This article is the first in a three-part series

Steve Lowisz, President and CEO, Qualigence, Inc.

Before we experienced the 2008 economic disaster, the phrase “war for talent” seemed to be overused by every corporate and agency recruiter I came in contact with. It seemed to go away until the 1^st or 2^nd quarter of 2011 and now seems to be back on every executive and recruiter’s mind. Recruiters across the country have shared with me the excitement they have about recruiting again – about building talent pipelines, implementing social media, bolstering up their LinkedIn connections, and creating new and compelling candidate value propositions.

Let me start by giving one word of advice – STOP!

If you are serious about recruiting the best talent, take this as an opportunity to build a recruiting culture throughout the entire organization – up to and including the CEO. Don’t make the mistake of throwing all of your time and money into new-fangled technologies, building talent communities or costly social media campaigns unless you have the basic principles of recruiting drilled into both your recruiting staff and your hiring executives.

Let me ask a few questions:

1. What is your organization’s candidate value proposition? Does everyone involved in the recruiting process understand these key points? How is this information communicated to candidates?

2. Are you leveraging your social networks/connections? Are you continuously broadcasting your open positions to your networks? Are you growing your LinkedIn connections?

3. Are you building talent pipelines? How do you create a talent pipeline? How do you communicate to and track those in your pipeline?

4. Are you interviewing consistently and effectively? What questions is the recruiter asking? What questions is the recruiting committee asking?

Most of those reading this can probably provide a detailed answer as to what they are doing in each of these areas. For example, every time I ask the question, “Why would someone want to join your organization” I get a very lengthy answer. Whether I ask the CEO or the recruiter, both can rattle off 10-15 bullet points of why any particular candidate should pack up their current offices, quit their jobs, and walk across the street to a new, fantastic, opportunity.

In the same way, everyone talks about growing their social networks, particularly LinkedIn, and the value this brings to their recruiting effectiveness.

On the surface both of these issues seem like great news – but are they really?

As the competition for finding, engaging and attracting the right candidate heats up, every organization needs to reassess their understanding of, and strategy for, implementing each of these key focus areas.

Parts two and three of this series will examine the questions listed above in greater detail.

Steve Lowisz is founder, president, and CEO of Qualigence, Inc., a recruitment research and professional search firm that specializes in identifying and attracting passive candidates.