Finding and connecting with top talent is exciting, especially when it comes to filling open roles, but it can also be time-consuming and stressful. The good news is that 36% of top candidates are looking for better job opportunities, while 90% are willing to discuss open positions and learn more about an opportunity.
If you want to minimize the time it takes to source and engage with both passive and active candidates, several strategies can help speed up and improve your recruitment process. Here are a few areas to keep in mind.
#1: Create a Candidate Feedback Loop to Identify Where You Can Improve
You can learn alot from prospective candidates about the effectiveness of your recruiting process just by asking them. This is one of the best ways to identify where you are doing well and where you can improve. When you actively measure how well candidates respond to the stages and steps in your company’s hiring process, it’s possible to evaluate what’s working and what requires change.
For example, if you want more informed feedback, create a brief survey that seeks specific insights into how a candidate was nurtured during your candidate outreach, the types of recruitment marketing messages they were drawn to, or how they felt the interview process went.
These micro-interactions are vital as they help determine whether or not your hiring process is successful during each stage. In the past, organizations have sometimes relied on lengthy surveys that took considerable time to complete and may have alienated more honest feedback.
So, if you want to understand what’s working and what should be changed, create a quick survey of between five to eight questions for specific stages of the hiring journey so it can create an ongoing feedback loop on your recruiting performance.
#2: Establish an Employee Referral Program
Employee referral programs are one of the best ways to find and connect with new talent for your organization. They activate your employee networks and are proven to attract employees who stay longer and perform better.
When setting up an employee referral program, provide your employees with relevant marketing materials to push the open positions you wish to fill. Don’t forget to hold regular or training sessions, speaking to your employees on the best way to promote and amplify your employer brand.
You may want to include items like how to sell your company mission, qualities to look for in a candidate, and how to hire top talent. You should also consider incentivizing employees who refer qualified candidates, providing them with potential gift cards or referral bonuses based on your company’s policies.
If possible, your employees should know the status of their referrals in the application process. You can use employee referral technologies to better your hiring transparency and minimize the time you respond to referral status inquiries.
With this type of leading technology, your employees can stay updated on the stages of their referral process and understand what’s in it for them when they help the company find and hire new talent from their own networks.
#3: Automate Your Sourcing Process, Intelligently
The complexity of hiring within organizations today means you are likely handling many open requisitions at a time. This can be challenging to manage the sourcing process for each position, even if you have an idea of how to start looking for prospective candidates. The good news is that there are multiple ways you can improve recruiter efficiency with automation in the sourcing process and beyond.
One foundational way to leverage automated tools is through intelligent sourcing that empowers recruiters to automate sourcing efforts when a job requisition is first opened. The solution saves recruiters valuable time, as much as 30%, while surfacing and activating qualified candidates from their candidate relationship management (CRM) system.
Intelligent sourcing can help find more diverse candidates that match skills and experience for a role. Automation matches candidates to best-fit roles from your entire talent network and invites them to apply. This ensures the most ideal candidates find your job posting, which can shorten the screening process, while keeping your candidate slate diverse.
#4: Consider a Variety of Online Channels to Connect with Talent
Professional and social networks are popular recruiting platforms. And job seekers agree that social platforms are a valuable source for finding a job than job boards.
One reason employers use popular social media platforms to source candidates is because of their large following. But you should also consider using online channels that aren’t commonly used and are inclusive of more niche audiences. You’ll be surprised that many prospective candidates may be receptive to your messages, including passive candidates.
The other great thing is that the profile on these sites offers information best suited for personalized outreach. Before scouting for talent, understand your target audience, as this determines where you’ll find them online.
These days, there are plenty of niche-specific websites where you can find tech talent, engineers, or even hire a startup. If it’s your first time sourcing candidates from a talent pool, ask your employees the best approach to take. You’ll most likely get ideas on where to begin your search process and whether people in the role you wish to fill have different titles.
#5: Create a Detailed Candidate Profile
Before you can start connecting with candidates, you should create a specific candidate profile for the roles you have open in your organization. Some things worth considering include key competencies, motivational factors, preferred management style, personality traits, and essential experience.
With these types of categorizations, you can easily develop a fair, definable, and transparent tactic for selecting your preferred candidates.
When creating the profile, ensure that you’re not rigid about your preferred candidates because you may end up overlooking quality candidates. If possible, look for candidates who meet at least 80% of your requirements because this is where you’re sure of getting the right talent.
Get Focused and Get Connected
While not exhaustive, these tips can help you get going in connecting with talent and finding new channels for sourcing and engaging candidates in your recruiting efforts. Whether it’s seeking feedback to enhance your own hiring practices and processes, building the ideal candidate profile, looking for new sources of talent, or investing in new technologies, you can influence the outcome of your talent acquisition activities by evaluating what you are doing now and finding areas you can improve.
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