It’s easy to get left behind on the newest talent acquisition techniques and strategies. Things are moving fast, new strategies come up, and AI is creating waves in the talent acquisition industry.
Many things affect decision-making in the hiring process, but we must embrace these new changes to achieve success, that is, find the ideal candidate in the most effective way.
Through this article, we will gain a deeper understanding of the 7 Talent Acquisition Strategies to build a solid framework for your company’s talent acquisition strategy.
There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. What we are offering here is a talent acquisition strategy framework, outlining some key elements that you should integrate into your company’s talent acquisition strategy.
What Is a Talent Acquisition Startegy?
A talent acquisition strategy is a structured and comprehensive approach to proactively attract, identify, engage, and ultimately hire top-quality candidates with the right skills, experience, or cultural fit for your company.
Talent acquisition techniques include a range of tactics, methodologies, and processes aimed at optimizing recruitment efforts and ensuring the acquisition of the most suitable talent to support organizational goals and growth.
Let’s take a deeper look at 7 talent acquisition techniques.
1. Boost Your Career Site
Your employment site is the front of your company for prospective employees, and as such it needs to have a good idea of your company.
But it is essential to have certain points clear before establishing your website.
First, make sure that the site can be easily accessible, attractive, easy to use and above all, that candidates can find it quickly.
Some of the recommendations are that your site is suitable for what you want to convey.
It should allow candidates to quickly and easily set up a profile, search for jobs and apply without any hassle.
Many candidates who are likely to apply for multiple jobs and are unable to perform these activities quickly will look elsewhere, so it is crucial to have a site that makes it easier for them to apply.
2. Implement an ATS System
An applicant tracking system, or as many call it, ATS is a system that allows you to follow your candidates more easily throughout the hiring process.
But an ATS is more than just software that allows you to track candidates and applicants. It also has other functionalities such as:
- the comprehensive management of candidates
- job advertisements from your company
- applications and job offers
- creation of a database where candidates are registered, and where their respective CVs can be found
For me, as for many recruiting colleagues, an ATS is like a lifeline, helping you schedule interviews, send emails quickly, automatically notify recruiters and candidates, and keep everyone involved in the hiring process informed about the status of the roles.
In short, an ATS is an essential tool to manage the entire recruitment process since it allows you to streamline the process and have better management of the process.
Once candidates are filtered through the candidate and talent pools in your ATS, you’ll be able to view their candidacy, identify, compare, and rank them against job openings.
3. Analyze and Identify the Most Effective Source of Candidates
To optimize your candidate search, it’s essential to identify where the best candidates are coming from so you can evaluate your contracting strategies using these sources.
It is advisable to follow up from time to time in order to review the most effective sources of hiring (SoH) of successful candidates who become high-performing and value-added employees for your company.
Source of Hire (aka SoH) allows you to see where current employees and candidates come from. That is, if they come from your career site, from social media posts (ie Linkedin), job boards or others.
Through SoH, you can track the most important metrics to analyze the types of candidates, hires, rejected candidates and passives.
Utilizing SoH enables you to effectively allocate your talent acquisition resources and prioritize your attention.
By analyzing SoH, you can gain insight into the reasons why certain sourcing channels are yielding favourable results, and determine ways to enhance your strategies for sources with low returns.
Additionally, you may opt to eliminate underperforming channels from future endeavours and explore new ones to incorporate.
4. Strengthen Remote Recruitment Capabilities
In the early stages of the pandemic, remote work became a necessity for many organizations, and now, the ability to hire remotely continues to be crucial.
To achieve successful remote hiring, a fully digital hiring process is essential, which includes online job postings, video conferencing interviews, and digital document management.
The core elements of a digital hiring process are a career site, a recruiting marketing application, and an applicant tracking system (ATS), all of which should be mobile-friendly.
When combined with video conferencing software, such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or my personal favorite, Zoom, integrated with interview scheduling and analytics tools, it creates a comprehensive set of capabilities for remote recruitment.
These tools not only enable remote candidate screening and hiring but also automate various parts of the process and track metrics to enhance sourcing and hiring processes continuously.
While there are numerous options for video conferencing and interviewing platforms available, it’s advisable to opt for a reputable platform to convey your professionalism and enhance the reliability of video calls.
Candidates may find it inconvenient to download a new app for an unfamiliar video conferencing service, and technical difficulties can interfere with the interview process and limit your ability to evaluate the candidate effectively.
It’s important to empathize with candidates who are interviewing remotely about the platform and provide support in case of possible issues.
5. Utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning Techniques in Your Hiring Process
With the new trends in AI and especially machine learning (ML), there are many options to improve your recruiting process.
Artificial intelligence and Machine learning allow you not only to improve your process but also to automate a range of recruitment processes such as:
- including sifting through extensive candidate pools to select and categorize individuals,
- scanning resumes,
- matching candidates to job opportunities,
- evaluating job descriptions,
- offering letters,
- employing chatbots,
- and analyzing metrics and trends to enhance recruitment processes.
Moreover, thanks to ChatGP, you can employ it to facilitate the creation of templates, notes and emails.
We’ve written a whole article on AI in Talent Acquisition – go check it out next!
6. Skill-Oriented Recruitment
Skill-based recruitment is gaining momentum once again, primarily because AI-powered technology has improved the accuracy of identifying and matching skills.
Instead of relying on academic degrees as a yardstick for measuring candidates’ skills, more and more employers are adopting skills-based hiring methods.
This approach can broaden the pool of potential candidates by attracting skilled individuals who may not possess the requisite formal education.
Furthermore, skill-based hiring recognizes the significance of soft skills, such as communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking, which are essential for many roles but may not be evident through educational qualifications alone.
By emphasizing skills over degrees, employers can focus on hiring candidates with the right abilities and competencies to perform well in a given position.
The adoption of skills-based hiring can enhance the efficiency and accuracy of sourcing, screening, and matching candidates.
While skills-based recruitment has long been utilized in talent management, specifically in succession and career development planning, it’s crucial to ensure that the candidate profile section facilitates the selection of verifiable skills that align with the job requirements.
If you ask yourself, how to do it?
Well, employers can identify soft skills by incorporating behavioral and situational questions during the interviews or as screening questions when applying for the job.
This method can generate more possibilities for candidates to be hired and for your company, evaluate the candidate’s competencies and aptitude beyond their formal qualifications.
7. Ask for Feedback
It’s common for areas of talent acquisition planning to require improvement, despite your best efforts, there is always something to improve.
One of the most effective ways to identify these areas is to request feedback from candidates regarding their experience throughout the recruitment process.
Surveys are very employed, as well as platforms such as Qualtrics, Medallia, or SurveyMonkey, which can be utilized as employee listening tools.
By aggregating candidate feedback, it’s possible to pinpoint areas that need attention and improvement to enhance the overall candidate experience.
Conclusion
In conclusion, these talent acquisition techniques play a crucial role in successful hiring, and it is essential to adapt to the evolving recruitment landscape.
By implementing these techniques, you can ensure that your organization has a talent acquisition strategy with good foundations.
To recap:
- Boosting the career site: A user-friendly and informative career site that allows candidates to easily navigate and apply for jobs is essential.
- Implementing an ATS system: An applicant tracking system streamlines the hiring process, facilitates candidate management, and ensures efficient communication.
- Analyzing the most effective source of candidates: Identifying the sources that yield the best candidates helps optimize your talent acquisition strategy and allocate resources effectively.
- Strengthening remote recruitment capabilities: In a digital world, a fully digital hiring process with online job postings, video conferencing interviews, and digital document management is crucial.
- Utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning: AI and ML technologies offer automation opportunities, such as candidate selection and resume screening, while also analyzing metrics to improve recruitment processes.
- Embracing skill-oriented recruitment: Focusing on skills rather than degrees broadens the candidate pool and ensures a better match between candidates’ abilities and job requirements.
- Asking for feedback: Gathering feedback from candidates helps identify areas for improvement and enhances the overall candidate experience.
By embracing these proven techniques, organizations can enhance their talent acquisition strategy and increase their chances of finding the ideal candidates for their roles.
Constant adaptation and improvement are key to staying ahead in the fast-paced world of recruitment and hiring.
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