Recruitment Resolutions to Reboot Results in 2017
As the last of the Christmas ham leaves the fridge, roads return to gridlock and the working year begins in earnest, now is a great time to set your intentions for the year – with recruitment results firmly in your sights.
In our world, first-class recruitment practices are in our blood, but for some, each new vacancy is a costly cause for concern. Make 2017 the year you reboot with these recruitment resolutions.
- Candidate Care
If your recruitment efforts thus far have been frustrating, time-consuming budget busters, it’s time to introduce an effective candidate care system.
At every stage of the application process, your candidates are forming an opinion of your business, determining their desire to work with you and, if the process drags and candidates are left to dangle, could see you miss out on top talent.
It’s important to put your best foot forward, but in the busy day-to-day of running a business or HR department, it can be hard to carve out time to take candidate calls (and they will call often), respond to emails, answer multiple questions and concerns and provide speedy updates at every stage.
Protect your employer brand and make your life easier this year by investigating an automated candidate care system or engaging the support of a partner (our Shortlisting and Selection Specialists act as a dedicated point of call for candidates, at once eliminating the burden on our clients while promoting a positive employer brand experience for candidates).
After all, the stakes are high to get this right. Recruitment is unfortunately geared to disappoint more people than it delights, and if 99% of your applicants develop a negative opinion it can leave lasting damage to your employer brand.
We encourage you to put a focus on candidate care this year and establish a process that:
- Responds to all candidates quickly
- Doesn’t keep them waiting
- Manages expectations so candidates understand the process and timeframes
- Returns phone calls and is available when candidates need them – which is often
- Takes them through the decision process with constructive, valuable feedback in a timely manner
- Understands the challenges and heartache involved in the job hunt
- Supports candidates with advice, encouragement, respect and acknowledgment
- Talent Pooling
Adopting strategic talent pooling practices in 2017 will complement your candidate care efforts, this time keeping strong but unsuccessful candidates warm for future opportunities. These are active job seekers who want to work for you after all, so it pays to maintain a positive relationship with them for access in the future.
Talent pooling is a proactive recruitment initiative that will help your organisation make quality hires more quickly. With talent pooling, you can build on the positive relationship developed with your candidates, engage this talent with your employer brand and identify the most suitable person for the job from a pre-screened pool, instead of scrambling to find appropriate and willing candidates with each vacancy.
- Employer Branding
We encourage you to tackle employer branding in 2017. Chances are, it’s already on your radar (the urgency surrounding the topic reached fever pitch last year), and while it can be a daunting undertaking, it is now a critical must-have.
After supporting clients as strategic partner in their employer branding efforts, we find the biggest, but most enlightening, challenge to overcome is understanding the (potential) disconnect between what you want your employer brand to be and how it is actually perceived.
Your employer brand is owned in the minds of your current and prospective employees, and your chance to positively influence that perception is through employer branding.
It starts with understanding the value proposition you offer employees and how well that has been marketed. We often come across companies who, despite having amazing benefits and happy employees, struggle to fill vacancies quickly and with quality candidates. This is often because their employer branding has missed the mark, they aren’t known to be an employer of choice (or even known at all) and quality people aren’t aware of the advantages.
Build employer of choice status through strategic, effective employer branding tactics like storytelling, social media advocacy, employee engagement activities and referral programs that connect your ideal candidates with your offer and employer brand.
Start with research. Critically assess what your people are saying about you (on Glassdoor, social media, engagement surveys), determine what makes your organisation unique, the value you offer employees and identify opportunities to bring that to life.
A simple first step would be to cast an eye over your job ads and careers section of your website. Are you doing enough to attract your ideal candidates? Would they know from these portals what your mission is, why you do it, your values and the strengths of your people? If not, set about amending to accurately reflect what you want people to know about you to encourage applications and positive impressions of your employer brand.
If all else fails, our experts are on standby to reboot and revolutionise your employer branding and recruitment practice this year.
Get the inside track with our predictions for the top trends in recruitment for 2017.
