Smart Recruiting: Professional Association Meetings
If you're a professional recruiter, and have requisitions to fill, do you just sit at your desk searching through job site resumes, or do you get out and mingle? And more importantly, are you using professional associations to help you make connections with your niche candidates? Despite all the hoopla that Austin is recession proof, the reality is a lot of people looking for work right now, either because they'd been RIF'd or because they don't feel secure in their current position. More resumes are submitted for positions, meaning a lower ratio of qualified candidates. Why waste time searching through stacks of resumes when you can target your candidates quickly, and even pre-screen them with face to face meetings without obligation to interview?
Do you really want to waste time screening out the pretenders and the resume bloaters, or use a source where you have a higher ratio of proven professionals?
Professional Associations are created not only to promote the knowledge specific to the profession, but as a means of networking. Professional association members know the value of staying current in their field and are more likely to be viable candidates employers want to hire.
A good case in point is the Austin chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI created certifications for project and program management professionals, as well as specialized areas of knowledge within project management. If you need someone with these skills, tapping into the local PMI chapter is the most efficient and effective means of finding candidates who are actively maintaining their skills in the field. The Austin PMI chapter not only provides educational programming to help the project management community utilize best practices in the
field, it's is very good at promoting networking. The Blue Dot/Green Dot program offers those seeking opportunities (blue dots) to talk to those with opportunities to fill (green dots) ways to find each other at monthly chapter meetings, held the fourth Tuesday of every month. First, the sign up sheet blue and green stickers to place on name tags. Second, there are specially designated tables for blue and green dots to sit together, and allow them to get to know each other during dinner, or during the education portion of the evening. Lastly, the contact information for each group is shared with the other, to allow for easy followup. Green dots may even briefly address the chapter during the meeting portion of the evening.
You don't even have to buy dinner, you can just show up for the networking portion of the event, or pay the nominal fee to attend the presentation or workshop that are offered as part of the evening. Membership is free and open to the public, but requires national membership as well as local chapter membership.
There is also a local, internal job board that keeps members informed of job leads outside of chapter meetings. Nancy Schindler, Director of Opportunities, is very active in seeking out leads, but not all recruiters realize she's a great resource for connecting with candidates to fill reqs for Project Managers, Program Managers, Business Analysts, Project Coordinators and other project related positions. Nancy is the person to seek out if you need to find someone in project management to fill the req, as she knows the candidates in the chapter well.
Lastly, there is an annual targeted job fair after the annual Professional Development Day, the first Thursday in October. With 500+ career minded project management professionals attending PDD prior to the job fair, it's a sure bet you'd meet some very qualified candidates.
So, to make a long story short, why are you wasting time trudging through unfiltered resumes instead of going to the source? In the case of Austin PMI:
And the topics for tomorrow's presentation and workshops are:
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