iCIMS Hire Expectations™

I recently came across a very interesting article posted by Stephen Lowisz on ERE.net, titled 4 Strategies to Address the Coming War for Talent. The article stresses that recruiters should know the basics before adding in more complicated processes. While this seems logical, I have to disagree with Stephen for a second. I think technologies that are focused on these underlying basics can actually kill two birds with one stone. The results would be both a fundamentally sound and extremely efficient recruiting process.

The first strategy is: what is your organization’s candidate value proposition? It is important to ensure that your organization’s value proposition is important to the candidate - since every candidate is different. One applicant may be interested in your company for a completely different reason than the next applicant. Recruiters must come to understand this and work with this information. But in today’s world there is hiring technology that facilitates this. Some solutions allow the recruiter to send mass personalized email messages enticing candidates to apply for the job based on the value propositions that may be important to them. These recruitment marketing email messages can be sent out to candidates who have demonstrated unique interests in your company.

The second strategy is to make sure your hiring managers effectively use their social networks and the connections that they create. Recruiters may attempt to create a multitude of 1st level connections on LinkedIn, friends on Facebook, and followers on Twitter; but if they do not utilize any of these social mediums then what is the point? That’s where social recruiting should come into play. Beyond Mr. Lowisz’ recommendations, once you build those relationships, it’s important to provide your connections with the right information at the right time. By getting the message out on your social networks in a timely manner, you will reach and attract far more potential top talent candidates.

The third strategy for the upcoming war on talent is to build talent pipelines. This is a must for all HR departments, but creating pipelines on its own is not enough. HR managers need to continuously maintain these pipelines in order to extend a candidate’s “expiration date”. There is no better way to stay contacted with your entire talent pipeline than by leveraging technology that allows you to schedule emails updating candidates on all currently available positions.

The fourth and final strategy is to interview consistently and effectively. The author is quoted in this article saying that “improper candidate comparisons is a recipe for failure”. What he means by this is that all managers have different standards when rating candidates. If these ratings are not consistent, great employees may be getting shoved out the door. The best tool to avoid improper candidate comparisons would be to utilize rating scales that ensure the right decisions are made, and most importantly, that these decisions are constant regardless of the hiring manager and the position to which the candidate applied.

To end this blog, I would like to address the phrase “War on Talent” found in this article’s title. It is actually a great metaphor for the process of connecting, recruiting, and bringing new talent on board to your company. It is a war. Do not think that your company is the only one looking at a prospective employee. Other companies are battling with you to find the top talent for any one position. To win this war for talent it takes two things. War is won by the men and women who fight it (recruiters and HR professionals) but more importantly by the weapons it is fought with. What better weapon for a recruiter’s arsenal than an effective applicant tracking system to gain the edge on the competition.