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Submitted by mapletree on
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I am a manager of an application support team for a large national health insurance company. I am looking for suggestions on how to find application support analysts who have experience supporting applications some of which are specific to the healthcare industry. I have tried the normal routes Monster, CB, Dice and have not gotten many qualifed leads. Also the skill matching offerred by the recruiting agencies that I have used tends to be to generic.

Any suggestions?

WillDuke's picture
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I'd go to the job description. What specific skills are REQUIRED.

Then I'd look at my most successful team members. What makes them so good? What is their background? How did they get here? Before they were here, where were they? Can I get more people from there?

That's my thought process.

asteriskrntt1's picture

I would do what Will said, plus I would look to see if there were any professional associations or user groups etc that support the ASAs. Perhaps you can troll in those waters too.

jael's picture

Have you asked your current team members to refer potential candidates to you?

TomW's picture
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I tend to see Monster, CL, CB, and Dice as the shotgun approach.

A better place might be discussion forums for that specific group of people you are looking for. It's a more focused ad and might yield better candidates.

regas14's picture
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Is the specifica application experience the limiting factor in this scenario?

Can you hire a great person with no experience on these specific applications and provide training on those specific competencies?

Hiring for a skill that is trainable, such as application experience, might actually create a bigger training problem than the application itself. You might find that you have a fully competent application support analyst who lacks a number of other skills that are also important for success.

wendii's picture
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Hey Maple

You've got some really good advice so far. Here's a bit more to think about.

Wendii

You need to think carefully about the people you are trying to attract. Where are they? What are they doing now? What do they read? What do they listen to? Are they web savvy or likely to be reading the local evening paper? What are they impressed by? A quarter page in the Times may impress (and attract) your next MD, but an administrator will probably be scared off and more impressed by a quarter page in the local paper. Working out who you're trying to attract and tailoring your advertising to them ensures you get most 'bang for your buck'.

Don't forget free sources either - you already have a website, advertise there. You have staff who live in the local area - make sure they know about the opportunity. You can incentivise them if you want to, but if your company is a great place to work, they will sell it for you! Advertising jobs is not so much a hunt as a marketing campaign, so if you need some help, ask marketing as well as HR.

bflynn's picture

[quote="mapletree"]I am a manager of an application support team for a large national health insurance company. I am looking for suggestions on how to find application support analysts who have experience supporting applications some of which are specific to the healthcare industry. I have tried the normal routes Monster, CB, Dice and have not gotten many qualifed leads. Also the skill matching offerred by the recruiting agencies that I have used tends to be to generic.

Any suggestions?[/quote]

Let me suggest that some of the advice you've received has led you to the current situation. HR as normal is not your answer.

Back to my old saw - why are you filtering by skills first? Everyone is looking for the same skills you are, why are you amazed that they're impossible to find? Furthermore, why are you limiting yourself to people who already know everything?

Skill is the lowest qualification for a job.

Decide what personality attributes make a person attractive to you. What fits with the culture of your team? What fits with the culture of your company? If someone doesn't have the exact skills, what would you look for to hire someone who can learn them? Then work with HR to determine how to interview for those personality traits. And, since you've mentioned healthcare, I'll bring up something I've seen as particularly bad in your industry: Look outside your industry. Yes, you're a little different, but not that much.

Do this and you will have a much larger candidate pool. Not only will you be amazed at the number of quality people available to you, you'll be able to pay much lower for someone, pay for their training AND still come out ahead. And have a higher quality team.

What is the line about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? No offense is intended to those in the HR industry. However, the standard corporate process for hiring just isn't working in the tech industry.

Brian