The Challenge of Finding the Ideal Candidate for Today’s Jobs
Executive Overview: With the arrival of the Internet, there has been a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data, leaving in its wake a highly inefficient sourcing process for corporations. In essence, vast and diverse amounts of information were made available online. The problem for recruiters has been the relevancy of the information or data, which has led to an overwhelming number of applicants for positions, many of which are poorly matched for the position in question. For the active candidate there is a common feeling that their applications and resumes go into “Black Holes” in the recruiting process. Meanwhile, the highly qualified candidates remain at their existing jobs, unaware that they have an opportunity to safely and privately explore their career options with the help of emerging technologies.
By Jim Hammock
The Passive Candidate
Securing candidates for “open” and “to be open” positions has never been an easy task. The most accessible candidates are many times the ones you don’t want, and the most qualified candidates are becoming more difficult to find and even harder to engage. Combine the fact that candidates, like most things, change over time in terms of their habits, motivations and desires, and it’s easy to understand why the task of finding the “right” employee is a challenging process.
I had a 16-year career at IBM during the “good old days.” I grew accustomed to full employment, great benefits, market domination and a stimulating culture. Like my co-workers at IBM and employees at other companies, I had no intention of ever leaving and had never even thought of preparing a resume.
Out of this era, where people remained employed at the same company for years before retiring there, grew the concept of the passive candidate, which can be defined as someone with a job and not looking for another. If they had a resume, it was not current. They rarely looked at the want-ads.
So what has changed?
Economic Conditions Necessitate a Back-up Career Plan
Competitive playing fields between industrial and emerging market countries are leveling. Companies perfected the art of outsourcing and off-shoring. Merger and acquisition fever heated up and remains strong today - 36 percent of firms are expecting to increase activity, 56 percent are expecting to continue M&A at the same pace as last year and only 7 percent are expecting merger activity to wane. As a result of these trends, companies today have devised ways to combine companies and show greater profits to Wall Street by reducing duplicate expenses, i.e. laying off employees. This reality rightfully scares the passive candidate.
In response to these ever-changing market conditions, the passive candidate realizes that he or she needs a Plan B - an “insurance policy” should economic or life changes push them toward another job. But how do passive candidates prepare a Plan B? Time spent leafing through the Sunday want-ads or surfing Internet sites for a job is hardly adequate preparation for the day in which you suddenly need to find a new job.
Similarly, recruiters face challenges as well in this new environment. While competition for the highly sought candidates has increased dramatically in our Global economy the active candidate is able to drown recruiters in resumes. In response to an advertisement, recruiters are many times besieged with applicants. No matter how many requirements they inserted in the job description, prospective employees applied, clogging their mailbox and ultimately their inbox. The sifting process for the ideal candidate has became daunting.
And yet current approaches to recruiting and career exploration didn’t provide the confidentiality that quiet working professionals need or the quality candidate recruiters strive for. More importantly, current approaches don’t solve the problem of drowning in waves of irrelevant information. Everyone thought the Internet would resolve this problem, but instead it has exacerbated it.
Technology Brings Relevancy to Career Exploration on the Internet
The solution to this problem has emerged in the form of technology, which is acting as a catalyst. The technology is converting the passive candidate into the quiet working professional (QWP) and, ultimately, the active candidate.
As a QWP, the employee is free to explore not only an alternative to his or her current employment but potentially several different types of opportunities and in a private and secure manner. The result of this exploration is the knowledge of exactly what opportunities exist and how the QWP would score and rank against those opportunities in the event of a sudden loss of employment. This technology is clearly available today. It takes the formerly passive candidate to one that is anonymously and privately exploring exciting new opportunities that are always in his or her control.
Why is privacy and security so important to the QWP? Spam, exposure to your current employer, and identity theft are just a few of the reasons. Industry statistics reveal that 80 percent of even the active candidates will choose to be anonymous and protect their privacy if confronted with such a choice.
Using this new technology, the QWP will create a profile for their dream job in many cases as well one or more Plan B options. The QWP is free to set up these profiles, doing so in the same secure mode. They can now pursue a job in a specific employment field, with a specific company, or in a particular geographical area. Knowing what is available and how they score and rank against these opportunities may motivate them to become active for the right position, a positive scenario for the applicant and the employer alike.
Today’s candidate has adjusted to the environment as well as emerging technology. They are either QWPs or active candidates. No matter how they are classified, they want to explore alternatives in a constant, private and secure manner, always staying in control of the process, while maintaining their options for the future
Summary
itzbig has created technology that fully leverages the Internet to provide companies and job candidates with a private, interactive sourcing network. This solves a problem for companies by trimming the amount of applicants per job to a highly qualified few. Similarly, it enables the quiet working professional to pursue his or her dream job in an efficient manner and without fear of repercussion from their present employer. itzbig’s network matches the right candidate with the appropriate position.
About Jim Hammock
Jim Hammock is Chairman of itzbig. He previously served as CEO for Hire.com, Silicon Design Labs, Silicon Compiler Systems, Unify, Coronet and Calico Technology. Hammock also sits on the board of NetStreams, Credant Technology and Maples Investments. He worked his way up in the technology world after receiving a mathematics degree from Texas A&M University at Commerce and spending 16 years in sales and marketing at IBM.