In a fast-moving world, there could not be anything more important than keeping up with developing trends. In case of Talent Hiring, not keeping up with trends means that you are using outdated practices and producing weaker results. In today’s world, if an organisation wants to attract and hire top talent more efficiently, it needs to diversify the talent hiring and recruiting strategy to go beyond traditional job postings and sourcing through portals.
It’s imperative to take note of four key trends that help in diversifying talent hiring strategy and also help to improve hiring results:
• Digitising the hiring process;
• Building talent pipeline;
• Tapping into vast employee networks through employee referral programs; and
• Developing employer branding strategy.
Digitising the Hiring Process
Moving ahead from the traditional practices for recruitment, various organisations have adopted technology in such a way that they have started digitalising the complete process of recruitment right from sourcing to hiring. This not only helps the organisation to manage it in a better way, but rather serves as a positive beginning for the employees too. Candidates expect a fast and easy application procedure right from when they apply to when they have to complete the joining formalities. Even at post-hiring stage, digitised platforms help in applying intelligence to summarising the important information and producing sophisticated analytics for better decision making.
Building Talent Pipeline
One of the best approaches to hiring top talent is by proactively identifying, attracting and engaging qualified candidates with the desired skills, experiences and cultural fit, so as to have a healthy pipeline of quality prospects always available. Nowadays, sourcing is also about maintaining a positive bond with your backups, and targeting passive candidates who are not actively looking for new opportunities. To ensure this, companies are keeping regular follow up with candidates and keeping them updated on their job search status, and are sharing information about company, latest projects, etc. to keep them engaged and interested in the organisation through the various platforms such as newsletters, organisation blogs and other social media sites.
Tapping into vast employee networks through employee referral programs
Research shows that top organisations make over 40-50 percent of their new hires through employee referrals – and that referred candidates are faster and cheaper to hire than traditional candidates. Needless to say that refereed employees and employees who successfully refer tend to stay with the company longer. This clearly indicates that tapping employees’ networks is one of the best strategies for talent hiring in the future times to come. If you don’t already have an employee referral program, it’s time to build one. And if the existing program isn’t working, it’s time to look into how it can be improved to boost your talent hiring strategy because every employee could possibly turn out to be a productive recruiter for your company and I would advise you to not miss out on what you already have!
Developing Employer Branding Strategy
In a world where technology is driving so much, I would suggest organisations develop their employer brand using the same. Nearly, 40-50 percent of all candidates apply after visiting the company career site, which makes it quite obvious that company career sites are the most preferred source of information for candidates. The content you have on your career site, blogs and other social media sites is directly linked to the number of qualified applicants coming in and filtering out candidates who may not be a good fit. Also, in today’s millennial world, with around 70 – 80 percent of job seekers likely to use social media for job search, it is a huge prerogative that if your company isn’t on social media yet, or isn’t active, you will want to add it to your employer branding strategy. Companies nowadays are studying candidate segments/personas to figure out RIGHT social channels and platforms and the type of content that will resonate with target pool of candidates, so as to attract and engage them at the RIGHT platforms through authentic employer brand content that gets them excited about the idea of working for the company.
In today’s competitive job market, relying on job posting as the sole talent hiring strategy just doesn’t seem to work anymore. If an organisation wants the very best talent, they need to have a multichannel recruiting and employer brand strategy to find, nurture and convert qualified candidates into hires. Also, the millennials that are currently moving into workplaces are more into applications, social media and the internet. To target this technologically driven audience, adopting new and innovative hiring strategies gives an extra edge and leads to better results.
Author: Vivek Misra Founder & Director Mynd Solutions Pvt. Ltd