We preach to our clients that simply placing an onlie ad is not a sound sourcing strategy.  Managesmarter.com has an article that gives 3 good, quick tips for leveraging the Internet to fill open positions.

The only way to effectively recruit is to use multiple channels. You’re trying to find that one person who is exactly right, and that means exploring multiple avenues. This includes your offline efforts, by the way—don’t stop networking just because you’ve posted a job online. Work multiple sources (both online and real world) to get the word out about your opening.
Make sure you’ve got an accurate, well-written, exciting job description. You need a posting that sells the job and your company. A good job description should be the first message a potential candidate sees about your company. It should provide a good story, but also a realistic picture of the level of responsibility and some sense of career potential. In the online world there’s no character limit, so you can go into detail and include links to strong Web pages. Never view writing a job ad as a chore; don’t just delegate it to HR or someone who reports to you.
Pick several places to post your ad online. Here’s where it gets tricky: There are several online sourcing options, all of which come with trade-offs. Let’s start with blogs, e-mail listservs and interest groups such as Yahoo! Groups. These options are probably stronger in building long-term recognition than in immediately producing large numbers of applicants.

One thing I would add is if you’re not using LinkedIn, Facebook or MySpace in your sourcing, you’re missing the boat.  Start by getting your profile on these sites and connecting, then push your open positions out to your new network.  It’s not about knowing the right people and being directly connected to them, it’s about being connected and allowing your network to push your opportunity out to people they know that may be a good fit.

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The frequency of layoffs has started to rise as the economy continues it’s slow progression (no, it hasn’t recessed).  Up here in Minnesota we have experienced some large layoffs recently.  But there is an interesting point in all of these layoffs when it comes to salespeople.

Many times the underperformers are released first as a method for upgrading the sales force.

One of the large corporations up here announced a sizeable layoff that reduced their employee count by 5%.  Yet, the following week they had multiple employment ads on multiple sites looking for different levels of salespeople.  This approach is not surprising as you will see it often during slow economic times.  The major companies use the cover of a slow economy to jettison salespeople who have had targets on them for some time.

This fact means that all sales hiring today needs to be careful.  There are strong salespeople who get cut loose, but you have to have a process to find them.  The pretenders, the salespeople who can do enough to mostly hide on your payroll, are also out there.  These salespeople are more difficult to identify and screen out of the candidate pool.

It is imperative that you have a process that goes far beyond resume, interview, gut-level decision.  If you need assistance, we can help.

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