I know many of you are saying to yourselves, “Free resumes? There’s no such thing! There must be some sort of a catch.” Well, I’m here to tell you that it is true and that there is no catch. As the economy has changed, so has the job market for candidates. Gone are the days of recruiters working on hundreds of openings without a qualified candidate in sight. Today, most recruiters are working on fewer positions while trying to manage the flow of candidates into their e-mail box. As budgets get tighter though, you must look at alternative ways of finding candidates that cost less money. After all, if you’re able to make hires and save money at the same time, you will be demonstrating how valuable you are to the company — not by just bringing in qualified candidates, but by doing it at a fraction of the cost of traditional recruiting methods. If you look at the cost of posting a job on a given job board, it can cost up to several hundred dollars per position depending on where you post it. The problem that many recruiters are encountering today is that they are spending the money on job postings and then being overwhelmed by unqualified candidates. But much or that money is being wasted, because the recruiter cannot effectively review the responses. The suggestion I can offer everyone are several new services that have cropped up over the last few years, known as resume distribution services. Some of you may be very familiar with these services and may have even used them unsuccessfully in the past. But in the past, they did not deliver the quality of candidates (who’s going to pay money in a tight job market?) that they are able to deliver now. In the new economy, where there are many quality, recently displaced candidates, the service can offer candidates value by getting exposure for their resumes. If you are unfamiliar with resume distribution services, the basic premise is simple: recruiters can receive resumes for a wide variety of positions for free. The way most of them work is that candidates who are looking for a job pay a small fee, usually ranging between $20 to $90, for the resume distribution service to send their resume out to recruiters all over the country. A recruiter receives these results on a daily basis based on the filters they have specified when they signed up. The best part about receiving these resumes is that there is no cost to the recruiter. But you must specify the types of candidates that you wish to receive. If you don’t, you could be over run with hundreds of candidates a day that don’t fit the profile of any openings you are working on. When you sign up, it is important to look at all of the categories of job seekers and select only the ones that you wish to receive. You also need to change the types of resumes that you want to receive, once you no longer need any more candidates for a specific position. You may be saying to yourself, I’m bombarded with resumes already, why do I need more? Well, if you have a good organizational system for storing resumes, it’s ideal in the slow times to stock up on networking contacts for the inevitable tight employment market to follow. PREPARE for the change in economy by electronically storing the resumes quickly and efficiently so you can use them to network for future openings. If you don’t have a good way of organizing the many resumes you are receiving…then NOW is the time put your department in order! But that’s a whole different topic. Below are a few of the services that offer resume distribution:
- ResumeZapper. This site appears to be one of the best in this space today. They do a lot of banner advertising and are linked to thousands of sites in order to attract candidates.
- ResumeAction. This site is well connected and attracts many candidates.
- Resume Blaster. Well connected and offers several different services to job seekers.
- Resume Wahoo. Offers candidates to redistribute resumes three different times. This may make it more attractive to job seekers.
These are by no means the only sites out there that offer these types of services. I just wanted to give you a place to start. Sign up for a few of them and see what features each service offers to determine which ones will best suit your needs in the futures. One final note: Just in case you weren’t sure, I am in no way connected with any of these services, nor do I receive any type of compensation from any of the companies listed in the article.