Offshoring your recruiting? Think again
A few months ago, after I left Yahoo!, I put my full resume online for the first time. And it was generally a good decision; I got several calls for interesting-sounding marketing and product positions at appropriate career levels.
But then there were the calls from Siti Corporation.
Siti promotes itself as a “Recruitment Process Outsourcer.” Or as they say:
“SITI empowers recruiting departments to be faster, better and more effective in acquiring the best talent. SITI helps our clients redefine the power of their recruiting departments and change the way companies do recruiting.”
In other words, they take your job posting and send it to India.
So let me tell you about my two experiences as the potential recruitee, so you can see how your company would be represented.
1. One day in December, three different Indian women emailed me about the same position at Comcast. Then they all called my cell phone. Yes, all in the same day.
2. Today, I received a garbled voicemail from Rahul at Siti. He followed up with an email, subject: “Maketing fulltime postion.”
Hi Eric,
Enclosed below please find the details of the requirement, and please do send us your updated resume in word document ASAP, with the following details…
1. Full Name:
2. Contact Number:
3. Email Id:
4. Current Location:
5. Work Authorization:
6. Availability:
7. Rate:
Please let me know in which position you will be comfortable
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Fulltime
JOB DESCRIPTION:
- Marketing person who has done Webinars, Seminars, press releases, data sheets, event managements etc with expertise in IT area US national
Are you kidding me? You give me a misspelled subject line, a one-sentence job description with no employer name, and a demand for information from me? What a joke.
I’ve used recruiting outsource services before, with mixed results. Decision Toolbox has provided solid candidates and often excelled at screening. But for most positions, I’ve found that screening my own resumes and candidates has given me better results in less time.
It’s been more than a generation since our economy has been about making widgets for the domestic market. Today’s successful companies win by attracting and retaining smart, skilled, flexible talent. The recruiter is, in many cases, the first contact that a potential candidate has ever had with a company. So why would a company outsource this first impression to someone who can hardly communicate with them at all?