by Joshua Siler Forbes Councils Member
Joshua Siler is CEO of HiringThing, a modern recruiting PaaS that enables seamless hiring with integrated applicant tracking.
Shared from Forbes
As of February 2022, there are nearly 11 million job openings in the United States, with the latest data labor statistics released on January 4, 2022, showing a record 4.5 million people voluntarily left their positions in November.
For years, employers had the upper hand. Wages could be stagnant, long hours were required and the mentality was often that employees should simply be grateful to be employed. The Great Resignation has unequivocally shifted the world of work and thus the way organizations recruit. It’s evident from these newest statistics that the Great Resignation isn’t a flash in the pan but a major shift causing repercussions that could reverberate for years.
Forward-thinking organizations should evaluate their hiring strategies to meet this new recruiting reality to remain competitive. Here are six actionable recruiting changes organizations can start implementing now.
Provide Schedule Flexibility
“Just-in-time” scheduling limits the availability of employees who have dependents, school, second jobs or other personal considerations. This scheduling model destabilizes earnings; disrupts access to childcare, continuing education and supplementary incomes; and could ultimately affect an individual’s quality of life. It’s worth noting that much of the current turnover is happening in low-wage jobs, which often use “just-in-time” scheduling to the detriment of their employees.
Paying those with less desirable shifts more money, pivoting to more fixed shifts and providing worker-controlled scheduling options could help retention and recruiting.
Offer Remote Work
Information collected by Glassdoor shows that the share of job searches for remote work roles grew 360% from June 2019 to June 2021. Today’s job seekers overwhelmingly want remote work. While remote work doesn’t work for every industry or role, offer the option if you can. My company, HiringThing, has been fully remote since 2012. I can personally say that the benefits of remote work—autonomy, flexibility, increased productivity and work-life balance—have outweighed any of the growing pains switching from in-person to remote entails.
Assess Your Technology Needs
The job market is and will continue to be competitive. It’s no longer enough to post a job and hope for the best. It’s vital to reassess your recruiting technology needs against your current tools to identify areas you can innovate or upgrade. Ensuring you have the right technology in place can help streamline the hiring process and potentially give you a professional advantage.
Nurture Employees
As employers, we need to adjust the way we think. Our employees aren’t lucky to work for us. We’re lucky to have them. I know my company hasn’t gotten to where it is without our past and present employees’ dedication, innovation and drive. It’s essential to ensure your current employees feel empowered and know they can learn and grow.
Nurturing your current talent not only helps with retention efforts but can help strengthen your recruiting. If you’re nurturing your talent, you already have a sizable stable of experts who are enthusiastic about your brand and mission when it comes to expanding roles and filling open positions.
Professional development and mobility are also what today’s employees crave. If companies don’t give their employees tools to grow and opportunities for advancement, they can expect their team to move on to organizations that will.
Move Fast On New Hires
You should assume your top job applicants are fielding multiple job offers and ensure your hiring process is as efficient as possible. The longer you keep candidates waiting, the higher the chances they’ll accept another offer.
Reevaluate Candidate Experience
According to findings from LinkedIn News, 93% of candidates surveyed said they’ve been ghosted after being contacted by an employer. That might’ve worked once, but research has found that 84% of job candidates read online reviews during the interview process—and you can bet they’ll share bad candidate experiences with their networks.
Today’s recruiting is very similar to marketing. Treat job candidates like customers and put thought and effort into their experience.
• Reevaluate the candidate experience. Go through your hiring process. How long does it take? What makes you want to quit? How can it be improved to cater to today’s job candidates?
• Send timely communication to all job candidates. Findings from a 2021 CareerPlug report found that responsiveness before an interview and after an interview were important factors in respondents’ decision to join a company or not. Job seekers are looking for engagement during the hiring process — your communications should reflect this.
• Rethink your standards. Do your open roles need a college degree? What about the need to lift a 25-pound box or stand for long periods? Your job postings may be limiting your candidate pool. I can personally attest that relevant experience has brought us just as many great employees as college degrees have.
Embrace Change
Change can be frustrating, especially when it disrupts familiar patterns and processes, but so many of our current workplace changes empower employees in ways we’ve never seen. I’m excited to witness the creativity, productivity and workplace satisfaction this new recruiting reality can bring to the world of work.
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