Struggling to find superstar candidates for your open ERP or CRM positions? Three Steps that All Successful Sourcers Use:

Are you struggling to find superstar candidates for your open ERP or CRM positions?

Having recruited and placed hundreds of people, mostly Sage and Dynamics ERP and CRM solution professionals over the past 20 years, I can tell you one thing for certain: Recruiting and hiring ERP and CRM candidates is tough work.  While finding candidates is by no means the end-all of the problem, it is clearly the first step, and the one that enables the rest of the process. The steps that follow are actually more work, and are often filled with disappointments. Here are three easy steps, (in descending order of effectiveness), to find suitable ERP or CRM managers, implementation consultants, developers, sales, or support professionals (for a lot more detailed info and explanations, you may enjoy downloading and reading step 5 & 6 of our eBook, The Impossible Dream: How to Find and Hire Your Ideal ERP or CRM Professional):

Step 1:  Constant sourcing (the most effective.)

There are pros and cons.  When it comes to “rare talent,” if you wait until you need to hire people to start looking for them, you’re too late.  On the other hand, if you start looking for people before you’re able to hire them, you’re too early.  Despite the seeming inefficiency, continuously sourcing, and nurturing relationships with candidates in your field(s), is the most effective way of sourcing candidates.  All other things being equal, it’s a numbers game.  It takes time, and a lot of work, but that’s the way it works (see the last line of this blog about children..).

Step 2:  Networking and employee/customer/clieent referrals (can be very effective OR potentially very damaging.)

There are pros and cons here too.  People you know (including employees, customers, or clients) know people you need to know, and they can qualify and introduce you to them.  On the other hand, with such referrals, your relationship with the person doing the referring can compromise your ability to be completely objective.  This also takes a lot of work, and is really part of constant sourcing (above).  Altogether, it’s definitely important to network into the largest population of “your kind of people” and increase your reach as much as possible. This takes time, and work, but it’s one of the best ways to source suitable candidates.

Step 3:  Job boards (can be effective, but much more often is ineffective.)

To no surprise, there are pros and cons here too, although from my perspective the pros are less impressive.  The sad truth is that the VAST majority of candidates who respond to postings on job boards are COMPLETELY unsuited to the position.  Not even close. So, unless you having nothing more pressing to do than to power through a mountain of misguided resumes for that ‘needle in the haystack’, you may find yourself paying lots of posting fees and not getting around to processing the miss-the-mark results of your post. Perhaps the greatest “pro” is that posting a job gives the sense that you’re being productive, but I’d bet you’re not the type to find satisfaction in mere busyness.  Nonetheless, when looking for “rare talent,” on the outside chance that someone may actually apply for a suitable position, this is probably worth considering.  (A great article that further explains the problem with Job Boards is theundercoverrecruiter.com/job-boards-dont-work/)

If it was easy, children would be doing it.