Ditch the post & pray method. Here’s a more effective way to recruit top talent.
Is your recruitment strategy working for you?
Recruitment is a function that must be performed with precision to get desired results.
As a recruiter, you may post a job ad, sift through dozens of applications, interview candidates, analyze their responses, decide on the best fit and then pray they perform well.
This post and pray method has seen many employers’ recruitment strategies falling flat.
As such, as the world evolves, technology advances and connectivity increases, alternative methods of recruiting talent are becoming increasingly prevalent.
Using alternative methods, companies no longer must solely rely on job postings to hopefully recruit the best talent.
What is the issue with the Post & Pray recruitment?
Post and Pray recruitment is not necessarily a complete dead-end approach. Companies have been using it for decades with mixed success.
Sometimes, you’re fortunate to find a suitable hire that lasts.
Other times, post and pray recruitment methods may have resulted in lacklustre employee performances, high turnover, wasted resources and company time.
Therefore, as the business climate is changing, technology is advancing and jobseekers’ perspectives are shifting, this method may not be ideal for many modern companies.
Some other common complaints of post and pray recruiting include:
Being highly administrative
Traditional recruitment involves a lot of paperwork and repetitive tasks when it comes to processing candidate applications.
Being costly
The cost to rehire is not only a financial burden but also time consuming and demoralizing if the right candidate cannot be easily found.
Being outdated.
Many companies employ psychometric tests and assessments to evaluate the quality of a candidate. The issue with this approach is that some of these tests are used repeated for years without any modification or update. The result becomes limited, since modern firms will be evaluating candidates using outdated tests.
Being limited.
Your company’s talent pool only comprises persons who happened to see the posted advertisement. This creates a limited supply of suitable candidates.
Ineffective job description.
If a job description is too vague, this results in unqualified people applying. Similarly, if a job description is too lengthy, this also turns away talented candidates.
Lengthy job descriptions have been scrutinized as a form of exploitation. Jobseekers look at long-winded job descriptions as a company’s attempt to cram multiple roles into one position,
It comes across as if the company wants to hire one person to do an entire department’s work and receive an unfair salary.
When job descriptions are faulty in such cases, worthy candidates tend to avoid such jobs. Companies end up with unqualified people, or those who will simply apply for anything to get a salary.
It is a quantity over quality approach.
Post and pray recruitment approaches may yield high number of applicants, but very little value. As such, companies may find themselves reposting job ads, until they can shortlist a suitable pool of applicants.
By reposting repeatedly, companies are stuck in a cycle of ineffective recruiting and thinking.
The challenge then becomes, how do companies escape this cycle of posting ineffective job advertisements and hope that the selected candidate works out?
Alternative strategies to Post and Pray recruitment.
To refocus their recruitment strategy, companies can leverage advanced technology, communication tools and networking platforms to build a robust talent pool and secure suitably qualified team members. This includes:
Refining the job description
Proper recruitment starts with a proper assessment of the talent the company needs. Very often, the Post and Pray strategy would mainly address a candidate’s foundational qualities – their qualifications and education.
Modern companies realize that a proper fit goes beyond what an applicant can do. For long-term recruitment success, a company must also focus on who that applicant can become.
This means a job description should appeal to candidates who are willing to learn, collaborate, develop, contribute, and represent a company well.
Qualifications are important, but remember, every new hire must be trained in some way before they can become assets to the company.
However, character, values, work ethic and personality cannot be taught. These qualities should be of vital importance when interviewing candidates.
Build your talent pool
Modern companies aren’t waiting around for qualified candidates to walk through their doors or respond to job posts.
Instead, they are leveraging the power of Artificial Intelligence and business networks to build a robust talent pool. This talent pool consists of:
- High performing employees across multiple organization
- Freelancers, self-employed consultants and entrepreneurs
- Content creators, thought-leaders and persons with a high level of creditability online.
- Persons with an extensive body of work, industry knowledge and experience
Whether it’s offering them a full-time position, multiple year contract or long-term retainer, companies who follow and keep close relationships with high performers are never in short supply of quality talent.
Network and build lucrative partnerships
How can a company start building their talent pool?
Through networking.
Networking shouldn’t be limited to the sales team. To build a robust talent pool, modern companies also require their Human Resources department to network.
Whether it’s through digital networking or at corporate events, modern companies are seeing the value of building close relationships with industry professionals. Such relationships allow them to access the best talent when a vacancy arises.
It’s also important to find recruitment agencies that utilize modern technologies and AI. Find out if your agencies offer these tools and utilize them in your talent search
Referred talent
One of the main advantages of building a reliable talent pool is not only accessing top-performing talent but being privy to that person’s professional network.
If the top performer isn’t available to work at that point in time, he or she may refer someone in their network who can adequately fill the role.
Having close contacts with industry thought-leaders and professionals helps a business to attain talent through referrals.
As such, companies can broaden their access to highly skilled people who are visionaries, innovators or top-performers in their respective fields, and recruit them accordingly.
