How to handle recruitment marathons

Positions that every recruiter is dealing with can be divided into sprints and marathons. Sprints are the roles that require only one or two hires and are hard to get bored with, especially when you often switch projects, tech stacks and the markets.

But what if a position requires multiple candidates? Let’s say, you are looking for 30 full stack engineers for the same project. Sounds like an exhausting marathon, and it may seem that the market has worn out after some period of time. But in fact, constant work on one position allows you to investigate the market and build long-term connections with the future candidates. 

Here are some tips that may help you in your recruitment marathon:

• To make the sourcing journey easier and more efficient, start with a thorough analysis of the market and a sourcing track sheet. It helps to determine the appropriate markets, donor companies, sources and to plan your work ahead. Do not forget to count the reply rate and see what subjects or messages work best for you. Here’s the example of how your sourcing track sheet can look like:

• It is important to track all the candidates in the ATS (or at least in a spreadsheet): name, profile, contacts, date of last reach out and comments. This way you can keep the history up-to-date and plan the follow-ups.

• When contacting the candidates and receiving replies like “Not interested” / ”Not ready”, try to find out the reason - it can be the contract that ends in 3 months, some personal reasons that do not allow a person to invest the time into interviews or a simple vacation, when a person does not want to be bothered. It helps to identify when this person can potentially be open for the new role. This way you can make reminders for yourself and come back to these candidates when they are ready.

• Do not be afraid to make follow-ups! In fact, our experience shows that frequently people read messages and forget to answer. But don’t be too annoying, if a person did not answer after the second follow-up, it is better to wait and reach out to this candidate again in a couple of months.

• The last one, but not the least - make communication with you the best experience for the candidates. Keep the candidates in the process updated, provide the feedback, ask for their preferences in the future opportunities. It will help you to build a long-term relationship with the candidates and come back to them with a new role in the future.

Working on only one role requires a lot of persistence, but it also makes you an expert in certain markets and allows you to build a basis for successful hires.