Dive Brief:
- Amid a deluge of applicants in standard hiring channels, some recruiters are turning to unorthodox methods to find candidates, according to April 28 survey results from Zety, a resume templates service.
- Of the 1,001 employees responsible for hiring surveyed, 59% said they feel very comfortable finding candidates outside of work, and 52% said they already have done so — including at restaurants, grocery stores and airports. The most common of the unusual talent pools include social media that isn’t LinkedIn as well as social events, like parties, Zety said.
- In these casual settings, recruiters said they tend to notice candidates with strong communication and interpersonal skills. Notably, 84% of those surveyed said these off-the-clock encounters yielded solid candidates compared to formal channels, per the survey results.
Dive Insight:
Recruiters have had to up their legwork partly in response to a glut of applications triggered by the use of artificial intelligence tools, a Glassdoor report from earlier this year indicated. While online applications still far and away lead in obtaining interviews and job offers, recruiter-sourced applicants have also risen in success rates, the report indicated.
Per Zety, some unusual places recruiters have found talent include at a bar, the grocery store, the gym, concerts and even dating apps.
The recruiters surveyed noted risks of recruiting informally, however, with 14% saying it was “very risky” regarding the potential crossing of professional boundaries and 41% saying it was “somewhat risky” with largely manageable pitfalls. Around 45% said the risk was only slight or not present.
Amid the proliferation of AI, recruiters have also had to work harder to evaluate candidates’ abilities, a senior director of research in the Gartner HR Practice wrote for HR Dive. But opaque hiring practices have also prompted job seekers to apply to many jobs all at once, even ones that may be far outside their actual capabilities, a Monster report from April said, flooding recruiters with even more applicants.