Passive Candidate Email Acquisition - Does it Work?

Steven Rothberg of Collegerecruiter.com fame has started an interesting discussion over at ERE.

We use Jobster and are happy with it. As I said here, I don’t think the power of Jobster is the email networking piece. But we use that function, and so I like to keep track of the utility and effectiveness of it.

At this point I can only vouch for my own experience. I get a lot of referral network sourcing requests. I take a quick look at the email: if I know someone that is looking for a job that I care about and their skill set matches the job description, then I forward it on. But if I really have to do passive sourcing (as in, try to go convince someone that this is worth their while), I have to evaluate spending my time helping a recruiter do their job against spending that same time doing my own job. It’s a pretty utilitarian equation – where am I going to get the best return for my time. More often than not, doing my job takes priority over doing someone else’s. I tend to have the same reaction as Steve – the person who is asking for my help is getting something out of it… why shouldn’t I?

It might just turn out that passive candidate acquisition through email has the same exact problem that active candidate acquisition through posting on job boards does: there is an inverse relationship between the quality of the talent pool and the importance of the position. If “good people know good people”, and good people get tired of helping recruiters do their jobs, then you’ll just get referrals from people who aren’t that good (I assume that the counter-point of the “good people” proposition is “disinterested sloths hang out in bars with budding alcoholics who just like to steal paperclips” or something of the sort).

This isn’t true of Employee Referral Campaigns, for the very reason that the true “sourcer” gets paid for their efforts. I think that Jobster is a fantastic tool for ERPs, because the level of tracking and information management exceeds what I can get from other programs I have used. In addition, it cuts down on the work that the employee has to perform to tap into their network, so I am seeing better results than the old disconnected email blast approach.

As I stated in that previous post, I think that there may be a short shelf-life for passive candidate acquisition through email. But I continue to believe in Jobster (for the same reasons that I listed in that post), as well as the ERP management angle, and continue to be a happy customer of theirs. Only time will tell whether there is really an “email” issue, but if there is, I think the team at Jobster can figure it out. Right guys?

Comments

[Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com]

I'm also a big fan of almost everything that Jobster does, even though they're an indirect competitor to CollegeRecruiter.com. That said, the email referral request product that their system offers can be very annoying to recipients when the sender (the Jobster client) does not properly target the emails.

Few people mind receiving emailed requests for assistance or seeing advertising when it is properly targeted. What is incredibly annoying about most spam emails isn't that they're spam, it is that what they're trying to sell you isn't of any interest. If you were interested in learning about the newest medical device or X-rated site, then those emails wouldn't be so offensive. But to those of us who aren't interested in those products, the emails are offensive.

So keep using Jobster and keep working with them to help them make their already great product even better. The problem that I raised in ERE wasn't so much a problem with Jobster and the sites like Jobster as it was with how those sites are used by a small number of their clients. A few bad apples...

[Colin Kingsbury]

I like the Jobster message a lot... really! But what happens when email-based passive candidate acquisition tools are being used by 10,000 instead of 200 companies? I seem to be the only person who doesn't think the WorkZoo acquisition was a distraction. In order for their model to scale they need to create alternate channels.

[Krishanu Banerjee]

I am an avid gamer. Is there any way I can contribute to Electronic Arts game testing process ?

[Mirage]

The concept is good for sure, I am yet to try it out though !