Question of the Moment: Posting Job Ads When You're Not Hiring- Right or Wrong?

Comment

Comment by Andrey on April 10, 2009 at 8:31am

I think it's usual to post the most widespread vacancies through the Job Boards to attract candidates for future. Actually it can even be more useful in crisis period because you can get urgent request from management for intensive recruitment and you need to have active candidate database.

Comment by shawn davidson on April 9, 2009 at 6:43am

As long as the employer clearly indicates that the company is not hiring at the moment, I don't see a problem with it.

Comment by Lisa Kaye on April 9, 2009 at 1:35am

If staffing and personnel agencies are sourcing candidates for jobs they don't have I don't think it's unethical unless they are not disclosing that they have no actual jobs to fill. It's common to build your database and sometimes clients will ask us to source and recruit candidates with special skill sets even if the job is not in queue to be filled-this is just to get a jump start on future recruiting. This is legit and totally ethical. I think so long as you are honest about your recruiting efforts, people particularly in this market, would like to be considered even if the job is a few months off from being filled. It's better to be early to the party then to never show up! I don't think candidates mind sending in their resume for consideration for any job at this point if it gives them a chance to play.

Comment by JobsforKarma on April 8, 2009 at 9:41pm

I have seen companies posting jobs for the purpose of LCA. When you call them and they say send in the resume. There may not be an actual job. This is legal.

But if a ecruiter is posting a job for the purpose of gaining some attention, thats WRONG.

Comment by Miles on April 8, 2009 at 8:29pm

Well, I think that this practice may actually be illegal, so recruiters should be careful with this. But certainly candidates have to worry about this practice every time they apply to a job. In fact at last count, with multiple job postings for the same job, expired jobs, jobs that lost funding, and jobs that are just posted by recruiters to develop candidate pools, there was a total of 10 honest-t0-goodness jobs open in the entire USA.

Of course, developing candidate pools is essential, especially in slow times. I always think the key to effective candidate pools is in fact organization and not sourcing. For example, a company might get tons of resumes into their database from posting, but are these candidates truly "ready to go" candidates for the future? Of course not. The key is to talk to everyone, take notes (electronically) and develop very effective folder and tagging systems. Over time, these conversations and folders create the basis for deep candidate pools. And it is these deep candidate pools that will knock your competition out once things turn around a bit...