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The last few years have shown everyone that you should not count on stability and constancy. The pandemic, war, and other crises of recent years bring us back to a time when we had to survive, we had to be adaptive and flexible, think about strategy and think ahead. 2020 and 2021 were a period when the demand for talent significantly exceeded the supply of talent. For some businesses, this race was deadly.
How to avoid this outcome, will be described below in our article.
Current trends in recruiting strategy
Before we dive into the importance of having a strategy in the hiring process, we would like to cover the recent market trends that are actively used in recruiting and become helpful to recruiters to execute their job and goals effectively.
Data-driven approach
Data-driven approach is the trend number one to consider in the hiring process. This ensures the personalized method of looking for the right candidates instead of a chaotic search among thousands of CVs. The collection and analysis of information about a potential candidate makes the hiring process more effective and quicker, as this approach guarantees the suitability of the candidate due to the company’s requirements. It eliminates the need for time-consuming mailing and interviews, which can lead to failure instead of successful cooperation. Data-driven approaches also provide the recent market trends and expectations to provide vacancies with appropriate conditions for candidates.Internal Hiring Is On The Rise
Another vital trend to consider is internal hiring. Internal hiring entails focusing on professional growth of the existing employees in order to provide them with possibilities to get a senior or team lead goal. This method is recommended instead of hiring external seniors and leaders who are not completely proficient with the inner processes, policies and operations of the company. It keeps the business more sustainable and additionally improves the employee retention rate overall. By going the path from the bottom to the top, employees understand the goals of the company, remain on the same page with chiefs and value their positions more than external candidates. We would like to provide several examples and tips on how to implement such practice in your company:- Each employee needs to have PDP (personal development plan) with precise goals and deadlines for their reaching;
- Arrange testing to upgrade the skills of the employees;
- Internal training and bonus programs are advisable to have.
Active Sourcing
The last trend we would like to mention is that our compilation is active sourcing. Instead of posting numerous vacancies on different resources in the hope that the perfect candidate will respond, active sourcing entails contacting perfect candidates via email, LinkedIn and other sites where the needed contact is available. Foremost, it guarantees the fast speed and effectiveness of the hiring process. Secondly, the candidate will feel more appreciated being reached by the potential employer, not on the contrary. Also, this approach works well for potential candidates who are currently studying on a suitable faculty or courses that ensures the proven knowledge and skills in the area. It is not necessary to look for these courses or conferences on your own as a recruiter. Your company can use the connections with partners who can recommend the best candidates for your needs. Some software companies arrange the free learning course at a certain sphere to meet new talents, assess their skills, teach and hire a perfect employee as a result.Having a strategy is a must
The strategy trend is not going away; in 2021, sustainability, not efficiency, has become a business priority. In 2022, we see confirmation of the correctness of this priority, with the example of large cuts and a crisis.
Now, when the market for proposals from candidates exceeds demand, we can afford not to choose between quality and quantity. Make a portrait of a candidate for yourself and define the target market. Also, it is not necessary to hire only A-Players, sometimes it is better to switch to searching for multifunctional people. Such an employee will be able to multitask in harsh conditions.
What is the hiring strategy?
Before we will dive deeper into the details and components of effective hiring strategy, we would like to say a few words about what it actually means. These days, no business can efficiently hire and build teams without a precise hiring approach planned in advance.
A hiring or recruiting strategy is a previously created plan of action for recruiters to simplify the process of defining, engaging and hiring ideal candidates. It includes publishing open vacancies, creating a career page on the business site, looking for candidates on social media, and other activities peculiar to recruiters.
Basically, there are numerous different hiring strategies that aim to attract perfect candidates. Therefore, further, in this article, we would like to discuss what strategies are effective and which are better to avoid.
Effective hiring strategy includes
Indicators and reference points of an effective strategy can be:
- Hiring quality, measured in % of successful completion of the probationary period after hiring. You can go further and measure according to your targets, for example, if you are guided by the fact that a successful hiring case is considered if the employee has worked for 3 years, then you should add this milestone as well. At Altamira, we consider 90% successful completion of probation to be a healthy indicator of recruitment quality.
- Improving employee retention rates. This guideline is worth adding if cost optimization is important to you. It is worth remembering that each new hire costs us an average of 20% more than retaining an already working specialist. When the war started in Ukraine, many service companies cut their staff, while we in Altamira found a way to maintain the stability of delivering quality service to customers, which as a result allowed us to maintain customer loyalty and, as a result, the loyalty of development teams, which had a positive effect on the number of retention cases.
- Hiring time optimization. The choice of market, the quality of marketing campaigns aimed at the external and internal brand of the employer, a qualified recruitment team, as well as streamlined hiring processes are just a small part of the factors affecting the speed of vacancy closing. We, in Altamira, regularly test this indicator. We, like most in the industry, have a healthy indicator of 28 days from the start of the search to the acceptance of the offer by the candidate. Furthermore, we usually start showing the first candidates after the first week of searching, weeding out unsuitable resumes at the level of a recruiter and a technical specialist, then an active interview process takes place over the next two weeks, after which, if the scenario is successful, in the third week we already have several final candidates. The last week is usually the final negotiation between the candidate and the company. Problems with a vacancy usually become known after the first week of the search. Regular check-ups between the recruiter, the hiring manager, and the technical interviewer, the data-driven approach, and the adaptability of your process to the realities of the market will help improve not only the rate of acceptance of the offer but also the experience of the candidate, which may improve your referral platform in the future.
How Altamira builds teams
At this point, we would like to gladly share the pro-tips based on the experience of our recruiter Anna who has been successful in hiring for many-many years.
Strong team and candidate experience
The recruiter is actually a Sales Manager. Both he/she and the candidate are equally selling substantial advantages to each other. An effective recruiter now is not just filling vacancies, but building a company brand in the eyes of future applicants. 97% of candidates with good hiring experience at a company will recommend it to others, and half are willing to leave a positive public review.
If a candidate not only heard about your brand but also interacted with it before, then the probability that he will open a “cold letter” from your recruiter doubles. Within the recursion team, we are constantly improving our approaches, taking complex cases together, and coming up with solutions. It is a humane approach to the candidate, the ability to find common ground or honestly admit that they do not exist – this is the path to a healthy relationship between a recruiter and a candidate. When thinking about changing jobs, a candidate texts our recruiter to find out about the vacancy and the market. For us in Altamira, it is one of the indicators of effective recruitment work.
Investment in potential
But for forming teams, it is not enough to have only a recruiting team. It is also important to grow talents within the company, and do not be afraid to invest money and time to nurture young professionals. People who get the opportunity to open their potential will be much more loyal to you, and it will also help you have a strong and stable base of your teams that you can rely on. At Altamira, we use best practices for capacity development such as mentoring programs, personal development plans, and internal and external learning workshops. Also, a friendly atmosphere in teams and the support of colleagues are especially important for the development of young talents.
We have shared with you our simple but helpful tips and tricks that will help you stay stable in today’s turbulent conditions.
To conclude
Taking into account the specifics and components of the successful recruiting strategy, the attitude of recruiters to candidates still plays a huge role in this process. No matter what strategy your company follows and what method of engaging candidates you use, the first impression is decisive. Transparency and honesty are the key elements to corresponding to and meeting the demands and expectations of the candidates. At last, the attitude to the ideal candidates for the open vacancies needs to be close to how your company treats your clients to understand you are on the same page and the potential employees clearly get the goals and priorities of the company.
