Candidates continue to put higher salaries at the top of their requirements list for seeking new employment, and continued turnover has put employers in a tough position. Recent Employ data reported that 37% of job seekers were looking to switch employers to seek higher wages. So, what exactly is the phenomenon that’s happening to loyal employees and how does it affect your employer brand?

What Is Loyalty Tax on Employees?

Loyalty tax occurs when current employees are penalized for staying in their existing roles by receiving less than new hires for the same position, or not receiving market adjustments to their salaries. According to a recent LinkedIn article, new hires are often paid seven percent higher for the same role, while another study puts loyalty tax on employees even higher at 10 to 15%.

Qualified candidates have seen that by moving to another company, they can often realize a significant raise compared to their current role. These are typically employees who should qualify for annual raises, but were potentially denied one for larger organizational reasons, including to avoid layoffs, to make up for poor performance, or the company has decided to stay a laggard compared to the rest of the market in its approach to pay.

Not giving out market-centric annual raises can significantly hurt both employers and employees who stick with a company for multiple years, while getting minimal (if any) raises or bonuses. Miscommunication and poor salary budgeting can force employees to pay this detrimental tax for staying at the organization, but candidates are quickly figuring this out and finding companies who also know this.

If turnover is high and quality employees aren’t properly compensated, it could mean that executive leadership is not on the same page as HR and TA leaders. This can create a challenge for recruiting quality candidates, and cause a vacuum of talent leaving the organization in search of higher pay, greater benefits, and greater recognition for their contributions.

How Can Companies Avoid Loyalty Tax?

A loyalty tax can harm an employer’s brand during such a critical time in a highly competitive job market. But loyalty tax on your employees is not a given. Getting company leadership, HR executives, and talent acquisition teams on the same page when it comes to priorities and budgets for the year can help ensure current and new employee contributions are valued and rewarded appropriately. Strategic HR teams analyze key metrics like employee retention and engagement, and salary rates to track overall satisfaction with the company and find areas of improvement.

Prioritize Employee Support & Enablement

One of the biggest ways to avoid charging employees a loyalty tax is to have executive and TA leadership consistently communicate about the state of hiring in the company. Top talent teams use advanced analytics to better understand and improve the recruiting experience for candidates. Remember, job seekers want to find a company that values employees, prioritizes DE&I, enables workplace flexibility, and leverages automation to improve communication, feedback, and time-to-hire.

Drive Internal Mobility

Candidates today want to work in a place that invests in their professional and personal growth. In fact, a recent Lighthouse Research & Advisory Report shared that 83% of candidates ask about future career opportunities during the hiring process. Many recruiting teams have pivoted their strategies this year to focus more on internal mobility and employee networking to fill positions. The benefit of prioritizing internal mobility is giving employees the chance to expand and grow in their careers within your company, and not at a competitor.

Actionable Strategies to Reduce Loyalty Tax

Employers that want to build a more robust employer brand, provide a strong employee value proposition, and pay competitive salaries to employees leverage strategies to ensure retention is rewarded rather than penalized. While a loyalty tax can’t be eliminated overnight, there are ways to help reduce it and improve engagement. HR and talent teams invest in the technology to keep a pulse on employees, and to find, hire, and retain top talent for their business.

Here are some actionable steps to reduce loyalty tax on your employees and retain top talent this year.

#1: Ensure TA leadership, HR executives, and company executives meet regularly to analyze and ensure budgets are prioritized for talent raises, merits, and incentives for current employees.

#2: Create and develop an employee referral program that incentivizes employees to refer their networks to open positions.

Include incentives for managers to refer employees for promotions or internal developmental career moves.

#3: Regularly analyze the labor market and economic reports to determine fair wages for existing employees doing the jobs that they already do.

Find companies that publish their salary ranges for similar roles to get an idea of the benefits offered by competitors.

#4: Send out quarterly company surveys to get feedback from current employees and find areas of improvement before they turn into pain points.

Get Started Building Value for Employees and Candidates Alike

With top talent in short supply, it’s crucial for companies to prioritize their employer brand and employee value proposition. High turnover in the market shows that candidates know what they want and are willing to switch companies to find it. Be sure your TA team is equipped to combat high turnover and recruit qualified employees with the Employ 2023 Recruiting Effectiveness Planning Kit.

The post Are Employees Paying You a Loyalty Tax? (And How It’s Hurting Your Employer Brand) first appeared on Jobvite.

Specifically, candidate sourcing refers to the act of proactively finding and identifying potential candidates who could fill an open or future role in your company. This creates a robust talent pipeline for your company’s recruitment efforts. Recruiting, on the other hand, is a reactive function of reviewing, interviewing, selecting, and hiring candidates to fill open positions.

Sourcing goes hand-in-hand with candidate engagement and recruitment marketing, with the goal of identifying the right talent, actively interacting with those candidates, and moving them to the point of conversion. Sourcing often has the specific end goal of supporting recruiting to hire the right person for the right role, but it can also be used as a tool for expanding the organization’s talent pool. By broadening the talent network, recruiters have a wider range of talent to choose from.

A solid recruitment strategy, therefore, requires an equally strong candidate sourcing strategy. Let’s examine what this entails and identify some ways that you can make sure your candidate sourcing strategy gets the results you need.

Refine Your Candidate Sourcing Strategy With These Four Best Practices

To build a better sourcing strategy, you need to prioritize activities that develop your talent pipeline, so you can hire the best candidates for your current and future roles. For more sourcing strategies, take a deeper look at the eBook Effective Sourcing: Where Quality Meets Quantity. In the meantime, let’s take a look at how to optimize your sourcing strategy with these four key tips:

#1: Be Specific & Streamline Candidate Searches

Having a well-thought-out sourcing strategy requires companies to consider the types of candidates they want to fill their open positions. When conducting candidate searches online or in your candidate relationship management (CRM) tool, don’t limit the search to generic queries based on the job title, location, or qualifications. Those are all important things to consider, but they’re not going to give the depth of results you are seeking.

Instead, be detailed. Use semantic search terms related to the position’s responsibilities and associated technologies or companies. Also, use modifiers and Boolean operators to zero in on the exact kind of candidates you’re looking for.

Better yet, consider using tools like Zero-Click Intelligent Sourcing (ZCIS) to eliminate manual search and automatically identify candidates for every new and existing job within your company’s ATS. ZCIS automatically processes every job in your applicant tracking system and attaches potential candidates to that job for further consideration.

#2: Maintain a Strong Sourcing Pipeline

One vital element of your sourcing strategy should include looking back and engaging with previous candidates and applicants. Because you will source qualified talent for each role, but typically only hire one person for each position, make sure you take the opportunity to keep in touch with talent.

Ensure you are reaching out to previous silver medalists, or candidates who made it through the interviews, but were not selected, to those individuals who have applied to your positions previously, to those candidates who have signed up for your talent network, or those who have visited your career site. Continue reaching out to candidates proactively and keep in touch with them using a variety of communication channels to maintain your sourcing pipeline.

Remember, candidates who have shown interest in your company previously won’t stay interested forever, and you never know when you might find yourself in need of someone to fill a crucial position. Ensuring you can directly reach out to candidates and turn job seekers into applicants is a valuable lever in every sourcing strategy.

#3: Take Care to Identify Passive Candidates

When sourcing candidates, it’s important not just to wait for job seekers to find you. The whole point of any good sourcing strategy should be to actively cultivate new candidates for potential hires. That means looking at passive candidates who are not actively seeking a new position.

Passive candidates can be found in a variety of ways, from browsing LinkedIn profiles to attending in-person industry networking events. It’s important to remember that the resumes of passive candidates aren’t always up-to-date though, so be careful. Cross-reference their information across sources, if possible.

#4: Identify Top Sources for Talent & Track the Right Metrics

When sourcing candidates, you shouldn’t just be assessing potential employees. You should also be evaluating the sources themselves. That means identifying the sources that have yielded the most positive results for your business. Where have you had the most success in finding talent? Where have you converted the most candidates into applicants? Are online sources like LinkedIn or Indeed your best source for top talent? What about employee referrals?

You should also keep track of recruiting analytics that help you make smarter, faster decisions when it comes to hiring. For example, you should know how long it takes you on average to fill a position. Compare your own time-to-hire with those of other companies in your industry and see how you measure up. This can help you understand what you should be doing differently and where you can optimize your hiring process to speed time to hire.

Jobvite Supports Enterprise Companies in Building a Stronger Sourcing

Sourcing candidates isn’t always easy, but with the help of Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite, you’ll be well on your way to building a robust and streamlined sourcing engine that will help you recruit qualified candidates when you need them most. As part of the Evolve Suite, Jobvite’s Source & CRM solution empowers you to source and nurture your best talent at scale. Our Zero-Click Intelligent Sourcing tool also automatically finds top candidates when a requisition is first opened, saving recruiters up to 30% of their time.

Get more top sourcing tips in the Effective Sourcing: Where Quality Meets Quantity eBook. Or subscribe to our blog for more insights to evolve your talent acquisition function.

The post How to Create a Better Candidate Sourcing Strategy first appeared on Jobvite.

But the complexity of talent acquisition has accelerated in the last several years, making it more difficult than ever to attract, recruit, and hire candidates. Given the existing labor market, the historically low unemployment rate, and the high number of open positions per job seeker, there is mounting pressure on talent acquisition teams and recruiters to deliver quality candidates.

Talent Acquisition Faces Tremendous Challenges

Employers continue to face significant challenges within the current labor market. According to Employ data, a majority of HR decision makers perceive an insufficient number of people to fill open positions (56%) and competition from other employers (54%) as the biggest challenges their businesses face in recruiting. Not being able to compete on salary requirements (33%), poor communication from candidates in the hiring process (29%), hiring processes that take too long (28%), and not being able to offer remote or hybrid work (27%) are also seen as top challenges in attracting and hiring quality talent.

A hiring process that takes too long is seen as a challenge more often at large enterprise and medium-sized companies at 34% and 33%, respectively. Perceived competition from other employers was up six points from June 2022 (54% versus 48%); inability to compete with salary requirements was also up six points (33% versus 27%); managing a high volume of candidates was down 11 points (18% versus 29%) from June.

More than 65% of HR decision makers also feel that recruiting is more stressful today than it was a year ago, most often because there are not enough qualified candidates (59%), there are more open roles to fill (51%), competition from other employers (44%), and more employees are leaving the organization (43%). Employees leaving the organization have a greater impact on enterprise companies (56% report it as a reason for increased stress) than at medium-sized and small businesses (40% and 37%, respectively).

With new talent priorities and challenges, recruiters themselves are finding it more difficult to manage the expanding expectations of their roles, including countless administrative tasks. In fact, according to Aptitude Research, “82% of recruiters spend time scheduling calls daily or weekly and 68% of recruiters spend time looking for candidates in the ATS daily or weekly.” These tasks take recruiters away from more strategic work, including DEI initiatives or employer branding efforts that more effectively nurture and attract candidates.

On top of added expectations for recruiters, the multitude of disparate systems offered to support the talent acquisition function continues to grow. The landscape continues to change. And from an organizational perspective, it’s difficult to keep up with who offers the best technology, what the new category offerings are, and how the industry will respond to the changing technologies.

Plus, with all the innovation — from conversational AI to programmatic job advertising to recruitment marketing — talent acquisition providers continue to rapidly modernize and transform what’s possible in talent acquisition technology. Again, Aptitude Research found that 60% of recruiters say their greatest frustration with technology is poor integration. These disparate systems have created a huge problem and disconnect for recruiters, with multiple tech stacks that often lack integration and interoperability between systems.

Yet during this time, a majority of HR decision makers (54%) expect to increase recruitment spending in their company. Spending increases are more likely to be expected in medium-sized businesses (66%), while a large proportion of HR decision makers at enterprise companies expect an increase for 2023 at 53%.

As many organizations have hurried to adopt new technologies within their TA function, they have overlooked those individuals within the business actually doing the work of recruiting talent. Specifically, 58% of recruiters do not believe that leadership understands their role in the organization and 42% indicate they do not have the resources they need to be successful, again according to Aptitude Research.

The Power of a Unified Talent Acquisition Suite

So, what can be done to reconcile the gap that exists between leadership and the recruiters who find themselves trying to keep up with the disparity of systems and compete in an increasingly complex labor market? The answer is by integrating the breadth and depth of talent acquisition technology into a single suite — unlike anything that has ever been offered before.

Simply said, what organizations need most is a unified talent acquisition suite that addresses the entire talent acquisition lifecycle. One that is fully dedicated to the talent acquisition function. That understands recruiters, supports hiring managers, and enables the widest range of functionality ever provided in a single solution. A system that goes far beyond the capabilities of an ERP just trying to check the box for recruiting. That embraces the full scope of recruiting beyond single point or standalone solutions.

What you need is a suite purpose-built for recruiters, hiring managers, talent acquisition teams, candidates, and TA leadership. That seamlessly integrates with other solutions like ADP, UKG, Inform Paychex, and Bamboo HR. That considers the complexity of hiring, especially for large enterprise organizations. That is loved and ranked as a top product by users.

While you may know Jobvite from its early days as an ATS provider, Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite will transform the way you recruit top talent from a partner that has transformed itself. This is the first time any talent acquisition provider has brought together every aspect of recruiting — from recruitment marketing, applicant tracking and onboarding to employee referrals and internal mobility to DE&I, advanced analytics, and data exchange.

Go Deeper on Unified Talent Acquistion

The breadth and depth that Jobvite offers in its talent acquisition suite brings together the best in talent acquisition technology. And it’s exactly what your TA team needs now to be competitive in the most difficult hiring environment in history. It’s time to move beyond where you are. To evolve your talent acquisition function. And to start transforming how you find and hire the best talent. With Jobvite, it is possible. And we promise, we are the partner that will take you there. 

The post Evolve Talent Acquisition with an End-to-End Suite first appeared on Jobvite.

Public forums such as Glassdoor, Indeed, and the like allow current employees, former employees, or even interviewees to post about their experience with your company, for better or worse. These reviews are a key part of your online presence and play an integral role in your recruiting effectiveness.

What Is Your Employer Brand?

An employer brand refers to the way organizations differentiate themselves from competitors in the market for candidates and employees. What is your company’s reputation among your workers? How is it as a place to work? Do your employees feel cared for? Taken care of? Would they recommend you to their friends? These are all important questions that contribute to your employer brand.

According to LinkedIn research, more than three-quarters of people seeking jobs look into the company’s employer brand before applying. This means that most of the candidates you interact with will already have an image of your company, especially those job seekers who have options when it comes to seeking new roles. They’re also likely to leave a review after interviewing or interacting with your company during the hiring process. How does your online presence impact business? Here are three ways:

● It impacts the quality and quantity of applicants.
Positive reviews will draw applicants to your business, simplifying your hiring efforts and helping to attract top talent and build a more robust talent pool. Negative reviews will do the opposite: drive away candidates who are seeking better job opportunities and work environments.

● It influences customer perception.
Prospective customers are also looking at your online presence to assess company values. So while a positive online brand will encourage customer loyalty, negative reviews will likely disrupt their trust in your company.

● It affects current and future employee satisfaction.
Even if a current employee has a mostly positive outlook on their experience, those negative reviews or discussions about them in the workplace can be detrimental to productivity, focus, and retention. Negative impressions of how you hire their coworkers (and how it impacts the quality of their coworkers) can decrease work performance by up to 30%. So the quicker they are addressed and remedied, the better.

The impact of your employer brand is significant. But the overall hurdle most leadership teams face is how to address and improve their candidate experience and, therefore, improve their reviews online. Here are two key ways to approach your employer brand online to attract top talent.

#1: Recognize Your Employer Brand Is for More Than Just Hiring

A well-developed employer brand makes current employees proud of their positions and the company they work for. And it makes them more likely to refer others in their network towards open positions in your company. But did you know that your employer brand can also support your bottom line? It’s simple: devoting resources to the brand and its maintenance can reduce costs elsewhere.

Companies that have stellar employer brand images don’t have to spend as much on recruiting costs because they don’t have to recruit as hard. When your employees love their job, they’re telling people about it. Or, at the very least, not running your good name down in an after-work rant. This also means retention is improved because your strongest employees are more likely to stay for the long run.

Current employees act as ambassadors if they’re proud of where they work. The attitudes of current employees, positive or negative, further develop the company’s brand; strong branding creates a cycle where the brand gets stronger, which makes employees prouder and more content in their work, which makes the brand stronger, in turn.

#2: Make Sure to Optimize Job Seeker Experiences

Start laying the groundwork for positive candidate experiences now. When seeking to create positive candidate experiences, communication is key.

● Keep Candidates Informed Every Step of the Way
Too many recruiters and employers treat the hiring process as a one-way street, requiring prompt answers and updates from candidates without offering the same thing in return.

Solutions like candidate texting and automated intelligent messaging make providing candidates with real-time, helpful feedback easier. Communicating details of the next steps job seekers need to take or just acknowledging when their application has been received and reviewed leaves fewer unanswered questions and room for competition to sneak in.

● Let Your Candidates Know What to Expect
Hand-in-hand with keeping candidates in the loop during the hiring process, it’s equally important to let candidates know what to expect if they are hired. That means offering them a clear and detailed glimpse of their new role’s responsibilities and your company’s unique culture.

More than 88% of surveyed job seekers said they believe that good company culture is essential to business success. Demonstrate what makes your company culture stand out, and you will be ahead of the game.

● Maintain Relationships with Candidates
When does your candidate experience end? After you decide not to hire them, right? Wrong. Just because a candidate isn’t right for the position you currently need to fill doesn’t mean they won’t be right for a different role in the future.

A good way to improve candidate experience is to keep in touch with all high-quality candidates, not just the ones you hire. Instead of starting over from scratch, you may already have dozens of prime candidates sitting in your recruitment pipeline.

● Continue Into Onboarding
Communication shouldn’t stop once the candidate has accepted an offer. To ensure a smooth onboarding process, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is your onboarding experience seamlessly connected to your hiring experience?
2. Are all of your new hire forms digital so that new hires don’t have to fill out forms by hand?
3. Do you have an onboarding portal that prioritizes all of a new hire’s tasks?
4. Does your onboarding portal work on mobile?
5. Do you offer pre-boarding? In other words, is your onboarding portal available to candidates before they start, so they can get a head start on the process?

Go Deeper on How to Attract Candidates with a Solid Employer Brand

Download our eBook and learn how you can build a better candidate experience with a step-by-step approach to enhancing your employer brand. Get valuable insights into auditing your employer brand and see how you can improve the quality of hire with a better candidate experience.

The post Your Employer Brand Online Is Costing You Hires (Here’s How to Fix It) first appeared on Jobvite.

#1: Scalability Is a Strategic Advantage

No matter their size or recruiting complexity, companies are still navigating rocky terrain when it comes to hiring. Those that are actively hiring for new positions have challenges finding enough quality candidates. That’s why it remains the top priority for HR leaders in 2023. In fact, nearly two-thirds (61%) of HR decision makers indicate their first priority in recruiting this year is improving the overall quality of candidate.

However, based on Employ data, the number of new job listings across organizations decreased last year between the second and third quarters by 10.4%, representing a pullback from historic highs seen in early Q2 2022.  With new open jobs trending downward, companies will likely experience a continued increase in the total number of applications in 2023.

So while the labor market remains tight, it is also possible that companies are pulling back on hiring during this time. In response, business leaders should empower their TA and HR leaders to adopt more agile recruiting strategies that enable them to scale up or down, depending on their own business needs.

Scalability has become a key strategy for successful recruiting. It allows teams to evaluate their hiring process at all steps of the talent lifecycle to find areas of improvement and keeps teams ready to adjust to changes in the market.

Agile recruiting helps TA teams to:

• Analyze and optimize recruiting processes
• Evaluate and improve on key recruiting metrics like quality of hire and time-to-hire
• Shorten the hiring process to fill roles quicker with qualified talent
• Easily adjust to the changing job market to meet candidates where they are

#2: Technology & Process Prioritization Is Essential

Following multiple years of job market uncertainty, employers are still looking for ways to speed time to hire and focus on automating parts of the hiring process. This is often done by identifying technology and processes that can take repetitive, mundane tasks away from recruiters and hiring managers, and automate those activities for faster hiring.

Companies that plan to increase recruiting spend will most often do so by increasing their budgets for new recruitment technology processes (59%), job advertising (57%), new recruiting team role hires (45%), and by expanding their existing recruitment technology stack (43%).

Additional technology investments will likely go toward:

• Applicant tracking systems (59%)
• DEI initiatives (51%)
• Candidate relationship management (50%)
• Sourcing, including RPO (47%)
• Career sites (41%)
• Offers and onboarding (41%)

> PRO TIP: Leverage purpose-built recruitment technology

Adopt recruitment software and talent acquisition technology that is tailor-made for the complexity, size, and hiring needs of your business. By investing in purpose-built technology, companies can ensure they are more competitive to connect with the right talent and streamline their processes.

#3: Recruiting Outcomes Are Paramount

Understanding where HR decision makers face the biggest challenges right now, and actively seeking to address those difficulties, can make a difference for companies looking to improve the quality of candidates and improve the speed of hiring.

Here are two strategies that can help organizations improve their overall quality of hire, increase efficiencies through automation and workload reduction, and support compliance across companies of all sizes:

• Deliver positive experiences: Take care to invest in the needs of hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates, and deliver positive experiences for these audiences. Work to shorten feedback loops, improve communication and collaboration, and engage each stakeholder more deeply within the hiring process. If applicable, focus on engaging with gig workers and nurturing relationships with individuals who are in revenue-generating roles. Ensure the hiring process delivers positive experiences that enhance the company’s employer brand.

• Identify where to optimize processes: Leverage data-driven insights and analytics that inform where bottlenecks exist in the recruiting process and uncover opportunities to speed up time-to-hire and boost the quality of candidates. By keeping a clear pulse on applicant flow and the talent pipeline, companies can uncover insights into where the recruiting process can be improved.

Final Thoughts

Interested in deeper insights to start the new year? Download the Employ Quarterly Insights Report here or discover other relevant content in our resource library.

The post What Talent Acquisition Priorities Should Business Leaders Focus On In 2023? first appeared on Jobvite.

With specific recognition for ease of setup, ease of use, and quality of support, Jobvite has been recognized as a:

• Leader in Enterprise Applicant Tracking Systems

• Leader in Enterprise Candidate Relationship Management

• Leader in Enterprise Recruitment Marketing

• Leader in Enterprise Onboarding

• Leader in Applicant Tracking Systems

• Leader in Candidate Relationship Management

• Leader in Recruitment Platforms

• Leader in Recruitment Marketing

• Leader in Onboarding

• Leader in Mid-Market Applicant Tracking Systems

• Leader in Mid-Market Candidate Relationship Management

What G2 Users Say About Jobvite

Jobvite, an Employ Inc. brand, delivers a purpose-built, scalable, and proven end-to-end solution that streamlines complex talent acquisition activities. Jobvite acts as a strategic partner to empower customers to meet their ever-changing business needs, driving predictable outcomes, creating engaging candidate experiences, and increasing efficiency by optimizing TA capacity.

Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite streamlines talent acquisition across the entire talent lifecycle and brings together the best recruiting capabilities, all in one suite. But don’t take our word for it. Take a look at verified user reviews on G2:

“Glad we made the switch to Jobvite”

Jobvite is able to automate several of the administrative tasks that go along with recruiting. After our business began growing, this was a must for us. It has saved us so much time! 

“Simplified and seamless candidate sourcing and hiring tool”

Every functional requirement for the hiring event is in one place. 

“Excellent!”

Jobvite is very adaptable, easy to configure and is perfect for all companies. I like its custom fields, its workflows and its adaptability to different recruitment processes.

See What Makes Jobvite a Leader

We are thrilled to receive this recognition from our customers and are grateful for the opportunity to provide end-to-end, integrated talent acquisition solutions without the complexity

Thank you to our amazing users for again rating Jobvite a leader in talent acquisition technology. To see Jobvite in action, watch the on-demand Jobvite Product Tour or request a live demo.

The post Jobvite Receives 11 Leader Badges on G2! first appeared on Jobvite.

Your recruiting team is likely seeing these trends firsthand. Those that understand the macro recruiting trends, remain vigilant in the face of competition, and anticipate turbulence will be better suited to thrive through an uncertain hiring landscape. As companies are now firmly into 2023, make sure you understand the top recruiting challenges your team is facing and what leadership can do to support them in streamlining hiring this new year.

The Talent Landscape Is Still Treacherous

It should come as no surprise: Employ data shows 65% of recruiters say their job is more stressful today than it was a year ago. Of those that say it is harder to fill jobs this year than last year, 61% of recruiters say the lack of talent to fill open positions is the reason, while 51% indicate competition from other employers is to blame.

Hiring is a race for talent. Competing on speed is one of the biggest hurdles for recruiters today and, therefore, one of the biggest stressors. According to Employ data, the average time-to-hire is under two weeks for 32% of companies and between three and four weeks for 53% of employers. This means that within 30 days of posting a requisition, more than 8 in 10 recruiters expect to have their open positions filled.

Within the current labor market, companies face several challenges that make recruiting more difficult, including a notable shortage of talent. Not only are recruiters forced to hire candidates more quickly, but they’re also finding it harder to identify the talent needed to fill those roles. Unfortunately, this could lead to the wrong candidate filling your open positions and, therefore, more turnover within your organization.

Where Leadership Can Support

To stay competitive in this unique labor market, business and talent acquisition leaders must support recruiters in reducing manual tasks. Through recruiting automation technology, recruiters can do what they do best: focus on the human aspects of recruiting to ensure the best fit for the open position. Continued investment is clearly a priority for enterprises.

According to Employ survey data, 47% of companies also plan to invest in additional sourcing, including recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) to help them address current challenges they face in the hiring market.  If these considerations aren’t yet in your 2023 hiring plan, consider this a priority to help recruiters feel more supported in their roles.

Attracting Top Talent Is an Uphill Battle

With rising interest rates, continued focus on remote work, and an increased emphasis on employee benefits, companies continue to battle for candidate attention. More than 8 in 10 (81%) of talent acquisition professionals indicate that attracting top talent has become more challenging over the past year, with 33% stating it has been very challenging.

As companies struggle to decide where to focus their efforts in meeting candidate expectations, recruiters are seeing firsthand what is working well and what leaves something to be desired.

Where Leadership Can Support

Hone in on feedback from your recruiting teams in regards to candidate expectations. Not every industry will have the same expectations, which is why broader data only gets us so far. Overall, flexible work schedules may be the highest ranked for attracting talent overall, but if your recruiters are hearing more comments about a low starting salary, that is where you’d do well to consider changes.

They’re Taking Chances — And Hope You Will Too

Recruiters in 2022 were not using the same tactics that worked in 2019. The market has changed so drastically in such a short time that your talent acquisition teams have nearly recreated the wheel to stay competitive.

Where Leadership Can Support

Recruiters have seen success in new job boards, automated systems that help them engage former applicants, and investments in their career sites and TA technologies, so this is where they’re hoping leadership will support them in 2023.

When recruiters have a say in the technologies they use, they are more likely to stay at an organization. In fact, Aptitude Research indicates that 1 in 2 recruiters would leave their current company for another organization if it had better technology.

Ensure Your Talent Teams Are Supported This Year

Get further insight into how you can empower your recruiting teams throughout 2023. Find out how to empower and invest in talent acquisition teams to drive recruiting results.

Download the latest Employ Quarterly Insights Report filled with data-driven insights and best practices from more than 18,000 customers and 1,200 HR decision makers and recruiters.

The post What Recruiters Want Their Bosses to Know first appeared on Jobvite.

But with historically low unemployment, recruiting professionals are still struggling to source qualified hires. Candidates also have higher expectations than ever before and want to work for mission-driven companies with a strong workplace culture that aligns to their own values.

When it comes to staying competitive in the labor market, one of the best tools companies have is leveraging their culture and their organizational mission for talent attraction. Your culture reflects what it’s like to work in your company; it’s the shared values, practices, beliefs, and attitudes that guide the way work is accomplished and employees behave. A strong culture and purpose-driven mission are invaluable tools for both recruitment and retention, and have been linked to higher levels of business performance.

How Culture and Mission Impact Talent Attraction

Job seekers are clear that a company’s mission and culture are highly important to them. In fact, based on Employ data, more than 1 in 5 workers (23%) say they would accept a job offer because of company values, mission, and culture. Beyond this, more than two-thirds of employees (65%) believe it takes less than one month to determine if they are a good match for the organization’s mission and culture, and 55% say they would leave a job if the organization was not aligned with their expectations or values. Recognizing the value that a transparent culture and intentional mission have in attracting — and retaining — employees is paramount to your recruiting efforts.

Candidates Are Still Shuffling

Although notable layoffs have occurred in the tech sector, candidates in other industries, like healthcare, manufacturing, and professional services, are still on the move, seeking positions that better align to their demands for higher compensation and a stronger culture. This has led to employee turnover, creating pressure on recruiting teams to quickly fill empty positions. And as many talent professionals have found out, a strong employer brand and clear mission propels a more positive recruiting experience and can help talent teams stand out and convert applicants into qualified hires.

Looking at What a Candidate Wants

With high turnover still common, recruiters see first-hand that candidates want a company that cares about their professional and personal growth. According to a recent Lighthouse Research & Advisory Report, 83% of candidates want to know about future growth opportunities during the hiring process. Even more telling, building deeper connections with managers, peers, and the core values of the company is one of the top-rated priorities for candidates.

Job seekers also want to work for a company that prioritizes DE&I in its policies and hiring practices, and cares about their wellbeing. Candidates are also looking for better benefits (34.4%), career advancement opportunities (12.6%), and remote work flexibility (21.3%).

One of the biggest challenges in hiring today is retaining quality employees who are looking for more from their employer. Strategic talent acquisition teams are investing in their employees by developing internal mobility programs that provide career growth opportunities and referral incentives.

Prioritize Your Authentic Employer Brand and DE&I Activities

Remember, candidates are looking for an employer that provides a supportive culture, competitive benefits, purpose-driven mission, and internal mobility opportunities. They expect employers to be flexible with remote work and provide a workplace that represents a wide diversity of people in all position levels. And while employees leave their jobs for a variety of reasons, nearly five percent of job seekers admit they leave an organization in seek of a company with greater diversity.

To compete in today’s fast-paced market, recruiting teams must invest in making the workplace a better place for all. A promising 33% of HR decision makers plan to increase their investments in DE&I programs this year, according to Employ data. Put company culture, a clear mission, and DE&I at the top of the budget list, and you will see tremendous improvement in candidates that align to your values and drive workforce performance.

Get Started Building a More Robust Employer Brand

With qualified candidates in short supply, today’s job seekers continue to have the upper hand in the labor market. Start improving your ability to attract candidates with a strong employer brand and clear mission.

Get The Step-by-Step Guide for Enhancing Your Employer Brand and see how a great candidate experience builds a more robust applicant funnel for your business.

The post Does Your Company Culture and Mission Matter to Potential Candidates? first appeared on Jobvite.

But with more than one-and-a-half jobs open for every job seeker, companies face fierce competition for talent. Recruiting teams need intelligent, comprehensive technology that can handle the complexities of modern recruiting. And the most forward-thinking companies are moving away from disconnected and frustrating point solutions, adopting a unified TA tech stack that can easily connect with quality candidates and improve hiring outcomes.

What Is Centralized TA Technology?

Centralized talent acquisition technology is a unified set of integrated solutions that empower recruiting teams to better attract and convert candidates across the entire candidate lifecycle. It brings teams together to improve communication and collaboration, which results in a world-class candidate, recruiter, and employee experience.

The best centralized tech manages the complexity of talent acquisition and delivers improved hiring outcomes in challenging markets. It should include capabilities for:

• Career Sites
• Job Broadcasting
• DEI Solutions
• Candidate Relationship Management (CRM)
• Intelligent Messaging
• Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Onboarding
• Video Screening
• Internal Mobility
• Employee Referral Tools
• Analytics

Ensure Your Hiring Teams Drive Results Through a Purpose-Built TA Tech Stack

Talent teams spend hours per week on tedious manual tasks that could easily be automated. Automation and AI are pillars of a centralized talent acquisition solution and enable recruiters to save time and effort on tedious daily tasks. 

Sourcing

Recruiters often spend hours per week trying to find the right candidate for each open requisition. While sourcing does require a recruiter’s judgment and expertise, many tasks can be automated to help teams find quality candidates in less time. Sourcing with automation and AI can save talent teams hours and give them an insight into which candidates would make an ideal fit for open roles in the organization. Intelligent sourcing can take requirements for a role like skills, experience level, or certifications and find candidates that could be a potential fit.

Interviewing

With interviews today taking place both in person and online, it is challenging for recruiters to coordinate the entire process, especially with multiple candidates and hiring team members. In today’s competitive talent market, it’s important that there’s minimal wait time for candidates during the interviewing stage so they aren’t swiped up by a competitor. Smart interview scheduling tools allow candidates to pick preferred interview times based on hiring team availability and self-schedule their meetings.

Communicating with hiring teams and engaging candidates

Recruiters are the center of communication between candidates and your company. Candidate engagement has become increasingly important in today’s competitive market, and the most strategic talent teams prioritize engaging and nurturing candidates throughout their talent journey. Tools like texting and chatbots enable talent teams to reach candidates who are more mobile than ever, streamlining and making communication more effective.

Hiring

Once a hiring team has decided on a candidate, it’s usually up to the recruiter to communicate the offer and help facilitate negotiations, if necessary. During the hiring stage, companies can lose strong candidates if the internal decision process takes too long. A strong centralized platform that can shorten the feedback loop for hiring teams is essential to hire top talent in today’s market. Candidates want transparency and highly responsive recruiters, so it’s essential that the offer stage is well managed and moves quickly to ensure a smooth hire.

Onboarding

The onboarding process is a pivotal point for talent teams to retain the newly hired employees and set them up for success in their new role. Ensure that the new employees are happy, engaged, and feel supported by creating a world-class onboarding program that can be completed from anywhere. Incorporate smart technology and provide a thorough orientation with videos about company culture, training, and surveys to collect feedback on their experience.

Analytics and reporting

Mature talent teams are leveraging advanced analytics and reporting capabilities to round out their programs. Data collected on relevant recruiting metrics, overall recruiting performance, candidate conversion and engagement rates, and other hiring data can all be used to identify areas for improvement in the hiring process. Automated tools can create custom reports on key recruiting metrics and send them to company stakeholders on a regular basis.

Why Adopt a Unified Recruiting Solution?

As you consider whether a unified platform is right for your organization, remember centralizing your recruitment technology can help:

• Improve ROI
• Save time and effort on manual tasks
• Improve key recruiting metrics
• Improve communication and collaboration
• Enhance DEI initiatives

Start Your Journey to a Holistic Talent Acquisition Suite

Ready to unify your talent acquisition technology and realize the benefits of what a holistic solution can do for your talent acquisition function? Learn more about adopting holistic TA solutions with Centralizing Your Talent Acquisition Technology: The Ultimate How-To Guide. Or subscribe to the blog and resource hub to stay up to date on the latest in TA tech.

The post Why an Optimal TA Tech Stack Is Just as Important as Your Hiring Team first appeared on Jobvite.

From fostering remote engagement to crafting optimized job listings, here are 12 responses to the questions, “Hiring leaders, can you provide strategies you are following to help best prepare for hiring in 2023? Why should others follow this tip for hiring preparation in the new year?”

• Focus on Fostering Remote Engagement
• Keep Up with Shifting Candidate Priorities
• Consider Reaching Out to People Who Left
• Offer More Remote Work Options
• Build a Talent Network
• Leverage Sponsored Employment to Stand Out
• Explore More Hiring Processes with New Tech
• Look for Someone Who Fits Your Company Culture
• Engage in Social Media Recruiting
• Automate Screening for Better, Cheaper Hires
• Develop a Strong Employer Brand
• Craft Unique and Optimized Job Listings

Focus on Fostering Remote Engagement

Despite a push from hiring and talent acquisition leaders to return to some semblance of “normalcy,” it’s likely that businesses will be forced to contend with a largely decentralized, distributed, and remote talent pool in 2023.

In order to stand out in the current talent market, companies should prioritize engaging potential candidates in a remote setting, meeting them where they’re most comfortable. By inspecting how your company engages with both current and prospective staff, you can identify ways to improve employee loyalty and show your business’s ability to function smoothly in a remote environment.

Promoting an engaging company culture through this remote engagement should be less about physical perks, such as in-house ping-pong tables or artisan coffee, and more about the steps that will be taken to onboard and support new employees — regardless of location. Businesses that can demonstrate a commitment to remote engagement are highly appealing to top talent.

Teresha Aird, Chief Marketing Officer & HR Lead, Offices.net

Keep Up With Shifting Candidate Priorities

Your candidates’ priorities are shifting, so your focus must move with them for the best success. Overhaul your hiring practices, compensation, and perks to give candidates more of what they want, like fair compensation, flexibility, and work-life balance, and less of what they don’t.

With inflation increasing living costs, compensation is even more important than balance and flexibility — increase salaries to account for higher expenses. While work-life balance priorities dropped as financial pressures grew, it’s still high on the list of importance. Clearly communicate company values during the hiring process and provide better pay transparency — both have become differentiators in the current job market.

Watch how candidates’ priorities shift in 2023 and make swift moves to keep open roles as attractive to them as possible.

Ruben Gamez, Founder & CEO, SignWell

Consider Reaching Out to People Who Left

Consider a powerful re-hiring strategy for 2023. Given today’s talent scarcity and the demand for A+ talent, why not remember the top performers who left your employment over the past several years and invite them to return? 

Think about launching a “We Want You Back!” campaign in Q1 2023. Inviting and rehiring top performers can be equivalent to adding the productivity of several B and C performers.  

These re-hires also know the business culture, have relationships with present staff, and can start strong.  Their return also shows to current employees how company leadership is enlightened and committed to a positive and productive work environment.

Bill Gunn, Principal Consultant, G&A

Offer More Remote Work Options

Remote work has increasingly become a normalized part of the work culture. From remote cybersecurity jobs to work-from-home UX design roles, every industry that is gunning to be relevant and attract top talent in 2023 has had to succumb to this trend. 

Only some employees are eligible to work remotely, but a lot of roles have made the switch to make many candidates wary of in-person roles. This trend has led to candidates favoring organizations offering remote options. Organizations not offering them are set up for a challenging 2023 in the recruitment market. Offering hybrid schedules or flexible options will attract candidates and make the hiring process far more accessible and more robust.

Yongming Song, CEO, Live Poll for Slides

Build a Talent Network

It is important to build up a network of potential candidates who are interested in working with your organization. This includes identifying high-potential individuals, engaging with them through social media or other digital platforms, and maintaining relationships with them. 

Doing so will help you stay ahead of the competition in hiring for 2023 by providing access to a larger pool of qualified candidates. Moreover, it will help you create a more diverse hiring pipeline, allowing for greater flexibility when filling positions.

Tzvi Heber, Founder, CEO, & HR Head, Ascendant Detox

Leverage Sponsored Employment to Stand Out

Since thousands of jobs are uploaded every day, your job listing’s visibility may eventually decline. A sponsored job is one of the finest strategies to guarantee that your job ad remains distinctive. 

In any relevant search results, these premium postings will be more prominent and won’t drop in prominence over time, like free job listings, which can draw in more qualified applicants. 

As soon as you pay to post a position, you’ll also gain access to Instant Fit, which provides you with a list of applicants whose resumes match your job requirements on Indeed right away.

Kurt Uhlir, Chief Marketing Officer, Kurt Uhlir

Explore More Hiring Processes With New Tech

I’ve always used data for recruiting purposes, but as technology progresses, the possibilities are growing. I’m no longer limited to hard skill evaluations; I’m now better able to consider a candidate’s holistic suitability for any position.

Soft skills, like emotional intelligence, team cohesion, and effective communication often determine how well an employee adapts to a new workplace. By combining psychological and sociological surveys with data collection techniques, I’m placing candidates in their ideal work cultures. 

This is a crucial metric for long-term success because inefficient hiring processes can lead to work stoppages and delayed projects. 

Rob Reeves, CEO & President, Redfish Technology

Look for Someone Who Fits Your Company Culture

In my experience, the most challenging aspect of hiring for senior or executive positions is finding someone who not only has the skills and experience, but also fits the culture the company strives for. 

These higher-level employees often already have a well-established style of leadership, and any attempts at shifting it to fit the values of the new workplace can be a real challenge. That’s why, in 2023, I’d recommend trying to look for someone who already fits your approach. 

Make it a year to build the recruitment process around company culture. This way, you’ll ensure that the values you want to uphold at your workplace aren’t just words written somewhere on the wall; they’re real guidelines according to which employees function daily.

Piotrek Sosnowski, Chief People & Culture Officer, HiJunior

Engage in Social Media Recruiting

As the world of work continues to expand, we are increasingly using social media to recruit and hire employees. 

Engaging with potential candidates and gaining a sense of their skills, personality, interests, and qualifications in order to ensure an overall company fit is becoming increasingly possible and effective via social media.

In 2023, identify top talent and build relationships with candidates more aggressively through social media rather than going through employment agencies. Learn about prospective candidates through their profiles and pursue them personally by establishing a rapport.

This enables us to interact with our creators, marketers, developers, and writers directly, engage with their content, introduce them to other employees online, and establish a friendly but professional rapport.

Kyle Kroeger, Founder, Via Travelers

Automate Screening for Better, Cheaper Hires

With such a tight hiring pool, you can’t afford any recruitment downtime. Adopting new AI-powered headhunting tools gives you 100% up-time as you search and screen new candidates hands-free. 

It also greatly helps reduce the biases that human recruiters unwittingly bring into the screening process, thanks to advanced machine learning that’s becoming more intelligent daily. With 35% lower employee turnover, AI’s unbiased processes help find a better fit for every role.

AI screening reduces traditional costs by up to 75%, giving your team more money and time to invest in wooing and landing great hires when they have countless other job options available.

Maximilian Wühr, CGO & Co-Founder, FINN

Develop a Strong Employer Brand

One of the best things we are doing to prepare for hiring in 2023 is developing a strong customer brand. I believe that in the new year, employers are going to be increasingly focused on finding candidates who are not only technically qualified, but also a good fit for their company culture. 

By developing a strong customer brand, we are showcasing our ability to not only be the best training group, but also to build relationships and contribute to a positive team dynamic. 

I think this is an important attribute that will become even more valuable in the new year, and I would encourage other businesses to work on their own brands as well.

Derek Bruce, Sr. Director, Skills Training Group

Craft Unique and Optimized Job Listings

As more and more jobseekers search for open positions online, businesses are turning to content marketing to make their job listings stand out. Crafting a unique and attractive job listing can have significant benefits, such as ensuring that you stand out to notable candidates and improving your overall business brand.

In addition, writing an optimized job listing that touches on relevant keywords can help employers reach a broader audience, as these types of listings will be more likely to appear near the top of relevant search engine results. 

Furthermore, job seekers may be more likely to apply if they are presented with a well-crafted summary of the position’s expectations and requirements, as opposed to vague generalizations. Ultimately, despite the time and effort required, writing an engaging and optimized job listing will often pay dividends by providing your business with the best possible chance to hire the ideal candidate.

Jessica Munday, People & Culture Manager, Custom Neon

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.

The post 12 Ways to Get Ready for Hiring in 2023 first appeared on Jobvite.