Adapting TA Roles for Hiring Success
Today’s unemployment rate is half of what it was 10 years ago. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 7.6 million job openings with 6.2 million available workers to fill them as of early 2019. In this talent-centric labor market, candidates become the “buyers” and job openings are now the “products” that candidates may or may not be shopping around for. Talent acquisition (TA) professionals, as a result, face new challenges in “marketing” and “selling” jobs to acquire top talent in a fiercely competitive market.
In this article, we’ll talk about what relevant skills to grow and how recruiting technology can help TA professionals win in this transition. Mastering emerging functions such as employer branding, recruitment marketing, and candidate relationship-building can bring companies hiring success by increasing hiring velocity, optimizing hiring budgets, and improving the quality of hires.
Start Proactive Sourcing by Promoting an Attractive Employer Brand
With a 3.8% unemployment rate, candidates, especially those with desirable skills, are likely passive to new job opportunities. To attract quality candidates, TA teams need to stand out against competition in marketing and branding. In this sense, recruiting coordinators are analogous to sales development representatives in a sales and marketing organization. Their job is to reach and attract high volumes of quality talent.
The key to establishing an effective online presence as an employer is to create and promote good content that potential candidates truly care about. Research shows that more than 75% of job seekers carry out research about a company’s reputation and employer brand before applying (LinkedIn). And yet, just 36% of recruiters use employer branding strategies and 64% believe they don’t have the right digital tools to make the job easier (Monster). TA teams will need to spend time to understand what resonates with their target talent, and leverage employees’ experiences with the company to tell personal stories that showcase the company’s values and culture. These programs require market research, storytelling, and content development skills.
In an evolving landscape where 73% of Millennials (18-34 age group) found their last position through a social media platform (Fortune), TA teams will need to showcase different aspects of the company through non-conventional channels while maintaining a consistent brand image, in addition to an outstanding career website. Employers must also engage with the desired talent community to build trust. A good ATS will provide a comprehensive suite of recruitment marketing tools to support these operations, from launching marketing campaigns to distributing job ads.
Learn about the best Sourcing Success practices from expert practitioners.
Maintain Talent Pipelines by Building Relationships with Candidates
52% of recruiters cite competition from other recruiters as top obstacle in hiring success (Monster). To engage and close top candidates who can afford to be selective in their job opportunities, TA teams need to build long term engagement with qualified talent communities. Every single qualified talent that’s come into contact with the employer’s job opportunities, including those who were rejected or those who signed up for job alerts and have not applied, can be valuable candidates for future job openings.
In this stage, TA professionals are similar to account executives. They do research into top talent, understand what they care about, and strategically match them with the right jobs. They need to nurture these candidates through personalized check-ins, in addition to frequent and targeted email campaigns. A good ATS with candidate relationship management (CRM) capabilities will help TAs engage these candidates continually until the right jobs open up. CRM tools can automate a large part of these communications so that TA professionals can spend more time in learning about candidates as individuals and match them with the best-fitting roles.
Optimize Hiring through Data Analytics
Data analytics tools help TA teams make better hiring decisions and improve hiring processes. Bersin’s latest study on global TA teams reports that high-impact TA teams are 6x more likely to use AI and predictive analytics and see 30% greater profitability compared to those that don’t use these tools. A good ATS provides deep insights through trend analyses on historical hiring decisions and dashboards on pipeline performances with all the data stored in one place.
TA professionals can then focus on understanding what hiring teams really care about in candidates. At this stage, TA analysts & system admins act as RevOps, collecting sufficient data points to fuel hiring decisions and conduct 90-day check-ins with hiring managers to evaluate the quality of hire. Bersin found that a strong relationship between hiring manager and recruiter is the top driver of talent acquisition performance.
Adapt or Die
In a candidate-centric job market, winning TA teams adapt quickly to their new marketing and sales responsibilities in recruiting. They leverage modern recruiting technology to proactively market their employer brand, attract passive candidates, engage an ever-growing talent pool, guarantee a positive candidate experience from start to finish, and continuously enhance their work through data.
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