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Keeping Candidates Engaged During COVID-19

April 9, 2020 by Amber Lamb

Despite hard times, many companies are still hiring because two things are certain:

  1. Top talent is always hard to find, no matter the situation.
  2. Right now, people are working from home – with a lot of time to look at new opportunities!

In order to stay on top of the market and keep your company thriving throughout these difficult market conditions, follow these steps to ensure that your candidate pipeline is profitable.

Keeping Candidates Engaged - Infographic

Run Business as Usual with Interviews

If you want to stay competitive when the market begins to strengthen, your pipeline has to be strong. While there’s no need to worry about onboarding, you should be keeping your open roles active, so that when the time comes to fill them you are not left struggling. Continuing to conduct interviews as normal is beneficial to your business because it shows you care. Showing concern and acknowledging your candidate’s priorities like family, health, and their overall schedule gives a good indication on how you would treat them as an employee as well.

“53% of employees say a role that allows them to have greater work-life balance and better personal well-being is “very important” to them,” says a Gallup survey. They believe, “it's critical for employees to know an organization "walks the talk" on greater work-life balance and well-being.”

 

Stay In-Touch with Candidates

Recruiters need to keep qualified candidates “warm” in order to maintain the relationship and line of communication. Make sure to contact them once every 7-10 days to see if their job status has changed. Become their career consultant and try offering them coaching on other roles, so they learn to contact you first before accepting another job. If possible, offer them tools to develop their skills through online courses, professional interview prep, resume building, and more.

 

Get Creative

HR professionals should meet with internal teams to see where the standing needs still are. Depending on the role, there may be opportunity for remote work, contracting for projects, and other small support positions that can keep the candidate engaged with the company and the prospective role. An added bonus with this strategy – you get to see some samples of their skills as it directly applies to your business.

 

Maintain the Human Connection

With phone calls and emails, it’s hard to feel connected to the culture of a company, let alone coworkers, management, and other team members. Try utilizing video chats rather than phone calls whenever possible – whether that be in an interview, in a follow up, or for a check-in. This way, the candidate will feel more personally connected to you, the company, and the role. Better yet – when you’re able to look them in the eye without meeting in person, you will have a better read on their interest through facial expressions and level of engagement.

 

Keep it Positive

Be honest with candidates throughout the process of interviewing and prospecting – but keep it positive! Regardless of whether or not the relationship ends in a hire, you can never take back your tone once communication begins. According to a survey by Digitate, “organizations with poorly-handled onboarding are twice as likely to cause new hires to seek new opportunities ‘in the near future’.” Of course, when in difficult times, there are aspects of any organization that are strained. Rather than share the negative flat out – display how your organization is combating the hardship with optimism and employee care.

Click Here to Download the Candidate Engagement Guide

If you or your business are struggling with giving candidates the proper attention they need during this pandemic, a recruiter can help. At Blue Signal, we specialize in candidate engagement. We market your business, keep in contact with prospects, can provide talent market insights, and are your key to keeping your pipeline robust. Give us a call today to explore how we can support your hiring needs.

Filed Under: Blog Posts, Career Advice Tagged With: Coronavirus, Covid-19, hiring, hiring tips, pipeline, tips

How to Improve Your Talent Recruiting Strategy

December 28, 2016 by Lacey Walters

Why is a talent recruiting strategy important? No matter the challenges of the economy and the market, hiring managers need to attract top talent to move their business goals forward. Without good people at every level, the company will miss out on its top potential. This isn’t something that can happen overnight, it takes a unified long-term plan.

 

Company Website

Start with the company website. This is the first place most candidates will go to learn about a company. If there is no Careers page, create one. It should be a user-friendly invitation to learn about the company as a whole – not just be a list of job openings. The Careers page should tell a story about all the great reasons to work for the company.

Paint a picture of what the company offers as a total experience: the company history, office culture, value of products, employee testimonials, and the geographical setting. Demonstrate why the company is good to work for through social media, photos, company news, industry awards, company events, and employee testimonials. Talk about what the company offers, not just the openings.

 

Job Ads

Analyze job openings advertised by the company. Is the focus on requirements or on selling the highlights of the job to top candidates? In a candidate-driven market, top talent is likely to pass over job postings full of must-haves and buzzwords. Instead, write job descriptions to highlight challenges, experiences, authority, and advancement opportunities. Attract and sell first, screen second.

Consider passive candidates who are working for the competition right now. What do they want to hear? What opportunities can the company offer them that they are missing out on right now?

Talent Recruiting - job boards

When posting an ad, have a current employee apply for the job through the site and report back if they had any difficulties. Some online forms are long and difficult. Candidates do not want to go through pages and pages of manual data entry when everything is already listed on the resume. Streamline the process as much as possible.

 

Internal Referral Programs

An internal referral program is a low-expense and high-reward talent recruiting source. Internal referrals have the highest percentage of successful hires of any sourcing method.

Firstly, offer an incentive bonus to employees when they refer a candidate. Make sure that the employees know the program exists, and remind them of it often. It shows employees that their contribution is appreciated.

Second, thank employees publicly for referrals. Take time to seriously review referred resumes and follow up with the employee who referred them. While an incentive is important, most employees make referrals because they think someone is genuinely a good fit for the company.

Lastly, keep in touch with exceptional employees who have left the company. They are often a trustworthy source of referrals.

 

Third-Party Recruiters

Recruiters are an effective way to source high-quality candidates, but they need information from the hiring manager in order to succeed. Take time for an in-depth consultation call so they completely understand the requirement. Make sure that they know the top selling points of the job and have a compelling story to present to candidates.

talent recruiting - recruitersTrying to find a good recruiter on a deadline during a crisis is not a good idea. Build a relationship with a recruiter ahead of time. A good recruiter will always be open to potential future job openings, and they will have the benefit of extra time to get to know the company before a job opening comes along. Choose a recruiter who knows the industry well and who has a strong pipeline of candidates that could fill the company’s tough positions.

Track the effectiveness of all talent recruiting channels. Measure the number of hires, the cost per hire, the tenure of the employees hired, and if possible, a cost and revenue analysis. This puts the company in a better place to set appropriate budgets and prioritize methods that work.

 

Need to get your candidate recruiting strategy on track? Contact us at [email protected].

 

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: candidate, employer, hiring, hiring manager, job, job offer, offer package, pipeline, recruiting, strategy

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