Putting Recruiting Trends to Work for Your Organization
Successful employers are putting recruitment trends to use in ways that enable them to attract and retain the right talent to help their organization face current and future challenges.
As unemployment dives and the demand for skills rises, candidates have more choices and are considering so much more than a paycheck alone when searching for that next role. In response, recruitment trends are addressing the fact that candidates are looking for more from the employer-employee relationship than just a job.
Successful organizations have recruitment strategies in place that capture interest from a diverse talent pool, build and nurture relationships with passive candidates, put the power of data behind their process evolution and leverage technology to extend their reach.
Today's Candidate Pool is Broader and More Diverse
We now have more generations and perspectives in the workforce than ever before. That, coupled with a rise in remote work, continued globalization and growing accessibility to contractors means your candidate pool is larger and more diverse. Consider that nearly 70 percent of your own employees are either actively looking or open to a job move – don't overlook this critical internal piece of your talent pool, either. Recent Gartner research shows us that only 27 percent of employees believe their organization makes it easy to find internal job opportunities, and only 21 percent believe it is easy to change positions at their current employer. Today, this broader talent network presents a big challenge - you have more expectations to consider and address if you want to capture the attention across demographics and geographies.
So, what are you doing differently? Reaching and engaging diverse candidates is becoming more critical, as organizations look to drive diversity, equity and inclusion across their business. Prioritizing this critical piece of culture is important for candidates, too – as candidates start to search for a workplace that reflects their own personal values. Showcasing that areas like diversity, inclusion and equity are a valued part of your culture could make or break a candidate's consideration. As applicants consider joining your organization, be sure they know from that very first interaction what values are critical to your brand.
The Bottom Line: While the talent pool is getting bigger, your recruiting resources are probably the same. The explosion of the talent acquisition market might be overwhelming, but it actually means you have more tools than ever before at your disposal to extend your reach – and, don't forget to extend these efforts to your own internal workforce. A new wave of data analytics capabilities means you can be much more precise with how and where to most effectively connect with candidates.
New Ways to Screen, Interview and Assess Candidate Fit
Organizations are trying to figure out how they can find and hire people that will be successful – both productive and fit culturally – as fast as possible. Far too often, we bring in smart people and try to 'reverse engineer' them into the culture or an existing team dynamic. It's tough being the new person – in fact, nearly 30 percent of people leave a new job within the first 90 days.
Emerging interview and candidate assessment practices and technology can be incredibly helpful in removing bias from the interview process, as well as helping assess a candidate's fit for a role and within the organizational culture.
We've all experienced challenges during interviews: video interviews with connection issues, rigid interview formats that don't give the candidate a chance to shine or assessment tools that seem disconnected and cause stress. In fact, I once had to take a monitored online assessment of 50 questions in 15 minutes, and was told nobody gets hired if they don't pass – talk about stress!
Consider whether or not interviews are accomplishing what you intend from the process:
- Are your interviews fair assessments of skills and capability, or a 'popularity contest' (i.e. confirmation bias)?
- Are you able to consistently and efficiently capture and share interview insight among decision-makers to help keep the process moving?
- Are interviewers prepared? Do they understand the demands of the role and have access to the candidate's profile and experience?
- How are you fairly assessing remote candidates you may never meet face-to-face before hiring?
From soft skills assessments to video and team interviews, HR technology is making it possible to rethink the interview process and experience.
The Bottom Line: While these new tools and processes can be helpful, be sure to consider how they fit into the overall candidate experience you are working so hard to build. You must also be sure to support hiring managers and interview teams, so technology is an enabler not a hindrance. In an ongoing environment of talent shortage, interviewing plays an increasingly critical role - if we keep filling the gaps with the people and skills we're already comfortable with, how will we overcome challenges and move the business forward?
Don't Overlook the Power of Passive Candidates
Given that today's candidates want more from their employment relationship than "just" a job, it's becoming increasingly important for you as an employer to build a relationship with potential job-seekers in your market long before they apply for a role.
An increasing number of organizations are approaching their Talent Acquisition function more like marketers:
- Engage with candidates before they've started looking for a job. HR technology can be a powerful way to automate and extend the reach of your team's recruitment efforts by elevating your employment brand early and often – get people thinking about, and engaged with, your brand early.
- Much like case studies in the sales process, stories from current employees provide authentic information about working for an organization – put them front and center. Today's candidates desire transparency, providing a glimpse inside helps gain credibility with those you hope to hire.
- Roll out the red carpet – treat your candidates like they're already valued employees, giving them a taste of the employee experience. Extend applicable tools to nurture candidates by assisting them in developing skills and closing gaps that will help them advance into a right fit for the organization over time. When you show a candidate you're willing to invest in them before they're even a part of your organization, it conveys a positive message about your culture, as well as your dedication to them as a future employee.
The Bottom Line: Get people excited about more than just a paycheck. The effort and investment in passive candidates will pay off when you hire applicants who are already excited about your organization, thanks to engaging with your employment brand long before making the decision to become an employee.
Use Data to Get You Further
Top performing organizations are beginning to use data as a powerful link between HR and talent practices throughout the employee life cycle. Now more than ever, data is used to support everything from hiring practices to career mobility to retention. The key to using data to get you further is ensuring you have the right data at your fingertips, and that your teams are equipped to use it effectively. Some key questions to ask around the data your talent acquisition is using include:
- Are you able to identify the traits and skills that predict top performance for roles? Are you tracking how this changes in real time?
- Do you have leading indicators to predict which candidates have a high probability of retention and career growth?
- Does your data help optimize the recruiting and hiring process by providing an understanding of indicators such as the speed of hiring, rate of offer acceptance and applicant abandonment?
- Do you have data at your fingertips to ensure competitive and equitable pay practices?
The Bottom Line: Data and analytics usage still remains a bit of a mystery for many organizations. When the right data are used in the right ways, your teams will become a powerful strategic partner in driving business outcomes by moving beyond finding the right candidates, to finding the best candidates to drive long-term outcomes such as retention, leadership potential and performance.
There's no denying that talent acquisition practices and recruitment trends are rapidly changing. Successful employers are adapting to those changes and putting trends to use in ways that enable them to recruit and retain the right talent to help their organization face current and future challenges.
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