As HR teams seek the competitive edge in talent acquisition it’s imperative to have a solid suite of integrated tech tools. Bersin reports states top-performing talent acquisition teams are four times as likely as their low-performing counterparts to use advanced technologies like AI in their work. Yet, with the overwhelming volume of tools entering the market place it’s difficult to know where to invest. Here’s our top recommendations:

Invest in your data first

If you can’t measure the impact then use extreme caution before you invest. Visibility of your activity, spend and results mean you can monitor, learn and adapt accordingly. If you only invest in one thing, a tool that equips your team to make more informed decisions should always win.

For example, for many a vendor management system, is their first step into getting a grip on their non-permanent workforce. By helping you track, automate and report on your contingent workforce suppliers and process you can begin to better understand this growing area of spend and optimise your supply chain accordingly.

Focus on making communication easier

The challenge of recruitment isn’t just about finding the right people, it’s about ensuring the process is as smooth as possible for all involved. Once you have your data sorted moving on to process efficiency to ensure a seamless user experience is a great step.

It sounds obvious but if your HR technology doesn’t make work easier people won’t use it. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen a great piece of kit sitting there unused because of an over complicated set-up or lack of a thorough change management and training during implementation.

Nothing is more important in this than communication and collaboration. In our own business we’ve been putting Microsoft’s suite of collaboration tools to use. In your recruitment process tools like this are key, as any recruiter worth their salt will tell you the relationship between them and the hiring manager is core to any successful recruitment process. Free flowing communication and collaboration is a vital part of this.

Don’t forget candidate communication

Another game changer we’ve seen are those tools typically found in marketing. By automating e-mails and using tools like Smashfly, based on your candidates’ online behaviour and profiles you can nurture and develop engaged talent pools in mass.

Another useful tool we’ve been trialling in this area is Mya, the intelligent chatbot that interacts with candidates. Mya can smartly answer questions to assess and guide candidates toward jobs. Chatbots like Mya can work on many different platforms, from text messaging to e-mail, social media to your careers sites, all while recording the data so you can keep evolving and developing your bot.

However, bots and automated workflows are only as good as the data they are given. We’ve found them real useful for maintaining some engagement and tackling frequently asked questions to speed up processes, but as with any kind of recruitment communication, post initial stages, a human interaction is still required.

Get your job ads to find your candidates and not the other way round

Whilst we are no longer in the age of post and prey, advertising does still have a place in the world of talent acquisition. For active job seekers the search often starts on Google.

Whilst you can’t post directly to Google for Jobs, by editing the HTML of your job postings, focusing on SEO best practice and updating your careers’ sitemaps you can help your postings to appear in the Google job search engine.

Taking this one step further in 2019, you should also seek to shift some of your job advertising budget to programmatic spend. Just as programmatic ads have changed the online advertising landscape for your marketing team, programmatic job advertising can transform your online talent acquisition too.

Programmatic uses algorithms to ensure your job adverts are placed only in the most effective of places. This allows you to do away with hit-or-miss job postings, and use data based on profile and online behaviour, to help your jobs find the right person, rather than relying on your ideal candidate finding your posting.

What’s more, it operates on a Pay-per-Click model (PPC) so you only pay for what works.

Discover more about the impact of technology in finding the best people for your organisation with our Recruitment Remodelled whitepaper.

AUTHOR

Laura Webster
Global Marketing Manager, Hays Talent Solutions 
Focused on leading the planning and delivery of strategic marketing programmes to support the growth of Hays Talent Solutions globally, Laura works with our teams around the world to share our insight and expertise.

Before moving to her current role Laura headed up the marketing for a third of Hays' UK specialisms, including Accountancy and Finance, Life Sciences and Financial Markets, developing our candidate attraction and client engagement strategies. Prior to joining Hays, and after completing a BSc in Management at the University of Manchester, Laura worked in a marketing agency as an account manager and headed up the marketing for a technical recruitment company and marketing consultancy, where she gained her Professional Diploma in Marketing.