Alexander Mann Solutions’ Global Recruiting Survey – conducted in collaboration with Social Talent – asked 998 recruitment professionals for their take on the future of the industry.
Looking ahead, there are certain trends that will continue to remain dominant, such as the rising use of social media and the importance of sourcing passive candidates. We expect the use of instant messaging in the recruiting process to become even more prominent, alongside the emerging popularity of media such as YouTube and Snapchat.
A key focus for recruitment professionals worldwide continues to be the number of hires/placements made, therefore it is paramount to apply smart search strategies in order to find the right talent and minimise search wastage.
Five key takeaways from the research
Expand your reach
37% of our respondents identified social media as their primary tool in attracting candidates, however it’s clear that within our sector there is an over-reliance on LinkedIn.
There are hundreds of millions of candidates active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It’s time to expand your reach and start engaging with these candidates as well. This is particularly true with respect to passive candidates. Sustained campaigns using creative media such as video, photos and effective story-telling can promote your employer brand through all the social media channels at your disposal.
Even if LinkedIn remains your primary tool for directly connecting with candidates around specific opportunities, you will have a better chance of engaging with those candidates if they’re already familiar with your brand from a wide array of social media channels.
But do so judiciously
This year’s survey highlighted that there is a significant amount of wastage in the average sourcing funnel. Quite simply, recruitment professionals are not as effective in the early stages as they should be in identifying and engaging with well-qualified candidates. This shortfall can be overcome by executing smarter searches at the front-end of the process and narrowing down that funnel of candidates.
Recruiters must continue to engage more effectively with hiring managers to determine exactly the types of skills and attributes they’re looking for in an ideal candidate. Applying this rigour to the search process will reduce the number of unqualified or uninterested candidates that a recruiter must sift through downstream.
Leverage messaging tools in the recruitment process
More than half of recruiters are using Skype as part of their recruitment process and 25% use WhatsApp to contact and engage with candidates. While these are still quite recent developments in the world of global communications, they are essentially the modern equivalent of picking up the telephone, and most analysts predict that Messaging will be or already is the next big digital trend.
Again, using these techniques can help you forge a more personal connection with your candidates.
Rewarding recruiters for performance can pay off
We found that recruitment professionals with higher variable performance-based pay tended to deliver higher quality shortlists, engage with candidates more personally, and fill requisitions more quickly. In other words, they’re better performers. Now consider that recruitment is, for all intents and purposes, the act of ‘selling’ your (or your client’s) organisation to potential employees - the lifeblood of your organisation.
Incentivising your recruitment team to work more efficiently and effectively has real potential to pay off with better performance and, ultimately, deliver a higher quality workforce. Organisations should take a second look at whether performance- related pay makes sense for their recruitment team.
Job boards can be used more effectively than they are today
The vast majority of recruitment teams are using paid job boards to attract candidates, yet the channel is falling short in terms of filling positions. Quite simply, no-one will apply to a job if they don’t find it. So, with job boards continuing to be a significant part of the recruiting mix, it’s vital that talent acquisition teams use them to their full potential.
Recruitment professionals must get smarter about how they write job ads using search engine optimisation (SEO). Simple techniques, such as creating a tagline that includes your company name, the job title and most important credentials, can increase the chances that qualified candidates will find the listing in a search. These key phrases should be repeated throughout the ad so that search engines will assign relevancy to them and move them up in search rankings.
Even if you’re not an SEO superstar, you can improve your job listings. Put yourself in the shoes of the ideal candidate and write as if you were talking to them. What would attract them to the job? What would excite them about working for your company? Being found is just the first step, don’t forget that quality candidates will only likely respond to quality, well written, candidate-centric job ads.