Use These Steps to Secure Talent Acquisition Success in 2020

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The overwhelming majority of recruiters and hiring managers agree that the recruiting landscape is more competitive than ever before.

Over the course of 2020, we’ll see the talent war intensify. Are you ready to abandon outdated practices, get creative and pull out all the stops to beat your competition to the best talent?

You’ll need to use cutting-edge techniques and strategies if you’re going to succeed.

Talent Acquisition Techniques for 2020

Let’s dig deeper into key techniques and strategies that you can use over the course of 2020 to get the best talent, slash your time to hire and reduce your talent acquisition costs.

Automate tasks to free up your time

2020 is the year to abandon manual processes using automation. This can help you to save time and even eliminate the potential for human error.

Here are three areas you can automate everyday talent acquisition tasks in 2020:

Schedule messages

In an underskilled landscape, the power now lies with skilled candidates who can take their pick of suitors. To put yourself at the top of their list and build a healthy relationship, you’ll want to develop an engagement strategy.

There are several email and messaging automation tools out there that you can use to automate communications. You could use those tools to send out a candidate newsletter, for instance, or divide your candidates into mailing lists according to department and supply them with relevant content.

Qualify using chatbots

Chatbots are very popular in the worlds of marketing and customer support, with an impressive 1.4 billion people using chatbots regularly.

It would help if you considered leveraging the power of those chatbots in the recruitment space, too. You could quickly spin up a chatbot solution to offer 24/7 guidance to your candidates and pre-qualify them.

Chatbots can easily collect core information and then automatically add them into your chosen Applicant Tracking System.

Organise meetings

Scheduling meetings is a tough task that takes up an unreasonable amount of time for lots of recruiters and hiring managers. There are lots of meeting scheduler tools out there that make it easy for other people to book meetings with you and sync those with your calendar.

Polish your employer brand

By now, 59% of recruiting leaders worldwide are investing more in their employer brand. Are you among them? A strong employer brand makes it easier for you to attract the best talent, and it can cut your time to hire.

Audit your reviews

The first step to reinvigorate your employer brand is to perform a preliminary audit. During this audit, you should go through your employer reviews on platforms like Glassdoor and Trustpilot.

Use those reviews as an opportunity to glean valuable insights and focus your efforts to develop a concerted strategy to improve those reviews.

Engage your employees as brand advocates

You might also want to engage your existing employees as brand advocates. You could ask them to leave reviews, for instance, or encourage them to refer their connections and network to your business.

Some businesses develop an influential company culture and an attractive referral system to make this step a reality – could 2020 be the year for you to join them?

Collect and leverage quality data

Each day, an estimated 1.7MB of data is created every second for every person on earth – it’s essential that you make the most of the data that you generate to give your business the competitive edge. Here’s how you can do that.

Record important candidate data

First things first, it’s crucial that you collect the appropriate data about your candidates and their experiences. You’ll want to use a range of software to track essential data, like your ATS and Google Analytics.

You should try to track common metrics such as:

  • Time-to-hire
  • Source of hire
  • Candidate feedback
  • Acceptance rates
  • Cost-per-hire

Dig into your data

Once you’ve collected the appropriate data, it’s vital that you sort through it to uncover essential insights.

You might be able to learn why your time-to-hire is so long, for instance, or which parts of the talent acquisition process you can expedite. Call upon marketing to get help sorting through Google Analytics, too, to understand better where your candidates come from and the path that they take through your website.

Use AI to assist with sourcing

AI sourcing gives recruiters the ability to sort through immense troves of data and collect valuable insights. This can help recruiters and hiring managers to find the perfect talent for their role and make the right decisions.

Not only does AI sourcing improve the quality of candidates, but it can also save significant amounts of time and give businesses the ability to cut their cost-of-hire.

Use Elevate

Elevate empowers some of the world’s leading talent acquisition teams to recruit faster and enjoy full visibility into the talent that they need. This helps those teams to spend more time focused on their recruiting strategy and candidate relationships.

If you’re ready to get started, book a demo to see Elevate in action today and speak with an expert.

Offer an unparalleled candidate experience

It’s more important than ever before that your potential candidates enjoy a seamless candidate experience. That means everything needs to flow smoothly together all the way from the job search and application process to the interview and onboarding.

Leverage programmatic job advertising

If you’re going to attract the best candidates, you’ve got to get your business and your role in front of them. To do this, you will want to consider leveraging the power of programmatic advertising. This can help you to purchase the right ads and get them in front of the right people at the right time without breaking the bank.

Use an ATS

An applicant tracking system can be used by recruiters to track and filter candidates. This makes it easier for recruiters to monitor the candidate as they pass through the hiring flow and collect essential data along the way.

Leverage marketing resources

It’s essential that you engage your candidates and build a relationship with them over time. To do this, you might want to repurpose your marketing content. If your marketing department maintains a blog, why not send essential pieces to your candidates on a regular basis?

This strategy could inspire your candidates to make an application, and your marketing team will be sure to appreciate the additional traffic that you generate for them.

Additional Resources to Prepare for 2020

We hope that those techniques help you to secure talent acquisition success this year. If you’re going to get the best results possible, it’s always essential to understand the industry and broader trends.

Here are four additional resources that you can use to better prepare for talent acquisition in 2020.

Why offer flexible working

Do you know that flexibility is the most in-demand perk for employees today? If you’re going to beat your competition to the best talent this year, you’ll need to develop your flexible working offering. There are also a number of potent benefits for your business, too.

Read our piece to learn more about the benefits of flexible working.

How to maintain a healthy talent pool

The typical hiring process is very long, and it can harm the productivity of your business while generating high costs. Talent pools are a powerful resource to ameliorate the hiring process.

Discover the benefits of talent pools and discover four actionable tips to maintain healthy talent pools.

What to expect from AI sourcing

Boolean searches are challenging to master, more complex to execute, and they return a more limited set of results. AI sourcing is here to take over and deliver superior results for recruiters and hiring managers.

Get to grips with the five key reasons AI sourcing is going to replace Boolean sourcing.

Why agile talent is growing more popular

Agile talent is on the rise, and it’s becoming the go-to choice for businesses around the world. Do you understand the benefits of agile talent?

Read this piece to understand what agile talent can offer your business.

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Half of All Employees Want Flexible Working in 2020. Are You Ready to Deliver?

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If you’re going to attract the best talent, you’ve got to monitor and meet the evolving needs of the workforce. That’s no easy task, though, given that the appetites and expectations of today’s workforce are changing rapidly.

Of all the perks you can offer – such as a diverse workplace and professional training – workplace flexibility has cemented itself as the most desirable among today’s workforce.

An Ernst & Young global survey discovered that more flexibility was the most crucial perk for 9,700 young respondents. Likewise, a 2018 Deloitte survey of 10,000 respondents revealed that a lack of workplace flexibility is the main reason millennials quit their job.

Let’s take a closer look at flexible working to help you develop your approach.

In this post, we’ll cover:

  • What flexible working means,
  • Why the demand for workplace flexibility is rising, and
  • Why you should consider offering it.

What Is Flexible Working?

Flexible working is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs.

With flexible working in place, employees can choose things like their schedule and whether or not they would like to work for home. Those employees use that additional flexibility and autonomy to enjoy a better work-life balance.

Many governments around the world are in the process of adjusting their labour laws and regulations to accommodate flexible working. In the UK, for instance, employees have a legal right to request flexible working from their employers.

Upon receiving that request, employers should handle it in a “reasonable manner”. This means that they should assess the viability of the application, organise a meeting with the employee and also offer an appeal process.

Why the Demand for Flexible Work is Rising

Today’s world is hectic and fast-paced. The pervasive reach of the internet also means that workers often have 24/7 connectivity to their workplace.

This new reality means that a healthy work-life balance has been disrupted. According to statistics from RescueTime, 26% of work is done outside of regular working hours. Meanwhile, another survey found that 33% of salaried workers in the US have to work on the weekend.

This dynamic isn’t sustainable, of course. The constant pressure can cause employees to develop a number of issues, including:

  • Fatigue
  • General unhappiness
  • Irritability
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Heart disease
  • High blood pressure

This is why a number of workers around the world are turning to flexible work to restore a viable work-life balance.

Why Offer Flexible Working

Some employers find that they are nervous about offering flexible working to their employees. That’s not necessary, though, given that employers can also benefit from offering flexible working.

Here are the main benefits of flexible working for employers:

  1. Reduce the risk of burnout

Burnout is caused by periods of prolonged stress and its characterised by emotional, physical and mental exhaustion. Burnout is on the rise in modern workplaces, given its hectic nature.

The human cost of burnout is awful, of course, and it can also eat into the profits of businesses. Employees with burnout lead to higher staff turnover rates, lost revenue, and the potential for expensive errors.

Flexible working can help your team members to manage their workload better and strike a more fulfilling work-life balance.

  1. A more productive workforce

Several studies suggest flexible working can help employees to boost their productivity. A recent report from HSBC discovered that 85% of respondents say flexible working gives them the motivation to improve their productivity, for instance.

If you offer flexible working options to your team members, there’s a good chance that you’ll see their productivity improve.

  1. Boost staff morale

Long hours and a lack of autonomy can cause your employees to feel undervalued and frustrated. Flexible working can help your employees to feel happier and more in control, though, which can boost their morale.

Higher morale can unlock several benefits for your business. You’ll find that your employees will elevate their productivity, produce better work and improve their attendance, for instance.

  1. Boost your employer brand

It’s more complicated than ever before for businesses to find the right talent. Not only is that talent scarce, but there’s also fierce competition between companies to secure the best candidates.

The more perks that you can offer, the easier you’ll find it to beat the competition to the best talent. Flexible working has been highlighted as important to today’s candidates: offer it and you’ll be sure to attract the best.

Leverage Your Employer Brand with Elevate

With your employer brand in check, you’ll be able to find the best candidates. Learn more about Elevate and how our platform can provide you with immediate visibility to the talent you need.

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Five Reasons to Unlock the Power of Legacy Recruitment Data

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Over the course of 2020, an estimated 1.7MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth. This immense volume of data means that businesses now face critical data management challenges.

Are you prepared?

In this brave new data-driven world, recruiters and hiring managers must carefully manage valuable candidate data to find the right talent quickly and at the right price.

In this piece, we’ll take a closer look at what we mean by legacy data then explore five key reasons you should migrate and rejuvenate this data.

What Is Legacy Data?

Essentially, legacy data is data that is currently stored on obsolete systems or outdated formats. As time progresses, it often becomes more challenging to re-access, search and even migrate this data.

Recruiters and hiring managers will often have valuable candidate data hosted on different systems and formats spread across various areas in the business. This data has very little day-to-day value for businesses.

Why Should You Migrate Your Legacy Data?

Legacy data represents an unmissable opportunity for recruiters and hiring managers.

Now that we’ve got a better handle on precisely what we mean by legacy data let’s explore the top reasons that you should rejuvenate it today.

1. Harmonise your data

It’s not at all uncommon for recruiters and hiring managers to have data spread across various obsolete systems. Businesses will store candidate data in the following areas:

  • Applicant tracking systems
  • Physical filing cabinets
  • Different excel documents
  • Cloud storage systems
  • Local hard drives
  • Shared servers

That candidate data is often stored in different file formats and structures, too. This makes it practically impossible for recruiters and hiring managers actually to use that data in any meaningful way.

Many legacy database systems are also based on Boolean search. This method of searching through your data is inefficient and achieves subpar results, while AI sourcing is much more powerful.

With all of your data in a single space, AI sourcing can make it work for you. You’ll be able to do much more like access unique insights, intelligently sort through your candidates, surface the right talent, lower your cost talent acquisition and generate more suitable, candidates for roles you need to fill.

If you want more information in this area, be sure to read our piece on five reasons AI sourcing will replace Boolean sourcing.

2. Capitalise on your past investments

Data is the new oil, and it comes at a cost. Businesses will often invest significant amounts of money into sourcing candidate data using a blend of these tools and techniques:

  • Job boards
  • Networking events
  • Career fairs
  • Referral programmes
  • Digital advertising
  • Physical advertising

All too often, though, businesses fail to maintain that data once they’ve filled an open position. This means that many companies fail to capitalise on their candidate data investments.

It also means that businesses will pay again and again for the same candidate data. This is a very costly way to work, and it pushes your cost per hire much higher than it should be.

If you store your data in a single space and use the appropriate AI sourcing techniques and tools, you’ll extend the ROI of your data collection initiatives and reduce your average cost per hire.

3. Grow your talent pools

The well-documented talent shortage outside of the Coronavirus is the most significant emerging risk for businesses around the world. 54% of companies reported talent shortages last year.

In order to tackle this risk, recruiters and hiring managers must carefully maintain and feed healthy talent pools. These databases empower businesses to organise their talents into distinct groups and nurture each group more effectively.

Growing those talent pools is a significant challenge, though, and you must capitalise on every opportunity to add quality candidate data to them. Migrating legacy data is a great way to stop your talent pools from running dry.

Looking for more information? Check out these six reasons you should develop an alumni talent pool.

4. Prepare for an increasingly data-conscious industry

As the digital world continues to mature, so does our shared understanding of online privacy protection. Most people – including your candidates – now take several steps to protect their digital information.

As one academic study focused on online privacy puts it, “personally managing and protecting online privacy has become an essential part of everyday life.”

The simultaneous emergence of GDPR and other data protection regulations also means that it’s now trickier than ever for recruiters to collect and collate accurate candidate data.

This is why your legacy data is a goldmine.

If you migrate this data effectively, you’ll be able to incorporate valuable and GDPR-compliant data back into your systems. This can give you the edge over your competition and help you to connect with proven talent.

5. Activate your passive data

Data is one of the most precious resources available to your business: you can’t afford to leave it to gather dust. As the renowned data scientist Donato Diorio said: “Without a systematic way to start and keep data clean, bad data will happen.”

By migrating your legacy data today, you’ll be better able to incorporate it into your existing talent pools and using tools like Elevate’s AI sourcing to sort through it intelligently. The more data you have, the more comfortable you’ll find it to fill your open roles with great candidates.

Elevate gives you the power to work smarter and faster by providing immediate visibility to the talent you need. Request your Elevate demo today to learn how our solution can help you to unlock the full value of your legacy data.

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