How to find skilled candidates for your client
According to Jobvite, 65% of recruiters cite a lack of skilled candidates in the market the biggest blocker to hiring. They just can’t find the highly skilled individuals needed to do the jobs, and indeed, the UK has been talking about the skills gap for some time now. So, in a market that has become so candidate driven, coupled with rising employment levels, how do you find the highly skilled individuals your clients are looking for?
Grow the talent you want
It’s so easy to bemoan the current market and declare the talent just isn’t there, but there are always talented individuals out there, so start thinking about how you can upskill and cultivate those people. While the whole package is more ideal, nurturing talented individuals with potential is an excellent way to ensure you have a pool of candidates with great skills. They might not be ready right now, but you’re planning for six months down the line when you’ll probably still need them. Your recruitment CRM is also a great tool for building talent pools. You might do this by creating groups in your database and sending out specific content or events to them. You can curate specialised marketing campaigns and lists for them. Access Recruitment CRM is designed to use intelligent search to get you to placement faster, including using your current audience.
Utilise video interviews
Apparently, the best talent is only on the market for ten days, which is not a lot of time at all. Remember, in a candidate driven market their spoilt for choice and have recruiters clamoring all over them, so you need to get to them fast. Using video interviews can help you interact with them quickly while still being able to see their appearances, body language and behaviours.
Build your employer brand
As a recruiter you naturally only have so much input into what your client does, and you can’t be responsible for building their brand, but you can build your own as a recruiter in the space. Think about your name as your own business, and do all you can to build that online through talent communities and social platforms. Recruiters don’t have much of themselves out there on the internet bar their LinkedIn profiles, so there is a great opportunity to stand out here. Build your own website, put your personality and values out here and engage regularly on social media. Keep building your brand until you are known and candidates are coming to you for work.
Step outside your comfort zone
It’s easy to get lost in endless calls, email trails and Google searches, but step out of your office and into trade events and conferences. If you’re recruiting within technology, attend hackathons, round tables and tech events. Get interested in the subject matter and what’s going on in the industry. It’s an incredible way to have genuine conversations with your candidates, and they’ll also see you out and about at events. It also gives you an incredible networking opportunity and the chance to catch candidates who might not respond to your cold calls or online efforts.
The Growth Playbook Part 1 is available now, packed full of advice for recruitment agencies. Discover how to grow your workforce, brand and tech.
