Hold it. Did the sun come up in the West? Did the polar caps melt? The career services world just shifted, that’s for sure.
In the 10th Annual CareerXroads Source of Hire Report released this week, job boards glided into a respectable second place after referrals as the most effective job search strategy.
Nearly 90 of survey respondents attributed at least one hire to Monster during 2010. CareerBuilder is well thought of, and many niche and industry job boards are seeing large followings. Collectively, companies attributed almost 25% of external hires to job boards.
First place has long been held by referrals with 27.5%.
What is different about this year is the leap that job boards made. They have been attributed with 2% to 13% of the hires in past years, depending on who’s doing the counting and what year it was. Many, if not most career coaches and strategists have spent little time teaching job board strategy to our clients because of that low ROI.
Rightfully so, we sent them straight to the referral strategies, and frankly, I plan to keep doing that.
However, I’m also watering a healthy new crop of well-chosen job boards in the search strategy garden, and I advise you to do the same.
So, here is a summary of other important components of your job search:
Referrals are the No. 1 Source of External Hires:
Respondents attributing hires to referrals: 27.5%
Internal movement (considered a referral) is the No. 1 source of hires. Of 30 firms that tracked both internal and external sources, 50.3% of hires were filled from internal movement.
The best places to look for referrals are:
51.7% say they get 1% to 20% of their referrals from vendors, customers, and sources other than employees and alumni.
Direct Source / Recruiters
More than 88% of the firms surveyed consider social media part of their Direct Sourcing efforts, but few firms are able to track actual contact-to-hire ratios with social media.
Those cold calls you get from recruiters are considered an equally strong tool in the corporate sourcers’ kit. Recruiters are good to work with if you know the rules: They don’t work for you, and you shouldn’t be paying them. They are paid by the firm for whom they are recruiting and will put their welfare in front of yours any day. That’s not necessarily bad; it just is. As long as you know it, you won’t put yourself in the position of being taken advantage of. For the same reason, they don’t want you calling them to find out if they found a job for you. That’s not their job. If they find something that fits you, it’s in their best interest to call you, and they will. Their income depends on it.
Contracting
Respondents reporting Master Contracts with vendors to supply hourly & P/T labor: 45.7%
Respondents reporting Master Contracts with vendors to supply professional contract (Sales, IT, Engineering) labor: 65.7%
There are other strategies, and if you want to learn them all, I would be happy to talk with you about whether you and I are a good fit for a coaching team. Meanwhile, have a look at a few of these articles for a broader perspective:
How to find your ideal employer (part 4)
Simplify your job search with these 10 tools
Is your job search holding you back?
