Executive Grapevine, May 2006

Betty Thayer is Chief Executive of exec-appointments.com.

There are few companies who do not have some way for graduates to find out about employment opportunities online. The recruitment cycle at this end of the market is well developed, structured and highly competitive. But for experienced talent the landscape is patchy, with a minority using the internet to their advantage. Unfortunately for many their process does more harm than good.

Find out for yourself. Ask someone you know, who has probably not visited your site before, to visit your website and find the ‘careers’ section. Assume they have 10 years of experience and are interested in seeing what kinds of roles are available in your company. How long did it take to find the careers area? Once they arrived, were they able to quickly find experienced roles versus more junior ones. How easy was it to find the jobs? Assuming they get this far (and we have seen many sites that are almost impossible to navigate to this point) how do they find a job they are interested in? What does the application process entail? Is time being wasted? Is the potential candidate frustrated? Or are they whipping through in no time?

Once a job is identified, how complicated is the application submission process? Is it tailored to a senior audience or is it just a re-hash of the graduate format? Once an application and CV have been submitted, then what? Is there confirmation that the application has been delivered? How long do you take to process the application to the first stage?

Back

Finding great candidates for your roles is like fishing. You can have very expensive equipment, perfect weather, lots of fish in the water, just the right bait. You hook a big one, reel it in, but at the last moment it drops off the hook. All that effort wasted. And in the case of recruitment you also have lost and annoyed an excellent candidate. (The fish, on the other hand, is relieved!)

As a rule of thumb your online process for experienced candidates, from finding your website to submitting an application and/or CV, should take no more than 10 minutes. Ask your IT department to monitor your process for a month. How many visitors start the process and then drop out, never returning to complete their application? How long are they spending on average? Of those who finish, what percentage are right for your requirements? How many get to the offer stage? If you are like most companies the outcome will be in single digits.

exec-appointments.com is increasingly being asked by corporate clients to manage their experienced candidate online sourcing process. Our site is fast, easy to use and has the ‘back office’ services that most companies require. We have over 100,000 executives registered with us. Over 10 million visitors have used the site. Perhaps you should consider fishing in our pond?

Reprinted from Executive Grapevine, May 2006