Month: April 2017

What is the Future of Applicant Tracking Systems in Recruiting?

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

image_16In today’s competitive economy, employers still hold the edge when it comes to filling a job that pays well and offers great benefits. These openings could attract dozens, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of applicants. Sorting through so many applications could take all of your time, which is why applicant tracking systems in recruiting are so important. As many as 50 percent of mid-size employers use these systems while up to 90 percent of large corporations use them [1]. Consider these ways that applicant tracking systems could be of use or change in the future.

Improving the Quality of New Hires

Applicant tracking systems in recruiting will continue to provide an opportunity to boost the quality of the new hires that you bring into your corporation. These tracking systems can help you to use pre-identified standards, such as certain programming languages in computer systems jobs or fluency in Spanish for sales jobs. The automatic selection of candidates with the ideal qualifications helps you to avoid wasting your time reading through applications of people who do not have what you are seeking in a new hire.

Complying with Laws

Now and into the future, you will be able to use applicant tracking systems in your recruiting procedures to comply with local, state and federal hiring requirements. For example, if your organization were to receive a complaint about the recruitment or hiring practices, you could refer to the data collected by your applicant tracking system to back up your practices and provide key details about the numbers of applicants and their demographic information.

Instantaneous Messaging with Applicants

When a fantastic application comes into your tracking system, you may want to contact that person right away and have the individual come in for an interview. The future of tracking systems will allow for instant messaging or calling of the applicant. Being able to quickly contact a fabulous candidate gives your organization the best chance of adding that person to your organization instead of letting the person slip through the cracks and end up with one of your competitors.

 

[1] http://www.hireright.com/blog/2014/02/four-key-benefits-of-an-e-recruiting-solution-ats-applicant-tracking-system/

Building a Strong Company Blog By Including Employees as Authors

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

image_08Including your employees as authors on your company blog helps to build a stronger company culture. The different voices that your employees have to offer also provide your blog with a wider perspective and range of writing styles. According to Marketeer, corporate blogs with 15 posts per month generate an average of 1,200 new leads [1]. Allowing more people to participate in blog authorship can expand your reach even more.

Offering a New Perspective

Each employee in your company offers a new perspective on what it means to be a member of the organization. Writing from the same perspective all of the time can be boring to your audience. If every blog is written by the CEO, your readers will have no way to know what the rest of the people think. Allowing different employees to author blog posts shows that you value every member of your company equally. Including various employees at different levels of your company also demonstrates that every person’s voice is respected.

Exploring How Employees Joined Your Company

Companies often seem like impersonal, huge entities to the public. Including employees as authors on the company blog provides a more personal view of what happens in your company. Employees can explore their career history and how they came to be a member of your business. Each person’s career takes a different path, and this sort of biography can be fascinating for your loyal customers and business partners to read. This information also shows how your employees have the skills and experience to do their jobs.

Highlighting Employee Work

While the general public and even the other workers at your company know what the CEO, CFO and COO of your company do, they might not have a good idea of what your business analysts, customer support staff or human relations coordinators do on a daily basis. Allowing your employees to write blog posts about how they contribute to your organization highlights the fact that your company would not be what it is without everyone there working together to help the entire business succeed.
[1] http://marketeer.kapost.com/corporate-blogging-stats/

Recruitment Strategies for Finding Candidates with Strong Communications Skills

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

image_20No matter which industry your organization is in, communications skills are critical to success. According to a survey of 600 employers in the tech industry, communications skills were the most important factor in hiring [1]. Every interaction with a potential customer can be made or broken by the quality of communications skills offered by your employees. When recruiting candidates, consider these three strategies for assessing and finding each person’s skills at communicating in the workplace.

Applicant Testing

Applicant testing is a good recruitment strategy for finding people who have strong vocabularies and written communications skills. As a part of an application to work in your organization, you can include a series of questions that require a written response. These could be solutions to a problem commonly faced by your organization or a subjective, situational question about how to handle an issue with a client. These answers will give you an idea of how the candidate communicates in written form.

Group Interviews

Group interviews are an excellent recruitment strategy for determining a candidate’s communication skills. During a group interview session, you can evaluate the candidate’s vocabulary. Consider whether the person directly answers the questions you ask or beats around the bush. You may also consider the tone of replies, such as whether the candidate is too casual or colorful in his or her responses, or whether he or she is too technical for the audience. Group interviews are also a good way to get a read on a candidate’s body language. Straight posture, regular eye contact and appropriate distance and dress are all important forms of communication in the workplace.

Reviewing Past Experience and Checking References

When your organization posts a job opening, you will receive dozens or perhaps hundreds of applications. Check out those cover letters and resumes for signs of communications skills. Poor grammar or excessive use of jargon suggests that a person has poor communication skills. When you find an applicant you are interested in, call his or her references and focus on different types of communications skills, such as oral presentations and written reports.

[1] http://www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-blog-hub/the-official-gmat-blog/2014/aug/employers-want-communication-skills-in-new-hires.aspx

How Managing Your Organization’s Online Reputation Attracts Better Talent

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

image_30On a daily basis, one of your customers, employees, or potential job recruits is posting something about your company on the Web or a social media platform. Although the comments may not be accurate, everything that is written online contributes to the public’s opinion of your organization. The novel aspect of social media is their conversational tone: Knowledge sharing takes place through processes including discussion with questions and answers (online forums), collaborative editing (wikis) or storytelling with reactions (blogs) [1]. While you can’t control what customers or potential job candidates say, your organization can respond to posts online.

Many organizations have a social media specialist that is tasked with managing the company’s brand and reputation. This includes responding to online customer complaints, providing factual information when inaccurate information is online, and extending resolutions to unhappy customers.

Potential job candidates often search for reviews online before they make a decision about a job offer. Social media can be a positive tool for your company’s reputation if managed properly.

Enlist your current employees to be brand ambassadors. It is not necessary to forbid employees from posting on social media about your organization; simply providing some guidelines to your workforce can significantly improve what they post online. It is possible to respect their rights while requiring them to protect the reputation of your company.

The top talent has numerous job opportunities available to them. Competition is stiff, so your online reputation can encourage them to join your organization or not to join.

One powerful tool online is employee reviews. People truly take the time to read a credible review. If there are numerous negative reviews by customers, employees, and others, this is a red flag for a potential job recruit. If everyone is saying the same thing, something is probably wrong within your organization.

Being an employer who engages your employees, satisfies your customers, and creates a good corporate culture is the best protection of your online reputation. Top talent will definitely be attracted to a company that has a positive online reputation.

 

[1] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingsocialmedia.aspx