Candidates are fundamental

I’ve written about candidates before. I will write about them again. Why? Because candidates are fundamental to everything you do as an online recruiting service. Everything.

Think about a couple of recent entrants to the job board world that have been successful.Gild has focused on amassing millions of candidate profiles – which it then matches to the employer’s specific need. Nothing new in the concept – but the execution is sophisticated and (dare I say?) ‘big data-ish’. What drives Gild’s success? Candidates.

Or what about Hired? It continues to grow (and attract investors) by collecting candidates, culling them, and matching them to employer needs. Basically, a modified recruitment agency model.

Both of these companies don’t call themselves job boards. And they do trumpet their focus on the candidate.

So if candidates are fundamental to your business, how does that play out? I would posit a few ways:

1. You truly know and understand your candidates. How they think, where they go for their info, what they do, what their pasts mean for their futures. This level of knowledge can be difficult to attain – but think of the alternative. If you don’t know your candidates, how can you respond if they leave?
2. You deliver value to your candidates. This can be useful and actionable feedback on the way they look for jobs and present themselves to employers. Or it can be presenting them with positions that match their skills, background, and experience. I do mean real value – not generic ‘how to write a resume’ articles!
3. You stay in touch. Consider this the ‘long term’ version of #1. You quit treating your interactions with candidates as ‘transactional’ and instead determine what you should do to make them ‘ongoing’.

Candidates aren’t the only thing that will make your services successful. But they are the first thing needed for long term success. Take care of them, and they’ll take care of you. Remember – candidates are fundamental to everything else you do.

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