Trying to find a candidate to fill an urgent vacancy?
Long gone are the days of simply placing an advert in the newspaper and receiving an influx of applications through the post.
Nowadays, everything is designed to get top results in as little time as possible.
And with nearly half of the UK workforce employed by small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), competing against the bigger corporate businesses in recruiting the best talent can be quite challenging.
Currently, a lot of SMEs gain the most recruiting success through word of mouth, referrals from existing employees and job boards.
However, if you don’t have the resource or an HR team in place to push these forms of advertising, your business will more than likely be competing against time, other job requirements, no system to streamline applications and very little capacity to carry out phone interviews.
So if you don’t have enough time to complete the basic recruitment processes, how are you going to find the time to headhunt, conduct extensive searches and learn about the best ways to advertise your vacancy?
That’s where technology comes in.
Mobile
There are a lot of elements to implement in the world of mobile phones.
For starters, text messaging may seem like an outdated concept, but it’s actually only just started to emerge as one of the top marketing channels.
In fact, according to Textlocal, 98% of messages are opened, with 90% of them being read in the first three minutes of receiving them. Further research suggests that 12.5 million hopeful candidates will opt-in to receive texts from recruiters by 2020.
SMS is quick to do and reaches both millennials and the generation X – who spend a considerable amount of time on their mobile devices anyway.
As well as sending job alerts via SMS, mobile phones are also fast becoming a lot of job seekers’ chosen method of finding new opportunities.
You should always consider using a job board that has a ‘quick apply’ function built in. This way, a potential new employee can see your advert on the go.
This might feel very old school like SMS, but email still has the direct means to reach top candidates.
Providing you’ve followed the EU’s GDPR stipulations, you can quickly and effectively communicate with candidates on the go.
Whether that’s informing them about their interview details, offering advice or sending them your latest job advert, you can keep potential candidates informed when you’re hiring.
CRM systems
As previously mentioned in our 2018 recruitment trends blog, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are and will continue to make it easier for businesses to improve the way they recruit.
For instance, Bullhorn is the fastest Applicant Tracking System (ATS) on the market, helping to eliminate time-consuming manual data entry and free up resource to complete each stage of the recruitment process more efficiently.
The mobile app add-on also gives you on-the-go access to amend candidates’ files too.
A CRM system is a perfect solution for businesses who don’t have a big HR team in-place like some of the larger corporate companies.
The use of technology will cut out smaller processes so you can focus on the candidate experience and finalise contracts more quickly.
Although other forms of social media are relatively useful technology tools, LinkedIn is the real professional hub.
In one of our blogs, ‘How to Use LinkedIn Effectively for Recruitment’, we explored the possibilities of finding a candidate via LinkedIn Recruiter and Recruiter Lite. These two packages give SMEs the opportunity to find and contact candidates, without worrying about GDPR.
If you’re expanding quickly and have a big need for posting job adverts, LinkedIn Recruiter is best. You’ll receive 150 InMails to use to send to non-connections, plus a premium search option, workflow tools and analytics to streamline your candidate hunt. However, this is quite an expensive option.
Alternatively, Recruiter Lite will serve its purpose if you’re only planning on bringing a handful of people in over the next year. This package lets you send 30 InMails and access all 3rd degree connections.
Just remember to track your progress using our ‘6 Recruitment Metrics to Help You Measure Post-Hire Success’.
Pro recruiter tip LinkedIn is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to utilising social media platforms. Twitter also has a proven track record in speeding up the recruitment process and connecting businesses with potential new employees. From pinning your tweets to engaging with industry leaders, Twitter is also worth looking into. To find out more about how to use it effectively to streamline your recruitment process, take a look at our blog: ’11 Ways to Recruit Faster, Using Twitter’.
Summary
To compete with other bigger businesses, you should consider experimenting with your recruitment processes today.
Millennials and generation X have been brought up using technology, so if you don’t adopt it, you face getting left behind and missing out on some of your industry’s finest talent.
As a starting point, try one or two of the options that we’ve included. And as time goes on, you can begin to analyse and track which ones work best for you.
The good news is that most of the options I’ve included in this list aren’t going to cost you a pretty penny. In fact, they might even save you one if you maximise them to their true potential.
For more tips on attracting the best candidates to your business, subscribe to our blog today – you won’t regret it!
