Yesteryear they were looking on Monster and other job boards.
They would pay money to sift through resume banks, whether from job boards or from their own internal system.
In recent years they were looking for you on LinkedIn (where there were a bunch of passive candidates – supposedly their favorite kind of candidate).
Check out the comments in this post, though, from Jerry Albright, who is saying that LinkedIn is no longer the place to look for candidates.
In the comments he’s asked where he looks and engages with his prospective candidates, but he hasn’t (yet) shared his answer.
The message is clear, though. He goes to where his ideal candidate is hanging out. Where is the “water cooler” for his candidate.
In other words, instead of searching through Profiles and resumes, he is looking for engagement and conversation.
What does that mean for you? Do you have a “build it and they will come” strategy, which doesn’t fit into what Jerry is doing? Or are you actively engaging and hanging out with your peers and those around your peers?
Tools will come and go. They will get better, they will be leap-frogged by other tools, but networking and relationships and having a brand (whether you care to or not) will always be a part of hiring.
I neglected it in my job search. I don’t recommend it at all.
