Specifically, candidate sourcing refers to the act of proactively finding and identifying potential candidates who could fill an open or future role in your company. This creates a robust talent pipeline for your company’s recruitment efforts. Recruiting, on the other hand, is a reactive function of reviewing, interviewing, selecting, and hiring candidates to fill open positions.

Sourcing goes hand-in-hand with candidate engagement and recruitment marketing, with the goal of identifying the right talent, actively interacting with those candidates, and moving them to the point of conversion. Sourcing often has the specific end goal of supporting recruiting to hire the right person for the right role, but it can also be used as a tool for expanding the organization’s talent pool. By broadening the talent network, recruiters have a wider range of talent to choose from.

A solid recruitment strategy, therefore, requires an equally strong candidate sourcing strategy. Let’s examine what this entails and identify some ways that you can make sure your candidate sourcing strategy gets the results you need.

Refine Your Candidate Sourcing Strategy With These Four Best Practices

To build a better sourcing strategy, you need to prioritize activities that develop your talent pipeline, so you can hire the best candidates for your current and future roles. For more sourcing strategies, take a deeper look at the eBook Effective Sourcing: Where Quality Meets Quantity. In the meantime, let’s take a look at how to optimize your sourcing strategy with these four key tips:

#1: Be Specific & Streamline Candidate Searches

Having a well-thought-out sourcing strategy requires companies to consider the types of candidates they want to fill their open positions. When conducting candidate searches online or in your candidate relationship management (CRM) tool, don’t limit the search to generic queries based on the job title, location, or qualifications. Those are all important things to consider, but they’re not going to give the depth of results you are seeking.

Instead, be detailed. Use semantic search terms related to the position’s responsibilities and associated technologies or companies. Also, use modifiers and Boolean operators to zero in on the exact kind of candidates you’re looking for.

Better yet, consider using tools like Zero-Click Intelligent Sourcing (ZCIS) to eliminate manual search and automatically identify candidates for every new and existing job within your company’s ATS. ZCIS automatically processes every job in your applicant tracking system and attaches potential candidates to that job for further consideration.

#2: Maintain a Strong Sourcing Pipeline

One vital element of your sourcing strategy should include looking back and engaging with previous candidates and applicants. Because you will source qualified talent for each role, but typically only hire one person for each position, make sure you take the opportunity to keep in touch with talent.

Ensure you are reaching out to previous silver medalists, or candidates who made it through the interviews, but were not selected, to those individuals who have applied to your positions previously, to those candidates who have signed up for your talent network, or those who have visited your career site. Continue reaching out to candidates proactively and keep in touch with them using a variety of communication channels to maintain your sourcing pipeline.

Remember, candidates who have shown interest in your company previously won’t stay interested forever, and you never know when you might find yourself in need of someone to fill a crucial position. Ensuring you can directly reach out to candidates and turn job seekers into applicants is a valuable lever in every sourcing strategy.

#3: Take Care to Identify Passive Candidates

When sourcing candidates, it’s important not just to wait for job seekers to find you. The whole point of any good sourcing strategy should be to actively cultivate new candidates for potential hires. That means looking at passive candidates who are not actively seeking a new position.

Passive candidates can be found in a variety of ways, from browsing LinkedIn profiles to attending in-person industry networking events. It’s important to remember that the resumes of passive candidates aren’t always up-to-date though, so be careful. Cross-reference their information across sources, if possible.

#4: Identify Top Sources for Talent & Track the Right Metrics

When sourcing candidates, you shouldn’t just be assessing potential employees. You should also be evaluating the sources themselves. That means identifying the sources that have yielded the most positive results for your business. Where have you had the most success in finding talent? Where have you converted the most candidates into applicants? Are online sources like LinkedIn or Indeed your best source for top talent? What about employee referrals?

You should also keep track of recruiting analytics that help you make smarter, faster decisions when it comes to hiring. For example, you should know how long it takes you on average to fill a position. Compare your own time-to-hire with those of other companies in your industry and see how you measure up. This can help you understand what you should be doing differently and where you can optimize your hiring process to speed time to hire.

Jobvite Supports Enterprise Companies in Building a Stronger Sourcing

Sourcing candidates isn’t always easy, but with the help of Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite, you’ll be well on your way to building a robust and streamlined sourcing engine that will help you recruit qualified candidates when you need them most. As part of the Evolve Suite, Jobvite’s Source & CRM solution empowers you to source and nurture your best talent at scale. Our Zero-Click Intelligent Sourcing tool also automatically finds top candidates when a requisition is first opened, saving recruiters up to 30% of their time.

Get more top sourcing tips in the Effective Sourcing: Where Quality Meets Quantity eBook. Or subscribe to our blog for more insights to evolve your talent acquisition function.

The post How to Create a Better Candidate Sourcing Strategy first appeared on Jobvite.

With a dynamic job market that is filled with uncertainty, companies of all sizes should be nimble in their recruiting approach. And what better time get rid of outdated strategies that are holding your team back from finding the best hires? We’ve compiled the top 10 outdated hiring practices that your team needs to ditch straightaway:

10 Outdated Hiring Practices You Should Dump

Long gone are the days when recruiters could cherry pick communications with candidates and still find qualified hires. In today’s chaotic labor market, growing companies all the way to enterprise organizations must become agile to improve their recruiting programs and hiring outcomes. But the good news is, these outdated hiring practices can be easily replaced and refined to help find and retain top talent. Without further delay, here are 10 hiring practices to get rid of right away in your business:

#1: Not offering flexibility and remote work

It’s surprising to see how many companies have gone back to require full in-person work for those jobs that can work remotely. If the last few years have shown us anything, it’s the importance of offering inclusive work options and accommodation to employees — without them needing to ask for it. If a job can be performed remotely at least part of the time, offer it as an option.

Remote work flexibility offers valuable accommodation for workers who may be neurodivergent, those who are caregivers, live with disabilities, or even have a lack reliable transportation. This is an easy way to expand DE&I in your organization, while improving quality-of-hire.

#2: Fluffing job descriptions

Everyone loves to read an exciting job description — one that seems really enticing. The problem is, however, it may not offer a realistic job preview. This very old tactic of fluffing job descriptions is a tired one. Employers can get carried away when it comes to listing the benefits of working for the company and over-exaggerate the requirements for the role. Candidates want to know what to expect when starting their new role, and don’t want to be unpleasantly surprised.

Employees are more likely to leave a job if the role didn’t meet the expectations that were set during the interview stages. In fact, Employ research indicates that up to a third of candidates are leaving in the first 90 days after joining an organization because their experiences didn’t match the job description. That’s why it’s important to write a transparent job description that’s clear on the role’s expectations, work environment, and employer value proposition. Avoid fluffing job descriptions and stick to clear descriptions with relevant, accurate information.

#3: Taking too long to make a move

Top candidates aren’t on the job market for very long. This has made it more important than ever for recruiting and hiring teams to have effective communication during the hiring process. Many companies lose their best candidates to competitors because of a lack of communication and taking too long to make an offer.

Shortening the feedback loop between hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates will help secure top talent in a competitive market. Use a centralized talent acquisition platform to improve communication among teams and empower them to quickly make informed hiring decisions.

#4: Requiring applicants to create a login before applying

Candidates are busy, and they know what it’s like to use consumer-grade technology. Yet, many companies still require candidates to create a log-in for their ATS before filling out an application. Candidates are looking for a seamless application process that mirrors the streamlined technology they regularly interact with and that can be completed in no more than a few clicks.

Lose the gated applications and watch an increase in quality candidates applying for even hard-to-fill roles. Data-driven recruiting technology helps convert more applicants by capturing profile information from the application and resume after it is submitted.

#5: Having long-winded applications

Remember the old days of applying for a job and having to input every line of your resume before attaching it on the next page? That outdated process is one of many examples of an inefficient application process that needs to be left in the past. Candidates today will abandon this lengthy application process and instead are looking to finish an application in less than five minutes.

A mobile-optimized application process is also crucial to finding and hiring top talent in today’s competitive job market. Leverage click-to-apply, text-to-apply, and other strategies to easily convert applicants from their smartphones.

#6: Ghosting candidates

Companies are pressured more than ever to provide a quality experience to every applicant that goes through the hiring process. Even though employers work hard to do this, some don’t have the right tools to effectively manage communication with candidates. This can lead to miscommunications (like ghosting) between recruiters and candidates — causing top talent to look elsewhere.

Recruiters can’t manage the complexities of hiring today without proper recruiting automation and hiring team collaboration tools. Allow automation and AI tools to reduce some of the burden of manual recruiting communication and never leave a good candidate hanging.

#7: Requiring in-person interviewing

Employers aren’t expecting the reshuffling of the workforce to be over anytime soon, and many candidates applying for your role are already currently working elsewhere. Busy candidates don’t have time to come to the office for an in-person interview, and some may be far away from any of the company’s locations. An outdated hiring practice that needs to be scraped is requiring an in-person interview for a role.

In such a fast-paced job market, recruiters are skipping timely in-person interviews and opting for video interviews and meetings. This is not only saving them effort in planning and organizing schedules, but it also allows them to consider candidates from a wider range of locations.

#8: Offering little or no onboarding

After a quality hire is made, they should not be thrown into the deep end of their role just yet. Many companies forget to invest in the crucial onboarding stage for new employees, and it causes them to lose talent in the first three months. Onboarding includes teaching new hires about valuable company information like culture, reporting structure, and resources.

A company’s onboarding program should be consistent for all employees, but gear towards an individual’s role when it comes to training. It should lay out expectations for new employees and get them integrated into their role as easily as possible.

#9: Offering limited PTO

In a candidate-driven market, now is not the time to cut down on benefits that employees expect. Paid Time Off (PTO) days are important for the health and wellness of all employees — and candidates want to know that they’re valued this way. Benefits like PTO, total compensation, bonuses, insurance, and salary are all big in a candidate’s consideration when choosing their next employer.

Offering a competitive amount of PTO can be an easy way to win top talent and retain quality employees. Some companies are even extending time off even before a new employee starts to give new hires time to refresh. Remember to list benefits like this in a job description to easily attract and convert candidates to apply for a role.

#10: Using outdated technology and services

Recruiters and hiring teams can’t manage hiring in today’s complex market without the right technology, services, and tools. Companies need the right mix of technology, personal connections, and services to save time and effort on manual tasks, and empower their teams to focus on the human aspects of recruiting. Purpose-built recruiting software and services, like the solutions offered across Employ’s four brands — JazzHR, Lever, Jobvite, and NXTThing RPO — are crucial to help teams find, hire, and onboard qualified talent efficiently.

When companies leverage the right technology and outsourced services for hiring in today’s chaotic labor market, they can make sure their hiring practices reflect a more modern, scalable approach built specifically for their recruiting needs.

Looking for More Recruiting Insights?

Want to upgrade your recruiting approach to find and hire a better quality of candidate, faster? Make sure to subscribe to our blog for more insights and best practices.

The post Which 10 Outdated Hiring Practices Are You Guilty Of? first appeared on Jobvite.

They also expect recruiting teams to provide a seamless candidate experience. In fact, 47% of job seekers today want great communication, prompt feedback, and timely follow-ups, while more than one-third look for a fast hiring process, according to the 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report.

To source and nurture talent at scale, the most strategic recruiting teams use candidate relationship management (CRM) software, specifically designed for recruitment to engage candidates and build stronger talent pools.

But how do top talent teams use recruitment CRM to create targeted campaigns and connect with the best candidates? Take a look at these tips and learn how you can get started to source, engage, and hire top talent for your business.

A Closer Look at Recruitment CRM

Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) is a recruitment tool that empowers recruiting teams to easily find and engage their talent networks at scale. A recruitment CRM allows you to meet candidates where they are, turn passive talent into engaged applicants, and ensure you have the right talent identified and engaged before your business needs them.

CRM tools help automatically manage communications, send proactive campaigns, and even broadcast your open roles to job boards. By improving efficiency in the sourcing and recruitment process, you can maximize your hiring results, while reducing your hiring costs and manual effort.

5 Ways to Use Recruitment CRM Tools to Create Targeted Recruiting Campaigns

#1: Create custom invite lists for specialized recruiting events

With qualified candidates in short supply, recruitment marketing has become a priority in attracting and converting top talent. One tactic for expanding your candidate pools is to participate in recruiting events. Whether virtual or in person, use recruitment CRM tools to automatically invite candidates to upcoming events they might be interested in. CRM software can match candidates based on profiles that would benefit from the event. These niche recruiting events can help talent teams source candidates for specific roles or even expand DEI within their organization.

#2: Broadcast job requisitions across talent networks

Sourcing qualified applicants can be one of the most time-consuming and frustrating parts of the recruitment process. Reaching an entire talent network with the right job at the right time can seem impossible. But CRM tools are making this easier than ever. Automatically broadcast an open job role across specific talent networks with recruitment CRM and start sourcing qualified applicants right away.

#3: Engage candidates on the channels where they’re most active

Today’s job seeker is busy, so it’s crucial for recruiters to meet candidates where they are. By using the channels that candidates prefer, you can easily engage candidates where they will be most responsive, whether that’s email, text or social media. According to the latest Job Seeker Nation Report, 76% of job seekers are open to receiving email, 70% are open to phone calls, and 50% prefer text messages. The right recruitment CRM enables you to engage with candidates quickly as part of your outreach strategy to improve candidate response and conversion rates at each stage of the talent journey.

#4: Send personalized messaging campaigns to passive talent

No recruiter wants to start from scratch every time they have to fill an open role. That’s why it’s important to keep talent networks engaged, especially between opportunities. Keep quality candidates warm and nurtured in the pipeline by sending targeted messages through your recruitment CRM. Leverage candidate profiles to send relevant updates or even future job openings that might be of interest. These customized campaigns can keep candidates informed and engaged even when they are not actively looking.

#5: Segment talent pools for efficient sourcing

As recruiting programs get more complex, and more roles open for hiring, segmenting talent pools becomes increasingly important. Some roles require specific skills or certifications, and others may need relevant experience or expertise, or some positions may need to be in specific geographic areas. Each of these can be criteria for sorting and sourcing talent pools in your recruitment CRM to help you segment and target specific candidates, especially for hard-to-fill roles.

Start Nurturing Your Talent Networks with Jobvite CRM

Looking to learn more about using a CRM platform that can grow talent networks and help find the right candidates? Request a live demo of Jobvite CRM or watch an on-demand product tour now.

You can also subscribe to the Jobvite blog and resource library to stay up to date on the latest insights on candidate engagement and nurturing.

The post What Is Recruitment CRM and How Do You Use It? first appeared on Jobvite.

Beyond helping talent acquisition professionals recruit quality candidates, modern recruiting software today leverages AI and automation to identify top talent and develop future hiring initiatives. Within the last two years, 38% of businesses were directing their AI capabilities toward hiring new talent.

Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite is a unified AI-powered talent acquisition solution that automates the recruitment process and provides more quality hires. Here are seven ways enterprise companies with complex recruiting environments can benefit from using this type of software to streamline their recruiting efforts. 

#1: Reducing Time-to-Hire with Recruiting Automation Software

Making the recruiting process more efficient within an enterprise organization not only saves on recruitment costs, but also improves the candidate experience. Statistics show a direct correlation between reduced time-to-hire and a lower cost-per-hire when using AI-driven intelligent sourcing. Recruiters actively analyze these two metrics when they want to attract, engage, recruit, or hire top talent.

Jobvite talent acquisition technology reduces the time-to-hire and cost-per-hire by automating many of the tedious processes in the recruiting journey. Note that an average job post attracts up to 118 applications. If talent teams decided to screen each application manually, it would be incredibly time-consuming and costly.

Conversely, modern talent acquisition software sifts through applications and identifies top candidates based on the most important skills and experiences required for the role. In addition, recruiters can spend more valuable time nurturing candidates, developing relationships, and cultivating more strategic hiring plans.

#2: Recruiting the Best Candidates

The best enterprise recruiting organizations create talent acquisition processes that attract top candidates and nurture them to the application process. This means recruiters and talent teams can spend more time interacting and engaging with top-tier talent than in evaluating those candidates that may not have the right skills or experience for the job.

Finding talented candidates is easier with Jobvite’s Suite to manage recruiting complexity through a unified solution that addresses the entire talent acquisition lifecycle. Whether it’s employer branding, recruitment marketing, applicant management, employee referrals or internal mobility, the Suite from Jobvite can help recruit the best candidates, fast.

#3: Creating a More Inclusive Workforce

Diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) are mission-critical topics in today’s recruiting landscape. They are also critical factors candidates consider when deciding where to work. A study by Glassdoor found that 67% of active and passive job seekers look at a company’s diversity when evaluating job offers.

Many recruiters and talent acquisition professionals continue to look for ways to create a more inclusive workforce and use AI-powered tools to reduce conscious and unconscious bias. Functionality like Bias Blocker from Jobvite automatically redacts identifiable information from a candidate’s resume before hiring manager review. By eliminating unnecessary data points and creating equal opportunity for candidates, recruiters can connect with underrepresented communities and build strong teams wherever talent is found.

#4: Filling Critical Positions Faster

A common problem within enterprise organizations is that the recruitment process takes too long and top talent is snatched up quickly by other companies. Even the most minor delays in the recruitment process can cost you a good candidate.

Did you know HR managers lose an average of 14 hours a week when performing tasks that can be automated? An AI-enabled recruiting solution like those capabilities offered from Jobvite saves time by automating administrative tasks that impact the success and efficiency of the recruitment process.

#5: Enhancing Candidate Matching

Matching candidates to the right job opening is another challenging task when recruiting candidates within an enterprise company. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by a large number of applications for a single job opening.

Jobvite offers AI candidate matching that enables recruiters to sort through a large volume of candidates and identify those who are most closely aligned with a job description or in comparison to other similar candidates. These AI algorithms automate what has been a manual process for recruiters.

#6: Improving the Candidate Experience

Streamlined interactions with prospective candidates play a critical role in an applicant’s overall talent journey and experience with the company.

AI recruitment software comes integrated with real-time engagement data, enabling companies to interact with candidates throughout the hiring process. Research shows 38% of candidates are more likely to accept job offers if they had a positive candidate experience.

That’s how to win clients in recruitment and:

• Enhance your company’s reputation
• Improve employer branding initiatives 
• Attract high-quality candidates whenever you have a job opening
• Improve new and current employee retention

With AI chatbots and text, like offered in Jobvite’s Suite, companies can interact with candidates through automated SMS messages, email, or live chats. The messages can inform candidates about scheduled interviews, their application status, or answer specific questions associated with the role.

#7: Increasing Recruitment Accuracy 

Some candidates have mastered the art of curating and crafting resumes to stand out. This means recruiters could miss out on a great candidate with the right skills or experience, but who hasn’t included the right keywords on their resume.

With an award-winning, holistic recruiting suite like Jobvite’s, it’s easy to analyze candidate applications without relying on keywords. Jobvite analyzes candidate documents, identifying specific candidate competencies. This way, the best candidates are not overlooked.

Start Attracting Top Talent with Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite 

Whether you’re planning to continue at the level of hiring you currently have in your enterprise or are looking to scale further, using AI-based talent acquisition software is a critical component.

The complexity of hiring for enterprise companies will only continue to increase, so you need to adapt your talent acquisition technologies to accommodate your current and future growth. See what Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite can do in your organization and learn how it tackles every area of the talent lifecycle in your complex hiring environment.

The post Seven Ways Jobvite Supports Hiring Complexity In Enterprise Companies first appeared on Jobvite.

Today, the conversation has expanded from simple “diversity” to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). Yet companies are still grappling with some of the same questions they always have: What does workforce diversity really look like? Why is it important? And how can we make it happen?

Earlier this week, Jobvite hosted a webinar to dig into these critical questions, with help from two of our favorite experts: Trish McFarlane and Steve Boese from H3 HR Advisors. Following are just a few of the key takeaways from this session.

#1: The Definition of “Diverse” Is Shifting

In the 1980s and 1990s, most companies had a simple two-race view of diversity. Today, the very idea of diversity hiring has evolved to include not only race, but gender, ethnicity, age, orientation, physical ability, neurodiversity, and more.

This evolution is partly due to increased visibility and empowerment of previously marginalized groups, but there are also demographic shifts at play. The U.S. population is becoming more diverse over time, especially in younger segments of the population. In fact, Generation Z (born 1996-2010) is the most diverse generation in history, with nearly half comprised of racial or ethnic minorities.

Age distribution within the U.S. workforce is also changing. As the youngest Baby Boomers approach retirement age, younger generations will step into leadership roles — bringing with them stronger convictions about diversity and inclusion. In the wake of the pandemic, there is also a trend toward earlier retirement, which will only amplify the impact of younger leaders.

PRO TIP: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is a great resource for trends, demographic data, and other info to help guide your DEI strategy. 

#2: An Inclusive Workforce Is More Important Than Ever

The impact of the Great Resignation is still reverberating through the labor market, creating some of the tightest hiring conditions in history. With fewer candidates available for every open role, companies have an opportunity — and an obligation — to take a more deliberate approach to strategic hiring and DEI initiatives.

The fact is, a diverse and inclusive workforce benefits everyone. Diverse teams are more innovative, more productive, and report greater employee satisfaction. Studies by McKinsey have demonstrated that companies with diverse leadership produce stronger business results. A commitment to DEI can even help with hiring, as nearly half of job seekers consider this factor when evaluating a job offer.

PRO TIP: Download our new e-book, THE WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE, AND WHEN OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION for tips and actionable insights to develop your DEI programs.

#3: Technology Can Enhance your DEI Efforts

While DEI and diversity hiring is very much a human-centric initiative, the right technology can help to find and engage diverse audiences, reduce recruiting bias, and improve hiring outcomes. For example:

• Expand talent pools and top-of-funnel efforts with a tool like Jobvite’s Zero-Click Intelligent Sourcing.
• Remove personally identifiable information (PII) from candidate resumes and profiles with a tool like Jobvite’s Bias Blocker.
• Review job postings for biased language that can lead to unintended disparity with a tool like Jobvite’s Job Description Grader.
• Analyze the impact of your DEI efforts across the entire talent acquisition lifecycle with a powerful tool like Jobvite’s Unify Advanced Analytics.

PRO TIP: Jobvite’s Diversity & Inclusion Pack offers a unique combination of technology and services to help our customers build a more diverse pipeline of talent.

It’s never been more important to create a diverse and inclusive workplace — one that truly reflects the society in which we live. Most companies have not yet reached the workplace ideals they desire, but every step in the right direction makes a difference.

Watch the full webinar for even more insights, tips, and actionable advice. With help from Jobvite and the experts at H3 HR Advisors, you’ll be prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of today’s diversity hiring initiatives.

The post Three Key Insights for Amplifying Diversity Hiring in Your Organization first appeared on Jobvite.

We’ve condensed general takeaways from the 2022 TA Planning Kit below, but we would advise looking at the kit yourself for a more granular, in-depth look at what it will take to truly revolutionize your talent acquisition process.

1. Create a High-Level Strategy

Start at the top by creating a high-level strategy. Considering not only planned headcount growth and budget for 2022 but also the possible effects of the “Great Resignation” and internal mobility on hiring needs for your organization, estimate the number of new hires your organization will need this year. Using SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based) goal methodology, you should determine a realistic number of high-level goals your TA team can achieve. With these goals in mind, you can lay out a series of recruiting programs and hiring events that will help you to achieve hiring goals throughout the year. Finally, build out detailed program plans, lending more detail to closer deadlines.

2. Develop Candidate Personas

You can think of a candidate persona like a fictional character based on statistically common characteristics of the types of people you would like to attract, engage, and hire. This can create a better candidate experience by increasing personalization, and it has the potential to either support or reshape company culture and support your 2022 goals.

3. Build Targeted Audience Plans

You should identify, prioritize, and nurture your organization’s relationships with three key audiences:

• Key Talent: those with the experience and skills to fill high-volume or critical positions
• Strategic Talent: those who fall under key demographics like underrepresented groups or veterans and students
• Relationship Audiences: those who already have some relationship with your organization, such as employees, referrals, or past applicants

Once identified, it will be up to your TA team to build and deliver engaging, relevant content—think branded and targeted career landing pages.

4. Refocus on DEI

Take a look at your organization’s recent DEI initiatives and determine which of four buckets you fall into: (1) Reactive, (2) Proactive, (3) Progressive, or (4) Best-in-Class. After reflecting on both recent successes and areas of improvement in this area, you should compare the current state of your DEI programs to their ideal state by EOY’22 to give yourself a clear roadmap—identifying clear areas of improvement is already a step in the right direction. Finally, do some research to learn how technology can help propel you down the path(s) you’ve identified.

5. Reconsider your TA Metrics

A new year is a great time to revisit the metrics you are measuring. You should begin by assessing candidate pool health. This will give you great insight into how your team has handled the hiring process as the health of your candidate pool generally follows the level of candidate engagement in your hiring process. Compare metrics like email open rate or time since last email engagement to those of best-in-class organizations (details in worksheet five of Jobvite’s 2022 TA Planning Kit) to determine how successful your team is engaging candidates via email or text message.

You should also take the time to nail down the KPIs most relevant to your immediate needs and assess their current state compared to their ideal state. Work with all invested parties from recruiters and hiring managers to upper management to identify potential bottlenecks in your process as well as their potential solutions.

6. Improve Return on Investment (ROI) of Recruitment Spend

Half of all companies don’t measure ROI on recruitment solutions, but almost two-thirds of recruiters are expecting a hike in recruitment spending in 2022. Taking a measure of recruitment spend ROI will allow your team to make the most of every bit of hard-won budget, and it will allow you to account for the value of recruitment expenses to leaders at your organization. You should take note of the solutions in your TA tech stack and balance the costs and benefits to determine the true value provided by those solutions. Try to garner a holistic understanding of these benefits and costs by considering stakeholders at every level—identify internal champions for high ROI solutions and consider researching other options for solutions that are delivering only a sub-par return.

7. Get More from Employee Referrals

Employee referrals can lead to higher converting, higher quality, longer-lasting employees, so don’t overlook this strategy in your 2022 planning. You can begin reassessing your current employee referral program by reestablishing goals and objectives—how many employee referral hires do you want in 2022? And how realistic is that goal? Next, you can establish an incentive—employees who enjoy their time at your organization will be interested in sharing with friends and colleagues, but incentivizing it turns their interest into a priority. Empower your employees to help you—make your requisitions easily sharable across social media to encourage employee social engagement. Finally, you should be actively tracking your referrals to ensure you know how and where your best referrals come from.

8. Create an Outstanding Onboarding Experience

New hires are two times more likely to look for work elsewhere after a poor onboarding experience, so ensure you give them a reason to stay at the outset. To improve your onboarding process, you should determine onboarding objectives and understand which steps are and are not working. You can do this by simply writing out the steps of your onboarding process, noting the desired outcome of each step, and identifying where the pitfalls happen to be. Once potential areas for improvement have been identified, you can brainstorm with your team and network to determine more efficient practices. (Check out worksheet 8 of Jobvite’s 2022 TA Planning Kit for an extensive list of onboarding best practices).

9. Invest in Yourself

You should assess your TA function to determine where your team is strong and where you might be able to turn it up a notch—then you should take time to grow your own skills. Jobvite’s EVOLVE TA Framework offers a technology-agnostic quick assessment that you and your team can take to identify those areas that help or hinder your recruitment process across the three pillars of TA—Recruitment Marketing, Applicant Management, and TA Operations. Then, consider enrolling in Jobvite Academy, an online learning center where you can expand your skill set, while simultaneously earning SHRM + HRCI credits.

More on TA strategy and planning

You can also tune in to the upcoming 2022 Planning Webinar on January 25 at 2 pm ET. This live event features Peggy Anderson, Head of TA at Shutterfly, Kristal Shropshire, Director of TA at Achievement Network, and Jobvite’s very own head of TA, Josh Jones. These experts will discuss the tools and strategies successful TA leaders are putting in place to crush hiring goals in 2022 and create real value for their respective organizations.

The post 9 Ways to Tackle Your 2022 Hiring Goals first appeared on Jobvite.

As talent acquisition pros, our appreciation of veterans shouldn’t end after November 11. Each year, roughly a quarter of a million people retire from the US military – and many of those talented veterans will be looking for jobs in the civilian sector.

Hiring veterans is a smart move for civilian employers

With a record number of jobs currently unfilled in the US, military veterans represent a unique and often untapped talent pool for savvy employers. People coming out of the military possess a unique set of training and skills that civilian employers need.

Many are experienced in fields like IT, cybersecurity, finance, logistics, and more. Military service also helps to develop skills like leadership, problem solving, communication, and teambuilding – all of which are critical to business success.

In addition, hiring veterans can help employers to achieve their broader diversity and inclusion goals, as US veterans include millions of women, ethnic minorities, disabled individuals, and other key groups. There may even be opportunities to earn tax credits for hiring veterans.

Tackling the unique challenges of hiring veterans

Helping veterans transition to civilian employment makes good strategic sense, but it requires deliberate planning, process, and strategy. Our new e-book, Hiring Our Heroes: A Guide to Hiring Military Veterans for Civilian Roles, provides key insights and advice for employers looking to attract and engage this unique audience.

For example, we mentioned that military veterans bring a variety of desirable skills and experience to the table. But the military has a language of its own, and civilian recruiters often have trouble deciphering military terminology to understand how the experience on a veteran’s resume matches up with open roles. There are a number of online resources available to help veterans translate their military skills to civilian lingo – and these can also be valuable for recruiters. Improving your ability to identify relevant experience will make it easier to review resumes from veterans and craft job descriptions that will appeal to candidates with a military background.

The ebook is full of actionable tips like this, to help you re-focus the end-to-end candidate journey around a veteran audience. Topics include:

• Targeting veterans as a strategic audience
• Developing a veteran-focused content strategy
• Creating military-friendly job descriptions
• Customizing the career site experience for veterans
• Executing campaigns to attract veteran candidates, both virtually and in person
• Leveraging automation to target military-focused sourcing
• Selecting channels where veterans feel most comfortable
• Optimizing your process over time

There’s never been a better time to get started

If you’re ready to start tapping into the military talent pool to fill your open roles, Jobvite is here to help! Download the ebook today for insights on how to attract and engage this unique audience, and information on how our advance talent acquisition suite and automation capabilities can help.

The post A Guide to Hiring Military Veterans for Civilian Roles first appeared on Jobvite.

Sourcing in HR should never be an afterthought. Proactively refining the way you find, screen, and hire employees is crucial because, after all, employees are the lifeblood of any business.

At Jobvite, we know that recruiting the right employees is often the deciding factor between success and failure. You want to acquire the best talents and skills. To do that, though, you need an effective hiring process.

How to design a better hiring process

Your end goal is to create a process that highlights the company’s culture – mission, vision, purpose, and values – while aligning with the needs of the candidate and remaining free of bias.

To improve your hiring process, consider these tips:

1. Start with inspiring job descriptions

The hiring process often starts with a job advertisement. At this point, the most you can do to better your hiring process is to improve your job descriptions. Make them as appealing as possible, so that once a candidate comes across them, they’re compelled to reach out. And with Jobvite’s free Job Description Grader tool, you can ensure they are free of any unconscious bias.

Remember, you don’t exclusively own the hiring process. It’s a two-way process between your company and the candidates. In fact, the first decision lies with the candidate, who may decide to either apply or pass over your job.

To attract the best candidates, consider including the following details in your job descriptions:

• What you’re looking for and expect from the candidate to succeed in the position
• How you’ll reward successful applicants who’ll accept your offer
• Your business culture, including your targets, interests, and people you serve
• A clearly defined list of skill requirements including the must-have and the nice-to-have skills you’re looking for in the role.

All your job description templates should be consistent to ensure candidates across all platforms get uniform experience. Moreover, have guidelines in place that hiring managers can use to create and update job descriptions. And don’t forget about meeting candidates where they are – social media. Social media recruiting is essential not only to sourcing new employees, but also to expand your brand.

2. Adopt one-time pre-screening

Why should it take your company weeks or even months to hire? This is not only costly but comes at an opportunity cost too. Yet, that’s exactly what most organizations do.

While 36% of firms take roughly four to eight weeks to hire, another 27% take as long as eight to twelve weeks, according to data from Recruitment Buzz. Such a lengthy screening process should not be acceptable in your company.

To avoid taking this long, one pre-screening call per candidate will do the trick. The screening should mainly cover:

• Confirmation of application
• A concise overview of the organization and the position
• Validation of the candidate’s CV and that they accept the salary range
• Ascertaining that the candidate is legally allowed to work at your company’s location
• Finding out what expectations the candidate has of their next employer
• Other clarifications from the candidate
• Tackling any questions from the candidate
• Guidance on what follows in the hiring process

Pro Tip: As candidates are increasingly embracing mobile, think about incorporating text recruiting into your process. Jobvite’s Text Recruiting solutions can seamlessly pre-screen candidates using artificial intelligence and chatbots, saving time and frustration for both recruiter and candidate.

3. Build an optimal interview process

The hiring process should include two types of standard interviews: technical and value based.

Technical interviews

Technical interviews involve having the candidate perform a task to assess their ability to work in the position, largely consisting of behavioral questions. Your aim here should be to leave that interview knowing whether or not the candidate should get the job offer should they do well in the non-technical interview.

In some cases, questions will do. You can identify a person’s suitability for the role just from the way they answer technical questions. Straightforward questions give you a good idea of the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses from the get-go.

That said, the best bet is a brief task. It allows the shy prospects to showcase their abilities in a practical setting, which would be hard in a question-and-answer-only kind of interview.

It’s worth mentioning that long interviews are not recommended. And if it’s unavoidable that you take more than two hours, it’s advisable that you pay the interviewees. It shows you respect their time.

Non-technical/value-based interviews

This kind of interview aims at identifying candidates who align with your organization’s values. Prospective employees can also establish whether their values rhyme with those of the employer brand.

Practical or real-life situation questions will work best in this case. At the end of the interview, you should have evidence supporting that alignment of values and establish the following:

• The candidate’s interpretation of the value
• Whether they have demonstrated the same in the past, and how
• How they’ll exercise the value in your firm if you hire them

4. Have an evidence-based way of rating success

To ensure the process is 100% fair, develop a scoring spectrum, fitting both the company and the position. With such a system in place, you guarantee fairness, regardless of who the interviewer is.

Every task or interview should have specific dimensions that you evaluate candidates on. Have a scale of, for instance, one to five, that you use to rate the candidate. Additionally, include a space for description, where the interviewer can provide evidence for the rating.

The best idea is to have another person present during the interview and to be precise, different people for different dimensions, to help with the rating. This will make the success rating process even fairer and ensure consistent standards in the hiring process.

5. Ensure your hiring process is fast, transparent, and well-planned

The hiring process is critical for any company. Therefore, you need to set clear timelines before you can start the process. This includes the advertisement window, deadline for applications, and interview dates.

Most importantly, be transparent with the candidates, making them aware of all events as they unfold. Be available to the candidates, providing them with updates at every step of the hiring process and what to expect next. That way the candidates feel confident of the process and how you run the firm altogether. Additionally, it prevents scenarios where candidates take another job as a result of unclear timelines.

Jobvite ATS helps recruiters keep track of everything

Times keep changing, and so do the ways of doing things. If you’re still holding on to the old hiring process, it’s time you designed a better one.

More than ever before, recruiters today have a lot to balance when sourcing new employees. There’s so much to keep track of, in fact, that it’s often hard to manage without help.

That’s where Jobvite comes in. Our applicant tracking system is designed to help streamline your hiring process by bringing every piece of the puzzle together under one room. From CRM hiring to interview scheduling to social media management and much, much more, Jobvite makes it easier than ever to find the right candidates to propel your business to success. Visit jobvite.com and request a demo today!

The post How to Design a Better Hiring Process first appeared on Jobvite.

For smart talent teams, automation can help alleviate some of the pressure to fill open roles. Start by taking steps to automate your sourcing process, which will provide you with a robust talent pool and help you identify candidates with the right skills and experience for each open position.

Of course, the next challenge is enticing job-seekers to submit an application — and then screening those applicants to narrow down your slate of candidates. The good news is, automation can help with these tasks, too!

While you may be reluctant to embrace automation because of concern that it could negatively impact the candidate experience, it can actually create a better, more personalized experience for your candidates. At the same time, automation helps recruiters save effort on manual, repetitive tasks so they can focus on more critical human interactions within the talent acquisition process.

Here are a few ideas to help you understand how automation can be used to improve the application process, candidate screening, and overall candidate experience.

1. Add mobile and text capabilities

When candidates are in short supply, it’s critical for employers to remove barriers that might deter job seekers from applying. In fact, the 2021 Job Seeker Nation Report found that a complicated application process is among the top factors in a negative candidate experience. These days most people keep their mobile phones within reach at all times, so an optimized mobile apply process is a smart way to attract a higher volume of high-quality applicants.

Jobvite’s mobile application process with text-to-apply offers a quick, intuitive experience for candidates on the go. Applicants can simply text your number and Jobvite’s chatbot will guide the candidate through a simple mobile application process. Automated audience segmentation functionality allows recruiters to reach many candidates simultaneously, with personalized texts sent directly to their phones.

Our research shows that 69% of candidates prefer texting versus email or phone calls for job-related communications. And while text messages have a 98% read rate, less than 5% of Fortune 500 companies currently offer text-to-apply options – so, adopting this technology can put your company ahead of the curve and set you apart from competing employers.

2. Leverage chatbots to streamline candidate screening

The average recruiter spends 16 hours each week screening candidates. Imagine what you could accomplish if that number were reduced to just five hours per week. It’s possible with automated web- and text-based chatbots.

Jobvite’s AI-powered chatbots can help pre-qualify (or disqualify) candidates using customized screening questions to evaluate their skills and qualifications. Unlike human recruiters, chatbots can effectively conduct multiple conversations at once – and they can continue the screening process even when human recruiters are off the clock.

Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular in recruiting, with 32% of organizations using them for candidate screening in 2021 (up from 24% in 2020). That’s because automating the pre-screening process does more than just saving time; it empowers recruiters to focus on the most qualified candidates and move on quickly from those who aren’t a good fit.

3. Improve the candidate experience with intelligent messaging

According to the 2021 Job Seeker Nation Report, great communication from a potential employer is the number one factor in a positive candidate experience. So why not take advantage of technology to make sure candidate communications are managed quickly, easily, and efficiently?

Jobvite’s Intelligent Messaging solution lets you engage with candidates via text, wherever and whenever it’s most convenient for them. Automated messaging can be used to invite candidates to apply for a job, answer common questions, schedule interviews, share information and links, and so much more. And the more your intelligent messaging system is used, the smarter it gets.

Automated messaging is managed directly through your ATS, so there’s no longer a need to use personal cell phones for candidate communications. Recruiters can view every text thread in one place, so conversations won’t get dropped. And text conversations are automatically logged to create an easily accessible audit trail.

Let Jobvite help

Whatever challenges you’re facing, the right tools and technology can help you streamline workflows, increase efficiency, and improve the candidate experience. To learn more about all of Jobvite’s automation capabilities, download our new e-book, How to Improve Recruiter Efficiency with Automation.

You can also visit jobvite.com and schedule a demo to see our automated solutions in action!

The post 3 Ideas to Optimize Applications and Automate Candidate Screening first appeared on Jobvite.

Today, the U.S. is seeing a return to early 2020 employment numbers, with the economic recovery allowing many companies to increase staffing levels rapidly. However, priorities and expectations in the workplace have shifted, putting increased pressure on recruiters to adapt quickly and address these industry concerns.

Jobvite’s new Recruiter Nation Report is finally here, providing an in-depth look at the current state of recruiting and the challenges and opportunities facing recruiters today. In this year’s report, the industry is confronting a dramatic shift from one year prior when the world was facing job losses, layoffs, and staffing reductions.

Here are some highlights from this year’s report:

It’s a workers’ revolution
Companies are experiencing a new kind of worker revolution where candidates and employees are energized to choose a job where they feel supported and valued. As workers’ confidence continues upward, recruiters face new challenges to win over top talent.

• 47% of recruiters struggle from a lack of skilled/qualified candidates, while 40% face competition from other employers
• 65% of recruiters report increased stress levels, with one in five reporting a drastic increase
• In addition to facing higher turnover (59%), 39% of organizations are also increasing staffing levels and hiring rapidly–a 13 percentage point jump since last year

Recruiters are becoming more agile
With millions of unfilled jobs in the United States, organizations are reimagining recruiting processes to hire top talent more effectively.

• 80% of recruiters’ priorities have shifted over the past year, and 40% have increased recruiting budgets
• Outsourcing additional work to freelancers (35%) and making more internal hires (40%) is helping companies meet hiring needs
• 70% of recruiters plan to take additional professional courses, earn certifications, and continue their education to enhance their expertise

Social media continues to go viral
Social media continues its upward trajectory in the recruiting space, with more hiring teams leveraging social channels in their efforts to engage and attract high-quality candidates.

• Social media topped the list among recruitment investment focuses for the next year at 51%–an increase of 10 percentage points since 2018
• 45% of recruiters use Instagram–an increase of 28% over the past four years
• TikTok usage among recruiters has doubled since 2020, and more than 20% of recruiters are using Snapchat, which is up 15 percentage points since 2017

Diversity & inclusion (D&I) initiatives are essential …
More organizations realize the importance of building a diverse workplace.

• 61% of organizations are putting more emphasis on diversity than they did in 2020
• Nearly 70% of recruiters believe that diversity will be a priority for TA professionals in the next year
• 49% of recruiters report that job seekers are inquiring about D&I initiatives more than they did in the previous year–up 16 percentage points from 2020

However, 20% of organizations have no goals for improving diversity in the workplace. This could lead to challenges for attracting talent, as 44% of recruiters surveyed said candidates have turned down an interview or job offer due to a lack of diversity.

…So is remote work
Workers are making it clear that they want flexibility in the workplace, and companies are granting their wishes. While 70% of companies plan to offer a hybrid workplace, a lack of remote work options could also hurt companies hiring rapidly or facing staffing shortages.

• 54% of recruiters have seen candidates turn down an interview or job offer in the past year due to a lack of flexibility and remote work options in the workplace
• 57% of recruiters believe the lack of work from home policies makes it harder to attract potential candidates
• 60% of recruiters think organizations will lose employees if they do not transition to a remote-first culture

Download the full report for more

Based on this year’s findings, this new reality has made it clear: agility is the new essential ingredient to successful recruiting. To better understand the current state of recruiting and the challenges and opportunities in recruiters’ midst today, download the full 2021 Recruiter Nation Report. With hundreds of additional statistics and insights, learn how your hiring team can reimagine recruiting processes and become more adaptable to labor market trends.

The post Agility and Adaptability, the Key to Successful Recruiting first appeared on Jobvite.