10 Ways to Fix Broken Corporate Recruiting Systems

Can your company do a better job of getting talent in the door—and keeping it there?

By Liz Ryan

That corporate recruiting machine, she's broken. Job-seekers and hiring managers alike complain that the current system, studded with Black Hole career portals, insulting online honesty tests, and officious, unresponsive staffers, needs an overhaul. The typical recruiting machine is ineffective at keeping talented candidates in the pipeline and screening out less-capable ones. On top of that, it's slow, bureaucratic, and prone to breakdowns. What's a talent-conscious employer to do? Here are vital 10 steps to fix misbegotten recruiting practices and philosophies.

1. Nuke Unrealistic Job Specs

When a purchasing agent specs a part for manufacturing, he or she isn't free to require that the raw material have sparkles or the capacity to transform into a robot, just because those attributes might be cool. Every requirement needs a solid business rationale behind it. Would that it were so in the recruiting paradigm, where hiring managers get to load their job specs up with certifications and years of experience that push able candidates out of the pipeline. One recruiter friend told me, "I've got clients who include certifications on their hiring specs that neither the hiring manager nor the HR person even understand. They figure, it's free to throw another requirement onto the spec, so why not?" That's bad business. Smart people can learn new tools easily. Not-so-smart people can have all the certifications known to man and won't be more qualified to help companies thrive. Adding extra "must haves" to a job spec to save a manager a few weeks of employee training is wasteful and counterproductive. So make sure that every bullet in a job ad has an essential business justification.

2. Lose the Side-of-a-Barn Marketing

Rather than blasting job ads so far and wide that hundreds of applicants apply for every job, employers would be wise to learn from marketers. Ever wonder why Time (TWX) magazine looks so thin these days? It's because advertisers are turning to targeted marketing, in print, online, and other venues. Smart employers are doing the same thing. Rather than posting their jobs everywhere and spending weeks sifting through responses, they're seeking populations where their best prospective value creators are likely to reside. That means reaching out to candidates on LinkedIn and creating talent pool communities to fill open jobs now and in the future. The spray-and-pray approach works no better for employers than it does for job-seekers.

3. Understand What Tickles Target Applicants

Smart job-seekers know that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to branding and materials. That's why they customize résumés and choose communication channels that make their pitches as relevant for hiring managers as possible. Employers can do the same thing. A job ad that says, "We have an immediate need for project managers" is not going to make your target candidate's heart beat faster. So craft messages that will speak to their interests. For example: "Are you the person who makes order out of chaos? If you get excited about keeping a busy office humming and don't mind juggling six projects at once, you might be our next office manager and our CEO's right-hand person. You'll coordinate our board meetings and our budget process, work with marketing on our newsletter, and organize our events. Does that sound appealing?" That way, you're flattering the applicant, who wants recognition for what she has accomplished.

4. Use a Human Voice

Now that the entire business world is choking on corporatespeak garbage, we're risking nothing by putting a human voice into our business communications. Job-ad language such as "The incumbent will be responsible for the cross-functional management of multiple time-sensitive projects" says exactly nothing useful.