The Future of Recruiting
It’s the year 3000. You need hundreds, maybe thousands, of employees for your workplace. You’ve tried what seems to have worked in the past to no avail. So, where do you turn?
Hiring is hard, there is no getting around it. But, for some reason, the way people hire talent seems to be a unnecessarily slow-moving process. The innovation and ideas spinning around how people hire is a more lethargic process than in most areas of business. Why? Most people have a mentality that “if it’s not broke don’t fix it.” While this mentality makes sense in the short term, when it comes to crunch time, these tactics will fall short. It is imperative that before you reach the end of your rope in the year 3000, you start to explore how you can stay ahead of the hiring and recruitment process.
As we survey current and future landscapes, we can’t help but notice that many brands aren’t taking advantage of social media for hiring. We are not talking about putting a job posting on LinkedIn or Facebook. We are talking about creating a strategy for showing how your culture and companies’ brand create a place someone wants to work. The younger generations aren’t seeking out job postings by blindly placing applications. They are focused on the ‘what’ of an organization. The intangibles that make a business tick. Younger generations want to feel welcomed, appreciated, and part of a team. Thinking that a job posting can convey that ideal is a wrong approach and will leave you struggling.
So you start showcasing the greatness of your company on social. That’s a great first step. Next: how are you communicating with potential employees? Are you sending a lackluster email weeks or even months after they apply, and only in order to shoot them down? If you are still relying on the old and boring emails to communicate, you are not giving potential employees what they crave. We live in an on-demand world. This means people have expectations for quick answers, and they expect those answers to reach them where they hang out. If you have a three-month hiring process, update your applicants weekly over text. Don’t take the old way even if you’re swamped with applicants. Take the time to keep people informed and part of the process. These little steps entice top talent to pick you over someone else.
So, you got a desired candidates in your applicant pool through social media use, and you are meeting people where they are… Now what? Ask yourself this: how involved is your leadership team in hiring? If your answer is not at all, it’s time to evaluate how you are attracting talent. Potential employees want to see transparent leadership who cares about who is being hired. Internal marketing is one of the biggest misses in today’s world . Building the confidence of your team by showing you care ties back to the brand from the outside. People will be attracted to a workplace that provides them value and opportunities for success. This mentality starts before someone is hired by having leadership take an active role in the hiring process. Have your business leaders answer tough questions and be open to feedback. Without these avenues, you will only attract mediocre talent.
This is the hard part. The one where we challenge you to leave this article and take a hard look at what your teams are doing. Don’t convince yourself that what you are doing is working (unless it really is). Be honest with yourself — ask someone you didn’t hire how your hiring process is working.
