For this event, we asked industry trainers to give a crash course on the essential techniques and technology needed to make anyone a great sourcer. The full-day event featured training sessions by experts: Vanessa Raath, Carrie Collier, Shally Steckerl, Brian Fink,  Erin Mathew, Junius Currier and Mark Hamel. They gave their best insights on how to improve sourcing efficiency and effectiveness for everyone from beginner sourcers to seasoned professionals.

The main theme of the day was highlighting the rich community that comes with sourcing and recruiting. The presenters made it clear that the community can be a great source of support, assistance and knowledge.

The usage of AI to streamline the process was also a large part of the discussion throughout the event. With almost every presenter mentioning OpenAI’s GPT language models, it’s clear that this kind of technology will have an impact on sourcing and widespread change is fast approaching.

Highlights & Takeaways

• Carrie Collier and Vanessa Raath kicked off the event with a presentation on personalization, organization and curiosity. With it, they showed some of their favorite tools and chrome extensions to make sourcing more efficient, including Magical. The pair also shared their experiences with getting into the industry and building their personal brand as well as the power of becoming part of the community to trade techniques and share expertise. Their biggest recommendation to the audience was simple: “Stay curious!”
• ChatGPT made an appearance in Shally Steckerl’s session about automating tedious sourcing tasks such as pre-screening and candidate outreach. In his training session, he demonstrated some examples of prompts to give ChatGPT that yield the best results. His advice was if you frequently do a repetitive task, ask that question of ChatGPT to save time.
• Brian Fink and Erin Mathew discussed building a better understanding of the roles you are sourcing for, giving tips and tricks for breaking down a role to learn the essential skills and qualifications. This duo recommended using Reddit to find inside information on jobs, as the website is often used as a place for workers to vent about problems within their job or field.
• Finally, Junius Currier and Mark Hamel wrapped up the event with a run-down of sourcing fundamentals along with their favorite tips, tricks and tools. They highlighted start.me, GoLinks, Remove Breadcrumbs, OSINT and many more of the tools and extensions they use in their personal sourcing practices. In addition, they discussed the immense importance of building relationships in the sourcing community to stay on top of changes and trends in sourcing.

Looking Forward

Join us for all the HRTX events in 2023, both virtual and  in-person. We are excited to bring our signature event back to Boston this May as our first in person event since 2019! Sign up now to be notified when tickets are available!

You can also sign up for a Sourcing Masterclass this month with Shally Steckerl to learn how to find the candidates your competitors can’t.

The post Getting Back to Basics at #HRTX March 2023: The Essentials of a Great Sourcer appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Looking for ways to optimize your recruitment efforts? Discover the power of strategic benchmarking in recruitment with our insightful webinar, led by industry expert Shally Steckerl.

Learn how to enhance your talent acquisition strategies by establishing effective benchmarks, aligning recruitment with organizational goals, and identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) for success.

Session Highlights:

• Master the art of strategic benchmarking in recruitment
• Understand the importance of aligning recruitment efforts with organizational goals
• Learn to identify and monitor progress using KPIs
• Gain insights into key metrics, such as process effectiveness, quality of hire, funnel metrics, time to fill, and productivity
• Explore the shift from reactive to proactive recruitment and the eight stages of growth
• Develop techniques to connect recruitment with executive leadership and focus on measuring outcomes over actions
• Get valuable insights on questions to ask when considering outsourcing recruitment processes, both internally and externally

Watch this essential learning session and elevate your talent acquisition skills with strategic benchmarking.

The post Sourcing Effectiveness: Benchmark Your Process for Strategic Recruiting appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Welcome to the 2023 Boolean Beginner’s Bash with your host and party animal Brian Fink, Senior Talent Acquisition Partner at McAfee.

Brian crashed RecruitingDaily with a hardcore Boolean hoedown, and we’ve saved the recording for you. You’ll learn logic and techniques to locate, attract, and engage groovy talent on the web.

You’re about to find a wealth of information on Boolean searches and complex dorks.

What You’ll Learn

• Use Boolean operators, modifiers, search characters, and commands to create candidate searches.
• Explore Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and You to uncover profiles and the people behind them.
• Deep dive into a dance floor of alternative social networks
• Build keyword strings to enhance search results to find technical, marketing, sales, and medical professionals.
• Find free – yes, free – resumes across the web and inside secret spaces!
• LIVE Sourcing during Q&A

The post Brian Fink’s Boolean Beginners Bash 2023 appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

The product uses AI to identify passive job-seekers from its database of 1.5 billion profiles. In addition, it engages active job seekers through programmatic campaigns on “thousands of job sites.” From there, the technology contacts the prospective candidates automatically. It’s designed to provide a one-stop-shop for sourcing both passive and active job seekers, the company said.

Paycor said this doubles the interview pipeline for organizations. In addition, Paycor Smart Sourcing automates each step of the sourcing process to help employers expand searches, engage with candidates and filter candidates by diversity.

“This competitive labor market has made recruiting and retaining top talent more important than it’s ever been,” said Paycor Chief Executive Officer Raul Villar, Jr. Paycor Smart Sourcing, he explained, will enhance the company’s talent solution and make it easier for frontline leaders to “find skilled and diverse talent quickly and cost-effectively.”

Recruiters can access the platform by logging into Paycor Smart Sourcing. From there, they’ll then begin to receive interviews through their ATS account.

Combined Talents

Paycor acquired Talenya in October 2022. At the time, the company said its goal was to alleviate the pressure on employers caused by increased competition and changes in the labor market. With the acquisition, customers would be able to reduce time to fill and source both active and passive candidates. For those pursuing a DEI strategy, the platform would highlight diverse candidates, which Paycor says are often overlooked by traditional recruiting systems.

Needham & Company Analyst Scott Berg said he approved of the acquisition because it took advantage of two dominating trends in HCM today: more advanced recruiting tools and solutions that improve DEI efforts.

The post Paycor Rebrands AI Recruiting Platform appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

The platform automates the recruiting process of identifying best-fit candidates for open positions, improving efficiency while also broadening the talent pipeline. In essence, it works like a virtual sourcing assistant, tapping into the world’s largest database of passive candidates to find top talent for every organization.

The world of work, and especially the world of hiring, are being turned upside down as of late. In January 2023 alone, the U.S. economy has added a whopping 517,000 jobs, meanwhile, on the flipside, more than 100,000 workers found themselves laid off. As a result, recruiters are facing one of the most challenging labor markets to date.

This kind of unsettledness – good news and bad news landing at the same time – makes the business environment shaky. That impacts the world of talent acquisition, which is pressured by the demands of business performance on the one hand and empowered, picky candidates on the other.

Indeed, workers today are giving less weight to keeping their current job and more to pursuing new opportunities. They mean it, too. According to the Harvard Business Review, employers will continue to face challenges to their efforts to build and develop their workforce. Among those trials are competition for talent, pressure to control costs and the threat of an economic downturn. “How employers respond,” wrote HBR, “could determine whether they are an employer of choice.”

And today, everyone wants to be an employer of choice. In this environment, attracting and engaging the right candidates, offering them a solid experience and hiring them more quickly are all critical components of a comprehensive – and successful – talent acquisition strategy.

That’s where Paycor Smart Sourcing comes in.

But let’s look at specifics. Here are five ways Paycor Smart Sourcing can help your recruiting efforts.

Surfaces Better Candidates: Paycor Smart Sourcing uses AI tools to review and collect talent data from a variety of public sources, then compiles them into profiles that increase your chances of finding the right talent for any given role. On top of that, its AI eliminates keyword search, understands job descriptions in context and can run granular searches.

With machine learning, recruiters rate candidates by selecting “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to train the algorithms. The software then looks for commonalities in the recruiter’s selections and prioritizes the candidate list accordingly.

Identifies More Diverse Candidates: Paycor Smart Sourcing identifies diverse talent based on dozens of parameters. It breaks down the candidate set to provide a true picture of diverse candidates’ availability. AI-powered dashboards track diversity KPIs while big data helps create a roadmap for hiring and retaining employees, both general and diverse. Paycor Smart Sourcing uses AI to identify diverse talent and boost participation in the hiring pipeline, without offering preferential treatment. And, it reduces time-to-hire by sourcing candidates who may be ideal for a role but have been overlooked by traditional systems.

Increases the Pipeline: AI tools collect public information so you can access a wider range of talent without spending hours searching every possible source. AI tools collect talent data from a multitude of public sources, curate them into profiles and increase your chances of finding the right talent for open roles. By using AI to tap into additional data sources and compile them into unified profiles, the system can more than double your talent pool (compared to using only LinkedIn) while making it much richer.

Drives efficiencies: Paycor Smart Sourcing works like a virtual sourcing assistant, leveraging the world’s largest database of passive candidates, examining them, then reaching out to the most promising possibilities for each role. Completely automatic, it takes hiring to a new level of efficiency and quality.

Focuses Recruiters: Recruiters spend a lot of time juggling things to do, which chews up both hours and efficiency. Paycor Smart Sourcing allows users to devote more attention to the personal aspects of their job, whether it’s leading and coaching a team of recruiters or connecting and developing relationships with candidates. In turn, that results in higher candidate engagement, reduced time and cost to hire and more time dedicated to developing the relationships that lead to good outcomes.

Given the obstacles they face today, recruiters are under pressure to work efficiently and intelligently. Paycor Smart Sourcing helps them do just that by helping them search more efficiently and identify diverse candidates more accurately. In a challenging labor market, it helps recruiting teams succeed.

The post 5 Ways Paycor Smart Sourcing Can Help Your Recruiting Efforts appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

This one day training event will cover everything from the building blocks of sourcing to the essential tools & methods you need to master to be an effective sourcer. There’s something for everyone at this event, no matter your level.

So you’re not a newbie? That’s okay.  If you’ve attended HRTX in the past, you know that our training events are epic. If you haven’t had the chance, well, you’re about to have your socks knocked off.

This is a stacked lineup that’s going to help you take your game to the next level. Get ready to learn. You’ve been warned.

Sourcing Fundamentals.
Get a solid understanding or a refresher of the building blocks of sourcing to set you up for success.

Mastery Level Tools.
Learn about the latest and greatest and the must-have tools for sourcing – and how to use them effectively.

Real Career Advice.
Brand new to the industry? Frustrated at a lack of advancement? Our trainers will share their own personal career experience and the advice they wish they had received when they first started in the industry.

Where else can you get free training AND have fun at the same time?

The post HRTX Virtual March 2023 appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

However, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is hardly waiting in the wings. Qualified candidates (no matter how hard to find) still want to work at an organization that prioritizes DEI, and organizations want to continue attracting the right talent.

After all, DEI has served as a cornerstone for successful companies, helping to capture more customers, increase creativity and innovation, and realize more profits.

But it’s easy to pump up DEI and throw these terms around, but let’s dig deeper. What’s actually working and what isn’t when it comes to the job candidate life cycle – from sourcing to making an offer?

Keep reading to learn more about how DEI is working (and isn’t working) in the hiring process.

Where We Stand

Recently, Lever released its 2022 DEI Through the Recruiting Lifecycle Report, finding that Black, Hispanic, and Asian employees were more likely to report hiring biases than white employees. Further, 62 percent of employees felt they were interviewed only to check the diversity requirement.

With the U.S. population more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before, this is really unacceptable. So, are DEI initiatives just not working? Or is progress terribly slow?

Here are our thoughts on DEI’s role in sourcing and interviewing.

DEI & Sourcing

Sourcing has looked a bit different these past couple of years, with remote and hybrid working arrangements becoming a prime focus. But, to meet their diversity goals, recruiting professionals must continue to refine their sourcing strategies to ensure a diverse and inclusive workforce – no matter where employees work.

When creating a diversity sourcing strategy, recruiting professionals develop a process to find talent with diverse backgrounds, experiences, educational levels, geographies, genders, languages, disabilities, and so on.

However, we tend to think only of changing our language in job descriptions or ads. And, while using inclusive language in job descriptions or ads is critical, we can’t stop there – we need to look beyond this threshold DEI requirement when sourcing talent.

Here are three helpful tips on sourcing diverse talent (beyond job descriptions and ads):

• Recruiting professionals can diversify their talent pools by using LinkedIn as more of a refined tool rather than as a blanket announcement that you’re hiring. For example, you can filter when reaching out to prospective candidates on LinkedIn by finding candidates who identify as “she” or “their.” Additionally, you can use hashtags to narrow your search, such as “Black History Month,” “Pride Month,” or “International Women’s Day.”
• Encourage your minority employees to refer potential job candidates – after all, people tend to refer people similar to themselves. So, create an internal employee referral program where typically underrepresented employees can refer qualified talent like them.
• Target candidates where they gather (in-person or online). By reaching out to different sources, such as HBCU colleges or online platforms that attract different populations, such as theblackwomenintech.com or the Hispanic / Latino Professionals Association.

DEI & Interviewing

Prioritizing DEI doesn’t stop at sourcing, of course. It must be intentionally carried through the hiring process, and that includes the interview phase.

Unintentional bias can sneak into the interview process, wreaking some level of havoc on your carefully-crafted DEI program. However, how can we counteract these biases if we don’t recognize that we all unconsciously have them?

For example, the types of names we hear (or see on a resume or job application) can lead to unintentional biases. A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that job candidates who have “distinctively Black names” have a lower probability of moving forward in the hiring process than job candidates with “distinctively white names.”

One way recruiting professionals can address unconscious bias is to standardize the job interview. In non-standardized interviews, there’s typically no consistency across the interviews, even if there is a general set of questions to guide the process.

In standardized (or structured) interviews, on the other hand, candidates are asked the same interview questions in the same order. According to Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gina, standardized interviews reduce bias by “focusing on the factors that have a direct impact on performance.”

As we’re still in the first quarter of 2023, now is the time for recruiting professionals to re-examine their DEI efforts in the hiring process to see what’s working and what’s not. But don’t just depend on your own review. Talk to your job candidates. Request feedback after they are offered a position (and even for those who aren’t).

And, finally, look at your data. Understanding your hiring metrics is critical to revising and refining your DEI efforts when recruiting.

The post Unintended Impacts: Where DEI Is Working and Where It Isn’t appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Implementing hiring techniques built on diversity and inclusivity will shape the way your team functions for the better.

Period.

This session is not about teaching you why. It’s about teaching you how.

Say Hello to Your Best Team Ever

Building diversity and inclusivity into your hiring ethics is more than meeting a quota or blindly following hiring trends to stay competitive. It should be woven into the core of everything you do. 

But our unconscious bias might be getting in the way of some seriously badass talent. 

Sophie Okonkwo, Global Talent Acquisition- Engineering EMEA at Microsoft, will teach you how to dig into the grit and implement diversity and inclusivity into your hiring practice to create resourcefulness, productivity, and an overall better workforce. Not just talk it up.

Watch and learn as Sophie shows us how to utilize the countless identifiers that make this world such a unique place to live in and turn them into a thriving workforce.

Some key takeaways:

• What’s different about hiring with a diversity perspective.
• Where to source for diversity and attract these talents.
• How you can set them up for success during the recruitment process.
• The role leadership plays in creating and enabling a truly diverse and inclusive workforce.

As much as we’d all like to fight for diversity and inclusivity just for the sake of equality, there are so many business benefits to building a team of multi-background individuals that adopting this hiring mindset is a win for everyone.

Why survive apart when we can flourish together?

The post Diversity and Inclusivity to Attract Resourceful Candidates appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Get part 1 of what you could and should be doing during your downtime.

What’s that, you say? My applicant tracking system (ATS) is fine the way it is! If that is the case, then you are definitely one in a million. As a contractor, consultant, and in-house sourcing leader, I can’t think of one organization of the twenty-plus I’ve done projects with that had a perfectly set up, well-organized and accurate ATS. And therefore providing every benefit it could perform.

According to Josh Bersin, “HR Tech spending is going to slow… [This] include[s] software for recruiting and ongoing systems for wellbeing.” So getting the most value out of current technology is a must. And I promise you, big or small, fortune 50 or start-up, your ATS can always use an occasional tune-up. 

Benefits of Applicant Tracking Systems

When an ATS is set up correctly, it can do miracles:

• Manage candidate flow
• Perform automatic candidate engagement and outreach to talent communities
• Set up interview scheduling for you
• Provide metrics that can show snags in your recruiting process
• Report actual activity needed to fill different kinds of jobs

Some ATS’ such as Loxo, have built-in resume parsing, outreach tools, sourcing tools, and automated candidate response capabilities that can boost candidate flow, improve candidate experience and automatically source past applicants – but only if they are set up. 

I was in awe when I was consulting for a unicorn tech company that had reached a staggering 1,200 employees to discover their recruiting activity was still being tracked on a gigantic spreadsheet. It was so interlinked to other sheets that daily updates took over five minutes to disseminate through all the pages. Not only was it clunky, but mining the information of past candidates, interview results, rejection reasons, and possible “keepers” was nearly impossible. 

ATS: It’s More Than You May Think

Many organizations simply see an ATS as a centralized location for all recruitment-related information. With all resumes, applications, and candidate information stored in one place, recruiters can easily access and review all relevant data, which can help make more informed decisions about which candidates to interview and hire. However, an ATS setup in alignment with an organization’s needs can also provide valuable insights into recruitment metrics such as time-to-hire and cost-per-hire, which can help companies better understand and optimize their recruitment process.

During a slow job market, I can think of no better (though mundane) task that will have big payoffs than a thorough ATS overhaul. The TA leader, sourcers, recruiters, and coordinators alike can all participate in the fun.

In fact, this is a project that should be a true team effort. In smaller organizations, the entire department should participate. In larger ones, there should be representatives from all the TA departments to provide input on the candidate journey, interview process, presentations and projects that are part of the interview process, and the offer process for different departments. 

Other Aspects of ATS and Beyond

Other items that should be looked at by the team include reformatting job postings in alignment with DEI, updating the old postings with this new verbiage in case they are reused, removing duplicate resumes, and ensuring that candidate information is accurate and up-to-date. Take a good, hard look at the recruitment process and find a way to standardize it between business verticals so that metrics are consistent and more meaningful. Examine sourcing activity tracking and make sure there is a CRM capability set up that seamlessly moves a candidate from prospect to being an active applicant.

Now, would also be the perfect time to add new features, such as a parsing engine or outreach tools to your ATS if you can swing the budget. Training on new technologies and sourcing tools, integrating them into the ATS, and the processes as you build them, will be a huge game changer when the market picks up.

Once all are set up, if so equipped, your ATS could deliver better results by automating many of the manual tasks associated with recruitment. For example, setting up a “drop box” or automatic parsing engine will allow your ATS to automatically search for keywords and qualifications that match the requirements of a particular job, and even schedule prescreens with the most promising candidates. This significantly reduces the time and effort required to find and hire the right people while ensuring that the recruitment process is more efficient and effective.

Some other benefits of making your ATS a well-oiled machine include:

• Improving the candidate experience. With the ability to easily apply for jobs online and receive automated updates about the status of their application, candidates can be kept informed and engaged throughout the recruitment process.
• Provide a platform for online assessments, which can help to identify the best candidates based on their qualifications and skills.
• Improve the overall performance of an organization by providing a more diverse and qualified candidate pool. With the ability to search resumes and applications by keywords and qualifications, you can identify candidates who may have been overlooked in the past.

Final Thoughts

An applicant tracking system can deliver a wide range of benefits to organizations looking to streamline their recruitment process and identify the best candidates for open positions if they are organized, set up correctly, and old, duplicate data is consolidated. Whether it’s through automating manual tasks, providing valuable insights into recruitment metrics, or improving the candidate experience, an ATS can help companies to make more informed decisions. This can reduce the time and effort required to find and hire the right people, and ultimately improve the overall performance of the organization. 

So take a few weeks, grab your cleaning gloves, and dig in. When the job market fires back up – and it will soon – you will be amazed at the boost to productivity and results.

The post What Recruiting and Sourcing Teams Can be Doing During Slow Times: Part 2 appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Since 1976, every U.S. President has designated February as Black History Month. This recognition is not limited to the United States. Other countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black histories. But is this enough? Simply put, no, it’s not. Especially in the workplace.

There’s no time like the present for companies to take an introspective look at their hiring, retention, and promotion practices to see if they’re prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Keep reading to learn more about where we collectively stand with DEI in 2023.

The Current State of DEI Affairs

It’s been a tough few years.  From the global pandemic to the war in Ukraine to an uncertain economic future, employers and employees both have faced challenges in (and out of) work.

But what does that mean for DEI in the workplace?

According to a recent report by Workhuman, “2023 will begin with a test of organizational commitment to the day-to-day work of inclusivity, equity, and diversity.”  According to Dr. Meisha-Ann Martin, Senior Director of Research and People Analytics at Workhuman, leaders are often tempted to cut certain priorities in the face of a looming recession – and DEI may be one of those.

And, apparently, Workhuman isn’t alone in this prediction.

According to the 2023 Monster Work Watch Report, 11 percent of employers say that DEI programs are “among the first to go when they are forced to cut costs,” coming in third behind organizational events and bonuses. Additionally, only 5 percent of recruiters say that DEI efforts are among their top three priorities.

So, where does this leave us as we move forward in 2023?

Embracing Organizational Transparency Will Be Key to Attracting and Retaining Diverse Employees

According to Workhuman’s January 2023 index, employees are questioning their leaders’ commitment to DEI.

For example, the index showed that:

• 17.1 percent of respondents are concerned about their future at their employer because of the lack of diverse leadership and voices.
• 21.1 percent of respondents are “questioning the intentions” of their leaders around social justice issues.
• 32.8 percent of respondents claimed they would consider leaving their employer if their DEI strategy doesn’t improve within the first six months of 2023, with employees of color reporting the highest percentages.

These results should not be taken lightly. Clearly, employers need to re-think their communication and branding strategies around DEI as we head into the second month of 2023.

If employers want to distinguish themselves when recruiting and retaining employees, they should focus on transparency around diversity at all levels of the organization – from eliminating unconscious biases in the hiring process to (truly) supporting employee resource groups – and everything in between.

In other words, they must show their true commitment to maintaining a diverse and equitable workforce at every point of the employee journey. Here are three ways employers can demonstrate transparency in the workplace in 2023.

3 Ways Employers Can Demonstrate Transparency in the Workplace

• Prioritize Open Communication:  For DEI initiatives to be effective, organizations must foster a supportive (and accepting) environment for open communication.  This will not only result in honest conversations around DEI, but it will also build trust between employers and employees.
• Increase Your Diversity Hiring: Employers should continue to increase diversity in their talent pools. The more diverse candidates are, the more a company will realize increased creativity, innovation, and profits – helping to stave off economic uncertainty.
• Don’t Just Know the Numbers; Incorporate Data Into Your DEI Strategy: Understanding industry and company data is one thing.  Incorporating it into a company’s DEI strategy and holding them accountable to their goals is another.  And with the need for additional transparency, companies can use this data to build a “DEI strategy scoreboard,” helping to build visibility.

In 2023, employers must continue to prioritize DEI with visible action and accountable transparency. Doing so can help employers deliver positive outcomes in recruitment, retention, and promoting talent in what looks to be a challenging economic landscape.

The post Celebrating Black History Month with a Look at DEI in 2023 appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

There is no official definition of candidate engagement: no Wikipedia page to scour or analyst missive to ponder. Most of the search results you will find point to a series of vendors throwing around ideas that all ultimately tie back to their products. Read enough of what’s out there, and you’ll realize that everyone is saying the same thing: candidate engagement is about building and maintaining relationships. Candidate engagement rates seek to quantify those relationships by measuring how responsive candidates are, how quickly they follow up, and, ultimately, how they feel they were treated throughout the process. Candidate engagement varies from person to person and organization to organization. It is subjective and corresponds directly with another critical concept, candidate experience.  

So, where does the gap come into play? Earlier than you might expect. 

Finding the Source

Candidate engagement can take many different forms depending on the job type, organization, recruiting strategy, and so on. Just like digital marketers have worked to identify categories of customer engagement, sourcers have taken a similar approach to reach prospective candidates because they know that hiring hinges on engagement. Industry analyst Madeline Laurano shared a slide recently that detailed four sourcing tactics – speed, research, batch and tailored – and the associated causes and success of each. With regard to engagement, this helps to illustrate that from the get-go, there are any number of ways candidate interactions can go off the rails – and fast. Even with tools that provide contact data and automate follow-ups, it doesn’t matter which tactic we use; if the candidates you want to hire don’t engage at the outset, the process stalls. 

And stalled engagement isn’t limited to any one source. In fact, it isn’t even limited to just passive candidates. Even active, seemingly interested candidates might ignore an InMail or avoid their personal email, and I’m sure they have their reasons. But without interaction, without the opportunity to forge a relationship, the recruiting process will move on to someone else, someone who may be less suited for the role or organization, leaving those in-demand candidates behind. 

Minding the Gap 

Knowing that the gap can start with sourcing (and spread from there), we have the opportunity to rethink how we engage candidates. You’ve likely heard people say that you have to meet candidates where they are, which, while solid advice, is easier said than done. With thousands of potential sources spread across the physical world and the online one, how do you determine which platforms your candidates are most interested in? How do you know when they will be available? How do you craft a message that will capture their attention? These are big questions that most of the conversations about candidate engagement seem to overlook in favor of talking around the problem – and any potential solutions. 

One such answer is social media, but even that isn’t limited to only one source or strategy. If you are keen to find Gen Z talent, you might want to consider TikTok. For Millennials, maybe Instagram, and for Gen X, try LinkedIn. You get the picture. Narrowing the focus is a step in the right direction, though it still doesn’t guarantee that candidates will engage. Instead, we need to drill down further and identify which platform, when to reach out, and what to say, which is no easy feat without the help of technology. 

Problem Meet Solution 

Going back to digital marketers for a moment, these folks are pros at maximizing engagement. They work to understand customer emotions, behaviors, ethics, and actions to deliver content that will hit at just the right moment. Digital marketers know that each of these categories requires different tactics to trigger engagement. They are consistent, compelling and contextual at every turn. In this example, an engagement could be as simple as interacting with an ad or conversion to a sale. Likewise, for recruiting, by taking a digital marketing-driven approach, we can look to improve targeting to encourage connection, closing the candidate engagement gap by improving the process. And it all begins with who, how, and when we source. 

The post Closing The Candidate Engagement Gap appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Thin Slicing is a Normal Part of the Human Experience

Author Malcolm Gladwell first popularized the concept in his book, “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” but you see the idea come to life on a show like The Circle, where contestants competing for thousands of dollars must build alliances and make enemies based entirely on mere minutes of communication with other contestants via social media alone. Though entertaining, the downside of limited communication exposes itself immediately when alliances are formed under false pretenses and players reveal they are not what they seem.

The act of thin slicing isn’t limited to game shows. There seem to be more ways to rationalize thin slicing in our everyday lives than not. We are called to make dozens of decisions throughout our day with little available information. If your partner crinkles their nose when you suggest a take-out spot, you can assume you will have to come up with a second option. If you overhear your coworker overtly sigh throughout the day, you may suggest helping them with their workload as they seem overwhelmed.

We Put A Lot of Trust in Our Guts

These snap decisions have intrigued psychologists for decades. One psychologist at Tufts University, Nalini Ambady, Ph.D., has run multiple studies on first impressions dating back to the 90s. One of her studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 64, No. 3) on first impressions sought to find if students could accurately gauge a teacher’s, whom they had never met, performance based on thirty-second clips of them teaching. Students judged a teacher based on 13 variables, including competence, acceptance, and activeness. 

The scores were then compared to evaluations done by those teachers’ actual students. The researchers were astounded to find a 76% accuracy rate in judgment between students who had evaluated a teacher for just a few seconds and ones that had taken their courses for an entire semester. Ambady went a step further and exposed students to only six-second clips of teachers’ classes. The results did not vary by much. Gut intuition was proving reliable.

Many moments throughout our day call for quick decisions, and when there is a high volume of candidates to interview, thin slicing can make up hours of difference in a recruiter’s workload. But even Ambady would never give a blanket statement that people should trust their first impressions: “[it’s] too dependent on the person, the context of the first impression, everything.” 

Take Steps to Make the Your Gut Isn’t the Only Factor

So, where does that leave a recruiter and a candidate? As a recruiter faces a large pool of candidates, thin slicing can be very necessary to consolidate options and conduct interviews in a reasonable time. As the pool narrows, however, it’s important that many perspectives are consulted on the hiring side. Gladwell notes in his book that some individuals are better at thin slicing than others. A number of methods can be incorporated to make sure candidates are given a fair evaluation:

• Employers can utilize automation in the initial application stages to narrow applicant pools and give recruiters more time with each candidate.
• Collaborative interviewing solutions can be used, such as video, so multiple recruiters can join and weigh in.
• Teams can reconfigure hiring processes to better support equitable candidate reviews.

Though the efficiency of thin slicing is undeniable in our personal lives and at work, precautions must be taken to ensure our own implicit biases are not the deciding factor. It’s only natural for recruiters to develop an ideal candidate in their process, and thin slicing can lead to overlooking great recruits for not checking a few of our standard boxes. A flustered candidate might give one recruiter the impression that they are underprepared. At the same time, another sees their nervousness as a sign that they are genuinely interested in securing the position at hand.

A collaborative process ensures that multiple perspectives have input on what should be a multi-level decision and that one unfounded bias does not spoil the process.

The post Thin Slicing the Candidate: Why Perception Matters  appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Looking for ways to optimize your recruitment efforts? Discover the power of strategic benchmarking in recruitment with our insightful webinar on March 28th, led by industry expert Shally Steckerl. Learn how to enhance your talent acquisition strategies by establishing effective benchmarks, aligning recruitment with organizational goals, and identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) for success.

Session Highlights:

• Master the art of strategic benchmarking in recruitment
• Understand the importance of aligning recruitment efforts with organizational goals
• Learn to identify and monitor progress using KPIs
• Gain insights into key metrics, such as process effectiveness, quality of hire, funnel metrics, time to fill, and productivity
• Explore the shift from reactive to proactive recruitment and the eight stages of growth
• Develop techniques to connect recruitment with executive leadership and focus on measuring outcomes over actions
• Get valuable insights on questions to ask when considering outsourcing recruitment processes, both internally and externally

Join us for this essential learning session and elevate your talent acquisition skills with strategic benchmarking.

Register now to secure your spot and stay ahead in the ever-evolving recruitment landscape!

Can’t make it to the live session? No problem! Register anyway, and we’ll send you a recording of the webinar to watch at your convenience.

The post Sourcing Effectiveness: Benchmark Your Process for Strategic Recruiting appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

In this series, I will explore some of the value-added tasks that TA teams can be doing during these slow times that will add value now and keep your well-oiled TA team in place, sharper than ever, and ready to flick the switch on a cultivated robust pipeline.  

Employer Branding in Outreach

For the 12 Days of Sourcing last month, I wrote about using video clips in outreach to attract prospects to engage and provided some real example outreaches that worked to attract hard-to-find tech talent during the last hiring frenzy. But what about in these slower times? We can still use this time to do customized bulk outreaches to our talent communities or long lists of prospects, using employer branding video content to build a pipeline of interested prospects already engaged with your brand for when the market picks up. Here are a couple of general pointers on what to consider when picking which content to use.  

Try Video Employer Branding 

Video employer branding is a powerful tool for attracting top talent in the current job market. With the rise of social media and video-sharing platforms, it has become increasingly easy for companies to showcase their culture and values to a wider audience. Research from Bain & Company has found that employer branding can lead to a 25-50% reduction in the cost of hiring and a 50-80% improvement in the quality of hires. 

As a Talent Sourcer, when using employer branding video content effectively in cold outreaches to highly sought-after tech talent, I saw a response rate skyrocket from a meager 4-5% to over 30%! While every response was an enthusiastic “Let’s GO!”, it doubled the number of prospects willing to explore the position while creating a robust pipeline of future prospects now engaged and following our brand.  

Video Employer Branding in Action

Benefits of Video Employer Branding 

The benefits of including video employer branding content are endless, and few stand very tall.  

1. Increased reach and visibility: Video employer branding allows companies to reach a wider audience and showcase their culture and values to potential candidates. According to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, job seekers are increasingly turning to social media and company websites to learn about potential employers. By creating engaging video content, companies can stand out from their competitors and attract top talent.
2. Improved candidate experience: Video employer branding provides an immersive and authentic look at what it is like to work for a company. This can help candidates better understand the company culture and values and make a more informed decision about whether they would be a good fit.
3. Enhanced employer reputation: By creating compelling and authentic video content, companies can improve their reputation as a “great place to work” and attract top talent. According to research from McKinsey, companies with strong employer brands tend to have higher retention rates and are more successful at attracting top talent.

In addition to the campaign I highlighted in 12 Days of Sourcing, here are some other examples of successful video employer branding:

1. Airbnb: Airbnb’s “We Accept” campaign, which featured a series of videos showcasing the company’s commitment to inclusivity and diversity, was highly successful in attracting top talent and improving the company’s reputation as an employer.
2. Google: Google’s “Life at Google” video series gives a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to work at the tech giant and highlights its innovative culture and values.
3. Deloitte: Deloitte’s “Life at Deloitte” video series showcases the company’s commitment to work-life balance and provides a glimpse into the various career paths available at the consulting firm.

Considerations for Using Video

No doubt, these campaigns have been successful. But what are some general guidelines on what to consider when using video material in prospect outreach? Here are some considerations for using video employer branding:

1. Clearly define your company culture and values: Before creating any video content, it is important to represent your company’s culture and values to help ensure that your video content aligns with your employer brand and attracts the right candidates.
2. Showcase the employee experience: It is important to showcase what it is like – “A typical the day” -to work for your company to attract top talent. This can include highlighting company perks and benefits, showcasing team bonding activities, and giving a behind-the-scenes look at daily life at the company.
3. Use storytelling: Effective video employer branding often utilizes storytelling to showcase the company culture and values. By featuring real employees and their experiences at the company, companies can create a more authentic and relatable image.
4. Utilize social media: Social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, are great channels for sharing video employer branding content. By posting engaging and authentic videos, companies can reach a wider audience and attract top talent.
5. Seek employee input: Involving employees in creating video employer branding content can help create a more authentic and genuine portrayal of the company. By soliciting ideas and information from employees, companies can ensure that the content accurately reflects the employee experience. Better still, have employees in the video explaining how they do what they do and why they love doing what they do. 

Final Thoughts

If it sounds simple, it’s because it is. Video employer branding is a powerful tool for attracting top talent. By showcasing the company’s story and the employees’ experiences, prospects can better picture themselves working in your culture and, in turn, will more fully engage when they feel that connection.  In this slower market, all we need to do is change the message from “come work here now” to “if you ever consider a position change, you should consider my company.” And funnel responses into organized pools of engaged, ready-to-talk prospects once the hiring machine is cracked back up! And you know it will.  

The post Use This Downtime to Promote Your Employer Brand appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Implementing hiring techniques built on diversity and inclusivity will shape the way your team functions for the better.

Period.

This session is not about teaching you why. It’s about teaching you how.

Say Hello to Your Best Team Ever

Building diversity and inclusivity into your hiring ethics is more than meeting a quota or blindly following hiring trends to stay competitive. It should be woven into the core of everything you do. 

But our unconscious bias might be getting in the way of some seriously badass talent. 

We’ve invited Sophie Okonkwo, Global Talent Acquisition- Engineering EMEA at Microsoft, to teach us how to dig into the grit of how to implement diversity and inclusivity into your hiring practice to create resourcefulness, productivity, and an overall better workforce

On February 7th @ 2:00 PM ET, join in as Sophie teaches us how to utilize the countless identifiers that make this world such a unique place to live in and turn them into a thriving workforce.

Some key takeaways:

• What’s different about hiring with a diversity perspective.
• Where to source for diversity and attract these talents.
• How you can set them up for success during the recruitment process.
• The role leadership plays in creating snd enabling a truly diverse and inclusive workforce.

As much as we’d all like to fight for diversity and inclusivity just for the sake of equality, there are so many business benefits to building a team of multi-background individuals that adopting this hiring mindset is a win for everyone.

Why survive apart when we can flourish together?

These educational events are recorded, so if you don’t know if you’ll be around for the live session, you can still register now to get on the list for the recording!

The post Diversity and Inclusivity to Attract Resourceful Candidates appeared first on RecruitingDaily.