The uncertainty faced by the business world over the past two years combined with the shifts in people’s preference toward autonomy and flexibility created the perfect storm for a global talent shortage. Some recruiters are calling it the toughest recruitment year, ever.

According to Jobvite’s 2021 Recruiter Nation Report, 78% of recruiters have stated that their priorities have shifted over the past 12 months – improving quality of hire, time to hire, increasing retention rate, and growing talent pipeline are now at the top of the priority list.

But what does that mean? How can companies ensure they stand out as an employer in this tight labor market? How to design a process that is cost and time effective and yet facilitates identifying the ‘hidden gems’ among the applicants?

In the recent Executive Growth Circle, global leaders across industries collaborated, shared experiences, challenged each other, and co-created what a future-ready recruitment process looks like. What are some of the learnings and insights that were shared?

Understand and address the company’s strengths and weaknesses in the candidate market

A great starting point is to understand how you are perceived as an employer. Employee review websites like Glassdoor allow you to continuously monitor the strengths and weaknesses in your candidate and employee experience.

Leverage employees to build a story of what’s it like to work for you

Leverage the experience of your current employees to create awareness of your company. Record videos, and testimonials, from people, and share them on social media and other platforms/forums. These stories should be honest and authentic and be shared from your personal, not company LinkedIn profile.

Get creative with ways you look for new talent

If everyone is recruiting through LinkedIn and university recruitment fairs, it makes the competition for the selected candidates so hard. The good news is that there are other, more creative ways to find talent – organize a Hackathon or summer internship and put in place an employee referral program, and reward employees for bringing new people on board.

Define the team/cultural fit as well as competence criteria

It’s always important to remember that you’re hiring a person, not just a set of skills. Try to define your company culture in three to five words and be disciplined about interviewing for those things. Ensuring that the candidate will fit in with the rest of the team will increase the odds of retention substantially.

Use skills assessments and interview committees to minimize bias

Ask potential candidates to do a project or solve a problem related to the job they are applying for. This will be a good indicator of whether they can do the job, weeding out candidates who just look good on paper. Use the same interview committees to allow meaningful comparisons among candidates.

Stress importance/availability of training and development at your company

With new technologies and industries emerging every day, continuous learning is a key selling point for candidates today. If retaining employees is your priority, ensure that there are always opportunities to learn at your company- allocate a budget for courses/certifications, put in place mentoring and trainee programs, and encourage employees to participate.

Integrate candidate and employee experience

The recruitment process is such a short time for you to get to know the candidate you are interviewing and vice versa. The onboarding, training, and overall experience should be a natural evolution of the candidate process – design feedback loops to check back on how new employees are progressing and whether their expectations are being met.

Do you as a leader struggle with designing future-ready recruitment or another leadership challenge? Working within an Executive Growth Circle among other global leaders to solve specific actionable challenges and identify growth opportunities can help you prepare for future readiness. Get in touch to participate in the next EGC!