Our challenging labor market has made it hard to hire qualified workers and turnover is high. On top of that, it’s difficult to hire recruiters in the current market. According to LinkedIn, the number of open job postings for recruiters has increased nearly seven times year-over-year. Talent acquisition teams are spread thin—spending time sourcing passive candidates and working with candidates who have multiple job opportunities.
These factors have left many employers looking for short-term talent acquisition support that can be set up quickly to respond to changes in the market. Rather than a full recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solution, many employers are turning to project-based RPO, also called Recruiter On-Demand. In this article, we’ll walk through the different ways a project-RPO partnership can be deployed to address specific challenges within talent acquisition programs.
What is Recruiter On-Demand?
Project-based RPO and Recruiter On-Demand are interchangeable terms that represent talent solutions designed to meet the demands that internal resources may be unable to accommodate. Specifically, project-based solutions provide focused support for organizations in all industries during challenging periods of the recruitment cycle, such as peak hiring, hard-to-fill positions, compressed timeframes and more.
The biggest difference between Recruiter On-Demand solutions and traditional RPO programs is that Recruiter On-Demand is a pay-per-hour model, rather than a pay-per-hire model. It’s a great option for organizations that don’t need or want a full RPO engagement, but still feel that they could benefit from some extra talent acquisition expertise and a small number of extra recruiters (or even just one).
While these types of programs typically begin with a defined timeline and scope, they also have the ability to expand, extend and evolve as needs arise. There are three major use cases for project-based RPO engagements; below, we’ll cover what they are, how they work and how they fit together.
Use Case: Top-of-Funnel Sourcing
The first Recruiter On-Demand model is a top-of-funnel sourcing solution. This model is exactly what it sounds like: Your partner works to fill the top of your recruitment funnel with more candidates. From there, your own internal team takes over reviewing their applications, interviewing candidates and making all of the hiring decisions.
When Should You Use it?
This type of solution usually appeals to employers for a few reasons, but the overarching theme is that internal talent acquisition teams don’t have enough time or bandwidth to source enough qualified candidates for open roles. This could be due to a hiring surge, ramp up or expansion. We also see this challenge for employers that have great consumer brands: They often get a lot of applicants, but can struggle to source candidates for specialized roles that aren’t what their brand is known for. This is common when hiring for IT or technology roles at companies that are not in the tech space.
Likewise, as many organizations work to meet their diversity and inclusion goals, talent leaders can also struggle to find enough candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. The challenge can be further amplified when employers have locations spread across dozens, if not hundreds, of communities. That’s because recruiters and sourcers have to understand all the demographics and nuances of disparate locales.
How Does it Work?
At PeopleScout, a top-of-funnel sourcing Recruiter On-Demand engagement proved successful for one of our clients, a national retail sporting goods company. The team at this company was experiencing two challenges: They needed to fill a few specialized IT roles and they were struggling to source candidates from underrepresented backgrounds at their different locations. They also needed many candidates for their manager and assistant manager roles.
In this situation, the retailer needed five sourcers: one person supporting their hard-to-fill IT roles, and the other four working to source for their high-volume area of retail and distribution roles. They had also identified several Midwestern states where they wanted to focus their diversity efforts and bring in more candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. To help them reach their goals, we created a detailed sourcing strategy. We also worked with local chambers of commerce and community-based organizations, in addition to leveraging social media platforms. By the end, the sporting goods store was able to meet its hiring and diversity goals, and the benefits even continued for weeks after the engagement ended.
Use Case: Source/Screen/Submit
Meanwhile, for employers that need slightly more support, there’s the next level of project-based RPO support: source/screen/submit. This type of engagement starts out the same as a top-of-funnel sourcing partnership; recruiters and sourcers support an internal talent acquisition team for a period of time, sourcing candidates to apply to open roles. However, rather than handing those lists of candidates off to internal teams, the recruiters take the next step of prescreening the candidates to ensure that they are both qualified and interested in the role before submitting prequalified candidates to hiring managers.
When Should You Use It?
We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of employers looking for this type of support. By taking on the front end of the recruitment process, these recruiters and sourcers give more time back to internal teams. This means that they have more time to interview candidates, put together competitive job offers and onboard new hires.
This solution can be helpful for employers for a number of reasons, but the most common is that they need to hire for a large number of roles at the same time. This could be because they’re in expansion mode or rebuilding their team after the challenges of the last few years. Or, maybe they have a seasonal hiring surge as they gear up for a busy season, and it doesn’t make sense to have a large internal team when they only need the extra help for a few weeks or months at a time. We see this type of need frequently with retail clients gearing up for the holidays; educational organizations adding staff for the school year; and healthcare companies preparing for open enrollment.
We also see a need for this solution when employers have a lot of branches or locations spread across a large geographic area—especially if hiring decisions are made at the local level and not at the corporate office. Similarly, we often see that local, branch-level teams don’t have the manpower to source and screen large numbers of applicants.
How Does it Work?
In practice, this type of solution can have a major influence. For instance, we have a client that provides early childhood education for children six months to 12 years of age; at one point, they had more than 900 openings across the country. Simultaneously, they were dealing with the Great Rehire, classrooms were reopening and they were working on an acquisition. Their final hiring decisions were also made by the school at a local level. Clearly, this was more than the small internal team could manage.
When we partnered with this organization, our engagement started with two recruiters on a 16-week project. Those recruiters conducted the sourcing and prescreening of a minimum of 25 candidates per recruiter per week. Then, they sent prequalified candidates to the assigned school, where the hiring managers conducted in-person interviews, job offers and onboarding.
Now, 10 months later, the project is still going strong. Because of the success of the initial team, the PeopleScout team has grown to six recruiters and, so far, they’ve phone screened nearly 3,000 candidates and submitted nearly 2,000.
Use Case: Full-Cycle On-Demand Recruitment
Full-cycle project RPO partnerships are the most involved and most closely resemble traditional RPO partnerships. Think of them as “RPO light.”
In a full-cycle partnership, recruiters support an employer’s internal team for the entire process—from intake to offer. There’s also even more space for a consultative partnership as the support extends throughout the entire process—not just bits and pieces. This means that there’s a greater opportunity to learn from the experiences and best practices that your partner has gleaned from years of working with employers across industries in all types of talent markets. Yet, despite the increased support, these types of full-cycle partnerships still retain all of the Recruiter On-Demand benefits—including the billing structure, shorter defined timeline to secure labor on-demand labor and more.
When Should You Use It?
This type of partnership typically works well for employers that are struggling to keep up with their hiring load. This could be due to attrition or a hiring surge and can cover every part of the process—from applicant management to interview scheduling to offer.
We also see it work well for employers that want the best practices and experience of an RPO provider, but don’t have the need for a traditional, large, long-term engagement. In this case, these often start out as short-term projects, but end up being long-term partnerships.
How Does it Work?
At PeopleScout, we currently support a client that hires licensed clinical social workers. Because they provide virtual therapy and counseling sessions, their internal team was struggling to keep up with the increased demand caused by the pandemic.
Once again, this Recruiter On-Demand project started small, with a 13-week planned engagement with two recruiters who handled everything form sourcing candidates to initial screenings and setting up interviews. The project also involved sourcing candidates from across the entire U.S. Finally, our team also handled offer letter execution and management.
Now, 19 months later, the recruiting team has grown to 14, and we’ve hired more than 1,000 licensed social workers. We’ve also extended our services to support the client’s hiring needs in their call center and IT department.
A Growing Partnership to Provide Labor With On-Demand Recruitment
Project-based RPO engagements have built-in flexibility, which makes it easy for them to shift in scope. In this way, a partnership can start out focusing solely on top-of-funnel sourcing and then later expand when needs change to cover more of the hiring process. A project RPO partnership can even migrate to a traditional RPO partnership.
To learn more about project-based RPO engagements, view our webinar.
The job market and the world of work have changed drastically in the last few years, leaving employers to deal with the new challenges. For example, in the U.S., there are currently more than 11 million job openings, and year-over-year wage growth was at 5.2% in May. On top of that, the Great Resignation has record numbers of workers leaving their jobs: In the last six months in the U.S., more than 4 million people left their jobs each month. And, it’s spreading across the globe; CNN reports that resignations have also jumped in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and France.
But, employers are dealing with more than just a tight talent market, increased turnover and rising wages; the world of work has changed permanently—and so have candidate expectations. For instance, nearly two-thirds of the workforce wants some form of remote work option and nearly one-third wants hybrid work. As such, employers can’t simply plan to return to the pre-pandemic ways of doing business; instead, they must adapt.
More precisely, to succeed in this job market, you need to both hire the best talent and retain the workers you already have—and that requires multifaceted solutions that address the specific issues within your organization. In this article, we’ll cover the potential sources of your talent challenges, some signs that they may be negatively affecting your organization and strategies you can use to get ahead.
Is Your Employer Brand on Life Support?
Throughout the pandemic and initial recovery, many organizations didn’t have the resources to invest in their employer brands. Unfortunately, if this was the case for your organization, it may be affecting your ability to recruit top talent. That’s because, if your employer brand is weak, qualified candidates won’t apply because they simply have other options.
So, how can you tell if your employer brand is holding your organization back? Watch for these warning signs:
Solution: Rebuild Your Employer Brand
If any of these signs look familiar, it’s time to focus on your employer brand. Luckily, there are a few things you can do. The first is to build out a strong employer value proposition (EVP) as the foundation of an employer branding campaign.
It’s important to note that building a strong EVP to drive your employer brand requires research into the short- and long-term goals of your organization; the reality of what it’s like to work for you right now; and the outside perception of your organization. That information is distilled into an EVP that’s unique, aspirational, authentic and dynamic. From there, you can communicate your message through an employer branding campaign via your careers site, social media campaigns, hiring events and more.
At PeopleScout, we supported work on the employer brand at Vodafone, a telecommunications company in the UK. In this case, consumers knew the brand well as a mobile phone retailer, but didn’t see it as a multifaceted tech innovator. So, to help Vodafone hire more young workers, we worked to create an employer brand campaign that captured the spirit of change and possibility that’s part of their EVP. At the end of the project, PeopleScout had generated more than 16,000 applications and increased the number of female candidates by 23%.
Does Your Candidate Experience Leave Much to be Desired?
If your employer brand is in good shape, but you’re still struggling to hire qualified candidates, the next area to evaluate is your candidate experience. Candidate experience has always been important, but it’s even more critical in today’s job market. Nowadays, people have plenty of other options, so they won’t take the time to complete a long application or wait weeks for a call back.
How can you tell if your candidate experience is the cause of your hiring woes? Look for these signs:
Solution: Update Your Talent Tech Stack
The right technology can have a significant influence on your candidate experience. Candidates want the recruitment experience to be fast and easy and allow them to feel in control. For this reason, evaluate every step of the candidate journey to identify where you can make improvements with technology.
Your first step is to look at your application. Have you tried filling out your own application recently? How long does it take to complete? Is it simple or does it feel drawn out and tedious? Can you complete the application on a mobile device? If the process takes a long time or requires a desktop computer, it’s time to update your application.
Then, look for other points in the process where you might make things easier for candidates. Do candidates have to wait weeks to schedule a screening or interview? If so, consider adding a self-scheduling interview tool or virtual interview solution, like text interviews or on-demand interviews. Furthermore, adding something as simple as a status bar that shows candidates where they are in the process can help them stay engaged.
At PeopleScout, we work with a large retailer that had a strong consumer brand, but still struggled to recruit candidates. Their application required a computer and took more than 30 minutes to fill out. As an alternative, we developed a mobile-first application with just 11 questions that took less than eight minutes to complete. Now, half the candidates apply on mobile devices and the application conversion rate rose to 85%. For comparison, employers using a traditional application have an average applicant conversion rate of just 35%.
Are Your Offers Competitive Enough in the Job Market?
Salary and benefits are the elephants in the room in any discussion about hiring challenges. Wages are rising significantly. While the average year-over-year salary growth in the U.S. is at 5.2%, some industries are experiencing even steeper wage growth. For example, in the leisure and hospitality sector, wages are up more than 11% in the last year. In fact, the World Economic Forum reports that wages are rising in every region of the world. Therefore, in the current job market, your offer needs to be competitive.
Here are some signs that your offers may not be competitive enough:
Solution: Adjust Your Compensation to Current Job Market Rates
If you’re experiencing any of these warning signs, evaluate your compensation against the market and adjust where necessary. Due to remote work, the job market has changed. Now, you’re not just competing against employers in your area for talent; you’re competing for talent across the country and, in some cases, the entire world.
To that end, an RPO or MSP provider can help advise you on market rates and what types of adjustments are needed to make your offers more competitive. Plus, increasing your wages could even save you money in the long run.
This happened for one PeopleScout client, a major rural healthcare system. Hit hard by the ongoing nursing shortage, the healthcare organization was relying on expensive travel nurses and struggling to bring in enough candidates. PeopleScout advised the provider to implement a $10,000 hiring bonus. This resulted in a cost savings as the client was able to reduce its nursing recruitment spend by 77%, totaling more than $4 million. The client was also able to reduce its use of traveling nurses by 68% and experienced its lowest-ever nursing vacancy rate—just 1.3%.
Does Your Company Culture Send People Running?
Perhaps the best way to avoid staffing shortages is to ensure that you don’t have to backfill large numbers of roles due to turnover. The Great Resignation is in full swing, but employers shouldn’t just throw their hands in the air as employees leave for new jobs.
The good news is that employee turnover isn’t just about money. Talent leaders are finding that a major driving factor is employee disengagement. Throughout the last few years, many employees have experienced negative effects on their mental health, causing burnout and driving a reevaluation of work/life balance. Conversely, company culture can play a huge role in keeping employees happy, healthy and engaged.
Is your company culture a problem? Watch for these warning signs:
Solution: Determine What Employees Want in the Job Market & Meet Their Needs
To improve your company culture, you must first determine what employees feel they’re lacking from your organization. You can gather this information in two ways—and both are valuable. First, you should be conducting exit interviews with employees who have resigned. Try to get an idea of why they decided to take a new role. Is it simply increased pay? Did they feel they lacked a clear career path at your organization? Did they not feel appreciated by managers and colleagues?
Next, try to identify problems before they drive employees to leave. You can accomplish this through anonymous pulse surveys; there are a number of tools you can use to track employee engagement and look for areas of improvement. Do employees want more opportunities for training? Do they want to feel as though they’re part of something bigger? Do they feel as though company leadership is not addressing their concerns?
Then, once you determine the biggest pain points for employees, make targeted improvements to your company culture. You can demonstrate appreciation for your workers in tangible ways: Communicate actively and often. Define paths for advancement and look at learning and development programs. Offer more flexibility. Provide training for managers. Not only will these kinds of investments keep tenured employees from leaving, but they can also improve your employer brand and make your employment offers more competitive.
There’s no doubt that the current talent market is difficult for employers, but the sources of the struggle are multifaceted and complex. There isn’t an easy, one-size-fits-all solution. Employers need to evaluate both the candidate and employee experience and alter their processes where inadequacies reveal themselves. You can’t keep waiting for “things to return to normal.” We’re in the new normal, and we have to adapt. To learn more, check out our ebook, “Employer Brand: Helping the Right Talent Choose You.”
Recruitment marketing is now an essential strategy as the talent acquisition landscape is more competitive today than it has been at any point in history. Specifically, the global talent shortage stands at 40 million workers and is forecasted to reach more than 85 million by 2030, costing employers around the world more than $8 trillion in lost revenue. This means that, to stay ahead, employers need to implement new strategies and reimagine what talent acquisition can be; talent leaders need to be able to draw in candidates in the same way that brands draw in consumers.
To make that process even more difficult, the types of offerings that job-seekers want from a potential employer has shifted dramatically in the past few years: According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends Report, since 2019, there’s been sharp growth in members posting about the following topics:
The data is clear: Candidates are seeking employers that can provide flexibility and a greater work/life balance. As a result, organizations that excel at highlighting a company culture that’s compatible with current talent market trends will remain competitive in the hunt for talent.
As a talent professional, you may not think about marketing as a recruitment function. However, a large part of ensuring that your talent pipeline is stocked with the best talent involves making sure that your organization is an attractive place to work for candidates. Thus, recruitment and marketing need to work together. The job of a talent acquisition team is more than just hiring great talent; it also includes attracting talent and enticing them to commit. In this four-part section, we’ll cover how employers can leverage modern marketing techniques to recruit and better engage candidates at each stage of the recruitment marketing funnel.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part One: The Case for Implementing Modern Digital Marketing Strategies
Typically, consumers require engagement across multiple touchpoints before deciding on a purchase—and it’s up to an organization’s marketing team to facilitate engagement at each stage of the sales funnel. Job-seekers are no different and often need multiple interactions with an organization’s employer brand before applying for a role; in this case, it’s the job of the talent acquisition team to facilitate these interactions throughout the recruitment funnel.
Granted, the stages of the talent acquisition funnel depend on an organization’s hiring practices, but we can make some generalizations. For the purposes of this article, we’ll cover three vital functions in the recruitment marketing process: 1) attracting active and passive candidates, 2) converting candidates and 3) closing candidates. During each of these functions, talent teams need to properly engage and nurture job-seekers with the right recruitment marketing strategies. Below, we outline smart recruitment marketing strategies for sourcing passive candidate and active candidate engagement.
Talent Attraction: Sourcing Passive Candidates
According to LinkedIn, 70% of the global workforce are passive candidates, with the remaining 30% of talent actively seeking jobs. With that in mind, the first—and arguably most important—function in recruitment marketing for talent acquisition teams is to determine a strategy to attract candidates. Of course, candidates may already have some idea of your organization as a consumer brand, so the main objective of this stage is to introduce your organization’s employer brand to job-seekers for the first time to improve recruiting passive candidates.
At this stage, your engagement with candidates should be designed to gain and retain their interests, with the hope of converting them later in the recruitment marketing funnel. As such, building employer brand awareness and providing positive candidate experiences is key. For instance, consider how candidates will perceive your organization through the channels listed below. Will they have a positive view of what it’s like to work for your organization? Do they get an accurate picture of your company culture?
Converting Passive Candidates
The main marketing priority for talent acquisition teams during the passive candidate conversion stage should be to steer candidate interest into action, thereby converting them from job-seekers into active prospects in the talent pipeline. This step occurs when candidates gain a positive impression from the touchpoints they encounter in the attraction stage.
Fortunately, there are various methods for converting candidates. For example, they can sign up for a newsletter, register for an event or request job posting updates via your career page. And, while they may not have applied to any of your open positions yet, they’re interested enough in your organization to provide their contact information. Similarly, employers can also leverage talent communities to convert candidates looking to connect with other professionals in their industry. Remember, to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), just make sure to collect two types of consent when collecting personal data (such as email, phone, address, name, etc.) from applicants.
Additionally, at this stage, keep in mind that you’re asking candidates to provide your organization with two of their valuable resources: Time and personal information. Next, at the conversion stage, you’re asking for contact information, but only a small amount of time. Then, to get to the next stage, candidates will have to give your organization even more of both. Therefore, in the touchpoints listed below, consider what the experience is like for candidates; is it positive and easy enough to get someone to a closing stage?
Closing Candidates
During the closing function in recruitment marketing, talent teams are managing a flow of vetted and engaged candidates with a goal to turn these candidates into applicants. This means that candidates are willing to take the time to complete your application and provide you with a significant amount of personal information. Notably, the candidate is also making an emotional investment in your organization; they’re excited for this role. As such, they could be setting themselves up for disappointment if they don’t make it through the process. For this reason, it’s important to consider what you’re asking of candidates to help get them through the closing process.
Furthermore, while closing prospects, your recruitment marketing materials should aid the candidate’s decision-making process by informing them of open positions, inviting them to recruiting events, or even proposing a virtual meet-and-greet where the candidate can casually meet with members of your team. Think about the touchpoints listed below and how candidates will experience them. Likewise, communicate about your interviewing and hiring process upfront for a more seamless experience for both candidates and hiring managers.
Closing Candidates
In parts two and three, we’ll go into greater detail on how talent acquisition teams can leverage modern marketing techniques to intelligently engage candidates at each stage of the recruitment marketing funnel.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part Two: Creating Talent Acquisition Content That Engages Candidates
Content marketing has fast become a go-to channel for marketing teams looking to generate interest in products; gain leads; drive organic traffic; and build a library of informative and in-depth content for clients and prospects.
However, attracting both active and passive candidates with content isn’t limited to just marketing to potential customers; rather, recruitment departments can also harness the power of well-crafted content to convert job-seekers into applicants. In fact, content marketing can help talent teams engage top candidates in a number of thoughtful and meaningful ways that intersect with a job-seeker’s interests.
Effective content for recruitment marketing can also make a difference in moving the candidate along to the next stage. In particular, content marketing as a talent acquisition strategy should focus on engaging job-seekers with relevant articles, white papers relevant to their career interests, webinars, videos, or podcasts to help a candidate navigate through an employer’s recruitment funnel. When brainstorming recruitment content, look at industry publications and professional groups on LinkedIn to identify current topics of interest for candidates in your industry.
In Part Two of this section, we’ll discuss how to create relevant content and ensure candidates are able to find it.
Recruitment Digital Marketing: Considering Different Types of Talent Acquisition Content
An effective content marketing strategy includes a variety of content types to fill various channels and appeal to different types of candidates. That’s because some candidates may prefer to watch a video, whereas others would rather read an article. Likewise, some may like to learn in bite-sized pieces, while other appreciate an in-depth article. With that in mind, below are a few types of content to consider adding to your mix.
Recruitment Marketing Ideas: Leverage Your Career Blog
Your organization may already have a blog where the marketing team regularly posts content for your potential customers. In the same vein, consider a blog on your careers site to better educate and engage candidates about what it’s like to work for your organization.
Interviewing employees across all roles and asking them to describe how they got to where they are today
Sharing news about exciting projects
Featuring hiring managers to discuss the hiring process and post updates on upcoming events
Similarly, if you have strong writers on your team, ask them to write short blogs about their experiences.
Video Content
Video is a great format for recruitment content that often boosts candidate engagement. Take the booming popularity of video-based social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram as evidence that this is a particularly influential type of content for young workers. Video is particularly powerful on social channels, so consider amplifying your efforts by encouraging colleagues to act as employee brand ambassadors for your organization on their social channels. Besides, job-seekers trust an organization’s employees three times more than the company itself to provide credible information on what it’s like to work there.
If you’re just getting started in video, don’t worry about high production quality. Due to the popularity of tools like Zoom during the pandemic, as well as the proliferation of video on social media, candidates are used to watching basic videos. In fact, the authentic feel of these types of videos can often yield even higher engagement than professionally produced content.
Micro & Social Media Recruitment Content
Talent teams are stretched thin, so consistently creating long-form content may be challenging. So, if your team lacks the bandwidth to create long-form content, consider shorter, “micro content.” This might include sharing small bits of entertaining or informative news or industry updates with candidates on social media or micro-content platforms.
Social media, in particular, is perfect for micro content, with 94% of content marketers using social media platforms to distribute content. This content could include fun moments from the workplace, employee testimonials, or short videos of the company participating at a career fair or a conference. Essentially, content marketing is an opportunity to explore as many different ways to connect with your audience as possible; just remember to stay on brand and keep a consistent theme with language and design. This way, prospects will enjoy a more uniform and cohesive candidate experience.
SEO & Recruitment Marketing: Leveraging Search to Source Talent
If you take the time to create content for candidates, it’s important to make sure that they can find it easily. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing—and doing so can help drive job-seekers to your careers page organically. In particular, well-optimized pages rely on homing in on and deploying the right set of keywords, as well as tailoring metadata for search and making sure the pages load quickly.
When done right—and in conjunction with high-quality content—SEO can lead to a great deal of traffic and conversions on a career site. Plus, leveraging SEO as a talent acquisition strategy makes sense, as 70% of job searches begin on Google. What’s more, 51% of all content consumption comes from organic traffic. Accordingly, with employers across the globe struggling not only to source and recruit talent, but also to increase retention, a smart SEO strategy is an integral component in the recruitment marketing arsenal.
Metadata
Meta titles and meta descriptions are the two fields that show up on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This is the page you see after typing something into a search engine like Google. Metadata makes it easier for Google to spot and index your careers page content on relevant search results pages. For this reason, your meta title should be clear so job-seekers immediately know the title and location of the job opening when they visit your page. The meta description is the caption beneath the title that describes the web page’s content in more detail. A tailored meta description helps Google and job-seekers quickly identify and interact with your content in the way that you intend.
When creating a meta description, try to stick to the following guidelines:
Limit it to no more than 155 characters.
Keep it clear and concise, with a call to action for job-seekers.
Reference the language of the page you’re working on to really nail your metadata.
Keyword Research
Although it can be time-consuming, researching and choosing the right keywords can also help you obtain greater visibility from qualified job-seekers, as well as increase organic search traffic to your site.
Begin by understanding which short- and long-tail keywords job-seekers use to search for jobs relevant to your company. You can also research which keywords your competitors are using in their job postings, as well as more comprehensive content, to inform and expand your keyword list. Notably, this may require job titles and descriptions to be altered. While you’re at it, pay close attention to keyword intent—the reason for a job-seeker’s search. Ensuring that this is part of your SEO recruitment strategy guarantees that keywords are aligned to your broader business goals. Additionally, if you’re a brick-and-mortar business, utilize locally focused keywords in your content to better reach quality candidates in close proximity to you.
Content marketing can also fuel other parts of the recruitment marketing mix, and email is the perfect channel to start expanding your content marketing program. What’s more, content and email marketing campaigns can complement each other by increasing the sharing of content and expanding reach. In the next section, we’ll offer tips on how email marketing can give your content a boost.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part Three: Email Marketing & Talent Acquisition
Email marketing has been around for decades as an effective means of prospect engagement. However, that doesn’t mean that you can just throw together an email, send it out and expect great results. Nowadays, prospects are savvy about techniques deployed by marketers and may become annoyed or tune out marketing messaging that’s done incorrectly.
However, when recruitment marketing email campaigns are successful, recruiters can engage candidates at the right cadence. According to a DataBox survey, 33.3% of marketers said they sent weekly emails, while 26.7% sent monthly emails. In this case, recruiters can leverage the expertise of their marketing teams regarding send times, email schedules and other data points to ensure that content is optimally delivered. Plus, well-cadenced and timely emails ensure that your employer brand is in front of prospects at the right time, making your employer brand more memorable to prospects looking to shift careers.
Furthermore, email recruitment marketing can be an effective strategy for distributing your marketing content to candidates, as well as building additional trust in your employer brand. Notably, 77% of consumers preferred email marketing over other methods of permission-based advertising. And, email marketing often produces results because the audience has opted in to receive marketing materials and wants to hear from you. (Plus, they can choose to opt out at any time.)
So, in this article, we’ll cover the different types of emails that you can use to interact with candidates; how you can use your content marketing collateral to boost the influence of your emails; and how to craft effective messages.
Types of Recruitment Marketing Emails
Email Newsletters
Marketing teams often send email newsletters to prospective and current clients to update recipients on company news, content, products, and other company updates. Similarly, talent acquisition teams should also consider creating newsletters to keep candidates warm.
Specifically, your newsletter could share thought leadership pieces from your organization, webinars, job events and more. You can also use email newsletters to share the content marketing pieces you’ve created for your careers site. Or, link to articles on your careers blog or a video interview you’ve posted with a current employee. Periodical newsletters and other helpful content will also keep your employer brand top of mind and increase the likelihood of your talent community recommending you to a member of their network.
JobApplication Invitation Email
The first time many candidates hear from an organization is when a recruiter or sourcer reaches out inviting them to apply for a specific role. These types of emails are common, and your recruiters likely already send them frequently. However, they can be made more effective.
For example, the goal of your email copy should be to gain a prospective candidate’s attention in the first sentence. Therefore, crafting an engaging, but brief introductory sentence or two helps the reader understand who you are and why you’re reaching out.
Typical recruitment emails often begin with an introduction of the recruiter, such as: “Hi, I’m a recruiter with {employer}. We have an open position you may be interested in.”
Instead, consider opening with: “Hi {Name of Candidate}, My name is {Your Name} and I noticed that your experience in X could make you a great fit for Y role at Z company. Would you be interested in setting up a time to discuss Y role and Z company?”
In the first approach, notice how the company puts itself ahead of the candidate. Alternatively, in a more personalized approach, the employer places the prospect at the heart of every communication.
Interview Invitation Email
If a candidate makes it further along in the recruitment funnel, you’ll likely send them an email inviting them to interview. And, when inviting a candidate to interview, it’s crucial that the following are included in your recruitment email:
Where the interview will be
The agenda of the interview
Who will be involved in the interview
Providing all of this information upfront will help everyone be better prepared, more productive and better focused on what matters during the interview. Below, we’ve outlined how to structure your interview invitation email:
1st paragraph: Quickly explain who you are and why you’re emailing the candidate so they know they’re being invited to interview, not apply.
2nd paragraph: Here, provide a date that’s best for your team or give a few options for the candidate to choose from.
Third paragraph: Offer a clear agenda to keep the candidate on track. This will also give the candidate a better idea of what to expect and help them prepare.
Fourth paragraph: Provide the location of where your interview will take place, including how to get there and who to ask for when they arrive. Or, if the interview will not be in-person, share instructions on how to interview virtually.
Offer Emails
Top candidates are often sent offers quickly after interviewing, so it’s important to reach out fast. The moment your talent acquisition team is ready to make an offer, be sure to include the following in your offer email.
First paragraph: Include a brief greeting and review of the interview you had with them.
Second paragraph: Get right to the point and congratulate them on the offer. Double-check everything and make sure that you’re presenting the offer in the best way possible in terms of candidate expectation, salary, benefits and work location. Many times, this information is the deciding factor as to whether the candidate accepts the offer.
Call to action: Remind the candidate that they need to take action, outlining when and how to take it. Also, include contact information in case the candidate has questions about the offer. Finally, to end this email with a persuasive punch, include a line about the candidate’s future with your organization.
Best Practices for Crafting Recruitment Emails
Subject Lines
Subject lines are arguably the most important component of an email as 64% of email recipients decide to open emails based on subject lines. Therefore, while much of your focus may be on creating the copy and imagery of your email, you should also take time to write a great subject line.
More precisely, a great subject line is short, descriptive and provides a call to action (CTA). Unfortunately, many recruiting emails are written without mobile users in mind. But, with 41% of emails opened on mobile devices, it’s crucial to keep your writing concise because most mobile devices are only capable of displaying five or six words of a subject line. Also, consider a little personalization in your subject lines. Personalized subject lines in email increase unique open rates by up to 27%, leading to an 11% higher click-to-open rate overall. Consider this option:
In this example, the sender has personalized the email by referencing a career milestone, while simultaneously inviting the recipient to have a low-pressure conversation. This approach appeals to the candidate’s experience and offers the promise of a career opportunity where future growth is possible.
Body Copy
While you may be tempted to share a lot of information in your cold recruiting emails, recipients might not have time for all of it. Conversely, a study by Boomerang found that emails with 75 to 100 words had the highest response rate; so, write short, descriptive and action-driven copy and provide only the essential information that’s relevant to your candidates. Additionally, avoid buzzwords or jargon so that your offer clearly stands out.
The labor market will likely remain highly competitive for the foreseeable future, with employers battling it out for candidates’ attention. And now, more than ever, candidates understand what they want from work and are trying to find an environment where they’ll belong and grow. So, to attract talent, it’s essential to show candidates that you’re offering more than just a job—and that begins with recruitment marketing that showcases the value you provide to candidates.
Remember, the goal of talent acquisition marketing is no longer to just post a job offer and wait for applicants; it’s about fostering a community, enriching its members, and helping to nurture and encourage them to consider a career with your organization.
Part 4: Recruitment Marketing Strategy in Action: Bridging the Gap Between Consumer & Employer Brand for Vodafone
A well-managed and reputable employer brand can go a long way in helping organizations recruit better talent, improve hiring metrics and position an organization as an employer of choice in their industry. In fact, according to Glassdoor, 92% of candidates would consider changing employers if they were offered a role within an organization that had a good reputation. As a result, a strong brand can improve cost per hire by up to 50%.
Moreover, Glassdoor found that the benefits of a powerful employer brand extended beyond recruitment; consider that nearly 30% of candidates have resigned within the first 90 days of starting a role, citing misalignment between the employer and their employer brand. Conversely, organizations that actively invest in employer brand improve their turnover by as much as 28%.
At PeopleScout, we pride ourselves on our ability to partner with clients to hire top talent by building a strategic talent acquisition architecture with employer branding at its heart. So, in this article, we present a real-world example of how PeopleScout’s expert team of talent advisors provided employer branding guidance and delivered a recruitment marketing strategy for the campaign that attracted, engaged and hired the best talent for multinational technology conglomerate Vodafone.
Changing Minds
When an organization’s brand is a household name, there’s often an overlap in sentiment between consumer and employer brand in the minds of the public—an association that can sometimes come with unforeseen complications. This was the case for PeopleScout client Vodafone. Its reputation among the UK public was one of a mobile phone retailer and nothing else—a perception that hurt the organization’s ability to become an employer of choice among young people.
However, behind that perception, Vodafone is a multifaceted innovator in the technology and communications industry with a mission and purpose to make the future a better place. With this knowledge, it was up to PeopleScout’s team to reshape Vodafone’s employer brand in the minds of its target demographic: Newly graduated job-seekers who shared the company’s passion for improving communities and the lives of their customers.
Hiring with Purpose
In employer branding, purpose is the key to unlocking the way that an employer engages with job-seekers. Now, more than ever, job-seekers want more from their employer; they want to feel a sense of belonging and that the work they do has meaning and provides a sense of personal development. In fact, according to research from Blue Beyond Consulting of knowledge workers aged 45 and younger, 52% said they would quit their jobs if their employers’ values didn’t align with their own.
Notably, Vodafone’s future hiring strategy was focused as much on purpose as it was on placing great talent in the right roles. Its purpose was to address high levels of youth unemployment head on by committing to hire up to 100,000 young job-seekers with digital workplace experience. Then, Vodafone set another ambitious goal: To support the development of digital skills in 10 million young people, given that one in five candidates in their target demographic stated that they felt underprepared for the digital economy.
To help Vodafone meet its bold vision of the future, PeopleScout needed to craft an employer brand with multigenerational appeal to attract candidates from Millennials to Gen Z and beyond. Ideally, these candidates are achievers with ambitions beyond working in mobile phone retail. As such, Vodafone’s employer brand campaign had to engage imaginations and change its audiences’ perceptions by presenting itself as a major tech company—not a retailer—and by building its reputation as a youth employer of choice for ambitious job-seekers.
Audience Insights: Leveraging Social Media to Reach the Right Audience
For Vodafone, we found that 90.4% of the brand’s target audience regularly used social media. On top of this, 91% of all social media users accessed channels via their mobile devices. With this in mind, we developed a mobile-first, social media-friendly campaign. Additionally, further research showed us that many students with the right background and personal qualifications didn’t apply due to a lack of confidence. Therefore, we needed a message that was bold, relatable and empowering.
Meanwhile, just as important as the audience insights were the strategic considerations. Candidates are also customers; when buying products, they expect a streamlined, user-friendly, friction-free process. And now, they have the same expectation when making career decisions. So, we made every touchpoint (especially applying) as slick and easy as possible.
Granted, no contemporary attraction approach can be just about advertising; long-term connections are far more powerful. So, central to our strategy was helping Vodafone engage in conversations, initiatives and support with high-potential university students throughout their full university lifecycle. In short, the strategy was to start on day one, not year three.
The Core Message: #GENERATIONPOSSIBLE
There are a variety of strategies you can employ to share your employer brand with candidates, but storytelling is one of the most powerful. From career sites to job-search platforms, there are plenty of opportunities to tell interesting, unique stories that capture the attention of job-seekers and entice them to apply. But, knowing exactly what stories to tell—and how to tell them—is not always easy.
So, our message for Vodafone’s campaign aimed to capture the spirit of change and possibility, as well as draw on the opportunity for young people to have an influence on the world for the better. For instance, the visual elements of the campaign approach used photography that reflected our target audience, combined with bold headline statements. Similarly, social and site content featured current grads and interns sharing their advice for the next generation of Vodafone employees.
Campaign Highlights:
A six-month social media strategy targeted to mobile users
A #GenerationPossible video at the heart of the campaign
A campaign matrix of 104 social posts with 20 mini videos/GIFs
Supporting Executions
Our research identified that our target audience felt like they weren’t good enough or lacked the skills to take on these roles. So, we created a series of videos featuring current Vodafone graduate recruits and interns. These videos explored Vodafone life, wellbeing, social responsibility, innovation, assessment center and other advice to help prepare candidates for the interview process.
Hiring Strategies:Spreading the Employer Brand Message
Apart from social media, we also organized a series of 41 on-campus events to connect students directly with Vodafone employees. We also carefully targeted campuses with the highest female-to-male ratios for tech degrees as a way to help increase female applications.
Results
The campaign comfortably exceeded Vodafone’s expectations:
Vodafone generated more than 16,000 applications, performing 60% above its targets.
PeopleScout’s campaign helped improve diversity, increasing female applicants by 23%.
We increased Instagram post impressions by 89.3% (post-campaign vs. pre-campaign).
Social media drove strong engagement and provided more than 1.5 million Facebook impressions, as well as 6.8 million impressions on organic posts on LinkedIn.
PeopleScout also deployed a hyper-targeted paid Facebook campaign that produced 390,510 impressions and 2,541 clicks—all from the audience we wanted to target.
These numbers are backed up by audience sentiment: We significantly improved Vodafone’s reputation as an employer, jumping 27 places in the TT100 rankings. As a result of this success, Vodafone also asked us to develop the concept for its apprentice campaign audience and roll it out through a new assessment process design.
[On-Demand] Hire Quality vs Speed: Finding the Perfect Balance
We have all seen the stats. It’s a candidates’ market. The demands from hiring managers are acute – they need great hires and they need them now.
But when you need volume hires fast, how do you guarantee quality of candidate? How do you ensure your process is fit for purpose? What could you cut back and what is essential?
Talent acquisition professionals and hiring managers are facing unprecedented pressures and they need to understand which industry innovations they could you use to meet their hiring objectives.
This Personnel Today webinar, in association with recruitment process outsourcer PeopleScout, will look at how talent acquisition professionals and HR generalists can keep their hiring managers on-side, maintaining speed and agility without damaging quality of hire.
Personnel Today Rob Moss is joined by a panel of professionals with a wealth of experience in this area, including Mark Wright, customer services operations manager at VirginMediaO2 and Paula Simmons, director of employer brand and communications strategy at TMP Worldwide, together with Andrew Weston, solutions director at PeopleScout, and Kate Law, membership and learning director at the Call Centre Management Association.
The webinar covers:
What the main drivers are for the candidates’ market
What these mean for employers
How to avoid risking quality when trying to recruit fast
Strategies to maintain ED&I targets when talent pools are limited.
At PeopleScout, we’re committed to providing you with information to help guide your talent acquisition decisions across the globe. This article is part of our series identifying talent trends across the globe.
Asia Pacific (APAC) is home to more than 4.7 billion people, as well as some of the largest global economies. And, because it’s made up of more than 50 countries and territories with varied cultures, languages and job roles, it’s impossible to leverage the same talent acquisition strategy across countries.
APAC by the Numbers
However, according to the International Monetary Fund, APAC is also the fastest-growing region in the world and, as such, represents a huge opportunity for global enterprises to capitalize on this diverse talent pool. For this reason, it’s imperative for organizations to understand the skills shortages, demographic gaps and pandemic recovery challenges throughout the region.
In this article, we’ll cover some of the labor market trends in APAC. We’ll also point out what multinational organizations should be aware of when it comes to immigration, education and diversity, as well as their effect on talent acquisition in the region.
Pandemic Recovery Continues to Vary Across APAC
The COVID-19 pandemic recovery continues to lag behind in Asia. For instance, China is still enforcing its “zero-COVID” policy, while Shanghai and Hong Kong are dealing with spikes in infection numbers and deaths, which is delaying border openings and stifling employment recovery—particularly in economies that are dependent on tourism.
In Australia, the unemployment rate is at a record low of just under 4% as of May 2022, and it’s expected to drop even lower. However, the country is also experiencing an acute labor shortage: The closure of Australian borders during the pandemic meant that overseas migration to the country was negative for the first time since 1946. Pre-pandemic, one in 10 workers in Australia was on a temporary work visa. Then, as lockdowns went into place, hundreds of thousands of workers with temporary visas had to depart Australia—leaving a record number of jobs vacant. Accordingly, with only the local labor pool to pull from, unemployment dropped and vacancies soared, tripling in the retail and manufacturing sectors from 2020 to 2021.
Then, in December 2021, the country’s borders reopened to students and migrants with visas, which is helping to fill positions—especially among casual jobs in retail and hospitality. Now, many Australian organizations are looking to new talent pools, including tapping into globally dispersed talent. As an example, PeopleScout recently helped a hospitality client take advantage of a visa strategy introduced to attract chefs to Australia’s tourism industry: Through a Recruiter On-Demand solution, we were able to source chefs in the United Kingdom who were willing to relocate.
With a large and complex country, the knock-on effect of the pandemic on the Australian labor pool is still yet to be seen. Yet, CEOs in the country are optimistic, with 88% expecting growth in the Australian economy.
Global Hiring: Key Takeaways for Employers
Shifting Demographics Affecting Talent Pools and Global Hiring
Across APAC, many countries are facing labor shortages due, in part, to aging populations and the accelerated rate of retirement during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Gen Z makes up 25% of the APAC population—and they’re keen to have an influence.
Meanwhile, in another part of Asia, India is experiencing a talent surplus: While most countries have seen a post-pandemic drop in unemployment, India is experiencing a decline in jobs, with an unemployment rate of more than 7.8% in April 2022. At the same time, the Indian workforce grew by 8.8 million people in April; so, even with unemployment dropping, available jobs are still not enough to satisfy the demand for work.
In 1991, the Indian government made sweeping reforms to its industrial and trade policies, which led to greater foreign investment due to its youthful population. As a result, India went from a primarily agricultural economy to a services-led economy with a boom in IT-related jobs. Consequently, there are now fewer lower-skilled jobs to absorb the large number of unskilled or low-skilled workers.
Moreover, the vast majority of jobs in India are informal: Just more than 2% of Indian workers are in secure jobs with access to benefits like retirement savings and healthcare. Therefore, these high unemployment numbers could be influenced by the number of educated young people who can afford to remain jobless while they find desirable work, rather than take low-paying positions. On the other hand, the poor—who have limited access to education—are forced to take any work they can get, which often involves pursuing unstable, daily-wage laborer roles in manufacturing and construction.
Key Takeaways for Employers Exploring Global Hiring and Recruitment
Tech Investment is Up, but Women are a Missed Opportunity
The technology sector is having a significant influence on global hiring strategies and talent trends in the APAC region: India is home to the largest tech companies, like Wipro, Infosys and HCL. The growth of the Indian IT industry has also created more than 16 million jobs that drive the digital transformation for global enterprises offshoring their IT and R&D functions to take advantage of India’s less-expensive software talent. To keep up with the demand for tech talent, STEM university grads have more than doubled in India. Yet, despite IT being a top interest for 21- to 25-year-olds, there’s still a talent shortage.
What’s more, with global enterprises embracing Indian talent, the country has also become a gateway to other markets in Asia. Now, $1 of every $2 in global investment goes to companies in Asia, some of which is fueling their own talent pools. For example, tech giant Apple has committed to building three Developer Academies in Indonesia, which will each produce 200 iOS developers annually.
Meanwhile, as a long-time leader in innovation, Japan’s high-tech and renewable energy sectors are the most profitable industries in the country. As a result, the Japanese education system is now adjusting to keep up with the demand for digital and software skills: In 2020, computer programming languages were introduced to elementary curricula. However, not all countries in APAC are stressing technology education. In Australia, only 3,000 to 4,000 IT graduates enter the workforce each year, which won’t meet the need for 156,000 new technology workers by 2025 to ensure that economic growth is not stalled by skills shortages.
Any company looking to remain competitive—especially those in the manufacturing or technology sectors—must emphasize becoming a top employer in APAC. And, one talent pool they could look to attract in Asia is women. Diversity and inclusion is one area where the wide variety of cultures across APAC shows itself, but the region scored highest on the importance of maintaining gender roles. Of course, it varies from country to country but, in patriarchal societies like Japan and China, females are often underrepresented in the workplace due to traditional views about women taking care of the home, rather than contributing to the household income.
Unfortunately, the tech sector will suffer the most from this, with men making up 84% of STEM graduates in Japan alone. Conversely, companies that invest in reskilling and upskilling women—while also providing flexible work arrangements—will reap the rewards when it comes to attracting and retaining female talent. Indeed, research from McKinsey shows that Asia Pacific could add $4.5 trillion to annual GDP in 2025 by closing the gender employment gap.
Key Takeaways for Employers
RPO in APAC
Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and changing demographics, corporations in the APAC region have showed resilient, expanding profits throughout the last decade. And, enticed by the large global hiring and labor market trends, leading organizations are investing in the talent pools of APAC as a means of future-proofing their workforce.
However, the complexity of the region also means that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for recruitment in APAC. So, increasingly, global enterprises are turning to recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). According to Everest Group, Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for RPO and is set to make a swift recovery; finding the right RPO partner in APAC can help you navigate the region’s unique talent market conditions—and capitalize on the growth it offers.
Learn more about how RPO can support your global talent acquisition strategy, download our free Buyer’s Guide to Global RPO.
Candidate engagement after extending a job offer is now more important than ever, as employers across most regions are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of new hires who are ghosting on their first day: Data from Robert Half shows that 28% of professionals have backed out of a job offer after initially accepting it, thereby costing employers time and money on a job offer ghosted.
In today’s candidate-driven market—and with the major influence that the pandemic had on the way people view work and personal life—it’s no surprise that candidates are receiving multiple job offers and thinking critically about what they truly want in an employer.
Top 3 Reasons Candidates Backed Out of an Offer They’ve Already Accepted
Source: Robert Half
With candidates in the driver’s seat, employers need to do everything they can to keep new hires from taking an early exit. So, in this article, we offer actionable strategies for your organization to do just that.
Why Do Candidates Ghost?
With record numbers of job openings, job-seekers are more empowered than ever to be picky about the company they choose to work for. This means that candidates are likely interviewing with multiple companies at the same time—and they may not disclose it.
At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for an immense digital transformation of the recruiting process, with everything from phone screens and interviews to offers and onboarding being conducted completely online. Of course, while this has made it easier and faster to apply to jobs (with “easy apply” options and text interviews the norm), it has also informalized the process and made it feel less personal than a face-to-face hiring journey.
As a result, employers who rely solely on these technologies without establishing a human touch might struggle to build a more personal connection with candidates. Furthermore, because the majority of the hiring process now takes place online from behind a screen, it can be difficult for recruiters and candidates to build the same rapport that they would have when communicating in person; when you remove the investment that comes from traveling to meet someone in person and replace it with a simple click, the entire process can start to feel more transactional and less human.
All of this can lead to poor communication overall, leaving candidates feeling like they might not need to provide any formal closure. According to Indeed data, here are some of the consequences of ineffective communication with the recruiter or hiring manager:
And, not only is ghosting happening, but it also appears to be a rapidly growing trend: According to a 2021 survey from Indeed, 28% of job-seekers have ghosted an employer—a 10% increase from 2019 data—and 57% of employers believe it’s more common than ever before.
It’s important to note that the same Indeed survey found that ghosting in the workplace is a two-way street, with 77% of job-seekers saying they’ve been ghosted by an employer. So, while ghosting has become a normalized part of the hiring process (with employers starting the trend and candidates catching on), there are some actionable steps that employers can take to avoid ghosting on both ends and help combat this rising trend.
Strategies to Keep Candidates Engaged After Job Offer Acceptance
In addition to the increasing likelihood that candidates will renege on an offer, employers should also keep in mind the various notice period requirements in countries around the world, which could be anywhere from two weeks to six months, in some places. Clearly, half a year is an incredibly long time to keep someone engaged and excited about your business, especially when that candidate is exploring other offers and evaluating the benefits of each. So, how can you do it? Consider the following:
Focus on Employer Brand
It should come as no surprise that keeping candidates engaged after they accept an offer starts with the work that’s done prior to them even applying; maintaining a powerful employer brand is key to keeping candidates with you throughout the entire hiring process. More precisely, when a candidate receives a competing offer or a compelling counteroffer from their current employer, is what your company offers going to be enough to keep them from changing their mind?
To that end, it’s important that your organization presents itself—on social media, employer review sites and your careers site—in a positive light. You’ll want the candidate to be reminded of the value you offer—whether that’s in the form of benefits; flexibility; growth opportunities; diversity and inclusion initiatives; or otherwise—everywhere they look. The mental picture a candidate keeps of you in the back of their mind (or when someone mentions your company’s name) is make or break when it comes to them following through on an offer acceptance and showing up for day one.
Make Open Communication Standard
Lack of communication is one of the top reasons candidates ghost after accepting an offer, so establishing strong, open lines of communication from the start can make a huge difference in how the hiring process plays out. For example, encourage recruiters and hiring managers to communicate with candidates frequently by keeping them informed of their application status, providing updates on next steps and simply checking in to see if candidates have any questions. This can help build a sense of familiarity and rapport that is often lost when recruiters only communicate when absolutely necessary.
Your organization can also stand out from others by candidly asking candidates where they are in the hiring process with other potential employers. Then, depending on your recruitment timeline, you can adjust key interviews and deadlines to avoid losing your candidate to a competing job offer. A personalized offer letter for job candidates will place you ahead of competitors. This will also help you get an idea of whether your candidate is entertaining other offers that they may be more interested in overall; then, even if they do accept an offer from you, this can help you be better prepared for the possibility that they’ll renege and accept a position elsewhere.
Finally, the key is to maintain that line of communication even after the candidate has accepted an offer; if you ghost your brand-new hire, they’ll be more likely to ghost you in turn.
Get the Offer Out Fast
The more time your hiring process takes, the more time candidates have to consider taking other jobs. You’ve received a verbal offer acceptance; that’s great. Now, the time it takes for you to get official paperwork out and signed is critical. Engagement levels are highest at this point, and it’s critical that you get the offer out before the candidate has the chance to get cold feet.
If possible, get all of your organization’s internal approvals finalized prior to your verbal offer so that the official written offer can be sent almost immediately. If your organization has a lengthier process that cannot be shortened, then be sure to communicate that to the candidate so their expectations are set accordingly.
Utilize Thoughtful Touchpoints
Perhaps most important, maintain frequent communication with the candidate during the period between offer acceptance (whether verbal or written) and day one. This can include messages of congratulations from the hiring manager and anyone else they may have met and interviewed with during the hiring process.
Additionally, consider pairing your new hire with a current employee who can help them prepare for their first day. Or, in smaller organizations, set up a one-on-one meeting with a key leader to welcome them to the company. This can help the candidate feel connected to the team before they’ve even officially started—and will help keep the organization front of mind.
Redefine Onboarding & Start Immediately
When competing with multiple offers and long notice periods, beginning your onboarding process before the new hire officially starts can be a great way to keep them engaged and feeling like they’re a part of the team. For instance, if you’re in an office, consider sending your new hire a video tour or inviting them in for a real one. Or, if your team is planning to get together for an in-person or virtual happy hour, invite the new hire to join.
You can also send your new hire more information about your company, culture, employee resource groups and more to help them start feeling like a part of the team. Plus, what better way to foster a sense of connection and pride than by sending a welcome kit and some company swag? Finally, encourage the new hire’s colleagues and manager to reach out frequently to check in and express excitement for them to officially get started on the team.
The Whole Job Offer Package
Essentially, candidate experience is really about the whole package—from establishing a strong employer brand all the way to onboarding. How you present your organization—as well as how it’s perceived by the public—is paramount. Moreover, remaining front of mind for candidates throughout the entire hiring process (and especially post-offer) is critical so as not to lose them to competing offers or a change of heart. In today’s market, employers can’t afford to slip and miss any opportunity for communication, connection and engagement.
Candidate Screening Solutions for High-Volume Hiring in Healthcare
A leading pediatric hospital in America received a high number of applicants and engaged PeopleScout for screening and presenting quality candidates for open positions.
Increased Candidate Screening Volume
Worked Closely with Client to Create Valued Partnerhip
Sourced Candidates for Cultural Fit
Situation
This not-for-profit pediatric hospital needed to improve candidate screening processes. This included a focus on quality as it was important to the client to hire for the right cultural fit. Skills and positions in scope included clinical housekeepers, admissions and customer service staff.
Solution
PeopleScout’s team learned the client’s niche healthcare HR technology platform and utilized it to efficiently screen and track candidates.
PeopleScout worked closely with the client’s internal HR team to screen and present candidates who possessed the right mixture of hard and soft skills to ensure each potential hire was the right cultural fit for the organization.
At the client’s facility, everyone from clinical staff to housekeepers interact with children suffering from illnesses and their families. PeopleScout’s RPO team screened candidates carefully, looking for compassion, empathy and the ability to work well with children.
Results
Increased Candidate Screening PeopleScout screened and hired 400 candidates annually for the client.
Valued Partnership The client highly valued the relationship with PeopleScout; many of the client’s hiring managers had it written into their contract that PeopleScout was the only RPO provider they would work with.
Provided Attentive Care & Compassion for Others This engagement was about more than sourcing great candidates for open positions. The program was supported by mutual values of service to one’s community and compassion for others.
At a Glance
COMPANY Not-for-Profit Pediatric Hospital
INDUSTRY Healthcare
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing
ANNUAL HIRES 400
ABOUT THE CLIENT This U.S.-based not-for-profit healthcare client system has engaged PeopleScout for healthcare RPO since 2015.
[On-Demand] Overcoming Graduate Reneges and Maximizing Your Impact
From PeopleScout in Partnership with GradConnection
When Generation Xers and Millennials ascend into leadership positions to replace Baby Boomers, mid and entry-level positions are left vacant. For organisations looking to fill the gap left by retiring Baby Boomers, recruiting and hiring talent from universities is a significant first step.
However, many employers struggle to recruit college graduates. What’s more, challenges in grad recruitment right now such as reneges, low applications and breadth of diversity persist.
PeopleScout in partnership with GradConnection discuss the topic of how to ensure you have a successful recruitment drive and the tools Graduate Managers need to succeed in our on-demand webinar, Overcoming Graduate Reneges and Maximizing Your Impact, we examine some of the best practices and strategies for attracting, recruiting and hiring recent graduates.
This 30-minute webinar session covers:
The importance of candidate pre-engagement
Securing top talent
Supporting Grad Leaders and teams for success
Speakers:
Kate Buchanan, Talent Advisory and Early Careers Lead, PeopleScout
Alex Tyrrell, National Account Manager, GradConnection
[On-Demand] How to Build a Compelling Talent Attraction Strategy
As employers compete to attract the best people, talent acquisition specialists need to use everything at their disposal to ensure their efforts are efficient and successful.
The days of “post and pray” are behind us; HR and recruitment professionals are facing an increasingly complex recruitment market that means they have to do much more than simply advertise their vacancies.
This Personnel Today webinar, in association with PeopleScout, helps you build a stronger employer brand, underpinned by a clear employee value proposition, to enable your organisation to nurture a reliable talent pipeline where the best candidates seek you out.
Personnel Today editor Rob Moss is joined by Robert Peasnell, deputy managing director of PeopleScout, and Paula Simmons, director of employer brand and communications strategy at TMP Worldwide, together with an expert panel of talent acquisition professionals.
Watch now to learn:
How to create innovative attraction campaigns that work
Strategies for HR and recruitment in a candidate led-market
How to maintain goals around diversity in a challenging labour market
The best ways to encourage candidate advocacy, and
How to accurately portray your organisation to the right audience
I’ve tried to hide from the inevitable and deeply wanted to write about anything other than the ONS’s recent UK Labour Market overview for fear of adding to the pervading gloom of economic news. But as a recruitment professional, and as a worker, the findings are too stark and too significant to ignore.
The main impact is for employees, not employers, with a grim picture of pay in real terms falling at its fastest rate in over a decade as the cost-of-living crisis bites. This might lead to churn as those in work seek higher paying opportunities to maintain, not improve, their lifestyles. And they might well have choice—a record number of job vacancies have been recorded (again) in the UK. It is certainly a challenge to businesses that, while “pay is growing strongly as companies seek to attract people to work for them,” salaries are still falling well behind rates of inflation, putting ever more pressure on investment.
Higher Salaries Won’t Fix the UK’s Talent Shortages
It will be very difficult to use salaries alone to mitigate against the lack of supply the UK jobs market is seeing. The current position is indeed incredibly tight and exacerbated by ever increasing levels of economic inactivity: a “missing million” from the workforce. I’ve been guilty of viewing this as being driven by a positive choice to work less for lifestyle reasons (which does happen), so the view here of (rising, long term) ill-health keeping people from work was especially sobering.
What’s next? Follow the long-term graphs, and you’ll see repeatedly that economic slowdown = reduction in job vacancies.
It seems obvious that we can expect that again—an overall cooling of the job market as businesses reduce spend towards the end of the year. Does that mean recruitment will get easier? In some cases, yes: but the longer-term picture also shows critical talent shortages sticking around, driven by economic and demographic factors. Without an emphasis on connecting more people with work through education, training, and flexible support, recruitment efforts (and economic growth) will fall short.
This is what Peter Bendor-Samuel of Everest Group calls, “the cow behind the pig”: the bigger long-term challenge that can’t be ignored while digesting the smaller, short term one (for this analogy to work you have to imagine you are a python—or just read Peter’s blog it’s very good).
White knuckling the short-term in the hope that fewer people will be needed is a complacent talent strategy, where a winning one means a continued focus and investment in finding and keeping outstanding talent. Smart organisations must hold that course as much as possible in the face of slowdown, recession, stagflation and other economic headwinds.
