Category: Candidate Experience

Three Potential Pitfalls of High-Volume Hiring and How to Avoid Them

Posted on by akessler

A fairly large handful of colleagues and clients are aware that my family and I are having some fairly extensive renovation work done on our home. Partly because I have moaned about it on a weekly basis since January. Partly because the endless background sounds of drills, hammers and circular saws— and on one particularly fraught occasion, a builders exposed backside descending from a loft ladder behind me—have all permeated some of my Zoom video calls. 

Now that the work is 90 percent finished, I look back on the project, and there are some aspects of it that I wish we had done differently. In doing such a lot of work at one time, we inevitably compromised on our standards in some small ways when faced with the size of the project ahead. 

Hopefully, you can see where the analogy is leading. When we, or our clients, are faced with a mountain to climb in terms of the complexity or scarcity of required talent in big numbers, it’s easy to deviate away from best practice. And this is never more common than now. 

As organisations switch from hiring freezes to acute growth mode, we are seeing a dramatic shift back towards a candidate-driven market. As the next 12 months play out, I personally believe this will prove to be one of the most dramatic shifts in several decades, and employers will be scratching their heads at just how they are going to close the hiring gap. 

During these impending and inevitably large-scale campaigns, there are three potential risks that stand out to me:

1. Introducing new people will impact the company culture.

Firstly, hiring lots of new people can present a risk to the company culture you’ve spent a lot of effort crafting. This may be more prevalent within smaller organisations or for those hiring at the leadership level, but no organisation is truly immune. With any hiring that significantly impacts a team, you must consider not only the skills and competencies match, but also how the existing cultural makeup of that group will be affected. One way to counter this is through thorough training to help align old and new employees on the same cultural path. This should be led by leadership and serve as a catalyst for people—old and new—to embrace your organisation’s mission and values. 

2. High-volume hiring can increase the risk of compromising on quality.

When it comes to high-volume hiring, hiring managers are more inclined to drop their standards on quality-of-hire. Not so much in terms of matching skills and experience, which tends to be a more objective. Plus, a deviation away from the requisite profile can be harder for the hiring manager to justify in their own mind. However, I’ve seen a “lowering of the bar” when it comes to the softer skills—the personality traits and competency matches which are naturally more subjective. One effective antidote here is robust candidate assessment practices. Backing up your gut feel with a bespoke or even “off the shelf” assessment package can help make your judgement more objective. 

3. Diversity amongst new hires suffers.

Thirdly, there is naturally a risk to diversity in your hiring. We’re all hopefully well-versed on the myriad benefits that fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce can bring. But, what is a valid, primary consideration when hiring one or two team members can begin to feel like an added challenge when filling a large number of openings starts to weigh down on a manager. Is there a temptation to let diversity standards slip if the challenge of filling critical gaps on your team already feels impossible? Is one allowed to be pragmatic in the circumstances and just hire, regardless of the diversity credentials? 

I would argue that you wouldn’t hire someone who has the wrong skills for your team, so you shouldn’t be any more inclined to lower standards on diversity. As we all know, the wrong hiring decision now, only costs us in the long-term when we have to re-hire down the line. Better to get it right first time, whether that be a diversity match or a skills match. 

Ultimately, any short-term concessions we might be tempted to make under pressure to hire at the time will be a source of regret. So, don’t lower your standards and suffer from these pitfalls. Take it from me—the decision not to fit underfloor heating in our family bathroom will likely haunt me for the next decade or two!

Leveraging Technology to Improve Recruiting Efficiency and Candidate Experience

Posted on by jpatel
Leveraging Technology to Improve Recruiting Efficiency and Candidate Experience

Candidate Experience | RPO in Manufacturing

Leveraging Technology to Improve Recruiting Efficiency and Candidate Experience

This multinational manufacturing company turned to PeopleScout for full life-cycle recruiting support and a technology-based solution to hire of hundreds of retail store and service positions across the U.S. and Canada.

4,400 Total Annual Hires
77 % Increase in Annual Hires Across Commercial Service Centers
232 % Increase in Annual Hires Across Manufacturing Plants

Situation 

The client experienced less than desirable outcomes from their previous RPO provider and chose PeopleScout as a partner because of our exemplary reputation and proven winning record in volume hiring in their industry. In addition, PeopleScout provided what had been lacking in their talent acquisition strategy: technology-based solutions, market intelligence and analytics, talent consultation, and standard reporting and compliance protection precautions.

Solution 

Even with a stellar recruiting process, it would take the power of an integrated candidate management technology stack to make sure that hiring targets were being met with fewer human administrative tasks. 

PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology, Affinix® was implemented to accelerate recruiter efficiency and enhance the candidate experience. The recruiting team leveraged Affinix’s automation capabilties to do much of the repetitive heavy lifting in the process and relied on robust analytics that turned historical data into actionable insights to identify opportunities for process optimization. 

Affinix End-to-End Process 

The Affinix experience begins with a requisition feed from the client’s HRIS, where all hiring needs are approved. 

The jobs are integrated into the Affinix Applicant Tracking System which provides: 

  • An interface to edit the job to prepare it for posting/advertising 
  • The platform that posts the job to the client’s career website built through Affinix and creates a job description and job page to post the job to media 
  • The platform for recruiters to manage all candidates during the hiring journey 

Once posted, jobs are live on the client’s Affinix career website which allows candidates to:  

  • Quickly find the job they are looking for based on keyword, location or job family through intelligent and responsive search technology 
  • Join the talent community by quickly submitting their profile information if they are not ready to complete a job application  
  • Apply for a job through Affinix’s quick apply feature, which captures all required candidate information and consent on one continuous and seamless page 
  • Automatically create a candidate dashboard to update their information, upload a new resume or change their communication preferences   

The Affinix Quick Apply application sends the candidate data to the Affinix ATS and CRM which creates a candidate record. With knockout questions built into the application, Affinix processes candidates who are qualified and sends a text or email message to the candidate inviting them to complete a pre-screen. 

Affinix Digital Interview Managment then sends pre-screen questions by text and email. With hundreds of requisitions open concurrently, the power of automation saves the recruiter the time it takes to pre-screen a candidate before the interview process. Having the option for candidates to answer pre-screen questions by SMS improves submission rate. Additionally, the recruiting team created a sophisticated scoring rubric for the technology to score the candidate based on their response.

Affinix Digital Interview then automatically advances the candidate to be invited to a phone interview if they meet or exceed the score threshold. The event scheduling functionality in the Affinix Digital Interview platform gives invited candidates the opportunity to choose a time on their own from the recruiter’s calendar availability.
Candidate information, activity and status automatically flow through to Affinix CRM. Because of the volume of qualified candidates who do not get hired, recruiters can classify candidates as silver or gold medalists, manage them in pipeline folders, and engage them with robust email campaigns. Some markets or jobs are urgent and when candidate traffic does not happen organically, the recruiters leverage Affinix Talent Matching, a sourcing platform built in the CRM.

Sourcing from hundreds of social and lifestyle sites, Talent Matching unleashes the requisition out on the open web to find relevant candidates whose profiles match the job requirements.

Since this sourcing tool is built into the CRM, sourced candidates can be added directly to pipeline folders. The recruiting team can also quickly build landing pages from Affinix CRM to be used as destination pages for pipeline-building campaigns like diversity and inclusion or new grads.

Affinix Analytics gives visibility to the historic recruiting performance by job class, requisition, location and hiring manager. Most importantly, it provides predictive analysis so that the recruiting team can take action and make corrections if needed.

Results 

The PeopleScout recruiting team meets and exceeds the client’s hiring targets because of how they masterfully leverage Affinix and its one mission—to improve candidate experience and recruiter efficiency. With Affinix:  

  • Candidates find jobs and complete job applications faster 
  • Candidates feel they are being given proper attention by getting quick responses with pre-screen questions and interview invitation, all swiftly done with automation 
  • Recruiters do less administrative tasks with Affinix managing the screening and scheduling process 
  • Recruiters can source, pipeline and engage candidates in the CRM to boost requisitions that are getting slow candidate traffic 

Affinix Success with the Client: 

  • 4,400 Total Annual Hires
  • At 265 Commercial Service Centers:
    • 1,300+ Annual Hires—77% increase from 2019 to 2020 
    • 16,000 Annual Applicants—14% increase from 2019 to 2020 
  • At 19 Manufacturing Plants Across North America:
    • 1,300+ Annual Hires—232% increase from 2019 to 2020 
    • 25,000 Annual Applicants—48% increase from 2019 to 2020 
  • Time from interview to offer decreased from 9 days to 3.4 days 

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Tire manufacturer
  • INDUSTRY
    Consumer Goods
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Affinix
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    4,400
  • LOCATIONS
    265 retailer service centers and 19 manufacturing plants
  • ABOUT THE CLIENT
    This multinational manufacturing client specialized in rubber and tire manufacturing. It has multiple manufacturing plants across the U.S. and Canada as well as hundreds of retail service centers.
Let’s Connect

 

Feedback Loop: The Key to a Strong Employer Brand (That You’re Probably Missing)

Posted on by nfuqua

A good candidate experience is based on a strong employer brand. But, many employers are missing basic steps that can have a drastic influence on how candidates perceive those organizations. In particular, they’re lacking processes to provide feedback to candidates and gather feedback from candidates.

In the recruitment process, feedback should go both ways. Employers should gather feedback from candidates about the experience, but they should also provide feedback – especially to candidates who make it deep into the selection process.

The Candidate Experience Gap

When employers around the globe rate the candidate experience they provide, they often give themselves good scores. However, when candidates are asked to rate their experience, they often have a very different opinion.

For example, in recent surveys by HRO Today and PeopleScout, 65% of companies in North America; 59% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and 84% in Asia-Pacific (APAC) rated their candidate experience as “good” or “excellent.” At the same time, only 5% of candidates in both regions rated their experience as excellent.

That is a massive gap and, at the end of the day, it’s the candidate’s opinion that matters. That’s because the effect of a bad experience can be severe. In fact, research by Deloitte shows that 80% of disappointed candidates will share their experience – and that has serious consequences for an organization’s employer brand.

Additionally, candidates are consumers. In research we completed with one of our telecom clients, we found that disappointed candidates actually canceled the service of that employer – and the potential impact of this was was worth millions of dollars to the bottom line based on the number of applications received in a typical year.

Finally, a bad candidate experience can also mean that employers miss out on the best talent. If another company offers a strong candidate a better experience, that candidate will likely choose that employer. This gap also illustrates that, while employers need to provide a good candidate experience, they also need the right metrics to determine just how good their experience is. And, where should that data be coming from? Candidate feedback.

Gathering Candidate Feedback

In the same HRO Today and PeopleScout surveys, employers reported significant challenges in capturing candidate feedback. In EMEA, 39% of employers said that one of their top candidate experience challenges was that they had “no formal way to capture candidate feedback.” On the flip side, only 26% of respondents in EMEA always ask for candidate feedback, whereas 44% never ask for it.

In North America, the numbers are only slightly better. In that survey, 31% of respondents rated “no way to capture candidate feedback” as a top challenge. And, while 32% reported that they never asked for feedback, only 21% claimed that they always did.

Similarly, in APAC, 23% of respondents cited “no way to capture candidate feedback” as a top challenge. However, far more employers in the region said they already collected feedback. Specifically, 46% said that they always did, while just 10% reported that they never did.

no formal way to capture canddiate feedback grahp
frequency of measuring candidate experience graph

Why is this so important? At PeopleScout, we work with clients to develop and test authentic employer value propositions and employer branding materials based on research, and a critical component of that research is understanding how candidates perceive an organization. A strong employer brand evolves over time as talent acquisition teams constantly test small adjustments; without candidate feedback, employers won’t know if those adjustments resonate with candidates.

We all know the process for providing feedback in the consumer space. After we get food delivered, we get a pop-up on our phone asking if we liked the food and how the driver did. Likewise, if we purchase a new pair of jeans or a television, we receive an email asking us to write a review of the product. Companies can then use that information to improve their products and services.

In the same way, the practice of asking for feedback should be integrated throughout the candidate experience. This can mean a screen at the end of an application asking the candidate to rate the application. Or, it can be a short text sent to a candidate asking them to rate their virtual interviewing experience after they complete an on-demand interview. It could also be a short questionnaire sent after a candidate completes a final interview – asking if the interviewer was on time and prepared, or if the candidate felt as though they were able to showcase their strengths.

Providing Feedback

As important as it is to gather candidate feedback, the feedback flow can’t just move in one direction. Employers should also provide feedback – especially to candidates who make it to the final round of interviewing. Unfortunately, the likelihood of that is greatly dependent on location.

The HRO Today and PeopleScout survey found that, in EMEA, more than half of respondents made it standard practice to provide feedback after a face-to-face interview, while only 13% of employers never provided it. However, the situation is vastly different in North America, where only 21% of employers reported that they always provided feedback, while 39% never did. In APAC, the numbers landed in the middle, with 38% of employers stating that they always provided feedback and 12% saying that they never did.

feedback to candidates after face to face interviews

This is a significant missed opportunity for employers. By the time a candidate reaches the final interview stage, not only have they invested a considerable amount of time and effort into an organization, but the employer has also poured a considerable amount of time, effort and money into recruiting this candidate. As such, a candidate who has invested so much time and effort into an employer can only feel an even deeper sting from a rejection, as compared to a candidate who failed to advance earlier in the process. Plus, in Europe, one survey found that candidates ranked providing feedback and providing a reason for rejection as two of the top three most important components in delivering a positive candidate experience. The only other factor in the top three was providing a short, easy application.

Additionally, by the time a candidate reaches the final interview, the recruiter and hiring manager have clearly seen potential for that candidate to be a great employee. And, while a candidate who finishes in second or third place in the recruitment process may not be the best fit for that role at that time, the candidate still has the potential to be a great employee at some point in the future. This makes it even more critical to provide meaningful feedback.

More precisely, providing feedback at this point in the process accomplishes two major things for candidates: First, it provides candidates with something in exchange for the time and effort they’ve put into your organization. While the candidate may or may not have received a job offer, feedback that they can use as they move forward in their career is the next-best outcome; often, candidates may receive a generic email or – even worse – no communication at all. Additionally, the feedback provides candidates with actionable steps that they can take going forward if they want to apply to your company again in the future. If the candidate was a close match, the feedback you provide after this interview could help them become the ideal candidate the next time they apply.

Feedback Loop

These surveys reveal critical information about the importance of feedback – both gathering it from candidates and providing it to candidates – at a critical time for employers. With high unemployment across the globe due to COVID-19 and the upcoming “Great Rehire” as world economies recover, employers are already seeing large application volumes and will soon see increased competition for talent.

That combination makes a good candidate experience especially important: When a large number of candidates have a bad experience, it can do significant damage to an organization’s employer brand. Furthermore, the best candidates won’t stay on the job market for long. A poor experience can mean losing out on the best talent at a time when the right people can aid in a strong recovery. Therefore, now is the best time for employers to develop their processes for giving and receiving feedback.

Check out the full report from HRO Today and PeopleScout, How HR’s Response Defines Employer Brand.

Managing Candidate Volumes During the Great Rehire

Posted on by nfuqua

As employers continue their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, many face the same two challenges: Applications are up and talent acquisition teams are lean, which leaves a smaller team to sift through mountains of job applications.

At the same time, the pressure to find and hire the best candidate is high. After all, top talent can help speed a recovery. And, while the hiring process needs to be fast, it can’t leave out top candidates. So, let’s examine strategies for managing high candidate volumes that can help employers stand out during the Great Rehire.

HR Outsourcing

Challenge: Our organization needs to scale quickly to make a large number of hires, but our team doesn’t have the bandwidth to handle the volume.

One key pillar of value for HR outsourcing solutions – like RPO; on-demand or project based RPO; or Total Workforce Solutions – is the ability to scale seamlessly as hiring demands shift. Conversely, in an internal talent acquisition team, it can be difficult – if not impossible – to scale up quickly to handle a higher number of hires and then scale back down when hiring volumes shrink. Consequently, many organizations find themselves initially making a large volume of hires to staff up new locations or during a peak season, but then hiring volumes return to normal.

What’s more, businesses in industries hard hit by COVID-19 will see especially high numbers as the economy continues to recover. For these organizations, RPO providers – specifically, on-demand or project RPO solutions – can help fill the gaps by providing focused support based on the needs of individual organizations.

For instance, at PeopleScout, we bring expertise and insights from across our client base, as well as the people needed to handle hiring spikes. Our industry-specialized flex team of recruiters can be activated on short notice, and our global delivery centers provide 24/7 support and recruiting capabilities that enable a faster recruitment process.

An RPO provider can also provide broader solutions – like bringing technology expertise to add automation or virtual interviewing solutions; or providing talent advisory services to improve employer branding, assessments or job posting strategies.

Technology Solutions

Challenge: Our team is too bogged down in repetitive work; the process of screening candidates and scheduling interviews takes too much of our recruiters’ time.

COVID-19 has exposed technology gaps for many employers. In the early days, many scrambled to implement virtual hiring solutions so that they could keep their talent acquisition functions moving. Now, as the pandemic passes the one-year mark, employers face a different challenge: Is their technology built for scale?

When facing high candidate volumes, recruiters can easily get bogged down in repetitive administrative tasks. For example, they might get caught in a game of phone tag trying to schedule interviews; answering simple questions from candidates; sending emails to keep their talent communities warm; and sourcing candidates for hard-to-find skillsets. As a result, that leaves little time for higher-value activities, like communicating with top candidates.

However, robotic process automation (RPA) can lift some of the load. This technology utilizes bots to replicate human actions for time-consuming, but straightforward administrative tasks. And, while it can be used to screen résumés, it can also go far beyond that.

For example, RPA can be used to deploy chatbots to answer simple questions from candidates 24 hours a day. A chatbot can also be used in automated candidate screenings to ask questions about a candidate’s skills, education and experience – either online or via text. Best of all, in addition to saving time for the recruiter, this technology also improves the candidate experience by allowing them to get answers more quickly and feel as though they’re driving the recruitment process forward.

RPA can also be used to automate emails, social media posts and other employer branding campaigns. Right now, many organizations are building candidate pipelines and keeping talent communities warm as they prepare to make hires. In this way, RPA can be used to send messages to these communities – keeping candidates engaged and keeping your company top of mind.

Interview scheduling tools can also prove to be a significant time-saver for recruiters. As an example, with Affinix – PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology – recruiters can avoid the back-and-forth of scheduling interviews with candidates by automating the process instead. Specifically, a recruiter can sync their calendar with the tool and provide candidates with a link to schedule the interview at a time that works best for them.

These tools can then be combined into a virtual solution that spans from recruitment marketing tools all the way through onboarding. And, as the recovery continues, many employers are finding lasting benefits from adopting these strategies.

Candidate Generation & Assessment Strategies

Challenge: We’re seeing high applicant volumes, but we want to make sure the people we hire are interested in the role for the long-term; we’re worried about high turnover as the economy improves.

As employers hire in 2021, they face a mountain of applications. This includes both candidates who are excited about the role and see it as a long-term step in their careers, as well as candidates who are looking for the role now, but don’t necessarily want to stay in the role or at the organization for the long haul. But, how do you differentiate between the two?

One option is to adjust your candidate generation and assessment strategies to attract and hire the employees with the passion, purpose, and mindset that best match for the organization and the role. For instance, to showcase an honest and authentic employer brand, write honest and authentic job postings. By tailoring your employer brand and job postings to attract only candidates who are truly qualified and interested in the role, you’ll save recruiter time by eliminating the résumés of candidates who aren’t qualified or aren’t excited about the role.

As an example, one PeopleScout client previously wrote job descriptions with an overly positive view of their open positions – without mentioning the more challenging elements. And, although they received a high number of applicants, as those applicants moved through the process, many realized that they didn’t want the job. Meanwhile, others accepted the job, but the turnover rate was high, which was expensive and wasted time for both the recruiter and the hiring manager.

In response, PeopleScout worked with the client to make the job postings more realistic about the challenges, in addition to providing a real preview of what the job would look like. In the end, the client received fewer applicants, but turnover in the role dropped significantly. The client also saved hundreds of hours in hiring manager and recruiter time.

Employers can also adjust their assessment process to identify candidates who can succeed and grow in the role by evaluating their passion, purpose and mindset. This means assessing candidates to find out if the candidate has the enthusiasm for the work; finds purpose in the role and at the organization; and has the right mindset to grow and learn.

Bringing It Together

Combining these strategies in the right way for your organization can help manage the high candidate volumes we expect to continue during the economic recovery from COVID-19. Furthermore, many of these tools and strategies will continue to show their value when unemployment is low. RPO providers and on-demand or project-based RPO can help manage yearly hiring spikes; technology tools will continue to free up recruiter time; and job posting and assessment strategies that guarantee the right cultural fit will continue to result in better talent and higher-performing teams. And, for talent leaders in 2021, solutions that deliver immediate results and lasting benefits will drive success.

Improve Your Employer Brand Using Employer Review Sites

Posted on by jpatel

An organization’s employer brand is often in the hands of its candidates and employees. And, when it comes to employer review sites, the fate of your employer brand is – quite literally – at their fingertips. In fact, according to data from Workplace Trends, 72% of job-seekers share their experience on online employer review sites like Glassdoor. What’s more, recent research from Deloitte found that 80% of candidates who experience an unsatisfactory recruitment process will openly tell people about their experience, and one-third of those candidates will do so proactively.

But, what does this mean for your organization? Unfortunately, negative reviews from both candidates and employees can have a huge influence on your bottom line. For example, per CareerArc, 62% of consumers have stopped buying from an organization that treats its employees poorly. Plus, an Indeed survey found that 95% of workers said that if they were considering a new job opportunity, insight into the company’s employer reputation would be somewhat (33%) or extremely (62%) important. As a result, a poor employer brand reputation could cost your organization millions as productivity decreases due to a reduced candidate pool and consumers stop supporting your business.

So, how can organizations take control of their employer brand and overall online reputation? Well, recent studies from HRO Today and PeopleScout show that organizations globally are planning to invest more heavily in social networking, consistent monitoring of employer review sites, and a greater use of employees as brand advocates.

However, while these steps are important to improve your employer brand, many organizations are unsure of where to start; they may also lack knowledge of best practices for these strategies.

Therefore, in this article, we’ll help you improve your employer brand by outlining how to establish ownership of your organization’s presence on employer review sites like Glassdoor and Indeed; offer best practices for responding to reviews; share tips on how to effectively leverage employee brand advocates; and highlight some popular employer review sites that organizations should be familiar with.

Establish Ownership & Claim Your Employer Review Site Profiles

The first step in establishing an employer brand plan for review sites is to establish who in your organization will own the initiative. Specifically, it may make sense to have your HR team manage the employer review site accounts because they are likely familiar with sites like Indeed and Glassdoor that offer job-posting functionality, in addition to candidate and employee reviews.

However, it can also be beneficial to form partnerships across departments to holistically manage your organization’s employer brand. For example, your communications team can assist HR in crafting responses to reviews that align with your brand standards for tone and voice, as well as provide up-to-date information on awards and accolades. In addition, HR can lean on the marketing team to maintain an active social media presence for your company, as well as work to optimize search results by managing SEO and creating content to combat potentially negative reviews and keywords.

After establishing who will take ownership of the management of employer review sites, claim your profiles. This can be done at no cost by verifying the profile as an employer and creating an employer account to edit and manage the profile.

Plus, with an employer account, you can add valuable information to your profile for candidates to view, such as:

  • Salary and compensation details
  • Explanation of benefits offerings
  • Company mission, vision and values
  • Overview of company culture
  • Logistical information (location, total number of employees, revenue, competitors, etc.)
  • Unique initiatives
  • Remote and flexible work policies
  • Diversity, equity and inclusion programs
  • Photos of employees, events and offices
  • Industry awards and accolades

It’s worth noting that, according to Glassdoor, 75% of active job-seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand. You can do this by responding to reviews, updating your business profile, and sharing updates on the culture and work environment. Furthermore, building a robust profile on the employer review site will allow candidates to gain a better understanding of who your company is, what you stand for and what it would be like to work for you.

Respond to Reviews – Both Positive & Negative

Responding to reviews is perhaps the most important method in creating a strong brand presence on employer review sites. And, while both types of reviews can be easy to view and dismiss, leaving thoughtful replies is a guaranteed way to show candidates and employees that you care – regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative. In fact, 80% of job-seekers who read reviews on Glassdoor say their perception of a company improves after seeing an employer respond to a review.

Some best practices to keep in mind when responding to reviews:

  • Address the reviewer by name (for non-anonymous reviews) to establish a personal connection
  • Thank the reviewer for their feedback
  • Acknowledge positive feedback
  • Address any concerns mentioned
  • Offer advice on any relevant next steps

Here are some examples of how to reply to common types of reviews:

Leverage Employee Brand Advocates

While organizations have little control over who will leave reviews – especially reviews with primarily negative feedback – they can proactively build up a strong body of positive reviews by leveraging employee brand advocates. These are employees who advocate for an organization and generate a positive image of the brand via online and offline channels. It’s important to note here that, when encouraging employees to leave reviews, you should emphasize the value of honest, candid reviews; employees should not feel pressured to paint a certain image of your organization.

Consider the following ideas to encourage employees to leave truthful, positive reviews that will help improve your employer brand:

New Hires

New hires are a great place to start when gathering positive reviews. That’s because the application, interviewing, and onboarding process is still fresh in their minds and they recently chose your organization as their new employer. So, ask new hires to leave a review on their hiring experience when they first start, and encourage them to update it after their first 90 days.

HR, PR & Marketing

Another good place to start is by requesting that members of your HR and marketing teams write reviews. Members of these departments already have a good understanding of the importance of employer review sites and are likely willing to leave honest reviews that highlight your organization’s strong points.

Promoted & Awarded Employees

If your organization recognizes employees for outstanding work with awards or honors, these workers can also be an excellent source of positive reviews. The same can be said for employees who have recently been promoted. A good practice is to establish a system that reaches out to these employees with a congratulatory message alongside a call to action to post online about their experience working at your company.

Employee Resource Groups

Employees who voluntarily join employee resource groups in addition to their daily responsibilities are already likely to be highly engaged within your organization. So, tap into these groups of employees and request that they leave reviews based on your organization’s culture and commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion – something Glassdoor provides ratings on and many candidates are interested in.

Regular Requests

Finally, managers should be empowered to regularly encourage their team members to leave reviews. This can become a regular practice during performance meetings, as well as after the completion of a big project or when hiring season is afoot. Likewise, if your organization offers flexible work arrangements or other unique perks, employees should be encouraged to share emotive experiences of how these benefits have affected their lives.

Employer Review Sites to Consider

Because there are a variety of employer review sites out there, it can be hard to keep track of them all. So, we compiled this list of the top 10 you should monitor to improve your employer brand for long-term success.

  • Glassdoor: Current and former employees can anonymously review companies; submit and view salaries; as well as search and apply for jobs.
  • Indeed: Candidates can upload a résumé and browse reviews and salaries, while employers can post jobs, search résumés and more.
  • Comparably: Includes information on employers, brands, salaries and company culture.
  • FairyGodBoss: Women’s career community for career advice, job openings and company reviews.
  • Kununu: Employer reviews, salary data and culture reviews from those who know best: employees and applicants.
  • Google Reviews: Business reviews appear next to your company’s listing in Maps and Search. These can help your business stand out on Google, which is the leading search engine.
  • InHerSight: Here, candidates can find company reviews and ratings; get matched to jobs; and connect with a community of women navigating the workplace.
  • Vault: Known for its influential rankings, ratings, and reviews on thousands of top employers and hundreds of internship programs.
  • CareerBliss: Candidates can find jobs, research salaries and read reviews with a focus on company culture.
  • TheJobCrowd: This UK-based employer review site is focused on helping recent graduates in their early careers.

As recruitment processes and the world of work continue to take digital shifts, employer review sites will become increasingly important in making or breaking a candidate’s decision to join your organization. And, while you certainly can’t control every review, you can be proactive in taking charge of your employer review site presence by regularly responding to reviews, leveraging employee advocates, and monitoring what candidates and employees are saying about your organization online. In doing so, you’ll improve your employer brand by creating a strong employer brand and a positive presence where it counts – and where it makes a difference.

Doing More with Less: Creative Recruitment Strategies for Lean Talent Teams

Posted on by edyson

Finding the right talent at the right time is never easy. It is made even more difficult when you have limited resources to work with. 

Whether that is a lack of time, budget or team members, how can talent acquisition leaders ensure their organization’s talent pipeline is filled with qualified candidates ready to fill critical open positions?

What’s more, the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the talent market to being employer-driven, providing organizations with the advantage of having a larger pool of qualified candidates.

This shift creates new problems, however, such as having the resources on hand to efficiently recruit this new pool of candidates.

This change necessitates organizations retooling their talent acquisition strategies accordingly to stay competitive, regardless of resources. 

In this article, we cover creative recruitment strategies and innovative recruitment ideas to help you recruit smarter and maximize your impact despite limited talent acquisition resources.

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Become More Strategic with Sourcing to Build a Foundation for Your Creative Recruitment Strategies

Creative Recruitment Strategies

There are a variety of channels that can be used to source candidates: job boards, career fairs, networking events, social media and employee referral programs.

Most recruiting teams use a combination of these channels to source talent and build candidate pipelines.

However, when recruiting with limited resources, you need to ensure that you are devoting your recruitment ideas to the most effective channels as part of your talent acquisition strategy.

Sourcing Tips:

  • Review Past Success: what channels have led to hiring your superstar employees? Consider expanding your use of the most effective search channels.
  • Seek Talent from New Sources: ask current employees for creative contact ideas. They may be able to point you toward a professional association, conference, university, or discipline where you can connect with a new pool of candidates.
  • Get Digital: Invest in digital outreach through channels including webinars and virtual networking events. Especially as in-person meetings may be unavailable during the pandemic, these events offer the next best opportunity to strategically source qualified talent.

Before you start sourcing candidates for a position, it’s a good idea to create a candidate persona.

A candidate persona helps you identify the right channel, message and strategy to source more qualified candidates.

Creating a candidate persona is a multi-step collaborative process, so you need to talk to your team, hiring managers and do some research to build a realistic profile of the ideal candidate.

Once you have created your candidate persona, you need to source candidates who best match the traits of your ideal candidate.

Your ideal candidates may be present on several platforms, so make sure you source from the right places.

For example, when recruiting developers, platforms like StackOverflow or GitHub may be a good candidate source, whereas if you are recruiting graphic designers, platforms like Dribble or Behance are innovative recruitment methods that may work best.

Creative Recruitment Ideas: Reengage Qualified Former Candidates

recruitment ideas

It is common to tell job candidates their resume is being put on file for the future if they are not selected for a role. However, how often do silver-medal candidates get notified when positions fitting their skill sets become open?

To maximize your recruitment methods and resources, seek out former finalists, and those who reached out to you about job openings in the past to see if they are still interested in working for your organization.

This allows you to get your brand and open positions in front of people who cleared multiple qualification hurdles before or were interested enough to send you their resume.

When crafting outreach messages to former candidates, make sure you acknowledge that you are aware that it may have been a while since you have spoken with them, and ask them if they are still interested in working for your organization.

Leveraging these creative recruitment strategies, you may pique their interest again, or maybe their positive experience with you will lead to them recommending a qualified colleague or friend who may be interested.

Regardless of whether they are actively looking at that time, your odds are still better with warmer candidates than with passive candidate outreach.

Pay Attention to Your Career Page

recruitment ideas

A career page can be a powerful tool for recruiting teams looking to extend their reach. However, it’s not enough to have a career page only listing your open positions.

Creative recruitment strategies begin with taking a close look at your career page.

You can post photos of group outings, get quotes from employees about their positive experiences and create videos of them describing the joy of coming to work – or how the benefits you provide have changed their lives for the better.

You can also build out your Glassdoor and LinkedIn pages, so they have personality and a voice that matches your company.

This is free and easy to do, so be sure not to overlook this simple strategy.

What’s more, optimizing your careers page for search is a great way to gain visibility with job seekers.

Ensure the copy featured on each of your careers pages is optimized to rank well by incorporating keywords relevant to your open positions and industry.

Your job description content should be specific to your organization and the individual role, with a minimum word count of 250 words.

The job description content should be relevant and informative to the job seeker, answering any specific question they may have.

Also, be careful to avoid duplicate content or imagery, you can assume the job seeker is looking at a number of job posts, so this is an area where you can really stand out.

Innovative Recruitment Methods: Leveraging Automation and Technology to Fill in the Gaps

Innovative Recruitment Methods

For organizations looking for innovative recruitment methods to optimize their recruiting resources, automation technology can provide time savings, increase recruitment productivity and help reduce unconscious bias in the recruiting process.

Talent acquisition technology can be used for high-level repetitive tasks such as candidate screening, interview scheduling and even sourcing passive candidates using artificial intelligence.

This gives recruiters more time to better engage candidates in a personal one-on-one relationship.

What’s more, technologies with texting automation tools like PeopleScout’s Affinixtm allow your organization to set up automated messages that are triggered at each phase of the hiring process to keep candidates up to date with their status as well as send text links for candidate self-scheduling to streamline interviews.

You can also leverage this technology to better scale your candidate outreach.

Your organization may already have a large database of candidates in your ATS. Sending automated text messages is an extremely effective way to reach out to those contacts at scale to rapidly generate interest in open positions.

However, before your text candidates, make sure they have opted-in to receiving communications from your organization to avoid compliance violations.

Creative Recruitment Strategies: The Gist

Recruiting with limited resources can be a challenging process, but by being strategic in your approach, your organization can source and hire top talent.

Taking a more strategic approach means deploying a variety of tactics and methods in order to build a robust talent pipeline.

The following articles in this section provide actionable insights into managing high candidate volume, creative sourcing strategies, tips for building a more diverse workforce and how total workforce solutions can help you navigate the great rehire with a mixed talent strategy.

[On-Demand] First Nations Resourcing Strategy

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[On-Demand] First Nations Resourcing Strategy

Australian employers are investing in creating more diverse workforce.

In this on-demand webinar, Jane Royle, Head of Resourcing at Lendlease, will share practical tips to help you increase your presence within the First Nations community, become an employer of choice and create career pathways for the First Nations people.

[On-Demand] Why Hybrid Hiring is Critical for Talent Acquisition Leaders

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[On-Demand] Why Hybrid Hiring is Critical for Talent Acquisition Leaders

What comes after your essential transition to virtual recruiting, when teams have shrunk and hiring needs are volatile? How do you ensure sufficient capacity and capability as organisations activate renewed growth strategies? The answer is hybrid recruiting.

Hybrid recruiting blends the expertise of both core in-house and flexible outsourced recruiters, powered through a deliberate mix of human contact and digital technology. In this series of events we will research, debate and inform on:

  • How you can get the best from hybrid recruiting.
  • How you can determine the right hybrid approach for your organisation.
  • How to embed flexibility, agility, and scalability within your approach.
  • How you can create the change required within your organisation.

We are delighted to invite you to join us as we investigate this hiring adaptation.

This series is now on demand. Please fill out the form to gain instant access. 

 

Meet the panelists:

Adam Britten from Amey

Adam has been working in the Resourcing and Talent space for 18 years and currently operates as Head of Resourcing and Talent for Amey PLC, a leading infrastructure services and engineering company. In his role Adam is responsible for the end to end Talent strategy for Amey ensuring they attract a skilled and diverse applicants whilst ensuring diversity. Adam specialises in Change Management and Transformation in Talent Acquisition having worked as an internal TA leader and also as an RPO  implementation director.

Panellist 1Ewa Zajac from Zendesk
With experience in all aspects of TA ranging from top of funnel employer branding & sourcing, through interview process efficiency, all the way to offer negotiation and new hire onboarding, Ewa has an excellent candidate experience at the heart of her strategy. In her role at Zendesk she focuses on building effective workflows and developing diversity partnerships that help Zendesk hire outstanding talent.

nullLesa Molinari from Colt Technology
Lesa has 14 years of global talent acquisition experience working in healthcare, telecoms and IT. In her current role she leads a high performing, inclusive and collaborative team which enables business leaders to; innovate, drive meaningful value against current and future business needs and, create opportunities to build the business in terms of scale and transformation.
Lesa understands how to drive significant cost savings in a complex matrix environment (down to 5% agency) while balancing best in class solutions. Her pragmatic approach is always focused on delivering business performance. Lesa is an RL100 member, Mentor and Panellist.

Panellist 3 Lisa Kelly from Heathrow Airport
An HR leader and a specialist in talent and resourcing with experience of working in consultancy and internal HR functions. Lisa is passionate about delivering successful business outcomes by enabling organisations through talent acquisition, talent development, performance management, diversity & inclusion, succession, and workforce planning.
Panellist 4 Jon Hull from Nationwide Building Society
An HR and Talent management leader with 20 years experience, Jon is the Head of Resourcing Delivery at Nationwide Building Society. Helping drive the transformation of the customer facing recruiting and the tech & transformation agenda, Jon is passionate about creating a multi channel offer using the latest technology. A real team player, Jon knows that technology alongside human interaction will nurture and attract the best talent, whilst driving innovation, customer delivery and value into the community.

ROI on Employer Brand

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ROI on Employer Brand

In today’s highly competitive talent landscape, an employer brand that resonates with each of your global talent audiences is more important than ever. PeopleScout’s full array of creative and digital services for employer branding helps you uncover why you’re an employer of choice.

Download this fact sheet to learn why you should invest in your employer brand.

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Learn more about PeopleScout’s Talent Advisory solutions.

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Download our free Inside the Candidate Experience report for the latest research exploring the disparity between candidate expectation and reality.

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Sourcing Candidates in 2021

Posted on by edyson

Sourcing candidates—even in the best of times—can be quite a daunting task. Sourcers and recruiters can spend weeks and sometimes months searching for the perfect candidate for a job opening and sometimes the person you want unfortunately may not exist. As the job market quickly recovers and candidates are now considering a move, organizations need to look to new and innovative ways to source, recruit and hire talent.

While you cannot wish the perfect candidates into existence or fast-forward past the pandemic, there are a number of candidate sourcing strategies you can deploy to help ensure that you have a quality talent pool at your fingertips as soon as you are ready to hire. In this article, we outline tips and strategies for sourcing candidates in 2021 that will help you improve your talent sourcing.

Sourcing Candidates Begins with Your Employer Brand

Your employer brand could be the difference between a candidate responding to your strategic sourcing and outreach or ignoring it. Candidates may not respond to your outreach messaging if they think poorly of your employer brand, so make sure you communicate your employer value proposition.

To improve your sourcing techniques and overall recruiting success, here are some tips on both repairing and building a better employer brand:

Respond to Reviews

Regularly check review sites like Glassdoor and respond to the feedback to let people know you appreciate their input and will take action where it’s necessary. This will generate goodwill, and help your employees feel engaged and heard.

Tell your Story

Engaging your employees in storytelling, encouraging them to personalize their LinkedIn profiles, starting a company blog, being active in the press and speaking at conferences are just a few of the ways employers can spread awareness about their brand.

Partner with your Marketing Team

The strategies and methods needed to help spread your employer brand to job seekers are similar to the ones marketing is using to promote your organization’s brand. Partner closely with your marketing team on both employer-branded content creation and distribution channels. 

Start Sourcing Candidates for Jobs Before You Are Ready

candidate sourcing

Sourcing candidates for jobs takes time, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. To get ahead of the candidate sourcing curve, start sourcing talent even if you do not have open positions. Typically, sourcing goes like this: “I have X job to fill, I’m going to source people for X job.” But smarter sourcers get even more proactive with their sourcing efforts and get ahead on roles they will need to hire for in the future.

First, take a look at your business growth plans. Then, build a corresponding workforce hiring strategy that gives you insight into when hires need to be made across the year to sustain your organization’s goals.

Once you have a picture of which teams need to grow, you can work with department leaders and HR to identify the level and skillsets required. Aggregate those skills and what you know about your company and team culture so you can begin to strategic sourcing for specific profiles candidates in a focused and on-ongoing way.   

Social Sourcing Tools and Platforms

sourcing tools

If you want to find and connect with the best talent, you should create a comprehensive social media sourcing strategy.

Social media channels provide strategic sourcing professionals an opportunity to share targeted job content and details about their organization, mission statements and hiring process to keep candidates warm, and better source talent.

Social talent sourcing tools and technology like PeopleScout’s Affinix technology solution help sourcing specialists and recruiters narrow their search and identify qualified candidates quicker. Here are some social media tools and platforms that will streamline your sourcing:

  • LinkedIn with 760 million users has been the social network of choice for sourcers and recruiters alike and for good reason, as professionals share their career history, advertise accomplishments and interact with industry experts. A LinkedIn Recruiter license lets you search profiles and send personal messages (InMails) to potential candidates, making LinkedIn an essential sourcing tool.
  • With 2.8 billion users, everyone is on Facebook, making every user a potential candidate. What’s more, users frequently research potential employers, look for job opportunities and apply for jobs through Facebook. Consider using paid job ads and Facebook groups to help you source candidates
  • Twitter has 330 million users and offers various tools, like search, lists and chat that help recruiters source candidates. Get the most out of your sourcing efforts by being active on Twitter. Engage in Twitter discussions, advertise conferences you sponsor and follow industry-related hashtags to find the talent you are looking for.

While the most popular platforms for social sourcing are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, if you want to expand your sourcing efforts to non-traditional social channels, consider the following social platforms:

  • Slack is a platform that allows group communications between professionals with similar interests. You can use Slack to source candidates by joining channels relevant to the job candidates you are looking to source in a more casual setting.
  • Meetup is a website that facilitates meetings and groups for people with common interests.
  • Reddit is an online community forum where members (Redditors) discuss a range of topics and interests. Reddit is not a traditional sourcing channel, but Reddit’s communities (called subreddits) are great places to post job ads and engage with potential candidates, especially in the professional communities you are searching for talent in.

Creative Ways For Sourcing Candidates: Leverage Your Employees’ Networks

sourcing strategies

According to LinkedIn, organizations can expand their talent pool by 10 times by recruiting through their employees’ networks. Run sourcing sessions and employee referral programs with your team to see if anyone in your employee’s networks would be interested in one of your open roles. Your employees can help you reach more untapped talent pools, and improve response rates with warmer candidates. 

Facebook, for instance, will display to your team, different job candidate search results based on their social graph, so you can uncover passive job candidates you would not have otherwise discovered. Job sourcing sites such as Sourcing.io allow your employees to connect their social media accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and GitHub so you can view candidates who are connected to your team members. When you find a qualified job candidate, you should encourage your team to send warm introductions to increase your candidate engagement and response rate.

Perfect Your Outreach Messages When Sourcing Candidates

sourcing techniques

You and your talent acquisition team have worked hard to source the qualified candidates, but that does not matter if you fail to create a real connection. A few rules of thumb: Lead with a subject line that will stand out and make the candidate want to open and read your message; always personalize your recruiting message with the relevant information you found about them; paint a brief picture of the role and your organization; and explain how you think they could contribute to your team.

Narrowing down and building a targeted audience is a way to create a strong and more personalized outreach message. According to Glassdoor, 78% of sales professionals said they would accept less money to work at a company selling something compelling, 66% of healthcare professionals are likely to accept less money to work at a company with a great culture.

Improve your response rates by personalizing and focusing on the issues that matter to candidates of all categories. Your goal is to give your pool of job candidates just enough content and engagement to pique their interest and respond to your outreach messaging, you want to be careful about overloading them with communications. Ask your recent hires for feedback on your outreach messages, and use that feedback to test different messaging to improve your response rates.

If your talent team invests the resources to sourcing a robust talent pipeline, you will find more candidates in your talent pool qualified for open roles in the future. Re-engaging prospects is a missed candidate sourcing opportunity for many organizations, you should remind your recruiting team to source from silver medal job candidates first because they are qualified and vetted.

Remember Strategic Sourcing Begins with Reexamining Your Program

Despite setbacks caused by the pandemic, the best candidates will always be in high demand, making it more important than ever to reevaluate your talent sourcing strategy in 2021. Attracting top talent is essential to your organization’s ability to recover and keep pace during the great rehire. These strategic sourcing methods can help you fill your pipeline with qualified talent so you can choose the best hire for your team.