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What You’ll Learn: Top recruiting trends for small to medium size businesses (in the US, companies with less than 10,000 employees, in the UK, less than 1000) Benchmarking metrics for value-driven recruitment strategies, including equity, efficiency, and transparency As a scaling startup or mid-size business, what your 2022 recruiting metric goals should be About this […] More
There’s no denying that 2021 was a wild ride for HR teams, making it tough to predict HR trends for 2022. Around the world, millions of employees took part in the Great Resignation—quitting their jobs at record-setting rates and leaving companies rushing to fill open roles. In the months that followed, HR professionals faced a […] More
There’s no denying that 2021 was a wild ride for HR and talent acquisition teams, making it tough to predict recruiting trends for 2022. Around the world, millions of employees took part in the Great Resignation—quitting their jobs at record-setting rates and leaving companies rushing to fill open roles. In the months that followed, HR […] More
With a resurgent job market, demand for talent in specialized roles has surfaced gritty competition between employers seeking to quickly fill positions. Recruiters must harness the same creativity they utilized over the last year to adapt their hiring processes and candidate experience or risk losing out on top talent.
Emerging from a global pandemic, candidates now have greater expectations from recruiters and organizations. According to Jobvite’s 2021 Recruiter Nation survey, 47% of recruiters cited the lack of skilled/qualified candidates as the biggest concern in hiring quality talent.
By catering to candidates’ needs and offering an optimized apply process, recruiters can gain an edge in today’s candidate market. Jobvite’s latest e-book, “How to Hire Top Talent Quickly,” dives into how recruiting teams can hire top candidates by shifting their recruitment and application processes to compete for a tight talent supply. Below are ways recruiters can apply these insights to better attract quality talent.
Begin with your employer brand
Recruiting for highly skilled roles that require extensive training and specialized degrees means standing apart from the competition. Employers can entice top candidates to complete their applications with a unique employer identity that emerges from the cluster of competitor listings.
48% of recruiters consider a company’s career site a top tool when it comes to growing employer branding. With greater expectations from candidates regarding recruitment processes and company culture, communicating an up-to-date employer brand will streamline attracting high-quality talent. Companies must ensure every channel – from career sites to social media – conveys a consistent, genuine message about their identity as an employer and company. Organizations with a thoughtfully designed brand spend less on recruiting because they do not have to work as hard to sign top candidates.
Building and maintaining an employer brand is no small task, but it can provide significant long-term benefits. A company’s career site is a great place to start when cultivating an employer brand. Job postings give candidates an inside look into role requirements and create an opportunity for employers to connect with quality job seekers by highlighting their culture and values.
Elevate the candidate experience
Attracting specialized candidates requires engaging candidate experience. According to the 2021 Job Seeker Nation Report, the most essential factors to a positive candidate experience are great communication from the employer (54%), ease of scheduling (47%), easy application process (45%), and a quick hiring process (30%).
Delivering the right experience can often involve taxing coordination of various aspects of the application process. And, leveraging automation can play a crucial role in a talent team gaining a competitive advantage. For example, AI-powered sourcing tools can automatically tap into resume databases and job boards to build a broader, more diverse pool of talent, identifying the relevant skills and experience needed to excel at any job requisition. Utilizing tools like text-to-apply, self-scheduling portals, and chatbots can further help create a streamlined, personal experience for every candidate without the need for tedious manual processes.
Glassdoor recently found that 58% of candidates look for jobs on their phones, and 35% would prefer to apply for jobs from their phones. Mobile devices serve as an excellent contact point to meet top talent. Ensuring the career site is compatible with mobile browsers will help recruiters reach candidates on the go and prevent candidates from dropping off from the mobile application process.
Build your talent pipeline
Recruiters must also build a quality talent pipeline to promptly fill these roles with qualified employees, staying ahead of their competition when a need arises. As businesses and corporations return to full operation, a talent pool presents a readily available candidate database to tap into without letting quality candidates slip through the cracks.
To create a robust talent pipeline, recruiters should revisit their database of past applicants, sorting candidates that are a good fit by location, skillset, role, and level of engagement. Maintaining a regularly updated database allows recruiters to generate targeted campaign messages, keeping passive candidates engaged year-round. Utilizing intelligent messaging solutions, recruiters can nurture each audience segment via targeted texts, job notifications, and recruitment marketing content so they aren’t faced with a roadblock when in need of talent.
To round up a talent pipeline, why not tap into the satisfied majority? 82% of workers are likely to click on a job opportunity posted by someone in their social network. Employee referrals offer speed and quality with hiring skilled candidates – and they’re incredibly cost-effective. Incentives including leaderboards and other automated gamification elements can keep referral programs top-of-mind with employees.
Highlight key job details
Remote and hybrid work are here to stay. In the past year, 54% of recruiters have seen candidates turn down an interview or job offer due to a lack of flexibility and remort work options in the workplace.
Another way to highlight key job details is flagging roles as “urgent” on job titles and descriptions. This helps listings stand out, allowing job seekers to filter for urgent hires. These roles can attract skilled candidates seeking a fast interviewing and onboarding process, quickly filling vacancies for specialized positions.
As organizations scramble to fill openings in the wake of a recovering job market, competition, especially for roles requiring specialized skills and certifications, can lead to a strenuous recruitment process. Implementing a comprehensive employer brand, utilizing new technologies, and strategies that cater to job seekers’ expectations and needs can help recruiters hire top-of-the-line talent.
By: M.T. Ray, Customer Success Manager at Jobvite.
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A bad candidate experience can have a detrimental effect on both brands and those applying to work with them. During the pandemic, we saw a huge increase in volume of applicants for different positions. Rumors ran rife about being ghosted deep into the recruitment process. We wanted to investigate the scale of the problem and the damage being done, so we commissioned some research.
The findings were shocking. 65% of people have been ghosted, according to our research of 2000 UK adults. 86% said their experience of being ghosted left them feeling down and 43% said it took weeks, or even months, to rebuild and move on. The damage to brands also became clear, with 94% saying it left them with negative thoughts or feelings towards the company they applied to.
Most small companies manage with spreadsheets and simple trackers while large companies and recruitment agencies invest in technology, customized to their needs. Here are some tips to ensure your company can confidently avoid ghosting candidates.
Get everyone on board. Recruitment is an area that most department managers get involved in as well as HR teams. Step one is to take the facts about the impacts of ghosting and educate everyone internally. Once you have company-wide support to ensure this doesn’t happen in your organization it’s time to make a plan on how you’re going to tackle ghosting head-on.
Put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. What sort of communication would you want at each stage? A quick email takes seconds and can really help a candidate.
Set up automated emails. If you have one, use your applicant tracking system (ATS) to set up automated emails to candidates at each stage of the application process. This means they will always be kept informed of the stage of their application.
Send updates promptly. No news is good news, except for when you’re waiting to hear about an application. As soon as you’ve made a decision, positive or negative, then let the candidate know.
Make notes straight after a call or interview. ‘Don’t put off to tomorrow what you can do today’ as the old adage goes. Take thorough notes each time you speak to a candidate, this will make it easier to make a decision and also give you plenty of information to use when you go back to them.
Use bulk email or SMS. Communicating with multiple candidates quickly and simply, a standardized message is better than no contact at all.
Use your ATS reporting feature or keep a log. This helps to ensure that no candidate gets forgotten, know how many candidates have applied to each role, what stage they’re at, and when you last contacted them, save all that inbox searching time.
Close down the role. When you hire someone make sure to go back and check you have processed and responded to all of the other applicants.
Get feedback from your applicants. They’re the ones that have been through your process so can offer some valuable insight. Make sure you speak to both successful and unsuccessful candidates for a well-rounded view.
Review and improve your process. There’s always room for improvement, ensure you revisit your plan and the tactics you’re using every few months to make sure they’re still impactful and to implement any new ideas.
Telling candidates they haven’t been selected is a tough call to make, especially when you’ve been positive up until that point. But doing so quickly and kindly provides closure and allows them to move on with their career elsewhere.
No one ever intends to ghost a candidate part-way through the recruitment process, but it’s important to acknowledge that it does sometimes happen. We need to tackle this problem together. By supporting this campaign and following the best practice guidelines, employers can show that they care about each applicant as an individual. We invite readers to join the campaign or share their stories at www.end-ghosting.com.
By Neil Armstrong of Tribepad.
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Change is afoot in the world of work. We are in the midst of a concentrated shift from a client-driven job market to a candidate-driven one, meaning recruiters and HR teams need to adopt a new stance when it comes to sourcing talent.
The enormous upheaval of the coronavirus pandemic means candidates are in high demand. However, many companies are struggling to find the right people as the pool of suitable candidates is scarce. To add to the challenge, prospective employees also have a refreshed set of expectations around a more hybrid approach to working in this ultra-digital age.
As such, striking a balance between recruiting the best talent for the job while quickly fulfilling businesses’ urgent need for staff is becoming a challenge, particularly when looking to maintain desirable levels of staff retention. Perhaps recruitment strategies need a rethink as the world changes?
A striking set of statistics
The latest figures from Reed and the ‘UK Report on Jobs’ survey by KPMG and REC lay out how the most recent lockdown developments and further reopening of the UK economy have impacted recruitment:
Permanent placements have hit record growth
An upturn in temp billings is the fastest it has been for six years
May 2021 was Reed’s best month for job postings since before the 2008 financial crash
The demand for workers has increased at the fastest rate for over 23 years
The supply of permanent and temporary staff fell at the quickest rates on record.
However, although these results may be good news for job seekers, they present new challenges to recruiters looking to help businesses hire, as the spike in demand brings the labor and skills shortages that already existed in the UK into sharper focus.
With overall candidate availability declining at the quickest rate since May 2017, recruiters and HR teams must now pick out top talent from a rapidly shrinking pool. Plus, both starting salaries and temp pay are expanding at a sharp rate. Coupled with a growing desire for flexibility and a more hybrid approach to working, companies are under more pressure than ever to match up to candidates’ increasing expectations if they want to attract and retain the best staff.
Leveraging the opportunity
The shift from a client-driven market to a candidate-driven market means recruiters must adapt their approach to finding new talent by targeting passive candidates. When the demand outstrips supply, speed is of the essence, and consultants must move quickly if they want to snap up the best candidates for their clients.
As a recruiter, top talent will rarely fall into your lap — particularly in a highly competitive job market. Plus, just because someone is not actively looking for a new role does not mean they are not open to discussing and learning more about new opportunities. So, it is essential to proactively search for candidates already in employment and reach out to them to capture their interest in vacant positions.
Sourcing passive candidates, rather than waiting for them to come to you, has consistently garnered highly effective hiring success rates, with candidates sourced in this way proving to be more than twice as efficient as independent applicants.
For this strategy to be effective, recruiters and HR teams must make the best use of the digital resources at their disposal — as well as their professional network. For example, there are a wealth of finance and accounting candidates on social media, and platforms like LinkedIn are ideal for ‘headhunting’ skilled and high-level talent.
Step into the digital era
Recruitment is more competitive than ever before. And now that the market has become increasingly driven by candidates and their desires, it is the employer (and, in turn, their recruitment specialist) that needs to stand out and impress.
Candidates have come to expect more from prospective employers, and not just in terms of substantial pay packets and training programs — although these are also important to consider. After over a year of home working, many have come to enjoy a more flexible way of working and expect companies to offer it as a benefit. In fact, a recent survey by Barnett Waddingham found 34% of UK workers said they would resign from their current position if their employer failed to offer flexible working options.
In a climate where unsatisfied staff may be approached for — or seek out — alternative employment, employee retention is also more crucial than ever. Benefits such as flexible working can greatly improve productivity and job satisfaction, meaning staff is more likely to stay at a company.
Retaining new hires starts with the hiring process. The process must be tailored to employees’ new drive for a more remote and digitized experience while ensuring clear and consistent communication. To do this, recruiters need to make the most of the abundance of digital platforms available, using them in conjunction with more conventional hiring practices to provide the smoothest recruitment and onboarding experience possible.
By Julie Mott, Managing Director at Howett Thorpe. Julie is a highly respected and well-connected recruitment individual with over 20 years of experience working in the ever-changing industry.
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Companies often believe candidate experience begins and ends with the job application on your website. It definitely does include the job app, but there’s so much more to the hiring experience that deserves close attention.
To create an overall amazing hiring experience, you first have to define its wider boundaries. The experience starts when people become aware that your organization exists; in other words, it’s your brand. It’s how you show up in the world, what you say on relevant current events, and how you portray life at your company through pictures, videos, words, and anywhere your brand is present online. The next touchpoint is when candidates apply for a job and hear (or don’t hear) from you with an enthusiastic, transparent and timely follow-up. Then hopefully they get an interview, then an offer and they accept.
But it doesn’t stop there. The candidate experience extends beyond accepting their role to the first day on the job, and even through their onboarding period. There are easily dozens of touchpoints in the candidate experience, whether organizations realize them or not. That means dozens of opportunities to impress or fall short of expectations in the eyes of the people who are going to help you achieve your business goals. A negative or inconsistent candidate experience can damage your brand’s reputation and your ability to hire and retain the right people you need.
Here’s some much-needed guidance on how to think about and shape candidate experiences to make them as meaningful and beneficial as possible, both for candidates and for everyone involved in the hiring process in the company.
You no longer directly control your reputation
The days when companies controlled what information was released about them are long gone. Today, in the time it takes to eat a ham sandwich, a person can get a full data dump about your company from Glassdoor and corroborate that information with other social media and connections on LinkedIn.
Mathematically, most applicants and candidates for your jobs will never get an offer from you. However, many won’t hesitate to describe the experience, no matter how far they got in it, on Glassdoor and on very public social media channels. And these channels will help inform the decision of the next star candidate that you so badly want and need to hire.
You’re no longer in control—at least not in the same way as 10 or 15 years ago. The only way you can be in control of your employer brand now is to think about the hiring experience and make it so good at every step that perfect strangers will interview with you and write you glowing reviews, even if they don’t get the job.
What are you posting?
Many organizations do not make a clear distinction between three documents:
A job description is the internal document which outlines the responsibilities, requirements, expectations, pay and so forth;
A job post lists the open role on an organization’s website, with enough information and enticement to appeal to talented people so they decide to submit their information; and
A job ad is a placement on an external site like Indeed or ZipRecruiter, meant to get people to click through and apply.
Don’t post your job description. It’s usually paragraph after paragraph of dense, bullet-point language and meaningless jargon. Instead, create job posts and ads that are customized and tailored for specific audiences that actually aim to attract great talent and give a real feel for what taking on this role entails.
What are you mapping?
Have you mapped every impression and interaction of your candidate experience? If not, you should. Mapping all your interactions with prospects during the hiring process will help you understand where you can improve and how you can stand out from competitors. A few areas to consider:
Emails that go from your organization to applicants
Which employees are contacting an applicant and coordinating an interview
Creating useful materials to provide candidates before they interview (from employee profile blogs to brand videos to company milestone timelines)
Understanding how to correctly pronounce a candidate’s name
For in-person interviews – who will greet the candidate; where will the interview happen; is the candidate left alone in a room; is a beverage offered
During any interview, regardless of stage – is there an agenda; does the candidate get a chance to ask questions; will someone share what next steps with the candidate without being asked
After the interview – how do you provide updates on timing and follow-up interviews; how do you inform candidates you won’t be progressing with them.
Have you asked how you’re doing?
While mapping out every interaction will help give you think about the candidate’s experience from their perspective, you won’t actually know how well you’ve executed unless you ask them.
Sure you should monitor Glassdoor, but it’s often the case that only a small (yet loud) percentage of all candidates will leave a review. Forward-thinking companies gather useful information through candidate surveys in addition to monitoring Glassdoor and other similar sites. We’ve found that around 20 percent of the surveys get filled out — giving us more data than what we’d gain with Glassdoor. These surveys should go to both candidates who received an offer and those who didn’t get the job.
Having a consistent flow of feedback and information will help you continuously refine and improve your hiring process.
Onboarding
Many companies think of new hire onboarding as the logistics of getting people a desk and a computer, with a side of paperwork to sign and documentation to complete. While that’s partly true, a new hire’s onboarding experience should include a whole lot more.
Onboarding should be about how a candidate becomes part of the community as an employee. It should include opportunities and information to help them learn the real culture and philosophy of the company. During the interview phase, we may have established that a candidate will be able to do a particular job. During the onboarding phase, we show that person how to do that job, and how to begin to navigate the company teams, processes, and culture.
You have the ability to transform onboarding from a boring bureaucratic function into a customized experience that will blow away new hires and compel them to want to tell everyone about how you gave them the red-carpet treatment.
Add to that the efforts you make to improve the hiring experience in general, and not only are you likely to have increased the Employee Lifetime Value of this person, but you may well have your newest, enthusiastic referral source.
Take ownership of the hiring experience
By owning every moment of your hiring experience – from job post to onboarding – you are making the process easier and more productive for both candidates and your organization.
The experience of applying for a job shapes how candidates form their impressions of your brand. Unless you’re a company like Google or Facebook, and maybe even then, most people don’t know what it’s like to work for you. If your hiring team is disorganized or unprofessional, that’s how the candidate will perceive your entire company.
By taking ownership of the process to ensure a candidate has a good experience, you can improve your ‘talent brand’ and make it easier to hire great candidates who are excited to work with you.
By Jon Stross, Co-Founder and President of Greenhouse Software, and Co-Author of TALENT MAKERS: How the Best Organizations Win Through Structured and Inclusive Hiring.
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With demand for technical workers soaring, and an expected job growth rate of 17% by 2024, hiring software engineers is no easy task. To attract top tech talent in a competitive marketplace, it’s important to understand what the best talent is looking for and how to architect a strategy tailored to win them over. To shed light […] More
