Greg Moran, Founder & CEO, Chequed.com

Regardless of how many resumes come streaming through your inbox for a given vacancy, finding the right candidate is often as daunting as finding a needle in a haystack that might be at someone else’s barn. However, this is often a result of relying on outdated methods for sourcing candidates. Alternative venues for sourcing quality candidates can help recruiters engage top performers no matter where they’re hiding.

Moving beyond the basics and engaging more proactive recruitment methods, recruiters are able to find the right candidates more efficiently. What’s more, in doing so, you can develop a pool of top performers who can then be called upon for future positions. The results of more thoughtful, preemptive recruiting generate a positive cumulative effect and make future recruiting drastically less headache-inducing and remarkably more successful. So, where do we look?

Following are five places where the top performers who will drive business success might be hiding:

1. Behind a Bad Resume

Studies indicate that recruiters make decisions about candidates based on their resume very quickly. While previous studies indicated that recruiters took as long as 4 to 5 minutes to determine a candidate’s fit, TheLadders released a report earlier this year that found recruiters spend a mere six seconds judging a resume, on average. It’s more than likely that a completely subjective screening process that lasts a mere six seconds is probably churning out significantly poor results and missed opportunities.

The fact is that many candidates are not professional resume writers. Top performers, while a perfect fit in actuality, may submit a resume that is easily forgettable. Consequently, recruiters have to learn to look beyond the resume and leverage job-relevant candidate competency tests as a means for objectively structuring their filter. Employers can use other, more effective screening methods, including behavioral assessments that help predict job performance to help identify those top performers, despite a resume that might not be indicative of their abilities.

2. Away from Generic Job Descriptions

Too often we rely on generic, cookie-cutter job descriptions when positing a job vacancy because popular myth tells us that doing so is both efficient and effective. The reality is that job descriptions that routinely include aspects such as a minimum number of years experience, only the menial job duties, and are listed using dull language are ineffective for a number of reasons.

First, a top candidate may feel either under or overqualified based on such a description and subsequently decide not to apply. What’s more, a generic job description is unappealing in that it tells the candidate little about life at your company. Remember, recruitment is a two-way street. Candidates should be as excited about the opportunity to work with the employer as the employer is to work with them.

3. Under the Title “Reference Provider”

Birds of a feather flock together – this is frequently true of top performers, too. So when we find a top performer through whatever recruitment means, it’s important than we investigate their reference providers because there’s a good chance that they are also top performers in their respective field. When we interact with a quality candidate’s references, we should keep in mind that, someday, we might come back to them and ask that they apply for an opportunity as well.

Using automated reference checking software, employers can include personalized information and employer branding data to increase their appeal to reference providers. In addition to the user-friendly aspects of such software, these added benefits go a long way in impressing potential candidates and strengthening employment brand.

Through automated reference checking services, recruiters can build a database of passive candidates very quickly. The math is simple: If 100 candidates each add 5 references (the recommended number in an automated system) to the system, your database automatically has detailed contact information for 500 people with industry relevant experience. This passive candidate database is searchable by company, title, geography, keyword etc. It’s both a high quality and high quality source of talent.

4. In Our Friends’ Contact Lists

By their very nature, our friends are people we like, trust and respect. Given that studies indicate that a reference is the most predictive assessment of a candidate’s capabilities, it only makes sense that we would exhaust our friends and colleagues as preemptive reference providers for the people they know.

Spread the word amongst your professional peers, LinkedIn connections, and others you know personally about the position’s details and see if they know of anyone who they think would fit. It’s unlikely that such connections are willing to risk their relationship with you by responding with an unqualified candidate.

5. Amidst the Jungle of Social Media

Social media is here to stay and offers valuable opportunities for recruiters. Not only can we leverage it to generate awareness and interest in vacant positions, we can also investigate a candidate’s background through some objective snooping. What professional connections do they have on LinkedIn? What does their Facebook profile say about their history? Are they utilizing social media to support a professional blog?

Remember that any information you have access to on these networks is fair game for your recruiting eyes, but those details pertaining to religion, race, sex or other protected areas should not factor into your hiring decision.

A New Way to Recruit

If your firm is looking for a way to up the ante and begin sourcing higher level of candidates more effectively and efficiently, it’s time to look beyond your current sourcing strategies and start leveraging the information and prospects available. The opportunities are out there. We just need to grasp them.