Amy Odeneal is the COO and Co-founder of Tech Recruiters who brings a creative and operational approach to building teams.
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2020 was a company market for staffing and recruiting. Many people were looking for jobs and companies could be particular and call the shots. 2021 was a candidate market where they could make demands and hold out for the job they wanted, where they wanted and how they wanted. This year, we’ve seen the field leveling, and finding balance between the two has been a focus. As we get ready to move into a new year, things are shifting again. What does that mean for recruiting efforts?
The past several years showed us that we can’t predict the challenges we face; we can only stay prepared. We can’t control the economy or if it’s a company or candidate market, but we can control our recruiting processes and keep competitive no matter the market.
With over 15 years of experience building high-performance teams, I have navigated various hiring markets and discovered what attracts and keeps candidates. Here are five proven strategies for how you can make your recruiting processes stand out in a competitive landscape.
1. Expand your horizons.
Research shows that culturally diverse teams create innovative environments. By incorporating new (cultural) perspectives to your team, you bring additional ways of thinking and encourage open-mindedness and collaboration in your teams and company.
Embracing employees with different backgrounds is beneficial because every individual brings a unique way of thinking—and by expanding your horizons you expand ideas. Challenging your thought process and creatively tackling problems creates positive outcomes. For example, if you work in the tech industry but onboard new employees from different industry backgrounds, they are going to add value and bring innovation with a fresher way of thinking than others previously brought.
2. Strive for diversity.
Are you talking about diversity, equity and inclusion? You should be, because candidates most certainly are! They are thinking about DEI and making decisions based on it. Forty-nine percent of recruiters reported that candidates are asking about a company’s DEI initiatives in an interview with 44% reporting that candidates “have turned down an interview or job offer due to a lack of diversity in the workforce.”
Not only should you be talking about DEI, but you should be promoting it and living it out in the workplace. If you talk about inclusiveness during the recruiting process, you want to make sure the candidate feels it once they are hired, and you need to continually promote it in the workplace so that employees stay long term and grow with the company.
3. Keep it human.
You can’t have a team without humans (unless you have robots). Humans like human-to-human interaction. They like to be heard. They like to know someone is listening. They like to know you care about them. Recruiting today requires a high-touch environment. It needs to be engaging. It needs to be collaborative. It needs to be personal. You need to connect and engage on a personal level.
Working in the tech industry, I have placed many candidates into various tech roles and am familiar with the current trends of AI, automations and all the things that start to make manual processes “better.” We shouldn’t forget that even with tech advancements, people still long for real connection—and that effort in recruiting will pay off.
4. Be proactive.
Speaking of robots, in a world of automation, recruiting requires a proactive approach. We’ve been conditioned to believe that if we want something, all we have to do is say it out loud and the advertising (and results) will come. We’re a culture of instant gratification.
What does this mean for recruiting? Candidates aren’t spending hours doing research on where to apply for jobs. They are jumping on the ones that are in front of them—delivered at their fingertips on their social media feeds and in their messages. If you want to stay competitive with your recruiting, go hunting. Proactively search for candidates who you think are good fits and would make great employees—and engage them.
5. Make a good first impression.
Image is everything. How’s your social media presence? Do you have a robust careers page? Are you showcasing your company culture? You can 100% count on the fact that candidates in your recruiting funnel will be looking and paying attention to your online presence. They will scour through posts. They will dig up current and past employee reviews to understand if what you’re advertising is being practiced. While candidates are not researching to find jobs, they do research before accepting a position.
Candidates will look to see how active you are on social media. If your product, brand and voice aren’t clear, they will question if the business will be successful and if that’s where they want to work. How a company presents itself gives a glimpse into how the actual day-to-day will go.
Consider this: An unclear website could mean unclear processes; a lack of brand or voice could mean you don’t have a strong client base; a bad careers page could mean you don’t have great HR policies and the onboarding process might be confusing.
As the hiring field is leveled and both companies and candidates are looking for the right fits from each perspective, you will have to find ways to stand out. The risk of not staying competitive and evolving your recruiting process is that your candidates will find somewhere that does match their needs.
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