Interview with Karien Feddema, Recruiter at Qreer.com

Karien is a skilled recruiter within the international recruitment team at Qreer.com, and together with the marketing and PR team responsible for the internal and external communication of Qreer.com.

She drives top talent to companies that are open to hiring international skilled employees with a technical, engineer and IT background. For Karien to be successful in attracting the best talent, she is able to instill the same company vision of Qreer’s customers into the candidates.

1. What trends do you see when you communicate with candidates?

I communicate with many candidates for technical positions, for companies, across Europe. The positions I discuss are for example Mechanical, Software, Aerospace or Physics related. Thereafter, a noticeable trend is that candidates are in general more critical towards companies before applying for a specific position.

Most common questions are related to company culture, its mission and the perks a candidate will receive. It’s an important movement towards sharing more company information towards candidates in order to gain not only the interest in the position, but genuine interest in the company.

2. What do you think most recruitment managers look for in a candidate?

I notice in general that most candidates are interested or complimented to receive a position that suits their educational background and skills. However, to identify great workers — especially in tight labor markets such as the technical / IT industry — recruitment managers need to ask smart questions and know what to listen for in candidates’ responses. When asking what a candidate is looking for in a specific position, the majority of high-quality job candidates are attracted to companies that align with who they are and encourage them to do what they do best.

In contrast, lower-quality candidates are more likely to seek companies that meet their immediate requirements, such as pay and benefits, work hours and work demands, or personal and family needs. They also are more likely to accept a position because they “needed a job,”

When receiving feedback from recruitment managers, most just want to have a brief summary of the candidates experience, highlighting the abilities that relate directly to the job, that candidates have done some research about the company, what makes the candidate qualified for the job.

3. What is your advice for good recruitment?

Recruiting is a complex task and has changed so much over the past few years, thanks to the digital age. Nevertheless, recruitment strategies are needed to stay on top of finding the right candidate for the job. Below I have listed some key tips for good recruitment:

Sometime we see job descriptions of 3 or more pages long. it is important to not make the job description too long. If you use 250-700 words, it is getting 2,5 times more response than using more words. Keep each statement in the job description crisp and clear.
Paint a picture of the day-to-day responsibilities of the job, including a breakdown of tasks by percentage.
Make your application for jobs mobile friendly. A lot of candidates will find a job on their mobile device (phone or tablets). It is important they can apply easily and quick.
Invest in a good reach. Qreer is performing many activities to create more exposure across several channels outside the job site. We sent dedicated and targeted mailings towards candidates that fit the profile of the job requirements. In addition, job templates are promoted via social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Xing, Viadeo, Google+ and more. And to attract candidates on a personal approach, we meet them on career job and university fairs all over Europe.

A job description is like an employer’s sales pitch to candidates. You’ve got to make them descriptive enough to get a candidate’s attention, and interesting enough to keep it.

4. What are ways that Qreer promote and market a job vacancy?

At Qreer you do not pay to just post and wait until candidates will apply. In addition to having your vacancy on Qreer.com, talent sourcers search for candidates in different databases, our own, local en international. We describe the positions clear and easy to read. We send mailings to the candidates in our database which have a technical background that match the job requirements. And third, the marketing team will promote the advertisements, using job templates, across all kinds of social media channels to create awareness among job seekers.

5. What are reasons to outsource or offshoring recruitment?

By delegating a company’s business process to third parties or external agencies, recruiters are able to focus on core business operations while delegating mundane time. Other reasons employers choose to outsource recruiting include a need to improve recruiting processes, reduce a high turnover rate, control rapid growth or seasonality that makes it impossible to keep up with recruitment needs, develop competitive advantage, and coordinate recruiting and on-boarding.

So our core business is to support our customers in their recruitment and let them decide up till what point Qreer takes over. Qreer can take over the following activities:

Place the job vacancy (Incl. Fine-tuning (SEO) of the job and optional translation to English)
Expose the job vacancy across Europe (media channels, career and university fairs, e-mailings, search in CV-databases and approach candidates, etc)
Pre-Screening CV’s
1st interview candidates (incl. cultural test)
Relocation candidate (for interview and/or after hiring)

Providing our customers with the technical employees they can hire tomorrow is our full focus at Qreer.com.

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