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Experts share 6 key talent acquisition trends for 2021

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 22:51:18 +0000

2020 was a year like no other, and 2021 is shaping up to bring even more unprecedented challenges, innovations and creative solutions. With the future of work well and truly here, HR professionals are being forced to look beyond the horizon and decipher key talent acquisition trends to survive and thrive.

Once, people teams had the luxury of time to plan, test and tweak approaches. Now, many of us are taking it day by day: ten year plans have been scrapped, and ‘business as usual’ is a distant memory. Many TA teams are looking for guidance. Many HR leaders are doing the same.

In times like these, we look to the experts for advice and predictions in an unpredictable landscape. Industry commentators like Hung Lee have their finger on the pulse of what it means to recruit in 2021, and can help make sense of a landscape that’s shifting every day.

Speaking on a recent PageUp webinar, Hung Lee outlined his 8 key talent acquisition trends for the new year. This is by no means an exhaustive list – but it is a good way to check that your organisationorganization is on the right track.

Here’s what we know so far about what matters in recruiting in 2021:

Everyone is an international recruiter
Digital transformation and automation take center stage
There are new challenges and considerations for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I)
Alumni (former employees) become an organisationorganization‘s greatest asset
Employer branding becomes a non-negotiable
Internal mobility evolves into a key source of quality talent

2020 was the year that HR truly stepped up and took a seat at the table. In 2021, it’s time to continue that momentum and take the lead in transforming workplaces for the new world of work.

Talent acquisition trend 1: The global talent pool

COVID-19 has accelerated once-distant trends and forced the world’s biggest work from home experiment. Even laggards have been forced to adopt remote tech – and organisationsorganizations are realising it can work. In spite of organisationalorganizational complexities and the challenges of remote work, up to 37% of jobs can now be done fully remotely. In the US, there was a 150% increase in remote jobs from 2019 to 2020. In the UK, there was a 342% increase in the same period (Iain Moss, Adzuna, 2020). In Australia, there was more than a 200% increase in remote work in some states (NSW, ACT and Victoria).

OrganisationsOrganizations are getting into the groove of remote work, and this has opened up possibilities for a global network of talent. No longer constrained by brick and mortar offices, organisationsorganizations can hire the best people in the world – not just their city. In 2021, everyone is an international recruiter.

“Moving the job to where the people are is increasing,” says Hung Lee, curator of recruitment industry newsletter Recruiting Brainfood. Lee observes that “remote means anywhere” – and with technology improving and C-suite leaders enjoying the cost reduction of work-from-home arrangements, TA will shift from on-premise to remote hiring.

This brings about major changes:

Moving away from the traditional full-time hiring cycle, remote workers can be freelancers and contractors. This trend lends itself to a “try before you buy” approach, according to Lee.
There is zero friction for talent to move from company to company – which means the employee experience is more important than ever
Compensation is set by the elite organisationsorganizations. No longer confined to local salary benchmarks, smaller players may struggle to compete with salaries offered by large organisationsorganizations. For many jobseekers, the ability to live in their hometown but get paid a New York-level salary is appealing – and makes it hard for local organisationsorganizations to compete.
Competition for top talent is global

Talent acquisition trend 2: Digital transformation and automation becomes a priority

In a year of constant disruption, even the most progessive companies have had to think on their feet. They’ve achieved this agility through workforce automation. Research shows that 92% of senior executives agree that the lockdown period has made digital transformation a priority.

COVID-19 has forced the automation of in-person human roles, where possible. At the same time, remote working has flourished and given way to a raft of digitisationdigitization and automation. RPA (recruitment process automation) has delivered unparalleled efficiencies in the recruiting process, spurred on by reduced TA headcount and recruiters simply having to do more with less. What was once paper-based, manual and resource-intensive (multiple recruiters and interviewing rooms, onerous rounds of shortlisting and assessments) has become streamlined and fully digital.

Talent acquisition trend 3: Alumni form part of the talent community

“Retain the relationship, not the employee” recruiting guru Bill Boorman advises. This year, cash-strapped and time-poor recruiting teams are turning to the ‘talent community’ – alumni, silver-medalists and internal talent – as a source of pre-vetted, quality hires.

The return of the talent community creates a new job for recruiters – engaging talent even after they’ve left the organisationorganization. In the past, once someone walked out the door they were often gone for good. Now, HR teams are acquainting themselves with the concept of ‘Boomerang employees’ – those that leave the business then eventually return. These people are an invaluable source of qualified talent, external referrals and, when treated well, should become lasting employer brand champions.

As people flow through the company from candidate to employee and eventually alumni, someone has to own and track this experience to ensure it’s a great one. Some organisationsorganizations are approaching this by having a community manager that manages and engages people outside of the company. Others are developing alumni networks and using their career site as a leveraging point to attract alumni back.

Hung Lee shares key ways to engage alumni:

Make relationships the entire point
Bridge community & company. Careers sites are a great way to do this
Treat talent mobility the same as career development
That development might exist outside of company
Not a single career path but career optionality

Talent acquisition trend 4: DE&I

In a year that’s brought us a global pandemic, political unrest and a worldwide shift to remote work, it would take a lot to capture our attention. And yet in 2020, DE&I did just that. As Black Lives Matter protests spread awareness and action around the world, the importance of racial equality, diversity and inclusivity in our own organisationsorganizations captured the spotlight.

Lee says “DE&I has gone from being de-prioritisedprioritized to re-prioritisedprioritized” as organisationsorganizations do the work in “rebuilding institutions that have been historically unfair.” Technology is helping to attract diverse candidates and reduce systemic bias in the hiring process, helping organisationsorganizations to meet their DE&I goals at-scale.

Remote working increases accessibility for roles, but it also presents new hurdles to overcome. Technology opens the door for people from different backgrounds, geographies and ability to land roles, but access to good technology is not universal. Digital inequality – poor internet connection or older tech – can introduce a new set of uncious biases for candidates.

Lee points to a recent study by researchers from USC, who found that audio quality has a direct impact on perceived reliability and expertise. When they presented identical conference presentations in high and low quality and asked participants to evaluate the researcher and the research, people evaluated the researcher and research less favourably when the audio quality was low. As we enter a new remote world, new biases appear which require attention and awareness. According to Lee, addressing these issues of inequality requires “mitigating with more tech, not less”.

Talent acquisition trend 5: Employer branding becomes a non-negotiable

Where once a great employer brand was seen as a “nice to have”, it is now a necessity for organisationsorganizations to compete for talent on a global stage. Lee says that “This is a once-in-a-lifetime period for organisationsorganizations looking to fortify their employer brand.” The way organisationsorganizations respond to this crisis will affect and define their brand for decades to come. This means providing a great experience: caring for employees with trust and transparency, and caring for your candidates with open and regular communication. Maintaining this level of care will become a core TA responsibility and expectation — and technology will help time-poor hiring teams to facilitate this at scale.

Talent acquisition trend 6: Internal mobility

With lockdown restrictions forcing widespread layoffs, and with reduced recruiter headcount forcing hiring teams to do more with less, organisationsorganizations are redeploying staff to cut costs and keep valued skills within the business. According to LinkedIn insights, internal hires increased by 19% in April-August 2020 compared with the same time period in 2019. Internal hires now make up almost 20% of an organisation’s workforce on average.

But according to Lee, “COVID revealed we don’t do internal mobility well.” In a recent survey by HR.com, over a third of respondents say that no one owns the internal mobility process. And over a quarter of employees are unaware of available job opportunities.

In 2021, it will be up to TA teams to gain full visibility of their workforce and identify hidden skill sets or opportunities for development. Technology can help to provide this visibility, and a powerful ATS can even provide smart recommendations for redeployment opportunities.

Lee posits that “TA will be known as ‘Talent Access’ – they will ensure the availability of the entire talent universe to the employer.” Managers will transform into ‘career coaches’ and rely on performance management technology to facilitate everyday feedback and on the go learning opportunities. According to Lee, TA will take ownership of internal mobility and talent delivery, signalling a move away from hiring-manager led placements.

Free playbook: Maximising the potential of your workforce with internal mobility

Final thoughts

These six talent acquisition trends point to a future of work that’s tech-enabled and automated, but that also uplifts the human aspects of Human Resources. With technology automating manual and repetitive tasks, TA teams are freed to do the real work: building meaningful DE&I programs, engaging valued alumni, raising up internal employees to greater heights. As we embark on this uncertain journey together, go safe in the knowledge that the HR world and your talent communities will always be there to share wisdom, support and guidance. And for help on the technology and automation front, there’s always PageUp – get in touch today to see how we can help optimiseoptimize each stage of your talent lifecycle.

Request a demo

The post Experts share 6 key talent acquisition trends for 2021 appeared first on PageUp.

The secret to building talent pipelines? A smart careerscareer website

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 06:45:31 +0000

Gone are the days of posting a job description on a job board and hoping the perfect candidate hits ‘apply’. To land great hires in today’s competitive job market, talent acquisition teams must adapt and build a steady pipeline of candidates ready for when a role arises. But piquing the interest of top talent is almost impossible without the appeal of a great company careers website (or careers site).career website (or career site).

Why are careers websitescareer websites so important?

According to LinkedIn data, 59% of candidates visit the company website before applying to find out more about an organisationorganization and what it’s like to work there.

Building interest in job opportunities begins and ends with a company’s careers or job description pages. This is where organisationsorganizations communicate what they do and how candidates connect to organisationsorganizations and their people. Here, recruiters, hiring managers, and their employees can tell an authentic story about their culture and attract quality applicants to jobs: these pages are where jobs and employer brands come to life.

Here’s how modern careers websitescareer websites can help employers ensure their online presence, including all digital recruitment experiences and touchpoints, meets candidate expectations:

Careers websitesCareer websites work proactively for recruiters

While reactive hiring approaches may be useful for short-term goals, proactive hiring helps recruiters pipeline candidates and nurture them in pools to keep them warm. In other words, talent acquisition teams need to proactively build long-term professional relationships with passive talent ready for future opportunities.

But pipeline and pool-building might sound like a tall order for busy hiring teams. Our research found that only 43% of organisationsorganizations have well-established talent pipelines and pools equipped to meet their company’s future hiring needs. Careers sites are a constant touchpoint for all jobseekers, and a good careers site will lure passive candidates into a recruiter’s net without any manual effort.

CMS tools

How? When content management system (CMS) tools and recruitment marketing are combined, careers sites become incredibly powerful. The CMS allows companies to build and easily edit job boards and showcase their employee value proposition (EVP) and employer brand with dedicated landing pages.

In addition to this, modern recruitment marketing tools automate a company’s advertising activities at-scale, like sharing job postings across the most effective hiring channels.

Watch: Recruitment marketing – fireside chat with Audra Knight (Foundation Medicine)

They support an excellent candidate experience

Even despite the recent COVID-19 layoffs and furloughs, many employers still find themselves struggling to attract and retain great people. Talent Board’s latest CandE Recruiting Focus report found that 85% of employers cited improving the candidate experience as a top priority for their organisationsorganizations in 2020.

Candidates are no longer at the mercy of employers picking and choosing who best fits their needs. The power balance has shifted, and employers need to provide a great candidate experience if they want to hire top talent.

Promoting an open role in 2021 requires more effort than a job board post. It requires companies to create beautiful careers sites that offer memorable candidate experiences and considers the unique needs of the talent they seek.

Many organisationsorganizations are now focused on ensuring each applicant (successful or otherwise) has a positive candidate experience. With compelling messaging, personalisationpersonalization, and user-friendly navigation, careers websitescareer websites create the best first impression and make it easy for candidates to apply. They also help hiring managers set realistic expectations about the role, team, culture, and organisationsorganizations to ensure a better job fit, improve quality of hire and employee retention rates.

Candidates love looking at careers websitescareer websites

Knowing where to post jobs in the digital world can be a stressful, costly, often fruitless affair. But year on year, careers websitescareer websites have proven to be the preferred and most valuable channel for candidates researching a potential employer. They’re also the very first place a candidate visits after seeing or hearing about a job.

The good news: there are website content management tools that make it easy for talent teams to showcase their employer brand, without having to write a line of code. With endless customisation, easy-to-use templates, and dynamic content suggestions, these tools help HR teams deliver a personalisedpersonalized experience to everyone who visits their careers site, with pages that are designed to convert.

Useful and attractive pages showcase employer brand

It might be easy for the Googles and Microsofts of the world to appeal to winning talent. But what about companies that are still working on their brand recognition – or those expanding beyond their current market?

According to a 2019 NA Talent Board CandE Benchmark Research Report, employers with the highest positive candidate ratings were those that focused more on engagement pre-application.

High-quality candidates who mean business will often visit the company’s careers site to get a sense of the workplace culture or look for open roles. A massive 39% of candidates now say that company culture is the most important marketing content for their research on prospective employers.

To win the war for talent, companies need to showcase the job, the company values, the perks, and reasons why they are a great place for an employee to build their career. Well-informed, committed candidates will always go further through the recruitment process.

How can a careers site help?

A robust careers websitecareer website does an excellent job of humanisinghumanizing the research and pre-application process. Recruiters can test and measure their content to determine what’s working and what’s not. They can also start a conversation long before a candidate self-selects in or out of the application process. Careers websitesCareer websites ensure more high-quality candidates apply and have a positive experience.

These careers websitecareer website features can empower interested candidates to apply for an open position:

Video job descriptions
24/7 chatbot assistance
Dynamic website content
‘Why work here?’ blogs

What do the numbers say?

Our research has found that in 2020, careers websitescareer websites accounted for 20% of all global applications and 11% of hires. The effectiveness of the careers site as a sourcing channel is 45 – which means 45 applications are required to secure the one hire.

But in 2019, they were more effective: globally, for every 37 applications submitted, one person was hired. In terms of volume, 22% of applications and 14% of hires were via the careers website.

This speaks to the volume of applicants currently on the market, which has increased the number of ‘wrong fit’ applicants coming through these channels. This year, jobseeker behaviourbehavior has changed: with more talent on the market, people have fewer chances to be choosy – and many are applying to whatever opportunities seem like a close fit. Many will be applying for multiple jobs.

Despite this, those applying through a careers site are still much more likely to convert to new hires than job boards and social media channels. These candidates are already interested; they’ve had a chance to interact with the content and get a feel for the culture and vision. They can self-select in or out based on the information provided by the careers site.

What do employers say?

In speaking with our customers, those with highly effective careers websitescareer websites have proactively worked to showcase their values, mission, and culture and create transparency on their response to COVID-19.

Take one of our customers, Klook, for example. As a travel technology business, most wouldn’t expect them to be as visible in the job market right now: but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be. Senior Manager, Global Employer Branding and People Communications, Marilyn Yee, shifted the business’ focus towards building engagement, awareness, and communicating what Klook was doing as a company during the pandemic.

Read: Employer branding with Marilyn Yee (Klook)

SEO allows jobseekers to discover an employer easily

If recruiters want their job postings found, they need to use the keywords and search queries jobseekers are actually using. That means exercising restraint in ‘industry speak’ and funky job titles like ‘Chief Inspiration Officer’ or ‘Recruitment Ninja’. If someone were looking to hire a Digital Marketing Manager, they wouldn’t advertise for a ‘Customer Conversation Artichect.’ Always use plain, conversational language (not buzzwords) when writing about a company and its people.

To get job openings on the radar of top talent, organisationsorganizations should follow these simple Search Engine OptimisationOptimization rules:

Always use SEO friendly job titles and descriptions
Build well-optimisedwell-optimized sitemap structures
Create content that keeps visitors on-page and clicking through
Showcase company blogs on relevant candidate topics
Write copy that answers common questions about roles
Share postings on social media to drive traffic to the website

Pro tip: do some research before posting a job. Which pages come up first in your Google search – and what have these pages done to get there?

Some recruiters take a partnership approach by asking copywriting specialists within their marketing department to look over ads and give feedback. An easier way to do it is to use smart careers websitescareer websites that automatically index pages, flag areas for improvement, and share content via top-performing social media channels.

They promote and support diversity, equity, and inclusion

86% of female millennials look for an employer’s policy on diversity and workforce inclusion when deciding whether to work for someone. But many organisationsorganizations struggle to communicate an inclusive EVP (employee value proposition) on their website to support their diversity hiring strategy and build rich talent pools.

Careers sites aren’t just a home for open roles; they’re a reflection of a company’s values and culture. When executed well, careers websitescareer websites can be a key driver of diverse talent attraction. Rather than forcing a candidate to search far and wide for a DE&I policy or programs, microsites and landing pages tell an authentic story about the company’s culture and values from the moment a candidate arrives.

Best-of-breed careers websitecareer website technology goes the extra mile with advanced analytics that allows hiring teams to measure progress, report on visitor demographics, and make improvements along the way.

Pro tip: language is a powerful tool. Be sure to write thoughtful, inclusive job descriptions that encourage people from all walks of life to apply, regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, education, abilities, beliefs, and communication styles. Tools like Textio can help recruiters keep bias out of their job ads.

Dynamic website content offers a personalisedpersonalized experience

You wouldn’t show offices in San Francisco to someone in Hong Kong – just as you wouldn’t advertise a talent acquisition role to a developer.

But many company careers pages tend to focus on a single audience because few have time to update their content for every visitor or reader. Yet, recruiters still need a wide range of content to create personalisedpersonalized journeys tailored to individuals’ interests, needs, and characteristics.

High-quality careers websitescareer websites deliver unique experiences based on who is looking at the pages. Using website cookies and AI-powered suggestions, candidates are served hyper-targeted EVP images and text based on their location, language preference, demographics, or interests. Dynamic content journeys feel more personal and can be the difference between a successful application or a drop-off.

Strong CTAs hook ‘hot prospects’

Think of a modern-day marketer creating a customer lead magnet: An irresistible website lure that offers prospects something valuable in exchange for contact details. Likewise, careers websitecareer website calls-to-action encourage passive, high-quality prospects to join a pool of candidates. More than just a simple ‘apply now’ button, a careers websitecareer website call-to-action can include:

Expression of interest forms
Company newsletter sign-ups
Event registration forms
Alumni talent network registration forms
Internal opportunity registration forms

A compelling CTA captures passive candidate details and keeps them warm in talent pools. These ‘candidate magnets’ allow passive talent to connect with companies they’re interested in working for. And when the time is right, they’ll have been nurtured and ready to receive their exclusive invitation to apply for a job.

Why is this important? Our research has found candidate relationship management (CRM and talent pooling) is one of the most effective sourcing channels. In 2020, 2% of applications and 22% of hires were via proactive talent relationship initiatives. In fact, on average, less than three (2.4) applications from talent pools were needed to secure a hire.

Mobile optimisationoptimization reduces candidate drop off

86% of all active job searches begin on a mobile device. In 2020, PageUp Head of Customer Insights and Market Research, Rebecca Skilbeck, discovered almost a third of retail industry applications were being filled from a mobile device.

“Recruiters should aim to make mobile application forms shorter while including better screening questions so candidates can be moved through, or out, of the process quickly,” Skilbeck said.

With more people at home searching and applying for jobs on mobile devices, it’s either time to adapt or lose tech-savvy candidates to competitors. Unresponsive page design hurts SEO, and complicated or outdated application processes can put candidates off. On a positive note, PageUp’s mobile-friendly careers sites receive 6x the amount of applications with responsive pages and user-friendly forms to convert quality talent.

Pro tip: recruiters should try navigating their own pages or filling out forms on mobile to see where processes can be streamlined.

Careers websitesCareer websites that recruit for you

Do you know if your careers websitecareer website content is actually working? Our clients see a 37% conversion rate from first visit to completed application.

Represent your brand with pride and attract and convert quality talent with PageUp Recruitment Marketing. Our powerful, easy to manage, responsive, and optimisedoptimized careers websitecareer website builder takes the work out of hiring.

But don’t just take our word for it – get a free recruitment marketing demo to see a PageUp careers websitecareer website in action or learn more about the module here. We’re always here to help you select from the best talent in the market (not just the best who applied for your job).

The post The secret to building talent pipelines? A smart <span class='content_au'>careers</span><span class='content_us'>career</span> website appeared first on PageUp.

Here’s what an effective recruitment marketing campaign looks like

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 03:10:18 +0000

Recruitment marketing drives higher volumes of qualified candidates to apply for a role with best-practice marketing automation, optimisationoptimization and candidate relationship management (CRM). But what are the experiences and touchpoints within a typical recruitment marketing journey?

Attract (amplify employer brand to attract great people)

Recruiter is appointed to uncover the best candidates.

A hiring manager approaches a recruiter for a role that needs filling.
They begin their research to understand the position requirements, looking to existing internal talent pipelines for suitable candidates to target the right talent.

Posts job to careers site: Automation does the rest.

Recruiter posts a job ad on a dynamic careers website optimisedoptimized for search engines (SEO) and mobile-responsiveness.
The job posting is shared automatically across social media and other key promotional channels.

Curious, potential candidate explores options for a career change.

An interested candidate – passive or otherwise – considers the possibilities of a career change.
They begin their research, exploring all the roles that pique their interest.

Dynamic careers site content showcases employer brand on any device.

Next, the candidate visits a company’s careers site to get a sense of the culture and find suitable roles.
Dynamic careers site content showcases the company’s Employer Value Proposition (EVP) and empowers the right-fit candidate to apply.
Enabled by cookies, the candidate receives hyper-targeted EVP content.

Event pages and expression of interest (EOI) forms capture even more hot prospects.

A company’s careers website attracts more high-quality candidates with:
- Expression of interest forms
- Company newsletter sign-ups
- Event registration forms
- Alumni talent network registration forms
- Internal opportunity registration forms

Candidates sign up and enter the talent network.

These ‘Candidate magnets’ allow passive talent to connect with the company they’re interested in.
Calls-to-action (CTAs) and easy to use forms and fields capture their details.

MobiliseMobilize (analyse, prioritiseprioritize and build high-quality talent pipelines)

Jobseeker activity and interaction data is captured to build rich candidate profiles.

A smart careers site pulls in information from multiple sources and channels
Sophisticated candidate relationship management (CRM), scoring, and insights store candidate details and collect data on their interactions.

“Silver-medalist” candidates, alumni and internal talent profiles are captured and kept warm in talent pools.

Valuable runners-up are primed and ready to go for future job openings.
The details of alumni and internal talent are captured and stored in talent pools to maintain lifelong connections or ‘employees for life’.

Candidate relationship management (CRM) software helps sift through candidates with powerful segmentation.

Powerful CRM software helps the recruiter transition from reactive recruitment to a proactive sourcing strategy – they no longer rely on reactive hiring or outsourcing.
Interests, diversity and inclusion considerations, and experience level segment candidates.

Smart recommendations highlight candidates that best fit the job criteria.

CRM automatically identifies best-fit candidates – surfacing hidden candidates along the way.
Automated talent pipelining gives the recruiter more time to engage with suitable candidates.

Recruiter works faster and smarter with a 360-degree view of their talent pipeline.

Consolidated information lets the recruiter analyse, prioritiseprioritize and build high-quality talent pipelines,
This 360-degree view offers more accurate forecasting.
Working smarter, not harder, the recruiter has more time for more high-value activities, leading to a better candidate experience and competitive edge.

Data and insights help hiring teams optimiseoptimize their approach.

The recruiter leverages new insights to adapt and optimiseoptimize their approach.
Focusing investment in the right channels, the recruiter can reduce their sourcing spend and convert even more quality candidates.

Engage (nurture candidates and provide an exceptional experience)

Recruiter creates and schedules automated workflows.

A recruitment marketing automation platform handles manual tasks, reminders, and follow-ups.
These scheduled workflows place the candidate journey design in the hands of the recruiter.

Candidates are carefully engaged with the right message, at the right time, on the right platform.

The recruiter maintains a positive candidate experience with quality talent anytime, anywhere using preset nurture flows and automated follow-ups.
With SMS job alerts, email nurtures, candidates are kept interested and informed.

Chatbots help candidates seek out the information they need.

Chatbots start a conversation before candidates self-select in or out of the application process.
They also answer any questions around salary expectations and role requirements.

Targeted nurture flows automatically progress candidates further down the funnel based on their level of engagement.

The system assesses and scores candidates accordingly, and high-quality applications progress to the next stage.

Candidate hits “apply” and information is fed into an applicant tracking system (ATS)

The recruiter presents the hiring manager with the best options.
Candidate information is stored in an ATS for future reference.

Best-fit candidate is hired. Future-fit candidates are on top of the recruiter’s list for next time.

The recruiter now has a steady pipeline of candidates ready for when a role arises.

To find out more about how you can implement an effective recruitment marketing campaign from start to finish – request a demo.

The post Here’s what an effective recruitment marketing campaign looks like appeared first on PageUp.

9 things HR cared about in 2020

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:55:25 +0000

2020 has been a challenging year for people around the world, regardless of age, background or geography. HR professionals have had it even harder, supporting teams in times of crisis, while also working through these challenges themselves.

But hope springs from adversity, and this year HR has truly stepped up as a leader in the new world of work. Talent management has become everyone’s business, and talent teams are getting the attention they deserve from C-suite leaders that now fully appreciate their worth.

Old, outdated systems have been digitised, processes streamlined and centralised, virtual hiring and remote work practices accelerated overnight. Armed with the business-buy in and the technology solutions to make it work, HR is ready to take a seat at the table as we forge ahead into the new decade.

As we look back at the year that was, we can see how closely HR trends and challenges mirror our society. From a global pandemic and economic downturn, to racial upheaval across the globe, HR is the first responder and the first line of defence organisationsorganizations have to help their teams make sense of the world around them.

2020 will be remembered as a turbulent, tumultuous year. Let’s not forget how HR responded:

1. Employee communication and care

When the first wave of lockdowns rolled out around the world, many organisationsorganizations were forced into remote working arrangements overnight. HR teams had to figure out how to make it work, developing policies on the fly and ensuring teams were supported during this tough transition. With so much uncertainty in the air, HR stepped up and showed real leadership, reminding us what the ‘human’ aspect of human resources stands for. In this piece, we explored how talent teams were managing the shift to remote work, and how they were supporting teams in times of change.

Read: Taking care of teams in times of crisis

2. Mastering remote hiring and onboarding

As organisationsorganizations got into the groove of remote work, some hiring teams found themselves faced with a dilemma: how to provide a great, fully virtual recruitment experience. Even the most progressive organisations had probably met candidates in-person at one stage of the hiring process. Now, recruitment teams had to ensure a streamlined, fully tech-enabled experience that left applicants and candidates wanting more. No problem, right? In this blog, we explored 3 key considerations for organisations looking to find great talent in the time of COVID.

Read: Hiring in the time of COVID-19: 3 key considerations

3. Addressing COVID-19 challenges

This 7-part series saw our Head of Customer Insights and Market Research Rebecca Skilbeck in conversation with our SVP Global Talent Deborah Mason. They tackled how HR could address COVID-19 challenges: supporting employees, encouraging engagement, redeploying staff, managing remote workers and shared their thoughts for the future. It’s a great how-to playbook for HR professionals looking to hear from some of the best in the business about the issues facing the industry today.

Watch: PageUp talks: The COVID-19 playbook (7 episode series)

4. Supporting internal mobility

With the pandemic ramping up and an economic recession looming, many organisationsorganizations put a freeze on hiring. But that didn’t mean skills gaps went away. Roles still needed to be filled by skilled workers, and organisations started to look within to find this talent. In this article, we took a look at how organisations are leveraging internal mobility to meet their hiring needs, while also keeping employees engaged and developing in their careers.

Read: Internal mobility: An organisationorganization’s secret weapon in challenging times

5. Scaling up recruiting to meet COVID-19 demands

Not all organisationsorganizations were halting their hiring. Some were ramping up recruitment to meet demand: many retailers providing essential products were inundated with customer demand as lockdowns dragged on across the globe. Some PageUp customers processed as many as 55,000 applications in one recruitment campaign. To quickly hire the staff they needed at-scale, organisationsorganizations turned to technology to automate candidate care and process bulk applications. This article takes you through setting up and running effective recruitment campaigns at-scale, while remaining agile enough to respond rapidly to change.

Read: Running effective recruitment campaigns at-scale: A how-to guide in times of change

6. Proactively rebuilding recruitment strategies after COVID-19

As we adjusted to the new COVID normal, organisationsorganizations started to look to the future and wonder how they would rebuild. A crucial component of this was their recruitment strategy: what would it look like going forward? As the business landscape shifted, what new skills should they be recruiting for? And what new roles would emerge? This article deep-dives into how organisationsorganizations can rebuild, starting with their recruitment strategy. It takes a step by step approach, examining how COVID has affected the business landscape, how to identify emerging skills gaps, and the crucial behavioural traits you should be looking for in a top candidate.

Read: Rebuilding your recruitment strategy after COVID-19

7. Virtual recruiting tools

HR processes have been accelerated years into the future thanks to the overnight shift to remote working. PageUp is lucky to have a partner marketplace with a comprehensive collection of world-class HR tech vendors and software providers, and in this blog we cover 17 must-know tools to support online recruiting.

Read: 17 hiring tools to support your online recruiting

8. Workplace diversity, equity and inclusion

This year will be remembered not just for COVID-19, but also as the year the world stood up, spoke up and took action on racial inclusivity, diversity and demanded equal opportunity for people of all backgrounds. With organisationsorganizations around the world turning a spotlight to their own DE&I strategies, we took a look at the building blocks of a successful DE&I strategy in this step by step guide.

Read: Building a successful DE&I strategy: A step by step guide

9. Data-based recruitment strategies

What recruitment metrics should savvy hiring teams be tracking in 2020 and into the future? Last year, when we first released our research on 5 recruitment metrics you should use (but probably don’t), the world was a very different place. In this blog, we revisit each metric and analyse how they’ve changed in the last year – and what that means for the future.

Read: 5 Recruitment Metrics You Should Use in 2020 and Beyond

If you’d like to know more about how PageUp can help you adapt and thrive in the new world of work, request a demo today.

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5 recruitment metrics you should track in 2021

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 03:37:42 +0000

In 2019, when we first released our research on 5 recruitment metrics you should use (but probably don’t), the world was a very different place. It was an applicant’s market, and recruiters had to work hard to win the best talent.

A year later, amidst a global pandemic that has fundamentally reshaped the way we work, these five recruitment metrics still matter (perhaps, even more than ever). OrganisationsOrganizations are freezing hiring, furloughing employees, ramping up recruitment – some are even doing all three. With many hiring teams working on a skeleton staff, the way forward can seem difficult.

These five measures of success can guide your recruitment strategy now and help you track its performance in the future. While recruitment metrics like time to fill or cost to fill tell you what’s happening, the ones we’ve identified are all about answering that ‘why’ question: they tell a behind-the-scenes story of what’s really happening with your organisationorganization’s recruitment in 2020.

Last year, we presented five recruitment metrics that deliver enormous value, but which are underutilisedunderutilized. In this post, we’ll revisit each metric and analyseanalyze how they’ve changed in the last year – and what that means for the future.

Recruitment metric #1: Offer acceptance rate

Why does it matter? Recruiting is expensive and each candidate that turns down a job offer costs your organisationorganization money. It may be a recruiter’s market at the moment with an oversupply of people looking for work – but are you really finding it easier to secure talent, and if not, why not? High-performing organisationsorganizations average a 99% offer acceptance rate each year, while the industry benchmark sits at 95% in 2020.

You go to a lot of effort to find ‘the one’ – the candidate that is the right fit for your organisationorganization. They’ve been screened, interviewed, tested and background checked. They have the skills, experience, attitude and cultural alignment that you want. But do they want to work for you? Tracking your offer acceptance rate will help you understand how you’re performing.

Our 2020 research found the average offer acceptance rate across all industries globally is 95% – which means for every 100 offers made, 95 people said “yes” and 5 said “no”. That’s down from 96% in 2019. To put this in comparison, top-performing organisationsorganizations average 99% each year. So, if your offer acceptance rate is less than 95% it’s worth considering why.

Offer acceptance rates vary between industries and companies. In Retail and Finance, the offer acceptance rate has dropped 3 percentage points and 2 percentage points respectively, year on year. This means more people are saying “no” to a job offer in 2020.

The likely reason for this is that uncertainty prevails. Jobseekers are feeling uncertain about the employment market and are putting their feelers out for multiple different roles. And candidates are unsure if it’s the right time to change roles, so they may be saying “yes” to an offer then rescinding their acceptance. We expect this to change on the other side of the COVID-19 crisis (all the more reason to track this recruitment metric now).

If your offer acceptance rate is below the industry benchmark, ask yourself:

Are you an employer of choice?
Is your compensation competitive?
Did something happen during the recruitment process?
Is your recruitment process fast enough to secure talent?

Recruitment metric #2: Applicant to hire rate

Why does your applicant to hire rate matter? This recruitment metric tells an important story about the effectiveness of your job listings. With more applicants on the market and applying for roles, you don’t want to be wading through more applications than necessary. Tracking applicant to hire rates can show whether job ads are targeted enough to reach and engage the right audience.

Our research tells us that in 2020, 4% of applicants across all industries are hired. This means for every 100 applications received, 4 people are hired (you can think of it as 1 out of every 25 applicants is hired). Globally, this has remained constant from last year, but per industry, the story is different.

Higher education has stayed steady at 7%, but retail and finance have both experienced a decrease in its applicants to hire rate from 4% in 2019 to 3% in 2020. This shows that each role is receiving more applicants.

What does this mean in light of COVID-19? During an economic contraction, there are fewer roles being advertised and high job losses. It’s likely that any job opening will attract more applicants. Many organisationsorganizations are not hiring right now – but when you open up the recruitment cycle again, what happens to that applicant-to-hire number?

If your application volumes are too high, your applicant to hire ratio will be lower. That can indicate your job ads are not targeted enough, you’re not using the most effective sourcing channels, or you need to revisit your sourcing methods. In order to get better-fit applicants:

Work with hiring managers to understand the role requirements to create clearly defined job descriptions
Create targeted job ads with clear role requirements
Revisit your EVP and employer branding to ensure it aligns with your organisationorganization’s culture
Identify and focus on effective sourcing channels and methods

The applicant-to-hire ratio is critical for organisationsorganizations to understand now and as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves. Remember it’s about quality, not quantity.

Recruitment metric #3: Candidates to hire rate

Why does your candidates to hire rate matter in 2021? With more talent applying for roles, it can be tempting to put more candidates through the hiring process. A lower % means recruiters are putting more candidates through to the hiring manager interview stage. Failing to track this recruitment metric can cost an organisationorganization hundreds of thousands of dollars in recruitment fees and negatively impact employer brand.

Our research has found that historically the average % candidates to hire sits at approximately 10%. In other words, one candidate out of 10 is hired which means 9 are told “no”.

Globally, in 2020 the % of candidates to hire has fallen to 8% across all industries, or as a ratio, one out of 12.5 candidates are hired (23 out of 25 told no). Of course, this number varies industry to industry, with COVID-19 hitting some industries such as Retail particularly hard. The graphs below show Retail has fallen from 7% in 2019 to 5% in 2020. Finance fell from 9% in 2019 to 7% in 2020, while Higher Education fell the most, from 16% in 2019 to 13% in 2020.

The trend is understandable: with more people applying for roles, there’s a temptation to put more candidates through the recruitment funnel. But there are multiple issues with this approach:

It’s costly and time-consuming for interviewers and hiring managers to screen and interview high volumes of candidates
Keeping hiring managers engaged with the recruitment process becomes a challenge
More candidates lengthens the recruitment process which runs the risk of losing talent to competitors
You can damage your employer brand by providing a poor candidate experience
There’s the potential to impact consumer brand – your candidates may also be your customers

Taking a large number of candidates through your recruitment process is obviously labourlabor-intensive and costly, and it can also mean you’re not engaging your silver medallist talent. Don’t forget to nurture warm talent pools and silver medallistmedalist candidates. This can be achieved with recruitment marketing – but it’s an area of talent acquisition that isn’t yet well-understood by many organisationsorganizations. Sitting at the top of the funnel, recruitment marketing has a vital role to play in today’s talent attraction landscape.

Recruitment metric #4: Sourcing channel effectiveness

Why does sourcing channel effectiveness matter? Measuring sourcing channel effectiveness tells you which sourcing channels are working, and which need to be reconsidered. This can result in significant savings.

In a 2019 Harvard Business Review article, George W. Taylor Professor and Center for Human Resources Director, Peter Cappelli said, “few employers know which channel produces the best candidates at the lowest cost because they don’t track the outcomes.”

PageUp research has found that 54% of applications come via job boards, but these applications only lead to 17% of hires. Compare this to talent relationships: even though only 2% of applications come from talent pools, these applications account for a staggering 22% of a company’s overall hires. This means that talent relationships – in other words, talent pools – is 34X more effective than job boards in producing successful hires.

Comparing year on year, talent relationships has remained the highest-performing channel. It only takes 2.4 applications from talent pools to result in 1 hire.

Contrast that with social media, where in 2020 it takes almost 150 applications to result in 1 hire. Compared to 2019, the effectiveness of social media to produce hires is decreasing. But it’s a channel that gives free access to essentially millions of passive candidates, and targeted campaigns can still be incredibly powerful.

The proportion of applications via careers site increased in 2020, but the proportion of hires decreased: We can see year on year that it’s becoming a less effective sourcing channel. It takes 53 applications to secure a hire compared to 37 in 2019. If your careers site effectiveness has gone down since last year, this should be motivation for a careers site overhaul. Make sure you’re constantly tracking and optimisingoptimizing careers site content to ensure it’s appealing to candidates and is designed to convert visitors into applicants.

Internal mobility is a sourcing channel that has seen noticeable changes year on year. It now only requires 5.9 applications to result in 1 hire – down from 6.8 in 2019. This reflects what we’ve heard in the market – a number of organisationsorganizations have sought to redeploy their workforce internally rather than going out to market to hire.

Job boards have become noticeably less effective in producing hires in the last year. In 2019 it would take 68 applications to result in 1 hire – but in 2020 that number is just over 80 applications per hire. This may reflect the volume of applicants currently on the market, which has increased the number of ‘wrong fit’ applicants coming through more generalist channels such as social media and job boards.

Candidates who are coming through referrals, talent pools and internal mobility, by contrast, are already aligned to your business and what it’s trying to achieve, have largely been pre-vetted, and have already had the chance to self-select in or out of the recruitment process.

Do you know the effectiveness of your sourcing channels? Ask yourself:

What are our main sourcing channels?
Where do the most applicants come from?
Where do the most hires come from?
What is the cost per hire per channel?
How should our sourcing channel strategy change based on this?

Recruitment metric #5: Mobile applications and time to apply rates

Why does it matter? With remote work becoming the new norm, the trend towards mobile adoption isn’t slowing down. Companies need to deliver consumer-grade recruitment journeys to speed up the application process and attract top talent.

Mobile applications and time to apply rates are two separate recruitment metrics, but they work together to tell a story that might otherwise be overlooked.

Are your mobile application and time to apply rates in line with industry standards? Ask yourself:

Is your careers site mobile-optimisedoptimized?
Do you offer applicants the opportunity to pre-fill from social sites/CVs?
Are your job application forms suited to mobile usage?

Tips:

Make application forms shorter
Include screening questions so candidates can be moved through, or out, of the process quickly
Try applying for a job using your own form: where can the process can be streamlined?
Search for a role on your career website using a mobile – was the process easy?

In the past year, 24% of applications were submitted via a mobile device, according to PageUp research. Last year, that number was 23%. That’s up from 15% at the end of 2017, and 19% in 2018.

PageUp research has also found that there is a correlation between abandoned job applications and applications made on a mobile device. As the application form lengthens, the number of incomplete applications via mobile devices increases. Lengthy job applications become tedious on these devices, applicants give up and they don’t complete the application. This doesn’t happen as often on desktop – although lengthy application forms are not recommended on any device.

If you’re looking to optimiseoptimize your mobile recruitment approaches, make it simple and easy for jobseekers to apply on-the-go. Consider allowing candidates to attach their resume or autofill applications from their social media profiles.

Measure recruiting success with PageUp’s powerful platform

Knowing which recruitment metrics to track helps you identify the most effective ways to attract the best talent in a changing landscape. Learn more about how our powerful talent management technology can help you optimiseoptimize your recruitment approaches at pageuppeople.com

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Building a successful DE&I strategy: A step by step guide

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 05:52:43 +0000

A robust diversity, equity and inclusion plan is a must for organisationsorganizations in 2020 – no longer just a nice to have. But diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces don’t just spring up overnight. Building a diverse workforce is impossible without intentional and inclusive talent acquisition strategies. HR can lead the way by carefully constructing DE&I strategies to attract, engage and hire people with diverse backgrounds and experience, and create an environment where everyone feels they belong.

The business case for DE&I

McKinsey research shows diverse organisationsorganizations outperform competitors by 35% and decision making by diverse teams delivers better outcomes than that of individuals 87% of the time. Diversity of experience, background and thought brings strength to an organisation. It promotes innovative thought and challenges the status quo, creating resilient and agile teams that are well-positioned to overcome challenges.

According to recent research from McKinsey, companies that double down on their DE&I initiatives now will be better positioned for growth and renewal post-COVID-19.

Some of the qualities that characterize diverse and inclusive companies—notably innovation and resilience—will be much in need as companies recover from the crisis. (McKinsey, 2020)

Truly diverse and equitable workplaces are created by designing processes that are inclusive of all people – regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, disability, beliefs and other factors. And a truly diverse culture should be reflected and celebrated in an organisationorganization’s employer brand.

An employer brand that celebrates diversity is critical to attract top talent to your organization. 39% of candidates reject a role or do not proceed with a job application due to a perceived lack of inclusiveness within the organization, a recent McKinsey study shows.

Here’s where recruitment marketing takes centre stage. Recruitment Marketing strategies can support organisationsorganizations to attract, engage and nurture a diverse pool of candidates at-scale. Leading organisationsorganizations often take the following approach:

Showcase diverse content and perspectives from the first engagement with a career site to highlight an organisationorganization’s inclusive employer brand and culture
Build diverse microsites and landing pages that highlight specific DE&I programs or policies
Create inclusive job descriptions and reduce wording bias
Grow and nurture diverse talent communities with targeted campaigns and nurture flows

If you’re new to recruitment marketing, you might be wondering how to get started. We’ve pulled together a step by step guide to help you plan and execute a DE&I strategy that delivers results for your organisationorganization.

A robust diversity, equity and inclusion plan helps you meet compliance obligations and strengthens your bottom line with diverse perspectives. Recruitment marketing ensures you are attractive to the diverse groups of talent you want to recruit. Developing a DE&I initiative involves four main phases:

Data collection & analysis

Planning

Implementation

Ongoing improvement strategies

1. Data collection and analysis

First, you need a complete view of your workforce to understand your employee demographics and identify if there are inequities based on these demographics. Using the information already in your ATS or HRIS, set out to determine the following:

Capture data on employee demographics to identify trends or areas to address
Demographic data including Federal and State protected categories such as Age, Disability, Ethnicity and Gender
Consider capturing data on behavioural attributes, learning and thinking styles

Once you’ve collected this employee data, look for the gaps and areas for concern. See if you can identify underrepresented demographics and then continue to drill down by location, department, and position to identify trends. If you’ve identified areas for improvement, it’s time to start planning a more diverse recruitment strategy.

2. Planning

What are your goals? It’s important to have clear goals in mind before you start to implement recruitment marketing approaches to attract more diverse candidates. Some common goals include: Improve employer brand, fill hard to fill roles with more diverse candidates, capture more quality candidates from underrepresented groups.

Goal 1

Goal 2

Goal 3

What recruitment marketing approaches will you use? Once you’ve outlined these DE&I goals, list the recruitment marketing approaches you’ll use to achieve them. For example, if your goal is to find more female candidates for hard-to-fill roles in IT, your Recruitment Marketing goals may be to add 50+ female candidates to your talent pipelines in IT. If your goal is to hire for a certain type of learning style or behavioural attributes, consider the screening tools that you will need (there are a range of AI-powered screening vendors available on the market that can help reduce bias in the recruitment process).

Approach 1

Approach 2

Approach 3

Focus areas: How will you achieve these DE&I goals? It’s important to hone in on a few key focus areas, rather than trying to achieve everything at once. We recommend you start by considering your current and future workforce needs, then focusing on the crucial diversity gaps that need to be addressed immediately.

Where are the diversity gaps or inequities in your current workforce?

What does the workforce we need for the future look like?

What key diverse groups/talent segments do we need to focus on attracting?

3. Implementation

Follow these 4 steps to successfully implement a recruitment marketing strategy that attracts more diverse candidates and talent segments.

Identify which positions and teams are critical to address

Get your key stakeholders – the hiring managers and business leaders – onboard for input. Together you need to identify which positions and teams are most in need of increased diversity.

Focus on the diverse talent segments you need to attract

Narrow in on the talent segments that are most critical to attract and focus your efforts here. Establish personas (including key values) for each segment that reflect the diverse demographics you’re trying to attract. This will inform your content strategy later on.

Do your research

Take the time to undertake research on the diverse groups and demographics you want to attract before you get started. This helps you understand your audience, their needs and motivations to develop an approach that’s inclusive and effective.

4. Ongoing improvement strategies

Once you’ve identified the diverse talent segments you want to attract, you’ll want to start engaging them with personalisedpersonalized content.

Create content that’s inclusive and catered to each group

Your content should showcase your value proposition in a way that addresses the different perspectives and groups you’re trying to attract. Pay attention to the design of your career site and the language of your job listings: they may have unconscious bias that is deterring diverse talent from applying. Give your target applicants the information they need – and the motivation – to progress down the candidate funnel.

Choose the right channel: go where the talent is

What channels and networks do your target candidates and groups spend time on? Which do they use for social sharing – and which are used to cultivate professional networks? Do these diverse candidates commonly belong to any groups or industry bodies?

Get in front of passive candidates with proactive attraction

Transitioning from reactive recruitment to proactive attraction requires applying a marketing mindset to get in front of passive talent, tap them on the shoulder and entice them to work for your organisationorganization.

Target your ideal candidate at every stage of the journey

Engage target candidates at each stage of the consideration cycle, so that when the time comes when they’re open to a move, you’re top of mind. Create segment based go-to-market plans that move key diverse audiences along the consideration journey and down the funnel.

Use technology to automate a great candidate experience

Recruitment marketing technology can automate targeted candidate communication and candidate care, serve up curated content, track what’s working and what can be optimisedoptimized – freeing recruiters to build valuable relationships with candidates.
AI-powered screening technology providers such as PredictiveHire and Curious Thing can remove unconscious bias from the recruitment process by anonymising and screening candidates on behavioural attributes – rather than having a recruiter simply scan a resume. AI-powered vendors can be leveraged on an ongoing basis to make the language of job listings more inclusive and appealing to diverse groups.

Use metrics and measuring to improve

It’s critical to establish benchmarks and regularly track metrics to monitor and tweak your recruitment marketing efforts, adjusting as necessary until you get the results you’re after.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Lead organisationalorganizational change at a cultural level

DE&I initiatives will not succeed if they are not championed at a cultural level. A proactive recruiting team can fill talent pipelines with hundreds of diverse applicants, but if a hiring manager has conscious or unconscious biases, you’ll struggle to change the status quo. This worksheet focuses on getting you started using recruitment marketing to fill talent pipelines with diverse candidates. The cultural piece is up to you. Ask yourself:

Are there barriers blocking the employment, opportunity or inclusion of people from different demographic groups?
Are there policies or practices that need to be eliminated or re-visited?
Are there potential hiring manager biases that need to be addressed?
Are our company values, culture and beliefs inclusive to people of different religious, ethnic or political backgrounds?

If you’d like to learn more about how PageUp Recruitment Marketing can help you build a DE&I strategy that delivers results, request a demo today.

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Why ‘Applicant to Hire Rate’ is a crucial metric in 2020

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 07:02:04 +0000

COVID-19 has changed the recruiting game. With lots of talent on the market right now, you’d think finding people to fill roles would be easy. That’s not always the case.

If you’re receiving too many applications for open roles, or too many of the wrong kind of applicants, this is a red flag. The good news is, there is a metric people often overlook that can address this problem.

Want to know about the 5 recruitment metrics you should be tracking in 2020 and beyond? Watch our webinar.

When we start the recruitment process, we have one end goal: to find and hire the right person for the role. To get there, we start with applications. But do you know how many applications you need to find one successful hire? If you’re receiving too many, you’re wasting time and effort sifting through unsuitable resumes. Too few, and you might not have the skills or talent you need for the role.

To determine your hiring sweet-spot, let’s look at one of the most crucial recruitment metrics: Percentage Applicants to Hire.

Percentage applicants to hire is defined as the total number of hires divided by the total number of applications for the role or position. Think of it as reverse engineering from the hire that you made – how many applications were required to find that person? You can calculate your percentage applicants to hire using the following formula:

The applicant-to-hire ratio is critical for organisationsorganizations to understand now and as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves. The lower your applicant to hire rate, the fewer applicants you’re saying ‘yes’ to. In these times, it’s about quality not quantity – how many applicants do you need to secure a hire? If you’re taking high volumes of applicants through the recruitment process, you may not be able to provide a personalisedpersonalized, high-touch experience to all of them.

Many organisationsorganizations are not hiring right now. During an economic contraction, there are fewer roles being advertised and high job losses, stand-downs and furloughs.

But what happens when you open up the recruitment cycle again? It’s likely that any job opening will attract more applicants and your applicant-to-hire number will increase.

If your application volumes are high, your applicant to hire ratio will be lower. A low applicant to hire ratio is not something to be desired: it means you’re putting lots of people through the screening process, but only hiring a small fraction of them.

Ask yourself:

Are my job ads targeted enough?
Do I know my most effective talent sourcing channels?
Do I need to revisit my sourcing methods to identify and focus on the talent I need?

Assessing which channels hires are coming from is important, but if you’re inundated with wrong-fit applicants, you may need to work closer with hiring managers to understand the role requirements and be more targeted in your hiring.

If you’d like to learn more about how PageUp can help you track and optimise your current recruitment and talent management approaches, you can request a demo.

How does your rate compare?

According to global PageUp research and customer benchmarking, on average for every 100 applications received, four people are hired. Put another way, on average globally and across all industries 25 applications are needed for 1 hire.

The exact numbers vary based on the industry. So far in 2020, Higher Education has hired 7% of applicants (down from 8% in 2019). Retail in 2020 has only hired 3% of applicants, compared with last year where 4% of applicants were hired. Finance has also reduced its hiring, with only 3% of applicants hired this year, in comparison to last year’s 4%.

These are changing times. If you find your organisationorganization’s metrics differ to the benchmark, there could be a host of new reasons. The important thing is for you to discover the volume of applications required to find the right person for the role.

If you’re receiving high volumes of applications, ask yourself:

Are you an employer of choice?
If you are, a high volume of applications is to be expected, especially with more talent on the market right now.
If you’re not usually an employer of choice, are your job ads targeted enough?
Can you add any screening questions at the start of the application form to sift out non-valid applications?
Are you leaving job ads open for too long?

If you’re receiving a low volume of applications for a role, ask yourself:

Are your job ads reaching and engaging the correct audience?
Do your job listings need to be open for a longer period of time?
Is your application form too long? Is it mobile optimisedoptimized?
Is your careers site easy to navigate and engaging? This is where active and passive job seekers go to find out more about your organisationorganization.
Do you need to improve your employer branding?
Are you providing a seamless and easy candidate experience?

Knowing how to track and optimiseoptimize your applicant to hire rate will help you to cut unnecessary screening costs and ensure you’re providing a high-touch, personalised experience for all applicants.

Of course, recruitment technology goes a long way in automating and improving the candidate experience with less recruiter intervention, allowing you to recruit at-scale – but being targeted and strategic in your job search will always lead to better end-results.

Tools like PageUp can automate a great candidate experience, while also tracking important metrics such as applicant to hire rate through user-friendly dashboards. If you’d like to learn more about how PageUp can help you track and optimiseoptimize your current recruitment and talent management approaches, you can request a demo.

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4 successful recruiting campaigns Coles launched during a pandemic

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 01:52:08 +0000

Here’s how Coles processed 55,000 applications in record time and saved in agency fees – all during a pandemic.

Coles has been at the frontline of the nation’s COVID-19 response, providing essential food, services and supplies to the public throughout the pandemic. Behind the scenes, their essential workforce has been keeping stores staffed and shelves stacked, and deliveries running around the clock for Australians who need it most.

Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, Coles was able to successfully bring on 12,000 new staff in the space of a few short weeks to keep Australia running.

How did they enable finding high-quality talent at-scale and at short notice? The key lies in PageUp’s powerful applicant tracking system (ATS) that provides a full view of current talent, talent pipelines, and internal opportunities.

1. Leveraging internal mobility and redeployment

When the second wave of COVID-19 hit, Coles was once again faced with huge demand as shoppers stocked up on supplies before a looming lockdown. With an urgent need for people to come and work shifts on short notice, their talent acquisition team turned to redeployment to find the skills they need.

But redeployment is something organisationsorganizations can struggle with if they don’t have a clear plan. Coles was able to seamlessly redeploy its staff by leveraging PageUp ATS recruitment functionality to:

1. Define a population set within existing employee data by segmenting employees based on:

Where they work
When they are available
Employment type: casual, full time, part-time
Names and email addresses

2. Create a unique internal application form

This allowed Coles to gain an updated perspective of their people’s details, availability and whether they are willing to work across different stores or regions.

3. Communicate seamlessly with employees

SMS and bulk email functionality allowed the Coles’ talent acquisition team to communicate easily with existing team members around the shifting needs of the business. Many of these correspondences had links to internal application forms, where thousands of employees expressed interest in open internal roles. The details of these thousands of willing employees was then fed directly into Coles’ workforce planning strategy.

2. Processing 55k job applications in record time

As customer demand increased, Coles needed to hire extra hands to replenish key items and re-stack shelves. A ‘Friends and Family’ campaign was born, which relied on internal referrals as a valuable source of quality hires.

Coles sent an application link to employees which they then passed on to the friends and family they thought would be suitable. Based on this reference from an existing team member, Coles hired these interested candidates and moved them to offer status, undertaking reference checking afterwards. This was a fast and efficient way to get people onto the books at-scale – and this approach helped them process the 55,000 applications they received and hire 2,500 family and friends as a result.

The flexibility of the PageUp system enabled Coles to move these applicants from application to offer, getting them onboard quickly and then completing the required background, reference and employment checks post-offer.

Nina Pollard, National Head of Talent Acquisition praised the PageUp system for its flexibility, configurability and ability to adapt to challenging circumstances. “The PageUp system is so malleable, so flexible that you can mold it to your required use cases quickly,” Pollard said.

“The PageUp system is so malleable, so flexible that you can mold it to your required use cases quickly,” – Nina Pollard, National Head of Talent Acquisition, Coles

“You have all the pieces at your fingertips, so really it is just about putting those pieces together to suit your needs. What is great is that you have the ability to get the process down to your own organisationorganization’s level of detail that is needed, for instance, for us we could tailor the job card. It makes the system so powerful and able to support and adapt our unique volume and scale.”

To assist in interviewing thousands of candidates, Coles integrated video interviewing partner Vieple with their PageUp ATS in what Pollard says was an “amazingly fast” implementation time of 48 hours. Coles will continue to use video interviewing for stores now as “store managers love it”.

3. Redeploying employees: Cross-company mobility

When the first round of COVID-19 layoffs arrived, they hit hard. When lockdown was first enforced in April, it’s estimated that 780,000 Australians lost their jobs in the space of just one week.

Many of these were from organisationsorganizations such as YMCA, AFL, and AVC Liquor stores in Queensland – and Coles wanted to help these organisationsorganizations in their time of need. Coles partnered with these companies and many more to identify possible staff that had been stood down or furloughed – then used the PageUp ATS to send these people unique links to apply for roles. In doing so, Coles was able to fill critical gaps in their workforce at-speed, while also supporting Australian companies. It’s a fantastic example of cross-company mobility that sets the bar for collaboration within the Australian business community in the future.

4. Fast-tracking walk-in recruiting

Approximately 30% of Coles hires come from walk-in applicants, which inspired Coles to launch a campaign to fast-track the recruitment process for walk-ins. Using QR codes unique to the walk-in process, in-person applicants could then apply in real time and give store managers their application number in addition to their CV for immediate hiring.

Store managers can now hire walk-ins on the spot, and send their application to be processed through the PageUp ATS back at Head Office. Within 48 hours these walk-ins are ready to commence work, making the recruitment process incredibly fast, efficient and scalable.

To read more about how Coles handles high-volume hiring, see 9 tips from Coles to recruit at scale.

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17 hiring tools to support your online recruiting

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 06:43:37 +0000

The way we recruit has fundamentally changed overnight, and each new day brings fresh challenges for hiring teams. They need to do this in a way that’s scalable, and that still provides a great candidate experience. And they have to do this all completely online – from home offices, or perched at the kitchen table, conducting interviews in the one quiet part of the house (closet, laundry or garage), or propped up on the couch with a pet crying for attention nearby.

It’s a tall order for many hiring teams – many of whom are operating with reduced headcount and resources. Yet these teams are expected to deal with more applicants than ever before. The wave of layoffs and furloughs that accompany the COVID-19 pandemic – over 40 million have filed for first-time unemployment in the US alone, and close to 1 million Australians have lost their job since March – have meant there are huge amounts of people on the market. Some organisationsorganizations have seen a 400% increase in applications for an open role.

This has meant that overnight, tech adoption has been accelerated 10 years. Even laggards have been forced to adopt online recruiting tools to survive, as organisationsorganizations realiserealize that HR tech is the only viable way to scale-up their hiring power and do more with fewer resources.

In this article, we’ll discuss the 15 online recruiting tools every talent team should know about. These tools will supercharge your remote recruiting while still providing a seamless candidate experience with a human touch.

We’ll cover:

How COVID-19 is forcing a move to online recruiting
The 17 online hiring tools you need to master remote hiring, including software for:

What’s changed and why do we need to move online?

More than formal training and industry associations, 76.3% of talent acquisition (TA) professionals believe that an improved tech stack will bolster their recruitment capability. This is according to recent research presented by TalentPod at the recent Next Wave Talent conference about the top talent acquisition trends to come out of the current crisis.

The survey found that 91% of TA teams expect a mix of home and office work will be the way of the future, with 89% of organisationsorganizations already establishing a working from home policy. Talent acquisition will have increased responsibilities coming out of COVID-19, such as keeping employees engaged, and ensuring remote onboarding still keeps people connected to their new role and company. With an average ratio of 1 TA professional to 100 employees, the workload for HR teams is piling up. It’s no wonder organisationsorganizations are turning to technology to help.

What tech is your company exploring due to Covid?

65% are exploring remote onboarding
56% are exploring video – both for interviewing and advertising
54% are exploring online meeting software
45% are exploring online background checking
36% are exploring online testing

Tech will drive the next phase of development as we learn to recruit in a remote world, and in response HR priorities are shifting. People teams are now focusing and prioritising:

78% – Talent engagement
76% – Internal mobility
74% – Onboarding
59% – Outplacement

Technology supports all of the above strategies and provides a streamlined experience for candidates. But with thousands of vendors offering a range of tools, it can be intimidating to find the right tech for your organisationorganization. That’s why we’ve compiled an easy-reference list of tools to get you started on your remote recruiting journey.

17 online recruiting and hiring tools you need to know

1. PageUp recruitment marketing software

OrganisationsOrganizations spend huge amounts of time delivering a great experience for their customers, but many don’t prioritiseprioritize the candidate experience to the same degree. This is a big problem.

Let’s not forget those candidates could also be your customers – whether or not they’re successful in their application, they should still have a great end-to-end experience. Unfortunately, many organisationsorganizations are failing to deliver on the candidate experience due to the sheer volume of applications they’ve received. Most hiring managers would prefer not to go cold or “ghost” candidates, but providing adequate nurture and touchpoints is hardly practical if you’re communicating manually without hiring tools – like recruitment marketing software.

Recruitment marketing can keep candidates engaged and warm in talent pools – even if you’re not hiring right now. Pre-set nurture flows can mass-communicate to candidates at-scale, providing regular updates and personalisedpersonalized touchpoints to everyone in the hiring process. Analytics and benchmarking allows you to see where people are falling off and adjust your approach.

2. Curious Thing: Voice-based AI interviewing

The age of manual recruitment has come to an end. COVID-19 has accelerated remote and tech-enabled recruiting, and even laggard organisationsorganizations are realising they need to think differently about recruitment.

Hiring teams are becoming more open to using robotics and AI to do some of the heavy lifting – giving them hours back in the day to focus on valuable human interactions. AI solutions like Curious Thing handles the initial candidate screening with voice-based AI conversational interviews that are scalable and allow you to screen large volumes.

The AI interviewer is also able to assess candidates using behavioural questions designed to screen for attitudes and competencies – rather than simply scanning a resume. As we move into the new world of work, essential skills like the ability to be change-agile or collaborative and innovative are becoming more important than formal qualifications or “hard skills” and experience alone. The death of the resume may not be far away.

3. PredictiveHire: Text-based AI interviewing and online testing

PredictiveHire automates interviews so that each applicant is interviewed in-depth and at scale via a text chat that surfaces candidates with traits common to success. This helps you surface the best candidates, faster, while remaining completely remote. Candidates are then assessed, scored and ranked using AI technology, dramatically reducing recruiter time and effort. In some cases, this led to 90% recruiter time savings, when compared with standard recruiting processes.

4. Talegent: Online assessments

Combining a first-class candidate experience with predictive analytics tools, Talegent can assess candidates to find the best talent at-scale. Talegent offers a wide range of industry-specific solutions to predict performance: these include personality, cognitive ability and values assessments, allowing you to identify and quickly recruit top performers. The best part is these assessments can be done from anywhere in the world, allowing you to choose the best person for the role, no matter where they are.

5. Vieple: Video interviewing

Without the ability to interview candidates face-to-face, recruiters have had to pivot to video interviewing software solutions practically overnight. One example is Vieple, a video interviewing platform that can be used by recruiters and candidates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This allows candidates to schedule and record interviews regardless of location of time zones. One PageUp client was even able to implement Vieple with their existing PageUp ATS within 24 hours – and all while completely remote. Integrating with Vieple allows you to quickly identify the right candidates and progress them to the next stage of the recruitment process.

6. Alcami: Video interviewing

Alcami provides on-demand video interviewing solutions to help the busy remote recruiter. This helps organisationsorganizations to narrow down a broad talent pool and find the right people, faster. Alcami also delivers an improved candidate experience, giving people the option to take interviews when and where it best suits their schedule

7. HireVue: Video interviewing

HireVue combines video interviewing software with predictive artificial intelligence to allow businesses to surface the best candidates, faster. It provides video interviewing, assessments, and coaching to help remote recruiters interview and evaluate candidates when and where it suits them best.

8. SkillSurvey: Reference checking

Reference checking can be one of the most time-consuming aspects of recruiting. When done remotely, it can be even more tedious. SkillSurvey Reference makes reference checking simple and streamlined, and helps remote hiring teams get meaningful feedback in a timely manner. It’s an online, automated referencing solution that gives you deep, comprehensive insights on all your candidates, whether you’re online recruiting, onboarding, or managing a placement.

9. CV Check: Background checks

CVCheck is a global provider of background checks that provides the verified information you need to make confident hiring decisions by reducing your hiring risks, improving staff retention rates, and increasing efficiencies in the hiring process. Importantly, remote hiring teams can launch checks from wherever they work, making the recruitment process shorter and more efficient.

10. Sterling: Background checks

Sterling RISQ provides comprehensive background and identity verification services, which is perfect for the changing needs of an evolving remote global workforce.

11. Xref: Background checks

Xref makes reference, background and ID checking straightforward, fast and secure. Remote recruiters can request reference checks in seconds, and references can be completed in a little as 24 hours. Backed by local support teams, Xref also offers multi-language capabilities and meets the highest global compliance standards (ISO 27001).

12: PageUp Recruitment Management

When recruiting remotely, the candidate experience can be disjointed, low-touch, and just plain frustrating. To ensure a seamless experience for remote candidates from finding a job listing, to applying, interviewing, and onboarding, the best of breed point solutions we’ve just discussed should all be integrated with a powerful ATS. Integrating with a core ATS also ensures recruiters and hiring managers have a great experience – all backed up by deep analytics.

PageUp Recruitment Management features powerful analytics dashboards and custom-built reports, and with one simple system you can manage, track and optimiseoptimize every stage of the candidate lifecycle.

13. PageUp onboarding

Perfecting remote onboarding should be a priority for all talent acquisition teams. Remote new-starters are likely to feel even more disconnected from their new workplace in their first months, so HR has to work even harder to make the onboarding experience memorable. If they don’t, new starters will feel unsupported in their new role, they won’t be set up to succeed, and they’ll likely leave within a few months. Hiring teams will be left at square one.

Thankfully, technology can make onboarding smooth and efficient, and can connect new starters to the culture and values of their new organisationorganization. Tools like PageUp onboarding can deliver an astounding onboarding experience that sets a new starter up for success no matter where they are.

14. HelloSign: eSignature for easy onboarding

Onboarding remotely doesn’t just present challenges for the new hire. It also raises compliance and payroll headaches for HR teams that need to ensure boxes are ticked and forms signed, all which must now be done completely online.

HelloSign makes filling out onboarding documents easy, providing an intuitive way for organisationsorganizations to send and request e-signatures from new starters. HelloSign lets businesses integrate leading eSignature functionality directly into their onboarding process with an easy to use interface and powerful security.

15. Mumba: SSO for seamless integrations

Boosting new starter engagement starts by providing a seamless employee experience. Mumba boosts productivity and employee engagement by connecting an organisationorganization’s HR and business applications in one central hub. Through system integrations, Mumba brings everything an employee needs into one user-friendly app, accessible from any device.
Through Mumba employees can access payroll, onboarding, training, learning, and other key HR and business systems from one single interface and without the need to login to multiple systems or apps. The result is a seamless digital experience across all employee systems.

16. Frontier e-HR: HRIS and payroll

Getting employees set up on payroll is one of the most important parts of onboarding, but without proper tech to assist you when doing this remotely, important compliance information can be overlooked. Built by HR professionals, Frontier e-HR offers a comprehensive range of HR capabilities to assist you in organising, growing, and paying your remote workforce. Frontier e-HR also offers Payroll Outsourcing services with a dedicated in-house payroll specialist to ensure compliance at every level.

17. Tracker: I-9 compliance

Tracker integrates with your core ATS to provide a centralisedcentralized and seamless remote onboarding experience. Once a new hire accepts their offer letter, the required Form I-9 process is initiated – all in a completely hands-off process. Tracker’s solution automates the onboarding process and reduces administration time all the while ensuring total compliance while remote. The Tracker integration also provides time-based colour-coded dashboards, email alerts, and reporting capabilities to ease the burden of tracking various deadlines.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of online hiring tech out there – there are thousands of best of breed solutions available for you to explore. Think of this as a way to get you started on your remote recruiting journey. And if the team at PageUp can help in any way to help you optimiseoptimize and streamline your recruitment marketing, recruiting and onboarding, do get in touch.

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