Talent recruitment practices are changing. And that’s a very good thing.
Talent recruitment and management are essential to maintaining a healthy business. Attracting and retaining high-performing employees should be a top priority for all organizations. Unfortunately, business leaders often fall back on traditional practices to get the job done and then wonder why they’re not getting the results they want.
Although the past year has had its ups and downs, one bright spot in the human resources field has emerged. And that’s how businesses have started to reflect on existing recruitment and talent management processes in an increasingly digital and virtual work world.
The recruitment landscape is changing drastically as we navigate another year of change. New technology, digital referral systems and employee surveys, AI-driven data management and virtual interviews are just a few of the items that are changing the way businesses attract and manage new talent.
Here’s a closer look at some of the trends and practices that are getting attention.
Utilizing Predictive Analytics to find your next All-Star
A variety of tech players currently offer recruiters the ability to parse through resumes and flag candidates based on pre-defined parameters. And they’re using predictive analytics to determine the potential success of a new hire.
More and more businesses are able to lean on data to make predictions about potential candidates. Predictive analytics and recommender systems can successfully assess who is best suited for a job and can also unearth passive recruits who are not yet actively seeking new opportunities but have the required skill sets.
Even better, predictive analytics can also signal when an employee is preparing to quit a current role by looking for specific signals in their online behaviour. Having access to tools that enable your business to anticipate potential threats and/or opportunities can help business leaders get ahead of situations to influence their outcomes.
Creating employee advocates
Referral marketing on digital channels can be highly impactful at reaching your customers, so why not apply the same principles to recruitment?
Engaged employees are often under-leveraged. Employees that are engaged in your business will naturally want to share new opportunities with friends and peers. Using your internal teams to make introductions can help you make quick connections to people who have already been exposed to your company culture through your employees.
An employee advocacy program can easily be amplified using social media. Formally incentivizing employees to promote open positions on their owned channels can help boost reach and lend credibility among peers.
According to ErinApp, an employee referral program can save a company $7,500 in productivity and sourcing costs for each new hire. An employee referral program can also result in lower turnover rates, high-quality hires and a shorter recruitment process.
Facilitating a formal employee feedback cycle.
According to Salesforce, employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work. No one will know your business’s operational strengths (and weaknesses) better than your employees. Today it’s critical that businesses encourage their employees to provide real-time feedback.
Want to know whether or not your new work from home policies or your new town hall format is working? Ask the people who are in the thick of it.
Collecting regular feedback will help you demonstrate to employees that they are being heard. And properly articulated processes will help you mobilize quickly against their feedback. How do you get started?
- Formulate the right questions to get the data you want
- Quickly analyse the data to draw immediate insights
- Summarize and share those insights with the appropriate stakeholders
- Take action to implement viable changes
- Communicate those changes to employees
Using data to look beyond talent acquisition
The McKinsey Institute estimates that, by 2025, the global economic impact of AI will be somewhere between $7 and $13 trillion dollars. Companies that leverage AI tools now will reap the benefits of the disruption, while those who opt to stay the course could risk falling behind.
In a previous piece entitled How Artificial Intelligence is Changing our World, we touched on how AI applications can also use existing data, with pre-set parameters, to help identify employees within a company that are likely to become high performers.
Not only can this aid in eliminating bias within talent pools, but it can also help businesses sustain robust talent pipelines and clear succession strategies.
Getting the most out of virtual
Remote workdays filled with ZOOM meetings have become the new norm and so too has virtual recruitment. Most HR departments have embraced the one-to-one virtual interview (out of necessity), but larger group events can be just as impactful. Many companies have hosted some very successful career fairs on digital channels, pulling out all the stops to find the best talent possible.
According to a survey conducted by Handshake in early April 2020, that polled 112 of their partner employers, 80% of recruiting will remain virtual for the foreseeable future.
It’s sometimes difficult for recruiters to envision what this type of event can look like in a virtual setting. There are several different platforms that can deliver exceptional experiences. And although in-person experiences will likely remain preferable, virtual HR events do offer a number of benefits:
- Easy access eliminates the needs for proximity
- Cost savings can be substantial
- Time savings can lead to efficiency
- Hosting events in a digital space make it easier to collect and action against data
People are starting to see alternatives to LinkedIn
According to Glassdoor, 79% of prospective candidates use social media when conducting their job search. And while LinkedIn might seem like the obvious choice for recruiters, it’s important to remember that your company’s culture can be showcased and promoted across many different channels.
For instance, employee BBQs, town halls, awards ceremonies and career fairs are great stories for LinkedIn, but those same stories can also be told on platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. By diversifying platforms, your business is more likely to reach new audiences.
These stories help attract new talent, and they also help give existing employees a sense of pride which can play a significant role in employee retention.
Prioritizing quality over quantity
Businesses are starting to realize that creating a tighter and more targeted applicant pool is more likely to generate better results. This can be achieved using highly targeted digital ads, which can set very particular parameters around recruitment goals.
If we can personalize email messages to sell hand tooled leather goods and program ads against cohorts that all watch the same reality tv shows, maybe it’s time to start putting in a little more effort into analyzing the data we need to recruit the best talent in our fields.
It might mean shortlisting just five vs fifteen resume submissions, but at least we’ll be sure they’re all hitting the right mark. Quality over quantity is never a bad thing.
Interested in hearing about more ways to attract and retain top talent with digital tools and practices? Get in touch today to set up a conversation.
