Between our two guests, Gary Siegel and Devin Jaroslawski have over a decade of sales experience in the recruiting biz. In this week’s episode, we discussed record low unemployment rates, how it impacts recruiters, and how they can tackle the talent shortage head on with new strategies.

What are the jobs that your clients can’t fill today?

Unanimously, Gary and Devin agreed: clients can’t find technical talent. Security analysts, IT professionals, computer scientists and engineers, and software developers are few and far between.

Unemployment is below 4%. There are more jobs than people to fill those jobs. Take that problem and pair it with skill sets, and clients have an even bigger problem.

“It’s crucial for these companies and recruiters to reach out to passive candidates. There are so few people who are actually looking, but the perfect person to fill that position may be working at another company and no one is reaching out to them,” said Gary. The talent is out there—people just aren’t looking in the right places.

Looking back over a decade ago, what has changed?

“The days of ‘post and pray’ are over but we still see it online all the time,” Devin said. “We still talk to new clients every day that say, ‘oh yeah, we’ve got the job posted but we don’t have enough applicants coming through.’”

What advice would you give to a client and/or recruiters these days?After finding out what clients are doing to attract talent, he tells them to go after passive candidates and consider the benefits of recruitment research data.

There’s more to recruiting than just LinkedIn

“With sites like LinkedIn—which is a great site, we use it every day—how much can you really find on there? How many people even have LinkedIn? How many of those pages are updated? Every time we look at research reports, so many of the people don’t even have a LinkedIn account.”

Why is that?

The numbers would suggest that there are millions of individuals with a LinkedIn account, but more and more Devin and Gary explain that they see the contrary.

“I think one of the biggest reasons for this disconnect is that the two biggest users on LinkedIn are salespeople—like us—and recruiters. There are fewer people looking for work than there has been in 10 plus years.” Devin explained. “So, why do they need a profile? Why do they need somebody blowing up their phone or shooting them emails pitching an opportunity—the same type of spiel they’re getting from recruiter after recruiter after recruiter.”

Recruiters need to stand out… and pick up the phone

According to Gary, recruiters can’t just send an email or make a call and tell candidates that they have a great opportunity. That doesn’t work anymore. “They need to do their homework and build relationships with these individuals.”

He encourages recruiters to pick up the phone. “You’d be surprised how many recruiters don’t even use phone calls. They’re just using InMail messages, text messages, email. But it’s important to get on the phone. They need to utilize every strategy they have… there’s so much competition right now with the unemployment rates.”

Remember your brand and focus on candidate experience

“The one thing people have to remember, especially when going after passive talent, is the candidate experience. I think a lot of these employers struggle with… let’s call it an ego thing. They expect candidates to want to come work for them no matter what the reason, no matter what the job is, no matter how they’re pitching the opportunity. It should be reversed,” Devin said.

“They need to be trying to attract the right type of talent. You have to remember your brand. Make [candidates] understand that they really need to look at this opportunity because it’s best for them.