort of dialogue. “One reason I think this space is so important is because recruiters can often feel more of a kinship with those who don’t necessarily work at the same company as them, but maybe work for their competitors. Our site often finds recruiters commiserating with, debating with and sharing with one other because many feel there aren’t places in their own companies where people understand them or their challenges.”

Resources and technologies that are at recruiters’ disposal often dictate these challenges. Perhaps by utilising these resources to their full capacity, recruiters will see real ROI and be able to leverage a degree of business success. “It’s funny, because I was thinking about it and I don’t actually get excited by the technology itself,” says Raphael. “I’m more excited about how a company is using the technology.” For Raphael, an example would be how a lot of companies are using videos on their career websites, where they discuss career opportunities at the organization. “That’s not exciting to me because it’s a video, but it is exciting when a company is able to accurately, honestly and engagingly get employees excited about what it means to work there. That’s a great use of technology.”

There are also a number of companies that are trying to better match jobseekers and employers. As Raphael notes, “Instead of just sifting through resumes, these companies are generating an algorithm that will tell you how good of a fit the candidate is for your job. And those kinds of technologies have a lot of potential.”

Lost and found

It goes without saying that, with the economic climate’s current state, ‘potential’ is needed. However, Raphael thinks that the media’s focus on the recent torrent of job losses is making the problem seem worse than it is. “One of the things our website does is give people a sense of perspective. It helps them to not freak out.” He means that people can go on the site and see how many companies are actually still hiring, allowing users to then feel a little more optimistic. The reality is that there are plenty of job opportunities out there. There’s a discussion on the website right now about how people feel the media might have overblown this crisis.

“There have been times when the stock market has gone way down on a Monday, but by the end of the week it’s been back up to where it started,” says Raphael. “But I’ve overheard conversations about how the stock market had plummeted so much in that week. Those conversations are wrong. It had not. It’s because of the headlines: the day stocks went down, the headline was so much larger than the other brief, little stories about stocks going up.” What’s more, while Raphael acknowledges the unemployment rate is by no means perfect, he does believe that sites like ERE will allow people to realize that there is still a plethora of opportunity out there.

For Raphael the focus remains on the value of recruiters’ relationship with jobseekers. “Right now, just being able to find someone who’s valuable is great,” he says, “but as it gets easier and easier to find people online, that value in just finding a name is likely to go down.” As Raphael explains, a couple of years ago, if a recruiter wanted to find a candidate it could take them a lot longer than today. Now, if they want to find a particular jobseeker they can see them all over the place – from personal social networking sites like Facebook, to professional business sites like LinkedIn. “I think the value in that contact’s name, or contact information, is going to go down,” says Raphael, believing that the value in the relationship between fellow jobseekers and their recruiters will go up instead. “In the past, people have been more impressed that you have 5,839 contacts on LinkedIn, well, I think people are starting realize – ‘Who cares?’ Why do I care if you email 5,000 strangers and convince them to be your friend on LinkedIn? It doesn’t really matter that much. But if you actually know them, that matters.”

When looking at the world of recruitment, taking a leaf out of Manaster’s book may be the correct approach: instead of waiting for a community to take shape around you, take hold of the reigns and create it yourself. Raphael agrees that the key lies in getting involved and adding value to the relationships of those you network with. Perhaps then the recruiting game won’t be the black hole he speaks of, but a gateway to real opportunity.

Casting the net

Highlights of ERE over the last decade
January 1998 – Founder David Manaster creates ERE
March 2001 – Hosts the first annual ERE Expo Conference with over 600 recruiters in attendance
September 2003 – ERE network launched as the first online professional network exclusively for recruiters and HR professionals
November 2005 – Hosts the first annual Global ERE Expo in Brussels, Belgium
November 2006 – Purchases the most widely read third party newsletter in the industry – The Fordyce Letter
February 2007 – Launches its much-anticipated free Webinar series
September 2008 – ERE has over 58,000 members and contains thousands of pages of content relating to recruiting