Jobs are changing, and so are the ways recruiters are finding candidates to fill vacant positions. Job ads in your local newspaper are out, and LinkedIn job postings are in. The same can be said with the application process; by using mobile technology, candidates can complete an online application in minutes while they’re on the subway commuting to their current job.
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Although the times are certainly changing, sadly, one thing remains the same: Recruiting bad habits are still around! A new report released by Jobvite uncovers the seven “deadly sins” of recruiting and offers ways to fix these bad habits.
Using information parsed from Jobvite’s report “The Seven Deadly Sins of Recruiting,” we’ll look at these seven sins and the advice Jobvite gives for rectifying them.
Sin #1: “I usually just find the candidate and forget him or her.”
According to Jobvite, this is the wrong approach to recruiting because candidates need nurturing, especially those with hard-to-find STEM skills. Jobvite likens these candidates to your customers and asks, “You wouldn’t just forget your customers, right?”
Jobvite explains that “you aren’t just targeting active jobseekers—you’re luring in passive prospects, too. You need to tailor your ongoing engagement to suit all of these people, which means employing the right tools.” Such tools would consist of a candidate relationship management (CRM) system that features multichannel communications.
Sin #2: “I’m supposed to track that?”
Hold on—you’re not tracking your sources and reporting results? How are you supposed to know whether you were successful in hiring candidates? If you aren’t tracking your results, how are you supposed to get your company to sign off on more requisitions?
Jobvite offers these suggestions for tracking your sources and reporting results:
- Trace candidates back to their original sources, regardless of where they came from. You want to know which sources provide the highest-quality candidates—and which might not be worth further effort or expense.
- Keep tabs of ongoing communication with prospects, and their engagement activity, whether they’ve applied for a position or not. Your goal is to effectively sway qualified candidates to apply and eventually accept a position, but you can’t do that unless you know how and when you’ve interacted with them and how best to drive a positive response.
- Create and easily send reports that reflect the status of your efforts across any channel, any time period, or any position. The name of the game is real-time flexibility, so you know where you stand and can course-correct as needed.
Sin #3: “I have enough prospective candidates today, so why feed the funnel?”
It’s always better to be prepared, so if you think you’ve got “enough” candidates, would it hurt to have a few more? As Jobvite says, don’t count your chickens before they hatch! With Millennials and Gen Z making up more of the workforce, it’s best to be proactive in your recruiting methods.
Don’t wait for the candidates to come to you—go to them. Jobvite suggests proactively seeking candidates through social media channels, e-mail campaigns, and employee referral programs. According to Jobvite, “many of the best candidates aren’t even looking for a job yet. You need to show the passive prospects what your company is about and why they should care.”
Sin #4: “Who needs PR? Our employment brand is fine.”
Are you sure about this? When was the last time you checked your company’s Glassdoor reviews? Or searched social media websites to see what employees are saying about your company and overall brand? Just because you may not hear bad things firsthand doesn’t mean they aren’t being said at all.
In order to ensure you don’t have a public relations (PR) nightmare on your hands, Jobvite suggests the following ways to ensure that your brand really is “fine”:
- Social media company pages with avid involvement. Make sure you are regularly and appropriately communicating with followers on your social networks. Today’s jobseekers are fluent on these platforms and can quickly be turned off by outdated content or a tone that’s too formal or contrived.
- Easily enable employees to share thoughts on the corporate culture, as well as current job openings. Happy employees can act as an extension of your recruiting team if you empower them with the right tools. Give your workforce the ability to share available positions and other engaging corporate content—such as blog posts or product announcements—within their social networks.
- Branded career sites. Give candidates a seamless experience between your website, your social media presence, and your career pages so they develop trust in your consistency.
After reading through four of Jobvite’s deadly sins, how many are you, or your recruiters, guilty of committing? In part two of this article, we’ll look at the remaining three sins and how you can rectify them in your company.