The corporate landscape could not have been more dynamic than it is today, especially when it comes to talent acquisition. The rising unemployment rate, skill gaps and scarce availability of good resources have led to a talent war, which can be won only by shifting gears and making our talent acquisition strategies more robust and data-driven.
2019 brings in its wake innovative ways to attract and retain talent, which has left the candidates with better ways to conduct job searches for their next choice of the employer. The current job market is 90% candidate driven, which means that you don’t pick talent anymore, talent picks you!
In such a scenario, it has become imperative for talent acquisition to come at the forefront and take a strategic seat at the table. Here are some talent acquisition strategies for 2019, which you need to work on, if you haven’t already, to stay in the game for attracting some exceptional talent. Read on!
Talent Acquisition Strategies For 2019!
If you are implementing these strategies, your talent acquisition plans are going to be a hit!
1. Aligning Talent Acquisition With Business Goals:
It is no surprise that the list starts out with aligning the process of talent acquisition with the overall business goals, as it is the foundation of a strategic approach. How does this happen?
By staying consistent, across every touchpoint a candidate has with your organization, they should all get the same message, what your company goals are and what you are trying to achieve by having them as a part of your company.
It also means outlining who in your organization is most vital to the hiring process and establishing strong relationships internally with them.
Taking this approach ensures that everyone understands their expectations and responsibilities. Have a meeting between the recruiter and the hiring manager to define the business need for the role, the high-level objectives for what the person will be working towards, the skills and the attributes they will need and who should be involved in the hiring process and why.
Also, once the hiring process starts, it is important to set a regular process of communication with the hiring manager, such as a weekly email report or a quick in-person chat, whatever works best.
2. Intelligence-driven Talent Acquisition:
Gone are the days when the talent acquisition team carries power-point presentations to the meetings and leaves the more complex, data-driven excel spreadsheets for other executives to discuss and dissect.
Today, talent acquisition professionals have a wide array of data at their fingertips. They have various data points to discuss such as pass-through rates at each stage, time to hire, candidate experience and offer acceptance rate.
These metrics provide insights into different stages of the recruiting process and make it easier to identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies.
Talent acquisition teams today heavily rely on data, with having a simple dashboard that they can access at any time to help keep metrics top of mind. This lets them not just formulate great strategies, but also become trusted advisors to others in the organisation.
One of the tools for making recruitment funnel more efficient is predictive analytics. Predictive analytics models can identify stronger candidates more quickly and accurately. Companies like PeopleScout don’t just offer the technology that fully integrates the entire recruitment process, but also provides their own data across their client base and for the specific industry the company belongs to. The data can be used to benchmark the company’s programmes and make the most of their association.
3. Candidate — First Approach:
‘Customer-centric’ marketing approaches are soon being replaced by ‘customer-first’ marketing approaches. The latter is just about making the customer an intrinsic part of every decision made. This also applies to recruitment – companies need to change their approach to a ‘candidate-first’ mentality!
The importance of this approach cannot be underestimated, especially with the ever-evolving talent market. Candidates are a lot like customers – they want to know that the company cares about them and it has their best interests in mind. Taking a candidate-first mentality means providing a smooth candidate experience at every step, or ensuring that all the company decisions are made, keeping the candidate in the mind!
‘Candidate experience’ is current, past and potential future candidate’s overall perception of your company’s recruiting process. It is based on candidate’s feelings, behaviours and attitudes they experience during the whole recruiting process, from sourcing to screening to interviewing, hiring and finally onboarding.
Why has it made the hot list of strategies to adopt in 2019? Because candidates with a positive experience will more likely accept your job offer, reapply in the future and refer others to your company.
If it goes wrong, a negative candidate experience can not only cost you some great candidates but also lose your company some million bucks!
Engage with your candidates in different communities, both online and in person, read and respond to reviews on Glassdoor, give them a tour of your office, let them interact with a team so that they get a first-hand experience of your office culture, etc. are some examples of adopting a candidate-first approach.
Many companies have also gone a step ahead and removed college degree qualifications from a number of roles in order to make their hiring processes more inclusive and open to people from unconventional backgrounds.
These can go a long way in differentiating you from your competition and letting candidates view you as one of their top choices.
4. Structured Hiring Process:
Adopting a structured hiring process is going to be of one of the important choices, that the talent acquisition teams will take upon. A structured hiring process involves defining an ideal candidate by the business objectives of the job, having a deliberate process in place to assess the candidates and having a solid base of data and evidence for making hiring decisions.
Around 20-25% of companies are now engaging with agencies to help fill roles quickly, and recognize it as one of the legitimate and effective ways to find qualified candidates. Along with a structured hiring process, pro-active talent sourcing has also become a must for your recruitment strategy.
LinkedIn research has shown that only about 36% of potential candidates are job seekers. However, more than 90% of them are interested in hearing about new job opportunities.
This means that every company needs to have dedicated LinkedIn creatives and regular postings to make everyone on the platform aware of the new opportunities with them. People who view them can refer or tag others in their circle, who might be interested in an opportunity with you, which is great for building a talent pool for your company.
This is a great time to re-strategize your talent acquisition strategies and get them in line with the latest trends, for staying relevant and winning at the game in 2019!
