We are amid what is commonly known as the unexpected recruitment crisis.
Recent data from ONS has confirmed vacancies are at an all-time high - between February and April alone, 1.3 million new job opportunities were published.
However, because there is fierce competition for talent, a lot of those job vacancies are being left open for months. The result of which is added costs for businesses and extra stress for current employees. It’s clearly time for HR teams to re-strategise their recruitment efforts.
Broaden your horizons
The standard business practice when recruiting is to target a range of job boards or work with external recruiters, but this ultimately means many businesses are missing out on large amounts of talent.
Potential candidates can be broken down into three categories. Active job seekers, who amount to 5-15% of the talent pool, are those who are proactively looking at job boards daily and seeking the help of recruitment agencies.
Semi-active job seekers take up 10-25% of the pool. Unlike active job seekers, they are not actively pursuing opportunities, but they will put occasional feelers out for a job, speaking to recruitment agencies and checking job boards periodically.
The vast majority are passive candidates, making up 60-80%. They have little interest in looking for a job, but if nudged, could be interested in moving.
Instead of solely targeting people actively looking for a job, it might be smarter to target the people who are in the passive category. Businesses typically only look at job boards which are good but only attract active candidates. This clearly isn’t enough to fill vacant roles and continuing with this strategy will not bring in the 60-80% of talent that is out there. Targeting passive candidates also allows you to increase the size of the talent pool, which can support filling positions more quickly.
Put the spotlight on your company culture
The days where people only cared about pay when moving roles is now in the past. People now look at whether a business aligns with their values.
Most prospective hires are more interested in looking at your corporate social responsibilities as well as company culture. To move people from passive to active job seekers, businesses need to show their true selves and look to create a personal connection. Such as through highlighting charity days, networking or belonging groups and celebrations of promotions.
For businesses who want to reach a wider audience, social media platforms such as LinkedIn should be the guiding light. However, this isn't the only option. While the end goal is a recruitment push, to put your businesses culture in the shop window, make sure to use all the main networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even TikTok.
Encourage employee evangelists
Once your business is in the shop window, ensure you encourage your employees to spread your message far and wide. Word of mouth is still a powerful tool which can get very good results. People tend to believe their friends on these types of topics rather than outside voices.
Encouraging your team to highlight their experiences at the company on social media, as well as tagging their colleagues in posts will help maximise exposure. Further, ensuring senior leaders are engaged in employee posts will ensure people feel seen and are motivated to post more. This will create an army of employee advocates, which can in turn encourage teams to support with recruitment efforts.
Optimise interviewing and onboarding
How many steps should your current recruitment process have? The world we live in expects everything in an instant, and this also applies professionally. Job seekers are looking for intuitive and speedy processes and expect the recruitment process to be as smooth as possible.
Right from the get-go, having multiple touchpoints between the hiring manager and candidate will help keep them warm throughout the process. Technology can be used to help facilitate this, so introducing a candidate to key people doesn’t feel like entering a cold, dark room from day one. Further, there needs to be a seamless link between teams, and everyone involved in interviewing should be able to access key information such as candidate CVs and interview feedback from other colleagues. Harnessing automation software can help keep this in one place so the whole process can be expediated.
Harnessing electronic signatures, automatic contact generation and other automated workflows will also go a long way in maintaining engagement with the candidate throughout the process. And it reduces the risk of other businesses offering on your favourite candidate and you losing them altogether. Further, it will ensure you can onboard people more quickly and they get off on the right foot with the company from day one – first impressions are important and slow, analogue processes won’t paint you in the best light.
A fully integrated digital onboarding process will help candidates in their first few days in the role. The ability to onboard people more quickly, allows teams to grow and continues the employee experience which they have seen throughout the interview stage.
A shift needs to happen
For businesses finding it hard to fill vacancies, targeting passive candidates could be the needed change in strategy. Bringing in creativity and technological advancements such as a multi-channeled attraction strategy will help you stay ahead of the curve in the fight for talent. Highlighting employee culture and creating a slick onboarding process could stimulate passive candidates into looking at your roles, ultimately increasing your chances of filling vacancies and lifting the employer brand. In recruiting it is crucial to always evaluate and adapt where possible, and by doing so you can set yourself up to succeed.