By John Davenjay

Riffling through resume after resume searching endlessly for one qualified applicant can be frustrating enough to make anyone want to scream. It’s super inefficient and often yields poor results. Why are so many unqualified candidates applying to my job? Why does it take 50 resumes to find one worth interviewing? You’re not alone and the answer can’t be found by just writing a more succinct job description or tweaking your salary requirements.

I run a staffing business for cloud service providers (CSPs) and managed service providers (MSPs). Take it from us, there is no silver bullet (outside of just getting lucky). The solution to sourcing a pool of qualified candidates worth interviewing is generally derived from an equation including two variables: time and money. You can almost always increase the number of qualified applicants you have to choose from by spending more money (and time). By casting a wider net, you bring in more good with the bad.

Establishing a proactive process for interviewing and hiring is usually the best solution keeping your CSP fully staffed, but most fast growing CSPs or MSPs don’t have that luxury. Establishing a proactive process is less expensive, it reduces the chances of making the wrong hire because you’re not rushed, and it reduces the time spent scrapping to allocate a resource to bill your client. 

How is a proactive recruiting model built? It’s done by selecting your advertising vendors (i.e. Craigslist, Monster, etc.) and continually posting ads, reading resumes and having phone interviews. There are many job advertising sites such as Indeed.com that work as a job advertising aggregate and allow you to post ads in multiple places but only using one vendor. 

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The only problem using these jobs sites is that everyone may be using them, too. The key is to fish where no one else is fishing, and that can only be done through trial and error of local advertising sites, reaching out to passively interviewing candidates and reaching out to a network of your associates asking who they might now. Note, paying a referral fee often times greatly increases results from referrals.

But establishing an effective proactive recruiting model isn’t easy and isn’t a silver bullet solution. Either is working with a staffing company. Its competitive sourcing and hiring talent so we recommend using a little of all the resources and tools available to you. Build your own proactive process sourcing qualified resumes, build your company’s reactive model and have a staffing firm ready-to-go in your back pocket to do the heavy lifting for you when its crunch time. 

Keep calm and carry on. Your next hire is out there waiting to hear from you.    

Do you have a proactive process for interviewing and hiring? If so, what does it entail? What have you learned from experience that doesn’t work for your organization?