What are the Best Recruiting Techniques ?

Question :
Please let me know according to you what are the best recruiting techniques to be adopted in the pursuit of talent acquisition.

Answer :
There are no golden principles which guarantee the candidate joining the company after picking up the offer. However i found the following article pretty interesting and may help you out in doing your best !

The Best of Lou Adler's Recruiting Rules

By Lou Adler, October 1, 2008

I’ve discovered a few critical recruiting principles over the past 30 years placing hundreds of top performers in staff, management, and executive positions. For marketing purposes, I call these Lou’s Recruiting Rules. If you learn and implement these twelve techniques from now on, on every search, you’ll call them lifesavers. Here’s my list of rules that will take you to the upper echelon of recruiters anywhere in the world:

1. Maintain Applicant Control.
Stay the buyer from first contact to offer extension and acceptance. When you start selling, you lose. This is the essence of applicant control. Most recruiters don’t have a clue as to what this means. They talk too much, don’t know how to use questions to uncover the candidate’s motivating needs, they over-sell, and they under-listen. This might be okay for placing average candidates, but it won’t work for top performers. For these people changing jobs requires a series of give-and-take information exchanges. Applicant control starts by using the first call to ask if the person would be open to talk about a possible career opportunity. Use the subsequent phone screen and follow-up interviews to look for voids and gaps in the candidate’s background. This provides you the insight needed to position your job as something worth pursuing. If it is, the candidate will begin to sell you, attempting to prove she’s competent. This is applicant control. You lose this tremendous advantage once you start selling. You’ll need to attend one of our recruiter training programs to understand how to establish and maintain applicant control regardless of the situation, but these articles will get you started.

2. Sell the Next Step, Not the Job.
Don’t start your initial discussion with a complete description of the job and why it’s wonderful. This is an unsophisticated sales tactics. As a result, most top candidates will say they’re not interested. Instead, ask the candidate if she’d be interested in talking a few minutes about a possible career opportunity. Be vague about the title and get the candidate to describe a little of her background. Withholding information is a good way to maintain applicant control and keep the process moving along. Next, after giving the candidate a 30-second impactful overview of the job, ask her if she’d be interested in a more detailed 30-minute discussion. If this conversation goes well, suggest an interview with the hiring manager to learn even more about the job and the team. Keep the process moving along this way, getting concessions at each step with an offer to provide more information to address any concerns the candidate might have. You’ll increase your end-to-end placement rate (# of people initially contacted to make one placement) by 50-100% by parsing out critical nuggets of information rather than providing it all at once. (Specific “how to” details are covered in Recruiter Boot Camp.)

3. Define the Job, Not the Person.
Traditional job descriptions that emphasize skills, experiences, background, and academics are not job descriptions, they’re people descriptions. A job description describes in some detail exactly what a person will be doing, not the skills a person needs to have. We call this type of job description a performance profile. It lists the primary 6-8 performance objectives the person is expected to achieve during the first year. Clarifying expectations upfront has been shown to increase on-the-job performance and reduce turnover. “Job shock” is a common problem when a person discovers that the work required to be performed is not the work described or promised. It’s caused by not defining the performance expectations upfront, assuming everyone knows them.

4. Don’t Use Wal-Mart Advertising to Attract Tiffany Customers.
Boring advertising only attracts average candidates. The best candidates with multiple opportunities won’t apply to a job that leads off with a list of skills, some pie-in-the-sky overview of your glorious company, or a req number. Instead, have a unique title and describe some of the important projects the candidate would be focusing on. Rather than a long list of skills and “must-haves,” describe how these skills will be used on the job. For example, “Use your BSME and advanced powertrain design skills to lead the development of our new 100mpg electric car,” instead of “Must have a BSME and 5-10 years transmission and powertrain experience.” (Send in a creative ad to enter our 2008 Outrageous Ad Writing Content. Here are the rules and some background information.)

5. Be Found.
Ads must be found using Google or a job board aggregator like SimplyHired. This requires some search engine optimization and reverse engineering to get to the top of the job listing. If your ad isn’t found, it won’t really matter how compelling it is. Reverse engineering is the process of finding your ad using terms a typical candidate would input on either Google or SimplyHired (e.g., jobs software sales Chicago). Even better, if you combine all similar jobs in a talent hub, you’ll be more easily found, you’ll reduce your advertising expenses, and you’ll attract more top performers. (Attend our Sourcing Summits for more on how to use search engine marketing to optimize your recruitment advertising and how to use talent hubs.)

6. Follow the 80/20 Rule when Recruiting Passive Candidates.
Referred and pre-qualified candidates are 25 TIMES MORE VALUABLE than a name or resume you found using some clever Boolean search string. First, consider that the callback rate of a referred person is at least 2-3 times greater than a cold call. Second, recognize that the likelihood that a cold-called candidate is qualified, appropriate, and interested in your job is at best a one-in-ten shot. The secret for success in recruiting passive candidates is to spend 80% of your time calling pre-qualified people who have been referred to you by another strong person. If you spend more than 20% of your time cold calling, you’re wasting it. By calling pre-qualified referred candidates, you only have to make 10 or so calls to get 2-3 sendouts vs. 50 or more cold calls. Of course, for this process to work you’ll need to obtain 2-3 great referrals on every call you make. (You’ll want to attend our Advanced Sourcing and Recruiting course to master this critical skill. In the interim here are some articles on how to improve your networking efforts right away.)

7. Measure 1st Impression at the End of the Interview.
More hiring mistakes take place in the first 30 minutes of the interview than at any other time. This is a result of overvaluing your first impression, which is often made in 5 minutes or less. People who make good first impressions tend to be asked easier questions, with the interviewer looking for facts to prove the candidate is qualified. People with weaker first impressions are initially assumed to be incompetent or a bad fit, with the interviewer asking tougher questions looking for facts to prove the candidate is not qualified. It’s always best to wait 30 minutes before making any yes/no assessments, using this time to collect objective evidence. Then at the 30-minute mark, or later, ask yourself if the candidate’s first impression will help or hinder on-the-job performance. When first impression is assessed this way, you’ll discover that many people with a great first impression aren’t top performers, and many of those who initially appeared somewhat weak, were really just a bit nervous. (Here are some other ideas on how to reduce the impact of first impressions on assessment accuracy.)

8. Use the One-Question Performance-based Interview to Recruit and Close.
Here’s a kick in the head: the primary purpose of the interview is to look for voids and gaps in the candidate’s background, and you can do it with just one question! Done properly, not only will you more accurately assess competency, but you’ll also create interest on the part of the candidate if she sees your job opening as a stretch move. This will help reduce compensation needs, minimize the risk of a counter-offer, and allow you to maintain applicant control. (Read this article for the quick version on how to do this.) A big plus: you’ll have all of the evidence you’ll need to overwhelm a hiring manager who thinks your candidate doesn’t have the right stuff. (To become a top recruiter you’ll need to send your hiring managers to our special training course just for them.)

9. No 2s!
Our 10-Factor Candidate Assessment Scorecard guides the interviewer through ten great predictors of on-the-job performance using a 1-5 ranking system. A Level 2 is someone who is competent to do the work, but not motivated. If you go out of your way to not hire Level 2s you’ll only be hiring people who are both competent and motivated to do the work required. “No 2s” is the best kept secret for not hiring underperformers. To pull this off you need to prepare a performance profile and look for examples of where the candidate has a proven track record of doing this work well and if she is still motivated to do so. If you’re going to use behavioral interviewing, make sure the example chosen to demonstrate motivation is comparable to real job needs.

10. No No’s!
When a candidate says “Not interested” when first contacted, it’s usually caused by a lack of information, the recruiter over-selling the job, or lack of time. Overcoming these problems is pretty easy – don’t pay attention, and diplomatically persist. Alternatively, never ask a question that can be answered by “Not interested” or “No.” This is a part of the applicant control Rule 1 described above. If you somehow got a “No,” you can still recover by suggesting to the candidate that maybe you rushed things a bit, and then rephrase your opening remarks to something like this: “Would it make sense to talk 5-10 minutes on the chance the job I’m handling represents a significant career move?” Don’t be surprised if at least 75% say yes. You’ll need to become a Certified Performance-based Hiring recruiter to master this.

11. Get 100% Acceptance Before Making Any Offer.
You should never make an offer formal until the candidate has told you with 100% certainty that she’ll accept it on the spot. When candidates tell you they have to think about it, or accept it and later renege, it’s generally due to an unsophisticated, rush-to-close process behind it all. While you want candidates to think about every term and condition in an offer, it’s best to do this before you finalize it. You do this by testing every aspect of the offer before making it formal. For example, start the testing process by asking the candidate if she wants to be on the short list. Then ask how this job compares to others she’s considering. Test the comp range, benefits, and other aspects of the offer the same way. The form of this test goes something like, “If we could offer you this, do you want to be considered a finalist?” If you gain approval, test the start date by asking when she could start if the offer was finalized in the next few days. Then, before you make the offer final, ask if she’ll sign it within 24 hours and stop considering other opportunities. If the answer is no, don’t make the offer. Of course, if you want to know what to do if the candidate says no anywhere along the way, you’ll need to attend Recruiter Boot Camp Online. Here are some articles on negotiating offers to get you started.

12. Move Slowly, as Fast as Possible.
Top performers need to time to evaluate any new job, primarily to consider the strategic impact of the move in comparison to the tactical issues. For example, top people might be willing to give up compensation for a faster growth path, but this won’t be done instantly. It takes at least a day or two to ponder these trade-offs. While the recruiter needs to push the process along, you risk losing the deal if you push too hard. If you maintain applicant control, create a sense of urgency, and add in some competition, you can accelerate the decision making, but be careful not to break the space-time continuum. Using a solution selling process is the key to uncovering needs, addressing concerns, comparing options, and closing the deal. Our recruiter training programs have embedded this concept into every step. Here’s an article that highlights how to pull this off.

Recruiting the best is a science, not an art. It can be a logical, commonsense business process that can be learned, applied, and scaled throughout a company. You’ll be half-way there if you follow these 12 rules from now on, on every search. You’ll be 100% there if you get everyone else in your company to follow them, too.

Source : http://www.adlerconcepts.com/
©2008 The Adler Group, All Right Reserved

How to assess critical thinking of a candidate ?

What Steps Can Help Us Determine an Applicant's Ability to Think Critically?

Q: As a CPA firm, we find that many of the accountants we hire are fine for
routine compliance issues. However, many seem to lack good analytical skills.
They are unable to project or think beyond the basic answers. It's easy enough
to test for and teach basic skills. Good analytical skills can't be taught. How
do we test or look for that ability in applicants?

- At a Loss, office manager, services, Plantation, Florida


A: You're right: Soft skills are very hard to teach. People either have the
capacity or they don't. Although they can be developed with coaching, it is
always more effective to hire someone with the right skills for the job. To do
this, it is important to include a personal skills assessment in the selection
process. A validated assessment that measures soft skills often leads to results
that indicate the level of analytical problem-solving.

Or you could simply incorporate very detailed interview questions that truly
reveal whether an applicant has the analytical skills you are looking for.

Interview questions to assist in identifying analytical skills include:

a) Describe a situation when you anticipated a problem. What, if anything, did
you do about it?

b) Give an example of when your diagnosis of a problem proved to be correct.
What approach did you take to diagnose the problem? What was the outcome?

c) Describe the most difficult work problem you've ever encountered. What made
it difficult? What solution was implemented and how successful was it in solving
the problem?

d) What steps do you take toward developing a solution?

e) What factors did you consider in evaluating solutions?

Including an assessment in the selection process will determine whether the
candidate has the analytical skills needed, but what about other qualities that
you have not pinpointed? To make the hiring process even more effective,
consider benchmarking the job to truly understand other skills, behaviors and
motivators needed for superior performance-and then assess candidates to see how
they compare.

Currently, my preliminary research on personal assessments indicates that people
with analytical problem-solving skills are somewhat unique. They usually also
have a passion, or motivation, for knowledge and the skill of continuous
learning. Often, they also are described as suspicious, incisive, critical,
exacting, organized and of high standards.


[Source: Bill Bonnstetter, Target Training International Ltd., Scottsdale,
Arizona, August 1, 2008]

What is SLA for RPO

Question :
What is the SLA (Service Level Agreement) for RPO ( recruitment process outsourcing ) ? What are the precautions and guidelines for framing a SLA

Answer :
Shrinking workforce, work-visa caps, recent expansion of economy coupled with general frustration with the results and costs associated with traditional recruiting models on the part HR leadership prompted demand for innovative ideas when it comes to talent acquisition and retention. Attracting and retaining talent is undoubtedly one of the top items on any executive’s priority list. One the most talked-about answers to this challenge is Recruiting Process Outsourcing (RPO). It has become one of the hottest buzz words and fastest growing areas of Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO), with HRO in turn representing as a sub-set of outsourcing initiatives within the broader Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.
In a recent corporate buyer survey, close to 75% of respondents indicated that they have either recently engaged a talent acquisition provider or are actively involved in sourcing. This tremendous acceptance rate is clearly indicative of the next phase in RPO maturity. While there is still lack of commonly-shared definitions and standards, most decision-makers no longer need to be sold on the benefits of outsourcing the recruitment function as a concept. Despite some differences with traditional transaction-focused outsourcing models, recruiting outsourcing has been gaining ground not only in executive board rooms but also in the minds of hiring managers as a way to let their organizations concentrate on expanding the core competencies while outsourcing such resource-intensive and often difficult tasks as finding and retaining the right people.
Nowadays, some of the key challenges are in selecting the right vendor to partner with amongst a sea of companies claiming to be RPO providers as well as in coming up with common definitions for RPO and figuring out the standards and expectations. How do you navigate the RPO field full of providers claiming to be the most efficient, cost-effective and reliable partner?
Reviewing a potential vendor holistically is crucial. You have to look at their delivery capabilities, scalability, experience with requirements similar to yours, cultural fit and check references. Luckily some of the methods and lessons can be derived from other, slightly more mature BPO disciplines. As with any other outsourcing engagements, a successful RPO initiative is characterized by clear rules of engagement and consistent quantitative assessment of objectives and delivered results. Although most of the companies realize that need, often RPO engagements fail to establish a well-defined Service Level Agreements (SLA’s).
If you want to succeed in implementing an RPO, you must define Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in accordance to the scope of services being outsourced, establish a Service Level Agreement that would spell out the expected results for each KPI, and then monitor execution of the SLA on a frequent basis.
While the classic definition of Recruitment Process Outsourcing implies transferring the entire talent acquisition and retention function to an outside provider, some organizations choose to only outsource a sub-set of recruiting processes. Each company defines what a successful RPO engagement is based upon their unique needs. However, some common metrics such as “time-to–hire”, “cost per hire”, “Recruiting Cost as % of Revenue” are used across the board. Although all of these measurements are examples of KPI’s applied to track the HR function, they can not always be directly used to measure the success of PRO initiatives. A company entering in an RPO engagement should have clear objectives that are in line with the degree of control that company is willing to release to an outside party.
Applying the “end-goal” per-placement/per-hire KPI’s is absolutely fair when a provider has full control over the entire lifecycle, but other, more granular indicators should be used when you engage a RPO shop for something like phone screening prospective candidates or data cleansing. Let’s review some examples of applying appropriate metrics to track RPO progress depending on the degree of control given to an outside vendor. As an example, Workforce Source acts as full-function recruiting department for a rapidly growing DC-based provider of electronic prescribing services designed to meet the needs of the physicians. “Time-to-hire”, “Cost per Hire” indicators are being used along with other KPI’s to see how Workforce Source stacks up against the other recruiting options: internal and contingency staffing agencies.
However, Workforce Source often gets engaged by organizations seeking help in sourcing and phone-screening candidates either for major staff expansion initiatives or for more tactical reasons. Once a candidate has been qualified as a fit by a WFS recruiter, he or she gets submitted to the client’s internal recruiter, and that recruiter is responsible for taking the candidate through all the remaining phases of the recruitment lifecycle (hiring manager interviews, reference background checks, offer negotiation, acceptance and on-boarding). Is reasonable to apply the “time-to-hire” and other end-goal measurements access the RPO provider’s performance? The answer is not really. Since the RPO provider in this case has no control over the entire lifecycle, a better set of indicators of their performance would be “Time-to-Qualified submission”, “Cost per Qualified Submission”, “Number of Qualified Submission per a Period of Time”. Internal recruiters definitely play a key role in providing prompt and objective feedback on all presented candidates, and are expected to render an objective judgment in such subjective area as candidate qualification assessment. It’s definitely a challenge. Therefore, it’s extremely important to define specific assessment criteria and allowable deviations, such as experience, education, pay range, location/relocation requirement, citizenship limited, etc. It’s also important to measure internal recruiter’s buy-in and performance by introducing another KPI – “Time-to-Feedback”, which is usually the average amount of time elapsed between the time of candidate submission by the RPO vendor and fully-completed feedback submission returned to the vendore by the internal assessor.
Obviously, an experienced recruiter instinctively uses most of the above-described criteria anyway; however including them all explicitly in well formulated Service Level Agreement will help avoid unpleasant surprises and negative perceptions on both sides In recent years, SLA’s have become the standard in most of the IT outsourcing engagements. However, HRO still lags behind when it comes to putting firm service level expectations in place. Oftentimes, it seems the HR managers are more focused on the immediate cost savings and run a risk of a wrong sourcing selection by going after a vendor who can offer the cheapest rate for a full-time equivalent basis. While trying to reduce costs, the buyers actually often overpay even compared to all the payroll and infrastructure overheads associated with the in-house option. SLA’s are meant to capture and summarize productivity and performance expectations, escalation and response procedures, communications and negotiation process which leads to openness, understanding between customer and RPO provider and effectively used to constantly monitor the overall success.
RPO Service level agreements are very simple in concept: they are agreements between an outsourcer and customer on numbers and often on the quality of the people to be hired. They are developed before the RPO engagement starts and may also contain incentives for the provider. They are almost always negotiated, rather than simply imposed by either party.
For example, an SLA might say that the RPO provider will present 15 pre-screened candidates matching client’s open job orders per week for each full-timer recruiter assigned to the account, or that standard turnaround time should not exceed 48 hours from the time of receiving a completed job requisition. It is important to understand that an SLA is a two-way agreement, and the client certainly carries some responsibilities as well. As an example, the assigned recruiter or hiring manager might be required to provide feedback in a particular format and within a certain timeframe. While the SLA’s are meant to be very quantitative documents, they need to be flexible enough to allow for a certain degree of adjustment given that each assessor is characterized by his or her own personal style and standards.
SLA's guide the planning and sourcing efforts and help HR leaders establish processes to create robust talent agency. By knowing where growth will occur and what types of people organization is looking for, RPO provider can focus sourcing efforts and competitive intelligence activities to get the optimal results. For example, one client collected and analyzed the SLA’s from across the company and saw a clear trend toward hiring more SAP functional analysts. In partnership with a training outsourcer, they proposed instituting an intensive training program for their current business analysts who were familiar with legacy systems. This was highly successful and lead to a reduction in recruiting costs, as well as helped avoid some planned layoffs. Only a handful of SAP analysts needed to be recruited from outside.
SLA’s outline customer satisfaction. If the agreements are properly negotiated, they, in effect, contain the ingredients of satisfaction. RPO provider and HR manager who have decided what success and quality look like will most likely find that they can quickly determine if things have worked well or not and where improvements need to happen.
SLA’s can be used as a way to compensate and manage RPO Providers. When a portion of RPO provider’s compensation is based on meeting the goals of the SLA, the day-to-day management of RPO provider becomes one of coaching them to success rather than that of monitoring activity. RPO providers will do the best they can to excel to maximize their margins. This approach ensures that providers focus on delivering results that clients see as the priority in their business.
An SLA typically contains multiple sections or sub-documents designed to fully describe the entire PRO engagement via a set measurable objectives and goals. Below is a list of sections comprising a typical RPO SLA’s:
Objectives and needs assessment
Scope Statement
Pricing and Cost Estimates
Organization Chart
KPI’s, measurements and metrics
Work schedules and communication
Response and Escalation Procedures
The Objectives section is really meant to be a roadmap for the engagement. It is very helpful when it comes to discussing Provider scalability.
The Scope Statement outlines the general areas of responsibility granted to the provider. It also typically spells out methods and sources to be used, sourcing and screening processes and candidate submission procedures.
The Pricing and Cost Estimates related the cost or services to the cost per KPI. Depending on the scope of work, this could be either cost per resume, cost per qualified submission, or cost per hire.
The Organization Chart shows the key players on each side, with their respective responsibilities and roles clearly defined and assigned.
The sections on KPI’s, measurements and metrics contain non-monetary performance measurements, such as the expected volume of submissions from a single resource per a period of time, and turnaround times on both ends. It also establishes the frequency and protocol for on-going performance monitoring.
The Work Schedules section describes expected hours of operation and cross-team communication procedures. The Response and Escalation section is a logical extension of the communication plan. Its objective is to establish a process for issue.
Given that the RPO market is getting saturated with providers whose claims can not be validated immediately, time spent in ascertaining, negotiating and monitoring is a solution is definitely time well-spent. If not done correctly, an outsourcing solution can not only be a costly proposition, but more importantly, can lead a lot of missed opportunities to acquire key human resources. “War for Talent” is definitely on and no organization can afford not to have a battle plan.
By Stan Anapol (sanapol@workforcesource.com)

How / Where do you find passive candidates

Question

Where / How do you find passive candidates ?

Answers

Raghav - Founder HRinIndia

Social networking platforms like linkedin and xing are becoming useful tools to target passive candidates.

Create and maintain a list of candidates whom you feel will help out in reaching to the 'target' candidates. Communication is key to get best results out of relationships both online and offline.

Raghav
Founder HRinIndia
www.hrinindia.in
9880080321

Jim Wahl [LION]

Manager of Talent Acquisition Systems at 7-Eleven, Inc. (jwahl01@7-11.com)

Referrals
LinkedIn

Cindy Cheran Lubinski - Executive Recruiter at Basilone Executive Search

As an Executive Recruiter, we cannot forget applicant recontacts. They are your eyes and ears to the job market. Too many times we overlook them in hopes of identifying NEW active candidates.

The other would be referrals. Too many times we neglect picking the phone up and just making the call. The majority of times the person you are calling is NOT going to be your candidate to fill the job; however they may lead you to that person.

Lynn Seiser Ph.D. - Seiser Institute of IdentityTherapy

In AIkido there is the rule of 10.
So, if some one give you 5 units of energy, you only have to give 5.
If they give 9, its easy to give 1.
If they give one, you have to give 9.

A passive candidate gives 1, so I must be more active and give 9.

My tools for find them is I must be active, visible, and available.

posted 6 days ago | Flag answer as...
Steve Delaney - Recruiter:

Best Answers in:
Using LinkedIn (1)

1. Confirmed relationships...Internal database, past referrals, previous candidates...
2. Social Networking i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, ITtoolbox, Plaxo, JigSaw, ITLink, etc...
Links:
http://www.sjdelaney.com

Tim Chattaway - International Risk Recruitment Consultant at Genesis Computer Resources, London,
My diary, then referrals from people in my diary. Usually does the trick.

Octavio Ballesta - Management Consultant ♣ Corporate Strategist

Although referral is the classic approach to reach passive candidates, you could use Linkedin and particularly its Answers feature to identify effectively prospective candidates for current job opportunities:

- Linkedin like no other recruitment portal can offer the possibility of assessing the profile of different passive job applicants that in many cases are preferred for those companies looking for the best focused talent having the willingness of engaging a professional career in companies that prefer employee’s stability and career’s continuity over employee’s mobility and volatility.

- If you are looking for an expert in Business Development a good place to start is by reviewing the list of experts in Business Development and evaluate carefully both the profile as the questions that such passive candidate has developed and asked through the time that has been a Linkedin member. Unfortunately, Linkedin has not developed yet a versatile search feature where you can submit a query considering the expertise that a professional has gained in a given professional discipline for obtaining a reference or link to each one of the questions where the prospective candidate has gained expertise.

- If your customer has a very specific need to be fulfilled through a new job position, you could utilize the search utility of Linkedin Answers to get a set of possible aspirants to fulfil a job position characterized for a very specific competence, skill or knowledge. Let suppose us that you need to hire a manager with a good insight in Innovation and experience in Strategic Alignment. If this is the case you could utilize the following string: “Innovation" and "strategic alignment" to reach not just to the professionals that have posted questions related with such themes, but the professionals that have responded these questions and have gained valuable points of expertise.

- According to the needs and wants of your corporate customers you could design and post a set of specific questions that obeying to precise business necessities of your customers can offer you a glimpse about the capacity of seasoned and talented professionals in solving problems specifics to any given professional discipline or industry. If you are looking for a manager with experience in change management practices applied to transformational projects of corporate extent, a set of carefully designed questions involving coaching, cultural change, and change management amongst other aspect, can prove be very helpful to evaluate knowledge, skills, competences and speech of your prospective candidates.

- Although, not all the questions that a professional has answered in Linkedin could be a relevant and precise mirroring of his/her expertise, a careful analysis of the relevant questions conjugated with the positive recommendations given by co-workers, managers and customers with whom the prospective candidate has interacted can offer you a better perspective from this candidate than the obtained via a classic and static resume. The degree of activity of a professional in Linkedin can give you additional clues about his/her personality, professional development, willpower to socialize, professional interests, eagerness to collaborate and integrate teams, culture and professional expertise.

Finally, when you have finished your pre-selection of prospective candidates, if you have a Premium account in Linkedin, you will have the capacity to reach through InMails to anyone of 20 MM+ of Linkedin members. The most appreciable advantage that Linkedin offers you like a recruitment tool is that you have the capacity of getting touch with valuable passive candidates that could be in most of your recruitment processes a better option to satisfy the requirements of your corporate customers.

I hope this helps you.
Octavio
Dennis Comeau - denniscomeau.blogspot.com
LinkedIn
Networking Groups

Jonathan Foulds - George Butunoiu Executive Search
One web site like LinkedIn that is quite useful is www.xing.com
Links:
http://www.xing.com

John S. Rajeski
Aside from the previously mentioned methods of finding passive candidates; in the US, VLAB and/or SD Forum are excellent mediums.

Michael Goh - VP HR at Singapore Exchange Ltd
I'll elaborate more on 1 of the tools mentioned: referrals. Specifically, referrals by the business folks. They know the industry and its personalities, the good, the bad and the ugly. Once they have helped identified someone suitable, then the partnership between HR and the business kicks in to start the woo-ing.
Could be tough to gain the buy-in to such an approach though. Sometimes you have business folks who do not recognise that talent acquisition is the responsibility of everyone, not just HR.

Wei Luo
I enjoy reading Lynn's answer... "I must be active, visible, and available." - true to me !

Kristen Fife - Senior Recruiter, Author
Employee Referrals and LinkedIn.
I recently hired two LinkedIn passive candidates.

Tom Bambrick - Experienced Human Resources Professional

Referrals
Linkedin
Chuck Radcliff - Recruiter, Sales Process Facilitator
telephone
linkedin

Vincent Rush - Owner, Rush InternationalWhen I was a recruiter, I could sponsor lunch giveaways at resaurants where I knew the professionals all ate. I used to clean up on sorting through the fishbowls business cards. Most of the time they lead to referrals but during one 4 month stretch in 98, I made 4 direct placements and pocketed more that $37K in fees, strictly from "fish bowling".

The other effective way of getting passive candidates is your personal branding of your self and what experience your candidates have with you. It's the way you treat them and how you thank them for placing thier trust in you.

If done properly, they feed you candidates.

Yannik Gaehwiler - Associate at HireGround Executive Search
there are various different tools that can be used, all depending on the individual. I am more of a researcher, so I like to check out the competitors of my clients, and try and recruit out of there. This approach takes time and effort, but it can be the most helpful searching tool , because you know what you are getting. The other good tool to use is linkedin, because everyone is on there, active and passive seekers.

Kunal Malhotra [LION] - Product Management & Engineering hiring @ Google
Depends what kind of people you are looking for. In the technology space, besides the usual - linkedin & employee referrals, I've also had success tracking down people using certain websites such as ACM, Olympiads etc. Besides this, digging into the alumni associations (both university & corporate) could be quite useful.


John Ouellet - Sales and Recruiting Jedi Master
I would say first the old school answer, Job Fairs. I have made numerous placements off of Job Fairs over the years and a lot of people go them for the CEU's in Healthcare, not to look for a job, but they talk to you at least. It takes a little bit to figure out which ones are good though, but once you do it is worth it.

Direct Sourcing is the way to find passive candidates. Just call through a company (make sure you have a good script and prepare for rejection), but it is 2 fold, you find the names of everyone in the company to sell to and in the same token a passive candidate or two.

I also like to cold call of certification boards...
John Ouellet also suggests this expert on this topic:
Jeff Skrentny, CPC/CTS (AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com)


Lauren MacSorley - Recruiter at QVC, Inc.

- linkedin & other social networking tools
- keeping in touch with past applicants (they were once interested in working for my company... so they ususally love to hear from us again)

Marc LeVine
My huge database of industry contacts and my mouth!
Emon Talukdar
Assistant Manager
Sarika Bhujeja(sarika.bhujeja@gmail.com) - Lead Recruiter at 7N India
1. Social Networking sites like LinkedIn and different groups
2. Referrals and previous hired consultants

Osvaldo Danzi - Recruitment Manager at Manpower Professional
according with some of these answers, in my opinion, LinkedIn is the best recruiting site, without be effectively a recruiting site.
Its strong depend by the fact that all the recorded people is "informally" available to be contacted and, if you have a quality network you can reach the best candidates around.

I think that a "quality network" means that you must select and care your contacts;

- select through the main decision makers on the market, the best reference respect your business, the people that can be the "bridge" from you and the relevant candidates for your business.

- care through meetings, conference calls, business lunches or activity - where possible - that "link" the people between them.

It's useless to have 500 contacts or more and don't have really a "link" with them.

The second tools, NOT FREE. is advertisement on newspapers.

This is the main tool that I use so I can reach in a really few time the best candidates on a particular area, really interested "tomorrow" to have an interview with me, really motivated to change thei actual job, and in line with job description. Don't forget that a candidate that reply, let the job with a motivation and it's not so important how much earn more..
An hunted candidates, ASK 20% more and often use your offer to remain in his/her Company with an incentive on your salary..
Osvaldo Danzi also suggests these experts on this topic:
Paola Tamburini
Gianpaolo Alfano
Alexis Sottocorno

Marc Crouch - Executive Search Consultant at Integral Search
The best sources are, in order, direct headhunting (where you have a list of names and call them through switchboard), referrals, previous candidates, LinkedIn, and advertising.

So my top 2 are cold headhunting and referrals.
Richard Detoy - General Manager, Executive Search Solutions
In our industry the candidates are rarely part of social networking sites or visible to services such as LinkedIn. Accordingly, we do our work the old fashioned way, which means our top two tools are the telephone and our extensive candidate database built from years of using the telephone and recording the information.

Jesse Pinkoski - Project Coordinator at TopGrading Solutions

I would say #1 is the site we're on, LinkedIn. Alot of great talent is here, some have their full resumes (not so passive) some just have a quick snippit of their info which you can take and call into their company's switchboard and find them. #2 is probably referrals- Talking to the good candidates you know who know what value you can bring to their friends in similar positions, even if it's just from a general introduction standpoint for the future.

Fred Ernsting - Senior Account Manager - Onsite Recruiter
To find good passive candidates, consider the following:
1. Use those older resumes and applications of those candidates who applied to you or your peers for positions but whom were either not hired or whom were not looked into thoroughly. Not only can you "check in" with these folks to see if they are available, how things are going, what they might be looking for, etc. (this satisfies the WIIFM, or "what's in it for me" part of the call in the eyes of the person on the other end of the phone) but also, you can ask the key question, "Who do you know who might be qualfied for a [your open job title here] position?" This is a great way to learn about passive candidates who might be willing to make a move.

2. Call directly into companies, identifying target passive candidates by job title using Hoover's, Dunn & Bradstreet, etc. Having trouble getting past the gatekeepers? Call at night and leave a brief, attractive recruiting message if you must.

3. Keep good track in a database of those management or other professional people whom you call for reference checks. Over time you'll have a good supply of contacts. Many good passive candidates from this target group will either be looking around themselves or know someone who is. After all, how often have you called someone for a reference and the person you call says, "Let me close my door", then they ask how you might help them! These valuable reference contacts might just be the passive candidate you need to fill that next position!

*** Remember!!! When talking to someone to learn about other possible (passive) candidates, DON'T ask "Who do you know that might be interested in XYZ position?", but rather, ask "Who do you know that might be QUALIFIED for XYZ position?" Get names and phone numbers of target passive candidates. Then, find out from the passive candidate him/herself whether they are interested in making a move. ***

Source : Linkedin.com