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8 Ideas for Talent Acquisition Success in 2023

Every employer’s definition of talent acquisition success is different. But many employers have learned valuable lessons over the years. Recently, we decided to capture some of those lessons so other hiring organizations could benefit. That’s why we asked business and recruiting leaders to share tips for talent acquisition success in the year ahead.

Tips for Talent Acquisition Success

From using predictive analytics to cultivating a sense of community among team members, we received a collection of answers that reads like a practical “how to” playbook. Below, we share the top answers to our question, “What’s your best strategy to gain a competitive advantage in talent acquisition this year?”

  •   Re-Engineer Your Brand as a Recruiting Tool
  •   Share Engaging Video Content
  •   Be Flexible
  •   Use Predictive Analytics
  •   Deepen Your Diversity Initiatives
  •   Assess the Market and Develop Appropriate Goals
  •   Audit Your EVP and Culture from a Prospect’s Perspective
  •   Create a Sense of Community

To learn more about how you can make these ideas work for your organization, read the full responses below…

8 Ways to Achieve Talent Acquisition Success in 2023

1. Re-Engineer Your Brand as a Recruiting Tool

We all know how important employer branding has become in the age of social media. But we sometimes overlook it as a true recruiting channel in the overall talent acquisition strategy.

Often it’s used as a marketing tool for selling a company brand. But my best tip is to re-engineer your employer brand so it acts as a recruiting tool. For example:

  • Develop lead magnets that link to employee stories.
  • Conduct career-building webinars for industry newbies and collect emails or resumes from interested registrants.
  • Create quizzes or surveys targeting people who are open to job opportunities, and use these teasers outside your career page to gather more leads.

If you’re an HR or recruiting professional, employer branding challenges you to put on your marketing hat. This year, add a sales hat to that mix so you can attract more qualified candidate leads and close more job offers.

Kelly Loudermilk, Talent Innovator, BuildHR, Inc.

2. Share Engaging Video Content

How many of us would decide to buy a house or a car without knowing vital details? Yet most employers still expect candidates to settle for this kind of hiring experience.

The problem is that smart people don’t have the time or desire to jump through all the traditional job application hoops to find out what’s on the other side. That’s why savvy employers are including more detailed information about jobs on the front end of the recruiting process, so they can attract better talent.

But what about nuanced questions where the answers won’t fit into a tidy bullet point on a job description? Questions like, “What types of challenges does your team solve regularly?” or “What is it like to work with the manager?” This is where video can help.

By recording video answers to these critical questions, recruiters have an indispensable new set of assets that can make candidate outreach more effective. Video also helps employers seem more transparent, which helps them stand out in competitive hiring situations.

Justin Vajko, Principal & Chief Strategy Guy, Dialog

3. Be Flexible

If your company expects to attract and retain talent, you must offer employee experiences that support real flexibility and build your culture around this way of working.

Our new “Work Now” research report found that leaders view the workplace as flexible because of the freedom associated with their role and stature. However, employees don’t experience the same level of flexibility.

Leaders who expect to attract and retain great employees need to listen carefully, move past assumptions based on their personal experience with the organization, and design more connected, flexible experiences for other members of the workforce.

Also, if you’re tempted to rely on pulse surveys for feedback, here’s another tip. While these tools may be helpful, remember you may be viewing results through a biased lens that doesn’t tell a true story.

Instead, move beyond pulse surveys. Engage with employees, listen to their stories, invite them to the table, and co-create the future together. That’s how you can fundamentally improve the way you work.

Douglas Ferguson, President, Voltage Control

4. Use Predictive Analytics

I believe predictive analytics is key to talent acquisition success this year. Predictive analytics is the practice of using data to make predictions about future events. With these tools, you can identify potential candidates for open positions, before jobs are even posted. That means you can get a jump on the competition and hire the most qualified candidates before other organizations can snap them up.

In addition, you can use predictive analytics to assess an individual’s probability of success in a particular role. This means your recruiters can focus on candidates who are most likely to succeed. Ultimately, advanced analytics can help you hire the right people for the right roles, and that can lead to a significant advantage in the war for talent.

Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager, Financer

5. Deepen Your Diversity Initiatives

The emphasis on workplace diversity has continued to gain momentum. It’s now essential to consider candidates you might otherwise overlook because of their race, gender, or other factors. This isn’t about fulfilling quotas. It’s about expanding recruiting reach by tapping into a more diverse talent pool. Ultimately, this adds depth and dimension to your culture.

Try reaching out proactively to attract candidates from diverse communities. Get out of the office and connect with groups that are underrepresented in the workforce. For example, you can host recruitment events in locations that are convenient for people in these groups.

Partnering with schools in these areas is another way to introduce students to your industry and educate them about related career paths. Internships can also help you connect with young people from diverse backgrounds and help them prepare for future roles in your organization.

Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Rephrasely

6. Assess the Market and Develop Appropriate Goals

Establishing a competitive advantage for talent acquisition success requires a laser focus on both short-term and long-term hiring needs.

Be prepared to investigate the current labor market and integrate leading-edge technologies into your recruitment processes. By investing in data-driven insights, you can develop innovative strategies that differentiate your company from the competition. For example, you can:

  • Evaluate the job market in real-time,
  • Leverage AI and machine learning to source talent more efficiently and proactively,
  • Create proactive employer branding campaigns to showcase your company culture
  • Engage with passive candidates through targeted outreach strategies.

In addition, focus on developing a comprehensive remote hiring strategy, because more companies are moving or expanding their operations away from traditional office locations.

Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

7. Audit Your EVP and Culture from a Prospects Perspective

In a highly competitive job market, standing out and showcasing your culture is the biggest competitive advantage you have in attracting new talent.

Now is a great time to be sure your EVP shows prospective employees why they should work for you, what you offer, and how they can contribute. An EVP is simply your shop window for people you want to attract, retain, and help you grow your business.

I recommend auditing your EVP to put fresh eyes on all your candidate touch points. Review your culture, identify your strengths, and analyze your exit survey data. What can you improve? Does your “careers” website accurately reflect your desired EVP?

Get your whole team involved in this assessment process – HR, Talent Acquisition, and Marketing should work together to showcase your organization in the right light across multiple channels.

Charlie Southwell, Marketing Director, Let’s Talk Talent

8. Create a Sense of Community for Talent Acquisition Success

If your company offers remote work, you have a substantial competitive advantage.

Research indicates that remote work opportunities influence candidates’ salary requirements. But remote work structure isn’t the whole package. Candidates are also interested in knowing how employers create an environment that fosters connection among team members who may not work onsite. For instance, it’s critical to create a sense of community in a remote-based organization with practices like these:

  • Quarterly strategic team meetings
  • In-person team training
  • Regular video lunch and learns
  • Video town halls
  • Hackathons
  • Employee resource groups (ERGs)

Research indicates that people with at least 7 work friends are 35% more likely to stay with their employer. In recent interviews with employees who’ve been at our company for more than 2 years, most told us that interacting with their team is a key reason they enjoy coming to work.

Remote is a terrific way to attract new employees, but creating a sense of community is what keeps employees engaged.

Pat Mulvey, Director of Talent Acquisition, Saatva

 


EDITOR’S NOTE:  These talent acquisition success ideas were submitted via Terkel, a knowledge platform that shares community-driven content based on expert insights. To see questions and get published, sign up at terkel.io.

5 Common Bad Hires and How to Prevent Them

Recruiters and hiring managers both dread the same scenario: After the first month on the job, the new hire is not the person who shone brightly during the interview and screening process.
Maybe he or she needs more time to acclimate, but warning sign behaviors could also signal that a big mistake was made.

Here are five types of typical bad hires and how to prevent them.

The Bad Attitude

A new hire with a jerky attitude is one of the biggest nightmares for a hiring manager. Offering constructive criticism from a fresh perspective could enlighten co-workers, but being disrespectful or insubordinate, endlessly complaining, or expressing that things were better “in my old job” are troubling.

“A poisonous attitude is not consistent with a high-performing culture, and this kind of behavior has a strong negative effect on all employees who come into contact with the new hire,” said Kelly Marinelli, SHRM-SCP, an attorney and president and founder of HR consultancy Solve HR in Boulder, Colo.

To avoid this problem, beware of candidates who are confrontational or negative from the get-go, said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at recruitment software company CareerBuilder. “If they can’t be positive in the interview, it could be a sign of worse things to come.”

Marinelli recommended requesting feedback from others who come into contact with the candidate on interview day, such as the receptionist, the parking attendant or the server at lunch. “It’s tough for [someone with] a bad attitude to maintain the facade ceaselessly, so you may get lucky and catch this bad hire in the act before it’s too late.”

The Flimflam Artist

New hires who lack the skills they said they had are another huge letdown for hiring managers. Maybe they’re interview aces but they embellished or exaggerated their qualifications and experience.

“Good interviewers can assess the level of understanding of certain skills, but it’s always possible that a candidate lacking in the appropriate skill level but who is a great communicator could slip through the cracks,” Marinelli said.

These types of hires quickly lose credibility, which impacts trust and working relationships, added Sharlyn Lauby, SHRM-SCP, author, speaker and president of ITM Group Inc., an HR consulting firm in Weston, Fla., as well as writer of the HR Bartender blog. “Depending on the skills they embellished, they could hurt someone or cause damage. There’s a potential liability to the business.”

Lauby recommended verifying candidates’ skills and experience with background checks where appropriate and using behavioral interviewing questions to get a sense of a candidate’s depth of experience with a skill.

“My favorite way to avoid this disappointing new hire is to include a work task assessment in the hiring process,” Marinelli said. “It’s not just a test to see if candidates actually possess the skills they are representing, but also a great opportunity for them to see if they actually enjoy performing the work that the employer needs in the role.”

Marinelli cautioned HR and hiring managers of the importance of ensuring that a new hire is properly trained in company-specific processes and tools. “Make sure new hires have a full and complete opportunity to perform in the new role before labeling anyone a bad hire,” she said.

The Helpless One

There will be an expected learning curve for all new hires, but if new employees can’t get a grasp on the tasks discussed during the hiring process within a reasonable amount of time, make the same mistakes continuously, or require oversight for even the simplest of assignments and are unwilling to make decisions on their own, they become more of a chore than an assist.

“There is an expectation that after a certain amount of time and training, employees are able to do certain tasks on their own,” Lauby said. “If that doesn’t happen, the company needs to understand why. Is it the employee? Or has the organization failed in some way to give the employee the tools they need to be successful?”

Many organizations are asking candidates about their “self-learning” skills, she added. Candidates could be asked a question like, “Tell me about a time when you had to learn something on your own. What was it that you learned, and how did you go about learning it?”

The Ghost

These are the workers who can’t be found. They just started but they already come in late, leave early or disappear during the day with personal excuses, or they immediately ask for vacation time.

“Of course, there may be many understandable reasons that your new hire is late or requesting time off, but you don’t want it becoming a habit,” Haefner said. “Make sure you have a conversation about paid time off and punctuality before a candidate is hired so you can identify any legitimate barriers to them keeping their contracted hours.”

The Climber

New employees who quickly begin angling for a new position could be a problem. In some workplaces, this isn’t an issue at all, Lauby said. “But in workplaces where paying your dues is an important part of the culture, it can create some friction. Other employees might feel that the new employee is being disrespectful even if the new hire is highly qualified.”

Climbers may be able to be identified during the interview and screening process by asking about their expectations, she said. “We have a tendency to cringe at the traditional interview question ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ but it could be an indicator of candidate expectations. The other thing is for the organization to set expectations. If the company expects employees to work their way up, let the candidate know. Don’t let it become a surprise.”

Employers could also consider using the climber to their advantage, Marinelli said. “Direct this hire’s energy toward learning, growing and stretching in the role, and you may find there’s a diamond in the rough that you can turn into your best employee. The downside, however, is when the climber loses interest too quickly because no immediate promotion is forthcoming. This hire can quickly turn into the bad attitude example if employers aren’t careful.”

Spotting a climber in the interview process is complicated, she added. “When you ask an interviewee about future career plans, goals and dreams, most are unlikely to say they’d like to stay stationary. You can’t assume every potential hire who wants more in the future is a red flag. Then again, if you have an interviewee who is asking about other jobs during the interview, you can be relatively certain that it’s a problem.”

Learn from Past Hiring Mistakes

Experts recommend that HR document what went wrong with bad hires and incorporate what was learned into the organization’s hiring process going forward. “A good hiring process requires not only preparation but consistency, documentation and continuous analysis of data so that successful methods can be captured and continued, the need for training can be identified and addressed, and poor processes can be discontinued or adjusted,” Marinelli said.

Additional tips include:
Be clear about your company’s values, culture and the role, from the job description through the interview process. “The key to a successful hiring process is to provide a clear definition of responsibilities for the job, as well as the cultural fit required for success,” Haefner said. She added that in order to improve the chances of hiring the right person, recruiters shouldn’t just recycle the past job description every time a role needs to be refilled. “Take a new look at your needs and the skills you need added to your team,” she said. “Also, remember to keep an eye on the intangibles. A candidate’s skill set isn’t limited to functional abilities—it also includes how well he or she works in a collaborative environment.”

Clearly identifying the company’s values and culture helps interviewees opt out before they become employees if it isn’t what they’re looking for, Marinelli said. “For instance, if the company’s values include intensity and drive, and a candidate is looking for a laid-back environment, it’s best to know this upfront.”

Practice team hiring techniques by involving future co-workers. “One of the best things about peer interviewing is that applicants are able to get a more ‘boots on the ground’ idea of what it’s like to work for your company,” Haefner said.

Involve subject matter experts during interviews in order to ask specific, technical questions to determine the potential hire’s level of expertise. “Subject matter experts are a must in the interview process,” Marinelli said. “If they are not available in person, employers should consider videoconferencing them in or having them participate by phone. If there is no internal subject matter expert available, employers should consider bringing in an outside resource to participate in the interview process, especially for critical roles.”

Be diligent about reference checks. “View reference checks as a valuable opportunity rather than as a chore, and go beyond simply verifying titles and dates of employment,” Haefner said. “Ask the right questions and you may receive insight far beyond what you’ve learned from a resume or even an interview.”

This post originally appeared at SHRM.org.