With technical advancements, the process to hire the right candidate is nothing like it used to be. It gets difficult to weed out skilled professionals from a pool of applicants across a plethora of platforms. Moreover, with the introduction of social media platforms, the hiring process requires a touch of marketing skills along with recruitment efficiency. More emphasis is placed on socializing, creating a buzz around your services and attracting the best candidates.
The good thing is that it has also allowed the startup or small-sized organizations to compete with the multinationals for the same talent. Furthermore, job seekers as well, get more exposure to job vacancies as social media platforms are open for all.
Apart from social media, cloud and artificial intelligence are also emerging as the new advancement in the recruitment industry. As a result, agencies are bracing themselves and adapting to upgraded technology trends for a fruitful hiring process. While some recruiters have already hopped on the ride, some are yet to realize the need of the hour. The challenge now is not just to hire people but to attract qualified talent and retain them.
Recruitment Agencies and Advancements in their Services
The agencies who have caught the nerve of the issue, have already started working on the advancements and have drastically improved their services. Let’s discuss the various improvements that the recruitment agencies are doing to ensure they rule the game and provide a better experience to the job seekers as well as the providers.
Introducing Technology
It was long back with the onset of the digital era when Microsoft introduced excel and the recruitment agencies readily adapted to it. It was the first step towards organizing the recruitment process. However, we have come a long way from there and excel also lost its importance with recruitment software becoming incredibly advanced. Now technology is on an entirely different level, and so is the market of software options used for hiring.
The trend that almost 70% of the recruiters have already adopted is ATS (application tracking system). ATS helps the agencies throughout the hiring process, from job posting to shortlisting the applicants, interviewing them and finally onboarding which helps keep all the work streamlined to a single platform. It also helps the client as well as the candidate to keep a close track on the application status. Furthermore, it keeps the candidate’s details in the database which you can access for your future hiring.
Using Social Media as a tool
Hiring through newspaper advertisements, billboards, and posters is a thing of the past; if you want to make fair hiring, switch to social media. Although hiring through social media platforms like LinkedIn is also an old scenario, Facebook and Twitter are the new players in the game and even Instagram for that matter. The recruitment agencies are using them by keeping in mind the type of platform they are using for the hiring process and the kind of audience they are targeting. Social media is better than the conventional recruiting platforms as this is the orbit where people spend most of their time. Few benefits of social media recruitment are:
- Wider Audience
- Opportunity to showcase your company culture.
- Cost-effective
Social media recruitment is so much more than just posting the vacancies on your company’s social media account. Every agency outlines its own strategy to make the recruitment process fruitful. However, there are some fixed steps that you can use to tailor your approach.
- Showcase your company culture on Facebook by putting pictures, tell people how many hirings you have done, the clientele that you have. Basically, it would help if you created a virtual bond with the potential candidates.
- Identifying the candidates on LinkedIn and trying to reach out to them.
- Use Twitter to post your job vacancies and use relevant hashtags to reach maximum audiences.
One pro-tip about social hiring is to be consistent as it’s all about creating a buzz.
Good User Experience
All of us are time-poor, and no one has time to browse a website that is not user friendly. So, giving the most convenient browsing experience is the best way to attract more candidates. Whether it’s recruiting for a social media agency or a veterinary nurse job website, recruitment agencies are using apps and well optimized websites to engage candidates. Recruiters who have not optimized for online and mobile are falling behind. Apps are a good option with more than 70% of the viewers use their mobile phones to search and apply for jobs. However, if apps don’t fall into your budget, make sure your website designs are compatible for mobile viewing.
Creating Useful Resources
Creating resources for the agency or the client has gone beyond pictures and databases. Videos and interesting niche recruitment podcasts are the new in and one of the latest trends used by recruitment agencies to improve their services! They are more engaging as all information regarding the company, job vacancies, as well as the offerings, can be gathered at one place. Agencies have started creating branding videos for the clients so that the candidates get a clear picture of the company culture and decide if they want to apply for the job. Videos increase the chances of good recruitment roughly by 20% to 30%.
The recruitment agencies also use podcasts to spread the word. People generally listen to a podcast while commuting to work or travelling as they are an excellent way to stay informed. Incorporating podcasts into the hiring process helps the candidate to get a feel of the job roles as well as the management that he will be working under. Hiring managers can share the enticing parts of the job and communicatively send across the message.
Final Word!
The recruitment market and the way agencies are working are changing drastically. To ensure you keep surviving, you need to sail along with the wave rather than be stuck under the mountain. The agencies these days are using all these ways to make hiring a fruitful, efficient and convenient ride for both candidate and the client. Hope the information in the article helps agencies to up their recruitment game! Happy Hiring!
Source: http://hrnews.co.uk/how-recruitment-agencies-are-improving-what-they-offer/
