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spamming for candidates take 2: confusing activity with results

Few things get me going early in the morning, but one of the articles that I read during my morning routine put a bee in my bonnet that I couldn't just ignore. John Sumser again commented on spam as a tactic used by recruiters to "find" candidates and fill positions. This time he shared a reader comment analyzing the thinking used by recruiters to pull candidates in from various sources. The reader says:

...it’s simplistic math: “we need 50 new life insurance sales reps, typical response for XYZ mailing list = 0,5% and we typically hire 1 out of every ten candidates, ergo we need to send 100,000 emails at least, but better be safe so get me 150,000 email addresses”

This is such a sad statement on the current state of recruiting and it makes me ill. The main issue is that recruiters and their management continue to confuse activities with results. Just because you spam hundreds of thousands of people doesn't mean that you will actually hire qualified talent. Basically, you are just showing people that you are busy without necessarily meeting their needs. Managers and clients should take a step back and critically analyze the results these efforts lead to and the effect they have on their customer base. This coupled with the fact that finding great talent is a human experience and not something that can be subject to pure statistical algorithms has seemed to have escaped all those but the very astute.

Let's get real here for a moment. There are far better ways to reach out to a base audience then blindly spamming them a la direct mail or telemarketer tactics. And, I would argue, find more quality leads that will help you fill your positions. That's what social marketing is all about. Let's reach real people, provide them with meaningful interactions and information in a digestible format while building a groundswell of support for your business or recruiting process and attract people based on your merit rather then how many names your crawler just found and spammed.

Easier said then done, right? I don't think so. With a few smart tactics in this internet age you can easily attract people that share your interests or cause without harming your reputation and brand.

At least John has the good sense to comment that while this is the easiest tactic for recruiters to employ it's also probably the quickest way to destroy your employment brand. Not to mention alienate potential clients and customers. Couldn't agree with you more my friend.

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Published Tuesday, January 09, 2007 11:19 AM by Zoe
Filed Under: Zoe's posts, Social Media

Comments

	gretchen said: Ah. Don't get me started on this either, girlfriend! It's amazing the career some recruiters have made for themselves by being spammers ... all at the cost of their company's brand. An unfortunately, employers often turn a blind eye because, hey, they are getting "results"! This is the part of the story where I compare those recruiters to the gross guy in the bar. Hey, if he asks 100 women to sleep with him, chances are one will say yes. Ew. January 9, 2007 12:00 PM
	Kev said: What you really need is a shared spam list, for the gross guy in the bar. After he's asked 3 people to sleep with him, he's magically muted and all the other women in the place can't hear him. Hey, wait. Maybe that explains why I don't get much action... :) January 9, 2007 2:40 PM
	Zoe said: You guys crack me up! I had an interesting conversation with someone over lunch and they brought up the point that it's actually how recruiters are measured and that most of their management and the executives at companies take a macro view of "results". It doesn't necessarily matter that you hire quality but rather a "butts in seats" mentality and a recruiter that fills all their positions is more attractive then one that fills half. Having been in that position, I can certainly say this still has an adverse effect on recruiting overall - it creates a cycle of hiring poor talent that needs to be replaced often. So - let's talk about how we measure results and what are good results vs. bad activities that consequently can hurt both your employment and product brand and reputation. January 9, 2007 4:37 PM
	gretchen said: I often seems like, depending on the organization, recruiters are bucketed into 3 separate disciplines: HR, Sales, and Marketing. The "HR Recruiter" is more of an account manager, make-sure-the-hiring-manager-gets-attention type. This recruiter is very internally focused and really just a process administrator, and as long as there is a decent incoming flow of qualified applicants, it works. The "Sales Recruiter" is the type we're talking about here. Probably the most prevalent type of recruiter ... especially on the sourcing side. Measured and rewarded on pure quantity. Like you said, this type of recruiter is just doing her job and rising to expectations set by her goals and management. The "Marketing Recruiter" is what I personally think the best recruiters are and the type I'd love to see more of across the industry. This is the recruiter that understands that, while she is selling a candidate / job and acting in a HR function, she is also promoting a brand / career / lifestyle. Contacting hundreds or thousands of potential prospects (and possibly customers) a year, she is essentially a spokesperson for the company. She's also thinking about how the people she brings in today will help or hurt her brand down the road. The problem is I see measurements for the HR Recruiter (internal customer sat, turn-around, etc) and the Sales Recruiter (# of calls, # of interviews, # of hires) all the time. You rarely see metrics for the marketing recruiter. Heck, it's hard enough to measure pure marketers so I know why this is an issue. But what I'd love to see is just a bit of shift in this direction ... more goals based on external candidate satisfaction, successful program / project execution, hiring trends, future performance of hires. The other problem is that, at the end of the day, recruiters are just supposed to hire people. So I guess until you change the definition of "recruiting" to be more encompassing ... like hiring the right people or hiring for the future ... you're stuck with this numbers game. The frustrating part is how, when you get down to it, the recruiting industry knows this stuff - but the industry as a whole is stuck in such a rinse-and-repeat cycle, nothing is really ever going to change. But maybe we can change it a little. :) January 9, 2007 6:29 PM