How do you find talented new recruits to fill job openings in your company? Do you have a preferred sourcing strategy that you use above all else? The most effective way to find new talent is to have an employee sourcing strategy that leverages several channels at once. In particular, employee referrals and social media are seen by HR managers as the talent sourcing tools that lead to the best results.
Here are a few sourcing strategy tips and methods to help you identify the best talent sources for your business.
Employee sourcing strategies have changed a lot in recent years. But as the process becomes increasingly digitized, HR managers find their top method to be a new twist on something old: the employee referral.
The key benefits of employee referrals are reliability, results and engagement. The candidates are recommended by employees you already know and trust. You have to wade through fewer resumés to find a greater percentage of quality recruits. Referrals are more likely to accept a job offer, and they also have a better retention rate. An employee referral program that offers incentives also increases the satisfaction and engagement of your current employees.
For more details, see our Employee Referral Infographic.
Social media platforms are increasingly important tools within a company’s employee sourcing strategy.
At the head of the pack is LinkedIn, a focused professional networking tool. With over 300 million professionals, you have access to passive and active job candidates, you can leverage common connections, and you can also see a prospect’s contributions to professional networks and discussions. Also, it helps you bring your company to where the job seekers are and provides an easy way for them to apply for your positions without filling out yet another cumbersome application – they can use the data already stored in their LinkedIn profile. Learn more about why LinkedIn is such a great online recruiting portal.
The strength of Facebook for recruitment lies in its sheer numbers. It is the second most visited website in the world and has over 1.35 billion active users, many of whom check their Facebook accounts on a daily basis. It’s not a social network that has a professional focus, like LinkedIn, but it is very effective place to reach users through your brand. Many Facebook users will like brand pages, and this support allows you to engage your followers and their friends. Once you build a community around your Facebook page, you have access to people who already like your brand and would be inclined to mention or share your brand-related content.
Some companies even have career sections within their Facebook pages. See, for example, how Starbucks has an open jobs section on their Facebook page, allowing them to reach out to the millions of users who already like their brand.
For more information, check out this infographic on recruiting employees through Facebook.
You can also use Twitter as a job recruitment tool. The key to Twitter is to be active and engaging with your target audience. Companies that successfully use Twitter to recruit new employees don’t just tweet job ads — their tweets provide a view into their company culture, the inside scoop and other relevant news.
Twitter can also be used effectively without a career-focused Twitter account. Research and use #hashtags effectively and you can join active conversations within your field. Engage the users interested in certain issues and then drive these prospective employees to your career website.
Finally, Twitter is also a forum to vet employees and where they can show their skills and credentials. Find out more about how Twitter’s redesign makes the platform ripe for recruitment.
You are likely already using job boards like Monster, Indeed, Simply Hired and Workopolis to advertise positions in your company. These sites help you cast a wide net to those who are actively searching for new jobs.
But to effectively use job boards in your employee sourcing strategy, it isn’t just about which job boards you are using, but how you are using them. Are you using the right keywords to be picked up in job seekers’ career alerts? Are you using just one site without knowing if it’s the most effective for your market? Or are you spending a lot of time posting your jobs on each and every job board?
This is where recruitment software comes in handy. With a few clicks, Simplicant gets your jobs published on multiple job boards, helping you to save time and money.
Finally, an essential tool in your employee sourcing strategy is your careers website. It isn’t enough to simply list open jobs. You need to engage potential employees, give them a feel for your corporate culture. It is important that your careers website and the entire application process reflect your company brand. Are you offering a candidate-friendly application process? The application platform you use and the ease of applying are experiences that factor into a candidates view of your company, its brand and how it works.
Now that you know about some of the recruitment tools to add to your toolbox, it is important to use them strategically. To build a successful sourcing strategy, you need to know which tools are most effective for various types of positions. What methods have yielded your company the best results in the past? Are there tools you haven’t been using and should? Track your recruitment analytics and you will have the information your need to create your company’s tailor-made sourcing strategy.
Photo by Piotr Cichosz on Unsplash