Talent recruitment has come a long way from what it was ten or twenty years ago. The internet significantly changed the world of recruitment, with recruiters making use of online job postings to bring in the best person for the job. And while job sites are still a major part of online recruiting, the industry has evolved. Today, anyone who wants to get the best talent available needs to make use of a number of different tools and strategies. This omnichannel approach is the best practice for today’s recruitment professionals. We will look at what an omnichannel approach is and how you can implement it in your recruitment processes.
What Is Omnichannel Recruiting?
Omnichannel recruiting is the use of multiple different channels to reach out to potential employees. It’s effectively a way of utilizing the strategies developed in marketing and eCommerce to find talent. These industries have, over time, created sophisticated, flexible strategies that are designed to use the internet to maximum effect. A standard strategy could consist of a combination of mailers, social media posts, promotional site content, and many more elements. The idea is that each separate channel has its own strengths when it comes to contacting and attracting people. By using omnichannel processes in recruitment, you’re able to improve your chances of finding the ideal future employees and bringing them to your company.
Source: outsystems.com
How Do I Put Together an Omnichannel Recruiting Campaign?
The first part of putting together an omnichannel strategy is identifying the channels that bring people to you. As a recruiter, you’ve obviously got a variety of online job advertisements that serve as your first contact point for many people. But there are many other ways to reach out. Social media platforms are an obvious one but are also highly dependent on what demographic you’re looking for. It’s worth considering the user age you want to target and prioritizing your social media accounts accordingly. Facebook is far more effective at reaching older users, while platforms such as Instagram are far more popular with younger users. Referrals from existing employees are another effective channel and particularly useful if your company specializes in a single industry. Paid advertisements are another method, but potentially one that you will want to use sparingly. Given the returns a well-designed social media campaign can have, it’s possible you won’t want to invest money in print or digital adverts.
That’s how many percent of people are following companies on social media with the intent to stay aware of their jobs.
How Do I Reach Out to Potential Candidates?
The first stage of an omnichannel recruitment campaign is building up a network of potential candidates. Once this is done, you can start working on your cadence. Cadence refers to the way you contact and communicate with candidates. It’s crucial that you get it right from the very beginning. First impressions are very important. Before you start contacting people, work out exactly what your strategy will be across multiple channels. An easy first step is adding candidates on social media or following their accounts. This will immediately show them that you are taking an interest and will put you on their radar.
Another step is to message them directly. Tools such as SignalHire are a quick and easy way of getting contact details of candidates in specific industries, providing for a direct contact point. Whether you’re looking for a sports commentator, someone from Atlanta Falcons, or an employee at Barnes & Noble Inc., SignalHire helps you find the right contacts efficiently. SignalHire also features a LinkedIn extension, letting you make use of one of the most popular professional networking tools. LinkedIn has been designed exclusively for business networking and is generally recognized as a professional channel for connecting people. You can potentially send direct messages through another social media platform such as Facebook. However, using your business email account to contact a candidate via their professional email account is generally preferred.
Another option is adding a candidate to an automated email campaign promoting your company. You can send a few messages designed to catch their interest without being pushy or intrusive. An additional good option is adding a chatbot to your site. Chatbots can be programmed to recognize returning users and ask them questions designed to cultivate interest and lead them to make direct contact with you.
Balancing Push and Pull Techniques
Successful recruitment uses many of the same techniques as marketing and eCommerce. Central to modern marketing practices are the ideas of push and pull marketing. These are worth mentioning here, as an omnichannel acquisition of leads will utilize both push and pull techniques. Push marketing refers to traditional ‘cold-calling’ methods, such as direct messaging and emails. While these methods are good for directly targeting a candidate, they do have their drawbacks. Many people dislike being directly targeted by marketing and find it intrusive, and this is true for recruitment as well. Make sure that any direct messages sent to candidates are carefully worded and focused more on presenting available opportunities. Pull marketing (or recruitment) is based on creating an online presence that draws interest. Effective site copy, social media posts, and positive customer testimonials are all examples of this. While it may lack the direct access push strategies provide, pull strategies are crucial for holding people’s attention. Ensure that your site is up-to-date, makes use of effective SEO, and has regular content updates.
Make Sure You Understand Your Goals
An omnichannel recruitment strategy isn’t simply a way of setting up as many channels as possible and hoping for good results. It’s vital that you understand what your goals are and what you expect to receive from an omnichannel approach. These are things you need to establish early on so that you can monitor progress and know whether your strategy is succeeding. Decide whether you are focusing on a particular demographic and whether you have expectations of how many people your strategy will reach. You should also decide on a budget and keep track of all spending. And while tracking progress is crucial, it’s also worthwhile deciding on a specific point in the future when you’ll collect all the data you’ve received and make a detailed overview of what has been achieved. Adapting your strategies on the go is important, but so is scheduling a meeting point for you and your team where you can make an overall assessment of your strategies and achievements.
How to Use the Data You’ve Collected
Now that you’ve developed channels to connect you to potential candidates, it’s time to start making use of the data you’re accumulating. This is one of the most important phases of omnichannel campaigns for two reasons. First, it lets you understand how well different channels are working. If the data shows that one of your strategies is performing far worse than the others, you may want to consider eliminating it. At the same time, this may just be an indicator that the channel is fine, but you’re using it in the wrong way. For instance, the tone of your emails or their frequency may be turning away candidates.
Talent Acquisition Analysis Software
The other major benefit of data analysis is that it can tell you something about the candidates that show an interest. Being a recruiter, it’s essential for you to do more than just fill spaces. You need to be able to get the best people to their perfect jobs, and this starts from the moment you connect with them. Analytics can give you an early indication of what jobs potential candidates are suited to, letting you plan accordingly. This is where talent acquisition analysis comes in. This term refers to the tools developed to help recruiters and HR departments send candidates to where they’re best suited. Using big data analytics, these programs are able to process a huge, varied amount of data and provide you with solid conclusions and recommendations.
Thanks to automation, talent acquisition analysis programs only take a few seconds to process information that would require hours of manual work. These programs are the perfect tools for taking the step from omnichannel recruitment to the actual placing of new workers. They benefit from complete transparency, as well as an absence of any kind of bias. And they represent a valuable element in a streamlined talent pipeline. Best of all, once these automated processes are properly put in place, they’ll continue working without the need for any external supervision or adjustment.
Conclusion
Omnichannel marketing and recruitment strategies have proven benefits. The idea has emerged as a key concept for anyone trying to make the most of online resources and the huge audience they have the potential to reach. Omnichannel strategies are just the first step in bringing new candidates to your recruitment business. A streamlined talent pipeline is the next step in ensuring that you hold onto ideal candidates and connect them to the jobs they’re best suited for. When optimized, both omnichannel recruitment strategies and effective talent pipelines can provide your recruitment business with the steady stream of strong candidates needed to fill available positions.
