During this episode, your host Hilary Kelleher, takes you through the interesting statistic of the fortnight. Spoiler alert: this time it relates to employee burnout.

Next up is the main episode topic: employee benefits. We've scoured the data so you don't have to, to find out what benefits actually attract and retain employees.

Finally, listen to the recruitment industry news from the past weeks. Let's just say, the odds are in the favour of the jobseeker, and the world's largest organizations are bearing the burden of increased competition.

Secondly, we discuss the 4 ways that your current employees can lend a hand to your recruitment or HR team during the recruitment process. As they say: every little helps!

Finally, our host Hilary will go through the most interesting recruitment news from across the globe.

Got questions or want a shout out? Email hello@scouttalent.ca.

That's not all that's changed... we also have a new format! As well as the usual tips around each episode's recruitment challenge, we will chatting about our statistic of the episode, as well as a round-up of the fortnight's recruitment news.

If your recruitment or HR team need help with their talent acquisition, or are looking for recruitment software, check out scouttalent.ca.

That's not all that's changed... we also have a new format! As well as the usual tips around each episode's recruitment challenge, we will chatting about our statistic of the episode, as well as a round-up of the fortnight's recruitment news.

If your recruitment or HR team need help with their talent acquisition, or are looking for recruitment software, check out scouttalent.ca.

To watch the full webinar that this episode is based on, please see: http://scouttalent.ca/everything-you-need-to-know-about-executive-recruitment-2/

Sources:

https://blog.bonus.ly/diversity-inclusion-statistics

https://builtin.com/diversity-inclusion/diversity-in-the-workplace-statistics

https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/study-ethnic-sounding-name-employers-fewer-calls-back

A couple of caveats before we get into the nuts and bolts of this topic. The first is that if your organization plans to survive this crisis then you are by default planning to recruit again because companies that are succeeding are recruiting. 

The second is that if you’re maintaining a hiring freeze until all of this blows over, cool. That’s certainly an approach and it might pan out well for you and then you can go back to a more traditional in person recruitment approach. But if this new world of social distance and quarantine becomes the new normal and lasts a bit longer than any of us are comfortable with, you may be glad that you put in the work now to develop a fully digital recruitment process. 

The third is that highly digital processes being operated by good recruiters are better, they’re way more candidate friendly, can easily promote your Employer Brand, and they often make a recruitment process more efficient. 

So with that all in mind, you can view this forced shift to digital as a chore or an opportunity. This time can be used to make your recruitment process better and more robust. Or you can resist against change and hope that things will go back to how they once were. Maybe they will. 

Now, with all of that context out of the way, let’s get down to business. Our recruitment cycle goes from a need being established, to a job description drafted, a recruitment marketing campaign is then deployed, you get your candidates and shortlist them, you run a couple of rounds of interviews with stakeholders, you check the background and references of your ideal candidate as well as offering them the role, fingers crossed they say yes and once they work their notice they join their organisation. Then you spend the next however many days trying to onboard them. Even just listing all of that was exhausting. But where are the challenging areas when it comes to digital?

Writing job descriptions and developing advertising campaigns is a relatively digital process for most of us now. If it isn’t, if you rely on adverts in news papers and billboard adverts you may need to rethink your strategy. Those approaches weren’t cost effective before all of this and they certainly aren’t now. Headhunting through digital mediums is also a very useful addition to advertising campaigns at the moment; if you’re looking for something specific you don’t want to be spammed by resumes that don’t meet your qualifications by posting on a job board – that’s where headhunting comes in to play.

The one area I’m sure we’ve all identified as a challenge for the digital world is interviews. Face to face interviews can still exist. But we’re going to be carrying them out over Skype or Zoom now. The important thing here is communication. While, if you’ve been doing this for a few weeks, you may have carried out hundreds of video interviews – this may be all new for your candidates. So communicate with them clearly and openly. I had a friend who was recently hired for a role that told me after her initial screening call she was sent a calendar invite for an interview and she didn’t...]]>Today we’re going to talk about how to recruit remote workers and how to do it digitally. As the world maintains varying levels of lockdown and social distancing recruitment can now only exist digitally. 

A couple of caveats before we get into the nuts and bolts of this topic. The first is that if your organization plans to survive this crisis then you are by default planning to recruit again because companies that are succeeding are recruiting. 

The second is that if you’re maintaining a hiring freeze until all of this blows over, cool. That’s certainly an approach and it might pan out well for you and then you can go back to a more traditional in person recruitment approach. But if this new world of social distance and quarantine becomes the new normal and lasts a bit longer than any of us are comfortable with, you may be glad that you put in the work now to develop a fully digital recruitment process. 

The third is that highly digital processes being operated by good recruiters are better, they’re way more candidate friendly, can easily promote your Employer Brand, and they often make a recruitment process more efficient. 

So with that all in mind, you can view this forced shift to digital as a chore or an opportunity. This time can be used to make your recruitment process better and more robust. Or you can resist against change and hope that things will go back to how they once were. Maybe they will. 

Now, with all of that context out of the way, let’s get down to business. Our recruitment cycle goes from a need being established, to a job description drafted, a recruitment marketing campaign is then deployed, you get your candidates and shortlist them, you run a couple of rounds of interviews with stakeholders, you check the background and references of your ideal candidate as well as offering them the role, fingers crossed they say yes and once they work their notice they join their organisation. Then you spend the next however many days trying to onboard them. Even just listing all of that was exhausting. But where are the challenging areas when it comes to digital?

Writing job descriptions and developing advertising campaigns is a relatively digital process for most of us now. If it isn’t, if you rely on adverts in news papers and billboard adverts you may need to rethink your strategy. Those approaches weren’t cost effective before all of this and they certainly aren’t now. Headhunting through digital mediums is also a very useful addition to advertising campaigns at the moment; if you’re looking for something specific you don’t want to be spammed by resumes that don’t meet your qualifications by posting on a job board – that’s where headhunting comes in to play.

The one area I’m sure we’ve all identified as a challenge for the digital world is interviews. Face to face interviews can still exist. But we’re going to be carrying them out over Skype or Zoom now. The important thing here is communication. While, if you’ve been doing this for a few weeks, you may have carried out hundreds of video interviews – this may be all new for your candidates. So communicate with them clearly and openly. I had a friend who was recently hired for a role that told me after her initial screening call she was sent a calendar invite for an interview and she didn’t know if the interview would be over phone or through a visual medium using the internet right up until her mobile phone was called and the interview began. Tell your candidates what they should expect from you. Make it clear to them what your expectations are and how that even though they’re doing this interview from home, it is no different from any other interview they’ve ever been part of. 

Equally, when it comes to moving your recruitment process to something more digital, another big challenge is onboarding. Now some recruiters don’t consider onboarding to be a part of the recruitment process but we know that up to 20% of employee turnover happens in the first 45 days. A good onboarding process helps mitigate this and stops us from having to fill the same roll over and over again. But how do we do this digitally? Again communication is key. You’ll need to send team emails, have frequent zoom hangouts , and create training videos that you’re new hire can avail of. If casual chats with team mates around the water cooler aren’t an option, how are you going to help your new hire get to know the wider team? There are lots of different virtual games and ice breakers you could set up from a weekly happy hour to a team quiz. Be creative and be frequent in your communication. Your new hire is going to be feeling particularly isolated so you’ll need to work twice as hard to help alleviate that feeling. 

While it’s important at the onboarding phase, communication and setting expectations is going to be key at every phase of a digital process. Candidates are as unsure of how to navigate this new world as we are, so make your expectations clear to them and make yourself available to answer their questions. Sign off your email with your mobile number and an open opportunity to answer any questions they may have. Be there for you candidates so that they can see why they should join you as an Employer and be engaged in the process. 

Underpinning any good digital recruitment process is a strong Applicant Tracking System. We’ve talked at length about them in another podcast episode but if you want an agile and robust digital recruitment process then you need a good applicant tracking system. Excel or email just isn’t going to cut it. You’ll miss out on some excellent candidates. You’ll also struggle to keep track of where your candidates are in your process. The heartache and frustration you’ll endure are not worth the measly savings you’ll make avoiding an applicant tracking system. 

As always, if you need any help transitioning any part of your standard recruitment process to something more digital then please do reach out. Our experts here at Scout Talent are always happy to jump on a call and try to find a solution for the recruitment issues you may be facing.

Stay safe everyone, and let’s keep our eyes on the horizon. 

Well, much like everything in the world of Recruitment, it’s a bit of a tricky question without a clear cut answer. How much can you ask of a candidate? Well, not much. But that not much might look different depending on the seniority of the role or where your candidate is in your process.

Your brain may have already gone to the simplest solution – we won’t ask anything of a candidate. We’ll interview them based on the resume they submit and hire based on the combination of both. Well, first of all, good luck. That’s a lot of work. But secondly. That may not work:

• Ask too little – Candidate becomes uninterested. It doesn’t feel like they’re earning the role. 
• Ask too much – Candidates decide the role isn’t worth it. 

Candidates want to feel valued. They want the chance to sell themselves, but they also don’t want to carry out a long case study for you and essentially feel like they’re giving you valuable work for free. 

It’s all about striking a balance. 

Let’s step by step our way through a recruitment process and talk about how much you can ask of a candidate. 

Pre-interview

At the very beginning, a candidate hits apply on your job description and they reach the first hurdle we put in front of us. Virtually all of us will ask a candidate for a resume. Most people will have a resume ready to go so that’s not too much to ask of a candidate. 

Lots of us will ask for a cover letter and further information from screening questions. This is where we can start to lose people.

• Cover letters are often rarely read. And even if they are read it rarely gives useful information. 
• Screening questions are great to a point. The average candidate is happy to answer some screening questions usually up to about 10, but after that you’ll start to lose them. After your third or fourth long-winded text box question suddenly your talent competitors who are looking for the same person seem much more appealing. 
• But worst of all, screening questions that duplicate the work of a resume or cover letter. Nothing irritates a candidate faster than having to type in their employment history while also attaching a resume. 

Interviews

This brings us on to interviews, which is already asking a lot, given that it may involve multiple conversations with multiple people. This takes time, which is a huge ask and truly shouldn’t be underestimated. If you’re asking someone to essentially sell themselves to you for a portion of their day, you need to respect that ask. For more senior or technical candidates it’s certainly acceptable to ask them to prepare a short presentation, but keep it very specific, concise, and relevant. 

How much can you ask of a candidate? 

Well, much like everything in the world of Recruitment, it’s a bit of a tricky question without a clear cut answer. How much can you ask of a candidate? Well, not much. But that not much might look different depending on the seniority of the role or where your candidate is in your process.

Your brain may have already gone to the simplest solution – we won’t ask anything of a candidate. We’ll interview them based on the resume they submit and hire based on the combination of both. Well, first of all, good luck. That’s a lot of work. But secondly. That may not work:

• Ask too little – Candidate becomes uninterested. It doesn’t feel like they’re earning the role. 
• Ask too much – Candidates decide the role isn’t worth it. 

Candidates want to feel valued. They want the chance to sell themselves, but they also don’t want to carry out a long case study for you and essentially feel like they’re giving you valuable work for free. 

It’s all about striking a balance. 

Let’s step by step our way through a recruitment process and talk about how much you can ask of a candidate. 

Pre-interview

At the very beginning, a candidate hits apply on your job description and they reach the first hurdle we put in front of us. Virtually all of us will ask a candidate for a resume. Most people will have a resume ready to go so that’s not too much to ask of a candidate. 

Lots of us will ask for a cover letter and further information from screening questions. This is where we can start to lose people.

• Cover letters are often rarely read. And even if they are read it rarely gives useful information. 
• Screening questions are great to a point. The average candidate is happy to answer some screening questions usually up to about 10, but after that you’ll start to lose them. After your third or fourth long-winded text box question suddenly your talent competitors who are looking for the same person seem much more appealing. 
• But worst of all, screening questions that duplicate the work of a resume or cover letter. Nothing irritates a candidate faster than having to type in their employment history while also attaching a resume. 

Interviews

This brings us on to interviews, which is already asking a lot, given that it may involve multiple conversations with multiple people. This takes time, which is a huge ask and truly shouldn’t be underestimated. If you’re asking someone to essentially sell themselves to you for a portion of their day, you need to respect that ask. For more senior or technical candidates it’s certainly acceptable to ask them to prepare a short presentation, but keep it very specific, concise, and relevant. 

Take-home assignments

This, of course, brings us on to take-home assignments. For some roles, they’re very relevant. But they’re certainly not relevant for all roles. If you can’t justify why you’re asking a candidate to carry out an assignment then you need to take that assignment out of your process, because you’re going to lose candidates with it – especially the good ones who will know they don’t need to do it to apply. 

If your assignment is role relevant, it can be a really effective way to keep candidates engaged. Just make sure it’s useful. There is nothing worse than wasting both a candidate’s time and your own time. 

Post-interview

Once you’re down to your shortlisted candidates and you’re carrying out some culture fit interviews this is where you need to start bending over backwards for your candidates. These are the cream of the crop. 

By this point you want them in your organization, so make sure they feel that. If they’re meeting the team for breakfast or having a walk around the office, make sure you work around their schedules and give them the royal treatment. This is where you can ask the least and potentially lose the most. 

We should be making things as easy as possible for our candidates. They have all the power and that’s not going to change any time soon. If there’s a part of your recruitment process where you ask a candidate to complete a questionnaire, form, test, assignment and it’s not giving you tangible results then you need to drop it from your process. 

Everything you ask of a candidate must be relevant to your organization and the candidate. If it’s not then not only are you wasting a candidate’s time, but you’re also wasting your own. 

That said, it seems the theme of the moment or method of adaption in the business world right now is, control. Everyone’s trying to weather the storm by closing their fist tighter and holding on to what they’ve got. 

If control is what you’re after then outsourcing your recruitment may be the way to go. 

That probably seems very counter intuitive, how does outsourcing give us control. Well, bare with me for a moment while we talk this through a little bit.

There are a whole host of other add ons and bells and whistles that can and should help to improve your overall recruitment process, but at it’s simplest, an ATS keeps all of your applicants and candidates in one place and most importantly it helps to prevent candidates from falling between the cracks.

For further show notes, see:

Time and time again studies have shown that AI and automation are most effective when partnered with a skilled human. That couldn’t be more true in the case of recruitment because fundamentally recruitment is human.

Join Shane this week as he walks you through how best to keep the balance between automation and the human element in your recruitment.

Right now the Corona Virus is testing us in so many different and unexpected ways. From a purely business perspective the rapid spread of the virus has caused economic uncertainty and the looming shadow of a global recession. At a more granular level some of us are struggling to even get to work in the first place. 

If people can’t even make it to work, then what does this mean for recruitment?

Join Shane this week as he tries to explain some simple ways you can help keep your recruitment efforts on track and prepare for any future times of crisis.

Join Shane this week as he gives you a crash course in how to ensure your headhunting efforts are being focused in the correct direction!

Read more here:

 Join Shane this week as he explains why finding your ideal purple unicorn may not be necessary and how to attract the next best thing.

Which method you use will usually come down to what suits your organization and the role in question and nearly all methods can work in different situations except those pre-interview tests and assessments that some of the job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn have started to role out, those are absolute garbage!

I mean imagine the disrespect a candidate feels when they try to apply for a role with you, only to realize they have to complete a time consuming examination prior to completing your application process and submitting a resume and cover letter. That doesn’t exactly represent your company in a great light, and if you think it does I beg you to realize the error of your ways. Imagine expecting a candidate to spend an hour or more of their time applying to your company without them ever having received even a phone call. That’s an insane expectation to have.

Here at Scout Talent when it comes to screening candidates as part of our recruitment process we find the combination of screening questions and video interviews to be a real cornerstone of our recruitment process. It’s not the whole process, we do see the value in face to face in person interviews as well, but given the cost in time and productivity involved in an in-person face to face interview we feel it’s best that you save that only for your cream of the crop candidates.

Our starting point is screening questions. Most Applicant Tracking Systems like Scout Talent will allow you to ask applicants pretty customizable questions. There is a caveat to this. Respecting your candidates time. You’re going to want to restrict yourself to between 5 to 7 screening questions. I’d say as a rule of thumb you’ll want to ask a few yes no functional questions like ‘do you have x degree’ or ‘do you have 10+ years of experience’ before going on to a more open-ended long text question to give you a flavour of the candidate’s motivation and communication skills.

Between that information and the resumes you gather it should give you a pretty good insight into which candidates you want to interview and depending on your role that may be too many to invite in for a face to face meeting. Or if you’re in a remote location it’s likely too expensive to bring individuals in for a face to face meeting after just a quick review of written information.

This is where video interviews come into play and they’re something we’re really passionate about here at Scout.

Using free software like Skype you can have an impactful face to face conversation with a candidate that’s convenient for both of you in terms of time spent. I know a lot of people are married to phone screening because change is scary and wifi is unreliable in some areas. Sure, I get it. But give video interviews a go, I promise you won't regret it.

When we’re thinking of candidates, which hopefully we always are to a certain extent. Video interviews are much more candidate friendly than face to face interviews are. With video interviews candidates don’t necessarily have to get time off of their work. We all have a smart phone now and candidates can easily step into another room or out to their car. Internally at Scout we seem to interview a lot of candidates in their car. But that 20 minute conversation in a car is much more preferable to a candidate than having to book half a day off of work.

We often forget the candidate effort that goes into the recruitment process. People invest a lot of time into applying for the jobs we put out and jumping...]]>When it comes to screening your candidates, there are a myriad of approaches that people use. From the simple phone call to the more sophisticated screening questions powered by an Applicant Tracking System.

Which method you use will usually come down to what suits your organization and the role in question and nearly all methods can work in different situations except those pre-interview tests and assessments that some of the job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn have started to role out, those are absolute garbage!

I mean imagine the disrespect a candidate feels when they try to apply for a role with you, only to realize they have to complete a time consuming examination prior to completing your application process and submitting a resume and cover letter. That doesn’t exactly represent your company in a great light, and if you think it does I beg you to realize the error of your ways. Imagine expecting a candidate to spend an hour or more of their time applying to your company without them ever having received even a phone call. That’s an insane expectation to have.

Here at Scout Talent when it comes to screening candidates as part of our recruitment process we find the combination of screening questions and video interviews to be a real cornerstone of our recruitment process. It’s not the whole process, we do see the value in face to face in person interviews as well, but given the cost in time and productivity involved in an in-person face to face interview we feel it’s best that you save that only for your cream of the crop candidates.

Our starting point is screening questions. Most Applicant Tracking Systems like Scout Talent will allow you to ask applicants pretty customizable questions. There is a caveat to this. Respecting your candidates time. You’re going to want to restrict yourself to between 5 to 7 screening questions. I’d say as a rule of thumb you’ll want to ask a few yes no functional questions like ‘do you have x degree’ or ‘do you have 10+ years of experience’ before going on to a more open-ended long text question to give you a flavour of the candidate’s motivation and communication skills.

Between that information and the resumes you gather it should give you a pretty good insight into which candidates you want to interview and depending on your role that may be too many to invite in for a face to face meeting. Or if you’re in a remote location it’s likely too expensive to bring individuals in for a face to face meeting after just a quick review of written information.

This is where video interviews come into play and they’re something we’re really passionate about here at Scout.

Using free software like Skype you can have an impactful face to face conversation with a candidate that’s convenient for both of you in terms of time spent. I know a lot of people are married to phone screening because change is scary and wifi is unreliable in some areas. Sure, I get it. But give video interviews a go, I promise you won't regret it.

When we’re thinking of candidates, which hopefully we always are to a certain extent. Video interviews are much more candidate friendly than face to face interviews are. With video interviews candidates don’t necessarily have to get time off of their work. We all have a smart phone now and candidates can easily step into another room or out to their car. Internally at Scout we seem to interview a lot of candidates in their car. But that 20 minute conversation in a car is much more preferable to a candidate than having to book half a day off of work.

We often forget the candidate effort that goes into the recruitment process. People invest a lot of time into applying for the jobs we put out and jumping over the hurdles of our recruitment processes.

Now overall I’m not saying replace your face to face meetings with video interviews, not entirely. You should still be absolutely meeting the person who is going to be working with you in person before hiring them. But use face to face interviews as a screening tool. Use it as a means of ensuring you only end up inviting the best of the best into your office to meet with a panel. Essentially use it as a way of ensuring no one’s time is wasted.

For those of you that are have multiple levels of sign off there are tonnes of screen recording tools that you can access online in order to record your interviews and share with a panel. Just make sure your candidate knows they’re being recorded or you can get into all sorts of nastiness.

If anyone out there is feeling a little bit too wary of change to take on video interviews by themselves then please do reach out to us. Video Interviews are something we do at Scout Talent every day and we’d love to help you learn more about the process.

When it comes to screening your candidates you deserve a refined process. Recruitment’s hard, we all know it. And interviewing people can be exhausting. At the very least when it comes to a video interview if the candidates really bad you can pretend your wifi cut out and just finish up there and then. That’s a joke. Mostly.

As a subject of many forecasts and market predictions, the year 2020 has been greatly anticipated. This is especially true for HR consultants, companies, and employers as a whole who have been paying close attention to expert opinions and predictions on recruitment in 2020. 

Over the last five years, HR experts and industry stakeholders have analyzed and proposed drastic measures to mitigate the looming recruitment horror that is based on the skills shortage in Canada. However, the fact remains that hiring and managing a workforce will be a challenging feat in the year 2020. Throughout this article we're going to share two powerful strategies to future-proof your organization so you can continue to attract the best talent.

Amid the turmoil, experts project that only the prepared and focused employers will prove successful. Thus, the question is what should you focus on? and where should you begin as a brand? 

As an employer or human resources manager, a good place to begin will be to consider the current state of recruitment in Canada in an effort to understand and identify the critical measures to take in 2020. The unemployment rate in Canada is down to 5.5%, and on the whole, recruitment in Canada is quite. In addition to that, employees across Canada have employment tenure of 8.5 years on average before moving on to the next job. This is being reduced by the influx of millennials into the labor market as millennials move from job to job in search of better opportunities or to advance their professional career. 

Amid the shortage of skilled labor, hiring and retaining individuals in certain professions can prove to be even more challenging for a number of reasons. Prime among these professions are registered and licensed practical nurses, truck drivers, college-level lecturers, and welders to name a few. These professionals are highly aware of their value, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to any employer that hiring and retaining one can be tricky.

There are various reasons for the short employee tenure and the rising complexity in recruiting a skilled workforce. This could be profession-dependent or not. Largely, it can be blamed on the aging workforce, and partly on the lack of interest to go into this profession on the part of new individuals. 

Plumbers, for instance, can make a lot more money working for themselves on average than they can while working for someone else, which makes it difficult to recruit for such roles. The situation is so pronounced that institutions even offer students automatic employment on completion of their program. This is done in a bid to attract skilled labor. 

In the current decade, employers of skilled labor will need more than attractive job descriptions to attract competent personnel in any field, be it sales, project management or even plumbing. To recruit the professionals you need, you must develop a strong employer offering, knowing that you are competing with other companies to attract professionals. 

Employer Branding is the Key

Starting off as a buzzword, employer branding has become a requirement...]]>Recruitment in Canada In 2020

As a subject of many forecasts and market predictions, the year 2020 has been greatly anticipated. This is especially true for HR consultants, companies, and employers as a whole who have been paying close attention to expert opinions and predictions on recruitment in 2020. 

Over the last five years, HR experts and industry stakeholders have analyzed and proposed drastic measures to mitigate the looming recruitment horror that is based on the skills shortage in Canada. However, the fact remains that hiring and managing a workforce will be a challenging feat in the year 2020. Throughout this article we're going to share two powerful strategies to future-proof your organization so you can continue to attract the best talent.

Amid the turmoil, experts project that only the prepared and focused employers will prove successful. Thus, the question is what should you focus on? and where should you begin as a brand? 

As an employer or human resources manager, a good place to begin will be to consider the current state of recruitment in Canada in an effort to understand and identify the critical measures to take in 2020. The unemployment rate in Canada is down to 5.5%, and on the whole, recruitment in Canada is quite. In addition to that, employees across Canada have employment tenure of 8.5 years on average before moving on to the next job. This is being reduced by the influx of millennials into the labor market as millennials move from job to job in search of better opportunities or to advance their professional career. 

Amid the shortage of skilled labor, hiring and retaining individuals in certain professions can prove to be even more challenging for a number of reasons. Prime among these professions are registered and licensed practical nurses, truck drivers, college-level lecturers, and welders to name a few. These professionals are highly aware of their value, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to any employer that hiring and retaining one can be tricky.

There are various reasons for the short employee tenure and the rising complexity in recruiting a skilled workforce. This could be profession-dependent or not. Largely, it can be blamed on the aging workforce, and partly on the lack of interest to go into this profession on the part of new individuals. 

Plumbers, for instance, can make a lot more money working for themselves on average than they can while working for someone else, which makes it difficult to recruit for such roles. The situation is so pronounced that institutions even offer students automatic employment on completion of their program. This is done in a bid to attract skilled labor. 

In the current decade, employers of skilled labor will need more than attractive job descriptions to attract competent personnel in any field, be it sales, project management or even plumbing. To recruit the professionals you need, you must develop a strong employer offering, knowing that you are competing with other companies to attract professionals. 

Employer Branding is the Key

Starting off as a buzzword, employer branding has become a requirement for employers in the current decade. Recruiting competent professionals in any field has gone beyond crafting pretty job descriptions, hence, to attract and retain the right talent, you must combine the efforts of your marketing, recruitment, and internal communications team to develop and maintain a viable employer brand. 

If you don't already have employer branding in place, a good place to start would be to perform a stance check. The first step is to achieve this is to analyze your HR policies, and check if they are making things easier for your employees or the contrary. Is it easy to access your maternity leave? What does your sick leave look like? How many days of vacation do you offer your employees? These are critical things that would make your employer brand enticing or generally unappealing.

You also have to consider when last you carried out an employee satisfaction survey to know what your employees are looking for in working for you, and if they get a sense of satisfaction from working for you. If you have carried out the survey, then what have you done with the result? When was the last time an employee recommended a friend for a position that you advertised? Are your employees happy about working for you so much that they can recommend their friends to work for you as well?

These are effective measures in determining how strong your employment brand is. 

Furthering your effort towards superior recruitment results, you have to ask yourself what makes your brand unique, and what separates you from your competitors. If you're unable to answer these questions then you're not in a strong position as an employer. This is because convincing a potential employee or customer to choose your brand over competition will be impractical.

Being able to analyze and answer these questions is necessary in building your employer brand, and this is one of the things you need to put in place for recruitment in 2020. The Scout Talent weekly Podcast provides a wealth of resources on these critical steps, and the techniques you can utilize or leverage as an employer to develop a sustainable employer brand. It’s a good place to start.

Talent Pooling

Talent Pooling is yet another essential requirement for successful recruitment and managing a competent workforce in the year 2020. While it is not uncommon to hire a competent professional at the expense of a relatively less-competent but also highly-valuable candidate, the connection established between the company and the discarded candidate is a vital resource that talent pooling seeks to leverage.

A talent pool is achieved by keeping in touch and deploying strategies to actively engage candidates who are unfit for the roles they applied to but are considered a cultural fit for your organization.

This approach to talent sourcing aims to utilize only existing resources in retaining the interest of these talents and preparing them for prospective opportunities in the company. How is this achieved?

You simply direct your marketing or learning and development team to repurpose and redevelop the training materials or information which was initially directed at your staff towards your Talent Pool. You can use this to keep your Talent Pool engaged, thus, creating a pool of well-trained professionals for the company’s long-term personnel needs. 

As we move into 2020 and beyond, reducing employee turnover will only become increasingly important. Employees have the power of choice, and qualified employees have an awful lot of choices. While a good recruitment process can help you attract the right employees, it won’t prevent them from leaving three months later.

Brands will get desperate and unethical in means of sourcing employees, and only well-grounded employer brands can successfully attract and retain the highest level of talents available on the market. After all, a happy employee is always your company’s best ambassador.

Recruitment in 2020 will be tough and challenging. However, nothing worth doing is ever easy, and exceptional results are achievable with the right team. Our professional team of consultants at Scout Talent will be there to address your hiring needs and to develop workable strategies for your long-term recruitment needs.

To get in contact with the Scout Talent team, please email hello@scouttalent or call us directly at 1 866 474 3140. 

In this episode we will introduce you to your host Shane Keane and give you a taster of what you can look forward to every week from us.

Shane is a recruitment marketer and every week he's going to be joining you on your commute, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts, to talk about what’s big and what’s challenging in recruitment with his distinct personal style and an occasional sassy comment thrown in for good measure.

He’ll be covering everything recruitment with episodes on how to keep recruitment human, how to find your purple unicorn, the best method for screening applicants and how to position yourself in this tough Employer Branding market. 

So hit subscribe and get ready to learn how to bring your recruitment processes and your employer brand to the next level!