Where will you find your next great candidate? That’s a question that’s getting increasingly difficult to answer. Continued talent shortages and a staffing industry that is growing 2.5 times faster than the U.S. economy are changing the market for good.
Keeping talent pools plentiful will require greater ingenuity from recruiters and even wider funnels to ensure consistent placements. But building talent pipelines for the changing world does not require firms to reinvent the wheel; it just requires them to recommit to these eight strategies.
1.) Build Stronger Bonds with Candidates
An increase in staffing and recruiting professionals means exceptional candidates will be approached from every direction and recruiters will more likely have to share the cream of the crop. Strong relationship building skills will be a prerequisite for recruiters to even be heard.
Recruiters that fail to keep candidates informed, make a personal connection, and sustain a relationship long after the placement is made will exhaust their talent pipeline faster than their more accessible competitors. Your staffing software can help make fostering those bonds less stressful.
If you have the right staffing software, you can search candidates by when they were last contacted. Daily Planner features can regulate follow-ups to keep candidates from slipping through the cracks https://www.promo-pulse.com/. Top applicants can be added to an automated “Favorites List” so that more frequent contact can be maintained with special lists. Easily created text messaging and email campaigns, built right into your staffing software platform, can maximize exposure and help build evergreen relationships.
2.) Look Outside Your Region
Social media has expanded the range of recruiters building talent pipelines. In the past, a recruiter might have worked local networks or set out a lure on job boards. Now, they can connect with exceptional candidates nationwide through LinkedIn’s degrees of separation.
Moreover, certain industries have growing numbers of candidates willing to move. At least 52 percent of tech workers are willing to move to another state or major city for work. Travel nurse opportunities have grown by 8 percent and the interest is rising as well. Connecting with out-of-town candidates expands nets and avoids the risk of double submitting a candidate. It’s a win-win for anyone building talent pipelines.
Staffing software can contribute to managing candidates across regions once a recruiter has made first contact. Candidates can be tagged with various location designations to help target specific areas in searches. Radius searches can even narrow down a very specific area just by adding zip codes. And location designations can help quickly target search locations (and even handle marketing campaigns to automate some of the communication).
3.) Write LinkedIn Messages that Get Read
LinkedIn is one of the most widely used recruiting tools and to the most persuasive recruiters on the platform go the spoils. Top talent is regularly barraged with InMail messages. Writing better recruiting emails to attract them away from their jobs requires a targeted message, a sense of personality, and a strong call to action. Anything less will get requests to connect declined, or worse yet, candidates flagging you as spam.
4.) Leverage Industry Organizations
Recruiters that are not a known commodity in the industry they serve will always have a hard time building talent pipelines. Attending industry events, hosting networking sessions, being an active member in LinkedIn groups are all ways that recruiters are on the ground building talent pipelines. Though it’s not a revolutionary tactic, that personal touch is an asset in any recruiter’s arsenal.
