According to research from MIT, people spend an average of 24 hours a week, one full day, online. There is no denying that getting recruitment ads in front of people online can help with visibility, but many companies resist this form of recruitment. Understanding the ins and outs of paid advertising isn’t easy, and unless you have an analytics expert on your recruiting team, it can be difficult to prove ROI, especially when you factor in passive candidates. So can you – and should you – recruit without the internet?
The Advantages of Offline Recruiting
Digital marketing advocates often write off traditional advertising and networking as a waste of time in our hyper-connected, mobile world. However, there are significant advantages to traditional recruitment. There is simply no substitute for face-to-face interactions with talent at networking events, job fairs and college recruiting days.
Connecting with talent face-to-face is often more productive than sifting through hundreds of online resume submissions. Relying on the limiting factors of ATS programs to rank candidates can leave great people out of the pool. Meeting people lets you connect to great candidates you might not ever have met when you’re sitting behind a computer.
Online recruiting can also be more expensive than face-to-face networking, especially if your team isn’t well-versed in optimizing digital ads to target the right audience and control costs. Even posting on job boards can be expensive when you factor in the number of resumes you must review from those boards.
The Advantages of Online Recruiting
It is important to consider the advantages of online recruiting before writing it off completely. While digital advertising can be expensive, when it’s done well, it can actually lead to cost savings. By targeting the right people at the right time and crafting clear ads that speak to your ideal candidates, you can control costs associated with spray-and-pray approaches.
The internet also allows in-house recruiting teams to search large databases of resumes and applications to find candidates based on keywords. In a room full of talent, you have to talk to people for some time before getting a feel for their qualifications, but advanced online searching lets you quickly identify needles in haystacks.
Which Method Is Best?
So, should you recruit without the internet? In short, no. The internet needs to be one tool in your recruiting toolbox, but you should use a variety of methods to recruit talent. However, the right mix of tools can vary from job to job. The way you’d recruit for an entry-level engineer would be quite different from the way you’d search for high-level operations personnel.
The best way to solve your recruiting puzzle is to partner with an expert who knows how to leverage the right mix of tools for your unique roles. If you are looking to improve your hiring processes to improve the quality of your hires while controlling costs, contact the staffing experts at The Reserves Network today.
