A week ago, I decided to set aside part of my CEO responsibilities and spend some time as a recruiter to develop a deeper appreciation for the recruiter's craft. I knew recruitment wasn't easy, and the second week of my experiment left no room for doubts.

Day 8: Ben - 1, Job boards - 0

Job boards are no joke.

I initially decided to tackle job boards with no technology backing me up. I got greedy and aimed for a big talent pool to shortlist.

All my credits got spent quickly on views and exports - visible candidate profiles were too high level. Still, my long list wasn’t even close to “enough”.

I had a chat with a Top Consultant at a big recruitment agency. I was looking for some sympathy for my job board struggle. Turns out, she sometimes goes through over 1000 pages looking for “the one”. Even that number may not suffice.

I got a little discouraged.

Sourcing from job boards took a lot of time I would rather spend on having conversations with real people.

So I cheated.

I turned to technology - connected to the job board using an API and set relevant filters (position, salary, commute distance, last activity on the job board).

A few clicks and  - voila! - I had a list of candidates in front of me.

I still had to go through it and use my credits to import the CV directly into my database, but I saw more metadata and was spending credits wisely.

The outcome was reassuring. With technology behind my back, I feel good about posting a job ad on the board now.

Day 10: I’ve got some good and not so good news.

Let’s start with good ones.

Today, I read that the UK’s employment rate has reached a record high, while unemployment is at its lowest since the mid-1970s.

Well done, UK!

Candidates are now in a position to be picky and companies will have to step up their hiring experience and retention game.

What’s there not to be happy about?

Recruiters have a tough job already, and it’s not getting any easier. Now, they are dealing with a smaller candidate pool to source from than ever. Candidate sourcing techniques have to become sharper.

I have a feeling I’m about to experience it myself as I progress with my COO job opening.

In 2017, a typical recruiter needed 270 people on average to close one job. I’m not even halfway there.

I was just about to start advertising on job boards and see how that works out.

Recruiters, how do you stay motivated when dealing with small talent pools?