So, who do you know?

More workers landed their current job through networking than by any other means.

According to a new Hudson survey a full 73% of managers say their company considers internal candidates to fill a job opening before looking at anyone else. Specifically, 40% of managers say that internal promotions are the best way to fill an opening, followed by employee referrals and personal recommendations (24% and 20%, respectively).

The more you make, the more this appears to be the case.

Managers and others earning earn more than $75,000 per year are significantly more likely than the average worker to have found their current job through a personal or professional contact – specifically, 33% more likely for managers, 39% for workers who earn $75,000-$100,000 per year, and 36% for workers who earn more than $100,000 per year (compared to 28% for all workers).

Professional and personal contacts still give the job seeker an “in.”

• More than half (54%) of the work force is job seeking – whether actively so, or more passively (i.e., they’d leave if a good opportunity presented itself).


• 
  28% of workers anticipate switching companies in the short-term.


• Only 14 percent of workers’ resumes are available online. Among those employees, 42% believe their company has no idea that their resume is posted (41% say their employer knows).


• One-quarter (25%) of workers have worked with a recruiter or headhunter at some point.

“Hiring and retaining top talent in today’s job market is a challenge, which is only going to intensify as the pool of highly skilled professionals continues shrinking. This is why it is imperative for employers to not just react as jobs open up, but develop a formal recruitment strategy that provides a healthy pipeline of talent.”

While the survey doesn’t ask why job board applications, resume submissions, and the like are considered last, other studies have confirmed that the “resu-mess” of paperwork makes it easy for talented candidates to get lost in the shuffle.

Successful recruiting strategies to select-in more of the right candidates are derailed by the sheer volume of applicants. Sifting through the resumes takes time. Few managers, human resource professionals and assistants have the time to screen the applications, call the candidates, fight the voice mail tag, complete phone interviews, and schedule face-to-face interviews.

While attempting to disqualify the unqualified or disinterested applicants, high-demand qualified candidates are often overlooked and turned off by slow response times, cumbersome hiring hurdles, or inexperienced, and sometimes inept, interviewers.

While networking is the most common method, there is an implicit question here just begging to be asked.

Are referrals and network connections inherently superior to other methods of recruitment?

Maybe. Maybe not.

• How well does your referrer know the person that they have referred, and in what context?


• Does a contact necessarily know that this person will thrive and be successful in this particular position, or only that they are generally competent in another position?


• Is the referrer the best judge of the strengths and weaknesses of the person they refer?


• Do you have any way of knowing whether the referral is genuine (or is it just a matter of “calling in a favor”?

Whatever your talent sourcing preferences, a more formalized set of strategies is clearly needed.

• Have you created an objective job description, including the behaviors, strengths, and competencies required for success in a particular position?


• Do you have methods in place to job-match the position to appropriate talent?


• Have your streamlined your procedures so that qualified candidates have a chance to be considered?


• Do you use valid, targeted assessments to identify the most promising talent, position by position?

It pays to hire right.

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