Leading staffing industry trainers revealed how they keep their business strong in a candidate-driven market, attract passive candidates, integrate technology into their recruiting practices and more at the three recruiting symposia of 2007.

Three ASA membership sections—placement and recruiting; professional; and technical, IT, and scientific—hosted this education and networking opportunity designed for recruiters, managers, and owners who provide direct hire, technical, and professional staffing services. The symposium covered topics such as workplace trends and building relationships with candidates.

Attendees received tips from members of the Pinnacle Society, a consortium of top recruiters in the placement and search sector. When participants expressed trepidation at requesting a retainer fee, one presenter supplied the statement he uses to persuade his clients. Joe Pelayo, CPC, of Joseph Michaels Inc. tells them, "after 20 years of doing this, I just can't afford to work on something I might get paid for."

Karen Russo of K. Russo Associates Inc. explained how she manages her team's metrics. "I give them monthly, quarterly, and annual goals. Then I check in regularly and make recommendations to keep everyone on track."

Other presenters described techniques for finding passive candidates. "There's not one search engine that can cover the entire Web," explained trainer Lisa Brusack of AIRS. To highlight the importance of using multiple engines, Brusack cited a University of Pittsburgh study in which researchers conducted more than 12,000 searches on four different search engines. They found that 84.9% of page one results were unique to the search engine used.

Over the course of the two-day symposium, Greg Doersching of the Griffin Search Group revealed the five biggest mistakes that many recruiters make. First, recruiters do not talk to enough people. Second, they do not prepare their candidates the right way for interviews. Third, many recruiters submit people to their clients who are inappropriate for those clients. Fourth, they do not challenge the way they currently do things. The fifth and perhaps the biggest mistake that many recruiters make is that, because they "don't know that recruiting is a three-step process, they try to do it all as one."

Doersching says the three steps of the recruiting process are attract a candidate, establish the candidate's interest, and qualify the candidate. He also notes that there is generally a lag of six to 72 hours between the first and second steps. If you want to attract candidates in a tight market, you should make sure to provide details on the company where the candidate would be placed, the community, and the candidate's potential role in the company.

If you missed the 2007 recruiting symposia, recordings are available on ASAPro, and planning is under way for 2008.