For the last 5 or so years technology in the recruitment industry has been developing at an alarming rate. The onset of this period began with the explosion of social recruitment. All of a sudden, companies could use largely free data on social media to attract and recruit new talent for their business. Although the third party recruitment industry was frozen out for a while from using the most advanced tools like LinkedIn recruiter, now third party agencies and corporate recruiters largely have the same tools. These tools include ATS technology that allows both corporate recruiters and agencies to accumulate large talent pools of candidates, which can be called upon for future vacancies.

With the onset of the importance of employer branding, a new era of talent competition is coming and the ones to come out on top, will be the recruiters that engage their talent pools. Until recently recruiters from both sides of the fence boasted about the size of their database and used this as a definition of success.

Talent pool engagement is the future of recruitment!

With the skills shortage in various industries tightening all the time, the engagement of talent pools is gaining more importance by the day. It is no longer good enough to have a huge database of candidates, now you need a huge talent pool of current and future candidates that want to work for your business. 

It's all about content!

In the same way that business creates huge amounts of data and opportunities to use data, we also create lots of opportunities for content to engage our talent pools. Here are a few ideas;

 - Employee profiles

- A day in the life of

- CEO’s blog

- Live speaking events

- Social responsibility efforts

- Graduate program stories

- Employee career stories

The list can go on and on, but I won’t bore you as every business is different and will have a different story to tell. Have a brainstorming session with your marketing and communications colleagues and see what opportunities for content there are in your business. Need help? Book a call with me here to talk through how to get started.

What channels can we use to engage talent pools?

 Each business will be different as your audiences will use different channels, but here are some you may want to consider:

Social media

People like to choose what websites and social platforms they visit. To ensure your content is engaging your target audience  you need to know where your target audience is and how they use the platform. Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, are by far the biggest but be careful not to intrude peoples' personal space. Many people see Facebook as a personal social network and will be reluctant to engage with their current employer, never mind a potential future employer. Talk to your employees, find out which networks they use and understand how they could be engaged and which networks would be suitable/unsuitable.

Mobile app

Mobile apps have a huge benefit of being able to push updates to peoples phones and tablets. The biggest challenge here is, there needs to be a reason to download the app. For candidates the reason is simple, they want to work for you. It is a lot more difficult to persuade the rest of your target audience. If your company already has a widely used app, it could be made easier if your target audience has already downloaded your app and you have the ability to engage them there. If not think about making sure your content is easily found and utilised by news feed apps by including rss feeds on your website and blog.

Off line media

Off line media like newspapers and TV are much more likely to pick up on good news stories like contract awards, the creation of new jobs and social responsibility efforts. Be careful to engage a public relations professional to manage any potential negative spin that could be picked up on by the media.

Emails

Mass emails can be a great way of putting your message in front of your target audience. It can also be a great way to spam people so be careful not to dis-engage your target audience. A few careful steps can be taken to make sure you do not spam; Don't automatically enrol people without their permission, carefully decide your content calendar to engage people, but not too regularly and seek feedback to make sure you efforts are engaging.

Future talent

To be truly sustainable in your recruitment strategy you need to be looking at what the long term goals of your business are. One of the most basic goals of any business is long term success. Long term success means you need great talent now and in the future. To ensure you have great talent in the future you need to start engaging tomorrows talent today. Consider engaging with university students and possibly even younger school kids, there are lots of opportunities to do so if you look for them. Contact your local university or schools and they will likely be excited to be able to offer their students career talks and events.

How do we know it is working?

Its all about data! Most of the channels you use will be able to provide you with data on how people are interacting with your content. This will be presented in different ways such as views, clicks, social engagement and interactions. The more difficult audience to track is students but ask the organiser to perform a survey or to gain feedback from the students. 

Why is it important?

By engaging your talent pools you are ensuring that in the future you will be able to recruit the people you need to continue your businesses a success. Attracting people into your ATS or talent pools is not enough, you need to engage them. By engaging with your talent pool you will help them WANT to work with your company instead of just applying for a new job.