How much is it worth to you to find your new candidate fast?

Is it measurable in dollars? Productivity? Corporate revenue?

The monetary benefits from quality recruits can be impressive to say the least, especially when you factor in the time saved from positions not left open for months on end. And luckily, no matter the field in which you recruit, the Internet will provide you with some rather superb methods to contact a number of these scientific candidates faster, and produce better results than from traditional cold calling.

As a recruiter or employer in the sciences, you have some definite advantages over those individuals who are stuck finding professionals in the non-technical or non-scientific industries. These advantages include:

Computer literacy. The Internet dates back to the late 1960s when, under the leadership of the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), the concept of the Internet grew from a paper architecture to a small network (ARPANET) intended to promote the sharing of supercomputers among U.S. researchers. And this hallmark of networking has been carried over to today-the number of scientific e-mail lists and forums at sites like The Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences and CataList, which is the official catalog of listserv lists, demonstrate this point admirably. Thus, the probability is rather high that you will be able to reach a large number of candidates via e-mail quickly and effectively.

Industry goals. Many of the best scientific candidates put a high value on making their mark and being part of something well designed and elegant. While one rarely hears of colleagues admiring their outstanding stars in the marketing fields, one almost always can recognize key scientists in the relevant fields. Thus, highlighting the ability to work in a stimulating research environment provides you with an additional quality perk to attract the best and the brightest.

Networking. The sheer number of professional journals and forums where your candidates gather provide you with a myriad of recruiting opportunities. Not only can you use job boards such as cen-chemjobs.org, but you can also take advantage of discussion groups that are hosted at the various chemistry resource sites and message boards as well.

The above are only some of the advantages you have when searching for those candidates to fill your open positions. But to maximize using them, you have to take advantage of them first! One of the best ways to do this is simply to map your recruiting procedures in a logical format and then implement your plan.

Before You Begin

Before you begin recruiting in the sciences, make sure you have clear answers to the following questions.

1.) Why is your opportunity so wonderful? What makes it stand out from all your competitors? If you were stuck in an elevator with the candidate of your dreams for thirty seconds, could you quickly and precisely outline the highlights of the positions offered?