How Line Recruiters can Use Blogs: Part I

A BlogSwap Post at Recruiting.com discussed the use of Metrics, and that rolled into a large discussion in the commenta about the use of blogs by recruiters.

I promised Heather I would do this, so here is the beginning of a series of posts on how local and line recruiters can use blogs to hire more people.  The question of whether a recruiter should blog boils down to a few simple facts.

1) Will it help hire more people than other activities?
2) Will it help hire better people than other activities?

Everything else is marshmallow fluff.  My contention is that the only way for us to determine if blogging is an effective recruiting tool is for recruiters to use blogs and report on the results.  For the purposes of these examples, we're going to make the assumption that the authors of these example blogs are competent bloggers who update regularly, write well, and join online communities.  That's a big assumption, but here are two specific ways a recruiter can use blogs to improve the number and the quality of the people the hire.

Blog Example # 1:  Hyperion Recruiter.
Search Google for "hyperion essbase st louis"

The results should bring up a series of posts I made when I was looking for Hyperion Essbase programmers.  To this day, Hyperion Essbase searches from MSN and Google routinely lead people to my site who submit their resume for placement.

Blog Example #2:  Desktop Java Recruiter.
Do a search of "Swing interview questions" on Google. 

While looking for a swing developer, I posted a list of Swing Interview Questions.  That one post is my  highest traffic builder, bringing 10 people a day from around the world looking for a list of swing interview questions. 

Analysis:
What kind of people use search engines to find jobs?  Primarily the people most difficult to find - travelling consultants who are constantly on the lookout for new long-term positions.  These consultants, ERP experts (SAP, Peoplesoft Financials, Oracle Express, Siebel), financial experts in Hyperion, EDI experts in Streamserve and other programs, usability architects, and hundreds of other specialites outside of the technical world are looking for new positions.

They are also looking for advice on how to do their job better.  A recruiter who hosted a blog on the technical aspects of hard-to-find technologies for their firm is going to better locate hard-to-find people with a blog that pulls candidates than phone calls that push them.

Good recruiters for years have haunted forums, lurking for top talent.  Doesn't it make sense to bring that talent directly to your website?

Up Next:  Call Center Blues?  Try a Blog.