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      How to Use AI in Recruitment: Insights from Activision Blizzard’s Talent Sourcing Director

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      Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is taking every industry by storm and tech recruiting is no exception. In a new episode of Hired’s Talk Talent to Me podcast, Activision Blizzard Director of Talent Sourcing Justin Ghio encourages talent professionals to view AI as a tool to enhance productivity and hiring processes. 

      Any recruiter or TA professional knows how precious time is… and how time-consuming the talent search can be. AI helps free up recruiters and TA teams to focus on what they do best: relationship-building and delivering exceptional candidate experiences.

      With Justin’s insights, let’s explore how AI empowers recruiters and TA professionals.

      AI meets Talent Acquisition & Human Resources

      While AI can feel overwhelming and even a bit scary in such people-centered roles, Justin assures talent professionals it’s not something to fear. 

      He says, “I feel the perception is ‘It’s going to take my job. It’s going to replace everything I’m doing.’ But currently, it’s more about how you can make it work for yourself and understanding its limitation. I think that’s something we’ve realized: it can’t do everything from start to finish for me.”

      Justin encourages TA professionals to focus on “how to use it to speed up processes and ideation without replacing what we do best.”

      Reflecting on AI in HR tech, Justin explains it’s being “sold as something so much broader and bigger in our industry versus the incremental steps. AI is never going to close a candidate… or talk to an international candidate about types of credit cards to open while they’re abroad to build credit in the US. Those are human conversations. Those are things we still have to broker. We use the technology to get us to those conversations, but not impede them.”

      So, how exactly can AI help you? 

      Justin shares a few ways AI supports talent activities: 

      Enhance candidate sourcing

      Uplevel candidate communications

      Let’s review some examples of how talent professionals and AI might join forces. 

      1. Enhance candidate sourcing with AI

      Justin finds the underlying AI’s natural language processing technology to be quite useful. Gone are the days of having to write developer and programmer and engineer. AI knows those are the same. 

      Simply write “software developer” and anyone with the title “programmer” or “engineer” will surface too. “You’re saving time that scales out infinitely across your user base and second to second for recruiters.” 

      Related: Hired Releases 2023 State of Software Engineers Report

      The same goes for sending a message, then clicking “Contact Attempt One.” You probably don’t need to do both of those actions so rely on a machine that knows If the user sends an email, it moves the candidate to “Contact Attempt One” If they reply, it moves it to “Bonded.” Ditch the notepad and tally list on your desk. Justin encourages you to “lean on the AI to manage a lot of that minutia.”

      Activision leans largely on AI for skill adjacency to target mid and entry-level candidates. “We’re able to see a match score based on someone’s skill rating. AI is looking at peers of individuals at organizations and based on skills they have, helps me understand the questions I need to ask. 

      AI will verify the individual has a particular skill or that we need to confirm it because someone who worked there has this skill, but they don’t have it on their resume. The days of someone forgetting something on their resume will hopefully be forgotten as we move and the technology matures.”

      While Justin believes Boolean search will still be a differentiating skill set, he does think: 

      “Those who don’t use AI technology to speed up the iteration process will be left behind. I think the people who will continue to be the best Boolean searchers are the ones who can use AI to get 60-80% of the way there. 

      Add the special sauce

      Then, they put their special sauce on top and allow it to become uniquely their version of that boolean. This will continue to allow people to be great at those sub-skills in the world of sourcing.”

      And by “special sauce,” Justin is referring to the human touch. 

      After all, he says “Nobody’s excited about being the best phone screen scheduler. People are excited about being really memorable on the phone. They’re excited about being really punctual with getting things on the books with candidates and having meaningful conversations where candidates feel like they’re being respected, heard, and being given opportunities in the organization.”

      2. Uplevel candidate communications 

      Those human moments are what make working in recruiting or talent acquisition special.  “At Activision, we look at how to leverage technology to help us do more of what we’re best at…You’re better at a lot more dynamic parts. You work with candidates very well.” 

      Related: Find your next opportunity in TA with Hired’s Tech Recruitment Collective

      When it comes to making the case for this technology internally, Justin says the key is “understanding where that point of finality is – where that stopping point of what the technology is or isn’t.”

      You want to capture how to leverage it to a certain point. “Our philosophy isn’t to use it to send all emails. It’s used to write ten rough copies. Then, take two or three of them and customize them.” Use AI to deliver something in five minutes which typically takes an hour.

      When evaluating AI tools, how can talent professionals ensure they are being fair and equitable to candidates?

      Justin advises you to consider these three questions: 

      How does this work? 

      Why does it work this way? 

      What happens if I want to change it?

      It’s essential to grasp the underpinnings and leverage them in a use case applicable to your environment. “There should be an underlying human element. Being able to author rules over top of the machine is really what I would have people ask vendors about,” Justin says.

      Embrace collaborative intelligence

      Justin views AI as “an invaluable tool to help us accelerate the ideation already happening in TA.” Recognize that AI is not a replacement for human expertise but a powerful tool to augment and accelerate recruitment processes. Think of AI as your strategic ally. It works best in collaboration with human expertise. 

      Unlock its potential to drive efficiency, increase productivity, and attract top talent quickly. With the right approach, it can revolutionize recruitment while preserving the invaluable human touch that defines successful hiring. 

      Start plugging in those prompts and questions keeping in mind you now “have a jumping-off point. It’s really for that starting block, not the ending.” 

      Interested in unlocking the power of AI in recruitment?

      Learn to use game-changing sourcing and recruiting practices with AI. Join the Talk Talent to Me workshop on Wednesday, May 24 at 6 pm PT at the Minna Gallery in SoMa. Top talent leaders in San Francisco will explore what AI means for the talent world and how you can use it to create powerful candidate experiences. More

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      Investing in Early Talent, Relearning, & More: Talk Talent to Me April ’23 Recap

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      Catch up on the April 2023 episodes of Hired’s Talk Talent to Me podcast featuring recruiting and talent acquisition leadership who share strategies, techniques, and trends shaping the recruitment industry. 

      Putting people first with Kelly Minella, Head of Recruiting at Calendly

      Investing in early talent with Krishna Kumar, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Quintrix 

      Relearning and eliminating biases with Jenny Cotie Kangas, Director of Employer Branding and Awareness at PandoLogic

      Creating a thriving company culture with Maryjo Charbonnier, CHRO at Kyndryl 

      1. Kelly Minella, Head of Recruiting at Calendly

      Put people first. You’ll be more likely to make quality hires and maintain a cohesive work environment, according to Kelly. In this episode, she shares how she knew her CEO cared about prioritizing people and the importance of a talent team having a shared understanding. Plus, Kelly tells how the introduction of interview training has made Calendly better and why you should always be asking for and reviewing candidate feedback.

      “I applied [to Calendly], and my first conversation was with our CEO, Tope Awotona, and it was fabulous. I remember calling my mom afterward and being like, ‘Mom, that was special’. And the reason why, and why it has remained special, is how much priority he puts on people.”

      Listen to the full episode.

      2. Krishna Kumar, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Quintrix 

      Investing in early talent is becoming more popular. Krishna discusses why businesses need to think more about this talent in the long term and how companies can better support their new recruits. He also dives into his game-changing post-deployment framework and why many candidates are falling short of the mark. 

      “Career development, or lack thereof, is the number one reason for people to leave their jobs and explore other opportunities. So, you want to make sure that the candidates are constantly receiving the support, feedback, and career development to be successful.” 

      Listen to the full episode.

      3. Jenny Cotie Kangas, Director of Employer Branding and Awareness at PandoLogic

      Sometimes the best approach to a challenge is to start from scratch. When Jenny lost most of her memories as a result of a head injury, she underwent a process of extreme relearning. Though the experience came with hardships and frustrations, it was hugely beneficial to her professional life. In this inspiring episode, Jenny shares how learning to explain things in their simplest form, eliminating biases and blindspots, and employing reverse engineering strategies leads to true organizational change.

      “When you storytell something in a way that makes sense to a 10-year-old – all of a sudden everybody can understand it. Not just the top 10% or the most experienced in your organization, but everybody can. And when you’re trying to actually make change happen, your goal is to hit everybody, not just the top 10%.”

      Listen to the full episode.

      4. Maryjo Charbonnier, CHRO at Kyndryl 

      Maryjo isn’t afraid of a challenge. In fact, she has sought out difficult problems to be part of a solution. Her passion for change-making led her to be Chief HR Officer at the world’s largest startup with over 90,000 employees and $19 billion in revenue. As an expert on cultural processes, Maryjo explains what it takes to cultivate and maintain a thriving company culture. 

      “One of the most important things HR people do is listen to what isn’t said.” 

      Listen to the full episode. 

      Want more insights into recruiting tips and trends?

      Tune into Hired’s podcast, Talk Talent to Me, to learn about the strategies, techniques, and trends shaping the recruitment industry—straight from top experts themselves. More

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      8 Ways Talent Professionals Can Drive Business Impact Despite a Hiring Freeze

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      Pausing hiring efforts may be necessary for a variety of reasons but talent professionals can still drive business impact. Whether due to missed projections, shifts in funding or shareholder priorities, or even a global pandemic, a hiring freeze sometimes means cuts to recruiting and TA teams.

      This doesn’t have to be the case. This hiring freeze may be a golden opportunity for TA and recruiting teams to pivot to other projects, assist other internal teams, or focus on new initiatives.

      Related: How to Improve Job Security During an Economic Downturn: Career Advice for Recruiters

      There are ways to use this time to start strategic projects that positively impact business with your insight and skill set, even when you are not hiring. Here are the top 8 things you can do to drive business impact and set yourself up for success after a hiring freeze is lifted.

      1. Keep your existing pipeline warm

      If a hiring freeze was unexpected, you might have candidates in your interviewing pipeline you need to notify. Sharing your hiring status (and the status of their application and candidacy) will require a balance of transparency and empathy. Let candidates in your pipeline know a hiring freeze is taking place. Offer a tentative timeline of when your team foresees hiring to pick up again. Assure them that you or your team will follow up with updates. Those are the best ways to retain your candidate pipeline while keeping the conversation and their interest warm.

      2. Engage internal employees

      During a hiring freeze, recruiters can work closely with the People Team to engage internal employees. Turnover is an aspect of people management that HR teams work to estimate, prevent, or lower. HR partners with talent acquisition teams to incorporate turnover into recruiting goals. Despite a hiring pause, turnover typically continues as expected or might even increase depending on the state of the business and company morale.

      By partnering with the larger People Ops Team, recruiting can support at-risk employees the team identifies and engage different populations to help retain and re-spark their passion for the company. In addition, working closely with company executives to be transparent about business strategy moving forward is especially crucial during this time as a means of supporting your team.

      3. Get involved with other business initiatives

      Lend your time and expertise to more teams and get creative with how to advocate for the company in new ways. Need some inspo?

      Hired’s Senior Internal Recruiter, Jules Grondin, pivoted to immerse herself in launching new initiatives. To support fellow recruiters and individuals in Talent Acquisition, Jules helped establish Hired’s Tech Recruitment Collective. Recognizing that Talent Acquisition is at the heart of building great teams, the collective connects these professionals with Hired’s extensive network of companies actively hiring TA talent.

      Another recent initiative is Hired’s Candidate Credit Program. To address a candidate supply and demand imbalance, Hired offered companies the opportunity to refer candidates in their ATS to Hired in exchange for credits to use on future Hired services and solutions.

      Brainstorm new ways to involve yourself in other aspects of the business. Reach out to other teams or colleagues to collaborate!

      4. Focus on employer branding

      A hiring freeze might create a negative perception of how the business is doing. To remain proactive, consider refreshing your employer brand strategy as a lever toward getting ahead of any negative misconceptions and attracting top talent when you open roles and resume interviewing. A company’s brand can be aspirational. Positioning your employer brand through thought leadership, company initiatives, and values helps build a relatable narrative that your company should be known for.

      Despite a hiring freeze, don’t hit the brakes on sharing your company’s forward momentum. For distributed teams, a great example would be to amplify ways your team creatively adapted to remote work, approached collaboration, and remained diligent about fostering company culture to maintain a healthy work-life balance.  

      Also, consider encouraging happy and engaged employees on your team to become promoters of the business. This supports a spirit of pride, ownership, and advocacy for the great work your company is doing! Aligning your employees with company and employer branding can turn your team into brand ambassadors to their network. This offers interested candidates a view of your company that goes beyond corporate branding and marketing but a more personal look into the employee experience from a peer.

      5. Optimize recruiting process

      Taking a step back from the ins and outs of your recruiting process will help you see areas to revise and make more efficient. Recruiting teams can take the time to evaluate many areas of their process from application to offer acceptance. This goes not just for efficiency but to assure the process promotes an excellent candidate experience. For instance, going through the application for an open role from a candidate’s perspective could flag hurdles in the process that candidates would experience. This includes complications with your ATS, resume upload issues, or LinkedIn profile integration errors.

      Beyond this, there are various areas of the recruiting process that teams can evaluate, including:

      Streamlining processes in your ATS to increase data cleanliness

      Evaluating your application to improve completion rates

      Updating the careers page and job descriptions to align with talent branding

      Evaluating the recruiting funnel for biases and exclusive language

      Diving into recruiting metrics, including outreach to lead conversion rates, rejection reasons, time to offer, time to hire, etc.

      Evaluating recruiting or sourcing tools

      Related: How to Secure Approval for New Tech Tools (Free Template)

      6. Invest in training hiring team members

      Having downtime from sourcing and interviewing offers the opportunity to evaluate your process and train your interviewers. For recruiting and talent acquisition team members, training or taking certification courses can advance the team’s recruiting strategy and overall professional development. In addition, training hiring managers (and other team members who participate in interviews) around efficiencies your team has made in your recruiting process aligns everyone to best represent the company when conducting interviews.

      7. Ensure your recruiting process is inclusive 

      Now more than ever, companies are being examined for their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion beyond public statements and surface-level efforts. The public and their workforce evaluate them based on their executive leadership team and how they conduct business day-to-day. As it relates to hiring, take the time to ensure your recruiting process is inclusive to all candidates who may apply and interview in the future. Consider everything from the verbiage in job descriptions to the logistics of how to best conduct an interview.

      This is also a great opportunity for teams to undergo unconscious bias training. This ensures recruiters and interviewers accurately represent company values during interviews and champion an inclusive hiring process.

      Related: Diversity features on Hired

      Unconscious biases may present themselves at any point, even with something as simple as seeing the full name of a candidate on their resume. For example, a person’s name can implicate their sex, ethnicity, and fluency and literacy in English. This can lead to a member of the interviewing team building stereotypes around the candidate without having met or spoken with them. Evaluate your recruitment and interview processes from beginning to end with potential biases in mind. It can help eliminate additional and unnecessary barriers to entry for qualified talent.

      8. Develop a recruiting plan

      As your team anticipates when a hiring freeze could lift, having a recruiting plan will ensure the team is ready to begin sourcing and interviewing again. Connect with your hiring managers to identify and prioritize roles that are an immediate need post-freeze. As the time gets closer, preliminary sourcing and pipelining quality candidates is a proactive way to get a preview into the active candidate market for these high-priority positions.

      In addition, you can begin to review organic applicants and put your feelers out to your existing pipeline to reignite that interest. Lastly, consider working closely with leadership. Establish a tentative timeline so the team can effectively plan their work and OKRs for the coming months. 

      Regardless of the hiring pace, skilled talent professionals drive impact throughout the organization

      Hiring freezes illicit thoughts of uncertainty for many people within a company and for those who are applying. Despite that, a freeze in hiring doesn’t mean that business strategy and talent teams are on a freeze too. Recruiting and talent acquisition teams offer value to the business beyond sourcing and interviewing. When times call for their main priorities to pause, it offers an opportunity to grow together and invest in team members. Talent professionals are incredible partners to drive impact while building a strong company. More

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      How to Use Coding Challenge Events to Build Tech Talent Pipeline

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      About this eBook

      Today’s recruiting and hiring teams face multiple challenges, from low brand recognition to the capacity to efficiently assess an influx of candidates. Use this eBook to discover how events, such as coding challenges, can help you build your pipeline, expand into new markets, progress on DEI goals, and free up your teams to focus on their biggest priorities.

      What You’ll Learn

      Common challenges for employers that events help solve

      How to promote and manage events

      Examples of virtual candidate events and coding challenges to reach goals More

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      Diversity & Inclusion Recruitment, Retaining Talent, & More: Talk Talent to Me March ’23 Recap

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      Catch up on the March 2023 episodes of Hired’s Talk Talent to Me podcast featuring recruiting and talent acquisition leadership who share strategies, techniques, and trends shaping the recruitment industry. 

      Diversity and inclusion recruitment with Jacob Rivas, Sr Global Technical Talent Sourcer, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) at WW/WeightWatchers

      Recruiting and retaining with Nancy Connery, Co-Founder of OpenComp

      1. Jacob Rivas, Sr Global Technical Talent Sourcer, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) at WW/WeightWatchers

      Jacob shares his recruitment knowledge, including how he communicates with candidates and best practices for approaching subject lines. He also explains how he got into D&I and how things have changed for him since leaving Vox. Jacob wraps up the conversation by sharing the most impactful career advice he has ever received!

      “Diversity is really the new area to go and if you’re intentional, you can make a big impact.”

      Listen to the full episode.

      2. Nancy Connery, Co-Founder of OpenComp 

      Fun fact: Nancy was the very first VP of HR at Salesforce. She spearheaded strategic investments in human capital and fueled the company’s remarkable growth by building its industry-leading HR infrastructure. Her latest venture is co-founding the compensational intelligence company, OpenComp. Nancy also co-hosts the OpenComp podcast, High Growth Matters. In this episode, Nancy sheds light on her days at Salesforce and her critical role in recruiting (and retaining) the best talent as the company grew. She explains her decision to leave a comfortable position as VP to pursue her own path in the industry. You’ll also gain insight into her belief that talent retention and upskilling are as important as hiring.

      “You need to think about employees [in the same manner as customers] as you grow the company, not only recruiting them but also, how do you develop them? How do you retain them? Can they grow with the life cycles and stages of the company?”

      Listen to the full episode.

      Want more insights into recruiting tips and trends?

      Tune into Hired’s podcast, Talk Talent to Me, to learn about the strategies, techniques, and trends shaping the recruitment industry—straight from top experts themselves. More

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      Re-engineering Your 2023 Tech Hiring Strategy (Watch VIDEO on Demand)

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      If you are in the market to hire qualified software engineers, you need to modify your 2023 hiring strategy. But how exactly do your recruitment and hiring strategies need to evolve? Watch this on-demand webinar to hear experts discuss key findings and data from Hired’s 2023 State of Software Engineers report. They share advice for re-engineering your strategy and getting top tech positions filled quickly with skilled, high-value talent. 

      Moderated by Founder of Marketing by Maya, Maya Avitan, hear from:

      CTO, Hired, Dave Walters

      VP of Engineering, Greenhouse, Andy Lister

      CEO & Co-Founder, SheTO, Nidhi Gupta

      Read an excerpt of the conversation and access the full webinar video on demand. 

      Maya Avitan, Founder, Marketing by Maya

      Though Hired’s culture is remote-first, there are still major companies placing a heavy focus on bringing talent back into physical locations. However, based on the findings of the report there is a higher demand for remote work options from talent in all major cities including New York, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. 

      There is a disconnect between organizations that are searching for location-specific top tech talent that is seeking remote-first roles.

      What do you think about this disconnect and how are companies managing this demand from a hiring perspective?

      Dave Walters, CTO, Hired

      We are seeing a growing percentage of employers pushing for return to office, although the demand for remote engineering talent still remains very high. Remote roles command higher salaries than local roles especially in smaller markets. Enterprise companies are shifting fast in their demand for in-office employees, although a majority of the total positions do remain open to remote. 

      Meanwhile, we’ve continued to see the proportion of jobseekers only seeking remote roles versus in-person or hybrid grow. This shouldn’t be surprising as this demand for remote work started well before the pandemic and the pandemic only further fueled that in recent years. As a tech leader, I know the challenge we’ve all been facing in finding top talent with the right skill sets in past years. That challenge isn’t going to go away anytime soon. 

      Ultimately, despite the high-profile layoffs we’ve heard about in the news, unemployment for tech talent remains low. You have to cast a wider net in your search to be as competitive as possible and an opportune way to do that is by remaining flexible for remote talent around the country. 

      The bottom line is that remote work and flexibility continue to be some of the highest priorities for jobseekers. Promoting remote policies or benefits that allow for flexibility are going to be key strategies for attracting qualified, top tech talent.

      Watch the full collaborative panel discussion to discover: 

      More on how companies are managing the demand for remote-first work 

      Why talent leaders should take candidates from non-traditional educational backgrounds seriously

      The most in-demand software engineering skills are and how they’ve impacted the job market More

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      Why a Sustainable Talent Acquisition Strategy is Critical for Employers Now

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      In recent years, the labor market has been increasingly candidate driven and focused on skill-based hiring. But with rising inflation, HR and talent leaders are under pressure to reduce hiring costs while maintaining efficiency. 

      There’s no doubt it’s a complicated space to be in – candidates are demanding higher wages, re-hire costs are significant, and upskilling investments are inevitable. So, how can you survive the transition without losing touch with your candidates? By adopting a sustainable approach to talent acquisition. 

      While organizations are moving toward more sustainable talent strategies during the economic slowdown, they can often confuse talent acquisition with recruitment. This lack of knowledge can hamper your process and disrupt progress. 

      Related: Hired Releases 2023 State of Software Engineers Report

      Recruitment vs. Talent Acquisition 

      Talent acquisition (TA) is an ongoing process to identify suitable candidates aligned with the company’s values, mission, and business goals. It is an ever-evolving process with a focus on current market trends, workforce makeup, and recruitment predictions. 

      Developing and maintaining a talent acquisition strategy allows you to stay ahead of the competition, empower your bottom line, and acquire top talent. 

      While talent acquisition and recruitment are often used interchangeably, they are two distinct processes. Although both deal with talent, recruiting is the process of sourcing, assessing, and hiring candidates in the short term. Recruitment often happens when there are open positions in the organization. 

      So, it includes the process of attracting quality job applicants, analyzing their qualities and skills, and hiring them for vacant roles. The recruitment process is time-bound, pre-defined, and standard compared to talent acquisition. 

      On the other hand, talent acquisition is a more insightful process based on long-term business and talent goals. The purpose of a TA strategy is to seek candidates who are the right fit and have the potential to contribute meaningfully to the future of the organization. TA experts and specialists are more concerned with laying the appropriate groundwork to hire the best talent long-term.

      What is a “sustainable TA strategy”?

      Talent sustainability is defined as an organization’s ability to continuously attract, develop, and retain candidates with the skills and qualities required for current or future roles. In a swiftly changing labor market, organizational needs and goals also change respectively. A one-time recruitment plan would be inept at meeting the evolving demands of the company.

      A sustainable talent acquisition strategy also encourages you to maintain a balance between acquiring external and promoting internal talent. Lack of career advancement opportunities is one of the main reasons people quit their jobs. 

      Although hiring new talent is important, doing so at the cost of current employees is detrimental to organizational growth. Moreover, if you are delegating all resources and money towards recruitment, there’s none left to invest in your existing employees.

      Hence, a sustainable strategy is a win for all – companies can divide time and resources between current employees and new hiring with proper planning and implementation. 

      Getting started

      While recruiting is essential for gaining employees, it can become a time-intensive and expensive endeavor without a proper TA strategy. Amidst a dynamic labor market, many organizations are exploring talent acquisition avenues to prepare for hiring surges and talent management. 

      If you are one of those companies looking to foray into the TA field, ask yourself the following questions before jumping to strategy:

      What are your long-term vision and goals for your organization?

      What type of talent do you need to achieve the company’s vision and goals? 

      How can you integrate your organizational values into the talent acquisition process? 

      How do you create a program framework to support your talent acquisition strategy? 

      How will you assess the progress of your talent acquisition strategy? 

      Your answers will help you define and align your business goals to the talent strategy. 

      Why you need it

      Finding the right talent in the tech industry is a struggle for organizations worldwide. This year, a long-standing skills gap and a lack of professionals in the market have put things in perspective. 

      In simple terms, a talent acquisition strategy saves time and money, boosts productivity, and prepares you for the market’s dips and surges. Time-specific recruitment periods force you to hire and onboard candidates quickly. It’s an expensive affair, and can also cause disruptions in workflow and productivity.

      As some organizations prepare for the possibility of a recession, many are also reducing their hiring budgets and rolling back their hiring plans. However, not having a comprehensive long-term strategy will make organizations vulnerable when they do need to start hiring again. 

      Moving away from the mindset of recruiting being a one-and-done deal, and creating a more sustainable hiring framework is crucial.

      Sustainability is key

      Hiring new candidates is often time-consuming and costly, especially if done repeatedly. This is where sustainable talent acquisition comes in. 

      A solid talent acquisition strategy allows you to future-proof your organization by investing in nurturing, hiring, upskilling, and retaining highly qualified tech talent. 

      Amidst some new (and old) challenges, one thing remains constant – data-driven and long-term talent acquisition and management frameworks are here to stay. More

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      Top 3 Strategies to Nurture Your Tech & Sales Candidate Pipeline

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      In the wake of the economic downturn and slow labor market, companies are focusing on talent engagement and outreach by developing talent pipelines and employer branding. According to Gem’s survey, anticipating the challenge of ‘uncompetitive offers,’ 71% of talent leaders plan to invest in employer brands. A strong brand can make up for a less competitive compensation or benefits package. 

      Engaging candidates in your talent pipeline must be strategic. Nurturing candidates in your talent pool is the litmus test of your overall talent acquisition strategy. Because candidates’ chances of dropping out are high at this stage, organizations must develop reliable methods to engage and nurture their candidates.

      How to engage and nurture your talent pipeline

      Remember the strategies should be relevant to the present market and the candidate’s wants and needs. While talking to candidates, take time to understand their expectations and needs, so you can incorporate those into your strategy. Also, talent acquisition is sometimes a long process, so identifying sustainable, adaptable, and efficient methods will go a long way. 

      1. Optimize your employer brand 

      It’s the candidate’s market, and how they perceive you impacts your overall employer brand and brand awareness profoundly. Despite that, there’s still a lot you can do to boost your employer brand. 

      Companies across the globe use employer branding to highlight their vision, values, company culture, and benefits. By highlighting in-demand policies and perks, companies place themselves as employers of choice, in turn attracting quality talent. It also helps convey authenticity and purpose, creating shared meaning and promoting employee engagement. So, how should you promote your employer brand?

      Tell a story 

      At the heart of great employer branding is the simplistic and authentic way of conveying your organizational story to your target audience. Keep it simple – with an influx of information from all channels, complicated messaging will leave your audience confused. Use your values as the north star to guide you in your storytelling journey. 

      Personalize your message

      Employer branding borrows its concepts from the world of marketing. Marketing campaigns use audience segmentation to personalize content and identify and segment target groups. Customize your messaging and content based on each group to deliver quality content that resonates. 

      Highlight your leaders 

      In organizations, change often trickles down from the top. For your messaging to be truly effective, it has to be owned and shared from the top. Having company leaders convey important messages is a great exercise in cultivating accountability and trust. 

      Related: 3 Ways You Should Use C-Suite to Recruit Tech Talent (+ Free Templates)

      Update your website

      The candidate experience begins at the first interaction, usually through your website. Emphasize creating a meaningful and easy-to-navigate website and careers page to tell the story about your organization. 

      Related: Learn what talent leaders have to say about strengthening the employer brand: 8 Ways to Hire Faster & Build a Better Employer Brand.

      2. Upgrade your tech stack

      It is impossible to imagine recruitment and talent acquisition without technology or data insights. With the emergence of recruiting tools, talent management platforms, and communication software, talent acquisition has become extremely data-driven.

      This is a welcome change, as the data-driven approach tackles bias, keeps the process objective, and predicts returns in advance. Simultaneously, tools like ATS, CRM, and more can automate administrative tasks, customize candidate communication, and provide real-time insights. 

      If you are planning your talent acquisition strategy, don’t forget to upgrade your tech stack. Here are some essential technologies you should include in your talent acquisition ecosystem. 

      AI-powered and Machine Learning tools 

      Artificial intelligence and machine learning are a powerful part of talent acquisition technology. Tools supported by AI and machine learning undertake a variety of functions including:

      Screening and shortlisting candidates

      Parsing through resumes

      Matching candidates to roles based on skills and keywords

      Removing identifying information to ensure fair screenings

      Evaluating candidate assessments

      Simulating conversations through chatbots

      Providing analytics, metrics, and trends about the recruiting process

      AI-powered tools perform manually cumbersome tasks like resume screenings and candidate assessments within a fraction of time, helping to reduce time-to-hire. 

      ATS or CRM tools

      An Applicant Tracking System allows you to monitor a candidate throughout the hiring process from a centralized application. It also provides information about candidate dropouts and problems in the hiring process. An ATS can perform additional tasks like resume screening or assessments, interviewing, scheduling, and shortlisting candidates.

      Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) tools allow you to navigate candidate relationships by automating personalization and scheduling content. 

      Candidate assessments 

      For tech candidates, technical skills assessments are central to the hiring process, but they are also time-consuming as engineers have to design, conduct, and evaluate them. With technical assessment tools, AI will create, distribute, and even score the evaluation as well as shortlist candidates to move them ahead in the pipeline. 

      You can also conduct screening measures to identify relevant candidates from within the pipeline. 

      3. Ramp up remote hiring 

      According to Hired, 93% of candidates indicated a preference for remote work. In another survey, Gartner found 52% of employees said flexible work policies will affect their decision to stay at their organizations in 2023.

      These trends point to the obvious: a digital hiring process is essential. The ability to publish jobs online, interview candidates remotely, and exchange digital documents safely will keep your organization and processes modernized. 

      When onboarding new talent, it is essential to provide a smooth experience. Ensuring you have the right technology to support employee onboarding should be a top priority when implementing a remote hiring process. 

      Related: How to Onboard Tech Engineers onto Your Team (Free 30/60/90 Template) 

      In addition, investing in technologies and programs to enable remote learning and training help to manage larger-scale remote teams. They’re also useful in aiding in the skill development process for your talent pipeline.

      Beyond hiring, your remote teams should be able to collaborate and work together regularly. You might consider teaming up with companies like Microsoft, Zoom, or Cisco to support video interviewing and remote teamwork. 

      Want to keep your talent pipeline engaged? 

      Overlooking your talent pipeline may lead to dropouts and a poor employer brand, while consistent engagement will improve hiring performance and help you meet your hiring goals. Highlight organizational values to tell your brand story, involve your leaders, and leverage social media to get your message out there. Lastly, updating your tech stack to promote efficiency and collaboration as well as focusing on remote hiring can help keep candidates engaged. 

      Hired’s range of features and services enables you to drive brand awareness and expand your talent pipeline. Get in touch with our team about hosting custom events to target relevant candidates. More