How to Stay Ahead in the Staffing Game!

The staffing industry has been always very competitive, as most corporate employers work with multiple staffing agencies at any given point in time; and in many cases, as an agency, you are not only competing with other agencies hunting from the same talent pool, but also working against the jobs posted by client companies themselves, job boards and even their own career pages. Here are a few best practices to stay ahead of your competition:

  • Filter Out the Fake Resumes: Whenever we poorly match a candidate to a job and it doesn’t work out, we tend to view the outcome as a personal failure; not only did the candidate not work out, but the employer might now view us as an unreliable option going forward. No one is perfect, and occasionally – whether the fault of the recruiter, the candidate, the employer, or the alignment of the stars – bad matches happen. However, it’s still our job to minimize that possibility as best we can, and one powerful way to do that is to filter out fake resumes. Fake resume creation agencies have become smarter and more adept at sneaking unqualified candidates past recruiters; even background and referral checks can’t always prevent this from happening.One way to fight this is with a verification tool that ties into your ATS or VMS. And that’s a problem we set out to address by developing VeriKlick, which weeds out those fake resumes before they reach the hiring manager’s desk by enabling users to perform biometrics tests on their candidates. What are biometrics tests? Voice recognition and facial recognition to prevent proxy interviews; and even driver’s license authentication! You can use VeriKlick to perform these tests throughout the staffing process, to provide a cost-efficient way to prevent scammers from placing us in awkward situations with valued clients.
  • Update Your Searching: Using generic search terms, whether within your own database or a job site’s, can lead you to overlook qualified candidates because it’s possible they didn’t hold the exact role for which you are recruiting. For example: You need a technical writer, so you search everywhere for a candidate with the experience, “technical writer” or “technical writing”. But you might be missing out on a perfectly-qualified candidate who held a position called “Documentation Specialist” – because they didn’t turn up in your search results! Be creative and think about other roles which are similar to your specific need. Search for words that are not in the actual requirement, but which are similar (i.e., “manage” and “create” and “design”). You might be surprised how many qualified candidates are hiding in plain sight!
  •  Know your Client well: As an agency recruiter it’s not easy to keep prospect candidate as excited as you can if you are representing the client as corporate recruiter in many cases. Hence, if you know your client’s benefits, perks of joining them, growth plan, vision, mission and more, you look more connected/aware/knowledgeable to candidate and hence, it’s easier to win prospective candidates’ confidence and interest. So, research and gain as much knowledge as you can about your client, the role, expectations, etc. to represent strongly.
  • Don’t Marry Yourself to a Single Communication Platform: Every strong candidate gets MANY prospecting emails from recruiters, and unless your message stands out (with a gripping subject line, or bright colors, or an unbelievable wage), odds are your message won’t be read or acknowledged. This is simply a reality, and one you’ve probably dealt with quite a bit in your career. Instead of relying solely on email, be creative in your communications with prospective candidates! Call them, send a message or connection request to them on LinkedIn, engage them on the phone (and don’t be afraid to leave a voicemail). Don’t be overly aggressive, but do be persistent — you want to have a conversation with this person and help them open a new chapter in their lives, right?
  • Source Passive Candidates: According to a recent survey, 70% of HR and talent acquisition professionals point to a shortage of skills as their biggest recruitment obstacle. Passive candidates — or candidates who are employed in some capacity and not actively ‘seeking’ new employment, but are open to changing jobs if an opportunity is presented to them — are an excellent source for you to tap into in order to bridge the skills gap issue. Often, the best talent are already employed, and sometimes quite happily. You need to actively reach out and recruit these potential candidates in order to have the highest-quality talent pipeline possible. Sell these passive candidates on the myriad benefits of the position you’re filling. Even if they choose to remain where they are employed, maybe the next time they are seeking employment, they will contact YOU first, because of the relationship you’ve built with them.
  • Build and Maintain a Relationship with Your Candidates: Winning new business starts with your candidate relationships. Candidates are the true branding stakeholders for any staffing firm, and the experience you provide them will determine the retention and referral network built by them on your behalf. They will complement your current marketing initiatives, and eventually act as your champions in the field. You can’t pay money for this type of marketing. It’s value with a voice — their voice — and it matters. Firms that work on building stronger candidate relationships will continue to be ahead of the new business development curve without exception.
  • Keep in Touch: Creating a good candidate experience is vital to recruiting — and eventually hiring — great candidates. But just because a candidate accepts a job offer doesn’t mean your efforts stop. On the contrary, the time between when a candidate is hired and their first day is when candidate experience matters most. According to CareerBuilder’s 2017 Candidate Experience Study, as many as 75% of candidates say that their candidate experience and onboarding experiences with a company are the first parts of their broader employee experience with that company. Once the hiring process is in the post-acceptance and onboarding stage, new hires expect your process to be seamless and frustration-free. Achieving this goal — and turning the candidate you’ve selected into an engaged employee — requires a commitment to ongoing communication. Unfortunately, only 47% of employers say they have a formal process in place for communications and interactions between the time of hire and the start date. And candidates have noticed: 40% say they have experienced a lack of communication in the past between when they have accepted a job and their first day of work.

Oftentimes it’s up to YOU to offer your candidates a consistent and personalized experience across recruiting, onboarding, benefit administration and enrollment, and wellness program management.

 

Komal Dangi

Komal Dangi
Komal Dangi is CEO of Synkriom lnc. a global IT staffing company that supports both on / offshore clientele and resources. Its patented product, VeriKlick, is a web-based tool for use in the HR space that will eliminate candidate bait-and-switch, fake resumes and increase hiring ROI. Schedule a demo today!

Komal Dangi

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