Contributed by Bernadette Launi
Wednesday September 4th marked the second annual Global TA Day — a day to celebrate recruiters, human resources, recruitment marketers, and everyone in between that keeps Talent Acquisition running every single day.
And what better way to celebrate your profession by growing your knowledge of it?
ATAP, Phenom People, Recruitics, and industry practitioners created a webinar panel to help do just that. Over 130 talent acquisition professionals tuned in to hear about today’s talent acquisition trends and how recruiters can navigate them to positively impact their organization.
Here’s what they heard:
“Don’t automate for the sake of automating.”
CSG’s Max Rocha kicked things off with a much-needed reminder: start with an end goal in mind and identify the technology you need to get there. Automation for automation’s sake will often create more problems than it does solutions.
Cathy Henesey shared what her team’s biggest challenge is at AdventHealth: sourcing amidst the shortage of health care workers. Sourcing is where she needs her team spending the bulk of their time, so they invest in automation to handle other details: application submissions, candidate assessments, background checks, and reference checks.
Automation doesn’t have to just be behind the scenes, either. The bot function of Phenom People’s platform allows companies to automate answers to common questions surrounding the application process, benefits, and the like. The bot frees up recruiter’s time while still giving candidates the quick answers they need.
Use data to drive strategy and decision making.
Rocha breaks down the power of data: take the data and build the story around it to ensure you are making the right decisions.
In terms of recruitment marketing data, Michelle Sargent of Recruitics spoke to the importance of attributing sources. Don’t just look at the final source candidates visited before clicking ‘apply.’ Look at the full candidate journey to have a deeper understanding of who and what they interacted with along the way.
CSG used data to target their application process, which was taking candidates on average 12 minutes to complete. Rocha and his team researched top workplaces such as Netflix and Google to find they had application times of around 3 minutes. They used this data to power their decision to shorten that process, which now is averaging about 3 minutes and 24 seconds to complete.
The trends you need to know for 2020
Shift of focus to internal mobility and learning and development
Organizations looking to increase recruiting efficiency should strive to improve their internal mobility and learning and development, says Keca Ward. Talent acquisition platforms are providing the technology to better optimize this underused recruiting strategy: developing and recruiting from the employees that already work for you.
The CSG talent acquisition team partnered with Learning and Development to develop 3 different trail maps: Starting@CSG for new employees, Developing@CSG for upskilling employees, and Leading@CSG aimed at empowering leaders to reach their peak performance.
For AdventHealth, this shift means creating an application process specific for internal candidates. Before, internal applicants were lumped in with external candidates. After creating an internal mobility ambassador program, internal applicants now have a team dedicated to guiding them through this process.
Further personalization of the candidate experience
Sargent reminds us of our goal as a recruitment marketer: getting the right message in front of the right candidate at the right time. Personalization helps match that right message to that right candidate.
Data provides talent acquisition with more candidate insight than ever before. Use this information to better understand your candidates and create content that will appeal to them directly.
Incorporating video throughout the candidate experience
A new generation of candidates is here, and they love consuming video. Both Ward and Rocha urge practitioners to give themselves permission to fail; experiment with different video types and uses and see what resonates.
CSG uses video in their job postings; in their own hiring process, Phenom People has found success extending job offers over video with their new team in the background “going crazy” and making the candidate feel welcome. Phenom also asks loved ones to send in “good luck” videos to share with new hires on their first day.
Where will 2020 take your talent acquisition strategy?
Whatever talent acquisition technology and trends you ultimately choose, be sure to identify your “why” and your “how.” And share your story with the ATAP community — we’re in this together!