WINNING THE WAR FOR TALENT HOW TO ATTRACT AND ENGAGE TALENT IN A CANDIDATE-DRIVEN MARKET
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction............................................................3 Anatomy of the Modern Candidate..............5
TACTIC #1: Cast a Wider Net..................................................7
TACTIC #2: Think Like a Marketer.......................................10
TACTIC #3: Empower Your Employees..............................14
TACTIC #4: Nurture Your Talent Community.................19
The power has shifted – it’s a candidate market now.
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INTRODUCTION You’ve definitely noticed it. The dwindling response rate on job postings. The abandonment of long-form job applications. The insurgence of “hip” benefits like office game rooms and unlimited vacation policies. The power has shifted — it’s a candidate’s market now. The recovering economy, the changing face of the modern job seeker, and the changing needs of companies have created an imbalance straight out of an economics textbook – increased demand + decreased supply = prices (or, in this case, competition) soar. According to the most recent jobs report, the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since the economic recession of 2008, which was over 10 years ago! Nearly half a million jobs were added in the first two months of 2017 alone. While that’s great news for the economy, it also means talented candidates have more choices than ever before.
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Professionals are in control and hold the ability to drive their careers forward - Michael Durney
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“When we experience a tight labor market like we are today—with low unemployment rates and companies needing talent to remain competitive— professionals are in control and hold the ability to drive their careers forward,” said Michael Durney, President and CEO of DHI Group, Inc., in a 2017 report. The time-to-fill for open positions has reached an all-time high. It’s harder than ever to reach top talent using traditional methods. 33 percent of people land a job through a third party website or online job boards. 65 percent of Millennials say they hear about jobs through friends. In a recent study, 40% of employers reported “significant trouble” finding talent to fill positions.
More Demand
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What does this mean for companies? • Reduced ability to serve clients • More employee turnover • Reduced competitiveness • Reduced productivity • Increased training and overhead costs. The talent shortage is no small problem. Before getting to possible solutions, however, it’s important to understand the second half of the issue — the changing face of the modern candidate.
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Resources: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/11/19/2-job-seeking-in-the-era-of-smartphones-and-social-media/ https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/recruiting-strategy/2016/7-trends-that-will-define-recruiting-in-2017-infographic http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/11/millennials-surpass-gen-xers-as-the-largest-generation-in-u-s-labor-force/ https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/survey-flexible-jobs-benefit-personal-health-romantic-relationships/
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NEW CANDIDATE? NEW TACTICS.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR RECRUITERS AND HIRING MANAGERS? The competition may be fiercer than ever before, but you can break through the noise – you just have to change your approach. Here are 4 things you can try to thrive in today’s talent market:
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TACTIC #1:
CAST A W I D E R NE T
I do not think it is effective or productive to force your employees one way or another. Choice empowers people and makes for a more content workforce. — Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
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1. CAST THE NET WIDER The easiest way to increase your chances of landing a “big fish” hire? Find a bigger pond. In a world of Snapchat, LinkedIn, and constant email alerts, it’s easier than ever to expand your search outside of your local area. Some of these tactics include: • Optimizing online job postings for discoverability. • Making use of social networks to publicize job openings. • Earning national media attention with a great employer brand. When should you expand your search to include non-local talent? There are three huge segments of the population where you can really benefit from removing location as a requirement.
Graduating Students More established applicants may be reluctant to uproot their lives, but that’s often a non-issue with recent graduates who have yet to establish themselves. Many old-school recruiting tactics (like campus recruiting) can scale nationally and internationally with the right technology. Rather than relying on in-person events that require your staff to physically travel from school to school, consider online, mobile-friendly events as a way to reach more schools and encourage students to join from wherever they are.
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Remote Workers According to Forbes, 68% of workers expect to work from home in the future. As many as 33% are able to currently work from home part-time, and 53% say they expect to become independent, freelance workers in the next five years. When deciding whether a position should be remote, ask yourself: does this job really require the employee to be on-site? Research indicates that remote workers are often more effective than those who are stuck in an office. In this TINYpulse report, an overwhelming 91% of workers said they were more productive when working from home. While not for everyone, remote work can certainly widen your net of potential candidates. In roles where remote work is feasible, including it in your team building strategy can lead to attracting more candidates, expanding your geographical options, and ultimately saving your company money.
Millennial Movers More than any generation before them, Millennials crave adventure – and what’s more adventurous than moving across the country for a new, exciting More than any opportunity? generation before Historically, recruiters them, Millennials have often discounted crave adventure. applicants who don’t already live in the desired area (unless the position is senior enough to merit the expense of relocation), but you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how many millennials will pack up and take a leap of faith for a job they love. W I N N I N G
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TACTIC #2:
T HI NK LI K E A M ARKE T ER
Recruiters must think and act like marketers. — Charlene Li, Founder and CEO of Altimiter Group
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2. THINK LIKE A MARKETER At first glance, recruiting and marketing may not seem to have a lot in common. One is focused on building an effective workforce, while the other creates demand for a company’s products and services. Over the past few years, however, “recruitment marketing” has been gaining steam — and for good reason. Today’s potential candidates employ the same tactics when searching for a new job as today’s consumers do when searching for new products. There’s a methodology in modern marketing called inbound marketing. Inbound marketing sprung up as a reaction to the changing way we as consumers make buying decisions. Before the internet, sales had all the cards — they had way more information than buyers did, and buyers had to rely on their expertise in order to make any decisions. Today, with access to unprecedented information online, buyers complete 70% of the buying process before they even make contact with a sales person.
Sound familiar? The internet changed the way that candidates search for jobs in almost exactly the same way it changed the buyer’s journey. In a Google-first world, your employer brand is more important than ever before. You can apply the same savvy tactics as today’s top marketers to reach candidates (and especially passive candidates) at the various stages of what we’re going to call the Candidate’s Journey. W I N N I N G
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Let’s break the Candidate’s Journey down into three phases: Awareness
Consideration
The candidate is experiencing symptoms of a problem or an opportunity. For Instance, maybe she’s actively unhappy at her current job. Or perhaps, she’s looking to better align her career with her goals and values. In other words, she’s looking for a conversation, not an application.
The candidate is fully aware of and has named her problem. She is now searching for possible solutions or opportunities to fix her problem. She could be researching grad schools, looking into opportunities at her own company or educating herself on similar roles at different companies. Better yet, she can be looking into all of these options at once. If she’s filling out applications, she’s doing so fairly passively — she wouldn’t turn down the right opportunity if it fell in her lap, but he’s not in true “job search” mode yet.
At this stage, the candidate is not necessarily searching for a new job. She could be searching for career advice, reaching out to her network, or searching for a mentor. She’s looking for a conversation, not an application, at this stage.
Decision The candidate has decided what she wants next and is weighing her options. Typically, this is where most candidates connect with companies like yours. The candidate is filling out applications, going on interviews, and negotiating offers. If you wait until the candidate has reached the Decision stage to reach him or her, you’re likely too late. W I N N I N G
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The 4 Stages of the Recruitment Funnel Once you’ve identified what your ideal candidate looks like and what she’s doing at each stage of the Candidate’s Journey, you can design your recruitment funnel to target her specifically. This way, you’re not waiting for a hiring emergency to start communicating with your ideal candidate. You’re engaging her from the beginning of her journey, exponentially increasing the chances of her receptiveness when you have a position (or 100) to fill.
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TACTIC #3:
E M PO W E R YO U R EMPLOYEES
Advocacy is born from culture, not technology or marketing. — Jay Baer, Founder of Convince & Convert
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3. EMPOWER YOUR EMPLOYEES Your employees are your best advocates. If you can empower them to share your employer brand with others, you’ll find your reach increases exponentially. First — you can’t fake this. You have to already be making strides to keep your employees happy. There are a lot of ways to create a desirable work culture in Transparency and today’s day and age, but if you don’t have authenticity go hand it, no amount of marketing or cajoling can in hand — you have to make it look like you do. Transparency and have one for the other authenticity go hand in hand — you have to to be effective. have one for the other to be effective.
Already have a brag-worthy culture? Great! Show it off by creating a recruiting culture in your organization. W I N N I N G
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When effective, awesome people join your company Your current employees know what it takes to be successful at your company. So why wait until late in the game to involve them in the hiring process? By creating a company-wide responsibility to build a great internal team, you put the power in the hands of your employees to find and encourage the best people to apply. After all — everyone benefits when effective, awesome people come on.
How does this work in practice?
Your current employees know what it takes to be successful at your company so why wait until late in the game to involve them in the hiring process?
• Advertise new opportunities as soon as they become available. This is as valuable for internal mobility as it is for giving your employees the first shot at submitting a top-notch referral. • Train employees on company values. Help everyone know what to look for by institutionalizing company culture. Many companies have gone so far as to create an official culture code, documenting the traits that make someone a great teammate. Bake these values into your culture by rewarding them publicly and often. Employees from different departments may not be able to interview for specific job requirements, but they can certainly be called in to help determine cultural fit. • Train employees on hiring best practices. Interviewing is a learned skill. The same way you hold management training or skills workshops, you can help your employees become more effective interviewers by sharing sample questions and successful techniques. W I N N I N G
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Bold transparency is the key to driving employee engagement.
Incentivize Referrals Think of this as similar to revenue sharing. Everyone benefits when you make a great hire. Pay it forward by offering rewards to referring employees, monetary or otherwise. “We have a referral scheme in which employees receive a bonus if a person recommended by them gets hired,” says Margaret Buj, a Senior Recruiter and Interview Coach. “This scheme is being promoted across the business to create a ‘recruiting culture’ within the company.” Want to take this a step further? Some companies offer lesser incentives (like branded swag or Amazon gift cards) just for employees’ referring someone who gets interviewed. Others offer tiered referral programs to put extra emphasis on hard- to-fill positions. Still others hold “referral contests” to activate employees to help solve urgent hiring needs. Which is the right solution for your organization? That depends entirely on your goals and priorities!
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- Jason Seiden, Brand Amper co-founder
Invest in Transparency The best employer brands have one clear thing in common — they are boldly transparent about who they are and what it’s like to work there. “Bold transparency is the key to driving employee engagement through the sharing of employer brand stories,” said Brand Amper co-founder Jason Seiden in a session at the HR Technology Conference. “Bold transparency is the key to driving employee engagement.” Transparency is, quite simply, about breaking through the barriers that separate candidate from company and being real, honest, and, you know, human. Serial entrepreneur Neil Patel put it best in a Fast Company article: “The reason why transparency is so appealing is largely due to cultural trends and human behavior,” Patel said.
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We like people who are transparent, so it makes sense that we like companies that are transparent, too. It’s not about some new ‘hack’ or ‘technique.’ It’s about being a real person, a real leader, and a real company. — Neil Patel
How can you be a more transparent company? • Be transparent about expectations. Do managers at your company encourage or frown upon remote work? Do people leave by “beer o’clock” on Friday, or do they tend to stick around until late? Will employees be expected to be available to answer emails on nights and weekends? There aren’t necessarily any wrong answers to these questions — but it’s important to be honest up front about what it’s really like to work at your company. You’ll make new hires feel more secure and prevent turnover down the line. • Be transparent about goals. “Where do you want to be in five years?” is a pretty standard interview question. Try turning it around on yourself — where does your company see itself in five years? How about fifty? Be upfront about what the company’s true mission is and what that looks like over the course of the company’s lifetime or a person’s career. • Be transparent about people. At Brazen, we frequently hold company-wide hiring events using our online networking platform. Anyone at the company can jump in to interview prospective candidates during these live events. This serves a dual purpose: everyone at Brazen is given a stake in the hiring process, and potential hires are able to interact firsthand with the people they’ll be working with most closely. As a result, we have a close-knit team and a low turnover rate. Most people leave jobs because of problems with coworkers rather than the work itself — it pays to spend a little extra time upfront to make sure you’ve found the right fit. W I N N I N G
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TACTIC #4:
NU RTU RE YO UR TA LE NT CO M M UNI T Y
“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” — Isaac Newton
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4. NURTURE YOUR TALENT COMMUNITY Which would you rather be treated as: an anonymous applicant or a real, human person? Go ahead and think that over. This ebook is not going anywhere. Didn’t need to give that much thought, huh? Nobody wants to be reduced to a target audience, a demographic, or a list of their accomplishments. Top candidates want to connect with your company on a one-on-one basis. How can you facilitate this kind of high-touch candidate experience in a scalable way?
Soften the Ask The abandonment rates for online job applications are staggering. According to AppCast, completion rates drop by 50% when an employer asks 50 or more questions. They suggest keeping it to less than 25.
Completion rates drop by 50% when an employer asks 50 or more questions. - AppCast
But face it — job applications are a terrible way to begin a relationship. Starting with something softer can help you make contact earlier in the candidate journey, increasing your chances of getting them in the door when application time comes.
One foolproof strategy? Change the call to action. Try offering candidates a conversation rather than a job application. Help them connect to your culture through social media, culture content, and even live, online events. Here at Brazen, we’ve found that candidates are twice as likely to attend an online event than apply for a job online.
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Treat Candidates Like Customers The statistics for call backs can be disheartening. According to The Talent Board, 92% of candidates are never contacted after applying for a job. After painstakingly filling out an application, most of theses candidates don’t receive any further contact than an automated receipt. Of the candidates who did make it to the interview process, only one in five reported receiving a quality final communication. Not exactly a positive experience!
92% of candidates are never contacted after applying for a job. After painstakingly filling out an application, most of these candidates don’t receive any further contact. — The Talent Board This is a problem for several reasons. For one, candidates who enjoy their interactions with a potential employer are much more likely to advocate for your employer brand. With 78.6% of job applicants making the decision to apply based on what they find in their personal research, you need to make the most of every opportunity for a favorable Glassdoor review. Equally important — candidates who have a good experience are more likely to reapply at a later date. Which brings us to our last tip… W I N N I N G
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Re-Engage “Boomerang” Candidates Repeat after me: candidates are not disposable. Today’s wrong fit might be the perfect fit for a later opportunity (or they might know someone who is). Think of candidates less as one-time options for specific jobs and more as members of your unique, evergreen talent community. According to The Talent Board, only 1 in 12 candidates get invited back for an interview.
Only 1 in 12 candidates get invited back for an interview. - The Talent Board
By treating candidates as a talent community rather than one-time shots, you can potentially spend 12x less in recruiting costs.
Re-Engagement Tactics to Try • Maintain regular contact with candidates to stay top of mind. • Ask for feedback on candidates’ experiences (and actually act on it) • Treat your talent pool like VIPs by notifying them first when new positions open up. • Invite candidates to take part in networking events, surveys, social media campaigns, and other low-barrier engagement points.
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THANKS FOR READING! The power has shifted from employers to candidates — but with these tactics, you can become an employer of choice and attract even the most sought-after candidates. For more on creating engaged talent communities, subscribe to the Brazen Blog for weekly advice and ideas.
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