Category: Talent Acquisition Strategy

PeopleScout Jobs Report Analysis — March 2021

Posted on by nfuqua

The U.S. economy gained 916,000 jobs in March. The numbers beat economist expectations and show the fastest job growth since the summer of 2020. However, economists caution that there are still challenges ahead. The unemployment rate fell to 6.0%. Year-over-year wage growth was at 4.2%.

The Numbers

916,000: The U.S. economy added 916,000 jobs in March.

6%: The unemployment rate fell to 6%.

4.2%: Wages grew 4.2% over the past year.

The Good

The New York Times reports that March’s jobs report is the most optimistic report since the pandemic began. The 916,000 jobs added to the economy beat the expectations of most economists, though as we noted in our February analysis, some economists thought job growth could be as high as one million. Many of the jobs added came in leisure and hospitality, the sector hit hardest by pandemic job losses.

Economists say they expect growth to continue because of the expanded availability of vaccines, with more than 2 million Americans receiving shots each day. The reopening of schools has also allowed more women to reenter the workforce.

The Bad

Despite the good news in March’s report, as the Wall Street Journal reports, there are still 8.4 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic began, and even if growth continues at this rate, it will take the larger part of the year to make up that ground.

The Unknown

MarketWatch reports that economists have a lot of optimism for the coming months, but there are a few factors that could impact the economic recovery. The first is the speed of vaccinations. As more Americans are vaccinated, the economy can recover more quickly. On the other side, many stats are seeing rising numbers of coronavirus cases, which has slowed reopening plans in some areas. If those numbers do not decrease, it could dampen the recovery.

Talking Talent Leadership Profile: Anna Turner, SHRM-CP, PHR

Posted on by nfuqua

In her role as PeopleScout’s Vice President of Product, Anna Turner isn’t technically sitting in the seat of an HR leader – but you wouldn’t know it. With a long list of human resources certifications, a career that started in recruiting and experience in leadership at multiple HR technology companies – her résumé is a successful marriage of HR and technology.

Operating with the philosophy that innovation is driven through teamwork, Anna leads the vision, strategy, and roadmap for PeopleScout’s product and service portfolio. We spoke with her from her home in Charleston, S.C., to learn what she expects out of HR technology in 2021.

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What is the role of technology in solving the talent acquisition challenges of 2021?

One of the biggest challenges for employers is that things are moving faster in this digital world, and that has an impact on candidate experience. Our expectations as consumers have changed drastically over the past few years. We expect things to be personalized; we expect things to be transparent; and we expect things to be on-demand.

I can pick up my cell phone right now and have groceries delivered to my house in time for dinner. I can see how many stops the delivery driver needs to make before arriving at my house. Now, employers face increasing pressure to have a candidate experience that matches those consumer expectations. We need to bring the right technology to create that experience.

One way we’ve seen the candidate experience transform over the past year is the accelerated use of virtual interviewing solutions, like on-demand or live video interviews. How will that continue to influence the candidate experience going forward?

Before the pandemic, many employers were already focused on digitization. Now, that’s been put on fast forward. Within just a matter of weeks, a virtual process became a necessity – and that’s not going to change.

In this market for talent, employers need a virtual process that’s not only fast, but also has a really strong candidate experience. More people are working remotely than ever, which means employers aren’t facing the typical geographic boundaries for sourcing talent. It also means that candidates have more options. Once those constraints are gone, you transform both the way you compete for talent and the strategies you need to implement to bring in that talent.

Over the past year, we’ve all seen our relationships with technology get a lot tighter. We’re using new tools in almost every aspect of our lives. How will this deeper relationship affect talent acquisition?

I think it impacts both candidates and employers in different ways. On the candidate side, it reinforces those expectations for a consumer-like candidate experience. They want the transparency. Going back to the grocery delivery example, I can track the delivery driver on GPS, but many candidates don’t understand where they stand after they submit an application and are frustrated by the ‘black hole’ of the recruiting process. Are they still being considered? If so, when will they hear back?

Another way it has impacted candidates is their openness to trying new technology. As an example, if you look back a year ago, my mom had never even been on a Zoom call. Now, she’s an expert. That’s happening across all types of workers, and it means that candidates will respond more positively to new hiring technology solutions.

For employers, we’re seeing this deepened relationship with technology accelerate their embrace of new solutions. In a way, employers have been forced to try new solutions. But now, they’ve seen how those solutions can speed up and improve their processes. The biggest opportunity to expand on that will be around insights and data. With all of this technology, you have increased visibility into your process. You can start to see friction points and opportunities to improve the candidate experience. These insights are one of the exciting things that will definitely carry on from leveraging more and more technology as a result of what we’ve been through over the last year.

There’s a lot of hope for 2021. We’ve heard it called “The Great Rehire,” and we know that employers will need to start bringing on more workers. However, many talent acquisition teams are still very lean. How does technology help solve that issue?

Each employer is going to have a different plan and a different story, but we are seeing employers start to get ready. One of the most interesting things that employers can do is to look at their current systems – whether it’s their current ATS or CRM – to see who they have in their network and how they can have a talent pool ready when it is time to make hires. That means finding ways to amplify your employer value proposition, engage talent in your network and keep talent warm.

Once employers are ready to start making those hires, they can leverage technology as part of the recruiting and hiring process. But, right now, I think it’s most important for employers to focus on how they can nurture talent to make the eventual hiring process easier.

We’ve talked a lot about challenges. What would you say are the biggest opportunities for talent leaders in 2021?

I think there are three buckets. One I mentioned earlier, and that’s insights through data. There’s a huge opportunity to become more data-driven, and we’ve been talking about it for years in HR. The challenge has always been tying together all the disparate systems. We’re moving into a realm now where technology partners are able to bridge those gaps and make that happen.

The next one is diversity and inclusion. This is obviously a huge area of importance. We know that, as we have more diverse teams, we will offer better services, deliver better products, come up with better ideas and design better solutions. Now, we can use data to revisit messaging, employer branding, hiring campaigns and more to ensure that they appeal to the diverse candidates that employers want to hire.

The final area is one we’ve talked about a lot, and that’s candidate experience. How do we evolve the experience of our processes to create a ‘wow’ experience for candidates? Does the recruiting process meet candidates where they are – for example, in a mobile-friendly way? Does every candidate know where they stand? For example, the candidates you aren’t moving forward receiving communication is a huge step forward for closing the loop and providing transparency. There are big opportunities in 2021 for employers that can provide a candidate-first experience.

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.

Building a Tech-Enabled Internal Mobility Platform for a Government Agency

Posted on by jpatel
Building a Tech-Enabled Internal Mobility Platform for a Government Agency

Government Talent Solutions

Building a Tech-Enabled Internal Mobility Platform for a Government Agency

This government agency in Australia partnered with PeopleScout to develop and launch a technology platform that facilitates internal mobility for government workers.

Employees manage their profiles showcasing employee demographics, education, work history, skills and competencies 
Employees manage their profiles showcasing employee demographics, education, work history, skills and competencies 
AI technology matches candidates to open opportunities across the government and provides alerts to candidates on open job opportunities
AI technology matches candidates to open opportunities across the government and provides alerts to candidates on open job opportunities
Employee engagement increased, while the use of expensive contingent labor resources went down 
Employee engagement increased, while the use of expensive contingent labor resources went down 

Situation  

As a result of COVID-19, the client was operating with a lean workforce and limited resources. They required a solution that allowed them to leverage the skills and competencies of their existing workforce so they could save the time, cost and resources it takes to access the external candidate market. 

They partnered with PeopleScout to develop and launch a platform which facilitates internal mobility for workers who are potentially impacted by the economic downturn due to COVID-19 or looking to move within their department or other government agencies. This allowed the client to engage their workforce through enhanced workforce mobility, skills development and career opportunities within the department and across the government. 

Solution

PeopleScout created an internal mobility platform using our proprietary talent technology, Affinix®, to give the client insight into the scope and experience of their internal talent. By utilizing candidate profiles, hiring managers are not only able to see employee demographics, education and work history, but also specific skills and competencies.  

When an employee creates their profile, they have the opportunity to rate their own competencies and leaders within the organization can rate and leave comments about their performance as well. This gives recruiters a strong sense of what other positions may be a good fit for internal employees, based on hard and soft skills—such as strong cross-functional collaboration abilities. 

PeopleScout’s Affinix Internal Mobility platform gives the client a holistic view of candidates, and when a requisition is posted within the platform, Affinix automatically looks for employees who may be a good fit and proactively recommends candidates based on their profile. 

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Australian government agency
  • INDUSTRY
    Government & Public Sector
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Affinix
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PeopleScout Jobs Report Analysis – February 2021

Posted on by nfuqua

The U.S. economy gained 379,000 jobs in February. The numbers beat economist expectations, suggesting that the recovery is gaining steam. However, economists caution that there are still challenges ahead. The unemployment rate fell to 6.2%. Year-over-year wage growth was at 5.3%.

u.s. jobs report infographic

The Numbers

379,000: The U.S. economy gained 379,000 jobs in February.

6.2%: The unemployment rate fell to 6.2%

5.3%: Wages rose 5.3% over the past year.

The Good

The addition of 379,000 jobs to the economy in February suggests that the recovery is picking up steam, the Wall Street Journal reports. Economists had predicted just 210,000 new jobs.

The majority of the job gains happened in the leisure and hospitality sector, which has been the hardest hit by the pandemic. Experts say decreasing coronavirus cases, increasing vaccinations, and the stimulus passed in December likely all contributed to the uptick as consumers are gaining confidence.

The Bad

While there was plenty of good news in February’s report, there is still a long way to go. The U.S. still has 9.5 million fewer jobs than when the pandemic began. Additionally, some sectors, like construction, shed jobs. Though experts say that is likely temporary and related to winter weather conditions.

While the unemployment rate decreased, there was no improvement in the racial disparity in unemployment. As the AP reports, the unemployment rate for white workers fell from 5.7% to 5.6%, but the unemployment rate for Black workers actually rose from 9.2% in January to 9.9% in February. The unemployment rate for Hispanic workers fell from 8.6% to 8.5%.

The Unknown

Economists say this could be the start of a stretch of strong hiring numbers that lasts through the spring. Bloomberg reports that March could potentially see more than a million new jobs, as long as there is not an increase in coronavirus cases. The New York Times also reports that employers see this as the start of a hiring surge.

However, there are a few factors that could impact these predictions. Economists predict that the $1.9 trillion stimulus will have a positive effect, but rising coronavirus cases or a slowdown in school reopening could impact job growth negatively. Ultimately, workers need to both feel safe returning to the workplace and have the childcare options to do so to continue strong economic growth.

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

Posted on by akessler

[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.

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP: ANNA TURNER

Posted on by suhlarik

ANNA TURNER
VP of Product

PEOPLESCOUT, U.S.

What do you actually do at PeopleScout day to day?
My role is to grow and lead technology product strategy. This includes the vision, strategy and roadmap for each of our products, as well as provide new offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of the talent space.

In addition to strategy and building great tech products, the other part of my role is growing and developing product people.

How long have you been at PeopleScout and what was your first position here? 

I’ve been here 3 months and my first role here is VP of Product.

What does leadership mean to you? 

Leadership to me means empowering teams and people to do their best possible work and achieve the strategic goals for the organization. Most importantly, for people-leaders, this means growing and developing people to meet their full potential. It is an honor to be a part of each person’s journey to achieve their career and life aspirations, whatever they may be. 

Do you have a leadership philosophy? If so, what is it? 

I don’t know that I have a philosophy, but I do have a style. My style is to trust and empower the teams I’m a part of to do their best work. Over my career, I’ve found the best ideas and solutions come from teams collaborating together by leveraging everyone’s unique perspectives, experiences and skills. Those environments of inclusivity and respect are like magic – you love the people you work with; you trust each other and you know you can overcome the challenges and hard days together.

Who is someone who has contributed to your success and how? 

There are so many people who have contributed to my success. There are three that come top of mind. 

My husband Matt has contributed greatly to my success. He is a wonderful partner and extremely supportive of my career.  We approach everything as a team to keep things moving with our family and careers. 

I worked for a fantastic executive, Kay Lucas, when my kids were young. My 2 boys were under the age of 4 during the several years I worked for her as a Product Manager.  That’s a tough season as a working mom – it’s often the season where women say this is just too hard and I can’t have a career in addition to my family right now. As a leader, she demonstrated empathy, provided a family-first environment while also empowering our teams to build great products. It was comforting to know she’d experienced the same season and challenges of working full-time with two small kids. She helped me grow and gave me opportunities I’m forever grateful for – things like teaching me how to present to an executive team, how to prep for a main stage keynote presentation, managing people, and how to prioritize my time. I’m grateful I not only worked for an incredible product leader and visionary, but another working mom who paved the way for the rest of us.

The other person who’s contributed to my success has been Nancy Sansom. She was an executive at both Benefitfocus and PeopleMatter where I worked early in my career.  She gave me opportunities to shine, pushed our teams to do great work and always leveled up the organization, skills and offerings. I’m especially grateful to have her mentorship today, as I’ve embarked on new challenges as my career has progressed – people management, negotiations, career decisions, building a great culture and operating at the executive level. She’s a great friend and mentor, who also cares deeply about her family and has demonstrated work, family and hobbies can be possible for a working mom. 

What barriers have you faced in your career and how did you overcome them? 

I’m a recovering people-pleaser. This was a big challenge for me very early in my career. I didn’t know how to set boundaries or work within constraints. I finally figured out the problem was more me than my boss or my company. A lot of women in my network also struggle with boundaries. After burning out, I studied a lot on the topic and asked for advice from other working moms around me. Over time, I got better about setting boundaries at work, leaving time for myself to recharge nights and weekends, truly taking vacation/PTO, and always keeping top of mind what my top priorities to move the business forward – those things I can only uniquely contribute in my role. I’m still a work-in-progress and have setbacks, but I’m proud of the significant progress I’ve made over the past 5 years.  

What can we all do to support women in leadership? 

I think there are a lot of little things we can all do to support women in leadership. Two super easy, tactical things:

  • In a post-COVID world when we are back in the office, think about team lunches instead of happy hours. For women with young kids, evenings are tough and may be the only part of the day they see their kids. Many women still carry the majority of childcare activities and thus COVID-19 has had a disproportional impact on working mothers. If you are a leader with control over the event, consider what might be possible during the workday to generate those same types of relationships and connections.
  • For Leaders: Consider your meetings, projects, and assignments – who’s getting the airtime, who’s getting to talk vs. not- this can be enlightening.  The more we level the playing field and give everyone a voice, the better it will be for diverse perspectives to emerge to generate the best possible solutions.

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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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.

Providing a High-Volume Project RPO for Financial Services

Posted on by akessler
Providing a High-Volume RPO for Financial Services

Providing a High-Volume RPO for Financial Services

PeopleScout RPO augmented the talent acquisition capabilities for this financial services company across high-volume roles.

PeopleScout was approached by a major financial institution looking to supplement its internal recruiting functions. PeopleScout RPO provided the client with the scalability and flexibility it needs during high and low-volume hiring periods.

Situation

The client enlisted PeopleScout to augment its internal recruitment teams in specific lines of business to handle cyclical hiring for tellers, personal bankers, call center representatives, IT professionals, as well as roles in risk, compliance, audit, finance, mortgage and wealth management.

PeopleScout supported the client with full-cycle RPO, including post-offer acceptance and pre-hire compliance. PeopleScout worked with the client’s internal recruiters to source and screen candidates and provide administration recruitment coordination support.

Solution

PeopleScout acts as full-cycle recruiters, executing each phase of the recruitment process from identifying quality candidates to on-boarding new hires. PeopleScout’s team scaled according to the client’s needs, fluctuating in size from approximately 90 recruiters to over 200, helping manage costs while ensuring hiring demands are met.

PeopleScout also provided the client with consultative services including talent insights, marketing intelligence and innovative sourcing solutions.

Results

  • PeopleScout facilitated an average of 8,000 hires per year
  • Exceeded goal for 90% of new starts to start on the same day, as part of a class
  • Met 90% of SLAs over the course of the engagement

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Financial services company
  • INDUSTRY
    Financial Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    8,000+ hires across tellers, personal bankers, call center representatives, IT professionals, as well as roles in risk, compliance, audit, finance, mortgage and wealth management
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