With the current recruitment landscape being dubbed the Great Resignation, Revolt, Restructure — or more recently, the Great Flirtation — it’s undoubtedly a candidate-driven market.
People are moving jobs at an unprecedented rate and are being offered higher salaries with benefits to tempt them away from their current employer. Many are also leaving roles because their teams are quitting, and/or they don’t feel they have the support they need. There’s also the ongoing issue of candidates ghosting recruiters or ignoring job offers as the candidate-driven market makes life difficult for talent teams.
As businesses set targets to increase revenue in the new year, this pressure on in-house recruitment teams is set to increase. In order to achieve new targets, you need to add additional resources in an already competitive environment. Senior leadership need to be clear about talent budgets and also be willing to expand them to avoid losing their recruitment teams.
Because of this, businesses are not just losing good people, they are now also losing the people responsible for recruiting people. The talent acquisition retention problem is real. So, if the people who source your talent are leaving, how can your business continue to recruit?
1. Make time for talent mapping. Planning for future hires to ensure that your talent team does not become overwhelmed is a delicate balance. The talent acquisition process has many moving parts. And when recruitment is done right, it can be time-consuming.
Talent mapping can be used to determine short, medium and long-term hiring goals. Rather than just focusing on live vacancies, recruiters scour the market to identify the top talent in a given field.
By doing this, teams can ensure that emergency hiring situations don’t leave companies powerless and waiting for the right candidate to apply. When companies utilize talent mapping, they have already identified a pool of candidates ready to go straight to interview.
Talent mapping also identifies the internal talent you have, and the talent you need. You can identify gaps, understand the mobility that is available and offer training opportunities for existing staff to upskill. However, this shouldn’t just be for the company as a whole. It should also be for your talent and recruitment department.
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2. Building the right reputation. A good candidate and employee experience is the difference between attracting the right candidates and gaining a reputation as a bad employer.
It starts with applying for one of your roles. If the application process is too long, complex or you don’t communicate well with candidates, then these candidates are likely to share feedback with their peers or online reviews. Candidate experience has a direct impact on your employer brand.
This is the same for employees. Bad processes and communication can result in unhappy employees, which puts further strain on your recruitment teams. If you want to be a growth machine, then your employer brand must appeal to everyone. Your EVP should motivate and inspire your talent teams, giving them emotional drivers to stay and help your business to scale.
3. Look outside your business. For many talent teams, a common issue is the lack of clarity surrounding resources. When companies overpromise resources the talent team is likely to feel isolated and overworked. Spreading them too thin will result in them leaving the business as quickly as they came in. However, even the best-intended companies are struggling with hiring recruiters and keeping their internal recruitment teams. Resources are often lacking, and outsourcing may be a big help.
As we kick-star the New Year, now is the time to spend it to compete in today’s truly complex hiring landscape. For example, an experienced recruitment process outsourcing provider can offer expertise in recruiting highly sought-after roles. This therefore gives your talent team assistance and support when they most need it. Today, RPO providers are a strategic, flexible extension of your team which can adjust to demand.
Just remember that taking on a little support is not admitting defeat. It is simply recognizing that talent acquisition has become more difficult and time-consuming. A bit of RPO may be just what is needed to support in-house teams and master talent team retention.
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