Getting the right hire is always a vital goal for the success of your business. However, with how competitive the labor market can be, waiting for them to apply to you might not be enough. Instead, you need to go out and actively reach out to them. Learn how to be more proactive hiring and engaging candidates with Virtua Solution Outsourcing’s help.
Understanding How Proactive Hiring Works
Before venturing into proactive hiring, you should understand how it works. Also referred to as proactive candidate engagement, the strategy is all about reaching out to potential candidates for a position even before they apply for it. That would put you in a more ideal place to secure their interest and eventually get them into the recruitment process.
Image from Recruit CRM.
Note that the strategy goes deeper than that. Here, the ultimate goal is to identify and fill present and future talent gaps long before they might be essential to operations. With that, you can carry out more consistent business growth.
Why Go The Proactive Hiring Route?
So, you might wonder why go for this type of hiring approach. Here are several key reasons that will convince you.
A Faster Hiring Process
This one might surprise you considering the amount of work to be done. However, since most of these happen outside of the recruitment phase, the latter also goes faster. That is handy for dealing with sudden recruitment needs due to resignations and other developments.
Maximizing Your Resources
Image from Tech Funnel.
Hiring people requires a lot of company resources. And if you aren’t getting the right talent for the job, you are practically wasting these resources. Proactive candidate engagement lets you maximize everything by focusing the effort on the prospects most likely to apply.
It Prevents Candidates From Dropping Out
One common reason candidates drop out of the application process is that it’s too long. They simply have no time to wait and see if they cut. Proactive candidate engagement also makes it faster for them since they already know their chances.
Gets You Ahead Of Recruitment Needs
As your company expands, your recruitment needs also grow. By anticipating these needs, you can create a more suitable recruitment strategy for them. That ensures that you can readily fill these requirements once they arise.
Doing Proactive Hiring Right
Of course, to get the most out of this strategy, you need to do it right. While each industry has its unique labor landscape, you can still follow a general strategy for proactive engagement. The following are the six phases.
Identifying Ideal Candidate Qualities
Image from Bristol Associates.
Based on job requirements, you can create a persona of the ideal candidates to fill these positions. Here, you might want to talk to the heads and members of the department where the position is needed. They will give you a clearer picture of the exact combination of skills and qualities the post needs.
Note you also use a similar approach when identifying potential candidates for future positions. In this case, you would want to refer to your long-term business goals to determine these potential positions. Getting the input of your team also helps in fleshing out these candidate personas.
Finding Candidates
Once you have created your candidate personas, you can start the search for the matches. The first place you would want to look for is right in your office. As team managers and employees if they know someone who might fit the qualifications. Note that these can be current employees within the company who have the potential to be promoted.
Image from Avotrix.
Going outside, you can also look at your list of previous applicants. You will be surprised to find out how many of these would be a match for these positions. From there, you can broaden the search to online job markets. These include online job portals, industry-specific sites, and even social media.
Scouring this vast sea of sources on your own can be challenging, though. This is where we at Virtua Solutions come in. Our human resources agents are ready to sift through all those online profiles to narrow your list. We search continuously so that your talent pool is regularly updated.
Engaging And Nurturing
With your pool of potential candidates created, you can begin engaging them. Note that since they are not yet official candidates, approach them properly. Begin the conversation more casually. You would also want to have it personalized to the candidate so they know you are talking to them specifically.
Image from LinkedIn.
Once you have gotten their attention, you can start introducing the company. Don’t oversell it, as you just want to spark their interest. At this point, you can also ask what kind of roles they expect for their next job.
To further draw them, you need to nurture the relationship. We can help you maintain the conversation through multiple channels. Our agents will engage them regularly at the right moments to keep them informed about what’s happening on your end.
Bringing Them Into The Candidate Pool
When a position is available in the company, you can start drawing the attention of your preferred candidates. That pretty much follows the general job promotion work. However, you would want to create specific content to increase their interest.
Once they send their formal application, you can turn them into actual candidates. Ensuring that your HR team can communicate with them about the position fully. Additionally, you can instruct your hiring managers to prioritize their applications.
Even if the candidates are not successful in their application, you would want to keep them in the talent pool for the future. For that, you should continue your engagements. Our team can also do that for you as part of our human resources support services.
Get Up And Draw The Right Candidate With Virtua’s Help
Proactive hiring and candidate engagement can do a lot to boost the quality of your business team. And you want to start today to get the most out of it. Contact us today and we will gladly lend a hand in your search.