Finding Job Candidates Through Networks?

The other day I received an email from a recruiter asking me the following question:

"I wonder if you might have any suggestions on how to reach qualified job candidates via networking. We have a few jobs for which we're having difficulty drumming up the best talent, such as a Marketing Manager for Medical Products and a PR Account Manager with real estate experience. Based on your networking expertise and variety of connections, do you have any thoughts on how to reach these candidates? Thanks very much for any help."

Here is my response to her:

To answer your question, the best candidates, as you can guess, will mostly likely be found through existing relationships. Here are a few techniques, which you may or may not have tried:
   
1) Use LinkedIn.com to search for candidates through people you know. Many recruiters find candidates this way.

2) Contact clients and ask them if they have any qualified friends or business colleagues

3) Contact a local university and talk to the head of a department (i.e. marketing or real estate) to find out if they know of any alums, students, or adjunct faculty who may be qualified. They may also be able to push this out to their alumni.
   
4) Contact someone in membership or the President of an industry association or networking group to find out if they know of anyone. Also, they may be able to send the job description to their members.
   
5) Get involved with blogs so you can start a dialogue with people who may know of qualified candidates. I would choose blogs that are related to the industry that you seeking a candidate.

Do you have any other techniques that you can share?

Comments

[David Dalka]

1. Use blogs
2. Actively seek active candidates and read resumes - old fashioned, but it actually works.
3. Google primary terms in your job description and look for people who run up on the first 40 pages of results on the topic

[Jason Jacobsohn]

Thanks David. Very good suggestions.

[holly]

- I think reaching out via someone's blog is probably one of the effective and personal ways. I would imagine this method has a high return value as you treat the person uniquely and special.

- Attend mixers, and meet people. Don't just stand behind a booth waiting for people to come up to the recruiting booth and pick up your job req.

- I know one thing I personally like as a job seeker is when I get a personal contact info of a recruiter and not just some jobs@company.com Oftentimes I hear of people whose resumes and requests never get responded to so they are despondent about recruiters.

-

[Jason Jacobsohn]

Thanks Holly. Some excellent suggestions as well.