Improving Candidate Experience Leads to Effective Talent Acquisition
Improving candidate experience leads to effective talent acquisition If there’s one thing that COVID-19 brought to the fore, it’s the candidate experience when searching for a new role. The pandemic created global uncertainty around the economy and its moving parts. Millions of people became candidates again. For some, it was the first time they’d been
6 Ways to Show Pride During Your Recruitment Process
Find out the different ways to show your support during your recruitment for lgbtq community and how it can make a big difference.
Here’s Why Recruiters Should Be Excited to Return to the Office
It’s safe to say that the thought of returning to an office environment is a daunting one. Since early 2020, the daily routine of professional workers has changed significantly. The hustle and bustle of the daily commute has been replaced by a relaxing journey from bed to desk. You’ve been getting more sleep, saving money
New strategies for verifiable learning post-COVID
New strategies for verifiable learning post-COVID Have the impacts of COVID-19 changed the way you think about learning and professional development? In the world of online lectures and remote training solutions, the pitfalls of our approach to learning become glaringly clear. We do a lot of work with clients who have suffered from the impact
Building a Positive Candidate Experience Into Your Recruitment Process
Have you ever spent hours on a job application only to never get a response from that company? Perhaps you prepared extensively for an interview only to be met by a disinterested hiring manager who can barely remember your name. All of these small moments add up to become the candidate experience when candidates are engaging with your recruitment process. Candidate experience can have a massive impact on an organization’s success. A positive candidate experience can make sourcing for new roles significantly easier as a result of a positive Employer Brand. A negative candidate experience will likely very quickly have candidates avoiding your open vacancies. It also can have a huge impact on company revenue with many burned candidates vowing to use a competitor’s service and urging their friends to do the same. An example of this in action is Virgin Media in the UK who discovered that their negative candidate experience was costing them more than £4.4 million per year. Candidate experience is a tricky balancing act. There are plenty of roles that can attract 100s of applications and though many recruiters have begun their respective careers by declaring they’ll give every candidate that they work with a personalized response, reality soon sets in. The truth is that if you’re hiring frequently you simply cannot give every candidate that applies for your roles a personalized experience. You can however use a combination of clever automation and efficient internal processes to gift your candidates moments of joy throughout their recruitment experience with you. This is where utilizing an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can give you the edge you need to ensure that the candidates you meet remain enthusiastic about your organization and your brand. Managing candidate expectations One of the first and simplest things that you can do to ensure that both you and your new candidate don’t start off on the wrong foot is to be clear on expectations. Using an ATS you can generate an email that is triggered and sent to candidates upon submission of an application. The content of this email is important and should say much more than ‘thank you for submitting an application to our organization’. As a rule of thumb, when crafting this message to your new candidates you should include: An anticipated timeline of the recruitment process – When can they expect to hear if they’ve been selected for an interview? How many interviews are they likely to attend? A contact number or email address that they can reach out to if they have any questions about the process or would like to follow up on their application. An acknowledgment that though this is an automated email, a real human is taking the time to review the candidate’s application. An acknowledgment that you appreciate the hard work the candidate has already demonstrated by submitting their application. While it is preferable that you follow up with candidates and let them know if they’re no longer being considered for the role, again your ATS should allow this automation, if that’s not something that you have the capacity to do for all applications then make it clear that due to the volume of applications you receive only candidates who are successful in their application will be contacted for interview. Failing to contact all of your candidates is far from the ideal, but if it’s something that you aren’t capable of then you do need to set that expectation with your candidates from the beginning. Though doing this is less about a positive candidate experience and is more so damage control. Providing candidate feedback A huge pain point for candidates is a feeling of wasted time that is generated when they are essentially ghosted by the hiring organization. As discussed, many candidates complain of submitting an application only to never receive any acknowledgment from the hiring organization. In some much more damaging instances, candidates have interviewed for a role and then never heard from the hiring organization again. With the candidate management technology that exists and is readily available today, ghosting candidates who have invested time and energy with your company just isn’t good enough anymore. Ignoring candidates you’re no longer interested in is a bad candidate experience and will negatively impact your Employer Brand. Providing feedback to candidates will look different depending on how far they are into your process. If you’ve not interviewed them, then a simple automated email to thank them for their time and explain that you’re proceeding with candidates who are a closer fit for the role and your organization is sufficient. Individuals that you’ve interviewed warrant more personalized feedback. This doesn’t need to be overly detailed but absolutely should be honest. In an ideal world, you’d call candidates but again if that’s not something you have the capacity for then at least make sure you email these candidates and release them from your recruitment process by giving them feedback. Empathy and respect At the end of the day, candidates really aren’t asking for much. All they want and need is an acknowledgement of the effort that they’ve made regardless of whether they’re a fit for the role or not. Work with your hiring team and train them in how to deliver an excellent interview for your candidates. Today’s failed applicant could be a superstar in a different role within your company, but they aren’t going to want to work with you if they’ve had a bad interview with a hiring manager who seems completely disinterested in them. Show your candidates the respect that they deserve for taking time out of their day to meet with you and your team in order to discuss your open vacancy. Improving your candidate experience overall will take a lot of work and it can seem like a daunting task. But you don’t have to do it all at once, find pain points and areas of contention within your recruitment process and work to improve them little by little. Small improvements within your recruitment
The Talent Scout Episode 61: Amplifying Your Employer Brand With a Positive Candidate Experience
Your Employer Brand can be a tricky thing to measure and manipulate. We know that to get a sense of how it’s performing you can measure your time to hire, cost per hire, number of internal referrals, Glassdoor and Indeed review ratings, or even something as simple as employee feedback when surveying your employees on
Are You Ready for ‘The Great Resignation’?
A resignation boom may be on the horizon. Here’s what employers can do to prepare, and how to bounce back if you’ve already been affected. If you’re on LinkedIn, chances are you’ve heard of the term ‘The Great Resignation’. This term refers to the increase in resignations that employers are expecting as the Covid-19 pandemic slows down. According to Anthony Klotz, an associate professor of management at Texas A&M, during an interview with Bloomberg, “When there’s uncertainty, people tend to stay put, so there are pent-up resignations that didn’t happen over the past year. The numbers are multiplied, he says, by the many pandemic-related epiphanies—about family time, remote work, commuting, passion projects, life, and death, and what it all means—that can make people turn their back on the 9-to-5 office grind.” As an employer, what can you do to avoid ‘The Great Resignation’? Remote Work Needs to Be An Option Employees have gotten used to the home comforts associated with remote work. Not having the option to work remotely post-pandemic may make your employees consider changing jobs. In fact, a study done by Robert Half states that 1 in 3 employees who are currently working from home would look for a new job if they were required to return to the office. However, employers might be hesitant to allow all employees to continue to work with such freedom. Consider letting employees work remotely as a reward for consistent performance. Make Flexibility A Priority A job that’s flexible allows employees to have a greater work-life balance. A level of flexibility at work has come to be expected by employees as part of our ‘new normal’. Thinking about going back to strict 9-5 works hours? Think again. Wanting flexibility is nothing new. In fact, even before the pandemic, flexibility was important to employees. According to research done by Gallup, a global analytics firm, 54% of office workers say they’d leave their job for one that offers flexible work time. Consider a compromise: establish set times that an employee must be available, and allow them to schedule the remainder of their time around their lives. Learning Opportunities Will Retain Talent Employee Learning and Development may be low on your list of priorities with budgets being cut due to the pandemic – but it shouldn’t be. A sure-fire way to increase engagement? Empower your employees with opportunities to upskill. A focus on L&D as a pillar of your Employer Brand can do wonders in attracting and retaining talent. Now that in-person education is limited, consider an online Learning Management System (LMS). Scout Talent’s LMS, :Learning, gives you access to an intuitive platform to manage employee learning, as well as access to over 18,000 courses. So, You’ve Already Been Affected by ‘The Great Resignation? Making a bad hire is costly. Here’s how you can make the recruitment process as stress-free as possible. Use An Applicant Tracking System (ATS). A disorganised recruitment process can badly impact your Employer Brand and make candidates re-think working for you. An ATS can make the recruitment process a whole lot smoother. Scout Talent’s affordable ATS :Recruit</i > was built by recruiters for recruiters. This affordable software platform can help you manage your recruitment, easily screen candidates and communicate with candidates and your team with ease. Let The Experts Take Over An increase in recruitment activities may leave you feeling overwhelmed. Scout Talent offers affordable recruitment services including Recruitment Marketing, candidate attraction, shortlisting and selection and Employer Branding. To get regular information that adds value to your business, sign up to receive Scout Talent email updates. We promise to only send you information that you’ll find useful.
The Talent Scout Episode 57: How to maintain and strengthen your company culture
A company with a strong culture is one that has highly motivated and engaged employees. Typically, employees that are highly motivated and engaged perform better in their roles and are less likely to leave their organization. According to a survey carried out by the Queen’s School of Business, Disengaged workers have 37% higher absenteeism, 49%
3 Crucial Soft Skills: Why They Matter And How To Hire For Them
The national skills shortage is predicted to grow to 29 million skills in deficit by 2030, and organizations are feeling the squeeze. While technical skills, knowledge and qualifications are essential drivers for your organization’s success, soft skills are the currency of the future. According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends report, 92% of talent acquisition professionals state soft skills are equally or more important to hire for than hard skills. 89% stated when a new hire doesn’t work out, it’s due to a lack of critical soft skills. Two-thirds of jobs created in the next ten years are expected to be strongly reliant on skills like communication and empathy. While specialized knowledge and hard skills are essential to an efficient, qualified workforce, it’s soft skills that will determine how your people will handle problems, communicate with colleagues and clients, and respond to different business situations. Soft skills are often the deciding factor if you’re struggling to differentiate between top candidates with the same hard skill sets. Here are three top-rated soft skills and how recruiting for these skills will give you a competitive edge in today’s market. Communication Communication is seen as the foundation of every other soft skill. Why? Because communication is the “umbrella” covering other skills such as “speaking, active listening skills, presentation skills and more.” It provides the foundation for relationships between employees and their senior team members. Managers should be able to communicate effectively with their team members about tasks, improvements and when providing praise. Emotional Intelligence Emotional Intelligence (often abbreviated to EQ) is the ability to understand the reactions and perspectives of others and handle this with empathy. Besides communication skills, emotional intelligence has become an important attribute for candidates in the current job market. Today, more organizations are looking for people with EQ skills. This includes the ability to work within a team, the ability to motivate and persuade, empathetic listening and building consciousness. You can determine whether someone has high EQ abilities by the way they present themselves during interviews and the way they demonstrate their value. They don’t rely purely on their past experience and accomplishments. They will have actively researched your organization and be able to provide examples of potential contributions that are directly relevant. They are really good at making a great impression. Critical thinking This skill is subtle but highly valuable. Critical thinking and the ability to question assumptions is often lacking in today’s world; the abundance of technological innovation, tools and information has made certain traditional problem-solving methods redundant. There is a subtle difference in the way someone identifies a challenge, without assuming it can be solved the same way it was a year or two ago. Someone skilled at questioning assumptions will consistently question how decisions are reached, without straying from standards and regulatory requirements. Successful candidates who survive and thrive usually have a combination of excellent communication skills, troubleshooting skills, the ability to work under pressure and integrity. While the combination of soft skills required in your organization may differ from role to role, it’s important your potential hires can demonstrate they have these skills – even if their ability to use these skills in harmony will develop in their role over time. Your organizational culture is unique. Be mindful that it can be challenging for candidates to take their soft skills and apply them to a new context immediately. Making a new hire comes down to solving an organizational challenge in one way or another. What matters is whether you can see the candidate being able to use their hard and soft skills to be able to solve these challenges.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: 7 ways to tailor your job ad to attract a more diverse talent pool
A recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 57% of recruiters say their talent acquisition strategies are designed to attract diverse candidates. Like many organizations, you may be prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in 2021. A commitment to DE&I is not only the right thing to do, it’s also smart leadership and good business. The evidence is clear: organizations that effectively recruit and manage a diverse workforce have a clear competitive advantage. Organizations with strong DE&I strategies retain engaged, innovative and dedicated talent. These environments drive productivity and cultivate employee satisfaction, leading to increased financial performance. If you’re responsible for recruitment in your organization, you should make hiring for diversity a priority. As a recruiter, you’re the gatekeeper with massive control over how diverse your organization is. Failure to attract and recruit diverse talent, due to conscious or unconscious bias, or a lack of strategy, will likely result in decreased levels of creativity and innovation and can impact other areas of the business. As we shared in The Talent Scout podcast episode about why diversity matters in the world of recruitment: diverse companies on average enjoy 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee and diverse teams are 87% better at making decisions. Here are seven ways to tailor your recruitment advertisement to bring more diverse talent into your organization. 1. Ensure your jobs are consistent with your overall Employer Brand Before diving into specific job ad tips, it’s important to note DE&I is not a one-off initiative. It should be a holistic, long-term priority that aligns with your overall Employer Brand. For example, if someone reads your job ad, then visits your careers website, the brand messaging and imagery you share and promote should be in alignment. (Do you actually care about diversity, or are you just saying you do? Do you have a diversity statement? Do you support employees with disabilities?) Your employer brand should promote support and equal opportunity for your job ads to be truly effective at attracting diverse talent. 2. Define your recruitment marketing strategy Improving diversity is more than choosing, for example, a female, from your candidate pool. It must be front of mind and a goal before you begin the recruitment process. Speak to experts in attracting different groups of candidates. Who are you targeting? How can you speak to them authentically? The types of candidates you are looking for will determine your strategy. For example, your strategy to increase gender diversity will require a different strategy to attracting more Indigenous Australians. Here’s how Alex Fraser and Hanson recruited female drivers by strengthening their employer brand and using targeted recruitment advertisements. After their first successful campaign, reaching 137% of their female hiring target, they used imagery and employee profile interviews with women to recruit for their next program. 3. Go to market If you’ve ever outsourced recruitment to typical external agencies, they’ll often draw on their existing database. Doing this severely limits your ability to attract a diverse applicant pool. Your recruiter should use different recruitment processes and sourcing channels, including niche job boards, and both active and passive advertising channels. One of Scout Talent’s key differentiators as a recruitment partner is that our Recruitment Marketing Specialists go to market to source talent from a wide range of channels. This gives you a far greater chance of improving diversity in your organization and finding those who are a cultural add (not just a “cultural fit”). 4. Use the right language Language choices in your recruitment advertisement absolutely impact the applicant pool you’ll be capable of attracting. In particular, remove coded language that can lead to gender bias. Take Buffer, for example, striving to understand why they were struggling to attract female developers. They discovered the word “hackers” was limiting female applications. Removing this word and other gender-coded words enabled them to increase gender diversity in their applicant pool. (For example, “rockstar”, “leader”, “ninja”, and “dominate”.) Consider using online tools to assess the language in your recruitment advertisements. You can also benefit from avoiding unnecessary jargon. While experienced candidates may understand your corporate lingo and terminology, studies show jargon and corporate language in job postings is one of the biggest barriers keeping talented young people from applying to entry-level positions. Use clear, concise language. 5. Limit your selection criteria Research reveals women are less likely to apply for roles unless they meet 100% of selection criteria (even if some criteria states “desirable” – females are still less likely to apply.) Interestingly, this may not be necessarily due to a lack of confidence, but rather a mindset that recruiters wouldn’t hire them for not meeting their selection criteria and not wanting to waste their time and energy. Recruit more diverse talent by tightening up your selection criteria list and including only the non-negotiables. You never know the great candidates you’ll be able to attract who may be your ideal match. 6. Reference your organization’s commitment to DE&I Some organizations prefer to include a line in their recruitment advertisements about their commitment to DE&I; others prefer to weave this messaging throughout the copy. Hubspot, for example, include the following paragraph in their jobs ads to attract a diverse field of applications: “Confidence can sometimes hold us back from applying for a job. But we’ll let you in on a secret: there’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ candidate. HubSpot is a place where everyone can grow. So however you identify and whatever background you bring with you, please apply if this is a role that would make you excited to come into work every day.” A simple, but effective, personalized statement such as this can drastically improve the diversity of your talent pool. 7. Share inclusive benefits What benefits do you offer that could make your role more attractive to a diverse talent pool? Benefits such as flexibility, parental leave, childcare subsidies, health insurance and more can make your ad more attractive to groups such as working parents and those with accessibility issues. Draw attention
