How to keep up with recruitment in the digital age

In today’s fast-paced, socially connected, and digital world, companies are beginning to realize that technology is key for attracting, assessing, and employing the top talent. Why should you be left behind? These top HR recruitment tips show you how to keep up with recruitment, and your competition, in the digital age.

How has technology changed recruitment

Technology has a funny way of bursting onto the scene and completely changing the way you do things. Over the past ten years, methods of recruitment have evolved to include:

• Online applications;
• Advertising on job boards;
• Searching LinkedIn profiles; and
• Conducting pre-hire profiling.

And, as HR technology continues to evolve, so do candidate expectations – directly affecting the amount and quality of candidates who apply to your positions. So what can you do to keep ahead?

Keeping up with recruitment in the digital age

Future success in recruitment requires the adoption of a digital hiring model that embraces technology across attraction, selection, and experience.

Attraction

Gone are the days when a newspaper advertisement would result in hundreds of applicants queuing at your offices and gone are the days when a job board advertisement would result in hundreds of applications queuing in your inbox. To keep ahead of your competition, consider adopting:

• Targeted recruitment ads – ensuring that only relevant applicants see your vacancy;
• SEO optimized job vacancy pages – increasing your search ranking in Google; and
• Dynamic branding – attracting the top talent to your company through an engaging and consistent online presence.

Selection

Resumes are dying out – make sure your recruitment campaigns don’t die with them. Your sifting and selecting process needs to change, to ensure that you can handle the increased volume of applications that your new attracting process is generating. A digital selection process incorporates:

• LinkedIn resumes – it gives you everything you need to know, including the candidate’s professional contacts;
• Online presence – do an online search for any industry-relevant blogs, social media posts, or following by the candidate; and
• Predictive analytics – pre-screening profiling, personality testing, and automated selection tools remove hiring bias and accurately assess a candidate’s fit and ability to perform – enabling you to hire the right person to build a top team.

This will reduce the time it takes to find the perfect person for your vacancy.

Experience

The digital age has also changed everyone’s expectations about experiences – preferring speed, ease, and personalization over anything else. Respond to this by using technology to:

• Streamline the application process with applicant tracking and updating systems;
• Speed up selection by offering Skype interviews; cutting-edge selection tools, and self-booking interview portals; and
• Don’t stop once the employee has started – technology should be embraced throughout the onboarding process and beyond.

By doing this, you’ll retain the interest of candidates throughout the recruitment process and come across as a dynamic and happening company that they can’t wait to work for.

Final thoughts

The key to keeping up with recruitment in the digital age is adaptability. In 2001, critics described the iPod as a gimmick – guess what they’re listening to their music on now. Find out about the latest HR technology by following HR blogs and Facebook pages, listening to industry-relevant podcasts, and attending local networking events and organizational development forums. And then, embrace that new technology with open arms because you never know how much you’ll rely on it tomorrow.

Happy recruiting in the digital age!