Innovative methods of recruitment are revolutionising the conventional hiring process. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the widespread adoption of automation tools and job platforms for identifying and assessing potential candidates. However, it can be challenging to identify the most appropriate time to utilise alternative recruitment strategies, despite their potential benefits for your enterprise.
Conventional recruitment methods have their pros and cons in the digital era. This blog post delves into some of the frequently used unconventional recruitment strategies to assist you in deciding which one will be the most beneficial for finding skilled individuals to enhance your team.
Recruitment Techniques: What Are They About?
A recruitment plan outlines the steps for sourcing and hiring competent employees.
Determining the most suitable candidates with minimal effort is a sign of a successful recruitment process. For instance, suppose your objective is to enhance the user experience and front-end development of your next project. In that case, you should evaluate potential candidates based on the company’s objectives. To improve user interaction and design, you should prioritise finding a front-end developer with UX design proficiency. By narrowing your search to those who have the required experience, you can save time and effort, rather than sifting through countless job applications.
Creating a recruitment plan is essential for meeting the prerequisites of your project and team.
Why Consider Alternative Approaches to Fill Vacant Positions?
With the rising demand for IT skills, it is now more important than ever to consider non-conventional recruitment techniques, particularly in light of the pandemic. There are two primary reasons behind this urgency:
- An efficiently devised recruitment strategy facilitates cost-effective and time-saving onboarding of new team members.
- Acquiring superior talent: A unique recruitment approach may assist in attracting the 70% of the global workforce who aren’t actively seeking new roles.
Discovering the most efficient method of recruiting staff can significantly affect a company’s financial outcome.
Which Hiring Alternatives are the Most Suitable?
Utilising our staffing industry knowledge that spans over a decade, we’ve witnessed the evolution of the job market and recruitment techniques. These days, workers are more invested in their profession, and workplaces have adapted to this change. We anticipate additional modifications in the near future.
Recruitment strategies have undergone significant changes due to the altered approaches adopted by businesses to attract potential staff.
Listed below are the five most essential unconventional recruitment methods for businesses:
Modify their Approach to Compose Job Descriptions
While actions may speak louder than words, the words used in job adverts certainly matter.
Composing thorough job descriptions is a vital step in recruiting new staff. These descriptions have the ability to reach a large audience, depending on where they get posted. It’s crucial to use language in job descriptions carefully because a poorly phrased description can dishearten prospective candidates.
Studies conducted by the Universities of Waterloo and Duke have indicated that the use of gender-specific language in job advertisements can hinder gender equality. Their analysis shows that the utilisation of stereotypically masculine terms like ‘dominant’, ‘leader’, and ‘competition’ can dissuade female candidates from applying.
An organisation that prioritises gender equality and diversity ought to assess current guidelines on creating job descriptions and adopt them accordingly. Our tutorial can act as a useful reference point in this regard.
Remote Hiring
Isn’t it an innovative staffing approach to hire individuals who can work remotely?
Over the years, there has been a mounting shift towards remote hiring practices. Working remotely presents a range of benefits for both organisations and their employees, making it a popular choice for both parties.
For further details on remote recruitment, check out our comprehensive guide!
Working remotely full-time permits parents to be more involved in their children’s lives while simultaneously earning an income. Additionally, younger employees craving variety and fresh experiences can satisfy this by working full-time from cafes and coworking spaces, which can be customised to fit their unique schedules.
As per a Gallup poll, 54% of office workers revealed they would seek alternate employment options if they were given more flexibility in terms of their working hours.
When job-hunting, prospective candidates assess opportunities on several criteria such as salary, benefits, and chances of career advancement. Nowadays, adaptability is a vital consideration for applicants before applying for any position. To stand out from the competition in the highly competitive global job market, businesses may profit by providing their staff with more flexible working arrangements, like the choice to work remotely.
The COVID-19 outbreak has established that remote work practices can be highly productive, and several employees have become familiar with the freedom and independence it offers. Consequently, many of them are apprehensive about returning to their pre-pandemic methods of working.
Evaluate More Than Just a CV
A CV is typically the sole means of illustrating one’s eligibility for a desired role. If you’ve attained a substantial level of academic accomplishment and held a rewarding position, you may have an advantage over those with lesser academic achievements who have struggled to secure employment.
This isn’t entirely untrue, as gaining employment commonly necessitates a particular blend of professional requirements, such as a degree, job experience, and skillset.
Nevertheless, it’s unjustifiable to dismiss potential candidates solely on the basis of attending a non-elite university or having limited work experience.
As technology recruiters, we acknowledge that measuring candidates beyond their CVs is among the most effective approaches to identifying qualified applicants. The significance of personality and intercommunication abilities cannot be overstated.
When weighing two potential job applicants, Bob and John, the latter may seem like the better candidate at first glance due to his impressive academic qualifications. However, the value of Bob’s work experience should not be disregarded. If one were to hire John without adequate consideration, they might ultimately discover that he is ineffective while collaborating within a team and unwilling to accept constructive criticism.
Are you familiar with this scenario? If you haven’t encountered it yet, consider yourself lucky. Several organisations have a tendency to give preference to a candidate’s CV and perceived technical abilities, at the expense of their interpersonal qualities.
Websites for Social Interaction
Hiring new personnel through social media is becoming increasingly prevalent, owing to the enormous number of individuals who use the internet – approximately 4.57 billion! Social media platforms provide a highly effective means of promoting job openings, with LinkedIn being one of the most favoured websites for applicants to apply for positions. While using LinkedIn to locate eligible candidates is a great tactic, relying solely on it is not advisable.
If you intend to use social media as a recruitment mechanism, it’s vital to determine which platforms are the most appropriate for the job advertisement. For example, LinkedIn may not be optimal for recruiting less experienced professionals or entry-level personnel. In such cases, platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter may be more suitable.
It’s important to be informed about your target audience and the social media websites they prefer. To reach out to a younger demographic, McDonald’s has modified its recruitment procedure by using ‘snaplications’, the notion of which is to use Snapchat, a social platform that is especially popular among young individuals. ‘Snaplications’ refer to apps created for this particular platform.
Appeal by Promising Inclusion in a Bigger Entity
Many individuals, especially those from the younger generation, willingly accept job offers from prominent tech businesses like Google and Facebook. This is primarily due to the alluring salaries they provide, as well as the generally positive working conditions.
Establishing a favourable work culture can be a long-term strategy to ensure that your company is recognised as a top-notch employer. By cultivating an environment that people are eager to be a part of, you will reap the benefits of employee referrals and word-of-mouth recruitment from their acquaintances, which can be an effective method of sourcing the best talent for your organisation.
Produce a promotional video that highlights the work atmosphere at our organisation to appeal to potential recruits. If we are a remote workplace, the video could showcase the delights of virtual birthdays and social hours.
Consider Former Voters
If you have been running a business for some time, it’s likely that you have a database of resumes from when you had previous job openings. Filtering your search results from former applications is highly recommended. For instance, you might have hired a front-end developer to lead your team a few months ago but had to reject certain applicants because their resumes emphasized user experience design over web programming. Now, you need to enhance your user interaction features. Instead of posting a new job for UX designers, you can contact previous applicants and offer them an interview. Reviewing past candidates is an excellent alternative recruitment strategy in this scenario.
Publicize Your Product or Service on Preferred Online Platforms
Most open-source software and language development communities have their own websites and forums that can be utilised to attract skilled developers to your team. Publicising your available position on specialist websites and tech hubs is an excellent way to engage with potential candidates. Also, a number of technology-related platforms provide workshops and meetups that can be used to locate developers with the necessary experience. To speed up the recruitment process, it’s advisable to locate groups and discussion boards that are relevant to the particular skills you require and have them assist in spreading the word about your job posting. Additionally, contacting references from a candidate’s personal network can expedite the hiring process.
Enlisting experts to manage the recruitment process is the optimal alternative strategy.
As a team leader, it’s your duty to investigate non-traditional recruitment methods to construct a thriving team and business. This procedure can consume a significant amount of time and effort, including crafting a compelling job description, searching for qualified candidates and conducting interviews. Nevertheless, these measures are crucial to guarantee that you enlist the finest individuals for your team.
With remote working gaining more popularity, many companies are seeking assistance in recruiting top-rated technical talent from any location. At our remote recruitment service, we possess extensive expertise in aiding businesses with the recruitment process, making it a stress-free experience.
We place a great deal of importance on candidates who not only possess the required technical expertise for the position but also understand the particular needs and culture of our organisation. We were able to achieve this feat within a mere two-week span. We consider this method to be an effective way of recruiting the right candidates. For further details, kindly visit our job application page.
