You asked for top-of-funnel insights and strategies, and we deliver. Here are seven best practices that will help you extend your candidate reach.
Update your social media strategy. Still relying on LinkedIn and Facebook for sourcing and recruiting? They may be tried and true platforms, but younger candidates equate them to cassette tapes and flip phones. If you?re hiring for entry level positions or trying to engage the under-25 crowd, you need a presence on Instagram, YouTube and SnapChat.? This isn?t a single-day upgrade to your social media strategy. it’s going to require deployment of content and communication for candidates using videos and images as the primary tactic, not just text.???
Add virtual job fairs to your recruitment drives. Virtual job fairs are a digital-age remake on traditional hiring events, and many large enterprise organizations put them into play to extend their candidate reach. You can host a virtual job fair on your own, or for an easier entry point, join in a third party-hosted event. Either way, you can engage with a deep pool of candidates and raise your talent brand profile. To see how virtual job fairs impact your candidate experience and decide if they should be part of your strategy, read our blog. ?
Text interview. As a mobile engagement technology, text interviewing is unbeatable – who doesn’t have a smartphone in their pocket or a tablet in their briefcase or toolbox these days? Easy access and a fast, simple candidate experience are just two of the reasons why text interviews are so powerful. They?re also a one-to-many means of communication, so recruiters can pose the same pre-qualification questions to hundreds or thousands of candidates at once. Use text interviews to interest passive candidates with a low-commitment interview. Filter your oversized applicant pool more efficiently to fill high-volume hiring requisitions faster with qualified candidates. With text interviews you offer more candidates instant engagement and focus in on high-potential candidates faster.
Make job description text more inclusive. LinkedIn?s new Language Matters report indicates even just a single word in a job posting can make a huge difference in your candidate reach. For instance, include the word ?aggressive? in your job descriptions and 44% of women would be discouraged from applying.? Augmented writing applications can review text for gender skew and bias trigger words, and rewrite job descriptions to be more inclusive. They can also help your words better reflect your talent brand.
Embrace recruiting automation and AI. There?s only so many hours in the day. This traditional limitation for TA teams is now one you can get around with recruiting automation and AI. Whether you add automated scheduling, automated candidate advancement or a chatbot available to answer candidate questions 24/7 to your hiring workflow, these applications will help you handle large volumes of candidates well and still have time to reach out to more.
Turn the corner with recruitment marketing.? Recruitment marketing is much more than advertising on job boards. It consists of developing and communicating an employer value proposition (EVP) to candidates much like marketers do with consumers, and it can significantly extend your candidate reach. Your EVP describes the experience of working for your organization, and can entice the right candidates to take a closer look. To learn how to think like a marketer and attract more candidates, get ahold of our e-book, The Essential Guide to Recruitment Marketing.
Modify incentives for employee referrals. You may have already heard that recruiting through your employees? networks can increase your candidate pool by a?factor of 10. If your employee referral program isn?t producing like it should, try modifying the process and the incentives. The keys are making it easy for employees to participate, offering a reward they want, and shortening the time between referral and reward. Some organizations find smaller, more frequent rewards will increase the volume of referrals. Others allow employees to choose their reward from a short list of options. You could consider cash, time off, a learning opportunity, and a monetary gift to a nonprofit of the employee?s choice. And, don’t let your employee referral program stay a well-kept secret. Start spreading the word during onboarding and in company-wide communication.
Need to zero in?
Of course, it’s not realistic to try or modify all of these practices at once. If you?d like to narrow your focus to a strategy with proven and significant impact, look into recruiting automation and AI. You can?learn more about intelligent candidate interactions that accelerate quality hiring here.???
