Carl Lewis, Michal Phelps, David Douillet, etc. We all remember the names of the Olympic gold medalists.
But unless you're an expert in their respective sports (namely track and field, swimming, and judo), you're unlikely to remember the names of those who took home the silver medal opposite them.
Yet, you'll admit that they are also great champions, right?
If posterity only remembers gold medals, should we do the same in recruiting? The answer is clearly: no, and here's why.
Every time you recruit for a new position, you're getting back information on candidates with a variety of backgrounds and skills.
Some of them are far from what you were looking for, while others, who reach the final stage of the recruiting process, are excellent potential candidates who would have been within a few details of being taken for the job.
These are your famous Silver Medal candidates, i.e., the ones who were close to getting the job, but you didn't retain.
Silver Medal candidates have a specific characteristic that makes them even more valuable than you might have originally thought.
Not only are you familiar with what they have to offer, but these candidates are also convinced to work for your company.
They've already researched the company, learned about the selection process and imagined themselves, at least at one point, working for your company.
This is why they represent the one of the most valuable talent pools, but also one of the least leveraged.
Candidates have significant value considering that all of their data can be stored, categorized, and searched when recruiting for another position in the company.
Storing, sorting and organizing this information manually can be extremely difficult, but with the right tool, you can get yourself Do your job as a recruiter faster and easier.
The ultimate importance and benefit of these candidates lies in providing a memorable experience for your candidates and ensuring that you build strong relationships with them that will translate into potential hires in the future.
Everything we've said so far might make you think it would be great to start maximizing the potential of Silver Medal candidates, but at the same time, the important question of "how" might quickly arise.
The information that Silver Medal candidates are a valuable asset is probably not news if you've been in the industry for a while, but it's pretty hard to put those words into practice.
That's why the use of recruiting CRMs has made significant inroads and progress in this area.
Not only can your social media sourcing be more accurate than ever, but you can really utilize the potential of Silver Medal candidates.
The benefits of CRM in processing silver medalist go both ways for candidates and recruiters.
On the one hand, recruiters receive referrals of suitable candidates who may be rediscovered for new positions, and on the other hand, candidates will receive referrals for similar jobs in case the original ad is not a good fit.
Specifically, the tool stores candidate information in a database where it learns all relevant attributes for a specific position based on a large amount of data.
For a recruiter, this starts to look like a list of candidates that are sorted based on their suitability for a specific position.
While in the case of recruiting a new web developer, someone who applied for a Marketing position will be far down the list, the next time the company hires a new marketing manager, the situation will be reversed.
This shows that the tool learns as time goes on and as new candidates are integrated into the database, making the recommendations more and more precise.
There are candidates who have made it to the final stage of your company's recruitment process, who are likely still interested in your company and are looking for a new opportunity to join your team.
From their perspective, it's important to keep their morale up and encourage them to continue applying in the future, making them feel like a potential asset to the team.
That's why it's very helpful to have a tool that recommends and displays relevant job opportunities to them.
Concretely, this time, the Marketing manager in the previous paragraph will only be recommended Marketing-related jobs, while a web developer will be recommended web development-related jobs by the tool.
This will increase their chances of applying for these positions within the company and will save everyone time.
A meaningful targeting and timely communication are the keys to good recruiting.
When we talk about Silver Medals, this becomes even more important.
Therefore, having a tool that will help you master all of this is somewhat of a "dream come true" in the HR world.