The pandemic reshaped the workplace and the priorities of those employed in it. Three years post-shutdown, companies are finding their stride again. They’re making peace with remote and hybrid work and finding ways to help employees balance work and personal lives.
That said, problems with finding the right talent to fill open positions persists. Businesses aren’t attracting enough applicants or the right ones. Even if they do, new hires are always looking for the next better gig.
Perhaps the largest shift companies need to make is generational. Those workaholic Baby Boomers are on their way out, as Millennials come to dominate the workforce. Gen X is wedged in between the two, even as Gen Z’s percentage of the workforce will triple over the next few years.
Despite these disruptions, many employers cling to traditional ways of finding and hiring team members. If you want to succeed in this changing landscape, though, you’re going to have to shake things up. Here are a few ways your business can overhaul its recruitment practices for success.
1. Look Abroad
If you’re still casting a net only in the domestic talent pool, you’re missing out. There has never been a better time to expand your recruitment efforts into a global market.
If you learned one thing during the pandemic, it was that many jobs can be performed remotely. All you needed to do was make sure employees had the right hardware, software, and processes to make it happen. If it worked for team members across town, it can work for team members across oceans.
Of course, you can’t just hire someone abroad and add them to your domestic payroll. You’ll need to strictly comply with employment laws in the countries where those workers live. Fortunately, if you partner with an employer of record already established in those countries, they’ll handle all compliance issues for you.
There are motivated, productive, skilled, and educated job seekers all over the world. Don’t just confine your business to its own little corner of it.
2. Get Social
Numerous statistics support the wisdom of companies increasing their use of social media to sell their products and services. Surveys show that’s where 55% of people discover new brands, and 68% say these platforms allow them to engage with brands. Broken down by generation, those numbers increase among younger consumers.
If that’s where most of the workforce is spending a significant amount of its time, why not recruit there? This goes way beyond posting open positions on LinkedIn. This means leveraging the reach of social media to its fullest to find talent.
Social media is the perfect place to introduce the business end of your operations, not just what you have to sell. These platforms can make your company transparent, relatable, and relevant to potential employees. Prospects who align themselves with your culture, causes, and concerns just might want to join your payroll.
Customers aren’t the only people who choose your brand; employees choose it as well. If you’re only using social media to reach the former but not the latter, you’re missing out. Talk to prospective talent where they are.
3. Go Mobile
Pandemic shutdowns certainly increased screen time for most of the workforce. Average daily screen time tends to decrease with age of the user. But it’s estimated that people spend nearly nine years of their lives on their phones.
Millennials and Gen Z rely heavily on their mobile devices, checking them repeatedly throughout the day and night. Considering that’s where prospective talent is, your recruitment efforts need to be mobile-friendly as well. That may require you to think differently about what the application process looks like.
You’ll need to swap out email communications for texts, which younger candidates read and respond to more quickly. The careers page on your company’s website must be optimized for mobile devices, which may require a complete overhaul. You’ll need to streamline applications to make them easy to complete and submit from a smartphone.
The majority of your future hires are going to come from the two youngest and most mobile-reliant generations. If they’re on the move, your business needs to be as well. Take your recruitment process out of the laptop or PC world and into the cellular level.
4. Look Within
Technology is rapidly altering workforce needs. Automation, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, and GPT-3 are replacing roles traditionally held by humans. But if those humans are great employees, finding new roles for them to fill may be a sound recruitment strategy.
Even if global recruitment is part of your strategy, there’s no reason to not look at your best team members first. A promotion or transfer may make an employee feel valued and rewarded and give them a reason to stay.
“Internal” can also mean considering former employees, a return to previous applicants not hired, and even referrals by existing team members. Having even a little skin in the game makes a prospect a stronger one. Their familiarity with your business will enable you to cut the onboarding investment needed to get them fully up to speed.
Finding ways to fill openings and retain your best talent starts by seeing the forest as well as the trees. It’s short-sighted not to look first at who you have in-house before conducting an external search. The positions those employees leave may be easier ones to backfill.
Overhaul for the Long Haul
When everything else in the world is being changed by technology and generational differences, your talent recruitment efforts must follow suit. The face of your workforce is getting younger. Where you reach these individuals and how will determine your future success.
If you want to find the best employees before someone else does, overhaul your recruitment strategies. Do it right, and your human resources engine will be firing on all cylinders.
