Niche recruiting is a precise process. Specialization can save time wasted reviewing piles of unqualified resumes. Niche recruiting is less about the job board and more about precision targeting of the best candidates with exactly the right skills. Niche recruiting is especially important now, when so many people are out of work, placing a job board ad is sure to flood your hiring teams with a lot of candidates that are nowhere near qualified.
Here are some best practices for harvesting niche resumes and finding better candidates for your most skilled positions.
Start with the Job Description
Every job starts with a job description. Make sure yours is very specific about the credentials you need to fit the job. What skills, credentials, and experience does the ideal candidate need? Make sure your description is clear and precise.
Understand the Type of Candidate
Will this candidate need to be more creative or technical? Understanding your candidate will allow you to first, screen out those that just don’t fit, and second, conduct a better interview process. Take time to also understand the culture you’re recruiting into. Consider developing a candidate persona to help guide your resume search.
Specialize Your Search
Do not place an ad on a generic job board. You will quickly be overrun with unqualified candidates. Instead, use a platform like Exelare to conduct an extremely detailed resume search. Smart search features allow you to provide the platform with a granular level of detail to cull a funnel of perfect resumes to fit your very specialized search process. Powerful software integrations with job boards allow for a very accurate search process. You can even set up search parameters so the platform can run a resume search while you sleep! But perhaps most importantly, with Exelare, the search process is one and done. Exelare can take all of the detailed information you have on the candidate credentials and then search all of the leading resume boards. In the past, recruiters had to search Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed, Dice, or other databases manually and individually. With Exelare, you conduct one search, and this powerful software searches all of these boards on your behalf. So, when you come into work tomorrow you’ll have a pile of niche-specific candidates to go through.
Source from Social
Searching for candidates on social media is a great way to source top talent. But instead of focusing on generic platforms, use these tools to go after the channels that your target audience uses. For example, Stack Overflow can serve as a starting place to track down niche talent. Don’t forget about local Meet-Up groups, many of who have Slack channels, especially if they are I the IT field. They point is that you’re sourcing candidates from very targeted places to cut down on the unqualified candidates that will take up your time.
Exelare for Niche Recruiting
Traditional recruiting pulls candidates from a large pool. But niche recruiting allows hiring teams to spend the time upfront targeting very specific candidates. Niche recruiting works best with software like Exelare, which can save you some serious time during the candidate screening process. Contact us for a demo of our product today.