The number of qualified applicants to your job posts is falling, your job offer to acceptance ratio has seen better days and your new hires are barely scraping their probation period. Adopt these habits of successful hiring teams and retrieve your talent acquisition strategy while there’s still time:-

Understand why you made a bad hire : From a painful application process to repeatedly recruiting from the same talent pool, effective recruiters quickly analyse and understand the reasons for a bad hire. Don’t allow early departures among your new employees to become an epidemic in your business. The most successful hiring teams move swiftly to plug the leaks in their talent pipeline by analysing their recruitment data and understanding where their best hires come from (hint – ideally your employee referrals).

Offer candidate feedback : Providing post interview feedback to your candidates enhances your employer brand but 80% of businesses fail to incorporate this important step into their talent acquisition strategy. Ensure your feedback is objective, aligned to the skills of the job description and provides specific, examples of interview responses that your candidates can work on in their job search. Allocate responsibility to one member of your hiring team to ensure uniformity in your response. The most successful hiring teams also understand that feedback should be mutual and ask for it too. Be prepared to act on those responses.

Pay attention to the candidate experience : Gone are the days where HR enjoyed the luxury of time and a surplus of qualified candidates for every vacancy. Successful recruitment professionals treat applicants like consumers, paying careful attention to every aspect of the candidate experience. Lengthy, repetitive job applications, ghosting of candidates and poorly structured interviews are eliminated from their hiring process to promote a positive employer brand and fast track the top talent.

Trust your data : The most effective hiring functions know that ‘gut feeling’ isn’t a viable recruitment strategy. They are among just one third of employers who wait until all interviews are completed before making a collaborative decision supported by the data gathered throughout the hiring process. Algorithms in recruitment software have been proven to make better recruitment decisions than most hiring managers. Reduce the potential for unconscious bias in your candidate selection by selecting the most suitable candidate based on job specific criteria and data, rather than your intuition.

Work (hard) on retention : Improving your employee retention levels isn’t a one-off event, it must form a part of your ongoing talent management strategy. 90% of businesses are concerned about holding on to their new hires. Retention begins with your onboarding process and continues beyond the probation period. Prioritising your ‘employee experience’ by providing meaningful work, taking wellbeing seriously and developing a culture of leadership and learning are just three ways to achieve this.  

Talk to talent : Highly successful hiring teams consistently nurture their talent communities through regular engagement across online recruitment channels. A registration of interest allows you to capture the contact details of potential talent exploring your careers site and identify their job search preferences. Automated, personalised messages through your recruitment software on topics such as company developments and new job openings ensure you have a potential talent pool of pre-qualified candidates for your next vacancy.

Embrace automation : Less than half of UK businesses are prepared for the impact that artificial intelligence and automation will have on their talent acquisition strategy. Reliance on manual recruitment systems is not an effective hiring practice. The most successful brands support their entire talent acquisition process with world class recruitment software which enables them to tap into the latest tech trends to attract world class talent. Isn’t it time you joined them?

Adopt the habits of highly successful hiring teams in your business. Invest in world class recruitment software that helps you to hire better people faster. Talk to Advorto today.

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