One of the key challenges of recruiting is continually expanding your talent pool. This is especially true for niche talent markets, high volume recruiting, and DEI recruiting. A wide talent pool helps talent acquisition teams identify the best candidates, speed up recruiting processes, and make meaningful progress toward diversity goals. When you’ve exhausted your talent community and it’s time to find fresh faces, it can be difficult to know what to do next.
Here are six ways to broaden your talent pool and make your recruitment process easier.
Host Virtual Career Fairs
Hosting your own virtual recruiting events is the first step to expanding your talent pool. Spend some time preparing for your events by planning the right number of recruiters, preparing interview questions in advance as well as responses to frequently asked questions, and creating a plan for follow-up communications with candidates. Use recruitment marketing best practices to promote your events well in advance (more on this later) and be prepared to follow through with feedback after your events.
Attend Virtual Recruiting Events Hosted by Other Organizations
Another strategy for tapping into new talent markets is to take advantage of organizations who have developed their own talent community. Becoming a sponsor or exhibitor at a virtual recruiting event hosted by another organization gives your talent acquisition team a headstart and can save you time and resources in the early stages of the recruiting funnel. Look for events hosted by universities, workforce development departments, government agencies or professional associations. Research virtual career fair platforms to find ones that are a good match for your goals and audience.
Campus Recruiting
If your organization isn’t tapping into student talent, you’re missing out. Virtual campus recruiting events are a great fit for early career and entry level recruiting. This approach helps employers connect with more motivated, available candidates than some other methods, and can be tailored to attract job seekers with specific skill sets or experience levels.
Go Where the People Are
Much of traditional recruiting is about making candidates come to you but innovative talent acquisition teams get great results when they do more outreach. Partner with existing professional groups and industry associations that are composed of your ideal candidates. Depending on your goals, this might mean diversity groups, niche industry associations, or universities with degree programs in your organization’s area of focus.
Host Other Types of Virtual Events
Hosting creative virtual recruiting events can attract new talent to your community as well. Your virtual recruiting events don’t have to be limited to the basic career fair structure. Consider hosting other types of events, like information sessions that spotlight your company’s mission and culture or give job seekers resources to aid in their employment search. You might also want to host a virtual hackathon to attract professionals and solve real world problems that your organization or community is facing. Done well, these events can help you connect with active and passive candidates to expand your talent pool.
Invest in Recruitment Marketing
Recruitment marketing is the fine art of getting the word out but it’s not just about advertising your job listings and virtual recruiting events. It’s also the continual process of keeping candidates engaged throughout the recruiting process, up to and include the decision stage. In the early awareness stage, a smart recruitment marketing plan will cover multiple channels of communication, including social media, email and text subscriptions, content on your career site, and paid advertising. Recruitment marketing can also build interest, especially when employers use video and other content to tell the story of their organization’s culture, mission, and values. Throughout the recruiting funnel, recruitment marketing attracts talent, piques curiosity, and builds trust.
A Wider Talent Pool Means Better Choices
The main objective of your talent acquisition efforts will probably never change: hire the best candidates for every open position (and, if possible, do it quickly). Proactively taking measures to expand and diversify your talent pool ensures your recruiting team will have access to quality candidates when it’s time to fill a role, whether it’s one vacancy or dozens. As you can see from this list of strategies, tapping into new talent markets doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of time or require a lot of money or resources. In fact, it’s relatively easy to incorporate these tactics into your larger talent acquisition plan, and the benefits are endless.
Like this post? Try these!
- Upcoming Job Fair Site Helps Employers Connect with More Candidates
- 8 Best Practices for Career Fair Events
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