As Baby Boomers transition out of the workforce and tech-savvy Millennials gradually comprise a larger portion of it, a dynamic, comprehensive approach to online recruitment is becoming increasingly important. When considering e-recruitment strategies, sites such as Monster, Indeed, and LinkedIn come to mind. While these widely-known tools are effective resources for scouting talent, there are more innovative ways to use the internet to reach candidates. Maximizing your online presence helps to disseminate information about your organization’s culture and available positions to a wider audience, significantly expanding the applicant pool. With companies increasingly coming up with creative ways to target top talent, thinking outside the box when it comes to e-recruitment will help you gain a competitive edge. Here are some unique strategies:
1. Leverage social media to reach a vast pool of potential applicants. Encourage your employees to promote job openings on their personal pages. Consider creating a video describing your organization’s culture and what makes it a great place to work. Post the video on your company’s website and YouTube, and ask employees to promote it through social media as well.
2. Looking for an opportunity to demonstrate your organization’s creative streak? Develop an interactive online game that tests skills required for various positions within your organization or simply provides candidates with a sense of what it would be like to work for your company. This strategy is used by major corporations such as Marriott and Deloitte. While creating a game may be a more expensive or labor intensive technique, it is an effective way to increase brand awareness and convey the idea that your organization has a fun, creative culture.
3. Post your openings on niche job boards, which focus on professionals in specific industries or subgroups of industries. Because these boards are not typically frequented by the general masses of job-seekers, they are more likely to attract candidates who are more passionate about their career fields. While these boards do not have the high volume of traffic that larger job boards enjoy, they may help you search more efficiently because they tend to attract more qualified, dedicated candidates. With job boards targeting a wide range of applicants, from interns to creative professionals to those in the tech industry, there is most likely a niche board available, no matter your industry.
4. Use Meetup.com to bring the niche job board to life. Explore Meetup to find a group of professionals in a specific industry in your area and then send a recruiter to one of the group’s events. This strategy ensures that you are targeting candidates passionate enough about their career field to make it part of their leisure time activities.
5. Connect with candidates via mobile apps. Smartphone apps are becoming an increasingly popular way to conduct daily activities due to the convenience they provide. When it comes to recruiting, they allow for a more interactive, engaging experience for both recruiters and applicants. Most major job boards have a mobile format. Unique and popular apps include HireVue, which allows candidates to film responses to employers’ interview questions, and Switch, which provides a simple, anonymous matching system for mutually interested candidates and recruiters.
In today’s digital age, employers looking to snare the most qualified candidates not only need to have an online presence, but must use innovative e-recruitment techniques. By looking beyond large job boards, recruiters will stand out to a greater number of qualified candidates.
Sources: (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/business/smallbusiness/online-recruiting-efforts-gain-ground.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0; https://www.hrmorning.com/creative-recruiting-land-dream-hire/; https://money.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2011/04/19/when-using-job-boards-it-pays-to-go-niche?page=2; https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/how-to-recruit-for-niche-positions-5-useful-tips/; https://www.businessinsider.com/10-creative-recruiting-strategies-for-finding-great-hires-2010-2?op=1; https://www.themuse.com/advice/tinder-for-jobs-check-out-new-app-switch
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