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New Year – New Employees: Energize Your Recruitment Marketing Strategy in 2017

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As we prepare for the upcoming year, talent management may be the last thing on your mind. We still have many Sunday night football games, post-turkey naps, holiday treats, and family traditions to look forward to. On the other hand, we all have performance goals to meet, budgets to create, and strategies to strategize before 2017 arrives. Who has time for recruitment marketing and talent management, right?

But the reality is recruitment marketing and talent management are two things that companies should never stop focusing on. Talent is the foundation that your strategies and performance goals rely on. Talent is the key to innovation and growth. Talent equals success. Without the right talent, how will your company create, innovate, and grow profitable and thriving businesses?

Recognizing that recruitment marketing is an important part of your organization’s overall strategy and using data-driven initiatives and fresh thinking can help you build a solid pipeline of talented leads that could implement positive change—and that spells good things for your business.

Equally as important as using data as part of your recruitment and talent management operations is understanding that when it comes to a job search, candidates are like consumers. They research prospective employers the same way they research products. Their candidate journeys might involve as many as 12 touch points with your employer brand and the content that exists about your company on the web. That includes visiting your corporate website and blog, your LinkedIn company page, and the LinkedIn profiles of your key executives and folks with whom they are interviewing. That might also include following your company on Twitter, watching the videos on your corporate YouTube channel, and reading those all important Glassdoor reviews.

Smart companies and recruiting teams learn how to form relationships with candidates from the point of attraction and in a wide variety of different channels, and not later on, from the point of application. By doing this, you can influence a prospective candidate’s decision to take their next career step with your organization.

It all starts with you—recruiter and HR pro as change agents. New ideas about talent management don’t intimidate you; they motivate and inspire you to take a step back and look at the strategy behind recruitment. If you want to be a part of turning the recruitment marketing process upside down, you’re not alone. Want a deeper dive on this topic?

CNN Commentator Mel Robbins, Applied Futurist Tom Cheesewright, and SmashFly CEO Mike Hennessy are ready to lead the discussion of change management. To hear from these experts and learn more about the latest in recruitment marketing join this live stream and join the conversation starting November 2. Join Now.  This exciting event will feature stories and tips from key employer branding industry leaders including GE, PwC, Great Clips, Thermo Fisher, and more. We hope you’ll join us!

Join the online version of the Transform Event for free, you can listen to great content from Nov 2-4. Join Now.

 

 

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This post is sponsored by TalentCulture client, Smashfly

Key Points from LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends 2016 [Report]

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Each year, technology brings new recruiting trends to the HR world that impact both how we recruit, and retain, employees. It’s up to businesses to stay on top of these changing trends if they want to acquire the best talent. Obviously, that’s easier said than done, especially for smaller businesses that may not have the time and resources available. That’s why LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends for 2016, created by a panel of experts, is a fantastic guide for HR professionals and hiring managers

The report is geared toward small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to upgrade their recruiting processes for the New Year and is the result of surveying some 3,894 talent acquisition decision-makers who work in corporate HR departments. With recruiting talent and retaining employees becoming more important than ever, businesses are constantly on the lookout to improve HR. Thanks to this report—and the experts surveyed—a lot of the hard work is already done. Let’s take a look. 

Identify Top Priorities

HR duties are widely varied, so prioritizing business needs is important for small businesses. The first section of the report found that businesses are focusing heavily on recruiting the very best talent and incentivizing employees to stick around. This certainly isn’t a new priority for any HR department anywhere: 42 percent of those surveyed said recruiting highly-talented candidates is a main priority, while 38 percent said the focus should be on employee retention. Other concepts, like improving the quality of hires, sourcing techniques, and pipelining talent were further down on the priority list.

Increase Hiring Budget for Better Hiring Practices

SMBs are growing steadily and that growth, as reflected by the HR pros participating in the survey, is likely to continue. 62 percent of respondents reported they expect an increase in hiring volume over the next year. Likewise, 46 percent predict their hiring budgets will increase accordingly. The two directly affect one another: the need for more employees necessitates a larger hiring budget, and better practices mean better employees.

Use New Ways to Find Top Talent

Recruiting high-quality talent seems to be the top priority among survey respondents, and many are wondering where to find it. The survey found that Internet job boards and social professional networks are the most popular sources for finding talent. SMB recruiters reported they lean more toward Internet boards (45 percent), while enterprise recruiters favor social networks (46 percent). Other recruitment methods mentioned include employee referrals, staffing agencies, and company career sites. Social media has been an effective way to find exceptional talent, and it appears that will continue to be a solid trend.

Win Over Top Talent and Measure Quality of Hire

SMBs and enterprise businesses alike are fighting over young professional talent. Most companies report looking to hire those who are freshly out of school (0-3 years). Internal candidates are also a source of talent, but not as popular as hiring Millennial talent. The tricky part is that there’s a lot of competition over this age bracket. The experts identified a few specific challenges SMBs have when trying to recruit Millennials:

  • Competition was rated as the biggest challenge, at 35 percent
  • Creating attractive compensation packages was second, at 32 percent
  • A lack of interest or awareness in the company brand was third at 31 percent

After beating out the competition, SMBs report that measuring the quality of hire is the most important way to assess ROI. The majority of companies (51 percent) measure this using new hire evaluation, while 48 percent look at retention and turnover rates, and 41 percent measure the hiring managers’ satisfaction. This suggests that SMBs are shifting toward employee satisfaction as a valuable metric. A happier employee will show better performance, and that’s important to both employee and employer. 

Brand Development for Effective Marketing and Recruiting

It’s no surprise that a lack of brand awareness is troubling to many businesses. Candidates’ familiarity with your brand is just as important as customers knowing your brand. Brand confusion is a business killer, so businesses are spending more money than ever on brand development. Furthermore, experts feel that a combination of channels is the most effective way to promote a brand. Respondents reported their most popular brand awareness channels, in order, as:

  • Company websites
  • Online professional networks
  • Social media
  • Word of mouth
  • Employee advocacy

believe that with an overall goal of brand awareness, the most effective strategy is to use a mixture of channels. A great company website—with a side of social media and industry authority—is a good starter recipe for raising brand awareness. And it’s important to note that any one of these alone probably isn’t enough to deliver the kind of results you’re looking for when it comes to attracting the best and the brightest. Recruitment today is as much about smart marketing as it is about anything else. If this topic interests you, it’s one I explore in depth in a Recruitment Marketing Series that I did for IBM, and contains lots of information you’ll find valuable.

The Future of Recruiting

Looking toward the future, finding and keeping top talent will continue to be a major priority. As technology and innovation evolve and continue to change the world of work as we know it, the way we recruit and retain talent will have to change and adapt as well. Businesses will focus on brand messaging related to corporate culture, innovation, social awareness, and other key things that are attractive to candidates, in an effort to not only attract, but retain them as well. As mentioned earlier, marketing now plays a central role in recruitment strategies, and it’s going to take much more than a few perks to get the attention of top talent. Lastly, measuring the quality of hire will continue to be the most valued metric by HR pros moving forward, especially as recruiting becomes more about the talent and less about the budget.

What do you think? Do the results reported here mirror your thoughts on this topic? What didn’t the experts cover that you find to be a challenge? Grab the report here if you’d like to explore in more detail: LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends 2016.

Other posts on this topic:

Increasing Engagement and Retention With Progressive Benefits
Employee Retention Begins in the Interview Process
4 Reasons Social Media is a Top Recruiting Tool
Ending the Phony War for Talent: Why the language we use in recruiting matters

 

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