We’ve all heard the phrase Talent Acquisition, but what exactly is it? Is it just the same as when HR changed to Personnel? It is just the current way to say recruitment? Or is it something that we should all be aware of in the current employment market.
What is Talent Acquisition?
If you are still using a standard linear approach (aka recruiting) then you are probably missing a trick in attracting candidates and building a pipeline for the future. Whilst this approach may work for those urgent, easy to fill roles, attracting talent for the harder to fill roles can prove particularly challenging. This is where a Talent Acquisition strategy really comes into it’s own.
Talent Acquisition starts with understanding your people plans for the next 12 months+ and developing a strategy to help ensure that you will be able to attract people with the right skills and experience to help you achieve your growth plans.
Employer Brand
We talked in previous blogs about Employer Branding and for a talent acquisition strategy to really be successful, your employer brand needs to be clear and attractive. Give people a real idea about what life is like behind your doors and foster an image and culture and those perfect candidates will be approaching you.
When you last booked a holiday, did you research the company on the internet? The same applies to applying for a job. We only need to look at the success of Glassdoor to realise how important this has become. According to their research –
61%Seek company reviews
61% of Glassdoor users report that they seek company reviews and ratings before making a decision to apply for a job
Nearly 80% of Millennials looks for people and culture fit with employers, followed by career potential
80%Look for people and culture fit
Job Advertising
To attract talent, advertising on online job boards has become the norm and with the rise and rise of sites like Indeed, this is unlikely to change anytime soon. But just like social media where you usually use one channel more than others – are you more a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram follower? – job seekers tend to have a preferred channel to search for roles. Which one do you choose when budget is limited? There is no right answer.
Job board advertising is a fantastic tool, but it’s only beneficial if you get both the quantity and quality of applicant and getting this right so that your advert is successful can be as convoluted as getting your website on page 1 of Google. Were you aware that SEO and keywords affect your advert visibility too? How many times have you placed an advert expecting to be inundated with CV’s only to be disappointed with a total of 6 applicants, all from unsuitable candidates?
There is a huge amount of noise out there in the market place; competition for talent is tough and having a specialist on board when writing and distributing your adverts will make a huge difference.
Even after getting all that right, adverts on job boards are usually at their most effective for the first 24-48 hours only and then it’s swamped by other adverts and your applicant numbers drop off. Knowing how to keep it active is one of the best secrets to keeping momentum in your number of applications.
Now that you have your advert written, optimised and active, how do you keep track of all those applications and how to you ensure you can go back in a few months time and find that person who was great, but just not for the role you had active at the time.
Applicant Tracking Systems
Worth their weight in gold, applicant tracking systems do exactly what it says on the tin – they keep track of your applications. No more searching through your InBox for that CV you just know you read a few hours earlier! Usually online, applications are centralised, you know how many applications have come from which job board and you can even link it to your own careers page and social media channels. You can score applicants according to your criteria and you can even share this with other hiring managers and interviewers.
But where they really come into their own is for talent acquisition and planning headcount for the future. You can create tags for each of your applications and can save them to lists based on their skillset, location, or any other criteria that may be of use to you. That way, in 2 months when you are recruiting for another role, there may be previous applications that you have identified as strong that you can approach directly and save on your recruitment costs.
There’s also another thing that an ATS can do for you that will not only help with your recruitment but will help support your employer brand.
Candidate Experience
You only have to look at LinkedIn to see that there appears to be a lot of companies who don’t respond to their job applications. This can cause negative feelings towards those companies and could even prevent a good candidate from applying in the future.
I’m sure you will have heard, or seen people on social media saying that they have applied for x amount of jobs only to hear nothing back and this is creating a huge opportunity to stand out from the crowd. With the addition of an ATS, this is a fairly simple process and can even be automated.
You only have to look at LinkedIn to see that there appears to be a lot of companies who don’t respond to their job applications. This can cause negative feelings towards those companies and could even prevent a good candidate from applying in the future.
I’m sure you will have heard, or seen people on social media saying that they have applied for x amount of jobs only to hear nothing back and this is creating a huge opportunity to stand out from the crowd. With the addition of an ATS, this is a fairly simple process and can even be automated.
Saying thank you can make the world of difference to your employer brand and subsequent talent acquisition.
If set up correctly, your ATS can ensure that all applications receive an automated thank you email when submitting their CV allowing you to manage expectations with regards to time to feedback and further strengthen your employer brand. There’s also lots of other email templates you can use with regards to selection (or not) for interview. Seems simple, but you will be amazed how many companies don’t do it and what difference it can make.
JobHoller are marketing and recruitment experts who combine these skills with technology to help you to develop and execute the perfect talent acquisition strategy. Our intuitive platform enables you to manage everything from applicant tracking, content creation and internal HR process all in one place – holler.global
