As a Hiring Manager, it seemed I had a rare gem in hand, an open personnel requirement that was fully funded and ready for the right hire, right now! I thought that filling this requirement in the Fourth Quarter of a economically dismal year would be a snap – there had to be a throng of highly qualified people from which I could pluck the perfect person with the perfect experience for this role. I started my search by posting the job to the usual job boards late on Thursday afternoon.
On Monday morning, I had more than a thousand applicants. As I began reviewing the resumes, it felt like I was trying to take a drink from a fire hose. Every candidate in the first 50 resumes I looked at was qualified. I had a new problem now: how on earth to differentiate between this literal throng of well qualified applicants. They all looked the same and I had no way of knowing if the resumes were coming from recruiters, or even from people who were truly available. I knew that there had to be a better way – a way harness the visibility that Linked In and the other Social/Business Networking sites provides to find someone that could quickly vouch for candidates and really put their experience and their credibility in the right context for me.
I was very pleased to find ChumBonus, a job placement site that revolutionizes the old, quickly-becoming-obsolete job boards by combining a zero-cost option for posting a job with an opportunity to reach out to the world to ask who they know that is right for my open position. My company has started using crowd-sourcing in several different areas. ChumBonus enables me to use the same concept – harnessing the knowledge and the power of the crowd to quickly and cheaply find the right person who is available and qualified for my open position.
Once my job opening is posted on ChumBonus, anyone can take a look at the details and if they know someone that matches the skill set I am searching for, they can refer that person that they know and trust for the job. When they refer the right person for the job and that person is hired, then we all win – I got a great employee recommended by someone that knows them for a fraction of what it costs to post to a job board each month; the person who referred the right candidate gets a monetary reward for referring their friend; and the site makes it very easy for part of that bonus to be channeled directly to a charity.
Benefiting from the power of the crowd and giving benefit back to the crowd through charity donation – all at a low cost to my company. I can’t think of a better way to re-energize recruitment at my company as we look forward to an economic turn around and many more job openings to fill in 2010.
Tweet this
