Hiring and retaining top talent is as tough as it’s always been. Cultivating a company culture that attracts top talent is a practice the top 10 percent of US companies have in common and certainly one of the top candidate sourcing tips to keep in mind. Consider Southwest Airlines, which has recently received more than 50,000 applications for 500 available positions.
Unfortunately, small businesses do not have much luck with traditional recruiting, thus they are required to use other recruitment means, such as trusted networks or job boards. Finding top talent can be a simple recruiting process as long as you have the right tools on hand and you are willing to spend more time implementing an effective campaign.
With as many as 17 percent of candidates typically applying to a job via job boards, it’s important to identify specifically those job boards that your candidates are likely to spend their time on. Niche job boards are industry specific, which gives small business the luxury of targeting the candidates that meet precise criteria. In addition, specialized job boards imply a much smaller pool of candidates, who are better qualified in the specific skill sets desired.
So if you are looking for candidate sourcing tips, consider browsing some of the following job boards:
Social Media is continuing to increase it’s impact as a significant source of attracting talent. As much as 40 percent of recruiters utilize LinkedIn for finding top talent, whereas 30 percent use Facebook, and 13 percent use Twitter. The key to an effective social media recruiting campaign is making candidate experience seamless, and letting them use their social media profiles to apply for the job.
If it’s common in your industry for candidates to focus more on their LinkedIn profiles than resumes, enable them to apply to your jobs with their profiles as an alternative. It will turn recruiting into a simple process, and applicants will find it easy to just use their social media profile instead of completing a form whenever they are interested in a job position. This is one of the easiest candidate sourcing tips if you are a small business or startup looking to hire top talent. You can always request for a complete resume later, if you still need that.
Get your employees involved in the hiring process. Employee referral programs are often one of the most efficient ways to find top talent, leaving the job in the hands of people who understand what your company’s set of values is, and what skills each position requires. Whenever you hire a candidate referred to you by one of your employees, that employee gets a bonus. This is a good way to keep everyone happy and create a work environment that encourages productivity.
As a growing businesses competing for the best talent out there, coming up with unique and interesting candidate sourcing methods is a must – and video provides a great opportunity to showcase your company’s culture. According to Amy Rees Anderson, creating 15-second wacky commercials can pay off big time.
Here’s what she did: her company bought a 15-second spots to play some commercials at a local theater right before the previews, asked her employees to record 6-second videos at home of them “performing” the dumbest talent ever, and compiled a short video using them. The result was better than Anderson expected: the cost was low, the response from recruits was high, and employees had the opportunity be an integral part of the hiring campaign.
With the rise of mobile and wearable devices, an increasing number of potential recruits are now utilizing various apps to find work. So why not make recruiting a simple hiring process that allows candidates to use their preferred app to apply to a job? Brian Murray, Director of Talent and Culture at Likeable Media, says that one of the most efficient candidate sourcing tips is using Snapchat to engage and drive applications. Once they send the applications, candidates are then invited to follow up via Snapchat. This is one of the most effective candidate sourcing tips, as it makes the most out of the recruiting process, providing small businesses with more opportunities to find great talent.
Your careers page is your gateway to a world of potential recruits, and one of the best candidate sourcing tips to consider. A careers site provides potential candidates with a complete representation of your company in an enticing and user-friendly format.
When you implement a careers site, make sure to consistently update job listings. When a position is filled, remove it from the site. Many companies make the mistake of leaving old job listings posted on their websites for months. If you establish a pattern of not consistently updating the job listings posted on your website, you devalue its function, so it is very unlikely that you will receive any applications from potential candidates.
Make the application process a simple, no-frills affair. Instead of requiring them to fill in multiple web pages, let them apply to the job using the LinkedIn profile (see #2 above).
When looking for the best candidate sourcing tips, one aspect to consider is emotional intelligence. Talent isn’t only about knowledge or a specific skill set. Cognitive and social abilities are critical to working well in a company environment. Asking questions about how a candidate would handle a particularly stressful situation may help you determine whether or not he will be able to meet the demand of working for you.
This will allow you to identify the most suitable candidates for available positions – candidates who you can rely on in critical situations where emotional intelligence can make the difference between success and failure.
If your job positions are all filled, this doesn’t mean that you can’t still look for candidates that may be a fit for your company. As a matter of fact, doing so is advisable – not only because you never know when you may need to replace a past employee, but also because your company may expand and you may need more employees. If you’re currently seeking candidates for specific positions, and come across many recruits that may fulfill your needs, put them on the waiting list. It’s always a good idea to have such a list, just in case anything arises.
Recruitment software systems are becoming increasingly popular due to their ability to make recruiting a simple process for everyone. They allow small businesses to make talent acquisition more effective by automating each aspect of the recruiting process. From social recruiting to applicant tracking and candidate management, recruitment software systems are an excellent option if you do not have much time to conduct the hiring process on your own. On top of that, they help you find all-star recruits without having too search for the best candidate sourcing tips too much.
In order to continuously improve the effectiveness of your recruitment process, you definitely need recruitment insights to better understand the impact of various hiring activities. A data-driven process can help a company paint a clearer picture of the hiring process. For instance, how many applications are you receiving for each position and from which sources? Which part of the process is the slowest? Which member of you team is taking the longest to complete their tasks? For each open position, what is the number of applications received? Clear visibility into these numbers can help keep you and your company on track.
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