Why You Should Be Talent Pooling Right Now (And Always)
Reasons why you should build up your talent pool right now and not waste good candidates that have already shown interest in working for you.
How Social Media Talent Pooling Helps You Hire
Learn how to leverage social media talent pooling to build a talent pipeline and reduce the time and effort associated with future hires!
The Pros and Cons of Including Salary in the Job Description
Should a recruiter include the salary in the job description? What are the pros and cons if you decide to leave the salary blank?
How recruitment experts choose the right candidate for the job
Learn from our recruitment experts how to choose the right candidate for the job, every time. We give actionable tips for you to use today!
6 Tips for Successful Healthcare Recruiting
Tips to successfully find the best healthcare candidates in the market. Scout Talent’s Healthcare Recruiting software team can help.
Experts Share 6 Key Talent Acquisition Trends for 2021 And Beyond.
It goes without saying that 2020 was a year like no other, and 2021 continued to bring even more unprecedented challenges, innovations and creative solutions. With the future of work well and truly here, HR professionals are being forced to look beyond the horizon and decipher key talent acquisition trends to survive and thrive. Once, people teams had the luxury of time to plan, test and tweak approaches. Now, many of us are taking it day by day: ten-year plans have been scrapped, and ‘business as usual’ is a distant memory. Many TA teams and HR leaders are looking for guidance. In times like these, we look to the experts for advice and predictions in an unpredictable landscape. Industry commentators like Hung Lee have their finger on the pulse of what it means to recruit in 2021, and can help make sense of a landscape that’s shifting every day. Speaking in a PageUp webinar, Hung Lee outlined his 8 key talent acquisition trends for 2021 and beyond. This is by no means an exhaustive list – but it is a good way to check that your organisation is on the right track. Here’s what we know so far about what matters in recruiting in 2021: Everyone is an international recruiter Digital transformation and automation take centre stage There are new challenges and considerations for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) Alumni (former employees) become an organization‘s greatest asset Employer branding becomes a non-negotiable Internal mobility evolves into a key source of quality talent. 2020 was the year that HR truly stepped up and took a seat at the table. In 2021, it’s time to continue that momentum and take the lead in transforming workplaces for the new world of work. Talent acquisition trend 1: The global talent pool COVID-19 has accelerated once-distant trends and forced the world’s biggest work-from-home experiment. Even laggards have been forced to adopt remote tech – and organizations are realizing it can work. In spite of organizational complexities and the challenges of remote work, up to 37% of jobs can now be done fully remotely. In the US, there was a 150% increase in remote jobs from 2019 to 2020. In the UK, there was a 342% increase in the same period (Iain Moss, Adzuna, 2020). Organizations are getting into the groove of remote work, and this has opened up possibilities for a global network of talent. No longer constrained by brick and mortar offices, organizations can hire the best people in the world – not just their city. In 2021, everyone is an international recruiter. “Moving the job to where the people are is increasing,” says Hung Lee, curator of recruitment industry newsletter Recruiting Brainfood. Lee observes that “remote means anywhere” – and with technology improving and C-suite leaders enjoying the cost reduction of work-from-home arrangements, TA will shift from on-premise to remote hiring. This brings about major changes: Moving away from the traditional full-time hiring cycle, remote workers can be freelancers and contractors. This trend lends itself to a “try before you buy” approach, according to Lee. There is zero friction for talent to move from company to company – which means the employee experience is more important than ever Compensation is set by elite organizations. No longer confined to local salary benchmarks, smaller players may struggle to compete with salaries offered by large organizations. For many jobseekers, the ability to live in their hometown but get paid a New York-level salary is appealing – and makes it hard for local organizations to compete Competition for top talent is global. Talent acquisition trend 2: Digital transformation and automation becomes a priority In a year of constant disruption, even the most progressive companies have had to think on their feet. They’ve achieved this agility through workforce automation. Research shows that 92% of senior executives agree that the lockdown period has made digital transformation a priority. COVID-19 has forced the automation of in-person human roles, where possible. At the same time, remote working has flourished and given way to a raft of digitization and automation. RPA (recruitment process automation) has delivered unparalleled efficiencies in the recruiting process, spurred on by reduced TA headcount and recruiters simply having to do more with less. What was once paper-based, manual and resource-intensive (multiple recruiters and interviewing rooms, onerous rounds of shortlisting and assessments) has become streamlined and fully digital. Talent acquisition trend 3: Alumni form part of the talent community “Retain the relationship, not the employee” recruiting guru Bill Boorman advises. This year, cash-strapped and time-poor recruiting teams are turning to the ‘talent community’ – alumni, silver-medalists and internal talent – as a source of pre-vetted, quality hires. The return of the talent community creates a new job for recruiters – engaging talent even after they’ve left the organization. In the past, once someone walked out the door they were often gone for good. Now, HR teams are acquainting themselves with the concept of ‘Boomerang employees’ – those that leave the business then eventually return. These people are an invaluable source of qualified talent, external referrals and, when treated well, should become lasting employer brand champions. As people flow through the company from candidate to employee and eventually alumni, someone has to own and track this experience to ensure it’s a great one. Some organizations are approaching this by having a community manager that manages and engages people outside of the company. Others are developing alumni networks and using their career site as a leveraging point to attract alumni back. Hung Lee shares key ways to engage alumni: Make relationships the entire point Bridge community & company. Careers sites are a great way to do this Treat talent mobility the same as career development That development might exist outside the company Not a single career path but career optionality Talent acquisition trend 4: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) In a year that’s brought us a global pandemic, political unrest and a worldwide shift to remote work, it would take a lot to capture our attention. And yet in 2020, DE&I did just that. As Black Lives Matter protests spread awareness
Why a Bad Candidate Experience is Bad For Your Brand
Understand why a bad candidate experience is bad for your brand and how recruitment marketing can help.
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.
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
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
