With many Americans getting vaccinated and back to work, employers have readily opened their doors for new hires. In many cities, if you take a drive down their roads, you’ll see places hiring everywhere.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of job openings was 10.7 million at the end of June. Combining those who hadn’t yet gotten back into the workforce with the people who were set on leaving their places of work, the United States is left with a ton of job openings.
In this instance, this becomes very beneficial for candidates and job applicants. Not only do they have their choice of where to go in most cases, but most candidates nowadays are opting to find places that fit them best. For recruiters, this can be a challenge to really nail down on placement strategies.
Here are our tips to helping you through this candidate’s market:
Ways to navigate corporate hiring in a candidates market
This sort of market should keep recruiters on their toes. Staying a couple steps ahead of the game and doing some active searching and combing through of candidate pools is a great way to stay on top of the applicants that might be looking to be placed.
Communication
Too often, many recruiters miss out on great candidates by simply sending a blanket message to many different recipients via email or LinkedIn. In the information age, people will most likely ignore or get rid of these blanket messages because they don’t feel personal. People will endure a longer application process if they feel their time and experience is valued.
Simplicity
When it comes to rounds of applications, often times it gets to be just too much. With 5+ rounds of interview and many different discussions and notes to keep track of – it can get to be a lot. Instead, trying a different approach to the hiring pipeline such as pre-application questionnaires would be a great way to cut down on the preliminary applicants and focus more time and attention on the better qualified candidates.
This also makes it possible to reduce the amount of interviews and meetings you have with an applicant; turning a draining interview process into a more worthwhile one. Most often these sort of pre-interview processes are overlooked but can save time for both the candidate and the employer.
Insight
Many future employees want to know what it’s like to actually be a worker at your company. What is the culture like, what do day-to-day operations typically look like, how will they likely be a fit in the company, etc. These sorts of things are important to keep in mind during an interview or pre-interview process when informing someone about company.
By really knowing what somebody appreciates about the employer or finds great about a role, might be the description you need to fill somebody else in and get them onboarded. Simple things like these make all the difference when trying to get the right candidates to come to work for you!
Be Intentional
This is really important. As I alluded to earlier, you should be more personal with your messages, while also being intentional. This is often one in the same. When reaching out to candidates, be purposeful and they’ll reflect that if they are indeed interested in an offer you throw their way.
For the majority of candidates, this is what will get them to apply for a job offer that you have. An inviting embrace is a surefire way to at least get them to read or listen to what you have to say. Along with this, messaging should always be kept quick and consistent. Nobody likes long messages, just like nobody likes getting ghosted for a week.
Keeping on top of this area of communication is important in setting the initial impressions you might have on any candidates.
Be unique
If you’re going to get candidates attention, you can’t just simply put a job listing out there in this market. This will require some active recruiting, some messaging and maybe some advertising as well. The more unique ways you can get the word out there that you’re hiring, the better.
The competition nowadays is for attention, and for some people, that window of opportunity is slim to none. So whether it is for advertising or better job boards, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting people’s attention to make an impact.
Keep yourself ahead of competitors
These tips will help you navigate this market, but often it cannot keep you on top of whatever your competition is doing. A sure way to keep your effort levels high and keep track of the applicants coming through is to use an ATS. With the help of recruiting software, you’ll be sure to save time in your hiring process.
With things such as pre-interview questionnaires and job board functionality already baked into the software, the process by which you scan through applicants is made so much easier. Keeping on top of your hiring could never be easier.