In order to win job hunting game, we need to understand how it works. One essential part of understanding how it works is to understand how companies recruit. That is, which different recruitment channels are companies using?

In this post, I want to briefly describe all the nine recruitment channels companies use. I also want to share how you can expose yourself to the whole job market.

The channels are sorted in order of how frequently they are used in the recruitment process.

Which ones of these channels do you use to connect with employers?

1. Informal Connections

86 % are happy, 60 % use.

By far the most preferred recruitment channel of Swedish employers. Both in terms of happiness and usage. 35 % say that it works “very good”. There is a huge gap between this recruitment method and the second one on the list. With this in mind, we can understand why 60 % of all the jobs are given to someone with informal connections with the employer. It is simply a recruitment channel that works well for the employers.

Luckily, there are tons of ways you can connect to people informally:

•  Use LinkedIn a lot. Connect with people that interest you and become a member of groups.
•  Become an active member of Facebook groups with people that you share professional interests with.
•  Send emails to people that you want to get to know.
•  Go to networking events (meetup.com is a good platform for finding events. Facebook works as well)

2. Arbetsförmedlingen

48 % are happy, 45 % use.

This one is interesting. It is the secondly most used recruitment channel but also the one companies are least happy with. This is because Arbetsförmedlingen is often a part of the recruitment process in some way. For instance, every year 1.5 million jobs are posted there and they just introduced a new feature that makes it possible for employers to search for candidates.

This means that if you are in their database recruiters and employers might find you from there. So it seems like Arbetsförmedlingen is getting a lot better and convenient for companies. You should definitely have your CV in their database. It might take an hour or so to make but you will be instantly become searchable by everyone that is posting a job ad on the platform.

What you can do at Arbetsförmedlingen?

• Join Arbetsförmedlingen to see if employers can get subsidies of 60-85 % for your salary.
• Add you CV in Arbetsförmedlingen’s database. It will be seen by the employers that you match with.
• Check out their job board.

3. Social Media

63 % are happy, 37 % use.

This is obviously a fairly new type of recruitment. You can get a job on social media from various ways. Some get them from just being active in certain groups or in the discussion. Then there are also some specific groups.

• Make sure you join all the groups for jobs in your city or the cities you want to work for. There is an organization that makes all these groups and some of them have 40 000+ members. 
• Present yourself in the group above. Use a picture when presenting yourself. A picture will increase response rates.

4. Ads

52 % are happy, 32 % use.

You probably know a lot about all the various sites for job ads. You can also find in newspapers. One thing to keep in mind though, make sure you understand the competition is tough and you probably need to target your application really well and maybe even need to give the recruiter a phone call before sending the application to cut through the noise.

Some things to keep in mind:

• The people with good response rates on job ads usually spend 1 hour targeting their application and contacting the recruitment company.
• 59 % of all recruiters will throw away a CV with spelling errors, use Grammarly to check CV/Cover Letter for grammar and spelling mistakes.
• Look at the common sites for putting up ads like Arbetsförmedlingens Platsbanken and Monster. Another good one is Indeed.

5. Spontaneous Applications

67 % are happy, 27 % use

Lots of companies have some kind of spontaneous application message on their website like “we are always interested in getting in touch with interesting candidates”. Even if they don’t have, I have personally never heard about someone at a company being mad while receiving a spontaneous application. For a company, getting a spontaneous application is nice because it shows that you are interested in what they do.

This is what you can do:

• Make a list of companies in your industry.
• Connect with the CEO or someone in the company and express interest in their business.
•  Try to get a 15-minute meeting where you can talk more.

6. Recruitment Companies

70 % are happy, 24 % use

This is especially important for professionals. Many companies are using recruitment companies to get second opinions or to handle the whole recruitment. In Sweden, there are 2000+ recruitment companies. A lot of them are really small ones.

This is what you can do to expose your profile to recruiters:

• Make sure you are searchable/discoverable on LinkedIn. Fill out your profile so that you have 100 % progress. Most recruiters use LinkedIn heavily.
• Put your CV in the recruiters’ databases. Here are the TOP25 recruitment companies in Sweden by size. 

7. Other Internet Services

61 % are happy, 17 % use

Pretty broad but there are tons of internet services like Uptrail, Upwork, Sqore and Just Arrived. Usually these services have some kind of email subscription feature so that you can receive nice fits with your profile.

What to do?

• Try some sites like Upwork and Fiverr. These are sites where you can find freelance work.

8. Cooperation with Education Providers

66 % are happy, 9 % use

Often times, schools and Universities will have some cooperation with the business. In some cases, this is very structured like companies will actually recruit directly from classes. Other times it will be career fairs at the university. I have heard about lots of people from 400contacts going to these career fairs even though they are not students at the university. Sweden is pretty good that way. Most of these events are open to anyone.

• Look at this list to see all the universities in Sweden.
• Find the one closest to you.
• Find out when they have career days.

9. Recruitment from Abroad

61 % are happy

It does happen but it is a minor part of the job market. Only 4 % of the job market is hired from abroad. But this can be through the usual channels like LinkedIn, Ads, etc.

Finally

As you see, there are tons of channels that recruiters and companies use. Which ones are you trying? What strategies do you have for this various channels? Which of the channels do you think is the hardest? Would be happy to help you with that one. Leave a comment below. 🙂

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