Effective strategies for attracting the best talent

Automation of the recruitment process is achieved using technologies such as artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and machine learning. A benefit of this is that it can accelerate the time it takes to hire, reduce the cost per hire, and improve recruiter productivity. In addition, it has been shown to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a company’s employees. 

Employers that hire at scale, as well as those looking to hire the best employees quickly, use recruitment automation. 

Your communication efforts will be easier if you use an applicant tracking system or recruiting software system. With an applicant tracking system (ATS), you can automate correspondence with your candidates, especially in regard to resumes and applications.

Post your jobs more effectively

The job posting provides all the information a candidate needs about the job. Also, they are able to get a feel for what it is like to work at the company. You can let this come across in the post if you work for a company with a friendly, informal atmosphere. Additionally, an ad for a serious company may be more focused and professional.

A job posting needs to be accurate as well. It’s a good idea to proofread and have someone fact-check your posts, especially if they mention technologies or tools you don’t know. Job ads that contain errors may cause candidates to wonder if the company is as knowledgeable and competent as they claim.

Streamline the referral process

It should be easy to use, no matter what kind of employee you’re looking for, from a contract employee to a senior manager.

• Post all open positions that need referrals in one location, such as on your website’s career page, on your intranet system, or in a weekly email.
• You can provide employees with canned content they can share on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Design email templates that include links to your career page and social media accounts.
• Whenever a referral is made by an employee, create a special hiring pipeline by using a dedicated email such as referrals@xyzcompany.com.
• Take a look at the benefits of referral tracking. To make the employee referral experience fun and engaging, select one with automation and gamification features. 

A key performance indicator (KPI) for recruiting

KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, offer a great way to measure the success of your hiring process. A KPI is a method to quantify the success of your recruiting efforts and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Recruitment KPIs used today by organizations include:

• Hiring time has come
• Qualifications of candidates
• Interview to submission ratio
• The ratio of offers to interviews
• Percentage of offers accepted

By using simple equations, recruitment KPIs will provide you with tangible data so you can run your recruiting process like a well-oiled machine.

Establish recruitment goals

Your recruiting strategy will not be successful unless you have recruiting goals. By defining your recruiting goals ahead of time, you’ll be able to guide your strategy and measure its effectiveness accordingly. Establish your recruitment goals based on your recruitment metrics by identifying where the problems were during previous recruiting efforts.

Develop a comprehensive recruitment content strategy

Content plays a long game when it comes to recruitment effective strategies. If you want to attract the best candidates, you need to include this in your hiring process. If you can provide relevant information to your industry’s talent, you’ll become an authority in their eyes. In addition to researching career advancement skills, they will also seek out industry news and trends. When top candidates think about changing jobs, you’ll be in their minds when you provide the information they would be interested in.

Consider the experience of candidates

An increasing emphasis on candidate experience has been a big trend in recruiting. It has even reached the point where many companies have roles exclusively dedicated to recruiting. The candidate experience starts before a candidate ever applies to one of your jobs and extends through the onboarding process.

Taking a step back and actually reviewing your own application process is the first step to improving your candidate experience. Consider this from the perspective of a candidate – if you dislike something, how do you think candidates feel? An improved candidate experience begins with ensuring that the hiring process is seamless.

A candidate must also receive regular feedback and updates. In the midst of the recruiting process, you should never leave candidates in the dark. This will negatively affect their candidate experience and increase the risk that they will look elsewhere. Not to mention the increased likelihood that a negative review will be left online. A positive candidate experience will impact your recruiting strategy as well as your company overall in the short and long term.

Align your business goals with your personal goals

Use your business goals to tailor your acquisition strategy based on the objectives you have for the next one to five years. Talent acquisition focuses on hiring for long-term expansion, rather than recruitment, which is more focused on filling vacancies within departments.

Your HR department may want to focus on recruiting candidates with experience in international or regional markets. 

Perhaps you are planning to build a new product, in which case your HR efforts should focus on recruiting talented coders and developers.

A strategic approach to talent acquisition

Let’s review the framework defined by the Deloitte source cited above for talent acquisition. By using these five pillars as our guide, we can build an effective talent acquisition strategy. 

Take a look at your talent management strategy before you start building. Do you see any gaps? Does this strategy help fill those gaps?