Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the latest unemployment figures. Economists and politicians laud the figures and tout the reduced number. For April, unemployment was just 3.9%. The figures tell a story that anyone working in hiring or recruiting has know for years – it’s a candidate’s market.
The overall improvements in employment mean increasing struggles for defense industry recruiters, who are battling both a very strong commercial sector, and a dwindling talent pool. Just as the unemployment rate has dropped over the past five years, the overall number of individuals with an active federal security clearance has decreased, as well. With fewer candidates in the market, a strong overall economy, and particularly high demand for technology talent including engineers and developers, there is one thing that’s certain – if you’re a recruiter, you’re job is getting tougher.
Candidates with an active federal security clearance and in-demand skills are virtually guaranteed to be getting dozens of messages from recruiters each week. The saturation of messages means many candidates are simply choosing to opt-out of major career websites or social networking sites such as LinkedIn – for both the security concerns, and the spam.
How do you find candidates when they’re increasingly opting out, or ignoring correspondence from recruiters? Courier pigeon is not an option. Neither is finding these folks at career fairs. That means every online communication matters. And believe it or not, there are successful ways to reach out to cleared candidates and get noticed. Here are five tips for better messaging, and better engagement.
1. Let them know where you found them.
Candidates are constantly being briefed on security threats, and they know unsolicited messages from recruiters are one way they’re being targeted. When you contact a candidate, include your name, introduce the company you’re working with, and clarify how you found the candidate.
“Hi James. My name is Sue with XYZ Defense Contracting. I found your resume on ClearanceJobs this morning and I really love your experience with Agile and SQL, and I would love to tell you more about a great position I have supporting the Department of Army.”
2. Only reach out to candidates who meet the requirements.
A spaghetti strategy is not going to work in today’s marketplace. It may be tempting to reach out to a candidate who seems to meet some of the requirements. Or at this point, you may be wanting to add anyone with a Top Secret security clearance and ‘engineer’ in their job description to your network. But for every ‘almost there’ candidate you connect with, you’re wasting time you could be spending targeting a candidate who absolutely meets the criteria.
“I see you have a CISSP, which is a requirement for this position, and while you don’t have a degree your military service and years of experience are an equivalent for this role.”
3. Make sure you say ‘Why’ you reached out in the first message.
For today’s security conscious candidates it is absolutely critical to be specific about the reason you contacted them.
“I’ve found that higher level, technology types want to know why I’m reaching out,” said Jan Johnston Osburn, Vice President of Strategy and Execution at Lewis Price. “They want to know what I saw in their profile that makes me think they would be a match. If someone comes back to you to tell you that they don’t match that description, you’d better have a good reason why you reached out to them. If not, they don’t think you’re doing your job really well. Sometimes you might see something in their profile that would make you think they’d be a good match so tell them up front. They want to feel important.”
“Angela, this position absolutely requires someone who has at least five years of experience in finance with strong interpersonal skills – I can see from your resume you have both.”
4. Make the Job Seem Important.
You’d be amazed how many broadcast messages or emails are sent to candidates where the recruiter doesn’t appear to be very excited about the position. Even if it seems like the most mundane help desk job, you have to find the value, and sell that value to the candidate. Just as a candidate wants to feel important, the job they do should seem important, as well.
When it comes to what motivates employees, mission and purpose is often the key driver – right behind salary. Tie the position you’re offering to a mission the candidate can get behind.
“One of the best aspects of this mission is you’ll be working alongside warfighters in a SCIF every day. So as soon as you can get past the lack of windows, I think you’ll really love learning how your work is affecting the headlines you watch on the evening news.”
5. Show Them the Money.
You may not want to reveal your hand up front and discuss salary. But for in-demand candidates, not mentioning salary or benefits may mean you don’t get a response at all.
“When it’s a tough position (some IT roles), I’ll provide anything I can about the benefits and the salary range,” said Osburn. “IT people want to know all of that up front or they won’t get back to you. And, if they do, they want to know salary before you speak. On most of my emails, I’ll include the salary range now. People want to know and they don’t want to waste time. I agree with them. ”
While you may be shy of mentioning salary numbers, remember it’s not only money that motivates an employee to make a move. When reaching out to passive candidates, you’re going to have to give them something to entice them away from their current job – whether it’s money, benefits, or location.
“In reality, if someone lives in Northern Virginia, then they would not consider moving to Maryland,” said Todd Keys, program manager at Cantada. “Benefits are also a big part of the equation, increasing in importance even over the last 5 years. I had a candidate contact me back just today. He did not ask about the jobs we have. Instead, he wanted to know what our benefits were like. All of these factors will come into play as a candidate considers changing jobs.”
“The salary range for this position is $80,000-$100,000 depending upon experience, with a potential 20% annual bonus and stock options. You’ll also have the option to telework one to two days per week.”
Overall, it’s key to remember that a one-size-fits-all strategy does not work in this competitive market. You should be regularly changing the messaging you use to reach out to candidates, and taking advantage of every outreach available, from one-to-one messaging, calls, chat and broadcast messages to groups of candidates in your network.
Not every message will hit the mark. But over time and with a bit of creativity you’ll find the secret sauce to source the security cleared candidates you need.
