Category: Focus on Recruitment

Unpacking a Multi-Generation Workforce and How To Recruit Them

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

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Today’s workforce and candidate pools are more blended than ever. While inspiring, it comes with recruitment challenges. Executing a multi-generational recruitment strategy is no small feat, and it must start with understanding each group individually. Buyer Talent Solutions’ research team has analyzed these three prevalent groups in today’s workforce—Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Understanding the characteristics of each group is essential to building successful recruitment strategies.

Pew Research defines Gen X as those ages 39-54. They grew up during the computer generation and worked their way through the rise of the Internet, which changed the professional world forever. Glassdoor describes this group as being in the thick of their careers, having significant responsibilities both personally and professionally. When recruiting Gen X candidates, benefits and development opportunities should be the center of your messaging. This group values growth and chances to step into leadership, but has little room for risk when it comes to healthcare, 401k, and other stakes.

Then comes Millennials, Pew deeming these individuals ages 23-38. Millennials remember a time before the Internet, but grew up as it took off and were able to adapt to its innovations as they came about. Social issues and a work/life balance are extremely important to this group. This is a great opportunity for organizations to revamp their Employer Brand to highlight diversity, inclusion, and work flexibility. Workplace culture should be at the forefront—any lack of one could make or break application numbers.

Gen Z is next, these individuals being ages 7-22, the oldest just entering the workforce. This generation has grown up on technology, therefore a focus on technology is important for recruitment. As of 2018, Pew notes that Gen Z is the most educated (58% enrolled in 2 and 4-year colleges) and racially/ethnically diverse (52% being non-white) generation ever. Like Millennials, diversity and inclusion are essential to Gen Zers when choosing an employer. IN addition to ensuring your messaging aligns with the needs of Gen Zers, it’s important to also re-evaluate the media channels that you use to reach this group. As digital natives, Gen Zers prefer platforms like Twitter, TikTok, and Twitch to traditional media. Investing media dollars into digital advertising will expand your reach to Gen Z.

While little research is available, it is important to acknowledge Gen N. This group will follow Gen Z into the workforce as products of a post-COVID world, with full immersion in technology and the Internet from youth. The organizational changes companies make today will be strongly felt by the upcoming generation.

Generational changes are inevitable in the workforce, and recruitment efforts must be nimble and adjusted to align with candidate expectations. With 50+ years of recruitment marketing experience, Buyer Talent Solutions is ready to leverage our resources and industry knowledge to meet your hiring goals. Contact us at info@BuyerAds.com to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions.

Is Your 2021 Hiring Strategy in Place?

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

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After a year like 2020, everyone is looking forward to a fresh start—and the opportunities that come with it. As companies continue to re-open, we anticipate a significant need for talent. Going into 2021, it’s important that you incorporate a strategic and purposeful hiring strategy to secure the best candidates. To do this, consider these guiding questions from our recruitment experts:

First, think about your re-opening strategy. A successful onboarding process has to be in-line with your company’s current situation. Come the New Year, will you be remote or in-office? How are you planning to onboard new employees and engage them?

Next, try to project what you’ll need for talent in the New Year. What do you anticipate your hiring needs to be in Q1 and Q2 of 2021? What type of budget will you have, and how flexible does your strategy need to be to accommodate changes to your anticipated hiring needs?

Stand out from competitors. This year has seen a significant shift in the way companies operate. To connect with talent, have you considered virtual hiring events, utilizing AI, or other COVID-conscious methods of screening candidates? If your company has evolved over the past year, how are you promoting these changes? Redefining your employer brand will allow you to emphasize your unique company culture while directly addressing timely subjects such as inclusion and diversity hiring. Using these tactics demonstrates your company’s ability to adapt and shows resilience during uncertain times.

Start planning and get excited for the year ahead. With 50+ years of recruitment experience, we’re ready to leverage our resources and industry knowledge to meet your hiring goals. Contact us at 857-404-0864 or info@BuyerAds.com to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions.

The Benefits of an Employee Referral Program

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

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Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. Employee Referral Programs have proven to be a beneficial recruitment method, no matter the scope of your hiring strategy.

For one, they streamline the hiring process. Referral programs tap into an exclusive talent source—your current employees. Rather than solely relying on traditional marketing efforts, employee referrals are a unique communication strategy that directly links candidates to your organization, establishing a common connection that separates you from industry competitors.

Employee Referral Programs test the strength of your Employer Brand. The individuals your employees refer are typically those they see as a good fit for the organization. A current employee’s view of your company culture is valuable feedback regarding Employer Brand perception and allows you to adjust or re-evaluate your branding efforts accordingly.

For optimal success, it’s all about the process. Referral programs have an important criterion crucial to identifying quality candidates—the candidate and referring employee relationship. Harvard Business Review conducted a study and found that while 70% of “better candidates” were received from referrals, the true quality of the candidate depended on how well they knew the referring employee. Your referral program should have participants clearly indicate their relationship with each other so you can properly screen and assess individual qualifications in order to make the best hiring decisions.

Buyer’s team has developed and executed many client Employee Referral Programs with great success. With 50+ years of recruitment experience, we’re ready to leverage our resources and industry knowledge to meet your hiring goals. Contact us at 857-404-0864 or info@BuyerAds.com to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions.

Buyer Talent Solutions: Talent Engine

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

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With 50+ years of recruitment advertising experience, we have deep-rooted knowledge of the daily challenges employers face when looking to hire. It’s allowed us to create an all-in-one solution our clients use with great success—Talent Engine.

Talent Engine is our search engine optimized hiring platform that empowers recruiters with a smarter way to attract, engage, and track candidates through the hiring process—backed by a team of industry leaders with a passion for customer service. It features Buyer’s extensive suite of recruitment solutions and is categorized into four main areas: attract, engage, optimize, and analyze.

Attract

Talent Engine Attract is all about eliminating waste, driving better candidate flow, and improving ROI. Our programmatic ad management solution drives candidates to the jobs that need the most applies. We do this through automated ad placement to determine which jobs need more exposure, detailed analytics to optimize media/advertising budgets in real-time, and non-contract, performance based tracking down to the job level. We’ll also ensure your ads appear on major traffic drivers like Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and more.

Engage

Talent Engine Engage works to captivate top talent with a customized career site. Start fresh with our Employer Brand development services to showcase your workplace culture, or upgrade your site’s user experience through the implementation of video, dynamic job descriptions, and original content.

Optimize

With over 250 million job searches occurring on Google each month, it’s crucial to position your job opportunities for optimal exposure. Talent Engine Optimize elevates the position of your job postings in organic search results to increase your career site traffic. The platform is customizable to preserve your unique brand/content, with no need to change your current ATS.

Analyze

Finally, Talent Engine Analyze evaluates your recruitment marketing efforts while increasing your ROI with real-time, track-to-hire source metrics. Key metrics could include cost per qualified applicant, cost per hire, time to fill, candidate conversions to applicants, and much more. With Talent Engine Analyze you can send text/email reminders to candidates to prevent application falloff while identifying influential media/direct sources delivering candidates and hires.

Talent Engine is a direct product of Buyer’s resources and industry knowledge, and we’re ready to leverage it to meet your hiring goals. Contact us at 857-404-0864 or info@BuyerAds.com to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions.

Confronting Coronavirus in Your EVP

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

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Coronavirus has undoubtedly changed the recruitment landscape—from the essential skills employers seek, to the values candidates expect. In cultivating a “new normal”, employers must re-evaluate their Employee Value Proposition to be in-line with current attitudes.

An EVP is the unique identifier within your Employer Brand—the promise your company makes to a prospective candidate. If you are not actively managing it, your current and former employees as well as today’s job seekers will.

Taking control of your Employer Brand starts with research—learn where talent is, how to grab their attention, and what they’re looking for in a post-COVID workplace. Then, align that with what your current employees share as unique benefits of your organization. With over 53 years of experience cultivating unique Employer Brands, we know that a compelling and engaging Employer Brand can lower your cost per hire by 50% and reduce your turnover rate by 28%.

Leave nothing to interpretation. Now more than ever, candidates are looking for a clear commitment to compassion, community, and wellbeing. Attract the right candidates for your organization, while exercising leadership that sets you apart.

Buyer is here to help. Contact us at 857-404-0864 or  info@BuyerAds.com  to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions that deliver results no matter the budget.

“Google it!”— The growing solution for job hunting.

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

google for jobsGoogle for Jobs has been in the recruiting space for close to two years now. Emerging as the sleeping giant, eager to recapture the millions of job seekers who have made Indeed the number one job board today, Google for Jobs aggregates listings from job boards and careers sites and displays them prominently within Google Search.

Astonishing Results

According to our latest Talent Engine source analytics, on average, we’ve seen a whopping 441% increase in applicants and an 850% increase in hires from Google for Jobs when comparing Q1 2018 to Q1 2019 results for our clients.

What many organizations don’t realize is that in order to achieve similar results, your career site must be configured correctly for Google for Jobs to notice your content. Items include: job content, site structure/tags, even site maps—all need to be set up specifically for Google for Jobs to index your postings.

Buyer’s Talent Engine

We’re here to help. Our hiring platform, Talent Engine, is readily built to ensure your job postings meet the requirements of Google for Jobs and traditional SEO, ensuring you more quality candidates from Google than any standalone ATS.

We’ll Position You For Success

Google for Jobs is just one of many recruitment strategies that Buyer leverages to ensure our clients’ success. We are committed to staying ahead of industry trends and utilizing every opportunity for our clients to recruit top candidates. Contact us at 857-404-0864 or info@BuyerAds.com to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions that deliver results no matter the budget.

About Buyer

Buyer provides custom talent solutions that deliver the right candidates critical to our clients’ success. We cultivate unique Employer Brands that set our clients apart from the competition, while creating a personal connection with their future employees. Our industry leading search engine optimized hiring platform, Talent Engine, empowers recruiters with a smarter way to attract, engage, analyze and track candidates through the hiring process – backed by a team of industry leaders with a passion for customer service. With a proven history of supporting a diverse mix of organizations for more than fifty years, we’re confident we’ll exceed your staffing expectations.

Here’s the Pitch: Sell your jobs with dynamic job descriptions

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

You only have seconds to pique the interest of your next great hire online. It’s time to implement dynamic job descriptions that transform traditional, text-heavy descriptions into visually appealing content.

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Create dynamic job content with the user experience in mind. Include video, infographics and copy call- outs to quickly bring life to your posting while providing a visual representation of your company’s personality. And, leverage ratings, reviews and employee testimonials to give candidates first-hand knowledge about your organization; quickly separating your opportunity from the competition.

We’ve Developed Dynamic Content with Great Success

As an example, we recently executed online dynamic job descriptions for a large, not-for-profit health system in New York who experienced a 44% increase in completed applications for Home Care, Hospice and Managed Care Nursing jobs.

Dynamic job descriptions are one of many innovative solutions Buyer utilizes today to ensure our clients’ success. Let us help you stay on top of trends and best practices in an ever-evolving recruitment environment. Contact us at 857-404-0864 or info@BuyerAds.com to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions that deliver results no matter the budget.

About Buyer

Buyer provides custom talent solutions that deliver the right candidates critical to our clients’ success. We cultivate unique Employer Brands that set our clients apart from the competition, while creating a personal connection with their future employees. Our industry leading search engine optimized hiring platform, Talent Engine, empowers recruiters with a smarter way to attract, engage, analyze and track candidates through the hiring process – backed by a team of industry leaders with a passion for customer service. With a proven history of supporting a diverse mix of organizations for more than fifty years, were confident we’ll exceed your staffing expectations.

Interview with a Bot: The Emerging Advantages of AI in Recruitment

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

 

AI graphicWhether you call it Siri, Alexa, even Olivia, Artificial Intelligence comes in many forms and is re-shaping how we use technology to simplify the world around us.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is when machines demonstrate seemingly natural intelligence that imitate humanlike functions—conversation, problem solving, learning, etc. Continuing to evolve, AI has made its way into the world of Human Resources. In fact, AI is now being used to analyze applicant data to efficiently narrow down candidates, to facilitate consistent contact with candidates to prevent application drop off, and to automatically schedule and confirm candidates for interviews without the need for human intervention.

We’ve Been Testing AI with Surprising Success

As an example, MJHS, a large not-for-profit healthcare system and client of Buyer, recently experimented with an AI assistant, powered by the tech start up, Paradox Olivia, to simplify the screening and scheduling of candidate interviews for one of their hiring events. Results were impressive with an astounding 77% increase in event registration, a 100% interview acceptance rate and a 60% decrease in cost per applicant acquisition when compared to previous hiring events. Based on this success, we have committed to further integrate AI technology into additional hiring solutions for MJHS and other Buyer clients.

Let us Future Proof your Next Recruitment Strategy

AI is just one of the many solutions that Buyer is leveraging today to ensure our clients’ success. Contact Michael Wishnow at 978-985-1163 or mwishnow@buyertalentsolutions.com to learn more about our customized recruitment solutions that deliver results no matter the budget.

About Buyer

Buyer provides custom talent solutions that deliver the right candidates critical to our client partners’ success. We cultivate unique Employer Brands that set our clients apart from the competition, while creating a personal connection with their future employees. Our industry leading search engine optimized hiring platform, Talent Engine, empowers recruiters with a smarter way to attract, engage, analyze and track candidates through the hiring process – backed by a team of industry leaders with a passion for customer service. With a proven history of supporting a diverse mix of organizations for more than fifty years, we’re confident we’ll exceed your staffing expectations.

Disadvantages of a “Tortoise Mindset” Within the Hiring Process

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

image_016Do you remember the old adage from Aesop’s Fables, “slow but steady wins the race?” Not a bad philosophy to live by the majority of the time, however, you probably shouldn’t apply this advice to your company’s hiring process especially when you consider the toll it will take on the “candidate experience.” Research has found that companies need an average of 23 days to screen and hire new employees, which is up from 13 days in 2010 [1]. While it’s obviously important to be thorough throughout your hiring process in order to avoid costly mistakes, if the process runs too long, your company could potentially lose out on some of the best talent that’s out there.

Negative Perceptions

The longer the hiring process, the more frustrated candidates become – which will inevitably lead to negative perceptions about your company. In addition, the impression you leave may have a ripple effect on future candidates. A Robert Half study revealed that when forced to endure a lengthy hiring process, nearly 40 percent of job seekers lost interest in the position and elected to pursue other opportunities. Additionally, more than 30 percent indicated that a drawn-out process made them question whether the employer was good at making decisions in other areas of their business [2].  Many candidates view their first and only interaction with a company (during the recruitment process) as a significant indicator of what it’s like to work there – so, if it is poor, then the likelihood of applying in the future is further diminished. Talent acquisition teams trying to build a “talent community” will certainly feel this impact.

Decline in the Quality of Hire and Other Side Effects

You might assume that taking more time to make a hiring decision would result in better hires. While that might be true in some instances, it could also precipitate a falloff in candidate quality due to the fact that top candidates will take themselves out of the running and go elsewhere.  The longer the review process takes the more insecure and disillusioned your best candidates will become.  The top 10 percent of candidates are often gone from the marketplace within 10 days [3]. This is an undeniable reality. The speed at which you engage your candidates is critical when competing head to head with talent competitors. Beyond the obvious fact that you may lose some great candidates along the way, there are some potential side effects which will be felt in other areas of your business including a slowdown in innovation, production schedules, product delays, employee morale, revenue generation and a fatigued work force.

The Buyer Conclusion

Clearly, there are numerous ways in which a slow hiring process will do damage to your company from a recruitment as well as a business standpoint. Fortunately, just by making some minor adjustments, you can improve your situation quickly and rather dramatically. The easiest and perhaps least disruptive steps that can be taken to shorten your hiring cycles merely involve better communication. Did you know that approximately 75 percent of workers who utilize a variety of sources to apply for jobs never hear back from employers [4]? By keeping candidates informed and involved in the process, your organization portrays itself as effective, efficient and considerate of the people they want to join. Maintaining communication with candidates throughout the hiring process should be a priority and is the foundation of a positive relationship with current and future employees.

If you are interested in learning more about how Buyer can help streamline your hiring process, I’d love to hear from you. Contact me, Michael Wishnow, Vice President of Relationship Development, at mwishnow@BuyerAds.com. I can also be reached by my mobile (978) 985-1163 or direct at my office (857) 404-0864.

 

 

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-deal-with-a-long-hiring-process-1453231053

[2] http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9330-quick-hiring-process.html

[3] https://www.eremedia.com/ere/the-top-12-reasons-why-slow-hiring-severely-damages-recruiting-and-business-results/

[4] https://www.eremedia.com/tlnt/best-ways-to-communicate-with-job-candidates-in-the-social-media-age/

How Technology is Changing Human Resource Management

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

image_10Technology is changing every sector of the economy at a rapid pace. One of the biggest changes is in the way that information is shared. When human resources managers are seeking to recruit staff members, post jobs or keep track of applicants, technology is interwoven throughout every process. Consider these three ways in which technology is changing the way that your organization finds, evaluates and trains new people to work in your organization.

Recruiting Through Social Media

More than 92 percent of human resources officers report that they use social media as a recruitment tool [1]. Most adults actively participate in at least one social media network. Human resources teams can post job openings through a variety of methods on social media. They can use a person’s university affiliation, experience, likes and interests on social media as recruitment techniques. Social media also allows for the implementation of viral recruiting techniques. For example, if your company has dozens or hundreds of seasonal jobs to fill, shares and retweets on social media are fast ways to recruit the staff you need.

Digital Job Postings and Applications

Long gone are the days when you had to fax a job advertisement to the newspaper, wait for them to print it and then wait for applications to come in through snail mail. You can now use technology to almost instantaneously deliver job postings to dozens of recruitment websites, university posting services, professional networks and social media outlets. Applicants do not have to carefully print their applications. They can deliver them to you through your platform or send them electronically through email, allowing you to get responses within minutes of posting an opening.

Information Storage and Retrieval

When your recruitment strategies on social media are successful, you could end up with hundreds of applications. Technology facilitates the storage and retrieval of all of this information. When you have another, similar job opening, you can refer to your database and see which qualified applicants might fit the bill. Cloud computing makes it easy and cost-effective to store a great deal of digital information for recruiting.

[1] http://www.gethppy.com/hrtrends/technology-changing-human-resource-management