First, the headline from the Pioneer Press article: State Jobless Rate Falls to 5-Year Low
Now read it and you will see the business-challenged reporting we are treated to here in Minnesota. The unemployment rate is typically lower than the national average even during recessions. Our current unemployment rate is 3.7%! Yet this 13 paragraph article spends the first 8 paragraphs trying to paint this stat in a negative light. Unbelievable.
But this statistic does bring me back to sourcing. With low unemployment in Minnesota, we are constantly looking for new sourcing channels for our local customers. We are consistent monster.com and careerbuilder.com users, but we have been branching out into other channels in our hunt for the strongest candidates.
Niche sites that offer a focused market or candidates are far more effective than the big boards in terms of delivering targeted candidates. We have found candidates from these sites to be of higher quality than the generic boards.
Another avenue to pursue is to ask candidates for referrals to others they know who may be a good fit. We have done this on a few occassions this year with strong candidates who ended up accepting a different opportunity. This approach has been quite productive in leading us to passive candidates with strong skills – especially in a technical position. For whatever reason, technical candidates seem to be quite willing to share an opportunity with their personal network.
Finally, we have explored some of the online communities like myspace.com but have not found much success in this area. I suspect these online communities will become an effective tool as they become more common among mature workers. To me, these online communities seem to cater to young people disproportionately.
Sourcing in this tight labor market is going to be the pinch point for all hiring activities. New channels will be need to be explored to reach the modern day, passive candidate.