Having a pool of qualified blue-collar candidates you can offer jobs to is the bread and butter of your recruiter business. However, finding the right workers is an ongoing process and it’s not always easy. Not having enough applicants or simply not having people to pitch job opportunities directly hurts your bottom line and the reputation of your brand.
You can access a large number of people via dedicated websites, social media, and comprehensive platforms. Find out more below.
Finding Blue-Collar Candidates: Tips for Expanding Your Pool of Job Seekers
- Job Boards and Career Sites
Job boards and career sites are great places for recruiters to look for blue-collar candidates. Workers who are looking for international opportunities aren’t as active on social media and platforms such as LinkedIn, although there’s some merit in using these as well.
Instead, these workers usually visit specialised sites providing international employment. Jbo boards such as Eurojobs allow them to apply for different jobs, upload resumes, and wait for the right opportunity. You can leverage these platforms because, in most cases, they allow recruiters to access the databases with the resumes.
This often involves paying access fees, but in exchange, you will be able to extend your network of people you can offer jobs to. Depending on the website, recruiters can apply different search strategies to look for specific industries, skills, and experiences, which makes the search time-efficient.
While these job boards aren’t really popular among recruitment companies, they can prove valuable for increasing the number of people you reach and the chances of finding new candidates. Depending on the platform, the pool of people may be a bit smaller, but so is your competition, meaning you can build more meaningful relationships with job seekers.
2. LinkedIn Recruiter
LinkedIn is such a massive platform that you can’t overlook it. Although it’s geared toward white-collar workers, checking out can be worth a shot. Why? This is the biggest platform for networking and job search, and there are job seekers you can approach here as well.
The networking platform allows you to precisely filter your search queries and find candidates by exploring different keywords and search methods.
Depending on the niche you are in, you can determine if it is worth it to invest your time and resources in this platform. Some newer articles and older pieces on the platform argue that LinkedIn can be beneficial for blue-collar professionals, so it’s worth conducting a few thorough searches.
One of the biggest benefits of LinkedIn is that it has a lot of passive talent. These are the people who are working and aren’t looking for other jobs, but who are open to new opportunities.
3. ATS (Applicant Tracking System)
If you’re working for a company’s in-house recruiter team, you are probably familiar with applicant tracking systems. ATS is a software that recruiters and businesses use to automate, customise, and structure the hiring process.
These systems allow you to find candidates quickly and automate the processes that deal with candidate sourcing and management. These platforms are win-win tools, as they allow you to expand your search quickly, while making the entire hiring process more organised and easier. The people who have their resumes within the applicant tracking system have most likely already worked abroad before, and they are familiar with what they can expect.
4. Networking Events, Forums, and Social Media
Visiting job fairs, niche forums and networking events can also allow you to extend your network of candidates, and if you visit in person, you also have the chance to mingle with job seekers and fellow recruiters.
This type of networking doesn’t always have to be formal, with sign-ups, tickets, and such. You may also join online groups and forums where people are actively searching for international job opportunities.
That said, you can always leverage online communities and Facebook groups. According to a 2023 study, where 49.6% of the respondents were blue-collar workers, Facebook has proven to be the most valuable job-seeking platform for them, while white collar professionals preferred X and LinkedIn.
As a matter of fact, there are several large Facebook job-sharing groups for foreigners who are are looking to work in specific countries. Joining these groups and becoming an active member can help you find and source candidates based on your job offers, but keep it in mind, that seeing results may take time.
While there are multiple tricks and tips you can use to recruit on Facebook, building rapport with group members take time. It’s better to immerse yourself in the community first, provide value, insights, share open jobs, and show that your approachable rather than bombarding other group members with direct messages.
So, don’t shy away from posting, commenting, sharing, and being actively engaged in the group. This builds trust and shows that you are a reliable expert, not like most cold emails that feel pushy and even weird.
Talking about social media in general, you can leverage the power of these platforms. With around 5.07 billion people on social, creating your brand’s presence here makes sense from a marketing perspective.
Apart from groups and communities, you can also create your professional brand page and run paid ads to attract job seekers, which can be a bit complicated at first, but you can quickly get the hang of it. And if you get your targeting right, you can drive lots of impressions, traffic, and even convert qualified leads into candidates.
Just be prepared that building your brand presence on social can also be time-consuming, just like building rapport within groups.
5. Referrals for Blue-Collar Candidates
Referrals are among the most underutilised tactics in recruitment, especially when you want to expand your pool of workers.
A well-adjusted referral program you have other people doing your job for you. Whether these are people in your environment or workers you have cooperated with in the past, they can help you spread your network quickly.
For example, if you helped a job seeker land a job in the Netherlands and they’ve been satisfied with the overall experience, you can ask them if they knew any other people who’d be interested in working abroad. Direct them to your referral program and watch job seekers come your way.
To get clients from referrals, your recruiting skills need to be on-point. You must excel at creating relationships and putting your clients first.
6. Connect with Other Recruiters
Just because other recruiters are your direct competitors, it doesn’t mean you can’t be allies.
Partnering up with other recruiters and helping each other out can change the course of your career. They might have access to jobs for which you can propose candidates.
Or they can send you some of the candidates if you have a lot of job opportunities available. The benefits are mutual. You get things moving, and you share the profits, also known as splits.
To keep such relationships going, you both need to be proactive and help each other for this to work. The benefits are mutual, as otherwise, nobody would land a candidate and get paid. Trust each other and see in which areas you can help each other.
Partnering with other recruiters immediately increases the pool of workers you have at your disposal. Even though you might not receive full compensation every time, the most important thing is that you are building relationships and recruiting actively.
7. Form Relationships and Be Transparent
Nurturing relationships and being transparent are pivotal to building trust and growing your brand. Always inform candidates about the hiring process, give them valuable information regarding getting a job abroad, and what they need to prepare and what they can expect from it.
While only one or a handful of people will get a job from one employer, always ensure to reach out to every candidate, and make sure that everyone involved had a great experience.
Hire Abroad: The Platform That Completes The Picture
The strategies above allow you to create an extensive list of people who are ready to work abroad. And if you are worried about not having enough vacancies, Hire Abroad can help you with that.
Let us show you how our recruiter dashboard works and how you can organise the list easily to direct each blue-collar candidate to their perfect job opportunity.
Recruiter Dashboard
We created the platform with recruiters in mind. Once you’ve joined Hire Abroad, our team will onboard you to familiarise yourself with all functionalities, so you can quickly import your list of candidates to whom you will propose jobs.
Adding New Candidates
You can always add a new candidate to your list at any time by entering some basic information about them. Here’s how it looks.
Browsing The List
Once you have the list of candidates on Hire Abroad, navigating through it shouldn’t be difficult. You can check details about the candidates and where each of them stands – whether they are waiting for an offer, have received it, have accepted it, or have been proposed to clients:
Not only that, but you can also easily filter the list of candidates and check all the necessary details as well as their status. Filter through candidates and look for specific people based on their name, status, or other categories such as driving licence or English level.
This will allow you to find suitable candidates quickly and inform them about the job. Also, what this does is help you find the perfect match in just a matter of minutes:
Once you find the perfect candidate for the job, you can present them to the agency. They will receive the candidate, and if they like their skills and competences, they will finalise the process:
After you propose the candidate to the agency, all you need to do is wait for them to accept it. Your job ends here, and you will get the notification for proposing the candidate:
Are You Ready to Join Hire Abroad?
As you can see, our recruiter dashboard is made to make your job easier. And by applying the strategies we’ve mentioned above, you can expand your list of candidates who are willing to work abroad. There are plenty of job vacancies at Hire Abroad that you can propose, so that’s something you don’t have to worry about.
Joining Hire Abroad as a recruiter is free. Get in touch with our team, import your list of candidates to our platform, and start exploring the numerous job opportunities available!
