In a candidate led market, it’s important to act quickly and be proactive in your selection and attraction process. Engage and attract candidates through a variety of methods, widening your search in order to grab candidates’ attention, allowing you to put them forward to your client before other recruiters have the opportunity.
With so much competition searching within the same talent pool it is becoming more difficult to fill vacancies against client demands and deadlines.
This doesn’t need to be the case, here are the top ways you can avoid missing applicants, get ahead of the game and fill your vacancies with top quality CVs.
Test New Advertising Job Boards
Casting the net wide is the best way to reach your target audience and by exclusively using just one or two job boards or worse just your company career site, you could be losing out on talent. Monitoring your response levels and the quality you are receiving from each job board will allow you to adapt your advertising methods based on these analytics.
Consider new social media platforms or job boards, trialing each platform and recording the impact. New job boards are being introduced frequently, be ahead of your competitors by reaching out to new job boards and requesting a trial. Look at job boards specific to the industry you recruit, those within your local catchment area as well as national sites.
Speak directly to candidates about their job search, questioning the methods and platforms they are currently using and utilizing this insight to your advantage. Also, research competitors and the tools they are employing to entice candidates to their vacancies and look how to incorporate these methods to attraction plan.
Keep in Touch with your Database
Your database is worthless unless you are constantly interacting and keep them up to date with new opportunities. You want to be the first recruiter a candidate considers when they are looking for work, making sure to stay at the top of their inbox.
Tailoring email marketing by job sector or industry will produce better results, keep regular communication and promote roles to groups of candidates with the skill set required.
Create weekly roundup emails, so candidate don’t miss specific jobs but don’t limit your communication to available vacancies. Include relevant sector-specific news updates, articles or career advice within your communication to engage and draw the attention of those not actively on the job market.
Avoid spamming your database with irrelevant job postings and instead adapt your communication to individual groups of candidates, personalizing where possible and be more targeted in your approach.
Clear your Inbox Daily
Especially during peak periods, clearing your inbox may not be a priority but in a candidate-led market, available applicants aren’t sticking around for long. Respond to candidates quickly, being the first recruiter they speak to. Being the first to connect and building up a strong rapport will mean candidates are less likely to reach out to other recruiters.
Reacting quickly is essential, picking up the phone after receiving a strong CV and then following up with email communication will get you ahead of the game, so don’t leave you emails to pill up as the candidate might already have been snapped up if you take to long to reply.
Be More Active on LinkedIn
With 500 million users and 10 million job postings, LinkedIn should be an essential part of your recruitment strategy. But your LinkedIn usage shouldn’t be limited to posting adverts, LinkedIn isn’t just a job board but rather a social community. Connect with users with the relevant skills that match your client’s requirements and keep them engaged by being consistent in your posting.
Don’t be too promotion heavy and share a mixture of articles, career-related resources, and success stories. Stories about candidates you have successfully helped secure employment or pictures of client visits will act as a testimonial for new candidates and company updates will give them an insight into your business.
Sharing tools or articles, whether in relation to CV writing or interview tips will help your posts reach a wider audience, allowing you to build your network and showcase your live vacancies.
Set up an Attractive Candidate Referral Scheme
Good people know good people, so an attractive referral scheme will encourage current recruits to assist you in spotting talent. Promoting both through your current database and on Social Media will act as an incentive for recruits to bring forward new applications, some of which may be passive candidates.
The incentive could take the form of a monetary bonus or vouchers but ensure you include terms and conditions in relation to lengths of service for bonus payments.
A referral scheme will inspire current recruits to share vacancies to their network, which could result in additional online exposure.
About the author: Andrew Fennell is an experienced recruiter and founder of CV writing service StandOut CV. He also contributes to a number of leading career pages such as The Guardian, Business Insider, and Huffington Post.
