Help Wanted: How to Find the Right Person In A Sea of Serial Job Seekers

If you’re like many of my clients, you have probably posted a job to fill, only to find yourself sifting through 200+ UNqualified applicants.
 
With the likes of Monster, Indeed and Career Builder simplifying the job hunting process, it has made it easy for serial job seekers to blast out applications to a mass number of postings without even reading the full job posting.
 
But this doesn’t help you—you need to find the ‘right’ person to without wasting your time! This means you need to be extra diligent in your quest to hire, in order to reduce the number of serial job seekers you encounter.
 
To help you find the right fit for your new role, follow these top 5 tips…
 
Know Your Team Fit
Before you even post a job, you have some thinking to do. Ask yourself how easy is it for you to describe what your team is all about and what type of person you need to join the team?
 
The best way, in my opinion, is to begin by assessing your current team as well as yourself:

• Consider the team dynamic, not just the job ie) how supportive, independent, action oriented, data oriented, or how outcome focused, attentive to others, process oriented or collaborative is the existing team
• Consider the job as it relates to the team ie) will this role influence others or need to get down to process work, will they be autonomous or take direction from others, is it strategic or operational
• Consider character traits - what are the right traits and behaviours to be an effective team member enabling other teammates to succeed AND fit in your company
• Consider the communication style - what style would be complementary to the group, what style fits with both you or others that may report to this role
• Consider the skills – what skills may be missing in the team (nice to have) in addition to what the job may require

 
These are just a few of the questions you should think through in order to be clear about the right fit you are looking for, prior to constructing the job posting.
 
Bonus Tip - If you struggle knowing the personalities of your current team, consider using a tool like Everything DiSC Workplace®. In my experience, it offers an objective way to assess the different styles of both you and your people. It will help you avoid hiring the wrong fit by learning more about the type of person who may rub you or the team the wrong way. Call or email me if you'd like to give Everything DiSC Workplace® a try.

Don’t just ‘Post and Pray’
Job postings are a passive method to source candidates; you simply ‘set it and forget it’.  But unless you hire help to review all of the resumes that roll in, I don’t recommend posting to public job boards—this is where serial applicants hangout because it’s very easy for anyone to apply to everything!
 
Better than posting to a public board is sourcing people through places like LinkedIn or hiring someone else to do the sourcing for you.
 
Agencies, while expensive, usually offer a guarantee to replace a bad hire and consultants are particularly great at finding those who come highly recommended. Regardless of which option you choose, both will save you the headache of dealing with serial applicants.
 
In my experience, people who come highly recommended have an 80% higher rate to be a fit for a role because seldom will someone put their neck on the line to recommend somebody who is a dud.
 
Get Specific
It’s vitally important that you’re crystal clear about the job function to be performed. By having a really crisp posting, you can reduce the number of, “Oh, even I can do that job” applicants, which only add to your pile of unqualified resumes.
 
To do this, write the posting for your open role identifying the 6-8 key criteria the right person absolutely must have—it should NOT look like every other job posting in the market, nor should it be a full job description filled with internal lingo.
 
Make sure your criteria includes both the skills required to do the job, as well as the behaviours you’re looking for that fits your business and team we talked about above.
 
Feel free to look at other similar jobs to get a few ideas for how to write the description, but make absolutely certain that your job posting captures the unique details of what YOU and YOUR business needs.
 
The serial job seeker will respond to anything they think they can do – so the more explicit your job posting is, the higher the likelihood of good quality applicants and reduction of ‘lookie loo’s’ wasting your time.
 
Bonus Tip - To ensure you’ve covered all of the necessary bases, have a few people lend a critical eye to the posting to check that it conveys the right level and complexity of the position you’re looking to fill. 
 
Use a Title With Kick
The first thing a serial applicant will look at is the title, followed by the position summary, yet so few use this space for impact. This is a great spot to help nix ‘quick clicker Louis’ from automatically applying.
 
Just because the job title in your company is Customer Service Representative doesn’t mean you can’t post Customer Service Representative – Articulate, Quick Thinking & Data Savvy. This unused space in the title field is a perfect spot to differentiate your role. Right off the bat the reader will ask themself if they meet your criteria and you’ll eliminate a bunch of unwanted hopefuls.  Likewise the summary – don’t just regurgitate company fluff here. Use the key success profile of the position to summarize the criteria you’re looking for. Think of it like the lead to a very interesting news article – a few short words that make it interesting to ‘click here.’
 
By using both of these underused spots you’ll increase your chances of:

1. Standing out from other postings.
2. Improving quality respondents.

 
Talk to Your Network
I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn. It is a great tool for building your own professional network and it also serves as a powerful resource for viewing candidates before you meet them. Leveraging your network is a great strategy to avoid the serial job seeker.
 
If you have access to your own LinkedIn network, make sure you tap into it. Tell your peeps you are looking to hire and send them the posting to share or think about who they know who may know suitable candidates (hopefully they will tell two people who will tell two people… and so on). No matter if they’re friends, family or former colleagues and bosses, they’ll know people, and they may be able to connect you with your next right-fit candidate.
 
But LinkedIn isn’t the only way to connect with others. You can also try:

• Reaching out to past colleagues or industry-related connections to let them know what you’re looking for. If industry skills are a must have, this is a great group to tap into.
• Contacting people you know who have a similar success profile to what you’re looking for. People tend to surround themselves with those who are similar to them, which makes these people a great resource for finding the kind of employee you want. Remember, the idea here isn’t necessarily to offer these people the job, but to see whom they know who’s suited for it.
• Talking to your current staff. Let them know about the success profile you’re looking for and ask them to consider who they know. Since they’ll care about who might work with them, current employees are a great resource for finding candidates. (Bonus Tip: consider offering a reward for successful referrals!)

 
Help is But a Call Away
Hiring someone new to your team can be time consuming and, for some, even daunting especially with the number of serial applicants out there. The good news is you don’t have to go it alone.
 
If you have a position you need to fill and are tired of slogging through a sea of serial job seekers, I’m here to help. As your partner, I’ll save you time while finding the right person to join your team and organization by:

• Getting to know you and your team to determine what gaps your new hire may need to fill
• Working with you on developing a succinct job posting that captures exactly what your business and team needs and draws in the right response
• Accessing my own network of highly recommended professionals to help source great talent

 
Get in touch with me and let’s talk about finding you the right person for the job—meeting and getting to know people is one of my most favourite things to do!