Recruiting & Hiring Blog for HR Professionals

Talent communities are interactive groups of people joined by a common interest in engaging with your company. These groups, or talent pools, also consist of job seekers and potential candidates who want to know about career opportunities you may have now or in the future.

A strong talent pool will save you from having to scramble to find top candidates and save you time and money in the recruiting process. Rather than having to re-post open positions to your favorite job boards and dig through old applications, your talent pool gives you access to potential candidates who are already engaged with your business.

As a hiring manager or small business owner, you know that staying organized can be a key component of success. We all strive to write out to-do lists, save paperwork in color coded files, and mark each important date on our calendars. But sometimes, staying organized is a lofty and unattainable goal rather than a day-to-day reality. Important notes get lost in the shuffle, paperwork gets misfiled, and hastily scheduled meetings end up falling through the cracks of your calendar. 

We all know that trying to find the right person for a job can be a difficult process. You want someone not only qualified for the position, but a person who will fit your corporate culture and workplace environment. Hiring the wrong employee can cost your business thousands of dollars, so you want to make sure you start the process strong. The title and description you use for your posting can make all the difference.

Recent research suggests that organizations are finding it more difficult to recruit qualified candidates for open positions. Each month, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) conducts its Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) survey. In the survey results released on August 1, 17.3% of talent acquisition professionals in the service sector had more difficulty recruiting in July. This is an increase of 12.2 points from one year ago. Manufacturers had a similar experience – 20.2% of recruiters had more trouble finding qualified applicants.

With competition heating up for promising candidates, what can you do to cut through the noise? A good place to start is by lowering the barriers for applicants who may be interested in your organization. Consider the following techniques:

• Make the application process as easy as possible. Many organizations make candidates jump through several hoops before they can even begin the online application process. For example, applicants often have to create an extensive online profile, along with a username and password. Candidates’ time is valuable – the simpler and more streamlined you can make the process, the more likely you are to attract the kind of talent you need to support your business. 

• Post positions on websites and job boards that attract the largest number of potential applicants. Job seekers have a lot of choices when it comes to finding open positions online. Some sites attract more traffic than others, and some specialize in certain industries or job categories. It’s worth taking some time to research where your “ideal candidates” search for jobs and then target those websites. This will increase the likelihood that you will engage with the job seekers who are best suited to your organization.

• Publicize jobs on social networking sites. Your recruiting activities are probably focused primarily on active job seekers, but are you ignoring passive job seekers? These are individuals who have a job and aren’t proactively looking for a new employer, but if they happen to see the right position, they might be tempted to make the leap. Social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are great places to interact with passive job seekers and let them know about job openings at your organization. This approach is becoming increasingly popular with employers – arecent survey found that about three quarters of companies (77%) use social networking sites as a way to find new talent. 

• Keep applicants informed about the interview process. Once you evaluate your applicants and identify the best candidates, it’s time to start interviewing. The hiring process is a two-way street and candidates like to feel that potential employers respect their time. To start the relationship off on the right foot, be sure to keep applicants informed about the interview process. That means alerting them when you want to conduct a phone screen or face-to-face meeting, as well as letting people know if they are not a good fit for a position. Applicant tracking software can help by providing email notifications throughout the different stages of recruiting.

There’s a well-known Head & Shoulders ad campaign from the 1980’s built around the premise and tagline that “…you never get a second chance to make a first impression.”  However, you probably are not reading this post for advice on how to eliminate dandruff, so let’s tie it back to recruiting and hiring.

Quality applicants care about making a good first impression with their next prospective employer.  However, we believe it is a two-way street.  Your company should also do its best to make a good first impression with job applicants to attract the best-quality applicants possible.