Many employers heavily rely on job boards to fill their open roles. But if job boards happen to be the only channel you’re tapping into for recruitment marketing, you’re likely falling short with your hiring efforts.
While job boards can deliver a high quantity of applicants, many of these applicants are not necessarily qualified. In fact, recent Hireology data found that job boards alone only deliver 50 percent of the applicants you need to fill an open role. This is because a lot of job seekers simply click “apply” on several job board postings, rather than taking the time to determine whether or not they’re truly a fit.
To staff up with top talent in today’s competitive hiring market, your team needs to make sure you’re not wasting time on unqualified applicants who come in through job boards and other channels. You also need to diversify your recruitment marketing channels to ensure you’re receiving plenty of qualified applicants for your open roles. Consider the following tips to improve your recruitment marketing and hiring strategy.
Diversify Your Job Board Spending
Hireology data found that a multichannel recruitment marketing strategy can help drive 10 times more quality applicants than job boards alone. Beyond purchasing one-off job board postings each time you have open roles, you should invest in a variety of job boards – including national, local and niche, industry-specific job boards – and expand your strategy beyond job boards.
You likely know, in great detail, which lead sources drive results for your business on a daily basis. This same level of attention should be applied to the most critical component of your business – hiring the best possible employees.
One of Hireology’s Insights answers the question, “What is my best source of applicants?” and provides clear visibility into the total number of applicants, quality candidates and hires by recruitment marketing channel. The Insight further provides central visibility into sponsored job board performance, including total sponsored posts purchased, dollars spent, quality applicants sourced, and average cost per quality applicant.
Recruitment marketing channels that deliver a high quantity of poor applicants will only waste your team’s time and budget. By leveraging Hireology Insights, you can improve the return-on-investment for your recruitment marketing budget by vendor or channel and ensure quality hires are being made to boost profitability.
Build a Strong Employment Brand and Career Site
Despite the historically-low unemployment, most employees constantly keep their eyes peeled for new job opportunities. According to recent data from LinkedIn, 90 percent of U.S. employees are open to new job opportunities. And the applicant-driven economy means job seekers can be more selective than ever before when it comes to making career moves.
In today’s highly competitive market, your team needs to go the extra mile to get top talent excited about the opportunity joining your team presents. Ultimately, you need a compelling answer to the “What’s in it for me?” question. This can be made possible through a strong employment brand and career site.
Hireology data found that applicant-to-hire conversion increases tenfold for employers who have a strong employment brand. Your employment brand can help your team and job opportunities stand out from other employers and attract top candidates. And building your best team will ultimately lead to increased efficiency, productivity and revenue.
To get job seekers excited to join your team, develop a strong employment brand and career site that encourages job seekers to build long-term careers on your team. Your career site should include strong, SEO-friendly job descriptions, defined career paths across departments, employee testimonials, a comprehensive list of benefits and continuous job openings.
Also make sure to link to your career site in postings on job boards and other channels, as the most engaged job seekers will take the time to read through your employment brand materials before applying. By building and maintaining a strong employment brand and career site, you can attract engaged applicants who are interested in growing their careers with your team.
Implement Prescreen Surveys
Since many applicants from job boards – and other channels – aren’t necessarily qualified, you need tools in place to avoid wasting time on applicants who aren’t a fit for your open roles. To only focus time and resources on quality candidates, consider adding prescreen surveys to your hiring process. With prescreen surveys, once an application is submitted, the applicant will receive an automated survey that can gauge his or her fit for the role. Prescreen surveys can include knockout questions, so job seekers who don’t meet the basic requirements of the role can be eliminated from the process before your team spends time reviewing their applications.
About 40 percent of applicants don’t even bother to complete prescreen surveys – meaning only the most engaged candidates who truly want to work for your business will take the time to fill out the survey. Once complete, the surveys are then automatically scored, so only the strongest applicants get moved to the candidate stage of the hiring process. And Hireology customers who have incorporated prescreen surveys have seen the average time to review decrease from 10 to three business days.
While job boards have some benefits – such as enabling you to broadly distribute your job openings – they don’t always drive the results your team needs to hire effectively. By diversifying your recruitment marketing spending, building a strong employment brand and adding prescreen surveys to your hiring process, you can secure quality candidates and build your best team. Learn more about how Hireology can help improve your recruitment market and hiring efforts – schedule a demo today.
