The New Age of Recruiting

From the desk of Michael Coomer, Human Resources Manager: Since people are our most important resource here at ACT Environmental Services (a philosophy that is evidenced by our numerous “Best Places To Work” awards), I am always thinking about how to find our next great employee. Times have changed in the busy world of recruiting. Long gone are the days of posting job advertisements in the newspaper and waiting for qualified candidates to come to the door. The same is becoming true with online recruiting. Simply posting jobs on websites is not enough to find the best candidates these days. Now we are seeing some promising new strategies for finding top talent. Some of these approaches are updated twists on old plans, while others are brand new. Recent research has shown that job postings – no matter how well a company gets the word out – will only reach a small percentage of the candidates sought. Many times, the candidates desired by a company are not looking for a job at the time of the posting. Only those candidates who are actively searching will be found this way. Enter passive recruiting: getting the attention of those individuals who may not realize a great opportunity is available at our company. For years, companies have used this strategy by finding individuals that current employees already know and trying to bring them on board. The evolution of social media and marketing-based strategies in recruiting has opened the door for many companies now. While finding passive candidates by referral is a great idea, it is still limited due to the fact that employees only know so many people. Adding the tools of social media, marketing and branding can really put a company’s recruiting strategy over the top. In a somewhat paradoxical way, by harnessing the power and reach of social media, a company can actively make contact with passive candidates. At ACT Environmental Services, this happens each time we announce a new honor, such as in our recent posts on making the Los Angeles Best Places To Work list and moving up Waste360’s Top 100. ACT is always interested in finding the best talent. We consistently utilize a mix of traditional and newer methods to find our employees. With these strategies, we have built an outstanding team of professionals who have become family. However, we are never complacent, and we are constantly looking for new strategies and more talent for our growing team. Please check out our career opportunities at www.actenviro.com to learn more about becoming part of a company with a great work environment, rewarding career paths and outstanding benefits.